Chapter Text
Golden, late-afternoon light filtered in through the mostly-open blinds of the Mean Bean coffee shop. Soft, melodic jazz crooned from recessed speakers in the ceiling as the shop’s patrons tip-tapped away at laptop computers, flipped through over-hyped hardbacks in plush recliners, and added their murmured voices to the overall drowsy ambiance of the place. A cozy, typical Thursday afternoon for the small town of Green Hills, Montana’s best (only, thank you very much) café.
It was just the sort of quaint afternoon that Agent Stone hated the most. A slow day meant too few customers approaching the counter, drinks or pastries to prepare, or messes to clean up. A slow day left him standing attentive at the counter for hours on end, alone with his thoughts; trying to ignore the discreet thrum of sleek Robotnik technology concealed mere inches under his clasped hands on the countertop. The last reminder of —
He had just jerkily turned his back to the shopfront, intending to use the scrubbing of dishes as an excuse to conceal his stormy face and break away from his impending spiral of thoughts, when he heard the bell hanging over the entryway suddenly jangle its chipper tune. Finally. He blinked. Something to actually do. He sighed heavily, slouching his shoulders before straightening out his hunched back, and turned around, drawing breath for the best customer-service spiel he could muster at the moment.
“Welcome to the Mean Bean. How m—?” Stone’s greeting stuttered to a stop, eyebrows scrunching in confusion as he looked around at the lack of a customer approaching the counter. He glanced around at the interior of the establishment — no new patrons had entered the building or were settling in at the tables or plush couches, and none of the existing guests had departed since his last look around.
“Oh, sorry Agent Stone! I’m a little short for the counter, aren’t I? Hang on,” squeaked out a small voice, accompanied by the gradual appearance of… Tails?! The little yellow fox fluttered (flapped? spun? …however the creature used his tails to break physics and achieve flight) up, Stone’s none-too-happy scowl and distrustful glare following him the whole way. “I was walking through town today and thought, ‘Y’know,’” he rambled, stroking his chin with his fingers, “‘I’ve been living in Green Hills for a while now, but I’ve never been to that coffee shop. Come to think of it, I don’t even know what coffee tastes like! So — I should definitely go in there today and give it a try.’ Hah, imagine my surprise when I saw you working here, Agent Stone!” Tails explained, throwing his little arms out with aplomb, trying hard to sell the story.
Hmm.
Too hard.
Stone’s face darkened as his eyebrows raised, unconvinced by the fox’s contrived explanation. “You… want to try coffee. That’s why you’re here? You know that I know that you know I maintain this establishment, right?” he questioned matter-of-factly, voice drenched in sarcasm.
“I — uh… yes?” came the confused, squeaked response.
He leaned down, sinking to meet the fox’s face, and narrowed his eyes. “You’re not here to bug the lab again?” he whisper-interrogated derisively, staying quiet to avoid drawing the attention of the shop’s other patrons. It had in fact been a few weeks since the multicolored menagerie had last antagonized Stone; he supposed it was due time for another one of their annoying tricks. At least it was Tails confronting him this time (though, notably, today was the first time the fox had actually shown his face instead of skulking around where and when he thought Stone wouldn’t’ve been able to see him) — the space-porcupine’s verbal threats were always boring and trite when he couldn’t talk with his fists, and the blue pin-cushion’s snide comments always made Stone feel insultingly like a Saturday-morning-cartoon villain. At least that one hadn’t been back since the time Stone had threatened to use the Badniks to tase the little menace.
Their lady companion, Maddie, still stopped by every so often to pick up a large coffee order for her veterinary clinic. Eliminating every competing business within a 25 mile radius occasionally had its detriments, as her recurring presence had been extraordinarily awkward (and might he begrudgingly add, genuinely slightly intimidating) for the first few visits — she silently glaring daggers at him the entire time as he prepared her order — but thankfully, her arrival eventually turned out to be quite predictable. Stone was quickly able to work her order into his opening routine so as to minimize their chance of interaction: Wednesday mornings, every other week, at 6:03:27am. On the dot. Three caffè lattes (two with oat milk, one triple-shot), a hot chocolate (hold the whipped cream), two americanos, and three lemon-blueberry scones. Leave the drink holders and pastry baggie on the right corner of the counter, ignore her as she stalks in and ignores you, drops $50 in the tip jar, and leaves with the order. Continue on with your day (and stifle how much the regimen reminds you of executing a precise, predictable coffee order for another certain individual). Oh, and the other do-goody: the police officer. Apparently, Shadow had gut-punched the hell out of him back in London. The image of a tiny, angry, hopped-up-on-teenage-angst hedgehog punching the cerdo had made Stone chuckle when he’d first heard the news, but he otherwise didn’t care if the guy had lived or died. Sergeant Snack Plate stuck his nose where it didn’t belong around the Bean every now and again, and god knows one incompetent cop was more than enough of a hassle for Stone to have to deal with.
“Again? Oh, uh, that’s right, you found the first two…” Tails’ reluctant admittance, accompanied by faux-bashfully rubbing his hand behind his head, jolted Stone back to the present. His right eyebrow twitched slightly, inquisitively, as he cocked his head to the side. So. The fox thought himself clever, eh?
He licked his teeth behind closed lips, eyeing up the critter. “All five of them, actually.”
“Wait — how’d you know there were five altogether?!”
“Because you just told me, fox boy.”
“...shoot.”
Despite himself, Stone smiled a little on the inside. At least the enemy gadgeteer provided somewhat of a stimulating challenge for him. Stone made a mental note to sweep the perimeter that evening after closing up the Bean — in truth, he’d actually found seven listening devices so far, but who was to say how many Tails had really planted, considering he was quick-witted enough to lie about there being only five? And if Stone was honest with himself, he wouldn’t mind adding a few more of the tools to his collection. The devices made for great spare parts and fascinating dissection subjects on the days when he had trouble sleeping and needed something to keep his nightmare-plagued mind busy at 3 AM. Something, anything, to keep his thoughts away from…
“W-well! …okay, y’got me. That’s not why I’m here, Agent Stone. And it doesn’t have anything to do with coffee, either. But,” Tails leaned forward intently, dropping the shy pretense, “there is something urgent I need to tell you! And frankly, while I’m here I honestly would love to try—”
“Tails, you’re a child… I think. I’m not giving you caffeine.” The words slipped out of Stone’s mouth before he could bite his tongue. Grimacing at his instinct to care about the kid, he glanced down at his watch with a piqued interest. Just like he had, in this very spot, a few years prior. This was something urgent; some sort of intel that apparently required his full attention. Information of interest from one of his sworn enemies? Their tricks weren’t usually this direct. Was it possible Tails knew something about…? Stone ignored the way his heart fluttered in his throat. Tried (failed) to, at least. “How about this — I’ll make you a chicory latte and close up a little early. Thursdays are slow, anyway,” Stone offered, glancing around to take another assessment of the café. A generous third of the seats were currently occupied, but he really couldn’t care less if he disrupted everyone else’s afternoon in lieu of this new situation.
The fox’s ears perked up. “Oh, that sounds amazing!” He floated over to the nearest table and settled down in the seat, close enough to the counter so he could still talk to the agent without raising his voice. “...what’s chicory?”
Stone smiled (again, damn it!) at that, outwardly this time, happy to indulge the question pertaining to one of his more domestic skill sets; mentally preparing himself for the onslaught of further questions from the curious kit that was likely to follow. He supposed that the ensuing evening would be the most he’d talked to somebody else in… hmm. Months, most likely. And though the object of his attention was an adversary, Stone found himself oddly accepting of the situation. He fancied he’d… potentially, some day, like to come to think of Tails as an ally. If only the kid didn’t obsess over that damn blue menace. It was a shame, really; wasting his incredible talent like that.
After he announced the shop’s early closure to the rest of the café, he began preparing the chicory root, milk, and latte-etching styli, answering and dodging Tails’ slew of questions to the background noise of scraping chairs and murmured complaints. And eventually, the pair were left alone. The chicory had been ground, packed, steeped, and pressed to bitter perfection, the milk steamed to just the right temperature, and the foam Stone had carefully dollopped atop the drink was cooperating very nicely; maintaining the perfect consistency for etching while still retaining its effervescence. He had decided to craft a gear onto the foam — specifically, one of the strange-looking ones he had pulled time and time again from the guts of the fox’s gadgets he’d captured. He very well could’ve skipped the etching entirely, but he wanted to get a leg up on the fox. Plus, he always welcomed the chance to practice — considering he didn’t have much of a reason to, these days.
Once the finer details had been touched up to Stone’s own scrutinizing standard, he deposited the used latte-making tools in the sink and swiped at his watch, ending the soft jazz ambience filtering throughout the empty shop. He picked up the coffee cup and saucer — gently, gently now — and made his way over to Tails, careful not to disturb the delicate artistry that crowned the perfectly-brewed faux-coffee. “Your drink, sir,” he muttered, placing it down in front of the fox. Stone noted, with pride, Tails marveling at the latte art as he turned to walk back towards the service area, freeing himself of the barista apron and folding it neatly before setting it down on the countertop. He habitually straightened his black tie and the rolled-up sleeves of his smart black button-down before he returned to the table and sat down across from the fox, steepling his hands in front of him as he cracked his neck, shifting into a practiced air of mild intimidation as he anticipated Tails’ reaction to the root brew and subsequent interrogation.
Tails continued to analyze the latte foam with awe. “Is that a gear drawn on top? It looks an awful lot… like…” He went quiet for a moment. “It looks like one of mine. How did…!?”
“That’s precisely what it is, yes. You’re somewhat of a… tinkerer,” he shrugged nonchalantly, keeping his eyes laser-focused on the fox as his voice grew antagonistic. “...and you like to poke around here. It felt fitting.” Stone let his voice relax into a lighter tone. “I use special styli to carefully prise the foam apart to ‘etch’ the images. I apologize if it looks a little odd — your designs are quite complex, so I had to get creative with the limited amount of time and space I had to work with.”
Tails rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, accompanied by a *pffft* noise, obviously not completely frightened by Stone’s intimidation tactics. Yet. “Uh-huh, because I’m sure you’re soooo used to drawing Egg…” His voice wavered as the retort flew, unbidden, out of his mouth.
Stone felt his face flinch — just a tiny twitch — before it shifted into the stony, passive mask he’d grown so accustomed to wearing over the past few months. He swallowed, fighting to remain calm as the sudden spike in adrenaline surged through his veins. Tails had frozen up as well, eyes wider than the moon, before he made a sudden grab at the cup to take a long, drawn-out drink.
The silence in the café sat, awkward and drawn-out and still, between them.
After what felt like an eternity, the fox finally set the cup back down onto the saucer, his tails flicking nervously behind him. “S-so. Um. That’s what coffee tastes like, huh? It’s… uh, it’s very bitter!” Tails shook his head, face twisted in surprise. “How do humans drink so much of that stuff all the time?!”
“Chicory.” Stone distantly noted his voice had gone hard and cold. Woah, okay — breathe. He shut his eyes and forcibly squeezed his eyelids together, ducking his head and forcibly pushing out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Excess adrenaline. Relax. Work through it like you always do. Don’t scare the kid... he just slipped up.
He started another attempt, letting out a second long, deep breath before trying (failing) to swallow the lump in his throat. He opened his eyes and shifted his gaze up and away from Tails as he processed, trying his hardest to not sound like a deadly, bloodthirsty machine this time. “Chicory tends to be more bitter than coffee. Though, for those looking to cut back on caffeine, it’s a suitable replacement as decaf coffee still includes trace amounts of the stimulant.” Better. Clinical, detached, but… softer. Not as cutthroat.
“Um…” Tails sounded like he wasn’t quite sure how to respond.
Again, the uncomfortable silence hung between them.
Stone couldn’t help as his thoughts drifted inevitably back to the Doctor and his fate. His eyes absentmindedly wandered across the storefront — oh, some of the blinds were still open. He’d have to take care of them all for the night as part of his housekeeping duties after this conversation. Well. ‘All’ of them other than the one partition he always kept closed, of course; his sort-of memorial. The one covering the section of sky where… where he knew his Doctor shone, damning brilliance still haunting him.
An eternity passed before Tails’ soft, little voice and gloved hand waving in front of his view broke Stone away from his thoughts. “Earth to Agent Stone?” He glanced back down at the fox. “That thing I mentioned I needed to talk to you about… It’s related to him, actually.” Stone felt his heart skip a beat, anxiety surging in his veins again. His breath hitched and he licked his lips, sighing shakily as he blinked away the sudden moisture in his eyes before looking back at the kid with expectation.
“What do you know?” he questioned, leaning in, trying (failing) to reinforce an intimidating edge back into his wavering voice.
Tails’ eyebrows knit together in confident determination as he leaned forward, mirroring Stone; a serious tone creeping into his voice. “Here’s the situation. A few days ago, the instruments I use to monitor the Earth — oh, I use instruments in orbit to monitor the Earth, by the way — picked up on a huuuge energy signature. Bigger than when, um, Eggman took the power of the Master Emerald. Bigger than whenever Sonic goes all… super-mode. And the weirdest part is: the reading only lasted for a few seconds before it faded, and then suddenly disappeared altogether,” Tails reported, pausing in contemplative wonder. “I triple-checked my findings for calculation errors, of course, but everything was working perfectly during the duration of the event. Taking all of that into consideration… there’s only one thing I know of that might possibly be capable of creating such a local, high-energy reading of that caliber. Shadow.”
“Shadow,” Stone repeated blankly, blinking in confusion. “The hedgehog?” What was Tails insinuating?
“Yes! The older Eggman called Shadow ‘the ultimate lifeform’, didn’t he?” Stone felt his lips curl in disgust at the mention of Gerald. Tails continued rambling on, oblivious, as he counted out on his fingers. “And I do speak from experience — that guy was powerful. He beat me and Knuckles and Sonic all at once, that night in Tokyo. And he can teleport. And he powered the entirety of the Eclipse Cannon’s beam all by himself, didn’t he? AND — he was able to go glowy and super, just like Sonic! Now — I prefer to base my theories on definite proof and unbiased experimentation before reaching a conclusion, but in this case…? I feel it in my gut, Agent Stone. That energy reading was definitely Shadow.” Satisfied with his dissertation, the kit scooched back into his seat and took another enthusiastic sip of the latte, shaking his head with a muttered *bleurgh* as the bitterness caught him off-guard again.
Stone preferred objective thought over pure feeling as well, but even with Tails’ observations laid out before him, his mind couldn’t connect the dots. So what — Shadow, the super-god hedge-Hot-Topic, might have survived the Eclipse Cannon’s explosion. Good for him. Ivo hadn’t. “I fail to see how this is useful to me, Tails.” Stone tilted his head to the side sharply, noting again that his entire body had tensed up despondently and that his voice had gone cold with disappointment. Was this the reason Tails had come to the Mean Bean? Just to gloat? To rub Ivo’s death in Stone’s face? Okay. Fine. He was fine with that. Forget every little bit of fondness he’d ever felt for the fox. Taking a mental assessment of his position in the shop, Stone knew that the nearest weapon was several seconds out of his grasp, concealed in a hidden cubby of the service countertop. But that was alright. Tails had nowhere to run. He could remotely lock the front door and windows of the Bean with a twitch of his fingers if he wanted to. Of course, he also had the option of whistling for a Badnik to dispatch of the nuisance. Choices, choices…
His enemy had faltered, held coffee cup halfway down to its saucer, as he sensed Stone shift to hostility. “W-well, I… it’s all just pure conjecture at this point, Agent Stone, but…” he hurriedly placed the cup down now, shrinking back from the man and throwing his trembling hands out in front of him in a placating manner. “If Shadow’s alive, then mayb—”
“He isn’t, Tails.” Yep. Badnik time. He cocked his head to the side, licking his lips in preparation of a whistle. “And I thi—”
“Well!” The little fox interrupted, fur puffed up and tails flicking as he huffed indignantly with a sudden flare of anger. “What if he is?! You don’t know that he’s gone forever!”
Stone snapped.
Fire, explosive, roiled in the pit of his stomach and he slammed his hands down on the table, launching up and forward until he was mere inches from the kit’s face. Tails yelped in surprise and jerked back, but Stone pursued the backwards motion, face narrowing into a venomous snarl. “You think I don’t ‘know’!? That I haven’t tried everything?” he choked out. “...you thought I’d just abandon him? How dare you,” he hissed, voice barely more than a ragged whisper.
“Ever since London, I have spent my every waking moment trying to bring him back.” His hands grasped at the table’s edges, squeezing with desperate fury. “I have prayed to every deity and omnipotent concept out there that might remotely care to listen — time and time again. I have consulted with tiresome quacks and delusional spirit mediums. I have spent months combing through NASA, the ESA, and Roscosmos' backends for some kind of, some kind of…” he trailed off, frustration rising to a head and stifling his voice. He ducked and shook his head with a growl, trying to clear away the storm in his head. The outburst had just dredged up the sour memory of last Tuesday. When his body had unwillingly crashed after yet another sleepless ESA deep-dive, tracking what he thought was a promising lead. Foregoing sleep for… well, his implanted vitals tracker had quoted 65 hours, 38 minutes, and 17 seconds. The worst part of it all, as he’d discovered while nursing himself back to health — it had been time utterly wasted. The lead had proved to be a false hope. Another of the hundreds of dead ends he’d already encountered. Every nation on the planet was fascinated by the new, near-Earth phenomenon, of course, but not a single one of them had yet developed mission plans for an in-depth study or sample recovery of the remains.
Nobody cared. Not enough. Not like Stone. “...I don’t know. Some kind of study or recovery effort.” Exhaustion suddenly struck deep in his chest, like he’d been hit by a freight train. He sagged, defeated, back down into his chair, completely extinguished now, and rested his elbows on the table, leaning his head into his hands while trying to recover a modicum of dignity and control after his unanticipated rage. He hadn’t foreseen himself lashing out like that — it was unsightly. So out of form for him. Ivo would’ve been utterly disappointed in him. Stone closed his eyes in shame before he continued on, wearily mumbling half to himself, “Nobody else cared, so I had to take it upon myself. I charted and put eyes on every inch of that damn nebula. I have six satellites up there right now, Tails — there is nothing in the remains except dust. No space debris of notable size; no nothing. He’s… Ivo is gone. And no amount of your hopeful conjecture will fix that.” He rubbed at his forehead, exhaustion from last week’s crash still hanging over him like a shroud, surging over him like a wave. He hunched inward from the swell, body aching from the constant strain and stress he’d forced himself to ignore and endure over the past few months.
“Um… Agent Stone, do you need…?” Tails’ voice was bashful; genuinely so. Stone was surprised that the kid was still even remotely near him; he hadn’t scared the fox off? He opened his eyes and peered up, confused at the open question. Tails was holding out the napkin that Stone had dressed the cup’s saucer with. What? Oh. He blinked, rubbing at his sore eyes, realizing how itchy and puffy they felt. He looked down at the table to confirm: puddles of clear, wet splotches clung to the polished wood and shone back up at him in the café’s soft light. How long had he been crying? He gingerly accepted the napkin from the fox and blotted at his eyes. Why was his enemy being so kind now, if he’d come here just here to stir up a fight? Why hadn’t he retaliated while Stone was so vulnerable?
…had Tails come to gloat? Or was this something else? To the fox’s credit, Stone begrudgingly admitted, he had approached the Mean Bean alone and with open hands. Aside from light banter, Tails hadn’t… hadn’t truly threatened or belittled Stone. The little fox was hopelessly starry-eyed and naïve when drawing conclusions from his observations, yes, but Stone had worked with many such agents in the past — and they’d never meant anything malicious by it. And now, here the two of them were together; Tails extending a sort of olive branch (in the form of a napkin, at least). An expression of goodwill.
Stone sniffled, trying to clear his head, and looked back up at the fox. An idea had just crossed his mind… somewhat of an apology, perhaps. “Would you like to see him?” he asked softly.
“Huh? See who?”
Stone cracked a thin, wan smile. “Ivo.”