Hello again! This fic has been in my brain since I wrote the first draft of the previous fic four years ago. I have three chapters done right now, and I'm not sure how long it'll end up being. Probably five or so chapters. I'm not going to stick to any particular posting schedule, but I'll try to get new chapters out every few weeks to every month. It depends on how fast I write.
The language gap between characters is going to be a fairly large component of this fic, so unlike the last one I have opted to italicize to denote different languages. From Perry's POV, German is italicized and English is not. In Heinz's POV it's German that isn't italicized. Basically, it's their native language that isn't italicized and their non-native one that is. Hopefully it won't be too confusing, but I think it flows pretty well.
A quick note on terminology: I am aware that the part of the limb left over after an amputation is called the 'residual limb', but neither Perry nor Heinz are familiar with that term, so they will be using the word 'stump' throughout to refer to Heinz's right arm.
Thanks once again to my sister and beta, eternal-song. She's been a great help at catching all of my dumb mistakes and making sure that I'm not constantly writing in passive voice. Enjoy!
"Perry the Platypus!" Dr. Doofenshmirtz exclaimed as Perry crashed through his ceiling. "How nice of you to drop in!"
Perry barely had the chance to roll his eyes before a children's playpen overturned on top of him. Metal brackets sprung from the floor and clamped the structure down. The platypus tried to pick the playpen up or push it over, but it was stuck tight to the floor.
"And by nice, I mean not nice at all!" Doofenshmirtz grinned and gestured grandly to the large ray behind him. "Behold! The Youth-inator!"
Perry raised an eyebrow.
"Yes, yes, I know I've already tried to turn Roger into a baby. This is different!"
Perry raised his other eyebrow.
"The Youth-inator will turn him into a teenager! Then he will no longer be old enough to be mayor!"
Perry shook his head and went back to trying to get out of the trap, keeping one ear open to listen to Doofenshmirtz's monologue. The man was rambling about Roger, and Perry didn't think the animosity in his voice was as strong as it had been when Heinz had mentioned his brother. He wondered what had happened between then and now that had smoothed some of the jagged edges of the man's anger. Maybe it was just time.
What was Heinz doing now? It had been almost two months since the platypus had been brought back from the past. A lot could happen in two months.
He shook his head and scowled. That was an illogical thought. Perry knew exactly what he was doing. The man was currently pacing in front of the Youth-inator, ranting about how someone couldn't hold public office when they weren't old enough to vote.
But he couldn't help picturing Heinz as he had been when Perry had last seen the boy, pale and covered in blood with a hastily stitched together stump where his right arm had been. He couldn't help comparing that image to what Doofenshmirtz had shown him of Heinz at the science fair and wondering how much Doofenshmirtz had toned down that memory. There was no way a child would be looking that healthy after receiving a hasty field amputation not a month prior. Were his awful excuses for parental figures still starving him, still forcing him to stand out in the yard during the cold Drusselsteinian nights? Were they letting the boy heal properly? Perry doubted it.
He wished there was something he could do, but he was back in his own time. And even if he was somehow able to go back there, the boy wouldn't remember him anyway.
Perry was absolutely not grieving for Heinz. Why would he? He had grown up just fine. Arguably. But Heinz Doofenshmirtz was alive and… well, he was alive at any rate. Perry had no reason to grieve for Heinz.
It was just that sometimes he wanted to have someone who he didn't have to pretend with. Because he loved his boys, but he was their pet, and Doofenshmirtz saw him as Perry the Platypus, not as just Perry.
Not as Herr Schnabltier.
Perry shook his head and refocused on the trap. He just had to slice through the mesh here and…
Dr. Doofenshmirtz adjusted a few switches and the age dial. A webbed foot smashed into the side of his head just as he began to aim the ray off the balcony. He went flying, skidding across the ground until he hit the railing. Perry landed on the control panel and flipped off into a fighting stance.
Doofenshmirtz pulled himself up, only to be tackled from the side. He tried to grab onto Perry and pull him off, but Perry clung on tightly, climbing up the man's lab coat. He was almost to the doctor's head when he was pried off and thrown into the Youth-inator.
The machine spun around on its base wildly. Perry turned and leaped at Doofenshmirtz again, feeling a dial turn under his foot as he sprung off the metal surface. The man rolled out of the way before scrambling to his feet. He deflected Perry's next attack with his arm and scrambled towards the ray, but Perry was faster, jumping over the man's head and getting between him and the -inator.
Doofenshmirtz darted to the side, and Perry moved to intercept him. They both attacked at the same time, and their collision sent them both flying. Perry hit the control panel again and wondered if he shouldn't just hit the self-destruct button already, he'd landed on the -inator three times so far, but he was having so much fun that he didn't want to end the fight just yet.
He became aware of the machine humming. The front of the ray began to glow, and Perry scrambled off the control panel just in time for the Youth-inator to fire a burst of bright yellow light.
Perry readied himself for a sneak attack, but after a moment of nothing, he glanced around. No sign of Doofenshmirtz. He crept around the machine, looking for the doctor. Instead, he came face to face with someone he never thought he'd see again.
Heinz was absolutely swimming in his older counterpart's lab coat. It didn't help that Doofenshmirtz's prosthetics were still stuck in the sleeves, pulling the coat down off the boy's shoulders. Perry blinked, staring at the boy. Heinz hadn't noticed him yet and was currently looking at the lab coat with confusion. The Youth-inator was supposed to turn the person hit by it into a teenager, right? Not a child? That's what Doofenshmirtz had said.
He probably had a contingency plan for something like this. Perry chattered, hoping against hope that Doofenshmirtz had made this thing so that the subject retained their adult mind, like the time he turned himself into a teenager for that film festival (why he didn't just use that -inator now instead of building a new one, Perry couldn't fathom). The platypus didn't think he could take it if Heinz didn't recognize him.
The boy looked up and his eyes widened. Perry saw the recognition there. Good. That was good. He needed Doofenshmirtz to reverse the Youth-inator's effect. He definitely did not feel any loss at seeing Heinz again when it wasn't really Heinz.
The next words out of Heinz's mouth froze Perry in place. "Herr Schnabltier?"
Perry stared blankly for a moment before the boy launched himself at the platypus. The lab coat fell to the ground, and Perry felt one arm encircle him. He hugged the boy back on reflex.
"I was so scared when I woke up," Heinz said into his shoulder, and Perry had to shift his brain to decipher the frantic German that the boy was speaking. "I didn't know what had happened, my arm was gone and I couldn't think straight and I didn't even remember you!"
Perry chattered and rested his paw on Heinz's right shoulder. He could feel the numerous healed scars through the boy's shirt that he knew ran down what remained of the boy's arm. How long had it been for him? Those scars did not feel new.
"And when I got home, no one even noticed." Heinz squeezed Perry a little tighter before pulling back to look at him. The boy's eyes had a sheen like he was trying not to cry, but he smiled at Perry nonetheless. "I was trying to build myself a new arm, really I was almost done, but then I was suddenly here, with you!"
Heinz paused and looked around, taking in the view of the city and the Youth-inator. "Where is here, anyway?"
Perry stared blankly at Heinz. What on Earth had that machine done? It seemed like Heinz didn't remember more than a few days after Perry had left, but his physical condition indicated that he'd had months if not a full year to heal…
Did the Youth-inator heal any major damage on the body that it caused its subject to regress into? That made some amount of sense. If it had healed Heinz's head trauma, then that may explain why his memories were back. But why would Doofenshmirtz build the machine like that?
Perry decided that it didn't really matter what had happened. He'd long ago given up on making sense of Doofenshmirtz's schemes. What mattered was that it did happen, that Heinz was here in front of him and needed him.
He chattered noncommittally, unsure how to answer Heinz's question. He couldn't exactly tell the boy that he was in the future, or that his older self had made an -inator that had de-aged him. Perry wasn't even sure he could convey such a complex thought to the boy, even though both Heinz and Doofenshmirtz were able to read him almost effortlessly.
What was he going to tell OWCA? He couldn't just say that Doofenshmirtz had been de-aged. Monogram would insist on bringing the boy into their custody, and he wouldn't subject Heinz to that. They were blasé enough with civilian safety at the best of times, and as they would see Heinz as the villain he had the potential to grow to be, it was likely there wouldn't even be that much consideration for the state the boy was in. They would probably break him, even if it wasn't intentional. Perry couldn't let that happen.
Heinz started to softly scratch the side of Perry's neck, startling him out of that train of thought. He leaned into the boy's hand, trying not to panic over what he was going to do.
"You're thinking pretty hard about something, aren't you?" Heinz asked. His voice was smiling, but after a moment, his hand stilled, and Perry looked up to see that the boy's face had fallen. "Is it because you don't want me here? I know you left, I'm sorry, I don't even know how I got here—"
Perry shook his head frantically and threw his arms around the boy. He couldn't let Heinz think that Perry didn't want him, that Perry wanted to leave him.
Heinz's left arm hesitantly snaked around Perry's back again. There was nothing for it, really. He was going to have to bring Heinz home with him. He was sure all three of his boys would get along great.
.:.:.
Heinz had no idea what was going on, which had honestly become his default state of being in the past few days since he had woken up in the clearing near the dump with a dead goozim, a smashed machine, a throbbing headache, no right arm, and no memory of the last week of his life. He later found out about the science fair, which explained some things. He must have been in the clearing to work on his science fair project when the goozim had attacked. But that didn't explain who had killed the goozim, or who had stitched up his arm so neatly.
Now, he realized that it must have been Herr Schnabltier who did both of those things. Heinz was ashamed that he had completely forgotten his friend. The platypus had probably wanted to be somewhere away from Heinz while he recovered, or maybe he had gotten sick of Heinz after the goozim and didn't want to be around him any more.
Heinz wasn't entirely sure how he'd managed to teleport to wherever they were now. That must have been what happened. He couldn't think of any other explanation as to why he'd been walking in the woods one moment and the next he was here, on some sort of balcony way up in the sky in what must be a city. He hadn't even known buildings could be this big!
And then he'd seen Herr Schnabltier. For a split second, he didn't recognize the platypus— not with that strangely appropriate fedora— but then he remembered everything. He was sure that Herr Schnabltier knew how he had gotten there, but the platypus seemed unwilling to tell him.
Not that he blamed him.
Even now, the platypus leaned away from him and chattered into… his watch? Heinz didn't know Herr Schnabltier wore a watch. Then the watch talked back. Heinz had definitely never heard of a watch that could talk before. He couldn't understand what the watch was saying, it was some language that Heinz didn't know, but he picked out his last name from the incomprehensible words.
Was the watch talking to Herr Schnabltier about him? He supposed that if the platypus owned the watch, he must have told it about him, but Heinz wasn't entirely sure why it was talking out loud. Heinz knew Herr Schnabltier could read. Maybe the watch face was too small to read from.
The platypus gave the watch a sharp salute. It must be quite awkward to salute one of your wrists. Heinz wondered why Herr Schnabltier had done that. Was he talking to someone through the watch?
Heinz wasn't sure he liked that idea. People said a lot of mean things about him, and he didn't want the platypus to hear them. Or say them.
Herr Schnabltier chattered questioningly, looking at the boy with concern evident in his eyes.
Heinz smiled weakly. "I'm fine." The platypus looked doubtful, but didn't pry. He was glad. Now that the excitement of seeing Herr Schnabltier and being in a strange place was wearing off, his arm was starting to ache. What was left of his arm, anyway.
He was sort of surprised that it didn't hurt more, to be honest. Heinz was used to functioning through pain, but the last few days had been difficult. Between trying to get used to only having one arm to the constant ache of the stump to forgetting himself and trying to use the arm anyway, which sent pain rippling through his entire body, he'd been hard pressed to even be a proper lawn gnome the past few nights. Thankfully he was almost done with a temporary replacement arm, which would give him enough function to build a better one.
Heinz guessed that the replacement arm would need to wait until he got home. Which would probably be when Herr Schnabltier got tired of him. He wasn't in any hurry for that to happen.
The platypus must have sensed his thoughts because he pulled back from Heinz's one-armed embrace. His heart sank. Herr Schnabltier couldn't be tired of him already. The platypus took one step away from him, then motioned for Heinz to follow.
Oh. Ok, following. Heinz could do that. He slowly pulled himself to his feet, a far more difficult task with only one arm. Once he caught his balance, he looked up, half-expecting the platypus to have continued walking, forcing Heinz to rush to catch up.
Herr Schnabltier was still standing in the same spot, waiting, with a small smile on his bill.
Heinz smiled back.
He followed the platypus past a large machine that he had initially missed completely, too busy with the strangeness of the city and seeing Herr Schnabltier again. Heinz itched to inspect it, maybe take it apart and find out what it did and how it worked, but the platypus kept walking and Heinz did not want to be left behind. Besides, it was hard to get any work done with only one arm.
Herr Schnabltier led him off of the balcony and into a large workshop area. Heinz's eyes widened. The things that he could do with the parts in here! Who did this place belong to? He didn't think that the platypus was all that technically-minded, not with the near apathy that he'd had towards the actual construction of the time machine.
He still wasn't sure why Herr Schnabltier wanted him to build a time machine so badly. He'd probably never find out.
The platypus walked right through the workshop, slowing a little when Heinz's steps lagged as he saw something particularly interesting, before ushering the boy out into the hall and locking the door behind them. He tucked the key into his hat, then put the hat… somewhere. It looked like the platypus had tucked the fedora into some kind of pocket on his back, but when he turned to walk down the hall, his back looked the same as it had always been: uninterrupted teal fur. Weird.
At the end of the hall was an elevator, and Herr Schnabltier had to stand on his toes to reach the button. Of course a building this tall had an elevator in it. Heinz had never been in an elevator before— there weren't any buildings in Gimmelshtump tall enough to have one, and Heinz had never been so far from his hometown before.
The elevator doors opened, revealing a small room with shiny metal walls. Herr Schnabltier nodded towards the open elevator, and Heinz rushed in, not needing to be told twice.
Elevators were fast. Or at least, this one was. It took far less time than Heinz had thought it would for the elevator to go all the way to the bottom floor. He barely had time to enjoy the ride before the doors opened and he was following Herr Schnabltier out of the elevator. The platypus opened the nearby door for him, and he stepped out of the building.
It was loud. Really loud, louder than being up on the balcony with the wind. There were cars roaring down the street, more than he'd ever seen in his life. He could hear sirens somewhere, and people yelling everywhere. Heinz tried to cover his ears, but only his left ear ended up protected. His stump of a right arm protested the movement. Right. At least the pain wasn't incapacitating like it had been the past few days.
Something tugged on his pants, and he jumped. Looking down, he saw Herr Schnabltier. Oh. The platypus was holding a helmet of some kind, and had one already on his head. The helmet did nothing to mask the concerned look on his face.
Heinz managed a weak smile. Herr Schnabltier frowned and motioned for him to lean over. He did, feeling like he'd somehow done something wrong.
The platypus gently pulled Heinz's left hand away from his ear and put the helmet onto his head. Instantly, the city sounds were muffled to a manageable level. Heinz barely even noticed the platypus buckling the helmet on.
"Thanks," he said quietly, hating the way his voice was shaking.
Herr Schnabltier smiled. It was a really nice smile, and Heinz smiled back, suddenly feeling better.
He followed the platypus around the corner of the building, where a motor scooter was parked. Herr Schnabltier hopped onto the seat, needing to stand upright to reach the handlebars. Heinz wondered how the platypus had managed to acquire a scooter the exact shade of teal that he was.
Herr Schnabltier looked at Heinz expectantly, and Heinz gingerly climbed onto the seat behind him. He carefully curled his arm around the platypus, not wanting to crush the smaller mammal. If he was able to hold on with both arms, he might have felt more secure, but, well. He would have to make do.
Clearly, Herr Schnabltier deemed his grip strong enough, because Heinz felt the scooter rumble to life under them. He closed his eyes, not really wanting to see how fast they were going and panic again. The scooter started moving, and he clung onto his friend tighter.
After a few long, tense moments, Heinz relaxed into the motion of the scooter. He found himself leaning through the turns along with Herr Schnabltier, and a smile crept onto his face. He didn't open his eyes, but he did feel the wind on his face and felt something like happiness.
The moment was over all too soon. The scooter slowed to a stop, and Heinz regretfully opened his eyes. They had stopped in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. The houses were so much larger than the ones in Gimmelshtump, each on a plot of bright green grass. They varied, too, unlike the identical houses back at home.
Heinz didn't see a single garden gnome. He wasn't sure what to make of that.
Herr Schnabltier chirped, and Heinz quickly released his arm. The platypus looked amused, and motioned for him to take off his helmet. Herr Schnabltier took it from his grasp, then hopped off the scooter and gestured for Heinz to do the same. Heinz carefully climbed off the scooter, trying to maintain his balance.
The platypus tucked both helmets into the storage under the scooter's seat, before tugging Heinz to stand a few feet away. Herr Schnabltier then pulled a remote out from behind his back and pressed a button. The section of the street the scooter was parked on rotated over, then rotated back with the scooter now absent.
Heinz stared at the now empty road for a moment. That was pretty cool, if entirely unexpected.
He glanced at Herr Schnabltier. The platypus was now on all fours and was looking right at Heinz. Come on, there's someone I want you to meet.
Heinz followed his friend. What else could he do?
They walked down the street a way. It was a nice enough day, with a bright blue sky and very few clouds. It seemed like the sun was thinking about setting, but wasn't quite there yet. Which was odd, because Heinz would have sworn it was still morning just before he ended up on the balcony. That wasn't the strangest thing about this situation, though.
That honor probably had to go to the way that Herr Schnabltier suddenly went walleyed and seemed to almost physically shift to look more like a creature than what he knew his friend to be. Heinz looked around, alarmed, wondering if something was wrong, but a reassuring chatter cut that thought off.
The chatter also caught the attention of two boys in a nearby yard, who rushed towards them.
Heinz took a step back, ready to run at the first sign of hostility, but he was completely ignored by the first boy, who simply kneeled down and started petting Herr Schnabltier. The boy had bright red hair and an almost triangular face, and said something to the platypus that Heinz could not understand.
The other boy looked right at Heinz. He had bright green hair, which couldn't be natural, and was giving Heinz an assessing look, face stoic. Heinz shrunk back into himself a little.
Were these the people that Herr Schnabltier wanted him to meet? The platypus seemed right at home in the redhead's arms, though he was still completely wall-eyed.
The redhead said something, and it took Heinz a moment to realize that it was directed at him. He stared blankly for a moment before shaking his head. He couldn't understand a word of what the other boy was saying, just as he couldn't understand what Perry's watch had said. It was clearly another language, but beyond that Heinz had no clue.
He wasn't sure how to respond when the redhead seemed to repeat himself. Heinz didn't want to make the boys angry. He was used to other people hurting him, but he couldn't let them hurt Herr Schnabltier.
The two boys shared a look. Heinz could tell it was full of meaning, but he couldn't decipher it. After a long moment, the redhead pointed to himself.
"Phineas," the boy said slowly. Heinz blinked, then realized it was an introduction. Cautiously, he nodded.
Phineas' smile was brilliant. He pointed to the other boy and said, "Ferb."
What a strange name. Heinz nodded again slowly. Phineas pointed at him, and for a moment he panicked before realizing that he was being asked for his name. Quietly, he said, "Heinz."
Phineas's smile grew. Herr Schnabltier smiled, too, though he still maintained his strange wall-eyed look. Even Ferb seemed to smile a little.
Hesitantly, Heinz smiled too.