Mom's Birthday

When Mavis made her way down to the lair, she found Apollo already there, hunched up in his chair.

"Hey, you okay?" Mavis asked.

"Huh?" Apollo glanced up. "Oh, yeah. Sorry. Just trying to decide what to get Athena for her birthday next week. What DO you get for a 12-year-old who never talks to you for longer than a minute a day?"

"Why doesn't she talk to you?"

"Mostly because I don't usually see her very often because of my job. But also because she's annoyed that I get to be part of a secret organisation and she doesn't."

"Oh." Mavis slipped into her seat beside Apollo. "Well, I guess we can brainstorm."

"Morning, guys," said Perry from behind them. "Let's get this done quickly; it's Linda's birthday today and I want to be home in time to celebrate with them."

"Ooh, nice. How old is she?"

Perry shot her a look. "I have no idea. And even if I did know, would I tell you?"

Mavis shrugged. "My mom's fifty. Apollo's mom is literally ten years younger."

Apollo stared at his girlfriend. "How do you know how old my mom is?"

"Telepathy."

At that moment, however, Major Monogram's face appeared on the screen. "Ah, good morning, agents," he said. "Seventeen minutes ago, our spy satellites located Doofenshmirtz. He's hiding out in his mountaintop castle laboratory, where he's purchased some suspicious items over the internet, including a giant metal sphere and two animatronic wax robots. You know, like they have at theme parks." He shuddered. "Those things give me the creeps; the way they're all robotic and waxy? Bleh. Anyway, go get 'im, agents."

Mavis was the first to reach the hovercar. She leapt into the driver's seat and grinned at the irate platypus. "Hop in."

"Move aside," Perry sighed. "Quickly, please."

"But I wanna drive."

"And I want to go a single day without arguing with you over who gets to drive but it doesn't look like that's gonna happen either."

Mavis rolled her eyes and reluctantly moved into the passenger seat. As the platypus launched the hovercar, she crossed her arms. "What happened to you, bud?" she said teasingly. "What happened to make you such a stick-in-the-mud?"

Perry ignored her.

"The silent treatment?" Mavis huffed. "Real mature."

The platypus continued to ignore her.

Apollo tapped her on the shoulder from behind. "Don't worry about it, Mavie."

Mavis sighed. "Uh huh. Sure."

The three agents soon found themselves getting closer to Doofenshmirtz's special castle laboratory. The evil scientist himself was visible through the window, inspecting a line of odd items on pedestals. As they got closer, they could hear him saying, "Ah, The Unicorn Whisperer, the feel-good movie of the year. And soon it will be gone!"

The three agents leapt through the window one by one, causing Doofenshmirtz to gasp and rear back. "Oh, no! It's the Monoteam!" His fearful expression changed to a grin. "Ha! I fooled you guys! I'm not really scared!"

"I didn't really think you were," said Apollo, frowning. "Why would you b-."

"I'm not scared because I have a new security system!" Doofenshmirtz cackled. "Voila!"

A hidden door slid open behind them, and three robots came towards them. All three were modelled after historical American figures: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson.

The George Washington robot grabbed Apollo, while the Alexander Hamilton one took hold of Mavis and the Thomas Jefferson animatronic picked up Perry and held him in an iron grip.

Doofenshmirtz grinned maniacally. "Do you like them?"

"Uh, no," Mavis replied.

But Apollo said, "actually, yeah," at the same time.

Mavis and Perry both shot him a look.

Apollo grinned awkwardly. "I'm a fan of Hamilton."

"Oh hey, me too!" Doofenshmirtz's grin turned into a pleased smile. "I actually got these things very cheap from a wax museum that went bankrupt." He giggled mischievously. "I love it when dreams fail."

"Who doesn't?" muttered Mavis.

"So, as you know, I've been trying to take over the Tri-State area for quite some time now, and I realized this Tri-State Area's filled with things I detest. SO many things, like-." He gestured to a blinking traffic sign sitting nearby. "-like blinking traffic arrows." He growled. "Stop blinking at me, telling me where to go. Point. Point. Point. Ooh, I hate you."

"I'm starting to think he has some control issues," said Apollo to his teammates, as Doofenshmirtz started listing other things he hated. "He needs to be in control of every situation or he feels inferior."

Perry shot him a look. "STARTING to think?!"

"-also musical instruments that start with 'b'." Doofenshmirtz sighed. "You get the idea. It's a long list. I've been working on it for a while."

"You mean your whole life?" Mavis said. "Dude, you have some serious issues if musical instruments starting with the letter 'b' bother you that much. Have you ever been to therapy?"

"No!" snapped Doofenshmirtz defensively.

Mavis, Apollo, and Perry all gave him an incredulous look.

His shoulders drooped. "I went once just after my divorce. My therapist laughed me out of the building when I tried to tell her my backstory. That- That's kinda why I like talking to you guys so much. You may judge me but you still treat my childhood trauma as valid."

The three agents glanced at each other guiltily.

Doofenshmirtz cleared his throat. "ANYWAY. I realised I should build something that would make all those awful things disappear."

He gestured theatrically out the window. The robots carried the agents closer to the window so they could all see the large metal sphere sitting outside. "Behold: Shrink-Spheria! I was gonna call it a Shrinkinator but I've done the whole "inator" thing before. It's just been done to death."

"Agreed," said Mavis and Apollo at the same time.

Perry looked into the camera like he was on The Office.

"Robots, bring them over here," ordered Doofenshmirtz gleefully. "I want to show them how it works."

The three robots carrying the three agents followed Doofenshmirtz over to a computer hanging from the ceiling. "Okay, so I just enter the name of something I hate." Doofenshmirtz began typing on the keypad. "P-E-L-I-C-A-N. Pelican. And Shrink-Spheria homes in on its molecular structure and then turns all the particles into sparticles, thereby shrinking it into a teeny, tiny speck so small I never have to see it again."

Doofenshmirtz headed over to the door and waved to the three agents. "So good-bye to you, Monoteam. Enjoy your presidential suite!" He gave a laugh and then slammed the door shut.

There was silence for a few seconds.

Then they heard Doofenshmirtz yelling from above them: "Say goodbye to blinking detour signs! FOREVER!"

The Shrink-Spheria fired off an orange wave of energy, causing the detour sign inside the room to shrink until it was no longer visible.

Mavis snorted as she heard Doofenshmirtz celebrating above them. "We should probably stop him before he does any more damage. Any ideas, Perry?"

The platypus ignored her. He managed to dig a dart out of his hat and spat it at the rope holding up the chandelier above their heads, snapping it. Unfortunately, the chandelier was right above the robot holding Mavis and as it fell, it smacked into the robot's head and toppled sideways, nearly hitting Mavis.

"HEY!" she yelled. "Perry!"

Perry simply waited until the candles started melting the wax on the robots, releasing the three agents as they malfunctioned.

"Perry, you can't just do stuff like that without thinking of the consequences!" snapped Mavis.

Again, Perry ignored her as he rushed to the window. "Wait!" Mavis called. "Let's go round the back; he won't see us coming. You know there's quite a lot at stake, Perry. He'll shrink everything on his mile-long list if we're not careful."

Perry looked back at her for a few seconds, then he jumped out.

Mavis growled. "For God's sake. Come on, Apollo."

She took Apollo's hand and dragged him over to the back door. They rushed out into the courtyard behind Doofenshmirtz, but Perry was already battling him there.

Just as Mavis started forward, Perry kicked Doofenshmirtz backwards into the console of the machine, causing it to send out another wave of energy. "Well, say goodbye to musical instruments starting with 'b'," he remarked.

"PERRY!" hollered Mavis.

Doofenshmirtz jumped at the sudden noise and toppled backwards off the Shrink-Spheria. Mavis seized his lapels and lifted him as high off the ground as she could. "Apollo, destroy it."

"Wait, what?" Doofenshmirtz yelped, as Apollo dashed over to the machine. "Why are you being so weird?"

"Because I want to stop you before you cause some real damage just because you decide you don't like airplane pilots or elevators!" Mavis snapped. "Now do the sensible thing and shut up."

Doofenshmirtz closed his mouth.

Apollo let out a yelp and clutched the antenna of the Shrink-Spheria as the mangled endoskeletons of the three robots lumbed towards him.

"Haha!" Doofenshmirtz grinned gleefully. "You melted their wax but you can never melt what's inside: pure evil!"

But as soon as the endoskeleton creature stepped onto the sphere, it crashed straight through and smashed into the machinery inside the sphere.

"...I should have seen that coming," groaned Doofenshmirtz.

Apollo dived off the sphere as it began shuddering and sparking. A second later, it exploded, sending the robots flying into the air.

Doofenshmirtz let out a long sigh.

Mavis released him and stood up, clenching her fists. Doofenshmirtz stared up at her as if he was expecting her to hit him.

After a moment, she turned away and beckoned sharply to Perry, who was watching her with a blank expression. "Perry. In here. Now. Apollo, watch Doof."

Apollo moved over to the evil scientist as Perry followed Mavis into the castle. As soon as she shut the door behind them, she whirled on the platypus, trembling with anger. "You need to STOP ignoring me!" she snarled, dangerously close to tears. "We're a team, remember?! We're partners! You know what that means? It means you have to start trusting me! Do you have any idea how demoralising it is when you constantly ignore what I say?!"

After a moment, Perry hung his head.

"You said you enjoy our banter but you ignore it half the time! I try to share my plans with you but you just do your own thing without even telling me what you're doing! A chandelier nearly fell on my head earlier, because of you! If you had just TOLD me, I would have been prepared! Or I could have helped you come up with another way!"

"There might not BE another way!" Perry snapped back.

"That's not the point!" Mavis had to pause as her voice cracked. Wiping tears from her eyes, she took in a deep breath to steady herself.

Perry gazed at her sadly, before sitting down on the stone floor. He gestured for Mavis to do the same, so she sat down opposite him.

"Y-You're not alone anymore, Perry," said Mavis pleadingly. "You don't have to do this on your own anymore. Please, trust me. Please, just let me in. I can do this, you know I can."

"I know," Perry said quietly. "I didn't realise how much this was upsetting you. It's still a big change, getting used to working with a partner. My friends at OWCA call me a lone wolf, and they're right. I find it extremely difficult working with someone else. It's hard for me to adjust to communicating with someone else out in the field."

Mavis hesitated. "Well, if you can't listen to me, then I can't be your partner anymore."

Perry's head snapped up. "What?"

"I can't be partners with someone who ignores me. I'm still learning, you know. I need to be partners with someone who will tell me if my plan isn't a good idea and why, instead of just ignoring it."

"No, no, I can do that!" said Perry urgently. "I just have to practise. I'm really sorry; I didn't realise I was upsetting you that much. Mavis, I don't want to lose you as a partner."

Mavis gave a small smile. "I don't want to lose you either, buddy. But we can't continue as we are."

"I agree. But we can work on that, right?"

"Absolutely."

After a moment, Mavis grabbed the platypus in a hug. Perry hugged her back, both of them relieved that they had resolved the situation. Neither of them ever wanted to lose the other.

"I should probably apologise to Doof," Mavis murmured. "I was a bit harsh on him. He may be a bizarre human being but he feels like family, you know?"

"Yeah, I know exactly what you mean." The platypus hesitated. "I love you, Mavis. You know that, right?"

Mavis smiled happily and ruffled the top of his head. "I love you too, buddy. Now let's go apologise to our weird uncle."

Perry shivered. "He really is like a weird uncle. Does that make you the moody teenager of the family?"

"Moody?" Mavis snorted. "Boy, that's ironic, coming from you."

"I am not moody, I'm BROODY. There's a difference."

"Is the different purely semantic?" said Mavis teasingly.

"...no."