Work Text:
Stone makes his way down the hall towards the lab, he thought that it was weird when ivo sent him home early yesterday considering hes normally asked to stay back to finish up some extra work.
He stopped just outside of the lab door it was quite, quite..., too quite stone traded the hand that was holding the coffee so that it could be over his gun holster instead, this wasnt normal.
Its never quite especially in the mornings it felt weird, no not weird it felt wrong.
He took that step closer to the lab door watching as it hissed open exposing a dark lab, nothing powered up, no badniks floating around, nothing.
he walked up to the console and placed the cup down in its normal spot, pacing up and down the floor for a moment but finding nothing out of place.
It was weird and he didnt like it, it was quite at first, like a hum that was constantly changing frequency.
He started to make his way to the sound curious to why it was taking me to the storage area, he was the only one besides the badniks to come this far and deep into the lab, not even ivo came this far.
The corner was dark all the black shelving seemed to merge together, the humming was definitely coming from there but why and from what.
He grabbed a small light that barely lit the room and sat it turned on, on the shelf taking another look around the dimly lit room.
There, thats what the humming is and where its coming from. On the floor in the furthest corner...
"Sir?" He questioned carefully making his way closer, robotnik was there knees to his chest, head resting on top and one hand gripping what stone recognised as the small stress ball that normally sat on the far side of the console.
He had headphones on and thats were the humming was coming from, stone gently and carefully walked up kneeling in front of the older man.
"Sir..?" He wasn't entirely sure what to do hes never seen ivo like this before, ivos hand was mechanically squeezing and releasing the ball.
This was weird.
He reached his hand out taking ivos in his, he felt as the hand stopped squeezing.
Ivo lifted his head in a quick moment causing him to hit the back of his head on the shelf but he didnt yell, didnt even curse.
He looked up making eye contact with stone and removing his headphones with his free hand "stone..? What time is it" he glanced around slightly.
"7am sir, are you okay" his voice was calm, quiet ivo stared for a moment before dropping his head back to his knees not even shaking stones hand away from his.
"Yes. No. Maybe?" His voice was unsure the complete opposite to how it normally was.
Stone took a moment to think before everything clicked into place when being assigned here and making a couple weeks walters had mentioned something about 'a special ability that made him different' he had a disability.
'Anxiety? no maybe not, its not ADHD' stone thought to his observing the man infront of him before he smiled.
"Sir" he started sitting in front of his crossing his legs "your okay" a whispered sweetly.
"I cant work it out... its not going the way its supposed to" ivos voice was muffled as he spoke into his legs.
"Thats okay how about we look at it *together* and see if we can fix it" stone smiled as ivo looked up at him before nodding.
stone got to his feet, felting ivo up and leading him to the main room by his hand, booting up all the computers and taking a seat in the spare chair, ivo taking his own.
Ivo sipped his now luke warm coffee as they sat at the console working through the coding problem, they wont even mention how their hands stayed intertwined together the whole time.
Now when ivo gets that overwhelming feeling or something stops working he walks up to stone pulling him by the hand to the thing that isnt working so stone can help him fix it- or help as much as he can with one hand, even if at public meetings and conferences sometimes ivo will find stone in the crowd despite him never being far away and quietly and discretely intertwine their fingers together until that pressing feeling in his chest is gone.