AN: Behold, another crosspost! This time, "It's A Common Misconception That The Speed Of Light Is The Fastest There Is; However, Evil Scientists Have Long Suspected Gossip To Be Even Faster, In This Monologue I Will", not actually a monologue, which is a title I quite enjoy and emphatically do not have the room for on this site.

"Greetings, class!" Heinz Doofenshmirtz announced, leaning on his desk, ready to start the lesson on scientific classification. "Now, a very wise man once said that man could be defined as a featherless biped, and I have no reason not to believe him, so!" He picked Perry, habitually attending as the so-called assistant teacher to his ex-nemesis, up in his large hands and held the platypus aloft. "Behold! A man!"

The students, bar Vanessa who merely slumped onto her desk at her father's familiar antics, seemed to take him at his word. Then again, they'd all been told Perry was a deformed tiny turquoise man in the first place.

Heinz grinned, lowering Perry to the desk, without quite letting go. "I have it on very good authority," he said, "that he does not have really tiny feathers. I wondered, but it's not." Unable to help himself and convinced his students wouldn't see, he stroked Perry's fur with a thumb, a gesture Perry had to call upon his years of secret agent training to ignore.

Rolling his eyes instead, Perry held back from punching his ex-nemesis for old times' sake, solely for the sake of the impressionable teenagers in the room. Had to be a good influence. If he tried enough, he might even balance out Heinz's use of Evil Science as a curriculum.

Despite their best efforts not to acknowledge the relationship between them during school hours, Heinz and Perry's unspoken affection had not gone unnoticed. As a result, when yet another classmate of hers cornered her after class that day to try to get insider information, Vanessa's only response was to snap "Stop asking about my dads, it's none of your business."

Which only fuelled the rumours.

And the inevitable betting ring as to how long they'd been together. Most people, upon hearing this latest gossip, revised their guesses up another year or so. Some had even put their money - or rather, their lunch - on them having been married. For years.

None of them knew the two had barely known each other for six months by this point. Just because Vanessa had never mentioned her father's boyfriend-slash-husband before, and her classmates did think back on previous conversations in case she had, didn't mean anything, as she'd previously only ever acknowledged her father when forced to by circumstances. Such as the few times he'd had to pick her up from school, embarrassing her in front of the only people whose opinions mattered to her.

Now, at least, she'd come to terms with that. Somewhat. It had been through Perry's assistance and talents for ocelot-herding that she'd even been able to come to the conclusions she had, that her father tried but didn't know what he was doing. It was through Perry that her father's intentions were apparent at all.

And yet, for all Perry's skills at anticipating Heinz's actions, one step ahead in the necessary damage control, he apparently hadn't noticed the looks Heinz kept giving him.

"How have they not noticed?" Vanessa whined to her best friend Lacey not long later, as they put their books back in their lockers for lunch. "It's obvious. I mean, Dad's not great at that, but I would have thought Perry would realise before now."

"Why don't you-"

Vanessa pinched the bridge of her nose, a gesture familiar to all who had to deal with her father for any length of time. "I can't tell them, Lacey. He's my dad. And Perry's... Perry. Do you know how embarrassing that conversation would be? Worse than Dad being my teacher."

Any bystander would assume she meant the brazen betting going on behind the teachers' backs, barely hidden at all. After all, the two were dating, right?

No, no they were not. A fact which pained Vanessa endlessly. And anyone else close enough to them to know, which in effect was just one Peter the Panda. And the rest of the O.W.C.A. betting pool, most of whom had staked a significant portion of their meagre paychecks on how long until the two noticed.

Or on how Major Monogram would respond. Vanessa's boyfriend had bet on just that, taking full advantage of his position within OWCA as the son of the high brass and the resulting insider information. Which was why he'd secretly bet against how he knew his father would react. As he'd explained to Vanessa, he didn't need the money, just the knowledge of who could think for themself instead of blindly following a perceived leader.

None of which she wanted to think about during lunch, so she put it out of her mind to focus on the traditional teenage pastime of music.

Meanwhile, still in his classroom, Heinz idly stroked Perry's fur as he put together the next lesson plan, the platypus having shed his professional mask to sit on the edge of the desk and demand scritches. "Sometimes I wish you really were a man," Heinz mused quietly. "Then I could..." He sighed, dropping the thought like so many other hopes and dreams. "Nevermind."

Perry chirred, just as softly, squeezing Heinz's finger in his paw. Whatever his nemesis had been about to say, he wanted to hear it.

"I get lonely sometimes, Perry the Platypus. Sure, you're always here for me, that should be enough. Just knowing you want to be here. I wish it was, but it's not." Frustration tinged his voice, years of heartache he'd grown all too familiar with. "I just wish... but you have your-" He gestured with the pen. "-bill, you know?"

All at once, Perry realised what his nemesis had been trying to get at.

Reaching up, he did what he'd spent months half-imagining in the moments before sleep - when his usual tight grip on his thoughts loosened - and took Heinz's chin in his paws, as gently as he could. Heinz blinked, staring wide-eyed at Perry. And Perry kissed him.

Almost instantly, three things happened:

One, Heinz spent the first few moments hastily re-examining where he stood with his nemesis, their friendship, and everything he'd ever believed about species differences, then abandoned the whole idea in favour of responding in kind. Who was he to turn down a good thing, huh?

Two, a student happened to pass by the classroom door, glancing briefly in. This student was well versed in, conveniently, first kisses, and could identify one on sight. And so the rumour mill was set in motion once again.

Three, OWCA's surveillance team of one, Carl, composed and sent an email.

By the time they parted, Heinz's deep blue eyes meeting Perry's warm brown ones, all bets had been collected, throughout both the school and the O.W.C.A. Many screams of anguish were heard, from all those who'd been so sure of their bets, and, notably, the sole winner of the school, a girl who'd staked her lunch on the conviction that they were not secretly dating and never had been. That they never would be was implied but not technically part of the bet.

Vanessa, noticing the commotion over her music player, merely rolled her eyes. "Finally."

Back in the classroom, Perry smiled at his nemesis, shifting the man's hand from where it had curled behind his neck down to the abandoned pen and the paperwork he'd been doing. As much as he wanted to keep going, Heinz needed to be ready for his next class. Kissing could wait.

Looking down at Perry's paw still resting on his knuckles, Heinz swallowed. "Did you mean it?" His voice was low, hesitant, and yet hopeful at the same time.

Perry nodded, because of course he meant it. Though he'd never thought it through before that moment, his feelings for Heinz had long since grown beyond the scope of nemesis. Taking Heinz's other hand in his paws, he squeezed softly. Every shift in their relationship, every touch and smile and, yes, kiss, had come as part of a natural progression, an expression of his utter faith and trust in the man he still called his nemesis even after Heinz had turned away from Evil.

"Who am I kidding, of course you did," Heinz said, waving his worry away with an obviously-fake laugh that Perry saw through immediately. "I don't know why I thought you being a platypus was going to be a problem, but I'm glad to be wrong. Thank you, Perry the Platypus, you're always here for me."

Shifting Heinz's hand back around his shoulders, Perry gave him a thumbs-up, a gesture Heinz had come to know and appreciate. A platypus of few words, he instead showed his affection through the smallest gestures at every opportunity.

Heinz ran his fingers through his nemesis's familiar teal fur once again, unable to help the soft smile playing about his lips. "I suppose I should get back to it, huh? Man, and I used to think being a teacher was easy. Who would have thought it had all this work? The actual lessons are fine, don't get me wrong, it's just all this writing, I'm getting a cramp already. This-" A subtle shift in his tone told Perry he wasn't talking about the work any more. "-isn't going to change anything, is it? No, you're right, of course not."

And, in the end, it wouldn't. Their lives would go on much the same, Vanessa's patience would no longer be tried every other hour, and the busybodies of the world would forget about them as soon as another piece of juicy gossip came along.

AN: Enemies to idiots to lovers. (Although in their heart they'll always be enemies, in the most romantic of ways.) I love these two so much XD