Chapter Text
Everyone knows Shadow is an alien, but he hides a lot of strange little aspects about it because it’s just not worth dealing with people’s reactions. On rare occasions, he’ll show a weird, creepy tidbit to Commander Tower when he wants to piss him off or freak him out. The Commander has tried telling other people at G.U.N. about these things, but they’re so bizarre and minor that they sound like playground rumors, and by the time Shadow started doing it, Rouge’s plan of showing Shadow’s softer side to the G.U.N. employees was already in full effect. He and Amy were already married, which helped; if it had been a while and their coworkers needed a refresher, Rouge would steal Shadow’s lunch so Amy would simply have to stop by, inadvertently resulting in an endearing interaction where he apologized, saying he didn’t want to bother her and he truly did value the things she made for him, and she smiled, reassuring him that she was happy to help.
Rouge sometimes suspected that Amy knew why the lunches kept disappearing and secretly didn’t mind. Shadow was more popular with their female coworkers than he used to be, and Amy wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to remind them Shadow was spoken for.
Rouge encouraged Shadow to keep pictures of his wife and kids in his office, too. It was easier for the other employees to trust Shadow once he was a devoted father talking about bringing his kids to soccer practice and parent-teacher conferences. Rouge even nudged the higher-ups into scheduling a Bring Your Chao to Work Day—mostly by convincing them that it was their idea in the first place—and the way all the Chao immediately latched onto Shadow made him the talk of the office. He didn’t get much done on account of not being able to reach his computer past his cuddly compatriots, but the coos and compliments he’d gotten from the other workers made it a productive day in Rouge’s opinion.
Shadow’s imposing aura was “ruined” to most of the humans. No one from G.U.N.—including Rouge and Omega—believed that his eyes actually glowed in the dark or he could climb around on the walls and ceiling, and why would they? Only the Commander saw it.
Amy was spending the afternoon with Team Dark one day when Rouge lamented that the Commander “kept making shit up again.” Supposedly, he’d told Shadow to blink more often “like a normal person,” and Shadow had responded by darting his tongue up and licking his eyeballs like a gecko, then kept looking at the Commander and waiting, as if he’d done nothing out of the ordinary. Rouge rolled her eyes and said, “Honestly, does he really expect people to believe all this crap? Can you imagine if Shadow had a foot-long tongue?”
Amy very quietly choked on her tea, and Shadow looked away.
Rouge’s eyes narrowed. That explains a lot.