A/N: Within the hallway of prisoner cells, Sonic reveals to the apprentice the fatal flaw in their supposed "meeting" in the forest.
"No problem," he breathes another lie.
The pain and guilt he feels amplifies.
"I'm so proud of you, my boy."
The mentor had a steady hand on his shoulder, a luxury not felt since the child's younger years. Their enemy was thrown into a cell, and Miles had never seen his mentor holding back tears of euphoria until this moment. Nights of diligently working on newly invented weapons, images of his father's pride motivating him forward- and yet the visions of his mentor in his past fantasies held to be nothing compared to his father's joy as he looked down to him.
Donning the plain face the fox always masked after a strenuous day for the doctor, gleaming eyes underneath light bangs, and a smile was soon to be brought to his mentor's face; riddling with the cuffs of his gloves, and shifting his weight between his shoes, the boy smiled.
"You did most of the work." He scratched the nape of his neck, his eyes crinkling around the edges. "I just followed your orders."
The man's smile dimmed, and his hand, once firmly gripped around the boy's shoulder fabric, now seemed limp. Sensing the shift, Miles tilted his head- "What's wrong?"
"Do you," The doctor paused, a muffled sadness overcoming his features; he lifted his hand to cusp the boy's chin and framed his face. "Do you truly think of yourself that way?"
"Yeah," he shrugged, a blunt and short fact in his mind. If he did not follow the slight changes in his father's countenance, he would have missed the frown now etched into the creases.
Later, when the boy was asked of Ivo's treatment of him, he promised to himself not to mention the moments after the battle; how the doctor held his face within his gentle, gloved hands and caressed him with his thumbs. The whispered promises, of a father to a son, desperately trying to build upon a shaky foundation of confidence that always shuddered from within the boy ("Know that, no matter the outcome, I would never be able to do anything without you"). And he would never speak of the way the boy spung to the tops of toes, and clutched the doctor's lapels as he shook- and he would never speak of the amounting joy in how the doctor held him back.
Flickering lights lined the hallway and reflected off the metal bars aligning the small entrances along the wall. Only four rooms adorned the hallway, yet the darkness suffocating the air, dressed in pale moonlight, only multiplied any slight movements and sounds leaking from underneath the guarding door. A short figure gingerly closed the main hall, hovering on the door handle as a small clang resonated down the path.
"Sonic?" A hushed tone glanced at the various cells, the small lantern placed in the kit's hands offering minimal light in the circumference of the boy. He swallowed. "Are you there?"
Shuffling could be heard in a left-hand room alongside a shadowed body low to the ground, and Miles tried to hide his shaking breath. A faint voice, steady, "What could you possibly want, Miles?"
"I, just," He couldn't work through the ever-growing knot in his stomach, grasping his voice and pulling it down further into his throat. "I wanted to make sure you were being treated well. He can be... well, excessive."
"Oh, you don't say," the blue figure bit back, tensing his fists close to his torso. "I thought this would all be happiness and pancakes."
Flickering hope, the child shuffled closer before sitting to his knees and placing the lantern next to his knee; the light cast terraforming shadows in the captured teen's face, only sparking more fear into Tails when he mustered the courage to look upwards from the floor.
Sighing, the teen shuffled to the bars, a set expression unwavering. "Shouldn't you, like, not be here?" He reached his gloves (burnt and torn, yet Mobian custom kept Ivo from removing the items from the teen's hands) towards the younger, and with the flinch that followed, he simply dropped it to grasp the cool metal. "Won't your dad be bugged?"
Miles was not oblivious. He was not blind to how the hero shuddered over his words, his gaze dropping as he asked the boy if he was meant to be here; he had watched him for years, and knows when he is scared. Petrified. The battles that could not be won, those where his friends were injured, and their survival was not clear.
"I'll be fine," he muttered, hoping his mumbling hid from the teen's ears, while his mind told him to not be so childish. "I can cover my tracks."
"Yeah, you've always been good at that." Sonic chuckled, albeit more to himself than the younger boy. A darkness swept behind his eyes, his smirk falling to the cracked concrete. "Why did you do this?"
"I just wanted to-"
A muted shout and Sonic shook the cell bars, breathing heavily whilst the kit jumped back onto his elbows. His eyes closed, he set his jaw and paused, before lifting his eyes.
"Do you even know," The child's eyes were wide, a gleam to them with no weight, and for the first time, the hero allowed himself to hold their hurt gaze- knowing he was the one who caused it. "What you have cost us?"
Tails' nose twitched, an anger crawling through his skin, and it is thanks to years of patience he held back a snarl. His mouth opened to refute, before Sonic interrupted again.
"Can't you think for yourself, for once in your life?" Despite the storm forming in his bones, Miles made a note to wonder on this moment later on; how this anger contained no growl, no laughter. He would look into his memories of the nighttime forest, and see how stark this contrasts. The desperation that peered through the cracks in his anger was so unfamiliar to their last encounter, it almost tilted the boy backwards. Could he have two different kinds of rage? Perhaps he was that damaging, that he introduced a new disgust within his hero. "Why do you have to be such a mindless drone to him? Why do you follow him?"
"Of course I was following, I just-" His snapping even rattled his own head, lunging for the hedgehog, and almost banging his forehead against its bars. Shaking his head, he set his head steady. "I've known him for a very long time, and this is probably the happiest he's ever been." Eyes pleading with the boy's green, he tried to connect their gaze, even as his hero shook. "You'd really want to take that away from him? Doesn't it matter what he wants? Even a little?"
"No." A boom crackled against Sonic's voice- tears collected, burning, at how disgustingly wrong this was. "All their lives, their homes," The peaking of the hero's words, rattling along its edges, only highlighted his young age, and Tails took a moment to mourn how small they all were. "He means nothing compared to that."
"Then what do you want me to do?" Tails' prayer only met a whisper, his hands folded. "You were right about me, you know?" His eyes did not catch the way Sonic's brow creased, and the lightning of his fierce grip against the metal columns encasing him, and he only continued his broken truth. "I'm never going to be a hero, but I can't watch all of this die, but I can't fail him again, I'vedoneenoughofthat-".
"Tails," He squeezed a hand through the columns to graze the boy's cheek, searching desperately for his gaze. "It doesn't matter how mad I am at you, but I would never," Tails met his eyes and tried not to sniffle. "I would never tell you what you 'couldn't be'."
"But, two nights ago, you were there-"
"Little dude, I haven't seen you in a week. I've been at the HQ, gathering supplies." Tails clung to the tightening pressure of Sonic's hand pressing further against his cheek, and reveled in the familiar strength behind his eyes. "Who told you this?"
"You did, Sonic." He gently held onto the cuffs of Sonic's hand, afraid any pressure he applied would cause the teen to remove the comforting weight against his face.
With a creak, the door opened, and both figures sprung up to the feet- the boy snatching the lantern off of the floor. Neon blue dots glowed amongst the space in the door opening, and a red metallic gleam soothed the boy's anxiety.
"Miles, I do not know how much longer I can excuse this." Tails smiled at the hidden code amongst his words ("I do not know how much longer I can keep him off your tail."), the weight of Sonic's words still left in the air. Looking back to his partner, the blue blur gave him a shine within his look before flicking his head towards the door. New found love held steadfast in his arms, he quickly walked to the door, before leaving the hero alone in the darkness.
Oh, this is such a bad idea.
He opened and quickly sealed the laboratory door, an act perfected with his expertise in sabotaging his father's plans, and took a holding breath as he felt the nerving weight of his shoulder blades against the metal. A folder for collection in his hands, he gathered the determination in his chest and strode towards the desks and shelves.
Feverously opening various brackets, the metal drawers clang and he quickly skimmed along the labels. The paper he had seen, the one snatched away from him the day before this all started, was burned into his memory. A figure of a body, lists of properties, malfunctions and services written in small boxes on the paper- not too far from the physician check-ups his father would drag him to, albeit almost never without a handheld laser pointed at the staff to convince them to provide service to the boy.
Along the other files under "I", he found not just the one he glimpsed before his father nervously tore it away, but other files with the same subject tag he saw on the original body chart: Infinite.
"This is it," he mustered, and he could see how others said he reminded them of his great father- he almost stumbled over the wrinkles he caused on the paper with his tight grip, the electricity rushing behind his eyes. Sliding the other papers into his collection folder, he set his sights onto the paper he had come for. The same black-furred creature was photographed, the label and his father's signature in the top corner mirroring his memory.
He could almost giggle. His father's scratched and scribbled handwriting never truly changed, despite how he whined at Ivo to change it. Written under the photographs and charts, his father's words were clear:
"The Phantom Ruby: A weapon that takes control of people's visual and depth perception to feed false information to the brain, creating a new reality for them. Causing visual and auditory hallucinations, will need further research to determine why physical injuries may occur with these delusions."
Almost a sixth sense, he turned around a second before the door creaked open.
"Father-"
It only took a look from the doctor, before the door was slammed shut, and the muffled locking of the key was all he heard before yanking on the door handle, pounding for his father to let him out.