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Stone was not selfless.
He was a man for himself and his own interests. It just so happened that one of his main interests was his boss, so he was running around constantly for another person.
It’s a useful misconception, he notes. It’s what got him and Robotnik better annual funding than the rest of the robotics department combined. Because the extra funds kept the doctor happy and that was implied to keep Stone safe.
And people like Stone. Stone doesn’t like them, but he doesn’t need to. He gets what he needs to by having them think he does and that’s enough.
So maybe it’s this persona of selflessness that leads him to his current predicament.
Despite how much Walters likes him, he still sometimes sends him out of the lab and into the field with junior agents. A guiding hand, he had been called. ‘Guardian Angel’, one of the greener agents had joked. So he will be blaming those off-handed comments for why he had decided to sacrifice his winter coat to the junior agent shivering incessantly next to him.
She was a meek little thing, the top of her forehead hardly reaching his shoulders. She’d said little since the mission had started, mousy little squeaks of sorry and excuse me any time someone brushed past her, but other than that nothing. If she’d introduced herself, it had been drowned out and she hadn’t tried to do it again.
Or maybe that was the cold setting in. Creeping into the edges of his consciousness, blurring the corners of his memories. He knows he remembered this morning before he got… here.
Wherever here is.
He remembers talking to the Doctor, but that tells him nothing about how he’s holding up. He could have a hole in the head and still remember Robotnik.
But he remembers their morning ritual, if through a haze.
Stone had come in half an hour early, turning on the main console and some of the badniks ready for Robotnik’s arrival. He took his time making their coffees, letting the steam from the milk heat the tip of his nose. He added a pinch of nutmeg before he heard the chimes of the badniks through the halls. They were giving small chirps of hello, buzzing around their creator. He held a coffee in both his hands, fingers leeching heat from the ceramic before he passed it into one hand and grabbed the other. He’d made his way over to the main console, letting the badniks finish their greetings before he went over. He’d waited for Robotnik to take his first sip before reminding him that he was deployed to… somewhere cold.
Robotnik has scoffed at the reminder, the beginnings of a smirk twitching at his lips. He’d said something that made Stone giggle, something about not wasting RAM in the current drought or being in debt or-
There was something to do it RAM. Warmth had buzzed in his chest as the Doctor chuckled into his coffee at himself, foamed milk dripping down from his moustache.
He’d made a joke back, half comedy and half soothing, and then he was off on his mission.
He… he hadn’t said goodbye, had he? It was a recon mission with junior agents that he was dragged into, it hadn’t felt important to say. Had he reminded the Doctor to eat? The cold was creeping in faster now, chipping away at the wisps of the morning he could remember.
He’d been split from the group, right after he’d given away his coat.
A quick trip, they’d asked of him. Since you’ve lent out your coat - only the little stuff, they’d cooed. So off he was in the vaguely North Canadian forest he’d been sent to - or was it Alaska? It was North and it was cold, a biting breeze reddening the tip of his nose as he trudged as fast as he could through the snow.
And then there was a cracking sound? Or a boom? Whatever it was, it had been loud and had sent him sprawling to the ground.
Fuck, it wasn’t the cold he felt. Cold bites at your fingers and toes, it tinges the tip of your nose. But Stone was aching at his core and at his side. His frost-tipped fingers went to his side, coming back thawed and wet and-
Blood. There was blood oozing down his fingers. Its warmth taunting before it cools against his fingers.
His heartbeat is heaving in his ears, the thinning mist of his breath freezing as his lungs become as stunned as he is. There’s buzzing and a flash of red around him as the blood slips through the grooves of his hand.
“There you are.” The doctor’s voice coos in his ear. “What was it you called this restock overseeing? Child’s play? Like doing fake grocery shopping with toddlers if I remember.”
It’s good the voice of the doctor does, because Stone really doesn’t. He grunts something in response, eyes scanning the screen of white around him. There’s no shadowy figure in a long coat anywhere, so the doctor isn’t here. His mind stitches together the conclusion with loose, disintegrating string as the voice keeps talking at him.
“I never took you for the martyr type, giving away your winter coat in Baltic-like conditions. It meant I had to track you manually since I only thought to chip your coat on your way out.” His eyes run over his surroundings again, the fuzzy edge creeping further into view. There’s nothing around him, just trees and snow. Maybe the doctor has hidden himself behind a tree? But that makes no sense. He’s talking to him so Stone knows he’s there. So he can’t be hiding.
“Oh for Christ-“ there’s something nudging him now, flying in front of his face. It’s white like snow but also a paler red than his blood. It’s buzzing in front of him like an offended bee. The badnik gave him a scan, a long line of red running over his face. “Stop it with that goofy, delirious smile.”
“Happy to hear you.” He says, reaching out for the robot. It doesn’t move any closer, but lets out a soft trill when his fingers make contact with its cold metal shell. It hovers there before moving his hand down towards his torso, scanning him a few more times in the process.
“Direct pressure on the wound itself. I would have the bot do it but she has nothing to press against you that isn’t claws or your jacket, which you need- there we go.” The doctor sings. Stone moves both his hands over to the bloody hole in his side. “Keep pressing down- more than you feel right, you know the drill.”
“Mm, not right now. All muddled.” Stone says.
“Give me a self-assessment. Much as I loathe to admit it, there is only so much information I can gather from a scan.” The bot stills, watching as Stone blinks at it but says nothing. His tongue is heavy and lethargic, as if he was drunk. “Stone, tell me what I can help with.” The doctor’s voice pleads, coming close to begging.
Must be the cold getting to his head.
“Cold-“ he gasps, half-lidded eyes searching desperately for the source of the voice. The longer he looks, the more he accepts the idea of an auditory hallucination.
“Stone, I can’t.” The doctor’s voice gasps out back to him. “You know in there somewhere that I can’t warm you up while you are bleeding. We can’t risk the increased blood flow.”
“Stay?” He asks.
“I’ve instructed your under qualified circus to look for the red light of the badnik, so yes it’s going to stay.” The bot bobs in front of him, the bottom of its light vanishing like the waning moon to mimic joy.
Stone’s concentration keeps slipping from between his fingers, trying and failing over and over to follow the bobbing red light in front of him. The badnik goes from chirping to beeping, bathing him in red in regular intervals.
It bullies itself into his chest, making sure to lay just above his wound as it begins to whir and buzz. It stills, then Stone feels it.
Warmth. It’s not burning or blazing, but enough. The warmth of another body.
“But the flow-“ Stone starts.
“Is a conclusion scientists reached under very high temperatures looking at blood under the skin. Wound healing procedure is technically to go from hot to cold rapidly so…” Robotnik trailed off.
“Hmm.” His free hand reaches for the top of the bot, his knees curling into his pelvis and hitting the bot’s side. He sighs, snuggling into the warmth.
“It won’t kill you. But- if it does… you’ll be warm. But it’s a calculated risk, you’ll be fine.”
“I trust you doctor.” He mumbles. His fingers are lifting lightly from the robot before coming down on it in a patting motion, blood dripping down onto the shell. He curls more around himself, bringing his knees further into the badnik.
“Blood… sorry,” he mumbles, trying to rub the red marks from the white. The blood streaks, thinning and paling as he tries to wipe it off only smearing it further.
“It’ll wash. Hardly the worst gore my babies have seen. I’m not letting you out of my sight for a long time after this.”
“I don’t mind that at all sir.” He smiles.
“Good. I’ve pinged the rest of your ‘team’, they’ll pick you up soon. You’ll be back to me before you know it.”
Stone doesn’t reply, focusing on the heat of the badnik he’s curled around. He orbits it like the planets, shuffling around in the snow to move away from the crick in his neck.
“Stop it. Wound pressure.”
“Sorry.”
The edges of his mind are still blurred, but more like the edge of the fireplace. He’s… content. Settled. At home.
He feels it as sleep ebbs away at him, pushing his eyelids down and down and-
He knows he’s not meant to, but the badnik humming away in his lap and the doctor talking to him lulls him away to his dreams.
When he wakes, he feels drained out.
His lips are cracked, the spit on his tongue feeling too thin. He tries running his tongue over his lips a few times, catching on loose bits of skin.
His body feels… distant. It’s not a sensation he enjoys, his body not feeling his own. Like when he’d had to drive a loan car to work. Nothing is responding correctly, his arms pinned under a heavy duvet he can’t seem to lift. The room is dimly lit, the vague glittering of red LEDs being all he can make out.
“Awake at last. I was very close to bringing some princes in for you to kiss.” A shadow at the door jokes. Stone tries to blink away the blur over his eyes, watching through a haze as the figure got closer before stopping at the foot of the bed he was buried in.
“How are you feeling this morning, agent?”
“Warm.” He mumbles. “Trapped.”
The figure leans over him and-
Oh, it’s Robotnik.
He looks identical to how Stone left him, same curl of the moustache, same manic smile. His hair was a little wilder, strands falling erratically onto his forehead. And he had faint bags under his eyes, missable smudges of dark. Stone sits himself up, weaselling an arm out of the sheets to run his eyes with.
“Good. You’re staying there until you can refund me the hours I spend saving you from agent incompetence by making me some of the best coffee you have ever made.”
Stone tries to ask about the hole in his side, but he’s still lagging behind so the doctor beats him to it.
“I’ve patched you up. Bullet went through so you don’t have a souvenir I’m afraid. You still need some sleep before I check on you again, you’re up three hours earlier than I predicted. So get.”
“But I just-“
“Go to sleep, Stone.”
“Goodnight sir.” Stone relents, letting go of the reigns and sinking into sleep again.
“It’s not…” Robotnik starts, watching as Stone falls back into the cloud of pillows beneath him. His eyes are flickering shut before he’s even finished speaking. “Goodnight agent.”