A reviewer has told me that this is hard to understand if you don't know what's going on. So: Basically, Heinz accidentally killed Vanessa, Perry, a human police officer for my purposes, arrived on the scene and Heinz, kind of insane with grief, pinned the blame on Perry and kidnapped Phineas and Ferb. He then tortured them for two years, after which Phineas and Ferb were let go into the regular world again. Before all this happened, they were two normal kids, after getting kidnapped and experimented upon, it made them a lot like their show counterparts except more traumatized. Candace is considered crazy due to reporting their schemes, so they reveal themselves to their parents to keep her from being committed. While they're doing all this, Perry tracks down Heinz and he's scheduled to be executed but Phineas and Ferb speak up for him, and then everyone lives happily ever after, or close enough.

Phineas and Ferb Flynn-Fletcher are two perfectly normal eight year olds enjoying a perfectly normal fall day.

After all, everything starts somewhere...

~-!-~

… But we came in during the middle.

The middle of the beginning, that is.

Let's rewind.

Here we are: Another ordinary fall day. A week before, as it turns out. It's a Saturday. The air is crisp, clean. A girl sighs dramatically and snaps her cellphone shut. She goes to see what her father is doing, as she hears a loud clanking sound from his lab.

She complains as her father asks her to give him that part, please. Steps closer as he steps away, to let her see it better, and then throws an arm over her shoulder as he happily claims he has no idea what it does.

He is Heinz Doofenshmirtz, a very intelligent engineer and an evil scientist, on his days off. Or so he says. He's never done anything particularly evil. Remember his name; he'll be important.

She is Vanessa Doofenshmirtz, a gothic teenager who, despite everything, loves her father. Though she'd never admit it. She's a teenager, you know. Don't bother learning her name; she won't be around for long.

The invention blows up. The duo does not end up comically charred. There's nothing comical about this in the least.

Oops! Perhaps Heinz is evil, after all.

~-!-~

And so now here we are again. The middle of the beginning. Two ordinary boys.

But we missed something.

They have a cousin. Or, to be strictly correct, a cousin once removed. He's a police officer and his name is Perry.

He arrives on the scene, and somehow he ends up fighting a deranged maniac, and very easily winning.

"Who are you?" The man screams, tears streaming down his face as Perry pins him to the ground. "You took my Vanessa! You took her!"

Perry is mute. He couldn't tell this lunatic his name, even if he had any desire to do so. He has not seen the girl, but no one deserves death. Especially a girl as young as her. He thinks of Candace and shivers; his job is rarely this eventful.

They take the man in and – he escapes.

Heinz Doofenshmirtz has not had an easy life. His parents hated him. His brother hated him. His wife hated him. His daughter, Vanessa, was... was...

He'd always tried to be good. A good son, brother, husband, father.

But the world hated Heinz Doofenshmirtz.

Well, that was alright. He hated the world right back.

~-!-~

He has decided.

He has had a week, and he has decided.

It is that man's fault. The blue-haired one, the one who wouldn't speak.

Children are precious, the world loves children. He had loved his Vanessa, and she was a child, was was was a horrible word, unforgiving, past tense. Unfair, unfair, life had always been unfair and so – and so.

And so this.

Children.

Two ordinary boys, and maybe, just maybe, if he figures out where it all went wrong maybe he can fix it maybe he can get her back.

So – inventions. No more engineering. Evil. He is so evil, and they, they are just children, just ordinary children, how dare he his Vanessa –

His Vanessa was gone, was all. Maybe if he just, maybe he can, there are so many maybes –

Heinz runs. Of course. Children, children, the world loves children, won't let them get taken away by the evilevil man but it let his Vanessa get away, oh yes. She's gone now. Poof! Bye bye, no more Vanessa. Nice or otherwise.

The boys are nice. Invariably. Ordinary nice little children.

But they aren't bringing back his Vanessa. Oh no. These boys, they, they aren't helping. They can't, he can't, he is, they are just children, after all, and he may hate the world but he doesn't hate children, after all.

He is not so evil as that.

He lets them go.

~-!-~

And they are not so ordinary, any more.

Phineas and Ferb Flynn-Fletcher are extraordinary, now. Two little boys build a roller coaster, a race car, a beach. All gone by the time Mom and Dad get home. They've been around a maniac for too long now. Phineas, Phineas chatters on about nothing and Ferb does not chatter at all, and always, even as they build and build and build, they remain close, touching if possible, not separated by anything.

They were step brothers before.

Now... now they are closer than twins. Phineas chatters on and Ferb doesn't need to talk, does he, because Phineas knows anyway. No need to talk, no telepathy required, just a few failed inventions and a bit of trauma and there we go, so much better and so much worse than new. They are damaged, shattered, but they reflect each other, better, more, a spaceship a supercomputer a shrinking machine no limits, chase around the endless reflections maybe someday you'll find yourself again.

Three friends and a sister and an entire city that can hardly believe its eyes. Oh, and Perry. Where were you, again? You missed it. We missed you.

But no need to say that. Phineas chatters on and on and on and somehow he doesn't say much of anything, but Perry says less because Perry says nothing, you see. He's mute. And it's better, really. The boys were ordinary once, everyday usual bland, before an evilevil scientist with a grudge against the world interfered.

Perry won't let him go. He hurt Perry's boys, hurt his boys so they have to hold hands hold hearts maybe if they hold tight enough they won't fall apart, hold each other together through almost two years because no one else is going to do it.

And Candace.

Candace is their sister, and she's hurt, too. She'd almost moved on, almost lived again. And now? Now machines, impossible machines, vanish before her eyes, before she can do anything, before she can bring a halt to things that might hurt her brothers, her baby brothers, her missing brothers, hide and seek and it was a good long hide but now she's sought and she's found and her little brothers aren't going to hide away again.

Except they are, because her brothers are extraordinary. And she can only mouth objections as impossibilities take form and crumble away before anyone sees, because her little brothers are damaged and maybe she isn't helping, this time. Maybe they don't like being extraordinary. Maybe, just maybe, they trust her, trust her with the truth, the extra, where they don't trust Mom and Dad, where they think that Mom and Dad need normality. The way they needed normality, once, before it was ripped away from them.

But Candace? Candace is normal, ordinary, still, and she sees the way her brothers shattered. She doesn't want them to get any more broken. So she tries –

And tries –

And tries –

To tell someone. About a roller coaster, a race car, a beach. But no. They are broken, and they are a little young for that type of thing, don't you think? Candace, you're overreacting. Are you okay?

No.

Is the conclusion, because there's no roller coaster, no race car, no beach when they get home, because Phineas and Ferb are extraordinary, now, but Mom and Dad don't know that, and ordinary little boys don't build a spaceship a supercomputer a shrinking machine.

So –

Candace isn't alright.

But now? Phineas and Ferb are nice. Beyond anything else, they are nice. Their sister is alright, and if all it takes is a little trust, they can do that. They can do anything.

Mom and Dad know that, now. They know about the extra.

Phineas and Ferb aren't ordinary, any more.

They're shattered but they reflect so much, so very much, but not Perry. Perry isn't anywhere. Where did you go, Perry? Why can't you stay with us?

He's busy.

Out busting, out fighting, out finding because you can't run forever, and the world has always hated Heinz Doofenshmirtz, hasn't it. Perry certainly does, now.

And it's jail time for Doofenshmirtz, and trial, and almost, almost death. Bye bye, world! And good riddance, really.

But Phineas and Ferb are nice.

Doofenshmirtz is broken too, you know, and they do. They convince. They bring to tears. Heinz Doofenshmirtz has always been hated, but somehow, through some quirk of probability, they do not. They pardon him, let him go, because Phineas and Ferb aren't ordinary anymore.

Perry is there. Candace is there. Mom and Dad are there.

Maybe they're broken, maybe they're extraordinary, but Phineas and Ferb have their family back.

And that's enough, in the end.