The Murphy house was a lot different than the apartment he lived in on top of his building. Outside of the fact that the walls were happier, more neutral colors then the dark purples of his place, which was having a positive effect on his mood (he should really make sure to at least paint his paint his bedroom a lighter color when he got the place rebuilt.), he was quickly discovering the extent that the Murphy's bad luck extended to. He wasn't with Milo during most of that Pistachio nonsense, so he only had an idea before, he actually sort of related, and he still did, but it had only been two days and there had been some craziness going on. Four fires, a stray tree limb through the window, a radioactive squirrel found its way into the kitchen, the lists goes on. And on. He almost felt bad for them, but they seemed okay with it all. Milo's Dad had sat him down and explained how everything worked to the best of his ability. The way he explained it, Murphy's Law was like a force of nature that had to happen, and did happen to most people in various amounts, but the Murphy's had a genetic defect that caused it to be attracted to them in a massive amount. Doof figured he might have a similar but less severe version, and Martin had just shrugged, they didn't really know if a thing like that was possible.
The Murphy's were a nice family. Even outside of the fact that they were letting him stay with them, they seemed like really nice people. He had known Milo seemed like a sweet kid, but now he knew where he got it. Honestly, he was a little freaked out by the Murphys. He wants to be delighted by their hospitality, but the part of him that was a recovering villain wanted to be disgusted. They were so happy all the time, even this morning when an oil tanker crashed and spilled all over the front lawn, they just slipped into hazmat suits and went along with their day, went to talk to the cleanup crew, Brigette even brought them snacks. It didn't seem normal. His life had brought him trouble and it made him miserable, but this family that had the universe trying to kill them at all times was happy was could be. If you asked him, they needed therapy, that couldn't be healthy. But it seemed to work for them, so who was he to judge? Though, he would be interested in studying Murphy's Law a bit, but Martin had work and that Milo kid had been at school. Maybe one of them would let him run a few tests during the weekend.
Just then, he walked by the kitchen, and heard a voice. He recognized it as Milo's voice. Kid must have gotten home from school during his inner monologue.
"Stupid pistachios." He heard him mumble, followed by the grinding sounds of a blender. Doof peaked into the kitchen. There were several cabinets open, Milo had probably been looking for an after-school snack, as teenage boys are known to do. There were a few bags of pistachios sitting on the counter, and Milo was glaring at the slightly powdery contents of the blender, pulsing it rapidly. Yikes. Alright, maybe the kid did have some issues. He would do something, but he hated it whenever other people would try and parent Vanessa when she was younger, and boy did that happen often. You give your six year-old one, perfectly safe and childproof (probably, it at least functioned properly) inator, and suddenly everybody wants to tell you how to parent your kid. And besides even that, he couldn't really be bothered to handle it himself, his soaps were about to be on. He decided to go find Brigette and tell her, she was probably in her workshop.
"Uh, hello, Mrs. Murphy?" Doof said, knocking on the door to her workshop and peaking in.
"What do you need, Doofenshmirtz?" She smiled, looking up from a model piece she was working on.
"Look, I don't want to overstep my bounds or step any toes, I mean I did just get here like a couple days ago and parental assistance seems more like a week three thing, but I just saw Milo blending up pistachios like a psycho, and I just thought… you should… know about it." Doof looked away awkwardly.
"Oh, he must have ran across the old bags of them when he was looking for a snack, had a bad reaction. He must be having trouble coping with what happened. I should go have a chat with him, thanks for telling me." And then she left, quickly going over to the kitchen to where Milo was still just blending away at some pistachios. She knocked on the doorframe and walked in. "Hey, buddy, are you okay? You're looking a little intense there."
Milo blushed at being caught by his mother when he was having something of an… episode.
"I'm fine, I guess I just had a reaction to the pistachios…" Milo rubbed the back of his neck, not getting any less red.
"That's understandable, you did have two separate traumas with sentient pistachio trees within the last month or so, anybody would be a little shaken." Brigette went and sat on the kitchen counter, patting the spot next to her, prompting Milo to sit next to her. "You know, we never really had a conversation about what happened either time."
It had never been easy to get Milo to talk about things that bothered him. When he was little, he had to try so hard to remain positive that he just ignored it whenever anything bothered him, ultimately resulting in therapy after he ended up lashing out or otherwise causing some sort of scene. The first time he had to go was when he started sleepwalking after the giant radioactive lobster attack, followed by the first meteor incident, the second time he was struck by lightning, that thing with the badgers… the list went on. As Milo got older, he got better at compartmentalizing and coping, as well just avoiding injury, but it also got more difficult to get him to talk about it when something was bothering him. Outside of the fact that Milo didn't like to bother people with his problems, Milo was a teenager now, and teenagers kind of have a thing about privacy.
"No, we haven't." That's not an actual answer, Milo.
"Do you want to?" Brigette asked, tilting her head at him, getting no response from the cowlicked teen. "Honey, what wrong? It's okay to be upset, everybody is a little shaken up. This isn't like the last time, were the only people who were involved were you, your friends, and those time travel guys. The whole town was involved this time, we all remember this time."
"Plants shouldn't have teeth like that." Milo said, leaning against his mother as she wrapped an arm around him, turning into a sort of half hug.
"They shouldn't."
"They had creepy eyes too. And don't know if I'll ever be able to look at Lard World the same again."
"I agree, now what's actually bothering you?" She raising a brow at him, making Milo turn his head away as his blush returned to his face.
"You aren't buying that, huh?" Milo glanced over at his mother.
"Not by a longshot. When you were seven and broke your arm falling out of the tree house, you were back in the thing as soon as you were able to. And don't think I don't remember how well you handled it when those Pharmacists attacked, or that time with the robots. Things like that don't bother you, not since you were a little kid, so what's really wrong?"
"Ugh… I mentioned King Pistachion before, right? The thing that started this all?" Milo looked down at his lap where he was twiddling his thumbs.
"Yes."
"Well, uh, I forget to mention that the tree that became King Pistachion grew in the courtyard of my school." Milo said, finally looking up at his mom. "Mom, do you think there is a chance that this was my fault?" The look in Milo's eyes broke the mother's heart.
"Oh, Milo, of course it isn't your fault. Even if Murphy's Law had something to do with it, that doesn't mean it was your fault." She hopped off the counter and gave Milo a proper hug.
"Hear me out, there was an accident with a sentient blob a while back, what if that had to do with King Pistachion gaining sentience? That thing didn't mention anything about it, but it's possible. And the only reason that blob exists is because I poured something wrong, onto some diamino-hexane it-"
"Milo, repeat after me, 'It's not my fault'." Brigette stared him down with the softest look she could muster.
"It's not my fault." Milo repeat after her quickly. "But-"
"It's not your fault."
"It's not my fault." Milo repeated, but the way he said it, she could tell he didn't believe it.
"Maybe we should schedule an appointment with your therapist." Brigette sighed, letting Milo go.
"But Mom-"
"Milo, would you agree that you are having issues coping with the last month?" She asked him as bluntly as possible, knowing that it was probably the best way to handle Milo when he was like this.
"...Yes." Milo begrudgingly answered, already knowing where this was going.
"And what do we do when we are having trouble coping?"
"We go to therapy."
"It's settled then, I'll make the call later. For right now, why don't we try to channel this little outburst into something a little more constructive. Maybe we can make some pistachio shakes?" Brigette smiled, and Milo nodded in agreement. Little did they know, a certain scientist had overheard the end of their conversation.
...That night, around the 1-ish…
Milo trudged down the hallway, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He had a nightmare and was having trouble going back to sleep, so he was going to get something warm to drink and if that didn't help he'd probably just stay up. He hadn't slept much the night before either, so he had fallen asleep in Math class. His teacher was less than happy with him. Just as he reached the kitchen, he heard a clatter coming from inside, making his arm and neck hair stand on end and his heart beat like it was about to leap right out his chest. What if another pistachion had escaped the the time stream, somehow? Had it found him? Did it want revenge? Did it want to eat him? He turned the corner and… it turned out it was just Doofenshmirtz. He breathed a sigh of relief, not realizing he had been holding his breath.
"Oh, hey, Kid! You're having trouble sleeping too, huh?" The scientist greeted, before taking notice of how pale Milo looked. "Are you okay, you look sort of spooked?"
"I'm fine." Milo cleared his throat awkwardly, feeling pretty stupid for getting so paranoid. "So, why are you up?"
"Adjusting to sleeping in a new place is always tough. Y'know, I remember when I moved to America, I didn't sleep right for almost a month. I'm sure I'll be back on track by the end of the week." Doof said, before raising a brow at the boy. "Why are you awake at this hour, don't you have school later or something?"
"Well, I, I just- You see I-... uh…" Milo scrambled to think of something, but he was a horrible liar.
"You had a nightmare, huh?"
"Yeah, a little bit." Milo blushed leaning against the doorframe. "I guess this whole pistachion thing has rattled me a little more than I'd like to admit."
"Yeah, I know, I saw the whole thing with blender and I heard the end of your conversation with your mom, because I was eavesdropping, but that's not important." Doof said, shuffling around. "They sending you to therapy, huh? When my ex-wife found out about some of my tragic backstories, she made me go a therapist. It didn't really take, though. I, uh, might have actually landed my therapist in therapy."
"I actually really like my therapist, he's really nice and he specializes in trauma in children." Milo smiling a little. He really did like his therapist, it was just that going to therapy was so embarrassing.
"Good for you."
"He's actually thinking about writing a book about me, something about compartmentalization?"
"That's cool." Doof looked to the side for a second. "Look kid, I'm not really good at the whole… people thing, and I'm still new to trying to be good, and I'm really not that good at it yet, but… If you need any help with something, you can give me a call, as long as I'm not, you know, busy building something, watching TV, or- well, I'm getting off track. Maybe I can build an inator to help with your nightmares or something? Though, if your parents found out I zapped you with a laser, I'd likely be kicked out, so maybe I can make some pills or something. Might be fun too, making the effects of an inator into pill form. You get what I'm saying, right?"
"Thanks, Dr. D, I might just take you up on that." Milo smiled at the gesture before starting to turn to leave.
"Wait a minute, Kid!" Doof called out, causing Milo turn back around. "You really should talk to your parents too. You've got really nice parents, and they are really worried about you, not a lot of people have parents like that. So you should… do that."
"Yeah, I know." Milo said, walking away.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
So I originally wrote this when I saw the English leak of the Season Two Premiere. I decided to touch it up to post now. As a sort of warm up because I want to try and hop back into writing and after not going it for a minute. Anyway… hope you liked it, duckies, review or something maybe? XD