Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Days Since the Cleaving: ???

According to his therapist, Stone has actually been processing his grief in a normal, healthy manner. Finding a new hobby, journaling, and simply taking time out of his day to sit with his emotions are all healthy things to be doing in the wake of a loved one’s passing. 

Of course, his therapist doesn’t quite know that Stone’s new hobby is focused on dismantling several government agencies, or that his journaling is mostly designing various blueprints for his aforementioned hobby. The less said about sitting with his emotions the better, Stone thinks. 

(Right now, he’s been oscillating wildly, either huddled in the crab’s barely-salvaged wreckage, sobbing violently, or rampaging across cities, intent on leveling them all. It’s actually very cathartic, the city-leveling.) 

And it’s not like Stone hasn’t seen loss before. He knows, objectively, that he’s doing much better than the vast majority of people who lose their partners. Maybe it’s because nobody else has had the means to reduce London to rubble. 

His therapist clears her throat. “Well, I’m glad you had the time to meet with me today, Aban. I know there’s been a lot of turmoil lately, and that makes it easy sometimes, to let ourselves go. Keep up the good work, and I’ll see you next week.” 

“Of course, I’ll see you next week,” says Stone, with a tight-lipped smile. 

As soon as the call drops, he closes his laptop and sighs. He always feels so drained after these sessions, two hours each week where he pokes and prods at the holes where Doctor Robotnik used to be. Two hours each week, but those two hours make it harder and harder for Stone to believe there might be a miracle this time, too.

It’s just, it’s been so long already. Surely, he would have found something by now if his Doctor was still alive.

Days Since the Cleaving: 0

The world around him is hard, and tastes like dirt. Predictably, it looks like dirt, too, when… When he opens his eyes. It seems to be a forest, or even a particularly thick grove of trees that he’s face-planted in, for all the good that knowledge does him.

He scoffs. He doesn’t even know his own name, forget knowing any useful geography. First order of business, then, is establishing a landmark: perhaps a rock or a stone of some sort to get his bearings. Rudimentary plan now in place, he smiles. Yes, something like a stone will help navigate this presumably-strange situation. 

And then he sees the Creature, lurking just on the edge of the greenery, dashing everything to bits.

The Creature is, as best he can figure, some sort of mutant cross-breed between a human and a particularly bipedal hedgehog. Assuming that the Creature is a recent development, at least in terms of Earth’s development, there are two likely ways it could have been conceived. Either the Creature is a natural result of evolution, wherein hedgehogs and humans shared a much closer ancestor than previously thought, or — and this seems much more likely, even with the limited information missing the majority of one’s memories necessitates — the Creature is an extraterrestrial form of life, and is merely a localized phenomenon, confined to itself and perhaps even a few companions. 

Still, even with the mystery of the Creature presumably solved, that does not mean it has clearance to approach. It takes a few steps forward and says, “Ivo Robotnik.”

Suffice it to say, this is followed by quite a bit of screaming. 

“Ahem,” Ivo says, after a few more beats pass. He’s decided that he must be the Ivo Robotnik the Creature was addressing. After all, it’s not like there’s anyone else in this miserable clearing of trees. He clears his throat again. “Well, that was rather embarrassing for the both of us. I don’t suppose you know how we ended up in this charming patch of woods.” 

The Creature frowns. “You don’t… remember?” 

“Of course I don’t, that’s why I’m asking you.” The Creature stares at him. Ivo waves one hand dismissively. His head is starting to ache something absolutely awful. “Whatever you are. Whatever your name is.” 

“I,” the Creature starts, puffing up indignantly, “am what they call the Ultimate Life Form. Shadow. And you, I’m starting to suspect, are severely brain damaged.”

Normally, Ivo is sure he would be plotting several different forms of petty, untraceable revenge for suggesting anything remotely similar. Right now, though, he’s come to the unfortunate conclusion that Shadow may be right. Amnesia, in its various forms, is a rather common side effect of traumatic brain injuries — and even if it wasn’t an injury, degenerative diseases are still firmly under what Ivo would consider brain damage. 

(It’s funny, just a little bit, how names and places and people have all been forgotten, but general trivia, and Ivo’s assumed personality remain. He thinks it might even be fascinating, if it were happening to anyone who wasn’t him.)

“Well, considering I have an apparent case of acute retrograde amnesia, I’d say it’s all but guaranteed,” Ivo says, raising what he feels on instinct is his best judgement-brow. His mounting headache does not thank him.

Retrograde, Shadow mouths silently. At least, that’s what Ivo assumes he’s doing. It’s hard to tell with the whole hedgehog schtick. He looks at Ivo with clear apprehension and says, “I suppose you can’t be any worse.”

Ivo grins, and watches his vision swim rapidly. “That’s the spirit, my erinaceinae friend! Now, I don’t mean to alarm you, but I’m quite sure I’m about to pass out. Toodles!”

And then, just as Ivo predicted, everything fades to black. 

Days Since the Cleaving: 3

“Congratulations, Agent Stone,” says Director Rockwell, a constipated smile plastered on her face. “You and Doctor Robotnik are the world’s newest heroes.”

Stone stares at her flatly. “It’s been a long couple of days, Director,” he says, far too tired and far too broken to bother with government double-speak. “Let’s just get to it. What can I do for you?” 

Rockwell sizes him up, her narrow eyes narrowing even further, but she drops the smile at least. She sighs. “You were the Doctor’s assistant for some time. We need access to his work, and since he’s no longer with us, we thought you might be a little more willing to cooperate.”

“Excuse me?” says Stone, the sheer incredulity of the request shocking him out of his stupor. 

“You’ll be compensated, of course,” she says blithely, like Stone could care at all about compensation when it’s his Doctor’s life, his blood and sweat and tears he’s expected to hand over. All at once, he wants to sob and scream and seethe that it would be over his dead body, too, that he gives up the Doctor, whether or not he’s still here. Instead, he takes a deep breath and grinds his teeth as Rockwell continues, “Here, take a look, we already have a contract drafted.”

As he takes the contract in his hands, Stone considers his options. 

Option 1: he can agree to give the government access to all of the Doctor’s work, transfer the Badnik codes, and get promptly disappeared by the people he used to work with. Unsurprisingly, Stone isn’t really a fan of Option 1, for any number of reasons. 

Option 2: he can tell the government to shove off, refuse to hand over the Badnik codes, and get promptly disappeared by the people he used to work with. This is better than Option 1, but still far from the ideal.

Option 3: he can agree to give the government access to all of the Doctor's work, and find a way to bide his time until he can rescue all the projects safely. And if he's not caught in the act, he may even avoid an untimely disappearance. 

It’s an easy decision. It’s the only decision really, but Stone makes it nonetheless, resolving to sharpen his broken edges like well-honed blades. Before, Stone wouldn’t have cared less about the Guardian Units. For all their faults, they weren’t the real reason his Doctor was gone. Now that they’re trying to taint his legacy for themselves, though…

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” Stone says, scrubbing a hand over his face. This is, technically, a true statement. The implication that the Doctor was so elusive with his knowledge, so secretive as to never share with anyone, not even Stone, is merely an added bonus. 

Rockwell is undeterred. She gives him one last insincere smile before saying, “We’re willing to make it work, however much you can give us. Why don’t you think on it, Agent? Get back to us.”

Stone doesn’t bother to smile back as she leaves. He says, “Of course, Director. I’ll be in touch soon.”

The contract itself is almost laughably simple — it seems even now, even with the Doctor gone, nobody bothers to think that Stone could be intelligent in his own right. He’s known, for quite some time now, that his years of standing in his Doctor’s shadow have brought a complete and unequivocal underestimation of his various talents. Well, except for, perhaps, his talents in beverage-making. 

In any case, this makes his job significantly easier. Only now does Stone allow himself to smile, already plotting the best possible way to bring the Guardian Units to their knees. They’ll never see it coming, he thinks. After all, like any good agent, Stone has always worked best from the shadows.

Chapter Text

Days Since the Cleaving: 4

Much to Ivo’s — and very clearly to Shadow’s — chagrin, at no point during the last three days has any part of Ivo’s memory seen fit to make its daring return. This is inconvenient for a large number of reasons, including but not limited to the accompanying lack of resources, both material and monetary, and, of course, the fact that Shadow seems to know just as much about the current going-ons as Ivo himself. 

From what the hedgehog has shared, somewhat reluctantly, both of them were once affiliated with the government, Ivo as a scientist under their employ, and Shadow as, well, a subject of the scientists under their employ. 

In other words, whatever moves they make will have to be at least somewhat obscured, since Ivo is assuming neither of them are particularly eager to go back to the government. 

“How long ago did you say the first government incident occurred in the Montana backwaters?” The first order of business, when it comes to Hiding from the Government 101, is finding someplace that won’t immediately be suspicious of both Shadow and Ivo alike. And since Shadow has vehemently refused to pretend to be any sort of furry, that strikes out any sort of city from their potential list of locations. They’ve spent the past few days combing through the American small-town registry instead, in the hopes of finding one strange enough it just might work. 

Shadow grunts from his place by the illicitly-obtained map he’d insisted, for some reason, had to be on paper. “Five or six years is what I was told.” 

Clicking his tongue, Ivo turns back to his research. Six years is far too short for a second major supernatural occurrence, based on the trends he’s found. “Oregon backwaters it is, then. They’re probably due for a strange and unexplainable appearance by now anyways.” 

“That one has a stupid name,” Shadow says.

“I’m going to tell everyone you were bitten by a rabid were-hedgehog, and you’ve been unable to turn back ever since,” Ivo tells him, smirking when Shadow’s mouth draws in a distinct frown. “We need cover stories anyways, and there are only so many options available for a three-foot-tall talking hedgehog. Unless you have any better ideas?”

Shadow grumbles, but doesn’t argue the point. Ivo, who knows in his heart that he was a tried-and-true opportunist before all the memory nonsense, smiles, knowing that he’s won. Well, he’s won as long as he ignores the various threats Shadow is now muttering about guacamole and revenge and finding an even worse cover story for Ivo.

Days Since the Cleaving: 6

Stone has only been back at the Guardian Units headquarters for two days, and his feelings towards them have not improved in the slightest. Long gone are the mild hostility and well-earned disdain that defined his views before the Doctor’s passing — in their place now is only vicious anger, more often than not accompanied by a festering, all-consuming hatred. 

The main difference, Stone supposes, is that before, his animosity extended mostly to the higher-ups, those directly responsible for everything he and the Doctor went through. It was somewhat pointless to direct his anger towards the common, everyday agent, especially when they were just following orders. Unlike the Doctor, Stone doesn’t consider being grating and inane to be capital offenses. 

Or, he didn’t, back when he was working for the Units the first time. Now, as he reassimilates into the agency, he’s finding it harder and harder to keep the mask from slipping.

In a lot of ways, it’s easy to go back to being just another face in the crowd, quiet, friendly Agent Stone who doesn’t talk all that much but is a good listener. It helps that that’s what the agency wants him to go back to, so they can sweep everything under the rug and pretend it never happened. The novelty of his return doesn’t last even a full day.

It’s easy to go back to being quiet, friendly Agent Stone, when the other agents aren’t asking about his time with the Doctor. Each and every one of them are trained, if not specialized, in espionage and information-gathering — making the Guardian Units, by nature, some of the world’s best and biggest gossips. If Stone were anyone else, he might not have even known the game, the other agents framing it all with jostling elbows and mischievous grins, with lukewarm water and stale breakroom coffee. 

What was it like, working for that egomaniac, anyways?

Bet you’re glad to be back on base.

Hey, good on you, lasting long enough to get that nutcase to actually like you.

He really must’ve been paying you something, huh?

Stone doesn’t actually remember what it feels like to hold anything but harsh, burning resentment for his so-called colleagues. They don’t deserve to even breathe in the same room as one of the Doctor’s old nail clippings, let alone speak his name. The Doctor was the one bright, the one truly beautiful thing in this world, and none of them even care. They don’t even care that without the Doctor, each and every one of them would be dead. It makes Stone hate.

Lucky for them, Stone is a patient man, and perhaps even luckier, he needs to keep his access to headquarters for the time being. Not that any of the other agents realize that, all of them accepting Stone’s polite deflections and careful non-answers as he contemplates slowly detaching and then reattaching each of their extremities. Some of them might even be able to use them again, after he’s done. 

Dismembering one’s enemies is, in fact, a healthy coping mechanism, Stone tells himself, after a truly heinous remark about the Doctor’s grasp on reality is made. But it is messy, so maybe he’ll keep it as a back-up option, and employ psychological warfare in the meantime. 

Just as Stone is deciding which of his other more unsavory colleagues he can ensnare in a romantic love triangle with each other, only to frame them for collecting blackmail after the fact, he hears the telltale click-click-click of polished dress shoes. Quickly, he schools his face into his most neutral expression.

“Agent Stone,” says Director Rockwell when he turns around to greet her, prim and pressed, with the ever-present impression that she’s just swallowed a lemon. She smiles thinly. “We’ve updated your clearance, so you should be able to get to work on Doctor Robotnik’s lab. Do you think you’ll need an extra set of hands for anything?”

We don’t trust you, is what she’s really saying. They never trusted the Doctor either, not with all the rules and restrictions they liked to tighten around him like nooses. 

“That would be great, actually. The only thing is…” Stone trails off meaningfully, making sure to give Rockwell an apologetic grimace. Out of all the lies he’s told over the past few days, this one is by far the most delicate. This is the lie that, depending on how it’s received, will decide if Stone is freeing the Badniks with carefully concealed plans and subterfuge, or with a murderous rampage across the base. He glances back at Rockwell. “I’m not sure what security measures the Doctor may have left, or how… lethal… they would be if I can’t disable them. It would be better to send me alone, at least for today.”

Rockwell agrees easily, which is both disappointing and a relief. Stone would have liked to go on that rampage, he thinks, because it would have counted towards his once daily emotional breakdown. He added it to his routine about three days ago, when, shortly after Rockwell’s visit, he found anger churning into heartbreak, then hatred, then guilt, and then anger again. None of them are very pleasant emotions to have, nor are they conducive towards Stone’s carefully laid out plans. The once daily emotional breakdown, when properly utilized, helps pack the emotions into their proper places, and leaves only a quiet, aching numbness in their place.

(Stone tries to tell himself that it’s better. The numbness is better, because at least then, he’s not hurting. Hurting because the Doctor left him, hurting because he left the Doctor. Hurting, hurting, hurting, because there isn’t even a body this time, there’s nothing for Stone to fix. He can’t fix this.)

In any case, carving a bloody swathe through headquarters is off the table for now. And Stone is willing to admit, even if it’s just to himself, it’s really not much of a bother to find someplace to curl up and sob when he tries to call the Doctor and inevitably ends up with voicemail — 

“This is Doctor Ivo Robotnik. If I didn’t pick up the phone, it’s because I have better things to be doing right now than listening to whatever incessant drivel your pitiful three neurons are running to your mouth at any given second. Don’t bother leaving a message, and if you call again, I will personally ensure you spend the rest of your numbered days as target practice for my babies.”

BEEP.

— but it would have been nice, for a change. He shakes his head wistfully. Maybe later, once all the Badniks are safely extracted. 

At this point, it’s been years since Stone has set foot in any of the Doctor’s official labs. As much as it hurt to admit, it had been a lost cause before, trying to break in to retrieve the Badniks. The Guardian Units had kept them all locked tighter than the only attempt at a journal Stone ever tried to keep, which ended up ripped up, drowned, and then buried in the concrete of a nondescript construction site in some nameless small town. Call Stone paranoid, but he knows for a fact that none of its contents were recovered, or even able to be recovered. Point being: he hasn’t been able to get into the labs, not without compromising himself or the Doctor. 

It’s a little late for that now, isn’t it? whispers a vicious little voice in Stone’s head. He ignores it, and ignores the fact that it sounds exactly like the Doctor used to. Vicious little voices are for people with emotions, and Stone’s are all packed away. 

The lab is still, silent when he gets there. Everything is coated in a fine layer of dust, and the air feels stale and bitter, almost like a tin of instant coffee. The only mechanical life comes in the form of the Doctor’s nuclear battery prototype Badnik. She beeps at Stone quietly when she sees him. None of the other Badniks are charged.

“Hey,” Stone says softly, taking an unstable step towards her. He remembers the day he got to name her, the day she was finally finished, and how the Doctor spun him around the room, then, exuberant and joyful and so, so alive. Predictably, he’d made fun of Stone’s choice after, but he’d still kept it, and in that moment, Stone had been so sure he knew what it was like to be in love. “I’m sorry, girl. I’ve kept you waiting for too long, haven’t I?”

Stone waits for Grand Bot Larceny, affectionately nicknamed Lacey, to beep again before he picks her up, cradling her to his chest. And, wishing there was something, anything more he could have done — for the Badniks, for the Doctor, for anyone, really — he begins to cry. “I’m sorry,” he whispers to Lacey, over and over again, “I’m so, so sorry.”

Chapter Text

Days Since the Cleaving: 7

After yesterday’s emotional breakdown, where Stone took a nice, relaxing hour or two to sob all over the Badniks, he’d taken another sweep of the lab, making sure he knew everything, down to the very last bolt, the Doctor had left behind. 

Oh, and he’d dusted. It was clear that nothing had been touched in the five years he and the Doctor were gone, the dust layered thick over the workstations, the Badniks, the storage. Stone hated seeing the dust everywhere, because he knew the Doctor would never let a single speck touch his precious babies; it could ruin their delicate interiors. 

(Stone almost wonders, if the Guardian Units hadn’t come knocking, if he would be just like the Badniks, forgotten on some industrial, Stone-sized shelf, left to dust and rot. Almost, because even when he tries to deny it, he already knows the answer. It already happened once before.)

The dust made it abundantly clear, though, that aside from perhaps a few token attempts to break into the Doctor’s lab, nothing had been moved, nothing had been repurposed to other labs. The higher-ups must have been too scared to make a more serious attempt, given the Doctor’s known tendency to booby-trap anything and everything he got his hands on. 

Stone shakes his head fondly. He’d actually had to disable quite a few late last night, a necessary evil to keep his cover intact. From the main lab, he’d taken down the door alarm, the Badnik intruder alarms, and the computer alarms, all of which were armed with deadly turrets. Of course, that still left the coffee alarm and the Badnik threat-detected alarm, which would activate anytime somebody who wasn’t the Doctor or Stone tried to touch anything — these ones were armed with deadly lasers — that Stone hadn’t bothered to deal with. After all, how was he supposed to know that the coffee machine was retrofitted with a machine gun and mini-lasers? 

“Careful,” Stone says, catching the elbow of the agent assigned to him for the day before he can trip and make a bumbling mess of things. Agent Stevens, he thinks the name is. Not that it really matters, when he’s expendable enough to be sent to the Doctor’s lab. 

“Thanks,” says Stevens, smiling bashfully. “You know, I wasn’t really sure what to expect coming here, but I thought it’d be a lot more…”

“Chaotic?” Stevens nods slowly. Humming as if in contemplation, Stone says, “Well, I suppose the Doctor did have a certain reputation. Did you ever get the chance to meet him?” 

Stevens laughs, jittery and nervous in all the wrong ways. “Oh, God no,” he says, in a way that has Stone reminding himself that violence is frowned upon, that violence will blow his cover. He smiles tightly as Stevens continues, “But he really was up to some crazy stuff in here, wasn’t he? I mean, just look at these things!” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t…” Stone says, admittedly rather half-heartedly as Stevens moves to touch one of the Badniks. It’s only a display Badnik, one of the ones programmed without any personality, but it’s still more than capable of defending the lab. It’s with a gruesome delight that Stone watches the agent make contact with the Badnik’s shell. He can hear the quiet whirring of lasers snapping into place — it must be an older model than he first thought. 

“Stevens!” Stone cries, just in time for the Badnik to fire into the unfortunate agent’s left shoulder. The smell of burning flesh fills the air and Stevens howls, clutching at the injury. It serves him right, Stone thinks smugly.

“Med bay,” Stevens grits out, as Stone moves to grab the emergency first aid kit. He lets Stevens see him hesitate over it, before running to open the laboratory doors. 

“I’m so, so sorry,” Stone says, once Stevens is on a med bay cot, with one of the nurses dressing his wound. He’s not sorry, not at all, but he lays it on thick anyways, with watery eyes and trembling hands. “I had no idea the Badnik would do that, or else I never would have…”

“Not like you could’ve known what that lunatic put in those hunks of metal,” Stevens grunts.

Stone looks to the floor, clenching one hand in a fist. Tactically, it makes it seem like Stone is full of anger and self-blame. Tactically, it also keeps him from caving Stevens’ skull in and painting the walls red with blood and viscera. He really does hate it when people insult the Doctor. “Still,” he says, and his voice trembles with the effort it takes to stay calm. “I used to work in his lab, too. I should have known.”

Stevens snorts derisively. “You used to make coffee for old Robotnik, we all know. I don’t think you could tell the difference between one of his little death traps and a metal hamster ball if you tried.”

“Sorry,” Stone says, making sure to hunch his shoulders in, “I am trying.”

It’s not even lunchtime when Stevens is sent home for medical leave. Stone is told, and quite apologetically at that, that they don’t have another agent lined up for the lab, since all the other agents already have their assignments for the day. Stone smiles, and tells them it’s alright, that he was going to try to figure out what exactly went wrong for the Badnik to fire at Stevens. It wouldn’t be very interesting for someone to watch him work through thousands and thousands of lines of code. For the second time in as many days, Stone is left alone in the Doctor’s lab. 

As soon as the last of the upper brass leaves the room, Stone sits down at the Doctor’s primary workstation, opens the computer, and begins his work. The most important thing is to avoid suspicion, so Stone quickly and discretely sets the security cameras to loop. He doesn’t think that there’s a dedicated team for the cameras in Robotnik’s lab anymore, but it’s better safe than sorry. 

Movements now concealed, Stone makes his way to the third storage closet, smiling to himself all the while. The outer lab, while it did house some of the more impressive Badniks, along with all of the Doctor’s contractual work, was never his true pride and joy. No, the Doctor’s true pride should still lay untouched, hidden well beneath the government-sanctioned facility. It’s with no small amount of satisfaction that Stone watches the hidden elevator doors slide shut, and feels the storage room begin its descent. 

The Doctor’s workshop is nothing less than modern art, Stone thinks. Everything is exactly the way he and the Doctor left it, all those years ago, with shelves overflowing with Badniks of various sizes and shapes, half-finished projects on top of scattered blueprints, and the odd thermos here and there that never made it to the attached kitchen. The air has long gone stale, but if Stone closes his eyes, he can almost imagine the coffee and motor oil that used to permeate every inch of the space. 

(He can almost imagine he’s home.)

It’s with careful steps that Stone makes his way to the center of the room, pulling out a holo-projector and setting it on a relatively clear workspace. The Doctor may not be here anymore, but Stone still has the inventions and plans they’d designed together. Plans for revenge, plans for the world, plans where they’d be side-by-side, together. He can still carry them out, even by himself. He has to. 

Stone opens blueprint after blueprint on the holo-projector, looking for one to begin the Doctor’s new legacy with. Many of them are almost… domestic, in nature, ill-suited to the violence Stone has planned for them. Still, he continues his search, the schematics aligning closer to his purposes the further back he goes until he finally finds it. It’s fitting, Stone thinks, in a twisted, morbid sort of way. 

After all, it all started with that damn hedgehog, didn’t it?

Days Since the Cleaving: 9

“Is this what a Homeowners’ Association is supposed to be like?” Ivo asks, frowning. Shadow shrugs helplessly, most likely because as a hedgehog, he’s never once had to think about owning a home. Louder, he says, “I don’t think this is what a Homeowners’ Association is supposed to be like.”

Their self-appointed tour guide — a twenty-something with long brown hair and an outfit that seems to be made of equal parts crochet and sew-on patches — pauses in the middle of a long-winded explanation that hidden laboratories are allowed in the town, but they have to be declared ahead of time, and there is still an associated fee. “Of course it’s not, silly,” she says with a playful snort of laughter, “But we make it work. Oh! Over there is the entrance to the gnome hollow. They get a little territorial sometimes, so if they’re bothering you, just knock ‘em out with a leaf blower.”

And so it goes, with Shadow and Ivo being introduced to various spots they might like to go around town, various supernatural neighbors, and, on occasion, various human neighbors as well. Ivo memorizes the faces of the human neighbors carefully, just in case. It is, quite honestly, exhausting. 

Still, Ivo makes a point to thank their tour guide at the end of it all, and doesn’t even argue with Shadow when he declares their names as Shadow and Mr. Tinker. As far as terrible aliases go, it’s not the worst in the world, although Ivo suspects that that’s despite the hedgehog’s best efforts. Cutting remarks and wordplay, Ivo has found, are not Shadow’s strong suits. 

“I think we should order dinner,” Shadow says, as he and Ivo stand in front of the quaint little two-story they’ve decided to rent temporarily. “It might be tolerable on most nights, but I refuse to eat another plate of burnt vegetables after you already made me move everything.” 

So perhaps Shadow is capable of some cutting remarks, usually about Ivo’s lack of culinary talent. He’s a teenager, it’s to be expected. 

Regardless, they do order in, and Shadow scarfs down nearly three entire pizzas by himself, clearly pleased with his cheesy offerings. Ivo wonders idly if that, too, is a result of Shadow’s teenager-hood or if it happens to be a result of his myriad abilities, like the inexplicable teleportation that had in fact been used to move their meager belongings in. 

Ivo eyes the last rapidly dwindling box of pizza and calls ahead for two more. By the time they arrive, Shadow is looking forlornly at the empty grease-stained boxes, meaning that Ivo has almost certainly made the right decision. 

The rest of the night is a quiet affair. It’s a chance to breathe, really, a chance for Shadow and Ivo to settle into their new spaces. 

Eventually, though, there are no more bags to unpack and no more rooms to carefully explore, so Ivo crawls out onto the roof. His thoughts have been loud today, the easy community he’d observed poking and prodding into places he didn’t know — had no way of knowing  — would hurt like they did, phantom aches and pains he had no way of treating. And conveniently, the second-floor bedroom has a window with access.

He’s not sure how long he stays out on the roof, before Shadow clambers gracelessly beside him. It’s surprisingly thoughtful, especially when the hedgehog seems to particularly enjoy teleporting behind Ivo when he’s least expecting it, startling all manner of reactions from him. Shadow doesn’t say anything when he settles next to Ivo, either. It’s quiet.

It’s quiet, but Ivo’s thoughts are still loud. How does he even begin to sort it all out?

“Was I a bad man, Shadow?” Ivo asks, when it finally gets to be too much. 

“Yes,” Shadow says, without hesitation. He’s not cruel about it, not any sort of mean-spirited. It’s just a statement of fact. “You were.”

“Do you think anyone might miss me anyways?”

This time, Shadow does hesitate. This time, he looks at Ivo with too-old eyes and contemplates the weight of the words he’s been given. The contemplation is almost worse, in a way. Ivo’s heart, laid next to the feather — or the quill, in this case — as he is judged.

(Does he even deserve absolution? Because that’s what it would be, if someone was still able to love him in the Before. He can’t remember what crimes he must have committed, can’t remember, no matter how hard he tries, anything more than the useless minutiae that clutter his every waking moment. He can’t remember. Isn’t that a damnation in itself?)

“I don’t know,” Shadow says at length, his gaze firmly on the roof ahead of them. “I don’t know if he’s still alive to miss you.”

It makes Ivo feel small, this particular kind of not knowing. It makes him feel lost, for reasons he can’t quite explain, adrift on the River Lethe with no-one any the wiser. 

“It’s getting late,” Shadow says, and offers Ivo a hand up. They make their way carefully to the window, where he pauses, giving Ivo one last glance. “We can start our search in the morning.”

Chapter Text

Days Since the Cleaving: 10

When Ivo stumbles out of his room at a bright, peachy six forty-three in the morning, only to find Shadow staring blearily at him from their newly-acquired couch, it only confirms his suspicions that neither of them slept last night. 

“I believe we owe the Homeowner’s Association money,” Shadow says, by way of greeting. 

Ivo stops, his sleepy shuffle to the kitchen momentarily forgotten. He blinks. “Huh?” 

“There’s a hidden lab fee.” 

“Shadow,” Ivo says, making slow, deliberate eye contact, “Would you like to explain just how that would suddenly become an issue in the five hours you were left alone?”

Shadow slides off the couch and gestures towards the door. “Come with me.”

Ivo follows Shadow outside with no small amount of trepidation. He really, really hopes that he isn’t about to get teleported before the sun has even finished rising. It doesn’t seem like he is, much to Ivo’s likely-clear relief. Instead, he’s led around the back of their house, through a somewhat-overgrown forest trail, and all the way to a grassy clearing that’s mostly taken up by a giant, matte black eighteen-wheeler. 

“Right. This might as well be happening,” Ivo mutters, watching with mild disbelief as Shadow approaches the vehicle, stopping only to make an impatient gesture that could only be interpreted as something along the lines of get over here right now or I’m going to start experimenting to see which of your shoes are actually inedible.

And so, because Ivo is fairly certain that whatever strange physiology Shadow possesses would allow him to get through quite a bit of Ivo’s shoes to make his point, he sighs, and drags his feet, but walks over to stand beside the eighteen-wheeler anyways.

“This used to be yours,” Shadow says, matter-of-fact.

“Wonderful,” says Ivo, although his curiosity is beginning to get the better of him. He inches closer to the vehicle, eyeing what looks like a handprint scanner built into the side of the freight container. “I’m not about to get my hand sliced off here, am I?” 

Shadow shrugs. “Knowing you, I wouldn’t rule it out.” 

Ivo sighs again, and places his hand on the scanner. He supposes there’s only one way to find out. 

In a pleasant sort of surprise, Ivo’s hand does not get sliced off, nor do lasers begin to fire from every available surface on the vehicle. Instead, there is a flash of green light and a cheerful little beep, indicating that his information was accepted. 

“I would have thought that would be more dramatic,” Ivo says, as he and Shadow watch the door open slowly, the hydraulics hissing all the while. 

The interior of the truck is surprisingly clean, almost sterile in its total lack of dust. Somehow, it still feels like a mausoleum, like there should be crumbling, moss-covered stone in place of shiny chrome, and rotting wood instead of modern lab equipment. Ivo knows he should know this place, this testament to who he once was. 

Carefully, Ivo runs a hand over one of the spherical, egg-shaped robots. It beeps to life under his touch, taking to the air with a quiet whir. “Oh,” Ivo murmurs, nearly dizzy with the sudden wave of affection that overtakes him, “I loved you, didn’t I?” 

The robot chirps, and nudges Ivo’s hand. Obligingly, he pats its shell, the metal cool underneath Ivo’s fingers. He wonders if this is what home used to look like, with its sleek, modern design and its even more modern technology and its strange robot pets. 

But no, Ivo thinks, that doesn’t feel quite right. It’s still missing something. Someone? He spends what is surely an aggravatingly long time inspecting the lab, searching for any traces of who he was, and who he was missing. He finds a few promising leads — a cell phone, jammed roughly into the cushions of a well-worn plush couch; a frankly absurd number of vinyl records; a grocery list, written in handwriting that is almost certainly not Ivo’s; and finally, a mug that proudly states in cracked, faded lettering, Henchman of the Year — all of which point to some sort of shared life. 

“Do you… Do you know what his name was?” Ivo asks, holding the Henchman of the Year mug with gentle, almost reverent hands. He was loved, the mug seems to tell him, he was still somehow worthy of it.

Shadow, who had been following Ivo around the truck silently, holds his hands out for the mug. Reluctantly, Ivo gives it to him, squashing down the irrational feelings of anxiety and dread it brings to relinquish it. “Agent Stone,” Shadow intones, turning the mug idly, “I suppose it would make sense that he was here with you, too.”

Much to Ivo’s relief, Shadow hands the mug back to him after that. He takes it, cradling the porcelain to his chest tenderly. 

“I’m guessing it’d be too much to expect you to know how old this particular laboratory is,” says Ivo, grimacing when Shadow shakes his head slowly. “Well, that’s alright. We have a place to start our search, in any case. I think I’m going to see if that cell phone has a biometric lock on it, seeing as a password would be tedious at best and deadly at worst.” 

“Better you than me,” says Shadow, before wandering off in the direction of a filing cabinet. 

It’s not like it should be difficult, Ivo thinks wryly, reverse-engineering his entire life from scratch. He’s sure he’s done worse, if only he could remember it.

Days Since the Cleaving: 16

It’s funny, Stone thinks, how some things really never change. Over the past eight or so days, Stone has gone through just as many so-called assistants, the revolving door of the Doctor’s lab never pausing in its turns. The longest-lasting agent didn’t even make it until two o’clock.

Despite the high agent turnover rate, Stone’s productivity has never been better. This is likely because for him, productivity has nothing to do with dismantling the Doctor’s work into nice, easy to handle pieces, and more to do with dismantling the Guardian Units. The poor saps don’t even suspect a thing, patting Stone on the back and soothing his fake tears every time an agent gets injured in the lab. 

Poor Agent Stone, he’s clearly trying his best, they say, looking at him with their pitying gazes, He’s so sweet, too. To think he spent all that time with that mad Doctor.

Needless to say, Stone has been playing every last imbecile on base like the plastic party-favor harmonicas they are. He thinks he only has another week or two left where he has to play these meaningless games, just another week or two before he can raze it all to the ground. 

“Yes, it won’t be long now,” says Stone, cooing as he pets one of the standard model Badniks. It trills happily. “The Doctor already had labs set up for remote production, so once I have Metal’s prototype complete, I’ll get us out of here, don’t worry.” 

Stone looks at the already-assembled parts for the Doctor’s metal hedgehog, intricate and sleek in its unmistakable design. He’d made it sometime after his return from that horrible mushroom planet, but before he’d taken control of the Master Emerald. If he had to guess, Stone would say that the Doctor wanted to beat Sonic at his own game — and what better way to beat him, than to use his own likeness to do it? It has the Doctor’s love for dramatics written all over it, something that makes Stone wistful at best and absolutely devastated at worst, torn apart by the inescapable truth that he will never be here to see it.

“He would have been so proud of you, you know?” Stone murmurs, stroking the shell of Metal’s head. He wasn’t exaggerating, there isn’t much left until the Doctor’s final project will be complete. Just assembly now, and a few last rounds of debugging for the personality coding. Theoretically, he could debug after it’s already been uploaded, but that often comes with all sorts of nasty complications. Better to get it right the first time, Stone thinks. He wants the Doctor to be proud of him, too.

Except, before he can settle in for another round of careful, meticulous review for Metal’s code, Stone’s phone begins to ring, loud and obnoxious against the quiet hums and beeps and buzzing that live in the background of the lab. 

“Oh!” says Stone, silencing the alarm easily. “Looks like it’s time for that daily breakdown! Miss Thera was right, it really does help to have a routine going.” 

Humming cheerfully to himself, Stone pulls up the Doctor’s contact information on his phone, staring at the photo for only a moment or two longer than he knows he should. He hits the call button.

Ring, ring, ring.  

He knows the call won’t go through, of course. But sometimes… Sometimes it’s nice to hear the Doctor’s voice.

Ring, ring, ring.  

Stone thinks he might actually leave a voicemail this time, let the Doctor know how his plans are coming along. 

Ring, ring, click!

“Hello?”  

It’s not his finest moment, Stone can admit that. He’s just been so on edge ever since the Doctor… Well, ever since the Doctor died. He shrieks, flinging his phone across the room with enough force for it to shatter against the far wall in a brilliant shower of plastic and electricity. Thankfully, he didn’t manage to hit any of the Badniks with his projectile phone launch — he’s not sure what he would have done if he’d accidentally hurt any of them.

Taking a few deep breaths, Stone replays the interaction in his head. The Doctor is dead, he died, he’s gone, so that was… That couldn’t have been him. The only logical explanation, then, is that the Doctor’s phone number, now with no-one to keep it in service, was reassigned, given away to someone else among the government higher-ups. It was the Doctor’s old work phone after all, that Stone kept calling, kept chasing for even the tiniest piece of him. 

(He should have known it wouldn’t last. Good things never last, not for Stone. If good things could last, then the Doctor would be here, with Stone, and there wouldn’t be any need for Metal or world domination or any sort of revenge because the Doctor would be here, and they would be together again, with or without any extra feelings. Because the Doctor… Sometimes, it feels like the Doctor was the only good thing that ever happened to Stone.)

Stone takes another breath in, and turns stiffly to where his phone lays in pieces on the floor, moving one measured step at a time so that nothing else in the lab can suffer the same fate. Better safe than sorry, especially when his vision is already impaired. 

I should call Miss Thera, Stone thinks, wiping desperately at the hot, sticky tears that have started to slide down his face. Even if that makes it his third emergency session in just as many days, he doesn’t particularly care. She’s getting paid quite a lot of money by the Guardian Units to help Stone manage his supposed trauma. Also, Stone has nobody else to call.

And maybe it’s a little pathetic, that he has to call his therapist over something so simple as a phone number being reassigned. But it was — it was the Doctor’s, it was one of the few things left of him that wasn’t being hacked or exploited or sold off to the highest bidder. 

You’re right, that is pathetic, would’ve thought you were better than that, Agent, whispers the mean little voice in Stone’s head. It still sounds like the Doctor. Stone thinks if he’s very, very lucky, he might be able to get the mean little voice to stick around, since it seems like he won’t be hearing anything from the Doctor otherwise.

The mean little voice scoffs. What, looking to start some hallucinations?  

Stone sniffles, and wipes a few more tears away. He thinks he’s already off to a great start.

Chapter Text

Days Since the Cleaving: 23

It’s been an entire week, and Ivo is still thinking about the phone call. Whoever it was on the other line, saved only as a single hamster emoji, had spent the last few weeks calling Ivo’s phone at least twice a day, occasionally leaving a message to update him on the current going-ons, and, on one notable instance, a message that consisted entirely of sixteen minutes and thirty-three seconds of muffled sobbing. 

“That was obviously Agent Stone,” Shadow said an entire week ago, rolling his eyes as Ivo stared, completely dumbfounded, at his phone. 

“You’ll forgive me if I can’t readily distinguish unintelligible screeching,” said Ivo, and that was that. 

Unfortunately for Ivo, and likely just as unfortunately for Agent Stone, who probably thinks that Ivo is still dead, there haven’t been very many clues that could lead to their timely and serendipitous reunion. Their best clue, in fact, seems to have been thrown against the wall at near-lethal speeds, removing their only guaranteed line to Stone’s location. 

(Admittedly, Ivo should have known that Stone might be a little jumpy. He would be jumpy too, after all, if his presumably-dead… boss? friend? possible lover?… just happened to pick up the phone with a cheerful little greeting and not a word about the whole not-being-dead thing. Not that Ivo had had a chance to, but the sentiment still remains.)

“Oh,” says Shadow, appearing, perhaps not literally, but still rather figuratively out of nowhere, startling Ivo into a shriek. Seemingly unperturbed, aside from an obvious roll of his eyes, Shadow continues, “You’ve gotten the location.”

Ivo clears his throat. “Only just now,” he says, scooting back his spinny chair so that Shadow can see the projected map. “At least at the time of the phone call, Agent Stone was roughly thirty minutes away from the ever-pleasant District of Columbia. Lucky for us, I’m sure a thirty-hour road trip is just what we needed to really get this family bonding thing down to a science.” 

“I’m getting much better at detecting sarcasm,” Shadow announces, nodding seriously.

“Good for you,” Ivo says, rolling his eyes. “At least one of us is getting something from this whole experience. I just get to spend my precious little free time teaching the babies how to drive us towards those simpering, moronic — wouldn’t know genius if it started licking their toes in front of them — pentagoons.”

Shadow blinks at him. 

“I think we should write that one down in the journal,” Ivo says, spinning his chair around slowly as he mimes the action. “Unless that was a normal, measured reaction to have towards the American government? I honestly can’t tell these days.”

“No, that was… likely personal,” Shadow says, scrunching his face up. 

“That’s about what I expected,” Ivo says, humming as he digs out the aptly named Memory Journal. It mostly consists of odd, fragmented phrases, fleeting impressions of who Ivo once was, and the occasional inexplicable feeling brought about by seemingly innocuous objects. Any actual memories are rather few and far between, much to Ivo’s constant frustration.

Although, there is one — one real, vivid memory that, even if Ivo never truly recovers the rest… 

Ivo remembers sitting side by side with Agent Stone. He doesn’t know how he knows it was Stone, only that he does. He was sitting side by side with Stone, both of them curled up on a red leather couch, a bowl of popcorn on Stone’s lap. And they were watching — they were watching the cafeteria security feeds, Ivo thinks, although he’s not entirely certain. Stone’s eyes were bright with interest and barely-disguised glee, and while Ivo remembers feeling his own sort of giddy anticipation, he remembers he was watching Stone far more intently. Stone had nudged him then, his eyes still sparkling as he whispered for Ivo to watch carefully, right before a physical altercation broke out between several of the unwitting actors onscreen. Ivo had snorted, and Stone had giggled, until those giggles turned to laughs, and he’d laughed and laughed until Ivo found himself laughing, too. It wasn’t even that funny, Ivo suspects, but Stone had been completely breathless with it as he wiped the tears from his eyes and said that it really was far too easy to cause these sorts of problems.

And Ivo… Ivo remembers looking at Stone and, in that moment, knowing he was in love.

Maybe that says something about Ivo, that the love of his life apparently loved nothing more than to habitually cause petty mayhem, but he already knows that — he knows that he was a bad man. He thinks it probably says something much worse, that he wants nothing more than to find Stone, and to fall in love with him all over again.

Ivo finishes jotting down his comment about the government, marks the page in his index, and snaps the Memory Journal shut. It’s not going to do him any good, reminiscing on a past that’s barely even his. He doesn’t have the time for it. 

“By the way, Shadow,” says Ivo, spinning around to point at his strange, nephew-adjacent hedgehog. “I wasn’t kidding about that thirty-hour road trip. If you have bags to pack, I’d suggest you pack them within the next fifteen minutes.” 

No, Ivo thinks, he doesn’t have the time for it at all. Because for every second he wastes, Ivo knows he is just another second closer to losing Stone all over again, before he’s even had the chance to properly remember him.

Days Since the Cleaving: 26

It’s twelve seventeen when the last agent leaves the Doctor’s lab, with no less than three broken bones and eight minor cuts and lacerations. She was quite a bit more foolish than her most immediate predecessors, Stone thinks. After the first dozen or so ended up in medical, the others had, for the most part, learned not to touch anything unless explicitly told to do so. Poor, unfortunate Agent Ryder must have thought her fellow agents were exaggerating, not that Stone feels any pity for her. She was just another obstacle in his way. 

Now that she’s gone, though, Stone can finally set the last of his plans into motion. He’s produced enough Metal Sonics to have several small armies, and already he’s either wiped or dismantled everything that he won’t be able to save when he razes the Guardian Units to the ground. 

“Today’s the day, Doctor,” Stone says, beaming at the flickering hallucination of the Doctor that lives in the corner of the lab. He showed up exactly eight days ago, after Stone figured the best way to avoid the constant nightmares was to avoid sleeping altogether. He’d lasted three days — and to his credit, it had worked. It just so happened that it had also brought on a series of increasingly vivid hallucinations, ending with, once again, the transient visage of his Doctor. Or, as Stone has taken to calling him: the Dopple-Doctor.

Not that Stone is complaining, of course. It’s actually rather nice, sharing the lab with someone who doesn’t make Stone feel like he’s running a particularly well-funded kindergarten, what with all the sticky-fingered morons the government keeps sending his way. And, well, he misses the Doctor. So even if he knows it’s not real, sometimes it’s nice to pretend. 

That’s pathetic, sneers the Dopple-Doctor, You’re pathetic.

“Well, if I wasn’t pathetic, you wouldn’t be getting your revenge,” says Stone, matter-of-fact. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the Dopple-Doctor fold his arms and start pouting. He sighs. “I’m sorry, Doctor. Would you like to help me push the button?” 

The Dopple-Doctor flickers a little more, but pushes away from the wall to saunter over to Stone. What, do I look like an idiot? Of course I want to help push the button, you stupid, simpering excuse for a sycophant. 

“The Doctor would have been meaner than that,” Stone mutters, but moves aside so he and the Dopple-Doctor can admire the big, shiny red button he made to release dozens upon dozens of Metals from stasis, sending them into the base with their lasers and bullets and other assorted weapons. Like all of the Doctor’s other inventions, it’s simply incredible the number of lethal instruments that he managed to pack into such a small frame. 

Well, I’m not the Doctor, now am I? says the Dopple-Doctor, rolling his eyes. 

Stone sighs again, unable to ignore the dull, empty ache that comes with the reminder that the Doctor left him — the Doctor left him again, and this time, he’s not coming back. It’s a good thing he’d thought ahead to plan the total destruction of the Guardian Units’ United States headquarters for a day when he was already meant to call Miss Thera. He’ll probably need it, if only because he’s about to quite literally blow up the last remaining traces of the Doctor — the last few pieces of him that managed to stubbornly cling to their place on Earth. “No,” he finally says, in response to the Dopple-Doctor’s taunt, “You’re not.”

There’s no use delaying it any longer. It’s time to pack his emotions back into their boxes. Stone takes in a shaky breath, and presses the button. 

Within seconds, the lab is filled with loud, blaring alarms and flashing red lights. “It seems there’s an intruder,” Stone remarks off-handedly to the Dopple-Doctor. He makes his way, unbothered, over to the door, where he’s laid out his control gloves, along with one of the Doctor’s old lab coats. 

Glasses, coat, gloves. I thought we were past all this personal protection nonsense, says the Dopple-Doctor, raising one judgemental brow. At least, Stone thinks he does. It’s hard to tell with all the flickering, at times.

“I know you don’t care, because you’re a hallucination, but it’s about to get very bright in here,” Stone says, pulling out his own pair of custom sunglasses from the inside pocket of the coat. He slides them on his face, smirking. “And besides, they’re always good for an intimidation factor.”

Whatever, grumbles the Dopple-Doctor, I think it all looks stupid.

“It would certainly look much better on you,” says Stone, placating. He tugs on the collar of the Doctor’s coat, so that it settles more neatly around his shoulders. “But we have places to be, Doctor. Come on, Metal should have cleared the way by now.” 

It doesn’t take long for Stone to make his way through the carnage of the corpse-filled hallways. It doesn’t take long for him to kick down the door he knows his target is hiding behind, either, or for his target to recognize him with wide, fearful eyes.

“It was you,” says Rockwell, clutching her phone tight to her chest as she takes a half-step back. She must have been trying to call for back-up — too bad for her, though, they’ll never make it before the entire place is burned to the ground. 

“It was me,” Stone agrees, reaching inside his coat to retrieve his Guardian Units standard-issue firearm. He looks at it with disinterest and sighs. “Now, I know we’ve had our differences with each other, but I’m willing to be merciful. I’m willing to make it quick.” 

Stone takes a step forward, and Rockwell tenses, her hands raised in loose fists as she drops into a fighting stance. 

That’s what you get for trying to make nice with these military mouth-breathers, says the Dopple-Doctor, shaking his head in disappointment.

“I know, I know,” Stone sighs, exasperated. He glances at the Dopple-Doctor as he switches the safety off. Click! He looks back at Rockwell, and takes another step closer. “I did think it was worth a shot, though.”

“Wait!” Rockwell says, with just a hint of desperation as her gaze darts between Stone and the gun, the gun and Stone. “You don’t have to do this! What do you want, Stone? We can negotiate!”

“What do I want? Why, it’s the same thing I’ve always wanted, of course. You didn’t think I’d forgotten about the Doctor, did you?” Stone asks, his voice deadly calm as he stalks towards her. He tosses his gun from one hand to the other carelessly. “You couldn’t have, what with the way you’d have me selling his secrets.” 

Quick as a snake, Rockwell lunges forward, kicking Stone’s gun out of his hands and sending it skittering to the floor. Just as quickly, she tries to dart back away — but while she may have caught Stone off guard with that first move, he already knew to expect her second. Before Rockwell can get away, he’s already caught her wrist, using it as leverage to yank her back harshly. Stone sneers at Rockwell, delivering a swift punch to her gut. She doubles over, gasping, and he smirks. As one, he and the Doctor sneer, “Left yourself open.”

“You betrayed us… for that dead lunatic?” Rockwell finally chokes out, glaring at Stone with a hard mix of disgust and anger. 

Well, that makes three of us, Stone thinks, pulling out his knife with practiced ease. Too late, Rockwell realizes her mistake, her eyes widening again with fear as Stone backs her into a corner.

“You know, I didn’t actually. Betray you, that is,” Stone says, letting out a humorless laugh. Almost idly, he enters the sequence to call the Badniks over, before turning his attention back to Rockwell. He slides the knife between her ribs, and he’s caught somewhere between contempt and pity as he tells her, “I was never on your side to begin with.”