As promised for all of my lovelies over on tumblr, here's another oneshot! thanks for voting for me in the dwampyverse awards! Seriously, I never expected to make it past the first round. Incredibly humbled to have made it to the finale, even if I didn't win LMAO (I promise I will get my human perry au published eventually)
Anyways.
It's almost midnight when Perry enters the house. He's exhausted, smells vaguely of -inator smoke and ozone, and is the new owner of a dead jetpack battery: the only prizes he gets for his victory over Heinz today.
The man had, once again, decided to take his scheme to the air, which ended in a rather predictable crash in the middle of Absolutely Nowhere. This setback is only slightly less worrying for Phineas in particular – a couple texts to the family group chat prevents him from organizing a(nother) city-wide search party. It's much more convenient than the make-up cuddles Perry had to endure before the break-in.
Not that the cuddles are unwanted, but he does have a rather unpredictable schedule.
A yawn creeps up Perry's throat at the reminder: Heinz will undoubtedly be back with another -inator tomorrow afternoon, and he desperately needs to wash the debris from his fur. And then, preferably, collapse onto the first flat surface he comes into contact with.
"Perry? Are you home?" comes Lawrence's voice from the kitchen.
The platypus stifles a groan with a yawn, trudges to the doorway, and pokes his head through to wave to find both Linda and Lawrence at the kitchen table.
Long day, about to head to bed, he signs. He's surprised that the both of them aren't already in bed, too. What are you guys doing up? He asks, pulling himself into the hazy kitchen light.
They're practically drowning in papers – probably records from the antique shop, if he were to guess. It's one of the only things that could keep the two rooted here for so long.
It seems like his question has reminded them both of the time, because Lawrence yawns, plucking his glasses from his face. Linda stifles one of her own, but she seems to hardly notice. She's staring at the document in her hands like it's personally insulted her.
Perry raises an eyebrow towards Lawrence, who has finished scrubbing his eyes. He seems to regret looking at Perry. "Oh, ah…well, it's a funny thing, actually. We were doing some organizing. Sorting through files…"
Been there , Perry dismisses, because he certainly does not want to get roped into that outside of work. He jabs his thumb behind him, gonna hit the showers.
He begins to turn away, but Lawrence's next words stop him in his tracks.
"Um, actually we were – looking at your adoption papers." He stutters, and Perry suddenly feels the fur along his spine try to stand on end.
He blinks into the dimly-lit living room for a few seconds, before creaking his gaze back towards Linda and Lawrence. He is now mirroring the nervousness they are holding in their shoulders. His gaze laser focuses on the paperwork in Linda's hands. She's no longer looking at it, but she still has that same look on her face.
…why? He signs, willing his hands to remain still. They kind of fail. He's incredibly tired.
Linda must realize her posture, because she suddenly straightens. Perry's still not looking at her face, but he can kind of see it relax. She's still holding herself weirdly, though, and he doesn't like it. He's not doing a good job of keeping his hackles down. He's so tired.
"Well we kind of wanted to…double check them." Linda admits, "just to see if anything about your job was mentioned in the fine print…"
Perry's brows pull together at that. OWCA has justified many strange things, but he can't imagine that would be one of them. In fact, he would place money on it. Would , being the keyword, because Linda's tone makes him turn the rest of the way.
There is no defeat in their tone.
You found something? He blinks in vague bewilderment. Because frankly, he'd never bothered to look at his adoption papers. He's sure most of it is a formality that is entirely comprised of bullshit, anyhow.
"Well…we don't know, exactly." Lawrence shrugs, entirely unsure.
It spurs Perry to hop onto the chair next to Linda, and he gestures a bit too-skittishly for the paper. She obliges.
"There's a line of text near the bottom – on your birthday." She almost-whispers, pointing to a print so tiny that it could have been written by ants, "created in captivity."
Created.
Perry has also never bothered to look at his birth certificate, though that is for an incredibly different reason from the adoption papers. There are an incredible number of legal loops to jump through to get a copy. And to be fair, it's not like he'd ever had a reason to have one – it's not like he has a mortgage to pay for. OWCA is truly the only one that would ever have any use for it, and thus he's fairly certain it has never left HQ since his birth. Or, well, whatever would be considered 'being born' into the O.W.C.A.
Which is, apparently, 'created' .
Perry tries to push down a shaky breath with a gulp, clamping his bill together. He stares at that word for what feels like eternity, hoping desperately that it's just as bullshit as the rest of the document, and yet being unable to prove it. Because, yeah. Yeah, even OWCA has to be held to federal regulations. It's illegal to pluck platypuses from the wild.
He's so tired. He can't process this right now. He needs to shower.
"We thought it was a weird way to say 'bred in captivity'." Linda, again speaks like her syllables will fracture glass if they're too loud. Perry thoroughly refuses to meet the gaze he can feel boring into the side of his head.
He's so tired.
Created.
"...You aren't comfortable talking about this, are you?" Linda, unfortunately, observes. Because of course she does.
Perry wants to crumple the page until it's compressed to nothing but atoms, but he forces his paws to remain still. He swallows, and places the document on the table.
It's not something that's talked about. He signs.
"So you know about it, then?" Lawrence urges, and he almost sounds appalled.
Grimacing, Perry leans back against the chair, almost regretting his promise.
Almost.
But he's never talked about it before.
I don't know a lot about it, he admits, dipping into a bit of his interrogation training. His shaking lessens, but it doesn't disappear. He's so tired.
We … he hesitates, We aren't supposed to know at all .
"'We' being…the other agents?" Linda asks.
Perry nods numbly. He's so tired.
"OWCA does this to all of their animals?" That's definitely appall in Lawrence's voice now. Again, Perry nods. " Why?"
You don't think they're sending normal animals to fight supervillains, do you? Perry signs, and he can't help but scoff.
"Well I…I suppose not," Lawrence deflates, but it's more from realization than acceptance. Perry has to agree.
"Well – what do they do?" Linda asks, entirely unnerved. Perry's sure she wants to know just about as much as he does: which is, somehow, not at all and absolutely all at once.
We don't know for sure. Intelligence is a factor, obviously. Increased muscle density, our eyesight is altered. There's probably blood flow optimization and immunity enhancement. He hesitates for what feels like the millionth time, I don't know my life expectancy. He admits with a suddenly sore throat. It's probably somewhere in the forties, if I'm lucky .
He feels a bit selfish to be saying that out loud. Regular platypuses are lucky to get ten years, and here he is bitter about (most-likely) getting more than quadruple that.
But he was created . He wasn't given the choice .
It seems that Linda and Lawrence don't know what to do with that infodump, because there's a horrible couple minutes of silence that only the kitchen clock's ticking interrupts.
He's so tired.
"But you had parents, correct?" Lawrence asks.
Well, obviously he did, what a strange question. Perry scoffs. Obviously the issue of how the genes were transferred is a different story. IVF, stem cell experimentation, cloning….gene-splicing…the nursery is one of the only sectors at HQ that are purely handled by humans. It's a very pathetic excuse of secrecy, especially when they know what their agents are capable of.
Perry only realizes that he never answered the question when Linda speaks up, "We're sorry, Perry. We shouldn't have asked. We didn't mean to spring this on you."
Shaking his head to clear it, the platypus manages a half-hearted shrug.
It is what it is. Dwelling on it isn't going to change anything.
He just wants to shower.
"...I suppose you're right." Lawrence agrees, nervously stacking some unrelated documents into a neat pile. He sighs – his typical preamble before shifting a subject, "A bit of a rotten subject to bring up right before bed, huh?"
It's okay , Perry signs, eyes darting to the damning words on the document in front of him.
I'm okay , he revises.
"Are you sure?" Linda asks, using that tone that is typically reserved for Candace when she has particularly bad anxiety days.
Nodding, Perry jumps to the floor, chewing on his tongue. This conversation has suddenly taken a turn that he can't quite place, other than it makes him feel very small, and he doesn't like it. He's a grown platypus, for christ's sake. Linda doesn't need to be using that tone with him, he's not one of their…
Okay, so maybe he is, on a technicality , a charge of theirs. But that doesn't mean he considers them his parents. (He doesn't think he has any first-hand experience to discern what a parent would mean to him, anyway). He does suppose that Linda and Lawrence are an anchor in his life that Monogram can't fill, though.
His whole family is.
And you know what? That's enough for him.
His affirmation towards Linda is not, technically, a lie. He may not be okay right now, but he knows he will be, eventually. He's got a family that cares enough to worry for him. A family that is willing to erase their memories for him. A family that he would break protocol a thousand times over for so that they don't have to. A family he loves thoroughly. He doesn't care if those emotions are artificial. They're real to him.
I am a FIRM FIRM FIRM FIRM believer that the OWCA agents' are spliced with human genes. Perry also deserves some good parental figures. (if it isn't obvious yet I have parent issues)
"The idea of two men kissing, that's fine. I don't care, I love it, it's beautiful. I'll kiss you right now, please ask me." - The Basement Yard Podcast
Until next time, my lovelies!
~Local Dragon Haunt