How to survive despite all odds: a guide by Maria Robotnik
survive both the bullet in your back and your life-threatening disease. thank the doctors who managed both of those feats, and bite your tongue before you lash at them about what it costed you. it’s not their fault.
endure your grandfather’s imprisonment, his trail, his death, the slander on your family and on your name
despite all mockery and scorn, grow up happy and kind and generous, still believing that there’s some good in the world
find a job helping people: a doctor, perhaps, or an agent in a reformed GUN, even when everyone expects you to fail and turn evil
(like your cousin like the little boy you barely remember who grew up wanting to be a world conqueror like every robotnik the world cares to remember)
(people frown at your nametag where M.ROBOTNIK is printed in bold letters and you smile at them and refuse to cower in fear )
start a family, maybe, or maybe just think wistfully of what your family used to be, before your grandfather went mad and you had to choose between yourself and the closest thing you had to a brother
despite everything, despite even yourself, grow old
grow old hearing of new heroes, of new weapons, of your cousin’s growing power
(you tried to talk him out of it, once; after even family bonds turned out to be meaningless, you learned how to sabotage every new robot he made)
(young ivo was a clever child; old ivo is a theatrical, clever, entirely too predictable man, and all his creations have the same weak spots)
when you hear of shadow, run.
run to your phone, to your communicator, to whatever link you still have to people who matter. call in favors and beg and bribe until someone tells you where he is, until you’re sure of what his next move will be. tell commander tower to fuck off, while you’re at it, because he wants to stop you and he needs to be reminded that you’re younger than him and ten times as bright as he is, thank you very much
and then run for real. run to your best friend, to your lost brother, because you would have sacrificed your life for him and you missed him too much and he’s not going to side with the wrong robotnik cousin, not on your damn watch
meet his eyes. tell him that you’re real, that you’re alive, that even if you had died you never would have wanted him to avenge you
show him how to forgive them all. show him how to forgive himself.
watch him fight for the world and die for it. don’t be fooled for a single second.
go home, grim and determined, and wait. make some tea.
open the door when he knocks. hug him as you haven’t done in fifty years. listen to his stories. yell at him if needs be.
(and it does: shadow has always needed someone to stop him from brooding and nobody has ever been as good at that as you)
watch him become a hero, an agent, the good person he was destined to be
be both the bothersome sister and the nosey grandma you know you are. cajole him into socializing and interacting with his new friends. ask him about his crushes.
(you like rouge immensely. if you were another sort of old lady, you’d include her in your knitting circle; as it is, you just tell her about the scandalous old songs you taught shadow how to dance to, and laugh at how he raises his eyebrow like really, maria, must you?)
(sonic is fun, too, but he’s another sort of trouble. you see the way shadow looks at him and think oh, boy, this is going to be so much fun)
get included in all their shenanigans, even if only from afar sometimes, since shadow insists your old bones can’t take all these strains
(he’s only half joking - being immortal means being ever so mindful of how frail other people are, and he’s unnecessarily mourned your loss for too long already)
(he’s only half joking and you understand his fears, but you’re not a decrepit fool yet, and the world is big and bright and you promised you’d explore it with him, dammit. he can’t complain about you falling ill if you’re the one dragging him to see the ocean.)
be safe and happy and kind and fierce, surrounded by a family you share no blood ties with but whose bonds of friendship are stronger than ever, with shadow at your side as if nothing had changed in the past 50 years
congratulations: you did it
