Chapter Text
Years later, when they told this story to the Freedom Fighters, they’d change it.
Sonic would notice the scar peeking out from under Manic’s tank top. He’d lean over and ask what happened, pointing at it and making Manic glance down and pull his shirt aside to show it more. Manic and Amy would share a look , and then Manic would tell a dramatic story about how a mugger tried to steal Amy’s cashbox early in her fortune telling career, and how Manic stopped him and got a decent sized knife in his shoulder for his trouble.
They’d say Manic took it like a champ, and that scared the mugger off almost immediately. No one wants to mess with the freak that takes being stabbed well, right?
At least, that’s what they’d say.
Truth is, Amy practically felt it herself when Manic took the knife. He was usually so, so careful about his powers. He kept an iron grip on his emotional state so that he wouldn’t project it on everyone around him, especially his friends and family, and he was mindful of his mental walls so that he wouldn’t take in everyone's feelings around him either.
Today, that was not the case.
Manic dropped to the pavement like a rock. The backlash of pain-scared-get-away-GET-AWAY was so strong that Amy had to plant her feet and grit her teeth to stop herself from running away alongside the mugger who’d thrown her cashbox at Manic in his frantic escape. She stood there, knees shaking, as Manic nearly choked on his yell. His hands scrabbled panickedly at the blade's handle, crimson blood quickly covering his gloves and turning the red of his ratty vest black. It took far too long for Amy to get her own thoughts going again, but she managed to find her voice before he did anything stupid.
“NO, DON’T,” she all but screamed as soon as she was able to wrench her voice into her throat. Manic froze shakily in his quest to remove the knife, his forehead pressed to the street as he trembled. He slowly looked up at her, his quills bristling and flaring out. He was about as big as he could possibly make himself look, terrified and defensive. Amy swallowed hard around the raw fear that he was pouring into her. “Y-You can’t take it out here-” she forced out. “It’s keeping you from bleeding more.”
Manic blinked a few times, then dropped to his side. The radiating feeling was still coming off him, overwhelming to the point that Amy felt like she wanted to crawl out of her body. To run as fast and far away as she could manage. She kept her knees locked and her hands clenched at her sides. She wasn’t going anywhere. Manic took a few deep, very deliberate breaths, his whole body trembling with the effort of it. The intense feeling began to ebb, sliding off of Amy and leaving her with only her own mind numbing panic.
But at least she could move, breathe. She lurched forward to his side, dropping to her knees on the muddy concrete as raindrops started to fall on Robotropolis. “Talk to me, talk to me, are you okay?!” Amy demanded, grabbing him a little too roughly and making him yelp. “Sorry, sorry! Oh gosh, Manic…”
To his credit, Manic just grit his teeth in an ugly grin and met her eyes. There were tears glittering along his lashes that he was trying to blink away. “Yeah I’m– I’m great. Didja see that? Scared the loser off, I won,” he said hoarsely, slowly getting his wobbling arms beneath himself. Amy slowly helped him sit up, trying her best not to let her hands shake.
The rain picked up a bit as she sat in the empty street with Manic, watching as he clenched his jaw and took slow breaths, swaying slightly. Amy's hands hovered at his sides, ready to catch him. “We gotta get you home,” she whispered.
Manic hummed in response, and Amy noticed he was already paling out. Shock, perhaps? “Get your money,” he said after a moment.
Amy blinked belatedly. “What?”
“Amy, get your money picked up, I went through all this trouble.”
Amy let out a slightly hysterical sound. “I don't care, I can worry about that later, we need to go–”
“Amy, get your stupid money and put it back in the box. I'm fine,” Manic grit out, his hands falling to his knees to grip. “I can wait a moment.”
He didn't look like he could wait a moment, but Amy hastily scooped up the scattered bills, coins, and dirt into her cash box and closed it, stuffing it into her bag. “Okay. Done. We're going now, got it?” Amy shot back, rushing back to his side. But he didn't move, except for the occasional tremble and shaking breath in and out.
Manic swallowed hard, licked his lips. “Can I just stay here?” he asked faintly after a moment. His voice was so tiny. “S'not so bad… when I don't move or breathe too hard.”
Amy's face fell. “Manic, you can't sit here and bleed out on the sidewalk. Gimme your arm,” she said gently but firmly, crouched beside him. He was already soaked to the bone, his quills drooping with the weight of the continued rain. Manic almost looked like he wanted to argue more, but after a long pause he silently held up his good arm for her.
Amy didn't hesitate to duck under it, looping it across her shoulders and gripping his wrist tight. “We're gonna get up now,” she told him, and she didn't wait for him to agree before beginning to stand.
Almost immediately the pain-scared-stop blasted Amy's mind again before quickly retreating as Manic took several gasping breaths and pressed against her side. Now that he was leaning against her she could feel him trembling, tensing. The thought of how bad it must hurt twisted Amy's stomach, and the high, pained whimper that dragged itself out of him didn't help at all. “Good,” Amy managed to squeak out. “You're up. Let's go.”
Manics eyes were brimming with hot tears, his pupils blown wide. Apparently he’d given up on not crying- tears streamed down his muzzle then. “Kay,” he said breathily. “Go.”
Amy stepped forward, all but dragging him along and tried to ignore the pathetic whines that Manic was trying to choke down. The walk back to Ferrells place wasn't too far, but today, in the rain and with the tinny smell of blood starting to cling to Amy, it could have been on the other side of the city.
They were about halfway there when Manic made a sound that made Amy stop in alarm. “What- what's wrong? What happened?!” She demanded. Something had to be worse something else had happened and–
The strangled sound petered into a desperate laugh. “Amy- Amy, I look like a winter festival tree,” he sputtered out, pained guffaws forcing their way out. Amy couldn’t decide if it sounded more like he was crying or laughing.
Amy glared at him. “Manic Hedgehog, that is not funny! Stop- stop laughing, you said breathing hurt–”
“It does!” Manic replied hysterically, stumbling into her more heavily. Amy braced against his weight, grateful for both her strength and Manic being light. “It totally sucks, actually!”
Amy swallowed. Shock, he was definitely in shock. He was in shock and that was why he was being extra stupid so she couldn't strangle him for it. “We’re almost there,” she told him. “We're almost home and Ferrell will know what to do.”
Manic finally managed to get himself together and the sound petered off as they began walking again. Or maybe the pain caught up with him, but he didn't speak again all the way to the place he called home.
It was innocuous enough, if you didn't know to look you'd miss it. An old dumpster turned on its side hid the doorway, and you had to know where the knob was to even try turning it twice left and once right. The door swung open and Amy yanked Manic inside, tracking mud and grime into the hallway.
Ferrell wasn't exactly poor. He didn't spend his money on fancy clothes or big places to live, instead focusing it on food, essentials and probably more charity work than he should. He moved the money of the underground around and did what he could to get people what they wanted. People called him the king of thieves in some circles. Some folks liked him, some didn’t. It was a feature of the job he’d chosen.
As a result, the house was decorated a bit oddly, thrifty and cozy. And probably far too many of the knick knacks stolen by Manics own hands– he claimed he didn’t notice he was taking things much anymore, it just kind of happened. Amy wasn’t sure if she believed that but it was a losing battle to stop him.
Amy didn't take off her shoes today as she pulled Manic down the hall towards Ferrell’s study. “Ferrell!” she screamed into the doorway. “We need help! Ferrell!”
The scarab looked up as they approached the door, seated at a desk and organizing something or other. His yellow eyes widened when he saw Amy and Manic, and he jumped to his feet so fast his chair clattered to the floor. “Manic! Manic- Amy what happened?!” he demanded, banging his hip into the desk in his frenzied rush to get to his son.
Manic looked up as Ferrell approached, his ears and quills drooping. “Picked a fight. Sorry Pa,” he slurred, his head lulling onto Amy's shoulder.
“It's okay, Manic,” Ferrell said immediately. Manic grinned at that, a weird, slightly delirious thing.
Ferrell reached out and Amy happily let him take Manic, looping his long spindly arms around the boy and hauling him right off his feet. Amy trailed after him as he brought Manic over to the plush lounge chair that was in the corner. “I was getting mugged,” she said, trying to keep the shake out of her voice. “He stopped them, but they got a lucky shot.”
Manic hummed quietly as he was set down. “Totally won,” he said. “Picked a fight but it was for Amy and I won, so it's okay, right?”
Ferrell's brow pinched, deepening the creases that he already had on his forehead. “Yeah, kiddo, it's okay,” he said, so softly. Amy never heard the beetle speak softly, unless it was for her or Manic. “Let's take a look at that, we'll get it all patched up. Okay?”
Amy knelt down next to the couch, looking up at Ferrell. “Can you fix it?” She asked faintly. As she set her hands next to Manics, she only then registered that her white gloves were stained red, both of their gloves were soaked. And the side of her dress where she'd had Manic pressed against her as well.
She swallowed hard. She could worry about that later, she could clean up later.
“Maybe,” Ferrell said just to her, as low as possible. “I know how to do stitches, we just need to check how bad it is first, get it to stop bleeding. Can you go get the first aid kit?”
Amy nodded and shot to her feet. “On it,” she said, dashing off down the hall to get it. She ripped open the cabinet in the bathroom hard enough to nearly break one of the hinges and seized the sizable kit– it wasn't like Manic or Ferrell were welcome in hospitals. They made a living out of undermining the government, there were at least twenty seven combined warrants for their arrest. So, to compensate, they had a slightly larger than average supply of medical stuff packed into the tin box that Amy sprinted back down the hall with.
She came back into the study to find Ferrell smoothing back Manic’s wild quills worriedly, saying something she couldn’t quite catch. She did hear Manic fussing in reply though: “No, I've been pushing them forward on purpose you're ruining the look, Pa.”
Ferrell tutted quietly. “Makes you look homeless,” he said, but stopped anyway. He looked up when Amy approached and gratefully took the box from her. “Thank you, Amy,” he said, setting it to the side. Amy settled at Manics' other side, her eyes wide.
Manic looked over at her as Ferrell shuffled around in the box. “Hey, Rose,” he murmured, his gaze a bit distant. “You don't think my quills make me look homeless, right?”
Amy huffed a weak giggle. “Only when you're also covered in mud and bleeding everywhere,” she managed to reply, trying to return his energy.
Ferrell brought a bottle of what Amy recognized as vodka out, along with a generous handful of gauze pads. “Amy, I hate to ask,” he began, setting things along the side of the couch. “But I'm going to need an extra pair of hands. We have to get this thing out and stop the bleeding before we can do anything else.”
Amy nodded seriously, her jaw set. “Okay, I can help,” she said, standing up and moving next to Ferrells side. She stood by and listened very intensely to the instructions he gave, biting the inside of her cheek as Ferrell poured out a cautious amount of the vodka into a cup.
“This'll take the edge off,” he said to Manic, helping him sit up enough to drink it. Amy winced when Manic sputtered a cough, which consequently turned into a yelp of pain and reflexive grab at his stabbed shoulder. Ferrell's brow pinched sympathetically. “Yeah, it's like that.”
Manic groaned, slumping back onto the cushions and swallowing hard. “Can't believe you gave alcohol to a minor,” he mumbled, his mouth quirking into a weird little smile again.
Amy sighed softly. He was good at this- joking despite the situation. He'd always done that. Ferrell set the cup aside. “You'll be thanking me in a bit, kiddo,” he said, splashing his hands with some as well. He motioned for Amy to take off her gloves and she shed them immediately, letting Ferrell do the same to her.
She watched as Ferrell delicately probed around the blade with his fingers, his mouth twisted into a grimace. He gave it an experimental pull, measured and careful. He frowned harder at whatever he discovered. Manic let out a shuddering breath, his body trembling a bit as he tried not to move.
Ferrell nodded to himself. “Alright, um, I'll pull it out, you get that gauze on it quick and apply pressure,” he told Amy. Amy nodded seriously, unwrapping the gauze so she’d be ready. Anyone who didn’t know Manic wouldn’t notice the way his hands were searching for something to grip, to fiddle with, in preparation for what was happening.
But Ferrell always noticed, Amy watched him find Manics hand and squeeze it before putting a blanket in his fist. “Bite down on that as well, kiddo,” he told him, situating himself and Amy around the arm that he had to gently angle so that it was held out. Carefully, gently, he leaned a knee on Manic’s arm to pin it in place. Manic’s jaw tightened incrementally. “Try not to move, Manic. You can yell, just don’t move. Don’t wanna hurt you worse.”
Amy got in place as well, her hands hovering, filled with gauze. A brush of feeling –scared-hurt-anxious– washed over her as they counted down, agreeing to go on three. The projection got louder before being cut off abruptly when Ferrell yanked the knife upwards, dragging a scream out of Manic that Amy would never unhear. She lurched forward, ignoring the way blood immediately soaked the gauze she pressed down over the hole, the hole oh gosh that was a big hole in her best friend’s chest and oh–
“Press hard, Amy,” Ferrell snapped, piling more gauze on top of her hands and helping her situate her hands on top of the new cloth, pushing down onto Manic. He did a lot better than Amy at ignoring the sound Manic was making, as far as she could tell. Her eyes burned and she pressed down, taking a shuddering breath. She could tell Manic was trying not to squirm, but he still lurched under her hands. Ferrell’s hand squeezed on top of hers, steady and firm. “I know you’re strong enough–stronger than me for sure. Go hard or he’s gonna bleed too much. You’re helping. You’re helping, it's okay.”
Amy nodded frantically, her eyes betraying her and letting a few tears dribble down her chin onto Manic’s fur. Manic was quieting down, at least, dragging in ragged breaths that Amy could tell he was struggling not to choke on. Amy wanted to let up, but she didn’t. She locked her arms in place, leaning on Manic as hard as she could. “You’re doing great,” she said to him, not letting her voice crack. “You’re doing so great, Manic. Sooner this stops bleeding, sooner we can get you to bed and you can sleep this off.”
Manic groaned around the wadded blanket in his teeth, shoving it out of his mouth with his tongue as best he could. “Y-Yeah. Yeah, that sounds– Sounds good. Definitely a nest-night, right? You– You’ll stay, right? Stay over?” he slurred out, watching Amy with wild, panicked eyes. “Like when– when we were kids? It’ll be fun–when did you get so strong–”
“Breathe, deep breaths, Manic,” Ferrell tutted, bringing more gauze out of the kit. Amy belatedly realized that Manic had already bled through the second layer. “Deep and as slow as you can, we don’t need you fainting. Amy, I’m gonna add this, ready?”
Amy nodded, her lips pressed into a thin line. She eased up just enough to let Ferrell stuff more gauze over the bloody pile, then reapplied her pressure and Manic managed to only let out a vaguely feral whine that time. Farrel nodded approvingly, smoothing back his quills again in an idle parental way. Manic’s eyelids fluttered a bit. This gauze wasn’t soaking through nearly as fast as the first two layers. Amy let out a quiet, thankful breath. “What’cha gonna… do ‘bout my bones?” Manic asked, his gaze sliding lazily over to Ferrell.
And just like that, tension was back in Amy’s body. Ferrell’s expression fell off his face, staring at Manic. “Your bones?”
Manic nodded, his pupils blown wide. “Yeah– can feel ‘em crunchin' around in there,” he informed Ferrell in a slur. Ferrell whipped his gaze to Amy, antennae twitching.
Amy looked down at her friend’s body under her hands, and bit her lip as she gently, carefully shifted the pressure a tad. The result was immediate, Manic wheezed out a cry of pain and now that she was paying attention to it, yeah, she could also feel them crunchin’ around in there. She held back a gag and nodded to Ferrell, confirming it. “Yeah- they’re– Definitely messed up,” she forced out, watching as the beetle paled.
For a long moment, no one spoke. Manic just breathed loudly, almost panting. And Amy stared at Ferrell, who looked like he was doing complicated math in the air in front of his face. He stood suddenly, leaving Amy sitting there. “I gotta make a call, stay put,” he said, sounding not at all like himself.
Amy watched him scramble across his office and collect his phone, leaving her stuck kneeling at Manic’s side pinning a bloody wad of gauze to his chest. “Yeah, okay,” she shot back. “Um, do we have a plan?”
“Yeah just– stay,” Ferrell replied distractedly, dialing on his phone. “I’m getting– just stay.”
And just like that, he was gone into the hallway. Manic watched him leave, his jaw slack and expression looking more and more distant by the second. Amy looked down at him, at the gauze. It still hadn’t soaked through, though spots of blood were blooming slowly under her fingers.
Small wins, Amy supposed. “How’re you doing, Manic?” she asked.
Manic hummed quietly, and Amy could practically see him thinking. “Sloshed,” he decided, which startled a laugh out of Amy.
She shook her head at him. “You’ve never had a single drink in your life until today, you don’t know what being sloshed is,” she chided weakly.
Manic waved his good arm around, as if shooing her rebuttal away. “Nah. Nah, nah, pretty sure this is it,” he argued. “Feel weird. Really weird. Kinda warm? And cold… Shoulder hurts bad. ”
Amy sighed patiently. “What do you think Ferrell’s doing?”
“You’re the fortune teller, you tell me,” Manic answered, pulling out their familiar jabs easily despite the blood loss and inebriation.
This was easy, at least. “You know it doesn’t work like that,” she said faintly, almost rehearsed.
Manic laughed, a wobbly uneven, drunk thing. “So you keep tellin’ me, Rosie,” he mumbled, his voice a little fainter. His eyes were sliding shut. Amy applied just a little more pressure and his eyes were open wide again, quills bristling. “Ay, ay, take it easy, m’just resting my eyes.”
“You can’t do that right now,” she told him. “Stay awake or else.”
“Or else what,” Manic groused. “You’d fight the wounded?”
“I’d fight you,” Amy muttered, looking desperately at the door. “Ferrell!? This isn’t a great time for your cryptic bull–”
Ferrell bustled back into the room just then, arms full of a stuffed duffel bag and a new shirt of Manics. “Alright, take it easy. Got us an appointment, we gotta go,” he said, hurrying over and dumping the bag at Amy’s feet.
Amy stared at him. “What– appointment?! We can’t go to the doctor–” she began to protest as Ferrell started dumping rolls of bandaging on the couch by Manic’s head.
“Not a doctor. Well– sorta a doctor. Just- it’s fine, we just gotta get him there,” Ferrell said quickly. Clearly his thoughts were no longer organized, so Amy just took a breath and refocused her priorities.
“They can fix his bones?”
“Yes,” Ferrell said firmly. He grabbed the scissors out of the first aid kit and slid the blade under the strap of Manic’s vest. Manic squawked offendedly as Farrel snipped the vest off of him. “Shut it bud, we can replace it later,” he muttered. “Alright, Amy, we’re gonna sit him up and wrap this up as tight as we can. It needs to hold until we get there.”
“What happened to stitching him up?!” Amy demanded.
“Gotta fix his bones first- something about his muscles too? I don’t know- this is a medical issue above our pay grade, Amy, we need to go,” Ferrell rambled. Manic watched his father quietly, his eyelids drooping over his eyes. Amy gave him a shake.
“M’not sleepin’, stop doing that!” Manic complained.
“Stop closing your eyes!” Amy snapped.
“Let me dissociate in peace,” he moaned back.
“Dissociate with your eyes open then, Lettuce Head!”
“ You swore you’d stop callin’ me that–”
“Both of you, quit it and focus!” Ferrell cut in. “Manic, help us hold this in place. We’re getting you up.”
Manic groaned and let his good hand be put over his shoulder to keep the gauze from moving. Amy kept a hand over it as well, just to be safe. Manic whined and complained as his dad manhandled him into sitting, Amy holding a hand against his back to keep him from tipping over.
Mechanically, Ferrell started wrapping bandages around his shoulder and chest, crisscrossing the fabric over and over until he was happy enough with his work. It was messy, and Manic’s back quills had admittedly gotten smushed against his back, but it would do. By the time he was done, Amy was pretty sure she was the only thing keeping Manic upright, his weight leaned almost completely against her hand. But he’d kept his eyes open, locked distantly on the opposite wall.
Ferrell leaned back, looking at the wrappings. “That’ll do,” he decided. He grabbed the shirt he’d brought- one of the loose flannels Manic wore when it was colder in the city. “Alright, get this on and we’ll go.”
Amy ducked out of the way and grabbed her gloves while Ferrell got Manic’s good arm into the shirt and then buttoned it up halfway, without putting his other arm in. “Where are we going?”
Ferrell, still blessedly much larger than Manic or Amy, easily hefted Manic into his arms like a toddler. Manic would have complained, usually. Today he sort of ragdolled into the crook of Ferrell’s neck. With his free arm Ferrell grabbed the duffel bag. “We’re going to see Doctor Crobar.”
Amy wasn’t exactly sure what she’d expected. Ferrell had said ‘sorta a doctor’ and Amy hadn’t really known what to make of that. She was friends with Manic and his family, but she didn’t have warrants out for her arrest. She went to a run down doctor’s office when she needed to. She didn’t have to jump through the hoops that Manic and Ferrell did to get helped.
And now Amy was standing in a building that was most definitely not up to code. The paint was chipping off the walls in the pseudo waiting-room they’d entered, and there were suspiciously colored stains on the floor and trailing up onto a couch that was shoved against the wall and halfway blocking the doorway further into the building.
Manic was teetering between being awake and awake, his feelings occasionally escaping his body and brushing against Amy’s mind. Almost immediately they’d disappear again, but she could tell he was scared even despite his forced mellowness.
Ferrell tapped his foot impatiently, not sitting, not pacing, just standing in the middle of the room with the pent up energy only a worried parent could muster up. Amy wrung her hands, ignoring her bloodstained gloves. “Is this guy even here?” she finally asked.
“She’s here,” Ferrell replied tersely. “I checked.”
Finally, a pale brown face appeared in the doorway. She had wild pink hair swept up in a messy bun, and giant pink round glasses that covered most of the marten’s face. She stared quietly at Ferrell, her pink tinted gaze raking up and down Manic with an emotion that Amy couldn’t place. “I was prepping my OR, thank you very much,” she said quietly, after a moment.
Amy couldn’t help but stare at this oddly dressed weasel. A hoodie, a loose, bleach stained hoodie, clung to her slight shoulders, and beneath it she wore a crop top and ratty cargo pants. She had perfectly cared for claws at the end of each finger, sticking out of fingerless gloves– usually an indicator of excellent control of one's claws or a threat. Amy wasn’t certain which she was meant to see here–maybe both. The marten was disheveled, had bags under her eyes that Amy was certain she could probably carry all the contents of her favorite purse, and she was staring Manic down like some sort of hungry predator.
Amy’s gaze slid to Ferrell, who, much to her alarm, was slumping in relief at the arrival of this homeless looking woman. “So you haven’t taken the complaints about your bedside manner?” he asked lightly, trying to cut the tension. He stepped across the room to follow the weasel through the halfway blocked doorway.
Amy trailed after him, trying to pick her jaw up off the floor. Crobar pointed lazily at a mouse trap sitting on a counter that was labeled: complaint box . “Feel free to put in a formal complaint,” she said airily. This room was a bit more… sterile? Amy wasn’t sure that was the right word, but it smelled heavily of bleach, antiseptic and blood. There was a table in the middle of the room, with straps and a shining metal surface. Amy was pretty sure it was the cleanest surface she’d seen so far.
The straps admittedly caught her gaze for longer than she’d like. She stared unabashedly at them as Ferrell walked over to the table–they were heavy. Thick leather with metal buckles. Suddenly Crobar leaned into her line of sight. “You look sick, Pinkie,” she said, cocking her head to the side. “You wanna grab a chair? Or wait outside?”
Amy looked between Crobar, the table, and Manic. “No, I’ll wait here, thank you,” she said stiffly. “What’re you gonna do to him?”
Crobar looked at Ferrell. “Where’d you get the fun police, Ferrell?” she asked, wandering around the table and starting to rifle through her cabinets. At least on the inside of those, Amy could see sealed surgical equipment. Bottles of medicines, labeled and organized carefully. Then the weasel yanked a box off the shelf and pulled out a set of tools that looked perhaps bleached at best. Amy’s stomach flipped.
And yet Ferrell was gently setting Manic on the table, unbuttoning his shirt and helping him out of it. “She’s Manic’s childhood friend, Margo, he got stabbed protecting her. Take it easy on her,” he said over his shoulder.
Margo. Well, that was a better name than Crobar, no matter how fitting it was. Margo brought over the tools, and something else that was sealed in a little plastic case. “Get a chair for her, I don’t need her fainting on us,” she said about Amy, pulling up her own wheely stool and a tray on a stand. Manic blearily rolled his head to the side to look at Margo. She softened a bit when he met her gaze. “Hey kiddo,” she said, her tone taking a light, teasing tone. “We gotta stop meeting like this.”
Manic groaned softly. “Gosh dangit, not you,” he muttered.
Margo guffawed at that, and flicked his cheek. “You love me,” she said. Ferrell pulled up a chair and gently pushed Amy into it, sitting on Manic’s good side. Margo shot a knowing look at Amy. “I’ve been his doctor since Ferrell picked him up. He got sick all the time when he was teensy weensy and Ferrell would paaaanic, it was a whole thing.”
Well, that explained a lot, at least. Amy could live with that, despite all the reasons that she could see not to trust this woman. Ferrell trusted her, and had brought Manic here before. That would have to do.
Margo wiggled a pair of medical scissors, the kind with the blunted ends, under Manic’s bandaging. “Alright, let's take a look,” she said. “Your dad has a tendency to exaggerate when it comes to you.”
Ferrell huffed, but it was clearly fond. “If I’m going to exaggerate about anything, it’ll be my kid, yeah,” he said.
Margo chuckled quietly, the sound a bit flat. “Hoping this is one of those times, honestly,” she said under her breath, peeling away the gauze and loops of bandaging. She bit her lip as the hole came into view, her expression twisting oddly. “Mm,” she said. Amy leaned forward to look at what she was seeing, and almost immediately regretted it.
She sat back forcefully in her chair as Margo delicately prodded around with her claws. “Welp,” she said. “That’s pretty bad, yeah. At least we’ll have fun today. You’re crazy lucky this didn’t get your lung.”
Manic groaned, closing his eyes tight. “You’re the only one having funnnnn,” he groaned.
Margo just shrugged, stood up and went to collect some more things. “You said you gave him vodka?” she asked Ferrell, pulling more things down off the shelf.
“Not much, but yeah?” Ferrell answered, worriedly smoothing back Manic’s quills again. Manic didn’t protest that time.
Margo tutted, rifling through her cabinets. “Let’s give him a bit more,” she decided. “I don’t have much in the way of painkillers right now, Robotnik’s been clamping down on my supply lines. This is all very sucky timing, I’m out of a lot of stuff… Got a shipment coming in a few days, but that won’t help us much.”
Ferrell shifted uncomfortably. “You can’t give him meds?”
“I don’t have any meds to give him,” Margo corrected. “And I’ve never had the stuff to put anyone under, you’ve just never needed anything that a regular doctor would use anesthesia for.”
Amy stared at Ferrell, her eyes wide. “You’re just gonna work on him like this?” she whispered.
Margo came back over and dropped a bunch of stuff on the side table. “Yep,” she said flatly, popping the ‘p’. “Standard practice here, unfortunately. Did you think the restraints were just for show?”
It was at that point that Amy Rose turned, grabbed the nearest trash can, and emptied the contents of her stomach into it.