Chapter 2

There are many things that Ferb hates. He hates not inventing. He hates not having an adventure. He hates talking about sensitive subjects. He hates being without his family. He hates seeing his brother upset. He hates spiders (as much as he doesn't show it).

But what he hates more than anything was being lied to.

Ferb especially dislikes the fact that he was being lied to by his most trusted brother.

The Brit with green hair never would have thought the day that it would happen. But it did. Every day for the past week has been complicated for the boy. The redhead ten-year-old had been disappearing after every project they finished and returning at night, which their parents allowed apparently. Or, sometimes, he would leave randomly when he received a text from whoever it was. He had given looks or asked him where the other went and who he was hanging around with but his answer was a simple 'at a friend's'. The gang had been getting a little annoyed by the optimistic boy's behavior, bailing on them to hang out with someone they don't know. For all Ferb knows, his brother could be in trouble and he was trying to hide his secret because maybe he was being punished if he said anything. Oh god!

"Alright, gotta go, guys," Phineas said, looking up from his phone and starting heading to the gate. The gang and the two boys had finished with their new invention, the Locate-bot - able to find anything in a blink of an eye and display it onto a little screen. Ferb and the rest exchanged glances.

"Hey Phineas," Isabella called out, grabbing the one's attention, who stopped by the now open gate door. "Where are you going? You've been leaving early the whole week and we only see you in the mornings and until we finish the inventions."

"I'm going out with a friend," he answered, as usual. Before he could leave, Ferb stepped up and approached him.

'Please stay. What if the same thing happened?' Ferb's eyes asked, referring back to the beginning of the week with the redhead's incident at night.

"It's okay, trust me," Phineas slightly pleaded, his smile faltering. Without any more exchanges, the boy left the house and walked down the road, knowing exactly where he was going to go.

"Now what, Beanpole?" Buford spoke up, making him turn to them.

"I have a foreboding sense that it might not turn out how we would like it," Baljeet commented.

"I think we should go follow him with the Locate-bot, so we could finally know where he goes and who he knows," the girl suggested. They turned to the silent boy, who blinked in response. "That looks like a yes to me, let's go!"

🎵(Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporateeeeeddd)🎵

Phineas couldn't help but smile when he heard the jingle as he walked into the penthouse apartment. Based on the text he received from his friend, his eyes scanned the area for anything out of the ordinary. It still shocked him how messy his apartment becomes every time he comes. The room was destroyed and covered with ash, as well as some parts of an invention being destroyed in the corner. Phineas furrowed his eyebrows together. Heinz's nemesis really must be evil and mean to destroy a perfectly good invention. Seeing that he couldn't find the man, he called out to him. "Dr. D? Are you here?"

"Look up, kid," he heard a voice. The boy did what he was told. His eyes became wide when he saw the man being dangled upside down by wires that connected to the ceiling. "Mind helping out? All the blood is rushing to my head."

"Gosh, what happened Dr. D?" He asked, rushing over to a nearby ladder and dragging it where he was. Then placed a couple of sofa cushions on the floor then proceeded to climb up the ladder.

"My nemesis," he sighed. Phineas started cutting the wires with a laser knife he built at some point. "I tried to make the Total Nightmare-intaor, to transform everyone's nightmares into their reality then I would use that to rule the entire Tri-State area!"

"Wow, sounds pretty scary," the boy commented. He finally finished cutting the wires, having the man falling down and landing safely on the floor by the pillows.

"Thanks, kid," the man smiled, getting up and walking over to his destroyed -inator. "NORM! Come clean this up!"

A giant robot man busted through the door with a dustpan and broom in hand. "Yes, sir."

"Hey, Norm. How's your day?" Phineas smiled, getting down from the ladder and putting it in its original spot.

"It's been great! Thanks for asking!" The man thanked robotically, his smile never fading. But then again, he's a robot. As the robot continued to clean, Phineas made his way back to the evil scientist, who was dusting himself off.

"You put a self-destruction button again didn't you?" He questioned the man. Once again, he sheepishly shrugged his shoulders and grinned. The boy sighed, shook his head, and put away the used cushions. He then sat at the couch. "If you ever want to beat your nemesis, you shouldn't put a self-destruct button on your machines. Anyway, why can't I tell my friends about you again?"

"I told you this already! I'd rather have to keep my evil schemes between you and I so that no one else could stop me. And I don't like THAT much company. You're good in my book, no one else," the doctor explained, moving to the worktable and sitting at the stool.

"Their my friends, they're okay and I'm sure that they could keep a secret," Phineas defended. Heinz raised an eyebrow. "Okay, so maybe Buford or Baljeet may spill the beans but the rest can!"

"Exactly, I can't afford anyone else knowing," he sighed. The man turned to the clipboard in front of him then grabbed a pen. "So, what are we going to do today?"

"We could build… oh! I know what we could do today. We could make little hologram pets - able to be anything you want like a dog, bird, or even a shark!" He exclaimed, rushing off the couch and over to the man. He started drawing the basic sketch of the invention. It sort of looked like a compact, high-tech watch. Heinz nodded then went to a different room, returning with a blueprint. They copied down the idea, took measurements, then started building. As usual, Phineas took the complex holographic model to actually project any kind of pet the user wanted while Heinz molded the pieces of plastic and metal together, creating a watch type base. Not thirty minutes later, the two were finished.

"You really like holograms, don't you?" The man raised an eyebrow but had a crooked amused grin.

"Yes, yes I do," the boy nodded. He looked at his new wrist invention and started playing with the dials. "Let's get our pets ready. Mines is going to be a mini dinosaur! What's yours going to be Dr.D?"

"Hm… maybe a miniature…," Heinz adjusted his watch and a moment later, a miniature dragon appeared in front of him. Phineas laughed as his dinosaur appeared. The two holographic animals glared at each other and roared, then started fighting with each other. "Oh! Let's see who'll win. Five bucks for the dragon."

"You're on!" They shook hands then circled the competing creatures. "Go dino!"

"Nu-uh, my dragon is going to win! He's strong, I could tell," he boasted. The mini mythical creature turned to its owner a blew a little fire near his shoe, making him step back. "Sorry, SHE'S strong."

Phineas chuckled. The rest of the time, they watched their pets fight. Not like they were doing any damage to each other, but they kept popping in and out of the holographic illusion. During this time, the boy in orange and white couldn't help but feel being watched, it was very creepy. At some point, Doofenshmirtz needed to take Vanessa somewhere, leaving him alone in the apartment for an hour. Because of this, the little dragon was taken from his fight, which upset the mini prehistoric creature a bit. As Phineas waited for his friend to come back, he preoccupied his mind to a little tinkering but it was interrupted by solid knocks on the door. Forgetting, once again, the stranger danger rule the boy opened the door. His eyes turned to the size of dinner plates when he saw who was on the other side of the door.

"Hey, guys, what's up?" He nervously squeaked under his friends' narrowed eyes. He was especially weak against his brother's stare. It was like he was breaking the barrier into his soul.

"Is this where you go every day, Dinner-bell?" Burford questioned, trying to look past the door but by how the redhead positioned it, he couldn't see very well.

"Guys, I don't think you all should be here and um...Look, I'll meet you guys later," he rushed then closed the door in a hurry. Unfortunately, he couldn't get it. The boy heard someone snap their fingers and the next thing he knew, he was on the floor and his group of friends barging in threw the door. "Uh oh," he mumbled, slowly getting up. He knew for a fact that Heinz would not like his friends and brother being here.

"Why didn't you tell us you came here?" Isabella started, looking around the apartment. Buford and Baljeet roamed around leaving the three near the door.

'Don't you trust us?' Ferb's eyes questioned, full of sadness and slight betrayal. 'Don't you trust me?'

"Look, I do trust you guys but the reason why I didn't say that I came here was because my new friend, Dr. D, doesn't really want anyone to know about him," he admitted, voice filled with guilt. "I really wanted to tell you guys and maybe let you come over but it's his apartment and isn't my choice."

"I'm your brother, you could have told me. I was wondering if something was wrong and if you were hurt every time you left. What hurts more is that you hang more around a complete stranger than your friends," Ferb quietly told him, eyes a little on the floor.

"I didn't mean to," Phineas whispered, eyes getting a little watery as he too eyed the floor.

"If you ever need to leave again, we would let you go. You just needed to tell us, tell me, beforehand so that we wouldn't worry. The first time you came home at night and seeing you so scared and terrified… I don't ever want to see that again."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you mad," he spoke in an even quieter voice. Phineas felt horrible. He couldn't imagine how his friends felt every time he disappeared without them knowing where.

"I'm not mad, just disappointed," Ferb sighed, and looked up to see his brother on the verge of tears. The Brit cringed a little. "Let's go," he told the rest of the group. "We'll see Phineas home later."

They didn't say anything, just walked out the door. Isabella sent a sympathetic look to her crush but followed the rest out. Once everyone left, Phineas let loose the waterworks. His body rocked his silent sobs as he positioned himself near the wall and slid down, wrapping his arms around his knees. He didn't mean to upset his friends. He didn't mean to hurt his brother and making him worry so much. He probably hates him for making him go threw that. His friends probably never want to see him again after that. Sure, he may be overreacting, but it still hurt him a lot.

His little dinosaur reappeared all of a sudden, sitting in front of him. The boy looked at in throw watered eyes but buried his head in his arms again. He felt the small pet move against him and plop by his side, it's head resting on its creator's/owner's knee. Phineas finally seemed to settle down a little, to at least stop crying, and looked over to his pet. The dinosaur seemed to stare into him, asking the boy what he should do.

'I don't know' Phineas sent back.

'That's not the first time you said that, what did you do then?' The dinosaur asked back, tilting its head in the process. Phineas didn't respond to that, but rather blanked out. The last time he nearly let his friends, brother, and sister down is during the Summer Solstice and he nearly gave up on taking them all home before sundown. During that time, he got motivation because he believed in himself and others, but it didn't apply to his current situation. Then the boy thought - maybe he could make it up to them somehow.

"That's it! I know what else I'm going to do today," he exclaimed, getting up from his position and wiping the remaining tears he had. The redhead turned to his dinosaur. "Thanks, boy."

"I'm back!" He turned to the oncoming man in the lab coat, so he smiled.

"Hey, Dr.D, I have another idea of what else to make," Phineas said, walking over to the workplace.

"Hey, are you okay? You look like you were crying," Heinz pointed out, following the boy.

"Yeah, I'm great! By the way, do you have any permits to handle illegal chemicals and explosives?" He asks, slightly dodging the question. The man didn't question any further but now felt unsure about the use of illegal things. Before he could ask why, the boy filled him in. "I want to make a present for my brother and friends, so I need those things to actually make the invention work. But if you don't have any permits, that's okay too. I can work with what I have."

"No, I don't have any permits… but my ex-wife is rich and my brother's the mayor so we should be good," the evil scientist dismissed. The two grinned and started sketching out the layout of the project on a blueprint sheet then building the whole invention. Phineas couldn't help but feel excited since he couldn't wait until his friends and brother see what he and the man built just to make up for his stupid mistake. 'They'll see that I didn't mean no harm. They'll see that I was sorry for hurting them,' he thought frantically. If he said this out loud, he would be sure that it might come out like he was insane. Once they were finished, they praised the invention. "Wow, your friends should be thankful."

"...Yeah," he drawled out in an awkward pause. Heinz sent him a side-eyed look.

"What do-" They heard large knocks on the door. Phineas would have thought it was his friends again but instead, it was something else much scarier.

"Heinz Doofenshmirtz, this is the police! Open up! We know what you're doing! You have ten seconds or we'll force ourselves in!" The two guys were in a complete panic.

"I thought you said we wouldn't get caught!" Phineas harshly whispered, invention clutching in hand.

"I didn't say that, I said we'd be good, there's a difference," he calmly corrected. Hearing the police still barging on the door, he came up with a plan. "Listen kid, there's a back door. Take it and go home before you get caught."

"Are you sure? What about you?" He asked back, looking at the door.

"It's fine, it happens all the time," he dismisses. The police finally busted through the door, seeing both boys. Not thinking twice, Phineas booked it to the said back door.

"Get that kid!" He heard behind him along with two pairs of heavy boots following him. Finally seeing the door, the triangle headed boy busted through and escaped down the stairs. Thanks to his small and agile size, he was able to run away from the slow adults and back home. No matter how hard he ran and how heavy his breaths became, he heard a low hum of police sirens coming his way. Or at least they were. He couldn't tell, he was getting tired pretty fast and the adrenaline rush he received from earlier started wearing off. There was only one thing he could think at the moment.

'Oh, I hope Ferb can help.'

To be continued…