It took Vanessa a moment to realize what had happened.
When a beam of bright green light flew into the side of one of the buildings and caused it to burst, however, she let out a little gasp of shock-followed by one of slight exhilaration and even flat-out excitement, since she'd never seen a big explosion before (outside of the movies, at least), even as she was forced to grab onto the side of the -inator to avoid being blown away.
The hovercraft rocked precariously, but this time Stan didn't even seem to notice it. He just tightened his grip on the controls and turned the -inator so it was facing another building, before opening fire again.
"You know-I appreciate your enthusiasm for evil-" her dad called, as he struggled to keep his balance at his end of the hovercraft- "but-you really aren't-following the rules for these things, you're supposed-to give Perry the Platypus-a chance to escape-"
"SCREW THE RULES!" Stan snarled. "We came here ta blow this stupid school up, so I'm. Going. To blow. It. UP!"
With every word he pressed the button again, until the building he was aiming at was nothing but a pile of smoking, flaming rubble.
...Vanessa was starting to feel a little scared now.
This wasn't like when her dad did something "evil," like wanting to dump a whole truckload of sand on an old childhood bully or cover Uncle Roger's house in giant squid (long story); this was way more intense. And way more angry.
As he continued his wave of destruction, she heard him mutter something like, "A clown, am I?" followed by a slightly unhinged-sounding cackle of laughter as he used the laser to draw a big 'S' through several buildings.
She was actually relieved when she saw that Perry the Platypus had broken out of his cage.
Stan was just about to lock onto a new target when something landed on his back, and then he was being thrown back by a kick from a yellow webbed foot.
"What the-!" As he struggled to keep his balance, he blinked, and managed to see Perry standing on the control panel-and judging by the way his eyes were darting back and forth, he was probably searching for that self-destruct button that Stan had left off when Dr. D wasn't looking (honestly, it was like he didn't even want a chance to actually win these things).
Stan growled and charged at him, left hook at the ready-and wasn't even able to land a blow before the thick smack of a beaver tail knocked him back again.
And that's when he really got mad.
Don't get me wrong; Stan liked Perry the Platypus. He didn't know him that well, but from their interactions so far he seemed like a pretty decent guy. Animal. Thing.
And he had a cool hat.
But Stan was absolutely done with losing, and having opportunities taken away from him, and so now he got into a boxer's stance, though completely forgoing the Queensbury Rules (not that he ever cared much about those), and strode back into battle. He barely heard Dr. D cheering him on in the background.
It might have been his imagination, but as they resumed sparring it seemed like Perry wasn't actually trying to hurt him.
His fight strategy mostly consisted of blocking and deflecting Stan's attacks and at the same time keeping him away from the -inator, showing surprising mobility and dexterity for someone his size and shape, and only landing the occasional blow if Stan got too close.
A little part of him was impressed by his fighting ability, even as he got more and more frustrated at not being allowed to finish what he'd started.
And then it happened.
As he charged forward again, Perry leaped to intercept him-but this time Stan dodged, sliding under his attack-which unfortunately meant that he lost his footing, and skidded into the side of the inator.
Which began to slide, and then tip precariously towards the edge of the hovercraft!
"NO!"
Stan lunged, and grabbed onto his one successful science project with frantic hands, trying to pull the heavy contraption back-
-and then from the end of it, he heard a terrified scream.
He looked, and saw that somehow, in all the commotion, Vanessa must have been knocked off the edge of the hovercraft, and been forced to grab onto the side of the -inator.
Behind him, he heard Dr. D scream her name, and the hovercraft rocked and tilted as he tried to rush forward.
"STOP MOVING, DOC!" Stan ordered, ignoring the way his stomach churned and his vision swam. "YOU'RE GONNA MAKE HER FALL!"
Immediately Dr. D was still. "But-but Vanessa-"
"Try ta bring us down, nice and slow! I'll get her!" He waited until he heard Dr. D pushing buttons, and the hovercraft started to lower towards the top of a building that hadn't been destroyed yet, while he slowly tried to angle the -inator so it was lying down more steadily on the edge.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Perry grab onto the other end; the little platypus glanced at him with a small nod of approval.
Slowly, painstakingly, Stan scooted around until he was as close to the edge as he could get, and stretched out an arm.
"Grab on, kid."
Vanessa stared up at him with terror in her eyes. "I-I can't!"
"Yes, you can," he said patiently. "Just let go with one hand, and grab onto me. You'll be fine. Probably."
"You're not very good at lying to children!" she protested.
"Sorry, usually I'm better at it, but my game's kind of off today." He stretched his arm a little further. "Just let go with one hand, and grab onto mine, and then we can work on getting you back up here. Okay? Think you can do that first baby step?"
She bit her lip uncertainly, and then yelped as her hands slid a little on the slick metal, legs kicking frantically in a futile attempt to regain traction.
"Vanessa!" Stan snapped. "Take my hand! Please!"
Don't leave me hanging!
Vanessa closed her eyes, gritted her teeth-and then reached for him.
As soon as her tiny hand landed in his, Stan grabbed on, and realized that he had a new problem: figuring out how to pull up a ten-to-twelve-year-old girl without falling off himself.
Trust Dr. D not to include safety lines, footholds, or anything involving safety on this piece of junk.
He tried to pull her up with just one arm, at least high enough that he could grab her waist instead, and the -inator lurched dangerously, forcing him to stop.
The doc had better get this thing close to the ground soon.
"Okay, good job, you did a great job, kid," he said aloud, mind racing. "Now, you just gotta-no don't let go of the thing!"
Too late; she let go of the -inator, and in a panic grabbed onto his sleeve with her now-free hand.
He slid forward, and frantically looked for something else to grab onto, even though both his arms were screaming and he wasn't sure if he could do this much longer but he had to because this kid was counting on him-
Out of nowhere a small blue-green form wearing a jetpack zoomed up behind Vanessa and, showing more strength than he'd ever expected from a platypus, caught her under the arms and lifted her up-just enough for Stan to grab her waist and begin pulling her up.
About a minute later the hovercraft landed with a slight crunching noise on the roof of what, had they cared enough to be interested, happened to be WCT's Egregiously Cruel and Unusual Geography Building (not very popular among all the math and science majors who attended, for some strange reason).
Immediately Doofenshmirtz lunged to his daughter's side and wrapped her in a hug.
"Oh thank badness you're safe! I'm so sorry, I never would've forgiven myself if anything had happened to my little girl, are you okay, are you hurt, do we need to go to the hospital-"
"I'm fine, Dad, stop fussing!" But Vanessa made no effort to actually leave his arms as she protested, and in fact burrowed as far into his hold as she could in an effort to stop trembling.
Behind them, Stan watched them with a new queasy feeling in his gut-this time, instead of fear at how high up they were, it was from shame.
Any minute now Dr. D was going to remember how Stan's recklessness had been the reason his daughter was almost killed. He didn't seem like he'd murder him for it...but most likely he'd decide it was better not to have him living under his roof anymore.
Maybe he could live wherever Perry went when he wasn't at the penthouse?
No, no, he'd ruined any possibility of that by attacking him, even if that wasn't the very definition of freeloading.
...And he didn't even have his car anymore, so he really had nowhere to-
"...ley? Stanley?"
Stan blinked hard a few times, and focused in on Dr. D.
He was still cradling Vanessa against him, and looking more serious than he'd seen him in their entire acquaintance.
Stan choked down the lump in his throat; he would not beg. He didn't deserve to, and he wanted to preserve whatever dignity he had left. "...Can I at least get my stuff?"
Dr. D blinked. "...Wait, what?"
"I know I messed up and there's no excuse for it, and I'm sorry for putting Vanessa in danger. So can I at least have my stuff before you kick me out?"
His eyes widened in shock. "Whoa whoa whoa, wait, stop! Who said anything about kicking you out?!"
It was Stan's turn to blink. "...I thought you were."
"No! I never-" Dr. D rubbed a spot between his eyebrows. "...Look, Stan. Yes, you did...go a little overboard in your revenge." Behind him, a half-intact building fell over in the distance, immediately becoming not-intact. "And yes, I was really, really scared when Vanessa fell." He squeezed his daughter gently. "But you also saved her, Stan! You helped her climb back up to safety while I landed this hunk of junk! I can never thank you enough for helping me protect her!"
"Da-ad!" Vanessa whined contentedly.
Dr. D chuckled and kissed her forehead, before looking back at Stan. "So no. You're not going anywhere unless you really want to. Not that I'm advising that until you take a little more time to get used to the 21st-century. For heaven's sake, you don't even know how to use the Internet yet!"
"...The Inter-what?"
"My point exactly." Doofenshmirtz gave him a reassuring smile. "It's okay, Stan. You made a dumb mistake; I do that all the time, believe it or not. It happens."
Stan wondered why everything was getting all blurry, and decided that he probably had smoke in his eyes or something; he took a moment to wipe them on his coat sleeve.
He barely even cared when he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Perry the Platypus had "accidentally" pushed the Blow-Up-West-Coast-Tech-Inator to the edge of the roof, and leaned on it too hard so before long it was crashing to earth.
"Now, with that being said, we should probably go home before the police show up." Dr. D reluctantly released his daughter, and got to his feet. "You two wanna help get the hoverboard into gear?"
"Sure, doc."
"Okay, dad."
As he checked the fuel levels, Dr. D pulled out his phone and checked it-and raised an eyebrow. "Huh. That's funny, it says I have 36 missed calls from your mom, Vanessa."
Stan noticed the guilty look that crossed the girl's face, and realized that things were probably going to get interesting back in Danville too.