Phineas and Ferb

Dark Ages

Chapter 3: Forgiveness

Disclaimer: Phineas and Ferb is not mine; it belongs to Dan Povenmire & Jeff "Swampy" Marsh. Spiderman is also not mine.


"OK, guys! Let's make some noise!" Isabella shouted to his friends as they all started banging their pots and pans hard, creating lots and lots of noise, and creating lots of distress for the Symbiote. It began to quickly come off as Isabella began pulling hard. The noises was greatly weakening the Symbiote, weakening it enough for Isabella to be able to tug on it and actually put up a fight. "Come on! Come on!" Isabella kept saying to herself as she pulled harder.

Even with all the noise, the alien was still resisting, and still kept itself mostly attached to Phineas. "It's not...working!" Phineas shouted. "We need even more noise!"

"But how are we gonna make even more noise?" Isabella shouted over the banging of pots and pans.

"I have an idea. FERB!" He called out to his stepbrother, who stopped his noise making. "Activate the sonar blasters!" Ferb dropped his pots and pans...forcefully, which also created more sound, and ran over to the control panel. He flipped a couple of switches and in seconds, along with the banging & clanging, there was a terribly loud shrieking noises that came from speakers that were plugged in everywhere. At this point, the alien couldn't take anymore, and finally gave in as Isabella ripped it off of Phineas.

As she fell to the ground, still holding the Symbiote, Phineas was able to get an empty pickle jar and trap it in. The kids celebrated after he put the cap on the jar.

"We did it! We did it! Lo hicimos! We did it!" Baljeet shouted as they all thought that the ordeal was over. Little did they know that the ordeal was just getting underway, and this little incident was only the beginning.

"Phew! Good thing that's over with." Isabella noted, picking up the jar. "You're not so tough now, are you, little guy?" She mocked to the alien as Ferb took it out of her hands, and put it away in a giant silver safe, and locked it away, with a combination only he and Phineas knew. "That thing was starting to scare me, huh, Phineas?" She looked over at her friend, who was sitting on the ground with a frown on his face.

The incident had affect Phineas more than the friends had expected. Phineas was a kind, gentle, humble soul with only the greatest intention of making each summer day better than the last. And he would not want to spend it with anyone other than his stepbrother, Ferb, and his best friends. Being nasty and malevolent to them in any way was not in the plan, and now that it was over, the boy felt horrible about it.

"Phineas, what's wrong? We got the alien. Now it won't bother you anymore." Isabella said, hoping it would lift his spirit. But it was a bit late for that. Seeing that he had hurt his friends was straining him emotionally.

"What does it matter? The damage was already done." Was all he said before he headed back to the tube that took him there. The friends all looked at each other, confused. But they figured that Phineas just need a little more of time. So they all followed him out of the tree, and, seeing as it was almost dark out, decided to head home.


The next morning, it was business as usual for the Flynn-Fletcher, except this time around, something seemed different.

Candace was the first one awake this time, which was strange. She went downstairs for some breakfast when she noticed that there was a note for her on the breakfast table. She went over and picked it up. "Dear Candace, your mother and I are going on a business trip in Germany for several presentations. We will be gone for a few weeks. There is an envelope in my dresser drawer with pizza money in it that should last you, Phineas, & Ferb. Be safe now and watch over them. Love, Dad."

She put the note down, ran up to her parents' room, got the envelope and opened it up. There was $300 stashed in there. It was surely enough to last them all at least a couple of weeks. She then went up to Phineas and Ferb's room to tell them the good news. "Hey guys, Mom and Dad are out of town and they left us some pizza money. How's about we get some for break...fast..." Her voice trailed when she looked at Phineas and saw that he was sitting upright. His eyes were wide open and they looked very weary and bloodshot. "P-Phineas? Are you OK?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, Candace. I'm fine." He replied, his voice showing the fatigue.

"Then why do you look so tired? Did you sleep well last night?"

"No. No I didn't."

"Then why do you say that you're fine? Obviously you must be tired. What's up?"

"I don't know. I guess I don't deserve to sleep." Phineas got out of bed, followed by Ferb, and trudged down to the kitchen. Candace and Ferb stayed behind and exchanged looks.

"What was that all about?" Candace inquired, to which Ferb shrugged.

The two boys had their breakfast and then went outside to the backyard. Candace also went outside to go to Stacy's house. She trusted the two boys enough to leave them alone by themselves, because they always had their friends to watch over them should something go wrong. Isabella soon came into the backyard too check up on her friends.

"Hi Phineas. Hi...Ferb..." Her voice trailed upon seeing her friend sitting under their big shady tree like a sad sack. Phineas didn't even look up at his friend as she came in and took a seat next to him, which caused him to scoot to his right a bit. "Phineas, are you OK?"

"Sure. I'm fine. No need to worry." He tried to reassure her. But she wasn't dumb.

"Then why do you look like garbage? I mean, why do you look like you haven't slept in a couple of days?"

"Maybe because I haven't."

"What happened?"

"Nothing. Nothing happened. I just couldn't get comfortable. That's all." He lied. The last thing he wanted to worry about at the moment was making Isabella upset or worried again, especially after the way he treated her. Somehow, Isabella knew that this was what Phineas was thinking about.

"Hey Phineas, can I ask you something?" She decided to make a move on it.

"Sure. But...only if I can ask you something first." After hearing Isabella say those three fateful words, "I love you" to him, it's been bugging him. He was trying to wrap his mind around the fact this his lifelong best friend (besides Ferb) has had more-than-friends feelings for him. Up until that point, he didn't understand what those feelings meant. But after thinking long and hard about it the previous night, he had finally decided to talk to her about it.

"What's the matter, Phineas?"

"Isabella...when you said "I love you"..." Isabella started sweating. "Did you genuinely mean it. I mean, have you really had feelings for me for all this time? Or did you just say it to snap me out of my rage?"

"How could you even ask something like that?" Isabella was getting upset now. But she could understand his confusion. Any boy would be perplexed and caught off-guard if a girl just went up to them and said "I love you!", but she truly believed that Phineas took it to heart. Guess he was still a bit apprehensive about what had happened the previous day. But it wasn't like he killed anybody or was intentionally out to make his friends shun him. So why was he so defensive about it? "I meant it. I meant every word I said yesterday."

"Even about the part about you being hot for me?" Phineas joked as Isabella lightly punched his arm.

"Well, even now I have to admit, those black shorts did show off your cute butt." She joked back, which, to her surprise, made Phineas blush a bit. "But...it looks better in your regular blue shorts."

"Uh...thanks? Anyway..."

"Look, Phineas, why are you getting so defensive? I mean, is there something wrong? Did I do something to make you upset?"

He looked up at her with endearing eyes. Tears began to fall from his eyes. "No. I did." Was all he said before he put his head back down. The distorted sounds of him sniffling back tears was all she could hear. She stroked his hair lightly as he looked back up.

"You? What-"

"Yesterday. When that alien was possessing me. I was yelling at you and bossing the others around. I was turning into a mini-Candace, and that scares me." He said; it was a true fear of his. He knew how his sister was around him and Ferb when it came to their crazy contraptions, and even though on the outside he didn't seem to let it affect him, on the inside, he was deeply hurt. He couldn't understand why Candace resented their many ideas, but he just let it pass over him. "I didn't want to turn into one of those guys that yells and snaps at everyone at every turn. That's not who I am."

"I know that, and every one of your friends knows that. They know that you would never do anything to make them mad on purpose. It was that alien's fault, not yours."

"Yeah, but I can't help but blame myself. I should've realized something was different about me. But...I don't know. I was too consumed by it. And because of that, I hurt everyone around me. I made them feel miserable and I made them feel like I didn't appreciate them. And now, the only way I feel that I can make things right with them is to deprive myself of things that I need and want to make my life feel fulfilling."

"You mean like...not sleeping and not eating? And isolating yourself from your friends?"

"Yeah, exactly."

"Don't do that. It's not fair to you, and a lack of food, sleep, and social contact could do irreversible damage to your body. I don't want to see anything bad happen to you. You're my best friend in the whole wide world, and I can't imagine my life without you!" Now it was Isabella's turn to get emotional. Life without Phineas in her eyes was a life not worth living. Phineas knew that he was important to her, but he was shocked to see just how important he was.

"Isabella, I can't imagine my life without you either. But I don't understand what makes you so attracted to me."

"Y-You really don't know?"

"No. But I'd love to know!"

"Well..." She was finding it difficult to get the words out. "Back when we were in preschool, there was this bully who was picking on me."

"Oh yeah, I remember. That was the day you first joined out class."

"Yeah, and you and I...didn't exactly start off on a good note. I remember sitting at your table and you wouldn't even talk to me. I guess it was because you were nervous. And I was too. Then at recess, that bully found me and started giving me wedgies."

"That was kinda hard for me to watch."

"But this is the part where you come in. You jumped him and told him to pick on somebody his own size. And then he started torturing you. I remember by the end of it, you were covered in black n' blues."

"I can't believe none of the teachers believed us about it. We got in trouble instead of that jerk."

"Don't worry, Phineas. Chances are they're all dead now."

"Yeah, it probably isn't a good idea to have a staff full of 90-year old teachers who have Alzheimer's "

"Nope. Not at all."

"So that's why you had a crush on me? Because I protected you from a bully?"

"Mom originally said that it was just a "hero phase" and that it would wear off. But then, you started being really nice to me. You were talking to me, making me laugh, telling stories, cheering me up when I was down...overall, Phineas, you just made me feel good inside to be near you."

"My mom told me that I should always be nice to girls, no matter how rude they are. But to tell you the truth, you're the only girl I really want to spend time with. I mean, you're so vibrant, care-free, happy, cute, and every time you smile or utter your "Whatcha' doin'?" catchphrase, I get butterflies in my tummy. You're so adorable, Isabella. I just can't believe how adorable you are. You know, I always used to think that romance was so much harder than this."

"That's because this isn't romance." Isabella said, scooting a bit closer to him, taking his hand, and looking deep into his eyes. "It's love."

"Is it...better than romance?"

"Absolutely. Because unlike romance, love lasts forever." She leaned in close and kissed his cheek, which made him smile widely. "I love you so much, Phineas."

"I..." Phineas was still slightly apprehensive about all of this, mostly stemming from his guilt. "I love you too, Isabella. But...but not in that "romantic, dating" kind of way. I-I don't understand any of that, and I don't think that I ever will understand it, no matter how much studying I do on the subject."

"I know, and I'm OK with that."

"Yeah, but I'm not. All I want to do is make my friends happy."

"At the cost of your own happiness?"

Phineas hesitated on that answer. "Look, I know you're looking for someone to sweep you off your feet and give you a fairy tale ending, and I know that person's not going to be me. Face it, it's never going to be me."

"But Phineas, you don't know what my fairy tale ending is."

"Alright, then what is it?" By this point, Phineas was so convinced that he wasn't right for Isabella. He was doubting himself and putting pressure on himself again.

"My fairy tale ending is us standing at the altar, saying "I do" to each other, and then living happily ever after in a beautiful home in Hawaii, raising children and watching them conquer summertime boredom just like you and Ferb do now."

They looked at each other for a long time. Phineas was quite surprised at Isabella's answer; he knew that that goal was easy for him to achieve. "W-Wow, Isabella. I-I had no idea your feelings for me were so strong. Now I feel guilty again." Phineas yawned.

"But there's no need."

"Yes there is. All my life, I've striven to make my friends happy, and I'm pretty sure me not noticing your feelings is a pretty strong indication that I'm not making you happy. So, to make it up to you," He pulled out a really long list, containing things he wanted to do for his perfect first date. "I made this list of what we can do to make our first date perfect."

Isabella noticed that the list was at least 7 feet long. It was way too much for a first date, and she knew it would be way too much for Phineas to handle before collapsing from exhaustion. So before he got a chance to wind the list down, she grabbed it out of his hands and winded it back up. "Or..." She began. "We could go to my house, we could climb into my hammock, lay down next to each other, and I'll put you down for a nap because you look exhausted." She took his shoulders and hugged him tightly. The only thing that would make her life not worth living would be if Phineas wasn't there.

"I'm too old for a nap, Isabella. But...I don't really feel like doing anything else. You...you promise you'll be there the entire time?" He asked.

"Absolutely. I'll stay by your side all day if you want." She helped him up, took his hand, and led him to her house. There was a big hammock in the backyard, big enough for the two of them. She lead him to one side and helped him up into the hammock before climbing into the other side. The two spent most of the rest of the day laying there and looking up at the clouds. They let their love shine and it was as if the world around them melted away. Phineas didn't even think about that awful Symbiote that took control of it.


Speaking of it, it was trying desperately to get out of its glass trap. It was practically impenetrable in the Symbiote's view, but that's only because it was so small and weak by itself. It would need the help of something from the outside in order to escape. And by that, I mean a ceiling light that just so happened to have a screw loose and fall to the ground, crashing and obliterating the light bulb on impact. But it didn't just crashed into the ground. No it crashed into the jar that it was being held in, and when the ceiling light broke, so did the glass jar.

With nothing holding it back, the Symbiote was free to crawl out and find a brand new host. It figured out how to use the elevator up and out of the tree, and then crawled into the streets for a host. When it sensed that there would be no suitable hosts for it in this town, it crawled all the way to the airport (undetected I might add) and then attached itself to a plan that was heading for New York. Hiding under the engine, it remained undetected by anyone on board for the entire ride.

End of Chapter 3!

Next Time: See what Spiderman's life is like without the Symbiote to worry about, and what his life is like with it.

Expected Update: ?