Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first time Agent Stone accompanied Doctor Robotnik on a business trip was full of surprises.

The first surprise he learned about when they arrived at the front desk of the hotel they’d be staying at. The doctor checked in, not yet trusting Stone with their travel arrangements, and received a total of five key cards for their party of six. He checked the room numbers and handed four of the cards for his bodyguards to pass around, leaving him and Stone with just one. In short, the two of them were sharing a room.

Stone supposed it was because he was the doctor's personal assistant, not just a bodyguard like the others, so he needed to be closer at hand. It was kind of flattering to be trusted to exist in the same space as the doctor in a more relaxed setting, possibly even witness him sleeping.

The second surprise awaited him in their shared room.

"Um", he said eloquently, once he set down their luggage and had the time to look at the room properly and confirm that no, there was no second bed lurking out of view anywhere. "Doctor, are you certain we didn't mix rooms with one of your bodyguards?"

Robotnik paused in the middle of taking off his coat to give Stone a thoroughly unimpressed look. "I don't make mistakes, Stone. You'd do well to use the limited storage capacity of your itsy bitsy brain to retain that piece of information for future reference."

Yeah, he deserved that one. It didn't dispel the confusion though. "Filed away, sir. However, it has come to my notice that there is only one bed in this room. Won't that be an issue?"

Robotnik's unimpressed look didn't waver in the slightest, until he rolled his eyes and finished the task of putting away his coat. He took off his shoes, gave a few commands to the singular active badnik in the room, then took off his control gloves as well and stuffed them in his coat pocket. Only then did he turn back to Stone.

Time for the third surprise.

"What you see as an issue is a completely deliberate choice made by me", he said, walked over to his suitcase, opened it up, and started taking out various items. New clothes were laid out on a chair, a small red hygiene products bag was set aside, a rainbow coloured pill organizer was set on the counter, and so forth. "By now you should know how I am about people touching me. However, human beings have this inconvenient need to be touched or else they start malfunctioning. It's a waste of time, social batteries, and tolerance to allow for such a thing on a daily basis, so to save myself the hassle, we'll be taking care of that overnight while we're here."

Robotnik ended his explanation there, like everything was now nice and clear.

Everything was not nice and clear in Stone's opinion. His face felt hot, his heart was trying to beat its way out of his chest, and his brain was packing its bags to leave for a holiday in Puerto Rico – it was wearing a tacky sun hat and massive sunglasses.

He was 100% sure this was not in his job description, and while Doctor Robotnik was rather unfairly attractive to the point where Stone was almost certain he'd end up in trouble with his heart sooner or later, he kind of had objections to the suddenness of this. And the fact that his consent had been assumed rather than asked for beforehand.

"I… uh…" he really, really didn't do well with his articulation today.

Robotnik turned to look at him again, and after reading what had to be very plainly written on Stone's red face, his expression went from neutral to a sneer immediately. With a snarl he stalked over to Stone and jabbed a finger on his chest while invading his personal space. "Stop with the filthy, depraved thoughts right this instant. We will absolutely not be engaging in any disgusting human copulating here! That will never be on the table, no matter the circumstances. What I had in mind was platonic, non-intimate holding of one another, but if you cannot keep your vitiated mind out of the proverbial gutter, you're spending your night in a bodybag with the rest of the trash this hotel produces."

Stone was nodding along long before he finished processing the doctor's words, ready to agree with just about anything to lessen the ire directed at him and alleviate the clear discomfort Robotnik was just about radiating and failing to hide behind the anger.

Only after Robotnik pulled back a little to continue glaring at him did Stone have the time and space to review the words.

No sexual expectations then. In fact, Stone went ahead and tentatively labeled the doctor as asexual for now, vowing to come back to that thought later with better time. What was actually supposed to happen was… cuddles? Yes, the gist of the tirade sounded a lot like sleeping in each other's arms.

It was unorthodox, not in his work contract, and probably should warrant some kind of a word with HR, but Stone found that he didn't mind. In fact, the longer he thought about it, the more he accepted the idea. It had been a while since he had cuddled with anyone, and Robotnik could honestly use some TLC to destress. It could be nice.

Yeah, he could work with this.

His shoulders relaxed and he gave a smile at the glaring doctor. "Alright, doctor. Do you want to be the big spoon or the little spoon?"

The tension in Robotnik's frame dissipated and his glare eased. He gave Stone one more slightly suspicious look, then whirled around to return to his unpacking. "You'll have to earn the right to be the big spoon with time, agent."

Stone's smile widened, but he carefully kept the need to chuckle at bay and instead went to see about his own suitcase.

-----

Light late dinner consumed, teeth brushed, pajamas donned, and Stone was more than ready to hit the hay and catch some z's so he could be up bright and early for tomorrow morning's meetings. The doctor was still tapping away at his travel tablet at the small table, but seemed to be just about done too, judging from his posture and the frequency of the typing – it sounded like last minute corrections rather than producing new text.

The badnik followed Stone to the bed and scanned the nightstand after he set his phone down, then hovered unsettlingly by the ceiling, its eye lens directed at him. Just as Stone was about to question the arrangement, Robotnik spoke.

"It'll keep watch so that you don't get up to any funny business while I'm asleep and vulnerable", he said, and turned off the tablet's screen. Stone was kind of offended, didn't they already have this talk? Robotnik stood up and turned towards him, eyebrow raised. "Trust but verify, agent. If you get up at night to use the bathroom or drink water, make sure to show the badnik your empty hands upon returning or it might assume you fetched a knife and vaporize you."

"Duly noted, sir", Stone said, offense replaced by exasperated amusement. Doctor Robotnik could be a paranoid bastard, which, considering how many bodyguards were assigned to him by the government, was probably warranted to some extent. Stone added 'not stalked by the badnik overnight' right next to 'getting to be the big spoon' on his list of future achievements that he hoped to one day unlock as trust milestones with the doctor.

Robotnik hit the lightswitch to turn off the ceiling lamp, then climbed onto the free side of the bed. He waited for Stone to click off the bedside lamp and settle down with his back to him, then shuffled closer under the blanket and tossed an arm around his stomach while the other curled against his back.

His hands were cold even through Stone's pajama top, the hold was all sorts of awkward, and he clearly didn't quite know where to place his head other than generally on the pillow. Regardless, Stone took a deep breath and sighed slowly to release the tension on his own muscles, curled his legs in a little, and took a tentative hold of Robotnik's hand over his stomach. The fingers twitched, but settled back down, accepting the hold. After a moment of tense silence from behind him, Stone felt Robotnik move a little closer again; he slotted his legs into the curve Stone had left for him, brought his chest flush against Stone's back, and lightly pressed his face to the back of Stone's neck. Finally feeling they were both more or less comfortable, Stone closed his eyes and smiled into the darkness.

"Good night, doctor."

There was a nonsense mutter mumbled into his neck that Stone chose to interpret as a reluctant reciprocation. His smile widened momentarily, before he slowly but surely willed his body to sleep, like a good agent used to sleeping on command.

It was nice to be cuddled, if he was honest, even if it was by his cranky superior.

Come morning, he had to carefully pry himself from Robotnik's very, very snug hold to get ready for the day while letting the much-less-morning-happy doctor sleep a little longer. The awkwardness of the previous night was not present, and the doctor seemed in a remarkably good mood, so Stone marked himself down to happily doing this arrangement again in the future.

A little platonic cuddle with one's boss never hurt anyone, right?

Chapter Text

Every overnight business trip or remote mission involved nightly cuddling these days. There weren't very many of them, as most of Doctor Robotnik's work could be done remotely or the mandatory meetings and frankly pointless presentations were held at the Virginia headquarters, but every now and then travel was a necessary evil.

What had changed between the last trip and the current one was that Stone had found himself holding the doctor in a different regard. As in, he now had a massive, soul consuming, heart palpitations inducing crush on the man, and that was terrifying.

As he dragged their luggage in, he forced himself to remember the doctor's words from the very first time they had had this arrangement: purely platonic. Non-intimate.

While the focus had been on Stone keeping his hands to himself and his pants untented, surely that included romantic notions too.

The problem was, while the doctor's asexuality and downright repulsion to anything sexual was easy to respect, it was much harder to fight one's romantic feelings. Sure, he would not try to kiss the doctor. He would not run his hands through his hair. He would not gently rub his stomach – he had earned big spoon rights! – or his chest or link their fingers. But he had no doubt his own traitorous heart would race and his face would turn colours and he would so badly want to do all the forbidden things.

It was going to be sweet, sweet torture and Stone wasn't sure if his heart would be able to take it.

His brain felt like it was made out of lukewarm porridge or some other similarly textured and equally useless substance as he mechanically unpacked the doctor's suitcase for him. Clothes in the wardrobe to avoid wrinkles. Pill organizer on the table next to a glass of water so the doctor would remember to take his medications first thing in the morning. His work tablet next to it. Hygiene products bag in the bathroom. The toolkit could stay in the suitcase. The scissors, water bottle, and bomb materials that the doctor kept in the suitcase to spite the entire aviation industry while showing his government pass to avoid all luggage checks could also stay where they were.

"Stone, remind me to slip laxatives to Major Torres' coffee before the first meeting tomorrow", Robotnik said, sitting at the small dining table and glaring at his phone. "In fact, going to the drug store and buying a packet will be your first job of the day when you wake up at ungodly hours like usual and have all the spare time in the world."

"He wants last minute changes to something again?" Stone asked, glad for the distraction. He started unpacking his own suitcase.

"Of course he does, and he assumes I'll be spending tonight 'whippin' it together real quick' for him. He assumes wrong. Do you suppose someone else would pick up the funding for the project if he went mysteriously missing overnight?"

"I'm sure they would, but you'd be high on the list of suspects and we don't need an investigation disrupting your work, especially over someone that worthless."

"Hm. I'll take that into consideration, meaning you're still on laxative duty in the morning as Plan B", Robotnik said with an amused smirk that made Stone's heart hop on a trampoline and try to impress the metaphorical audience with the sick flips it could perform.

“Noted”, he replied, and set his suitcase aside. “Any plans for what little evening there’s left?”

“I was going to go over my files for tomorrow’s meetings, but Major Torres just made sure it’s at the very bottom of my busy schedule, so I think I’ll use my invaluable time on solving sudokus or doing crossword puzzles instead”, Robotnik said with a decidedly evil hum as he pushed the tablet further away from himself and pulled up a list of mobile phone apps instead.

The lengths this man was willing to go to spite someone. Stone shook his head in amusement and decided that since they clearly had the night off, he could watch an episode or two of his current series.

He should have plenty of time for a romantic panic later.

-----

“The big spoon or the little spoon?” Stone asked as he slid between the sheets on his side, secretly hoping for the big spoon, because having Robotnik behind him gave him the least amount of options to feel tempted by.

“I have something different in mind for tonight", Robotnik said and put down his phone. Stone felt a mixture of dread and excitement pooling in his stomach like a heady cocktail. “On your back.”

Having no choice but to comply and pray, Stone shimmied down under the blanket and laid on his back, keeping his arms stiffly by his sides while waiting to see where this was going.

Robotnik turned off the lights and climbed in. He crawled over to Stone and draped himself over his chest. His head was tucked under Stone’s chin, one arm tossed over his chest and the other curled between them, and one of his legs situated itself over Stone’s thigh, shin going between his legs.

Stone’s brain sent him a postcard from Puerto Rico. It said “lmfao, good luck!” and the stamp was a cartoon middle finger.

He knew he was supposed to wrap his arms around Robotnik, that’s how this position worked, but he was frozen on the spot. His heart was accepting apprentices for its circus; he was probably deafening the doctor with the ruckus it made, too. He was thankful his face was collecting all the blood in his circulation, that should at least keep it from gathering in an even worse spot.

“Stone, arms”, Robotnik said, clearly tired of waiting. At least he didn’t comment on the heartb- “And consider calming down, or do I need to drug you to lower your heart rate?”

He wanted the sweet release of death.

“Apologies, doctor.”

He wrapped his arms around Robotnik and gave him an apologetic squeeze that was sent straight into his own heart as well. Then he took a deep breath and released it slowly, doing his best to calm down for his doctor.

Robotnik hummed appreciatively, which promptly undid all his hard work. So, Stone took another calming breath and closed his eyes.

It was just cuddling. No feelings involved. Only sleeping. He was a trained agent who was (sometimes) capable of controlling his emotions (to an extent), he could do this. He just needed to keep his eyes closed, keep breathing calmly, not move a muscle, not think about how warm Robotnik was or how tender the horizontal embrace was, and he was not thinking about those last two things on his list, damn it!

Calm. Even breathing. Not moving. Robotnik’s hair was right under his nose and he could smell his shampoo. He wasn’t thinking about that. He was focusing on breathing very calmly.

He noticed he was drawing circles on Robotnik’s back and stopped it. Robotnik made a displeased noise so he resumed and earned a light squeeze to his side in return.

His heartbeat was calm, but sending an SOS signal. Thankfully his brain was sipping Piña Coladas, so the signal could be merrily ignored.

He was working very hard on keeping his hands right where they were and not letting them wander to any direction despite the movement he was apparently not only allowed, but in fact encouraged to do.

Robotnik sighed and shifted higher on his chest, nuzzling his face into Stone’s shoulder and then relaxing again.

Stone’s poor heart was writing its will, leaving everything to the doctor.

And one of his hands was now caressing Robotnik’s side, running up and down the entire length, while the other one was holding him close by his shoulders, fingers gently rubbing the spot they rested on.

The good news was, he wasn’t murdered for it.

The bad news was, he was pretty sure his soul escaped his body and that might negatively affect his work performance tomorrow.

Be that as it may, his breathing was calm and his heartbeat was under control, so he was winning this.

He kept up the good work until he was certain Robotnik was asleep, then he slowly forced his hands to stop moving and stay in their assigned spots like the good agent hands they were.

Now that the doctor wasn’t awake and potentially somehow reading his thoughts, he could let go.

He stared at the insides of his eyelids and contemplated how lucky he was to get to hold the man he had the biggest crush on like this. He had him right where he wanted him, even if the flavor of the situation wasn’t quite the one he wanted. And he’d get to do this again and again for as long as they worked together, probably.

Now that the doctor wasn’t going to see him, Stone let out a big, wide smile and sighed like the lovesick fool he was.

Come morning, none of this would be mentioned and Stone would slowly and carefully extricate himself from the doctor’s hold to go visit the drug store. It was how things had to be.

Chapter Text

It was a perfectly average day at Doctor Robotnik’s laboratory. No business trips, no missions, no field tests, nothing but staying at the lab and doing their regular, daily grind. Stone’s workday would be from ten to six, he’d do his usual everyday work, no meetings scheduled, no presentations, no visitors, no deadline crunches.

Simply a regular Thursday.

Except it was going to be anything but.

When Stone came in for the day, the lab smelled off in a way that was hard to define. Curiously, and slightly worried, he walked up to the big crossroad that divided the lab building into two distinct halves and sniffed the air, determining that the smell was coming from the left corridor, which meant the origin was likely the testing lab – or at least it had better be the testing lab and not the kitchen, because if it was the latter he would be having Words with the doctor. Upon entering the testing lab, he could immediately pinpoint the cause of the smell: the large steel-glass cabinet where the doctor tested various weapon proofnesses of his prototypes was covered in soot, metal bits, and chemical splatter. What that meant was that the machine he had worked on yesterday when Stone clocked out had exploded upon testing.

Stone cringed in sympathy; that was days of careful work gone up in smoke – and metal bits, and snapped wires – just like that. At least he hadn’t been here to bear the brunt of the yelling that undoubtedly followed.

Seeing that the doctor was no longer in the room, Stone went to look for him in the other labs, and after a couple of misses found him in the assembly lab.

The doctor looked like shit.

Robotnik was wearing the same clothes he did yesterday, right down to the shirt his lunch noodles had dripped little oily spots on. His hair was mussed up in a way it got when he ran his hands through it in frustration. His mustache was unkempt on the right side, where he worried at it while thinking. He had a five o’clock shadow. There was a discarded lab coat rumpled up on the floor in his general vicinity, with his control gloves tossed haphazardly on top of it. A badnik was hovering around, doing nothing useful. A machine that was used for bending metals into shapes was turned on, but doing nothing at all. The work desk the doctor was hunched over in a terrible posture was covered in parts that looked half-done or partially assembled, and there was an empty coffee mug sitting sideways dangerously near the edge, right next to an empty bag of skittles. A granola bar wrapper sat on the floor next to the trash can. The doctor himself was sluggishly attaching wires into what was probably the central unit of the unfinished machine. The bags under his eyes were more impressive than usual as he squinted at the wires.

Stone’s diagnosis: the doctor never clocked out and instead worked through the night without sleeping, probably to make up for the prototype exploding. Which meant he was roughly 25 or 26 hours awake now.

He was adorable, all scruffy like this, but it was time for an intervention.

“Good morning, doctor”, Stone said and walked briskly over. Robotnik startled despite him having been well within his peripheral vision.

“Stone! What have I said about the sneaking, are you trying to cause cardiac arrest?”

“Of course not, sir”, Stone replied with a smile. “In fact, I’m planning to reduce the probability. Are you at a point where you can leave your project unattended for a while?”

Robotnik squinted at him suspiciously. “...Yes, what are you on about?”

“Splendid!” Stone said, clapping his hands together and beaming at his boss. “You’ll be taking a nap in the break room, then afterwards I’ll cook you a nice breakfast and brew you a Vienna coffee while you take a shower.”

Robotnik gave him a death glare, and Stone was glad the doctor didn’t yet have the android body he planned to achieve immortality with, because that one would have lasers in the eyes and Stone would be dead.

“I’ll grate ruby chocolate on top of the whipped cream”, he said, using the ultimate trump card.

Robotnik growled, actually growled at him, and stood up. He stomped the couple of steps over to Stone and grabbed a hold of his tie to pull his head further down for maximum looming, hopefully not crumpling the tie beyond ironing. “I should fire your sorry behind for bribing your superior! You’re lucky your coffees are beyond delicious!”

Stone beamed at him some more, and habitually ignored the funny feelings the tie pulling stirred within him. “That a yes for a nap?”

“I will run you through a meat grinder and have you served in the cafeteria on hamburger day”, Robotnik hissed, then let go of him. “Fine. We will take a nap, come on.”

Stone straightened up and jogged after the doctor while fixing his tie, and then the wording caught up with him. “Wait. We?”

Robotnik kept making his way through the hallways and into the panic-room-turned-break-room. Upon entering, he pointed at the convertible sofa. “Pull out the expansion.”

Stone pulled out the mattress expansion while the doctor rummaged through the cabinet for a pillow and a throw blanket that he tossed unceremoniously on the sofa. Then he walked over to Stone and started undoing his suit jacket. Stone almost stepped back in alarm, and the twitch made Robotnik look up at him with a raised eyebrow. “You’re not going to be wearing a jacket and a tie, I want to achieve some modicum of comfort.”

Stone’s face felt hot, but thankfully the doctor ignored it and continued his ministrations unbothered. Stone helplessly shrugged the jacket off and dropped it on the coffee table next to the sofa, where his tie joined it in short order.

“On your back.”

Oh no.

Stone obediently fluffed up the pillow and laid down on his back. He didn’t get a chance to make any attempt to calm his breathing or his hammering heart when Robotnik already flopped on top of him and made himself comfortable. His mussed up hair tickled Stone’s jaw as he wiggled around until he was satisfied with his position. Stone had very platonic feelings about it.

“Blanket and arms”, Robotnik said, which was actually a very necessary command, because Stone did not feel like a particularly competent agent right then and needed all the guidance he could get. In his defense, it was hard to think if your brain only ever sent you rude postcards from foreign lands instead of being there for you.

He pulled the blanket over them to his best ability, and then wrapped his arms around the doctor. At least his arms knew what was expected of them, because quite without any conscious input from his traitorous – and absent! – brain, he started running his hands up and down Robotnik’s back in slow, deep strokes. He was rewarded with an equally deep, appreciative hum for his troubles. It reverbated in his lungs and went straight gay into his heart and made him feel choked up.

“Wake me up in 90 minutes”, Robotnik muttered.

Stone looked at the clock on the wall to verify the time, then swallowed in an attempt to moisten up his throat to hopefully produce a voice to use. “Yes, sir.”

A croaky voice was still a voice.

There was near silence in the room for a moment, with only Stone’s heart, the second hand on the clock, and Robotnik’s slow breathing cutting into it. Then-

“Stone?” Robotnik mumbled, voice sounding gravelly, more asleep than awake. Stone knew for a fact that the doctor didn’t sleep talk though, so this was him still being somewhat awake. He made an inquiring hum, not wanting to disturb him any more than he had to, and he also didn’t trust his voice a single bit anymore.

“I want to sleep like this every night. Move in with me.”

Okay, that bit about platonic feelings? That was a lie. Stone was having very romantic, very gay, and very Robotnik specific feelings. He was having a lot of them.

But he also had boundaries to draw for his own sanity’s sake.

He was going to have to live with his voice being whatever the hell it was, because he needed words right then.

“DoCTor-” okay, the voice crack was just embarrassing, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “I’m afraid moving in with someone for nightly cuddles is reserved for romantic partnerships only.”

He hated himself. How dare he look into the gift horse’s mouth. The doctor was going to rip him a new one, for that matter. He didn’t like being told no.

“Hm. Remind me to propose to you when I wake up, then.”

Stone’s mind went blank. Robotnik did not just say that. He did not. Stone imagined it. There was no way those words left the doctor’s very kissable lips. Or if they did, then it was the sleep deprivation speaking. Either way, the doctor didn't mean them.

“Doctor?”

No answer. Only slow breathing, limp muscles, and warmth.

Stone wanted to scream and shake the sleeping doctor, but he did neither. Instead he looked at the clock to confirm the time like a good assistant and then proceeded to listen to his empty head go AAAAAA for ninety minutes.

Chapter Text

Exactly ninety minutes later Stone gently tapped Robotnik’s back with both hands. “Doctor, it’s been ninety minutes, time to wake up.”

He felt remarkably calm. A good hour and a half of agitated thinking while holding one’s crush in one’s arms and not being allowed to go anywhere, move much or make any noise did wonders to tiring the panicky side of one’s (vacationing) brain out. Stone felt much more like a functional human being again, which he rather thought he needed to be in order to survive the inevitable conversation that was lurking just around the corner.

In fact, he was feeling cautiously hopeful about the entire thing now, because while the doctor had certainly been a bit sleep-delirious, he wasn’t in the habit of saying nice things without meaning them. Idle vitriol or threats? A daily occurrence. But compliments, positive remarks or plans to follow up on an idea? Those he meant. This in turn meant that Stone had to talk him out of sudden marriage proposals and see if he’d be interested in dating instead.

There were many things about that thought that made Stone wonder what his life even was, how it got like this, and which deity he should be offering his eternal servitude to.

Robotnik made a little “hmmng” noise that had Stone smiling widely and his heart burning brightly, and then Robotnik stretched his shoulder blades back for a second and popped his neck, but made no move to get up yet.

This was actually the first time Stone was still in the bed when the doctor awoke. At the hotels he always sneaked out of the bed to go for an early morning run, take a shower, and order breakfast before Robotnik even woke up. This was rather a novelty.

He idly stroked the doctor’s back with one hand, curious if it would still be allowed after the sleeping was over.

“Are you trying to put me back to sleep, Stone?” Robotnik asked, voice gruff. He lifted a hand from Stone’s side and rubbed his own eyes, yawning as he did. Stone wanted to embrace him and never let him go.

“I’ll stop if-”

“No.”

Stone continued stroking the doctor’s back, smiling. “Alright. How about a little chat while we’re here?”

“Mmh. You promised me breakfast, although the time being what it is I guess it would be brunch. I want an omelet. Parmesan and fresh herbs. Maybe tomatoes. Do we have any mushrooms left?”

“There’s a single large one left, but I’ll need to check if it’s still good. Do you want a garlic baguette to go with the omelet?”

“Are you stupid? Of course I want one, have I ever not wanted one?”

“My bad, sir. Did you take your meds at any point this morning?”

“...That explains a few things I chalked up to sleep deprivation. The emergency stash is in the mobile lab.”

“I’ll get them the first thing, sir.”

“What kind of a ring do you want? Material, gemstones, width?”

The conversational whiplash had Stone accidentally twitching his fingers in a sudden movement that made Robotnik jump a little and then shift up to his elbows to glare at him.

“Sorry, doctor”, Stone said, and was extremely aware of how close their faces were. Mind you, he had been here before, but usually the topic was his many failings as an agent, assistant, and human being, not marriage. He cleared his throat and hoped his face wasn’t as brightly coloured as it felt like. “I don’t want a ring at this time, sir. I think marriage would be jumping the gun.”

Robotnik narrowed his eyes, looking vaguely offended, and sat up properly. On top of Stone. Straddling his waist. This did not help Stone’s face colour problems, thought coherency, or composure.

“You’re turning me down?” Robotnik asked, and crossed his arms. He actually sounded a bit hurt. Or like his pride was wounded? Or maybe he was insecure? Stone hadn’t seen the doctor display any of those feelings before, so it was hard to judge. Regardless, the feeling there was a bad one and he needed to course correct, stat.

“Not turning you down, no. Only the marriage proposal. I’d be happy to date you and then move in with you if it works out”, he said, gesturing with his hands and then not knowing where to put them after. He awkwardly settled them on his stomach, all too aware of the fact that the doctor was following them with his eyes.

“Dating is a waste of time, I’m not going to change my mind”, Robotnik said, uncrossed his arms, and grabbed Stone’s hands. He placed them on his knees, then let go and crossed his arms again. Stone rubbed the knees with his thumbs and did his best to pretend this was an everyday occurrence. At least the doctor couldn’t be too wounded if touch was still both welcome and mandatory.

“About dating?”

“Don’t be obtuse; about you”, Robotnik said, uncrossing his arms to poke Stone’s chest. “If you’re always within my reach, I’ll never have to voluntarily touch anyone else again to satisfy the needs of my flesh prison. I hate physical contact, and I loathe touch initiated by other people even more than reaching out myself, but I like touching and being touched by you. Perhaps it’s because I’ve grown used to it by now or maybe it’s because you only ever touch me when it’s permitted. Regardless of the reason, your touch has gone from repulsive to enjoyable, so if a romantic relationship is required to secure permanent access, I will do it.”

That was simultaneously the least romantic come-on Stone had ever experienced and the sweetest thing the doctor had ever said to him.

He adjusted his assessment of Robotnik’s orientation from vaguely asexual to probably aromantic asexual. This surprised him a lot less than he expected. It also disappointed him a lot less than he would have thought – if he had been told point blank about it when he met Robotnik, he probably would have given up any romantic notions from the start like he did with straight men. As it was, he was being offered a romantic relationship despite the doctor’s interest seeming to start and end with ‘un-gross touches’, and he found himself completely fine with the concept.

He did want clarification on the boundaries, however.

“May I kiss you?”

Robotnik looked surprised. His gaze dropped to Stone’s lips, a little frown appeared, then he made a face (Stone tried to not take it personally), then he seemed to wrestle his expression back to neutral, and finally he looked Stone in the eyes again. “Not on the lips, but otherwise permission granted.”

It was too bad Robotnik was sitting on Stone’s waist, because he really would have liked to take him up on his offer immediately. “Only when we’re cuddling or are other times acceptable as well? Obviously only when we’re alone and you’re not actively busy.”

“Ask me. Either with words or with a gesture.”

“Come down here now?”

Robotnik spent several very loudly ticking seconds just staring at him with an unreadable expression, then he put his hands on both sides of Stone’s head and bent forward to where Stone could reach him. Stone’s hands immediately abandoned his knees and wrapped loosely around his shoulders instead as he pressed a tentative kiss on Robotnik’s cheek, then another one on his mussed up mustache, and one more on the side of his jaw. Upon making eye contact with the doctor again he saw wide brown eyes staring at him in astonishment. He wondered if anyone had ever kissed Robotnik like that before, or if it had just been so long he had forgotten what it was like. Or maybe he had hated it before. Regardless, it was now Stone’s personal goal to kiss the doctor so often he got so used to it that he could no longer live without.

Robotnik’s eyes flitted around Stone’s face, then he leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss high on his cheek and pulled back up to a sitting position – Stone’s hands dropped to the sides – looking… self-conscious maybe? Some vague flavor of embarrassment or awkwardness anyway. It was absolutely precious and the smile on Stone’s face was so wide it almost hurt.

“...I was promised brunch”, Robotnik said, averting his eyes and scrambling gracelessly off of Stone. A tactical retreat, if you may.

Stone looked forward to the day when Robotnik would give him kisses with his usual confidence and dominance. In the meanwhile, he was going to enjoy the hell out of this shy and unsure doctor. He would never be able to use those words out loud or he would definitely end up in the meat grinder and be served to his co-workers, but he could think them in the privacy of his own head. At least when the doctor wasn’t looking at him and reading his thoughts from his face.

“Right on, sir. We can discuss the moving in as you eat.”

“And the ring.”

“Not happening, ask again after a year or so.”

It didn’t take a year.

Chapter Text

Stone woke up at his usual time, two minutes to seven, without any aid from alarm clocks. Not that he had an alarm set for that time anymore, since his work started at ten to accommodate the doctor’s hatred for mornings, but years of habit and him being a morning person were hard to train out of.

Stone stretched as much as he could while being weighed down by Robotnik sleeping on his chest, then looked down at him with a fond smile. As usual, the doctor had his head tucked under Stone’s chin, was holding him loosely around the chest, and had their legs all tangled up together. He had not so much as stirred by Stone’s movements, so used to this arrangement by now.

Stone observed the sleeping doctor’s mess of a hair in the morning sun that was peeking in through the small gaps in the venetian blinds. He could see hints of auburn red at the roots and mentally added black hair dye to the shopping list. Why Robotnik hated his natural hair colour was a mystery to Stone, but he looked forward to helping him with the dyeing process anyway.

His smile widened at the idea and he felt a surge of pure affection rise within his chest. Without thinking too hard about it, he gathered the sleeping doctor in his arms and gave him a big squeeze, burying his nose in the secretly reddish hair and inhaling his lungs full of Robotnik’s scent.

“I swear to all things holy, if it’s seven in the morning again I will fucking strangle you”, came a gravelly mutter from Robotnik, who seemed to be less asleep now.

Stone dropped a kiss on his hair. “Sorry, Ivo. I couldn’t help it, I just love you so much it’s hard to bear.”

Robotnik let out a long suffering sigh. “I can’t believe I’m actively encouraging this kind of behavior. Is it too late to back out?”

“Entirely too late, you’re stuck with me for good. I’ll bake you banana-cinnamon muffins for breakfast to make up for this.”

“Acceptable”, Robotnik said and pressed a tired kiss on Stone’s jaw. “Now get out of the bed, I’m going back to sleep.”

Despite his words, Robotnik’s arms and legs wound tighter around Stone. He chuckled, heart feeling warm and light enough to rival the sun. “I can’t get out if you cling to me like a baby koala.”

“Sounds like a you problem.”

Stone stayed in the bed for ten more minutes, until Robotnik was fast asleep again and his hold loosened. Not that he was complaining.

-----

“Stone, come here!” said the lab’s announcements system.

Stone finished the sentence he had been typing in the email that would hopefully excuse the two of them from attending a completely pointless meeting, and left the rest of it for later. He stretched his arms above his head and popped his neck, got up from his comfortable office chair and made his way to the projects garage, where he had seen the doctor last.

Immediately upon entering he was pulled snug to the doctor’s side, and marched over to The Prototype.

Robotnik looked ecstatic as he gestured one-handedly at the finally finished single person jet-adjacent flying vehicle, talking a mile a minute in science jargon. It was a mostly white sci-fi spaceship looking thing that had these circular not-wings that would somehow keep it airborne via technology that Stone couldn’t even begin to comprehend. As a side note, he hoped he’d never be asked to describe it out loud to anyone, because if the doctor heard his complete failure at using the proper technical terms and instead using words like “not-wings”, he’d be fired so thoroughly that he’d never find employment again.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Robotnik asked, done with the complicated language, beaming so hard Stone could have counted his teeth. It was breathtaking.

“Very beautiful, sir.”

Robotnik grabbed him by his shoulders and shook him, radiating manic energy that he was clearly having a hard time channeling or containing. “Yes, she is! I only need a few stability tests to make absolutely sure she can still carry the weight of the weaponry when the missiles and ammo are loaded, and then she’s ready for a test flight outdoors! Outdoors, Imad! Not just in the lab!”

Stone laughed elatedly; the doctor’s happiness was very contagious. That, and he just called Stone by his first name while at work, which they had agreed not to do in order to keep up a professional image. It was doing devastating things to Stone’s heart.

Robotnik joined him in the laughter for a moment, then pulled him closer and unexpectedly peppered his face with kisses before hugging him hard and swaying them from side to side, still vibrating with sheer energy.

Stone’s heart swelled with love as he returned the enthusiastic embrace. If he had ever doubted Robotnik’s affections for him, whatever their specific nuance was, he could definitely lay those doubts to rest. If Robotnik’s first instinct upon being this happy was to call Stone in and kiss him like that, it had to be love of some kind.

“Let’s dance!”

No doubt.