Work Text:
One hand over the mouth, one hand on the throat: that’s how Stone learned to choke somebody out without drawing attention to himself.
“Shh, shh, shh, c’mon,” he murmurs to the would-be assassin in front of him, hands in that exact position. By now, after so long working for Doctor Robotnik, of all men, he knows the drill. Find. Incapacitate. Eliminate. Avoid letting Robotnik know it’s happening, and if he can keep it a secret, never let him know it happened in the first place. Now, jammed up in the closet of his hotel room with Robotnik right on the other side of a paper-thin wall, he puts that to the test. “It’s pretty dark in here already, isn’t it? Go to sleep, I’ll take care of the rest. You already lost, my friend. May as well accept it and start coping now.”
The assassin writhes in his grasp, trying desperately to get some air, but Stone refuses to let him. With his knee pressed between the guy’s legs and his full weight pinning him to the wall, the best his assailant can do while he slips from consciousness is hit Stone with weak, ineffectual slaps. He tries to knee Stone in the stomach exactly once, only for Stone to press his own knee up higher and drive them into the man’s crotch, forcing a wheeze from his chest. Now that’s a satisfying expression of pain.
“Look, I don’t know who you work for, but if you make it out here alive, I’m gonna need you to send a message for me.” He keeps his tone as casual as office water-cooler talk. For Stone, it is. “Tell your boss to stop sending assassins unless they want them back in body bags. If they can’t abide by that- and I get it, we’re all just trying to get by- then at least give us two weeks. Until the end of the conference. We’re a little busy here, if you can’t tell, and the Doctor doesn’t need anything else on his plate.”
He licks the palm of Stone’s hand. Tries to bite at his flesh. Makes a pleading sound. Adorable. Stone wouldn’t call himself a sadist, exactly, not relative to the Doctor, but he almost mourns the fact that he can’t watch the light fade from this one’s eyes.
“I’ll take that as a yes. I’m glad we’re on the same page.” Then, Stone lowers his voice to a dangerous hiss, the hand around the assassin’s throat curling a little bit tighter. “Just know that I am very, very good at my job, and no matter what you try, no one they send will ever lay a hand on my boss. If you wanna keep your colleagues alive, you better pull through so you can warn them about-”
Stone cuts himself off with a sharp hrk! as pain shoots through his abdomen. On instinct, his hands slide from the assassin’s mouth and throat to either side of his jaw, and with one quick jerk, Stone snaps his neck. He hears one desperate wheeze as the man takes in a breath, only to let it out a second later as he goes limp in Stone’s hands. In the dark, Stone can barely make out the slack-jawed look on his face, and he swallows hard, glancing down between them.
The assassin’s hand rests on the handle of a tactical knife.
The tactical knife sticking out of Stone’s stomach.
Fuck.
Forcing down the natural instinct to panic, Stone removes the man’s hand from the knife, then drops the body altogether. It slumps against one of the hinge-fold doors of the closet, and Stone opens the other one, careful not to jostle the knife. The initial pain has already dulled to a persistent ache, one that anyone less trained than Stone would likely classify as ‘sheer agony’; panic, however, solves nothing. Stone knows this. If he feels pain, that means he’s alive. If he’s alive, he can fix this. If he makes this quick, then he can have this done before he and Robotnik-
The adjoining door in the middle of the wall swings open with a dramatic flourish, and Stone immediately pulls his blazer over the knife’s handle, covering it up to the best of his ability. He plasters an amiable smile on his face, if only out of habit, and Robotnik gives him a scowl in return, hovering in the door. “Exactly how many of my coats did I instruct you to pack for me?”
“Five, sir.”
“Correct,” Robotnik seethes. “Why, then, am I only seeing four in my suitcase, Stone? Did you suddenly forget how to count? Or did you hear the instruction I gave you, commit it to memory, and willfully elect to ignore it?”
Ah. One of these days. Stone shouldn’t be surprised; events like this tend to put Robotnik so far on edge that neither of them can think straight. Stone ignores the throbbing sensation that starts to surround the knife, smiling a bit wider. “It’s in your carryon. I put it in there in case the airline lost our luggage. I also have two spares in my carryon in the event that, god forbid, something happens to the first five.”
(Something always happens to the first five).
The Doctor visibly relaxes, posture easing, but his expression remains. “I see. I’ll let it slide, just this once. Are you dressed?”
“Not anymore. I’m sorry.”
The annoyance swings back around, just as quick as he left. “And why not?”
“Wardrobe malfunction.” What Robotnik doesn’t know won’t kill him. The assassin is already dead, after all. “I tore a hole in my shirt. I was just being careless, and I’ll have it fixed as soon as possible.”
Robotnik opens his mouth to say something else, and for a split second, Stone thinks he may get out of this with little more than a mean comment and an order to get his ass in gear.
Then, the closet door succumbs to the weight of the corpse, swings open, and deposits the assassin onto the carpet.
Silence.
Stone’s entire body locks up all at once (ow), his smile stiffening as Robotnik looks over at the corpse with slight shock, with ‘shock’ in this particular instance meaning ‘one raised eyebrow and a bemused ‘huh’’. “Wardrobe malfunction indeed,” he says drily, then snorts in amusement at his own joke before turning back to Stone. When he makes it all the way over, he’s no longer smiling. “Careless, too. Sloppy. You’re better than this, Agent. You’re not losing your touch, are you? Right when I need you to be at the top of your game?”
The shame in the pit of Stone’s stomach burns almost as hot as the knife. “No, sir. I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“Lucky for you, my level of stress has already plateaued at a level so high that I can’t even imagine yelling at you right now. In fact, I’m going to use the thought of exactly what I’m going to do to you to keep my blood pressure low today.”
“That sounds like a wonderful idea. I’m glad you can find good coping mechanisms.”
“Don’t give me any lip, Stone, I can always change my mind.” He didn’t. Stone meant that totally, one hundred-percent genuinely; after so long working for Robotnik, he almost looks forward to discipline, a solid way to correct his mistakes. He doesn’t dare tell Robotnik that, though. “You have five minutes. After that, you will knock on my door, announce your presence, then come in and iron the creases out of my coat.”
Five whole minutes! He can work with five minutes! “And when would you like me to dispose of the body?”
Robotnik sneers. “You’re efficient. I’m sure you can find time to change shirts and get rid of that bozo.”
Without another word, Robotnik steps back into his own room, slams the door, and leaves Stone alone in his room. Stone blinks, stunned, and the only thing that spurs him back into motion is Robotnik’s ‘I’m better than all of the assholes at this conference’ playlist roaring to life on the other side of the door. He has his orders, five minutes, and a stab wound to stitch up. He can’t afford to stand around and waste precious seconds recovering from a run-of-the-mill interaction.
His Doctor needs him, after all.
-
If anyone were to ask Robotnik what his personal version of Hell is, he would say, as he has so many other times, that Hell is an academic conference. By extension, Hell is a budget hotel packed into a crowded city block. The parking garage is always full, and it frequently eats your tickets. The drinks at the bar are 75% ice, the food provided by the conference tastes like freezerburn and the inside of a microwave no matter how they prepare it, and you spend your days packed shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of morons who have no clue what they’re talking about, yet think they have the right to judge you regardless.
If anyone were to ask Stone what his personal version of Hell was, he would tell them that Hell is standing by Robotnik’s side through an academic conference.
Yes, the Doctor is capable. Yes, he knows this, and he brags about it constantly. Yes, he’s a performer, but that doesn’t mean he performs well in front of large audiences. When it comes to his work, he adopts this bizarre attitude of ‘trust me, it works’ and dreads having to answer questions from ‘lesser beings’. He makes it through any presentations with ease, but the moment he walks out of view, he drops the act and mocks the audience members in silly voices that only Stone gets to hear.
He hates all the food and the coffee, meaning Stone has to run back and forth to get him more tolerable meals, and he always complains about parking despite the fact that he doesn’t drive. The weeks before are a swarm of anxiety fueled by expectations, the weeks after are a different swarm of anxiety due to a desire to salvage his pride, and the time between, when all the projects are submitted and ready to be presented, all those nerves gather into one perfect storm of a man; worst of all, without his work, he has nothing to do but sit there and seethe.
It isn’t all bad, though. Robotnik sticks so close to Stone’s side that Stone can’t help but feel a little special, even if he wishes he was in the ER right about now.
“That one,” Robotnik mutters under his breath, gesturing vaguely at another presenter from their spot on the wall, “once got so plastered after completing his project just in time that he got on stage and vomited all over the first row.”
Stone gasps, ignoring the surging pain in his chest as he does. “No.”
“Oh, yes.” Robotnik nods. “Got his funding pulled to pay for everyone’s dry-cleaning. Scheduled a meeting to try and get it back, drank to settle the nerves, and vomited again at the meeting to get his funding back.”
“That’s so- so-” thank god he wore black. That gasp was evidently a little too sharp; he managed to get his wounds stitched up in time, but between the pain and the rush, they barely held the skin together. Blood starts to seep out towards the top, one of the sutures having popped open. His head swims, but he finally manages to think of the right word. “Tactless.”
“Tactless indeed,” Robotnik agrees. He leers at Stone out of the corner of his eye, and right as Stone goes to ask him what the problem is, Robotnik brings one gloved hand up and rests the back of it against Stone’s forehead, then hits a button with his thumb. Stone’s eyes cross to look at it. “You look feverish. What’s wrong with you?”
“Oh, uhm.” Damn, that glove feels nice. He may not have a fever, but he is sweating much, much harder than he should be, but the Doctor tends to run cold. “Nothing, sir. It’s just hot in here.”
The glove beeps, and Robotnik pulls it away after a second, much to Stone’s remorse. He looks down at the number and frowns. “Ninety-eight point seven. Perfect. Try to look a little more alert. I can’t have anyone thinking my agent is incapable.”
His agent. Stone’s heart sings. “Of course. Sorry, Doc.”
“I’m getting sick of you having to say that. Do it right the first time.”
“Right, I’m-” Stone has to stop himself from apologizing again. Robotnik shoots him a pointed look, one eyebrow raised, and Stone backpedals. “I’m going to grab a glass of water, and when I get back, maybe you have some more stories you could share?”
“Don’t be stupid, Stone. Of course I do. Get me the least offensive cocktail you can find while you’re gone.”
-
Robotnik goes onstage in fifteen minutes, and Stone isn’t with him.
No, Stone got hit with a stomach cramp so severe that he spat out the word ‘bathroom’ while Robotnik was mid-sentence and power-walked out of the conference hall, then sprinted down the hallway to the nearest trash can. He threw up in it, stumbled around for a small eternity as he tried to find a bathroom, and when he finally got to one, he stepped inside, locked the door, and immediately slid down against the door to catch his breath.
Damnit. Why today, of all days? What makes this injury so much worse than the rest of them? Why couldn’t it have waited just a little bit longer to put him on his ass?
A knock sounds from the other side of the door. “Occupied,” Stone croaks, lifting his head from his knees. He has to bite his tongue to keep from making any obvious expression of pain, but he hears footsteps retreat after a moment, and he takes that opportunity to uncurl himself and place a gentle hand against the wound.
One graze against his shirt turns it red.
With a hiss, Stone unbuttons his shirt from the top to get a better look.
It’s- it’s salvageable. He probably won’t die. Probably.
That’s what Stone tells himself, at least. If he were to have unbuttoned anyone else’s shirt to see the mess under his, then he would have them carted off to the hospital immediately, no questions asked, while he does first aid in the meantime. His stitches sit crooked over the half-open gash, a curved line veering on and off course as it tries to keep the skin together. Towards the top, he spies the suture that popped earlier, and blood oozes from the gap it left in its wake. Each breath Stone takes threatens to pull the lower stitches apart. The ones towards the bottom hold firm, but some of them dip so far away from the wound that they aren’t even on the wound itself, just the skin next to it. Whatever happens, it’s going to leave a nasty scar, if not a pit that will never heal properly.
More importantly, though, it’s just stable enough that he can make it through the presentation. If he runs off again right after Robotnik finishes up, then he can pull this off.
Stone pads his stomach with paper towels as discreetly as possible, the blood gluing the material right to his skin in a way that’ll surely be hell to fix later, then fixes his clothes and washes the blood off of his hands. He splashes some water on his face- Robotnik was right, he is feeling pretty feverish- and double-checks in the fluorescent lights that the stains aren’t visible on his shirt. Then, like the good assistant he is, he marches back to Robotnik’s side.
Robotnik hovers by the stage, pressing random button patterns on his gloves as he waits for his turn. A quick glance to his watch tells Stone that he made it back with five minutes to spare, but that doesn’t stop Robotnik from getting off a snide comment as Stone falls into line next to him. “Nice of you to join us, Agent.”
“There was an emergency. I handled it as fast as possible.”
“Honestly, Stone, you’re forty goddamn years old. You should know what foods trigger any stomach problems by this point, and you should avoid them if you know I need you around.”
Need, he says, as though Stone goes on stage with him. As though anyone has tried to shoot him during one of these presentations. As though he needs Stone to watch. “This is a unique problem, sir.”
“Then adapt,” Robotnik hisses. He shifts on his feet, keeping his eyes forward- an action that Stone, by now, recognizes as one of the few nervous tics the Doctor has in the first place. He lowers his voice, then asks, “you resolved it?”
“To the best of my ability.”
“That isn’t a yes.”
“And it isn’t a permanent solution. Please don’t worry about me, I’m fine now. I’ll be waiting right here when you get offstage.”
Even if it kills him.
Robotnik doesn’t respond to that. He falls silent, waiting for the current jackass to walk offstage before he mutters a soft ‘wish me luck’ midway through his announcement, and Stone, like an idiot, does. Robotnik snorts right after, and in a surprisingly tame display of dominance, he slugs Stone on the arm. “I don’t need luck,” he says, “I’m me.”
Then, he walks up the stairs to the stage, and he proves it.
The second Robotnik turns it on, shooting off at the mouth with all the fervor of a cult leader addressing their adoring flock, Stone’s body goes electric. Energy shoots through him, crackling all the way down to his fingertips, and if he wasn’t struggling to stay upright at the moment, he would be rocking back and forth on his feet, just to get some of that out. The space behind his eyes burns a bit brighter, casting the Doctor in a halo of a glow, and in a split-second, in a lightning strike, all of it is worth it. The pain. The sweat. All twelve stitches.
When Robotnik performs, he goes all out, even if he doesn’t care about the audience in front of him. He likes it when people have to listen to him, whether they like it or not, and he always steps onstage with the express goal of being the smartest person in the room. If he succeeds, people notice. If they notice, then, for a few fleeting seconds, he’s a god amongst men, revered by all, worshiped, beloved. It helps that he is, at the end of the day, legitimately a brilliant man, capable of anything he puts his mind to, but Stone knows better than anyone how deep-seated his issues can be. Between the isolation and the days-long periods of self deprecation that follows a resolute failure in the lab, Stone has seen him at his lowest, but there, in front of people, showing off with a cocky smirk on his face and a renewed spring in his step each time one of his jokes lands-
He burns so brightly that, to Stone, no star will ever compare again.
Each time he sees it, Stone falls a little more in love with everything the Doctor is. He remembers why he’s here. The pain eases, and for a few minutes, there’s nothing that matters more than this.
At the end, the new contraption snaps up into one tiny, easy to transport trinket, one that Robotnik can catch in the palm of his hand and completely obscure from sight. He barely manages to get out a ‘thank you’ before the cheers start, and, at that, he shoots Stone a look from his spot on the stage, a smile that says ‘too fucking easy’. At that fleeting bout of eye contact, Stone’s heart kicks up its pace, so loud that it drowns out all the applause, and he beams, because they did it, they got through this, and Robotnik’s first thought once it was all said and done was to look at him, of all people.
Then, something shifts.
Robotnik’s smile falters. Although Stone can’t hear, he initially assumes that the question-and-answer portion of the presentation has started, only for someone to ask something incredibly stupid from the get-go, but then Robotnik removes his mic and throws it onto the stage without a word, storming over to him. Stone opens his mouth to ask what’s wrong, but, for the second time today, Robotnik beats him to it, grabbing him by both arms and yanking him forward. To Stone’s surprise, he lands flat on his feet. He didn’t even know he was falling. “Tell me what’s wrong with you. Now.”
His voice sounds far, far away, even though Stone distantly registers that they are, in fact, touching. He gently places his hands on Robotnik’s wrists, trying to ease them off, only for that to turn into more of a nudge. “There’s nothing wrong, I told you, I handled it, just go on and finish your-”
“You’re pale, you’re sweating, and your heart rate is at 140, Agent, don’t give me that, that’s not normal,” Robotnik insists, grabbing onto him a bit tighter, and an involuntary grunt forces its way out of Stone’s chest. Immediately, the tension in Robotnik’s fingers relaxes, and Stone takes the opportunity to stumble a few steps back, hunching in on himself involuntarily. As he catches his breath, Robotnik’s eyes go wide. “You’re in shock.”
“I’m fine.” Robotnik opens his mouth to protest again, only for something on the ground to catch his eye. He pales, so visibly that Stone damn near vomits again out of guilt. “Please, you have much more important things to worry about than me, so- shit. I’m so sorry, Doctor, this is humiliating. Just give me a second to catch my breath.”
Robotnik says something. Stone can’t hear him anymore, not over his heartbeat, but he can see his lips moving. There’s people moving nearby, too, but none of their silhouettes come out as clearly as Robotnik’s does. As the room sways and he tries to get more air into his lungs, Stone can’t help but feel like he’s forgetting something, something important, something he’s wanted to do since this morning, and - oh. Right. That’s it.
“You did incredible,” he says. He thinks the words come out right. He can’t really tell anymore. “Just thought you should know.”
Robotnik surges forward. He yells something- Stone’s name, maybe, and then-
Everything goes black.
-
“-yes, Stone, like the construction material, first name Aban, he’s my- nice of you to finally join us, Agent. Stay with me. Here, can you grab my hand? Don’t give me that look, I’m asking so I know if you pass out again, just- hold that thought. His blood type is AB-neg, he’s allergic to latex, and he won’t respond to the standard amount of anesthetic. Still breathing, Stone? No, don’t breathe harder, you idiot, stick to the bare minimum and stay alive. God, I can’t believe you. If this doesn’t kill you, I will. Yes, again, for the fifth time, he was stabbed, most likely around six hours ago, and tried to stitch it up himself. I’m sorry, can we save the stupid questions for when we’re inside the ambulance instead of standing around gawking at each other?”
…
“Excuse me?”
…
“Yes, I am. That’s my assistant. I’m his emergency contact. I’m not leaving him alone. Schroedinger can go fuck himself, that cat is not going in that box without me, and I’m going to know whether he’s alive or dead the whole entire time.”
…
“If you’re really sorry, then you’ll get out of my way and let me go with him. I have to go with him.”
…
“You’re not listening to me, I said get out of my-”
…
“Ah. Well. Now it seems like I have a perfectly good reason to get on that ambulance, don’t I?”
(Somewhere, off in the distance, fabric rustles. Shoes make their way across metal. A body collapses).
“Stone? Thank fuck. I’m here now. Calm down. Statistically speaking, you’re- you’re probably going to be fine. Probably. You want my hand back? Fine, here. Stop smiling at me, focus your energy on not bleeding out. Just- what was that?”
…
“...I know you do. Save your breath.”
-
The first thing Stone thinks, for reasons he doesn’t fully understand, when he wakes up is: please, god, don’t let me have ruined the Doctor’s afternoon.
The second: ow, fuck.
Opening his eyes is a struggle in its own right; every part of him feels heavy, glued down to whatever soft surface lies beneath him. He manages to sit up, if only barely, the gash in his stomach protesting with every inch, but he puts his hands behind him and forces himself to stay like that. He hisses as he raises a hand to rub his eyes, and- oh, shit, something’s attached to that arm. When he blinks, light floods his eyes, and he has to take a moment to adjust to that, groping for the crook of that arm in the meantime, and right when he finally finds the tubing-
“Stone, I swear, if you rip the IV out of your arm again, I’m going to duct tape you to the bed.”
Instinctively, Stone’s hand falls. He yawns. God, what happened to make him this exhausted? “Sorry, sir. Won’t happen again.”
Wait.
Soft surface. The conference.
Stone’s eyes adjust, and the pieces fall into place.
He finds himself in a hospital room, dressed in one of those shitty cloth gowns that leaves very little to the imagination and a cacophony of wires and tubes. Sunlight spills in through the window, and sitting by said window, perched on the bench, is Robotnik, who watches him with a vague look of curiosity and fatigue. He hasn’t shaved, Stone notices, his stomach dropping, and when Robotnik cocks his head to the side, it drops even further. “Oh, you’re coherent this time? Look at that.”
“I’m sorry,” Stone blurts out, almost automatically, and Robotnik just raises an eyebrow. When Stone reaches for the crook of his arm and starts unscrewing the IV, Robotnik bristles, making a move to stand, but Stone holds up a hand to stop him for a split-second, then continues. “I’m fine, I promise, I just need to get this out of my arm and then we can get back to-”
“Do you have any idea how close you got to dying in my lap?”
Oh.
Stone stops, his fingers stilling on the IV tubing, and when he withdraws his hand, Robotnik groans and stands up all the way this time. He grabs a chair and hauls it over to Stone’s bedside, collapsing into it, and when he holds his hands out, Stone dutifully places his arm in them, letting the Doctor scope out the state of his arm and reattach the IV while he continues to berate him. “The last time you told me you were ‘fine’, you had just gotten done bleeding all over my shoes, and that was before you collapsed. Twenty stitches and a blood transfusion later, I’m told you got up twenty minutes after they got you stabilized, drugged to the gills, and tore those brand-new stitches out because you judo-flipped the security guard trying to get to me. I saw an EMT push a segment of your small intestine back in, so you’re going to have to forgive me if I don’t really think you’re ‘fine’.”
And Stone-
He hears most of that. He takes it to heart, probably, or he will later. His eyes lock onto something, and they don’t let go, a sense of dread taking over all of his higher brain functions. Robotnik finishes with the IV line, pulling his hands away once he’s satisfied, but Stone can’t stop staring at one of them, at the one not wearing a glove. Robotnik sneers. “What?”
“Doctor, what happened to your hand?”
“Wh- nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
“Clearly, something happened, because it’s in a cast now, and it wasn’t when I passed out.” It sticks out against the rest of his outfit like a sore thumb; while most of Robotnik’s ensemble is black, the cast they put on him, the one that stretches down to the middle of his forearm, is bright red. Stone finally breaks out of its spell, meeting Robotnik’s gaze and damn near pleading with him. “I didn’t do that, did I?”
Robotnik’s expression softens, and he sighs. “No, you didn’t,” he says, “but I’m not telling you what happened until you explain to me why the hell you thought hiding a severe injury from me was a good idea.”
Well. Seems like this has to happen. “I- I didn’t want you to worry about it,” Stone replies automatically, and under Robotnik’s stern gaze, he shrinks in on himself, ashamed. It won’t save him, that little display of submission, but at least Robotnik will understand (hopefully) that he knows it was a stupid decision. “The guy in the closet, he, uh- yeah. He got me. You were stressed, though, I know how you get during these sorts of things, so I thought I could handle it.”
“But you couldn’t.”
“Evidently not, sir.”
Robotnik stares at him for a moment, his jaw working in annoyance, eyes narrowed. “And when exactly did you realize this?”
Stone could lie to him. He could lie, and Robotnik would never know the difference, except- no. That’s dumb. He always figures it out eventually. “Probably when you sent me to get drinks for us earlier.”
At that, Robotnik falls silent. His eyes narrow a little further, locking onto Stone with all the malice of an animal staring down its prey, and while he chews on that, undoubtedly flashing back to that moment and thinking about exactly where he’ll bite for the kill, Stone sweats. He opens his mouth to make an excuse, but then-
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
The Doctor, per usual, manages to surprise him.
A laugh bubbles up from Stone’s chest, disbelief slipping out with it. He blinks, trying to make sense of- of how hurt Robotnik sounded when he said that, how slighted. “I- are you actually asking me that?” he asks. He doesn’t wait for a response, hands clenching in his blankets. “Do you have any idea how often you tell me that you wouldn’t care if I died? I didn’t go crying to you because I knew it wouldn’t do me any good.”
Robotnik snorts. “Nice excuse, did your mom pick it out for you?”
Stone’s jaw drops. He’s still high on morphine, isn’t he? That’s what’s going on here, right? “What?”
“If you avoided telling me things because you knew I wouldn’t care,” Robotnik hisses, somewhere between apathetic and so deeply invested, as he slumps back into his chair, “then you’d never open your mouth, so no, I’m not buying that. Try again, Agent. Give me the real reason.”
Up until he said that, Stone believed his answer to be completely truthful. Had anyone else asked, he would have given them the same answer he just gave Robotnik, and he never would have corrected them.
When did the Doctor learn to read Stone’s emotions better than he could read them himself? On what day did Stone blink and notice that tiny little change in their dynamic?
“I didn’t want to scare you.” The words fall right out without Stone meaning for them to. They’re honest, of course- more honest than the last ones- but they’re unprecedented. He hasn’t thought of them before. “If I’m going to be your assistant, I need to be self-sufficient and ready for anything, including stuff like this. I wanted to keep it to myself, because if I didn’t, and I stressed you out even worse, then that means I failed, and with you, failure is unacceptable.”
Robotnik raises an eyebrow. “Of course it is, I don’t employ failures, but-”
“That’s not what I meant,” Stone interrupts. He says it a bit firmer than he means to, and instinctively, his breath hitches, readying him for the pain of a slap or a few hundred volts, but to his surprise, Robotnik stops, his mouth snapping shut. Stone takes a minute to gather himself, clenches his eyes shut, then finishes. “You deserve perfection. If I’m not perfect, then I shouldn’t be here.”
Silence.
“Stone,” a voice breaks it, terse and on the verge of exploding into sheer rage at any moment, “do you know how many agents I had before you?”
Stone keeps his eyes shut, but they’ve had this conversation before, sort of. He’s disposable. He can be replaced. That’s where this is going. “Seventeen, sir.”
“And how long did the most successful of them last?”
High turnover rate. Won’t last a week. The kind of assignment that the other agents only talk about under their breaths in harsh whispers. “Six weeks.”
“Remind me again how long you’ve been my assistant.” Stone’s eyes snap open. That isn’t in the original script. He meets Robotnik’s gaze, startled, and Robotnik just waves him along. “Go on. Tell me.”
Stone hesitates, almost spitting out the length of his employment down to the day, then dials it back. “…Nearly two years.”
“Don’t you think, then,” Robotnik seethes, that heat finally boiling up to the surface, “that you’re far more useful to me alive than dead?”
I won’t miss you when you’re gone.
If you dropped dead, right now, I wouldn’t even notice. I’d just step over your corpse. Hell, I may leave you there until the scent gets too unbearable to stand, just to get a few days of peace and quiet.
You’re just a statistic to me, Agent. They send you here so if I go rogue, they can say they’ve done their part. Just sit over there and try not to breathe too loudly, mmkay?
Based on all previous evidence, that shouldn’t be the case. It doesn’t make sense.
The sentiment, as unbelievable as it is, still floods Stone’s chest with warmth, and it makes each and every second of torment worth it. It doesn’t change anything, but he’ll still be thinking about it for the next month. “And here I thought you’d be happy to get rid of me,” he murmurs, half-joking.
“Agent Stone, are you fucking stupid, or is the blood loss still screwing with your head?”
That snaps him out of it. Stone blinks, coming back to reality to see the Doctor snarling at him with genuine malice. “I- sir.”
“You know what I’ll be the day you finally kick it? Annoyed. Righteously fucking annoyed.” Robotnik scans him over, disgust written plain across his features, and while he initially meets Stone’s eye again, he opens his mouth, fails to say anything, and turns his attention to his lap before he can actually continue, gesturing as animatedly as ever. “No one lets me shove them around like you do. You drive me around, listen to- hell, participate in- my bouts of complaining, plan so far ahead that you leave no room for error, and at the end of the day, you greet me the moment I walk off stage with a big, goofy smile. You take what could be your dying breath to tell me that I amaze you. No, I won’t be sad, but you must be a bigger idiot than I thought if you think I’m going to be happy.”
“I-“ Stone has to cut himself off to swallow, still shell-shocked. God, he means it, too. It’s not just some empty platitude to make him feel better. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Then don’t say anything. Shut up,” he snaps. He falls back into his chair again, arms crossed over his chest, and after a moment, he lowers his volume with a snort. “‘Get rid of you’. As if. If I were getting rid of you, you’d know.”
Stone lets that hang in the air for a moment, hearts swimming behind his vision, but- nope. Professionalism. He takes a deep breath. “In the future, if I sustain an injury-“
“You tell me about it. Immediately,” Robotnik cuts him off there. His voice slips into a slightly lower register, something just as domineering, but a hell of a lot more dangerous. “Think of it this way, Stone: you are, for all intents and purposes, mine. I have you by the balls. You’re wearing my collar and leash. I take very, very good care of what’s mine. It’s the only way to keep my favorite toys in proper working order, don’t you agree?”
Oh, god. People wanting to sleep with their boss is a normal kink, as far as Stone knows, but this? Wanting him to drag him around on a leash? That’s… probably not near as standard.
“Can’t believe you thought I’d be mad at you for getting me out of that stupid conference,” Robotnik mutters, not even waiting for him to agree. He knows the answer, anyway. Stone agrees with everything else he says, why not this? He affords himself a slight chuckle right after. “Everyone in the metropolitan area sends their sympathies, by the way. Poor us, having to cancel on account of our injuries. We must want to be there so badly.”
Oh. Okay. Cool. Now we’re saying all the quiet parts out loud, and Stone doesn’t have to think about how wildly this conversation is going to change his porn viewing habits once he gets home. He sighs, easing himself back onto the pillows. “Doctor, you can just turn down these invitations. You know that, right?”
“No, I can’t. You know that.” Eh. Debatable, but when the Doctor has his mind made up, Stone knows not to argue with him. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m beyond pissed that I have to sit here and wait for you to heal up, but do you know how nice it is, suddenly having a week with no government deadlines looming? I can work on whatever the hell I want.”
“I’m shocked you weren’t already at the hotel. Or- or that you came up here from there this morning, I guess.”
A beat. “Came up from-“ Robotnik starts, one eyebrow raised, only to stop midway through his sentence. It clicks for him a half-second before it clicks for Stone, the two of them staring at each other blankly before that, but Robotnik says it first. “…It never occurred to me to go back.”
Well, shit. Maybe the Doctor really does care about him. Stone’s head swims with the realization, trying to piece all of that together, and once the confusion passes, the horror sets in. “Wh- Doctor, have you been sleeping on a hospital room bench?!” Robotnik just sort of waves him off with a ‘meh’, and Stone, who gets on him for his sleep habits no less than once a week, sits up with a jolt, ready to chew him out; the only thing that stops him is the sharp pain in his abdomen when he does. He blinks the spots out of his eyes, grimacing, and he swears he sees Robotnik reach for him. When he settles back down, though, it seems as though Robotnik hasn’t moved. Must have imagined it. “Is that how you broke your hand?”
Robotnik sighs, disgruntled. “No, nothing so pedestrian.”
“Then how?!” Stone swears, if something happened while he was out, he’s going to find the person that did it and-
“I-“ Robotnik gets the first syllable out, then stops. He grits his teeth, glances up at Stone, and decides that, no, he can’t get out of this, then breaks eye contact to finish, throwing his hands up in defeat. “I punched the smug EMT that wouldn’t let me onto the ambulance with you, and my fist kept going! There! Happy?!”
What.
Robotnik… injured himself.
Trying to get to him.
Out of fear. And desperation. And sheer force of will.
And now Stone just has to deal with that information. The kind of information that, a mere two days ago, he could have died happy knowing, but now has to live with for as long as Robotnik so pleases, because his death would be a gigantic inconvenience.
That doesn’t mean Stone can’t gawk at him. “Oh my god.”
Robotnik sneers, the tips of his ears turning red in a way so imperceptible that anyone other than Stone wouldn’t notice. “Stone. Shut up. That’s an order.”
Stone does not, in fact, shut up. He disobeys a direct order, raking a hand through his hair in sheer disbelief. “You punched an ambulance? Better yet, you punched a guy, followed through to punch an ambulance, and they didn’t arrest you?”
“Flashing a government ID can really take you places.”
Great! And now Robotnik just wants to play it cool, like this won’t take up more space in Stone’s brain than literally anything else! “I just- I can’t believe-”
“Well, it happened, so you better wrap your head around it,” he snaps, pushing himself to his feet. He jams his hands in his pockets, making sure to put the broken one down far enough that Stone can’t see his cast, but other than that, he stands tall. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have places to be. Like, literally anywhere else, because I’ve been here for hours and I don’t have to take this from you.”
“Alright.” Cute. Is that an inappropriate thought to have about one’s boss? ‘Cute’? Stone forces himself to relax, not wanting to scare himself off any further, and settles back down again, getting comfortable. “Thank you for looking after me, Doc.”
Robotnik just grunts. He makes his way across the room, heading for the door, but-
“Doctor?”
Robotnik groans, halting in the doorway. He leans against it, then leers back over his shoulder at him. “Jesus, Stone, what now?”
“What did I say to you? On the ambulance?” Initially, Stone doesn’t really know what he’s talking about, just that he wants to know, but- oh. Right. There’s no pictures there, just sounds, but after a moment of consideration, he can piece the words together well enough. “I said something, and you said ‘I know you do, save your breath’. What did I say?”
He doesn’t even get the chance to finish before Robotnik’s hardened scowl turns into a grimace, visibly breaking. A chill runs down Stone’s spine, wondering what could have possibly been so bad that Robotnik reacts like that, and while Robotnik hesitates for a moment, then gives him the answer, as neutral as he can manage. “...You said you love me.”
“Oh,” Stone blurts out immediately. The air grows a bit too tight all of the sudden. His skin burns. Out of all of the things he expected, that certainly wasn’t on the list. When the dumbstruck haze wears off, his mouth just takes off, and he apologizes as fast as his body will let him. “Oh my god, I am so, so sorry. That’s completely unprofessional of me, I can just-”
“Relax. I already knew that. This isn’t news to me.”
Stone lets out a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a groan of sheer embarrassment, wishing, deep down, that he didn’t now know exactly why he isn’t allowed to die. “How? Is there some other life-threatening injury I’ve sustained that I’m forgetting about?”
“No, Stone, it’s just that fucking obvious. No one forces themselves to endure a stab wound all day just to keep someone else calm, not unless they love that person.” An eye roll. Condescension. It still makes Stone’s heart sing. “The way you look at me every day, I know.”
Stone takes a moment to drink that in- or, rather, to get his heart to stop beating a mile a minute. God, does Robotnik see that? What could he possibly think? Stone forces himself to swallow, composing himself as best he can. “And that, uh. Doesn’t bother you?”
“Hell no.” He says it so gently that, at first, Stone thinks he might get some sort of reciprocation, but then he sees the smile spreading across Robotnik’s face. Wolfish. Triumphant. He has Stone right where he wants him. “It just makes you that much more loyal to me.”
And then he just- leaves. He walks away whistling, leaving Stone to sit in his hospital room, counting down the seconds until he returns, if he ever decides to at all.
With each one, Stone can’t help but fall a little more in love with him.
-
“You’re snuggly when you’re high,” Robotnik notes, like he’s observing one of his machines. Stone just hums and buries his face a little further into Robotnik’s sides, his arms coiled around his waist like he’ll disappear if he isn’t touching as much of him as possible. With a sound somewhere between a resigned sigh and a huff, Robotnik runs a gloved hand through his hair. “Are you going to remember any of this when you wake up tomorrow?”
As it turns out, the Doctor managed to catch him in a rare moment of lucidity that morning. He told Stone once he came back that he had been high on morphine for the last several days, more to keep him docile than comfortable. It works. If previous patterns are to be trusted, Stone won’t freak out, and he won’t remember this. It doesn’t matter if Robotnik, for reasons Stone will never fully understand, agreed to sit next to him in his hospital bed, dulling any anxiety to little more than a dull murmur. A man can still dream, though, right? “I hope so.”
“You would say that.”
“Uh-huh.” A smile splits Stone’s face clean in half as he puts his chin against Robotnik’s side, looking up at him. “‘Cause I love you.”
Robotnik snorts, nodding along with something of a ‘yeah, whatever’ sort of motion. “You’ve already told me that. Half a dozen times within the last hour, even.”
“Well, that’s okay, because it’s true, and it doesn’t bother you.” He pauses, waiting to see if Robotnik protests. When he doesn’t, Stone continues. “So now I’m gonna tell you all the time. ‘Cause I can, and I want to.”
“Don’t you want to know if I love you back?”
Silence.
Save for the hospital monitors and the steady thrum of Robotnik’s heart beneath his ribcage, Stone hears absolutely nothing for a second. Not even his own breath.
“I dunno. I don’t think I care,” he says once he finally decides on an answer. Above him, the Doctor starts breathing again, the corner of his mouth twitching. Stone decides to take a little bit of the pressure off of him, putting his cheek against his side again and shutting his eyes. “As long as you know how much I care about you, then that’s okay.”
“Generous as always, Stone.”
At first, Stone just hums, more than fine to leave it at that, but the longer he lays there, the more it nags at him. He waits a minute, at least, to see if he changes his mind, and when he doesn’t, hesitantly, he speaks up again. “…Do you?”
A sigh. “You should try again when you’re not high or dying. Maybe then I’ll answer you. I don’t see a point in doing so when you’re like this.”
“Alright.” Oh, well. Can’t win ‘em all. “Remind me, mmkay?”
“Sure. We’ll see.”
(He says that with all the trepidation of a man who most certainly will not be reminding Stone to ask him again, nor that any of this happened in the first place, and Stone knows it’s futile to ask. It just felt like the right thing to say. Hell, if he were sober, he probably wouldn’t be able to ask, too embarrassed and terrified to destroy what they have, but for now, this is fine. He gets to curl up at the Doctor’s side, knowing he’s safe and loved, and, for once, no shame burns in the pit of his stomach over it).