Chapter Text
STONE:
Dr. Aban Stone worked alone. He may have a team of meticulously chosen engineers working on his larger projects somewhere hidden in the desert - closely supervised by him, naturally. But beyond that he had no need for meddling assistants or, god forbid, overbearing agents thinking he needed protection. Both, Stone suspected strongly, simply a disguise to have spying eyes on him and keep him supervised.
No, he worked alone.
Why in god's name would he have need of something as plebeian as a 'bodyguard'?
He was surrounded by his Stone-drones. Who could possibly hurt him?
The notion that he would accept an agent at his side was ridiculous.
And Walters had surely tried. Endlessly. Stone was so tired of all those basic military-men he kept sending. All those basic morons. Those useless fools. Most of the time, it was Stone who had to keep an eye on them. They were always either in his way or a direct liability. Thankfully he had come up with an automation that would do the paper-work of their inevitable demise for him.
He had more important things to do.
To be honest, he wouldn't mind having an agent, even several of them, around. Not per se. If only they would keep out of his way and work. But those bumbling troglodytes always needed to touch or see or stand in the way. Really! Like a bunch of pre-school children.
More than one agent had lost limb and yes, even life, when they had touch something they should not have.
Sometimes even without Stone interfering.
Because - oh god why! - who would bend their head and face into the beam of a laser-array to see into the lenses?
Or touch one of his drones?
It was a form of natural selection and Stone wasn't sure why he was continuously punished with having to suffer as a part of evolution.
It tired him immensely.
So when he received a letter and a file from Walters he expected nothing good. The last agent had quit two weeks ago. For reasons Stone hadn't bothered to remember. The one before, he had fired himself. For gross negligence. The two before that one, had died. Due to idiocy.
It had been peaceful two weeks.
Stone had hoped for more time but Walters seemed adamant to settle him with a babysitter.
The letter and file that greeted him in the morning, deposited on the desk in his lab by a particularly brave inhouse mail-clerk, filled him with a sense of resignation. With reluctant steps he approached and first took up the letter.
Blablabla, you will be assigned a new agent blablabla best in his field blablabla returned from overseas blablabla best behaviour blablabla effective immediately.
He rolled his eyes and let the letter drop to the desk as if it were covered in the bubonic plague.
Then he picked up the file. Opening it with a flicker of morbid curiosity, he turned his body to lean a hip against the desk's edge.
Oh.
The first thing he noticed was the photo, of course. It is always the photo, isn't it.
The man that glared with the all the powers of the nine hells from that picture was unexpectedly... hot. Handsome. Stone angled his head somewhat. The man was older than him. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Sexy moustache. Sexy undercut. Military uniform, of course. Like all the others.
Stone pursed his lips and let his eyes skim over the first pieces of information.
Ivo Robotnik.
Military education. University degree. Honours and medals. And years and years of experience as an agent.
When Stone leafed through the annex of previous assignments he snorted a laugh.
Classified. Lots and lots of blacked out lines. Utterly ridiculous. Why would they bother to include a censored sheet of information? And more importantly: Why would they bother to classify that information at all? If Stone wanted to, he would find that information. No matter how hard they tried to keep anything under wraps.
Amused, he read over the sparse bit of personal details he was 'allowed' to know.
Tall.
Twenty years his senior.
Had been stationed 'overseas'.
Specialisations: reconnaissance, infiltration, extraction, hand-to-hand-combat, hand-gun expert, fifteen languages, interrogation, tracking, personal security, etc. The list went on and on and on.
Oka~y, he had never had a proper special-agent before. A veritable spy.
And such a hot one.
Well.
He could give it a try. For science.
He grinned and snapped the file shut.
*
ROBOTNIK:
Agent Ivo Robotnik was not happy. Not only had he been called back from half-way interesting work in Singapore, no, he was now expected to work as a glorified babysitter. A babysitter! To some science-nerd! He didn't care how classified or specialised or important or brilliant that tinkerer was! Babysitting was simply beneath his dignity!
The file on his future charge lay unopened at the bottom of his travel-bag.
He couldn't care less about the individual. Personal security was perpetually boring and always the same. And always, always so utterly annoying.
Because people were stupid and never listened.
God, why!
After his visit with Walters immediately upon his return to Washington and the local HQ, his mood had not improved. Walters had refused to relent and argued, bargained and begged him into at least trying. Apparently the 'doctor' had a reputation. And a really long list of previous agents. So, a veritable pleasure to work with, seemingly.
Perfect.
As if this assignment hadn't been shit to begin with.
Now he was going to have to play babysitter to some research-diva.
Ultimately, he had caved. Because Walters had bribed him with an extra three weeks of vacation in Barbados. Ha. He could suffer some pencil-pushing know-it-all for a while. And then he'd be off to drinks by the beach and peace and quiet.
So.
Back at HQ. He hadn't even been to his apartment yet. Hadn't been in over a year. Not that he had missed it all that much. He was too often on the road to miss that place.
He plonked his travel-bag onto the metal table in a break room close to Walters' office. Any moment some clerk would probably come to pick him up and bring him to his new charge. Not even a moment's respite.
He tugged his suit back into order, hoping that the long-ass flight hadn't wrinkled it too much, refastened his tied and checked his reflection on the shiny surface of the microwave's lid. Could be better. Could be worse. His suit jacket felt a smidgeon tight over his gun holster.
He checked his phone and rolled his eyes at the number of new messages. All from other agents he knew, more or less. All feeling way to friendly with him. Had he ever given anyone around this dreadful place the impression that he wanted to 'hang'? Or 'have drinks'? No. But they never missed a chance to harass him. Possibly because those incompetent fools had never been on a proper assignment in their entire life and wished desperately to escape their mediocre lives by listening to his escapades.
Not that he would share.
Nearly everything he ever did in the name of the government was highly classified.
And yet they apparently wished to 'get together' and 'celebrate'.
That last text message had Robotnik frowning. Celebrate? Why celebrate? What the hell where they- oh. Irgh, those mundane fools. He really could not care less about his stupid fucking birthday. HOW DID THEY EVEN FIND THAT OUT? Really! HQ was nothing but a giant nesting ground for gossip-mongers.
He wouldn't go.
His time was much too valuable to be wasted with the inane nonsense of basic mouth-breathers.
"Hello there, agent."
The sudden voice surprised him and with an aborted yell he tore around - and froze.
WHAT THE FUCKIN' HELL!
*
STONE:
Originally, Stone had only left his lab to give Walters' a little pushback. No matter how... intriguing that file and photo had been, he had no need or wish for a fuckin' government-issued ankle-fetter. And even if, hypothetically, he would be inclined to test out this particular agent, Walters needed to be reminded that he required neither an assistant nor a bodyguard. And any attempt at supervision would be mercilessly squashed.
He had been looking forward to making the old man sweat a bit. His 3D-printer was still working on the cast for the ceramic tiles so he had some free time on his hands.
When he was walking down the corridors of Walters' floor, he passed a break-room. At first, it appeared like any other in the building. Maybe with a better coffee machine (still leagues inferior to his own). But, two steps passed the entrance, he paused and retreated his steps to do a double-take.
Oh.
Well.
His future agent looked even better in real life.
There he was: agent Ivo Robotnik.
Stone stood himself at the entrance to the room and put his hands into his Loden coat, letting his eyes roam over the tall man before him. He watched, amused, as he seemed to straighten himself up, checking his reflection in the microwave lid. Cute. Then he cleared his throat.
"Hello there, agent", he drawled.
Robotnik wheeled around, without a doubt surprised, and stared at him.
Huh?
Stone frowned. What was with that expression?
"NO!", the agent shouted, he was seething, livid, "FUCK NO! THOSE CLOWNS DID NOT HIRE ME A STRIPPER! THAT JOKE IS SERIOUSLY GETTING OLD!"
Stone blinked. Pardon?
Robotnik kicked one of the metal chairs violently to the side, making it crash against a cabinet of the kitchen nook. Stone watched - with a suddenly parched throat - as the man, still visibly enraged, ran a gloved hand through his hair. "Whoever hired you - was it Stevenson? - go home."
Before Stone could utter a single word, there came a new voice between them:
"Ah! I see you found each other!" Walters was coming down the corridor from the direction of his office. His inappropriately cheerful smile was grating on Stone's nerves. "Good!" He clapped each of them on the shoulders, fatherly - or rather, that had been his intention.
Both Stone and Robotnik were peering with thinly veiled disgust and tellingly raised single eyebrows at the offending appendages.
"Allow me the pleasure to introduce you either way", Walters droned on like a grandfather about to tell his grand-kid a story, "Dr. Stone, meet agent Ivo Robotnik. Agent Robotnik, meet Dr. Aban Stone."
He looked mighty pleased with himself.
Meanwhile Stone felt his new 'protector's' gaze slide back toward him like an infrared heat lamp being turned on him. He returned that scorching glare with his best doli incapax expression, blinking his eyes harmlessly. It didn't have the desired effect as the man only squinted harder at him.
"You are that prickly tinkerer I'm supposed to be playing babysitter for?"
Stone tried to keep his grin off his lips but didn't entirely succeed. "You thought I was a stripper for your birthday?"
"MUST everyone know that totally irrelevant date?"
He had to bite down on his lips. Because: Why had that man mistaken him for a stripper? That should be an enlightening story. Very enlightening. And amusing.
Walters was oblivious to the tension and simply clapped them once once: "Well then, I'll leave you be. I really hope you guys will get along. Try to, please." He left without noticing anything.
Robotnik was inhaling deeply, possibly to rant.
Stone grinned - going for friendly and harmless but missing by a wide margin: "Why did you mistake me for a stripper?"
The agent blew a raspberry, not only rolling his eyes but making a theatrically exaggerated full-body gesture: "OH GIVE ME A BIG, FAT BREAK!"
Stone chuckled, unexpectedly thrilled. Charmed even.
This could be good.
END