A/N hey all! hope you enjoy the story! my goal with this story is to make the love triangle well... actually good lol. man i haven't touched this account in a while, but hey what else are ya gonna do in quarantine?

It was 4:17pm.

The way that Knuckles quickly swerved around to face the Master Emerald made Rouge smirk. She watched with amusement from the bushes as she watched Knuckles get into a fighting stance.

Knuckles was learning. A rare occurrence. He finally realized what time Rouge would usually arrive, which was bound to make their scheduled playtime a bit more fun.

He had his back turned away from her location, as it seemed he was used to her popping out from behind the emerald. He was going to get a surprise today.

She flew out of the bush quickly and silently, just hovering over the ground. Her feet slammed into the echidna's back. Knuckles stumbled into his precious emerald, causing it to topple out of its position. Rouge landed on the ground, grabbing the end of a rope that was tied to her legs. She proceeded to tie the rope around the large, glowing gem as Knuckles began to recover from the shock and get to his feet.

The deed was done, and the bat was able to fly into the air- carrying the emerald by her legs where she had the most strength. "Thank you, Knuckie~" Rouge gave the echidna a wink as she looked down at him, before soaring high up into the air.

"GET BACK HERE, YOU BAT GIRL!" She could hear Knuckles' faint and outraged yells and couldn't help but giggle.

The little heist had been successful, she just needed to make her way back home. She grinned knowing that while Knuckles could float to a certain extent, he wouldn't be able to reach her height.

Her thoughts had ended up distracting her. There was a snap. Rouge looked down and saw the emerald plummeting towards the ground, and a sad little broken rope tied to her leg. The bat narrowed her eyes, the rope was supposed to be strong enough…

Zap! Zap! Rouge shifted her gaze forward and was met with green lasers blasting towards her. Rouge shot across the sky in various directions to dodge them. She eventually noticed they were coming from none other than the egg mobile. Of course, Eggman had to interfere, didn't he? As she flew back down to Angel Island, she narrowly missed the lasers being sent her way.

Rouge let out a little "Hmph." Accompanied by a proud smirk once landing on the alter. She was quite happy with the badass-looking superhero landing she had just accomplished. Knuckles wasn't impressed unfortunately, but before his fist could collide with her head she rolled out of the way. Knuckles was left to punch the stone instead which resulted in a large dent.

"We've got bigger things to deal with right now!" Rouge exclaimed as Knuckles pulled back his arm, ready to fight again. A shadow being cast over the two caused Knuckles to relax his arm. The pair looked up, before jumping backwards as the egg mobile came down to hover slightly above the alter.

"Why hello, Knuckles!" Eggman greeted the echidna with a grin, "I hope you don't mind me taking that emerald of yours…"

Knuckles blinked for a moment. "UH, YES I MIND!" he responded angrily. Orbot and Cubot who were peering out of the egg mobile jumped back.

"Awww… too bad." The doctor responded. "It would seem the emerald has landed in the ocean below, so to ensure I get to it first… you have to deal with my GREATEST INVENTION YET!" Eggman pointed behind Rouge and Knuckles, so they turned around to face it.

It was a robot only slightly larger than Omega, and bizarrely its arms were made of a skinny rubber tube while the rest of the robot was metal.

"That's… your greatest invention?" Rouge narrowed her eyes sceptically.

"Oho! But you see this isn't just a robot, no, no! It has STRETCHY ARMS!" As if on cue, the robot extended its rubber arms before coiling them.

Knuckles clasped his hands together near his mouth, taking a deep breath in to resist the urge to yell about the ridiculousness of it all.

"Oh, Knuckles," Rouge sighed, a look of desperation in her eyes. "What will we ever do against stretchy arms?" She pretended to faint, but luckily Knuckles caught her before she could fall to the ground. "We're doomed!" she cried mockingly while in his arms.

Eggman pouted, before turning the egg mobile around. "You won't be so cocky once you start fighting..." he grumbled, flying up in the egg mobile and then back down to head towards the ocean.

Soon after, the robot shot one of its arms towards Knuckles. The echidna ducked and ran forward. Knuckles reached upwards to grab the rubber arm, got hold of it, and pulled it down. The rubber snapped. One arm down.

However, the robot's other arm had already extended towards Knuckles and was about to grab him. Rouge quickly intercepted by hooking the rubber around her foot, and then flying upwards to snap it. Two arms down already.

Knuckles and Rouge charged ahead to the robot. Unbeknownst to them the robot was still able to fight. Lasers fired from its eyes, so Rouge quickly grabbed the echidna's arm to fly him up to safety, but her shoulder got scraped by one of the beams. She winced in pain, and then felt Knuckles let go of her hand.

Knuckles glided forward, before beginning to drop down above the robot's head. He rammed his fist into the robot. The punch was strong enough to crunch it down into a pile of sad looking metal.

Rouge grabbed Knuckles again, and the pair began to fly down towards the egg mobile. Eggman had extended a crane out from underneath that was tightly gripping onto the emerald. The doctor laughed maniacally, convinced he was going to get away safely.

Knuckles went to be under the emerald, before Rouge kicked at the crane. It broke, causing the emerald to fall into Knuckles' hands.

"NOOO!" Eggman yelled in frustration once noticing the echidna was flying away with the glowing gem. Before he could do anything to stop him, the doctor's egg mobile was sent flying from one of Rouge's kicks. The bat smiled slightly before turning back to Angel Island.

When she landed, she saw Knuckles delicately placing the master emerald in its rightful place. He seemed to sense Rouge's presence, causing him to turn around with a furious look. "Go home, batty! You're not getting the emerald!" He got into a fighting stance.

"Relax, hon." She gave him a lazy smile. "I'm done for today. I think if you get anymore angry your head will pop off." She remarked with a soft chuckle.

A moment of silence passed between the two as they stared. Knuckles was still tense and prepared to engage in combat. "Then why aren't you leaving?" he asked.

Rouge tilted her head, giving him a little pout. "Why do you ask? Don't want me here?"

"Not while you're trying to STEAL MY EMERALD!"

"I'm doing nothing of the sort! At least not right now…" Rouge said with a cheeky, teasing grin.

"GRRR! You're BATTY!" Knuckles' frustration was slowly building up.

"And you still fail to think of a different insult after all this time." Rouge retorted. She then sighed a little. "Look, Knuckie- "

"Don't call me that."

"Can't tell me what to do." She eyed him smugly. "Anyways, I was going to say you're looking a little lonely these days. You don't leave this island, and I'm pretty sure I'm the only mobian you've seen for the past two weeks. Am I right or am I right?"

"Why does it matter?" Knuckles finally chose to relax and sat down right in front of the master emerald.

"It's honestly quite sad." She told him. "There's a whole world down there and you remain on this floating rock!"

"I'm not harming anyone, am I?"

"You might be harming yourself, Knuckie. Surely it's not good to live in isolation like this." Rouge said, concern evident in her voice.

"I don't mind it." Knuckles grumbled. "So, you can mind your own business."

"You have friends down there, in case you forgot!" Rouge raised her voice a little. "And you know…" she began to slowly walk towards him, swinging her hips, "I don't want to keep flying up here just to hang with you. We could go… literally anywhere more fun than this island together!" She suggested.

Knuckles huffed. "Why do you even care?"

"Why wouldn't I? If you keep yourself secluded here, I don't get to see your handsome face as often…"

She watched Knuckles squirm and make incoherent noises with a satisfied smirk. He looked away with a grumble, trying to hide his blush. "I'll… consider it." He said in a low voice.

"And I hope you make the right decision. I'll keep nagging you until you do!" She laughed. "And that's a promise not a threat." She quickly added.

"I have no doubt it is…" Knuckles was still unable to look at her directly.

"Then it's bye for now, handsome!" She said to him as she flew up into the sky. Knuckles finally looked in front of him and saw the bat was gone. His blush still lingered as he scowled.

"I'm back!" Rouge announced in a sing-song voice as she opened the door to her team's apartment. No one responded to her, but she did hear Mina Mongoose's latest single coming from the living room.

As she entered the living room, she saw her friends sitting on the couch. Shadow was immersed in a book, while Omega sat next to the CD player. With a jolt she realized that Mina's song had been played so often that Rouge was able to remember the lyrics. Omega really had found a new obsession. It was better than constantly having destructive tendencies, for sure, but his fascination with the song was still unexplained and frankly bizarre.

"Well, I was unable to get the master emerald." She told them with an exaggerated sigh, sitting down next to Shadow. She got no response from either of them, she knew they wouldn't be surprised.

"Eggman showed up." She went on. "I got hit by a laser during the fight."

Shadow looked up from his book. "Where?"

"Just on my left shoulder."

He peered around to look at it. "You'll live." He went back to his book. "The worst you'll end up with is a bruise."

"Hm." Rouge suddenly frowned. "I think Eggman's been off his game a little. I mean – he made a robot with stretchy arms and called it the greatest invention he's ever made."

"He's getting old." Shadow said with an unchanging expression and tone. "Dementia perhaps. Or he's just losing his marbles, but he's been doing that for years."

"Uhm… dementia, wow." Rouge blinked in surprise. "That's a thought…"

"I'D PREFER EGGMAN DIES THAN GET DEMENTIA." Omega said suddenly.

"Uhhhh..." Rouge shifted her gaze to Shadow, who didn't respond as he turned the page of his book. His constant stoic expression was somewhat unnerving.

"On the plus side I think I've finally convinced Knuckles to come off his island!" She said hopefully. "I was thinking us, Sonic, Tails, and Amy could go to the carnival with him next week."

"I'd rather not." Shadow said.

"Come on, Shadow! You can't be a grump all the time!" Rouge huffed.

"Watch me."

"You're coming one way or another, Shadow. I'm very persuasive." She crossed her arms, speaking with certainty but with a mischievous glint in her eye.

"Try me."

Rouge stroked Shadow's arm with the tip of her finger. "Don't you want to make me happy?"

"You'll be happy without me."

"Will I though?" Her voice took on a sweet tone. "Not having your attractive face around would be such a shame…"

"Shame."

Nothing about Shadow's responses had changed, and he was still reading. Damn, he's good. Rouge thought.

Rouge got up from the couch with a shrug. "You can be like that now. But you'll find yourself coming to that carnival with us."

"No I won't."

Rouge rolled her eyes and smiled. It was typical Shadow at it's finest.