After a shower and a change of clothes, Stan stepped out of the bathroom looking and feeling a lot better.
Not great, necessarily; he still felt a miserable twinge in his gut at the memory of that newspaper clipping, or even just looking around the different rooms and seeing a few subtle clues he hadn't noticed before that indicated he wasn't in his own time anymore. But now...now at least it felt like he was kind of doing something to help him deal with it.
Even if it was just getting revenge on a school from the other side of the country that had ruined his life.
When he returned to the lab, he found Dr. D waiting expectantly in front of the half-finished -inator, holding a bundle of white cloth under his arm.
"What's that?"
Dr. D shuffled awkwardly. "Um, well-just a little something I thought you might wanna wear while we work, to, you know, help you get in the right mindset." He unfolded the bundle, revealing a long lab coat that was a duplicate of his own.
Stan stared, trying to process this.
After a moment the doc looked a little sheepish. "...It's too much, isn't it? Sorry, I guess it's probably not your thing, I'll just-" He started to fold it up again-until something made Stan step forward, take it from him, and slowly put it on.
The shoulders were kind of tight on him, and part of him felt a little wrong being the one to dress up in nerd garb, not least because he really didn't feel qualified for it. But his inner reluctance just made the part of him that had agreed to this whole project even angrier and more determined to do it anyway and screw expectations, so he just lifted his hands and shouted dramatically, "IT'S ALIIIIVE!" followed by a chorus of demented cackling that would put mad scientists like Fu Manchu to shame.
When he stopped, he looked at Dr. D as he lowered his hands-and immediately frowned in confusion. "...Are you crying?"
"I have engine grease in my eye!" Dr. D rubbed his face on his coat sleeve and cleared his throat. "Now c'mon, this -inator isn't going to build itself!"
Again, Stan's stomach twisted with nervousness, remembering his last encounter with a machine...but this time he at least had someone around who knew this stuff like the back of his hand, who could probably fix anything he messed up.
Besides, he had a little experience with building stuff, even if it was just reconstructing an old wooden sailboat, so hopefully, with time, he could at least figure out the basics of this thing.
I should have built the Time Travel-Inator and accidentally brought this kid here ages ago!
...Okay, even in his head that sounded bad. But still, Doofenshmirtz couldn't help the delighted smile on his face as he and Stan started working.
Despite his protests that he wasn't smart enough to be much help in building something like this, Stan quickly showed that he was decently skilled at both math (he couldn't do it in his head or anything, but give him a piece of paper and a pencil and he was actually pretty adept at finding answers to even very complicated equations, and didn't even seem to realize how good he was at it) and figuring out the puzzle of which pieces of machinery went into which spot, and while he could be a little mouthy and sarcastic he still expressed a level of enthusiasm and enjoyment that Doofenshmirtz had never had in an assistant before.
Granted, the only assistant he'd ever really had was on a few precious occasions where Vanessa was willing to help build some of his -inators, and while she displayed some aptitude for the work that made him hopeful for her potential as a future evil scientist (if she wanted to be, of course, he wouldn't try to push her into that role if she really wanted to do something else), she was almost twelve now, and apparently "too cool" to build -inators with her dad anymore.
He sighed; great, now he was thinking about Vanessa, and how he was barely going to see her anymore.
He'd gone to court a few more times this week, leaving Perry the Platypus to watch over Stan for him, and despite his best arguments, the judge's decision was final. Unless he managed to take over the Tri-State Area within the next few days, she was going to be living with her mother from now on, except for weekends with him.
Maybe this Blow-Up-West-Coast-Tech-Inator could also be used to function as a Blow-Up-City-Hall-Inator, or a Blow-Up-The-Courthouse-That's-Taking-Away-My-Daughter-Inator, or-
"Hey doc? Earth to Dr. D, come in!"
He snapped out of his thoughts and realized that Stan had been trying to get his attention.
"Sorry, I was trying to decide who I want to exact over-the-top revenge on next."
Stan blinked, then gave a small "yeah, I'm just going to roll with it" type of shrug, before looking at the end of the giant laser. "I've been thinking...what's gonna happen to all the people?"
"People? What people?"
"All the college kids and professors or whatever." Stan now looked a little uncomfortable. "Cuz, y'know, I don't actually wanna kill anyone." His shoulders hunched. "I just...wanna feel better."
That...was a good point, actually, which he really should've thought about earlier, since Doofenshmirtz wasn't all that big on the idea of killing someone either. There was nothing creative about it, and something about the...permanence of the consequences made him uncomfortable. It was a point of view he tried to keep from his fellow mad scientists, because he got enough flack from them as it was, especially Rodney.
"Yeah, that-we should probably avoid that, shouldn't we?" Doofenshmirtz racked his brains for a solution-and then he grabbed the blueprints and made a few adjustments.
"There, now there's a teleportation system we can use to teleport everyone on the campus to another spot before we blow it up. How's that sound?"
Stan considered, then nodded his approval. "Yeah, that sounds good."
He went back to work.
By late afternoon the -inator was finished, and the two of them stood in front of it proudly, admiring their hard work. After a moment Stan went over to the desk and grabbed one of Doofenshmirtz's spare permanent markers.
"Feels like we oughta sign this baby before we put it to work." He went over and scrawled Stanley Pines under the on/off switch in big, sloppy handwriting, then offered it to Doofenshmirtz with a grin.
For some reason, the gesture made a squirming feeling rise in his gut-the good kind of squirming-and his eyes felt like they'd gotten engine oil in them again. But he smiled back as he accepted the marker, and wrote his own name under Stan's.
As he stepped back, he noticed that Stan's smile had turned a little bittersweet, and he was staring at their signatures with a frown rising between his eyebrows.
"...Stan? You doing okay?"
The kid shook his head and nodded.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he said gruffly. "Let's get this thing started up or whatever-"
There was a knock at the door.
Doofenshmirtz was...more than a little confused, needless to say.
The only person he could think of who'd be coming to visit him right now was probably Perry the Platypus, and he usually came in through the window, or sneaking through the air vents, or by breaking the door down (and this was in spite of how often Doofenshmirtz scolded him for it, since those things weren't exactly cheap; pretty soon he was going to start charging him for it). It wasn't part of his usual modus operandi to knock first.
He and Stan glanced at each other in confusion.
The knocking came again, louder and more persistent-and this time it was accompanied by a very familiar voice.
A voice from Doofenshmirtz's past, a voice that made chills run down his spine, a voice he had almost never expected to hear again.
"Dad, open the door!"
A few seconds later the door to the lab was faintly swinging on its hinges, and Doofenshmirtz was in the entry hallway and throwing the front door open to see a dark-haired eleven-year-old girl with a backpack on her shoulders.
"Vanessa?!"
Yes, I know technically this whole mess is not West Coast Tech's fault, even if they are a bunch of elitist snobs. It's Filbrick's.
However, neither Doofenshmirtz nor Stan is good at handling their anger, and tend to misdirect it.
Also, imagine Doof meeting Prince Zuko:
"My father burned my face when I refused to fight a duel with him, and then banished me, and he has always favored my prodigy younger sister over me."
"You're my other new son now."
"...What?"
"Nothing! How do you feel about random gratuitous musical numbers?"