Work Text:
“Why’s he here?” Milly asked, nodding her head toward Phineas.
“He has something he needs to tell us,” Isabella said to the rest of the Fireside Girls troop.
They’d gathered in the cramped Fireside Girls’ clubhouse, just two days after the recent initiation ceremony. Two new girls had been initiated; Amy, dressed in her new uniform, sat quietly with the rest of the troop. The other new girl, Phoebe, didn’t appear to be there yet.
His hand rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably, Phineas took a deep breath. Dropping his hand to his side, he said, “So, the truth is - Phoebe was me. I turned myself into a girl to see what happened during the initiation. It was a stupid idea, Ferb tried to talk me out of it, I’m sorry, I won’t ever do it again. I took an oath not to tell anyone any of your secrets, and I’ll keep it.”
The girls weren’t as stunned as he had expected. Instead, they mostly nodded knowingly. “I should have guessed,” Gretchen said to Ginger in a quiet voice.
“I’ll leave now, but...” He looked up at Isabella, who nodded. “It was important that I make sure I was honest with all of you about this,” he finished. “I wasn’t before, but I’ve agreed to tell you all the truth. Because you deserve it, and so you’ll know why Phoebe doesn’t show up at meetings any more.”
“Before you go,” Adyson said, an evil smile on her face, “you need to correct something you said. Fair’s fair, you found out who every girl in the troop has a crush on. Who’s your crush, Phineas? Phoebe claimed she didn’t have one yet.”
Phineas looked down at the floor. “Isabella,” he mumbled, “but I know she doesn’t like me much at the moment.” Without another word, he walked out the door of the clubhouse, closing it behind him. Standing outside, he felt a cool breeze that washed away the stuffiness clinging from the clubhouse. It didn’t seem to help, though.
I blew it. Isabella liked me. I liked - like - her. And then I lied to her, and I’m lucky that she still considers me a friend at all.
Ferb checked his outfit one last time. Cream-coloured dress shirt, bright plum slacks, matching plum tie, black leather belt, black leather shoes. Everything was clean and polished. He checked the mirror; his bright green hair was neat, his face was clean, and the acne that was just starting to show up was (fortunately) between outbreaks. As close to perfect as he could manage. He only hoped it was enough.
He took a deep breath. The Fireside Girls meeting should be over soon, so he had time to walk slowly to Adyson’s. He left the bathroom and started toward the staircase, meeting Phineas on the way up.
“Hey, Ferb, lookin’ sharp!” Phineas said, snapping his fingers and pointing. “What’s the occasion?”
Ferb rolled his eyes and shook his head at his brother. “Assuming you haven’t found a new way to sabotage our relationships with the Fireside Girls, I’m going to go ask Adyson out on a date.”
Phineas’s eyes got wide. “You are? Why?”
“Because I want to. Because she’s fun to be with, and she makes me laugh, and I find her highly attractive.”
Phineas exhaled in relief for some reason, but he still seemed distressed about Ferb asking Adyson out. “What do you think she’ll say?”
“I hope she’ll agree, but there’s no guarantee. She seems to return my affections. Why? Did you find out something at the Fireside Girls meeting?”
“No! No, of course not. That’d be silly. I’m just...are you sure you don’t want to wait a bit first? We're awfully young to be jumping into dating.”
Ferb shook his head and brushed past his brother.
Phineas tumbled onto his bed. Adyson has a crush on Ferb. She said so during the Fireside Girls initiation. Now he’s going to ask her out just two days after I found out. I hope they don’t think I told him, when I just promised I wouldn’t.
Well, what’s the worst that can happen? It’s not like Isabella’s going to suddenly start liking me again anyway.
Isabella was pulling her nightshirt over her head when her phone rang. She answered it quickly, seeing that it was Adyson calling. She'd been expecting this call ever since Adyson had told her that Ferb was taking her out for a date tonight.
"So, how'd it go?" she asked Adyson.
Adyson squealed. "It was awesome! He took me out to Ice Cream Scream for sundaes, and then we went to the bowling alley, and I almost beat him!"
"And?" Isabella asked, lying back on her bed with a grin. Even if her crush on Phineas was in tatters, it was nice to hear her friend's love life was looking up.
"And we're going out again on Friday, and he asked if we could just hang out together tomorrow."
"What, he isn't building stuff with Phineas?"
"He's kind of annoyed at Phineas right now. Apparently Ferb tried to tell him the whole gender-swap thing was a bad idea, but Phineas wouldn't listen."
"I think everybody's kind of annoyed at Phineas right now."
"Seems that way."
Isabella had just gotten out of the shower when her phone bleeped with a text message from Gretchen. Drying herself off quickly, she looked at it.
OMG Irving asked me out!
She sent back a smiley face, then started drying her hair. She barely heard the bleep of another message over the blow-dryer. This time, it was Ginger.
Baljeet asked me on a date!
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously as she finished with her hair and send back another smiley face. That's odd. The only other crush that was mentioned at the meeting was Milly saying she missed Django since he moved away. Did somebody tell the boys what they heard?
Her phone bleeped again. This time, the message was from Milly.
Guess what? Django sent me an email, wanting to get in contact with me!
There was one obvious answer for what had happened. Isabella needed to have a chat with the boy across the street after she got dressed.
"Phineas!" Isabella called out as she slammed the backyard gate open.
Phineas looked up from his seat next to the tree, puzzled. "What'd I do?"
"You told all the boys about which girls had crushes on them!"
Phineas cocked his head, confused. "No, I didn't. Why would you think I did?"
Isabella ticked off the list on her fingers. "Two days after you snuck into the meeting, Ferb asked Adyson out. And now, in the last hour, Irving asked Gretchen out, Baljeet asked Ginger out, and Milly got email from Django out of the blue. I was willing to accept Ferb as coincidence, but three more in an hour? Not a chance."
Phineas looked stunned. "I swear, I didn't say a word. I don't know what happened, but I didn't do it."
"A likely story. We are done, Phineas. I gave you a second chance to be friends, but you can't even admit you broke your promise? Goodbye forever."
She slammed the gate closed behind her on the way out.
"I can't believe he'd do that, and then lie to my face about it," Isabella said, drowning her sorrows in a strawberry milkshake. The ice cream shop was quiet this afternoon, with only three customers, all sharing one booth.
Adyson, sitting across from her, gave Ferb an embarrassed look, squeezed his hand, and said, "It seems to have worked out for some of us."
"That's not the point," Isabella said vehemently. "It's the principle. He knew you had a crush on Ferb, and Gretchen had a crush on Irving, and everything. He promised he wouldn't leak anything. And then he did, and when I tried to talk to him about it, he said he never told anyone."
"He never told me," Ferb said quietly. "I had no idea until you mentioned it just now."
"You don't have to protect him, Ferb," Adyson said with a faint smile. "It's okay. However you found out, I'm happy you did."
"No, I'm serious," Ferb said "I didn't know. I liked you for you, without knowing for sure that you liked me back."
Isabella gave Ferb a disappointed look, as Adyson said, "Really, Ferb. You can be honest with me."
"I am," Ferb said.
Adyson pulled her hand away from him. "If you can't be honest with me, maybe we don't need to go on that date tomorrow night after all."
Ferb stood up. "If you can't accept my word, maybe we don't."
Isabella watched as Ferb stalked out of the shop, then looked back at Adyson, who was crestfallen. "I'm sorry, Adyson."
Adyson flipped her hair back. "It's fine. Those two are just bad news."
Phineas kept watch out the front window, hoping against hope that this would work. Ferb had rolled his eyes at the idea and gone back to moping in the back yard after they'd finished construction.
Isabella came out her front door, and Phineas sprung into action. He grabbed the translucent white sphere that sat next to him and burst through the front door. "Isabella!" he called.
She stopped and glared at him. "What do you want?" she asked testily. "I'm in a hurry."
"Look, I built a lie detector," he said, holding up the sphere. "It glows green when I tell the truth." As if in answer, the sphere glowed a bright green before fading back to white.
Isabella looked unimpressed, but he continued on. "See, if I lie, it turns red. My name is Ferb Fletcher." The sphere glowed a bright red.
"I swear I didn't tell Ferb about Adyson's crush on him," he stated, and the sphere confirmed it with a green glow. "I swear I never told any of the guys anything I learned at the initiation." Again, the sphere glowed green, and he beamed at Isabella.
"Congratulations. You built a device that lies as well as you do," Isabella said, and walked away down the sidewalk.
Phineas watched her go, his mouth hanging open in shock as he dropped the lie detector. "But...but...I'm not lying," he said softly. With a deep sigh, he picked up the sphere and carried it into the backyard, taking a seat next to Ferb. Ferb raised an eyebrow at him.
"You were right. Again. As usual," Phineas said. "She didn't believe me."
Ferb nodded sadly.
Ginger and Baljeet had decided to double-date with Gretchen and Irving. The two couples had met up at the Googolplex Mall food court, and were now chatting away over a meal of Mr. Slushy Dawgs.
"I had been planning to ask you out," Baljeet said to Ginger, "and then I received an anonymous email telling me that you had a crush on me. So it did not change my plans so much as it accelerated them"
"Huh," she said, squeezing his hand. "I can't say I'm complaining."
"Did you get an anonymous email too?" Gretchen asked Irving.
He jumped a bit in his seat, looking startled. "Uh...yeah, I got an anonymous email too. Just like Baljeet and Django did."
Gretchen stopped for a second, and asked in a quiet voice, "Who said anything about Django?"
Irving looked around uncomfortably. "Didn't somebody say he'd called Milly?"
"No," Ginger said, turning toward him. "He emailed her. But we hadn't told anyone, and certainly he never mentioned any anonymous email."
"Well, I'm just assuming he got one," Irving said, pulling on his collar.
Her eyes narrowing, Ginger asked, "How did you find out he'd contacted her?"
"Um..." he stumbled.
"You sent the emails, didn't you?" Gretchen asked. "How did you find out? Did Phineas tell you?"
"I...maybe...set up a camera in the clubhouse?" Irving said, cringing.
"You what?" Ginger and Gretchen shouted in unison.
"Don't you have any respect for privacy?" Gretchen asked loudly.
"When did he ever?" Ginger said in a disgusted voice.
"How long were you going to let Phineas and Ferb take the fall for this?" Baljeet asked.
"I don't know, I didn't see a good way to tell you without getting in trouble..." Irving whimpered.
Gretchen picked up her cup of lemonade and dumped it over his head. "It’s over," she said. "Ginger, we need to talk to Isabella and Adyson about this."
"Thanks for coming with me, Adyson," Isabella said. They stood outside the gate to Phineas and Ferb's backyard. Gretchen had called them up and told them to meet at the clubhouse, where they quickly found Irving's planted camera.
"I need to apologize too," Adyson said with a sad smile.
“If you’d told me why I should have waited to ask Adyson out...” Ferb said from the backyard. Isabella kept Adyson from opening the gate with a hand on her arm.
“But I couldn’t. You understand that, right?” Phineas said.
“I do.”
“If you decide to tell Adyson that I told you, I won’t blame you. Maybe you can get another date after all. Isabella’s never going to speak to me again, so it’s not like my life can get any worse.”
“I’m not going to lie to her,” Ferb said vehemently. “I asked her out because I liked her, not because I had any secret knowledge.” Adyson winced. “I thought you weren’t going to lie to Isabella again?” Ferb asked.
“I wouldn’t lie. I’ll continue to say I didn’t tell you. Nobody will believe me, but...well, that’s my life now. Just call me Cassandra.”
“I’m not going to lie to Adyson,” Ferb repeated.
The conversation went silent. Isabella nodded to Adyson and opened up the gate. The two boys were sitting on opposite sides of the tree, looking frustrated. They looked up as the gate opened, giving the girls hesitantly hopeful expressions.
"Hey," Isabella said with a forced smile. "We...came to apologize."
Ferb raised an eyebrow as Phineas's eyes widened.
"We found out that Irving was the leak," Isabella said. "He had a camera in the clubhouse. And...we overheard what you were just saying, about how you’ve both been telling the truth. So...we're sorry."
"Ferb, can I talk to you...alone...for a moment?" Adyson asked.
Ferb nodded, and followed Adyson over to a corner of the backyard away from the tree.
"I'm really sorry, Ferb. If you're willing, I'd like to go out on that date we had planned tonight after all. But I understand if you don’t want to see me any more."
"One condition," Ferb said quietly.
"Name it."
"Next time, don't jump to conclusions like this?"
"It's a deal." She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "If we're going to have a date, I need to go get ready. See you then?"
He nodded, a smile growing on his face.
Isabella watched Adyson and Ferb wander away from the tree. She walked over and sat across from Phineas, who looked up at her expectantly.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"I can't say I blame you. Under the circumstances, of course it seemed obvious that I'd leaked it."
"Still, that doesn't mean I shouldn't have heard you out."
They sat and looked at each other silently for a moment, looking up when they heard Adyson closing the gate behind her on her way out.
"Date's back on?" Phineas asked Ferb.
Ferb nodded with a smile as he entered the house.
Isabella extended a hand to Phineas, who took it hesitantly, and she gave his hand a squeeze. "Friends?" she asked.
He nodded.
"I have something for you," she said, pulling a sash and a patch out of her purse. He looked at her, confused.
"Phoebe is still on the roster as a Fireside Girl," she explained. "So here's your sash, and here," she handed him the patch, "is your 'Secret Keeper' patch. For keeping a fellow Fireside Girl's secrets, even when it's hard."
Phineas laughed. "Thank you. I think it's probably best if Phoebe doesn't show up to meetings, though." He stood up, giving her a hand up as well.
Impulsively, she leaned forward to give him a quick kiss on the cheek, but he turned at just the wrong time, and she ended up kissing him on the lips. She jumped back quickly, but not before the feel of his lips on hers embedded itself in her brain. The look he gave her was confused and hopeful.
"I...that wasn't what I was trying to do," she said. He nodded, sadness in his eyes. "Yet," she corrected quietly, and a smile spread across his face.
“Soon?” he asked softly.
“I don’t know yet,” she said. “Maybe?”
“After the past couple days, ‘maybe’ sounds pretty good.”