I was trapped.

The thought didn't inspire fear, or shock, or any emotion at all. Annoyance, maybe.

What was meant to be an evil cackle sounded from the shadows, and a tall man with a crooked nose stepped out. "Ah, Perry the Agent. I trust you're finding your trap, cumbersome?"

I suppose his accent is Drusselsteinian. If you've never heard of Drusselstein, consider yourself lucky. I'd never heard of it either, but you would not believe the strange customs and culture that place has. I know I wouldn't if I hadn't seen some of it firsthand, but I'm getting distracted.

My name is Perry Plats, and I'm an agent in the O.W.C.A. The name of that organization is… classified. Let's just go with classified. I'm short, and I have turquoise hair. The Drusselsteinian in the lab coat was my nemesis, Heinz Doofenshmirtz, but I've come to think of him as just Doof. I wouldn't have answered him if I could have, so I just glared.

"I'm a bit strapped for cash this month, so I had to come up with a way to make money, fast." He flicked on a light, and stepped up to an imposing machine. "Behold! The Rubber-Asphalt-Inator! With this, I can turn all the roads in the Tri-State-Area rubber, so that everyone will have to buy my special tires to be able to drive anywhere! And the best part is, this will lower the mayor's approval rating, and force him out of office, allowing me to take over!"

Today's scheme didn't make anymore sense than usual. We've been battling for five years, and I gave up trying to figure out the reasoning behind his plots ages ago. Despite myself, I've begun to follow some trains of thought. He often went after the mayor, who, oddly enough, is his younger brother. But why he seemed to think that his brother being thrown out of office would lead to his own takeover, I may never know.

He's a constant thorn in my side. I mean, it would be one thing if his daily schemes and inventions were a true threat, but more often than not, it just wasn't the case. I felt wasted every time I thwarted him. Honestly, if they'd sent a potted plant to stop him, it would probably be effective, most days.

I know, I know. You're thinking that I'm a bit slow mentally. After all, I've been battling the same incompetent person for five years, and he still has his freedom. Well, that's just another oddity of my job. We're more damage control than removal. I go in, find out what he's doing, put a stop to it, and leave. We sort of have an unspoken agreement that this doesn't happen more than once per day.

I whipped my knife out of my pocket… it's often that simple to escape. Why do you think I don't bother to avoid the traps? I cut through one rope, and the rest unraveled. As if he was expecting it, which he would have had to be an idiot not to, he spun around and flung his wrench at me. I dodged easily, and would have swiped his feet out from under him, but cold metal clicked around my wrists, trapping me again.

"Nice try, Agent P."

I rolled my eyes as Doof's pesky kid sister stepped around me. She'd shown up about three years ago, and had been nothing but a nuisance ever since. Her accent matched his. She wasn't as homely as him, and she wasn't nearly as awkward as she had been when I'd first met her, but she'd still never win any beauty pageants.

She tried to give me a superior smile, but her eyes ruined it, like they always did. Plain face and crooked nose aside, she has the kindest eyes of anyone I've ever seen. Completely misleading, since she's constantly trying to help her brother take over the Tri State Area.

"Thank you, Hildie. Now if you'll be a dear and plug this thing in, we'll get started."

She turned to obey, giving me a chance to pick the lock on the cuffs. Something I was very used to doing by now. They were both distracted so I walked up to Doof, tapped his shoulder, then decked him as he spun around.

I turned towards his sister, but Hilda didn't look like she was going to put up any more of a fight than she usually did.

I slapped the big red self destruct button on the Rubber-Inator, and tipped my hat, jumping out of the way as it exploded.

He crossed his arms, still sitting on the floor, mouth drawn into a pout. "Curse you, Agent Plats."

Normally, the whole routine took longer, but I was eager to get back home today because of what my little brothers had been working on.

I stepped off the balcony, and deployed the chute in the harness I typically wore on missions, dropped gently down to my motorcycle, and headed for home.

And while I'm on the subject, I told you a half truth a while back. Officially, as in, on a case, my name is Perry Plats. Legally,I was adopted into my host family about five years ago, when I was seventeen, making my name Perry Flynn-Fletcher. My family is great, and they never tried to push their 'slow' child too far. See, you're not alone in thinking I'm slow mentally. In fact, my boss seems to love the idea, and has also told me to encourage it. That part of my cover annoyed me no end at first. I mean, what intelligent teen likes to be talked to like they can't possibly process anything you're saying? It worked out though. I was able to get away with minimum amount of homework required for passing grades, which is fine by me, considering the amount of paper work I have to fill out in my 'spare time'.

What helped keep a low profile was the fact that I don't speak, and I don't mean often, like my little brother, Ferb. I mean I can't talk. Never been able to. But as you can see, that doesn't keep me from doing my job.

Being an agent is really not as exciting as I thought my life was going to be, but, hey, it was a living. Everything was comfortable. Mom and Dad were as patient as ever, Phineas and Ferb are awesome little brothers, and Candace even came to accept me into the family. I'd do anything for them.

Little did I know it at the time, that was why everything was about to change.

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A/N: This is really strange, because I never thought I'd do a A.U. human Perry story. (Hence the super unoriginal title.) I'm still not sure how I got pulled into it, but, I played around with a few ideas last spring, and this is what happened. Sorry about the information dump, but trying to explain the changes was harder than I thought. (Oh, yeah, and all the characters except for Hilda and Annie belong to Disney, and all the locations, and stuff anyone would want to own, and I've got nothing, you know the drill!)

Hope you like it!

Thanks for reading!