Chapter Text
It was a day like another, well more like a night like another. Doofenshmirtz had created an inator during his insomnia and his 'genius' idea had cost Perry's sleep. The teal hair man is sipping on his mug filled with hot tea as he waits for the elevator to bring him to Heinz apartment. He has huge dark circles under his eyes, he blinks slowly, waking up slowly.
It's true that the agent tends to have a really bad sleep schedule, mostly because of OWCA. He had to pick up many missions on top of his usual nemesis-ship. It happens more often than not that he had fallen asleep during his time with Heinz. Like that time when Heinz almost took over the Try-State Area, Perry was so embarrassed that the mayor, his superior, had seen him asleep on the job. He really doesn’t need to be humiliated like that twice. He tries his best to do the bare minimum every time, even if he’s not as much into it as he would usually be.
He uses his key to go inside and take small steps, carefully not trapping himself unlike his routine. He finishes his drink as Heinz walks out slowly out of the shadow. He doesn’t even glance back to the spy as he starts monologuing. Perry is so tired, he feels his eyelids fall. Heinz seems really enthusiast about this whole new thing, but right now, being woken up in his sleep so that he could thwart some inator, well he's not really listening to what his nemesis is saying.
He's really a mess, his clothes are poorly put on, his hair is falling out of his usual bun, and he forgot to put on his contact lenses. Yep, that's the best of OWCA's agents in real life. He tries to redo his hair with the small of his energy left, maybe that way he would be less embarrassed when some other agent comes finishes his job in the end. He just know he will not be very successful tonight. Oh, well.
He stretches and yawns, really not paying attention. He honestly functions only on learned reflexes and embed hypervigilance. So when Doofenshmirtz finally finish his backstory and point the inator to somewhere in the city, he reacts without thinking and jump on it to divert it. "Agent Platypus ! What are you doing ? No. Don't !" Scream Heinz, rushing to the confuse, sleepy agent. Perry only had time to look at the doctor worried look before a flashing white light blinds him fully.
He hears ringing in his ears, that only increase his already present headache. Both the men where touch by the inator and, by the time Perry opened his eyes again, he was outside of the lab, in a forest. He mostly doesn’t see much, thankfully he has his sunglasses at his sight on him. He takes them anywhere after that time where Heinz destroyed unknowingly one of his lenses and he had to fight blind. Plus, sunglasses at his sight were always better than prescribed O.W.C.A. not-really-at-his-sight lenses.
Did Heinz build a teleport-inator ? He thinks back as he takes in the view around him. The machine looked like a giant battery with three big lights on top of it and part of the old microwave that broke the week before. The old shape and the cable falling off of it clearly shows the rush Heinz was at finishing the machine. No, it can't be a teleport-inator, it wouldn't look like that.
The agent tried his hardest to remember the monologue of Heinz, frowning his eyebrows. Sadly, he has more of a photographic memory than an auditory one. He thinks it was about how he hates that his brother was the favourite. That if he was in his shoes, he wouldn't be so proud. Something like that, at least, not much new to Heinz shenanigans. It could be a switch place inator. So that Roger would switch places with Heinz. But would it be physically or metaphorically ? Either way, it’s Perry who’s been hit, so he should be at the place of the doctor, whatever that would mean. He’s clearly not, either the machine failed his purpose or he’s missing pieces of information.
What did it do? If it’s supposed to make Roger realise something and lend his role as the mayor to his brother, how would it do it? By showing his childhood to his brother ? Is it a backstory inator ? It doesn't look like the ones he face before. The drama queen that is Heinz would have projected the whole things on a giant screen in front of city hall, or maybe he would have hacked every screen of the Try-State Area and live diffused it. No, it can’t possibly be that, it wouldn’t explain how or why he’s in a forest.
He looks around a bit more, trying to take in every small detail. He was in a deep, dark, forest. It was likely night, like before, but he can’t see the sky whatsoever. Way above him flies a group of bats, creepy, he thinks. Taking deep breaths, he closes his eyes and focus on the sound around him. There is the wind going through the leaves, some nocturnal birds, cries most likely from baby foxes if he tries to identify the animal. He isn’t the best to identify animals by their sound, but he is certain that there is a litter of wild carnivore not so far from him.
He concentrates on that sound, there’s something off about that crying. It feels almost… real. Looking down at his watch, he sighs, the system had burned out because of the inator. He guesses that the camera hidden in his hat is in the same pitiful state.
He plucks up his courage and follows the sound in the forest, going deeper and deeper, finding a way he can see without being seen. It took several minutes before he had a viewpoint of the litter. Not so far from him, there was a family of... Oh. Oh no. He gets it now. He knows what the inator did. In front of him were a family of ocelot with a small kid. Heinz. The kids barely look four, his clothes are shreds, and his face is covered in dirt and dry blood. The sight is horrible, but the young boy seems content with the two wild kittens next to him.
It's not just some backstory. It’s real. The inator sends him back into Heinz past. And now, now, the agent was lost on what he’s supposed to do.