Author's Note:
Here it is! A new chapter of OaFP! And it only took me nine months to crank it out!
I blame my (extremely complex and downright addictive) roleplay chat. It absorbed all of my creativity during its second year of life.
Now that my evenings are free again, I'm back in the game. Carry on!
Doofenshmirtz woke up with a start when he felt movement. He looked at the clock and realized he'd been out of it for well over an hour. He looked around and saw Perry the Platy- the Person, he reminded himself, sitting at Terry's feet.
Perry made his usual chittering noise, which Doofenshmirtz found strangely comforting.
"Has she woken up?"
Perry shook his head. "Not that I know of. Doof, I just go off the line with Carl. OWCA is taking the cat's body in to make sure, but he confirmed the hat wasn't one of ours..." he bit his lip and looked aside.
Doofenshmirtz straightened up carefully, not wanting to disturb the wounded woman next to him. "What are you not telling me?"
"What makes you say that?" The teal-haired youth wouldn't meet his eyes.
"You know, Perry the Person, as an Agent you're one of the best, but you're a really bad liar. Even I can tell when you don't want to tell me something."
Perry huffed in obvious annoyance, making the white lock of hair billow. "Why should I have to tell you everything? Just because you tell me everything? Including stuff I'd be much happier not knowing?"
"I'd be doing the same thing, you know..." Terry's voice made them both turn. "I need water... my mouth tastes like the bottom of the Danville M.O.A.T. at low tide."
Heinz helped her take a drink from the carafe and glass he'd set nearby. He was ecstatic that she was awake, but her pallor reminded him of how much blood she had lost. "How are you feeling, Geliebte?"
"Like I got run over... oh, wait, I did get run over, by a Jaguar. Did someone get the license number?"
"Very funny. Now go back to sleep."
"No. I can't stay in bed." She attempted to get up and failed. "Crap. I'm as weak as a hatchling."
"Are you out of your mind? You almost got killed by a – a jaguar, you say? You came close to dying less than four hours ago! You shouldn't even be conscious! There is no way I am letting you out of bed."
Perry growled in agreement. "You can't be fighting all the time. There's two of us now, remember?"
Terry sighed in defeat. "Will you at least help me sit up?"
A few minutes later Terry was looking at a gravy boat half full of a vile-looking fluid that Doof had brought in. "What the hell is that?"
"It's basically a protein shake with added antibiotics. Finish this one now or you'll get nothing else but this for a week."
She gave him one of her usual lidded stares. "You served it up in a gravy boat."
Heinz snorted. "Oh, come on! I've seen you drink right out of the juice pitcher when you thought nobody was around." Perry snickered in amusement while Terry had the good grace to look sheepish. "With how hurt your hands are, it's easier for you to drink out of this than a glass, anyway."
She took a long pull, then pushed it away grimacing. "Oh, that's disgusting."
Doof grinned. "Of course it tastes awful! That's how you know it's good for you!"
Terry made another face. "You are an evil man, have I ever told you that?" She drank as fast as she could, managing not to gag more than once.
He grinned. "Why yes, yes I am."
"Uughhh... gross. Curse you, Heinz Doofenshmirtz." She looked at Perry. "What's the news from HQ?"
Perry mumbled an unintelligible reply. Doof translated. "Apparently that hat's not from OWCA, so Carl is looking into things."
Another mumble made Doof pause. "What did you say?"
Perry spoke up, clearly disturbed. "It seems something's going on with Monogram. Carl didn't specify but he didn't sound too worried. I'll find out more in a while. You rest up."
Doofenshmirtz tucked Terry in to let her rest then followed after Perry. He caught up to the teal-haired young man before he could leave and grabbed him by the arm. "Oh no you don't!"
Perry looked down at Doof's hand on his arm. "You have two seconds to let go before I hurt you, Doofenshmirtz."
"That's just business as usual isn't it?" He let go, anyway. "I told you, you're a bad liar. You can fool Terry, since it's the same as fooling yourself. Me... maybe before." He made puppy-dog eyes at his frienemy. "Pretty please, Perry the Person? With whipped cream and doonkleberry sauce?"
Perry rolled his eyes and Doof silently added a mental tally mark in his favor to their running score.
"Fine. Just... don't tell her yet."
Doof grinned and crossed his fingers behind his back. "Of course not!"
Perry's next words shocked Doofenshmirtz out of his complacency.
"Monogram... well, he's... somehow... managed to... well... he's escaped."
Perry slipped into the Flynn-Fletcher house in the late afternoon, feeling drained. He hadn't wanted Doof to know about Monogram's escape, but with Terry out of commission for at least a few days there hadn't been any better options. Doofenshmirtz had grilled him for half an hour.
That had been the good part.
Terry had come down then, had heard what was going on, and her interrogation had been every bit as meticulous as Perry's own would have been. He felt like a freshly-wrung washcloth.
At least they're protected now, Perry mused. Carl had sent Agents S, C and R over to keep an eye on the Doofenshmirtz house while Terry recovered. That left Perry with some free time to fill.
He went looking for Candace, for no reason he could think of except that he needed to see her.
Stopping at her bedroom door he raised his hand to knock – and paused as he heard her laugh.
Perry pressed his ear to the crack between the doorframe and the wall, blushing in shame as he eavesdropped on Candace. She was obviously on the phone with someone. Likely Stacy, as usual, he smiled to himself.
"Well, of course you should wear red, it'll be Valentine's Day!" she giggled. "Red is soooo romantic!" After few seconds' pause to listen, her tone changed. "Uh, yeah... he hasn't told me what we'll be doing for Valentine's Day. I don't know what's going on. Do you think he's planning something, like, extra special?" Another pause. "But... what if he wants to… um… well… you know... go all the way?"
Perry's blood ran ice-cold, then boiling-hot at the thought of Jeremy pawing at Candace. I'll cut the little punk's balls off with an offset spatula if he even thinks of getting fresh with Candy, he promised mentally.
Her voice snapped him out of his murderous fantasies. "Well it's not gonna happen, anyway, he's not... not like that. He's a gentleman." Another short silence. "You're sure he feels that way?"
Perry's heart sank at her next words. "Well… I guess it wouldn't hurt to put out once…"
He stepped away, not wanting to hear any more. What's the point? he asked himself bitterly. She doesn't think of me the way I think of her, anyway… Curse you, Dr. Doofenshmirtz; curse you a thousand times for making me human! I can't wait to be a platypus again!
He managed to not stumble down the stairs as he went to take refuge in his underground base.
Taking his frustrations out on practice drones didn't make him feel better any more. All it did was leave him tired.
Tired was fine with him - for now.
"You're sure it will work?" Terry studied the rebuilt People-Matic skeptically. It looked fine. The problem was that looking fine and working fine were two completely different things when Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz was involved.
Doofenshmirtz rolled his eyes at her. "Of course it will! It has to work, or Perry the Platypus will remain Perry the Person. He doesn't want that, and if I'm to keep my nemesis, I have to make sure he's back to his normal self." He checked the multimeter in his hand and grumbled something in German before continuing. "I wouldn't change anything, Geliebte, but he's not happy with what he is now. That makes him unreliable - and by that I mean completely reliable!"
The People-Matic lit up suddenly and hummed, the banks of LEDs flashing in sync with the base frequency of the vibrations. Terry stepped back cautiously. "Heinz… is it supposed to make that noise?"
"Huh? Well, I guess so," was the distracted reply. "Now, this wire connects here… adjust the focus of the beam there… now I just need to tighten the crystal's setting and-"
The People-matic flashed a bright beam right in Doof's face, then rattled, sputtered and spewed smoke before exploding, leaving parts scattered all over the floor.
Terry peered out from behind the sofa - she had dived behind it out of equal parts instinct and conditioned reflex - and looked at her husband.
Heinz was nowhere to be seen.
Terry leaped out from behind the sofa, swearing in a mix of English, platypus and German. She knew intellectually he was tougher than he looked, but she wasn't taking any chances. She had to find him and make sure he was all right.
A whimper from under the mangled hulk told her where he was. "Heinz!"
She pushed, pulled and levered the twisted metal until she could see his cocoa-colored hair under his torn lab coat. Gripping the collar she dragged him away quickly, not trusting the machine to remain stable.
"Unhhh… Geliebte?" Doofenshmirtz's voice sounded strange.
She got him behind the sofa, making sure they were safely behind it before taking a good look at what the People-Matic had done to her husband.
"Oh... oh, crap."
