This is a kind of follow-up to my other fic, Setting the Bar.
In the beginning, Doofenshmirtz couldn't help but resent Agent P. Despite the fact that that their first meeting had been less than antagonistic, almost cordial, their subsequent encounters had all been combative. Perry would show up, get trapped, listen to Doofenshmirtz's spiel, escape, and inevitably destroy the day's invention.
And the agent was totally aloof. He always wore the same impassive expression, which Doof had yet to figure out the meaning of. Whatever it was, it was flat and infuriating. It even remained unchanged the first time Doofenshmirtz told him one of his slightly less atrocious childhood memories.
It wasn't like he was looking for any kind of sympathy or understanding, anyway. He wasn't baring his soul to the agent or anything.
Things continued like this for a couple of months, and then something happened that, though neither of them realized it at the time, set a monumental change in motion.
They both got actually hurt.
It had started off with their usual slapstick battle, Doof's wrench against Perry's lead pipe. Doof ended up with his back pressed to his inator, and Perry took a swing at him. The evil scientist ducked out of the way just in time, and the pipe smashed into the machine, colliding with some exposed wiring.
This was different from hitting the self-destruct button, which was designed to destroy the machine with minimal backlash.
Apparently, hitting it here provided maximum backlash.
Doofenshmirtz barely had time to register the sparks around the pipe before suddenly his ears were ringing, and a blast picked him up off his feet and flung him across the room. He slammed into the wall and slid to the floor, his head spinning as he hazily watched rubble rain down. Slowly, as his hearing began to return, he became aware of a sharp pain in his leg. He looked down to see a shard of metal jutting out of his thigh, blood soaking through his pants around it.
Then he heard coughing, and he remembered. Perry.
He can take care of himself, Doof thought to himself. Right now, I need to get this wound bandaged.
But what if he's hurt worse?
Why should I care?
Yet, as he heaved himself to his feet, he found himself scanning the wreckage for some sign of the agent. There, a glimpse of teal hair. He limped through the debris until he reached the spot where Perry was propped up against the wall, his head lolling to the side. A trickle of blood ran from his nose, and there was something odd about the shape of his left shoulder.
The agent's eyes fluttered open, and he looked up at Doofenshmirtz blankly. Doof recognized that unfocused look. Perry probably had a concussion. Careful of his leg, Doofenshmirtz sat down near Perry and felt the agent's shoulder. Dislocated. He was beginning to get dizzy, and he looked back at his leg.
That was a lot of blood.
Doof slumped against the wall next to Perry and fumbled for the agent's wrist communicator. The odd twist of position sent a jolt of pain through his chest, and he realized he probably had at least one fractured rib. He managed to retrieve the communicator and turned it on.
Major Monogram appeared on the screen. "Yes, Agent-?" He stopped, eyes widening at the sight of Doof's ashen face. "Doofenshmirtz?"
"We need medical assistance," Doof croaked. "Like, now."
"We're on our way," Monogram said, and the screen went dark.
Doofenshmirtz heard Perry's breath begin to grow shallow, and he turned the agent's face towards him. "Don't fall asleep," he said. "Help's on the way."
Perry blinked sluggishly at him. Doofenshmirtz's vision was beginning to go dark around the edges.
After what felt like an eternity that was probably only a few moments, he became vaguely aware of silhouettes hovering over him, and voices that sounded like they were coming from far away.
Then everything went black.
Perry didn't dislike Dr. Doofenshmirtz. He was a bit troublesome and tended to ramble on and on, and there was real bitterness in him – a hard knot of anger behind his eyes that Perry could see as he gave the day's backstory. But at his core, Doofenshmirtz was no real harm to anyone but himself. And really, even if he wanted to, Perry couldn't hate Doofenshmirtz any more than the doctor already hated himself. It was doubtful anyone could.
If anything, Perry felt bad for him, so he made himself listen to Doof's monologues no matter how long they went on before escaping the trap and destroying the inators. The first time Doof shared a childhood memory with him, Perry found himself doubting how much truth there was to it. After all, Doofenshmirtz had a propensity for exaggeration. (Later, Perry would regret that assumption.)
All in all, Perry's opinion had little to do with his own personal feelings. Doofenshmirtz was his assigned nemesis, and this was his job.
Then he managed to hit that day's invention in just precisely the wrong way, and it all went to shit.
Perry took the brunt of the explosion – he'd been moving towards it as Doof had been scrambling away. Things went blank for a moment, and then he found himself wondering how he had ended up here when he'd just been all the way over there.
Then he realized he was in pain. A lot of it.
He coughed, struggling to regain the wind that had been knocked out of him, and tried to take stock. His shoulder hurt, his chest hurt – hell, everything hurt. And it was getting really hard to think through this splitting headache.
He felt a weight next to him, and someone was tugging at his wrist. His head lolled to the side. He was so tired. Vaguely, he was aware of someone talking to him, but it sounded so distant, and he couldn't make out the words.
It all faded away.
Something was beeping. Doofenshmirtz forced his eyes open and saw a white ceiling. For a moment, he wondered if he was dead.
"Ah, good, you're awake."
He looked over. Francis Monogram was standing beside him. Doofenshmirtz tried to raise his hand in greeting, but was stopped by the handcuffs attached to the rail of the hospital bed.
"Where-" Doof worked some moisture into his dry mouth. "Where am I?"
"Our private infirmary," Monogram replied. "Hence the cuffs. We can't have you wandering around."
"What about Perry?" Doof asked, surprising himself when he realized that he actually did care.
"He's fine," Monogram said, gesturing to the other side of the room. "Thanks to you, actually. He was bleeding internally, and if you hadn't called us so quickly, he probably would have died."
"Oh," Doof said as this information sunk in. He turned his head to look the other way and saw Perry in the next bed, still unconscious. The agent looked… vulnerable. It had never occurred to him that his nemesis might ever be anything other than indestructible. He thought he should feel a rush of triumph that he had actually managed to flap the unflappable. Instead he felt upset, almost betrayed. Perry was supposed to be invincible. He wasn't allowed to have near-death experiences. That wasn't how it worked.
Doofenshmirtz felt his throat tighten.
"-fenshmirtz? Are you listening?"
Doof snapped back to the present. Monogram had been talking.
"Uh," Doof said. "No?"
Monogram rolled his eyes. "I said that we're going to hold you here for another twenty-four hours. You lost a lot of blood, and you've got two fractured ribs, not to mention some minor bruises and scrapes. And when we let you out, we'd better not hear about any schemes for at least a week."
"No promises," Doofenshmirtz replied. "I've had worse and been back on my feet in half the time."
"Then you'd better be ready for a different agent," Monogram said, putting his hands on his hips, "because Agent P isn't going to be back on active duty before then."
Doofenshmirtz snapped his mouth shut. "I guess I could use a break," he mumbled. He'd been so busy lately anyway. What was the harm in taking some time off to recover?
Slowly, Perry became aware of the hum of machinery. He pulled himself back into the waking world and blinked groggily.
"Hey, he's awake!" said a familiar voice. "Hey, hey! Perry the Platypus! Over here!"
Suppressing a groan, Perry flopped his head to the side. Doofenshmirtz was lying in the bed to his right, his huge grin at odds with how battered he looked. The doctor raised his hand to wave, but the cuffs holding him to the bed didn't let him get very far.
Weakly, Perry returned the gesture.
Major Monogram came into the room. "Ah, good," he said when he saw Perry. "You had us worried for a while there." At Perry's confused look, he added, "You were injured pretty seriously in the explosion."
Oh, right. The explosion. He put a hand to his forehead as Monogram listed off his injuries – concussion, dislocated shoulder, cracked ribs, internal bleeding. The major seemed to be about to continue to something else, but Doofenshmirtz interjected.
"Wait! Lemme up. I wanna see him."
"You can see just fine from where you are," Monogram snapped.
"Come onnnnn," Doof whined.
"No."
Doof's eyes narrowed. "I'll start complaining again."
The key to the cuffs instantly appeared in Monogram's hand. "Honestly," he grumbled as he unlocked the evil scientist. "I don't know how you listen to his stories every day, Agent P."
Perry declined to reply, watching as Doof struggled out of bed and limped over, using the IV drip he was hooked up to as support. When he reached Perry, his grin turned smug. "Guess what?" he said. "I saved your life!"
Perry looked to Monogram, and the major nodded begrudgingly. "If he hadn't called us so soon, you might not have made it."
Doof crossed his arms, smirking. "I'm never going to let you live it down, and it'll be because of me! Because I'm the reason you're alive to never live it down, and also because I'm the one not letting you live it down. So, ha!"
Perry nearly rolled his eyes, but then he noticed how Doof was standing, putting as little weight as possible on his left leg. The doctor had also been close the inator when it exploded, and so he must have sustained some serious injuries as well. Behind the boastful expression, he was paler than usual, and shaky. He probably shouldn't even be upright, let alone out of bed and gloating.
Or… was it really gloating?
Perry had hazy memories of the aftermath, of someone talking to him, trying to keep him awake. He was sure that the doctor could have tended to his own injuries before searching the rubble, but that wouldn't fit the time frame. Doofenshmirtz would have had to come looking for him right after the explosion, and on a bad leg. He'd prioritized Perry.
Had their situations been reversed, Perry would have naturally immediately gone to find Doofenshmirtz, but that was what he did – he protected people, even if they were his nemesis. But he wouldn't have expected the same of Doofenshmirtz, and now he found himself wondering why that was. Doof was petty, sure, but he wasn't cold-hearted. Really, he was the opposite. He cared too much about too many things. And he wasn't the kind of person to leave someone else to die.
Doofenshmirtz wasn't gloating. Perry wasn't sure how he knew, but he could feel it. The doctor was reassuring himself, in his own way, that yes, they were both okay. They'd made it out, alive and in one piece, and he had succeeded at something.
Perry suddenly felt like he'd been looking at Doofenshmirtz all wrong these past few months.
Doof's scratchy voice brought him back into reality. "Uh, Perry the Platypus? You're kinda… staring at me weird. Are you okay?"
Perry blinked, and then gave Doofenshmirtz a small smile and a thumbs-up.
Doof looked taken aback, and he checked over his shoulder to see if there was another person behind him the gesture was meant for. When he realized that there wasn't anyone else, he beamed back at Perry and held up two thumbs. Then he got hit by a wave of dizziness, lost his balance, flailed for the IV drip to catch himself, knocked the whole thing over, and went crashing to the floor.
"Oh for the love of-!" Monogram exclaimed. "I knew I shouldn't have let you up. Nurse!"
A pair of nurses bustled in and hauled Doof to his feet. They dragged him protesting back to the bed, where Monogram cuffed him down again.
Perry hid an amused grin behind his hand.
The next time they battled, neither of them pulled their punches, but there was something different now. There was less resentment powering the swing of Doof's fist, less indifference behind Perry's practiced strikes. Something else sparked between them as they came to blows, something more thrilling that made them begin to look forward to their fights.
But it would be a few more years before they finally started to figure it out.