A minute later, Doofenshmirtz was still holding the phone away from his ear to avoid being deafened by the sheer volume of his ex-wife's voice.
He'd tried to explain a few times that no, he hadn't actually kidnapped his own daughter, and the reason why neither of them were at his apartment right now was that he'd been out doing an evil scheme and Vanessa had wanted to come with him, but it was kind of hard to explain anything with Charlene wrathfully threatening to call the police to arrest him and take away his custodial rights entirely if he didn't return their daughter to her RIGHT NOW.
It was probably in the top ten most humiliating experiences of his life.
Definitely future tragic backstory material.
He tried to head for Danville as quickly as possible after finally hanging up, unable to look at either of his companions (Perry the Platypus had flown off after pushing the -inator off the roof; Doofenshmirtz made a mental note to remind Stan to yell, "Curse you, Perry the Platypus!" at some point).
It finally occurred to him, as they reached the city limits, that this meant Vanessa had lied to him about her mom allowing her to come see him.
While he felt like he should be proud of her for doing something so incredibly evil, or even happy that she'd run away just to come spend time with him...he couldn't bring himself to be all that happy about it.
Even the fact that it was inconveniencing and defying Charlene didn't help, because the possible consequences of her impulsiveness...he didn't want to think about them.
Vanessa felt a little sick.
She should've known that she'd get caught sooner rather than later. Mom wasn't stupid, she'd figure out pretty quickly where she'd gone. And from the sound of things, now she thought Dad had kidnapped her, which was a totally ridiculous assumption to make but she wasn't letting that stop her.
It didn't make things better that she'd almost died today, if it hadn't been for...Stan.
As they flew back to the Tri-State Area, she glanced over and saw that he was sitting at the other end of the hovercraft, holding onto one of the purple wing thingies on the side and looking as moody as she felt.
She didn't know why, but something about it made Vanessa go over and sit down next to him. He glanced at her briefly, but didn't say anything.
Finally Vanessa decided to be the one to break the ice.
"...So. This is your first time pulling off an evil scheme, huh?"
Wow, that sounded dumb.
Inwardly she cringed, but Stan didn't seem to notice how it sounded. He just sighed. "Unless ya count things like stealing pies off o' window sills, or taking your dad's gold chain to polish it for Father's Day without letting him know first, or accidentally ruining your brother's future, as evil schemes."
...Vanessa wasn't sure how to respond to that. Finally she went with, "How do you accidentally ruin someone's future?"
This time Stan visibly cringed. "Same thing I did earlier. Lost my temper and realized too late that people around me could get hurt from it." He leaned his chin on his knees with a sad frown.
Even though she tried to hold onto her hostile emotions from earlier, she couldn't stay mad at someone who looked like that. Especially not when he'd basically saved her life.
Vanessa scooted a little closer and gently elbowed him in the ribs. "Hey. It's like Dad said-you saved me. Thank you."
The corner of his mouth turned up a tiny bit. "Yeah, well, I knew your pop'd be devastated if he lost you. You might be a grouchy little squirt, but you're still his kid."
"Hey!"
Stan's mouth stretched into a full cheeky grin. "What? I'm just bein' honest."
She punched him in the arm in half-sincere indignation; he just laughed and ruffled her hair.
And if there was a bit of sadness in his laughter...he was covering it up well enough that she didn't even notice.
Charlene was waiting for them outside Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated.
She looked a little startled when the hovercraft touched down in front of her, but since this wasn't the first time she'd seen one of his -inators, not especially surprised. She just marched forward, wearing the look that always made (ex)husband and daughter alike shake in their shoes, and grabbed Vanessa's wrist.
"You're lucky," she told Doofenshmirtz sharply as she pulled her daughter toward her car. "I was about to push 911."
Doofenshmirtz climbed off the hovercraft and hurried after her, desperate to somehow salvage this mess. "Charlene, wait, I didn't-"
"Don't lie to me!" She sighed, and pushed her glasses up with the heel of her hand before fumbling around in her purse for her keys. "Look, Heinz. I know you want to spend more time with her. Believe me, I get it. But kidnapping her wasn't the right way to-"
"He didn't kidnap me, I ran away!"
That drew her up short, and she turned to Vanessa in shock, releasing her.
"Yeah, I came here on my own, cuz I wanted to see Dad!" Vanessa glared up at her mother. "I haven't seen him in weeks, and now I'm hardly ever gonna see him, so I decided to take matters into my own hands!"
Now that was something Doofenshmirtz could feel happy about; even though he knew he occasionally did things that embarrassed Vanessa without meaning to, hearing that she wanted to spend time with him despite them made his heart do a little happy tap dance in his chest, complete with top hat and cane.
It definitely drew Charlene up short: her mouth opened into a little 'o', before she bit down on her lip and gave another, sadder, sigh that made the part of Doofenshmirtz that kept forgetting they weren't married anymore want to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. The rest of him remembered, and resisted.
"...You really want to spend time with your father that much?"
"Yes!" Vanessa set her jaw in a stubborn glare.
"Is it just because we got in a fight earlier and I sent you to your room?"
Now Vanessa blushed a little, and looked down. "...No. It's just what made me think of it."
Charlene's eyebrow rose skeptically for a moment, but then settled, replaced by that sadness again. "...Well, maybe when we go back to court on Friday we can work something out."
Doofenshmirtz brightened up. "Really?"
"Despite what you might think of me, Heinz, I'm not completely heartless. If Vanessa wants more time with you, I'm willing to talk things out with the judge and see if we can rearrange the custody arrangements a little."
For the third time that day, Doofenshmirtz got engine oil in his eye.
Despite Charlene's willingness to make that concession, Vanessa still had to go back home with her for the night. Both daughter and father were disappointed, but neither of them wanted to push the boundaries of her patience, and so after they got her stuff and shared a final hug they said their goodbyes, and after she and her mother left Stan and Doofenshmirtz flew back up to the penthouse.
Once they were inside and the hovercraft safely put away, Doofenshmirtz gave an exhausted sigh and headed for the kitchen, where he began rummaging in the cupboard for a snack.
To his delight, there was still a box of his favorite kind lying around, and he pulled it out as he headed for the living room; his new favorite soap opera would be on soon, and he didn't want to miss it.
He found Stan perched on the recliner, with his lab coat draped over his shoulder, staring kind of forlornly at the blueprints of the West-Coast-Tech-Inator.
"Hey." Doofenshmirtz poked him gently in the shoulder. "We'll win next time, okay? We're gonna beat Perry the Platypus, and use whatever -inator we've created together to take over THE ENTIRE TRI-STATE AREA!"
Stan jumped a little bit when he started shouting, but recovered quickly; he was learning fast. Instead all he said was, "...Way ta set the bar high."
Doofenshmirtz lowered his arms from his dramatic pose. "What?"
"You wanna take over just three states? What kind of evil scientist are you?"
Doofenshmirtz sighed; clearly the boy wasn't looking at this from the right perspective. "A practical one, Stanley. Taking over the entire world's too hard of a goal, and even if you did it, then what? There'd be nothing left to take over, and now you have to spend all your time trying to manage being in control of an entire world of people who'll probably rise up against you at the first opportunity."
Stan tilted his head. "And you think they won't do that if you take over three whole states? I mean, I'm no expert, obviously, but I feel like the government's gonna notice something like that, and send the FBI after you or whatever."
That...was not something Doofenshmirtz had honestly considered.
"Besides, Vanessa says you just use the same strategy, over and over, and it never works. I'm just...kinda wonderin' if tryna take over the Tri-State Area by building weird, random -inators and losing to a platypus every day's really worth it."
Ugh, getting hit with two probing questions (well, technically the second one was a statement, but there was kind of a question in it, so it counted) regarding his life philosophy in one evening?
Doofenshmirtz squirmed internally...and then did what he usually preferred to do when hit with an uncomfortable situation he didn't have an answer for: change the subject.
"You wanna try some almond brittle?"
Stan blinked. "...Is that like peanut brittle?"
"Yes, but better, cuz it's made from almonds." Doofenshmirtz offered the box.
To his delight, Stan took a square, sniffed, and bit into it without further prompting. It was the first time in days that he'd really eaten under his own steam.
After crunching thoughtfully for a moment, he gave an approving nod.
"Heh. Not bad."
Doofenshmirtz found the remote, and handed it to his assistant while he headed for the kitchen to see if there was anything worth eating or if he should just cut his losses and order pizza (yeah, he ordered too much takeout. He was a middle-aged man who up until now lived pretty much alone; deal with it).
He was trying to decide if pizza was a more nutritious option than ham and cheese sandwiches with the ham possibly somewhat past the expiration date, when Stan called, "Doc, you might wanna come look at this!"
Doofenshmirtz hurried back into the living room in time to see a news broadcast of some kind-specifically, a news broadcast of the smoking remains of several buildings that used to be part of West Coast Tech.
According to the report, it was one of the strangest cases of domestic terrorism (man and boy both cringed at that description) in history, not least because there were absolutely no casualties involved: moments before the explosion took place, everyone who was on or around the campus had suddenly disappeared, and been found hundreds of miles away in the middle of Montana, understandably confused but completely unharmed.
At this time, the authorities were unable to provide a logical explanation for the phenomenon; however, a video taken by a pedestrian of a strange white flying object leaving the scene at high speed had caused conspiracy theorists to begin suspecting extraterrestrial activity-not least because one of the creatures aboard the craft "looked far too ugly to be anything human."
Doofenshmirtz made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat; it was like the whole world was trying to rub it in his face that he wasn't exactly handsome.
Then he registered that you could see their faces in the video, albeit somewhat blurry and grainy, but still just enough for him to recognize them.
He and Stan shared an awkward glance.
"...We probably oughta stay away from that part of the country for a while," Stan said at last.
"Agreed." Doofenshmirtz took the remote, and changed the channel.
It was time to see what happened next on The Duchess Approves while he ordered that pizza.
Meanwhile, in an entirely different part of the three states that made up this particular Tri-State Area, Professor Pines spat a mouthful of coffee all over his computer screen.
He couldn't help it.
It wasn't every day you saw the ghost of your long-dead twin appear on television.
Oh my my my, have I gone above and beyond my usual modus operandi and created a cliffhanger not just at the end of a new chapter, but at the end of what's actually a story of my entirely new Stan Doofenshmirtz series?
How completely and utterly CRUEL of me! (Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha)
*Cue Doof singing "Never Gonna Give You Up"*
(No really, that's a real thing; look it up on YouTube if you don't believe me.)
(Also, I have no idea how custody battles work in a divorce, but this is the Tri-State Area, where normal legal rules usually don't apply anyway.)