Word Count: 1214
...This one bothers me for some reason. :\
I feel like this took too long, too, and I keep missing episodes. D:
I don't own these characters, or else I'd be rich.
And, if you guys have any ideas, feel free to tell me. :)
11. Memories
Every now and then, Perry missed being human.
He wished for the time when he had two legs instead of four, when he ate pizza instead of bugs, when his thumbs were real thumbs, not a genetic change in his platypus body. He has yet to really regret changing, but he misses his old self from time to time.
It's the memories that get him, sometimes.
He didn't have any kids – he was only twenty-one when the OWCA brought up the idea of turning their agents into animals and putting them through training like that to promise maximum secret-identity keeping. He never married, not that he was too upset about that. The memories that nagged at him, pulled at that part of him that was determined to not regret turning into an animal were the ones from when he was younger, when he babysat the Flynn's during summer.
Linda used to have some job during the summer, Perry couldn't recall it now, but she was always gone from seven in the morning to five in the evening from May to August, and that was where Perry came in. She was one of few people to trust him after his sister was arrested. Danville was a close-knit city; most everyone knew the Flynn-Fletcher's and their friends. Phineas and Ferb had a liking for people, for playing and inventing, and when they were younger they just snatched everyone's hearts from the moment they spoke.
"You've been through a lot," Linda had said when he showed up for the jog offer of babysitter. Perry remembered thinking 'understatement of the year' and even remembered considering saying it, but he wisely kept his mouth shut and listened to her. Phineas and Ferb loved their legos and blocks, don't mess with their legos and blocks. They love Little Duffer's and their dog, Bucky, but Bucky can't eat anything but regular dog food. Little things that Linda told him that stuck with him, even then as a teenager and taking care of two children he hardly knew.
Bucky didn't like him much at first, but that wasn't too much of a problem. The kids, sans Candace, loved him. Ferb was quiet, and Phineas never stopped talking. Perry remembered being amazed that the kid had no end to his questions or ideas. He even came up with theories, for Pete's sake, about who Perry really was and where he came from.
"I bet you're a secret agent, and we're your targets. You want us to be spies too, right? That's why you're here, isn't it?" Perry was a secret agent then, before Carl and Monogram's promotion, before he was turned into a platypus. Phineas had the idea right, minus the targets.
It was really just an extra job, to look a little more normal and get a little more pay. Most of his pay went towards a college fund (that he never used). At the time, Phineas and Ferb were two kids he watched during summer, sometimes took to Little Duffer's and bought corn dogs for. They weren't dangerous, and while they could be trained to be secret agents, it wasn't why Perry was there.
"Of course, kid." Perry ruffled Phineas's hair and then told him to construct a lego spaceship for his mother to surprise her after she came home from work.
Lawrence was there too, a little more often during the summer days than Linda was, but he was often busy. He was kind to Perry, glad that his son and step-son had a friend, even if he wasn't their age.
Candace was less than enthusiastic about having a babysitter. She often avoided him unless she needed help on homework or reaching things on higher shelves. Most of the time, Stacey and Jenny were over with her or she was over at one of their houses, always with her phone handy just in case.
Honestly, she reminded him of his sister, before everything went down the drain, before she gave up on being a better person.
He clearly remembered his last few days as a human, talking to Phineas who still had questions for him after so long of his being there, and Ferb, who obviously knew something was wrong but wouldn't bring it up, and Candace, who was busy with some crush and giggling with her friends over every little thing he did.
Monogram explained the basics. He'd be an animal, but he'd be able to walk and move like a human. His memories would be kept intact; he wouldn't be able to speak, but it would help him with secrecy and protecting the people of Danville.
Perry's been protecting people all his life. It started with his brother and sister after mom left and dad died, continued with those stupid twins from his high school and that depressed girl from his art class, even Doofenshmirtz before he quit the Agency, and then Phineas and Ferb and Candace. He had plenty of reasons to stay a human, but quite a few for volunteering for the program.
He remembered forcing a smile at Linda, the guilt gnawing at him because this was a horrible time to be leaving, right after Bucky died. The kids were six years old, and didn't completely understand death, but they knew Bucky, who they visited at Kindly Old Man Simmons, was not going to come back. He couldn't have chosen a worse time, he knew, but he also knew that Linda and Lawrence would be taking the kids to find a pet.
"A unique pet," Lawrence said once, and Candace had agreed instantly (her mood deflated when Phineas and Ferb picked out a platypus. "They don't do anything!" She'd argued, crossing her arms over her chest.)
Perry knew they wanted a pet. A unique pet, a young pet, and that's exactly what he would look like tomorrow. He supposed it was nice to keep his name after Phineas and Ferb picked him up. Perry figured that Linda told them that Perry wouldn't be around anymore, and they decided to name their new pet after their old babysitter. Maybe they just liked the name Perry.
"Male platypi have poisonous spurs on the back of their feet," The shopkeeper told them. "But this guy's hade them removed. He's completely safe."
Except for the fact that he was really an agent trained in hand-to-hand combat even in platypus form. He knew one hundred different ways to disarm someone, how to dismantle bombs, how to calm down a person with a weapon. That last one was actually pretty hard to do without human vocal chords, but he learned quickly to say a lot with his expression.
It was mostly to protect people better. He was safer this way, too. Not many would suspect someone's mindless pet to actually be an agent.
But Perry went through with it because he cared about the Flynn-Fletchers, and two kids with such active imaginations and suck good building skill at six years old could easily get hurt. Candace too. Linda was out of the house often, even when she wasn't at work. (She wasn't neglectful, quite the opposite, she just seemed to run out of food often, and have a lot of random .)
Perry missed being human from time to time, but regretting it didn't come along with wishing for his thumbs.