Work Text:
The thing about being a genius was that sometimes you knew things you didn't want to know. And sometimes, your mind ran so many circles around itself that it hid certain truths away and fabricated new ones.
When Ivo Robotnik coughed up a purple rose petal, he knew exactly what it meant. It was like when he looked at a math problem and the answer popped into his mind before he even had time to do the calculations.
But it was also like when his eyes darted down to the end of a paragraph before he’d finished reading the words in between. His conscious mind and unconscious mind warred with each other to allow himself to understand the full picture.
Robotnik was not stupid by any definition of the word, but the way he knew the answer and simultaneously blocked it out of his mind led to some pretty brainless decision making.
When he coughed up the second petal, he threw himself into researching a cure. There were experimental studies, but reading through them he could tell that they were destined for failure. Man had been trying to solve this problem with science since the disease had been discovered.
No luck so far.
Though they had never had such a brilliant mind as Doctor Ivo Robotnik on their side. Perhaps he could change the tide. How incredible would it be to cure the incurable? His name would be synonymous with genius in a concrete way that it currently wasn’t to the general public.
By the fourth petal, he was beginning to think that even he couldn’t fix this.
The fifth petal had him wondering if perhaps there was something else wrong with him. After all, he wasn’t in love with anyone, how could he possibly be suffering from unrequited love?
The sixth petal had him researching doctors who could perform the surgery. Even though there had obviously been some kind of cosmic mistake, he needed to get these stupid fucking roses out of him.
When he coughed up a rosebud, a thought occurred to him. A horrible thought. One that had him discarding all thoughts of the surgery. Could he be suffering from the World’s First object related Hanahaki?
The only thing in this world he cared about was his babies, after all. His mechanical creations. His robotic children. His beautiful little badniks. Of course they couldn't love him, they were machines. That's what he loved about them.
There was no cure to be found. If there was, he would have found it by now. And the thing he loved could not ever return his affection.
The last straw was when he coughed up a full, bloodied, purple rose bloom. He looked down at the flower with disgust. Though after a moment he picked it up and studied it as he thought about his impending doom. No, he couldn’t live like this. But he couldn’t live without his love of machines either. It was the only thing that gave him purpose.
He stood up suddenly, crushing the rose in his fist before throwing it to the ground. His mind raced with increasingly dark thoughts. He imagined what it would be like to cough up more and more flowers until he was choking. He wanted to throw up at just the thought of how much blood he'd have in his mouth. He wanted to rip the flowers out with his bare hands. Perhaps his lungs along with it.
No, he had to do something.
He took the fire axe out of its case on the wall and gripped it tightly. “Daddy is so sorry.” He said mournfully. He then swung the axe down hard on one of his badniks. It sent a pang through his chest to hear the distorted little noise it made.
Over and over he swung the axe, leaving in his wake nothing but carnage. He didn't stop until the bodies of all his beloveds littered the floor of the lab and he finally collapsed. To his left he heard a quiet beep and when he turned there was a flicker of a red optic light. It beeped again, long and drawn out. It sounded like it was in pain, though he knew that wasn't possible. “Oh, my baby. I'm so sorry.” He put a hand on the poor thing and watched the red light continue to flicker as it got dimmer and dimmer.
He coughed, and suddenly there were petals in his mouth and a coppery taste on his tongue that he abhorred.
He spat them out and looked down in horror at the irrefutable evidence that it was all for naught.
“No.” He looked around at all his perfect machines that he had destroyed and tears welled up in his eyes. “What have I done?”
When Stone walked into the lab and saw badniks laying murdered on the floor, he quickly set down the Doctor's latte and drew his gun. He crept further into the lab, stepping over the bodies of brutally dismantled machines and searching for any sign of the intruder. Instead, he found only his Doctor, hunched over a badnik that somehow seemed to have survived, at least for the time being. But Stone could tell it wasn’t in the greatest shape.
“Doctor!” He ran over to the Doctor’s side and put his gun away before kneeling down to his level. “Are you okay? What happened?” He quickly assessed if Robotnik was injured, and found that he seemed to be without a scratch. Then, as he took the scene in more thoroughly, his eyes settled first on the bloody petals, then on the axe beside him. “Doctor?” He looked to the man’s face and found there were tears slipping down his cheeks.
“I killed them.” Robotnik’s voice wavered as he looked down at the poor badnik whose light was going out and he stroked its head. “I thought it would fix me. Nothing else can, but it didn’t work.” He finally looked at Stone. “I’m going to die, Stone. Though it’s probably for the best. I don’t know if I can live with myself after what I’ve done to my babies.”
Stone was always grateful for his quick thinking, as it was one of the only things that allowed him to keep up with Robotnik. He was especially grateful for it now as he had to process a lot in a very short amount of time. His Doctor had Hanahaki, had been keeping it a secret from him, and had assumed that somehow it was because he was in love with his machines. “Doctor…” He had to be very careful here. He reached up a hand to very gently wipe the tears from his Doctor’s cheeks with his thumb. “Is there any chance that perhaps this isn’t about your badniks?”
“What else would it be about?” Robotnik snapped, slapping away Stone’s hand.
“Of course, Doctor. My mistake.” Stone got up and took the axe with him. He quickly went back to the entrance where he'd left the Doctor's latte. He left the axe there, back in its case and grabbed the coffee as well as their special Badnik Repair on the Go toolbox before he settled down on the floor beside his Doctor. “Your latte, sir.” He set it within Robotnik's reach before he got to work opening up the nearest badnik. They were all in extremely poor condition, but there was nothing he and his Doctor couldn't fix.
“What are you doing?” Robotnik accused, though he still reached for his coffee. If he was going to die in the next few weeks, he was going to enjoy all the lattes he had left.
“Waiting for you to realize I've been in love with you this whole time. Sir.” Stone said, not looking up from the badnik. It was a risk, but what did he have to lose? If he was wrong, his Doctor was going to die. If he was right? Well, then his Doctor would be fine.
“What?” Robotnik froze. Certainly he’d heard that wrong, right? “Stone, this is no time for jokes.”
“I’m afraid I’m not joking. I thought it was rather obvious. If you don’t believe me you can take off that lid and look at your latte.” He had drawn a heart in the foam, like he did every time. Only because he’d be covering it up, of course. But now there was no time for subtle gestures and stolen glances. It had to be everything he had, laid out in the open with the hope that it was what his Doctor needed.
Robotnik took off the lid and stared down at the heart he discovered there. Was this a magic trick? Had Stone somehow already known he had Hanahaki? At the very least, it was a sick and twisted joke.
“I love you, Doctor Ivo Robotnik. It is a pleasure to just be in your presence for me. It is an honor to be allowed to handle your babies, because I know how much you care for them. Every day I get to be here, with you, to witness your brilliance first hand, and I never forget how lucky I am for that. I know you have been hurt in the past, I’ve been there myself. But you know me, and you know I would never lie to you. Especially not about this.” He took a deep breath and met Robotnik’s eyes. “I would let you kill me, if you thought it would cure you.”
“You’re serious.” He sounded incredulous.
“Deadly.” Stone smiled.
“You love me.” The words sounded so foreign to him.
“I do.” Stone said solemnly. “Do you… love me?”
Robotnik paused, really looking at Stone for the first time since he’d gotten here. He was attractive, yes, but that was barely relevant. (It was very relavent.) What he was looking at right now was a man who was handling his tech with such care and such attention to detail that it made him feel weak. He trusted him completely with his babies, and that was like trusting him with his heart. Stone was so capable, and so intelligent that he was in a category of his own. Loyal to degrees that he hadn’t even believed possible, Stone would let him take his gun right now and put it to his forehead without even blinking. He wouldn’t, he never would, but the fact that Stone had put that option into his hands at all was enough. He didn’t want to lose Stone, not ever. “Yes.”
Stone beamed. “Then you're going to be okay.”
“That's it? What, no dramatic kiss, no apologies for almost being the thing that killed me, no passionate-”
Stone set the badnik in his lap aside and all but pounced on Ivo. He grabbed his Doctor by the back of the neck and pulled him in for a long, deep kiss. When he pulled away to catch his breath he grinned at Robotnik. “I wasn't sure if you'd want that sort of thing, or if you'd like things to mostly stay the same.”
“I think a lot of things are going to change for the better, Stone. But first, help me fix my poor babies.”
“Of course, Doctor. And then?”
“And then we have plenty of time to figure it out.”
“That sounds perfect.”