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Glowing red pixels on a black screen stared at him back, his visor the only light that shone against the reflection besides the low ambient lighting.
His metal finger poked at his metal cheek, and the screechy sound it made as he then dragged it across would have been enough to make any organic cringe. But had he been an organic, the finger would have pushed into the skin like soft duvet, and such a light graze would have been a gentle caress. Rather than this.
He had felt none of it, even as his finger left a shallow cut into the metal. He wouldn’t even know if anything had happened had he not been watching it.
He tilted his head, prodding at his too-rigid ears and touching the razor sharpness of his nose.
Watching and wondering if he looked any more adequate than he felt.
There he stood, looking at the refraction of light that formed the image of his vessel in a mirror. It was a ridiculous notion to be contemplating.
But the LEDS in his eyes — no, visor— buzzed. The poor imitation in his form of an organic mobian wouldn’t fool anyone. But he should be grateful he wasn’t as different as the other, less convincing badniks.
Should he be glad that his existence had come with an identity prepackaged? Or would the form of a machine never meant to look like anything at all have been a more merciful fate? Sometimes his appearance was enough to fool himself.
His blade fingers scratched at each other with nervous energy as he mused, wide eyes still looking emotionless even as a storm warred inside of him.
Emotions were supposed to show, no? Wasn’t he supposed to not look so empty? Was it his fault for not feeling enough, or was it only that his body had never been made with that ability?
He wanted to say the latter, but he had deflected blame onto others wrongly for so long, hadn’t he?
He was always wrong, his algorithms were not to be trusted, he did not know a thing. And if there was something Metal was known not to have trustworthy data on, it was on who he was.
Not Sonic the Hedgehog. That, he had learned.
Eventually.
Metal would have blinked then, if he could, but his eyes never so much as flickered in their burning into the mirror.
Could anyone ever love him like he was real? — Because he wasn’t, not truly, he knew that. He wished he could say it was his flawed opinion, or just a gut feeling, but the raw truth all lay in the labeled files of his programs—. Was it unfair to want that?
Even despite Metal’s numerous superiorities, it was selfish to ask that of someone, anyone. To dedicate time and affection to a fake being, a mere imitation, and treat them as a person, as a connection instead of the war machine he was. Eggman was a vile man, but he was no fool and he was right in telling it how it was, and a war machine was his patent.
Then his engine stuttered as his processors noticed the t-shirt he was wearing, a loose pink pajama shirt. Amy’s.
Then his files reminded him that he was in Amy Rose’s bathroom, and then his sensors recognized the pattern of her voice humming in the kitchen.
He felt a sort of sharp tug in his insides at the reminder of her, as if a pipe had been sliced, but his programs registered no existing damage.
At the same time, he felt the urge to go to her and selfishly cling onto her love.
They… Had been ‘dating’, and he was living with her, playing house as if he had any right to do so.
He did not wish for her to see him so pathetic. How long before she realized what he was and discarded him?
But she had already seen so much of him. He was hard to love, but she loved so easily.
Error. Statements cannot coexist.
He felt like he was falling apart. His system did not deny this assessment. But even if he were, he had been destroyed again and again only to come back just like before, just like always. He would endure.
Contrary statements detected. Error.
Metal Sonic couldn’t be an organic, and he failed at being a machine as well.
His systems were collapsing, infected by untrustworthy data that pitted his internal processes against each other. Maybe the corruption went deeper, had already ruined his programs themselves. How long? Since how long had he been so weak?
Was he superior or was he weak? Was he unlovable or was he loved? He couldn’t be both.
Error. Error. Access to rebooting denied.
His system messages did not have the urgency he felt, their unaffected tone only added fuel onto his pyre. He wanted to bash himself out of commission, break the room, he had no mouth and yet he had to scream-
He had… He had to find external data to confirm which thesis was faulty.
He couldn’t confirm it himself. Impossible query- He looked around frantically seeing blue seeing his hands the mirror his reflection his eyes- not eyes his faceless face he saw-
Pink.
Amy’s shirt.
Amy.
Right. Right.
He was wearing Amy Rose’s shirt, in Amy Rose’s bathroom.
Physical evidence found.
He rose a heavy hand and clawed at the cloth, sharp fingers accidentally tearing into it, and even though it tore through the fabric, even though he couldn’t feel the touch of it against his palm, gripping it in a fist was like release.
It was real. Her love ought to be, too, then.
Right?
Analysis complete. Evidence satisfactory. Rewriting data files.
He looked at himself in the mirror again, at the face that couldn’t betray the exhaustion his system was never meant to experience, at the cut in his metallic cheek that would never scar.
His hand went through the torn shirt to touch his chest, or rather the hole where one should be, where all he touched was an engine.
He tried not to think about how physical presence didn’t necessarily mean something, or someone, was real. In the meaningful sense.
His system wasn’t equipped to navigate metaphors. Or nuance.
He wished he would stop trying to solve what couldn’t be gauged, but his feet were like glued to the ground, as if his command center was disconnected from the executive center, or the times when he suddenly got deactivated. All he could look at was ahead at his reflection, or down at the shirt.
The thought of walking was itself difficult, his simple movement commands getting refused and jammed no matter how much he confirmed them. Standing still felt not like a choice but like a curse, his stance feeling even fragile under the weight of his body.
Worth was difficult to appraise, but he was not meant for anything else. Love… Love and adoration could be quantified. They had to be. The deciding factor of worth, since accomplishments were out of the question. His data was not to be trusted on the veracity of his past achievements, after all.
Right.
The urge to leave eventually won over the urge to collapse.
Command ‘go see Amy’ worked, unlike ‘walk’.
He found her easily, standing at the counter in the kitchen, but getting to her felt like crawling at a race. Metal had never been so slow.
When he stood before the finish line, he let his body slope and his weight fall and drape over her back. She jolted, despite the thunks of the heavy footsteps that carried him everywhere.
Metal’s temperature, shape and weight were all she needed to recognize her partner however, and she turned her head to the side to look at him with a guilty smile and furrowed brows. He saw what made her timid when he noticed the jam around her lips and the sandwich in her hands. Evidently, she had gotten lost in her enjoyment of the food.
He wished he knew what enjoying the taste of jam was like.
"Bad day?" Her smile lessened, still she asked with her usual effortlessly sweet voice. He could only manage a nod against her neck.
"Fix me." Talking spent energy he did not possess, but he pushed his voicebox to make a crude imitation of speech.
She kissed his cheek. "Alrighty~ I’ll fix you up. Go on the bed, I’ll be there soon."
An external command seemed to help, and he did as said. Soon he let himself fall onto the king-sized bed of her bedroom. Theirs.
Time seemed to happen around him and he had no idea for how long his cheek had been smushed against the mattress before Amy came in the room, holding many things.
Bucket of water, two microfiber cloth, brush, varnish bottle and toothpaste. The usual.
"How is my strong, talented, handsome boyfriend doing?"
Amy calling him handsome always made him pause. Beauty meant nothing to him, but he would not turn down a given quality. He understood it to be a sight that is pleasant, and at that moment all that Metal could do was appreciate watching Amy’s warm face as she set down everything she brought.
She did a once-over of his body, then she crawled onto the bed up next to him. She leaned down level with his almost fully hidden eyes pressed against the mattress. "Heya. We’re doing the backside first today, then?"
All he had to do was nod but he couldn’t find any power left to. But as he laid there still as stone he knew Amy would understand anyways, as she always did with that mysterious sixth sense of hers. It made relief course through him, made his body unstiffen further.
And she did. She wet the cloth in the bucket as she hummed the same tune as earlier, some pop song he often picked up from radio waves recently. Her current "earworm", then. Usually he’d have played it on his speaker for her, "singing" along.
Usually.
Now all he could do was try to block out every malware-like thought. Her voice always brought him back before his programs could switch to idle mode, but he didn’t know if that was better or worse.
The menial act of being washed with cool water was nice in theory, and Amy made sure to press down hard as she rubbed dirt off so Metal could "feel" it through his pressure sensors under his thick armature. Metal would doze off and do a soft reboot, if it weren’t for how questions and doubts continued to swim inside him. Too worn down to even just "sleep", it seemed.
"I’m done with your backside. Metal, can you move for me?"
He wished he could. He wished he didn’t have to be a burden. But he couldn’t even bring himself to send the command to say no through his speaker. His whole body felt like lead.
Hah, he supposed lead wasn’t far off.
"Alright alright. I can take the workout~" Getting a good angle, she rather easily rolled him over with the strength of her arms. Impressive, as always.
He’d always wondered about the physics of her battle style, with her hammer. Having once held it himself, he could confirm by the weight that the strength required to wield it was humongously un-mobian. Typically. It didn’t surprise him much that Amy Rose was an exception to the rule in multiple ways.
In this new position, he was now able to stare at the ceiling instead. And glance at her.
She crawled over him, sitting back while straddling his hips. The weight was soothing. She took his chin between her fingers and made it turn this and that way to see all the angles. "Oh, you got a new scratch. But nothing requires polishing, thankfully!"
She started by washing his face like the rest, with a wet cloth.
She leaned down to see what she was doing better, and it left him with a front seat to watch her face. She had a small content smile, and sometimes scrunched her nose with her tongue peeking out when she rubbed dirt out.
Amy worked meticulously and focused, quite admirably. These "care sessions" were most often rather long, but she did them gladly of her own will.
No one else had ever done this for him.
It was relaxing, and after however long of silence, musings slipped out of his voicebox into the world.
"It’d be more convenient if I was a mobian and could simply shower and heal."
"Hm? But then you wouldn’t be nearly as strong as you are, no? Being a robot is convenient in many ways. Maintenance takes longer, but it lasts longer as well."
"But I need someone else to do it."
Her smile got wider. "Exactly. We wouldn’t have these quality boyfriend-girlfriend time self-care sessions anymore! This is the perfect excuse for me to fawn over you and you would have that be gone? I thought you enjoyed these. You don’t often give yourself the opportunity to sit back and take it easy."
"I do enjoy it."
"Then I don’t see the problem. This couldn’t be more convenient if you ask me."
Then, she took the other microfiber cloth and squeezed some toothpaste onto it before pressing it against his scratch. A neat metal-repairing trick that surprisingly enough worked. It had been an… Humbling experience, the first time he had allowed such a treatment.
For as much as Eggman flashed his grin like a trademark, he wasn’t a role model on dental care. When Amy and the others of his copy-… Of Sonic’s team had realized Metal didn’t know what toothpaste was, or many other "basic" items of daily life, it had been a shock to them. He registered the pity in their eyes, otherized. The way he had come into this world would always have its mark left onto him. There were things they would never understand.
He allowed a deepest fear of his to be spoken aloud.
"What if you don’t truly know me?"
Amy’s smile dropped, a scowl replacing it. She mercilessly squashed his words down. "Excuse me? I’ve known you since I was eight, you’ve kidnapped me, I saw you attempt to overtake the world in some grand mental breakdown, I know the grain direction of your metals."
As emphasis she rubbed the cloth more harshly in said direction of his cheek’s metal. True, she wouldn’t have been able to do nearly as much repair on him if she didn’t know that much. "Or oh, maybe you’ve forgotten, we’re also dating?"
"Apologies."
A lump in his pipes didn’t go away even as he apologized and paused, so he went on with some panic. "Forgive me. I didn’t mean it as a fault on you."
She sighed, slumping as she stilled. "I know. I’m sorry too, I got a bit angry there… But, is it so hard to trust in my judgement that you’re worth loving? It doesn’t feel good either to see my partner so down on himself, you know? Especially not if it’s over some complex on my behalf."
Metal kept quiet. Amy sighed again.
"I know where you’re going with this, you know, but that’s just it. The same way one has to pet a mobian in the sense of their fur, you have to be rubbed in the direction of your metal, literally. The same way we have a heart that beats, you have an engine that runs. We have a brain, eyes, a body, and you have all of these too in your own way. And doesn’t that make the both of us alive?" She said, putting a finger to his forehead, brows furrowed and eyes sincere.
Metal Sonic didn’t process metaphors well. Her reasoning on this "alive" thing was technically incorrect, though her reasoning was easy enough to see and internally consistent. Reasonable, though blatantly wrong, somehow.
Contrary statements that could coexist, in this bubble of theirs. These didn’t flare up his systems like earlier, his perspective more grounded and his system more internally secure.
Perhaps definitions aren’t meant to be always so prescriptive.
The air had changed, and Amy mustered a smile. "I’m going to take your silence as ‘ You are so right, Amy, I thank thee for your infinite wisdom and oh how could I possibly ever share my gratitude? ’"
Her cheerful voice brought him back, and he fondly rolled his eyes at her theatrics. Where was she going with it?
"Well, Metal Sonic, you certainly can! In fact, I know just the way! Just let me…" She shifted suddenly, and he didn’t know what to expect until her lips softly landed on his forehead, where her finger had been. "Mwah!"
She pressed kisses to him all over his head, eventually stopping after a minute of giggling and showering him in love. She leaned back. "Oh, whoops! I forgot I was cleaning you, I just put my grease all over you, bleh… See what I mean? You can give clean kisses, meanwhile I’m revolting."
That made him jolt, the intensity in his eyes sharpening. "Don’t call yourself revolting."
His tone had been firm, yet she only smiled lovingly down at him. "See? You don’t like when I’m harsh on myself either. We’re different, but you love me anyways."
She had the infuriating skill to always be right, even when it defied the rules of the world.
She leaned down to tenderly kiss him where a mouth would be. She put a hand to his cheek and fondly swiped her thumb over where the scratch was now gone.
She giggled. "Well, now that you’re all smudged I suppose I just have to do it all again~"
He rolled his eyes at her, again. At this he realized she had revitalized him to some degree, the ache in his heart lessened and the input needed to do anything was less difficult to manage.
The rest of the maintenance went on in cozy silence, except for her humming the same song, over and over again.
When she was done washing his frontside, she picked up her brush and the varnish bottle. She needed to avoid joints and other parts like his speaker, but otherwise applying varnish on him was a little luxury that made his metal shinier and protected it against minor damage.
This took the longest, and he had just been going into idle mode under the care of her hands when it all stopped.
"There, all done!"
He felt startled, then crushed when he realized it was over. "... Can you do something else? Anything."
She sat back and thought… Then smirked. "Okay~ But this will be more for me than for you, you know."
She briefly left and came back with nail polish. Glittery nail polish, even. He didn’t mind, as long as it’d make her stay beside him.
She sat in the crook of his armpit, taking his dangerously sharp hands in hers without worry as the other grabbed the glittery pink nail polish brush. Her body was so warm, the heat coursed through his body until he felt not so empty anymore.
"What are you doing, this time?" He asked.
"You’ll see~" She replied cryptically with mischievousness, only hunching over his hand more to hide it from him.
She had gotten quite skilled and fast at this, so after switching colors once or twice then repeating the process on his other hand. A dozen or so minutes later she stretched and exclaimed in cheer. "Done!"
"Tadaaa~!" She raised his hands to his vision, and he could plainly witness her masterpieces. At the end of each claw was painted a pink sitting little cat, the ears outlining the shape of them. Black nail polish finished them up with details such as faces and stripes and dots to pattern their body. Simple, though well made and in even layers.
She sighed contentedly as she basically threw herself down on him. It didn’t hurt, the way it would have damaged an organic, and he relished in her body curling around him like an heavy, warm blanket. In turn he nuzzled into her and embraced her.
"I’m so glad you don’t wear gloves…" She let out as she played with his fingers, looking down at them fondly. She yawned. "We’ll stop here though, I really have to nap…"
"Thank you. I’m not worth the effort." Eggman often mused the same thing aloud, on the umpteenth weekly repair after fights.
"You’re worth all of it and more to me."
"Why?"
"Because I love you, silly."
She moved to rub her nose against either sides of his softly but quickly. She liked to call them penguin kisses. These, he could return.
A minute of nuzzling later, she settled down and rested her head against his armpit above a small pillow.
He was unable to sleep, but time would keep on dragging him along regardless, and there would come a new morning. And as he felt the weight of Amy resting on him, heard her peaceful breathing, maybe he was glad for that. And if experiencing beauty could be done through all five senses, then Amy made him feel the whole scope of what could be felt and more.
And perhaps he even felt adequate at this time, and handsome in the varnish she so lovingly applied.
Metal had found an equation for worth. 1/1 love of Amy needed for 1/1 worth. For now, at least, his system was satisfied with this conclusive data.
He kissed her skin with his mouth, and watched her with his eyes, and she loved him like he was real.