Work Text:
The list of things that were quote-unquote nsfw was an ever-growing one. There were the obvious ones: don’t have animals in the lab, don’t work while too sleep deprived, don’t let Morgan play with the welding torch (especially if you want to use it again), and most importantly don’t have sex in the lab, no matter how turned on you or Pepper get. While still being extremely hot, she doesn't like being forced to have a pixie cut due to burnt hair.
Tony had learned each and every one of these lessons from experience, luckily there had been a fire extinguisher on hand for all four of them. Dum-E had gotten very good at his job over the years. There had been quite a few not fires that he had “put out” and quite a few more actual fires that he had put out.
Most recently added to the nsfw list that Pepper had hung on the door of the lab was, surprisingly but not unforeseen, wedding rings. Tony was still suffering from his most recent lesson in what was apparently not safe for lab work. He kicked himself a little for not completely thinking the whole thing through. It hadn’t been absent-mindedness that had caused the considerable burn on his ring finger, it had been stubbornness and a little bit of stupidity. Tony had never been one for obeying lab safety rules, but he had always taken the ‘don’t wear metal on your skin while welding’ one very seriously. Metal got very hot very fast, but Tony had found himself ignoring that little tidbit for the sake of leaving his wedding ring on. Love transcends everything, and his ring was a symbol of his love for his wife, so why shouldn’t it also transcend everything?
That thought process was flawed, and Tony learned this when he had been welding a piece for the frame for the playhouse he was building for Morgan. He was wearing his welding gloves of course, but heat loves metal like he loved Pepper, and there was only so much the glove could do to block the heat from the metal ring on his finger. He hadn’t quite noticed the burning feeling at first, but then it had gotten hot fast. Proper procedure was to get the metal object touching the skin underwater as fast as possible to cool it off. Proper procedure was not, to pull the ring off as fast as possible. Tony, not thinking clearly, had done the not proper procedure, which had resulted in the ring burning the better part of his skin off his ring finger.
Pepper had been sympathetic to her dumbass husband, and she had also been very flattered by his small gesture of faithfulness in leaving the ring on even while working in the lab, but she had still added the newest rule to list of lab safety rules: do not wear any metal while working in the lab, wedding rings included. She didn’t mind him taking it off if it kept his fingers safe, and him pain-free. Goodness knew he had, had enough pain in his life.