"Gante." You looked up to the black dragon, he looked his usual and nothing really different to conclude. You were only gone an hour so nothing probably happened in the time you were out.

"See, you were fine without my squad." He shrugged, placing a hand over your hair and ruffling it a little roughly.

"Who said I miss your squad." You tried to pry his hand off, him smirking as he took it away from your weaker noodle arms.

"Says you whining about us not going." He tried to hide the fact he was looking around your face to see if you were injured at all, and once he saw you were fine he nodded with a huff, some smoke coming out of his nose. "Anyways, you have your next assignment."

Out of some magical pocket, Gante grabbed a manila folder with some information on it. The first paperback report you'd receive rather than being briefed by Rouge or Amy.

"Already?" You tried not to groan, opening it and examining the details. It wasn't a rescue mission. It was labeled as a Spy mission, and that gave you much more excitement. With a devious smile you turned back to your ship so you could read the report, but was grabbed by Gante's strong arm again. You turned to look up at him with a 'what' kind of an expression.

"Someone would like to speak to you." He stole back the manila folder and flipped it around with a room number. From what you could recall, it was a conference room next to the main Control Room.

"Ok then..." 'weird' you thought to yourself, grabbing the assignment folder back from the dragon, and wandering over to the area. You passed by refugees that were given some blankets, some giving you long looks now that you were no longer wearing your helmet constantly. You missed that thing, it gave you protection but right not, it honestly wasn't bothering you too much. A spy mission doesn't really require heavy armor.

You now stood before the conference room door, sliding it open with the press of a button. Soon your eyes were met with gazing green ones. Sonic had asked to see you, his feet propped up on the desk for a short break after running off the virus. You tried not to be mean, but your smile from learning about your assignment turned to a hidden frown when you saw him.

"Sonic." You greeted him.

"(Y/n), take a chair will ya?" his hand gestured to all the open seats in the room, a light sparkle of metal flecking off of it from the lights. You pulled one out and sat down, pulling your hands together to intertwine your fingers. The chair was to his right at the farthest end of the table. Your ears perked up as to why he called you here.

"Is there something you need from me?" You asked, leaning forwards closer to him across the table.

"Just a chat. I know you were being released to help us and, I'll be honest, I'm surprised I'm actually glad you're here to help."

"Thanks-" you muttered, leaning backwards at the, kind-of-insult, into your chair. It rocked back as you rested comfortably and crossed your arms along your chest, "Now, what do you want?"

"Just to get to know you a little bit more. You're kinda an interesting figure after all." He shrugged, also mimicking the comfortable pose you were leaning back in. "A genuine conversation."

Shrugging, you didn't really have anything to hide, "Well, what do you want to know?"

"Who are you really?" You flat out asked.

"(Y/n) the (M/s) and I'm from Seaside City?" You narrowed an eye at him. He would have to be more specific than that. "I like (favorite food) and armor, I jam out to (favorite song genre) on the occasion."

You pretty much know yourself. Your life, although violent, was pretty straightforward. You remember the events that shaped it.

"Do you do anything for fun?"

You gave Sonic the 'really?' face. "Sorry boy, I've been stuck in prison for the past 5 years. Unless you like staring at concrete too?"

Now he looked genuinely interested, "So you don't really DO fun, huh?" He placed a hand under his chin in a thinking pose.

"Can't really do that now, with the virus." You gestured to everything around you in representation of how the virus was spreading everywhere. "..and if we're just here to talk about doing fun things and not ACTUALLY do them I'm going to get back to my assignment..."

You stood up to return to your aircraft in the hanger when Sonic sped off to block the door. You narrowed your eyes at him. "Sonic?- I will touch you and infect everyone here if you don't let me out. This was a waste of time."

"Not gonna happen. I'm gonna show you something, fun." The hedgehog did little jazz hands and sped out the door, peeping through the window with a devious smile. Mouthing 'follow me', as he bounded towards a set of stairs.

Hesitantly, you followed behind Sonic, up the stairs, and to a dark soon with blacklights. The light illuminated zigzag, line, and swirl patterns along a wall. It was an arcade.

"Uh, excuse me, how is this a thing here?" You held out both your arms in astonishment.

"Eh, nobody comes up here. Restoration is a bunker from before even you. If Eggman attacked the city and there were lots of kiddos here at the arcade they could run and hide in here." His response was so sincere that he was unbothered by Eggman attacking the city, probably because he was so used to it. Even now, history was repeating itself. "Now come on, give it a try."

In the meanest way he could, Sonic pretended to try to touch you with his infected hands. This made you skip over to a large open area, a rink even. It was a rollerblade rink.

Suddenly, Sonic had a pair on and another was at your feet. However he managed to get them to you, they were clean. There was no metal virus on it, and you trusted him as a hero so- you out it on. No worries right?

"This is embarrassing..." You muttered to yourself, placing the laces together and fitting the skate right. "Is this just so you can watch me fall or something?"

"Noooo, never. You're so battle torn it made me kinda sad to see you."

"Oh so you feel sorry for me after I was imprisoned by you for 5 years?" You lashed back, finishing typing the lace with a rather aggressive stare.

"Hey don't twist my words." He barked back. You were just pretending to be rude, and once you laughed at him a bit he calmed back down, realizing you have out-pranked him once again. But man, what a thing for you to joke about.

"It's fine hedgehog, don't worry about me. Yeah sure, I'll try your little skate thing." You managed to pick yourself up, experimenting with the movement of the wheels and how turning worked. Meanwhile, Sonic, although he was a runner, was already on the rink doing small circles.

Eventually you got the hang of it and walked over to the gate, where Sonic wheeled over and waited. He sarcastically bowed as it was pulled open, pretending to offer his hand like a cab driver helping the lady out of the vehicle.

Seeing an opportunity, you pranked him once again, slapping your hand into his and squeezing it.

His eyes shot up in a panic that almost caused him to slip, barely catching himself on the bar on the sides of the gate. "(Y/n) WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT YOU'RE INFE-"

Thankfully you let go before he took you down with him and laughed at his reaction. Your laughter filling the secluded arena and echoing down the staircase entrance.

"Calm down blue boy, I've got my armor to protect me. Just as long as you don't touch my head I'll be fine." You pulled him back up and he was seething red, but respected the prank. Thinking to himself how in the world you were so good at this.

But he smiled, eventually starting to skate around and watch you try to figure out how to stay stable. You were decent, nowhere near a master but you could definitely cruise around.

"I did ice skating when I was a kid. Maybe 10 years ago." You managed to do one trick, pulling your less dominant leg back and kicking your heel up, using only the wheel on your toe to move forwards. It rested behind your leg that remained on the ground fully.

Sonic was already doing laps, leaning forwards for aerodynamics and such, and going very fast. Still, it was weird to see the hero on skates rather than on normal foot.

"Did you really invite me down here just to have fun?" You wouldn't put it past him, but the situation still felt uneasy. You couldn't think of what Sonic would want from you anyways.

"Sure did." Skidding to a halt, Sonic stopped right in front of you and offered a hand since you assured him you were ok. You took it and he started to pull you along, eventually using his speed to throw you forwards so you could get a taste of that speeeeed.

It was fun, and you smiled with joy once again, the first Sonic had seen. But it was a little hard to stop, and you crashed into the wall of the rink but managed to stay upright. Sonic apologized from across the rink and scared over, "...and I'm also sorry for being mean to ya when you were at Floral Forest Village. I hadn't exactly forgiven you yet at that point for, you know."

"Yeah, I'm- sorry about that. I don't think there really is a way to say sorry for all that. And especially for what I did to Tails who is- basically like your little brother right?" You picked yourself out of the rink, going to a bench and sitting back down. Your brain was screaming, 'ah, it's time for sentiments'.

"He is, I care for the little guy a lot. And I don't think you need to say sorry. Like I said earlier, I'm glad you're here to help us. This metal virus thing, it's pretty bad." Sonic followed after you, avoiding touching anything else as he 'rolled' up his glove to expose his arm, glistening as more infected began to take it over.

"How do you feel? You're the only person who has the infection and is around long enough to stay in control of yourself."

Sonic 'rolled' his sleeve back up and looked to you, suddenly tuning into a quick tornado as his skates disappeared off of him. While he spoke you did the same.

"Resting can be a hard thing to come by, and even when I run sometimes it doesn't go down as much as I'd like it to. Tails is researching it right now, but we're not sure why my speed slows it down."

"The kid's smart, he's probably already half way to finding a vaccine already." You nodded, truly believing in Tail's ability. Throwing your normal shoes back on, you stood up and began to make your way back to the Restoration HQ base. Sonic agreed with his belief in Tails and that was really all you two said on your way back. It was quiet and you were about to part ways at the bottom of the stairs when Sonic called you out.

"I trust you now (Y/n)." You stood about 10 feet away from each other. "I forgave you when you came to the rescue at Floral Forest."

"So. What does that make us?" You stared right back at Sonic, who gave a classic smirky smile back.

"How does an acquaintance sound?"

You nodded back, "That works for me, but just know I'll be working on it."

The two of you gave a thumbs up to each other, and parted ways. Sonic had trusted you, and you felt much more powerful with his as your ally. You had actual fun, and you felt happier.

Some stuff not from the canon story. Yus! I liked writing this chapter a lot, and figuring out how to write Sonic since he's a little prankster and likes to have fun.

I'm slowly removing parts of the reader's armor to raise stakes, as she's too strong if she's just completely immune and safe. This interaction itself was risky but I let it slide for the partnership of characters.

Chapter Length @2140 Words