"Okay, I have faith in the powers of Klimpaloon, but just in case-"

"Phineas, what are you doing," Isabella asked flatly. "Why are you in my house."

"I'm helping you prepare for your date," Phineas answered with a grin. "Now, which shirt do you like better?"

He presented her with two t-shirts, both reading 'I'M MADLY IN LOVE WITH FERB FLETCHER'.

Isabella just gaped at him.

Not because he broke into her house or anything, she just couldn't handle how really bold and garish those shirts were. She felt bad about it, but they were… super ugly.

One was neon pink and the other was neon green, the font written in the main colour of the other shirt. It clashed so badly. It was so bad.

"Phineas, do you not have any other options?" Isabella asked.

"I'm so glad you asked!" Phineas exclaimed, before stepping out of her room, only to step back in with an entire trunk of clothes.

Isabella couldn't even figure out what to say to that.

Now, Isabella and Ferb's movie date was bound to be a disaster, for several reasons.

First off, Isabella had asked Phineas for help during the date itself.

Yes, she knew it was a terrible idea, but Phineas was kind of the only person she could talk to in-person about her crush. Plus, two heads were better than one, right?

Then, Phineas had gotten Stacy over to help him give Isabella advice, because he didn't want to mess up his advice, and three heads were better than two, right?

(He would have asked Buford and Baljeet, but they didn't want to. They went to do what they always did when they escaped from Phineas' antics: go film one of Buford's online webseries.)

Second, Stacy was uploading a play-by-play to the forums to amuse herself.

Third, Vanessa was bored at work again, found Stacy's forum posts, and was now screaming suggestions at her, because four heads were better than three.

So, basically, Vanessa was giving Stacy advice on how to give Phineas advice on how to give Isabella advice on the situation.

Vanessa and Stacy provided input on what clothes Isabella should wear, with Phineas custom-emblazoning the clothes with 'I'M MADLY IN LOVE WITH FERB FLETCHER' everywhere. Vanessa also suggested getting a cute gift, which Stacy passed onto Phineas with a "hey, what does Ferb like? Isabella could give him a gift," which led to Phineas preparing his own interpretation of what a good gift for his brother would be.

Isabella showed up as Ferb was buying popcorn for the two of them in advance, as Stacy said something about showing up fashionably late and playing hard to get.

"...Isabella?" Ferb asked.

"H-hey there," Isabella greeted him back with a friendly grin, before wincing and grabbing at her ear. "I mean, hey. I mean, um, yo! How's it… hanging?"

For his part, Ferb took Isabella's sudden appearance mostly well, considering that he immediately replied with a nod of acknowledgement.

Which was really impressive, considering that Isabella was wearing ripped jeans, a blouse decorated with ribbons and lace, and a cowboy hat with matching boots, all an eyesearingly bright pink and patterned with line after line declaring 'I'M MADLY IN LOVE WITH FERB FLETCHER' in alternating bubblegum and hot pink. She was also badly hiding an earpiece communicator behind her hair. Ferb's composure was additionally impressive when one considered that she had brought a mechanical chicken with her. It clucked and ticked and everything.

"Do you want to trade?" Ferb asked.

"Huh?"

Ferb held up the big bag popcorn he had bought, then motioned at the mechanical chicken with his other hand.

"Oh! Um, yeah, this… this was for you, anyways!" Isabella exclaimed.

Ferb looked surprised by that, before making the trade with her.

"Thank you," Ferb said.

"Of course!" Isabella exclaimed eagerly, before backtracking. "I mean… do you like it?" She then flinched and held her ear. "I mean…! It's not like I…. actually wanted to make you happy or anything…? I mean, um, I'm spending time with you but I don't actually… it's not… um…..I'm not supposed to say I like you that way, apparently?!"

Ferb patiently waited for her to figure out what she wanted to say. Isabella

"So! Wanna head to our seats already?" Isabella asked with a charming smile, like all of that stuttering never happened.

Ferb was getting very mixed messages from Isabella by this point, but he nodded anyway.

Isabella's grin only widened as they started walking.

The mood between them had absolutely no right being romantic, considering that Ferb was holding a metal chicken. But said chicken was made by Phineas, certified madman.

With a bite from its beak and several flaps of its wings, it physically yanked Ferb over to Isabella.

"Uh?!" Isabella said, gasping at the sudden feeling of Ferb's hand on her shoulder.

Ferb quickly apologized and tried to pull his hand back, only for the chicken to start squawking at them. In a panic, Ferb put his hand back, and the chicken calmed down.

The two of them looked at each other, then at the chicken.

"U-um… here, this might be better," Isabella said shyly, her cheeks turning pink as she adjusted their position. She rested her hand in the crook of Ferb's right elbow, her other holding the popcorn while Ferb held the chicken.

Ferb nodded awkwardly, suddenly blushing as well.

And so they went into the theatre itself.

By the way, it was terrible. Isabella could not pay attention to the movie.

Vanessa was screaming that Isabella had to at the very least hold Ferb's hand, which conflicted greatly with Stacy's 'hard to get' strategy, so Stacy changed the order to "just accidentally bump your hand into his. Completely accidentally. Do not linger," and Phineas interpreted this as "Isabella, I think bump is an euphemism for punch. I think you need to punch Ferb."

Isabella, however, had the common sense to realize that punching her crush in the anywhere was a terrible, terrible, no-good, very bad idea. So she did her best to ignore Phineas' insistence that she punch his brother. It was very not working, because her hand was hovering over the popcorn in a tightly-clenched, slightly trembling fist.

Ferb, however, had actually been doing his best to pay attention (to distract himself from being a blushing mess.) Attention in a movie theatre quite naturally required him to be munching on popcorn.

And in the darkness of the room, his hand accidentally bumped into Isabella's.

In an absolute panic, Isabella flinched, her fist flying forward at whatever just touched her. But, Ferb was self-conscious enough to withdraw his hand the moment he touched her.

The mechanical chicken was not.

It went absolutely wild in the movie theatre, squawking and screaming over the movie audio.

And then it self-destructed.

Normally, a giant hole being exploded into the movie projector screen would mean that the movie was over. However, Ferb was sitting there, and he carried a giant map on him at all times, in case the need for a giant airplane or a map arose. In no time, he had unfolded the thing and stuck it to the four corners of the screen with tape.

This was enough for the movie theatre employees to not instantly kick him and Isabella out. Though when the movie ended and the pair left the room, some employees were staring at them. Or maybe it was Isabella's outfit.

Isabella felt uncomfortable. Not because of the staring or anything, but because her earpiece was going wild and she could not tell why Phineas was screaming.

Ferb, however, interpreted her grimace as a sign that she did not like being stared at. So, he addressed the problem in the best way he could.

He grabbed Isabella's hand and activated an invisibility device.

The employees were not paid enough to care about disappearing people during their shift, though a boy with his parents gasped and dropped his 3D glasses.

Isabella, though, cared a lot less about being invisible and more the fact that Ferb was holding her hand. She squeaked and lifted their intertwined hands in shock, but she wasn't pulling away.

Ferb was embarrassed, obviously, but he was also distracted by the idea of using this newfound invisibility to sneak into a few movies with Isabella. He decided otherwise when he realized that someone might sit on them.

So instead, he asked her if she wanted to leave. Isabella's response was to wince and grab at her ear again, before ripping the thing off.

"Yeah… um, that'd be cool with me," Isabella said.

Ferb nodded, before starting to walk off.

Neither one of them let go on the way back.

They wound up back in the Flynn-Fletcher living room, and Isabella decided, heck, she would do her confession her own way. She politely asked Ferb to wait while she changed clothes in the bathroom.

(She had been in the middle of picking her outfit when Phineas broke in, after all.)

Ferb didn't mind at all.

This was when Candace and Doof were preparing a Forget-All-About-That-Embarrassing-Moment-Inator, by the way. It did what you might expect: erase embarrassing memories on someone's mind.

Said Inator may have accidentally fired and reflected off a bunch of things until it was aimed straight at the Flynn-Fletcher house? More specifically, at the bathroom window...

Thankfully, though, Phineas was trying to build a giant rollercoaster in the backyard, so it bounced off the body of the cart and hit Irving, who suddenly forgot all about that time he hit on Isabella once.

So, Isabella came back, nervous and fidgeting with a pink skirt and the sleeves of her cute white blouse.

"Ferb…? I kinda have something to… to tell you."

Ferb looked up from his phone, putting it away to give her a thumbs-up and patting the spot next to him on the couch.

She sat down next to him, twirling a bit of her hair around her finger.

"See, I… um. I…"

Isabella screamed at herself mentally for getting tongue-tied, but her thoughts came to an abrupt stop when Ferb took her hand again.

She blushed quickly, which was a shame, because that was when Ferb dropped his phone in her hand.

"Eh?"

'If you have been brainwashed or mind controlled by aliens, press one,' a pleasantly synthetic woman's voice said. 'If you have been possessed by a ghost, press two. If Phineas put you up to this, press four. If, you somehow got a crush on me, press five-'

"YES!" Isabella screamed, before backpedalling. "I mean, five!? I mean, I-!"

Ferb's eyes widened as his phone kept rattling off potential scenarios, before he shut it off. He frantically pointed at her, then at himself.

"Yeah, I mean it! I have… a crush… on you…" Isabella trailed off, suddenly hit by a surge of shyness. "I mean… I like you."

And then Ferb pinched himself. Then he did it again. And again.

"Ferb? What are you doing?" Isabella asked, as he pinched himself for a fourth time.

"Oh. This is real?" Ferb asked in return. "You actually… like me back?"

"I mean, that requires that you like me in the first place…" Isabella paused, before blurting out, "You like me?!"

Ferb nodded shyly.

"Oh. Oh my gosh. I. Hold on. I need to pinch myself now!" Isabella exclaimed, before Ferb shook his head.

"I think I have an easier way of seeing if this is real."

"Huh? You do?" Isabella asked, as Ferb gently cupped her face in his hands.

"Push me away if you hate it," he said, before leaning in and pressing his lips against hers.

It was different from their other kisses. Every other time, they stuck to chaste pecks and bad excuses, knowing that anything more would reveal more than they dared to confess.

But now, Ferb was confessing, in his own quiet way.

And Isabella confessed in turn.

Then Ferb pulled away, but Isabella was not letting him get away with just a peck on the lips.

She grabbed the labels of his shirt collar and pulled him back towards her. Ferb was stiff with shock, but, sometime around the moment Isabella wrapped her arms around his shoulders, he relaxed enough to hold her back.

It was just getting good when Phineas burst into the room.

"Hey, Ferb, did you see the—" Phineas cut himself off at the sight of them making out on the couch, but his reaction was not the enthusiasm or reviled horror one would expect of a boy walking in on his brother making out with a girl on the couch. Instead, he sighed at the two of them with tired eyes. "What patch is it this time?"

"Uh," Isabella let out, a bit breathless and sheepish as she pulled away, "Emotional Bravery?"

"I cannot believe the two of you," Phineas huffed. "It should be mathematically impossible for you two to not be dating yet—"

"Phineas, isn't there literally anything else you can be doing right now," Ferb asked bluntly, his tone annoyed and impatient all at once. It should be noted that he was still holding Isabella by the waist and still had his other hand entangled in her hair.

"Oh, right, I was making the romance-coaster to help you two get together," Phineas remembered. "Just keep... doing whatever, I'll make sure you two stop being dumb and oblivious and have the best date ever when I'm done!"

Declaring that, Phineas returned to the backyard.

Isabella was still staring after the redhead, before asking, "should we tell him?"

"I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to what he comes up with," Ferb said.

"Yeah, I am too," Isabella confessed.

With that settled, they went back to what they were doing before they got so rudely interrupted.

ONLY THE EPILOGUE LEFT NOW