Real title: Hopping Clockwise Through Dimensions Is A Dangerous Thing, But It's Still Not as Scary as Admitting Your Feelings (Or Talking About Your Backstory)
Author's Notes: Sorry this is so late D:
TW's for past transphobia.
Ch19 Originally Posted to AO3 08/25/2020
Light pricks at Heinz's eyes. He rolls over with a grumble, noting that the ground is hard for some reason. Eh, he probably fell asleep in his lab again. It wouldn't be the first time.
What time is it? Perry the Platypus will probably be by soon to thwart him, so he'd best get up.
Unwilling to open his eyes, he curls up in a ball instead of facing the daunting task of getting up. He's getting old, he probably shouldn't be just collapsing willy-nilly in the lab. That sort of thing makes it rather hard to get up.
Wait a moment, is this dirt? What's going on? Does his latest invention involve large quantities of potting soil or something? Or has Perry the Platypus already come and gone, leaving only ash in the wake of an explosion?
He wrenches open his eyes, blinking against the light.
This is a tent! He's just lying on the ground inside a tent. He's on an interdimensional road trip with Perry.
Sitting up, he looks around the tent. His lab coat is sitting on the ground, neatly folded with a note on top. Next to that is the scrub shirt that Perry was wearing earlier, also folded and resting next to his hat.
Heinz picks up the note. It's written in Perry's apparently very neat handwriting. Went for a run. I'll be back by 0730.
He pops the panel on his left arm. There, next to the motor that controls the rotation of his wrist, is a tiny timepiece accurate to the picosecond that he invented a couple years ago.
And it's too small to read for his bleary early-morning eyes. Eh, it's probably somewhere near seven AM.
Heinz closes the panel on his arm and gazes around the tent. His eyes fall on the perfectly neat handwriting on Perry's note. How does he do that? All of his notes and blueprints and shopping lists are practically illegible.
It's probably out of necessity. Not everybody knows ASL, so he likely has to write out anything he wants to say to strangers. Neat handwriting would be pretty important, now that he thinks about it.
Perry just seems to be a rather neat, organized person. Folding up clothes, even when he doesn't really have to. The inside of his hat was immaculately orderly when Heinz saw it, and it probably still is.
Heinz reaches out and picks up the lab coat. Loaning it to Perry last night was the right call (he was cold, Heinz could tell, no matter how much Perry might have hated to admit it), but it's good to have it back.
Last night was definitely interesting. He never knew anything about Perry's backstory, so for Perry to trust him like that is something incredible. Especially when he said he's had bad reactions to it in the past.
Heinz wonders how bad of reactions he's had, how they would warrant tears of relief for just the bare minimum of acceptance. He must have been hurt before.
Who would even do that? Who would hurt Perry, just because he's not the same person he was when he was born? That makes no sense. Not being accepting of someone just because they're not the same person they were when they were born is stupid.
And he's still attracted to Perry. In fact, the fact that Perry's trans really doesn't change anything.
Actually, it changes a few things. He never would have subjected Perry to the ball gown-inator, or any of the other forcing-feminization -inators he'd created at the beginning of their nemesis-ship if he had known. In fact, he really should have seen how uncomfortable Perry was with those and stopped earlier.
Once Perry gets back from his run, he'll apologize for it. It may have helped Heinz get over his childhood traumas, but if it made Perry relive his own past that he would probably rather forget about, then was it really worth it?
Probably not, but that's a question that's too deep for it being this early. Heinz groans and extracts himself from the tiny tent. Being six-one is great, except for when it isn't.
At this time of the morning, coffee is in store. Even if he's seeing it from the all-nighter side (which happens more often than is probably healthy for him), morning coffee is mankind's best invention yet.
And breakfast is also probably in order too. Heinz builds up a new fire, then sets up a coffee pot and grabs some breakfast-y foods to cook up.
The pot of coffee is almost done when Perry jogs back up to their little camp. He gives a little wave, smiling as he catches a whiff of the smells filling the air.
Heinz gulps. He never realized it before, but Perry's skin is covered in scars. Various small marks bridge gaps between larger wounds. Most of them are jagged and misshapen, except for two underneath his pectoral muscles. Heinz can see the vaguely star-shaped scar that must be the gunshot wound Perry was talking about earlier right under one of those scars.
Briefly, Heinz wonders how many of those scars were caused by him and his exploding -inators, and he silently resolves to make his -inators at least a little less harmful. Perry always springs right back up, leaving with a tip of his fedora, but it would only take one mistake to fell the agent- forever.
"Jeez, that's a lot of scars," he says. "Where'd you even get them all?"
Perry laughs. I guess it is a lot. And they're mostly from different missions. Let's see… He starts to rattle off a long list of places and years, pointing at different scars. A small, jagged line, Libya 2012. Three scratches that look like claw marks, Berlin 2015. A strangely clean U-shaped line, Siberia 2009. As he signs, Heinz catches a glimpse of rows of circular marks, each one no bigger than a pencil eraser, lined up in perfect rows on the inside of his forearms.
"What about these ones," Heinz asks, gesturing towards his chest, "and the circle ones on your arms?"
Perry smiles. The ones on my chest are surgical scars from my top surgery, November 2008. If it's possible to have favorite scars, these would be my favorites. And the ones on my arms... Perry looks away, not meeting Heinz's eyes. England, 1998.
Heinz does the math in his head. That would mean Perry was...fifteen years old? Was he already involved in OWCA when he was that young? Or are they from something else?
"1998? Are you sure that's the right year? You would have been fifteen, right?" he asks.
I'm sure, Perry signs, reaching into the tent for his shirt and fedora. I don't really want to talk about it.
Heinz shrugs. "Okay. If you ever do want to talk about it, I'm not going to use it against you in traps or -inators or anything. I'm not that petty." There was something else he wanted to say, but what was it? Oh, yeah. "Speaking of using things against you with -inators, I'm sorry about all those feminine -inators that I subjected you to. They might have helped me but they hurt you and I shouldn't have done that."
Perry shakes his head. You don't have to apologize, you didn't know. It's all fine now.
"No, I kept going even when you were clearly uncomfortable with it. I shouldn't have done that, but I did, and I'm sorry I did." The coffee is done by now, so Heinz pulls it off the fire and pours two mugs.
Thanks , Perry signs, accepting the coffee Heinz hands him.
"No problem," Heinz says. They sit in a comfortable silence, enjoying the quiet morning and the coffee. A few minutes later, breakfast is done and they eat.
Once they're finished with breakfast, Heinz remembers that the engine was making a funny noise yesterday. "Do you think you can get things ready to go on your own, Perry? The engine was rattling some yesterday and I wanted to make sure everything was okay."
Yeah, I'll be fine. Perry picks up the small stack of dishes. Don't worry about me.
"Okay, thanks." Heinz grabs his toolbox, locks the ignition so it won't turn on while he's working on the engines, and goes back to investigate.
Thankfully, it's nothing major. Apparently, the random lint and sand in his lab coat pockets (he hasn't been to the beach in years , why is there sand in his pockets?) got into the engines when he shrunk down the dimensional car. When he made it normal-sized again, the lint and sand got scaled up too.
At least this fix isn't annoying. It's just a matter of finding all the fist-sized pieces of debris and clearing out all the lint.
At one point, when he's done with the first engine and working on the other one, Perry comes back to their campsite. He gets to work packing everything up so they can leave once the engines are fixed.
It doesn't take long for the engines to be clear of everything rattling around, and Perry is waiting for them to leave.
"Ready to go home?" Heinz asks.
It's been an exciting few days, but I think I'm ready for this to be over.
"Yeah, I feel the same way. We should get going." He and Perry climb into the car, him sliding into the driver's seat and Perry sitting shotgun. Just like before.
Heinz starts up the car, or at least he attempts to. When nothing happens, his stomach falls. Did he break something on accident earlier? Or did he remove a vital part? He can't remember doing anything like that...
Is everything okay? Perry asks.
"Well, I fixed the rattling in the engine earlier, but it's not starting...wait a minute. I forgot to unlock the ignition. Whoops." Heinz laughs nervously. He fiddles with the switch underneath the control panel, being extra careful to avoid even going near the self-destruct button.
It's one of his inventions, of course it has a self-destruct mechanism.
The car blasts off into the sky, the DPS telling them how many dimensions are left before leaving the duo in silence.
Three minutes later, Heinz is sick of the quiet. "Got any good music, Perry?"
You want classical, metal, or Gitchee Gitchee Goo?
Heinz stares. "I don't know, you pick? You have strange tastes, Perry."
Well, I put the classical on when I'm doing reports, metal when I can't sleep, and Gitchee Gitchee Goo is my nephew's song so of course I have it.
Completely ignoring the fact that Perry listens to metal to fall asleep, he asks "Wait, your nephews made Danville's greatest one-hit-wonder?"
Well, Candace helped too.
"That's your niece, right?" Perry nods. "How did they…"
They are Lindana's kids, Perry signs with a laugh. And that's definitely not the craziest thing they've done.
"I know, you and the other Perrys were talking about them. I think I've seen some of their inventions around Danville, too." Something occurs to him. "Wait, did you say they're Lindana's kids? As in the Lindana? The Lindana I dated years ago?"
Perry nods. Well, technically Ferb isn't, but yeah. Small world, huh?
This is strange. And more than a little confusing. "Wait, so how are you related to these guys? Are you Linda's brother or something?"
I'm Lawrence's-their dad's- brother.
"Ohhh. I get it now. It really is a small world."
It really is. Remind me to tell you at some point how I found my sister, that's a "small world" story for the ages. Anyway, what sort of music do you have?
Heinz groans. "Anything and everything, except I accidentally reset my phone two weeks ago and still haven't gotten my collection back."
You don't have things backed up to a cloud?
He shakes his head. "Nah, don't trust it. Besides, most of my stuff is downloaded from Youtube, I can get it back. It just takes a little while."
Perry stares. Is that legal?
"I dunno?" Perry narrows his eyes. Ugh, secret agents and their refusal to even bend the rules. "Fine, you tell me where I'm supposed to find pipe organ ABBA covers."
That's a thing?
Heinz nods. "It is, and it's glorious. I can show you when we get home, if you want."
I...okay, yeah, I got nothing. Technically, I have to report any sort of evil activity, but that's just weird, and I don't think it hurts anyone, so I don't think I will.
"Well, that's good. I don't want to be taken to OWCA-traz just because of my taste in music."
Perry nods. I doubt they'd take you all the way up to OWCA-traz, but I'm not going to push it. I like you. Perry looks down at his hands. As a nemesis. I like you as a nemesis.
Heinz smiles. "Well, that's good. It would be pretty weird if we were nemeses that didn't actually like each other."
Yeah. That'd be weird.
"Are you okay, Perry? You're acting kinda funny."
Perry shrugs. I'm fine.
"You also said you were fine when you had a nail in your side. If something's bothering you, you can always tell me. Always."
He sighs. Promise you won't hate me if I tell you?
Heinz nods. "You can tell me anything you want. I promise, unless you're a serial killer, it'll be fine."
Perry makes a face. Why do people keep saying I'm a serial killer?
"I don't know, maybe it's the quiet."
It's not like I can control that, Perry signs with a roll of his eyes.
"So you can't talk?"
Perry shakes his head. Nope. My vocal chords are pretty much warped beyond the power of speech.
Huh. Heinz always thought that Perry just...didn't want to speak, or something. But that makes sense.
"So what's eating you?" he asks. "Since you've obviously got something going on."
I guess I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop, really.
"What other shoe?"
The one where you tell me that you don't want me around anymore because I'm trans. It's happened before and I really don't want it to happen again.
"Perry, listen to me. I would never do that. I would never hurt you like that. I know it might be hard for you to believe me, but please trust me when I say I wouldn't do that."
I trust you. At least, I want to trust you.
"I promise you, I'd never do anything to hurt you on purpose. I might be an evil scientist, but I'm not an asshole. I have morals . There's a difference between evil and bigot.
Perry smiles, a thin wisp of a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. Heinz knows from experience that he's trying his best to internalize the words, fighting against everything that's holding him back. Thanks, that means a lot to me. He looks up, a little more serious. Do you know of anybody that I should avoid telling in the evil scientist circle?
"Hmm. Definitely avoid telling Rodney, Bloodpudding, or Bainbridge. They're jerks. But everybody else is okay. Like, the girls should be fine, they have to put up with enough of those three idiots being sexist anyway. I know Dr. Birch tries to destroy the gender binary with some sort of device every few weeks, and I'm like, seventy percent sure Dr. Diminutive is trans."
He hums. "Although my gay-radar was kind of off with you, so maybe not. I mean, I thought you were cis. But I also didn't think you had a family , so there's that."
You mean gaydar? Heinz nods. So that's what the kids call it. Eh, he was close. Are you just saying that or are you…
"Oh, I'm bisexual. You can call me Bill Nye the Science Bi." He laughs. "Isn't that funny? I heard Vanessa say that's what she was to her little friends, and it just works. I don't actually know who Bill Nye is, but I do science, so it kind of fits."
Sorta. Bill Nye makes science videos that a lot of schools show. Perry pauses. I hear about it from the kids.
"Eh, still works." He pauses. "So how old are they? Your niece and nephews, I mean."
Candace is sixteen, Phineas and Ferb are twelve. Perry sighs. They grow up so fast, don't they?
"Tell me about it. I swear, one day Vanessa needs my help to get things out of the cupboard, the next she's seventeen and studying for the SAT. Which, jeez, glad I never had to go through that whole standardized-testing thing." The one good thing about growing up in Drusselstein- sometimes the backwards ways actually work better.
Not often, but sometimes.
"Did you ever have to go through that, Perry? Probably not, since No Child Left Behind passed when you were in college, huh?"
Didn't go to high school, Perry signs, so it didn't affect me either way.
"You didn't?" Heinz asks.
I got my GED after I moved to the States, went to college, then straight into agent training literally hours after graduation.
"Seriously? That soon?"
Perry shrugs. Move-ins were that night.
"So you never thought about doing anything else, only about being an OWCA agent?" Jeez, even he was a poet for a while (and a painter, and a magician, and a bratwurst vendor).
I didn't really have a lot of options. Besides, he signs, it's a hell of a lot more that I ever thought I'd do.
"What did you think you'd do? Like, what's your dream job?"
I actually like being an agent, so I think I'll stick with that. The hours suck, and there's a hell of a lot of paperwork, but it's kinda fun. And as for what I thought I'd do, that kind of depends on where I was at the time.
"So, if I asked you what you wanted to do when you were ten, and when you were fifteen, how different would your answers be?"
Perry laughs darkly. Pretty different. When I was ten I wanted to be a pilot, when I was fifteen I just wanted to be off the streets.
"Oh, a pilot, that's cool...wait a minute. You were homeless?"
Like I said, not everybody took me being trans well. And it wasn't for very long.
Jeez. Perry didn't say it directly, but Heinz can read between the lines.
He knew he and Perry were similar in a lot of ways (stubborn, unwilling to let others know what's going on), but he didn't know they were that similar. Kicked out to fend for themselves at an age where that probably shouldn't happen.
Lawrence found me after a few months, Perry continues, which is a whole story in itself, since I had no idea I even had a brother. We moved to the States two years later, not long after Ferb was born.
"You didn't know you had a brother?"
I was born of an affair, so he's really my half brother. Him and his family were hidden from mine, and he found me completely by accident. But after everything that's happened, I think of him as a full brother. Same with my sister.
"I mean, I'm pretty sure I was an affair child too , that would explain why my father hated me so much. But at least I know I only have one sibling."
I have another brother on Lawrence's side of the family, but I don't know him all that well, and he's kind of a jerk, keeps trying to guess my old name, so I don't talk to him much. Perry sighs. Why do people have to be jerks about everything?
Heinz shrugs. "I guess that's the way it is. I wish people were nicer, too. Although I guess you've had to deal with far worse than I have."
Perry laughs. Yeah, tell me about it. Even just my romantic life is a complete and utter mess. And I thought my parents gave me trust issues.
Heinz makes a sympathetic noise. "I didn't even think about that. You being trans must make dating difficult, huh?"
Difficult is an understatement. I'm either "not a real man" or a fetish. He sighs. Honestly, I kind of gave up on dating a long time ago.
"So you're single?" Heinz winces. "Sorry, that sounded weird."
Yeah, although there's somebody that I like, and he's taken everything remarkably well, so I want to see if that goes anywhere.
Years ago, right after his sort-of-mutual divorce from Charlene (she had figured out she was a lesbian, so it was inevitable), Heinz suffered from rejection after rejection. And yet, none of those hurt quite as much as this hurts right now.
Because Perry, the very same Perry that the teacher practically assured him felt the same way, likes somebody else.
I mean, I'd really like it to, but I'm not sure he likes me back, Perry signs.
Well, if he can't be in a relationship with Perry, they can at least stay friends. They can be bros. Compadres. And that involves giving him some advice and a little push. "Hey, if you like him, ask him out. What's the worst that could happen?"
Perry looks pointedly at Heinz. We're good friends, and I don't want to ruin that. Besides, he's kind of dense.
"Well, even if this guy is super oblivious, you can just come right out and ask him to date you, right? Surely he's not that dense. And really, I don't know how anybody could resist you, you're super smart and handsome and…well, if you...asked...me...out..." He barely mumbles the last sentence as he trails off, unwilling to finish his thought out loud.
Shoot. He's flirting with Perry. Yeah, he didn't mean to, but he is , and Perry doesn't like him, he likes someone else ...
I mean, Perry signs, he might actually be that dense.
"Well, that's why you tell him as soon as possible. If you keep only dropping hints, you'll just be in limbo forever. And that's got to suck."
Actually, now that he thinks about it, he's been unintentionally dropping hints to Perry for a long time. His mind jumps to two nights ago, when he was dancing with Perry. He didn't consciously know he wanted it at the time, but that would have been the perfect time to kiss him. Seriously, what a waste.
Except Perry likes someone else. So maybe it's a good thing that he didn't realize he liked Perry at that point. Then this would be ten times messier.
Perry sighs pointedly, breaking Heinz out of his reverie. Trust me, I know.
"You would know, wouldn't you. So yeah, just tell this guy as soon as possible. If he likes you, you get a boyfriend, and if he doesn't, you don't have to worry about him anymore. And you can probably stay friends, too. Win-win."
But what if he doesn't even realize that I'm asking him out?
"If you make it obvious enough, he'll know. Trust me, nobody can be that oblivious."
Okay. I'll tell him. Perry takes a deep breath. Heinz, I like you. I really like you, romantically. In fact, I've felt this way for years. Will you date me?
"See? Just say that. That's like, the most straightforward way you could tell him." Heinz laughs. "There's no way he could misinterpret that."
Perry merely stares at Heinz, a look of pained disbelief on his face. "Is everything alright?" he asks.
Yeah, I'm fine. He sighs. I'll just tell him once we get home.
"Well, of course you have to wait until you get home, you two are in completely different dimensions right now." Heinz laughs. "Who else would you be talking about?"
I- oh, never mind.
Perry could be talking about him, but why would he? There's no way Perry's attracted to him.
Although Heinz should really admit his feelings before Perry asks this other guy out. That's the best way to move on. But it might make things awkward…
Best not to tell him. If he does, Perry will just feel guilty, and that won't be good. But then who knows if Heinz will be able to move on?
Argh, this is a mess.
He might as well just bite the bullet and tell him. Yeah, as soon as they get home, before they even leave the dimensional car, he'll tell Perry.
Of course, that assumes that they'll make it home. The dimensional car lurches, and Heinz's grip on the wheel tightens.
The car lurches again, this time even more violently. Heinz looks over to see Perry holding on to the sides of his seat, eyes wide.
This is all so sudden- what could possibly be going on? The engines looked fine when he was cleaning them out earlier…It must be something else. Something smaller, that he didn't think about cleaning out, something that would certainly help keep them safe from dimensional turbulence, something that if it were clogged up, would put them in this exact situation...
It's the directional thrusters. It's got to be. He forgot to clean those out (he's such a dummkopf sometimes), so they must be clogged up with lint.
And without the ability to use said thrusters, any interdimensional turbulence will affect them much more than it otherwise would.
Once he thinks about it, it gets even worse. Without these thrusters, a single hit to their car could end in a crash- and they're still a little under three thousand dimensions from home.
Heinz glances over towards Perry. Thankfully, he seems to have learned from their crash yesterday (god, was it really yesterday?), and he's securely buckled in.
Hopefully nothing will hit them, and they'll get home okay.
Of course, it's been a whole twelve hours since anything has gone horribly wrong. Murphy's law practically requires that something unfortunate happens, to keep them from getting home.
So it should come as no surprise when something collides with the nose of the car, sending them crashing through dimensions...