Chapter Text
“Team Danville. Emergency beacon triggered at Director Kesslor’s residence. Unknown hostile on-site. Threat level high. Possible breach. You are the nearest enhanced unit. Proceed immediately.”
The intercom crackled as Major Monogram’s voice came through - steady, clipped with a tone that meant the day had just gotten teeth.
Ferb was already strapping gear onto his belt, movements automatic, practiced. Not frantic - Ferb didn't do frantic. He did controlled, even when his pulse was climbing, because for the first time the alarm didn't sound like a mere kitten stuck on a tree. Or a neighborly dispute about leaves falling on the wrong side of the garden. It sounded like a mission with weight.
And with this clarity Ferb realized … they were not allowed to mess this up.
A few moments ago
The compound kitchen smelled like onions, cumin, and something wholesomely domestic.
Baljeet was humming in the kitchen, simmering the spices. Buford called it chemical warfare, but they all knew it was only because no one liked his goulash. His bruised ego didn't allow him to actually admit Baljeet was better at something than him.
Ferb sat at the table with a half-assembled gadget in his hands and the wrong kind of quiet behind his eyes.
Not empty.
Just absent.
Like he'd put a lid on something inside himself and was using sheer willpower to keep it from boiling over.
A small pile of metal washers floated in a loose orbit around his left hand, magnetism humming soft under his skin. Every few seconds he flicked his wrist and the washers snapped into place with a sharp click, aligning like obedient little soldiers around the gadget frame. Efficient. Precise. Something to keep his hands busy and his mind away from the dark thoughts threatening to resurface during this particular day.
Isabella sprawled on the couch in full post-training fatigue, feet in fluffy socks, hair still damp at the edges like she'd done the fastest rinse of her life. She had a controller in one hand and the kind of patience in her eyes that only existed when she'd already decided she wasn't letting Ferb spiral today.
"Mario Kart," she said, like she was negotiating world peace.
Ferb didn't look up. "No."
Snap. The washers clicked back into place, before loosening again and swirling around Ferb's fingers. His gaze stuck on the wall opposite of him.
"You've been 'no' since you woke up," Isabella pointed out. "I'm starting to take it personally."
"It's not personal."
"That's worse," Buford's voice boomed from upstairs. "If it was personal I could fight you about it."
Ferb clicked his tongue. "Go shower, Buford," he called.
"Yeah, you stink!" Isabella added.
Ferb looked over to Isabella for a second, amusement glinting in his eyes.
"Says Mrs. Stinky Feet," Buford grumbled.
Isabella snapped her fingers and a ball of light shot out of them into Buford's direction. He screeched loudly as it slapped him in the face. Ferb snorted.
"I hate you both!" Buford disappeared into the bathroom.
"So," Isabella leaned forward, controller now held out toward Ferb like an offering. “One race,” she said, voice lighter than it had any right to be. “If you win, you can go back to… whatever this is.” She nodded at the washers orbiting his hand.
Ferb’s mouth twitched. Not a smile - just the ghost of one. The washers steadied. Then, after a beat, he pushed the chair back and got up.
Isabella’s grin went bright and immediate, like she’d just won a tiny war. “Yes.”
“Don’t get excited,” Ferb said, deadpan.
"I always get excited over an opportunity to kick your ass," Isabella said.
And then the compound alarm screamed.
A shrill wail ripped through the room. Red lights strobed along the ceiling. The air itself felt like it vibrated with urgency.
Isabella froze mid-button press.
Baljeet’s spoon slipped and clattered against the pot.
"Argh for god's sake!" Buford screamed. "I was just soaping my butt cheeks."
"Oh no!" Baljeet wailed. "That's in my head now - I can't - someone please scratch my brain out."
Buford raced out of the bathroom.
"Move bitches! I need to get ready!" he yelled as his towel slipped off.
Isabella looked over to Baljeet, whose expression was more than just traumatized, and said in a very serious voice, "Whelp. Now you don't need the mental images anymore."
Ferb sighed internally, because apparently that was his life now.
The alarm cut through the brief moment of levity, pulling the tension back over them like a curtain.
Director Kesslor had activated his emergency line.
They needed to hurry.
Feet moved. The room shifted, easy chaos snapping into something tighter, sharper, as they finished gearing up.
Ferb’s gaze flicked up to his team.
Just once.
A silent check-in.
Are we ready?
Isabella straightened. Buford rolled his shoulders. Baljeet’s hands stopped shaking through sheer indignation.
They nodded.
Ferb opened the door.
Cold air hit them, sharp and real.
"Did you copy the location?" he asked Baljeet.
Baljeet nodded. "Copy."
“Go,” Ferb ordered.
Baljeet sprinted ahead into the night, because Buford’s teleportation had rules and they’d had to learn them the hard way.
They waited for the signal, then they held onto each other as Buford pulled his power.
The world folded.
And the domestic warmth of the kitchen - the curry, the Mario Kart menu music, the fragile almost-normal - vanished like it had never existed.
Buford reappeared at the edge of the property with the team clutched in his teleport grip, and for once he didn’t crack a joke when they landed.
Kesslor’s mansion didn’t look like a home.
It looked like a statement.
Glass panels and clean, expensive lines cut into the night like someone had decided warmth was a design flaw. The driveway was too empty. The front garden too perfect. Even the security lights felt curated - bright enough to intimidate, soft enough to impress.
Ferb felt the sense of wrongness immediately.
Not danger, exactly.
No shouting. No alarm sirens. No broken windows. No running feet. The emergency beacon had screamed like a throat being torn open, and yet the house sat there as if nothing had happened at all.
Buford's eyes narrowed at the mansion. “This place gives me rich-people hives.”
Baljeet exhaled fast through his nose. “Focus.”
Isabella rolled her shoulders, gauntlets faintly glowing, light pooling like restrained lightning beneath her skin. She glanced at Ferb - checking.
Ferb nodded once.
They moved.
Ferb stepped inside first, staff in his hand, magnetism thrumming low under his skin like a second heartbeat. Behind him, Isabella slipped in close, then Buford and Baljeet.
The air inside smelled like money and floor polish.
Their boots were suddenly loud on the marble - too loud - every step echoing through the hollow wealth of the space as they scoped the ground floor of the building.
Ferb slowed, scanning, met with only silence and the soft, constant hum of an expensive house pretending it couldn’t be breached.
Buford mouthed, creepy, without speaking.
Baljeet’s gaze flicked over the entryway with quick, precise attention - routes, angles, exits. His body was poised to run even while he stood still.
Isabella’s light dimmed slightly, the way it did when she was listening harder than she was looking.
They checked every room, efficiently, like they trained.
Then Ferb’s eyes slid to the base of the grand staircase.
Up.
The second floor was dark, shadows pooled between steel railings like ink.
He motioned upward with two fingers.
The others nodded.
They began to climb.
Halfway up, Isabella’s hand caught Ferb’s sleeve - gentle, but urgent.
She pointed.
Cameras.
Ferb hadn’t noticed them at first, because they were built to be overlooked - sleek black circles tucked into corners, hidden in decorative molding, disguised as part of the mansion’s design.
But now that Isabella pointed them out, Ferb saw what was wrong.
They weren’t passively monitoring.
They were tracking.
Smooth pivots. Quiet little motor-hums. Following the team with deliberate attention, like an eye turning.
Ferb’s stomach tightened.
Isabella signed quickly, sharp: We’re being watched.
Baljeet signed back without looking away from the corridor: By who?
Ferb didn’t answer because he didn’t know.
But he felt it - felt the difference between a system that records and a system that assesses.
A person behind those lenses.
And somehow that felt worse.
He wondered how long they had been tracking them.
They reached the top of the stairs.
At the end of the hallway sat a heavy oak door - the only thing in the entire house that looked old, like Kesslor kept it to remind people he had “taste.”
The director’s office.
It was ajar.
Light spilled from the crack in a thin line across the dark carpet.
Ferb’s grip tightened on his staff.
He glanced back once.
Isabella’s jaw was set. Buford’s fists were clenched. Baljeet looked pale, but his eyes were sharp.
No jokes.
No banter.
Even Buford wasn’t pretending.
From behind the door, a voice hissed - strained, ragged, almost theatrical in its pain.
“You underestimated us. No matter what you do, we will get you back.”
Director Kesslor.
Ferb’s blood went cold.
He inhaled slowly, the way Monogram had trained him.
Control first. Then action.
While he advanced towards the office door, he let his team scope out the other rooms, just as quickly and efficiently as downstairs. When Ferb arrived at the office door, the team was already beside him again.
Then Ferb pushed the door open.
The office was huge, all dark wood and expensive leather and framed awards that screamed important man. A desk large enough to be a fortress dominated the room.
And in front of it - Kesslor - on the floor, leaning back against the desk like he’d fallen. Loose tie. Disheveled hair. His expression was wide-eyed fear, like a man who had just seen death.
But Ferb’s first thought - before he could stop it - was that looks wrong. Like out of a movie.
It wasn’t logical. It was instinct.
And standing over Kesslor, dressed in black combat gear, hood low, cloth mask over the lower half of his face - was the intruder.
Thinner than Ferb expected.
Relaxed in a way that didn’t match the scene.
Dangerous in the way a knife was dangerous: quiet, clean, and made for one purpose.
He didn’t even turn when the team entered.
Not at first.
Like he’d already known exactly when they’d arrive.
Then he spoke, voice muffled through the mask - dry, mildly annoyed, like Ferb had interrupted him in the middle of something tedious. His voice sounded a little raspy, as if he had just been putting a lot of strain on his vocal cords.
“Well,” the vigilante said, tilting his head slightly. “Guess we’ve got company.”
Kesslor’s eyes flicked - too quick - to the vigilante’s hands.
Then he flinched harder, louder, like he remembered the role he was supposed to play.
Ferb didn’t miss that.
The vigilante didn't either.
Ferb couldn’t see his face, but he could feel the shift in him - the smallest tightening of posture, like: oh, you’re doing that.
The vigilante exhaled through his nose. A sound that might’ve been a laugh if it wasn’t so bitter.
“And I was just starting to enjoy our conversation.”
Then he moved.
Not toward Ferb.
Not toward Isabella.
Straight toward Kesslor.
Blue sparks crackled over his glove.
Ferb reacted on reflex. “Isabella!”
Her gauntlet flared, a shield of hard light slamming between the vigilante's hand and Kesslor’s face with a sharp crack.
The vigilante recoiled a fraction, hissing like he’d just been burned.
Not fear.
Pain.
"Damn it," he cursed.
Ferb’s mind snagged on that - because if the vigilante was as dangerous as he looked, a shield like that shouldn’t have made him flinch.
Unless he was already running on empty.
Unless something had already hurt him.
“Buford,” Ferb barked, “get Kesslor out!”
Buford vanished in a snap - and reappeared too short, right beside Isabella instead of Kesslor.
“Oh, come on!” Buford yelled, vanishing again. “I don’t like the guy enough!”
Baljeet was already in motion- speeding past Ferb in a blur of controlled panic, sprinting toward Kesslor to give Buford a “like” anchor.
The vigilante tracked Baljeet instantly.
"Oh no you don't," he said, moving to intercept.
Ferb stepped into the vigilante's path first, staff swinging low to redirect his attention - metal whistling through the air, magnetism biting into it to sharpen the arc.
The vigilante parried with a fast twist of his wrist, sparks skittering across his gloves.
Ferb felt the impact up his arms and grit his teeth. The vigilante was strong. We are fucked.
But the more he fought with him he also realized, the vigilante wasn’t trying to hurt Ferb.
Every move was a redirect. A shove. A block.
Like Ferb was a locked door and the vigilante was trying to pass him without breaking the frame.
Isabella pressed in beside Ferb, shields flaring in quick bursts - hard light walls that forced the vigilante to reposition.
The vigilante’s annoyance bled into his motions. Not anger at them - frustration at time.
Like he had a schedule and Ferb was ruining it.
Buford popped into existence beside Baljeet and Kesslor at last, hand snapping out -
And the vigilante’s head jerked.
A bolt of blue electricity lanced across the room. It hit Buford square in the chest. Buford flew backward like he’d been kicked by a truck, slamming into a shelf hard enough to rattle the awards on the wall.
“Buford!” Isabella shouted.
From the rubble of fallen books, an arm rose.
Thumbs up.
“I’m good,” Buford wheezed, which was a lie, but it was Buford’s brand.
Baljeet - now between the vigilante and Kesslor, eyes wide with adrenaline - grabbed the nearest thing he could find.
A book.
He screamed and threw it with all the force of a man who knew he was outmatched and was doing it anyway.
The book slapped against the vigilante’s chest with a pathetic thump and dropped to the carpet like it had given up.
The vigilante stared down at it.
Then up.
“Really?” he said, flat.
Ferb made a noise under his breath that might have been a sigh.
“I panicked!” Baljeet shrieked.
The vigilante surged again, trying to get to Kesslor.
Ferb responded with metal.
He yanked a paperweight off the desk with magnetism and hurled it.
The vigilante knocked it aside without looking.
Ferb ripped a metal pen holder off the desk and sent it spinning.
The vigilante ducked and slid, sparks crawling over his gloves like living veins.
Isabella’s shields slammed down like a cage, but the vigilante didn’t fight the walls - he found the gaps.
Practiced.
Fluid.
Like he’d done this a thousand times.
And still - still - Ferb couldn’t shake the sense that the vigilante was holding back.
Kesslor’s eyes met Ferb’s.
“Save me,” Kesslor croaked. “Don’t let him -!”
The vigilante’s hand snapped out.
Ferb saw the blue light build -
And then -
The vigilante screamed. Not in rage. Not in warning. A raw, guttural sound tore out of his body like something inside him had been hooked and yanked.
His whole frame seized. Blue sparks convulsed across him in jagged bursts, uncontrolled and wrong. He clutched his head, staggering like he’d been hit by an invisible hammer.
Ferb froze for half a heartbeat.
Because that wasn’t damage from any of them.
Isabella’s shields hadn’t touched him. Ferb’s metal hadn’t struck him. Baljeet’s book definitely hadn’t done that.
So -
What did?
And then, Ferb saw it - just a glimpse - something small and sleek flashing with a faint pulse of light in Kesslor's hand, disappearing into his pocket.
Ferb’s stomach dropped.
What are you doing?
But before Ferb could process, Buford - still dazed - grabbed onto Kesslor and vanished in a flash.
He reappeared, empty air where Kesslor had been a heartbeat before.
Gone.
The office fell into sudden, sharp silence.
The vigilante stood there, hunched, breathing hard, shoulders twitching like his nervous system hadn’t caught up to reality.
Ferb held his staff up, ready for a second round.
Isabella’s shields hovered, bright and tense.
Baljeet looked like he might throw up from exertion or stress… one never knew with Baljeet.
Buford's chest rose and fell in sharp bursts, trying to get his breathing under control again.
The vigilante straightened slowly.
He didn’t chase. He didn’t lash out.
He just… exhaled.
Then, muffled under the mask, a single furious word: “Fuck.”
It didn’t sound like a villain defeated.
It sounded like someone whose plan had just been derailed.
The vigilante looked at them - really looked this time.
Ferb couldn’t see his eyes, but he could feel the weight of the stare.
Then the vigilante turned on his heel and walked out of the room.
Casual.
Irritated.
Mumbling under his breath how he had to track down this idiot all over again now.
Like this had been a bureaucratic inconvenience.
For a second no one reacted just because of the sheer unexpectedness.
“Uh,” Buford said, voice hoarse. “Are we supposed to just let him go?”
Which snapped them all back into motion again.
“Hey!” Isabella called. "You can't just leave!"
"Watch me!" came the annoyed voice back from somewhere downstairs.
They rushed after him, down the hallway, down the stairs, their boots too loud again.
The vigilante was already in the kitchen, like he knew the layout better than they did. He stood by an open cupboard, door swinging shut behind him. In his hand was a bottle of scotch - expensive enough to make Baljeet’s soul leave his body.
The vigilante lifted it slightly, like a toast.
“I’ll be taking this as compensation.”
“Compensation?!” Buford’s jaw dropped.
Ferb’s staff rose. “You’re coming with us.”
The vigilante snorted. “Good luck with that.”
Baljeet shot forward - pure instinct - planting himself in front of the entrance door and hugging it shut like a terrified cat guarding a litter box.
“Y-you can’t just leave!”
The vigilante paused, looking at Baljeet like he was trying to decide whether this was adorable or exhausting.
His sigh was audible through the mask.
“Do we really have to do this?”
Isabella’s gauntlets lit. “Yes.”
“Ugh.” The vigilante’s shoulders slumped like the universe had disappointed him personally. “Fine.”
And then he disappeared in a spark of electricity.
Faster than Ferb’s magnetism could grab.
The blue light snapped into the fire extinguisher off the wall, popping it like a balloon from the heat. White foam exploded across the room in a violent cloud, swallowing everything.
“Enjoy cleaning that up,” his voice echoed through the haze, maddeningly calm.
Ferb lunged through the fog, magnetism snapping at metal -
But there was nothing to catch.
No buckle.
No zipper.
No weapon.
No hook.
The vigilante was gone.
When the foam settled, the kitchen looked like a winter crime scene.
Baljeet stood in the doorway like he’d been personally betrayed by physics.
Isabella wiped foam off her gauntlet with pure rage.
Ferb stared at the empty space where the vigilante had been, chest tight with questions.
Buford blinked, then muttered, almost reverent, “Damn. That was smooth.”
Ferb cut him a look.
Buford shrugged. “What? I’m just saying.”
Baljeet’s voice cracked. “He took the scotch…”
Isabella groaned, wiping foam from her arms. “That is the least of our problems.”
Buford shook himself, then teleported behind Baljeet just because he could.
Baljeet shrieked on instinct, ricocheting off the wall like a startled cat and landing in a heap of limbs.
"Buford!" Isabella snapped.
"I didn't even -" Buford started, grin already forming. "- okay, fine, I did. But you're jumpier than a squirrel on crack."
"This is not a scientifically accurate comparison!" Baljeet wheezed from the floor.
Ferb didn’t laugh.
He should have. It was funny. It was them. It was the kind of stupid nonsense that usually stitched the edges of a mission back together.
He didn't because somewhere in his mind, an image kept replaying:
Kesslor’s fear.
Too clean.
Too timed.
The flash of a device.
The vigilante’s scream - wrong kind of pain.
And the way he hadn’t tried to kill any of them.
Not once.
Ferb tightened his grip on his staff.
The cold air from outside crept in under the door.
And the mansion felt even emptier than it had when they arrived.
They landed in the A.E.G.I.S - Agency for Enhanced Global Integrity and Security - briefing corridor in a burst of displaced air and foam particles.
White flecks clung to Isabella’s hair. Buford’s shirt was streaked like he’d lost a snowball fight. Baljeet looked like someone had attempted to mummify him using cleaning products. Ferb felt the foam dripping down the back of his neck into his shirt.
A junior agent looked up from his desk, stared at them, and then very deliberately looked back down like he hadn’t seen anything at all.
Ferb marched them forward, trying to preserve his last shred of dignity, even though it had been a lost cause from the beginning.
They pushed through the briefing room doors.
Major Monogram stood at the head of the table with a folder in his hands and the kind of posture that said he’d been waiting.
His eyes swept over them.
Paused.
Paused longer.
Then his mustache twitched.
“…Do I want to know?” Monogram asked.
Buford opened his mouth.
Ferb said, “No,”
Isabella said at the exact same time, “Yes.”
Baljeet made a small, traumatized noise and tried to scrape foam off his sleeve like it was a disease.
Monogram sighed through his nose and gestured them in. “Report.”
They sat. Isabella started, because she always started. Clear. Direct. No wasted words. Repeating the alarm information just because it was procedure.
“Emergency beacon triggered at Director Kesslor’s residence. Unknown hostile on-site. We engaged a masked enhanced subject demonstrating electrokinetic output and high-speed movement.”
Monogram’s gaze sharpened a fraction.
Ferb caught it.
Just a flick - controlled, but there.
Isabella continued. “He attempted to reach Kesslor repeatedly, but avoided lethal force against us.
“Avoided,” Monogram echoed mildly, eyes now on Ferb instead of Isabella. “That’s your assessment?”
Ferb’s mouth went tight. “He had openings. He didn’t take them.”
Buford leaned forward. “I mean, he did tase me.”
Monogram looked him over and raised an eyebrow. Buford spread his arms, just to show off.
Baljeet blurted, “He stole scotch.”
Ferb watched Monogram’s face.
There - another tiny pause.
The kind that didn’t fit the rest of his reactions.
Not surprise.
Something closer to… recognition.
Or calculation.
Monogram cleared his throat and flipped a page in the folder like paper could reset a conversation.
“Did he identify himself?”
“No,” Isabella said.
“Any specific phrases? Any… notable remarks?” Monogram asked, too casual for how carefully he held the pen.
Buford lifted a foam-crusted finger. “He said ‘Enjoy cleaning that up.’”
Baljeet added, voice small, “And he asked if we really had to do this.”
Isabella’s eyes narrowed. “Like we were inconveniencing him.”
Ferb heard his own voice before he decided to speak.
"The vigilante expressed extreme distress without actively being triggered by us."
The room stilled. Even Buford stopped fidgeting.
Monogram’s pen paused above the paper. “Explain.”
Ferb’s jaw flexed. He chose the words like he was picking up glass. "I saw something in Director Kesslor's hand. A device. When the vigilante screamed -"
Ferb stopped himself before he said it wasn’t us. Before he said it was Kesslor.
Isabella’s eyes flashed. “You think Kesslor hurt him?”
Ferb’s fingers tightened on his staff. “I think something happened in that room before we arrived. And Kesslor wanted us there.”
He didn't mention how the fear looked too staged. How some of the movements had been too theatrical as if it was overcompensating for something.
Monogram’s expression didn’t change.
But his shoulders stiffened, a hair’s breadth.
He closed the folder with a soft click.
“But you did your jobs, I presume,” Monogram said. “Director Kesslor is safe?”
Isabella nodded.
"Yes, sir. Buford extracted him in time and sent him to a secure location."
Monogram nodded.
And proceeded with the debrief.
Ferb stared at him.
Waiting for good work.
Waiting for we’ll investigate.
Waiting for that’s concerning.
Monogram didn’t give any of it.
He only said, “Stand down. Debrief logs by morning. Medical check for Buford.” His gaze flicked to Baljeet. “And… you as well.”
Then they were dismissed.
Ferb left with the same unease sitting heavier in his chest than it had when he walked in.
Because Monogram had been on edge.
Not like a commander dealing with an unknown threat -
Like a man who had been hoping for a different answer.
Ferb couldn't shake the feeling off his shoulders that something was off.
The compound was quiet when they got back, like the walls were still trying to pretend they hadn’t been interrupted.
Buford kicked the door shut behind them and immediately pointed upstairs. “I’m finishing my shower. The foam rinse off at A.E.G.I.S didn't satisfy my hygiene standards.”
Isabella didn’t even look up. “Your hygiene was already a lost cause.”
Buford made a wounded sound and vanished.
Baljeet sprinted for the kitchen like he could save time through sheer desperation.
Then a long, pained wail echoed through the compound.
“My curry -!”
Isabella flopped onto the couch like her bones had finally remembered gravity. She picked up a controller and patted the cushion beside her.
“Mario Kart as long as Buford is blocking the bathroom anyway,” she said, gentle now. “One race. For real this time.”
Ferb set his staff carefully against the wall.
He hesitated, then sank into the armchair instead.
The normal chatter moved around him - Baljeet mourning his dinner, Isabella booting up the game, Buford yelling something obscene from the bathroom.
Ferb let it happen.
He just didn’t step into it.
Because in his head he was still watching:
Kesslor’s eyes flicking to the vigilante’s hands.
The device sliding out of sight.
That scream.
And the way the vigilante had acted around them - not frightened, not threatened -
Just… tired.
The ringing of his phone cut through the noise.
Ferb looked down.
Candace.
He stood immediately.
Isabella’s eyes lifted to him, knowing without being told.
Ferb didn’t explain. He didn’t have to.
He walked upstairs and shut his door.
The compound noise dulled instantly. No Baljeet, no Isabella, no Buford.
He lifted the phone again, thumb hovering for half a second like that could delay it.
Then he pressed accept.
“Hey,” Candace said.
Her voice was careful around the edges. Not chirpy. Not forced. Soft in the way people got when they were walking barefoot around something breakable.
“Hey,” he replied.
And the day - this day - finally caught up to him.
Ferb let his back hit the door.
For a brief second there was a pause.
They didn’t need to say why.
They never did.
Today didn’t require explanations. It existed all on its own, heavy and familiar, the same date every year that made the world feel slightly tilted.
If things had gone differently -
If the universe had been kinder -
Today would’ve been their little brother’s birthday.
Candace inhaled. Ferb could hear it. Like she was bracing herself with oxygen.
“I lit a candle for him this morning,” she said.
Ferb’s throat tightened hard enough it hurt.
He closed his eyes.
Once a year, the weight of a baby they never got to hold pressed down on all of them until it was hard to breathe under it.
“I called her earlier,” Candace continued, voice wavering now, “Mom… she tried to pretend she was fine, like always...” A shaky exhale. She didn't need to say out loud how wrong their mother behaved on this day. “I just - I hate this day.”
Ferb swallowed.
He thought of Linda’s hands. Lawrence’s quiet steadiness. Candace trying to be both daughter and shield.
He thought of being a kid and being taken out of the house so Linda could break without witnesses.
He thought of growing older and realizing that grief didn’t get smaller - you just got better at carrying it.
“Me too,” he said.
Candace made a small sound on the other end of the line, half laugh, half sob.
They didn’t say a name.
There wasn’t one to say.
Just letters standing on a grave with a coffin too small to deserve death.
Candace’s voice softened further, like she was stepping closer without wanting to startle him. “Are you okay?”
Ferb almost said yes.
It was the automatic answer. The trained answer. The answer that kept things neat.
He looked down at his knuckles.
At the faint flecks of dried foam still stuck in the creases.
At the invisible weight of the mission sitting behind his ribs.
At the way his chest still felt too tight from a scream that hadn’t been his.
“I don’t know,” he said instead.
“Ferb…” she started, warning in the syllable, like she already knew she was about to lose whatever calm she’d managed to build.
Ferb turned, pressed his forehead to the cool surface of the door, staring at the wood grain like it might give him an answer.
"I was on a mission again today," he said quietly. "And some things don't add up."
Candace's breath caught. "What do you mean?"
He could still see the office like a still frame: Kesslor on the floor, fear too clean, a device flashing like a wink, pain that had nothing to do with Ferb’s team.
And the vigilante’s voice - dry, tired, annoyed at the universe.
Guess we’ve got company.
Ferb’s grip tightened around the phone.
"I don't really know…" he trailed off.
Candace exhaled, shaky, but she didn’t push. She never pushed when she heard that tone in him - the one that meant the edges were too sharp.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay. Just… promise me you’ll come home tomorrow. Mom would like that.”
Ferb hesitated because his job didn't allow him to give out promises like that.
"I'll try," he said instead.
Candace hummed. Not really disappointed, but not really happy either.
“I love you,” she said.
Ferb’s throat tightened again.
“I love you too,” he managed.
They hung up.
Ferb stayed there a moment longer with the phone still pressed to his ear like it could keep the day from closing its hand around him.
Then he lowered it.
And in the quiet, his mind circled back to one thought - sharp as a hook:
The vigilante.
The night air bit.
Not cold enough to snow, cold enough to punish.
X56 moved through alleys and back streets with the kind of instinct that didn’t come from training - it came from necessity. From knowing which corners had cameras. Which lights flickered. Which routes were clean.
His ribs ached with every breath. His head pounded. The pain wasn’t fresh; it was the ugly aftershock of something that had scraped through his nerves and left them sparking.
Residual.
He hated residual.
Blue flickers crawled over his skin in tiny, involuntary bursts like static clinging to him, like his body hadn’t decided if it was done being a weapon yet.
[STATUS: neural interference residue detected]
[OUTPUT: electrokinetic discharge instability → minor]
[PAIN INDEX: elevated]
[RECOMMENDATION: rest / reduce exertion]
“Fuck,” he muttered, and it came out as breath more than sound.
Of course A.E.G.I.S had shown up.
Of course.
Always right on time to protect the wrong people.
He stopped at a junction, shoulders pressing briefly to brick while his eyes flicked up to the nearest security camera.
It stared back, glossy and blank.
With a flick of a thought the feed blinked. Static rolled over it like a curtain.
[CAMERA FEED: override successful]
[NETWORK ACCESS: local node acquired]
[TRACE RISK: minimal]
In his head, the world unfolded into pathways: networks, routes, pings - thin lines of light running through the city like veins under skin.
He reached for Kesslor’s signal and found -
Nothing.
Scrambled.
Gone.
No phone.
The tracker on him probably found and destroyed.
[SEARCH: KESSLOR → FAILED]
[CAUSE: active scramble / proxy relay]
[RECOMMENDATION: discontinue pursuit (low success probability)]
[OVERRIDE: accepted]
He bared his teeth behind the mask.
“Damn it,” he hissed, forcing himself upright again.
His vision swam, just slightly.
Not enough to fall. Enough to be annoying.
Enough to remind him he wasn’t invincible, no matter what the rumors said.
[HEART RATE: elevated]
[RESPIRATION: shallow]
[WARNING: exertion threshold approaching]
By the time he got back to the apartment building, his legs shook like they’d been holding him up out of spite.
The hallway smelled like old cigarettes and damp carpet.
The door to his unit stuck when he shoved it.
It always stuck.
Inside, the place looked like it always did - barely a home. Rundown. More like a nest someone had built out of spare parts and stubbornness.
A mattress on the floor.
A table covered in wires and scavenged tech.
Tools everywhere, because tools didn’t ask questions and didn’t leave.
A small shape darted out from the shadows the moment the door opened.
Perry.
X56’s shoulders loosened by a fraction before he could stop it.
[VISUAL ID: PERRY THE PLATYPUS]
[THREAT LEVEL: none]
[HEART RATE: decreasing]
“Hey,” he rasped.
Perry chittered at him like a scolding mother and a soldier rolled into one.
X56 dropped into a crouch with a groan, letting Perry shove his little body into him like he was checking for bullet holes.
“I’m fine,” X56 lied.
Perry chattered again, louder, clearly disagreeing.
X56 huffed. “Okay. I’m mostly fine.”
That earned him a suspicious stare.
He reached up and tugged the mask off, letting it hang from his fingers for a moment like he didn’t trust putting it down yet.
His face felt too exposed without it.
He set the stolen bottle of scotch on the floor beside the mattress with a dull clink.
Perry stared at it. Then stared at him.
X56 lifted it slightly, like a toast. “Compensation,” he said.
Perry’s eyes narrowed with the deepest platypus judgment a creature could possibly hold.
X56’s mouth twitched. “What? Don’t look at me like that. It’s either this or I start stealing throw pillows.”
Perry chittered in a way that sounded painfully like you would.
X56 pushed himself up, crossed to the tiny kitchenette, and rummaged until his fingers closed around two chipped shot glasses. One of them had a crack down the side. He set them on the table and poured a shot into one. Then - after a beat - poured a second, smaller one into the cracked glass and slid it toward Perry like he was feeding a tiny, judgmental king.
Perry stared at the glass.
Stared at him.
Chittered, sharp.
X56 held up his own shot. “Oh, relax. It’s a symbolic drink.”
Perry’s stare said your symbols are stupid.
X56 clinked his shot lightly against the rim of Perry’s glass anyway.
“Cheers,” he muttered.
Then he knocked the drink back.
It burned on the way down.
Not in a good way.
He coughed once, eyes watering, and immediately made a face like the scotch had personally insulted him.
“Ugh,” he rasped. “What the hell. This isn’t even -”
He looked at the label again like it might change if he glared hard enough.
“- this isn’t even good scotch.”
Perry chittered, smug.
X56 shot him a look. “Don’t act like you knew.”
Perry’s eyes narrowed again, like: I did.
X56 collapsed onto the mattress with a sound halfway between a sigh and a growl, the bottle thumping down beside him.
He could still feel the emitter’s ghost in his skull - an invisible hook that had yanked his nervous system sideways and laughed about it.
[PAIN SOURCE: external frequency interference (confirmed)]
[EST. RECOVERY: unknown]
[RECOMMENDATION: avoid exposure / locate emitter signature]
He rolled his shoulders, trying to shake it out.
It didn’t shake out.
Across the room, the mirror caught him.
Pale skin smeared with soot.
Sweat on his temple.
Red hair a mess where the hood had dragged through it.
One eye still faintly lit electric-blue like it couldn’t stop glowing even when he wanted it to.
The other dark.
A thick scar slashing across the bridge of his nose like a signature he never asked for.
He stared at himself for a long moment.
Wondering - not for the first time - if he was the assassin everyone believed he was.
The monster in the stories.
Or just a boy trying to do one thing right in a world that kept moving the target.
Perry hopped up beside him, curled against his side like a small, stubborn anchor.
[CONTACT: pressure detected]
[HEART RATE: stabilizing]
[STRESS RESPONSE: decreasing]
X56 exhaled.
His gaze stayed locked on the stranger in the mirror.
Then, very quietly, like admitting it would make it real -
“Happy birthday to me,” he muttered.
The only piece of information about himself that he knew.
[DATE: //****]
[ANNOTATION: birthday (self)]
[EMOTIONAL RESPONSE: unknown]
