It had been exactly one month and one day that Agent Stone had been working as Doctor Robotnik's assistant. From what he had been told, it was a new record – the previous best had been two weeks and one day, and then the doctor had told the assistant that her work performance hadn't been up to his standards and she was fired. Stone highly doubted those were the exact words, but it was the official, recorded reason, so that was that. Regardless, that same two weeks and one day mark had long passed now for him, so Stone had every reason to believe that the doctor had decided to accept his presence on a permanent basis as long as he kept up his current work standard.
That belief felt immediately threatened when Stone stepped into the laboratory and found the doctor waiting for him at the door. That had never happened before and the fact that it was at the beginning of the new month felt too much like "two weeks and one day" for Stone's comfort.
"Good morning, doctor", Stone said with a smile, not letting his nervousness show. "Do you require assistance with something?"
Robotnik grinned at him, lifted his hands up between them and… signed something to him.
The only sign Stone recognised was the letter 's', because he had learned how to spell his name in ASL for the fun of it at one point. Other than that, he had no clue.
"Uh… I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand sign language."
Robotnik's grin widened into something more predatory. "Of course you don't, that would be too convenient, and also mentioned in your file. Worry not, Stone, you're about to learn."
Robotnik's spoken words were accompanied by what Stone assumed were the same words in sign. There was the 's' again, followed by a fist knocking down on the other fist. Stone was starting to think that it might be his name, but a short-hand version rather than spelled letter by letter.
Only one way to find out.
"Is this my name?" he asked, and did the signs. Robotnik raised an eyebrow.
"Quick study, are you? I'm almost starting to think that keeping you might not have been the worst idea", Robotnik said, which was the closest to a compliment Stone had gotten in his employ so far, so his question had definitely been worth it. That, and now he knew the doctor was 'keeping him' aka he had job security, at least for the moment.
"Thank you, doctor."
Robotnik gave him a pointed look, did two easy signs – the first one was moving his hand outwards from his mouth and the second one like he was taking his pulse – and continued looking at him.
Oh!
Stone repeated the signs with an eager smile, and made sure to memorize them. 'Doctor', especially, would be vital.
Robotnik nodded at him, then turned around and started walking down the hallway. "Your tablet will have a very basic sign language learning course installed, with pictures and videos on it. Make sure to learn every sign in it by heart over the course of the next month. You're obligated to practice with my bodyguards whenever you have spare time."
The doctor had a rotating crew of twelve bodyguards who kept him safe 24/7. Two of them were always situated outside of the lab in a small guard post by the front door. Stone waved at them every morning when he clocked in and evening when he clocked out, but didn't really interact much otherwise. He had met eight of them so far – the morning shift and the day shift. The four night shifters were a mystery to him.
"They know sign too?"
He could almost hear the eyeroll, it was that powerful. "Of course they do, it's mandatory when you work for me long term. If you can't learn it, you're out."
That was definitely a good incentive to learn. And it explained the timing – the doctor had apparently decided that if he could last for one month, he was staying permanently and was worth training. It made sense; there was no point in wasting time teaching an entire language to someone who might not stick around.
"I won't let you down."
"You better not if you know what's good for you. I expect you to learn while performing your other duties, so don't try to overachieve by swallowing the entire dictionary today. Now, get to work."
"Yes, sir."
ooooo
Later that week Stone finally had enough confidence in his rudimentary skills of the language to step out of the lab and drop by the guard post when he ran out of urgent work for the moment.
'Good afternoon', he signed through the large window overlooking the lab's entrance, before letting himself in. The outpost was small, just one room with a hidden door that led to the main lab if they needed the bathroom, the kitchen, or to get to the doctor. The room had two office chairs for the agents to sit in, and basically the rest of the space was taken up by computer desks and screens showing the outside of the lab from all the different angles at once, as well as a couple of carefully picked feeds from inside the lab, namely the entrances. As always, two of the dozen agents assigned as Robotnik's personal bodyguards were present. Right then it was Agents Vega and Brooks; the day shift on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
"Oh hey, the doctor has you learning sign now, huh?" Agent Vega asked and stood up from her comfortable office chair, an amused smile on her lips and her hands landing on her hips. "Guess you're a keeper then; I did suspect that'd be the case when you survived the first two weeks. Welcome to the permacrew! Let's see how you're at the signs. Gimme your name."
'I'm Agent Stone, nice to meet you. How are you?' Stone signed obediently.
"S-rock, I knew it!" Vega said, pointing a triumphant finger at him. She switched to sign herself after. 'My name is Agent V-star, I'm doing good.'
Stone grinned, proud of himself for understanding so far. He heard a clearing of the throat coming from the direction of the third agent in the room, Agent Brooks, so he turned to look.
'I'm Agent B-stream.'
Technically Stone hadn't known the word 'stream', but he was noticing a pattern, so he could guess it from the context. That, and it was a wavy motion, so he would have guessed some kind of water anyway.
"Is the doctor R-robot then?" He asked with a chuckle.
"Robot-N, but yeah, he has a naming convention that's easy to work with. Now ask that in sign", Vega said, grabbing Stone's attention again and leaving Brooks to focus on the camera feeds – one of them did have to keep doing their actual job, after all.
"I'm afraid I haven't learned the sign for robot yet, I've only been at this for a week and learning the words and phrases in the order they come in", Stone said and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.
"Ah, that tracks. Basics it is, then", Vega said with an understanding nod. 'What is the current time and date?'
They did generic small talk in the same vein until Stone ran out of words and phrases, which was admittedly almost embarrassingly fast. But only almost, because one week isn't long, even if he did have some overachiever tendencies.
"I was wondering", Stone said once they established the signing part was finished. "Why does the doctor want us to learn sign language? There was nothing on his file about it and I don't see hearing aids in either one of his ears, from my discreet attempts to look anyway. Not that I can look all that closely without risking my job and limbs. He definitely has no issues with talking either, so that rules out any form of muteness."
"I'm not insane enough to ask, which I assume is the reason you haven't asked him either", Vega said with a chuckle. "The theory we're going with, aside from it being a test of intelligence or something, is that it's a good silent code language. We've used it on missions a few times. And of course we sign when he wants to deliberately exclude others from conversations in the most blatant in-your-face way possible."
Of course Robotnik would find a way to utilize sign language purely in order to be an asshole.
"That makes sense, I suppose."
Stone decided to follow the guards' example and not question it again, since any and all real answers were hidden behind the impenetrable walls of his boss' mind. And he figured he should definitely stop trying to peer into his boss' ears while the going was still good, too.
ooooo
Weekly visits to the guard post for signing practice became the norm for Stone's work schedule. Another development was that at the end of his allotted month, and afterwards at random times, Robotnik would suddenly show up at his workstation and issue a pop quiz in sign, presumably to check he was actually learning.
'Hello, Stone', Robotnik signed the first time it happened, catching him completely off guard. 'Which fruits would you put in a fruit salad? What colour are they?'
It took Stone a moment to reorient his brain, and he had to ask the doctor to repeat his questions – which thankfully didn't result in a punishment for being too stupid to breathe the same air as the doctor – but in the end he gave a satisfyingly long list of fruits and their colours. The doctor gave him an approving nod in return and left like nothing had transpired. Stone was a confused and lowkey paranoid mess for a good ten minutes after, but didn't dare ask.
'Agent, describe a cat to me', Robotnik requested another time. Stone was caught flat-footed again, but managed to stutter a list of adjectives like soft, hairy, and silent, details like glowing eyes, has whiskers, sharp claws, eats mice, and managed to pass that test too. It was then that he caught on to the fact that these were tests.
'Stone, tell me about your morning routine', was the next one. That time Stone smiled and described his mornings with as much accuracy as he could, finally feeling confident about the situation.
'Read this paper to me in sign.' He did.
'Transcribe this to me.' … "Transcribe. Sign the word with me. Do it again. Close enough. Let's try this again."
And so on. If Stone didn't know a word during the official tests, Robotnik would say it out loud for him and teach him the sign with a surprising amount of patience that was reserved only for signing failures. Or rather, lacking vocabulary, which Stone thought made a certain amount of sense, since it wasn't his fault if he didn't know a word that hadn't been on his sign list yet – not that Robotnik was always rational about the things that he was or wasn't punished for in general, but Stone wasn't going to complain about getting consistency for at least one thing.
Eventually, Robotnik started giving regular orders in sign every now and then, especially if he was working in noisy conditions and wearing earmuffs. Stone recognized the sign for coffee from every possible angle now, including the doctor's hands sticking out from underneath a tank he was maintaining and sloppily making the motion. Sometimes the doctor would sign while he was explaining something out loud if his hands weren't busy working – Stone tried to absorb new signs from such explanations, but generally didn't ask even if he didn't catch all of them. New batches of words in pictures and videos appeared in Stone's work laptop at the beginning of every month too, expanding his vocabulary in a steady manner.
All in all, sign language became a natural part of Stone's work environment, and he stopped wondering about it or even thinking much on it. It just was.