Chapter Text
Pietro had…quite a few concerns.
One of which was how Sonic would react to combat, no matter how contained Ironwood promised him it was. In the end he allowed it, Penny’s puppy dog eyes winning him over in the end and the fact that, barring an actual worst case scenario, Sonic himself was practically built to handle anything he can think of.
He really needs to stop setting limits to his expectations with Sonic involved.
His next stretch of stress came home around late evening and nearly gave Pietro a heart attack when he saw the changes Sonic went through.
Sharper edges, taller form, a plethora of new abilities initial scans didn’t originally pick up, and none came close to how he felt when Penny mentioned the ability to apparently integrate any sort of technology into his systems. When he heard that particular sentence, he damn near had another heart attack and checked on Penny before his body gave out.
Luckily, it seemed that Penny’s aura was enough to counter the process altogether, and Sonic himself made sure whatever he did would never affect Penny again should he use it again.
Despite the scare from and to all parties involved, Sonic and Penny seemed eager to discover the new intricacies of his new form.
The updated scans showed that nothing much changed in terms of hardware besides the obvious, but it seems everything internal got a major upgrade. Which, in turn, allowed Sonic to process far more of himself to reveal what he was apparently hiding.
Actual uncorrupted data. Whatever had caused his memories to fragment, it seemed this data was unharmed through several layers of encryption and the sheer density of the data structures within.
With Sonic's permission, he began decompressing and translating said data in hopes of finding something to help Sonic's memories recover faster. With how dense the data structures seemed to be, the process would take a few days to finish up, which made Sonic antsy enough to attempt his new capabilities alongside Penny's aid.
Now don’t get Pietro wrong, he loved the fact that Penny had a friend that wasn’t (seemingly) related to the military, but whenever they were left alone together they caused general chaos and triggered Murphy’s Law more often than not.
So after two blackouts and demagnetizing Sonic, he figured that he could have a one to one talk with Sonic while Penny was also demagnetizing using their backup generators.
For this particular instance, he decided to pull out an old reliable ice breaker and brought out his chess board.
Originally, he was going to teach Sonic, but it turns out he and Penny figured out he can connect to the internet now like Penny and he learned the rules quickly. Mentally setting a reminder to ban him from searching for certain things like he did with Penny, he elected to start both the game and a conversation in hopes of triggering something.
“Tell me Sonic, how have you been adjusting to…well, everything.” He started simple, moving his pawn at e2 forward two spaces, Sonic mirroring the action with his black pawn.
“I know from Penny that you’ve been remembering bit by bit, but I wanted to see if you’d give me a fresh perspective.” They played quickly, Pietro falling into a familiar rhythm as he and Penny played quite a bit back then, both picking up speed as Sonic got used to the game. It was nostalgic in a way, and made Pietro want to play another game with his daughter after she finished demagnetizing.
“…I don’t know.” Sonic’s voice was not what Pietro expected to come from him, the deeper side of a baritone and giving off a slight echo with each word, allowing the sound to carry throughout the room. Sonic looked down at the hand he wasn’t using for the game, clenching and unclenching as he continued to speak.
“This body should be strange to me, but it almost feels…natural. I have moments where I move without thinking despite no memory of why…even now, I’m not too sure why I’m moving my pieces in this order and yet…”
Pietro focused back toward the game, realizing that Sonic was setting up a smothered mate while they were talking. As Pietro moved his pieces to counteract this, Sonic continued on while moving his own pieces.
“I keep seeing flashes of my past, but it’s like watching a video in the lowest quality. The most I can remember after it are colors and feelings, and each time I do, I’m told I did something while lost in my head…” Pietro had somewhat let the game be forgotten, letting Sonic vent his frustrations as he processed his own experiences.
From what he was understanding, it seemed like Sonic's memory restoration was causing him a great deal of stress, worryingly similar to a form of PTSD.
It was yet another worry for Pietro, how Sonic acted and moved when he first woke up reminding him of a scared child. How his own self developed into that of a teenager with a lively spirit, only for parts of himself already being lost to what he sees in his memories.
It hurt him to see a child so scared of himself.
However, seeing the placement of some of his other pieces, it gave Pietro an idea of easing Sonic’s worry. So as he continued his plan on the board, he began speaking to Sonic.
“When Penny was first able to process enough to see, she begged me to watch movies with her.” He continued the game, drawing attention away from his plan.
“She found her favorite movies leaned toward animated movies, liking how the cartoons moved and stretched.” He made some risky plays, disguising the true intent of his strategy as he reminisced.
“There was this one movie, just as funny as it was action packed, that had a saying that…stuck with me.” His gambit worked, seeing a piece initially forgotten from the beginning that he managed to snake forward.
“Yesterday is history,” 3 more spaces.
“Tomorrow is a mystery,” 2 more.
“But today…is a gift.” 1 more, by this point Sonic noticed.
“That’s why it’s called the present.” With a final move, he managed to get his pawn at the end, allowing him to promote it…but he waited for a moment.
“Sonic, I’m going to be honest with you. I’ve seen your specs, before and after this new form of yours, and I will admit I was…I was scared for Penny.” He looked to Sonic, seeing the faux pupil widen out to make it seem like he was ashamed.
“But we’ve known you for about a month at this point, and you have never once harmed anyone intentionally.” He took the time to reach for his extra pieces for the pawn promotion, making sure Sonic knew he was safe at the moment.
He can leave the paranoia to Ironwood, but right now he didn’t see a machine ready to blow up half of Remnant…he saw a child scared of himself, of what he could do without control.
He was done being scared.
“Whoever you were in the past, it isn’t what defines you now. You are Sonic, best friend of my daughter as well as my friend.” Sonic’s eyes returned to normal, nodding at Pietro to show he was calm. At that point, Pietro finally promoted his pawn to a queen and the match continued…
“Like that pawn, you can turn yourself into anyone you want to be with your own hands.”
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“I shall become the ultimate overlord, ruling as the world's most supreme being!”
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“I AM METAL SONIC! I AM THE REAL—
Sonic!”
All at once, he became aware of his true surroundings, no longer in the dead of night surrounded by stars and clouds, but instead around late morning inside Dr. Polendina’s home.
Speaking of, the voice that called his name came from the very Doctor, who had moved the table they were playing on away from him while another memory of his played out. He himself had lowered his(admittedly cool) spider wheelchair to lower itself so that Pietro could be face to face with Sonic…
…no, not Sonic, his more recent fragmented memory giving him an idea of where the name “Sonic” came from.
Finally registering Pietro’s face, Son-he analyzed the subtleties in his expression to see that the doctor seemed to be feeling guilty.
“Forgive me, I didn’t realize that would trigger another of your memories, was it anything bad?”
He pondered, ironically not remembering much of what he just remembered, merely being able to recall the end of it…
Who was this Sonic, who managed to stay in his mind after all his memories were basically wiped?
Actually pondering the question, he recalled the feeling of…euphoria, at his declaration at the blurred yellow figure. How whole he felt at seemingly being better than it. How even without any of the context…
…He still felt inferior to that blur.
“…I don’t know.”