All I Want For Christmas

"Honey! I'm home!" Rhodey let his duffel bag fall to the floor and slammed the door behind him. Fresh out of a meeting with his higher-ups about Iron Man, he wanted nothing more than to crawl in bed with Tony and not get up for anything, up to and including the apocalypse. 

He froze instantly when Tony shouted, "Don't turn the lights on! In fact, turn around! It's not finished yet!" 

"Tones, baby, are you working on the remodel? Did you tear the wall out?" 

"Not quite. I'm almost done, I promise." The genius let out a strangled laugh. "You're turned around, right? Close your eyes too." 

"Can I guess what you're doing?" Rhodey tried. 

"Yeah, 'course, sugar plum." 

"You bought that stripper pole we talked about, and you're practicing your routine so you don't fall on your head." 

Tony laughed again. "No. Not even close." 

"Did you blow something up in the basement and destroy the floor in there?" 

"I've never done anything like that!" 

"MIT. Freshman year, Bexley hall? Does that ring a bell?"

"They should've renamed it Stark Hall after I had to pay for them to rebuild my room and finally fix the leaky roof and shitty plumbing." He sounded sad all of a sudden, broken down and reliving memories that he'd rather forget. 

Rhodey kicked himself mentally. "Can I come in, baby?" 

Something crashed to the floor. "Uh, yeah." He emerged from their living room, dressed in a button up shirt and rumpled trousers. The faint smell of pine clung to him as the soldier wrapped his arms around him and lifted his boyfriend off the floor. "Easy there, tiger!"  The hard shape of the arc reactor pressed against Rhodey's sternum; the gentle blue glow cast their shadows on the walls when they pulled apart.

Grabbing Rhodey's hand, Tony said quietly," I hope you like it." He reached his free hand up and flicked on the light switch. "Merry Christmas." 

A huge live tree dominated the space, covered in blown glass ornaments and silver tinsel and twinkling strands of lights. Even though every branch drooped downward under the weight of the decorations, the angel on top still touched the ceiling. Presents were already stacked halfway up the walls, clearly wrapped by Tony himself with careful precision. "Holy shit. It's perfect, Tones," he whispered reverently.  

"The angel was mom's. When we still tried for family Christmases, she always let me put it up there on top. She'd let the nanny do everything else except that. I don't have any of her other ornaments left. She had some Waterford crystal ones special made for her, but I ended up breaking most of them." Tony tucked himself against Rhodey's side, watching the lights with an odd half smile on his face. "She was not happy and in turn Howard got pissed..." 

"Baby..." 

"I miss them. Especially this time of year," he finally admitted after a long moment of silence. "We would go to Midnight Mass together. I loved the candles and trees and wreaths. And the carolers...I can still hear them singing Silent Night under my window, after I was supposed to be asleep." 

"Do you want to go to mass?" 

"No, I don't think so. I don't believe anymore, you know? Not since the accident." Tony took a deep breath. "And especially not after Afghanistan and Obie."

"What do you want to do? Stay in, just you and me and hope for a snowstorm so we'll be stuck here, cos that's what I'm hoping for."

"That sounds perfect. I wish we could stay here forever."

"Yeah, about that...I actually got a question for you, baby."

Rhodey would've had to be blind to miss the flash of terror in Tony's eyes, so he rushed on. "Wait, hold on," he mumbled, fumbling around in his jacket pocket. "Um, Tony. I've been wanting to do this for a while. We've been together since college and I love you so fucking much. I can't imagine my life without you; I don't want to imagine any of this without you by my side. The three months when you were M.I.A. were hell, but I never believed I lost you. I knew you were holding on out there. I could feel it. So, Anthony Edward Stark, will you marry me?" 

"Holy shit. Are you serious?" Tony demanded incredulously, his eyes going wide. 

"I've never been more serious in my life. I'll give you some time to think about it, okay? There's no rush." He started to put the ring box back in his pocket, only to have Tony snatch it out of his hands. 

"Yes." 

"You need more time? Okay, baby. Take all the time in..."

"I'm saying yes, asshole." The genius planted a noisy kiss on his boyfri-no, his fiance's cheek. "I love you so much." 

"Love you too, Tones. More than anything." 

"Merry Christmas, honey bear." 

"Merry Christmas, future Mr. Rhodes." 

"Hey! Why can't you change your name? Colonel Stark? I like the sound of that." 

"Just because you have a huge military kink..." 

"That's not the only huge thing I got." He winked and waggled his hips. 

"Jesus, Tones..." 

"We can figure out the name situation later. For now..." Tony shoved Rhodey back a half step. "There. Perfect." 

"What...?" He looked up and saw mistletoe hanging over him. "You're perfect." Tony looked down and away, brushing one hand across his arc reactor. "You're perfect," Rhodey repeated. "Everything about you is perfect and I'm the luckiest guy in the world." 

"I think I hold that title, actually." 

"Shut up and kiss me." 

"Yes, sir!" Saluting with surprising sharpness, Tony leaned up on his tiptoes and pressed his lips to Rhodey's.