Hidden-Chapter 3-Metonic

This was fine. He’d handled his feelings well enough before. What was a few more times? And besides, how could he swoon over Sonic when said inferior copy was dead in the ground and the pride that came with finally proving to all of Mobius who was the true superior and real Sonic blocked all other feelings out of his systems?

It’s a shame that didn’t happen and, instead, his feelings for the organic got his ass kicked.

This, of course, was the reason Metal was scouting the forest to find his counterpart and take him up on that offer for a date. The robot figured that becoming the hedgehog’s boyfriend would help soothe the raging urge to smooch his irritatingly gorgeous face off that keep popping up during battle. Spotting the X tornado, he drifted down, landing right next to the hedgehog he was looking for and scaring the living shit out of him, which probably wouldn’t help him earn the status of Sonic’s boyfriend, but he’d manage.

“Chaos, Metalhead, don’t do that.” Metal simply stared back at him, refusing to apologize to his inferior mortal enemy, despite the light wave of guilt washing over him. Chaos, these new feelings were illogical.

“So, what brings you here, Mets? Looking for a rematch already?”

The machine rolled his eyes. “I came to take you up on your offer from our second to last battle.”

Sonic furrowed his brows in concentration before the realization hit him and he smiled. “Oh, right, that!…Oh.” Pink dusted his muzzle. “…Metal, you, uh, you know that was, like, a dating thing, right?”

“I am well aware, correct.”

“…Oh. Ok then. That’s cool.” It was a bit more than cool in his opinion, but if he explained any further, he’d come off as lame and desperate to his crush, and there was no way he was letting that happen anytime soon.

…

“What activities will we be partaking in?”

“…I’m sorry, what?”

“What do you have planned for our outing?”

“Oh, shit…I, uh, I don’t know…I didn’t think i’d get this far.”

Metal Sonic generated a few beeps akin to sighing. He should have expected that. To be fair, Sonic’s experience with love amounted to a not-so-secret admirer stalking him with the intent of marrying him against his will, a short-lived relationship that was whipped from his mind entirely, and a love that he left for reasons Metal knew not of, therefore, he didn’t expect his copy to be a romance expert or anything along those lines. “Luckily, I have done extensive research in preparation for this situation and have concluded that the ideal date involves fine dining and witnessing a film, in that exact order.”

Sonic chuckled. “Wow, dinner and a movie, how original.”

“As a side note,” Metal continued, “if all goes well throughout most of the date, I will give you permission to hold my hand during the last 13.7 minutes of the films, the end credits, the possible after credits scene, and when we walk out of the movie theater.”

“Whoa, hand holding?! Slow down there, babe,” he playfully warned, causing Metal’s motor to freeze for a moment at the word babe “I’m a won’t-kiss-on-the-first-date kinda guy!” He placed his hand on his Metal counterpart’s shoulder as said robot prayed that his rising internal temperature didn’t burn his enemy’s hand off. “Listen, Mets, how does this sound? You, me, no food, since you don’t have a mouth,” He silently cursed himself for not taking that fact into account when doing his research and, consequently, appearing like a fool in front of the object of his affection, “And a movie on the couch.”

“…That sounds…rather pleasant.”

The hedgehog grinned. “Great. It’s settled then.”

“Correct.”

…

“…So, now what?”

Sonic shrugged and then, a few seconds later, shifted his eyes to the back of Metal’s head. “Hey, how about a race? Winner gets to initiate the first kiss~.”

Rolling his eyes at the finger guns and wiggling eyebrows that accompanied Sonic’s suggestion, he simply replied with a “You’re on. However, please refrain from getting your hopes up, dear,” (Sonic almost lost his footing behind the imaginary starting line upon Metal addressing him as dear) “I will prove victorious as always.”

“Heh, what makes you so sure? I am the fastest thing alive, after all.” He smirked.

“That is a true statement. It’s a good thing i’m not alive.” And then he was off, flying at a breakneck speed as his new boyfriend scrambled to catch up.

Hidden-Chapter 2-Metonic

After deciding that wallowing in his confusing feelings and obsessing over every little detail of the encounter wasn’t doing him any favors or assisting in solving the mystery at hand, he stood up and began heading towards Dr. Eggman’s office. Surely, if his complex database and hardware couldn’t find an explanation for all this, his creator certainly must have the answer.

“Father?”

“Hmm?” Eggman muttered, not bothering to look up from the blueprints spread across the cluttered table.

“What could potentially cause a reddening in the face due to internally produced heat, electricity shooting down one’s spine, inability to vocalize, a flustered state of being, and a general desire to be in another person’s presence?”

After mulling the query over in his head, the inventor simply muttered “Love, I suppose.”

“…I beg your pardon?”

“Ya know, romance. The whole week in your knees, tongue tied, lovey dovey deal. The heart’s in your eyes,” Strange, he recalled pixelated hearts flashing on his visual monitor during the battle and simply chalking it up as a malfunction or leftover coding. “Cupid’s work, the reason that annoying pink girl with the hammer’s convinced that pesky blue hedgehog is dreamy.” Metal shuddered at the realization that he agreed with her. “That sort of thing.”

“…I see. I would also like to know what would prompt Priority 1: Sonic the Hedgehog to request to spend time with one of his multiple enemies.”

He shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe he’d wanna be friends? Or lose some enemies? Or maybe it’d be, like, a date or something? I dunno.”

Maybe it’d be a date.

Maybe it was a date.

Holy shit, Sonic asked him out on a date. And he genuinely wanted to attend it. Because he was undoubtedly attracted to him. And, if the resulted yield from his internal computer search on dates were accurate, the feeling was mutual.

“Say, where are all these questions coming from, anyway?”

“They stem from my newfound knowledge regarding my romantic attraction for Sonic.”

“…Oh. I see.”

“…Sir, are you ok? You’re shaking and gritting your teeth 63.6% more than usual.”

“…This is fine.” he explained, despite just receiving the news that one of his greatest weapons fell in love with his mortal enemy and that this was clearly Not Fine™.

“…I understand.” He did not understand, and, frankly, was quite concerned, but seemed too afraid to push the issue any further. “Thank you for your input, Doctor.” he added while swinging the office door open.

“Emm…Metal?”

He froze. “Yes, Sir?”

“Can I trust you to prevent your…feelings for Sonic from interfering with my plans and your initiative to annihilate him for the time being? I may need some time to find a solution to this…situation.”

He smiled (internally, of course, since he had no mouth). “I promise I will, father.” He answered, earning a miniature smile from Robotnick and closing the door behind him.

Hidden-Chapter 1-Metonic

There had to be an explanation.

Sure, the incident may have appeared to practically exute normalcy when viewed and analyzed by an outsider looking in, what with it resembling the average fight between him and Sonic, complete with snarky one-liners, Doctor Eggman hurling orders at him, on occasion, the slightest amount of bloody gore, a lightning fast pace, and Metal losing (only by a diminutive error, he would later claim), but he knew better. Metal had reanalyzed the idiosyncratic scene 27.3 times and each analysis resulted in the same unsure conclusion; Sonic’s quippy attitude had a hidden underlying message that he simply couldn’t decode.

The battle started off like most did. After he snagged the Chaos emerald like the doctor ordered him to, Sonic appeared after what seemed like forever (it had been a while since the last of their fights and, though it confused him greatly, Metal Sonic had strangely begun to miss it) and attempted to swipe the gem from his hand, though Metal’s superior speedy dodging and sharp attacks prolonged the fight.

That was when the tone of the fight began to shift.

As per usual, the blue blur began throwing witty comments about him and Metal (“Too slow!” ”Catch up, Metalhead!” etc.), mostly pertaining to speed. However, the lighthearted jabs and clever jokes gradually morphed into complements (“Heh, keep that up and you might even get almost as fast as me! Almost.”) and began to sound as if Sonic was hinting at something when he spoke (“Whoa, got some new tricks up your sleeve, huh? Nice.”). The robot took note especially of the almost suggestive tone in his counterpart’s voice in the simple line  “Ha! How do you like that~?” (he tried to ignore, however, the few extra jolts of electricity that shot through his circuits placed where his spine would be, if he had one, upon hearing said line).

The confusion fully set in upon receiving the suggestion to “Try and keep up, Mets!”. Mets? Where could that come from? Metalhead he could understand, due to it’s insulting nature, but Mets? That couldn’t be interpreted as anything other than a pet name! The realization left the botnick so shocked and flustered that his counterpart, met with the sound of Metal’s internal fans whirling intensely in a desperate attempt to cool down the overheated and, consequently, bright red metal plates where his cheeks would be instead of protests or a comeback practically oozing with sarcasm, managed to wrangle the gem right out of Metal’s hand. The endless data analysis and research he did suggested enemies never, unless attempting to mock said enemy, nicknamed each oth-

Wait…

Flustered?!

Red in the face!?

What on Mobus provoked that reaction from him?!

It certainly couldn’t have been part of his original programming, could it? After all, what purpose could it potentially serve in combat? The concept itself made less sense than what Sonic did next.

As the blue blur whizzed by, Metal quickly recalibrated his systems and boosted himself in the same direction, hot on his target’s tail. He could sort out this newly acquired information another day. At the moment, he had orders to follow and a mission to complete.

Sonic, however, didn’t view the situation as seriously as his robot counterpart did, instead opting to ease up on his speed enough for Metal to catch up to him (though not so much that said robot could reach the Chaos emerald). “Ya know, Metal,” he began, yanking the stone out of Metal’s reach, “I was thinking, since the emerald’s clearly going home with me this time,” the badnik swiped at the gemstone again, missing, “and robuttnik over there probably won’t be coming up with any new schemes for at least a month, I was, uh, wondering if…you and I could…maybe…” he missed again, cursing his inferior copy’s luck and taking in the subtly nervous and slightly flustered look the organic hedgehog was unsuccessfully attempting to hide, “…hang out sometime?” Thrown off guard, he stopped in his tracks altogether, prompting Sonic to mimic the action. “I-I mean, if you’re not, um, busy or anything.”

…

“…Uh, Metal?”

…

“Mets? You still there?…Hello?”

Frozen in shock, the robotic copy internally scoffed. “Was he still there?”, of course he was! Had the hedgehog gone blind? He was simply suffering from internal short circuiting due to shock at the moment, causing an inability to speak or move.

“…alrighty then, i’ll take that as a no and just bring this,” he held up the emerald in his hand, “back home.”

The hedgehog slowly rotated around to run off into the distance, a grin plastered onto his face. “See ya around, Metalhead!” He added, giving the robot his signature thumbs up and winking before disappearing from Metal Sonic’s sight and leaving him with only his thoughts.

The 5 times Max’s family life changed and he hated it (and the one time he loved it)-Chapter 6-Dadvid

The sixth time his family life changed was on the next morning drive to child protective services.

Max was dead. He had to be. This wasn’t possible in any sense of reality. He had to be dead. They got into a car crash and he passed away in the aftermath. Sure, it was a bit hard for him to buy into the idea of Max making it to heaven, let alone the concept of not immediately being faced with eternal nothingness upon death, but he didn’t have any other explanation. There was no way this was real.

And yet, he could still feel the vibrations buzz underneath him when David slammed on the breaks in the middle of the road and whipped around so fast he was surprised he didn’t get whiplash from it. He could still hear David’s begging and pleading ringing in his ears like he had just said them a couple of seconds ago (and, well, he did, but it felt like an eternity ago to Max).

“Now, I know would never be able to replace your birth parents, Max, and I know I am completely clueless when it come to parenting, but I care about you too much to dump you somewhere that could just leave you in a situation that’s just as terrible as your last one! And while I am aware that i’m not the…ideal person to take up the role of your father and that i’m sure i’ll mess up a lot, that’s why i’ll never stop trying. Because somebody fucking has to!”

There they were. Clear and transparent. From David’s mouth.

Fucking David.

David, the counselor who he had spent every day of his three months at camp purposely annoying to the point of exhaustion. David, who he constantly reminded that he didn’t care about or trust him. David, the man who was constantly forced to scold Max for his profanity and he had only seen swear twice. David, the incredibly frustrating motherfucker that Max drove up a wall almost everyday with his countless failed escape plots. David, who couldn’t possibly be any different from any other adult, hell, any other person, wanted to adopt Max?

What the actual fuck?

Then he felt David’s hand on his shoulder and Max felt like he couldn’t breath and David started rambling on and on about how sorry he was for even asking in the first place Max in this situation and promising to take him to child protective services right now and Max can’t believe that even after all this this motherfucker is still second guessing himself.

“-and I promise that we’ll find your better parents that can pr-”

“Are you fucking shitting me, camp man!?”

David looked back up at Max to be met with a trembling child with tears dripping down his face and heavy breathing.

“Jesus fucking christ, I can’t believe you’re pulling this bullshit! Of course I wanna be your kid, you fucking moron!” Max sobbed as David’s face softened and immediately wrapped his arms around Max, not even thinking about daring to scold the child for swearing and surrounding him in safety and security and pure love, something he haven’t felt in a long time. And jesus christ, did he miss it.

Max didn’t notice the cars behind him beeping their horns or how gross and humiliated he felt for crying on David’s shoulder and letting him be held by the bane of his existence and he didn’t even entertain any thoughts on all the shitty and dumbass changes life put him through or how none of this mattered since death was inevitable anyway or how hard he wished that his birth parents could hold him instead of his counselor because none of that shit could take away mind off the startling realization of the fact that David cared. Someone actually gave a crap about his shitty existence. And person cared enough to be his dad.

That might not make up for losing his parents, but god damn did it come close.

The 5 times Max’s family life changed and he hated it (and the one time he loved it)-Chapter 5-Dadvid

The fifth time his family life changed was on the last day of camp.

He knew. He abso-fucking-lutely knew his parents wouldn’t show up to pick him up. He knew they would abandon him. Everyone did. The campers had picked up of Max’s parents’ negligence sometime during month two. Hell, even David and Gwen figured it out once they discovered that his mom and dad didn’t even care enough to sign him up for an official camp activity before signing him up. Everyone knew. He knew.

What he didn’t know was why the hell it stung so much that it was like he never got the memo when the sun set and the sandy driveway stayed empty. Or why it practically burned when David drove him home only to find a “sold” sign in its driveway. Or why he could have sworn he felt his eyes well up with tears while eavesdropped on Gwen and David as overheard them agreed to drop Max off at child protective services the next morning.

Or why he’d never felt so shitty before despite having been through so much worse.

The 5 times Max’s family life changed and he hated it (and the one time he loved it)-Chapter 3-Dadvid

The third time his family life changed was when he was adopted.

He remembers everything with disgustingly vividness. The posh giggle his “mother” lets out as she makes boring small talk with the officiater. The stench of ink leaking onto the check. The condescending stare his “father” shoots him when they finally acknowledge his presence, despite him being there throughout the whole exhausting process. The bitter taste left in his mouth at the sight of the sick deceiving grins that could fool anyone except him they give the adoption officiater. The way his “parents” carelessly shove him into the back seat of their preppy little tesla. Every rage-inducing detail.

He’s not surprised by any of it though. Why should he be? It’s the same damn story he’s gone through all his shit life. Adults pretending to be nice in order to get something (whether it be from him or others) and then showing their true colors eventually. It’s not exactly a new concept to him. The world is way too shitty to ever let anyone escape it’s corruption. That’s why it was filled to the brim with desensitized apathetic assholes.

After all, what other explanation could he come up with in order to explain away why his probably dead parents were replaced with his new “family” that send him to bed, or should he say the floor, without dinner that night because he “talked back to much” (a.k.a. asked too many questions in hindi for their liking).

The 5 times Max’s family life changed and he hated it (and the one time he loved it)-Chapter 4-Dadvid

The fourth time his family life changed was when his “parents” dropped him off at Camp Campbell for the summer.

He wasn’t surprised he ended up at this fucking nightmare of a camp in the slightest.

Camp Campbell was where unwanted kids were dumped and his parents clearly didn’t want anything to do with him. They were always too busy hanging out with their rich friends all over this villainous world when they weren’t bragging to said friends about how “perfect” they were at parenthood to ever care about him. That’s how it had always been after all. It was why he was so excited to be here and far away from them. At first.

He was a lot less pleased when he met the counselors.

Gwen, though he’ll never admit it, is pretty cool. She’s bitter, incredibly easy to mess with, treats him like an adult (which is basically what he is at this point), and actually acknowledges how crappy this planet is. He could certainly get used to her. David, however, is a whole different story.

The first time Max saw the annoying fucker was when he greeted him with a wave and a smile that perfectly mirrored the bullshit ones his parents gave his adoption officiator, giving Max his name and promising him a wonderful time there before spouting a quick “campe diem” as Max quickly power-walked away from the situation as fast as his tiny little legs could carry him. God, this guy really  wanted Max to buy his act, didn’t he?

He decided that he hated everything about this godforsaken hellhole, especially David, with the intensity of a thousand suns and that he was going to spend every moment of his time there thinking up schemes to escape when he realized that David spit out his dumbass catch phrase (“campe diem”) in the same sickeningly perky tone that Rose always spat out her stupid ”carpe diem” line and no attempt from David to prove to Max that he actually gave a crap and that he could have a good time at camp could ever change Max’s mind.

Their way no fucking way he was gonna buy into that bullshit rhetoric anymore.

The 5 times Max’s family life changed and he hated it (and the one time he loved it)-Chapter 2-Dadvid

The second time his family life changed was a few days after.

After being spotted in the debris left by his attackers, he’s quickly shipped off to (or in his opinion, dumped at) an american adoption center, where the kind and optimistic Rose Chandler who’s favorite line is “carpe diem” runs said hellhole.

His time there is short and he can’t remember much, but he recalls a couple of orphans playing with him and Rose taking genuinely good care of him, so that was nice. But he also distinctly remembers Rose’s sharp bitting insults and her tendency to roll her eyes when he cried for attention, revealing that her kindness towards him and her enthusiasm for life was nothing more than a facade (something he would find out about a lot of adults in his life).

That was less nice.