One moment Stan Pines had been in his car, driving away from the only home and family he'd ever known, still a little numb from the shock of realizing that he'd just lost it all in one fell swoop even as he tried to hold onto his rage to keep him from breaking down altogether.
The next he'd been surrounded by a weird, flashing green light, and suddenly the car was gone, and the street he'd been driving on was gone, and when his vision cleared he was sitting in a tiny glass booth thing with a pharmacist and a little blue-green duck-beaver-thing right in front of him.
The first coherent thought he'd been able to have was, Hot Belgian waffles, aliens are real! And I just got abducted by them!
So he'd gone with the only reaction he could think of, which was to scream in terror.
Later, of course, Stan would claim that all he did was stoically declare that his captors would never take him alive, before attempting a daring escape. But in reality, when he finally stopped screaming he crab-walked at high speed back against the other end of the-the abduction booth, or whatever it was, and then started looking around frantically for some avenue of escape.
Both the aliens stared at him for a moment, before the pharmacist-shaped one said, in a high, screechy voice that sounded kind of like someone trying to imitate a German accent, "...I don't know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn't that."
They must've learned English from watching Hogan's Heroes or something. Guess Ford was right about them intercepting our satellite transmissions.
Great, now he was thinking about Ford, and trying to swallow the lump in his throat that immediately rose up from realizing that his brother would be so jealous if he found out that he was getting first-hand proof of alien life, even though another part was quietly gloating that he got to meet them first, so there, and yet another part was reminding the other two that they were probably about to be dissected or something and Ford would probably never know what happened to him.
If he'd even care.
The aliens moved towards the cage.
"S-S-S-Stay back!" Stan said aloud, before grabbing up his duffle bag and wielding it in front of him as threateningly as possible. He was fully aware of what a stupid choice of weapon it was, but his options were kind of limited at the moment. Besides, you never knew-maybe the aliens were allergic to cotton canvas or something.
The pharmacist-shaped one immediately flinched back; the duck-beaver just looked confused, and then took another step forward, holding up its little paws in a way that almost looked like it was trying to be placating.
Frantically Stan looked around for an escape; he wondered how much it would hurt to try to smash through a glass wall, but decided it would be worth the risk if he could avoid getting his brains sucked out, or whatever they were planning on doing to him.
The interior of this spaceship was a lot more...purple than he was expecting. And while there were definitely plenty of computer monitors, wires, cables, and a lot of other crap like you'd expect to see in an alien craft, there were also things like a recliner, and a couch with some sofa cushions, and even a few potted plants.
...Maybe they're aliens that collect human stuff? Or they wanna keep me here as a kind of human menagerie thing to show off to other aliens. Yeah, forget that!
Before the duck-beaver could get any closer, Stan braced himself and ran at the wall that was off to his left as hard as he could.
And a few moments later staggered back, with the wind knocked out of him and a bloody nose.
"Wow, usually I'm the one falling victim to gratuitous slapstick violence!"
Through the pain Stan managed to hear high, screeching laughter that was sharply cut off by a weird kind of purring/chattering noise; maybe that was their secret language or something.
"What? You have to admit, it was perfect timing! Okay, okay, stop looking at me like that, I'll send him back."
Stan blinked the tears of pain from his eyes, in time to see the pharmacist alien step up to the side of the machine, where he could make out a bunch of buttons and things.
"Now where did that 'Return' switch go?"
And as one of his fingers moved towards a button, the duck-beaver alien's eyes widened in alarm, and it leaped to grab his arm-but not soon enough to stop him from pushing it.
A second later the duck-beaver grabbed Stan, duffle and all, and yanked him out of the box-just in time for it to explode.
"Ow!" Doofenshmirtz squawked in indignation, and rubbed the back of his head where Perry the Platypus had smacked him once the explosion had ended. "It was a reflex, okay? It's how everything usually goes by now-you break into my penthouse, I trap you, I tell you my evil scheme, we fight, the machine gets destroyed, and you go home while I curse your name! Even though usually you're the one pushing the self-destruct button, or shoving me back into the machine so I accidentally hit it, or-"
It was then that he remembered the boy that was still there. He was now sitting curled up against the wall, clutching his duffle bag and staring vacantly ahead of him with hollow eyes.
Huh. Must've been his first big explosion.
Even though Doofenshmirtz was obviously a very proper evil villain who revelled in the suffering of others, something about the kid's expression made him attempt to give a reassuring smile.
"Eh...sorry about that. In retrospect, putting the self-destruct button right next to the 'Reverse' switch might've been a poor design plan on my part."
No response. Doofenshmirtz wondered if he'd hit his head or something.
Perry the Platypus made a worried-sounding chitter in the back of his throat, and waddled over to the boy, putting a tiny webbed hand on his knee. Instantly he stiffened up and tried to shrink back into the wall, and the platypus quickly retracted his touch. After a moment he glanced over his shoulder, and beckoned for Doofenshmirtz to come over.
"Um-what? Perry the Platypus, I don't think-"
Perry the Platypus beckoned more insistently, and reluctantly Doofenshmirtz approached, crouching down in front of the kid. His eyes darted towards him, but other than that he remained still.
"Um...hello." Seemed like a good enough way to begin. "I'm Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, and this is my nemesis, Perry the Platypus. And I'm afraid there's been a bit of a mix-up; I was supposed to use the Time Travel-Inator to help me keep custody of my daughter, which evolved into a plan for conquering the entire Tri-State Area, and instead someone-" he glared at Perry the Platypus; really, it was rich of the secret agent to act like he'd had no part in messing things up here- "pressed the wrong buttons that brought you here instead. But you know, even though normally I don't rebuild -inators after they've been blown up, maybe I can make an exception this time and create one that'll send you back home, no harm, no foul-"
He'd barely gotten half the second part of the sentence out when the kid's face got all scrunched up, and a little choked noise rose in his throat, that reminded Doofenshmirtz of the kind of noise Vanessa made when she was trying really hard not to cry. A second later he'd pulled his knees up and buried his face in them, and his shoulders were shaking, and Doofenshmirtz barely had time to try and figure out what evil thing he'd said to upset him (so he could congratulate himself for it, obviously), when he croaked in a slightly incoherent ramble, "Pa kicked me out and said I can't come home without making a fortune!"
It felt worse than being socked in the gut by Perry the Platypus.
For some reason Doofenshmirtz's ears started ringing, and heat was running up and down his spine, as the words Pa kicked me out echoed in his ears. And for once, not in a way that could be played off for comic effect.
Empathy wasn't something that always came naturally to Heinz Doofenshmirtz, but in this case, he found himself slowly getting to his feet and gently lifting the boy by the elbow, guiding him to the recliner before heading to the kitchen to make some hot cocoa.
"...I didn't mean to break it, it just-it just happened! And I thought it was fine, cuz it was working when I left, but Ford said I'd wrecked it, and he thought I did it on purpose, and when Pa-" Stan (as he'd finally introduced himself) bit down on his lip, and the hand holding his mug (one of Doofenshmirtz's newly-acquired "I 3 EVIL" mugs) trembled, nearly making the liquid slosh out onto his jeans. "When Pa kicked me out...Ford just shut the curtains like nothing happened. Like I didn't mean anything to him anymore." He blinked hard a few times, and took a sip of chocolate.
Perry the Platypus frowned, and rubbed a little circle into his back; Stan had finally relaxed enough not to shy away from him, and even seemed to welcome the contact.
"...Wow," Doofenshmirtz said at last as he finished taking in all this new information. "That is prime tragic backstory material right there."
Stan blinked. "Thanks. I think."
"Trust me, coming from an evil scientist whose schemes are motivated by tragic backstories, that's the highest compliment I can offer someone."
A tiny corner of Stan's mouth quirked up-but not for very long. He just finished his cocoa and leaned deeper into the side of the recliner, eyes bloodshot and heavy.
To neither the scientist nor the platypus's surprise, Stan soon fell asleep.
Doofenshmirtz got a spare blanket out of the linen closet and draped it over him, then took the mugs to the kitchen to wash. Perry the Platypus accompanied him, and sat on the counter with a towel ready to dry them when he finished.
As Doofenshmirtz soaped up the sponge and began scrubbing out a mug, he cast a sharp glance at the platypus.
"Not one word about this in your report, you got that?" he said, with a bony finger pointed at his bill for emphasis. "Don't want O.W.C.A. thinking I'm turning good or anything."
Perry the Platypus rolled his eyes a tiny bit.
"Hey, I saw that! I'm serious, just because I'm doing something not-totally-evil right now doesn't make me any less of a genuine threat!" He handed a newly rinsed mug over for Perry the Platypus to wipe down and put in the drying rack, and then sighed and raked a hand through his hair.
"It's just...nobody deserves that. Especially not someone with a goody-two-shoes brother whose parents love him more so he gets treated like trash by comparison."
What? No, he totally wasn't projecting at all!
Once the mugs were clean, Doofenshmirtz looked at Perry the Platypus.
"Don't you have a home to go to or something? Go on, shoo. Curse you, Perry the Platypus, because I'm sure you did something during our fight that was curse-worthy, and see you tomorrow."
Perry the Platypus took the hint, and whipped out his glider. It was probably time for snacks anyway.
And Doofenshmirtz went back to the old drawing board, where he may or may not have found himself idly designing a Blow-Up-West-Coast-Tech-Inator.