i wrote like 700 words of quiet and soft post-battle rouge + omega, maybe i will make it into a proper fic and maybe i wont but in the meantime here it is
can be platonic or romantic, interpret it however u want
Rouge does not like to be grateful for anything that Eggman has done, but she can admit she’s glad that he structured Omega’s innards to mirror that of an organic being.
All of the messy bits are in the middle, his chestplate akin to a ribcage protecting its organs. Everything that makes him move, the pulleys that switch between claws and wrist cannons, are situated in the torso.
But his equivalent of a brain, the thing that makes him himself, is in his head.
She carries it through the sky as the sun gently dissolves over the horizon. Smoke emits from the bottom, where some frayed wires dangle free like the tentacles of a jellyfish, and his chassis is so hot that her hands would be singed if she weren’t wearing gloves, but he is fine.
Omega’s body has been destroyed in combat, which happens occasionally, but he is completely intact.
“It’s a good job your head's so flat,” she comments, perching lightly on the window ledge of her bedroom. “Means I can hold you hamburger-style.”
He makes a low, flat humming noise of mild irritation. If he had something to say, he could say it; though his voicebox doesn’t work correctly like this, he can make beeps and boops just fine. He can also play the old Windows shutdown noise, for some reason.
Rouge shuffles him under her armpit so that she can free her hand to open the window from the outside. She slides in, pulls the window closed behind her, and tosses Omega onto the bed like a frisbee.
“I AM UPSIDE DOWN,” Omega admonishes in morse code. “RIGHT ME IMMEDIATELY OR I WILL—“
He doesn’t get to finish his threat because Rouge has already flipped him the right way up, jostling him out of his beep-boops.
“Don’t go anywhere,” she tells him, and then laughs at her own joke all the way over to the kitchen, where she fills a glass of water and downs it in one go.
Shadow is in the living room, adding to a pile of parts scavenged from the blast zone. He meets her eye, nods ever so slightly, and teleports away.
In the time it’s taken Rouge to bring Omega home, he’s collected a reasonable amount— mostly misshapen chunks of familiar red metal, but she can spot half of a hand and one of those weird handlebars that she still doesn’t understand the purpose of.
(It’s almost like Omega was created with the express purpose of having her perch on his shoulder like a beautiful vulture.)
Thirst quenched, she takes a quick stop in the bathroom to wash her face and returns to her bedroom where Omega, well behaved as he is, has not moved.
She strips off her catsuit and drops it inelegantly on the floor. “What do you wanna look at?” She asks.
Because that’s all Omega can really do right now. He can look at things and he can complain.
“SKY,” he responds immediately.
“Good choice.” Now in a baggy sleep shirt, she joins him on the bed. It’s too low down for him to see out of the window from the bed, so she sits with her legs crossed and holds him, tilting his head up.
Distantly, she hears Shadow teleport back in, dump more parts onto the pile, and leave again.
It’s weird to have Omega in her arms like this. Not only because he’s usually so huge but also because it’s just not something they do.
The only physical affection that transpires between the team is initiated- often shyly, reluctantly- by Shadow, who grew up being hugged and kissed by someone who loved him. Deep down in some part of herself she doesn’t know how to access, Rouge enjoys the physical contact, but she’s pretty sure that Omega merely tolerates it.
She thinks that maybe, though, in a time like this, he appreciates being held.
Without thinking, Rouge lowers her head and presses her lips to the crown of Omega’s head. He smells like ash and gunpowder and near-death experiences. She closes her eyes and breathes it in.
“WHAT.”
“Nothing,” she taps in response, tilting her head to feel his heat radiate through her cheek.
He doesn't say anything else.
It’s getting late and most of the sky is stained with ink but, in the cracks between the buildings, a little orange still shines through.
