Chapter Text
~ Prologue ~
If Heinz Doofenshmirtz had stopped and thought for one second that the downfall of his plan wouldn't be Perry the Platypus, this time, but rather a teenage girl - and not just Perry in the costume of a teenaged girl either - he might have stopped this whole sorry attempt of taking over the Tri-State area at once and thought up a new one instead. Afterall, it was one thing to be thwarted by a secret agent monotreme -or one wearing a teenage girl disguise - but another matter entirely to be thwarted by just a teenage girl herself.
They were just so teenage-girly.
If he was to know that this girl, deep in the throes of her first-time-around adolescent misery and neurosis, would be his downfall, he would have simply said, no, I'm sorry, this is a very, very bad idea and called it a day before he even bothered to explain what his plan had been, quickly conjuring up a new one so that Perry the Platypus would be the one to twart it as usual. Everything back to normal and undamaged, well, not anymore damaged than usual.
However, Heinz Doofenshmirtz didn't know any of this.
He had no way of knowing.
It had never occurred to him that he could encounter a mess of a teenage girl whom could prevent him from succeeding initially because she just had a bad feeling about him.
Just as he never suspected that he could ever develop any sort of feelings for her too.
But that was just what had happened.
The Tri-State area could very well have been his except for the intrusion of one 18 year old girl.
A girl named Candace Flynn.
The girl whom went and spoiled everything because he unfortunately happened to break her heart.
Just as she just happened to break his too.
~ Chapter One: Setting up the Situation ~
"So Vanessa, honey, you are being honest with me? You are no longer at Danville High, but are going to college, yes, just like you said?" Heinz Doofenshmirtz asked his daughter one morning as he sat looking at some blueprints on his desk. "You didn't fail, or anything like that? You'd be honest with your father, if you had?"
"Please," the teenager replied to her dad, unsure why he had been repeatedly pestering her about the subject, as of late, but fairly certain he was up to something...not that that concerned her anymore. She was a grown woman, attending college and no longer required to be responsible for her evil scientist dad and his usually destructive and lame plans, even though she loved him as much as humanly possible. "Besides, Dad, you work at the high school. If you're so suspicious about whether or not I'm telling you the truth, look at the files for yourself."
"I would," Heinz Doofenshmirtz said before admitting something he'd already mentioned a few times, but had gone right over her head. "However, my community service ended and I quit. I can no longer access the files and they went and changed all of the passwords on me. That Professor Lang still hates me, after your mother chose me and not him. I should give him my utter disappointment over a failed marriage, I guess, stop all of his incessant whining! But, besides from all that, I can't check to see if you're lying to me or not."
"Well, gee, thanks for the vote of confidence in me," Vanessa said, not really angry at her father for outright confessing he doubted her word. When one was evil, and wanted their offspring to follow in their footsteps, she supposed it was only natural to be suspicious. Maybe a part of him was even hoping she was deceiving him.
"You know I love and trust you, Vanessa, but I have to make sure of this fact, believe me you would be grateful in the long run; you are the one who's always telling me to not humiliate you in front of your friends, right?"
"Ahhh...yeah."
"Well, see, this one would mortify you, even more than me becoming a teacher."
"What are you up to anyway?" she finally bothered to ask, curious now and kind of worried.
Heinz shook his head and held his large hands up. "Believe me, the less you know about this one the better."
"Are you trying to take over the Tri-State area again?" Vanessa glared at the now once again evil scientist.
Doofenshmirtz looked around guiltily. "Perhaps."
"Jeez, Dad," she groaned. "Honestly! You flip back and forth on that enough to give me, Perry and the rest of the OWCA whiplash. Are you evil or good?"
"Well...being evil is just not that easy to give up," the middle-aged man confessed with a certain amount of self hatred.
"What it is is an addiction," the young woman diagnosed, folding her arms. "You've done it so long, your brain is high wired for it. You start suffering withdrawls if you can't make one of those stupid Inators or get to plot how to take Uncle Roger out. Trust me, one day you are going to hurt someone with all of that and it won't just be yourself this time!"
Doof turned his attention back to the blueprints. "You're the only one I really care about, for the most part, and trust me, if you're going to college, like you said, there's no way this can hurt you."
"What about Perry? You like him."
"Perry the Platypus?" Doof said, peering at his only child from over his reading glasses. "He expects this from me! He'd secretly be disappointed if I didn't try something like this."
"Well, don't say I didn't warn you," Vanessa said and walked out of the room, leaving her father to his evil plotting alone. "By the way, Candace Flynn said she might be dropping by. Tell her I'm in my room if she comes over, okay?"
"All right," Heinz stated, turning his attention back to the blueprints and virtually not hearing the part about his daughter's friend visiting.
Smiling wickedly to himself, Heinz gloated over the papers. The thing was, he didn't even have to design a new Inator! His current actions were merely an act, the blueprints he was studying designed to fool Perry. He'd even went out and purchased a bunch of unrelated things to put the OWCA off track, while he'd put an advertisement online to find someone to go out and buy for him what he truly needed. It was perfect this scheme, and he was trying to fight his other addictions when it came to it: that involved no waiting for Perry, no trapping Perry, no explaining his plot to Perry and absolutely, never, unh-unh not a one, no self destruct buttons!
It was all so evil.
And fool proof.
Suddenly a knocking came to the door and Heinz left the table to go answer it. When he opened it, he found one of Vanessa's friends standing there, the tall, orange-haired girl with the freakishly long neck. She wasn't like his daughter's other friends whom looked down on him and mocked him behind his back.
This girl would never do that.
She was too good.
Making her the worst type of girl to be his daughter's friend.
She was just the perfect example of the type of girl he didn't want Vanessa to hang around with because she was the complete opposite of evil. Or rather evil in a completely different way. This girl, Karen, or whatever she was called, was the perfect example of the type of person whom ran around trying to bust people and snitch on them in general. Nobody liked a buster or a snitch. She probably had some deep rooted interest in justice and law or something, making her even more undesirable.
Even if she was kind of cute...
In a desirable sort of way.
Which he'd never allow himself to actually think because she was just a teenager, for crying out loud. To him, she was just a nice respite from the usual meanness on some days and a complete and horrible nuisance on others.
Today it was the latter.
"Hi Vanessa's dad," she greeted cheerily, apparently not even remembering either his first or last name. That was what she usually called him "Vanessa's dad" and it was irritating, just like her interest in his inventions and inators. Even now she was looking over his shoulder at the table where the blueprints lay. "I didn't know that you wore glasses. They look good on you...what do they always say...distinguished?"
"I guess you want to see Vanessa, huh?" he asked flatly, not bothering to tell her that that was the right word or to bother feeling complimented, because that could be construed as creepy. Moving aside so she could walk by him, he merely instructed, "Come in, she's in her bedroom."
"Thanks," the girl said, and he tried not to notice how she smelled like vanilla and oranges, with a hint of strawberry/lime. It didn't interest him because his mind was on his scheme and not some teenage Karen whom had momentarily disrupted his thoughts.
Of course, she had to make it a point to go by his table, however, although it was no where near the direction she was heading.
Snoopy. That was what she was too. A teenage snoop. A regular buttinsky...and speaking of which, he didn't want to know why her butt always looked kind of familiar to him.
"Wow! This is great!" she said, peering her long neck in the direction of his decoy plans. "You're always building such neat things...what's this one for?"
"Nothing," he snapped, snatching away the blueprints and getting annoyed because usually he would find the compliment pleasing, but, hello teenage girl here, so he couldn't care less or take it seriously. "They're just some odds and ends."
"Well, they looked interesting," she complimented, looking at him with her large blue eyes which blinked a few times as she smiled. "Interesting and clever."
"Well, Vanessa's in her room...waiting...you remember when I said that right? That Vanessa was in her room waiting? You should go there now and see her. I mean it, you should go. Now," Doof instructed, motioning her in that direction.
"Thank you, Vanessa's dad," the irritating girl said so politely Heinz Doofenshmirtz felt nauseous. "And thanks for sharing your plans with me."
"I didn't share them!" he called out to her when she was already going and probably out of earshot. "You just kind of looked at them! I want that known, okay? I don't go around showing my blueprints to teenage girls!"
As soon as he had finished placing the blueprints back on the table, another knock came to the door and Doofenshmirtz immediately went to answer it, grateful it couldn't be this Candace twice, unless she'd fidgeted with one of his other old inators. Luckily, a small boy was standing there, early teens, striped orange shirt, oddly shaped head. He was looking up at him happily and just when Doofenshmirtz thought he was going to try to sell him a newspaper, the kid went and said, "I'm here about the ad. Are you the guy who needed someone to go and pick up some stuff for him?"
"Unh...yeah....but aren't you a little young to be doing this sort of thing?" Doof inquired.
"Well, that's both a, yes, yes I am, about going to some stranger's building, and a no, no I'm not, considering what you wanted me to buy."
"Okay, well, at least you're not trying out for the intern position. Then you'd really be too young. Here's the money anyway," the evil scientist said, handing the boy some cash. "You know already what I'm after...you'd be better at knowing anything I might have gotten wrong though...which, I guess you're right, your age will help out with that.
"Great and thanks!" the boy stated.
"Mind if I ask what you need the money for?" Heinz Doofenshmirtz asked, curious why someone so young was strapped for cash.
"No problem. See, my step brother and I enjoy making stuff and inventions don't come cheap," the boy replied.
"Tell me about it," Heinz stated, closing the door in the boy's triangular shaped face. He opened it quickly, however, to shout out after him, "AND BRING BACK ALL THE RECEIPTS I DON'T WANT YOU KEEPING THE CHANGE!"
"Sure thing!" the boy's diminishing voice could be heard calling back.
With this matter rather recklessly handled, Doofenshmirtz was back to enjoying how his latest scheme needed only a fixed up past inator, when he realized that Vanessa's annoying friend should be out soon. He didn't want to be there when that happened and so he went to the trouble of gathering up the decoy blueprints again (had to keep the act up incase OWCA spies were around) and headed to some other room in the DEI building until she was gone. This was ironic, considering his latest scheme, but it was just too awkward having to talk to teenagers.
Especially that teenage girl.
They really had nothing in common.
So he hightailed it out of the way, busying himself with his scheme and luckily hearing the girl still nattering on to Vanessa as he tiptoed past his daughter's bedroom.
It was good idea he be prepared anyway, Doofenshmirtz thought along the way. Perry the Platypus would probably be by any second now to try to thwart him and he really should be ready.
* * *
"I'm just afraid Jeremy and I don't have anything in common anymore," Candace confessed.
"Who needs things in common?" Vanessa, asked, lying on her bed and flipping through the book that Candace had returned. "Opposites attract. Take me and Monty. He works for the organization always trying to take my dad down, but we get along perfectly!"
"There's an organization trying to take your father down?" Candace asked. "Wow! Pharmaceuticals must really be a cut throat business! It's just like in that old movie the Fugitive!"
"Yeah, uh...pharmaceuticals, riiight," Vanessa said, sitting up and aware now of the big mistake she almost made.
"But anyway...I don't mean it's because we don't share the same interests...I...it's hard to explain. I just feel like there's some disconnect or lack of understanding. Maybe it's because I've changed...I'm a little less focused on busting my brothers now that school is back in and I'm focused on stuff there instead...I...I just feel us drifting apart, for some reason, I can't pinpoint."
Candace sighed, her arms falling to her side. She had been hoping borrowing one of the older Vanessa's books would help her understand boys better, maybe, or how to deal with them. Instead, all that she learned about was withered flowers and broken teacups and dried out oceans and stuff. It was probably all supposed to be a metaphor, like the mime with the balloons but, she just didn't have time to figure it out when she was still trying to figure out Jeremy first.
"If he's no longer interested, just find another guy; there are always plenty around to be found," Vanessa replied with a knowledgable smile dancing around her lips. "I wish there weren't so many sometimes."
Now Candace frowned, a little bit in envy. Vanessa's problem of getting boys not to like her wasn't something she particularly understood. Of course, Vanessa was sexy, dark, full figured, confident and mysterious. Candace was a late bloomer, whom only a few years ago had started to fill out in certain areas. She was also the girl next door type, a very neurotic girl next door, and wasn't filled with confidence or what she took to be enchanting allure.
"Yeah right, boys are just throwing themselves at me," Candace stated wryly.
"Find someone a little older then," Vanessa suggested, obviously trying not to roll her eyes. "Not old, old like 23, but old enough. Someone more mature and aware of what they want and who they are."
"Jeremy is older. He's the same age as you are: 19!"
"That's not what I mean. You're, what, 18 now? Wait a year then. When you're 19 you can start looking for guys a little less interested in finding out who they are, someone already there and comfortable with themselves."
A pout now was featured on Candace's face. Vanessa had some valid points, but she wanted Jeremy, not some other guy...especially not someone older. Her eyes drifted to the door and her thoughts returned to Vanessa's father.
After a few seconds, Candace wondered if maybe asking him about Jeremy's behavior would be a wiser choice than asking his daughter. Maybe asking an older guy would provide some insight. He'd been a teenager once. He'd probably had his fair share of relationships. It couldn't hurt anyway.
"Thanks for lending me the book and thanks for the help, Vanessa," Candace said, turning to the door and the shred of hope that was now beckoning to her.
"No problem," Vanessa said, going back to the novel. "I forgot how good this was! Especially the part about the spider webs that people carelessly walk into sometimes!"
Candace left, hurrying to where she'd last seen Vanessa's father. However, now he and his blueprints were gone.
"Darn!" she said, disappointed in several ways, not all of them solely about receiving insight about Jeremy. She always liked Vanessa's dad and this whole plot kind of gave her an excuse to talk to him...otherwise, she felt a little self conscious about it for reasons she didn't exactly know why.
Dejectedly, she walked to the door, intending to leave, but when she opened it, she found Perry, her brothers' pet platypus, standing there instead, his foot raised for some reason and inexplicably wearing a fedora. He quickly fell to all fours, the hat slipping off as he chattered away.
"What are you doing here, Perry?" Candace asked, looking down at the vacant eyed little mammal. "Oh, I get it...Phineas and Ferb probably sent you up here. You probably have some spy equipment on you...probably that ratty little fedora."
The teen brought her foot down on the hat, squashing it completely. "There. Nothing to worry about now. Let's go home."
Candace picked Perry up, whom looked at his watch in consternation when she wasn't paying him any attention. It would be way past the time when he should have already confronted and defeated Doofenshmirtz when he'd finally make it back to the building. Darn it, he hated when he was late!
He also hated having to get another fedora.