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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 he just happened to break hers 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.

Chapter Text

Major Monogram had already been waiting a few minutes when Agent P plummeted onto the chair in front of his screen. He could tell from the shadows beneath the poor little guy's eyes that he hadn't gotten much sleep after a late start in thwarting Dr. Doofenshmirtz the previous day. If there was any upside to calling him in this morning, and wrecking the good sleep he was having, it was the news he had disturbed him with to announce.

"Hello Agent P, sorry to wake you up after a rough night, but we wanted to inform you of Doofenshmirtz's latest actions...which appear to be nothing. Ha ha, isn't that good news? Now you can go back to bed."

"I told you we shouldn't have woken him up just to tell him that, Sir," a certain intern criticized from offscreen.

"Nobody asked you, Carl," Monogram snapped, ignoring that annoying little feeling in his stomach that the younger man was right. Again.

"It might be too early, we know, but we have nothing on Doofenshmirtz's latest inator, he often comes up with those right after you destroyed it, talking to you while he cleans up the mess...but the cockroaches have informed us that he hasn't even started cleaning up after last night. There is cake still all over the place...which actually doesn't bode well for the agents. I keep having to tell them to stop eating and get back to work. We're sure, however, that this has nothing to do with whether or not Doof is up to something. He ordered a half case of Voltaren and we believe that his back is acting up again."

"I kept telling him his poor posture would catch up to him someday, didn't I, Sir? I told him that the last time he turned good, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did, Carl, " the Major rolled his eyes. "What concerns me, though, is his having exploited people confusing him with a pharmacist to get that discount they offered," Monogram argued and then noticed the determined look on his best agent's face. "No, P, that doesn't warrant you going and paying Doofenshmirtz a visit, it was just a small moral quibble. You'd have to go beat up everyone if that was the case. Remember that time I gave you my membership card to the Botanical Gardens, and you used it to defeat that weirdo with the platypus fixation? "

The secret agent didn't look like he was particularly interested in remembering the incident. Monogram now noticed that Agent P looked like he was just wanting to beat someone up, anyone, probably after his sleep having been interrupted.

"Umm...so brief recap," Monogram stated, coughing into a fist and fearing the little platypus was wanting to pummel him in particular. "Doof still hasn't cleaned up, his back is sore and that most likely means he will be out of commission for a while...which means you can go back to sleep for the day. I...W-we thought you'd be happy to know."

Perry was definitely glaring at him as he turned around and left headquarters.

"I still don't think we needed to disturb him to say any of this...it could have waited until after lunch, Sir."

"Oh, shut up Carl! Major Monogram pouted.

* * *

Hearing a knock at the door, Doofenshmirtz was both elated and annoyed to have to go and answer it. He'd had a late night, for some reason, Perry the Platypus having shown up way later than he had expected. There were some things the evil scientist could forgive, but a tardy, nemesis, mammal was one pet peeve he had found difficult to overlook. Nevertheless, things had played out as planned and he was now shuffling through the leftovers of his decoy-endeavor-inator (the nickname he'd given the invention, inside of his head). Dipping his finger into some icing, Heinz licked it off his finger and considered it breakfast before opening the door.

"Hey! Cool Chef's hat!" the little-triangular-shaped-headed boy he'd hired yesterday greeted, a taller green haired boy, standing beside him. "Which restaurant do you work for anyway? We used to be in the business, ourselves."

"Oh, this," Heinz said, his long arms reaching upwards and realizing the hat he'd worn for added effect was still on his head. "That was for something I was working on last night. I forgot I was even wearing it."

"Oh, we understand," the red head shared a wink with his companion, whom swiftly pointed finger guns, and made a clicking sound, at Doof.

"No, no, it's nothing like that, sheesh, you kids grow up too fast. What happened was I built a Bake-it-in-a-Cake-inator, trying to bake the whole Tri-State area into a cake so then I, as its one true baker, had full control and responsibility over it. Only my nemesis came in and aimed it at my building instead."

"Ah...why would you want to bake Danville into a cake?" the talkative one asked in confused curiosity.

"Ahhhhhh! I am glad you asked, that curiosity will serve you well in life!" Heinz said, rubbing his hands together wickedly. "I wished to bake this wayward city - with its throughly useless Mayor, I might add - into a cake because I...Hei...wait, what name did I give you again?" the evil scientist halted in the middle of his tirade.

"Siam Alyer," the small boy answered cheerfully.

"Yes, that's right, I, Siam Alyer, wanted to take over the whole Tri-State area!"

"Excuse me," the taller boy with the more blunt nose finally spoke, in a prim accent, one finger raised. "Have you ever thought about just going into politics? Start at the bottom, work your way to the top?"

Doof sighed in annoyance, besides being a little too knowledgeable about certain things kids also tended to be know-it-alls besides, another thing besides tardiness he simply couldn't tolerate. "I'm planning to, believe me, I'm planning to. So...did you get what I needed or not?" he demanded.

"Sure did," the boy with the sharper nose stated, holding up a box. "Actually, for us this whole adventure was a breeze, but not as much as a piece of cake as it was for you!"

"Gee, you followed instructions and you offer wisecracks too, how considerate," Heinz said, his annoyance growing as he grabbed the box. "You really should advertise that if you go into business. I bet the offers will come rolling in." Done with the sarcasm, Heinz Doofenshmirtz handed the original boy he had met the fee, and then asked a question out of curiosity. "Hey, why'd you bring your friend this time anyway?"

"Oh Ferb? He's my brother? Actually he was here the first time, watching from the shadows...you don't think I'd go to some strange guy's house without bringing backup do you?"

"Good idea," Heinz conceded while still feeling affronted. What did they think he was anyway? It's not like he'd ever look at a kid. He thought of Vanessa's friend coming over yesterday, and why her butt looked familiar, and then pushed all of that over to the side.

"Now that we know you're okay, a real good guy," the boy said and simultaneously failed to notice Heinz Doofenshmirtz shudder at the compliment, "We want you to know if you need anything, don't hesitate to ask. Now that school's back in, we have to occupy ourselves in less extravagant ways, because homework cuts into our time. We also give lessons in science and mechanics. "

The boy in the striped shirt handed over a card and Heinz barely looked at it, stuffing it into his pocket instead. As if a couple of children could teach him anything about science or inventing things! How delusional. The kids had better just stick to their homework and Lego sets. He only needed them for this one thing...

Although, it was good to keep the card, incase he needed more innocent sheep to run errands so the OWCA didn't know what he was buying.

"No...for now this is good," the evil scientist said, lifing the box. "But if there is anything in the future, I'll send an email."

"Great!" the red head stated, punching one hand in happy agreement. "We also made some suggestions on hairstyling and accessories, what's in, what's out and what you should look into. Ferb and I took into consideration your coloring and obvious Drusselsteinian heritage and chose only the items that would help with your goal. Whatever that might be. Planning for a Halloween costume early?"

"Yeah...that's right. Halloween," Doofenshmirtz cringe-smiled. "That time of year when people dress up in ridiculous costumes, pretending to be evil...not when they are plotting an actually deliciously evil plan involving a change of wardrobe. October 31st...Halloween. Yes, that's it, haaa...never can plan too early for that, amirite?"

"I know! Ferb and I are already trying to figure out if we should dress up as the famous explorers, Lewis and Clark, or go as Ghostbusters instead. You know, dress up our pet platypus, Perry, as Slimer."

"Yeah, great, sounds good, wonderful," Heinz replied in obligation, having zoned out and not heard anything past the word famous, particularly not the part about a platypus named Perry. He longed to get started on being infamous, afterall, and couldn't wait until they left. "Now, seeing as though we're all good, I think I should start cleaning up here, and you two should really get ready for school or something."

"Okay. Good luck!" the two boys began to walk down the hall, both waving but only one of them speaking.

Heinz couldn't shut the door fast enough.

Not that he had any plans to do any housecleaning.

Not yet anyway.

The cake served as a pretty good distraction for the OWCA agents while he prepared for the next steps to his diabolical scheme. They were so busy pecking and nibbling at the cake and icing everywhere that they were distracted, hardly noticing as he took the box the boys had given him and snuck with it towards his room of past Inators.

With Vanessa likewise out of the house, presumably either at her mother's or her new dorm/sorority house, Doof was aware he was left to his own devices...

And that was just the way he wanted it.

* * *

Standing at their lockers, Candace Flynn and Stacy Hirano were deeply immersed in their conversation, one that Stacy had found, to her surprise, she had to start herself when once upon a time talking about Jeremy Johnson had been one of the only reasons her best friend even phoned her up in the first place!

"So you're still thinking there's something wrong, that he's not telling you something."

"It's not like that, well, it is, but it's also different..." Candace said, placing a book onto a locker shelf and taking another one down "I just feel like something is...wrong."

"Oh no! You didn't catch him cheating, did you? Perfume that isn't yours, lipstick not the same shade?"

"No, it isn't like that!"

Stacy looked instantly apologetic, feeling helpless to help her friend out, a feeling heightened by how reticent Candace seemed to discuss it, something decidedly different from her usual method regarding her relationship with the handsome ex-Slushy Dawg employee. "I wish I could help," she said, putting her own book away to grab the next textbook needed.

"It's not your fault, Stace," Candace tried to reassure her. "It's just I don't know what to do! I even asked Vanessa, because she's older, but she gave me some advice to look for other fish in the sea, or find someone older. I wanted to ask her dad about Jeremy, if he knew what he was thinking or feeling, but he was gone when I went to leave. I had to show myself out. I thought he'd have to have experience about that sort of stuff. I mean, he was a teenage boy once too."

Stacy tensed up upon hearing her best friend, whom also happened to be part of the family Perry the Platypus' was using for cover, so casually saying she wanted to actually talk to Heinz Doofenshmirtz, one of OWCA's biggest foes. "Umm...Vanessa's dad? The evi...I mean that weird pharmacist guy? Stacy asked for further confirmation.

"Yup."

Stacy hid her intense frown behind the locker door. "Bad idea. I mean, why ask him? Why not ask your stepfather? He's a man too, afterall. He'd know just as much."

Now, on the other side of that locker door, it was Candace Flynn's turn to frown. Candace paused, catching a glimpse of herself and the blush she was suddenly wearing in the mirror in her locker. How could she tell Stacy that she didn't want to ask her father because - while he was a guy - he was also her father. She wanted to ask someone...someone she didn't know...someone she looked at as a man not her dad? Not that she was interested in Vanessa's dad, Candace looked away as she saw herself turning an even deeper shade of red, her teeth biting into her bottom lip in a strange, almost vulnerable way. She loved Jeremy...was only interested in Jeremy, could never possibly be interested in anyone else, unless you counted that British guy, but he was only a substitute Jeremy. Vanessa's dad wasn't at all like Jeremy...he was so much older, so brunette, so much smarter, so tense at times, so much the opposite, so no...NO way! It wasn't like she liked him at all, or had a little crush, or thought he was cool and liked those few moments when they were alone together, she just needed a guy, a guy whom wouldn't buffer things for her when it came to what was going on with Jeremy...

"I don't know, dad might sweeten things up for me," Candace tried to defend, or rather explain, her reasoning. "He's always been so great and caring, and what I need now is the brutal truth about guys and what goes on inside of their incomprehensible heads. I guess, Vanessa's dad just seemed as good a candidate as any."

"Speaking of candidates," Stacy now tactfully tried to change the subject, a relief to both girls, "Are you still trying out for class president ?"

Candace suddenly craned her long neck around her locker door to look at Stacy, almost seeming like a totally different young woman from the mopey depressed one whom had just been talking. "You bet!" she beamed, finding a topic that didn't make her as uneasy as boys (or men) did. "I am so going to kill it. When that election takes place, the other poor candidates are going to be lost in a landslide of ballots bearing Xs beside my name, that's all I'm going to say!"

"That's my girl!" Stacy Hirano said as both teens closed their locker doors and gave each other high fives. "You know who I'm voting for, and that's not just because I can exploit my position as your best friend."

"Thanks Stace," Candace said, holding the Environmental Studies textbook close to her heart. "I knew I could count on you."

Stacy smiled back, but cringed when she turned her head away in the opposite direction. Being Agent T for OWCA, she was aware just whom Vanessa's dad was and the whole tricky situation that caused for Candace interacting with the man in any fashion. Worse, it almost sounded like her best friend might be harbouring secret almost crush-like feelings for the man! Which was ridiculous seeing how much older and unlike Jeremy, or anyone else Candace had previously liked for that matter, Heinz Doofenshmirtz was! It must have been something else in Candace's voice, like she was suffering dry mouth or had licked a wild parsnip or something. That was what Stacy told herself, anyway, although she was still conflicted about not telling Candace who and what Doofenshmirtz really was: an evil scientist, intermittently bent on taking over the Tri-State area. She hated to lie to Candace, or not be a good friend, but this whole thing was just wrong and dangerous. Any way she looked at it, if Candace got involved with Heinz Doofenshmirtz, even just to ask him advice, it would not be a good idea. Somebody could get hurt, Perry, her, the rest of the OWCA or even Candace herself.

Which was the one that actually mattered the most to Stacy Hirano, herself.

Walking into the classroom, Stacy knew It was best to keep Candace away from the man she felt attracted to for either perfectly fine or extremely distressing reasons, otherwise it could all blow up like one of the evil scientist's inators usually did.

* * *

In the past, Candace had enjoyed brief respites from the daily grind of boring lessons, usually finding those unnecessary to actual life. However, since her mind was occupied with life things she didn't necessarily want to be thinking of these days, she had come to prefer just diving into the lessons themselves. There she could focus solely on learning and getting good grades so, when she graduated, it could open better doors for her. Phineas and Ferb were gifted, but she often felt like she was somehow inferior, struggling to even do well on a test, let alone constructing some jaw dropping structure that needed vast knowledge and skill to bring into existence. That was probably one of the reasons the itch to bust them was so horribly strong sometimes. If they got somehow punished into stopping all of their inventions, and the other cool stuff they made, finally she wouldn't have to feel so bad about herself all of the time.

Becoming class president was another way to help achieve that.

However, today didn't seem like one of those days for outright lessons.

Today seemed like a day when Ms. Cochrane wanted to make unnecessary introductions, as if gossip and talk in the corridors and cafeterias wouldn't spread the word about sad pathetic newcomer to Danville High quick enough as it were.

"Class, I would like to take a moment to introduce you to our new foreign exchange student," Ms. Cochrane was saying, a happy expression on her usually pinched face. "He's come straight to us from Transylvania," she stated.

"Hey, if he's from Transylvania, how come he's dressing like a modern American teenager who's been stylized with Drusselsteinian taste by two very wise fashionistas?" another student, most likely a geography major Candace thought, asked. "And why does he look like my ex-Science teacher?"

"Quiet, Johnny, or we'll be forced to flunk you again," the vexed Environmental Studies teacher barked. "That is very rude and not the impression we wish to give new visitors to our fair country." The woman turned and apologized to the exchange student. "I am so very sorry, you had to see that, and on your first day here too."

"That's okay, I'm used to it," the teenaged boy said in a Drusselsteinian accent.

The teacher turned back to the class. "Now before I let him say a few words, I'd like you all to give a great, big warm round of applause in welcome to Henry Fred Zoominshiltz!"

A wave of applause went through the classroom, perhaps a little louder than it should have been, and longer too, on account that the students thought if they kept it going they wouldn't actually have to get back to their studies.

"You are too kind," Henry said in a screechy sort of voice, running a hand over his brown hair, all as he slouched in front of the classroom. "Too kind! I will remember this kindness when I take ove-, I mean when I finally take my seat...you know, sit down."

Candace, whom had been more or less staring at her textbook, wishing they could just get on with it, now raised her head and looked at the new student, her eyes widening in confusion as something tickled within her brain, a thought dancing around with feathered shoes it felt like, but one which also refused to actually be caught.

"Hey, does that new student look kind of familiar to you?" she heard Stacy asking from behind her.

"Yes. Yes he does look familiar..." Candace Flynn agreed, her eyes squinting into two small slits as she studied her peer's unusual face.

The problem was, she didn't know where he looked familiar from.

Had the assistant teacher known as Mr. Platypus been there he might have been able to lend his assistance.

That is if he could actually let Candace Flynn see him.

Or if he could talk.

Maybe things would have been a lot easier, to just introduce Candace, not to the student known as Henry Fred Zoominshiltz, but rather to one of the boy's own inventions instead.

Or rather, Perry would say - if he could actually talk - one of Heinz Doofenshmirtz own creations...

An inator known as the supposedly relatively harmless and entirely forgotten about De-Age-inator!

Chapter Text

The sound of a trap going off brought Heinz Doofenshmirtz to the middle of his cake strewn living room, where he soon found his captive audience waiting.

"Ah...Perry the Platypus, so nice of you to finally show up. I hate to not be so similarly cact-ful - get it cact-ful because I trapped you with my despined cactus...despined because, well, I kept backing into it myself - but I can't be so cact-ful, because I need to be free to school you on my next diabolical scheme to take over the Tri-State area!

"You see, Perry the Platypus, a few weeks back, at the end of June, if we're getting into specifics, after a baking mishap, I was standing in line at one of the many stores at the Googolplex Mall, when suddenly I was bombarded by a ton of Back to School advertisements. Now, I never usually get that, I mean school's just gotten out so what's with bothering people with Back to School sales? They wanna traumatize children? Set them on edge for the whole season? Wait...saying it now, that sounds pretty good actually, from an evil standpoint. But, anyway, suddenly they mentioned that they had a sale on crayons for just 34 cents a pack! And even though I usually don't use them unless I'm on a long flight or my pencils all broke while working on my latest inator and I can't find any of my sharpeners, I dropped my place in line to go pick some up, which believe me wasn't all that easy of a choice to make, seeing how long the line was getting, but 34 cents is 34 cents.

"Unfortunately, I got waylaid and found myself picking up a whole bunch of other stuff I really didn't need too, like 200 ruled sheets of paper, a ruler that also has the mathematical times table on it and a pack of erasers...

"What's that look, Perry the Platypus? You think, I need the erasers? Okay, fine. Maybe the erasers were necessary, but I know that the duotangs and construction paper decidedly weren't.

"Anyway I did pick up some more sharpeners, for those broken pencils I mentioned earlier. That was when I noticed they also had these things called a Teen Pack, filled with different personal hygeine items, like deodorants and razors and stuff. I'm not a Teen, and I can't grow facial hair, nor do I shave my legs, has you can tell since you've seen me in my lederhosens, but I picked one up for Vanessa, just in case, you know, she might need one. Although, I doubt she'd use anything scented in stud or musk. Regardless, I thought, you never know, and it was on sale...

...

"You do remember that time I kept buying things from the infomercials right? It was kind of like that. Only more reasonable.

"So, the line finally shrunk and I was able to pay for all of that junk, and subsequently endure the weird look when the cashier asked if I had young children and I told her, no, I did not. Don't you hate it when they do that? They are so judgemental. Like they don't ever use crayons or fruit-scented markers.

"Then, I had to carry all of that out to my car, not an easy task. My back started hurting a little bit from all of the stuff I was carrying, because I'd stupidly overlooked getting a cart. I had only gone in there for a new cake pan, it's hard to get burnt skunk testicles off of one [old Drusselsteinian recipe, don't ask] and you know how it is, you go in for one thing, come out with half the store.

"However, on my way, I saw that Roger had plastered several re-election posters all over the mall and that got my blood raging, we're talking boiling out of the pot, you know, like if my veins were pots and my blood could actually boil out of them? I saw the crayons in my bag and I thought, what could be more perfect? I'd deface the posters with crayons and nobody would know it was me. Only, you guys at the OWCA did...remember that night when you came over and kicked my butt in late June? Meh, it was worth it though.

"So there I was, scribbling over Roger's posters with a bunch of crayons, hoping everybody would think it was an irate kindergarten student with good taste, instead of me, when my back started to hurt a little. I went to wondering if that Teen Pack thing I bought for Vanessa had anything like acetaminophen or Voltaren in it, when the image of the word 'teen' kind of overlapped inside of my brain with the campaign poster...

"Then I saw it all so clearly, why Roger was on that poster instead of me, why Roger keeps getting back into the Danville office while I, Heinz Doofenshmirtz, am still struggling in taking over the Tri-State area, years after I was a teenager and on a very bad blind date with a soon-to-be famous one hit wonder whom suggested it.

"I then knew the source of my failure: I never became Class President.

"See, while I was an insecure teenager, being sent ping ponged to America and Drusselstein and then back again a few times, Roger, whom primarily stuck to Gimmelshtump, was allowed to work his way up the Drusselsteinian school system and eventually become Class President! While the only thing the school system of my homeland entrusted me with was banging erasers or feeding the class Piranha -  which I still contend that I forgot that one week to do, not because I did it on purpose after it tried to eat my arm - they entrusted Roger with all of their major decisions.

"This created inside of me a gaping hole in my confidence, a wound that I could never properly fill.

"And so...thinking of my teenage years and Roger's class presidency, I asked myself, why, why didn't I, I Heinz...wait I already announced my full name...ignore that part. Simply put, I was thinking of all of this, the crayon melting into wax in my hand, because of my boiling blood, when I realized, I could fix all this with one small act: If only I could go back to school again and become Class President .

"And I could use my past invention, the De-Age-Inator to do it!

"Of course, there was no way, I was about to start all the way back at kindergarten. Please. I'm as patient as the next guy, but, come on, with a bunch of peers whom eat glue? That would drive me insane! No, I reasoned that High School, where they sniff it instead, would be more than good enough. And not all the way back to freshman year either, because that would be torture, just that one final year before graduation, that's all I needed.

"But how, how could I get OWCA off my back, I pondered, as I did my best to achieve my goal? That was when the cake pan and my back, aching just a tiny bit now that I had unloaded my bags, gave me the most deliciously evil plan for the most tasty and scrumptious bit of subterfuge ever: I would make a decoy inator, the Bake-it-in-a-Cake-inator, just like I had previously done with the Fitness Equipment Lock-inator, and then feign a horribly worsening back ailment to be the icing on that cake!

"Perry would be pleased having thwarted me and OWCA would be sympathetic to my health problems, Major Monogram also facing his own. I'd hit him right where good guys are the weakest: their burdensome sense of empathy.

"So, since the start of July up to now, the heart of September, I have been laying the groundwork, juggling Perry's thwartings and various disposable inators, all waiting for today, when I could go to Danville High, not as a Science teacher sent for community service, but as an evil mastermind, one de-aged and ready to win the election and become, not only their Class President, but SENIOR CLASS PRESIDENT!"

Doofenshmirtz raised his hands and chin to the ceiling, still also covered in cake.

"Oh, it is all so perfect, Perry the Platypus! My own baby, Vanessa, has gone off to college so she will not see me haunting the halls of her old high school. Similarly knowing that OWCA was busy thinking I was laid up with a sore back, and as all of their agents sent to spy on me developed a distraction for the cake blown up all around my house, I have been free to do as I like all day. It was beautiful! I walked right into Danville High's principal's office, handed Mrs. Pierpoint my forged papers and then I was able to freely walk through the high school hallways, straight to my classes, where I was marvelously introduced as Henry Fred Zoominshiltz, which, when I become ruler of the Tri-State area, I can reveal to be an anagram for who I truly am: RLY HEINZ DOOFENSHMIRTZ!"

Heinz Doofenshmirtz finally took a moment from his long winded tirade to wipe the tear threatening to fall from his eye.

This also allowed his captive audience to finally reflect on what he had just heard, as well.

"That's very interesting sir," Norm the robot stated, his foot being hugged by the arms of the cactus. "But my name is not Perry the Platypus. And why are you telling me all of this? I was here when you plotted everything out, don't you remember?"

Doof's eyes instantly dried. "Yeah, yeah, I know that Norm. Unfortunately, I need to get out my compulsory need to explain everything and since my Pretendy the Practice-pus kind of fell apart after my Termite-inator - not to be confused with the termite controlling helmet or the Terminator - you were the next best thing. Now that the need has been fulfilled, don't worry, I'll get you out of there."

It didn't take too long to free the metallic henchman, making Doofenshmirtz aware of his constant failing where Agent P was concerned, and soon the robot was on his feet and giving him a round of applause in appreciation.

"Well it sounds perfect and I am glad to hear that everything went smoothly, as you planned for most of summer, which I remind you I saw since I was here."

Heinz's previously ecstatic face scrunched up into a sharp-protruding nosed turmoil of frustration. "Well, it would have. Except for one small thing, I didn't foresee," the evil scientist stated, the backs of his hands resting on his hips as he sighed.

"And what would that be, sir?" Norm asked in concern.

"I never thought Vanessa's annoying friend, the one with the orange hair and long neck would want to personally introduce herself to me after class!" Heinz Doofenshmirtz screeched in irritation, as the scene dissolved into another flashback, this one from a few hours ago and not the end of June...

* * *

When the last bell of class had rung and Henry Fred Zoominshiltz's classmates had all filed out of the classroom, Heinz Doofenshmirtz had stayed behind, wandering to the back of the classroom. There, amongst the wooden tables and lab equipment (this being a science class, of course) he felt right at home and within his natural domain to gloat. It had all been so simple! His plans had all become a reality so smoothly that it resembled Almond Brittle without the actual almonds. To think, he had once came to school everyday as the Science Teacher, now he was on the threshold of being embraced as one of their students, nobody the wiser that he was way past 40, had been able to get drunk legally for years and was even divorced with a kid.

Facing one of the classroom's many large windows, his hands pressed into the surface of one of the desks, Heinz lowered his head, lost in the depth of his gloating. Soon he would make the Tri-State area his and there was nobody who could stop him.

"Hi."

Doofenshmirtz almost jumped as he heard the familiar voice, managing to keep himself in place due to sheer willpower, even as his head spun around to see the girl standing behind him.

Karen.

Vanessa's annoying little friend. Well, not so little, she had to be about 5'8, mostly because of that outrageously long neck.

His eyes narrowed in suspicion, as he watched her walk around to the window, so that she would be facing him, a textbook clutched close to her chest. In dismay, he read it was Science, probably for this very class...that meant they were sharing it together.

"I thought that maybe we could introduce ourselves," she said, her voice a little hesitant and timid.

What was she saying, Heinz internally sneered? He already knew her, unfortunately, and she already knew him. Wasn't she the one always pestering him with "Vanessa's dad" this or "Vanessa's dad" that? He was just getting ready to snap at her "I'm Vanessa's dad remember? Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz," when, thankfully, he caught sight of his reflection in the window behind her and he stopped.

Oh. Right. He was Henry Fred Zoominshiltz now. The 18 year old Henry Fred Zoominshiltz.

But wasn't she already aware of that fact? Sheesh. He'd already been formerly introduced in all of his classrooms! Why did she have to go and make it so sentimentally personal? Jeez, she was just the type of girl he thought she would be, even worse infact. He couldn't stand her.

Still, for show, he stood up, faced her and in his best phony, happy-to-meet-you voice said, "I am Henry Fred Zoominshiltz."

"Yeah, I kind of got that," she said, looking embarrassed. "We're in a couple of classes and they introduced you in each one."

Oh, great, she was in more than just one of his classes, Doof thought and cringed. How did he not notice that? He must have been so busy up inside of his brain that her presence somehow eluded him. It was the worst kind of fact to just happen to overlook and just what he feared: being potentially recognized...It was also, in no way lessened by her next question.

"Umm...Have we met somewhere?"

She knew him, Heinz Doofenshmirtz thought, his palms instantly sweating.

The bratty girl actually recognized him in some subconscious part of her brain afterall! He tried not to panic, aware from raising Vanessa, whom had dealt with her own teenaged troubles, that there was probably so much going on up there, that, if he played it right, she would be too drowning in adolescent angst to put two and two together.

"No, I don't think so..." he replied. "Not unless you've been to Transylvania? Have you been to Transylvania, girl-I-have-never-seen-in-my-life?

She smiled in that custom he was well familiar with, a mixture of shame and trying to put on a brave face. "I was turned into a vampire once and I've been to Pennsylvania, does that count?"

"No. No, actually it doesn't," Heinz said flatly.

That kind of momentarily halted the conversation.

They stood silently staring at one another over the lab desk, and Doofenshmirtz absently noticed the light coming in from the window behind her and how the change in the length of day betrayed that summer was over and it was officially Autumn now. With the sun coming in from just the right angle, it lighted the girl's hair on fire, making her look more like an angel or Botticelli's Venus than the devil he knew she actually was. Still, her hair was very pretty, the orangeness of it. He'd always loved that color. It was just a pity it had to be on top of her head.

"I just can't shake the feeling that I know you," she reiterated, moving away from the window and walking towards him, luckily breaking the spell that her hair and the sunlight had momentarily cast over him.

As she neared, and he stayed frozen in place, a thought ran through the scientist's head, one involving how dense did a person have to be to not recognize someone and how he'd hate to be like that.

She was about an inch away from him then, looking up into his face and Doofenshmirtz was feeling like this was the worst possible scenario to his plan. Not only was someone close to recognizing him, but it was that insipid girl, Karen, the same one he usually tried to avoid these days. She was getting even closer now as she stared, the only thing practically separating them the textbook still clutched in her hands.

"Now where is it from?" the authentic teenager possibly even rhetorically asked and Heinz lifted his head to avert her gaze, only offering her another angle of his face to examine instead.

What had Perry the Platypus taught him again? The little mammal wasn't there to thwart him, but maybe by using what the secret agent had used against him he could get out of this.

The girl continuing her stare, and right under his upraised nose too, the sound of bagpipes suddenly, wrenchingly, whined through his memory...

Ah...yes...

Sometimes the best tactics were the simplest.

He took a large step back then, instantly aware of the lamentable loss of their shared body heat, minus the textbook, of course. Thankfully, there was no cacti waiting behind him either. He didn't even know why he'd bought that stupid thing, other than the fact that it reminded him of his friendship with a platypus he'd once traversed the desert with.

"Well...I just must have one of those faces," Heinz said, now offering her his own sheepish expression.

She didn't look convinced and in that moment Doofenshmirtz realized that this wasn't the type of human whom just let things be. She was just as possibly obsessive as he was and probably endlessly went after something, even if she was doomed to failure. Unfortunately, finding out where she knew him from now had been put at the top of her list.

"Okay...anyway, I just wanted to welcome you to the school and personally introduce myself," she said, suddenly smiling and seeming to be all friendly. She stretched out a hand and stated, "I'm Candace Flynn."

Heinz, or rather Henry, narrowed his eyes again. What was she playing at anyway? Giving him the wrong name? Was that some sort of hint that she knew who he really was? Oh great, he thought, did that mean he was supposed to pay close attention to her now, just when he actually liked to pretend she didn't exist?

"And you know who I am," Henry said, taking the offered hand and shaking it back, whilst looking into her face for any sign that she did actually know who he was.

They stood there shaking hands for what felt like a solid ten minutes, each studying the other's face until a janitor came in and finally broke their concentration.

"Um...if you two don't mind, I have to clean this place up," the man said. "Besides, there are far better places for a make out session."

That alone caused their shaking hands to drop and they shared one look of mutual embarrassment and everything's-okayness before they rushed out of the classroom, leaving the janitor to shake his head behind them.

* * *

"And that was when I came back here and used the Age-Accelerator-inator - the perfect compliment to my De-Age-Inator - to make myself old again...but that girl worries me Norm," Heinz Doofenshmirtz confessed as the flashback finally faded.

It wasn't exactly a world-alterring confession though.

Girls had always made him nervous.

"Well, I am sure that everything will work out just fine, Sir," Norm tried to cheer him up. "Just think happy thoughts, you know, about when you're finally ruler of the Tri-State area. That should do it."

"I hope so Norm..." Heinz sighed, shaking his head, just like the janitor had. "But if raising a teenage daughter has taught me anything, it is that expect anything and rule out nothing when a hormone ridden girl is concerned."

Chapter Text

Sitting at the kitchen table. feeling like she was being suffocated by the stench of whatever was lying in wait on her plate, Candace kept trying to tell herself that it was the reeking scent of supper that was making her want to gasp for air and not the fact that she was just an average, confused and besieged-by-hormones teenage girl trying to figure out life and the world.

It didn't help that what was also making her feel crazier was the fact that her mind was constantly obsessing over two seemingly unrelated things: Jeremy was set to call her (like always) sometime after supper and that she was still wondering where, on Earth, she had seen Henry Fred Zoominshiltz before.

Of course, being a few years older than the girl whom had once tried to drag her mother home to see a rollercoaster which had mysteriously vanished, she had become better at hiding her preoccupations from her family.

Either that, or they had learned to ignore them entirely.

"So how was your day today, kids?" Linda Flynn-Fletcher asked, seemingly unaware that her only daughter was staring at her plate, a distressed look on her face.

Shaking her head to help pay attention, Candace didn't know if she still liked being called a kid when she was 18 years old. She didn't feel like a kid, not the same one she used to be anyway. The most moments she still felt like that was when she was attempting to bust her little brothers, but that usually was just heightened in the summer now, or those moments when she was almost positive that she could do it. Now she was more distracted by other things, having grown out of it. Now she just kind of wished that her mother would stop thinking of her as that same teenager whom used to bug her every single day and actually realize that she was a grown woman.

Hopefully when she became class president something like that would finally happen.

A young woman could dream anyway.

Phineas, whom still was a kid, however, answered before Candace could even get a word in about her age or her fledgling steps to becoming senior class president.

"Well, we went to this strange guy's unusual house downtown and dropped off some things he wanted us to pick up for him. Actually, I think we've seen him somewhere before, but things are muddled, what with it being back to school and everything. We left him with a card incase he needed anything else from us and he called us a little while ago to send him some fonts."

Candace didn't think that sounded particularly safe, going to some random guy's house and buying stuff he'd asked for. And then she'd never word it like "incase he needed anything else from us." Like who was this man anyway? And why would he let children do his errands for him? Wasn't their mom supposed to run a check on him first or something?

Mom being mom, however, she just smiled and said, "Well, you two boys are making an income now! I'll have to stop calling you kids and refer to you two as my two little business men, won't I?"

Rolling her eyes, Candace played with her meal, unsure of what was exactly even on her plate. How come Phineas and Ferb got away with stuff like that, but if she did, mom would still treat her like a child and demand to know everything about the guy? Luckily, she didn't need to worry. The only unusual looking building she knew of downtown belonged to Vanessa's dad and that guy was totally trustworthy, a grade A human being and not some weirdo whom was obsessed with creating inventions out of spite to help resolve his painful back story or taking over the Tri-State Area, or something like that. He certainly wouldn't have children doing his shopping for him. She'd even caught a glimpse of him just a few months back picking up Back to School specials.

Other than a kind of resemblance between the separate individuals, Candace actually trusted him as opposed to the someone else she knew of, someone she could actually reference now as the major point of interest in her own day.

"We had a new foreign exchange student in class today..."

"Oh that's nice," Linda remarked, squeezing her equally foreign husband's hand underneath the table.

"Have either of you ever heard of a Henry Fred Zoominshiltz? Supposedly just came to town from Transylvania?" Candace tested out the waters, wondering if her family could help her solve her conundrum.

"It kind of rings a bell," Phineas stated, "but it seems all kind of jumbled in my mind. As I said, school really takes away from the more important stuff."

"No, Candace. And that's the kind of name you remember," Linda commented. "The kind you don't want to have to pay by the letter for when having something engraved."

"Zoominshiltz is not typically a Transylvanian name...infact, I'm not sure it's a real name at all," Ferb suddenly stated, breaking free from his silence.

"Aha! Hmm...hmm..." Candace stated, pointing at her brother and happy to be vindicated, even though her family didn't know of her suspicions about the new student yet.

"Now Ferb," his father chastised, ignoring Candace's reaction, like the family often tried to. "Just because we're not familiar with something doesn't mean that it isn't real. And just because it isn't real, doesn't mean that we've never heard of it before and it's unfamiliar. There's lots of things that you might never have heard of that are or are not real, but which we may experience, if we are or may not be real. Take today's supper, for example! I never would have thought about adding marmalade to a dairy free Cesaer salad until your mother brought it home from her cooking class!"

"Actually, that was a mistake," Linda interrupted with a grimace. "A very bad one, I might add. Charlene got confused with the mayonnaise and I was running late so I just brought it home for supper."

"See, so there you go!" Lawrence Fletcher exclaimed cheerily, taking another bite.

Candace didn't know if this Henry was a mistake or not...she was just pretty sure, no matter that he claimed otherwise, she was not mistaken about having seen him before. The question was where.

"Now, what I want to know is what's with this reaction of yours, Candace?" Linda Flynn-Fletcher addressed her daughter, apparently having noticed it afterall. "Do you not trust this new exchange student?"

"Well," Candace stated, squirming in her seat and feeling embarrassed now, put on the spot, when all she basically had was a gut feeling and Ferb's now shot down support. "I just have a feeling like I've met him before, which would be impossible if he just got into Danville."

"See, that's just what I was saying," Lawrence began again. "Sometimes something that isn't real can feel familiar."

"Oh is that what you were saying?" Linda asked, resting her chin on her hands and staring saucily at her husband. "I thought you were just rambling on to appear stuffy, pompous and British."

"And I still wonder if you were this sarcastic before our marriage," he growled in reply.

They were staring at one another like a couple of lovestruck teens and Candace looked away, feeling enviable and self conscious because her relationship with Jeremy felt a million light years away from her parents' these days. She looked down and started to fiddle with her fingers, making chapels and zippers with them, trying not to feel so depressed. Luckily, her mom soon remembered her train of thought and hopped right back on board.

"Anyway, Candace, you shouldn't just go around accusing every foreign exchange student you see, just because they look familiar. That's rude and gives people whom come to our country a bad first impression. I mean there is probably a very good explanation for it. Look at Perry, afterall...he comes from Australia and he resembles a beaver, a North American mammal."

Candace was about to ask how that exactly proved anything when Phineas began to look around the kitchen and underneath the table for the referenced platypus. "Hey where is Perry?" he asked, obviously missing the little fella.

"Oh, he's sleeping on Candace's bed," Lawrence stated. "He's been there most of the day, from how it looked. I saw him there after I did the laundry for your mother, while she was at cooking school."

"Oh, Lawrence! You shouldn't have!" the woman exclaimed.

"Oh, yes, yes I should," he replied and the two shared a kiss, making Candace feel bad again about the current state of her relationship with Jeremy.

* * *

Sure enough, Perry had been sleeping on her bed when she'd gone to her bedroom, after a supper that made her stomach upset. The little platypus looked like he'd been sleeping there a long time when she had to wake him up so she could kick him out. In the nicest way possible. A decided difference from the days when she'd call him smelly, bland and useless.

"Hey, Perry. Phineas and Ferb were looking for you. I think they'd rather you be doing nothing in their vicinity right now than mine."

The little semi-aquatic mammal rose to his webbed feet, gave a yawn and a stretch, and then hopped off of the bed and waddled to the door. Candace accompanied him for the short journey and opened the door, quickly shutting it after he was gone.

Candace returned to her bed, sparing an anxious look to her clock before she plopped down on the mattress. Did her ceiling always look this gloomy, she wondered, or was the marmalade drenched salad currently being digested messing with her mind?

Oh yeah...the same salad Mom's cooking partner had goofed up, although probably with a little help from mom. Of course, the other woman hadn't needed to take the disgusting thing home to eat because, from what Vanessa told her, her mom was filthy rich.

Having Charlene Doofenshmirtz mentioned hadn't helped matters, Candace guessed. That was Vanessa's mother afterall - her father's ex. Thinking about Vanessa's dad being her father was sometimes strange enough, a reason why she had to keep reminding herself that he was her friend's father and, because of this fact, so much older than she was. Having an ex wife also added to this. An ex wife he'd obviously been physically intimate with or else Vanessa wouldn't have been born. To have both an ex wife and a kid made him ancient.

With this blatantly rubbed in her face, Candace knew that she wasn't supposed to find the man cute, or feel strange inside when she saw him or they talked to one another...she wasn't supposed to feel sad when she thought of Charlene, or feel guilty because a tiny, unwanted part of her kind of wished that Vanessa had never been born because, what if, her dad would have been around her own age instead?

Gee, Mom was right, afterall, Candace guessed: she was still just a kid.

Candace rolled onto her stomach, holding her Ducky Momo doll to her heart.

Better to think of Henry Fred instead.

Whom actually resembled a much younger version of Vanessa's dad.

Now that guy was closer to her age, so if she found him cute, inspite of herself, that was a whole different issue. And if he reminded her a lot of Vanessa's dad, well that was impossible and...hello...awkward as heck...so she just relegated that whole messy subject to the back of her mind, where she put things that were useless to her, like algebra, CD players and last month's big budget blockbuster.

Now this Henry guy was not being honest with her, but for totally different reasons than Jeremy was. Afterall, if she knew Henry, it was only in a vague sort of way, she assumed, and not the obsessive crush kind of way that Jeremy Johnson had dominated her thoughts and soul for years now.

Thinking of Jeremy made Candace Flynn's stomach turn again, but not in the past delightful way of feeling like a billion butterflies were bursting out of rainbows inside of it. Now she just dreaded the thought of their evening phonecall, where once upon a time it had been the highlight and sweet sendoff to the day. Now they were sick butterflies all languishing, dying on a rainbow that had turned a dull, monotone of grey.

But maybe Jeremy would know Henry, one of the butterflies unexpectedly cried out, seeming to come to life at the memory of her encounter with the exchange student after school! Maybe, being a guy with connections, and whose family had them too, he could help add some pieces to the mysterious puzzle that was Henry Fred Zoominshiltz!

Perfect, Candace thought, springing up to a kneeling position on her bed. She could merge both of her obsessions together and get one of the problems bothering her over with!

For the first time in a long time, she phoned Jeremy first.

"Candace! What a surprise! Usually I'm the one to call first," her boyfriend even mentioned the fact, making Candace feel awkward and a little bit guilty.

"Did I catch you at a bad time?" she asked, aware that he was in college now and was balancing several other things in his life. Being aware of this still didn't help answer why things felt different for her though, it only made it worse. Afterall, if she could account for several mitigating factors for his being somehow distant and still have a feeling that something was wrong, it upped the chances that Jeremy's feelings for her had changed, didn't it?

Pushing this off to the side, along with Henry's reminding her a little of Vanessa's dad, Candace decided to get right to the motivating force for her break in routine. There'd be time to get back to the pleasantries of the day, what she needed now was a satisfying scratch to the itch she was getting.

"Ahhh, so Jeremy, you're family's pretty popular around town...not like mine that deals mostly in antiques...have you heard anything new and exciting about anybody coming to town?"

He gave it some thought, as indicated by the silence. "Nope. Not that I can remember."

"And your dad works at the space station still,  right? He could have seen everything, I mean from a real long distance? Like Europe?"

"Are you worried we're being invaded or something?"

"No, no, it's nothing like that...I just wanted to know if anything seemed, you know, suspicious."

Some more silence, but when Jeremy spoke, his voice sounded almost excited. "Candace, are you back to trying to bust your brothers? I thought with school being back in, it was off season?"

"No..." she groaned. "This is actually about somebody else."

Candace clapped a hand over her mouth. What was she saying...she wasn't trying to bust Henry Fred Zoominshiltz, was she? That was just poor etiquette, she reasoned, just like mom had said. All she was trying to do was find out where he looked familiar from. He hadn't done anything bustworthy yet, although if he was lying that could constitute as...

No!

What was she thinking!

Was she so addicted to busting her brothers, she needed a stand-in now to help ride her through the school year? How pathetic was she?!?

Still...she couldn't help from asking...

"Have you or your friends ever heard of a guy named Henry Fred Zoominshiltz?" she asked, drumming her fingers on her nightstand.

"No...wait! I think I might have given him guitar lessons a few years ago. Let me go look at my files...I keep track of stuff like that to keep my dad off my back."

Candace was squirming in excitement. If Jeremy had given Henry lessons that meant she did know him from somewhere and he was lying about being new to town. She was still twisting about in joy when Jeremy came back to burst her bubble. "No, sorry. Turned out that was a Dr. Doofenshmirtz."

Her face swiftly fell. "A Dr. Doofenshmirtz with a daughter named Vanessa?"

"I don't know her name, but he did have a daughter. Dressed in a black one piece, just like you did that one time."

Oh great, Candace thought. Now Vanessa's dad wasn't just the sexy mad scientist type he was also skilled at playing an instrument. Wait! What! Did she just think of him as sexy? She wasn't supposed to do that. What she meant was the admirable, yes admirable, intelligent, hot...no, not hot...distinguished scientist. Whom happened to play an instrument. No big deal. Liberace had played the piano and she never once thought of him as sexy or hot.

"Don't know why I was thinking about him, anyway. Must be because they are both such weird names and sound, I don't know, European?"

"Does it sound Transylvanian to you?" Candace inquired.

"Ah...no. More German or Russian...and Zoominshiltz, gotta be honest, that just sounds made up."

Candace paused, thinking this over. Added to what Ferb had said, she was starting to be even more curious about Henry. Curious and suspicious. Curious, suspicious and obsessed."

"So...Candace...what's this all about? Should I be jealous about this Henry Fred guy?"

Candace found herself snapped out of her silent contemplation by the words of her boyfriend. "Oh, no, please," she said, trying to regain her composure. "He dresses like my brothers picked out his wardrobe! He's not cool like you. He just turned up in a few of my classes and I thought he looked familiar. I asked him about it, but he denied everything..."

"Which made you want to bust him?"

"Uh...no," Candace answered, feeling confused. Did she want to bust him? Did Jeremy want her to bust him? It was so confusing...and exhausting. There was a time when she used to adopt interests or feelings just to please Jeremy Johnson now she was finding it so hard to keep doing. It was almost...tedious. She was just tired she guessed. All she could reply was, "I don't know, it's just kind of weird. Phineas and Ferb were always so honest about what they were doing, I feel like this guy is dishonest...Why should I feel more interested in busting my brothers and more..." she couldn't use the word she was thinking, curious about Henry Fred Zoominshiltz as a person, not so much riled up and angry. He'd have to do something pretty big to inspire that inside of her. "and more blase about this Zoominshiltz guy lying straight to my face?" she chose to word it, knowing Jeremy had been to France, having stalked him once there.

"Maybe it's because you're conditioned to go after your brothers, the whole psychological impact of the family dynamic. I learned all about it in class today," Jeremy stated. "Professor Freudenkeppler was saying that..."

Candace stayed on the line for another thirty minutes, listening to Jeremy go on and on about his latest Psych course. She wasn't quite sure why he'd chosen the subject, but she guessed intense personalities interested him. She wished she could claim the same. Once again, she was feigning interest, something that used to prove easier to do.

By the time, she finally made the excuse that she had homework to do, pulling the subject of the textbook she'd been holding up to her chest while introducing herself to Henry, Candace was grateful to finally be free of talking to her boyfriend. The feeling that something had changed in their relationship was still bothering her and she just wanted the call to be over so she didn't need to pretend anymore. She wanted to be a lawyer someday, but finding out the mindset of criminals or psychopaths didn't really interest her, her overwhelming need for justice did.

"Well, it was great talking to you, Candace," Jeremy stated. "Let me know how the busting goes." She was about to remind him that she wasn't so much interested in busting Henry Fred Zoominshiltz as getting to the truth behind him, when Jeremy added, "I love you so much," to the send off, in a tone that sounded more like he meant it than he had in the last few weeks.

"I love you too, Jeremy," she said, but wondered why her own voice didn't match his level of passion. It was probably just her fear from before coming out, she told herself, the anxiety that he was no longer as interested in her as he had once been.

The conversation finally finished, Candace let out a sigh of relief, sitting on the edge of her bed, as she tried to collect her thoughts and calm all of the turmoil inside of her soul it had caused, as well as whatever the heck her mom and Charlene Doofenshmirtz's salad was doing to her inner workings.

In time, she stood and walked over to her desk, seeing the copies of the poster she had been working on for the past few days - with Albert Dubois' help and his knowledge of graphic design and possession of state of the art printers - lying there.

In a multitude of bright colors, and with the utmost sincerity and confidence, the poster declared:

Candace smiled, tracing the image of her smile on the poster, wishing it felt as real as it looked.

Not that it mattered what she was feeling now. In a few weeks she would be Senior Class President and then she would be happy about that, at least, because it in no way involved Jeremy Johnson, Vanessa's dad or weird new exchange students she thought she knew.

At least, she would have being class president all to herself.

And, at least nobody could take that away from her, unlike her brothers inventions, which always sooner or later disappeared.

* * *

At school the next morning, on her way to class, Candace Flynn stopped along the way, something on the wall having caught her attention.

No that wasn't entirely accurate.

Several somethings had been plastered all over the walls, each garnering her attention to the sound of a sharp chord played by violins and violas, underscored by a cello.

"Ahhh Stacy, what the heck is this?" Candace asked, having an inkling, yet hoping her friend would tell her that she was hallucinating.

Stacy, whom had been several feet ahead, now came to stand by her side again, staring at the item with the same reaction Candace was suppressing...

Shocked horror.

"I think it's a campaign poster..." Stacy Hirano commented and then looked at the others lining the hallway. "I think they are all campaign posters..."

"I hate to say it Candace, but it looks like you have some serious competition," Stacy remarked, and then noticing the expression on her best friend's face, and the way she was clenching her fists at her side, the textbook she'd been holding now lying at her feet, repeated in concern, "Candace? Ca-Candace?"

"Th...tha..." Candace was struggling to say, "Hen...Henry...Henry Fred Zoominshiltz...you...you are...you are so..." she suddenly pointed at the man's smiling face on a poster that looked even better than hers did, declaring loudly in a voice that meant war, for the whole Danville High School to hear, "HENRY FRED ZOOMINSHILTZ, YOU ARE SOOOO GOING DOWN!"

Chapter Text

Sitting at his desk, Heinz was feeling pretty good about himself and generally about his scheme.

He'd gotten to school fairly early to ensure that nobody saw him putting up the posters he'd made, with a little help from those red-haired and green-haired boys. They looked really nice, plus he'd managed to smuggle Norm into Danville High disguised as a trash can, so he could help him put them all up. Then he'd sent the giant robot right back to the DEI building, with Norm's usual complaining about it all.

"But I don't want to go home! I want to enroll here with you!" the robot had cried.

"Quit it, Norm," Doof had said to his giant creation, both of them still standing in one of the high school's empty hallways. "I'm in enough danger being recognized and my plan thwarted without needing to worry about a nine foot trash can following me around. I can't do anything to draw unneeded attention to myself."

"But, Sir! We just spent an hour putting posters of you up all over the school, isn't that drawing attention to yourself?"

"No...well...yeah, but that's sort of the whole plan: Run for class president, win the thing, become Mayor, then President and then finally take over the whole Tri-State area!"

"But, Sir...won't you be able to take over the whole country if you become President?"

Heinz remembered his face contorting. "Stop splitting hairs, Norm! Now...now...you've gone and confused me...you're...you're confusing me, Norm, when I need to stay focused. Why do you wanna do that? Besides that's beside the point and not what I'm chastising you for now! What I don't want is to do something wrong so the staff notices me and then I'll be called into the principal's office, where Lang is still working. They should really throw an election to kick him out! That guy still hates me for thinking I stole Charlene away from him."

"If you did it would be one of the only times you managed to steal something successfully," Norm had quipped, obviously still upset that his perceived father wouldn't let him go to school, which was kind of proof he wasn't a child, since that was the last place most of them wanted to go.

"Look, stop trying to make me feel better," Heinz remarked, placing his knuckles at his waist. "Other than Vanessa - and a few moments here and there that I'd rather not talk about with you - if Lang wanted Charlene so bad, I wish he could have kept her!"

"But then you wouldn't have the alimony money to fund all of your evil schemes, Sir."

"Touche. The most ingenious of which, just happens to be this one," he had agreed, looking at the posters and thinking of the money he'd used to print them up and pay the two brothers. It was worth it though. When he was named Senior Class President, it would be worth every cent of the alimony money Charlene gave him, plus the time and effort of demeaning himself by becoming a teenager again and returning back to high school.

Now, a while later and plotting and gloating away at his desk, Heinz could see his plan coming to fruition and how nothing could stop him really, Perry the Platypus presumably off elsewhere while believing he had a sore back. Doof's time spent at OWCA kind of had proved to the villain that the organization was lost without their best agent.

Even if Perry did become suspicious, he'd never think to look for him here.

Who in their right mind would ever want to go back to high school!

Even just this morning, before class had even started, he'd been called an assortment of names he wasn't certain what they meant, but was fairly sure Vanessa would inform him were all fairly insulting by varying degrees of lewdness.

And to remind him again of why, once upon a time, he had just been grateful he'd gotten past puberty, a pimple had suddenly popped up on his forehead, right above his left eyebrow, it's usual haunting ground when he had been 17-18.

Still, regardless of all of this, Doof tried to remain optimistic and hopeful, two of his biggest strengths (and downfalls) from the past. All of this only meant he had been accepted as one of Danville High's own: just another poor victim at the bottom of the food chain to degrade and make feel like trash.

The pimple was no different really, making him feel the same way.

It wasn't so bad...sure it was only his second day...but it was a whole lot better than Middle School had been back at Gimmelshtump, where there was no actual classroom to speak of and the teachers all threw pine cones at you! At least, if it rained here you could stay dry.

And he had his own desk.

That was a bonus.

Even if those whom had sat there beforehand had apparently been trying their best to leave its underside covered with gum, earwax and boogers and had even been nice enough to deface its top with a few expletives, questionable artwork (this wasn't even art class, mind you) and their own far less significant names.

He wanted to carve Heinz Doofenshmirtz into it too, but with his luck the class iguana, whom was probably working undercover for OWCA, scoping out the next generation of evil doers, would probably see it and report back to headquarters ASAP.

He still couldn't risk the slightest misstep.

Which reminded him...

Heinz looked across at the empty seat from his...

What was it that Karen girl had said? That they shared a few classes? He wasn't sure why that had gone over his head, but assumed it was because he'd been so euphoric that his plans were working out for a change that Kelly Clarkson could have been sitting beside him and he wouldn't have noticed either. Ashley Tisdale too.

If that seat did belong to her, it only showed that luck was on his side again because her familiar looking heinie wasn't in it and he was allowed a few moments without her staring at him in the hope that she could finally answer where she knew him from...

Now that was going to be a problem.

He hoped whatever illness she had was chronic, long lasting or highly contagious so it would keep her out of school for as long as he needed. Like possibly the whole school year. Or until election night. That would be good...

Although, he didn't want it to be fatal.

He didn't want her to actually die.

He must be getting too soft in his old-age-trapped-inside-of-a-young-aged body, Heinz Doofenshmirtz realized because the thought of Vanessa's little friend being gravely ill now suddenly unexpectedly distressed him. He was becoming honestly distressed. Why, he didn't know...he dreaded the times she came to see Vanessa, afterall, but the thought of hearing a knock and it having no chance of being her...

Well.

It worried him.

His stomach started to feel bad.

Of course, he probably should stop eating the cake still lying around his apartment, Doof realized, the icing did contain butter, afterall, and he was lactose intolerant. Not to mention he'd turned the air conditioning off to help save money now that it was September.

That didn't explain why, though, his eyes kept drifting to the empty desk beside his and he felt his vision wavering, like there were tears suddenly obscuring his vision.

No. That was just the Clearasil, he told himself, giving off fumes that got into his eyes.

Luckily, or not so luckily, an announcement soon came over the intercom, distracting him from his fretting over the annoying girl's absence.

Would Henry Fred Zoominshiltz please go to Principal Lang's office immediately.

Heinz's concern for Vanessa's little friend immediately went out the window as the words sunk in. There was a small chance he might not have realized that that was the name he was going by now, except having printed them on so many posters last night and then plastered the posters up all over the school walls this morning, it was now kind of imprinted into his memory.

What was Lang wanting to see him about anyway?

Had he found out the truth?

Had his transfer papers been discovered as forgeries?

One of his worst case scenarios was either now playing out in reality or this was all a horrible coincidence. Not sure which it was, Heinz stood nervously from the desk, unfortunately feeling the gum and boogers again as he grabbed it to help support his weak knees.

"Yes...Henry Fred Zoominshiltz...that is my name," he smiled sheepishly looking at his classmates. "I am Henry Fred Zoominshiltz...also running for Senior Class President...got that? Henry Fred Zoominshiltz for president."

Any bit of publicity was good, right, Doof comforted himself. It made you remembered, at least.

"So what'd you do, Henry?" one classmate asked, ignoring the brief ad campaign.

"Are you gonna be deported?" another teased.

""That's gotta be a record or something...here a day, expelled tomorrow," some fellow student chortled right before some other one mocked the way he talked, saying in a screechy tone, "Gotta turn into a bat and fly back to Transylvania now! Too bad I sound more like an owl stuck in a tractor!"

The whole classroom began to break up in laughter as he walked out of it.

Ah...acceptance Heinz thought with a smirk as he headed to the Principal's Office.

* * *

"Hellooo...you wanted to see me?" Doofenshmirtz started to say even before the door was completely opened, still fearing why Lang had called him there. To his surprise, however, it wasn't the principal he saw upon first stepping in but the girl he'd been both criticizing and worried about only moments before.

Vanessa's little friend stood infront of the principal's desk, turning to look over her shoulder at him as he walked in. To his relief, Doof realized she looked perfectly okay, other than the scowl on her face. If she was dying she didn't look worse the wear for it. His relief, however, turned back into terror as he realized the possibility that this girl had finally realized where she knew him from and had marched right into Lang's office to snitch on him. Why couldn't she have come to him first, Doofenshmirtz cringed as he walked to the desk in order to stand beside her? Then he might have been able to bribe her with something to help keep her big mouth shut. What that could be, he didn't know...Vanessa oftentimes being an enigma to him. Perhaps, some makeup he could create in just her shade? Maybe a poster of her crush, he certainly had the equipment for it now. An inator to make her neck not so tall?

"Hello," she greeted, her mouth pursing into a thin line, her arms now folding. Sheesh, she seemed awfully angry at him, the same level that Charlene used to get, but what for, Heinz didn't know...sure he was the father of one of her best friends, pretending to be a foreign-exchange-high-school-student so he could take over the Tri-State area but she didn't need to take it that personally, did she? He'd barely gotten a foot into office, or used up that Clearasil tube, and now he was going to have to go back to being a frustrated middle-aged evil scientist.

How did that spoil her day so much?

It mucked things up for him far more. Now he would be left with a bunch of school supplies he didn't need.

"Hi...ya," Heinz greeted with a timid wave and a grimace, not liking how the girl angrily glaring at him was making him feel. Usually she was so friendly when she visited Vanessa...he found himself missing her smile.

Despondent, for no clear cut reason to be pinpointed, his eyes darted to the principal, not any more comfort to be found on his own frowning face.

"I'm sorry to have to call you in like this, Mr. Zoominshiltz," the man began, "but when this young woman..."

"Candace...Candace Flynn," the young woman in question interrupted, making Heinz wonder why she was giving the Principal the wrong name too.

"But when Candace Flynn here brought the dilemma to me, personally, I had no choice but to take the necessary next steps," Principal Lang now included the name the girl had told him - even if it was the wrong one, Heinz thought. "I regret to inform you but..."

Heinz waited for it, his teeth clenched and sweat rolling from his forehead, a bead going right over the pimple...

"We have to check the school rulebook to see if you can still be a candidate for Senior Class President."

"A ha! You think this is the end of me...you think you can just kick out He..." Doof paused in his tirade as the words suddenly sank in. "Wait, what? This is just about the election?"

"Yeah, what did you think it was about?" the girl asked, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Ah...nothing...I thought maybe you were taking away my locker?" he lied in response.

"Goodness, no!" Lang interjected. "We'd never take away a foreign exchange student's locker! What do you think we are, Xenophobes? We're just not sure that a student not raised in Danville can try out for SENIOR Class President. Junior, maybe, but not senior. Especially since you've only been here one day."

"Oh, is that all," Heinz Doofenshmirtz began to relax, his slouch thus becoming more pronounced, having feared that his whole scheme was in jeopardy. However, he soon regained his anxiety upon realizing that his whole plot revolved around becoming Senior Class President, the only reason he was in Danville High and had used the De-Age-Inator on himself in the first place! So basically...he was still in jeopardy afterall.

"Why shouldn't I be allowed to become Senior Vice President? Who's the nosy Nelly who even bothered bringing all this to your attention anyway?"

"Are you even paying attention?!?" the girl turned around and snapped at him, her hands clenched into fists. "I did! And I didn't think it was fair that someone can, supposedly, come to Danville fairly recently and then only be in Danville for a day before he up and decides he can run for Senior Class President!"

"Look I've been here way be..." Heinz realized he was about to tell her that he'd been in Danville before she was even born, but that would've been a huge error. "I've been here since before yesterday," he quickly edited. "And I assure you, I have as much right to be Danville's Senior Class President as the next guy...who is the next guy anyway? I didn't seen any of their posters up."

"Me!" she snapped again, her fists becoming even tighter. "And that's because you plastered yours all over the place so I could barely find a spot!"

Heinz Doofenshmirtz balked that Vanessa's little friend, the same one whom annoyed him so much and had tried to get him in trouble, was also the main person he was running against. "That's ridiculous!" he audibly voiced his opinion.

"Why, because I'm a girl?" she asked, right in his face now and prepared to be offended.

"No...because who would want a Senior Class President who's always a snitch going around trying to bust people? You'd probably have the whole school under strict surveillance or something, given how you tried to rat me out. If I could vote, I know I would not vote for you. No, you certainly wouldn't get this fellow teenager's vote."

"Actually you can vote," Principal Lang interrupted.

Heinz suddenly tore his attention away from his rival to face the Principal. "Really? I can? How many times?"

"Stay focused!" the girl shouted, getting spittle on the side of his face. "We're here to see if you'll even be on the ballot!"

"Right, " Principal Lang said and then pressed the button on his intercom. "Mrs. Pierpont, would you please bring in the school rulebook?" Turning back to the students, he informed, "Now, we can get to the bottom of this."

"Fine," both Heinz and the orange-haired girl spat.

While they waited, the girl had gone back to folding her arms and pouting. Her face was turned away so she wouldn't have to look at him, and Doof found this aggravating for some reason. Usually, he tried to ignore her himself, but he was experiencing some dissonance from his adult life, he guessed, where she was always looking at him with those pretty eyes of hers. Was he feeling defeated already? Lost in some power struggle, not even with her but with his middle-aged self? Like his older version bested the girl, and was someone she looked up to, but this younger version was worthy only of her disdain and ambivalence?

Now, because of his seeming confusion between his double life, he wanted to annoy her enough to warrant her attention. "You know...if you're so worried about where to hang your posters, try the girl's washroom. I didn't put any in there. I do have some decency, no matter what you think."

She turned around to glare at him and Heinz smugly turned his head away now, feeling like he'd regained the equilibrium in their relationship. ZING!!! Good, he thought. Now the next step was ensuring that he could run for the Presidency.

"Well, it's a good thing that you had all those posters made before that gigantic zit popped up on your forehead," she quickly retaliated.

Heinz Doofenshmirtz held back an actual growl as he clenched his own fists and refused to look at the girl now.

"Here's the rule book," Mrs. Pierpoint stated, entering the office and throwing the book onto Lang's desk. He quickly began to search through it, while the two teens waited impatiently, throwing dirty glances at one another until he finally spoke.

"There are no rules against a foreign exchange student entering the race for any Danville High presidency...Infact it specifically encourages that they do so."

"Ha!" Heinz blasted aloud, grateful for whomever had added that bit. He could kiss them.

"Oh, come on, that's crazy!" the girl objected.

"It says it right here, the Mayor Roger Doofenshmirtz created that law himself."

Heinz felt his stomach turn. Okay, maybe he wasn't all that grateful...

"It seems, since he was of foreign birth and had been elected into office, he wanted to give everyone that chance," the principal elaborated.

It looked like the struggle literally left the young woman's body in a sigh at the compassionate reasoning, and Heinz sensed her body relaxing in defeat. She was kind of too close now, he realized, in his victory...He wasn't comfortable with it. At all. He would have backed away but he thought it could be construed as submission. Likewise, Lang's desk was too close to move forward. There was always a sideways, crablike tactic but then he'd no longer be right in front of the desk itself. He was just kind of stuck with her nearness.

"There is one stipulation, however...but it effects the both of you, not just you Henry Fred," Principal Lang warned, lifting his eyes from off of the book.

"What's that?" Candace asked, Heinz joining in anxiously with a "Yeah, what is that?"

"Well, it turns out that Roger Doofenshmirtz was an excellent Kickball player back in his hometown of Himmelstump..."

"Gimmelshtump, and you don't need to remind me," Doof corrected and then cringed when Candace threw him another quick and suspicious glance.

"Well...he believed it built character...so he decided to make a clause that anyone running for Senior Class President needed to be a part of one of the Danville Kickball teams, male or female..."

Thinking of what a lousy Kickball player he'd always been, Heinz quickly tensed up, aware he'd always had poor skills with his feet.

"But we don't have a Kickball team," the girl remarked, causing Heinz to be the one to exhale now.

"No...no, we don't...but we do have two mighty fine soccer teams...If either of you want to run for Senior Class President you will have to sign up for those..."

"Oh great," Heinz groaned, slapping his forehead and hurting his pimple. That still did nothing for his poor feet.

"But...but...I'm not very good at sports," the girl whined.

"Join the club," Heinz mumbled out of the side of his mouth.

"Yes, joining the club...that's just what you'll both have to do," Principal Lang stated, loudly closing the rule book. "And what else...seeing as though Danville High has very few neighbouring soccer teams to play against, we often pit the female team against the male one. It seems you two won't only be competing against each other in the electoral ring...you'll also be taking one another on on our very own playing field."

The principal looked kind of happy over the whole prospect, his mind no doubt coming up with his own posters that he could plaster all over Danville, stating the fact, to help draw in an even bigger ticket paying audience: It was one thing to have two kids going against each other for high school office, it was quite another beast to have them both partaking in a possibly violent sport, especially when they were opposite sexes.

Meanwhile, both students stood there looking mortified, not exactly happy at having their competition turned into a physical one now too.

Trying to regain his confidence, and envisioning his winning the Presidency eventually leading to his swift taking over the same ticket buying populace of the Tri-State area, when he could make everybody pay, Lang and this girl included, Heinz Doofenshmirtz suddenly spun around to face his opponent and offered her his large hand. "I hope your family buys plenty of detergent," he sneered, "because you're going to need to get all of those grass stains out of your uniform."

The young woman turned to face him then too, quickly extending a hand also, while a wild gleam danced in one twitching eye. "And I hope that yours has plenty of throw pillows because you, Henry Fred Zoominshiltz, are going down, down, down," she vowed maniacally.

Their hands met and then shook, each eventually releasing the other as they shyly became aware of their skin touching, resigned to keep whatever contact they were to have kept strictly in between the nets.