Chapter Text
Ivo always wondered about his parents as a child. If they were like him, if he was abandoned at the orphanage for his strange compulsions and rigid rituals, did they know there was something wrong with him? Did his mother constantly tap out 1-2-3-4, did his father hear music when there wasn’t any there, did they feel disgusting and dirty unless they washed their hands once, twice, three times, four, repeat as needed?
Orphans with ‘problems’ like his (logical, he’s being logical) don’t get adopted. Parents are looking for a happy, normal child, everything Ivo’s not but wants to be. So he learns early on to hide it, indulge in his need for rituals in the privacy of the bathroom and away from prying eyes. Retreats into his mind, repeating phrases and strings of numbers.
At the tender age of five he finds a book at the library that has a section that checks all his boxes. Obsessive-compulsive disorder. A mental illness characterized by unwanted thoughts that lead to repetitive behaviors.
He’s already not normal. Smarter than the other kids by far, being able to solve equations no child should be able to, numbers easier to understand than social dynamics. So this was just an extension of his strangeness, this need for control, the desire to repeat actions over and over and over and over again.
He does not want to be bullied for another thing out of his control. He doesn’t want a note in his folder that will make prospective adopters avoid him. Mental illnesses are stigmatized, judged, and Ivo’s going places, he doesn’t need something like that weighing him down.
Besides, mental illnesses are only diagnosed when they begin to affect someone’s ability to function in day to day life. By that definition, Ivo doesn’t need a diagnosis. He can function perfectly as is. He’s fine.
He has to be fine.
He’s nine and it’s after dinner, the other boys stay to listen to Mother Josie read stories from the Bible, and Ivo escapes upstairs to the bathroom his wing shares. He takes out his stolen bar of soap in a tupperware from the lower cabinet under the sink, hidden underneath a pile of old handtowels. He wishes he had somewhere safer to put it, but in an orphanage privacy is practically nonexistent. It’s just a bar of soap, but Ivo’s dread over it being found is immeasurable.
First, he turns on the water, waits until it’s lukewarm. Rinses his hands, then takes the bar of soap and starts lathering it, carefully spreading the suds through his fingers and palms. He puts the bar of soap aside and begins scrubbing, left hand first, then the right. He slides his fingers together and rubs. The tight ball of worry in his stomach starts to dissipate at the feeling, but he knows it won’t fully go away until he does it four times.
Ivo rinses off his hands and picks up the bar of soap, starts again. He closes his eyes, focusing on the feeling of the filth of the day being cleaned away. On the third time scrubbing his skin is tender and red but he has to keep going, or else the disease will get him, he’ll never be clean-
The door bangs open and Michael, one of the older teenagers, enters. Ivo freezes in place, watches helplessly as Michael takes in the scene, tilts his head. The soap falls from his hands and he snaps out of it, humiliation and anger roaring to life inside of him.
“Get out, Michael!” Ivo snarls, heart beating rapid-quick. He knows, he knows, he knows, he knows, is circling his mind. Michael looks curious, then concerned, not leaving like Ivo desperately needs him to. The world’s pressing down on him, anxiety suffocating him, and before he can stop himself he’s screaming, “GET THE FUCK OUT, MICHAEL!”
Michael flees from the bathroom, the door swinging shut behind him. Ivo takes a deep breath, head throbbing and eyes watering. He picks up the bar of soap and starts the cleansing ritual all over again. It does not help the hard knot of fear caught in his chest, even when he finishes his fourth rinse.
The next morning, Michael approaches him at breakfast.
“What,” Ivo snaps.
Michael holds out a small pair of soft black gloves. Ivo eyes them suspiciously.
“It might help,” Michael says gently, “They’re from when I used to go snowboarding, before my parents- yeah.”
Ivo slowly takes the gloves, slides them on. They’re thin and fuzzy, and his brain immediately feels soothed, a protective layer between him and the rest of the world.
“I’ve outgrown them, obviously, so. Keep ‘em.”
Ivo mutters, “Thank you.”
“And if you ever need anyone to talk to-”
“I don’t,” he cuts in, offended by the idea. Michael gives him a nod and wanders off.
From that point on, gloves become a staple of Ivo’s wardrobe.
As soon as he turns eighteen, Ivo accepts a full ride scholarship to MIT and leaves the orphanage behind. The outside world is even more chaotic, and he has to develop new rituals to keep intrusive thoughts at bay. Even so, people rankle him and his temper is short fused, leading to angry outbursts where he has to stop himself from killing his idiot classmates with a textbook.
He graduates with five PHDs under his belt. He becomes a military contractor, working primarily for a subsection called GUN. He amazes and astonishes with his inventions, his mind, his 100% mission success rate. There are days of excitement, where his mind is racing with new ideas, making great advancements to technology, developing plans to throw off the shackles of government and truly make a name for himself. Where his ambitions reach dizzying new heights, dancing by himself and on top of the world.
There are days of great highs- and impossible lows. When his thoughts feel like stabbing knives, and he has to lock himself in the bathroom and scrub and scrub (and scrub and scrub). His rituals become more complex, more rigid, the consequences for defying them more severe.
All the while, Ivo begins cutting himself off from unnecessary social interactions. He’s too busy to feel lonely.
For the most part, it’s true.
Robotnik’s been working for GUN for almost twenty years and they refuse to leave him to his needed solitude, insist on thrusting personal assistants at him to do their spying. He’s gone through eighteen so far and starts cultivating a reputation after the fifth.
He gets hurled a myriad of insults by agents on the verge of nervous breakdowns, of being a ‘neat freak,’ ‘impossible,’ ‘perfectionist.’ He prefers the silence of the lab over incompetence.
Robotnik knows of the gossip surrounding him, that he’s thought of to be more of a malfunctioning robot than man. He plays into it even, bzzt, bzzt, bzzt, bzzt. He’d rather be a robot than a pathetic, squishy human.
It takes GUN two months to send him someone new. Robotnik feels a twinge of dread seeing a man in a black suit waiting outside his lab on a Monday morning. His fingers twitch, tapping out a quick 1-2-3-4.
“Good morning, Doctor Robotnik! I’m Agent Stone, your new assistant.” The man beams, holding out a hand. Robotnik looks at it dismissively and enters the lab, the agent trailing after him.
He finds he can tolerate Agent Stone more than the others. He’s actually somewhat intelligent, doesn’t bother with stupid questions, and his propensity for neatness even rivals Robotnik’s. Stone handles Robotnik’s ‘idiocyncricies’ with ease and grace, even when he gets into his more ridiculous spirals, needing to check his schedule over and over (and over and over) again. Does not comment when he takes longer in the bathroom or goes into it for the fourth time in an afternoon, needing to quadruple check his hands are clean.
Yes. Maybe this can actually work.