Work Text:
Stone can hear the apologetic grovelling of a fellow agent. Not uncommon around here. What interests him is what he can't hear.
He catches the cadence of Dr. Robotnik's voice, lowered to an icy growl, but he can't make out what he's saying.
Agent Stone has been going through the motions on some dumb errand he has been given by someone who is still his superior. Unfortunately, Robotnik isn't the only one he is serving. At this point in time, he is still a lackey for a government agency, so he has to be an errand boy for regular management types as well as the genius inventor. Robotnik takes precedence, so they are required to drop other tasks if he needs them, but when not otherwise occupied, they are given grunt work by other lowly “bosses”. Stone does his work without complaint, and quietly waits to be taken away for a task that really matters.
"Yes, sir."
He tiptoes closer to the office the voices are coming from. He pauses just before the doorway.
“No, sir."
The edges of the Doctor's murmured voice are dripping with disdain. He's deadly quiet. Threatening. Stone holds his breath to try to hear.
“...incompetent, useless arrant failure…”
“Of course, sir.”
Carefully, Stone peers around the corner.
Robotnik has the henchman backed into the corner, pinning him to the wall with his mind, not needing to touch him to bend him to his will. He is leaning into the agent's ear, spitting venom.
The poor sap is being chewed out for what Stone can guess was likely a minor mistake. In the eyes of an ordinary human, that is. Dr. Robotnik has a high standard and a low tolerance for imperfection. It's one of the many things Stone admires about him.
“Now then!” Robotnik pulls away, and the agent sucks in a breath of relief. “Is it going to happen again?”
The agent sighs. “No, sir—”
In the blink of an eye the doctor has a gloved hand on the agent's jugular, pressing him into the wall. He gags, sputtering and wide-eyed.
Stone's own breath hitches in his throat. He can't see Robotnik's face, but he can sense the wicked fire in his eyes as though they were on him instead. He can feel the hair on the back of his neck standing up.
After just a couple of seconds, Robotnik releases his prey. The agent stumbles to his knees, coughs.
“Next time, if you're going to disrespect me, Agent, at least have the decency to do it behind my back like the rest of you snivelling human refuse.”
“I-I didn't—”
“‘I didn't! I didn't!’” Robotnik mocks. “Don't tell fibs. I could hear the apathy in your tone.”
Stone had heard it too. This other agent had let his guard down too quickly. He should have known not to show weakness.
“You tire me.” Robotnik turns his attention back to his workstation. He waves a dismissive hand. “Leave.”
The depleted Agent rises to his feet. He bows his head and beelines toward the door.
Stone slips to the side and puts his back to the wall.
The other agent steps out of the doorway, brushing off invisible dirt from his suit.
“What a psycho…”
Said as if he expected Stone to agree. How disgraceful.
Stone says nothing. He tries not to let his disgust show too heavily on his face.
The other agent just scoffs and walks away. He disappears down the hallway.
Stone despises the attitude of people like that. They are so interested in appearances and materiality that they have no awareness of what really matters in this world. They are nothing like him.
Robotnik begins humming to himself beyond the wall. Stone closes his eyes, leaning back against it. He listens to his murmured song, to the drumming of gloved fingertips against the high-tech glass desktop, the faint beeping of the computers. Robotnik's world fascinates and delights Stone. The gentle thrum of his machinery soothes. Stone daydreams of the day when Robotnik will finally rise above all of the bureaucracy and tedium. Stone plans to be by his Doctor's side when it happens. He suspects that most of his fellow agents will not be. He will not miss them.
Stone turns to leave, deciding he'd best get back to fetching for the other so-called higher-ups. But before he takes one step away from the wall, he is stopped in his tracks.
“Agent Stone.”
He freezes. His heart leaps into his throat. He had let his guard down. Foolish of him.
He gulps in a breath. Best not to keep the doctor waiting now. Stone presents himself at the doorway.
“Yes, Doctor?”
Robotnik's eyes pierce his. His gaze is intense, as always, but he appears to be more curious than annoyed or angry. “Eavesdropping, were we?”
Stone knows not to deny it. He bows his head slightly. “Sorry, sir.”
Robotnik beckons him to come closer with a motion of his finger. Stone complies.
Robotnik looks him up and down, studying.
“You appear to have self-preservation instincts, at least. You stopped to listen to find out what happens to naughty little agents who defy me. You're researching.”
A hint of a smile upturns Stone's lips. “Thank you, sir.”
“I don't like you.” Robotnik looks down his nose at him, literally. He must feel the need to clarify this after the almost-compliment.
Stone nods.
“I don't like anyone. All humans are small, weak…”
Robotnik reaches out to clasp curious fingers around Stone's face. His gloved hand radiates no body heat. It makes Stone aware of the warmth beginning to rise to his cheeks.
“Pathetic.”
The Doctor's breath on his face is making Stone a little delirious. He concentrates on keeping his own breathing steady.
“You—” he digs his finger and thumb into Stone's jaw, and tilts his head upward to make sure he is looking him in the eye. “--are pathetic.”
He says the words with no malice, none of the venom with which he had addressed the previous nonbeliever. Stone is still sure he means it.
“Yes, sir.”
Robotnik chuckles. This ready admittance of meagerness seems to have tickled him in some way. Something flutters in Stone's chest.
Robotnik releases his grasp and turns his attention back to his monitor. He resumes typing on his robotic gloves. He's finished with him for now.
“That'll be all,” he dismisses, not looking at him.
Robotnik's gaze carries a weight that leaves Stone feeling empty in its absence. Hungry.
He takes a second to compose himself, straightening his posture. “Yes, Doctor.”
Stone bows and exits the office.
Once in the privacy of the hallway, a smile breaks onto Stone's face. He continues his day with a newfound bounce in his step.
—☆—
Between his other tasks, Agent Stone spends as much time as he can with Dr. Robotnik. The talk around the water cooler is that he's an ass-kisser, but Stone doesn't pay this any mind. Most of his “coworkers” are lowlifes, in his professional opinion. None of them are here for the same purpose he is. To some of them, sidling up with geniuses is an opportunity for status, for power, or for wealth. For others—the worst of them all—it's actually just a job. To Stone, serving Robotnik is a higher calling. It is his everything. He takes his position very seriously.
These people don't understand how lucky they are to be breathing in the same air as Robotnik breathes. He doesn't need to worry about them. He knows the unworthy will get their comeuppance one day.
Stone devotes all of his possible waking time to Robotnik and his work. He is not recognized for it.
There is no praise around here, no such thing as a “job well done.” There is merely adequate work, or inadequate work. The former deserves no reward, because the latter is unacceptable. You're either permitted to be here, or you're gone, and being kept around is a privilege that you should be grateful to be afforded.
Nonetheless, Stone tries his best and works his hardest to be exceptional. He knows that he is. He is strong enough and smart enough not to need to be told. Robotnik's attention is a rare commodity, and Stone doesn't expect it. Just being in his presence is usually enough for Stone.
Usually.
This day, however, he had received an undue reprimanding from one of the higher-higher-ups that left him sour, bereft of some attention from the man who was actually worthy of his own.
It would be easy to get it. All he'd have to do is slip a little and that piercing gaze and all the violence that came with it could be his. Usually he could restrain himself. He typically waits to deserve the punishment, or the backhanded almost-compliment and takes whatever comes. At this moment, however, he wants for something. He shouldn't want, he shouldn't, he shouldn't.
The attempt at a berating he'd gotten from some suit would have had been laughable were it not so insultingly generic. He appreciates for somebody to at least have their facts about him correct when they're insulting and dehumanizing him.
He shouldn't want, but he wants nonetheless.
Today, Agent Stone does something a little stupid.
—☆—
“Oops.”
The loud clanging of metal resounds sharply in Robotnik's ears. He clutches his head. Who the hell...
He pushes his chair back from the desk and swivels around, ready to unleash wrath upon its source.
Agent Stone is on the floor already, collecting scattered metal objects— wrenches, air sockets, bolts, screwdrivers. The tool case he had asked him to fetch a few minutes ago.
“My apologies, sir, I…” Stone looks up at the doctor for a second, huge brown eyes glinting in the monitor's blue light. Then he bows his head and returns to tidying the mess he's made. “I must have slipped. I wasn't paying attention.”
Robotnik is angry, but he stays silent for a second. He stares at the assistant. Something nags at him.
His mind wanders through moments from the last few weeks. He had been laser-focused on his work, as always, not on the puny humans who buzzed around him like flies: landing on him, getting in his way, swarming him with meek interruptions that irritate and itch as bites on his ankles. An annoyance that he put up with (valiantly, he may add) only because having his extraneous needs waited on makes it easier to prioritize his work. That is what is important to him.
Now he considers Stone, probably for the first time since meeting him. And he notices something just then. Something that bothers him.
He doesn't usually spend the brainpower to “notice” “quirks” in the people around him. It's a waste of his time. Quirk is just another word for flaw. Humans are flawed. To his chagrin, he knows they cannot help it. They simply don't have minds like his.
He doesn't intend to “get to know” anyone. Unless it gives him a tactical advantage, there is no point to it. But now a thought about Stone is crossing his mind, and something truly interesting is appearing to him.
Stone was never clumsy before. It was not a flaw that he possessed. Reviewing his memories of the man, he finds Stone exceptionally calculated, quick, and fleet-footed; Smart, even, for a grovelling low-life. Why would he be clumsy now? Is something throwing him off his game? Or is he lying to him?
He shifts in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. He leans back and watches Stone gather up the last of the objects and carefully replace them in the toolbox.
He watches him like an animal watches its prey. He waits until the task is complete, then he speaks:
“Stone.”
Stone's head snaps up. “Yes Doctor?”
“Do you take me for a fool?”
“I-I beg your pardon, sir?”
Robotnik rises to his feet. Stone tilts his head to look at him from his position on the floor— beneath him.
“Do you mean to distract me? To interrupt me? You know how I hate interruptions.”
“Doctor, I—”
Robotnik tuts disapprovingly. “And you know I have zero interest in meager excuses.”
Stone shuts his mouth, nods.
Robotnik crosses the floor toward Stone. He towers over him, hoping to relish in the look of fear in his minion's face… but he doesn't find it. Stone's eyes are deer-in-headlights wide, but there's something unusual about the feeling behind them. The typical look of henchman trepidation contains dread, and often disgust. The loathing for their boss always creeps through. In moments like these, Robotnik always knows what they really think of him.
But Stone's big brown eyes are devoid of that hatred. There is something else. Robotnik squints, peering into Stone's soul.
It clicks.
“You…” Robotnik's eyes narrow. He bends and grabs Stone by his tie. He speaks low and slow, nose to nose with the deviant henchman “...were hoping I'd punish you.”
A flicker of delicious panic in Stone's eyes.
“Sir, I—”
Quicker than a flash, Robotnik shuts his deplorable aide up by pushing three gloved fingers into his open mouth. A gasping, gagging sound punctuates the silence, sending a thrill coursing through the mad scientist's blood.
“Shut. Up. What,” he spits, “did I say about excuses?”
Stone lets slip a teeny, tiny, pathetic whimper. Robotnik can feel it inside his veins. The power is tantalizing. Blood-boiling. He pushes his fingers a little further.
“You think you're clever, Stone? —That's rhetorical. Don't speak. Don't whine.”
Stone blinks an acknowledgement, eyelashes fluttering. A little saliva has started to pool and dribble from the corner of his mouth. It's completely obscene.
“I see right through your little ruse, Agent Stone. You're pitiful. You're sick. You think you can come here and act out, to manipulate attention out of me? What, because you're bored? Because you're…”
Robotnik isn't sure what he is. He isn't used to not knowing. “Self-indulgent,” he decides. “Gluttonous.”
He grabs Stone by the jaw with his free hand.
“You know better than this. Do you not?”
Stone 'uhm-hmm' s weakly in agreement. Despite the obvious, fatuous want, Robotnik can see the remorse loud and clear in Stone's pitiful expression. The agent knows he is not so shameless as to fall out of line like this. A momentary lapse in judgement must have occurred. Human desire overwhelmed his reasonable senses. Robotnik doesn't detest this, as much as he wants to.
“I think, for your wanton insolence, I'm going to punish you…” He pushes, just for a fraction of a second, threatens Stone's wet throat, squeezes his soft flesh. Then he releases. “...by not punishing you.”
Robotnik watches the tendrils of saliva hang on to his fingers as he pulls from the henchman's spoiled maw. Don't go, they almost say. He wipes his glove on Stone's suit.
“Get up.”
Stone scrambles to his feet, breath shaky, heart aflutter. Against his will, Robotnik's own is racing.
“I should have half a mind to fire you.”
He should. Robotnik has no time for weaknesses. If Stone is exhibiting one, he should discard him, but... something about this particular weakness is like candy to him.
Stone says nothing. He looks down at their feet, wipes spit from his chin. He looks like a kicked puppy.
“Agent Stone.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Don't sulk. It's utterly nauseating. Chin up, now.”
Stone straightens himself up. More of this pleading eye contact again. This is even more nauseating. His gigantic eyes are full of something utterly, stupidly human. Anticipation, despair, regret… is that longing? Robotnik can't even bear to look at all this dreadful mush for another second.
“Relax already,” he grumbles. “I've already decided to keep you. Now…” Robotnik turns away from him with a wave of his hand. “Put my tools on my desk, get these perverted ideas out of your head, and go make yourself useless somewhere else. Before I change my mind.”
Without looking he can practically hear the relief washing over Stone's face.
“Yes, Doctor. Thank you, Doctor.”
Stone does as he's told regarding the tools. There's no telling whether he will comply with the second directive. He bows his head dutifully and disappears out of the room. Robotnik slumps back down into his chair.
His chest feels tight, like his lungs have just been working hard. As if he were running a marathon, not disciplining an employee. Curious.
This feeling is not something he has ever observed within himself before. He wants to brush it aside, but it's a significant reaction. He tries to catch his breath.
Ivo Robotnik has always felt that he understood the world, and every puny thing in it. He always knows what he wants and how to get it. The world is simple to him, and pliable. He can manipulate it and bend it to his will, however it suits him. Stone is challenging this. Stone desires whatever Robotnik desires. This much is to be expected. But Stone's admiration has proven, without a doubt, to stretch beyond a desire for personal power. There is a desire there, but it's something else.
The image of Stone on his knees, choking on his cold glove, with some kind of wild fire burning behind his eyes sticks in his mind.
An ordinary human wouldn't put up with that. Wouldn't crave that. Someone with a mere fetish could find a much easier source of that kind of satisfaction. Stone is a far cry from ordinary.
Stone wants him.
Robotnik isn't equipped to deal with that. He has never seen, never even dreamt of, this type of devotion before. He takes a screwdriver from the tool case and turns it around and around in his hand; rotates Agent Stone in his mind.
In a development that comes as a surprise to him, Robotnik finds himself starting to smile.
He shouldn't want to give Stone any satisfaction, but he had enjoyed the power trip. He had enjoyed Stone's enjoyment of the power trip.
Maybe he could work with this.