Robotnik let out a deep, exhausted sigh of relief upon the hotel room door closing behind him. Finally, finally the mission was as good as over, with only the paperwork and hopefully avoidable in-person debriefings left, and those were tomorrow's problems. Tonight, all that was expected of him was sleeping, and after days of planning, organizing, and finally the careful execution of the plan he was ready to give his brilliant mind a much deserved break.

"Stone, unpack the bags, order something edible and light from the room service, and ignore any and all messages and calls from the government", he said, taking off his outdoor clothes while his assistant worked in the background. He wanted a shower to wash out the sweat, grime, and the faint smell of a musty warehouse.

As soon as Stone had his pajamas laid out on his bed, he snatched them up and claimed their en-suite bathroom for himself. He couldn't get out of his nasty day clothes fast enough, and after taking out and carefully laying his hearing aids on the edge of the sink – as far away from the danger of falling in as he could manage with the limited options at hand – he hopped in the shower and let the warm water wash out the grime and stress in the blissful silence.

After he was done, he stepped out of the shower stall… and promptly slipped. His hands automatically reached out to the sink for balance, which thankfully did stop him from ending up sprawled on the floor, but it caused the sink to shake, which in turn jostled his tiny, cylindrical hearing aids just enough to send them rolling. As luck would have it, they rolled all the way to the edge, then over it and into the sink. Hands still clutching the sink and heart hammering from the shock of almost falling, all Robotnik could do was watch his hearing aids merrily slip through the holes in the strainer into the drain.

"Give me a break!" he snarled, and immediately remembered that he hated talking when he couldn't hear himself – it was disorienting, disquieting, and a bunch of other words with the same prefix. So he took a deep, calming breath instead, and then slowly exhaled.

This was a setback, but not a catastrophe. It wasn't the first time he had to dig out one or both of his hearing aids from the sink trap. They would wait there for as long as necessary so long as nobody used the sink, and even if someone did use it they would likely stick around due to their size and weight. He could afford to take his time.

Feeling as calm as he was going to be in this situation, Robotnik completed the rest of his shower routine. Dry up, clean his ears – this was the main reason he took out his hearing aids for showering, it's not like his own tech was going to break from a little bit of water – get dressed, and prepare to boss Stone around. Everything was good, swell even.

Finally, he opened the bathroom door, only to find Stone hovering on the other side, clearly waiting for him, judging from how he started talking the moment the door was open.

Of course, Robotnik couldn't hear any of it. Unfortunately reading lips wasn't a part of his wide range of skills, mostly because he wasn't keen on paying that much attention to peoples' ugly mugs or the inane words they said.

He lifted a hand up with his palm out in the universal sign of "stop and shut up", then started signing.

'Go to the front desk and ask for a bucket and a pair of disposable gloves.'

To his endless frustration, Stone looked confused and lost. Why now, of all times, was Stone floundering, he had been doing very well in–

Ah. Too fast was the likely case. His usual pop quizzes and meetings chatter were deliberately slow and precise, but his current signing was done at a comfortable talking speed. Even his usually sharp assistant would have trouble with that.

With infinite patience born out of not wanting to leave the room while deaf, he slowed his signing down and repeated himself.

Stone nodded along to his signing… until the word 'disposable' appeared. He needed to upgrade Stone's sign vocabulary files again the first thing when they got back to the lab. As it was, he fingerspelled the word to him and Stone's expression cleared in understanding.

'Alright, doctor', Stone replied and turned around to do as asked… only to stop and turn back around with a frown. His mouth was moving again, most likely asking dumb questions along the lines of "why", and Robotnik had no patience left for this. With a snarl he couldn't hear himself, he pointed at the door until Stone got the hint and left.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and made a mental note to start carrying an extra pair of hearing aids on him whenever he was out of town. He had a few at his home, in his lab, and even in his mobile lab, but not in his suitcase. A rare oversight on his part.

While waiting for Stone to return, he dumped his filthy clothes in a pile in the vicinity of his suitcase to be Stone's problem later, and dug out a spray bottle of disinfectant from the first aid kit kept in Stone's luggage and set it on his nightstand. He scanned his surroundings to make sure he wasn't forgetting anything he had meant to do, and noticed that they had two trays of fresh food on the small dining table. Right, he had asked Stone to order something in. He supposed he could get the eating over with, since that had been his original plan for after the shower.

He had only gotten a few bites into the meal when suddenly he felt a presence behind him and startled, dropping his yogurt spoon. He half turned in his seat to find Stone behind him, holding a bucket and looking vaguely concerned.

This was by no means the first time the agent had sneaked up on him and given him unnecessary heart palpitations. But the fact that he did it when Robotnik literally couldn't hear him coming made him even angrier about it.

'Pin yourself to the wall', he signed choppily, then pointed at the nearest wall for emphasis. To Stone's credit, he understood and complied without hesitation.

Robotnik stood up and marched over to his witless assistant. He couldn't do his usual routine of getting in his space if he wanted to sign, so he settled for straightening up to his full height and glowering menacingly. He loathed how some of the effect was lost because of the fact that he had to sign slowly and clearly to make sure he was understood.

'Do not lurk behind me when I can't hear you, dimwit! And don't use the bathroom until further notice!'

Stone looked surprised for some reason, but nodded his understanding anyway. Satisfied, Robotnik snatched the bucket – the disposable gloves were within – from his hand and returned to the table to quickly finish his meal to get it out of the way. That done, he made his way to the bathroom, aware that Stone was following him.

He donned the gloves, opened the sink base cabinet, placed the bucket under the piping, and made short work of taking apart the drain. Thankfully the hotel was fine enough that everything down to the sink trap was reasonably clean, so aside from water and someone else's earring back, he encountered no nasty surprises. He put the drain back together, tossed the earring back down the sink to roll back into the drain, and rinsed his hearing aids carefully. He binned the gloves, and turned around to find Stone still standing in the doorway, watching his proceedings curiously.

'The bathroom is free now', he said one-handedly and with no small amount of sneer before pushing Stone out of his way and heading to his nightstand. He sat on the edge of his bed, sprayed disinfectant on a tissue and wiped the hearing aids down with infinite care before finally setting them down to air dry overnight. While they were water resistant and there was no way that little stint damaged them, they did still need to dry thoroughly before he could use them again. He didn't usually wear more than one overnight anyway, if he chose to wear any at all, so this simply meant a headstart to the silence of the night.

He looked up to find Stone staring at him like a moron again. 'What?'

Stone opened his mouth, closed it – so he could learn! – and then signed, 'Are those hearing aids?'

Robotnik wanted to fire him. He wasn't going to, because that would mean not having him around, but it was really tempting right about then. 'Are you an idiot?'

'Yes.'

'There you have it then!'

'I didn't know you're deaf', Stone continued, ignoring the insult with practice. Robotnik was about to hurl another one, but then Stone's words caught up with him and gave him pause.

Stone had been briefed on this upon being assigned to him, right? He must have been. But no matter what he said out loud about Stone's intelligence, he was actually well aware that his assistant wasn't stupid in the least, and he was also very diligent and memorized every little thing that he deemed necessary for his job. If Stone had been told about him being deaf, the man would not forget it. The fact of the matter had to be that nobody had told Stone about his condition.

He supposed he could forgive Stone's dumb behavior and questions in the light of this.

'Now you know and yes, that is why you had to learn sign language, in case that wasn't obvious', he said, and anticipated the next question before Stone could finish making up his mind about asking it. 'I lost my hearing in an explosive accident roughly ten years ago. Ruptured eardrum.' He made sure to spell the last bit out and use the simpler words so he didn't have to tediously spell "tympanic membrane perforation" only to be met with a blank look. 'Severe hearing loss, since you're going to google this the moment you think I'm not looking. Don't spread the information.'

To Stone's credit, he looked happy to be trusted with the information rather than giving him any pitying looks for being disabled. Which was good, because if any pity had been aimed his way, Robotnik would have taken his previously abandoned idea of firing Stone back under serious consideration, no matter how much he valued his assistant.

Stone waved a hand at him to catch his attention again. 'Your bodyguards don't know this either. Is that on purpose?'

His bodyguards didn't- Robotnik sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was surrounded by idiots. Morons. Imbeciles. Braindead monkeys. Had nobody been briefed on this upon assignment? What was the management even doing?!

Besides, he knew for a fact that some of his bodyguards had been working under him for over a decade and were even there when the accident happened. Agent Primrose pulled him out of the- Wait, he parted ways with the agency six years ago. Agent Jasper, his partner, got reassigned to a solo job. What about- No, they got injured and were let go. She failed to learn sign and he fired her. Those two got themselves reassigned when they no longer wanted the night shift. And those two he fired after they failed an attention test with a hacked video feed. He fell for an Italian guy and quit to move countries. She got reassigned. …Only Agents Marsh and Hart were left of his original crew. Night shift.

And none of his previous bodyguards, who witnessed his adjustment period and struggles, passed the knowledge forward to the new recruits? He simultaneously wanted to give them belated bonuses for keeping his secrets – weaknesses especially – and also fire them (in some cases double fire them) for not briefing their coworkers on an important detail about the person they were supposed to protect. Although he supposed they, too, assumed that the new recruits would be briefed by the management before showing up for the first shift. Damn it!

His bodyguards needed to be aware of his deafness, just in case his hearing aids got damaged or lost during a mission – them knowing that there was a chance he was unable to hear them calling for him, for example, could make a life saving difference.

'I hope none of you idiots decide to breed, because your genes are not worth spreading around', Robotnik said, uncaring if Stone was able to follow or not. He picked up his cellphone and sent a message to each ignorant member of his utterly useless crew. It went "I should fire you for your appalling lack of perception. I'm deaf, I use hearing aids. At least make an attempt to do your job correctly sometimes. Delete this message and don't reply, I don't care about your pathetic excuses."

He slapped his phone back down on the nightstand to free his hands, then turned to Stone again. 'Now they know. Congratulations, you were accidentally useful.'

Stone's face did a series of twists and twitches, clearly unable to decide on a reaction. Happy for the almost-praise? Offended for the insult? Proud of being useful? Robotnik didn't know and frankly didn't care at that moment. 'I won't hear anything tonight, so feel absolutely free to watch youtube at unneighborly volumes and snore to your heart's content. Now let me enjoy my peace and quiet, the Q&A is over.'

And that was that. With any luck his deafness would never be brought up again.