AN: Stepping back in time a bit for this one. Perry, Phineas and Ferb centered!

Worth Fighting For

Agent Perry the Platypus pulled himself up into his computer chair just as his superior flickered onto the large monitor. The monotreme was finding it hard to be his normal enthusiastic self that morning. He forewent one of the tube slide entrances, opting instead for the short staircase from the garage tool box passage. Major Monogram had already begun debriefing him on his mission and Perry was only half listening. His mind was elsewhere and said mission was sounding less and less important than his other thoughts.

Perry was only a second year agent, but two years was a long time for an animal. Already he was top of his class and sector, light years ahead of the other recruits that started the same time he had. He was even next in line for his very own personal nemesis. But today's mission was sentry duty at the down town Danville head quarters. That was what his talents were being put towards? Sentry duty? Didn't they have an entire sector of meerkats for that? He couldn't be bothered with such low class duties when-

The distracted platypus blinked out of his thoughts when the major cleared his throat. Perry tensed at Monogram's narrowed gaze. Apparently he hadn't been hiding his contemplative look as well as he thought he had.

"Somewhere you would rather be, Agent?" the man asked disapprovingly.

Perry swallowed thickly. Well… it wasn't like that wasn't true. The platypus sighed, looking away apologetically before sitting up straight to signal he was paying attention.

"Agent P, must I remind you the importance of proper behavior during debriefings so that-"

Oh great, a lecture. That was the last thing he needed. Perry winced and shook his bill, his paw reaching for the computer mouse. Fine… he would be truthful.

Major Monogram halted his lecture as the agent before him split the screen into two, bringing up his desktop and opening up an e-mail draft. Perry dragged a file from the desktop to the open e-mail.

"Carl, what is he doing?" the major's mustache bristled, very done with the disrespect he assumed he was receiving.

"Sending an e-mail, sir," the intern's voice responded off screen. "I'll print it off for you. Looks like a doctor's note."

"I don't recall him visiting the onsite vet recently," the major said as Carl walked on screen with the printed paper.

"Not for him, for one of the Flynn-Fletcher family members. It's a hospital discharge notice," the curly haired boy frowned sympathetically towards the agent as he handed over the notice. "Aww Agent P, is one of your boys sick?"

Perry warbled softly, wringing his paws and nodding. He looked to the major as the man read over the notice with an unreadable expression.

He knew it was no excuse to be distracted from his work. Perry himself wasn't ill. His host family was just supposed to be his cover. A place to sleep at night. A set of humans to set out a food bowl and provide a believable secret identity as a mindless pet.

But within the two years the platypus had lived with the Flynn-Fletchers… they had become so much more than that.

Perry assumed he'd receive a talking to for this behavior. For getting 'too attached'. For letting his feelings interfere with his primary objective.

He braced himself for the verbal beating as Monogram cleared his throat again and handed the notice back to his intern. "Assign Agent R to sentry duty, Carl."

Perry blinked in confusion.

Major Monogram avoided contact with his agent as he spoke. "We'll expect you back on duty this Wednesday, Agent P. No distractions."

Perry frowned. Was he being punished?

At the agent's frown, the major coughed awkwardly. But this time his eyes met the concerned brown ones on the other side of the screen. And though his stance was as stoic and firm as ever, there was a slight softness to his tone. "Monty had asthma growing up," the man said as if it were explanation enough.

And it was. Perry smiled fondly at his superior, sitting up and saluting him before hopping down off his chair.

The agent tucked his hat away as he bolted to the nearest secret entrance into his owners' house. So excited was he to get back into the house that Perry hadn't even realized he was rushing up the stairs on all fours.

The entrance brought him underneath the living room couch, his bill poking out to get an idea where each family member was. A pair of women's yellow sneakers came into view followed quickly by a pair of child's sized ones, complete with Velcro buckles.

"Can I go upstairs now, Mom?"

"Your brother needs to sleep, Phineas."

"He's been sleepin' since we got home. I thought you said the doctor made him better?"

Perry squeezed out from under the couch to trot after the mother and son into the kitchen. Linda was putting dinner together while her seven year old got in the way.

"Ferb will be just fine, sweetie, but the medicine still needs time to work," she gently moved her son aside so she could get into the refrigerator. "He'll need to stay in bed till at least the end of the week."

Phineas was not okay with that answer, sighing and looking downward at the tiled floor. A familiar chatter beside him revealed the family pet nuzzling against his shin. The boy reached down to pluck the platypus off the floor. Perry was more half his size now that he was full grown, but that didn't stop the two youngest members of the family from carrying him around like he was still a pup. Unlike most animals, he didn't mind being held and carried. The boys were gentle and never ran with him or dropped him.

"But Perry wants to see him," Phineas held the pet close to his chest.

Linda looked down at her youngest. This was a common thing for her two boys. 'Perry' often wanted a lot of things. Juice boxes that weren't sugar free. Oreos. An extra hour before bed time. Phineas and Ferb were always very quick to inform their parents of their exotic pet's specific needs and wants. They couldn't be blamed if sometimes those things just coincidentally were also the needs and wants of little boys.

Linda couldn't deny the adorableness of the ploy though. The way she often had to talk to them through their pet could sometimes be annoying, what with it blankly staring at her, but regardless… still adorable. She sighed, looking past the wall-eyed platypus to a desperate Phineas. She glanced at the clock.

"… If he's sleeping, you come right back downstairs, okay?" Linda waited for her son's nod before waving him off. Although the last thing she needed was two sick children, it was incredibly hard to keep the two of them apart. No mountain, no vast sea, no mild case of pneumonia would come between Phineas and Ferb.

But you would never see Linda complain about the unbreakable friendship her sons had.

Phineas smiled widely and carried Perry up to the bedroom he shared with his step brother. "Ferb's gotta real bad cough, Perry, so we gotta take care of him," the boy informed his pet on the way.

Perry chattered a response as he was set down on the carpet outside the door. He waited impatiently, his bill nudging through the small crack once Phineas turned the knob, pushing it open the rest of the way. The little boy attempted to make a grab for his pet, whispering for him to wait so he could make sure his brother wasn't asleep per his mother's instructions, but Perry was a platypus on a mission.

He'd been a mess of nerves when the green haired child hadn't stopped coughing for hours during the night, keeping up a concerned Phineas and Perry. What they thought had just been a cold had lingered much too long and had gotten much too bothersome for his parents' liking. At around two am, with no rest and no end in sight to the coughing fit, Ferb was bundled up and brought to the emergency room.

The entire family had gone and Perry had been left sitting at the front door with a pathetic and hopeless expression as he listened to the family's car pull out of the driveway.

He wouldn't deny that his worry may have caused him to… misuse O.W.C.A technology and hack into the main frame of North Danville Hospital. It was only a little completely against company policy.

All night Perry had monitored Ferb's file and at six am, the family's station wagon pulled back up the drive. Lawrence carried in a fast asleep Ferb with his face mashed against his father's shoulder. The child looked exhausted, but a few breathing treatments had opened up his lungs and silenced the cough for now.

The children were put back to bed, school and work days were canceled, and Perry and Phineas found themselves on the pull out couch in the living room.

This would be the first time the platypus had seen the boy since he'd been shooed off Ferb's bed in the middle of the night by a worried Linda. Perry would not allow this to happen again.

Despite Phineas' harsh whispers for him to come back, Perry leapt up onto the purple comforter and crawled towards the lump in the middle. Without a second thought, he curled up behind Ferb, resting his bill on the child's hip. It wasn't until a little hand slowly made its way out from under the covers to rest atop his head that Perry relaxed some.

Ferb shifted onto his back, prompting his pet to cuddle up closer to him and for Phineas to come the rest of the way into the room.

"Been sleepin' all day, pal!" the red head smiled, crawling up onto the foot of his brother's bed.

"What time is it?" Ferb croaked out, rubbing his crusted eyes with his fist, his other arm wrapped around a purring Perry.

"Almost dinner time. We got to stay home from school today. Candace too," Phineas explained, examining his brother. He didn't look any better than he had last night, minus the relentless cough.

"My chest hurts," Ferb tried to clear the tickle in his throat.

"I hope they gave you the right medicine. The doctor said you have puh-moan-ya," Phineas explained, helping Ferb sit up and prop pillows behind him. "But that tube thingy they gave you to breathe from worked huh? You stopped coughing after that."

Ferb nodded, remembering bits and pieces of the night before. The nebulizer treatments had worked, but the constant cough had done a number on his diaphragm muscles. His focus was now on the monotreme in his lap, stroking the soft turquoise fur and drinking in the calming effect it had. He had wished his pet had been at the hospital with him for that reason alone. Luckily his brother had been allowed to be there and Phineas' hyper chatter had the same calming effect on Ferb.

"Mom said you're gonna miss school all week. But I still have to go," Phineas sighed. "Don't worry though, I'll bring home your work sheets and tell you the answers."

Ferb smiled at that, thankful for his brother's loyalty.

Perry listened to the two chat, comforted that Ferb wasn't so sick that he couldn't enjoy time with his best friend and brother. That was enough to assure him everything would be alright. But until the two were back in the yard, playing and imagining big adventures without a care in the world, he would stay with his boys.

His boys.

Even Carl had put it that way. Phineas and Ferb were not his owners. They were his boys.

Perry hadn't even wanted a host family.

Only a few weeks out of the egg and the platypup lived and breathed his secret agent training. When he was told he would start the adoption process he scoffed at the notion. He didn't need the burden of that. It would take away from his time as an agent, fighting evil, being awesome.

But it had done the exact opposite of what he had initially thought.

It had made his job more important.

It gave him someone to fight for.