Archive of Our Own ^beta

Carl was fairly certain he was the most humiliated he’d ever been in his life, thirty minutes out from his final presentation for his animal advocacy course, standing in the corner of the public school bathroom in nothing but his underwear. 

It was a bit like a scene from a dream, or a nightmare, but Carl knew it was real from the feeling of cold air blowing past his leg hair, and because Carl’s life often tended to mimic dreams, so uncomfortably wedged in the bizarre it was. The reason Carl was in his underwear in the bathroom was top secret of course, and he would face legal repercussions if he explained it. Hence, why he was hiding, and calculating if he’d still pass the class with a zero on a presentation worth forty percent of his grade.

Usually, this was the kind of situation where he’d text Perry. In fact, he already had. But Perry the Platypus was halfway across the country, sitting down at an awkward lunch in Seattle so that Doofenshmirtz could ‘gain closure’ from the whole Professor Mystery situation. (Heinz’s therapist was recommending it. Something about too many near death situations causing trauma. Perry had rolled his eyes while explaining it, expressing that Heinz ended up in near death situations every other week, and if they were actually going to finish the list, he’d have to lock him in the apartment.)

So in short, Carl was stranded. And even if he’d managed to source pants from somewhere, he’d still have to go out and actually give the presentation, and if there was one thing Carl detested more than anything else, it was public speaking. Or even just speaking confidently in general. His voice cracked like soil under a hot sun, and he was confident it wasn’t normal to sweat at the kneecaps. 

“Hey uh, not to be a bother or anything, but you all good in there man?” asked a voice from the outside of the stall. Carl had been so distracted, he hadn’t even realized someone else had come into the bathroom. Clearly he was doing a poor job of being quiet. 

He swiped a hand across his eyes. “Uhh yeah, I’m- I’m fine.” 

“You sure? I don’t wanna press, or anything.” 

Weighing the consequences in his head, Carl took a risk. He knew he wasn’t passing the class if he got a zero. “Actually I- this is gonna sound strange but I need pants. My pants uhh ripped. Bad. Really bad. And I have a presentation in twenty minutes.” 

“Oh dude no worries, I gotchu.” Maybe the voice was coming from heaven. “What size pants?” 

“Uh medium? Please?” 

“Yeah I got it. Be back in a min. Hang tight!” 

“Okay,” Carl squeaked, but the door was already closing. Mentally, he dropped the plan of cutting leg holes into his backpack and dashing across the campus. 

It only took about ten minutes for the stranger to return. The pants he handed Carl under the stall were oddly perfect. They’d clearly come from the campus bookstore, but they weren’t a terrible texture and actually fit alright. Not only that, they half matched the backup shirt Carl always carried, and if he was someone else who hadn’t just lived through the whole ordeal, he might’ve even believed it was the outfit he was originally going to wear. 

He swung open the stall door and stopped short. Fuck. 

The face in front of Carl he’d only seen once before, but unfortunately it was seared into his head. 

“I promise I’m not always a screw-up!” he blurted, before his thoughts could catch up to his mouth. 

Paul the delivery guy just looked confused. “Uhh do I know you? You look really familiar– and what’s that about being a screw up?” 

If Paul hadn’t been standing between him and the door, Carl would’ve seriously thought about making a run for it. This was why he kept to himself– talking to other people never ended well. He took a step back and bumped his right hip into the sink, grabbing at it desperately to keep from falling over. 

“Dude seriously, you good? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” 

Was this man really going to witness every single massive mistake Carl made? This random stranger? 

“You– you don’t remember me, do you?” Please please don’t. 

“Sorry man, should I? Oh– oh wait! You’re the intern from that weird spy agency thing!” 

Shit. Monogram was going to kill him. Carl didn’t necessarily have a ‘cover’ per se, but he certainly wasn’t allowed to talk about OWCA, and he certainly wasn’t allowed to talk to people who might figure out where he worked, not without a lot of paperwork and at least one NDA. “Please don’t tell my boss about this– I’m already in trouble for– well actually it’s classified but I’m never not in trouble so please don’t–” 

Paul cut him off before he could fully hyperventilate. “Chill dude, I’m not gonna tell your boss. I turned down that job, remember? After I delivered the tools?” 

Carl remembered. Carl remembered vividly. Monogram had punished him for forgetting those tools for weeks. If it hadn't been for Paul, there was no doubt the fallout would've been even worse. Carl swore he could feel his lungs slamming against his ribcage. He put his other hand on the sink and gasped for air. 

“Hey,” Paul somehow got closer . “Dude. It’s okay. Breathe. I’m not gonna tell your boss.” 

“I know but,” Carl sucked in a breath, “you’re now technically a liability and-” fuck, did he even have the paperwork? “-and I have forms you have to sign, but I also have a presentation I have to give and I can’t miss that and–” 

“Okay, okay, I get it. Calm down. How long’s your presentation?” 

“Uhh it should only be like ten minutes? But I gotta get over there now to–” 

“I’ll just come with.” 

Carl was officially lost. “What?” 

“I’m done with school for the day– I’m only part time right now and my classes are over so-” Paul shrugged, “-I’ll come and hang out during your presentation and we can work out the paperwork after. Don’t sweat it. Get that done first.” 

“You’d do that? For me?” Carl tried to ignore how high his voice leapt on the last few words.  “You don’t even know me.”

“Yeah, but I know what it’s like to work for a strict boss. Seriously, don’t sweat it.” 

Carl swallowed. He was, in fact, already sweating at the kneecaps. And everywhere else. The sink, which had felt cold only a minute ago, was rapidly heating up. “Okay. Um. Thanks?” 

“All good dude, I gotchu.” 

—--

Carl hated public speaking. 

“I’m sorry Carl, it’s just taking me a second to load up your slides. As soon as I’ve got them you can start.” 

How hard was it to load slides? Carl was certain he could’ve done it in a quarter of the time, heck, he could’ve probably loaded everybody else’s slides and switched the default projector, and his professor still wouldn’t have even turned on the computer. He swore everybody in the class was staring at him, all thirty-something bored college kids, counting down the seconds until he fumbled it. 

He accidentally made eye contact with Paul in the back row (how many times had he made eye contact with Paul in the last minute? Too many for sure) and made a point of looking up at the ceiling. 

Wait. He probably looked stupid staring at the ceiling. What else could he stare at? The front of the classroom was covered in a hideous purple carpet that reminded Carl of the wallpaper in Monogram’s office. He prayed the sweat wasn’t showing through his shirt. Where were the slides?? Under the harsh glare of the overhead lights, Carl felt like an expired raisin. 

“There we are! Carl, you're good to start now.” 

Thank god. “Thank you sir.” Carl swallowed. “Um. This is a presentation on animal rights in the twenty-first century. Um. So back in the nineteen hundreds–” 

In the end, it wasn’t the worst presentation Carl had ever delivered. However it also definitely wasn’t the best, and he’d especially stumbled over the middle slides on domestic abuse, but he’d managed to get through it without vomiting or fainting, and that was a win. He was just about to sit down again, when his professor stopped him. 

“Does anyone have any questions for Carl?” 

Silence. Carl was certain he could hear someone in the middle row breathe. 

“Come on class, somebody must have a question for Carl. It was such an enlightening presentation. Anyone?” 

Or I could just sit down and we could wrap up and move on. The silence was awful. He could feel it sticking to his elbows. 

A hand raised in the back row. Paul. 

“Um. Yes?” 

And for the second time in an hour, Paul saved Carl’s ass. “Hey. So I’m not super familiar with the subject matter, but I was wondering if you knew of any animals who’ve spoken out about this recently? Or any gatherings or rallies?” 

Boy, did Carl know. He himself had been to a number of speeches in pursuit of better practices at the agency, and he felt the answer leave his mouth nearly effortlessly. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the professor nod in approval. 

When it was over he collapsed into a chair in the back row and whispered a quick, “Thank you,” to Paul. 

“All good man, don’t sweat it,” Paul said. Carl didn’t know how to tell him he’d been sweating since the second he’d been discovered in the bathroom. 

—-

Somehow, they ended up at dinner. Carl swore he’d meant to just hand Paul the paperwork and be done with it, but someone’s stomach had growled and Carl had blinked and there they were, seated at an Italian restaurant two blocks away on the third floor of the building next to the mall. Outside of the massive windows, Carl had a lovely view of downtown Danville, which he’d been trying in vain to distract himself with.  

Across from him sat Paul, absentmindedly pulling apart a breadstick with one hand while reading the menu with the other. It was a little bit addicting, the way he broke apart the breadstick, holding it down with the heel of his palm and pulling with his fingers, tossing each piece of bread into his mouth as he did so. 

Once, Carl had accidentally launched a grape halfway across his bedroom while trying to catch it in his mouth. He gripped his menu tighter and tried to concentrate on reading it. 

He might’ve been the one to offer to pay for a meal, to thank Paul for the pants, but he was definitely regretting it. Carl was not known for his social skills. Just exchanging paperwork and money would’ve been easy enough, but dinner required conversation, and conversation was hard. So far, it had been pretty quiet, in an almost pleasant way, but Carl knew as soon as they put the menus down they’d have to start talking to each other, and then they’d have to talk through the entire dinner, and as soon as that happened he’d be fucked. 

Carl was technically capable of talking, sure, but the last time he’d gone out to dinner had been with a platypus, and he’d delivered an incredible (really it was quite extensive) rant about how much of a hassle it had been to get Monogram to let him off for squirrel con. Perry had appreciated the tenacity, but it wasn’t exactly something that would work with Paul, considering the fact that it would require Carl to disclose the fact that he recreationally dressed up in a squirrel costume. He’d already made a fool of himself enough for one day. Why was being normal so hard?

How did people make friends? What was he supposed to talk to a complete stranger about? What constituted ‘small talk’? Would it be too much to complain about his professor? Not enough? He didn’t even know what Paul was interested in. 

“So, you listen to any Alice in Chains?” Carl jumped slightly at the sound of Paul’s voice. 

Fuck. “Uh no, I haven’t heard of them.” Steady voice Carl. Steady. Maybe he’ll say something else. 

“Damn, you really should. They’re pretty solid.” 

Carl nodded. Silence descended over the table again. Was it the right time to pull out the paperwork? Too soon? Should he save it in case of an even more awkward point?

He felt like he ought to be saying something, but he wasn’t sure what else to say. “Um. Do you like any TV shows?” 

Paul was just about to open his mouth to answer when Carl spotted the plane, seconds away from crashing into the massive floor-to-ceiling windows. 

Carl was a lot of things– awkward, socially challenged, ect– but he was also an OWCA intern. He saw the plane, out of the corner of his eye, almost ten seconds before the crash and his body moved before his conscious thought could catch up, slamming back his chair, leaping onto the table, and tackling Paul onto the floor just in time for the shattered glass to fly through the air. He rolled the two of them under another table, and double-tapped his watch. 

“Carl, requesting backup. Rogue plane crash, possibly the suspect from earlier. Requesting immediate backup. Over.” 

The plane (small jet?)(skiff?)(Carl knew most gadgets and vehicles, but the shape of this one was odd) broke through the rest of the window and wall and skidded twenty feet past them into the middle of the restaurant before coming to a stop. 

“Holy shi-” Paul started, but Carl couldn’t hear him. Was anybody under the plane? Had anybody been hit? He was just beginning to move towards it when the door opened and a figure tumbled out. He landed on the ground and coughed twice, before swinging a mop of messy black hair out of his face. Carl felt his heart drop through the bottom of his ribcage and into his stomach. 

“Wow, I really should’ve hired somebody to fly that mess. Oh well.” The figure shrugged, and with a smile that nearly split his face, he whipped a ray gun out of his pocket and pointed it directly at Carl. “I’d suggest you stop moving, Ca-rl.” 

Carl was having trouble getting his lungs to work. “Rodrigo?” 

“Aww, you thought I ran away after our little tussle earlier? No, no, I only gave you a moment to catch your breath. I still intend to disintegrate you Ca-rl, and this time, I don’t intend to miss.” 

“Rodrigo please,” there wasn’t anybody under the plane. Out of the corners of his eyes, Carl could see that most of the civilians had scattered. There were still a few, sliding out of the wreckage, who needed another minute. For now, Rodrigo was focused on him, and Carl, despite the voices screaming at him to run, needed to keep it that way. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” 

Rodrigo only smiled larger. “Ohhh you didn’t mean to but you did. You did, and broke my sweet little heart. And now I intend to get rid of yours. Literally. Ha ha !” 

Carl fought to keep his feet planted on the ground. 

“Who the hell is this guy?” Fuck. Paul. Carl had nearly forgotten. 

Rodrigo pivoted towards the voice. “Well now, this is interesting. Don’t tell me Ca-rl, you were out on a date ?” 

Fuck. “Nope, not a date, just um. Just dinner. With nobody. What were you saying, about me breaking your heart?” 

“Don’t be so silly Ca-rl, we can include your new friend in this conversation.” Rodrigo crossed the floor towards Paul, the dissolving gun still pointed firmly at Carl. Fuck. For the first time all afternoon, Paul looked unsure of himself, still laying on the floor where Carl had rolled him. He began to slide away but Rodrigo tut-tutted. “Now, now, that would be quite stupid. You see, I have your boyfriend trapped here. One wrong move and I pull the trigger.” 

He always grinned in that stupid creepy way, too wide as though his face was a distorted muppet. Carl suppressed a shudder. 

“Carl, who the hell is this guy?” 

Shit. Paul sounded panicked. Panicked people did stupid things. 

“He’s nobody just uhh, just somebody from work.” 

“Just somebody from work?” Rodrigo shook his head. “Truly Carl, I am insulted. Here I was, thinking we were so much more than that.” 

“I was undercover! To catch you! It was all an act.” Carl prayed his voice wouldn’t break again. 

“It didn’t seem like an act when you were down on your knees–” 

Suddenly, like a gift from a higher power, Agent Pinky leapt into the room, landing squarely on top of Rodrigo and sparing Carl the rest of a sentence he knew he didn’t want to hear. Four other agents followed suit, quickly disarming him and tying him up. A hovering platform landed and Monogram stepped off, spiffy as ever. “Well done Agents. Today we have successfully captured a level two threat that has evaded us for over a year. You will all be celebrated tonight.” 

He turned. Carl swallowed. Had the room gotten smaller?

“Carl.” Monogram looked around and shook his head. “Was there really nothing you could’ve done to mitigate these damages? This is going to cost us a fortune.” 

Carl sighed. “Sorry sir.” 

“And the civilian that Rodrigo insulted is going to need to sign an NDA. You’ll be responsible for processing that paperwork, of course.” 

“Yes sir.” Luckily Carl’s backpack was still mostly intact. He grabbed it off the chair he’d been sitting in only ten minutes prior and rifled around for the paperwork. 

“Can’t you go any faster Carl? I’ve got a hot dinner I’m missing for this.” 

Carl pulled out the wrong binder, and hurriedly stuffed it back into his bag. Where was that stupid paperwork?

“Now hang on just a minute.” Paul. Carl prayed he wouldn’t say anything stupid. “I might be confused but Carl just saved my life. Shouldn’t he be celebrated too? With the other agents?” 

It was a nice thought, but it only emphasized how out of his element Paul was. 

“ Carl was merely mitigating a threat he was assigned to deal with months ago. If he hadn’t failed the case the first time around, your life wouldn’t have been in danger to begin with.” 

Carl could feel the tears at the corners of his eyes. He blinked quickly to clear them, and crossed the room to hand Paul the paperwork. Monogram was right– if he’d taken care of it the first time around, nobody would’ve been in danger. He could only stare at the floor and pray Paul wouldn’t hate him after this. 

“And Carl?”

“Yes sir?” 

“Be sure to get the cleanup team on this. And I want the report filed and in my office by Monday morning.” 

“Yes sir.” 

With that, Monogram left, stepping neatly back onto the hover platform which carried him into his jet. The agents followed with Rodrigo in tow, who managed to shrivel Carl even further under his glare. With the restaurant evacuated, only Carl and Paul were left in the broken room. 

There was silence for a moment, aside from the faint sounds of rubble settling into place. 

“I’m sorry,” Carl said, but it came out as more of a whisper. He sank to the rubble-covered floor and grabbed his knees. 

“What?” 

“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have had to go through that.” He meant it too. Paul seemed like a genuinely good guy, the kind of person that shouldn’t have to run into screw ups and get threatened by a villain. Clearly bringing him to dinner had been a mistake. 

“Hey hey no.” Paul crossed the room and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I chose to go through that. I stayed, and clearly poked my nose into something bigger than me. But dude, that was kinda fucked up, whatever just happened there.” 

Carl nodded. “Yeah, I mean I failed to catch him the first time, and he’s always a little–” 

“No, I mean with your boss. Does he always treat you like that?” 

Well. Technically he did. But whatever it was, fucked up or not, it was how Monogram treated everybody. Carl was no different. Numbly, he nodded again. 

“Why do you put up with that? I mean it’s not my place to ask, but it seems like you’d be better off somewhere else.” 

Carl shrugged. “Job security? Plus you know, I like helping people.” It sounded stupid to say out loud. God, he really was a loser. “I know it’s dumb, but there’s a lot of messed up stuff in the agency, and-” he swallowed, “--I can’t really leave until I fix it. You know?” 

He looked up. Paul had an expression on his face that Carl couldn’t quite read, something that wasn’t quite pity but couldn’t have possibly been admiration. “Damn. And here I am, just a mobile logistics technician.” 

Carl didn’t know what possessed him to speak. But there was something about Paul and about the moment that made the words easier. “Probably has better pay.” 

Paul snicked. “Not hardly. But maybe someday.” 

Carl grinned. “That’s the dream.” 

Paul smiled at him, and for just a second Carl could feel something between them, a moment, some kind of odd solidarity. Were they bantering? He blinked, and in a heartbeat it was over. 

“Hey, do you have a car?” 

Carl shook his head. “Nope. Chronic rider of the bus.” 

“You want a ride home?” 

Carl did. 

—-

‘ I’m going to kill him.’ 

“Perry, you can’t kill him, he's already in prison.”

Perry rolled his eyes, which Carl interpreted as ‘ What’s Monogram gonna do? He can’t fire me.’ 

“He can’t fire you, but he could relocate you, and we both know you’ve got too much Doofenshmirtz to lose. Also you need to get off the counter so I can fold these.” 

Perry rolled his eyes again, but this time Carl knew it was to distract from his thoughts about Doofenshmirtz. Sometimes the platypus was so readable, Carl could almost forget there was a point where they didn’t understand each other. 

“Seriously though, I love that you’re like fifty percent retired, but you can’t keep coming to my other jobs just to bother me.” 

Perry looked offended at that. Carl didn’t particularly care. If he didn’t get the polos restocked, he was probably going to get fired again. 

Carl had a hell of a time keeping part time jobs. It was partially due to the fact that things tended to blow up (literally) around him, and also partially due to the fact that he resented most forms of mindless work. OWCA was the only job he’d ever kept for more than five or six months. Outside of it he’d done everything– food service, customer service, wait staff, valet parking, delivery– you name it, he’d worked it. College, even community college, wasn’t exactly cheap.  Plus, the sooner he saved up a good bit of money, the sooner he could move out of his mother’s house. And Carl wanted that more than anything. 

‘ Is that the guy from the restaurant?’  

Carl looked up. Sure enough, standing in the entrance to the school bookstore was Paul, thumbing through a shelf of notebooks. 

In an instant Carl was back at dinner, grabbing Paul and rolling him under a table, embarrassingly close to a complete stranger. Fuck. He dove behind the desk. 

Perry squinted at him. The platypus might’ve been softening, but his judgemental face was sharp as ever. 

“ Perry,” Carl hissed, “Get down! He’s gonna see–” 

“Whatcha doing back there?” Paul was grinning, or maybe smirking. It was hard to tell. Carl choked on his own spit, sending himself into a coughing fit that lasted an embarrassingly long ten seconds. Perry had never looked more smug. 

“Um I–” he coughed again, “-I dropped my pen. Yeah. My pen. What um– what are you doing here?” 

Paul chuckled. “I go here. And I need a new lab notebook. Mind ringing this up for me?” 

Carl tried to remember how to breathe as he picked himself up off the floor. “Oh yeah, sure. Um. That’ll be twelve dollars.” 

Paul handed him a twenty. “Keep the change. We’ll call it a tip.” 

“Oh no you don’t have to–” 

“It’s a mini thank you for saving my life the other night. Don’t sweat it.” He winked, dropping a second folded piece of paper onto the desk. Carl barely had time to register any of it before Paul grabbed his notebook and left. 

Perry raised an eyebrow. Carl spluttered for a moment. “ No. It’s not like that. He’s– we’re– it’s–” 

“ Is that his number?” 

It was. Carl was at a loss for words. Perry nodded in approval. 

“No, I was such a dork. There’s no way he means it like that. I mean, did you see him? He’s so smooth. And I’m– well, I’m me.”

Perry squinted even tighter.  

“I swear it’s not like that. There’s no way. He probably just wants to be friends.” 

Carl could feel the judgment radiating off of Perry so strongly he couldn’t look at him. “Seriously, I can feel you judging me. I promise, if he was flirting I’d know.” 

Perry scoffed, a newer noise he’d been using more as of late. Carl suspected he’d picked it up from Doof. 

“Perry the Platypus, I have a job to do. And besides, aren’t you supposed to be doing some espionage thing for Monogram?” 

Perry rolled his eyes but got off of the counter. “ You’d better text him.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I will.” 

“ Seriously. Do it.” 

Carl signed. “Fine. I will. But later.” 

Perry nodded and left the store. Carl took the paper, folded it back up, and slipped it into his phone case so he wouldn’t lose it. He had three hours left of his shift to worry about what to say. 

—-

Three hours wasn’t enough time to worry about what to say. Curled up on his bed (at an angle so the loose mattress spring wasn’t poking him) Carl deleted yet another sentence. Should he start with just a simple ‘hey?’ Or maybe something more interesting? A gif? A meme? How did normal people communicate? He groaned, rolling over and shutting his phone off. 

It was cold in the basement. He’d lived in it nearly his entire life though, and he almost didn’t notice anymore. As long as he lived in the basement, he didn’t have to pay rent and only paid a partial share of groceries. His mother had promised to keep him alive until he could move out, and she made good on it. Upstairs, he could hear her singing along to something metal, shrill and off-key. He was kinda hungry, but to emerge would be to interrupt her personal time, and he knew better than to do that. 

Sometimes, Carl fantasized about having a different parent, or maybe even a family. If he closed his eyes and concentrated he could almost smell dinner cooking upstairs, like his mother used to when he was younger, except it was softer somehow, with light and pleasant conversation. Carl was tired of watching every other word he said, tiptoeing around the truth. He knew his mother looked at him and wished she saw someone else. 

Once, when he was younger, he’d been fascinated by the smell of cheese. Such a stupid, trivial thing, but it had brought him an unfathomable amount of joy, to accompany his mother to the grocery store and smell the different cheeses, and make notes on the variations to guess at the flavor. Those grocery trips had gotten fewer and further between, as groceries started randomly showing up at the house while Carl was at school, until one day he’d overheard his mother on the phone. 

“It’s just so weird Gretchen. At least yours just picks fights in school– mine treats cheese like goddamned cocaine. It’s no wonder he doesn’t get invited to anything.” 

Since then, the smell of cheese made him sick. 

He’d grown to dread Fridays, when they both occupied the house at the same time. The less time they spent together, the more it was filled with passive-aggressive comments directed towards his array of part-time jobs and notable lack of girlfriend, and bitter hateful remarks about his father, whom Carl barely knew. He could recognize the man’s handwriting, from the years of child support checks, but his face was blurry, simmering somewhere in the back of his mind to emerge in haunted sleep. He rolled over again. 

He wanted to text Paul, he really did. He wanted to be friends (or something more? Surely not) but he didn’t know how to go about it. How would he answer, if Paul asked about his family? His friends? His childhood? It would be depressing to answer honestly, the kind of situation he’d ended up in often enough, when college acquaintances traded stories from their summer breaks and looked at him, waiting for Carl to speak up. He’d become good at lying, or answering without a real answer– ‘I spent a lot of time catching up on games,’ or ‘it was alright, nice to have a break from homework’. It required a kind of conversational dance he’d mastered back in childhood, while dodging questions about his mother’s lack of attendance at band concerts or school plays. Telling the truth only ever resulted in odd twisted glances, scrunched eyes, an awkward cough, from when he’d accidentally said too much, and he hated it. It was a constant reminder that his peers weren’t really his friends, and didn’t really care what he said, so long as he clicked nicely into their puzzled-out perception of him, and nothing more.

He’d spent his whole life being the weird kid. The more he talked, the more everybody was reminded of that. 

(Once, he’d accidentally said too much, and somebody had followed up. It had been a girl, with black curly hair and a nose ring who’d asked if his mother really had said those things, in a softly concerned voice. But before he could answer, one of her friends had interrupted with a joke and the conversation moved on without him. They passed each other on the green from time to time, and she always smiled at him, but he was too scared to ask for her name.) 

Carl knew if Perry was here he’d tell him he was overthinking it, and he needed to suck it up and write the text. He could always just lie, or change the subject if anything uncomfortable came up. It was just one text– it wasn’t like he was committing to something that would last for the rest of his life. 

Besides, he deserved to have fun. That had been Perry’s new mantra (‘you deserve better than this. You’re allowed to have fun’), which Carl was 90% sure he’d gotten from Doof, who he was 95% sure had gotten it from his therapist. So basically free therapy. And who was Carl to turn down the advice of a therapist? 

He opened the message app. He typed in Paul’s contact. He took a breath and hit send. 

Paul- 8:47pm

C- hey!

C- this is carl

He held his breath. Nothing. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting– it’s not like Paul was going to reply right away. He could be patient. He–

P- Hey! 

P- Was beginning to worry I’d written the number down wrong. 

P- You free next Thursday? 

Carl could’ve screamed. He settled instead, for a highly undignified squeal he was quite fortunate no one overheard. 

C- yeah! i have class in the morning and work until 3:00 but i’m good after that 

P- Perfect. 

P- There’s a new arcade that opened up across town. 

P- Wanna go? 

C- sounds awesome

Actually, Carl had already been. On the opening day. In fact, he’d been one of the first three in line. But that seemed like the kind of thing he shouldn’t admit to a guy who was basically a stranger. 

P- Rad! Looking forward to it. 

Was it too forward to heart the message? Probably. Carl did it anyway, before he could think twice about it, and tossed his phone across the bed. 

He’d made a friend. That hadn’t happened since– well, since Perry had stopped by his office years ago. He almost didn’t know what to do with himself.

He really hoped he didn’t somehow fuck it up. 

—

The solution to not fucking it up was work. The solution was actually never not work, but in the days leading up to Thursday, Carl found himself in a slew of never ending paperwork, nearly all related to what Monogram had dubbed ‘the Rodrigo incident’. When the copier jammed for the third time in six hours, Carl had almost texted Paul about it, before realizing it would probably be weird to just text like that out of the blue. Plus, he was trying not to be clingy. How many times was too many times to text in a row?

It hadn’t stopped him from complaining to Perry, but the platypus had a headache of his own to deal with. Monogram had decided that Perry needed to teach more seminars, which had left him spending a lot of time with first-years, something Carl knew he dreaded. Perry was not known for his patience. 

The copier made a dying sound and spat out another sheet of wrinkled paper. 

“I swear to god, I’m gonna scrap you for parts I–” 

Speaking of the devil, Perry chirred behind him. 

“Oh hey Perry, didn’t see you there. What’s up?” It was then he noticed the platypus’ demeanor, standing straight up and looking at him with an odd kind of intensity. 

“ Something came up. Wanted to be the first to tell you.” 

Perry looked serious, but in a different way than Carl was used to, almost– concerned? 

“Uh sure. What’s going on?” 

“ Rodrigo asked to see you. He didn’t have a good reason why, so Monogram said no, but he said he wants to talk about… what happened between the two of you.” 

Carl swallowed. “That’s classified. I filled out the reports. I don’t need to talk about it with him or Monogram.” 

Perry nodded. “ I know. I just wanted to warn you in case Rodrigo says anything that isn’t in the files.” 

“I put it in the files. All of it.” 

Carl knew if he looked Perry in the eyes the platypus would know he was lying. In fact, he was pretty confident he already did. 

“ Not gonna ask about it, but let me know if you want any of the files to mysteriously disappear. Maybe a fire, perchance?” 

Carl snorted. “You’re just trying to get rid of the files Monogram has on your first lunch with Doof and using me as a cover.” 

Perry rolled his eyes. “ Maybe. But seriously, if you need anything, let me know.” 

“I will, I promise. I don’t think he’ll say anything. And if he does, I can deny it.” 

Perry nodded. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be teaching a seminar right now?” 

Rolling his eyes, Perry stepped towards the door. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Go do your job.” 

Alone again, Carl growled at the copier, but his heart wasn’t in it. Would Rodrigo talk? If he did, who would Monogram believe? Technically Carl hadn’t broken any rules, but it felt like it sometimes. The memory of the mission kept him up at night, floating underneath his eyelids and playing when he least expected it. 

His phone buzzed. Paul. 

Paul- 1:22 pm

P- Saw this and thought of you. 

It was a picture of a toy plane. Carl snickered. 

Maybe it would be okay. 

—

By the time Thursday rolled around, Carl was still nervous but significantly less so. It helped that he and Paul had spent the better part of the last two days texting. He’d learned a lot about Paul– he had two older brothers (one lawyer, one delivery guy), was mildly obsessed with elephants, and preferred his socks to be a size too large. In return, Carl had volunteered a few pieces of information about himself– his shoe size, his favorite childhood TV show, and the number of hours he’d spent on Just Dance in the previous year. The more he admitted to being a nerd, the more encouraging Paul seemed to be. Plus, Paul was kind of a nerd too, in a refreshingly honest way.  

It was comfortable, in a way Carl wasn’t quite used to but wasn’t upset about either, even though he’d still avoided questions about his family. 

He was stubbornly avoiding texting Perry for outfit advice for two reasons– one, because he knew the platypus would be smug about it and there was no reason to be smug about it because it was just two friends hanging out and two, never once had Perry given him fashion advice that turned out to be good. Probably because he didn’t wear clothes. 

Besides, Paul had already seen Carl at his worst. So long as he was wearing pants, it was probably a step up. 

P- Here. 

Carl’s heart skipped a literal beat. It needed to stop doing that. He ignored it and stepped out of OWCA’s front doors. 

“Hey! Ready to go?” 

It was deeply possible that the only kind of shirt Paul owned was a polo. This one at least didn’t have his father’s company logo on it, and was a much more appealing shade of blue. Paul also wasn’t driving the pickup truck, seated instead in a much smaller civic, which Carl hadn’t been expecting. 

“Nice car. Didn’t realize you had your own.” 

“Yeah, most of the time it’s just easier to take the truck since I’m going to or from work anyway and nobody tows it. But I’ve also got my own for my days off and in case I find a different calling in life.” 

“Will you?” 

Paul snorted. “Not likely.” 

Carl grinned and got in the car. 

The arcade was busy, but not terrible. Carl almost didn’t mind waiting in lines, because engaging in conversation with Paul turned out to be nearly as easy as texting. He had a way of talking and listening that Carl was envious of– no matter how awkward Carl’s answer was, Paul could turn it into another topic. He probably could’ve gone into sales or business if he ever decided to quit the delivery route, so skilled he was at twisting words. 

Sometimes the conversation was even good enough to draw in a person waiting behind them in line– an old lady who had a comment on the quality of strawberries as a fruit, or the couple who wanted them to know they’d also noticed an uptick in the size of dogs around the neighborhood. Each time Paul grabbed them by the words, swung them around, and dropped them down again without making it feel awkward, and Carl had to admit he was drawn to it. 

“How do you do that?” 

“Do what? This?” Paul gestured to the screen, “You just try to hit the dinosaurs, it’s a pretty standard–” 

“No, not the game, this. Conversation. You um. You make it feel so easy.” 

“Oh.” Paul let go of the joystick. “I guess I just listen to people? I dunno, I just find something interesting about the way people communicate, and I think it’s kinda cool to hear whatever they’re interested in. And most people like to talk about stuff they’re into, and if you ask enough follow-up questions, they feel seen.” 

“Damn.” On screen, a T-rex bit Carl’s head off. “I wish I was good at that.” 

“I dunno, I think you’ve got the hang of it.” 

Carl scoffed. “Hardly. You’re just really easy to have a conversation with.” 

“You think I’m easy to have a conversation with?” 

Fuck. Carl blushed. “Uh. Yeah?” 

Paul grinned. “Happy to hear it. Hey, they’ve got Dance Dance Revolution over there– think you’re ready to put those Just Dance skills to good use?” 

Carl scoffed. “Those two games are nothing like each other.” 

Paul raised an eyebrow. 

“But yeah, sure, let’s do it.” Carl let Paul lead him over to the familiar machine. It was inevitable that at some point they ended up here. 

“You ever played before?” 

Carl winced inwardly. “Um. Once or twice.” 

Was he really going to do this? Was he really about to admit to Paul exactly how much time he spent in this arcade?

“Sick.” Paul dropped the quarters in and Carl watched the screen light up. It appeared that he was, in fact, going to do this. He took a breath. The countdown for Love Handel’s latest single started to play, and he steadied himself on the floor. 

Carl was a lot of things– socially awkward, uncomfortable, a conversational mess– but he was also, secretly, very very good at a few select skills. Dancing, whether just movement on a floor, or coordinated steps in a game, was one of those few things. 

It had started when he was a kid, as an easy distraction from the world upstairs, and had been one of the pieces of his childhood he’d held onto long after it was over. He let it escape, every now and again when the skill bounced its way to the surface of his body and he couldn’t resist, but for the most part he held it in. Dancing wasn’t exactly practical, in any way, and so he played games instead, moved his body to the rhythm and hoped it would keep him satiated until the next time around. 

When he danced, he could forget the world around him. The words didn’t matter because he had the movement, the blur of the air and tilt to the ground, and he could focus on the sensation instead, embracing it and twisting with the moment. It was almost meditational. 

He hadn’t realize it was over until Paul was tapping him on the shoulder, and he realized he was gasping for air while the screen flashed ‘HIGH SCORE’ at him in dizzying neon lights. 

Somehow, Paul actually looked impressed, staring at him without a hint of disgust on his face. It was a nice change of pace. 

“Holy shit dude, that was insane. I was out of breath literally two steps in but you crushed that.” 

And then Paul looked at the leaderboard again. “Wait a second. I thought you said you’d only done this once or twice. Do you hold every single high score?” 

All Carl could do was grin and shrug his shoulders at him. 

—-

They’d ended up going through everything in the arcade. Carl exchanged his score on DDR for tokens to play other games, so many in fact that he had extra for next time. He really really hoped there would be a next time. 

“Hey, the night’s still young. Wanna walk to the park?” Paul asked. Carl did. 

It was dark outside, softly the beginning of summer and Carl was the perfect temperature in his sweatshirt. They walked down the street towards the park as the conversation quieted slowly with the sounds of the night. 

Should he say something? Try to keep it going? Or was this alright, this oddly comfortable silence? 

It wasn’t until they were in the park that Carl realized it felt like a date. He was just beginning to grapple with that when his watch buzzed. Monogram. 

“Shit sorry, I have to take this real fast,” he said, half to Paul and half to the buzzing. 

“Yeah man, no worries,” Paul said, taking a seat on a nearby bench and gesturing for Carl to join him. 

It was always such a delight to be greeted with Monogram’s face. “Carl, it took you entirely too long to pick up.” 

Carl put up with a lot from Monogram. Perry had told him repeatedly that he had the patience of a god. But at that moment Carl found himself gritting his teeth and biting back a scathing response. God forbid he get even a single evening off. “Sorry sir, I’m not currently in the office right now.” 

“Oh.” Monogram actually sounded almost sorry. Almost. “I assumed you would still be there.” 

“No sir, I ran out of overtime for this week.”

“Ah. Nevermind that, I have a task for you. Rodrigo’s been in our hands for nearly two weeks, but we haven't been able to get any dirt on him. We need to know what school trained him, his age, his allegiance, all that. We’ve put our best interrogators on him, but he’s refusing to talk to anyone and keeps asking for you.” 

Carl swallowed. Fuck. “Are– are you sure he won’t talk to anybody else?” 

“If you’re out of hours I can easily approve extra.” 

Carl hadn’t realized he was shivering. The gentle night breeze suddenly felt cold. “No it’s– it’s fine. I’ll do it. I have to finish the paperwork tomorrow so it would probably have to be on Monday.” Or never. Never would be good. 

“Good. The sooner you get it done, the better.” 

With that, Monogram hung up. Carl froze for a minute, trying to remember how to breathe. He drew in a shaky breath and sunk into himself, sliding onto the bench. 

“You alright?” Paul. 

He’d almost forgotten about Paul. “Yeah! Yeah. I just- um. I don’t really want to talk to him. But it’s fine. I’ll do it. I have to.” He drew his knees into his chest. 

Paul placed a hand on his shoulder. “Yeah man, it’s kinda fucked up that you have to talk to a guy who tried to kill you.” 

“No it’s– well I mean yeah, but it’s not that. It’s– nevermind.” 

Paul tilted his head at him. “Did something else happen?” 

Carl nodded. 

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but if you do I’m down to listen.” 

“It’s not exactly a fun story. It’ll bring down the mood.” 

Paul smiled softly. “I think I’ll survive.” 

Telling Paul was, obviously, a terrible idea. The night had been going so well, and this would definitely put a damper on it. The only other person he’d ever told had been Perry, and even Perry hadn’t gotten the whole story, so rattled was Carl in the middle of telling it. But there was also a tiny part of him that wanted to tell Paul, that wanted to confess the whole thing out loud and be done with it. 

Carl wasn’t used to trusting his gut. Most of the time it was terribly wrong. But there was something about Paul that told him it might be alright. He took a breath. 

“So it started about six months ago. We’d heard reports of this guy– Rodrigo– being in town, and we knew he was bad news from a case a while back where we’d had him in low maintenance captivity and he’d escaped. But the problem was we couldn’t get any dirt on him, and he was already suspicious of basically every animal since he knew about our organization. But he hadn’t seen me yet, and I had a fake identity in evil circles from this accidental -inator situation a while back– long story– so Monogram sent me out into the field to try to get to know him. Infiltrate his defenses and all that.” 

“I’m assuming you did?” 

Carl swallowed. “Yeah. I did. It was an accident at first that I’d stumbled across him, but we ended up going out to dinner, and he seemed like a fairly normal guy, despite everything. So I offered to team up with him for a couple of schemes, just in the name of feeding information to OWCA.” 

Carl remembered that dinner. He’d sat across from Rodrigo, watching him cut angel hair pasta into tiny segments with a fork. He smiled wide, but there was something unsettling about his eyes, in a way that struck Carl and stirred the insides of his gut, so much so that he found himself unable to finish even an appetizer. 

It was loneliness, he’d realized. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he did. There was loneliness in the way Rodrigo held the utensils, the way he wiped his mouth, the way he took a careful drink of water, glancing casually at Carl to see if he was watching him. It was practiced, in an eerie way that Carl recognized like the haunting outline of a mirror. 

“I ‘helped’ him run a couple of schemes to gain his trust, light easy things that OWCA set up and cleaned up after and didn’t have any real impact. He– if I didn’t think too hard about it, it almost felt like we were friends. Everything I did was supposed to be to gain his trust so he would take me back to his hideout, but I just– he really seemed like he wanted to get to know me. For me. Which–” Carl couldn’t look Paul in the eyes, “--isn’t something a lot of people want. Because I’m not really– well I’m not exactly anybody’s first pick for friendship material.” 

Paul made a small noise, but Carl knew if he focused on it, he’d admit to far more than was safe. 

“Once he took me back to his hideout I was supposed to alert a team, so they could wait until he was vulnerable and track him down. But the first time he took me to his apartment, I choked.” 

If Carl closed his eyes, he could effortlessly remember the apartment, so easily it haunted him. It was horrible, not because it was gruesome or villainous, but because it was human. The springy couch, the normal TV, the coffee maker in the kitchen, and the soft grey throw rug all felt like something a college graduate might have if he worked a regular office job forty hours a week, not like something a villain on the run from OWCA would own. It was comforting, and he’d wanted nothing more than to let his guard down. 

“You like?” Rodrigo asked, and Carl had found himself nodding and meaning it. 

“He– we sat down to watch some TV. I’d pressed the tracker on my watch to alert the team. They needed to wait a couple of hours so he wouldn’t be on guard, and I was supposed to keep stalling in the meantime. But as we were watching he– he kept getting closer to me.” 

“Oh,” Paul said softly, and Carl knew he’d figured out where the story was going. 

“I thought– I was stupid. I thought he was just lonely, and wanted to cuddle or something and, and I was– I was lonely too. I always am. I didn’t– I don’t know why I leaned in, but I did. And then he put his arm around me, and rubbed my shoulder in a way that– well, in a way that felt weird. But he was relaxing and getting comfortable and I didn’t want to put him off so I just. I sat there.” 

“Would you like me to stop touching you?” 

Carl had almost forgotten about Paul’s hand on his shoulder. “No it’s– this is different. You make me feel comfortable. You’re helping actually– sometimes physical touch is really good for me. But unfortunately I’m not friends with anybody else who enjoys it.” 

Paul nodded, and scooted closer to Carl so their sides were pressed together. It was intimate, not in a sexual way but in a comforting way, like crawling under a blanket after a hard day, or laying in a field of warm grass. “This okay?” he asked. 

“Yeah thats–” Carl swallowed again, and blinked a tear out of his eye, “--that’s great actually. Thank– thank you.” 

“Of course. You don’t have to finish telling me if you don’t want to.” 

“No, I do. It’s– I have to tell somebody, I think.” 

Paul nodded. “I’m ready whenever you are.” 

Carl took a breath. “I was trying not to pay attention to him. There was something on the television, some stupid sports game I was trying to decipher, but I slipped up. I turned back for just a moment and he kissed me.”

Carl remembered it, the feel of his lips, the faint blow of breath, the tiny hairs on the back of his neck standing up ever-so-slightly. He’d never been kissed before, but he knew it needed to continue, or Rodrigo would never trust him again. 

“I kissed back. I didn’t– I didn’t really have a choice. I had to make him happy. For the mission, but I also just– well I didn’t want to hurt him.” Carl swallowed. “I wanted to make him happy.” 

The wanting he’d had, even just for that single fleeting moment, terrified Carl more than any threat from Monogram ever could. It followed him, dangling above his head and threatening to drop at any moment like an ocean of water to drown him. Anytime he thought about it, he couldn’t breathe. 

“The kissing was fine. It was– it was fine. But then it escalated. And I blinked and I was on my knees, and he had his shirt off, and I didn’t even have a moment to think of a better way out. I couldn’t think at all. And he opened my mouth and I– I didn’t know what I was doing. I’d never– I mean I’d seen videos but I didn’t know how to– how to– to do it. But I had to. I had to follow the mission. And so I–” Carl turned away from Paul, and looked at the bush beyond him, “--I tried to take him. For just a moment.” 

It had been a terrible moment. In that split second Rodrigo owned Carl’s mouth, he’d come-to, with the world screaming around him and the sudden, startling realization of what was happening. Every muscle in his body seized up and he’d gasped, for just a moment, which Rodrigo took as an invitation to go deeper. 

The most vivid thing Carl could remember was trying to take a breath, and Rodrigo’s hands in his hair, holding him down. Sometimes he woke up at night to the feeling of hands in his hair and a swelling in his throat. 

“I choked and spit him out, and then I ran. I don’t remember what he said, or what he’d looked like in the moment, I just remember running out of the apartment as fast as I could. I wanted to spit or puke, but all I could do was run. By the time I realized I needed to call in the team and they arrived to collect him, he was already gone.” 

“Holy shit Carl,” Paul said, “I’m so sorry. That’s terrible.” 

“Yeah. And the worst part is, once they broke in and searched the apartment, they found pictures and notes on me. Everywhere. They found stuff from before the mission ever even started. He’d been stalking my evil persona for at least a year by then. And ever since he’s popped up randomly on a couple of cases, usually far away in a different part of the Tri-State Area, but I keep thinking he’s coming for me. And then he did.” 

“That day in the bathroom?” 

“He wasn’t aiming for me– he didn’t even know I was there. He was trying to hit some lady and I jumped in the way. Luckily my clothes took the brunt of it. Unluckily, he remembered me, and I ran again.”

Somewhere in the distance, a group of frogs were singing. If he closed his eyes and listened to them, Carl could almost forget the feeling of running like his life depended on it. 

“Carl, you shouldn’t have to talk to him.” Paul sounded tense, almost angry. Carl hadn’t heard him sound anything like that before. 

“I know, but Monogram–” 

“No, seriously. You shouldn't have to do that. He’s in prison– he’s not going anywhere. They don’t need answers out of him.” 

“Yeah, but then Monogram will ask why. And he won’t be satisfied without an answer. And I can’t– I can’t tell Monogram.” 

Paul was silent for a moment. When he spoke again it was with a softer tone. “No that’s fair. You shouldn’t have to. But I still think you should say something. It’s really fucked up, the way they’re treating you.” 

Carl didn’t have a good response for that. They sat in silence for a while on the park bench. Paul was stable, and warm, and Carl let himself be grounded, slowly, until he didn’t feel like vomiting anymore. “Sorry, I know I’ve really bogged down this evening.” 

Paul shook his head. “No, it's okay. I said I was open to listen, and you shouldn’t feel like you need to hide things from me, or pretend to be okay. That’s not healthy dude.” 

“I know, but it’s easier. A lot of people don’t wanna hear about that kind of stuff.” 

“That just means they’re the wrong people,” Paul said, and gently squeezed Carl’s knee. “The right people will listen. And I bet if you asked for help your platypus friend would be happy to do it.” 

“Oh he totally would– he’s already offered twice. I just hate asking.” 

“Well, for what it’s worth, I think you should.” Paul stood up. “But you already know what I think about it. Want a ride home?”

Carl would’ve rather gone anywhere else, but he knew it was where he needed to go. “Yes please. And thank you.” 

“Of course dude, anytime.”

—-

Carl took off of work on Friday. He called in sick, and skipped his afternoon classes, and watched three movies back-to-back. Perry texted asking if he was alright, but he made some excuse that he knew neither of them believed. 

Paul texted too, a light follow-up asking how he was feeling. Carl wasn’t sure what kind of a thank you was appropriate for the moment, and he surprised himself by being honest about it instead. 

C- watching the lego movie

C- comfort movie

C- took off of work

P- Good. You should take Monday off too. 

C- mm will kill me

C- i really think i’m gonna have to talk to him

P- Anything I can do to help? 

Carl swallowed. Was he being too needy? Too clingy? Should he take a chance? 

C- do you wanna watch with me?

C- i can screen share

The minute it took Paul to respond was the most harrowing minute of Carl’s life. 

P- I’d love to. That’s a great movie. 

They sat on call for almost four hours, and both discovered the other had also dressed up as Emmet for halloween. 

—

Sometimes Carl really hated working at an organization of super spies. Walking into work on Monday was hell– he could feel the eyes following him, tracing across his back and down his spine. 

It was almost as bad as the first Monday after he’d failed to catch Rodrigo. He’d spent most of that day hiding out in his office and waiting for Perry to sneak his paperwork to him so he wouldn’t have to face anyone. Somehow everybody already knew he was supposed to talk to Rodrigo today– hell, they’d probably known even before he had, and they weren’t shy about showing it. 

Carl dropped into his chair. He had an email for Monogram scheduling him for an 11:00 am interrogation. Fuck. He took a deep breath. He knew he needed to text Perry. He knew he was going to ask for help. He needed to– this had become clear over a night of tossing and turning and debating whether he should text Paul to thank him, or whether that would be weird. Perry was perhaps the one person (platypus) on the planet that would help him without making it weird because he knew that Perry would be there for him, no matter what, and Carl didn’t need to worry about overstepping any boundaries or accidentally driving the platypus away. 

So why was it so hard?

The door to his office opened and before Carl could process anything, Perry marched in and jumped up onto his desk. “ What the hell.” 

“Um. You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that?” 

“ Why are you talking to that bitch.” 

Perry was pissed. He was doing that tooth-grinding thing that he only did in periods of utmost stress, and his hands shook ever so slightly as he signed. 

“Woah, hey, I’m not doing it willingly – Monogram said I had to. He won’t talk to anybody else.” 

Perry started to sign something else but Carl interrupted. “I was actually going to find you to ask– to ask for your help. I need backup. I tried to avoid this but it’s become this whole big mess and I can’t– I need help. Please?” Carl swallowed and looked up. The platypus had a virtually unreadable expression. Only Carl could’ve possibly recognized the sheer frustration masked underneath. 

“ Bitch. Idiot. Fucking dumbass.”

“Okay that feels a little over-the-top, don’t you think?” 

 “I have been. Trying to help you. For weeks. Obviously I’m coming.” 

“Really?” 

“ The day I leave you alone to deal with something this fucked up is the day I’m dead. I was going to come even if you didn’t ask me to– I was going to force my way in.” 

If the circumstances weren’t so stressful, Carl might’ve cried. He might’ve cried anyway, except he most definitely needed to start heading over to the interrogation room and didn’t have the slightest bit of time to. “I really really appreciate you, you know that?” His voice cracked, just a touch, on the words, and he bit his tongue to hold it back. 

Perry rolled his eyes, which Carl knew translated to ‘ bitch, duh.’ and also ‘ love you too.’ 

—-

The door to the interrogation room was a fairly normal looking door but for Carl, was still one of the most intimidating doors he’d ever had the displeasure of standing in front of. He could feel his kneecaps sweating and sticking to his pants. Perry was right there, just like he’d promised, and that was helping but Carl still wanted to throw up. 

Monogram stepped around the corner. “Let’s go Carl, we don’t have all day.” 

“Right- yes sir.” 

Was he really going to face Rodrigo? In this environment? What would he even say? Carl was a trained spy, but he could feel the lessons failing him the closer he inched to the door. Paul’s voice echoed in his head, begging him to say something to Monogram, to stand up for himself for once, but even the thought of talking back, of telling the Major ‘No’ was nauseating. He’d spent his whole life following orders. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. 

“Any minute now Carl.” 

Carl blinked sweat out of his eyes, took a deep breath and lied through his teeth. “Sorry sir. I’m ready now.” 

Just as he’d closed his hand around the doorknob, a voice echoed down the hallway. “ WAIT!” 

Carl whipped around fast enough to top his own DDR high score. 

“ Paul? What are you–” 

“Is that a delivery boy?” Shit. Monogram sounded pissed. “You don’t have security clearance– how did you get back here? I’ve got an interrogation to run, and I don’t have time for distractions.” 

Paul ignored him, running straight up to Carl instead and grabbing him by the shoulders. “Carl. You don’t have to do this. It’s not worth it.” 

The hallway lights weren’t helping the nausea Carl could feel building in the back of his throat. “No I– I have to. It’s my job.” 

“ Excuse me.” Monogram placed a hand on Paul’s shoulder. “I don’t know who you are, or why you’re here, but I’d appreciate it if you'd step back so my intern can do his job.” 

Paul let go of Carl and spun around. “Look major– I don’t know who you are– you can’t make him do this. It’s incredibly fucked up– that guy’s had it out for him since day one.” 

“Exactly,” Monogram said, “That’s why we assigned Carl to him in the first place. If it wasn’t for Rodrigo’s weird stalker obsession with my intern, we wouldn’t have gotten tabs on him to begin with.” 

“Wait,” Carl said, but suddenly everybody was talking at once, talking over him– Paul with something about job security and safety, Monogram with something about schedules and interrogations, and Perry with some kind of chattering noise that Carl recognized as barely contained rage. The cacophony of noises echoed around the stark hallway. Carl couldn’t think. 

Everybody was always talking over him. 

“ Wait a second,” Carl said with his entire throat, loud enough to shut everybody up. “You assigned me to a case with someone you knew was stalking me?” 

The silence in the hallway was painfully gratifying. At least Monogram had the decency to look a little bit stunned. His face told Carl everything he needed to know. 

“Oh my god, you did.” Carl didn’t think his ribs were bruised, but it sure as hell felt like it. “You sent me in there knowing it was bad. Knowing it would be bad.” 

“Well we didn’t think anything would happen–” 

“After everything I’ve done for this agency. All of the late nights and the early mornings and the tasks that shouldn’t have even been mine to begin with, and you sent me in there anyway.” He was surprised at how steady his voice was. Carl had the hallway’s attention, and he wasn’t dropping it. “I’m not doing the interrogation.” 

“What–” Monogram said, but Carl didn’t let him finish. 

“I said, I’m not doing it. I am not going in there to talk to a man who stalked me and then– nevermind. I’m not doing it. Interrogate him yourself.” 

Monogram swallowed. Carl watched his face go through eight different expressions before settling. “Fine. I’ll do it. But this guy–” he grabbed Paul by the elbow, “--is coming with me. I want to know why he knows OWCA secrets,” Paul grimaced, just a little bit, but Carl could feel it. “--and I want to make sure he knows he’s not welcome in here again.” 

“He’s here because of me.” 

Monogram opened his mouth, but Carl was focused on Paul. He was already fucked and probably going to lose his job– the least he could do was get Paul out safely. 

"I’m the one who told him classified OWCA secrets. I manipulated him– he’s done nothing wrong. It was me.” 

Paul began to protest, but any noise he could’ve made was drowned out by Monogram’s voice in a petrifying tone. “You did what?”  

On any other day, it might’ve terrified him to hear Monogram speak like that. But here, standing outside the interrogation with Paul and his platypus best friend, Carl felt an odd kind of confidence course through him. He stood up straighter. 

“I said, I told him OWCA secrets. I told him about Rodrigo. But you know why I did it?” 

Monogram opened his mouth. Carl didn’t let him speak. “I did it because I’m exhausted. You have me running around here, sunup to sundown, every single day, for zero pay, and you were going to have me confront a dangerous prisoner that everyone knows did something to me, by myself , with zero backup. Did you ever ask what happened? Did you ever ask why I failed the first time? Or did you just assume that I fucked up? Did it ever occured to you that maybe, just maybe it wasn’t my fault? That you sent me in there, alone, with someone who spent almost an entire year stalking me? ” 

Monogram had finally stopped trying to talk. Carl felt Perry step up and place a paw on his back. 

“Paul was going to stand up for me. To keep me away from Rodrigo. Because even someone who’s basically a stranger, who I’ve known for maybe two weeks , could immediately see how dangerous this situation was. You want somebody to get in trouble for this? Fine. It’s my fault for letting other people fight my own battles. Fire me if you want to. But when you fire me, I want you to understand why I did it.” 

The hallway was so quiet, Carl swore he could hear Perry breathing. Monogram looked genuinely stunned, face twitching ever so slightly. Nobody moved. 

With every second of silence, Carl could feel his confidence shrink. Holy fuck he was in so much trouble– forget losing his job, what if Monogram arrested him and threatened to erase his memory? Would he have to fight Monogram? Whose side would Perry be on? Would he technically be reclassified as evil? 

He had just begun to hyperventilate when Monogram spoke. 

“Carl.” Monogram was virtually unreadable, eyes set and hardened. If Carl’s heart beat any faster, he could’ve powered a fighter jet. 

“It has occurred to me that perhaps I may have misread this situation.” 

Carl was confident he’d heard that wrong. “Wha-what?”

“Perhaps I didn’t think through the uhh, the implications of sending you into that situation. In retrospect, that was not the smartest or safest choice.”

All Carl could do was stand with his mouth open. 

“In the handbook it says that no agent should handle a level three or higher threat alone. As soon as Rodrigo was reclassified as a level two, you should’ve had backup. You’re– you’re very valuable around here, and I appreciate what you do. I should’ve done better to ensure your safety– I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

Carl was seventy percent sure his eyes were watering. Monogram appreciated him?

 “In the meantime, you won’t be with him unsupervised. And you’ll take a mandatory three day’s recovery time off to compensate for the mistake. Does that sound appropriate?” 

“Yes- yes sir. Thank you sir!” 

Monogram nodded. “Good. Now escort your friend off of the premises. I’ll forgive the intrusion this time, but if I catch him beyond the security wall again I will bring him in for questioning.” He made eye contact with Paul, “And that will not end well for him.” 

With that, Monogram turned left. The moment he disappeared out of view, Carl sank to the floor. “Hoooooly shit. Holy fuck. He actually apologized. Holy fuck.” 

It wasn’t until he felt Paul’s arms wrap around him that he realized he’d stopped breathing. “I can’t believe that actually happened.” 

Perry chattered aggressively and Carl could feel Paul’s body nod in agreement. “The platypus is right dude, that was pretty fucking badass.” 

Carl let out a noise halfway between a gasp and a squeak. “You really think so?” 

“I do,” Paul said, and Perry nodded. Carl wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. 

“I think– I think I want to get out of here.” 

Paul grinned. “I’ll give you a ride. I think I’m banished from the premises anyway.” 

Carl smiled softly. “Thanks. Perry, do you want to come?” 

The platypus shook his head and made a waving gesture with his hand, followed by two seconds of intense eye contact that Carl knew meant he was getting interrogated later. 

Together, Paul and Carl climbed out of the OWCA basement and emerged into the sunlight. It wasn’t until the massive security doors shut behind them, that Carl realized they were holding hands. 

“Dude, I can’t believe you told your boss off like that. That was awesome.”

Carl grinned. “I can’t believe you broke into OWCA just to stop me from having to talk to Rodrigo.” 

Paul shrugged. “I didn’t really have to break into anything, some ostrich just let me in. Also you’ve literally saved my life so I’d say we’re more than even.” 

“If we’re even, does that mean you want to stop hanging out?” 

“Carl, I’m literally holding your hand right now.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.” Paul turned to face him. “I’ve been all over Danville dozens of times, but I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else a quarter as fascinating as you.”

Suddenly, Carl really needed an inhaler. “Really? Do you– do you really mean that?” 

Paul ginned at him. “I do. And I’d really like to keep seeing you, if that’s something you’d be interested in. But maybe without the life-threatening danger this time.” 

And then Carl was smiling again, larger than he had in weeks. “I would– yes. I would be very interested in that. Very much. Yes.” 

“Sweet.” Paul squeezed his hand. “I heard you’ve got some free time– wanna go get ice cream or something?” 

And Carl did. 

—-