"Perry, you're coming later today, right?"

Perry the Platypus smiled down at his wrist as he listened to his sister over his watch communicator. "Of course I'm coming to your graduation ceremony, Penny. You're about to become an official OWCA agent! I wouldn't miss it for the world."

Penny the Platypus beamed on her end of the screen, her OWCA dorm room visible in the background. "You know what I'm most excited for after becoming a proper agent?"

"Getting your own nemesis?"

"No!" Penny frowned. "Getting to work with you!"

Perry hesitated, feeling his heart plummet slightly in his chest. "You... You know that OWCA doesn't really pair agents to work together often, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, but a girl can dream! Besides, you seem to be assigned to teams more often than other agents- I mean, you had to help all those trainees last year and were on a team with them for a few weeks. Plus, I'm your sister. I like to think there's a solid chance they'll let us work together."

"Penny, you really get your hopes up way too often. How many times now have you gotten really excited about something, only to learn there was really never any chance of it happening?"

"I guess you're right." Penny sighed heavily, and Perry resisted the urge to sigh himself. "It doesn't matter, though. Either way, tomorrow I'll be sent on my first real mission!" Perry heard a noise offscreen, and Penny glanced away from the screen for a moment. "Oh, shoot. Sorry, Per, I've got to go. See you later!"

"See you." Perry let out the sigh he had held back while his sister was onscreen, turning off his watch and resting his head on his paws.

How was he supposed to tell his little sister that just about the last thing he wanted was to work on a team with her- or anyone, for that matter? They had always been close, since their parents had died four years ago, back when Penny was only just barely a month old. After being adopted by the Flynn-Fletchers and being assigned to Doofenshmirtz, Perry hadn't had as many chances to hang out with her, but he still did his best to support her whenever he could. And since she was graduating from being an OWCA Trainee today, it was his perfect chance.

But no matter how close he and Penny were, Perry had absolutely no interest in trying to be on a team with anyone, even her. He was a lone wolf- it was the way it always had been, with rare exceptions, and that was the way he wanted it to remain.

"Oh, there you are, Perry!" Phineas and Ferb raced out the door to where Perry was resting underneath their tree. Phineas bent down to his knees and gave Perry a gentle pat on the head, which the latter welcomed with a standard mindless chatter. "I'm glad we found you; can't leave for school without saying goodbye to you! See you later, buddy." Phineas adjusted his backpack straps and walked to their open fence gate, and Ferb, after giving Perry a similar pat on the head, followed his step-brother.

Perry allowed himself a brief grin and stood up on all-fours, stretched, and padded through the pet door into the Flynn-Fletcher's kitchen. While the boys had gotten up early and were already heading to school, Candace sat at the table in her pajamas, munching on her cereal.

"Hey, sleepyhead," Perry said as he passed, keeping his face straight. She was nearing the end of her sophomore year in high school and still hadn't gotten the hang of waking up properly for school. Fittingly, she barely seemed to notice him as he passed by the table.

"Candace," he heard Linda call from somewhere else in the house, "hurry up or you're gonna be late for school!"

"I'm hurrying, Mom, I'm hurrying," Candace mumbled, shoving another bite of cereal in her mouth.

Perry settled down in his bed and watched as Candace sleepily stumbled around the kitchen, doing his best to hide the smirk he so desperately wanted to reveal. Oh, Candace.

He really had just about the perfect life.

l.l.l.l.l.l.l.l.l.l.l

Penny the Platypus really had just about the furthest thing from a perfect life.

While in the middle of talking to her older brother, who she almost never got to properly talk to anymore, Penny's poorly-made dormitory shelf had chosen the perfect time to break apart. She sighed, picking up all her belongings that had resided on the broken shelf and making sure they were alright.

Thankfully, the frame on her signed picture was fine, as well as the picture underneath the glass. Perry had gotten that for her last summer, after he got to fight alongside a bunch of superheroes. Seriously, while she had been stuck sitting in this stupid dorm room, nothing to do with classes out for the summer, her older brother had been fighting actual supervillains. At least he had been nice enough to grab a few autographs: Iron Man's for Major Monogram, Hulk's for Carl, and Spiderman's for Penny.

Resting on the floor by Penny's feet was the other belonging she was most worried about: a little white teddy bear. It was the only memory she had of her parents- they had died only about a month after she hatched, so she barely remembered much about them. But Merinda, her mother, had given it to her one day, right before Penny got put up for adoption by OWCA; she and Carson, their father, had died less than a week later.

Penny examined the bear closely, making sure that it hadn't gotten torn. It was perfectly fine, thank goodness. She hugged it to her chest and leaned back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling.

Perry didn't really talk much about what happened to their parents. Penny had bugged him about it before, and all she ever got in response was along the lines of: "Penny, I don't feel like talking about that right now" or "They died on a mission; you know that." At this point, she had basically given up trying.

There was a knock on her door, causing her to jump from the bed in surprise. She cleared her throat and- carefully- tossed the bear on the bed before going to her door and opening it. "Oh! Casey! What is it?"

Casey the Cat, a fellow OWCA Trainee, crossed her arms, her tail swishing. "Are you going to eat anything before the ceremony? It wouldn't be great to faint on stage, I don't think. I'm heading to the cafeteria for breakfast- you should come, too, before you run out of time to eat."

"Oh, right." Penny glanced over at her clock: 9:45 AM. The ceremony started at 11, so Casey made a good point. "Yeah, I'm coming."

They walked down the hallway in awkward silence. Penny bit the inside of her bill. She and Casey didn't really know each other that well, although they had trained together for about a year. Then again, Penny didn't really know anyone at OWCA that well- except for Perry, of course. "T-Thanks for inviting me along. If it wasn't for you, I probably would have been distracted until, like, ten minutes before the ceremony began."

"No problem." Casey barely glanced in her direction. Penny held back a sigh.

"So will you be coming to the ceremony?" she asked hopefully. "I know I'm the only Trainee graduating this month, but I'd love it if you could be there. It's...kind of a big deal."

Casey glanced at her but didn't say anything. Penny held her breath. Was Casey about to decline? "I-I can totally come to yours next month, too," Penny stammered. "That is...i-if you're okay with me coming. I mean, it's a big deal, and if you're going to sacrifice time in your day I might as well sacrifice time in my day next month too, and-" She broke off and sighed. "Nevermind. You don't have to come if you don't want."

"Mm." Casey gave her an odd look before focusing again on the hallway in front of them.

Penny did the same. The tension forming in her head warned her that if she focused too much on Casey she'd just start crying, and that would only make anything worse. Who was she kidding? She'd be lucky if anyone other than her brother turned up at the ceremony. No one paid any attention to her at OWCA.

They were quiet until they reached the cafeteria. Quickly, feeling the tears still threatening, Penny raced to the line for food so that Casey wouldn't see her in case they became more than a threat. Thankfully, she managed to hold back the tears- and even choked out a few shaky thank yous to the servers- until she reached got a seat. By then, the tears had finally faded.

Penny sighed, poking at her egg with her fork. All of a sudden she wasn't hungry. She picked up a piece of bacon and forced herself to nibble on it, staring past the table into an empty void. There's no reason to get upset about what happened with Casey. She might have just had something on her mind. Besides, it's normal. You don't have a very close bond with any of the Trainees, and you never have. But you're about to become an agent.

Penny straightened up, feeling a smile suddenly come to her. She was about to become an agent! And OWCA had plenty of agents- she'd probably click with at least one of them.

Well... If she was going to get along with any of them, she'd have to get out of her brother's shadow first. That might be hard, him being OWCA's top agent and all. He didn't have the...best social skills, so hopefully he hadn't made any enemies who would take out their frustrations on Penny. Maybe she'd get along with Agent P, or Pinky the Chihuahua. He was...kind of friends with Perry. Perry also knew another Agent P (Peter the Panda) well- Penny had even heard rumors they had gone on a date once the previous summer, although Perry had been completely silent about that topic. Then again, if that was true, it might just make it harder for Peter to get along with Penny.

Penny ran through the list of agents she had heard Perry talk about before. Pinky, Peter... Was that really it? Every other agent that came to her mind had a completely neutral relationship with Perry; he didn't seem to care about them one way or another as long as they stayed out of his way. Man, I guess my brother's more of a hermit than I thought.

Well, if she was gonna have issues becoming friends with any of the agents, maybe she'd at least get her own nemesis; that would give her someone to care about, albeit in a strange, archenemy type of way. Maybe her dreams would even come true and she'd get to be on a team with another agent: then they'd have to get along!

Feeling a bit better, Penny bit into her breakfast properly, feeling a new motivation to get to her ceremony.

(...)

"Her training may have been delayed later than that of many standard agents, but that never stopped her. Now, with dedication and passion to her future, she's worked her way to graduating this April, beating out her classmates and being our only April graduate. Penny the Platypus!"

At Major Monogram's- fairly obvious- cue, Penny took her place on stage, wearing the standard OWCA Trainee hat: a brown fedora the same color as the agents', but with a yellow band around the middle instead of the agents' black band.

Her balloon of elation deflated a bit when she processed the audience in front of the stage. Perry was the only one in the audience, his teal fur sticking out from the black chairs well. He was beaming like a proud parent, which cushioned the blow a bit, but Penny still found it harder to hold up her smile than she had backstage a few moments ago.

She forced her eyes away from the audience and turned to face Major Monogram and Carl, who were both also grinning, clearly quite proud of her. Penny felt her smile return a bit: her boss was proud of her! Who cared who else had or hadn't shown up?

"Penny, it's time to be rewarded with your black hat band."

Penny practically tore the fedora off her head and handed it to Carl, who had stepped forward to receive it. Carefully, he removed the yellow Trainee band and set it on the stand next to him, picking up the black Agent band in the process. He slipped the black band on the hat, making it an official Agent Fedora.

It felt like hours as Carl made his way back to Penny and placed the hat on her head, although it probably only took a few seconds. After she felt the hat back on her head, Carl backed away and let Major Monogram step forward again.

"Welcome to the agency, Agent P." Major Monogram smiled and gave her a firm salute, which Penny returned, unable to hide the beam of her own.

Perry's clapping in the background was the only thing that kept her from feeling the need to pinch herself. Was she...really an agent now? Just like that? Now she could finally go on missions! Fight bad guys! Prove herself! She had delayed her training for over a year...that last thing was really necessary.

A voice brought her out of her dreamlike bliss. "Penny!"

Penny turned to the source and found Perry standing in front of the stage, grinning up at her. Penny mirrored his grin and hopped onto the floor, quickly grabbing him and hugging him tightly. "I'm so glad you made it!"

"I said there was no way I'd miss it." Perry chuckled and pulled away, adjusting Penny's hat- which had gone crooked when she jumped off the stage. "Congratulations, Agent P."

Penny giggled. "Now we have the same codename. I hope that doesn't throw anyone off."

Perry waved his paw nonchalantly. "Eh, it'll be fine. There's four of us now." He smirked. "They've lasted the past few years with three of us, what's one more?"

"Agent P?" Penny and Perry both turned to see Major Monogram watching them from his position still onstage. "...And Agent P. Now that the ceremony's over, I'd like both of you in my office."

"Both...of us?" Perry frowned.

"Yes, please. You'll see why." He walked off, explaining nothing more.

Penny playfully punched her brother's arm. "He probably just wants to see you get my main assignment! Like a nemesis briefing or something. Does it matter?"

Perry cleared his throat. "I guess not." He smiled at her. "Well, let's get going, then."