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hoardcloneheadcanons · 10 days ago

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Small Regressions

Ivo Robotnik and Agent Stone find a new way to get Ivo to stop working and relax.

Ivo knew what a mom looked like. His mama had tan skin and dark hair and calloused hands that made him feel safe. That was normal, right?

Content Warnings: Mental Age Regression, under negotiated-kink, Unhealthy Work-habits, Roleplay, No actual sex, consensual feminization, but not feminization in “let me dominate you”, feminization as in “PLEASE HOLD ME”, Implication of Yandere Stone, Oedipal, Freudian

Am I ashamed? Yes. Did that Stop me? No. I figure somebody else is into this too. If you want to feel my mentality while writing this listen to Mama's Boy by Dominic Fike for an hour on loop until your brain goes numb.

Ivo Robotnik, Orphan Extraordinaire, should not be able to have mommy issues, but here we are. To be fair, what he had were specifically mommy envy issues as well as childhood envy issues.

It felt unfair that everyone else got to have them, and he didn’t. He waffled between feeling superior and being utterly resentful.

It was always just him, ever since he aged out of the foster care system. If he wanted the floors cleaned, he had to do it. If he didn’t want the dishes to get moldy, he had to clean them. If he didn't want to default on his student loans, he had to get a job, keep in touch with the bank, and pay off the money bit by bit. If he didn’t want to lose his scholarships, he had to be the one to read through every fine print detail and follow every rule. The weight taken on by a family support system was all taken onto his shoulders. Every piece of knowledge passed on from parent to child was learned on his own time, or when a social worker could bother to come down and talk to him.

Sometimes it made him feel superior. Every damn thing he gained, he gained himself. Every time he blew past somebody in grades and competition, he knew he did it without the support network they took for granted, without the Mom or Dad at the end of the day who would tell them they were proud of them. He did it for the love of the game, just to prove he was better. He did it just so he could take every possible accolade, so no one else could have it. He’d be the one laughing when they all had to pay for their parents' medical expenses and group homes, and he had nothing but expendable income.

Sometimes it made him bitter. He felt so mad he could spit. Whenever there was some new movie, or TV show, or toy, or fashion trend that everyone around him knew he was going to have to hear an endless chorus of “Oh, you haven’t seen…?” and “Oh, you didn’t know?” and “Oh, you haven’t heard…?”. It made him sick to death with rage and despair every time. No, he hadn’t seen the most recent popular movie, or the one everyone watched when they were 5. He lived in an orphanage with 30 varying orphans of various ages. He had to share the remote, and they usually got things second-hand. He always saw and heard things a few years out of date or never saw them at all because he didn’t have parents with an expendable income who could give him an allowance or take him on family outings.

He got a job at a movie theatre when he was 15, just so he could hate-watch the damn movies that everyone knew so much about and say “yes, in fact, I have seen it”. It was easy to do his homework and read his physics textbook from inside the ticket booth. And it wasn’t as noisy as the group home.

And sometimes it just made him tired and sad. Every time he got scared or hurt, and there was no one there to comfort him, he was tired. Every time he got held after school or sent to the principal's office, and the only one to show up for him was one of the nuns from the orphanage, he was tired. In college, when he watched parents help move their kids into the various dorm rooms on campus, he was tired. Every time the holidays came and people started talking about family plans, and what they’d do when they went home, he was fucking exhausted.

Sometimes, sometimes, Ivo just wanted someone to hold him, to comfort him, and tell him that everything was going to be all right. He wanted to believe that when he fell, someone was going to pick him up off the ground.

So sometimes, Ivo pretended.

Sometimes. Sometimes, when no one was looking, when no eyes pried. He put on an episode of a TV show he liked, wrapped himself in fuzzy blankets and pretended he had the kind of childhood where someone would be making breakfast in the kitchen while he watched Saturday morning cartoons in his footie pajamas, in a room where he didn't have to share the channel changer, and he had his own toys.

If he did it while he was waiting for the toast to be done, he could shut his eyes and pretend there was an imaginary someone over in the other room. Someone who was making him food and keeping an eye on him while he was distracted.

If he focused really hard, let his brain go fuzzy with it, it was usually a mom, or some impression of one made from a cobbled together collage of actresses from 50s sitcoms, and ladies he saw pick up their kids from school.

Once he opened his eyes and remembered that he had to be the one to clean up the kitchen himself, it felt depressing, but until then, he had a few minutes of self-soothing brain shut-off and a nice false-nostalgic dream.

It was a self-isolating habit he kept as he got older. Whenever the deadlines became too long and he got so wired to the gills that he felt like he was going to rip someone's face off with his own damn teeth he knew he could retreat into his room for a couple of hours, chose some piece of pop media he’d vaguely heard people nattering about around him, wrap himself in blankets and pretend.

Then some of the pressure would peel off, and he could continue going along alone, as he’d always done.

______________________________________________________________

30 years passed from Ivo’s college years. He got old enough to accept a position as a weapons designer for G.U.N., excel at it and hate everyone around him. He grew very, very used to his isolated existence where he was the only source of competence he could ever trust.

Then he got to the promotion point where they had to assign him an Agent, as a barely disguised attempt to keep an eye on him and keep him in check. They threw several at him, before they found one that could match his ever-demanding habits, and even more-demanding requests. He reached his mid 50s before Agent Stone joined his lab, and slid in like he always belonged there

______________________________________________________________

Agent Stone was ruining Ivo’s patterns. He’d been working for 37 hours straight. He should have stopped at 24. He was usually better at gauging when he needed to stop and shut down. Usually, if he stood up to get himself food, and his legs felt like they were shaking and his head felt light, it was time to stop. Or if he felt like strangling somebody when they were breathing too near to him, it was getting time to stop.

The problem is that Agent Stone had brought him all his food as a dutiful assistant should. He'd kept everyone away from Ivo's lab. And Stone’s breathing didn’t bother him. Stone was trained in stealth: if he didn’t want to be heard, he wasn’t.

So he didn’t notice that he’d been working too long until he glanced at the clock on the corner of his computer screen and saw 6:00. It couldn’t be 6:00, it had already been 6:00 just a couple of hours ago- and then 18:00, and then- while he was trying to think how long he’d been sitting there, the numbers started to double-up and overlap on each other.

He sat up, and his back creaked.

He tried to stand up to stretch and nearly fell over. His legs were weak beneath him, and the room wobbled like the numbers had before, everything becoming rubber.

Stone grabbed him by the shoulder and slowly started lowering him down.

“You’ve been sitting in that same position for a very long time, Sir. Maybe take it easy.”

Ivo let out an 'oh' like he was punched.

“Should I get you some water?” Stone said, a death grip still implanted in Ivo’s shoulder.

(Why was he still functional, had he slept while Ivo wasn’t looking? Probably, Ivo became less aware of his surroundings when he was focused. He could imagine six hours or so slipping by without his notice.)

“Yes. Good.” Ivo managed to grunt out. His voice felt and sounded full of nails. He felt like a caveman. He needed to turn off and reset badly.

Stone handed him a bottle of water, and Ivo just stared at it blankly before Stone unscrewed the cap for him and said, “You should drink this, Sir.”

Sir. He’d trained Stone to call him doctor. Stone didn’t call him sir unless he himself was truly distracted, and then he reverted to old military habits. He was worried.

Which would be a very useful observation in a time after he’d shut down. A billion half-thoughts about the room around him, and the man next to him spun around his head, bouncing off the walls of his skull, and he still hadn’t lifted the water to his lips. He’d been in his mind too long, and now accessing his body felt like a slog.

“I just have to twitch one of my fingers,” Ivo thought, “ it’ll make the rest easier.

This wasn’t the first time he’d worked himself into a limp, brain-buzzing state. He could get out of it; he’d done so before. This was the first time he’d done this to himself in front of an audience, and the idea was humiliating.

He managed to move the pinky. Ring finger, middle finger, index, thumb. Eye blink. Ok, he felt more real. He could do this. He lifted the water bottle to his mouth and slowly drank, narrowly missing Stone’s hands coming for the bottom of the bottle, and jerked away.

“Were you going to guide it to my mouth if I didn’t? For fucks sake I’m not that out of it. Give me a minute.” He thought, glaring while draining the water. He’d yell at him later about being too patronizing when he had the energy to do things like shout, form words, and stand without falling over.

Next to him, Stone sighed in relief.

He offered to take the water bottle from him when he was done, and Ivo opted instead to throw it towards the trash can.

It hit the rim. Close enough. Ivo (Stone) could clean up later.

Stone didn’t react. There was a cot in front of Robotnik’s feet that wasn’t there before. It was the cot that Ivo kept stored in the back of the lab.

Oh, Stone must’ve moved it while he was recalibrating. That made sense.

“I’m going to slowly lower you to the ground, sir- Doctor, could you put your arm over my shoulder?”

Stone slowly lowered him to the ground, supporting most of his weight as his feet collapsed below him.

It took seconds before Ivo fell asleep.

When he woke up, there was a pillow under his head and a blanket on top of him, and Stone was back at his desk in the back of the lab, doing paperwork, watching over Ivo as he slept.

______________________________________________________________

There were just a few switches changed, and gears loosened around Stone. The ever constant “I will always be on my own. I will always be the one pulling myself up from the floor” on loop in Ivo’s head got quieter and fuzzier. It used to be an immutable law of the universe, and then just a general rule that happened less and less, and then it got replaced with the new, immutable law of “Stone will always be there”

______________________________________________________________

Robotnik regretted getting kidnapped.

Not because he was tortured. Not because he inevitably had to mouth off and make it worse for himself. Not because his attackers hacked parts out of his skin, and he truly expected to die.

But because Stone firemen carried him out and he just had to know how that felt now.

He had to know what it was to pass out from blood loss on Stone’s fucking shoulders and then wake up bandaged.

He had to know what it felt like for his heart rate to slow down, because Stone was around and taking care of it, and Robotnik didn’t have to run, because Stone was doing it for him.

And now he was at home, still in recovery, squeezing a pillow into his sternum, just to get an ounce, a fraction of that feeling. He was laid out on his couch, not even paying attention to the movie he was watching.

It wasn’t hard enough. He needed more solid pillows. If he aimed it perfectly on the seam of a cushion stolen from another couch, then it felt almost right.

It just made him feel safe.

______________________________________________________________

Things not appropriate to ask your assistant: “It’s 8pm, why aren’t you outside my house?”

Robotnik had designed an injectable tracker specifically for Stone. He’d waited for Stone to pass out in the lab during one of their late shifts and stabbed it into the heels of his shoes, where he wouldn’t notice.

He tracked Stone's location on a watch he always kept at his side. He always knew where he was. And it's how he found out about Stone’s little late night visits. Sometimes the little red dot on his watch that indicated Stone’s location, and the associated GPS coordinates, listed him as right outside of his house. It usually happened in the evenings. It lasted for a half hour, and then passed.

Robotnik didn’t think much of it. Stone was his bodyguard, he was checking on him. It meant he was close at hand. It was such a regular event that on evenings where he wasn’t outside he got nervous.

“Where are you and what’s so important right now that isn’t me?” he thought

He checked his watch for the coordinates and found that Stone was at a local grocery store.

“Oh, we are getting low in break-room supplies. Nevermind”

When he checked again at 10, Stone was outside his house, as per usual.

He slept soundly.

______________________________________________________________

Ivo has a flu so bad that he took the day off.

His nostrils are crusted over, his body aches, he's sweaty, and he’s hidden under three layers of blankets just to stop the shivering. Hunger rips through his stomach, but the kitchen is so far away. And he knows that if he leaves the blankets, he’ll start shivering again, and the sinus headache will return to him with a vengeance, angry at the change in position.

He checks his watch, and there is a red dot, blinking outside his house, with the GPS coordinates to match it.

He calls Stone, ”If you’re going to be outside my house anyway, you might as well make yourself useful and make me some soup.”

There is silence on the other end for a bit- he gave his Agent a little time to process the shame. “I’m sorry, I thought I had kept my check-ins more subtle,” said Agent Stone on the other end.

“You thought wrong.” He grumbled.

“Brilliant as always, Doctor.”

He burrowed deeper into the blankets.

He was, wasn't he?

“Spare key is inside the lockbox- combination is 47-”

He heard the door open before he could finish. Right, special operations agent with stalker tendencies. Why had he expected the lock to work?

“Why do I even bother with you?" He said, and hung up.

He pointed Stone to the multiple cans of Campbell's soup he had in the kitchen for occasions like this. Things he could make easily, even when he was dead on his feet. He just had to tear open the can, slide them into a bowl, and microwave them.

Then he tried to sleep, half-listening to the various kitchen noises outside his bedroom. None of which included a microwave, but time and consciousness sloshed around in his head too much to tell. He woke up to the sound of a table being shoved near his bed and dishes being set down.

Instead of hastily microwaved Campbell's, what he got was something doctored up, with cut-up vegetables, ground beef, seasoning, orange juice, chamomile tea, and a side of toast, put on a side table next to his bed. Is this what being cared for felt like? Is this what everyone else had for years? Jesus, he was going to cry.

“I couldn't find any stock, so I made do with what was there. I'm going to go pick up some things for your dinner. Leave the dishes on the table. I'll clean it up when I get back. You going to be ok without me for a bit?

(No.)

“I’ll be fine, Stone.”

Beside him, Stone froze and blinked real slow.

“I’m sorry, what was that, Doctor?”

"I existed many years without you, Agent Stone. I'll be fine."

(Please don't make me do it again.)

He felt the back of Stone’s hand on his forehead and didn’t know whether to flinch or lean in, so he just froze, eyes wide open.

“Oh, that’s a nasty one. I’ll put a few extra things on the list. The remote’s on your bedside table. It won't be for long. Please try to get some rest.”

Ivo ate what he could, turned on the TV to Animal Planet, curled himself into the tightest ball he could, and pretended Stone was still there and that he just couldn't hear him over the sounds of the show. He slept just fine.

When he woke up again, there was homemade soup, ginger tea, and a bottle of decongestant next to the right side of his bed, and a cold compress on his head. To the left of him, Stone was sound asleep in a pulled-up chair, book open on his lap.

______________________________________________________________

What Ivo had thought he said, what he was certain he said, was “I’ll be fine, Stone.”

What he had actually said, and what Agent Stone had heard, was

“I’ll be fine, Mom.

Agent Stone felt like he was hallucinating.

______________________________________________________________

Stone got left behind on a mission.

It was saving him.

They were in enemy territory working to cut off access to a weapons smuggling group. They’d been surrounded, and Stone had gone in to cause as much destruction as he could, ready to be a distraction.

“It has been an honor working with you, Doctor. I’ve never been happier.” And then he ran in

Robotnik had barely escaped. He hadn’t wanted to go, but he’d managed to get back to the primary base a few miles away, dragging himself on a shot leg, determined to get back-up to save Stone. Only to be told by some blank-faced, no-name general that Stone had done his duty, they were glad to have their primary weapons scientist back, and they would find him a replacement soon.

Absolutely fucking not.

Ivo’s brain nearly destroyed itself as it burned itself down thinking of solutions to get him back. He pulled out all the blackmail (found some new content just to be sure), used up every favor, and every intimidation tactic he had, to get every shit-faced, half-witted, slobbering, brain-dead General and Corporal to give him every resource he needed to get Stone back.

Then he worked double-time, triple-time, breakneck speed, sifting through data from satellites, and every digital device to get access to information on the location of the base, the exact supply train paths, the relationships and friends of every single member of that smuggling group, unpacking all the secrets of their base in a matter of hours.

He heard someone looking over his shoulder at his work joke that they needed to let Stone get kidnapped more often if it got him this motivated. He slammed their face into the desk in front of him, and then into one of the computer screens, without looking up. He's sure he'd get a penalty for that. He couldn't care. He threw the cracked-blood-soaked screen away, changed his setup from six screens to five, and kept going.

He dismantled the entire operation of Stone’s captors in days.

And then when he finally had Stone-alive, He grabbed him by the lapels, shoved him up against a wall, burrowed his face in his chest, and said over and over. “No, you’re not leaving, you don’t get to leave ever. Do you understand me? You’re not leaving. You’re not allowed.”

He wasn’t aware enough at the time to care about anyone else around. But he remembered a harsh bark of “Out. Now.” he didn’t listen to it because all he could focus on was the fact that Stone’s heart was still beating and that he was close enough to hear it.

(It sounded like Stone, but not a version that had ever been directed towards him.)

He remembered footsteps leaving the room. A door shutting, and then hands and arms wrapping around him and soft words, “It’s ok Doctor. I’m right here, shh. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”

He wheezed at the comfort.

He wanted to crawl inside him so they didn’t have to be separated again.

______________________________________________________________

Ivo had gotten worse after Stone’s recovery from the smugglers

Stone had found him concerning before. But now they were both healing, and Ivo was pushing multiple 20-40 hour shifts in a row.

Whenever Stone pointed out that they both needed to heal, Robotnik would wave him off and tell him, “There’s the cot in the back, and that couch you ordered. Feel free to rest. Acting completely oblivious that Stone meant he, as in Ivo, needed to rest.

Stone didn’t know why his behavior had gotten worse, but he had plenty of suspicions. If Robotnik was working then Stone was going to be around. And lately Ivo had been looking at Stone like he might vanish any day. He was clingier than normal, he walked closer to him. Which Stone wouldn’t mind if Ivo would just sleep.

Drugging his coffee might have been a tad dramatic, but this was getting ridiculous.

Stone might have felt more guilty if it hadn’t taken over an hour for the sedatives to take effect. He had given him a lighter dose, worried about affecting his already tenuous health.

He didn’t know that it had taken effect until Robotnik face-planted on his desk, in front of him, blocking up his keyboard and holding up a coffee cup to Stone’s eye level.

“MmmmMMrrllgll-” he moaned, a sound Stone could roughly translate as “I need more coffee.”

Stone plucked the cup out of his hand.

“No, I don't think we’re having any more of that now.”

Stone wheeled him over to the couch and unceremoniously shoved him on it. Tucking his legs up onto it before Ivo had the chance to fully understand what was going on.

Ivo tried to get up, and Stone put a hand on his chest.

“You need at least an hour or two of rest, or you’re going to be completely non-functional. Just stop for a bit, we have the time.”

It wasn’t going to be an hour or two. Stone fully intended it to be longer. But a little white-lie never hurt anyone.

Ivo was still trying to get up, grabbing at him, trying to fight sleep, and Stone was getting frustrated.

“Darling, can you just settle? Please?”

The small endearment that Stone kept in his head, so close to the title he usually called him, slipped out in his plea. Ivo looked up at him owlishly, and Stone remembered a time when he was sick- the same expression when he’d put his hand to Ivo’s forehead and wondered if there was a small hack to it. A little sweetness to help the medicine go down.

“Sweetheart, can you be good for me and settle down? You can call me Mama if you want. If it’s easier. Can you let me take care of you for a bit? I can handle it."

It was a gamble. Stone still didn’t know if what he heard when Ivo was sick was a result of Ivo’s feverish state or if he was hearing things.

Ivo still wasn’t moving, and he started to pull his limbs into himself and lie down.

Stone breathed a sigh of relief, grabbed a blanket from the top of the couch, and tucked it around him.

Ivo grabbed him by the pant leg around his knees and yanked him to the couch, crawling into his lap to press his face into his stomach, and wrap his arms around his waist, pinning Stone down, but also not moving himself.

“Oh,” Thought Stone. “That worked better than expected.”

Carefully, gently, Stone rested his hands on Ivo’s head, and when no protest was made, started to card his hands through his hair. He was rewarded with several happy little hums and Ivo going limp against him, the sedatives finally taking effect.

Something dark and curling and possessive settled in Stone's chest as he watched Ivo's peaceful face.

"What's one more bad habit that you feed?" Stone said to Ivo's sleeping form.

_____________________________________________________________

It was the first time anyone had ever admitted to knowing about Ivo’s cravings, put words to them, and admitted they knew about his mommy issues and used it. Ivo felt humiliated.

Why had he debased himself like that?

He yelled at Stone. Told him he was never to baby him like that ever again. What sort of useless roleplay was that? He was older than him. He didn't have parents. There was no learned helplessness from childhood. He was stupid for offering. You mistook my incoherent mumblings for something sentimental. I just wanted coffee.

Stone listened to him, did as he said, and never brought it up again.

And that all lasted and stood, until the next time he was absolutely exhausted and couldn't make himself stop working.

And Stone was in the background. And he just needed help. He just needed to stop, but his eyes were bloodshot and his fingers were cramping, and this was due tomorrow.

“Mama?”

“Did you need something, Doctor?”

“Mama, please.” more urgently, voice raspy

“...”

“Yes, Habibi?”

Robotnik wanted to cry with happiness that his agent was willing to disobey orders. He needed him.

“Can I stop now? Can it be over? I don't- I can't”

“That's ok, I already got you an extension. You can shut it off; we can work on it in the morning.”

He remembered the hand on his shoulder and the kiss on the corner of his forehead. He was still frozen.

“Sweetheart?”

Couldn’t move.

“Can you put your toys away, Darling?

And why did that work? Why was he suddenly capable of moving the mouse and clicking everything to shut down?

It's like his thoughts shrank down to fit the size of Stone's words. He wasn't Robotnik anymore, he was Habibi, he was Sweetheart, he was Darling. And this wasn't some complicated engine that he needed to finish tomorrow; it was just a toy he was playing with, something to distract him while his Mama was busy. And all the jagged hooks of possible solutions and adrenaline that were trying to drag him forward suddenly had no purchase to take hold in.

The screen went black and suddenly he could breathe and feel normal.

“There we go, Baby.”

His brain short-circuited and stopped.

He was baby? He was going to be taken care of? He was wanted?

Mama, Mama, Mine! Mine!

He swiveled around, buried his face in his mother's stomach, and wrapped his arms around his waist.

Thoughts? What thoughts? No thoughts. Just warmth and softness and his mother's approval.

He was burrowing into him so much into all the love and care and support and nurturing that he hadn’t known and now was being offered on a silver platter.

You can call me mama if you want. If it’s easier. You can let me take care of you for a bit. I can handle it.

Robotnik was ill with it.

I love you I love you I love you I love you. Stay with me forever. Never Leave me. Take care of me. Don’t leave Don’t leave Don’t leave.

There was a laugh in Stone's voice as he spoke.

“Darling, I need to get you to bed.”

There were fingers carding through his hair as he said it. So much effortless affection. Why did he have to go to bed? He wanted to stay here in his mother's arms, feeling so absolutely safe and protected.

It was madness. If Stone hadn't saved him so many times. If he didn't insist on being so liberal with the praise. If he didn't disobey orders only when needed and always seem to be competent, then Ivo wouldn't have him so keyed in as a warmth and safe and trust. It wouldn’t be so deep in him that he could regress down to size and have it still be there like a tattoo on his bones.

“Mama, I don’t want to.”

“You'll feel better in the morning if you do. C'mon sweetheart. Can you walk?”

Ivo responded by just rubbing his face deeper into Stone's waist, nuzzling him.

No one had ever said he was a good child. That he'd make it easy. He hadn't when he'd been truly young. Why would it change now?

This is the part when he'd usually get yelled at, and the thought made him grip tighter, made him want to hide behind Stone and wait until it passed.

“Ok, I'm carrying you. I'm just going to check the hallway for people and- no one. And I activated your program to loop the feed. No one will see. If you let go now, I can give you a piggyback ride back to your place so you can sleep better.”

Ivo remembered the fireman's carry from months ago and let Stone detach him.

Stone kneeled down, carefully pulling Ivo’s arms from his waist and reattaching them around his shoulders. Ivo had his face in his neck as soon as he was able, every inch of him just wanting to push him closer.

“There we go, baby boy! Can you wrap your legs around my waist? If you hold on tight and stay very still, I can carry you to the car, and we can get you home, ok?

______________________________________________________________

There was no stopping Stone from offering after that.

“Darling?”

It was always something subtle, something that could be mistaken for a normal workplace relationship, if anyone was around to overhear.

If Ivo wasn’t ready, if he needed to get something done, it would always be. “Not now, Stone. I just need a few more minutes.”

But his will was only so strong, and once the offer was out there, he’d want it desperately.

“I could use a break.”

“What kind, Doctor?”

“You know the one.”

"Halls are empty. Let's go back up to your place, ok, Doctor?”

"...."

"Sweetheart?"

"Ok"

Ivo will grab his hand and look down. Or hide his face in Stone's shoulder so he doesn't have to look and will be led back to his car, and then his own home, where his brain is about 11 or 12 years old, and Stone takes care of him.

Slowly, the work week shrinks back down to a normal 50 hours as he’s given more and more reason to leave the lab.

______________________________________________________________

Ivo saw Stone coming through the door of his house while he was having a lazy day.

“Mom?”

He perked up at full attention before his brain caught up with his mouth. He let his head hit the back wall, feeling stupid. They hadn’t discussed doing anything today. This was likely a business-related visit.

“Agent Stone, forget what you heard in the past 15 seconds. What is your business here?”

“...”

Stone's silence made Robotnik nervous.

“I brought you a new toy you'd like.”

Any composure he'd carefully assembled was knocked over and shattered.

(Mom was home, Mom was home)

"Gimme”

She handed him a wrapped shiny box. And he tore it to shreds.

"Is it my birthday?"

"No, Honey, I know your birthday is in July, I just wanted it to feel special."

Dimly, in the part of him that was still Ivo Robotnik. He was surprised Stone knew his birthday.

The kid part of him accepted the idea readily. He was his Mom. Of course, she knew.

It was a box of magnets and metal, made to make a bunch of formations. Endless creativity.

“I know you get restless while I'm making dinner, and I thought those could distract you for a while.”

"I'm going to make a DNA formation? And caffeine molecules, and so many polyhedra, and-and-

“I'm excited to see them all Honey, I’m going to go make spaghetti for both of us. Do you want your chemistry textbook so you have more ideas?”

“Yes please.”

(It was actively harder for Ivo to be mean in his kid form. It was actively harder for him to do anything his mother didn’t want him to do. Distantly, there was the adult form inside him that knew he could tell off his Agent at any time, but right now that was buried by the part of him that just wanted to be held. And that didn’t happen if you yelled or thrashed.)

Stone kissed him on the corner of the forehead and got into the kitchen. And what started with Ivo restlessly switching between channels as he rotted was now him fully engaged in imaging formations while his mind was blank. Blissfully, blank. Filled with his mama's humming and the smells of seasoning in the kitchen and bright colors on the TV.

_____________________________________________________________

He was in his pajamas and a loose t-shirt.

Ivo Robotnik was blank and innocent.

He was pretending.

Why would he be anything else? Why would he be anything other than happy? His mama had always been there, and had always been protecting him. Nothing bad had ever happened to him. He’d always been loved and taken care of. There was no other version of him stained with loneliness and pain. It was just this version singing of sunshine and joy.

She was going to come in with lunch, and they were going to eat together. And then he was going to grab her and ask her to watch with him, and she was going to. She was going to!

They were going to sit on the floor and watch cartoons and eat sandwiches with his mother’s warmth radiating into him with a blanket wrapped around both of their shoulders, and nothing would hurt ever.

And tomorrow he was going to wake up and be Ivo Robotnik again and remember all the memories that had loss and loneliness and frustration, and the weight of responsibility. And all the old pains would click back into him.

But for now? For now, he was just happy.

____________________________________________________________

Authors Notes: Seeing as I was very distinctly exploring a kink, I was very nervous to attach my inspirations to this. I wouldn't want to make anyone uncomfortable at what their work inspired. But enough of you like it to make me less nervous, and I think these are good recs, so here we go.

Fandom Inspirations:

Chapter 60 of Sweet Talk by CasiHuman (Sweet talk - Chapter 60 - CasiHuman - Sonic the Hedgehog (Live Action Universe) [Archive of Our Own])

This specific post from Rock-Omlette Need more creepy obsessive Stone. No doctor you dont need to ever buy your own groceries I'll buy everything you ever need you... – @rock-omelette on Tumblr Part of this work is just me listing the exact reasons Robotnik could be intensely into that. This misanthrope wants to be coddled, and he doesn't want anyone else to see how embarrassing he gets when he is. Yandere-Stone is so funny to me, because he could do the most horrific things imaginable in front of Robotnik, and Robotnik would go "yeah that seems fine" and still proceed to bully him. You could tell Ivo every crime that Stone would be willing to commit in the name of his devotion, in an attempt to save him, and Ivo would tell you to stop complaining about the first good assistant he's had in years.

A little vision of the start and the end - Chapter 1 - Hereticality - Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) [Archive of Our Own] Which I swear half-got me into the Stobotnik fandom. I was dipping my toes into it before, and this yanked me in and I just let my brain soak in a soup of it. A lot of my ideas for how these two work together are influenced by this fic.

lavender oil - bunny_kisses04 - Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own] - I was already writing this, or some version of this by the time I read this fic, but its fingerprints are still in here. It wasn't in my gasoline tank at the start, but it was certainly a push forward when I was in the middle of writing, the extra encouragement to polish this up and post. Brat-Ivo is a little to the left of this one, and all the content I've read with him does influence this fic. I really enjoy reading content with Brat versions of him, but they don't reach the very specific itch I was looking to scratch by writing this

Music Inspirations

Mama's Boy by Dominic Fike- it's not just the title or the main ending verse. It's an intensely lonely song. It has touches of not wanting to feel human so you're less effected by emotion and pain /I wish I were a toy/. The insistence of /I'm not a Mama's Boy/ in the song in contrast to the main verse at the end fitting how, in Ivo's view, this shouldn't affect him because he is an orphan, but it does. And the way the music rises at the end lining up with someone overly intense taking over his life and his thoughts being drowned out. It wouldn't have taken much to make this fic creepier. And I mostly keep it on the rails by making sure that Ivo has two settings and can generally function in his day-to-day life. And that there is a degree of ask and permission structure, as well as privacy between these two when it comes to this specific roleplay. Most of the time when I write a fic it has a playlist. This was mostly just this song.

Say Goodnight and Go by Imogen Heap- Hey do you want like- the softest stalker song? One that also describes pining and fantasizing about a perfect way to get together with the target of your affections? One that also describes watching the target of your affections dance when they don't think you're there? Boy, have I got a song for you.

#Ivo Robotnik #Eggs and Rocks #I’m not tagging this sonic fandom #the children don’t need this.#stobotnik #agent stone #fanfiction #writing #Age regression

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hoardcloneheadcanons · 17 days ago

Text

Stone & Robotnik's Gaggle of Robot Children P7

Dr. Jeffers has no idea why people keep warning him to be wary of Agent Stone. So far, the man has done nothing but improve his life.

He's not sure about his taste in men though, from everything he's researched on Robotnik the man seems arrogant and asocial.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robotnik is dead, Agent Stone is "captured" by G.U.N. and is still trying to build Metal and complete his boss' legacy.

On his quest to do so Stone gives the gangliest, saddest researcher he can find an actual spine. Dr. Jeffers is learning what the price is for that Spine.

First Chapter

Previous Chapter

Ducks and Geese Will Imprint on Their Siblings and Parents After Hatching

Hey kid, I saw your presentation yesterday. Glad to see some initiative and some guts out of you finally. I got a project tailor-designed just for you. We used to have a different scientist on staff who was interested in biomimicry and weapons, but he went absolutely insane and died and now nobody's been able to activate any of his drones. I figured with your specialties aligning you might have additional insight. Whatever you do, don't try prying them open, they explode. The guy went by Dr. Ivo Robotnik. Contact me for any information you might need. This project is supposed to remain under wraps. He’s still got enemies in the organization who’d willingly destroy his tech rather than see it used, and allies who might further his old goals. In particular, avoid Agent Stone. We have him captured, but he’s the most likely to still be allied with him and emotionally compromised. Don’t get too distracted by this; we still need you on potential alien monitoring. Tell us if you find anything. -Director Granite

Dr. Jeffers read the email. He read it again. He kept looking back and forth from his computer set up to the large drone. Passively, he wondered if Robotnik was the old boss that Agent Stone seemed attached to. That would align with him wanting to hide it right?

After giving it a once over, He looked through the Ikea shelf on his back wall to find the old scooter he set boxes on to move into this space, and set C14-RA on it so that he could more easily look at it and turn it around, giving the drone it’s own short, wheely chair.

He observed its outsides, looking for ridges. It was smooth and shiney, with barely any creases that implied openings. There were a few slashes that might be vent fans.

He found a small serial number in red that said “C14-RA”

“Hello, C14-RA.. Welcome to my lab. It’s a closet, the tour is short. The computers, and all the screens I have to do my job are behind me right here along with my desk lamp. Behind you-

He pushed the scooter to rotate the drone 180 making its unlit eye look behind where it had originally been facing.

“-Are the Ikea shelves where I put all my stuff-I’m probably going to have to put you there sometimes if you’re so classified. Sorry. I’ve got a sheet to protect my computer from dust that I can use for you- just in case anybody comes in.”

“To the side of you is the wall” He turned the small gurney again,” And to the other side of you is the door. And that concludes our tour.”

It’s kinda boring here. Well- It’s getting more exciting. It’s getting better. I mean, you’re here. So that’s kinda- part of fixing it. I’m supposed to be able to access you? Or open you? Get you to turn on and follow orders I guess. I’m gonna…”

He slapped the note against his leg a few times.

“I’m going to research your Dad. It might not be the most responsible. I have like two other projects on my plate… one that’s my main job and one that’s … well one that’ll probably bring advancement. But I think I got a couple of minutes. And you just got here. I’m orientating you. Seems polite if I’m going to try and open up your insides to see how they work. Do you mind if I call you C14? C14-RA is a bit of a mouthful, and RA just seems kinda short.”

He talked over his shoulder as he typed.

“I’ll probably be talking to you as I go through this. I used to have a Boba Fett figurine I’d talk to whenever I’d get stuck on code. I’d explain it out and I’d usually be able to figure out what went wrong. Found a lot of incorrectly placed parentheses that way.”

He stopped.

Huh”

“Did you know that a lot of files on your Dad are incredibly classified? I’m locked out of most of these. I’m going to email some people about that. I mean- if Granite wants me to work with you, he should be able to up my clearance. At least in regards to that. Wanna help me out with my other job? I can set you up on the desk. There’s some mound-termites in Chad that have been making some crop-circle-like structures.

He nervously ran his hands back and forth across his pants.

“....”

“Would you believe you’re the first guest I’ve had to this lab in a like- a while?.”

C14 made no expression but he sensed judgement from its unlit surface.

“Yeah- Yeah I figured. It does not look great. I’ll dust tomorrow."

_____________________________________________________________

An Introduction to Hominid Social Structures and Communication

Jeffers was back in Keller’s lab talking to Stone. Before he could he had to confront Keller. Or, more accurately, Kellr confronted him.

“Do you want to tell me what happened at your proposal meeting yesterday? Because that seemed extreme and that is not going to help you in the long run”

He shrunk from embarrassment.

“You saw that?”

She saw him shrink back and she exhaled, let her shoulders relax.

“Kinda hard not to” She looked to the side. “I had some extra-time, I saw Stone working with you, I wanted to see how it was going. Did he tell you to do that?”

“Yes and no?” He thought.

“Mostly he encouraged me to only insult one person? And save it for the end if I had to? He did mention that not a lot of people liked Harmony.”

Something like exasperation crossed Dr. Keller’s face. “You’re not wrong. What do you mean insult one person?”

“I’m not- good with questions I think are unnecessary, and it’s easier to feel rage than it is to feel scared.”

Keller wanted to believe him. That was such an easy and appropriate explanation. She really did. But it was still under her skin as a wriggling suspicion. She was missing something, she knew it.

“Get that under control. That’s going to bite you in the ass if you’re not careful” She thought of her own past, “No force is going to suck too- but pick your battles and don’t look so damn sadistic about it. I’m going to have you check in and tell me what you’ve been working on with him going forward.”

She grimaced.

“He didn’t mention his old boss to you did he?”

“I’m sorry ma’am” he thought, “but this is the first guy who helped me out and I have limited resources.”

“No.”

And that was count 2 of people telling him to be suspicious of Stone.

______________________________________________________________

When Jeffers finally got access to Stone he found him pulled away from paperwork. Instead he was dissecting some complex machinery, trying to get some dropped screw out of the belly of it.

So I have one-on-one meetings now.”

“Do you?” Stone’s face lit up, “I take that to mean your presentation worked out well.”

“Yeah it did! Barely any stutter at all. I wish you told me Harmony Feldspar was the head accounting officer.”

“Nobody in that room was going to be of low authority, and it might have made you hesitate if I had.”

“Yep. But I don’t think I can insult anybody to their face in my one-on-one meetings. I don’t think I can use anger again. If I want this to work out.”

“Already?”

“Yeah I got the email for it, this morning, They’re figuring out what department to put my project under, and then I report to my new boss when they do. I want to make a good impression.”

“Is this your sideways way of asking me for advice?”

“Yes.”

Stone gently put down what he was working about.

“You’re not fully correct in avoiding anger. Right now what you’re looking for is charm. And judging people together can bond them. If they establish that they dislike somebody, feel free to insult them. I wish I had clearance for my old computer. Could’ve given you some good old formats to follow- If you can’t be charming, be neutral and attentive, don’t show weakness, don't show fear. Losing your temper in the wrong circumstance can be seen as weakness and a lack of control. Keep your face neutral-

“Like you?”

“Sometimes like me. I’ve often been told my smile is cold and unnerving.”

“Then why do you use it?”

Stone gave a wry-little half smile “Better than the alternative sometimes. Do you have friends, Jeffers?”

“That’s a little rude.”

“It’s relevant.”

Jeffers thought of the multiple birding societies he was a part of, “Yeah, a few - why?”

“How did you make friends with them?”

“Common interest”

“Then use that, this is your new assignment to find out who you’re talking to and find out what they like so that you have something to talk about. You don’t have to know everything about it, just enough to have one or two opinions on it and then act curious enough to ask questions.”

______________________________________________________________

Deer Will Lift Up the Whites of Their Tails to Alert The Heard To Danger Within The Area.

As a result of Keller's newfound, nervous apprehension towards Stone, Agent Franklin had been sent to add a shiny new security camera into Jeffers office. Jeffers was in charge of holding the ladder and the flashlight.

He tried wiring it into the ceiling, only to find that his tools were unable to drill through, and installed it in the wall instead.

When they turned the breaker back on, a little red light lit up on the camera, indicating it was ready to go, and the lights flickered above them.

“Can you make the lightbulb stop flickering?” Asked Agent Franklin?

“Sure”

Jeffers rolled over to the light switch and turned it off. And turned on the lamp desk he brought in.

“You’re joking.”

“Nope. I tried to change it myself, but it didn't work. It’s not the bulb, it's the wiring in the ceiling. But you saw how it was, I don’t have the cutters or the access to the lab upstairs- I think this used to be an old bomb shelter and I’m a little scared to get electrocuted. I already fried myself a little getting in my internet upgrade.

Franklin observed the complicated wiring leading from the computer, out of the lab through a hole in the wall.

“Did you install a satellite into your office?”

“Technically? Yes. Officially No. I didn’t please tell anyone I did. I did not get permission for those alterations. But I need the internet to do my job.”

“Dude, grow a spine and send in a repair request”

“Dude, I’m trying. And do you want to see the 50 email receipt list with all the ones I tried.”

“No, like send one in person, to Lila, you can bribe her, it makes it go faster.”

“And I’m just supposed to know that off the top of my head?”

“Fucking network man, ask around. Rely on someone other than Stone.”

“You really don’t like him do you?”

“He gives me the heebe-jeebes nobody is that nice. Especially the Special Ops.”

“Come again?”

“Oh you didn’t know? Yeah, our fun new lab partner is ex-special operations. He’s lethal. Make your-mother-disappear-in-the-middle-of-the-night-before-you-notice-he’s-hunting-you level of lethal. And he just worked next to one of the craziest, most abusive scientists GUN had for years. And now he’s come out, Mr. Smiley? No way. I don’t trust him. He’s a freak- and you need to talk to other people.”

And that’s 3 people warning me to be suspicious of Stone.

“Are you offering?”

“Yeah! I am! Look, Addie and I get lunch together when we find the time. Addie knows the local places that deliver to a drop-off location near here, and I have keys to the inner pavilion, where they test a bunch of genome stuff. You can nerd out about the bugs and plants there. I am down for you to join us. And frankly I suspect Keller is trying to snap you up for our lab,,”

Franklin turned on the light and pointed at the flickering ceiling.

“ This is stupid. Don’t just put up with problems, fix them. I’m talking to Lila for you.”

_____________________________________________________________

In two days, the overhead camera in Dr. K. Jeffers office worked, and Agent Franklin had given Jeffers Lila’s number, directions to her office, and a list of things she liked to be bribed with in case he ever needed her again.

“People keep telling me to be suspicious of Stone” Jeffers thought, “But my life keeps getting a little better because of him”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Roosters Puff Out Their Feathers To Look Intimidating

The board had approved his project and he was now going to be reporting directly to Colonel Earl Brant as his supervisor.

Brant oversaw a factory that did most of the metal-piece production for G.U.N’s weaponry. Jeffers was going to be assisting him in the “Metal pickling” A process in which metal was left in a tub of acid to remove impurities before it was rolled or extruded into the shape needed.

Once Jeffer’s got his fake vulture stomach built- he’d be able to produce the hydrochloric acid needed for the process at a faster and cheaper rate than their current supplier could give. And in return, Colonel Brant was supposed to order his parts for him, and include him on his budget, and allow him to work with and ask questions of his in-staff scientists.

Jeffers was actually excited for this part as he was generally better at working in a team environment. When it came to standing up for himself and his ideas- he was awful, truly- but when it came to following orders and supporting others when they asked him questions- he was absolutely fantastic. Its why his professors had liked him in college. He was a great research assistant.

He could do this!

And he was so excited. He made a list of supplies he'd need to mimic the parietal cells in his vulture-stomach tank, and all their relative dimensions and amounts. All of which were approved and sent to Colonel Brant, along with his estimated budget.

Great!

He'd gotten a lab reserved for the tank assembly and the subsequent production.

Fantastic!

He’d even taken the time to figure out a thing that Colonel Brant liked to talk about. Apparently he was a fan of F1 racing (Which Keller had a lot of opinions about). He found out when he followed up with Franklin’s note and talked to Lila. She could be nice and give you information if you brought her nice wine.

Then he met Colonel Brant and that's where things had gotten stalled. Colonel Brant was pointing out so many things that he thought had already been established? And he was finding it weird he had to repeat himself.

He walked into the office ready to make eye contact and shake hands and do all the necessary arbitrary things. And instead Brant had just brushed him off, sat down at his desk, and opened a drawer that had Jeffers proposals in it along with a pair of reading glasses.. Jeffers took the note to follow suit he sat down. The man had broad shoulders that took up the room, and blonde hair so buzzed it stood up vertically.

He coughed in his hand, "Wow this is a pretty high cost for something we already have."

"Well, yes, but once we establish production, in house then in will be much cheaper than buying it from suppliers."

“And what's this number right here- the one with no item attached.?”

"Thats the buffer? I assume they'll need to be a little tweaking on the product to make sure its as potent as the acid you have right now. That's the budget to take in consideration trial and errors."

He was pretty sure that was standard? Things rarely came out perfect the first time.

" Wow you’re asking a lot of money for a product you’re not even sure of, and that we already have."

Jeffers was pretty sure that he said anything it was going to come back with acid, so instead he disconnected from his face entirely, let it go completely blank.

“I can keep it together. I can keep it together.” Jeffers said internally “don’t show weakness, don’t show fear. Don’t show weakness, don't show fear.

"I'm sure of it, I'm just also realistic about the production process."

Brant just kept staring at him. Looking for something, waiting for him to say something to crack. The roiling anger under his skin wasn't making anything easier. He'd broken little crescents into his palms with his nails trying to keep his mouth shut. In the small corner of his mind he was hiding in he thought of roosters puffing out their chests.

And suddenly Colonel Brant’s face broke into a wide grin and he slapped Jeffers on the shoulder.

" Eeey! I'm just yanking your chain, I had to make sure you had a spine in there right?"

Jeffers gave a nervous laugh. Was he just supposed to pretend to see that? Was this a bonding activity or an intimidation he passed? Both?

C'mon pretend its funny, relate to him

I really want to tell him his tie is stupid

" Now I’m more of a business guy, half this stuff goes over me but I’m going to take this to my more experienced scientists to review it- see if there’s any kinks in your design and if we have any space in our budget this year for implementation. Ok Jefferson?"

"It's Jeffers"

It wasn't great but it was progress right? And he had a different project to entertain him, he'd be fine.

Ok. He could wait. He could do that. He had an extra project to work on, and he was so close he could taste it.

He did not have to get angry, he did not have to get mad, he did not have to distort himself into something he didn’t recognize.

_____________________________________________________________

A European Rabbit Will Retreat to its Familial Warren When Intimidated

Most of what Granite had sent Jeffers on Robotnik were video files.

Robotnik’s schematics, cutsheets and notes are deeply encoded. We have another team working to crack them. For now all I can give you are the public presentations we had on file.

-Director Granite.

There were 35-odd years worth of it. Robotnik had started young. The Agency had swooped in when he was part way through grad school and had not let him go.

The first thing Jeffers did with the videos was feed a bunch of them into a voice synthesizer. When it could perfectly mimic Robotnik’s voice he loaded it into headphones which he placed on C14 and set it to read a dictionary out loud to it- see if he could brute force a code word. When he ran out of English words he started feeding other languages into it, Japanese, Spanish, French. If there were records implying Dr. Robotnik spoke it, he tried it.

That was the first attempt. At that point he was focusing more on his actual job and waiting for Brant to get back to him. But as the days ticked down and the restlessness increased, he turned more and more to the drone project rather than staying on task.

When it became clear that the codeword wasn’t actually going to work at all, he started skimming the videos for any beta of the drones. There were over a hundred files- All marked by date and codename rather than any coherent labeling system that would help his search.

So he went skipping through each one. He’d watch just enough to find out what was presented, (a few minutes at most) and if the video didn’t contain something that was the drone or looked like the drone he ignored it. He went through them quickly. He burnt through half a day like that, just looking for something relevant.

It was weird - speeding through time like that. It meant he got to watch some overall changes. He watched the fashion change from the 80s to the 90s to the 2000s, watched Robotnik grow out his mustache and saw the crowds increase and his clothes get more expensive. He watched his red hair vanish and get replaced with black and watched his fashion go the same way.

Then, in the late 90s he saw something small. Round, and handheld. No bigger than a fist. It was made to surveil, more than it was to shoot or attack. It was white so that it could hide in the sun's rays easily, be a trick of the light. It didn’t have any bullets in it- but the design was familiar, round with one oculus.

“Hey C-14” he said over his shoulder. “I think I found your older brother”

He had to stop and start the video several times just to look up what Robotnik was saying. His explanations were heavily technical and laden with insults. Which lined up with Stone’s explanation of him earlier, if this was the old boss he was talking about, and not someone else. Multiple times Jeffers thought quietly to himself “Really, Stone? This guy? I mean he’s smart but I don’t know if he merits that much reaction” (He didn’t say it outloud, because he didn’t want C14 to hear him insult it’s Dad.)

But the most relevant detail Jeffers could find at the time was that the drone was remote controlled.

Which meant these things were ordered by radio signal. He could have guessed but good to have confirmation.

He tried bringing in a signal emitter and testing different frequencies on it. And he did- to his credit get the eye on C14 to light up bright red, right before it shut down again and refused to respond to the same frequency. He tooled around again only to find it light up at a different frequency for a few seconds before it shut down again.

He wrote the results in his notebook.

“Likely looking for a secondary input”

______________________________________________________________

A week had passed.

And Colonel Brant had not got back to him. He’d been staying in his lab and skipping the lunch offers from Franklin and Addie just making sure he’d be in his office when Brant got back to him.

Surely this was a rational time to follow up.

______________________________________________________________

When he did follow up he was told:

"I sent it to my senior engineers to check your efficacy, and review your numbers to see if this is the best possible decision. But they haven’t gotten back to me. We’re a little swamped this year. Just buckle in and we’ll get back to you."

“Well ok then, do you need an extra pair of hands to get the work moving faster? It would probably be good for me to understand your industrial process moving forward.”

"No, look, the training would double the effort and we really need to be locked in. Look, just a couple more weeks and we’ll get back to you.”

The reasons sounded plausible but he couldn’t help feeling like he was being given the run around.

______________________________________________________________

The Taller A Tree is and the Deeper its Roots the More it Can Block Sunlight and Resources From Other Plants

He’d asked Stone about it.

“Oh Brant. They put you with him?”

“Yeah, why?”

There was some calculation that went on behind Stone’s eyes that he just couldn’t see.

“He… Is mostly useful. He can get attached to suppliers, though.”

“What do you mean attached?”

“He’ll create good business relationships with them where he’ll buy multiple products from a group and he usually schmoozes with their representatives. It’s not a bad strategy. You can get some good deals when they know you’re going to be a loyal customer. But it makes him less flexible in changing his design process”

“Right, cause why accept the new acid guy for cheap, when you can work with the guy who sells you acid, refined metal and extra screws.”

“Essentially, especially when you go golfing with that guy every Thursday and would hate to make it awkward.”

“So I’m screwed again.”

“Yes. Which is inconvenient for both of us. See if you can transfer departments. If nothing else, Keller’s been showing interest in having you around. Oh and How’s your side project going”

“Uhh- classified. Not supposed to tell you about it. But it’s good. It’s engaging. It’s fun. It’s not the same thing everyday, and it makes me experience some progress even if this is getting stalled out. So… thanks, for recommending it.

______________________________________________________________

He called one of the board members he’d talked to before.

“Hey, how's your work with Brant going?”

“It really isn’t? I’m not interested in using my work at all. Can I restart the proposal process? Or start working with Dr. Keller while I’m waiting?”

“Has he given a solid confirmation that he isn't using it?”

“No? Not exactly, but he hasn’t exactly moved the process along either”

“I’m sorry but he’s a main component of our weapons production process and our output schedule is important. I don’t want to risk starting you on something new only for him to need you later and you to be too distracted. I appreciate the ambition, but sometimes things just take time. Look, I'll send you a form. If he can confirm he’s not interested in working with you this year we can talk about transfer.”

______________________________________________________________

He called Brant

“Are you sticking with other suppliers this year?”

“What are you- Look I told you I’d get back to you on it. What are you taking lessons from my wife now?”

“What? No. Look. If you’re not using my project this year and can sign off on it, I can work on other short term projects. And we can loop back next year. So are you using this? I’m just trying to find my own next steps.”

“I haven’t decided yet ok. I told you to buckle in and wait. Listen to my orders”

Jeffers had to mute the phone to scream. He unmuted it

“Do you have a date that you will have your decision by, or a point at which it will be too late to use my invention?”

“I don’t know. Look I’m probably going to go with our old supplier but he’s been a bit spotty in recent years. So I want you on standby in case it goes wrong.”

“So you’ll help me contact suppliers and approve my budget so we can move forward with tank construction so it’ll be there when you need it?”

“No, I meant it. I don’t know if we have the budget for it this year.”

“So you’re going to wait until the moment it grows wrong to ask me to step in. At which point it will be over budget and you will pressure me for every hour.”

“The job description says work in high-pressure scenarios. And this is a starting position, you’re going to need to show some blood sweat and tears. This is the government. Hurry up and wait.”

Jeffers clicked off his cellphone and threw it at a wall. It clattered to the ground uselessly

He wanted him dead

He stared at C14.

“You and I are going to be spending a lot of time together this year.”

______________________________________________________________

When Jeffers came into Keller’s lab he was so deeply entrenched in rage that she had to stop him before he got to Stone. He looked closer to becoming a mini-Robotnik than she’d ever seen him.

“Ok- there, Lit Fuse, tell me what happened and why you look like you’re about to have an aneurysm.”

“Colonel Brant is keeping me on a leash until he’s desperate. Not going to use my project until his own supplier fails him. Isn’t using me for anything until then”

Dr. Keller’s eye twitched. Some anger was justified.

“Agent Stone!”

Stone looked up from what he was doing. From where Jeffers could see, he seemed to be re-integrating back in with the other Agents

“He’s working with Earl Brant and you didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t find it relevant, is that significant?”

“The bastard is a hoarder. He makes impossible promises and then sucks resources from everyone else when he isn’t able to make them on his own. I lost Two Agents to him because ‘he didn’t have time to train his own’ and all I got was Addie in the trade. No offense Addie.”

“None Taken!” Said Agent Adelaid, “He was a shit boss, just happy to be away from him!”

“You never had to deal with tha- What am I saying, you worked with Robotnik, of course you didn’t. He wouldn’t steal from him, might get some actual consequences. Look, I'm not letting him do this again. I’m going to fix this, just hold tight.”

Jeffers eyes went flat.

What he heard was that it had happened twice before without being stopped. And he needed to hold tight again.

“Yeah. Sure.”

______________________________________________________________

Jeffers went back to the beginning of the tapes. Because apparently he had all the time in the world.

He excused it as a behavioral study in his head. He needed to understand how Robotnik thought, his general design process. But truly- he knew why he was doing it. It was just the double pronged indulgence of schadenfreude and masochism. He either wanted to see the younger version of Robotnik suffer like he had or see exactly why and how he’d gotten out of it.

He wanted to see exactly how behind he was.

______________________________________________________________

Ethology

Both of Jeffers twin desires were fed. He was behind. Robotnik had advanced faster than he had. He never had stage fright. He had projects approved in the first year he worked there and got his own lab and funding quickly.

But that didn’t mean he’d had a good time.

As personality went- well - Robotnik was unavoidably distinctive. The man was such a creature and Dr. Jeffers wanted to vivisect his brain and see how it ticked. He felt like he was looking through his binoculars at a particularly raptor based-bird every time he flicked on the computer screen.

He had a dedicated notebook half filled with notes like:

“Territorial displays? Stress signals? Fight for dominance?”

He seemed to be emanating aggression all the time. Even in the earlier years.

At first, he seemed to be trying to dominate the room with sheer vocabulary size, always leaning towards the most intensely technical explanation that even made Jeffers go, “Ok now that’s a little much”

Predictably, there weren’t many follow up questions at the end of his presentations. Jeffers had gone to lecture halls like this, ones where the professor was so intimidating that no one dared raise their hand and admit he had no idea what he was saying. Jeffers had usually adapted to those professors by recording their lectures and digging through the concepts piece by piece on his own time, too terrified to raise his hand.

Each presentation would end with silence, awkward shuffling and people nodding and leaving.

It was only in the 3rd presentation when one of the members on the board asked him to a question that Jeffers understood. One of the board members asked him to re-explain a technical concept.

Dr. Robotnik looked confused, tried to explain it on a more in depth level, only to be asked more follow up questions, dissecting more basic concepts and his eyes went flat and his language very quickly changed to casual.

“Are you fucking with me, or have you actually not understood what I’ve been talking about for the past 45 minutes?”

Oh. Oh the poor bastard didn’t realize he was talking with laymen, he thought he was talking to equivalent experts. He’s been trying to prove himself this entire time to a room of what he thought was equal in his field and he was just losing them.

In the video, Robotnik half stumbled through the new explanations, desperately reaching for smaller words and seeming to build in his disgust and irritation every time it still wasn’t dumbed down enough.

The subject was under the impression that he was in a pack of its own species and attempting to integrate into it by presenting what it thought was expected behaviors. The subject showed signs of distress and aggression when it realized that it was surrounded by unfamiliar species.

The next presentation was a touch more…intense.

It was less technical than before. But not enough for the audience and you could see Robotnik glancing back and forth between his presentation and the people in the crowd nervously vibrating.

To top it off, loud bangs interrupted the recording, and shook the camera

That happened twice before Robotnik stopped his presentation midway through, took his microphone and held it in front of the face of someone in the front row.

“You- third to the left there- Colonel…Feldwick? I don’t care. Do you have any questions?”

A small cough from the audience.

“Uh- no I’m goo-”

“Ok, so you understood what I’ve been saying the whole time and can repeat what I said.” His stare was dead and cold. He put the mic in the man’s face.

The man did his best impression of a pinned fly (Jeffers knew that face, he’d made that face before) and Robotnik waited an unnervingly long time before he flipped the mic back to his face.

“Ok, gotcha, nothing between the ears. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Ok. small words ladies and gentleman. It is a space laser. It can kill anyone, from anywhere at any time.” A blast went off in the background again and Robotnik pointed in annoyance to his right, “I don’t care what explosions Dr. Cobalt is showing off in the other room, I guarantee this can kill faster than them. Hell, crank it up to 11 and you can cause an explosion and mimic his obnoxious style. Of course it could kill one individual person from anywhere, but if you’re going for mass destruction, who am I to stop you? Customer’s always right, right? It can be both a surgical tool and a baseball bat and it has its defense system against counter attacks built in, and it’s not going to corrode because there’s no water or oxygen in space. So who wants it? Because either you throw money at it or I’m throwing it out to the wind and seeing who catches it.”

The next presentation was dated several months later.

“Alrighty, after my suspension for quote “Threatening to sell advanced and classified military weaponry to foreign powers” Figures it takes me threatening everybody for anybody to admit my tech is advanced. Anyway- I’m back with some new missiles for you all!”

The subject has ceased trying to integrate with the local population but appears to have created a symbiotic relationship with it as an inherent other. However the subject continues to show signs of aggression, likely as a response to feeling outnumbered. However this may be his default response when presented with new environments. The subject is either responding to feelings of isolation or lack of control.

Subject waffles in between altering his communication fit their own and relying on versions of his original vocalization habits in order to intimidate.

Because Robotnik didn’t stop having overly technical descriptions of his products. He just littered his presentations with summaries that were so dumbed down as to be condescending and insulting (The rocket goes boom. 3 thousand people die. That’s what you’re looking for right?) And insults.

Lots of insults. The man collected grudges like magpies collected shiny rocks. Jeffers added another column in his notebook that was just “People Robotnik hated” because at this point he wouldn’t put it past the man to be so petty that he made his access code an insult to someone he didn’t like.

It was also a useful way to learn about most people in the organization. Though unorthodox that he had to learn about them through what Robotnik thought were their worst traits. Some of them he struggled to find the name for because he could only see the back of their heads in the video, and Robotnik usually referred to them as things like “General Fuckwitt” and “Lost-Cause Johnson” and “Major Nobody Cares”. A few had traces of their original name in it, or he recognized from his own presentations, but most had question marks in his notebook next to where he wrote down Robotnik’s name for them

_____________________________________________________________

Once Jeffers got his fill of secondhand anger and schadenfreude he switched back to the date in the 2000s where he knew the actual drones were.

And he watched each iteration he could.

He watched them slowly get bigger. He watched small lasers be installed, and then more bullets, and then rockets.

He watched as the remote control switched to control gloves.

He watched as they slowly became more autonomous. While the first few versions needed to be completely controlled, each progressive iteration had more bundles of code that could be commanded. They could recognize faces, search out specific people. Dodge objects.

And he noticed something else.

They were competitive with each other. Which is not something he’d expected. You’d think if you made a series of drones you’d want them to act in synchronicity. But no. Apparently, Robotnik made them just as individual, angry and competitive as he was.

It was a thing he noticed in the horrifying field tests.

Sometimes. During presentations, people come in and try to assassinate Robotnik. Which isn’t surprising considering his personality, and his tendency to create weapons of mass destruction that killed lots of people.

But it was surprising that the Agency let them get inside the facility. Either he meddled to allow them in, or someone in the Agency wanted him dead. Jeffers could see it going either way.

But every time it did happen, Robotnik would respond the same way.

“OOH! Live field test. Fantastic.”

And whomever had come in would be dead in seconds.

Jeffers had to slow those videos down to a stand still to see it. But he did, frame by frame. The bots nudged each other out of the way. They went in slightly different flight paths and angles, moved at different rates.. Whichever drones got the killshot would be scanned and the others. Then by the next video, their targeting and flight pattern would be similar to the scanned drone.

Oh thought Jeffers They’re iterating based on what’s the most deadly. That can’t be responsible.

______________________________________________________________

Parthenogenesis

Jeffers watched and watched and watched, and he didn’t just watch the badniks change. He watched Robotnik change.

He never closed the behavioral study notebook he had on him. He just had it next to the one with his notes on the badniks, and the one filled with all the scientific concepts he had to learn and update himself on just to understand what Robotnik was saying.

Robotnik was openly affectionate with them. In a way he’d seen him be with nothing else. Jeffers acknowledged he had limited data- there could be people outside of work that Robotnik was bonded with- friends- family- he didn’t know. But for the sake of the facility, within these presentations, it was just the bots..

Jeffers had a list of things the man had called them:

Labels Robotnik Has Given His Attack Drones:

My Egg

My Eggy-Weggis

My Perfect Little Murder Machines

My Babies

My Sports

MY Kiddos

My Egg-Babies.

My Badniks

My Perfect Replacement for All you Meatsacks.

And it was always prefaced with “My” in front of the title. Always possessive. Always declaring ownership.

Subject has adapted to lack of social group via asexual reproduction, creating younger, subservient versions of his own species.

If there was a chance that Robotnik had built them based on some-form of bio-mimicry, then Jeffers noted that it came from an egg-laying species.

Jeffers had even tried incubating it while sending radio signals to it. just to see if Robotnik had built some kind of temperature sensor within it.

But what kind of Egg? Reptile? Avian? Arachnid? Insectoid? Fish? Each could imply different unlocking methods.

Jeffers was half tempted to go through each and every video just to see what animal species Robotnik seemed to lean towards but he wasn’t that desperate yet. He needed to finish the videos with the Drones themselves before he got to that point.

______________________________________________________________

“So your Dad is kind of insane and egotistical” He told the silent C14,

“Which no judgement, so’s mine, and at least yours was involved with your life - so got that on me. Guess we’re both part of the only one functional parent club- though yours is kinda dead

now- sorry about that. So- zero functional parent I guess?”

“...”

“I’m really glad you’re not aware, because I would be putting my foot in my mouth so hard right now.

______________________________________________________________

Facultative Parthenogenesis

Then Jeffers got to the bad video. The Wrong Video. The one that made him shut his laptop and want to hide.

He’s watching videos in the late 2000s, early 2010s and in each one he noticed a small hoard of agents surrounding Robotnik. Jeffers is unable to tell which are event security and which are personal assistants like Agent Adelaid and Agent Franklin are to Keller. None of them ever speak, and its different faces each time. Jeffers only notices them because the increased security is how he marks Robotnik’s accession to power and continued collection of grudges.

But then there is one familiar face on stage as the tapes slide into the mid 2010s.

Around the same time that Iggy Azalea and Katey Perry would have been on the radio and Jeffers would have been in his undergraduate studies- There is Agent Stone, standing on stage with Dr. Robotnik, looking a little younger than Jeffers is used to seeing him, holding a carefully neutral expression

At first he doesn’t recognize Agent Stone without the beard. Without the usual range of semi-cheerful expressions. It’s a double take. He’s easy to miss in the background.

And he just. Stayed there. Every successive video from that point on, Agent Stone was included like some sort of stoic “Where’s Waldo”

Subject is able to accept the presence of a member of another species, if the additional creature remains very still and does not threaten resources or interrupt territorial display?

Then there is the attack. Another one of Robotnik’s “live presentation examples” and Jeffers braces himself to watch efficient, machine made blood and violence once more.

Instead, two guys with small pistols, body armor and ski masks come from different sides of the room: one directly behind Robotnik and the other one at the back of the auditorium where Jeffers can only see the back of his head.

Robotnik just looks disgusted.

“Two guys? You only brought two guys? And with out of date guns? That’s pathetic. That’s not even worth my babies. Stone.”

Jeffers saw the old recording of Stone look to attention.

“Sick ‘em”

Jeffers watches Stone:

Disarm the man behind Robotnik,

Yank him forward to use as a meat shield so his partner shot him instead.

Use the disarmed gun to shoot the partner in the head.

And then lodge one bullet in his meat shield's brain, dropping him.

A series of four things that he did within a matter of seconds and 3 fluid motions.

Jeffers turned up the volume as he saw Robotnik cover his mic and listened as Robotnik said “A little slower than your last ones. Missing gym days, Stone?”

He didn’t hear what Stone said in response but he saw an apologetic face in response.

He watched Agent Stone drag the body in his arms to an agent to the side of the stage. Then watched Stone snap and point to the security personnel at the back of the auditorium and make some sort of gesture, and they started pulling the second corpse away.

He saw Stone return to his spot by Robotnik, seem to remember something, and then pull a handkerchief from his pocket and reach to clean off his face.

He got to see Robotnik’s hand snake out to grab Stone’s wrist and the other one grab his face, and, audio still at maximum volume, Jeffers hear Robotinik say through a gritted-teeth smile.

“Don’t you dare. Let the customers see the merchandise now. Let them remember what you can do.”

Stone smiled like the sun was on his face. It was all teeth and eye-wrinkles, and looking no where other than Robotnik’s face and blood- blood spatters across his face.

Then he watched the Badniks scan Agent Stone.

Subject B has fully integrated himself into Subject A’s social group.

Jeffers shut his laptop. Unplugged it. He threw a sheet over C14’s face. He turned off the lights so no one could see his face of abject terror, and rolled to the back corner of the wall so he could feel something secure and solid against his back. Nope. Nope. Nopity nope nope.

Franklin was right, there was something deeply wrong with Stone. And this was all above Jeffers paygrade and he needed out. Really fast.

He was going to return this drone to the facility it came from, wash his hands of it.

This was not for him. He needed- He needed to retreat to the woods. Call his mother. Remember who he was again. Not this.

Not ever this.

______________________________________________________________

Intervention

It was in this quiet dark of his office, panting, trying to regain his composure, where both Agent Franklin and Agent Adelaid, burst into his office, letting the light flood in.

“Ok buddy, we’ve gone from asking to demanding. You’re going to lunch with us.” Said Franklin

Jeffers screamed.

“Woah, woah, we’re sorry we burst in on you suddenly, chill, chill. It’s fine. Everything’s fine, Man,” Franklin said, both hands up.

“Oh God he needs this,” said Agent Addie. She similarly put her hands up, trying to coax him down like a startled horse, “Look we haven’t seen you come into our lab for a while to check in and Keller got worried about you. She wanted us to see how you were doing-take you outside, to see the sun. You remember what the sun looks like, don’t you buddy?”

“And to be honest, Stone seemed concerned for you too,” Franklin said, begrudgingly

Jeffers flinched at the name remembering the blood covered smile and was violently grateful that Stone wasn’t allowed to exist out of Keller's lab and his own living-unit in the facility.

Addie elbowed Franklin.

“Yeah, Yeah- that sounds great.” Said Jeffers, remembering how human communication worked. “Outside. Outside sounds good.”

______________________________________________________________

A Frank Discussion on Lizard Reproduction

Addie and Franklin were both worried about Jeffers. He was laid flat on the pavement on the inner pavilion of the Agency, just staring at the sky. Saying nothing.

“You- you doing ok there, bud?” Said Adelaid, half-way through her sandwich

“Do you know what parthenogenesis is?”

“No?”

“It’s asexual reproduction, when a sex cell is able to undergo development without fertilization. It’s been observed in plants and insects, but it occasionally shows up in complex vertebrates, like- turkeys and lizards and snakes, usually in captivity, or in environments where there or no available mates present It’s called facultative parthenogenesis, when the species is capable of both sexual and asexual reproduction.”

I was observing a- a- lizard. A venomous lizard, who had very venomous little children, and was choosing asexual reproduction over sexual reproduction despite the presence of other lizards. Which actually made sense because her offspring were the most deadly of any in containment- it could be interpreted as a survival strategy. Mating with another lizard may dilute the potency of her offspring’s venom.

But then I recently observed that she had a clutch of fertilized eggs. And -good for her- great- increases genetic diversity. But I can’t help but stare at them and think. ‘Ok, what made you choose to fertilize these eggs. What kind of male lizard did you find that made you think- yeah, ok, this time we’ll add genetic material from somewhere else? Is he just as venomous? Moreso? Is he deadly in some new fun way? Does he have a strong jaw-bite? Is he stupid fast? Is he just as mean? Because I’ve been interacting with the male lizard that fertilized those eggs on a semi-daily basis and I’d just like to know if I’ve been taking my own life in my hands every time I stuck my arm into his cage.”

“So is this like a pet you have?” Franklin asked, confused.

Jeffers barked out a laugh.

“He’s certainly someone’s!”

Jeffers put his face in his hands and still felt too awkward to scream in front of people. “No- this is a volunteer position at a zoo kind of thing.”

“Can you just stop volunteering there?”

“Nope. Signed a contract.”

“Well can you request not to take care of that lizard?”

“I’m going to try.”

“Maybe it’s just a really hot male lizard. I don’t know, from the female perspective.” said Agent Adalaid, trying to console him

“yeah I really hope that the male lizard is just a tender lover with a colorful dewlap, but based on how mean and anti-social the female lizard is I don’t think that’s the case, Addie.”

He sat up and took his face out of his hands.

“I also just- like- saw him bite two people, and then they died. So - like, clearly capable. And I don’t know why I’ve gotten away with not being bitten or what will cause it to bite me. I think I find it freakier because it wasn’t even cornered when he did it. He did it just cause he could.”

“Well why didn’t you start with that?” replied Franklin. “Yeah stop working with that lizard.”

“The fact the female lizard liked him seemed more relevant at the time. She is the most a-social creature I have ever observed. And her children are really- like really venomous."

“Look, is this really fully about the lizards? I really thought the whole- career stalled again would bother you more.” Said Addie.

“The lizards do sound freaky.” interjected Franklin

Addie shoved him.

“They’re related. I started focusing on the Lizard thing, because of the Brant thing. I thought I could experience advancement somewhere. And now even that’s too much for me. Maybe I belong in the closet. Every time I get out a little I get slammed back or overwhelmed in some way.”

A bee flitted across his vision and Jeffers thought about hymenopterous and hexagonal casing, and flight patterns before pushing away the thought.

“You want to mess him up a little?” Said Addie “ I still remembered all the codes from when I used to work for them. He only updates them by increasing the last number by 1. I was supposed to be a research assistant but he mostly just used me as a personal assistant to get meals for him and stuff. I had to make a smoothie with 5 raw eggs and celery in it every morning. I spit in it half the time. And had to do his dry cleaning. And pick up his golf equipment and lunches whenever he went talking with the suppliers. I don’t blame Keller for being mad about getting me, because he passed me off as a more experienced research assistant when I was virtually untrained.”

“I miss Marcus and Sharron,” said Franklin, “ That was a bad year for us. But Addie did catch up real fast. it’s hard to complain about him because he makes the impossible happen for people up higher on the ladder than us.”

“Keller is so mad he got you before she did.”

Jeffers blinked, stared forward.

“Nobody really follows the rules here, do they? They make assholes, and then reward them for being assholes. It’s not- follow the rules and get rewarded. It's to see how many rules you can break without getting caught, or being too valuable to get rid of- and then get rewarded. You’ll make very mean dogs with a reward system like that.”

Adelaid and Franklin both winced when he said that. “Sometimes you get rewarded when you follow the rules- and it really depends who you are.”

“I’m going to become a very mean dog.” He thought “They’re going to grind me up and make me into a very mean dog. I’m already angry so often. I already feel like I’m going to explode”

What was it Stone had said, when he wanted to tear into everyone in his presentation, a small controlled explosion is better than a large an uncontrolled blast?

“It’d take a mean dog to know, wouldn’t it?”

“How long did you work for him?”

“Four years”

“So you know where his parts shipments would be”

Addie was squinting at him “Yeah… why?”

“Because technically he gave me a win condition. He’ll use me if his current supplier proves to be unreliable”

“Woah, man that is more trouble then some spit coffee or re-stained desk

Judging people together can bond them. If they establish that they dislike somebody, feel free to insult them.

One blood covered smile

You had to put up with all of his stupid insignificant requests while he dangled training in front of you, for four years. You lost members because of your team because of him. And he stalled me again. His tie is fucking stupid, and his hair is awful, and risking salmonella everyday is gross and weird. And the way he treats cushioning for trial-and-error like a pained inconvenience is the worst. Do you really just want to spit in his smoothie when his tastebuds are too whacked out to register it? I wanna see him panic.”

Addie and Franklin didn’t respond for a while.

“His ties are stupid.”

“I know right! Who chooses color like that?”

______________________________________________________________

Dogs that Interact with Dead Animals Are At Risk of Lockjaw

Jeffers lifted the sheet to glare at C14.

“I introduced you to the only one-functional parent club too fast, You have two. I’ve seen your beta-versions. I’m pretty sure you were designed in an era where Stone was there.”

He thought about it, he was being unnecessarily mean. But- C14 had likely killed people. And severing the emotional connection was necessary.

“I mean, you have only one now- but you were raised with two. It’s different. Still counts. Membership to the only-one parent club officially revoked. I’m getting you out of my office as soon as I can. In fact I’m typing the email to Warehouse F now. I don’t want anything to do with you- or any of your weird family unit. I’m telling Director Granite that I’m not willing to do anything more with Robotnik’s old technology, and maybe he’ll accept it and maybe he won’t. Maybe he won’t give me any more projects after this. And that’ll be fine, because I’m going to move forward in my biomimicry research with Brant, and get more of my projects approved, and I can avoid Stone, and it’ll be fine.

He opened his email. Started typing. Side-eyed C14. Put the sheet over its face and started typing again.

To Director Granite,I do not feel capable of continuing work with-

And Jeffers thought of hexagonal casing shelves. In the Wrong Video. The one he didn’t like to think of, The shelves that Robotnik had stored the little murder drones in, were hexagons. It would’ve been the most relevant detail if not for everything else.

Which implied, that- if Robontik applied principles of biomimicry with them- they were from the order hymenoptera. And it made sense: they flew, they worked as a colony, they hunted, they flew in patterns that more resembled insects than birds. Too much freedom in the z direction, too able to fly backwards.

He pulled the sheet back off C14’s face.

“You’re not actually a wasp, are you?”

“Like I know technically you could be seen as a bee, but I doubt it- you’re too deadly. You don’t die after one attack. If I was going to design you off of any colony or hive based insect it would be an ant or a wasp, something carnivorous. And I’ve seen your siblings- you’re fucking competitive.”

Bees were cooperative. Wasps were too, but they also fought each other. They had individual faces, they could identify which one was strongest. That’s what it more resembled.

“You’re probably some form of paper wasp or giant hornet- because your Dad had black-red coloration That’s- That’s mostly a joke but it might not be. Robotnik identified with you a lot. Him identifying himself as the Hive queen is not out of the question. In fact it’s likely. After all he’s the one creating all of you, and if I had to imagine what a human version of a wasp would be-it seems like him-”

Jeffers opened his note book on the drones, to review the notes.

“Should I be calling you? If you have a stinger, you’re a female- though I guess technically it should really be counted as three sexes of “drone, queen, and worker” more than basing it off a normal hive and you’d definitely be a worker- irrelevant-”

He tapped his pencil against his notebook, thinking.

“Most hymenoptera communicate via scent and pheromones. Some hives will contain multiple wasp colonies and use scent to identify whose eggs are whose. I wouldn’t choose scent to activate a robot. In fact, I’m not aware of any technology for tracking scent- but Robotnik was- insane, genius and paranoid. So if anyone was going to make scent based technology and just- not tell anyone, it would be him. And that would explain why no one else would be able to get you to wake up.

He tapped his pencil against the notebook faster, locked in a staring contest with an inanimate, one-eyed drone.

“I’m probably wrong. But-look- it wouldn’t hurt to check. Just to know. And then- that’ll be my last ditch attempt and I can get rid of you- or or- maybe it’ll work, and they’ll be more willing to listen to me when I ask for projects that aren’t Robotnik related.

I do not need to follow the deer with the iridescent hooves deeper into the woods.

But I just need to know.

He started drafting out an email to Director Granite.

To Director Granite, Do you have any of Robotnik’s personal effects in storage? A cologne maybe? Or something he wore often? Both would be good. I have a theory I’m testing that he used scent-based technology as one of the stimuli to unlock his badniks. From, The Office of Dr. K. Jeffers

He got a reply back amazingly quickly.

To Dr. K. Jeffers, I’ll see what I can get to you. -Director Granite

______________________________________________________________

When Hunting Large Prey, Coyotes Hunt in Pairs or Groups

After all of Agent Adelaid’s memorization of Codes. The little chaos trio only needed three things from Brant’s office.

The Exact Day that COPEX UNLIMITED! Was going to show up with their delivery of hydrochloric acid.

An adjustment to the work calendar so that only they, and their 3 fakest pseudonyms were on the work calendar

The keys to the supply closet so they could grab some spare uniforms and fake IDS.

Addie Franklin and Kyle were armed with as much baking soda as cash could buy, some stabbing equipment, and stirring equipment.

Jeffers kept a running checklist in his head as they went.

All they needed to do was unload the multiple canisters into the warehouse. Franklin would step away to get the cameras cut in the room and distract the security guard. Then- when no one was looking Addie and Jeffers would break the seals on the storage, SLOWLY pour the baking soda in and stir, and keep the area as vented as possible. Then slam the lids back on, get rid of their equipment and be gone.

They didn’t need to do it to all of them, just enough to make it look like some had gotten banged up in the journey or improperly stored.

Jeffers was finding he enjoyed the small bit of excitement. Not the murder type, that was too much for him. But this? Just a planned out event with people his age he trusted and fun little disguises? He could do this more often. Maybe he needed to do escape rooms?

He needed to work out more though- He felt like he almost gave away their cover with how badly he unloaded the barrels from the truck.

And it all went smoothly.

With one exception.

“There isn’t enough of it.”

Addie kept twitching.

“Like, I wasn’t allowed to work with the rest of the research team, but I remember roughly how many barrels we had each year, this is a quarter of it. This can’t be all he ordered. I didn’t find anything else on his computer - but this can’t be it. He’s gotta be storing some at an additional warehouse.”

It bothered her enough that she insisted on rechecking the order slips in Brant's computer before they left.

“It looks like he changed the amount on the order form a few days ago. Don’t know why, it’s not got any less project requests. Hey, are you going to feel dad sabotaging him if he already decided to switch to your project instead?”

Both of them stared at each other before bursting out laughing.

“Oh she’s got jokes”

“Yeah I’m fun that way. C’mon let’s go break up Jeffers date with the night guard. You want to play the jealous ex or should I.”

“You know what. I’ve never done it before. I’d like to give it a shot.”

______________________________________________________________

Their next lunch was maybe the most fun Jeffers had ever had. Franklin, along with messing with the tapes had bugged the camera in the warehouse so they could watch Colonel Brant freak out. It all linked to Jeffers computer. He recorded the footage of him cursing on his cell phone and punching the walls before he called Jeffers.

A call that Jeffers refused to pick up and delayed to his lunch break due to “his other responsibilities”

Really it was just so he could show Franklin and Addie video, and so they could all listen together on speakerphone as Brant tried to sound paternalistic. As he called him Sport and Kiddo, and told him that this was his lucky year to get off the bench and get in the game. He only heard him pant a few times. Just a few signs of an earlier outburst and rising stress but Kyle was feeding off of every second of it. He watched the video as he listened. Every time he got called a kid, he restarted it from the beginning. His own little drinking game.

Kyle Jeffers smiled and nodded and said “Yes Colonel Brant, of course I can do that for you, that’d be no problem for me at all. Yeah I already had the room reserved, and you already have my plans. It’s not a problem. I’m just glad we could have a back up for you in time.”

Pause. Play, rewind. Pause again on one of his more distorted faces.

They all burst out cackling once Jeffers hung up.

“Dude, that was amazing. You know, for a non-agent you’re very capable of keeping your voice straight. Your professional ‘I-know-you’re-suffering-and-I’m-loving-every-second-of-it face is terrifying though. You gotta work on that if you do that in person. That shit’s going to haunt me.”

“What? No. It’s just my face.”

“No” Addie replied “You have a phone-voice and a phone-face that goes along with it and it’s very bond villain. You need to take that 11 and turn it down to a 5.

Jeffers still didn’t believe them and he turned off one of his monitors to check his reflection. What he did see on his face did look very… cold and unnerving and his face dropped when he saw it.

Oh. yeah. That.

No he- he knew what they were talking about.

“By the way, when are we going to see you in Keller’s lab again. You haven’t come over in a while.”

Jeffers made a feeble nnnnhnnhuuu noise

“I don’t know guys maybe when this project is over. And I can get my face under control.”

______________________________________________________________

Goodbye Dr. Jeffers

After they left, went to his shelf, and brought uncovered C14-RA and brought them to his desk. Then he grabbed a small package he’d set next to them, one that had been delivered to his office that morning. It was a small box. Inside it was one old black coat with red detailing and a bottle of half-used cologne. Outside the box was a small note that simply said

What you asked for.

-From Warehouse F

Jeffers stared in the face of C14-RA.

“Look, however this goes, you’re leaving. I can’t take this anymore. I’m grateful for what your second dad has done for me. I really appreciate it. But you all freak me out, every last one of you, and I don’t really want to be involved. I don’t think I’m built for it. And it’s been nice to have you here, because before this place was lonely. But I think I have a path outside of both of you and I’d like to take it.”

With that note, Jeffers took a sticky note, squirted some of the cologne on it, and put it near the badnik. Then he backed up, got his signal emitter and started searching around the dial.

The eye lit up, turned red, just as it had before. And then it stayed red. And it beeped.

Holyshit, holyshit. It worked. IT WORKED. I FIGURED IT OUT. OH MY GOD HAHHAHAAH.

He calmed down. Put his hands on his hips.

“Guess this means I have to keep good on my promise and kick you out of my lab now, huh? Well, yeah. I guess it’s time and I did finish my assignment. Though it’s been nice to have you around. Even when I was cranky with you- maybe I should get a volleyball or something to talk to, it’s been nice.”

C14-RA made a second beep noise that Jeffers decided to interpret as confused.

“A lot happened while you were sleeping. It’s not important. Here let's get you shut off.”

Jeffers fiddled around with the signal emitter, turning it down, when he hit some unknown frequency, the back panel on it slid open to reveal its inner workings.

And- whooooo boy was that tempting.

He’d been wanting to look at cutsheets of Robotnik’s designs ever since he started studying his work. He had such a deep deep temptation to look at the insides and to hook it into his computer, see what the code looked like. If it was Robotnik, he probably had his own personal programming language. Jeffers could take some time to decode it. No one had to know he opened the badnik.

“Nope. Nope. Don’t get involved with these people, not worth it. I do not have to follow the deer into the woods. I can turn around, head back to town and not do this.

He slid the panel shut, and reached for the signal emitter. Then he thought about all the guns that he could accidentally trigger if he hit the wrong button and he thought better of it. C14 could stay on.

He started drafting his email to Director Granite, and typing up his notes to be attached..

To Director GraniteI have made progress in figuring out how to interact with Robotnik’s Drone’s. I have my notes and results listed below. While I’d be interested in more projects from Warehouse F I’m wondering if I officially request, for my own health and wellbeing, to avoid any further projects associated with Dr. Ivo Robotnik. I do not feel emotionally capable of absorbing any more data on him. Please send someone to come and pick up the drone and Robotnik’s effects.From the office of Dr. K. Jeffers.

Sent.

The reply once again came quick

To Dr. K. Jeffers, We’ll send someone to pick up the listed items at 6:30. Please be present so we can ensure a secure transfer -Director Granite

Jeffers rolled up his sleeves and got ready to complete a normal day of work, staying after hours was a small price to pay to get out of this mess.

____________________________________________________________________________

Jeffers listened as the halls got emptier and emptier. When 6:30 rolled around, all he could hear was one set of footsteps walking to his office and a knock on his door. He opened it to reveal Agent Stone in front of his face in what looked like a janitor’s uniform, some very familiar control gloves, and a smile that he would describe as deeply unnerving.

“Please don’t scream, we’ve had such a good working relationship so far. Clara, could you help me out here?”

Behind him, Jeffers could hear the whirring of C14-RA - Clara lifting off its spot on his desk, and unfolding what he was sure would be a small armory of guns unfolding from its inner workings.

“Please shut the door, and draw the blinds. I’d like to have this conversation in private.”

________________________________________________________________________

Psyche.

Jeffers, feeling the warmth of a red dot on the back of his head, did as he was told, and then sat down, glaring at them both.

“C14 how could you?” Jeffers said quietly.

Clara once again, made a confused beep and Stone raised his eyebrows.

“Kyle Jeffers, you have been surprising me a lot for the past couple of weeks. Breaking into and sabotaging a major weapons production facility for G.U.N.? I was going to frame you for smuggling in Robotnik’s tech if you didn’t comply with my demands but you sort of made that unnecessary. Notes for the future- G.U.N. does actually check for bugs in their offices every couple of months so you don’t want to leave those in there, And there is a garage door camera that Franklin missed. I might talk to him about it later.”

“Does Warehouse F even exist?”

“It does, but Director Granite doesn’t. It doesn’t have a lot of staff, it really is a glorified storage locker. Can I ask you a security question?”

“That’s not really my department-”

“-That’s fine. You’ll probably still do better than the people whose department it is. Now, if you had a prisoner who you suspected had competency with advanced robotics, from working with G.U.N. 's top weapons researcher, how would you track them?”

“Look I don’t really have loyalty to-”

“Answer the question Dr. Jeffers. Think about it. You have all the time you need. Nothing is going to happen.”

Jeffers thought about.

“Do they have any other competencies?”

“Good Question!” He sounded so proud damn him, “They are proven to be good at covert operations, manipulation and hand to hand combat.”

Strong jawbite on that lizard, He quietly thought.

“Then a mixture of people and old tech I guess? Things that lock from the outside. Anything with manual switches and no signals. Anything i think might be out of their expertise.”

"Oh really, not the most expensive, cutting edge tech?”

Jeffers looked to Stone’s security anklet in horror

Stone knocked his anklet against the side of the table leg and it fell off.

“Not the newest security cameras?” He made a gesture with the control gloves, and the new security camera behind him moved to follow it.”

“Now, one final question, before we move forward. Do you want to do some actual science? Some actual cutting-edge research.”

“Do I have a choice?.”

“Look, I can see you hesitating. Let me sweeten the deal a little. Clara, could you show the young researcher what I’m talking about”

He made some gesture and the thing lit up effortlessly.

What it showed him was some fusion of a hedgehog and a human child, all blue and going at hyperspeeds.

And it’s such unique motion. It’s nothing Jeffers has ever seen before. Already, without his permission, his brain is already doing what it has done since he was a child, and trying to figure out how it moves the way it does. everything in him saying puzzlepuzzlepuzzle solveit solveit. He’s already wondering if the quills create a static charge that move it forward. How it might compare to electric eels.

Jeffers was swallowing, rapidly, trying to push back the saliva his mouth was producing.

“Is this the slowest footage you have?” He said, half in a daze.

“Would slower footage help?”

“Uh yeah- something with a higher frame rate.”

I do not have to follow the deer into the woods.

….

…

Fuck it. Yes, I do. HOW DOES THAT CREATURE WORK?

Jeffers squeezed the bridge of his nose and looked away from the footage.

“I hate you so much. Really. I hate you so much right now I don’t want to do this.”

He pointed back at the footage C14- Clara was projecting without looking up.

“What is that?”

“It’s an Alien Hedgehog.”

“More context, please”

“He goes by the designation of Sonic. He can create EMP blasts, forces strong enough to blow through a tank if he builds up momentum. He can traverse the world within a matter of seconds and he appears to maintain an awareness of the world around him even as he maintains those speeds. Now would you like to look at the cutsheets of Robotnik’s attempts to mimic him in automata or are you still no longer no interested in his work?”

“Yes, I do, you absolute bastard.”

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hoardcloneheadcanons · 18 days ago

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Gnawing at the Bars of my enclosure because I'm on the editing stages of Ch 7. And I still have to go to work like a normal human being.

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hoardcloneheadcanons · 20 days ago

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"One last gift"

#stobotnik #I'm dying

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hoardcloneheadcanons · 25 days ago

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please help me- i used to be pretty smart but i’m having so much trouble grasping the concept of diegetic vs non-diegetic bdsm!

gfkjldghfd okay first of all I'm sorry for the confusion, if you're not finding anything on the phrase it's because I made it up and absolutely nobody but me ever uses it, but I haven't found a better way to express what I'm trying to say so I keep using it. but now you've given me an excuse to ramble on about some shit that is only relevant to me and my deeply inefficient way of talking and by god I'm going to take it.

SO. the way diegetic and non-diegetic are normally used is to talk about music and sound design in movies/tv shows. in case you aren't familiar with that concept, here's a rundown:

diegetic sound is sound that happens within the world of the movie/show and can be acknowledged by the characters, like a song playing on the stereo during a driving scene, or sung on stage in Phantom of the Opera. it's also most other sounds that happen in a movie, like the sounds of traffic in a city scene, or a thunderclap, or a marching band passing by. or one of the three stock horse sounds they use in every movie with a horse in it even though horses don't really vocalize much in real life, but that's beside the point, the horse is supposed to be actually making that noise within the movie's world and the characters can hear it whinnying.

non-diegetic sound is any sound that doesn't exist in the world of the movie/show and can't be perceived by the characters. this includes things like laugh tracks and most soundtrack music. when Duel of Fates plays in Star Wars during the lightsaber fight for dramatic effect, that's non-diegetic. it exists to the audience, but the characters don't know their fight is being backed by sick ass music and, sadly, can't hear it.

the lines can get blurry between the two, you've probably seen the film trope where the clearly non-diegetic music in the title sequence fades out to the same music, now diegetic and playing from the character's car stereo. and then there are things like Phantom of the Opera as mentioned above, where the soundtrack is also part of the plot, but Phantom of the Opera does also have segments of non-diegetic music: the Phantom probably does not have an entire orchestra and some guy with an electric guitar hiding down in his sewer just waiting for someone to break into song, but both of those show up in the songs they sing down there.

now, on to how I apply this to bdsm in fiction.

if I'm referring to diegetic bdsm what I mean is that the bdsm is acknowledged for what it is in-world. the characters themselves are roleplaying whatever scenarios their scenes involve and are operating with knowledge of real life rules/safety practices. if there's cnc depicted, it will be apparent at some point, usually right away, that both characters actually are fully consenting and it's all just a planned scene, and you'll often see on-screen negotiation and aftercare, and elements of the story may involve the kink community wherever the characters are. Love and Leashes is a great example of this, 50 Shades and Bonding are terrible examples of this, but they all feature characters that know they're doing bdsm and are intentional about it.

if I'm talking about non-diegetic bdsm, I'm referring to a story that portrays certain kinks without the direct acknowledgement that the characters are doing bdsm. this would be something like Captive Prince, or Phantom of the Opera again, or the vast majority of bodice ripper type stories where an innocent woman is kidnapped by a pirate king or something and totally doesn't want to be ravished but then it turns out he's so cool and sexy and good at ravishing that she decides she's into it and becomes his pirate consort or whatever it is that happens at the end of those books. the characters don't know they're playing out a cnc or D/s fantasy, and in-universe it's often straight up noncon or dubcon rather than cnc at all. the thing about entirely non-diegetic bdsm is that it's almost always Problematic™ in some way if you're not willing to meet the story where it's at, but as long as you're not judging it by the standards of diegetic bdsm, it's just providing the reader the same thing that a partner in a scene would: the illusion of whatever risk or taboo floats your boat, sometimes to extremes that can't be replicated in real life due to safety, practicality, physics, the law, vampires not being real, etc. it's consensual by default because it's already pretend; the characters are vehicles for the story and not actually people who can be hurt, and the reader chose to pick up the book and is aware that nothing in it is real, so it's all good.

this difference is where people tend to get hung up in the discourse, from what I've observed. which is why I started using this phrasing, because I think it's very crucial to be able to differentiate which one you're talking about if you try to have a conversation with someone about the portrayal of bdsm in media. it would also, frankly, be useful for tagging, because sometimes when you're in the mood for non-diegetic bodice ripper shit you'd call the police over in real life, it can get really annoying to read paragraphs of negotiation and check-ins that break the illusion of the scene and so on, and the opposite can be jarring too.

it's very possible to blur these together the same way Phantom of the Opera blurs its diegetic and non-diegetic music as well. this leaves you even more open to being misunderstood by people reading in bad faith, but it can also be really fun to play with. @not-poignant writes fantastic fanfic, novels, and original serials on ao3 that pull this off really well, if you're okay with some dark shit in your fiction I would highly recommend their work. some of it does get really fucking dark in places though, just like. be advised. read the tags and all that.

but yeah, spontaneous writer plug aside, that's what I mean.

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hoardcloneheadcanons · 1 month ago

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As a shock to no one this ship appeals to me

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hoardcloneheadcanons · 1 month ago

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hoardcloneheadcanons · 1 month ago

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I appreciate blogs like yours because not only do you add fact-checking to tumblr which is so needed…

I also learn a lot about how to fact check on my own just by seeing what you link and what you must have been searching to get those sources !

Thank you! I'll use this as an opportunity to show yall the "secrets".

The main thing I do is google dorking. For example if i need to find a tweet from a screenshot I'll do as follows: site:x.com "[text from tweet]"

For an article I'll go "[title of article]" [author] or site:[newssite] "[title of article]"

If there's a bunch of new articles popping up and i need to find an old one I'll use the google advanced search filters or "before:yyyy-mm-dd"

If I'm just trying to verify a claim it's the trick to know the right keywords, finding multiple sources independently saying the same thing (so not all copying the same one article) and verifying whether those sources are actually trustworthy on the topic they're reporting on. I wouldn't use a republican politician's site for news on a celebrity/current events but if it's a bill they've introduced I'll cite them on it. The closer to the original event/announcment/statement you can get the better.

archive.org is my best friend for finding deleted/altered articles and pages, and circumventing paywalls. I try where possible to archive pages myself as well.

Using multiple search engines is also useful, als they'll push different things.

For news from (south)east Asia i use Baidu, and for Russia Yandex.

Edit because I used "and" five times in one sentence

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hoardcloneheadcanons · 1 month ago

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Oh I am convincing my mob husband we need a third and going Yandere on his ass. Do you know how much my husband would love an emotionally broken assassin? Or someone to mentor who already had a stint as a crimelord? He's going to sleep squished between us.

He's going to get all the triangle sandwiches and watch cartoons with his head in my lap. We're going to tell him he's such a good boy when he kills for us, and that we're so proud of him and he's so smart when he finds the rat who was skimming off the top. We're going to spoil him rotten until he forgets any other mentor figures existed. If he doesn't call me Mommy at least once in a whimper, accidentally or otherwise I have FAILED.

My husbands going to keep taking him out to baseball games and Nascar Races I'm not interested in for beers 'guy time'. He's going to take him to watch a boxing match (because he knows our kiddo needs violence) and lean in and thank Jason for taking care of me while he gone and apologize for not being able to be around all the time but, "Buisness is is buisness and I'm glad she has you when I'm not there".

He's going to shuffle his hair and call him sport and ask if he needs any new guns or someone to look at his motorcycle- he knows a guy. And then privately turn around and ask me, "Why we let him ride around in that deathtrap. I can get him a car" While I convince him our growing boy needs stimulation and tell him how Jason fixes it up himself. He's going to call me every time he's away on buisness trips and ask me how are baby is doing while Jason is buried in my chest and I'm rubbing aloe vera into all his old scars.

Do you understand? Our baby boy is going no where.

Honestly glad Jason Todd didn’t win, he’s the kind of man who’d fall headfirst for his sugar momma or a crime boss’s wife just because she smiled at him and packed his lunch before he leaves for the night. 😔 He’s got a mommy kink, but it’s deeper than that. He wants to be smothered in love. He wants to sink deep into a woman who coddles him like a child and kisses him like he’s her last breath, someone he can convince himself loves him, just because she remembers the little things, like how he likes his sandwiches in triangles. The delusion is half the high when he kidnaps you.

I think this applies to as well Dick...but Dick has the lactation kink to go with it.

tw - infidelity, child neglect, unhealthy attachments.

honestly jason losing that poll was written in stars. his parents died young, he was on his own for years before anyone thought to remember he existed, and even with bruce, he was more of a placeholder than anything - just keeping the seat warm for a real robin until that, too, was taken away from him. he's capable of taking care of himself now, but only barely. he forgets to eat for days at a time. he consumes more caffeine than water. he sleeps on a bare, frameless mattress because buying anything to put on or underneath it would just be a waste of time. he's a crude weapon, and you don't put a rusty pocket knife in a velvet case.

you're... better at taking care of him. he knows you see it as more of a hobby than anything else, a way to pass the time while your wealthy, career criminal husband is away. you think it's funny to have the infamous red hood eating out of the palm of your hand, blushing as he grunts his gratitude for your latest care package and begging to fuck you whenever he knows your husband isn't home. the money is nice, and he tolerates the gifts, but that's not what he's in it for. he fantasizes about spending all day in bed with you, face buried in your stomach as you chastise him for being so reckless. he dreams about the way your hands feel carding through your hair - nails scraping over his scalp so gently, as if you thought he was something fragile, something breakable. even after he cries during sex and you explain, as gently as you can, that you think the two of you should stop seeing each other, he still thinks about you. he knows you didn't mean it. he knows you love him. he knows you want to take care of him, and he wants the same thing.

he just has to take care of all the little nuisances dividing your attention, first.

#dc comics #jason todd #Aggressive bisexuality #Writing #Yandere me #Yandere #I got posessed before work #The muses moved me

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hoardcloneheadcanons · 1 month ago

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I'll Eat You Up I Love You So

A Magnus Archives Stobotnik Crossover

Somewhere in another universe, where monsters that consume fear are more common, Ivo Robotnik has become a wretched thing that creates animatronic horrors. He has hired a new assistant to feed off the fear of.

Ivo can't tell if Mr. Stone is the most fearless man on earth or simply the most oblivious. He's starving.

Content Warning: Spiders, Manipulation, Mild Mind control, Stalking, Unsettling things Following People in the middle of the night, Gore, Uncanny Valley

(Accidentally deleted the old version and had to reupload, I'm so sorry to have lost the lovely comments and reblogs.)

Ivo Robotnik always felt off from people. Like he was missing a script that everyone else received. He had the wrong feelings, the wrong expressions. Like he was always saying the wrong things no matter what he did.

The other kids in the orphanage tended to avoid him. And he busied himself with altering things around the house to play tricks on them, switching the TV to horror movies at random intervals when he wasn’t in the room. Or making the toaster burn in their hands when they tried to use it.

If you can’t join them, you can at least laugh at them.

When he was about 14 a weird mist started following him around. It would be in the corners of his vision constantly. Sunny days would suddenly get foggy on his way home from school. Rooms where he was alone would suddenly get smokey

He was a boy who considered himself very rational, but he swore those clouds had an intelligence and that they were trying to eat him.

He got caught in the mist a few times. Every time he did, faces would get blurry and speech incomprehensible, and everything, Everything in him felt cold. Then he’d run until he could see the sun again and try to stay around people.

The mist only came when he was alone.

He didn’t dare tell the head of the orphanage about it. Or the other children. He knew they didn’t like him, he knew they wouldn’t believe him. They’d probably say he deserved the mist. They just watched the child get suddenly gaunter and more haunted with no reason as to why.

And then one day, Ivo found a book.

A book titled “A Beginners Guide to Animatronics. Stimulating for Young Minds Ages 13-17.”

And the book showed him how to make life-like, fake people. He realized as he was reading it, that the book must’ve been lying about the age ranges. It would’ve been too hard for anyone of his age. But he could follow it easily. He’d always been advanced.

Nobody liked what he made from the book. The cold doll-like faces blinked too rapidly, the necks hung to the side awkwardly, and nobody knew how to shut them off. Ivo refused to tell them. When he went to school they just hung out in his room, waiting for him.

And no matter what you did to break them, they never stopped moving.

Ivo discovered that if he kept his machines with him, the mist left him alone. The something person-like he had with him counted. And the longer that Ivo built, the more odd he got. Until his blinking became off rhythm and his walking became weird, and the color of his skin was just slightly off.

People avoided him. That used to bother him. Now it seemed to fuel him. To get into their space and unsettle them, to make himself uncomfortable to be around. And his mentality morphed to suit it. He didn’t need people when he had his machines, when he could make better versions of them that could climb on walls and twist their head 180 degrees.

Ivo kept his machines around him as he aged.

He took odd-jobs as an IT consultant, a programmer and a machinist. They lasted longer if he worked remotely. It usually wasn’t steady work, his personality often ended his employment. But that was fine. Ivo found more and more often that he didn’t need to eat, not as long as he had someone’s fear, not as long as someone was looking aside at him, wondering if the mechanical eyes they saw outside their window was his, or his machines.

This is when he starts taking on assistants. It’s easy to terrify someone who's forced to be in your space for money. It’s easy to terrify someone who gets bit by shiny, chromium-covered things as they’re trying to clean them.

So on one of his steadier periods, when he has a work-from-home programming job he puts out a Craigslist ad for an assistant. Someone to help clean his machines and his house while he was working.

And he gets one Aban Stone. A soldier who ended his tour of duty and was looking for a job.

And he’s horrified to discover that Mr. Stone seems to be quite immune to most of his tricks. Ivo can’t tell if he’s the stupidest, most oblivious man on the face of the earth or simply the most fearless.

Stone would clean the robots, and they’d turn their heads round 180 degrees to stare at him and grin. And Stone would simply turn their heads back around, and then continue his task, humming all the way.

The animatronics followed Stone home, and watched him while he slept, staring through his bedroom window, and Ivo got a knocking on his door in the middle of the night.

He opened the door to find Stone, in his bathrobe and sneakers leading the robots back to Ivo’s door by the wrist saying that “they must’ve gotten lost, I’m surprised none of them got hit by a truck on the way over.”

Robotnik found a little bit of webbing on each of their backs the next morning. He thought nothing of it, except that he should probably yell at Stone for not dusting for cobwebs more often.

(He forgot to mention it, by the time Stone got there he was already dug into some network error, and half-paying attention to the world around him).

Stone got bit by one of the machines as he was making lunch for the two of them and his main response was to say “Fascinating! They’re so detailed, I didn’t know they had teeth.” Before turning around and chiding Ivo that he should probably adjust their programing. “I can handle it, I’ve been shot before. But what if they bit you? Ivo, that isn’t safe.”

It drove Ivo insane.

And he was so relentlessly helpful. His job was to clean the machines, and the house. And he did all of that, and then also insisted on doing the laundry, and cooking for Ivo. He consistently worked past his shift and even when he wasn’t bustling around the house, he was asking Ivo questions about himself, bringing him coffee, and humming.

Always humming. In a sound that Ivo found himself mimicking. He had to shut down conversation and insist Stone go home a million and a half times. He didn’t need people, he had his machines.

He knew he was sunk when he started building machines that looked like Stone.

He’d always tear them apart, rip them to shreds before Stone could see. All Stone understood was that Ivo was going through some creative slump where none of his creations were good enough.

And Ivo was eating food. He didn’t need to eat, not when he had people’s fear. He’d almost forgotten how. A fork felt weird in his hand. Most food tasted like dust to him.

But he did whenever Stone cooked for him. It tasted like care and attention, and he devoured it whole.

At first Ivo refused everything he made, but Stone was stubborn and fretted over him, and kept buying groceries and making him things until he found the exact things Ivo could eat. The first time he did it’s because Stone had put a sandwich by his hand while he was working, only half paying attention and he ate it without thinking. It had some spicy aioli, that burned past his dulled senses.

And a second fear started to build within him that Stone might leave. That the humming and bustling around the house might end, and the one person he could stand to be in his space and could stand to be in his could go away.

A billion times he’d thought to fire Stone to end the fear and this madness and change. And a billion times the thought would slip from his mind as he got distracted, or he thought “one more day, just one, then he can leave.”

And Ivo was getting hungry. It must've confused Stone so much how his charge seemed to be getting listless and tired even as he was feeding him more. He felt Ivo’s head to check if he was sick and insisted he drink electrolytes before Ivo could shoo him away.

Always so relentlessly helpful, always so caring and doting.

That night, while Stone wasn’t there, he repurposed his basement and filled it with machines of horror. He filled it with spinning blades that wailed like people in pain and left his most uncanny and troublesome creations down there, filled them with sharp teeth and fire jets, and eyes too big for their heads.

And then he called a plumber for a burst pipe in his basement. Emergency situation.

He ate well that day. Stone was glad to see whatever fever he had, had cleared up. He was curious about the lock on the basement, but Ivo explained it away with “Water damage in the basement, and the stair is broken.”

And then he had to insist several times that Stone let him handle it. He’d already called a plumber and they’d be there next week.

And for a little while longer, they got to pretend to be normal.

___________________________________________________________

Meanwhile,

Stone was finding Ivo a hard meal to digest.

Aban Stone likes getting what he wants. And will be quiet and friendly to do so. He has worked hard to be the best all his life. The best in athletics, the most attractive, the one with the most gung-ho, can-do attitude.

It’s only natural that he gets rewarded, that he gets everything he asks for in return for his efforts. It’s only natural that he got everything he wanted from the people he loved.

He liked taking care of people. He had a little habit, a hobby one could say, of finding a single person to take care of, coming into their life, and making them utterly dependent on him controlling their lives completely. Making sure they wanted and needed to do everything he asked of them.

Then he would then ask them to rip out their hearts so that he could eat them.

He wasn’t quite sure when he started to see the little threads on them, that he could pull to subtly change their thoughts, or when he started to look in the mirror and see three extra pair of eyes.

It all seemed a natural extension of it all.

So when he saw an ad for an assistant and house cleaner for one Ivo Robotnik, he thought he’d hit a jackpot.

Ivo was an isolated man who spent all day in his workshop or on his computer. He lived in an abandoned part of town and people avoided him. Stone could take over his life and feed off the fear of his dependence, and his loss of control for a long time without anyone noticing or telling him what was normal. Stone could eat him slowly.

But Robotnik had such a stubborn resistance to human connection that made him so hard to devour.

He pushed Stone out and away thousands of times, he insisted he didn’t want help beyond his basic chores. Stone had offered to move in a couple of times and Ivo had shoved him out, and told him he couldn’t stand to have him around more often than he was.

If Stone was human, he would’ve thought Robotnik didn’t like him.

But he can taste his fear. It’s subtle, in the background, slowly growing, but it’s there. Fear of dependence, of loss, of change. It’s there. And Stone is a patient spider, he can wait for it to grow.

And in the meantime, he makes himself comfortable.

He fills the refrigerator with things he likes, since Ivo barely eats. And he got busy investigating this strange man who resisted human contact like the plague, learning his favorite color, his tastes, his hopes and dreams, growing ever more possessive all the way.

He was so interesting. He built things no one else could! He treated his job as a hobby and filled his life with passions. He moved and talked in ways none of the other humans did. He talked to his creations often, and Stone learned the most about him when he did, finding out all the people he judged in the neighborhood, and all the little ways he had messed with their lives.

He’d sent his androids to listen to the Diazes’ house to find out their gossip, He’d made the Jones' lawnmower turn on and off randomly and made it into a lethal hazard.

Stone found himself wrapping web around the house where Ivo wouldn’t see, over and over, around and around, so thin as to be a layer of paint, marking what was his. “Mine mine mine mine mine” whispered over and over in tiny threads.

It would make him sorry to eat him, he liked his fascinating human and all the delightful toys he surrounded himself with.

Stone found the constructs were just similar enough to humans that he could puppet them himself with his webs. They followed him around docilly. At a certain point he stopped leading them back to Ivo’s in the middle of the night and just let them settle down on his living room floor until he could lead them back the next morning when his shift started.

He didn’t need to interrupt Ivo’s sleep.

But the entire time his hunger grew. Ivo’s fear was to him like potato chips would be to a normal human. It was delightful, tasty, but it was hardly filling.

So he went out to eat. Just to tide himself over, nothing major.

A simple meal, a quick one. A gentleman at the bar who chatted him up, someone he could lure into his house with the promise of conversation and wine, and heat and close flesh.

Someone who he could tie to his bed and crack open his ribs, and eat with the heart still beating, screaming as he saw Stone’s mandibles and 8 reflective eyes.

He didn’t notice the animatronic that had followed him home, yellow-camera eyes staring through his bedroom window.

Then Stone felt fear.

He hadn’t checked. He’d been so hungry. He didn’t usually go to the bar. it must’ve been waiting for him to come home.

He lunged at the creature, determined to control it, to stop it and it skittered away. He didn’t know Ivo could make them go that fast, and he felt impressed even as the horror dawned on him.

He was going to lose everything.

There would be no final meal, no constant snacking, no Ivo, no home, no fascinating conversations over lunch of circuitry and mayhem. Ivo was going to see him, and be afraid of him, and it was all going to end. He’d see the webs outside of his house and move and it was all going to end.

No no no. He can fix this. He’s eaten, he's stronger. It’ll be fine. He can fix this.

Suppressing his panic, he cleans himself up, washes his hair and gets prepared to go over to Ivo’s house and to pretend, to make him believe that everything is normal. To yank the faint threads he had from Ivo and whisper in his ear that everything was safe. He’d go to his job, at the same time he always does, because nothing happened and everything was fine.

He walks around his living room in the dark, reciting it to himself in his head.

Ivo? is everything alright? You look pale. I saw one of your robots last night at my house and it was acting strange, walking into walls. I think it might be glitching. You should check it. See if there’s any bugs in its code. You look like you need something to do with your hands. You do that and I’ll make us some tea and we can forget about this.

Ivo, people don’t turn into spiders. You’re being silly, you’ve been working too hard. You know people hallucinate when they don’t sleep enough.

Ivo, you don’t want to get rid of me.

It’s in a loop in his brain as he walks up Robotnik’s front steps the next morning, all nice and shiny and clean with the most harmless body language he can muster and prepares to knock on Robotnik’s door, certain that the locks have been changed.

He is rather surprised when Ivo yanks him inside and pins him to a wall before his fist can hit the door.

Was Ivo always that strong?

Ivo is in his space not leaving him two inches of breathing room, grinning like a madman.

“Let me see them! I saw them last night! I want to see them!’

“See what?”

Robotnik made a clenching gesture around his own face where his mustache was.

“The chelicerae! I saw them last night when you ripped that poor sucker’s heart out. Let me see them! I want to study them.”

In that moment, Stone wondered if his webs could be tugged in both directions, because his mandibles sort of popped-out out of sheer surprise.

Robotnik had the measuring tape out, to review them and was delicately feeling the texture, and Stone realized it was the first time Ivo had touched him with his bare hand, he usually had gloves on.

Stone’s eyes happened to glance upon his wrist, and he noticed that where his blue veins should be there was instead complex circuitry.

“Ivo, are you a robot?”

“No Idea!” His scientist was the most expressive that Stone had ever seen. “It started happening to me in my late 20s, I’m not sure which parts of me are man and machine anymore.”

He pulled up his sleeves to show circuity going up his wrists, through his forearms, and then stopping at his shoulders, shifting back to veins and muscle tissue.

Stone felt dizzy from the paradigm shift, like a puppet with his strings cut.

He sat down while Ivo pelted him with a thousand questions about his reflective eyes, their color spectrum, his depth perception, where they went when he wasn’t using them.

Ivo wasn’t afraid of him. If anything…

Stone tasted the air.

“Ivo are you less afraid of me now then you were before?”

“Of course I am, you’re not human, I never have to worry about you leaving because I've scared you away or broken some inane social custom. You eat people. What could I do to ever terrify you?”

He grabbed Stone’s face, suddenly tactile where he’d been so resistant before.

“You do realize you’re never leaving me, right? I have a thousand eyes everywhere and and infinite mechanical soldiers. You can’t leave now that I’ve gotten used to you. I’ll hunt you down. I’ll drag you back.”

And suddenly Stone saw all his webs in Ivo, taking root and finding their place now that his final barrier of resistance was gone, increasing the madness in his eyes.

Stone smiled, harder that the structure of his face had changed to its more arachnid form.

“Ivo, do you need your heart inside your chest to survive?”

_____________________________________________________________

He didn’t.

Stone gnawed on the mechanical heart as Ivo excitedly showed him his basement of horrors. He sat with his bathrobe on, low enough to show the cavity in his chest that he’d wrenched open himself, rewiring his arteries, and quickly fitting it with a temporary device so he could hand his own heart to Stone.

Such a romantic. Stone wanted to fill the empty cavity with spider eggs and watch spiders crawl out of Ivo’s mouth as they hatched. That was a new urge he didn’t know he could have. Could he put them in his lungs or his stomach? He could ask him once he finished talking.

Ivo’s heart had pretty little blinking lights in it. It was shiny and steel and Stone was pretty sure he couldn’t digest it, but he was happy to have it anyway. He was going to wrap it up in spider-silk before putting it back in Ivo's chest. It was his. His forever.

_____________________________________________________________

Notes:

Stone and Ivo do move in together.

The murder-basement of horrors continues to exist, and it is Stone’s job to lure people into it. Manipulation is still the main way he feeds, and he delights in it. Ivo will watch the horrors through the cameras and feed that way, while creating a series of obstacles for the victims to run through as Stone and his animatronics hunt them. They have a little game of “who can get to them first.”

Stone does have a full giant-spider form.

They have to move whenever the disappearances get too suspicious. They got married when they found they could get into more docile, unsuspecting suburban neighborhoods as a couple.

Ivo tries creating robotic bugs for Stone to chase for enrichment. Stone finds it a little insulting, especially since his main prey is people.

Stone does, however, find the robotic spiders that Ivo created to join Stone in the murder basement when he hunts very romantic.

Once Ivo finds the Stone can hold him with 3 pairs of limbs, (4 if they’re lying down) He feels neglected if Stone only holds him with two. He has not slept outside of a cocoon since they started sleeping together.

Stone has adjusted to the fact that most of the appliances in their home have some extra sentience due to Ivo. The toaster will try to escape if he uses it. He’s tried to web it to the wall, and it gnawed through it. It is one of the few things in the house he cannot control.

Most people think that Stone is out of Robotnik’s league and don’t understand why they’re together. That is a trap. Their basement is littered with the bodies of people who thought they could seduce Stone away from Ivo. It’s his favorite method of hunting because he gets to eat someone who ever doubted their romance.

Robotnik does not let Stone fill his stomach or lungs with spiders. Instead, he makes an entirely separate organ for himself called his "egg-sac" that Stone can fill as much as he wants, to the same effect.

Freaks. Run.

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#Stobotnik #Accidentally deleted the old version #so sorry #sonic movie universe #agent stone #dr robotnik #the magnus archives #Competing with Peter Lukas and Johnah Magnus for Most Toxic Gay Couple but Lost because they're not willing to get divorced 72 times #thank god for A03 backup #eggs and stone #eggman #fanfiction #writing #ivo robotnik #They went through the eye-apacolypse and didn't notice because they thought the new neighborhood was just really good for them.#So sorry to lose all your lovely comments and reblogs #don't edit while sleepy

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