Work Text:
It's currently about two forty five in the morning but his computer's screen doesn't prick at his eyes as much as it did the last time he pulled an all nighter — which wasn't very long ago, in fact if we don't count the second last one which was Saturday, the last one was just last weekend and while some might argue that its Monday and thus the last all nighter was technically yesterday but Tails has learnt not to care about what people think, like at all, so he will not be conforming to that logic when his 300 IQ logic is clearly superior.
Besides, he's really upset right now and if anything, he's just blowing his steam off by furiously typing out this stupid code.
So far, it's working really well. He questions why he hasn't tried this method before to distract himself from bashing someone's head open before, but it's all good now isn't it?
It's really not. Last week wasn't exactly the most pleasant and Tails feels like whatever being created the universe keeps on intentionally throwing all these trials at him, a test to his patience which was running very very low now that he takes the last sip of the last of his coffee. He's out of coffee beans and he's only had eight cups today. Great. Wonderful, even. He can neither brew himself more coffee nor get some from the local coffee shop because, hey, it's two forty five in the morning.
Tails doesn't think he can keep his sanity till three.
Why do coffee shops close early again? Post-midnight is the time when he needs his caffeine the most despite whatever Sonic says. He's not the one who has to hack into the government's databases, copy all the nuclear codes and leave Eggman's passwords in their places instead.
(Tails promises it's important for his work but it's really not, his sleep deprived brain doesn't even remember what project he was pulling these all nighters for.)
Sonic's definitely the reason Tails is out of coffee though. The fox had his older brother go for a grocery run for him two or three days ago and that hedgehog had the audacity to forget not only the coffee but also his mints .
Sonic says he forgot them but Tails knows better — this is his way of getting the kit to break the caffeine and mint addiction; by depriving him, by denying him his basic needs, his rights . He should take this up to court, what kind of guardian is Sonic if he partakes in domestic violence such as this?
Tails realizes he may be acting a bit dramatic but despite what he's willing to tell his friends, he hasn't actually slept in a week and also the drama is just what he got from Sonic. Oh wow, look at that, this is also Sonic's fault and Tails is pretty sure Sonic knows it's his fault because he's been hiding from him since the grocery shopping incident. At least that's what the fox deduces from the fact that his older brother has not showed up back here despite the fact that he promised to play that new Hello Doggie game with him this afternoon. He made that oath last week and still failed to show up at time. Tails should write this under the neglect section of the domestic abuse case, he's so getting emancipated.
Unless Sonic shows up apologizing with two cartons of mint ice cream and at least ten tins of the mints he likes most. Then maybe Tails can think of some way to grant him forgiveness but until further notice, his plans involve legal emancipation only.
The sound of keyboard clicks fills the workshop as Tails hunches over and frowns at the screen, his posture isn't very good but he also doesn't care right now as he starts accessing Eggman's current passwords from his private network. He has done this many times before, the doctor even has an alert for whenever the fox gets in his data. He doesn't even try to stop him anymore, knowing it's inevitable to try and keep Tails out. Good to know he actually uses that brain of his.
As Tails takes the digital equivalent of a hammer to Eggman's firewall for the umpteenth time, he wonders if deleting everything from Eggman's servers will help his mood. It definitely sounds nice, he thinks as he kicks his feet absentmindedly — his feet never really reach the floor when he's sitting down anyway. Feeling giddy, either high on caffeine or from the lack of it, he wonders if should instead replace everything with pictures of Sonic to piss the man off.
No. Wait.
He's at war with Sonic.
He can't bring glory to a criminal, a perpetrator of domestic violence.
He's going to upload Charmy's high pitched, ear piercing singing in the highest quality he can instead. Maybe a few thousand copies of the bee movie too. He hopes Eggman likes bees. He definitely won't after this though.
Copying the passwords and pasting them in his notes app for later use (to replace the government's nuclear codes with) He starts deleting stuff randomly so he can later replace them with bee related files instead. Just then, under all the code appears a commented message:
# who hurt u
Ah, so Eggman is watching him maim his servers. Naturally, he types out a quick reply before going back to see where he saved that file of Charmy's unceremonious singing. Much to his dismay, the doctor seems to be in a talkative mood tonight. Whatever, Tails doesn't really mind small talk while destroying his databases when the man knows better than to intervene.
# go to bed old man
# YOU go to bed. It's 3 am
# shut
# has that hedgehog taught you no manners boy
The mention of Sonic has Tails frowning. Oh, that traitor. The one he believed was his only safe haven, his hero, his family but alas betrayal always comes from within. Tails furiously types out a reply to express his current distaste for Sonic.
# i dont wanna talk abt him >:(
# :0 Ooooooh did u two get in a fight???? :0
# shut up
# join the dark side boy, leave that hedgehog >:)
# im reprogramming cubot to kill u
# chaos youre salty today. no wait youre always like this
# you have 5 seconds to live
# okay fine leaving
Well now that he's gone, Tails can finally focus on his very important work again. He's almost done writing the code that will create about ten thousand copies of the bee movie and then keep copying it exponentially every fifteen seconds once he uploads it to the EggNet. About five minutes later, Tails finds another comment at the end of the code he's been manipulating on Eggman's servers.
# please don't delete the .sgr files tho, that's sage :((
The little fox, with all his innocence, smirks.
# does she like bees
# why
# youll find out :)
And with that he watches as Eggman quickly types out comment after comment in growing desperation to get him to talk. Tails leans back in his chair and takes a big stretch, it's not easy being the leading cause of old man panic around the globe. He's yet to see the government's reaction to missing nuclear codes too. Maybe Sonic is right after all, maybe he should go to sleep. He doesn't want his crankiness to get in the way of a national security breach that he's gonna dump on Eggman after pasting his egg themed passwords in place of the codes. But then again if he stays awake, he can both spite his big brother and possibly cause more old man panic. It's a tough choice but he can't have both things, now can he?
# what does that mean
# tails
# tails what are u doing
# don't ignore me fox boy
# im serious
# tails
# if you touch the .sgr files i'll kill sonic
Sonic again? His muzzle scrunches up at his brother's mention.
# not before i do it
# HUH??
Tails closes the file seeing as his code is done and ready to be uploaded to the EggNet. He hopes Eggman hasn't shown Sage the bee movie yet, it'll be more funny that way. Tails watches the code compile and run as if watching a decent amount of arson on someone's (Eggman's) property. In a few minutes, the doctor's servers will crash under the load of bees. He smiles, content. That does make him feel a bit better.
Unfortunately, the moment is short lived. Just after roughly three minutes he finds a small frown tugging down his lips again.
Tails sniffs. He doesn't know what he's more upset about; Sonic trying to take care of his health or his big brother not showing up to play that game with him. He kind of understands the first one but Sonic's way of going about it is still mean though, how dare he pick any way to separate him from caffeine and mints. He's not a child anymore; he knows how to control how much of both he consumes.
(The mint candy wrappers on the floor and the eight empty mugs on his desk beg to differ.)
But did Sonic really have to leave him waiting for a player two? His big brother never misses out on playing video games with him. Especially not when he's promised he will. It makes him a little sad. Tails pulls his knees close to his chest and hugs his legs as he watches the EggNet go down in metaphorical flames, does Sonic think he's so upset with him that he doesn't want to play with him anymore? Tails might be upset to the point of threatening emancipation but not to the point of wanting to be left to play Hello Doggie: Island Exploration Plus alone.
Absent-mindedly he picks at the fur at the tip of one of his tails, does Sonic not love him anymore? Because he drinks too much coffee and has a mint addiction? But that doesn't sound fair, Sonic is the one who introduced Tails to both of them in the first place. How is the addiction Tails' fault? Right, this is going under the false accusations section, maybe gaslighting too. At least the court case will be funny. He can already picture Sonic's absolutely devastated face.
Bored of messing with Eggman, Tails wonders where Sonic is because leaving game night is so unlike him that Tails is starting to think something must've happened.
Sonic always calls him when something serious comes up.
Tails sits up straight. Sonic hasn't called him. He hasn't even texted him. Where is he? Is he actually in trouble? How has he not thought about this before? Will Tails have to cancel and or postpone the emancipation?
Sticking his tongue out, he opens up the app he's made for managing everyone's communicators. He has a tracker installed in all of them, he knows where all of them are at all times so finding Sonic shouldn't be that hard if he's got his communicator with him, which Tails trusts he does.
He clicks on the little blue dot and the application maps his big brother's location within seconds.
Tails' eyes widen as he reads the exact coordinates, the exact location.
His brows knit, he grits his teeth.
Oh absolutely not.
Not on his fucking watch.
_____
The Guardian Units of Nations have faced many threats since its establishment over half a century ago and it is very obvious that there will be more to come in the way with its field of work. It's a known fact. Especially with how they do things, though let's not raise fingers yet. Not when the hallways of their headquarters are painted red under the light of the blaring alarms and screeching emergency alerts, and Parr still has to physically go get the troops ready — are they deaf? Or blind? Or has the commander finally lost it? Maybe old age is finally getting to him. He hopes it is, it's about time they've replaced him but he can't say that out loud if he likes living. Which he does.
So he obediently gets the Sigma-Alpha 2 troops ready to stand guard around the headquarters. As soldiers dash left and right, rushing to take their positions, the human wonders exactly what threat they're facing tonight — because of course Commander Tower didn't consider it important to tell his little messenger boy what the problem is — and especially at this hour too. What is it? Seven past three in the morning? Do international level looming threats not know that people are usually asleep at this time of the night? Ridiculous. He's not getting paid enough for this.
What he does know is that the problem they're facing right now is definitely big enough to have the commander shaking in his boots. He doesn't usually dispatch the entire Sigma-Alpha 2 for minor inconveniences, Parr knows that much.
Now Parr is not a fighter so technically he has no reason to go outside and meddle with serious issues, but Parr is a gossip and Herman is on leave today and he will need to know what happened when he was gone and Parr is a hundred percent sure the commander will try his best to get all records of this encounter erased from everywhere till Herman comes back. Parr is a good friend, he will have to tell Herman what happened and for that he will need to know what happened. What better way than first row tickets to the entire commotion.
Except he doesn't find what he was expecting outside. In fact, he doesn't know what he was expecting to begin with anymore.
The headquarters is surrounded by attack drones that have real nasty looking laser guns attached to them pointing straight at every soldier in sight, Parr gets his own as soon as he's spotted too as to not feel left out. Whoever's decided to wake them up is surely mean. He doesn't think anyone is supposed to survive a shot of that. Maybe he shouldn't have come out here but it's too late for that now, isn't it? Will he even get to live long enough to tell Herman about all this? He hasn't even told anyone about the time Frances forgot how the coffeemaker in the break room worked. Woe is he.
But what actually surprises him most is the little yellow fluffy blob standing a good few hundred metres away with a less fluffy but equally yellow device in his hands that very obviously controls the attack drones — now whose kid is that and why is he threatening to shoot every GUN soldier in sight? Parr thinks he might not live if he asks that question.
The kid looks so small. It makes him briefly wonder if this is a prank and as soon as the troops start pointing military grade weapons at him, he'll admit he was bluffing and go home. Briefly because as soon as the snipers aim at him, he does something on his device and two small compartments open at the sides of each drone and they begin dropping bombs at them. Okay, definitely not here to play.
Parr doesn't know if he can run back inside or not because the drone is still pointing that laser at him and the bombs are coming closer, the screams of his coworkers getting louder.
A strong voice interrupts the onslaught and for the first time in his life, except for salary days, Parr is happy to see the commander as he orders the snipers to lower their weapons. Consequently, the kid stops bombing them.
Far more calm and collected than he was in the office a few minutes ago, the commander all but demands from their little attacker, "What do you want?"
There's a slight, almost dramatic pause before the kit yells back a response, "What?!"
They're too far away to be able to hear each other without yelling. Naturally, the commander adapts to the situation in the most suitable way. In case anyone thinks the most suitable way is asking literally any of these soldiers to fetch him a megaphone to speak in, let Parr tell you otherwise as the commander matches the loudness of the kid and repeats, "I asked: what do you want?! Why are you picking a fight at this hour, don't you have school tomorrow?!"
"I have a doctorate!" Even from this distance, the offended look the boy gives them is easy to catch, "Also give me my brother back!"
"Who?"
"Don't play dumb! I'm too tired to play around with the likes of you!"
"We don't know what you're talking about!"
The kit looks almost furious now, "Sonic the Hedgehog; hand him over before I ash all of you!"
"We don't even know his whereabouts?"
Wrong answer. If they wanna mess with a cranky sleep deprived eight year old who's been waiting for his brother all day only to think that the hedgehog left him because he was upset about no mints then so be it. Tails cranes his neck up before accusingly pointing a finger at the human, "Section B218, lab T-5, room 11 on the fifth floor — and don't pretend like you don't know what that means because I know that's the lab you losers use for organic experimentation!"
An organic experimentation lab, not a human experimentation lab. Organic . Tails knows their secrets well enough to understand exactly what that means and by Chaos if any of these shits have laid a finger on his big brother, he's going to raze the entire building clean off the ground. He's only been dropping warning bombs till now but he's got worse packed in there if he finds a single blue quill hurt on that hedgehog. Funny, how he was considering emancipation from Sonic not fifteen minutes ago and now he's threatening an international security organization and the military at point blank to safely give him his brother back. He's a good little brother.
"Stop yelling out private information! Also, who told you that?!"
Tails levels the commander with a stern look, "You have ten seconds to give him back before I come up there myself, that's more than what I usually give Eggman!"
Here's the funny part; as Parr looks between the kid and the commander who looks a bit confused and taken aback at the boy's demands, he thinks — no, he knows that Tower actually has no fucking clue what that boy is on about and he genuinely believes, as he should, that the kid isn't joking around with those attack drones. Ten seconds is a bit unfair considering that there's no possible solution GUN can fish out for what can only be a misunderstanding of some sort. They can only hope the kid is at least going to keep his mouth shut about the lab though. It'll be a mess if that gets out… But that's only if any of them make it to sunrise. Tower may not have any qualms against killing children but he's starting to recognize the boy now, and his tech, and the fact they're not surviving a full blown fight against him.
Clock's ticking. They don't have much time to think of alternatives. Maybe if a sniper gets a good aim at his head and gets the job done before the boy carries out his threat they can all go to sleep peacefully.
Right. That seems more plausible than talking a child down.
The commander raises his hand, ready to shout out instructions to the snipers standing before him.
Except he doesn't get to say anything as a new voice interrupts them.
"Hey, what's happening here?"
_____
Sonic groans.
His ears twitch before he shifts his position so he's lying on his left arm, his right one feels like static now given by how long he's been sleeping on it now. It's definitely been hours, maybe a whole day too. He hasn't slept in a while and he just happened to crash wherever. It's kind of cold, the grass isn't usually this cold when he sleeps outside but he doesn't really care or think that he's sleeping on grass. Grass isn't quite as hard as the floor beneath him. Nothing to worry about, just let him get five more minutes of sleep.
Loud noises interrupt him. Why are people yelling? Don't they know someone's trying to sleep up here?
Sonic covers his ears but when the yelling continues, he's forced to get up. His quills are a dishevelled mess, a small frown on his face at being woken up so abruptly.
He probably shouldn't complain though, he's slept enough and he also promised to play that video game with Tails — he's gonna be upset if Sonic doesn't show up on time after not getting him his mints. Maybe one tin of mints wouldn't hurt. As an apology. Yeah that sounds nice.
Wait.
Emerald eyes squint at the sky that is most definitely dark enough to not be afternoon anymore.
What time is it?
What time is it for Tails? Because Sonic really hopes he's in a different timezone than him and hasn't missed a game night.
Sonic checks the time and his location as well — why he's been sleeping on a terrace connected to the fifth floor of a military base is an entirely different topic, an irrelevant question. What matters here is that he slept too long and missed some quality time with his baby brother who was already upset with him. Oh no, maybe one tin of mints won't do anymore.
Sonic scurries to stand on his feet and get to the closest store that sells mint candies at this hour. Or that is what he tries to do when the yelling that woke him up in the first place happens once more and this time, since he's actually awake enough to comprehend what's going on now, he recognizes one of the voices.
Tails?
What's his little brother doing over here? This late too? What's going on?
Sonic jumps off the terrace and lands on a lower ground, then he rushes to the source of the little fox's voice.
It's not long before he finds himself looking at what can only be a soon to be battlefield except it's the entire military against the fluffiest little guy he knows.
He gets that Tails isn't really fond of GUN but this isn't time for kids his age to be starting a war, it's bedtime. He should be asleep right now, he's pulled enough all nighters by now and Sonic knows how cranky he can get after them. He just didn't know he can get cranky enough to pointing his death rays at these guys. A full eight hours of sleep will get him back to functioning normally, he's sure. Rightfully confused, the hedgehog calls, "Hey, what's happening here?"
All eyes turn to him and the commander looks like he wants to say something but Tails beats him to it by immediately brightening up at the sight of the blue hedgehog. A large smile takes the place of the previously grim scowl that he's been giving to the humans, "Sonic!"
Sonic waves at Tails and Tails waves back before the teen runs down to him. Sonic gently pets his head as an apology but then he takes his face in his hands upon seeing the bags under the kit's eyes. Whatever they talk about next isn't within any of the humans' hearing range but that's not what they're worried about. The drones fall back, the hedgehog takes the kid home and they all get to live another day. That's all that matters.
Parr sighs. He doesn't know if Herman is lucky or not to have missed that one time Sonic the Hedgehog's little brother almost killed all of them in cold blood.
Kids are ruthless.
_____
It's not until a few hours into the next day when GUN finds out that their nuclear codes have been completely erased, instead replaced by random egg centric dishes with strange strings of numbers attached to them. This time, however, the perpetrator is unknowingly sleeping away securely tucked into his brother's chest, snoring peacefully as his brother reads a book, completely unaware while the organization goes down in flames.
Metaphorical flames, of course.