Heinz looked down at his diploma. Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz. What use was it? He was a failure. His Marriage with Charlene had fallen apart, he had lost custody of his daughter, and to add insult to injury, he was surviving solely off the generous alimony his wife was providing him. He hadn't even left his house in over a week. He was a failure.

Maybe it was for the best that Charlene had gotten Vanessa, what kind of father would he be anyway? His own Father hadn't exactly taught him how to be anything other than a lawn gnome, and the less he remembered about his mother the better. Of course, the ocelots that had adopted him after his parents tricked him onto a boat to America had cared for him as their own, but Vanessa wasn't an ocelot, she was a young girl, and he had no idea how to take care of her.

He couldn't even follow in his father figure's footsteps, since OWCA didn't accept human agents. Of course, OWCA didn't seem to pay their agents anyway, nor, from what he had heard, their staff.

Heinz held in a sob. He was useless, he didn't even have a single friend. Hell, he'd only found out his brother was in Danville from the campaign posters. Nobody liked him. Even his daughter thought he was evil. Him? Evil? that's a laugh. He'd even failed Evil 101 with Dr. Gevaarlijk. Sure, he'd managed to get his Evil Doctorate, but only after a lengthy mentorship with Professor Destruction, he'd never really had any aptitude for malice.

Professor Destruction had always told him that a burning hatred for the world was the backbone of any evil scientist, but Heinz didn't really get it. So the world was terrible, what did it matter? There wasn't any magic machine he could use to change things. Even if he made one, it probably wouldn't work out the way he wanted it anyway. And It certainly wouldn't get him what he wanted, a friend. Someone to confide in, someone who would listen. He'd tried a psychologist once, but the one he'd seen had told him that he couldn't help Heinz if he persisted in making up ridiculous lies like being forced to act as a garden gnome in his youth, or being raised by ocelots, or how his mother's love was always inexplicably linked to kickball. Heinz had given up after that.

He'd tried to make friends, and he thought he'd succeeded with Charlene, She liked him, and thought he was funny. He hadn't been looking for romance, not after that thing with Lynn, and the way he'd lost Elizabeth to that jerk of a whale, but they'd ended up dating anyway, and more he supposed. She listened to him, she thought he was funny. But their whirlwind romance turned shotgun wedding had ended when Charlene realized that the funny stories he came up with weren't inventions of his imagination after all. They'd tried to make it work, but in the end, she couldn't handle the burdens of their daughter and her husband's issues. Or maybe he just needed more than she could give? They'd parted amicably enough, Heinz didn't hold a grudge, he couldn't really blame her, she had tried after all, which was more than anyone else in his life had.

Still, it hurt.

If only he had someone who would listen to his problems and help him work through them. Someone to do things with. Someone to bond with. But it wasn't like he could just get someone assigned to be friends with him...

Or could he?

Heinz dug out his adopted father's old OWCA manual and paged through it to the nemesis conduct section. There it was, in black and white. OWCA agents were required to listen to the monologues of any evil scientists they were assigned to thwart just in case the scientist let slip any pertinent details about their plans or devices.

Heinz remembered the hours his Adopted Ocelot Father would keep, always having to rush out whenever his nemesis had a new plan. he remembered the sadness on his brother and sister ocelots faces as their father missed important dates, like Heinz's own high school graduation. Would it be fair to do that to another family? No. But that didn't mean the idea was a bad one, Heinz decided. He could make one inator a day. He certainly had an aptitude of the mechanical side of evil, even if he kept coming in 2nd place to kids with baking soda volcanoes every time he entered a science fair. And if he kept it to one a day, at a specific time of day, his nemesis could easily plan around that, whoever they were.

Of course, OWCA only handled serious threats, they wouldn't send an agent just because he built a death ray. He had to use it. And not just use it, but use it to accomplish a goal, an evil goal at that. Heinz didn't think "make a friend" was going to cut it. His mind flashed back to that last date with Lynn, what had she told him? "Maybe start small and try conquering the tri-state area first?" It was something like that anyway. It wasn't a bad idea. Not succeeding at doing it, no, he had no interest in that, leave things like governing to his brother Roger. He didn't actually want to rule over anyone, it seemed like a lot of work, and nobody liked politicians anyway. But trying... trying and not succeeding? That he could do.

Heinz nodded, he would do it. He had plenty of issues to work through, and he'd heard that doing so through art, or a hobby was a constructive way to deal with them, why not build an inator to theme? Of course, Not all of his traumas would have an inator suitable for trying to take over the tri-state area, but he was sure he could think of something when the time came.

Still, it wouldn't do to disappoint his ocelot father. Not after all the love he'd been given that his real parents wouldn't spare for him. He owed him an explanation at the very least. He'd hate for the first time his Ocelot family heard about his new career to be through the OWCA grapevine. No. He had to talk to them before he started on this course.

Heinz got out of his chair, his eyes shining with renewed purpose. He had a phone call to make. And then? Well, he had some parts he had to order.

If all went well, he'd finally have a friend.