Chapter Text
It had been an astonishingly productive day for Rouge. Since her arrival in Station Square earlier that morning she had managed to complete the assignment she had taken on for the Restoration, retrieve intel from several dead drop sites, identified the whereabouts of several high value gems that she had a vested interest in, and still managed to drop by one of her favorite cafes for good coffee and a tasty indulgence. She decided to enjoy the advantage her wings gave her and sat on a high ledge, savoring her latte while quietly organizing a plan to come back and “liberate” the gems she had been eyeing from those who had so wrongly claimed them.
Or at least, she had been a moment earlier. Her full attention was drawn to a familiar red shape among the crowd, one who she could hardly believe. Could it really be him? No, of course not. He was wholly dedicated in his role as guardian, there was little that could motivate him to leave Angel Island. Still: The curiosity gnawed at her. With acrobatic grace she abandoned the ledge, gliding silently and gently down to get a closer look.
It WAS Knuckles! Shock and delight at the prospect of teasing him filled her as she tipped her shoulders, speeding up to come just over his shoulder. She thought only briefly on what to say to him before catching sight of his clothing and changing her trajectory into a slow, slightly clumsy swerve toward a nearby lamppost. She grasped it and studied him.
The hat was a familiar sight, albeit worn and covered in dust and soot. His gloves were singed and burned away in spots, more tattered than she was used to seeing. He was spotted a brown leather jacket, or rather what had once been before succumbing to whatever he had put it through. It was a shredded and burned wreck that barely managed to hang onto him. A sack over his shoulder seemed worn but largely untouched. She had seen this ensemble before, an almost comically naive adventuring outfit that he wore whenever embarking on some grand hunt. By the grin on his soot stained face it was clear it had been a success.
She sat atop the lamppost as the rest of the story came together. In the distance she could see another familiar face, an exasperated two tailed fox arguing with an electronics dealer over the price of some component. The old man threw his hands up in mock exasperation before shaking Tails’ hand, just in time for the young inventor to turn and see Knuckles coming upon them. They spoke for a bit before the guardian opened the bag to show his claimed quarry.
So Knuckles had decided to go on a treasure hunt. Tails gave him a ride and took advantage of a trip to Station Square to get his hands on some parts. Simple enough. A shame about the jacket though; she had teased him for the outfit but had secretly found it to be quite dashing on him. With any luck his next look would be even moreso, but considering his tastes perhaps not.
An idea occurred to her then, and a wide grin curled over her face.
———
“How DARE you!” the purple hyacinth macaw shrieked, throwing open the curtains to the room.
Rouge smiled brightly. “Amaranthine, my darling!” She spread her hands out to either side to hug the well dressed woman.
“Non. NON!” She puffed. “You come to Station Square, you grace this ceaseless Greg drudgery with the colour of your being and do you come right away to see your friend? Non!” She set herself gently on a fainting couch and set the back of her hand over her brow in mock despair. “You wound my very soul with this insult and then claim to be my friend?! I can’t bear it!”
“Ammy,” Rouge whispered, setting down beside her in a routine that was at this point predictable to both of them, but neither was willing to abandon their long-standing ceremony.
“No I am not your Ammy I mean nothing to you,” the woman gently batted the bat’s hand away.
“My Ammy, I would have come sooner if I had known,” she said gently, setting her hand atop Amaranthine’s.
“No you are a beast you hate me known what?” The macaw’s manner of speaking was less a dialogue and more an assault of words that could spare no time for punctuation or pause.
“If I had known that without me,” Rouge whimpered slightly, setting her hand to her chest and looking pained, “without me my darling Ammy had grown so weak, I would have…” she trailed off, wiping an entirely disingenuous tear from her eye.
“Weak!” The woman wheeled around on her. “Weak?!” She erupted from the fainting couch and stood tall, setting her hands on her hips. “I may not be a secret spy person agent who steals the world’s riches and looks absolutely fabulous doing it,” she waved a hand dismissively at Rouge before turning to motion toward a map of the world with markers indicating dozens of her clothing stores, “but I have built a company with my own two hands and done it with incredible, incomparable, invincible style!” She ended with a dramatic flourish, completely reinvigorated.
Rouge applauded and stood from the couch. “Oh Ammy I am so relieved, so thrilled! Because I…I confess that what I ask of you today…It will require your full strength to endure.” She turned and looked dramatically out the window of the high rise apartment. “I fear it is too much.”
“Too much?!” Amaranthine screeched. “You doubt my strength!? My ability?! My-“
Rouge cut her off by turning and looking at her seriously. “Ammy, you don’t understand.” She stepped toward the macaw, setting her hands on her shoulders as though bracing her for terrible news.
For the first time since entering the room Amaranthine felt their little production slip away. She steeled herself. “Understand what?”
“What I am looking for today…It will be an outfit with,” Rouge swallowed the words, her disgust not entirely insincere. “It will have…NO gems.”
Amaranthine stared. She felt a growing numbness. “You mean…Very few.”
“None.”
“No…Non. Nom non non. You mean…One. A small one. Not even large enough to qualify as a stateme-“
“Ammy. Not a single gem.” Rouge stared hard into her friend’s eyes. “Not one.”
“What is this?!” The macaw shrieked in a state of horrified confusion. “What would one even do with such a thing?!”
“It’s a gift,” Rouge explained. She froze. She had said it quickly and without thought, but understood it to be a tactical error immediately. She had known Amaranthine for years, understanding that the purest motivation she could experience was to feel driven to prove her greatness. Yet there was one thing that could pull her attention from a matter entirely, and one thing alone: The prospect of prying into someone’s love life.
Amaranthine turned and looked at Rouge, studying her. Her beak split into a wide, delighted grin and she began stepping toward her friend. “A gift, you say?” She cooed gently, eyes unwavering.
“A small one. Barely a trifle,” Rouge shrugged.
“Non non, if it were a trifle you would not come to me.” Her voice was nearly a song now.
“It’s for a-“
“A man?” Amaranthine grinned, drawing even closer.
Rouge’s mind raced. Her feelings for Knuckles were…Not complicated. Not complicated, but not something she was an open book about. There was something vulnerable about that, about being truthful in how sincere your feelings are, that just…Was slightly, very slightly, ahead of where she was comfortable with. Amaranthine could drill into the very soul of a person in matters of the heart, and the prospect of not fully engaging that particular subject on her own terms, that was unpalatable. It was then that she realized that Amaranthine has stopped smiling.
She looked at her old friend now, feeling the slight warmth in her cheeks abate, and saw a look that was almost blank. A naked sort of shock. Slowly it shifted into a smile, a warm one.
“I will help you, of course,” Amaranthine said gently.
There was a pause. “Oh?” was all that Rouge could manage.
“Yes, of course, what monster would abandon someone who holds such a special place in their heart?” She rose back up to her full height. “Though the lack of gems or ornamentation makes me feel faint, I will persist out of love for you.”
There was another pause. “Thank you,” she said eventually. “Thank you, Ammy.”
“Now then, let us get to work! You will give me the details and I will begin work! Then I will continue to work and you will step out to buy us a bottle of wine that is offensively expensive!”
Rouge smiled and linked her arm around hers, walking with her to the window as she began describing what she wanted.
———
Knuckles rested quietly atop the master emerald, enjoying a particularly calm breeze. He had felt it earlier; someone had arrived. They hadn’t rushed over immediately, which meant it wasn’t a world-ending emergency. They weren’t prowling around studying him, so not an attacker. He heard the sound of a wing soft on the wind and sat up with a sigh.
“Guardian,” Rouge grinned from the base of the emerald.
“What do you want?” He arched an eyebrow, trying to make out anything that might suggest she had designs on the master emerald.
“Oh, just stopping in.” She smiled and looked at the massive stone. “I needed to make sure you’re taking care of my emerald.”
“It’s not yours,” he reminded her. There was something odd about her today. What was her angle?
Rouge glanced up at him and immediately clocked his curiosity. She grinned. “There was one other thing.”
“I knew it,” he growled, leaping down to set himself between her and the emerald. “What’s your game, Rouge?”
She savored the moment. It is a special thing to watch someone be humbled as quickly as when their hostility is answered by a kind gesture. She took the package from behind her back, wrapped in pink paper and with plenty of frilly ribbons as a touch of embarrassment, and offered it to him with eyes of mock innocence. “You wound me, handsome. I just came to bring you this little present.”
He wrinkled his nose at the packaging and looked up at her.
“Go on,” she smiled, pushing it into his hands.
He turned it over in his hands, his face a knot of confusion. “What is this?”
“Just open it,” she nudged, feeling a surge of excitement.
Knuckles was deeply confused, but couldn’t deny a mild curiosity. It wasn’t ticking, so probably not a bomb? Knockout gas? No, how would you even wrap that? Probably not like this. Unless that’s what she wanted him to think.
“Knuckles!” she snapped, “open it!”
Slowly, warily, he obliged. Unceremoniously he tore off the paper and opened the box within. There was something folded inside, concealed by tissue paper. He took it out, allowing the wind to catch and unfurl it.
There, dancing in the wind in sturdy and well woven fabric, with a series of diamond designs at the bottom that ended in a frill of feathers in a beautiful turquoise shade, was a poncho.
“It’s no leather jacket,” Rogue teased, hovering over his shoulder, “but in this you won’t look half as rid-“
“It’s beautiful,” he whispered.
Rouge looked at his face and saw an expression of utter bewilderment. In those moments that she did allow herself to ponder on her feelings for him, she was aware of just how much growing up alone on this island, bound to an ancient charge, had shaped him into who he was. How it had certainly made him unsociable and naive, but also direct and deeply loyal to his friends. In this moment, looking at his face, she realized that such an upbringing probably did not call for people bringing him gifts.
She smiled and took the poncho in her hands, breaking his concentration. “Let’s get it on you, then!” She draped it over his shoulders and dusted it off, allowing herself a moment to appreciate her design suggestions and the quality of Amaranthine’s work. “It looks good on you, handsome. How do y-“ she trailed off as she looked up at him.
He had been staring at her, and in that brief moment their eyes met. And within that moment, captured within a gesture of genuine warmth, there was an opportunity for truth that they both felt. A vulnerability.
Rouge knew the moment for what it was, and in her heart of hearts she knew that in that moment she was willing to consider it. To set aside the repartee they had built, the game that defined their interactions, and to genuinely acknowledge what she felt and accept it, maybe even allow it to galvanize into telling him. But that moment, fleeting and important as it was, was lost to instinct. Years of teasing and prodding motivated action that was simply faster than what that moment had offered them.
“You seem to really like it. I think this should earn me at least an hour with my emerald.” She felt something similar to what she had felt in Amaranthine’s apartment, when she accidentally admit it was a gift. A sense that she had made an error. It brought her a subtle sadness blunted only by the look of outrage on Knuckles’ face.
“I KNEW it!” He yelled, chasing after her as she left. “And it’s not YOUR emerald!”
“Oh, so I do get an hour with it?”
“Absolutely not!”
Her laughter blended with his yelling as they continued on in their familiar routine.
But that moment of vulnerability: Small, precious, and seemingly abandoned, was important. Both knew it to be genuine, and even if it didn’t bear fruit, they both knew that it had been there.
———
Amaranthine sat on her fainting couch looking through old pictures of her and Rouge. With a smile she set the phone down and thought fondly of their recent night together. Gossip and catching up on their adventures, good wine, and a joyful reminder of how fun life can be when you aren’t distracted by new clothing lines and store openings.
She thought of the face Rouge made when she pressed her for details about the gift. It wasn’t something as ridiculous as an embarrassed stammering blush. No, that wasn’t Rouge. It was a face she had never seen her friend make before, but knew intuitively what it was. That had been enough.
“He had damn well better learn to enjoy gems,” she muttered to no one.
She smiled and took another sip of wine.