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It Has to be Perfect! Sonic Big Bang 2025!

This year I participated in a Sonic the Hedgehog Big Bang event via @sthbigbang as a fic writer. This will be my first time posting a fic to tumblr, so that'll be interesting. As part of this event, I collaborated with a few artists who've drawn some amazing pieces for this story!

@thekeerok [art link]

@chiaraeliz [art link]

@pyriteparasite [art link]

Beta read by @harthic

It Has to be Perfect! Pairing: Tangle/Whisper (IDW comics) Length: 7,141 words, oneshot Rating: G Summary: Tangle is a lemur on a mission. A mission to create one grand, absolutely perfect, peak romance date for her girlfriend, Whisper. But with so many wacky characters around, something is bound to go a little sideways - okay, maybe a lot of somethings. But she can salvage this! ...right?

[SPOILER WARNING: THIS FIC CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE IDW SONIC COMICS UP TO ISSUE #75, INCLUDING THE TANGLE & WHISPER MINISERIES]

Jewel the Beetle flits comfortably through the familiar streets of Spiral Hill Village on a beautiful, quiet day. Every day in Spiral Hill tends to be very quiet – with a few very notable and extreme exceptions. It’s part of what she always liked about it, having as nervous of a temperament as she does; the slow, monotonous day to day of such a place, even from more of a leadership position, was always a cozy, manageable level of stress. And when anxiety makes a few misappropriated agates feel like the world crashing down, this place really did feel like the most she would ever be able to handle. It’s a little strange to be back here now, after everything she’d gotten wrapped up in and the genuine world-crashing stakes she’s had to lead people through. But just as much as this place has a comforting pillow-fort security to it to her, she knows one girl who finds that kind of peace and quiet stifling to the point of madness. In fact, that’s why she’s on a mission here now. It’s because she knows that Tangle the Lemur was coming home for a little while between adventures – and that if she hasn’t heard back from her, whining about being bored or cooking up some new thing to chase down, she may well have gotten caught up in another incident in this town’s sudden increase in incidents per year.

Jewel flies up to the door of Tangle’s home and gives it a nervous little knock.

“…maybe she’s not h-“

The door slams open. “HELLO?”

Tangle is wide-eyed, restless, disheveled. That sort of post all-nighter so-tired-it-looped-back-around-to-hyper jittery. “Oh, hey Jewel! I’m kinda busy – is everything okay?”

Jewel is taken aback – and not just the distance she had to get aback to dodge the door.

“I’m… fine. Are you?”

“I’m great – I’m so good! Oh! You like planning stuff! Come here, you’ll love this!”

“AAH!”

Tangle pulls Jewel along like a startled balloon into the house, excitedly rambling “I’ve been working on this for ages, but I’ve finally got every detail ironed out – it’s a foolproof plan, Jewel! Every possibility accounted for!”

“You… planned something?”

“Yeah!”

“In detail?”

“All the detail!! That’s why I wanna show you, you’re the most enthusiastic planner I know, I’m sure you’ll get a kick out of… this?”

Tangle trails off looking back at Jewel. Jewel in the meantime has snagged an umbrella and tearfully holds it overhead, ready to bash.

“Alright, shapeshifter – where’s the real Tangle?”

Tangle looks unimpressed. She plucks the umbrella away with her tail.

“I’m not a shapeshifter, I’m planning a date for Whisper. Do you want to see my cool plans or not?”

Jewel looks skeptical.

Tangle sighs. “When we were 9 you submitted an anonymous tip to the town newspaper to complain about the font choice for the new street signs and got embarrassed because everyone knew it was you.”

“It wasn’t a good font… Okay, fine, I believe you’re you. But can you blame me? I’ve never known you to plan anything in high detail. Do you usually do this for dates?”

“Only when it really matters.” Tangle flings the umbrella to go crash into some other part of the room that can be a later problem. She opens a door and triumphantly bounces in. “Check it, Jewel!”

Jewel’s eyes widen taking in the scene.

“Oh… oh my.”

“BAM!” Tangle throws her arms open wide, slapping the wall where she’s set out a conspiracy board of sorts – pictures, notes, printed reviews and menus, a big world map festooned with little doodles and pins – even bits of red string that don’t seem to be actually connecting ideas to each other. Simply there because boards have red string.

“I’ve been working on it all week! Ha-HAH! It’s gonna be GREAT!!” She grins and bounces in place. “I’ve been reading a ton of articles about all the most romantic places and things in the world – I’ve become a whole romance-ologist!”

“I don’t think that’s a word.”

Jewel’s quiet objection is completely bowled over by Tangle cartwheeling to the far end of the chart and carrying on. “But I hear ya, Jewel – ‘Tangle, these are all over the place! There’s no way you can do them all in one date!’ WRONG! Cause Tails gave me this!”

She whips out a small, yellow-orange remote control, with a zig-zaggy antenna with a ball on the end, a little keyboard and screen, and a tiny little fox nose and whiskers decal on it.

“This bad boy’ll let me put in the coordinates of anywhere on the planet and zip-zap-zop, there we are!! He said – he said, uh – that’s it! He said:

‘That multi-portal Eggman and I built with Starline’s weird tech got me thinking. We have friends all over the world – Sonic’s fast, but even he gets tired running back and forth across the whole ocean when someone needs him – and that doesn’t help the rest of us get there to help too! I can only make the Tornado so fast before it’s too dangerous for passengers. So I’ve been reverse engineering the blah blah blah tech talk, satellites or something, I dunno – to make the MOVE System! All my tests have been going great, it’s safe to use, it just needs a stress test to see how much use it can take! And I can’t think of anyone better to stress it out than you.’

“So he gave me the remote, showed me how to use it, and bada-bing bada-boom, IDEA!” she slaps the chart again, “OPERATION KISS THE GIRL!”

Jewel reels – as she often does when trying to keep up with Tangle – and looks at all the pinned stops. “Put in… coordinates? Tangle, doesn’t that mean you need to know the exact latitude and longitude of every place on this list? There’s no way you can memorize all-“

“I WAS UP ALL NIGHT MEMORIZING ALL OF THEM!” she pumps her arms triumphantly. She turns and starts pointing at places, listing off coordinate codes at top Tangle speed until Jewel puts a hand over her mouth.

“Sweetie, don’t you think this is all a bit… much? This is far too much pressure to put on yourself for one date.”

“No it’s not.”

Jewel jumps at her sudden serious tone.

“Whisper trusts me. I know you don’t know her like I do, but that’s a big deal. She deserves better – she deserves everything.” Tangle wrings the hem of her shirt. “She deserves this much effort and so much more, and I’m gonna give it all to her. I’ll make sure she doesn’t regret it.”

“Regret it? Tangle…”

Jewel is cut off this time by a loud beeping. Tangle shoves back the edge of her glove to reveal a little watch and turns off its alarm.

“THAT’S TIME!! I gotta go pick up my girlfriend! Bye Jewel, see ya later, stay safe, byeeeee!!!”

She speeds off, sending papers flying off her chart in the slipstream. Jewel reaches for her helplessly. Worried.

Whisper the Wolf meanders peacefully through Spiral Hill Village. It’s a much more pleasant place to visit when you’re not in a high stakes game of cat and mouse with a murderous traitor or… something. Yeah, much nicer without something like that hanging over one’s head. It’s hard to imagine someone like Tangle coming from such a calm place. Or maybe it makes sense that an adventurous spirit would get that hyper with so few adventures in arm or tail’s reach. At the very least, it makes sense that such a sleepy town tasked with raising a Tangle would be as ready to brace and dodge that swinging, flipping, bouncing ball of energy as the way Whisper watches them respond to her running up the street toward her.

“HIIII WHISPER!” Tangle calls, waving enthusiastically. She dives at Whisper, who just as readily braces herself to let Tangle swing her momentum out – revolving around her before wrapping back into a hug.

“You seem extra excited… something to do with that surprise you promised me?” Whisper’s soft, quiet voice teases.

Tangle grabs onto Whisper’s shoulders to lean back and squeal. “Yes yes yes it is! Cause I have this!” She whips out the little remote.

Whisper shifts her mask to eye it curiously. “…what is it?”

“This, my fair lady, is the very first remote for the – the, uh – the-“ she squints at the label maker sticker on the back, “Mobility Over Variable Energies… system.”

They both stare at the cartoony device.

“You know, I think he comes up with a good acronym first and then picks whatever words he can make fit it.” Tangle says.

“It also has two-way radio, so maybe watch what buttons you’re pressing before you start making comments.” The device crackles back.

Tangle grimaces. “Sorry, Tails – thank you, Tails.” She releases the microphone button. “A-anyway. As I was saying – I have big plans for us today, Whisper! First stop, Apotos!!”

Whisper tilts her head. “Apotos? If this is going to be a whole trip, I could use a little more time to prepare…”

“Why Whisper, my dear, who needs to take a whole long, expensive trip like that when we can have a one-day Apotos vacation at the push of a button?”

Tangle types. And types. “…at the push of several buttons HEY there we GO!”

She points the remote at an empty space nearby and confirms her coordinates in the system. Almost instantly, space wibbles and warps, ripples spreading out like a pebble dropped in a pond. A whirling, light orange portal sits in front of them. Tangle gives a little bow and holds her arm out to Whisper with a wink.

“Shall we depart, miss?”

Whisper breathes out a tiny laugh and takes her arm. Together, they step through the whirling light. Back at Spiral Hill, the portal closes quickly behind them.

The two of them are hit with a sensation not unlike missing a step on a staircase. A disoriented lurch and the sensation of falling toward very close ground. They support each other as they catch their footing on the other side of a rippling orange circle that’s waved to life just above pale cobblestone paths.

The duo step, blinking against the brighter light, out into a breezy Apotos morning. The sunlight bounces off the white buildings, making them look almost luminous. Seabirds drift lazily on the ocean breeze coming off the perfectly blue water rolling invitingly a little ways off. Whisper approaches the wall of the raised walkway they’re on and leans on it to look out over the water.

“It’s beautiful…”

“Yeah…” Tangle smiles toward her. “Y-yeah! Top ten vacation spot!”

Whisper looks at her curiously.

“S-so I hear – always wanted to visit, so hey, why not, y’know? But uh, yeah, I figure we could…” she does a little circling motion with her finger, “…walk around a bit? Take in the sights, maybe, uh – hey!”

Tangle hops around her, guiding her gaze over toward an ice cream stand opening up for the day.

“Maybe some ice cream for the walk? I’m pretty sure it’s like 8am here, but hey, it was afternoon back home, and clearly no one ever told this guy ice cream isn’t a breakfast food – so that works out for us!”

Whisper snickers. “Sure, ice cream sounds nice.”

And so they stroll together down the alabaster streets of the island, hand-in-hand. It’s certainly a far cry from Spiral Hill – but even the beaches back home have a very different atmosphere to them. There’s simply something in the way the breeze rolls off the ocean here that feels warm and serene compared to their coast’s playfulness. Tangle steals a look over at Whisper. She looks happy. Curious and relaxed, taking in the sights in a way that doesn’t feel tactical this time. Tangle can’t help but smile. She’s doing it! She’s going to get a good grade in girlfriending! A very normal thing to think!!

Just as they get close enough to the ice cream booth to read the menu, they see the truly decadent cone the vendor is assembling in a little stand and wonder at the balancing act of it all – chocolate and vanilla scoops dotted with chunks of chocolate, multiple fruits both chocolate-dipped and plain around the edge, pocky and an extra wedge of waffle cone in it for good measure – confidently slid across to the edge of the counter at its completion. A work of art to be sure. Although there’s no sign of any customer waiting to eat it before it melts. Before an eager-looking Tangle can volunteer on their behalf, they both jump – battle-ready, alert – at the blur that shoots by and sets the stand spinning in a clattering circle. Robbed of its pride and joy.

Sonic leans against the corner of the booth and looks over the frosty treat. He gives an appreciative whistle.

“This might be your best one yet! Take a look at that!” he shares a friendly, familiar smile with the shopkeeper before plucking a chocolate-dipped strawberry off to pop into his mouth.

“Only the best for my best customer! And how about you ladies? You look like you could use a scoop or two. What can I get you?”

Sonic follows his eyes to them and waves.

“Well, hey there! Fancy seeing you two here!”

“HI SONIC!” Tangle waves back.

“Hello!” Whisper puts her hand up.

“Friends of yours, I take it?” the vendor asks him.

“Oh yeah, you know me. Mr. Popular over here. I’m guessing they’re here to try the best ice cream in the world – is that right, girls?”

Tangle’s eyes sparkle. “The best in the world? Really?”

“Oh yeah! If you’re looking for recommendations, you’ve got to try the Sundae Supreme,” he waggles the impressive cone, “they come with a hefty seal of approval.”

“A favorite of yours? It doesn’t seem like your usual fare.” Whisper teases.

“Hah, not quite. But a close friend loved them. I come by to get them – for him, you know? And they’re great every time!”

Whisper nods solemnly.

Tangle gulps. The atmosphere is taking a turn for the sad – gotta get this train back on the track!

“SO! If they’re that good, we’ll take two!” She calls, a bit too loudly, to the vendor.

He matches her energy with an equally loud and enthusiastic “Two Sundae Supremes for the lovely ladies, coming right up!”

Tangle taps her foot anxiously, watching Whisper and Sonic continue to chat. They lean on the wall lining the walkway and look out over the water, talking about the scenery here. What if they talk more about this whole memorial ceremony he’s doing – it’s not that she doesn’t care about his loss, that sucks, she’d love to talk about it another time for sure! But what if they start talking about it, and Whisper starts thinking too much about her old friends, and everything she’s done for their memories, and then she gets sad, and she doesn’t want to keep doing this date! And then when she thinks about dates with Tangle she thinks about being miserable in such a pretty place and she doesn’t want to go on any more dates at all, and then she doesn’t want to be her girlfriend at all, and breakups are so awkward, so she stops wanting to see her anywhere, and she leaves, and it’s all her fault, and-

Tangle’s anxious, tapping, spiraling mess of thoughts are interrupted by a loud crash that shakes the walkway. She runs up to the wall and looks down with the others. A submarine of some sort has emerged from the water and started spitting out badniks that are already beginning to attack the outskirts of town.

“Tch, can’t even take one morning off, huh? Alright.” Sonic scarfs down the ice cream cone. “If that’s how Eggman wants to – ahhh ah-ah-ah, brain freeze!”

Whisper points the ice cream vendor toward the buildings. “Go. Get somewhere safe.”

“Good call, Whisper. Ah, geeze, gotta stop eating cold stuff that fast! Alright!” He steps up onto the wall and does a couple stretches in place, “Change of plans! Let’s scramble some eggs, and then ice cream’s on me!”

Whisper nods and draws her wispon.

“WAAAAIIIIT!”

They both stop. They turn, utterly confused, to Tangle.

“Hi, yeah, sorry – actually, Sonic, do you mind if we… maybe dip? We’re uh – we’re sort of on a date? Right now?”

Sonic blinks. “Oh.” He looks between them. “Oh – OH! Yeah, of course! Go, go, have fun! There’s barely any bots here, I can handle this solo no problem – you two go get your romance on! Sorry, Tangle!”

“No problem! We’re just gonna – yeah! We’re just gonna head out!”

She hooks Whisper’s arm and types a new code onto the remote, quickly popping up a new portal.

“Ooh, fresh Tails tech?”

“Yeah!”

“Nice. Alright, you kids have fun now. I’ll catch ya later!” Sonic gives them a little salute and hops off the wall.

“Come on, he’s got this. And we’ve got plans!” Tangle encourages Whisper. She sighs and begrudgingly puts her wispon away.

“Okay… where did you have in mind?”

They step through to a bustling city center, alive with chatter and cars – a sharp contrast to the slow, relaxed Apatos coast.

“Tah-dah!” Tangle trumpets at a crosswalk. “Oh. Wait-“ she takes Whisper’s shoulders and rotates both of them. “-tah-dah!”

They stand in front of a neon wonder – a world of flashing lights and dinging, singing machinery known as Secret Zone Games.

“Come on! I bet I can win more tickets than you!” Tangle teases.

Whisper snickers and nods. “You’re on.”

They pick through the digital playground, caught up in mostly friendly competition. Rolling skee-balls, mashing buttons, trying to pick the next nearest game they each think they’ll have the advantage in when they start slipping behind.

“I don’t remember Super Monkey Ball being that hard!” Tangle groans.

Whisper shrugs. “Never played it before.”

“What!? But you totally kicked my tail!!”

“Hm. Skill issue.”

“Ah! AH! Skill issue?? Oh, those are fighting words – that’s it. No more missus nice lemur – let’s cut the kiddie stuff and go where the real warriors test their skills, then we’ll see who has a skill issue!”

“And where would that be?”

“The rhythm games. Sure, you’ve revolutioned, but can you dance, dance?”

“I don’t think revolutioned is a word.”

“She’s dodging the question!” Tangle declares to an imaginary jury, “Sounds like someone’s scared to get shown up!”

Whisper grins. “You’re on.”

“Then let’s go, let’s settle this – all or nothin!”

Racing to the next section of games, they round the corner to an unexpected sight.

“Shadow?” Tangle asks.

Sure enough, the ultimate lifeform stands with his arms crossed next to a large claw machine full of adorable, multi-colored plush chao. And standing at the controls is a little cream-colored rabbit girl with her tongue out in intense concentration. She carefully lines up the claw and pushes the button to lower it into a plushy pile. As the claw makes contact with a doll, she starts aggressively mashing the button – but the doll slips right out of the claw’s loose grip and back into the pile.

“Dang it!” she huffs.

“Why are you hitting the button like that?” Shadow asks her incredulously.

“The internet says it helps.”

Shadow sneers. “Don’t just believe everything you read on the internet, Cream. It’s full of fools and liars.”

“And recipes.”

“Fine, fools, liars, and sometimes recipes.”

Tangle lands on top of the claw machine without warning.

“Hi Shadow! Hi Cream! I didn’t expect to see the two of you here – together, no less! How’d that happen?”

“Hi, Miss Tangle!” Cream waves.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but Vanilla called in a favor. And lucky for her, I had nothing better to do today with Rouge taking Omega for maintenance.”

“Mister Shadow babysits me when Mom and Gemerl are busy!”

Tangle grins down at the kid. “Awww, isn’t that sweet! I knew you were a big ol softie, ya ol’ sharp, dark, and broody.”

Shadow snarls up at her. “Aren’t you busy right now?” he demands, gesturing back at Whisper. Her and Cream wave at each other.

“Ah!! You’re right, you’re right – sorry, Whisper! Have fun, Cream! See you around, Shadow!” She flips off of the claw machine.

“Not if I can help it.” Shadow grumbles at her back as she links arms with Whisper and they run off together. And so he turns his attention back to his charge – who is currently counting out her game tokens to see how many more chances she gets to win that chao doll.

“Don’t you want to try a different game?” he asks her, “It may be time to give up on this one.”

“Sonic says you can accomplish anything as long as you don’t give up. So I’m not gonna give up on this toy! I’m gonna win!”

“Tch, what does that guy know? The only thing he can actually outrun is his own sense of reason.”

“So… it doesn’t matter if I try my hardest, I still can’t win?”

“Someti-“ Shadow catches himself. And he catches those big, sad eyes – looking up to him, begging him to tell her the world can be fair. He can’t take it.

“…give it one more try, and then I see something I want to play.”

“Wow, really? Okay! One more try!”

Shadow leans against the machine with a huff while the little girl hypes herself up and inserts her tokens. He checks the coast is clear. And seeing no one looking their way, he presses a hand to the side of the machine. Just a bit more power to the claw. Make sure it holds onto the doll, make sure it carries it by whatever part of the damn thing it touches clear to the chute and into her eager little arms. He whispers to himself, buried under the hyperactive calls of a hundred games that couldn’t take her attention from her dreams.

“Chaos… control.”

Tangle and Whisper watch the commotion from the established perimeter. Whisper watches the action curiously. Tangle gapes in disbelief.

“What… do you mean… it caught fire!? Where?? How!?”

Whisper shrugs. “A lot of machines. Maybe the wiring couldn’t handle it.”

“It’s an arcade!!”

“Was an arcade.”

“It’s still an arcade, it’s just a slightly more on fire arcade!” Tangle looks around at the utter chaos. “Oh – HEY! CREAM, SHADOW – THAT WAS CRAZY, RIGHT??”

Shadow is carrying Cream on his back, and she looks absolutely shocked.

“It was the claw machine,” she tells them quietly, “I almost got my doll and the whole thing sparked green and started melting. How did that happen – did I do that?”

Shadow clears his throat uncomfortably. “It chose death rather than allow you victory over it. A coward’s way out.”

“Coward.” Cream parrots. Whisper nods.

“Yeesh, well that sucks.” Tangle rubs her neck with a grimace. “Guess that’s a sour note on both our days out, huh?”

Cream perks up. “Shadow says we’re gonna go to the toy store and I can pick out any doll I want!”

“She earned her victory square, I’ll not let her go home empty-handed.” He looks at Tangle smirking at him. “…stop that.”

“And in exchange, I don’t tell Momma we burned an arcade down!”

“IT’S NOT BURNED DOWN, IT’S JUST A LITTLE MORE ON FIRE.” Shadow and Tangle both exclaim.

Tangle puts her hands up before Shadow can glare at her any harder. “Okay, okay – well you two have fun with that! Whisper and I also have a backup plan~!”

“We do?”

“Yes indeed we do – I think we need more fun and games a lot closer to a source of water, don’t you?” She punches some numbers into her remote. “All aboard the romance train! Next stop, Emerald Coast! WHOO-WHOO!”

Tangle dances through the portal backwards, keeping an eye on Whisper, who gives her a little smile and a little, reserved arm waggling in return on their way through.

The air immediately smells and feels a world apart from the city. Now it’s heavy with the smells of fried foods and sweet treats galore, carried on a fresh saltwater breeze, and music and chatter carry across it more freely in the more open space.

“Tah-dah! There’s a carnival in town today! Come on, let’s play a couple more games and get that arcade energy out of us!”

“And then we can get some of those delicious-smelling snacks, right?”

“Well, if you insist.”

Whisper gives a little giggle, taking Tangle’s arm again. It’s perfect, she’ll win ring toss, or that milk bottle game, or both! And then she can give Whisper the prize from those and impress her! And if Whisper wants, she’d be a shoe-in for those shooting games these things always have, being a sniper and all, so she can also have a chance to show off and be so cool and pretty and – and then! She knows exactly what time they need to get on that big, beautiful ferris wheel in a few hours so they’ll be up at the top when the sun’s setting into the water, and it’ll be gorgeous and romantic and maybe they’ll even kiss and-

“Actually,” Whisper leans through Tangle’s thought bubble, “I’m kind of hungry. How about we get some food now and eat it by the beach? We can play afterwards.”

“Oh! Yeah! Yeah!!” Tangle pivots away from the game alley. “Yeah, let’s eat first! The beach looks great right now too, that’s a great idea!”

So they instead follow the siren call of unholy amounts of breaded and fried food. Soon they’re making their way down the pier, balancing their greasy treasures. In one hand Whisper holds the stick of a silly sort of corndog with a second, mini corndog jabbed on under it to make a little exclamation point - in the other, a tray of fresh, hot onion rings. Tangle pants, trying to not burn her mouth on the ring sacrificed to make room for little paper cups of ketchup and mustard, her own hands occupied with a truly staggering concoction that might have once been considered tater tots, but has since been drowned beyond recognition in shredded meat, hot peppers, and Gaia knows what else hiding under all that cheese sauce – and an enormous lemonade. With two straws, naturally. The couple finds a nice spot along the edge of the walkway and sit down, dangling their legs out over the idyllic blue water. They watch the birds sweep easy arches toward the sea and back up into the sky while they eat.

It's a comfortable sort of quiet. Peaceful. The kind of moment neither of them had known in a long time, if ever, before they found each other. Whisper’s not very talkative anyway, but since losing the original Diamond Cutters, she’s grown used to long stretches of quiet. But that’s a hollow kind of quiet. The kind that feels heavy from what is supposed to be filling it but can’t anymore. Hours, days, weeks left alone with just her thoughts and replays of better times to keep her company. It grew comfortable in the same way being cold for too long makes you start to feel warm. And then there was Tangle. A loud, relentlessly chatty, energetic summer’s day. Thawing out hurt. But now that she’s been warm again, a cool breeze – a moment of close quiet like this – feels good.

Heaven help Tangle if she’s ever been able to let a room stay quiet for more than a minute in her life. Spiral Hill is great, she loves her home, but it’s always been so boriiiiiiing! Just sitting there like a blank canvas begging for a splash of paint to liven it up! For years Tangle’s been the only one holding a paintbrush, bouncing off every wall, filling the sleepy quiet with any adventure she could scrape together from misplaced tools and lone stray badniks. And then she met the Sonic – and because of him, she met Whisper! And sure she was quiet too, but she had all these adventures, and cool battle skills, and a mysterious past! And a painful past. And a good reason to want to stay small and quiet. And Tangle felt so, so guilty for… for a lot of things she messed up with her. And now she kind of got it. How sometimes, it’s just nice to enjoy a moment of quiet for a bit and know it doesn’t need to be filled with noise right now. Because that moment of peace and quiet made a pretty wolf trying to find the mustard stuck on her fur look that unguarded.

But a quiet moment is just that: a moment. Tangle has too much planned to spend the rest of the day sitting on some wood staring at the water – totally just at the water, that’s all she was staring at! She pops back up to her feet.

“Alright! That was delicious, buuuut! I believe we have a date with some games, don’t we?”

“Do we? That’s odd…” Whisper tilts her head.

Tangle’s tail droops. “Do… do we not?”

“It’s just,” Whisper smiles, “I could have sworn my date was with you.”

Tangle snorts. “Okay, very funny.” She reaches down to help Whisper up and bundles their collective lunch trash into a proper container. “Come on, come on, come on! Those booths are callin’ our names, I can hear them from here!”

They hold hands and stroll their way back down the pier. Tangle gestures with her tail to make up for the occupied hand.

“Sooo, how are you at hoops? These things always have a basketball thing, yeah?”

“Why Tangle, are you questioning my aim?” Whisper teases.

“No, I’m questioning your throwing arm.” Tangle teases right back.

“Those sound like fighting words.”

“Well maybe they are! So come on, let’s… rumble?”

They pause, looking around for a source for the rumbling affecting the pier, making the wooden structure shake like an earthquake.

“Move, move, move!!” someone yells.

“WHAT!?” Tangle screeches, seeing the source.

Amy Rose, hammer out, runs full tilt down the walkway while frantically shouting for everyone on it ahead of her to run back to safety. And behind her an absolutely gargantuan orca!? An orca bigger than Tangle even thought they got is crashing through the pier CHASING HER DOWN.

“Tangle! Come on!” Whisper tugs the stunned lemur’s hand, running them both toward safety. She shakes off the shock and also focuses on running. Before long she’s pulling ahead of Whisper and dragging her along at her speed. All the while behind them, Amy swings and smashes at chunks of wooden planks, intercepting them in mid-air from hitting the fleeing carnival-goers.

Once they reach the end of the pier, Tangle and Whisper turn back, with tail and wispon protecting the gathered people from debris so Amy can focus on spinning, winding up, charging up a decisive slam of her hammer into the orca, finally redirecting it away from all the people. They all wait, watching for a surprise second phase… but it seems the danger’s passed for now. Amy twirls on her heel and bounces the hammer up on her shoulder.

“Hey, girls!” she waves.

Whisper slowly lowers her wispon and awkwardly waves back. Tangle’s tail, arms, ears – everything that can droop droops, staring at the floating pile of debris that was, until very recently, the Emerald Coast boardwalk.

“Wha… that… why…” she stammers.

“Oh, that whole thing?” Amy gestures too casually at the wreckage. “Eh, it happens sometimes.”

“WHALES HAPPEN SOMETIMES!?”

“Well, actually orcas are more closely related to dolphins?” Amy taps the hammer handle thoughtfully.

“Oh sweet Gaia.”

“Is that why you were in the area?” Whisper tilts her head.

“What? Oh, no, no – I mean, it’s lucky I was! Or maybe fate? I actually had a little fortune telling booth set up over there, I was giving tarot readings.” Amy pulls a deck of unevenly stacked cards out of her pocket. “But then, you know… orca happened.”

A breeze off the water sends a particularly loose card flying out of the set and away before Amy can drop her hammer and grab it – so it’s Whisper snatching it out of the air. And holding it back out to her. She sighs in relief, more fazed by almost losing a card than being chased by a dock-destroying murder dolphin.

“Oh my goodness, thank you! They’re not really together properly, it’s so hard to gather cards in a hurry! Oh – but as they say! If a card jumps out, it’s trying to tell you something! So let’s see what card jumped at you… Ooh, The Lovers, I adore that one!” Amy looks up from the card at them. She looks like she’s about to say more, but she holds that thought. She looks between Whisper, and just behind her where Tangle is pulling on her own ears in stress.

Amy claps her hands over her mouth with a gasp. “Were you two on a date??”

“Yes, we were just about to play some games. But it, uhm…” Whisper leans to look past Amy at the destruction and the amount of the boardwalk now out of reach. “…I assume the carnival is closing early.”

“But that doesn’t mean the romance train is derailed!” Tangle bursts in, already punching new coordinates – maybe harder than is very nice to the buttons – onto the remote. “We’ve got more stops to go! CHOO CHOO! ROMANCE!” She insists, punching the activation button and opening a new portal.

“Oh! Neat, is that Tails’ newest…” Amy tries.

“DEPARTING NOW! ALL ABOARD!” Tangle calls, sliding Whisper through and following close behind. To the next stop. The next perfect date spot, the next backup of a backup of a backup plan!

Backups of backups of backups become backup-backup-backup-backups, become back-back-back-back-backups, become –

Becomes a beautiful day at the Sunset City Central Park, until Rouge and Omega come crashing through, shrubbery catching on fire from Omega’s thrusters, bag leaking jewelry with guards hot on their tail.

Becomes a cute little café and bakery in Seaside City with delicious sweets, coffee, and tea galore – until Vector crashes through the awning onto their table, Espio and Charmy close behind on some investigation or other – becomes Silver and Blaze rushing up to them, saying something about a timeline-altering event about to happen that-

“NO!!”

Tangle grabs the remote once again, by now starting to feel very warm, and smacks in some more numbers, slams the activation button again, drags Whisper through another portal to another spot where another plan can go all

Wrong. She put in the coordinates wrong. They’re on land at least, barely, popping out on a cliffside overlooking the water once again. Problem is, she has no idea where this is, she doesn’t even know which ocean she’s looking at right now. She chokes down an aggravated screech into more of an angry beep and starts trying to punch in on the remote. But the casing feels so hot, the numbers are flickering on and off the screen as she tries to type them. Finally with an anticlimactic pop, the little fox-faced remote fizzles out.

Tangle stares at it. She tries to push the buttons. It does nothing. She tries to turn it off and back on again. It does nothing. It does nothing, it does nothing, it does nothing, it

Her hands shake. Her grip threatens to crack the plastic casing – as if she could make it any less functional. Her vision gets blurry. She can’t think of anything else to do, so she spikes the remote to the ground and collapses. She curls tight in on herself, wrapping her tail around her like a cocoon.

Stupid – how could she be so stupid! All this work to try and impress Whisper, to try and do something right for her, just this one time to think ahead – to look before she leaps so she doesn’t make a mess of things – and where did it get her? Where did it get both of them!? Stranded Gaia-knows-where. And it’s all her fault. It keeps being all her own fault.

“Tangle?”

She can’t summon up an answer. Apologizing again feels so hollow. She doesn’t have an excuse for this.

Whisper, softly as her name implies, steps closer. She looks over the tight coil of fur, staggered by the intensity of it all. Her hand stutters in the air between them, wanting to reach for Tangle but… not sure if she should. Not sure how to handle this at all. She knows Tangle wears her heart on her sleeve and feels everything so fully – it’s one of the things she loves most about her. But she’s seen her unbridled joy, her righteous fury, her seemingly boundless excitement over everything. She’s even, on rare occasion, seen her slammed-brake brand of hesitation, of doubt.

She’s never known her to break like this.

So she does what Tangle would. She pushes forward, running her hand softly, hopefully comfortingly, across the tail enveloping her.

“Tangle, what’s wrong?” she tries, a little louder.

“…I broke it…” Tangle sniffles.

“No,” Whisper gently corrects, settling to the ground next to her, shoulder to tail. “I don’t mean what happened to the remote. I mean… I didn’t know how to say it earlier. You’ve been on edge all day.”

She nestles in closer and rests her cheek against Tangle’s tail.

“You’ve been so jumpy. You’re running away from fighting alongside our friends. Even if they don’t need us for these little things, that’s not like you. Even now – we both know you hate small spaces like that, you can’t feel better wrapping yourself up like this. Tangle, did something happen?”

She slides her fingers between the coils as if she could pry them open and free Tangle from her self-imposed cage. She presses her forehead into the fur.

“You’re always there for me when there’s too much for me to handle on my own. From the moment we met, you’ve never let me face a battle alone. Please. Whatever happened, whatever hurt you – we’ll face it together.”

Tangle’s tail loosens. The loops gradually slipping, melting off of her into a limp, pathetic nest. She looks to Whisper with big, teary eyes and a hiccuped sob. She tips over, dropping her head into Whisper’s waiting shoulder to be hugged.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles wetly, “I messed it all up, I’m sorry.”

Whisper shushes her and rubs the back of her head. “It was an accident. Everyone said that remote was new, right? How would you know that would-“

“No, no, no! I mean – yeah, I broke the remote too – but it’s not just the remote, it’s the whole rotten thing!” Tangle sits back. “I picked all those stupid places, and every single one of them went wrong! I just wanted to give you one perfect day – no fights, no stakes – just one day where you could relax and have fun and not have to worry about anything! You deserve so much more than that, but I messed it up again!”

“What?” Whisper reaches for Tangle’s cheek. “Again?”

“Yeah, again! After everything you went through before, you still trusted me – and what did I do with that? I got got by the zombots and made you go through all that again!”

“You didn’t mean to – you didn’t even know back then.”

“And then when you were dealing with Mimic I let him trick me – twice! In one day! And when he came back again I didn’t have your back, I let him pull one over on me again instead of listening to you! I took the Diamond Cutter name without asking you first – I keep pushing you and messing things up for you, and not thinking and getting you hurt, and you deserve better than any of it – you deserve better than you’ve gotten – you deserve better than me!”

“Tangle!”

Whisper cups Tangle’s face, wet with tears, and makes her look at her. She thumbs across her cheeks to wipe some of it away.

“Tangle, I don’t care about any of that. I don’t blame you for half of that stuff, and the things I was mad at you for, I already forgave you. And I’ve been having a lot of fun today. I’ve just been worried about you. I’ve been worried about you being so stressed because I love you. And I want you to be okay too.” She presses their foreheads together. “We’ve both made our mistakes. And I think we’re going to make more. But I trust you. Whether I wanted to or not, I trust you. So I trust that whatever else happens, we’ll get through it together. That’s all I could want from you.”

Tangle sniffles. She wraps her hand around Whisper’s on her cheek and closes her eyes, leaning into the embrace.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect…” Whisper breathes, “…it just needs to be us.”

Her hands fall off Tangle’s face as the lemur lurches forward and pulls her into a tight embrace. Tangle’s tail wraps behind her to catch them from completely falling into the grass, giving them a soft place to sit and melt into each other’s grip. Even once they relax back into a less overwhelmed cuddle, it serves as a nice cushion for them to look out over the water and finally take in the view they stumbled into. Wherever they are, it’s evening here, as the sun is setting in just the right way to paint the clouds vibrant oranges and pinks and the sea the kind of almost purple-ish color they talk about in old poetry.

With a crackle and a pop, Tails' voice calls out to them. "Tangle? Whisper? Are you guys still together?"

Tangle grabs the remote the voice is coming from. "Of course we're still together!" she cries back at it, gripping it tightly in both hands, "It didn't go that badly!!"

"Oh good!" Tails gives a staticy, compressed sigh of relief. "When I got a critical error message from the MOVE System, I was worried. But it put you both in the same place, that's good!"

"Oh! Yeah!" Tangle sweats. "Yep, physical proximity! We're sure in the same location in space, yep, no worries!"

Whisper snickers behind her mask.

"Okay, great! I'm going to triangulate the distress signal from your remote off the other Tails-tech around - I'll come get you in the Tornado as soon as I can!"

Tangle and Whisper look at each other for a moment. Whisper gives her a soft, encouraging smile. Tangle grins back and lifts the remote.

“Take your time, Tails.”

Tangle settles back, pulling her tail a little closer around the two of them.

“We’ll be alright.”

#sonic big bang 2025 #fanfic #sonic the hedghog #tangle the lemur #whisper the wolf #long post

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