Work Text:
Hey hey hey bitch let’s get started round two: first day/night
Idk what this prompt means but we’ll try our best
It’s taken a few years but the tradition has become so, so ingrained that Tony only has to think of it to smile. To be fair, though, any and all Rhodey kisses inspire that reaction. Obie’s given him the day off (Tony owns the company, though. He’s under no one’s thumb or supervision but his own.) He takes a couple hours, after a morning starting at nine o'clock sharp, to work in the lab on a few pet projects.
Dummy, printed with a few stickers from when Obie’s great niece visited the lab, rolls around. Stupid bot. Tony can’t ignore the shy smile- he isn’t shy, just… eager- on his own face, though. He’s an example to the bots. They know what’s happening today: Rhodey is coming home. Tony keeps working, a lazy, leisurely kind of joy in every movement, as he keeps on going.
Noon. Dummy has been waiting all day for this. He doesn’t spend as much time in this lab anymore, Tony. So the bots are scrambling for attention, elbowing each other out of the way and rolling up and down the ramps he’s put in for them to exercise. (No matter what Rhodey says, the bots are not playing . They are exercising on those ramps.) Dummy drops the sandwich plate twice, and the second time, Tony sighs.
‘You big lump of bolts, what am I going to do with you?’ he mutters, patting his bot on the claw, the calluses of his hands rubbing against a Disney princess sticker. Tiana, he thinks. His smile brightens a little bit more. He isn’t one for kids’ movies, but he’s watched that one with Rhodey before. And Rhodey? Is coming home today.
His face really, truly breaks out into a smile and his steps are light as he takes the stairs up to the living room. Tony has been waiting at least a few months for this, stuffed into their home and waiting with a bag of cheetos or popcorn, for Rhodey to come home. The scars have grown on his skin in that time, normal lab accidents. There’s always a fear that he’ll open Rhodey’s shirt and be faced with a mess of scar tissue. If he had to guess, his Rhodey feels the same.
‘J?’
‘Yes, sir?’ the muted, British tones echo in the empty halls. Tony is giddy again. Rhodey! At home and safe!
‘What’s he gonna want as he gets home?’ Tony wanders past the kitchen counters to their bedroom. It has a spectacular view of the ocean, sun shining like a beacon, since it’s high noon.
‘Captain Rhodes has expressed his happiness when there are fresh flowers and clean sheets in your bedroom,’ Jarvis tells him.
A smile lifts up one side of Tony’s face, lopsided and eager. ‘Well, tell Captain Rhodes that’s exactly what he’ll get.’
The detergent smells like home in a very special, unique way. He sleeps in their bed every night when Rhodey’s home, but insomnia is a restless, exciting creature when he’s alone. So the fresh sheets always remind him of Rhodey. The washer and dryer hum and the mattress seems to take a deep breath when he puts the new sheets on it.
The flowers aren’t expensive. Just from QFC, a big bunch sitting in a vase of water. Tony claps his hands together, beaming. ‘Let’s get the suit on, then!’ he announces.
‘Ms. Potts brought it into your closet. It’s drycleaned,’ Jarvis tells him. Tony beams a little, eager to show it off. This is part of the tradition, too. The brand new suit, shown off, as Rhodey sweeps him into a hug and they touch for the first time in ages.
‘Thanks, Jarv.’ Tony loiters in the closet for a moment, inspecting the watches and ties there, knowing he won’t wear any.
He used to hide his scars when Rhodey wasn’t there to kiss them away. Five years ago, he’d wear a golden watch to hide the burnt smudge on his wrist, scrupulously take care of lab wounds and the occasional shaving scar so that no one knew he had no soulmate. Funny thing was that he did have a soulmate, his was just away. Now, he was more lax.
More looking forward to the bright smile he’d see on Rhodey’s face later, he fidgets and paces a little. The airport is an half an hour away with bad traffic, and he doesn’t need much time at all to park and get into the building. ‘Time?’ he asks.
‘Two and a half hours until his plane lands.’
For a split second, Tony wavers. ‘Fuck it, I’m leaving now,’ he mutters, blowing a kiss to J’s cameras and moving along. He waits on a seat for an agonizing amount of time, a new bouquet of flowers on his lap for Rhodey.
A robotic voice announces the flight. Texas to Los Angeles , it drones. Tony doesn’t register it until he does, rocking to his feet and vibrating with energy near the gate.
Rhodey is one of the first to come out. There are two families, a couple, and a pair of teenagers giggling, and then behind them, clad in green and with a tired, eager smile, is Tony’s Rhodey. Tony’s sweetheart. Knowing, knowing by experience, that he’s making a scene, Tony falls into Rhodey’s arms.
They hold each other for a while. A few minutes, at least, before Tony is kissing him fiercely, breathing in Rhodey’s air, touching his face. Both hands are on his shoulders and he’s given up all propriety, hasn’t he, as they kiss and kiss and kiss . Every time Rhodey comes back from deployment, he is a new man.
‘God, I love you.’
‘God, I missed you.’ Rhodey catches Tony’s hand, clasping them together and weaving through the airport.
Catching up isn’t hard with all of the emailing and talking they do. Tony talks about his projects, Obie. The new assistant, Pepper Potts. ‘Already a nickname?’ Rhodey teases, and Tony shoves him.
They kiss again until they’re breathless, still holding hands. Tony loves it, but- But.
He’s looking forward to the tradition. And Rhodey is, too. They open the door and get the stuff put away. Slowly, Rhodey kisses him again. ‘How are you, honey?’ The nickname is unexpected, but Tony takes it in stride.
‘Good, darling.’ He kisses a patch of gnarled skin on Rhodey’s shoulder, watching the scar fade under his lips. It’s a rush. They exchange them, the kisses. One for Tony’s finger, that he nicked on a blade, one for where Rhodey landed on his knees and scraped it up. Another one on Rhodey’s cheek, where a tree branch left a long scratch.
‘Did you make the bed?’ Rhodey murmurs, eyes dark and fond.
‘With clean sheets,’ Tony whispers back, pleased with the smile he gets out of his soulmate.
‘I’m wiped.’
Tony smiles slowly. ‘I’m guessing. Pajamas and bed?’ Rhodey hums, following him to the bedroom. Everything is where he left it. It leaves a warm feeling in Tony’s heart.
The morning brings him a few emails and phone calls from Obie, a cup of coffee. The workshop waits for no man, no matter how much he wants a lazy morning with his soulmate. He stops for a second to stare at angel-face sleeping silently in bed before ghosting away to sit in the lab, taking in the morning with his coffee. ‘Projects, J,’ he says.
God. He wipes a hand over his face, but there is still no luck. He can’t stop smiling. Goddamn it. ‘The first few emails concern the bugs our chemical engineering team has identified in the Jupiter bomb....’ he drones, soothing and familiar.
Tony loses himself in the work. Hyperfocused on nothing but the holograms in front of him, he jumps when he feels a soft palm, worn by hard work, take his hand. ‘Tony,’ Rhodey says gently, twirling his stool around to kiss him on the lips, again.
“Rhodey.’
With a steady and familiar hand, Tony’s soulmate kisses a few more scars on his hands away. Random things- a broken beaker, Dummy playing with fire, a little burn here and there. It’s Rhodey’s first day home, and already half of what he remembers there is gone.