((All facts referenced in this fic were culled from online resources; I've used these facts to draw some potentially questionable conclusions, for which I most certainly do not apologize. I'm not overly concerned with possible inaccuracies because the setting is not entirely realistic, but I always enjoy the opportunity to learn something new from my reviewers. Special thanks to the Australian Platypus Conservancy and the Medical Journal of Australia, for reasons that should become clear as you read.))

The thought occurred to him as he sat on the couch, running hydrocortisone cream onto the hives brought on by his "green minions".

Perry the Platypus saved my life today.

It itched in his mind like the red bumps on his skin. Maybe he needed a stronger cream.

He came back to save me.

Definitely needed a stronger cream.

No matter what I do...

Perhaps a Stop-itching-inator, even.

...or how many of my -inators backfire...
...he protects me from myself.

"Norm! Where's my backscratcher?"

"YOU THREW IT OUT THE WINDOW, SIR!"

"I did? Why would I do that?"

"BECAUSE YOU STEPPED ON THE POINTY BIT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, SIR!"

"Oh. Of course. –Norm! Get me the little rake from my mini Zen garden!"

"DON'T YOU REMEMBER, SIR? YOU REGIFTED THE ZEN GARDEN TO CHARLENE FOR ARBOR DAY!"

"You know, Norm, it's bad enough when Vanessa points out the flaws in my plans..."

"DOES THAT MEAN I'M LIKE THE SON YOU NEVER HAD?"

"No! How did you even—" He sighed heavily. "Just... just... pass me the remote. How long have I been watching Mythbusters, anyway?"

"TWO HOURS, SIXTEEN MINUTES, AND THIRTY-EIGHT SECONDS, SIR!"

"Yeah, sounds about right. My butt's gone numb. Figures."

"SOUNDS LIKE A PERSONAL PROBLEM, SIR!"

"Oh, can it, Norm." Doofenshmirtz flipped impatiently through a dozen channels. "Why are there so many stations with nothing but nature shows?" he complained. "I mean, c'm'on—nature is boring! I didn't order the extended cable package so I could get thirty different shows about meerkats..."

A flash of teal onscreen caught his eye. It was a documentary about Australian wildlife, presently focused on the platypus.

"—by the end of his first year, although it will not contain venom until he reaches full maturity at age two."

"Right, the poison spurs." A crooked smile stretched across Heinz's face. "Oh, yeah, I remember. Made for a doozy of a first impression."

As the show cut to a commercial break, he leaned back and reminisced about that fateful day.

"Sorry if I seem, y'know, overly excited." Doofenshmirtz nervously straightened the lapels of his lab coat. "It's just that you're the first nemesis I've ever had. Finally, someone's taking me seriously! I can't tell you how good that feels."

The platypus in a tiny fedora listened patiently, his head sticking out from an ingenious foldout-couch-trap.

"Are you comfortable in there? Can I get you some juice, or...? Well, I suppose comfort isn't really a priority here, but what's the point of being uncivil? Let's just get through my scheme, then we'll work it out."

Doofenshmirtz yanked the sheet off a massive machine.

"Do you like it? –I mean, er—Gaze in awe at my glorious creation!" He laughed self-consciously. "I haven't decided whether to call it 'the Follow-the-leader-ator' or 'the Follow-the-leader-inator.' What do you think, Perry the Platypus?"

The creature's low rattling growl delighted the scientist.

"Is that the sound a platypus makes? That's hilarious! –Hey, don't try to distract me! It's time for me to explain my evil motivation.

"You see, Perry the Platypus, ever since we were children, people have been saying that my brother, Roger," and he made a disgusted face, "has a 'magnetic' personality. Everybody has always liked him... whereas I have always seemed to repel everyone I meet. It's almost like I'm magnetic, too, only with reversed polarity, and... well, you get the idea.

"That's why I created this fantastical device! What it does is create intense magnetic attraction to the person it zaps—so everyone will follow him and obey him. I'm going to zap myself, and then everyone will do anything I say—and make me the ruler of the Tri-State Area!"

He burst into maniacal laughter. Despite a strong start, his merriment faltered to silence when he noticed that Perry the Platypus was no longer in the foldout-couch-trap.

"Oh, brother. I knew I should've gone with the ironing-board tr—"

His teal-furred foe sprung from the shadows and delivered a startling blow to the back of Heinz's head with his broad tail. The mad scientist countered with a brisk backhand, and in no time at all they were squaring off on the balcony.

It was a roundhouse kick that brought the fight to a sudden, unexpected end. As Perry whirled around, a little white spur on his ankle jutted out and scratched Doofenshmirtz across the shin. Seconds later, the scientist was on the ground.

Heinz Doofenshmirtz had not had an easy life, but never before had he experienced anything as brutally overwhelming as platypus venom. The effect was swift and beyond intense. His leg was swelling up; his skin throbbed unbearably at the faintest touch; he was only dimly aware that he had begun screaming and sobbing. Everything—was—pain.

How long the agony lasted he could not say. It might have been minutes, or months. Eventually he was swept away by paramedics, and awoke in a hospital room with his leg in a splint and hooked to an IV tube. The lingering pain had subsided to a sufferable level.

Next to the bed stood a hat-wearing platypus, looking as worried as a monotreme could look. His rattling-growl sounded almost sheepish.

"Curse you, Perry the Platypus," mumbled Heinz.

As if in response, Perry turned and showed his feet. Where the bony spurs had been, there remained only ivory nubs; they appeared to have been broken off or filed down, possibly both.

"You got rid of them?" Doofenshmirtz blinked rapidly in disbelief. "Didn't that... hurt?"

Perry shrugged.

"Well, then... um... thanks." He managed a lopsided grin. "I guess our next fight will be a little more even."

The platypus tipped his hat and chattered graciously. He disappeared out the window moments before little Vanessa hurtled into the room.

"Daddy! Are you okay?" Her eyes were uncharacteristically wide. "Mommy said you got hurt."

Doofenshmirtz gazed lovingly at his daughter. "Daddy got stung by a platypus!" he laughed. "Can you believe it?"

"Ahh, good times." He stirred from his reverie just as the show came back on. "Wow. Can I time a flashback or what?"

"YOU FLASH BACK BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE I KNOW, SIR!"

"Get back in the closet, Norm. I'm trying to watch this."

A typical wall-eyed platypus floated across the screen, evidently untroubled by the somber voice of the program's narrator.

"—wild, they have been known to live as long as sixteen years, though their average lifespan is less than half that."

Doofenshmirtz's eyebrows shot upward.

"The longest recorded lifespan of a platypus in captivity was seventeen years. However, very few—"

The screen turned black as Heinz jabbed at the power button. For a long string of moments, he sat in the silence of his living room, asking himself the same question over and over.

How old is Perry the Platypus?

After a while, he hopped up and crossed the room to a freestanding chalkboard he'd meant to put away earlier. His hands virtually flew across the board as he wrote out dates, numbers, adding and subtracting and filling the air with chalk-dust.

No matter how he calculated it, he was forced to conclude that Perry was no younger than eight. His biological prowess was questionable, he had to admit, but it seemed quite clear that Perry was at minimum a middle-aged platypus.

So, they weren't so far apart in age... except that in eight years Heinz would still be a decade away from retirement, whereas Perry the Platypus would most likely be—

No.

No.

NO.

"How do you like my latest trap, Perry the Platy-Pie?" crowed Doofenshmirtz. "I got the idea when Vanessa insisted that 'platypi' wasn't a real word—incidentally, that's the only reason she beat me at Scrabble last night—so I decided to make it a word!"

"Just because you stuck a platypus in an enormous pie doesn't make it a real thing," Vanessa commented tartly. Her father gave her an exasperated look before resuming his monologue.

"Now, you're probably wondering about today's -inator, so, without further ado..." He uncovered the colossal device. Its design was more simplistic than his typical inventions, but it certainly looked appropriately scientific. "...I present to you the Disenageinator!"

Vanessa looked up from her magazine, confusion furrowing her brow. "Um, Dad, shouldn't that be Disen-gage-inator?"

"Well, as I was about to explain to my nemesis... The Disenageinator uses advanced scientific principles that I thought up at about three this morning to remove you from the flow of time to prevent you from ageing any further. In essence, it disengages you from your age. See what I did there?"

"I'm pretty sure that's impossible, Dad."

"Vanessa, sweetheart, do I tell you how to dress like a vampire? –So, what do you think, Perry the Platypus?"

The agent, up to his waist in viscous cherry filling, growled in his usual way.

"I knew you'd say that!" Heinz turned his attention to the control panel. "All I need to do is calibrate it. I would've done that this morning, but I was up so late that I was seeing double. Not so good for delicate operations."

A sticky thud behind him announced that Perry had worked himself free. Doofenshmirtz glanced over his shoulder. "Now, why exactly did I leave the giant pie server where he could reach it? –You're too late, Perry the Platypus! I'm pushing the button right now!"

As an orange beam of energy shot out of the Disengageinator, Perry angled the pie server to deflect it. The beam lost only some of its focus as it bounced off the polished surface. In a lab filled with metal monstrosities, there was no shortage of places for ricochets.

"Duck!" yelled Doofenshmirtz, throwing himself down on the floor.

"NO, SIR, IT'S JUST A LASER!" Norm countered cheerfully.

"Get back in the closet!"

Although Vanessa had obeyed her father's command—an unusual but very sensible act—it did not save her; the path of the energy beam ended abruptly at the very patch of carpet she was sprawled across. As it hit, the girl screamed horribly.

Then she grew quiet. After a moment, she said cautiously: "Was I supposed to, like, feel something, or...?"

"Not unless you're a platypus," Doofenshmirtz replied, calmly rising and dusting off his lab coat. "I was considering making it work on humans, because I was thinking that maybe I didn't want you to grow up, but really that seemed unethical, and besides I don't think I had any way to undo the process if I changed my mind, which as you might've guessed—"

"Wait a minute." Vanessa pulled herself upright and gazed intently at her father. "It doesn't work on humans? Then... what exactly does it work on?" Her eyes widened. "Wait, wait—you said 'unless you're a platypus'..."

The mad scientist suddenly became aware that everyone in the lab was staring at him. Vanessa's was a look of confusion; Norm's was of typical bland niceness; but Perry's expression was much harder to read, and Heinz didn't like that at all.

"Oh no my evil scheme backfired curse you Perry the Platypus now I gotta run I'm late for mowing the dishes just see yourself out goodbye!" and he sprinted into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

The girl, the robot, and the platypus exchanged awkward glances.

"Oh... look..." Vanessa whipped out her phone and jabbed randomly at the keys. "...my mom's here to pick me up... three hours early... so, uh, bye." She exited somewhat more gracefully than her father had.

"I'M GOING TO MY ROOM NOW!" announced Norm. "FOREVER ALONE!" His departure was typical.

For a minute or two, Perry stood in the empty lab, looking at nothing in particular.

Then he straightened his short spine, adjusted the brim of his hat, and made a determined beeline toward Heinz's room.

The self-styled 'doctor' was curled up on his bed. When his door opened, he staunchly refused to move.

"Please leave me alone," he said in a very small voice.

Perry ignored the request. He crossed noiselessly to the bed; with a little jump, he was on the bed, where he sat quietly.

Waiting.

Twenty heartbeats later, Heinz raised his head and glared at the platypus.

"Can't you just let me be miserable in peace?" he demanded.

To Heinz's surprise, Perry did not respond with his signature sound. All he did was look at his nemesis, motionless, soundless. Waiting.

Watching.

Waiting.

"Fine! I'll talk, I'll talk!" The scientist sat up and leaned against the headboard. "What is this—Chinese platypus torture?"

Perry crossed his little arms. "Krrrrr."

"Yeah, yeah..."

An understanding filled the space between them like the scent of fresh bread. This was the time when they were no longer foes. This was the eventide, the warm darkness sweeping away the harsh daylight.

Even if it was technically only about two-thirty in the afternoon.

"So..." Heinz cleared his throat noisily. "I guess I should probably explain about the whole Disenageinator... thing."

Perry was nothing if not a receptive audience, but the usually long-winded scientist struggled at length for the right words.

"You know how I... well... how my -inators tend to... almost hurt me? –or... almost kill me?"

The platypus rolled his eyes with a slight smile.

"Yeah. And you always foil me, and you don't let me win, but..." He fiddled with a loose thread on the coverlet. "You've never let me get really hurt, Perry the Platypus. You've never even really hurt me all that much."

With a slightly guilty expression, Perry tapped his ankle.

"Right, but that was an accident. –And besides, you got rid of them. I know you did that so you wouldn't hurt me anymore—not like that—not ever again." With a hollow laugh, he added: "Even when you've knocked me off of blimps, out of airplanes, off buildings... you save me.

"–I'm going to be totally honest here: I have no idea if the Disengageinator actually, y'know, works. I was up all night thinking about... you see, I watched this documentary... Did you know the average lifespan of a platypus in the wild is eight years? I certainly didn't. –And I was thinking about it, and wondering... well... I guess the idea was a little 'out there', but..."

Heinz bit his lower lip. Perry nodded slowly, enlightenment dawning in his eyes.

"As long as I'm here, I want you around, Perry the Platypus. If... if you ever... weren't... here..." Tears blurred his vision. "...I wouldn't know where I am." He looked deliberately away. "I know that doesn't really make sense. Maybe I'm just crazy."

A slight movement caught his eye; he glanced sidelong at Perry.

The agent was tipping his hat to Heinz. In that simple act he recognized Perry's understanding, his goodwill, his gratitude.

Perhaps he was just reading into it. Perhaps it didn't mean—

"Krrrrr." The platypus touched Heinz's arm softly—an unmistakable gesture.

He hid his face.

"Curse you, Perry the Platypus."

"Hello?"

"Hey, Dad, it's me. Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine! I'm spectacular! Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, the other day you were a little... y'know, with the thing you invented for—"

"Oh, don't worry about that. I dismantled it."

"Ooookay..."

"I needed the metal for the airplane I'm building. You see, today's scheme—"

"So everything's okay with you and Perry?"

"Of course it is! Why wouldn't it be?"

"I just... eh, never mind."

"Okay, sweetie. I've gotta go pick up my new aviator costume from the shop now. Love you!"

"...Love you, too, Dad."

Vanessa put her phone away. Johnny gazed dully over his guitar. "Is your dad doing, like, crazy stuff?"

"Yeah, as usual." She smiled wryly. "At least he's got his nemesis to protect him."