Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Uncle Superior!” Sonic crowed, the glory of his declaration overpowering the murmuring voices of the early afternoon café crowd. There been plenty of shouting from the obnoxious hedgehog over the last hour, but, so far, the only reactions from the Mobians and humans unattached to today’s little get-together were a few dirty looks and airplane ears. Being the Hero of Mobius allowed for a lot of tolerance of annoying behavior. To most people.

Shadow the Hedgehog hadn’t faced the full force of Sonic’s vocal blast, standing all the way across the packed café at the order counter, waiting for the barista to finish pouring his and Rouge’s second double-strength lattes of the day. That didn’t stop him from letting out a low growl at the sound of the obnoxious blue pest’s voice. The little ferret behind the espresso machine chittered in alarm, kicking up an excess of steam to hide within.

“Ya know, like Mother Superior?” Sonic continued, volume only slightly lowered. “But I’m not Mom, I’m Uncle.” Leaning across the oval coffee table, its surface crowded with drinks and delicate pink plates, Sonic extended his hand to crook a finger under a blunt, fuzzy muzzle, cooing, “Right, Ruby? Uncle Superior Sonic?”

The lump in Rouge’s arms—which, as of yet, only vaguely resembled a Mobian, having a lot more in common with a sack of pink jelly (her father’s influence, no doubt)—squeaked and tried to squeeze shut already closed eyes, muzzle crimping with the pressure. She turned away from Sonic’s touch, snuffling into her mother’s chest.

Shadow’s pricked quills smoothed as yet another bloom of pride grew in his already full chest. The tiny puggle was already an excellent judge of character.

Sitting on the couch beside Sonic, his own ears just lifting up again, now that the volume had been lowered, Tails said, “I don’t see why you can’t just be ‘Uncle Sonic.’ I mean, I’m Uncle Tails. And we’re brothers! It’s only logical we both be uncles.”

“We are both uncles,” Sonic affirmed, flopping back to his seat and wrapping an arm around his sibling’s shoulders. The kindness of the gesture was immediately exposed as hollow treachery when the hedgehog tightened his grip on Tails’s neck, digging his fingers into the fox’s scalp to mercilessly dishevel his fur. When he finally let go, Tails’s careful coiffure—messy without being chaotic, stylish without trying too hard, something he’d no doubt spent hours on after seeing today’s guest list—was ruined, sticking out in every direction.

“Hey!” The fox yipped, running long claws through his hair, patting it mostly back in place. Periodically, he glanced to his right, anxiously checking if the young woman who sat beside him had noticed his momentary dishevelment.

Cream the Rabbit failed to notice, and had, thus far today, betrayed no awareness of the fox’s many snuck glances. Nothing—not even little Ruby—could catch her interest once Tails had handed over the Miles Electric, which currently displayed the latest schematics for her Extreme Gear’s suspension. Shadow was thankful the bunny’s brain never strayed far from the track, though he wished the fox hadn’t come up with the idea of offering his services as engineer and mechanic. But even that only afforded him so much regard, and came with a harsh scrutiny of his work. Even now, Cream was muttering something and scribbling all over the young male’s designs.

Each edit made Tails flinch, and each flinch made Shadow’s tail wag.

“It’s not about you, buddy,” Sonic continued the conversation (regrettably). Jerking a thumb towards the front counter, Sonic elaborated, “it’s about him.”

Shadow concentrated on keeping his quills in check, even as heat stung every follicle. He would not give the blue hedgehog the satisfaction. Ten years, and Sonic still felt the need to torment him, as if Shadow hadn’t proven himself the superior hedgehog countless times.

“If Ruby’s gonna call him ‘Uncle Shadow,’ I deserve a higher rank.”

“Ranks do not apply to familial relations,” Knuckles protested. “Besides, calling you ‘Mother Superior’ would be far more fitting, considering your relation to Ruby.”

“NOPE!”

All about the café, patrons once more turned to glare at the Hero of Mobius.

Across from Sonic, Ruby’s parents hissed warnings to the hedgehog, not on behalf of the patrons, but in fear of their finally dozing—but not fully asleep—daughter. Ruby hadn’t been nearly so loud as Sonic this afternoon, but Knuckles and Rouge had already looked haggard on their arrival to the mainland two hours ago. It seemed foolhardy, bringing an infant into such a public place at barely four weeks old, but Knuckles had refused to allow Rouge’s GUN associates (and less-savory underworld contacts) onto the island for a general meet-and-greet.

(To be honest, Knuckles also did not relish the idea of allowing his own friends onto Angel Island, even for the long-awaited presentation of his firstborn, but he had learned just enough tact in the past few years to not say that to their faces.)

So, instead, the couple had taken over a corner of Station Square Café, a rather busy spot situated within walking distance of GUN HQ, and let friends and colleagues filter through for their first look at the next generation’s Guardian of the Master Emerald.

Thankfully, most of the GUN agents had only paused for a few minutes before rushing off to HQ—Rouge had deviously taken advantage of the annual performance review period, when no agent dared appear derelict of duties—but this little meetup was half done, with another ninty minutes to go, and Shadow wasn’t sure who would fall asleep first: Ruby or her exhausted parents.

Shadow imagined he would be taking the family back to Angel Island with Chaos Control. Again.

Knuckles looked as if he already wished to return. His warnings to Sonic had a far more panicked edge than Rouge’s. Both had adapted somewhat to their new roles, but the shattering of the peace on Angel Island by a newborn’s frequent cries had left its guardian particularly jumpy.

At the moment, he was even worse than usual. Rouge had recently deigned to break her maternity leave for an absolutely essential (according to Tower) one-day mission, during which Knuckles had ‘enjoyed’ a first taste of his upcoming ‘stay-at-island dad’ status. Eleven hours into the bat’s solo operation, the guardian had rung up Commander Tower’s secure line (no doubt the fox had patched him through) and informed Tower that Rouge’s leave would not be interrupted further, on pain of a sizeable landmass falling atop GUN HQ.

Shadow was loathe to admit it, but he respected the echidna just a little bit more after hearing the threat.

But not enough to recover the respect the guardian lost when he’d accepting Sonic’s involvement in this whole...process.

The last several years had been hard on Rouge. Shadow was there for many of the longer nights, letting her lean into his chest and soak his fur with tears. She’d broken apart the worst after the third miscarriage; it had been the briefest of her pregnancies, but the one with the worst reality hit: this might not be just the cruelty of chance.

Over the previous seven years, plenty of their older friends had found partners, made commitments, and started families. Vector and Vanilla broke the floodgates with their sudden marriage and the arrival, seven and a half months later, of a remarkably robust “premature” baby. Someone had made the poor decision to spend a night with Rough or Tumble—they refused or just didn’t think to tell anyone which it had been—and abandoned the resulting kit with the brothers shortly after her birth. The skunks had at least shown the good sense to go on sabbatical until the little punk’s spray glands were done developing, probably sometime next year. Off in the Sol Dimension, Blaze hadn’t started producing her line of heirs, but Gardon had, and the splitting of his obligations had freed up some space for an “honorary royal guard” to be added to the roster. If that guard didn’t seem to have his own quarters in the castle and carried a lot of purple fur among his white quills, no one dared say anything within the queen’s hearing.

Shadow wished he could say he’d been surprised by the “hard launch” of Rouge and Knuckles’s relationship, but, well...the bat and he shared ownership of a condo. Which Shadow had soon after renovated, with a heavy investment in soundproofing.

After a few years of more formalized flirting and fighting, there had been some sort of formal commitment made between thief and guardian. Some “ancient echidna ritual,” which Rouge had convinced GUN Personnel Relations counted as a marriage for tax withholding purposes. A few years of newlywed bliss (with only one attempt on Rouge’s part to steal the Master Emerald, which she had assured Shadow was “just some spicy foreplay”), followed by months of conspiratorial glances, and Rouge and Knuckles had summoned their friends to this very café, then quite new, the couches around their regular table not yet broken in, and announced that the world would be expecting a bouncing baby guardian in seven months.

Not a damn one of the echidna’s friends had kept calm. They’d all nearly been kicked out of the café, the owner’s anger only sated by Knuckles’s proclamation that he was “ordering a round for the house!” Rouge had called him foolish—“It’s not that kind of establishment.”—but she’d nuzzled against him and radiated smug joy as the espresso machine was thrown into overdrive fulfilling the orders.

A week later, Rouge had called Shadow, her voice toneless, and informed him that she’d lost the baby.

It was three months before his partner had shown some of her old spark. Shadow was fairly certain Tower’s decision to send them on a mission to “semi-consensually repatriate” a few shiny artifacts to Apotos had been the commander’s attempt to bring his agent back to herself. Therapeutic thievery did help, and Rouge had been dropped off on Angel Island with lighter bags under her eyes and a belly full for the first time in ages, in spite of it being full of military airline food.

A few weeks later, Rouge had nervously told Shadow that she and Knuckles were “trying” again.

And, chaos, how they’d tried. Shadow invested in a white noise machine and state-of-the-art noise canceling headphones. He deeply regretted agreeing to the joint tenancy mortgage.

Only Shadow, Sonic, and Tails—the closest of their friends—had been told of the second pregnancy, which did not make telling them it had faded away any easier for the mourning parents.

Shadow only learned about Rouge’s third pregnancy when it was lost.

Doctors could find no reason for the miscarriages, despite extensive tests. Echidnas, while being an egg-bearing species, had paired with and produced families with viviparous Mobians in the not-too-distant past. An early ultrasound for the fourth pregnancy showed that the fetus had successfully grown a placenta and umbilical cord. There had been no indication that the fetus would be reabsorbed by Rouge’s womb over the next week, with not even a dribble of blood to betray its departure.

After two years, the pair tried IVF, in case that might eliminate whatever engendered the previous complications. Three rounds—one resulting in successful implantation but only seven weeks of gestation, the other two failing to take at all—and Rouge and Knuckles had brought their friends together for yet another meeting at the café.

Rouge had stubbornly held her head high, daring anyone at the table to question her decision as she announced, “We’ve begun interviewing surrogates.”

“Oh, dude!” Tangle had chittered, long tail vibrating with excitement, startling the wolfish mate it was wrapped around. “That’s so cool! I mean, the IVF thing was cool, too! Duh. I still need to chew your ear about that, if that’s okay?” Tail squeezing tighter about her fiancée, earning a high-pitched yelp, the lemur guffawed, “I mean, it’s not like we can do this au natural!”

Whisper had shrunk into Tangle’s enveloping tail, managing to submerge all but the tips of her very red ears. Almost inaudible through the lemur’s white and grey fur, the wolf muttered, “I’m not a quitter.”

Tangle blinked. “Huh?”

“I must say, I am curious,” Vanilla broke in, casting a panicked glance at the perked ears of her croc-rabbit son, “and a bit...concerned. Won’t Doctor Robotnik target anyone connected with you? Doubly so when they’re in such a vulnerable state. You are telling people that might be an issue, yes?”

“Of course,” Knuckles had said, stiffly. He’d been stiff since his arrival, the fur on his nape bristling the moment Rouge had begun her announcement. He glared at Vanilla; a rare look to be focused upon the beloved rabbit. “It has, of course, significantly reduced the candidate pool. To mitigate some of the risk, we are offering...sanctuary on Angel Island.” His teeth ground against the word sanctuary. There was a white wildness to the guardian’s eyes, and his whole body shuddered, but it seemed his distaste for interlopers on the island could be—barely—pushed down in favor of protecting his unborn child.

“And a significant bonus on the going rate,” Rouge added. “You’d not believe the hustling I’ve had to do to put the funds together.” She’d pouted, but there was a glint in her eyes. A little extra larceny had done wonders for her mental health. “It’ll be worth it, to find someone who’s okay with a little risk.”

“A little risk?” Amy Rose echoed, twisting the edge of her skirt between two hands. She didn’t cow entirely at the echidna’s sharp glare, but her voice was somewhat quieter as she’d suggested, “Maybe you should focus on someone with some sort of...special ability? Or maybe combat experience?”

Knuckles pulled back his lips as he opened his mouth to respond, showing the pink hedgehog all of his teeth, but, before he could get a word out, it happened.

The terrible thing.

The thing Shadow could never forgive.

Sonic the Hedgehog had had the gall, the impertinence, the audacity to open his idiot fucking mouth and say “I’ll do it.”

Thunderous silence at the table. The ambient noise of the coffee shop suddenly seemed inappropriate, as if each patron should also go still at the blue hedgehog’s nonsense declaration.

Knuckles, his mouth still open, was the one who’d found the capacity to respond. His eyes darted down, to Sonic’s obnoxiously manspread legs, and back up. “Huh?”

The echidna might have been a dullard, but his confusion was more for the why of Sonic’s offer, not the how. Sonic’s body might present remarkably androgynous for a hedgehog, but all his friends, most of his enemies, and plenty of the world at large knew that the Hero of Mobius had casually crossed gender lines long before he’d met any of them—even Tails—and never looked back. A decade or two earlier, and his body might have made that a challenge, but the medications available when Sonic hit puberty had satisfied.

Sonic the Hedgehog had always been proud to be one cool dude.

So why, now, was he volunteering for...this?

“Sure,” Sonic said, shrugging, “you can try offering someone a spot up on Angel Island, but how many people would actually be willing to drop everything to move up to Borings-ville—”

“Hey!” Knuckles barked, but before he could start a tirade in defense of his beloved homeland, Rouge had buried an elbow deep in his ribs.

“Especially when you tell them Ro-Butt might try to pre-kidnap the baby?” Sonic clicked his tongue. “Gonna have to be a big payday to take that risk.”

“And you’re willing to take that payday?” Rouge asked. Her hands were on the edge of the couch cushion, digging in as she leaned forward, eyes fixated on Sonic. They sparkled, and her wings fluttered, smacking into her still-confused partner’s shoulder. “It’s generous, I assure you, and we can negotiate—”

“Hey, woah!” Holding up his hands to halt the bat’s words, Sonic had laughed at the very idea. “You don’t gotta pay me, Rouge. I know this is important to you two, and Knux is my bestie. If I can help, I wanna help.”

“Not many people would consider carrying someone’s child within the scope of helping,” Rouge pointed out.

Knuckles nodded, eyes firmly averted from the hedgehog. “It is a somewhat...” He’d paused to cough, though his next words still came out cracked and high-pitched. “Awkward situation.”

Ears tipping back, Sonic grinned maliciously. “So long as I’m not getting pumped full of fresh echidna juice, I’m good, dude.”

“That’s not—” Knuckles bellowed, words cut off by Rouge’s hand forming an airtight seal over his mouth and nose. She kept it there as she talked, letting the red of the echidna’s blush turn to the light blue of oxygen deprivation.

“Embryos, of course,” Rouge reassured. “We don’t want to risk creating super hedgehog-guardian hybrids, after all. No matter how interesting that would be to document.” She winked (at this point letting her partner breathe again, patting Knuckles’s back when he flipped all the way to hyperventilation), her ever-present audacity earning a (falsely) scandalized gasp from the hedgehog. “This is...this is amazing, Sonic. If you really want to do this, it’s...it’s...”

“It’s everything,” Knuckles wheezed. There was a rare shimmer about his eyes.

“I know,” Sonic agreed, preening. Leaning forward, the hero had offered an open hand and wide grin to Rouge. “So, come on. Let’s do this.”

Rouge had accepted Sonic’s hand and, instead of shaking, hauled him across the table, spilling several of their friends’ drinks, and enveloped him in a winged hug. Her thanks and praise soon devolved into tears, and Sonic had awkwardly patted the bat’s back, looking over her shoulder pleadingly at Knuckles who, instead of taking over the comfort of his mate, had thrown his arms about the pair, sandwiching Sonic between the sobbing prospective parents.

Things had gone...flawlessly, really.

Sonic was, as he proclaimed at the announcement of his pregnancy, “Hella fertile!” One treatment three months before, and everything looked great.

Robotnik attacked the very next day.

Knuckles had descended from his island with such fury and violence that no one heard from the mad inventor for three weeks. Next contact had, in fact, been via Sage, who explained that her father could not send his direct congratulations on Sonic’s gestation as, among many other interventions, his jaw was wired shut. She estimated that he might return to villainy as early as next autumn, but had been advised by his physician to pursue some minor schemes, to start.

The villain sent an absolutely lovely selection of picture books for the baby shower, one of which regularly made Knuckles burst into tears by page five.

Sonic had refused to move to Angel Island, and Knuckles had failed to hide his relief. He and Rouge did their best to not smother the hedgehog, but insisted, around month five of the pregnancy, that they use some of the money set aside for hiring a surrogate to instead buy a very tiny studio condo in Seaside City. Sonic didn’t actually move in for a few more weeks, until the night he’d thrown out his back sleeping rough under the stars and couldn’t run for days. Two nights on a real mattress and the blue hero was again tearing across the landscape.

Sonic only slowed down in the last two months of his pregnancy, and purely due to discomfort, not medical advice. His obstetrician had, in fact, been thrilled with the activity level of her patient, reassuring him at each appointment that keeping up his fitness routine was excellent for both him and the baby, although she’d forbidden sudden impacts, which certainly meant no battles and no spin dashing. (Not that Sonic had been able to roll up in a ball past month four.)

The only other change had been...the clothes. And, well. The reason for the clothes. The two reasons.

Excepting special occasions or inclement weather, Shadow had never before seen Sonic wear anything but shoes and socks. Stumbling across Sonic exiting a used bookstore wearing a shirt and shorts had thrown Shadow. Badly.

The hybrid was familiar with the odd difference between Mobian and human attitudes towards attire. Well, now he was. He’d only ever seen clothed humans on the Ark, and assumed his unclothed status was for ease of scientific observation. He was a tool, and tools needed no adornment. After his release from stasis, Shadow had sighted a few Mobians, both clothed and mostly bare, on the surface before encountering Sonic, so the hedgehog hadn’t been his nudity revelation.

But Sonic was, apparently, his non-nudity revelation.

“Why are you wearing shorts?” the befuddled agent had asked, and Sonic had looked down at himself, puzzled, before declaring, “Dude, I’m not gonna go around Donald Ducking it.”

(Shadow had no idea who this Donald the Duck was, and, given what he knew of mallards and their lower regions, he prayed to never meet him.)

“But why are you wearing anything?” Shadow had asked, and immediately regretted it.

Sonic’s smile had been entirely...inappropriate. “What?” he’d teased, pinching the bottom hem of his black t-shirt (white text across the chest proclaiming him an “EXTREME BABYSITTER”). “You asking me to take it off, Shads?”

“No,” Shadow had snarled, taking a half-step back and mentally cursing himself for the retreat. “I am merely...not accustomed to you bothering with clothing. I assumed you were averse.”

“Yeah, I am,” the hedgehog had confirmed, pulling the shirt away from his rounded belly, flapping it to create a breeze over the taut skin. There were little breaks in the smoothness of the tan fur, inch-long streaks where the skin had stretched too fast for his pelt to grow in. “But I got smacked in the face running yesterday, and I couldn’t find a compression shirt that could handle these, so Rouge insisted on taking me shopping.” Lowering his voice, Sonic confided, “You would not believe how much they charge for these things; it’s robbery.”

These things.

These things had been...bras. One of which peeked out from under the low-cut collar of Sonic’s shirt; plain, almost the same blue as his body, designed, unlike Rouge’s arsenal, to restrict, not amplify.

But it could only restrict things so far.

Because, while the swell at his stomach was visible but gentle, strong abdominals and a cooperative fetus keeping things mostly in check, the same could not be said for Sonic’s breasts. Sonic’s breasts had...well, he had them, for a change. They were far smaller than Rouge’s, but they were still there. In Shadow’s face.

Well. Not really in Shadow’s face. Which was good. Shadow did not want Sonic’s breasts in his face.

“Holds them in pretty good,” Sonic had nattered on, poking at one tit. “Hey!” He grinned, tail starting up a fast wag. “Wanna help me test it out?”

Shadow had almost died.

“First one to Green Hill wins?”

Shadow had wished he’d died.

“I’m busy,” he’d lied and, before Sonic could beg for a shorter route, Shadow Chaos Controlled as far away as he could, his panic only abating when he’d made it home without Sonic intercepting his path to beg his rival for a circuit around his globes.

...

The globe. A circuit around the globe.

Shadow could not wait for this obscene pregnancy to be over and for his rival to go back to normal.

He hadn’t.

Oh, Sonic’s recovery after the delivery had been exemplary. The “fourth trimester” didn’t bypass the hedgehog entirely, but he was back on his feet in a day. His energy picked up faster than that of the suddenly sleep deprived parents, who had retreated to Angel Island with their newborn once they were sure their child and their child’s vociferously praised surrogate were well. Despite the hedgehog’s anxiousness to move, Sonic’s OB had advised he hold off on full-tilt running until she gave the go-ahead; Sonic, by all indications, was set to defy her, but had been well-threatened by his friends into compliance. Now, four weeks out, the hero’s stomach still had some swell and his hips more give, as they probably always would, but there was less of each every time Shadow saw him.

But those...breasts. They refused to go away. If anything, they’d gotten worse, and all thanks to Sonic’s continued beneficence, because little Ruby might be bottle-fed, but she was not fed formula. Oh, no. Sonic, the amazing friend that he was, had insisted on helping the puggle further, pumping to supply her with valuable colostrum and, now, milk. And his breasts, over-eager to supply a child kept so far away, had swelled, necessitating a new set of bras, which did an even worse job of keeping things discrete than the first set.

“If Shads gets to sit on his ass and get called ‘Uncle,’” Sonic said, petulantly, “I deserve to be Uncle Superior. Or, oh!” He perked up, tail thwapping the couch’s leather seats. “Senior Uncle! Executive Uncle!”

“I don’t sit on my ass,” Shadow said, as he proceeded to do just that, taking his place to Rouge’s left. He handed over her second double-strength latte, quills flicking proudly at her look of absolutely simpering thanks. The desire for adult social interaction had won out against the need for sleep, but sleep was gearing up for a second wave of attacks on the bat, and they would be brutal. “I’ve changed far more diapers than you have, hedgehog.”

The bat looked upon the much-needed caffeine with almost as much love as she looked upon her baby. Passing Ruby to her father, Rouge upended the tiny cup and downed its scalding insides in one gulp. She shivered in pleasure, chittering as energy seeped into heavy limbs.

Likewise energized, but for other reasons, Knuckles cradled his tiny daughter to his wide chest, making sure one oversize chiropteran ear pressed over his heart. His muscular body molded to her, red locks shifting to curtain the child, protecting her finally sleeping form from the overhead lights. He began murmuring things. Short, soft words. Simple phrases. Messages from his utterly lost heart.

Sonic watched his burly friend coo over the baby, frowning, ears gone flat. After several seconds, he shook his head, turning his gaze, now sharper and far more irritated, back to his dark rival. “Oh, diapers,” Sonic drawled, “how selfless of you. Talk to me when you shoot a bowling ball from your crotch.”

“Oh, come now,” Rouge laughed, tilting sideways to rest her head on Knuckles’s shoulder, joining him in worshiping their child, “she’s no bigger than a papaya.”

“And she felt like a pineapple coming out!”

“Should have done the Cesarean, then,” Shadow purred, lips twisting into a malicious grin. He rather liked the idea of the blue hedgehog split open down the middle.

“And not be able to run for three months!? No, thanks! And, besides,” Sonic went on, grinning, “you might be taking care of what comes out of Rubes, but don’t forget how it got in there.”

And, cupping his hands under his chest, Sonic proceeded to jiggle his breasts.

They didn’t bounce, exactly. They were too...firm for that. Under pressure, the tan fur displayed several short gaps from the stretch marks in the skin below, just like those the hero still sported on his decreasing belly. Sonic’s soft mounds rose and fell, very little give to their ovoid shape, their remarkable volume and weight testing the limits of the postpartum brassier, which peeked out impertinently from the collar of his V-cut shirt.

Around the table, their friends reacted with varying levels of disgust, amusement, and disdain, but, at Sonic’s side, his little brother had the greatest reaction.

Tails screeched with holy terror at the sight of his brother’s undulating knockers. Flinching, both hands coming up to shield his innocent eyes, he begged, “SONIC, NO!” The fox lurched away from the hedgehog. Unable to steady himself with his eyes covered, he toppled backwards, screeching once more, head landing on something incredibly soft.

Startled by the sudden presence upon her thighs, Cream let out a high-pitched squeak. Clutching the Miles Electric to her chest, the young doe looked down at the head of a terrified yellow canid, which lay cradled upon her fuzzy thighs.

“Shhh!” Knuckles hissed, covering Ruby’s over-developed ears with meaty palms.

Tails’s fingers parted just enough so he could look up into the lovely, wide cinnamon eyes of the rabbit racer.

As a pair, fox and rabbit reddened from the tips of their noses to the tips of their ears.

“S-sorry!” Tails barked, attempting to sit up again.

“N-no, it’s—” Cream began, voice and hands trembling.

Her fingers ghosted over the Miles Electric’s screen.

“SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY,” the tablet proclaimed at top volume, the booming voice aimed directly into Tails’s ears. The fox yowled at the sonic blast, body jerking, a foot impacting with the low coffee table. Cups and plates clattered, threatening to shatter.

Around the café, patrons turned to glare, once again, at the afternoon’s latest break from desired calm, several adding their own shushing to Knuckles’s frantic pleas for quiet.

“IT’S CALAMITY CREAM VS THE BABYLON ROGUES IN THE APOTOS CUP!” The tablet continued to proselytize. “TICKETS ARE LIMITED AND SELLING OUT FAST, SO BUY NOOOOOOOOOWWWW!!!!”

“Turn that off,” Rouge ordered, lunging across the table, scrambling for the device even as Tails snatched it from Cream and cut off the audio.

But it was too late.

In Knuckles’s arms, a little pink shape squirmed. Even the velcro-reinforced confines of her swaddle was not enough to contain the strength of Ruby’s arms, which burst free, smacking deep into her father’s chest. Wincing through the pain—Ruby had most certainly inherited the guardian’s brutish strength—Knuckles hissed, “Shhh shhh shhh!” To no avail.

Dark red bat eats swiveled. A long echidna nose crinkled. Gorgeous dark green eyes shot open.

Ruby opened her toothless mouth and began to wail.

“Oh, it’s okay, baby!” Rouge whimpered, crowding into her mate’s space until she sat halfway on Knuckles’s lap. They cradled the child between their chests, both loudly hushing, trying to drown out Ruby’s wails with white noise. The two accomplished fighters, veterans of countless Eggman battles and the assaults of well over a dozen minor villains, descended into a mild panic as they tried to get their daughter, who had only been asleep for the past five minutes, to calm down and go back to sleep before she worked herself all the way up.

Shadow was about to offer his very valuable services when he smelled it.

Rich.

Sweet.

Tantalizing.

Across the table, Sonic sat frozen, a look of horror sweeping over his face.

In his hands, in the V between index and middle fingers, the fabric of Sonic’s moss green shirt began to darken in two round spots.

For a brief second—less than that; half a heartbeat—Shadow’s eyes and Sonic’s met one-another.

“I gotta go,” Sonic shouted, though none but Shadow paid any attention to him. Leaping off the couch, the blue hedehog sped out of the café at a greater speed than his physician currently recommended. His slipstream knocked over drinks on several tables, sending up curses across the room.

They were joined by Rouge’s, the bat realizing, with horror, that her efforts were in vain. Ruby was awake. And, recharged by a few minutes of sleep, instead of the minimum two hours she needed, her parents were now in for a fun evening.

Shadow no longer thought of offering his assistance. He was busy handling his own crisis: trying to hide the instant, excruciating erection he had achieved with one single smell of Sonic’s freshly let-down milk.