Chapter Text
Robotnik squinted disapprovingly at his own reflection, tugging at the bottom of his shirt and prodding at the gaps between its buttons.
“Stone, call my tailor and make an appointment for this Thursday.”
Briefly glancing up from his stacks of papers, Agent Stone nodded sharply and jotted down a note on a piece of scrap off to the side.
“Yes, doctor. Time and purpose?” Robotnik sighed, nervously flicking a strand of hair from out of his line of sight.
“Anytime after noon. I... Need the seams of my tops let out.”
Stone’s heart skipped so many consecutive beats that, for a solid second, he would’ve registered as dead on a heart monitor. He drew in an involuntary gasp, eyes darting between the doctor and the sticky note before him.
“...10-4.” He wrote down the instructions and attempted to refocus on his paperwork.
This was a textbook example of one of the memories Stone had simultaneously pushed to the very back of his mind, yet thought about on a regular basis. Quietly tapping away at his keyboard in an attempt to look busy, Stone peered over the top of his computer monitor at his boss on lunch break who sat across from him. He found it comically difficult to ignore the ordinary event unfolding before him. The agent continued to stare transfixed at Robotnik shoveling cold, unseasoned noodles into his mouth.
For an agonizingly drawn-out second, the doctor glanced up at Stone and caught his gaze, raising an eyebrow.
“...What?” he mumbled through a mouthful of tap-cold spaghetti. Stone’s entire vital system seemed to do a synchronized backflip.
“Ah-,,, Sorry. Lost in thought.” Robotnik swallowed the pasta and wiped his mouth with the back of a gloved hand.
“Well, pull up your GPS and get back to work,” scoffed the doctor, rolling his eyes. Stone refocused his gaze on the spreadsheet filled with legal gibberish on the monitor. This sort of interest had to be a semi-common occurrence, right? He made a mental note to carry out some… Research after-hours.