Chapter Text
He was late, damn him.
Not that Sonic cared.
He scoffed aloud at the notion, shuffling his feet absentmindedly in the loose gravel that littered the alleyway. From his spot under the shadow of F-City’s skyscrapers he could clearly see the entrance to the public market and catalogue every individual that moved between the stalls. Yet the assassin could not, for the life of him, spot his intended target among the small crowd.
This was certainly…interesting. And annoying. Fishing his phone out he once more scrutinized the text messages for anything he might have missed.
Eva Unit 02
Saturday, 8:03 a.m.
hey you shitty-ass-microwave! got any plans monday morning?
Not one of your better openers. Make this quick; I have a meeting to attend to.
WOW. rude much?
I’d like to think I’m just straightforward.
uh huh. Anyway. F-City. monday 9 a.m. at the downtown market. Show up so
that I may eliminate you from my path to Saitama once and for all! Don’t be
late or I make it a bloodbath. ;)
Sure you will.
also I may or may not go for breakfast after Just so you know.
Okay.
Grey eyes narrowed, staring hard at the last line of text. If it had been anyone else, Sonic would have suspected a lack of communication to be the problem. But no, coming from him ‘okay,’ was as good as an ‘I’ll be there.'
“Then where the fuck is he?”
It really shouldn’t have bothered him as much as it did. He was Speed of Sound Sonic, the fastest man alive, the world’s best assassin, the most effective killing machine around! So what if the damn cyborg didn’t show up? He could just hunt the coward down like any of his other hits. If he was honest, Sonic needed the practice anyway. How long had it been since he had a chance to stalk a target? Months? A year?
‘Has it really been that long? Close to it, at least 8 months. Shit, that Saitama has taken up more of my time than I realized. FUCK. I’m going to need to take a job soon. No wonder my cash is getting low. Fuck that stupid bald mutant and his trusty pet Megaman.’
Really, the prospect of hunting down Genos, should have been exciting. Sonic should have been raring to go, biting at the bit at the prospect of slicing through that annoying brat’s braincase, eliminating the competition and avenging his previous humiliations. His pulse should be racing, his fingers should be itching to grab the hilt of his sword; he should be busy trying to hide that awful manic grin behind his twitching hands.
‘Because it’s not like I enjoy constantly having to fight the kid or anything. I certainly don’t enjoy having to set up meetings like this. I never looked for a sparing partner, really. I don’t need the practice. The only reason that bald freak bested me those times was because he was lucky, plain and simple. There is no one that can fight me on even ground and survive. I’m the best goddamn assassin on the planet. Hell yeah, HELL YEAH.’
Sonic leaned against the wall of the alley and gave a slight nod, as if convinced of his own internal monologue.
‘It’s just complete coincidence that our fights no longer seem as serious. If given the chance, we’d gladly kill each other. Well, I’d kill the kid, because let’s face it, he’s no real match for me. I just enjoy playing with him is all. And it’s a complete coincidence that we often end up in the same place afterwards, or that we’re amicable towards each other. If I fought with him all the time people would think I was petty, and that would ruin my reputation!’
The corners of Sonic’s mouth twitched upward into small grin, his slender arms crossing themselves across his chest.
‘I certainly don’t enjoy the brat’s company. I hate his sarcasm, and the fact he tries to act so goddamn mature for his age, or his tiny, stupid little grins, or the times where he is uncharacteristically polite for no reason.’
‘And I absolutely despise the fact that he bought me popcorn when we saw that shitty movie.’
Sonic’s grin did a complete 180 faster than what should have been humanly possible. He pushed off from the wall in disgust; he wasn’t doing the best at convincing himself.
‘It’s all his fault. Damn him for making me wait.’
The clock on his phone read 9:25 a.m.
He’d give him five more minutes.
He waited for forty-five minutes.
But the damn cyborg ended up being a no-show.
Sonic kicked open the door to the small studio-apartment that was serving as his current base of operations. He flicked his wrist, intending to send the keys skipping across the countertop in a childish tantrum. But in his anger he used a little more force than was strictly necessary. The teeth of the keys dug deep groves in the linoleum before embedding themselves in the far wall.
“FUCK.”
He closed his eyes, teeth grinding together with a terrible rumbling sound. One hand slowly reached behind his back, feeling for the door knob, before closing it as gently as his current temper would allow.
The kid had stood him up. The fucking shitty robot with his can-opener arms and 90s-inspired boy-band hair had fucking stood him, Speed-of-Fucking-Sound Sonic, up.
No phone call. No text. No anything.
‘How dare he?’
Sonic leaned his head back and reached clawed hands into his hair, dragging his fingers through the loose strands, past his eyes and the tattoos beneath them, over his lips, to finally rest on his jaw line. He stood like that for a time, listening to the silence. After a time his arms fell limply to his sides. He stayed there, slouched, for a few minutes more. Then, slowly, agonizingly so, he shuffled his way over to the lone futon in the room, before dramatically flinging himself face-down onto the black fabric.
He jerked his head up suddenly, hand shoving into his pocket once more to dredge up his phone.
‘This is pathetic. I shouldn’t be so hung up over this. He’s just a shitty teenager, and a fucking “hero” at that. What did you expect? For him to continue being consistent? To actually be invested in whatever the hell it is you are doing?’
Still, Sonic found his eyes burning holes into the last, poignant “Okay,” fingers hovering tensely over the keyboard. He exhaled forcefully past his clenched teeth with a “whishing” sound. Finally the moved, typing the least passive-aggressive thing he could muster at the moment.
He wasn’t very successful.
Eva Unit 02
Monday, 10:08 a.m.
so did I do something to piss you off, or is your head just shoved
that far up your ass?
Disgusted with the situation, with himself, Sonic scoffed, and haphazardly dropped his phone onto the floor below. He would not allow himself to sit and wait for a reply like some love-sick child. He was a grown man goddammit, an assassin. He shouldn’t care this much.
He shouldn’t care at all.
As it turned out, Genos would not dignify Sonic with a reply that day, or the day after that. In fact, he did not hear a word from him until three days later when a new batch of eldritch abominations dragged themselves onto the beach of J-city.
Sonic rarely took the time to simply enjoy things, and of course the one day he didn’t have Saitama on his mind, this bullshit happened.
‘Literally FUCK the ocean,’ he thought bitterly, deft hands removing the barbed tentacle from the many-eyed monstrosity in front of him. ‘And everything in it.’ The thing shrieked in rage, flailing the stump of its limb around. Strange blood painted Sonic’s shorts a bright blue. ‘Fucking perfect. I doubt that will come out. And these weren’t cheap.’
Around him civilians fled, running over each other in blind panic. Luckily for them, the monsters had attacked Sonic first. Unluckily for the monsters, they had attacked Sonic first. Even without the majority of his gear, he had made quick work of the first few that had attempted to lay their slimy appendages on him. As it was, five lay in various states of ‘dead’ and ‘dying’ on the beach.
His blade pierced through the center of the wailing, bulbous mass in front of him, and the thing collapsed with a gurgled sigh, kicking up a cloud of sand from a decimated dune. Six then.
Presently the sound of an engine reached his ears. Three seconds later the beach erupted into absolute chaos. During that time, Sonic was able to process exactly three thoughts:
‘That was fast,’ was the first.
‘Since when does that Stinger chump fly?” was the second.
‘Shit, wait, I know that engine,” was the last.
In that last second another sound reached Sonic’s ears and he reacted on instinct, sandaled feet kicking him away from the present group of monsters. An instant later and they were gone, reduced to burning pieces of flesh, the sand where they had stood baked to glass.
Sonic coughed and wrinkled his nose at the acrid smell, as Genos landed in front of the surf. ‘Gross. Well, I’m certainly not having calamari for a while.’
The emerging wave of monsters paused their advance and glanced between Sonic, their fallen comrades, and Genos. Calmly the hero raised one hand, charging for another inceneration blast. The rest of the monsters decided, probably smartly, that they were fighting a losing battle, and disappeared beneath the foam in a tangle of teeth, fins and tentacles.
Slowly Genos lowered his hand and…stared. The wind ruffled his synthetic blonde hair, blowing a good deal of it out of place. Not even the sudden cheering of the crowd behind him could break the teen out of whatever reverie he was entertaining, his gaze focused intently on the spot from which the mysterious beings had fled.
It was odd. Something was off about him, and if Sonic had taken a step back to think about it, perhaps things could have gone more smoothly.
Instead, he approached aggressively, his voice incensed.
“You stupid piece of shit, what the f-“
And then he was flying through the air, one of Genos’s hands grasped firmly around his throat. They landed in a backstreet, away from the crowd, and Genos slammed him against the nearest building, hard. He jerked Sonic forward, presumably to repeat the action, and Sonic’s head rolled toward him limply. When the assassin blinked, he saw stars.
The reaction was automatic. For a moment Sonic’s form was a blur of limbs, and then he was on the ground, gasping for breath, and Genos’s arm was bent at an odd angle. Sonic stood, and watched as Genos rotated the mechanical joint back into place, his face impassive.
“W..w-hat is..your fucking damage?” The line was delivered in a wheezing voice, and devoid of any of the anger Sonic meant to convey. ‘Wonderful.’
For the first time that encounter, Genos finally made eye contact with the man in front of him, as if he was just now noticing he was there.
In his line of work, Sonic had looked into many people’s eyes (sometimes while they glassed over as that person choked out their last breath). It was amazing really, what you could learn about a person from them. The subtle twitches they made, how and when they dilated, where the person focused (and where they didn’t). The eyes were among the most expressive part of a person, and knowing this was a valuable tool for anyone in his line of work.
But he had never expected to see such eyes on someone so young, or to see that look mirrored perfectly in something that wasn’t organic.
Genos’s eyes were old, tired. They were eyes he had seen only on a few people before, on those who had stared at him as his blade drew near, not with anger or fear, but with resolution.
They were the eyes of someone who no longer feared death.
The hero shifted his body to completely face Sonic, gaze unwavering. “I’m sorry. You need to leave.”
Sonic laughed then, the sound bitter, ending in a series of coughs that wracked his chest. “That’s rich. What’d I do to piss you off this time? If it’s about jumping your egg-headed teacher at the supermarket-"
He was cut off abruptly by a mechanical whirring, and Genos raised his hand, palm even with Sonic’s face. “I am not joking. This is not a request.” Sonic could feel the heat radiating off Genos as he charged for incineration. “As a villain with strength equivalent to that of an S-Class hero, you pose a direct threat to the civilians of J-City. Consider this a warning. If you do not leave now, I will engage you with the intent of eliminating said threat.”
Anger burned through him, hot, dangerous, unquenchable. Sonic imagined himself moving, faster than the hero could follow, severing his head from his artificial spine. He imagined peeling the exoskeleton away from the braincase and destroying the only part of the brat that was still human, denying him the few seconds of time he could have survived separated from his core. Or, he could rip the power source out itself. Crush it between hands slick with oil, and watch his body slowly shut down, that damnable grin plastered across his bruised face.
Yet Genos’s eyes twitched briefly, nearly imperceptibly, and Sonic found he couldn’t make such a move, couldn’t even reach for his sword, because-
-the first few times sparing, how they became less and less aggressive, until it was essentially just a show, an excuse to be seen together and to practice their techniques. Being in utter and complete denial of that. Coffee in B-City. A walk through M-City’s nature park. Going to the movies. Buttered popcorn. Being places where they’re alone, or where it’s too dark for them to be recognized. Denying those are dates. Criticizing the kid’s shitty music taste (it’s not shitty, really). Being criticized for his shitty sense of style (also not shitty). Almost holding hands (they brushed up against each other in the dark of the theatre, and both of them were too comfortable to care). Being in denial of everything because he can’t care, someone like him can’t care, and he’s confused because he just saw the same thing flicker across Genos’s face, and what happened to him, what’s going on-
-he’s too busy listening to the approaching sirens, signaling that the kid will soon have back-up. He hates to do it, hates to bow out of a fight, especially when he’s so fucking angry, but he needs to leave before things get too nasty.
Which is why runs away from the fight, from the city, from the kid. He runs away to plot his revenge. Yes. That’s how it will be.
He certainly won’t try to find out what’s going on with the hero.
He doesn’t give a damn about Genos. Doesn’t care at all.
He is not sure he can convince himself of that anymore.