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“So… what’s the deal with Wheeler?”
The question had plagued Robin’s mind since their talk in the bathroom cubicles back at Starcourt. Hell, she’d been wondering about it vaguely in the back of her mind when they broke up in the first place.
Robin liked to think she was above it all, but she wasn’t a stranger to high school gossip. They’d been some rumours after the two had broken up, and now that she was somehow friends with one of the two she might as well ask, right?
“What deal?” Steve asked as he stared at the freshly painted nails in his right hand.
God, she wasn’t over the fact Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington was just letting her paint his nails as they laid in bed at a sleepover. If the Robin of five months ago knew she was having a sleepover with a jock, she’d think she went insane.
“You know- the whole being in love, breaking up, deal. What happened?”
She was glad she could use the fact that she was painting his nails as an excuse to look down. Robin was sure if she was facing him, he’d be able to tell she was more interested in his answer than she was letting on.
“There’s no deal,” he huffed, and was it just her or was his tone a little annoyed? “We dated. We broke up. That’s it.” Yup, he was definitely annoyed.
“Come on, there’s gotta be more to that!” she pushed, before taking note of his clenched jaw and backtracking. “But you don’t have to tell me, you know? I just- I wanted some payback, to make fun of your crush like you did mine, but if it’s too soon that's fine too, you know?” She couldn’t help but add a little guilt-tripping. Look, it’s not that she was a manipulator or whatever, she just thought they were close enough for some friendly teasing!
She still wasn’t looking at him when he broke, but she didn’t have to. He was polite enough to let her know with a drawn-out groan and a “Fineeeeeeee” before he started his retelling.
She was expecting relationship drama, a meet-cute maybe, but after a fairly normal beginning, things started getting weird. She should’ve known with Steve nothing was simple, what happened at Starcourt- it might be her first time with evil Russians and interdimensional monsters and government conspiracies, but she’d known it wasn’t Steve’s.
He seemed way braver than she’d expected before the whole Russians deal. She hadn’t really known Steve back in her freshman year, so she had no recollections of how he was back then, but still. Imagining a younger Steve going back after being freaked out to save his girlfriend he’d thought cheated on him and the guy he thought she cheated on him with? It was hard to imagine… she couldn’t help but respect him a bit more after she heard that.
That, however, wasn’t going to stop her from teasing him. Hey! It was how she expressed fondness! And annoyance… and anger… Robin just teased a lot.
“So you can beat an interdimensional monster that’s killed multiple adults, but Byers beat your ass?”
Steve gave her an annoyed look, but she could read the amusement in his eyes. And wasn’t that a trip? Being able to read Steve as well as she could? Her?
“Shut up. The Demogorgon was scarier, but it was also like- an animal. It lets its instincts lead him instead of fighting finesse!”
Steve was quiet for a while.
“I think it helps, that it doesn’t have a face. Fear and adrenaline definitively had a hand on me winning fights against those little shits, but… I think the fact it wasn’t some guy I know, helped. Like, I didn’t have to feel so guilty about hitting it, you know?”
And that- that made sense. Especially now that she’d seen just how much Steve cared. Still… they hadn’t gotten to the breakup yet!
“Come on Steve! You guys were still together after this! What happens next?”
He gave her an annoyed look before sighing once more -he seemed to do that a lot- and continuing with his story.
Somehow, the story of how they handled the aftermath was worse. Sure the whole interdimensional monster thing sounded like it sucked, hell she knew personally that it sucked, but knowing the nightmares and insomnia and uncomfortable feelings that followed was awful.
Partly because it kept breaking the preconceived notions she had of Steve. Steve who got tortured by Russians and had to be drugged up before breaking, Steve who put the kids’ lives before his own, Steve who offered the sleepover in the first place because he assumed correctly she’d be uncomfortable alone… If he was getting nightmares, what did that mean for her?
The first night after those horrible days was spent at the hospital, and the second she was too tired to be scared, but what would happen after this sleepover was, well, over? She had flinched when the dad hugged her after she came home from the hospital -the official story was a mall fire of all things- would things just get worse? Was she not going to be able to be near middle age European-looking men anymore? Would ice cream or -who knows- fireworks freak her out? Would she be unable to predict what was going to scare her? If it was anything like Steve was saying -and oh, she had no doubt he was omitting things- she wasn’t going to have a good time.
She could feel her breathing get faster, but before she could continue panicking, a snap on the front of her face with newly manicured nails brought her back.
“Hey, hey, Robin”
She looked to the side, embarrassed. God, that was like- not to sound like Steve but- so uncool .
“It’s fine, you’re going to be fine! Sure it’s going to suck at first, but you have me, you won’t have to make the same mistakes I made!” Even though his words were slightly rushed, his tone was calm and comforting and- Jesus, she should stop underestimating him. Turns out, Steve was kinda good at comforting people.
“I figured out talking about shit is actually helpful, and unlike me, you’ll have someone who’s not a kid, your ex, or the guy she ran off with to talk to, ok?”
That just made her snort. Taking that as a good sign, Steve continued talking in that calm tone of his that Robin used to think was arrogant.
“Like, nothing against Henderson or Sinclair or the rest of the rugrats, but I think I’d rather fight that monster again than talk about my feelings with them. Dustin tried to get me to open up once, can you believe that?” he continued, “To be honest… I don’t think they realise how much I sucked at dealing with this stuff, and I’d rather it stays that way. It’s super weird, but they actually trust me to handle shit. I don’t want them to realise that just because I’m technically an adult, it doesn’t mean I know what the fuck is going on.”
Robin thought about making a joke, something along the lines of oh, don’t worry, everyone knows you have no idea what’s going on, but she could tell it wasn’t the time. Besides, she had a much more important question to ask.
“So what makes you trust me?” Steve looked at her lazily from his half-sitting position in bed. Even though his nails were surely dry by now, he kept them wide apart, probably not used to the cold feeling. Robin pressed on. “You just told me a bunch of deep shit, so, why me? Why not your ex or anyone else? I don’t just mean now,” she clarified, remembering how he just told her of Wheeler pushing him for a conversation and he avoiding it, “why not before?”
“Well, I guess I’m trying to lead by example. You already shared your deepest secret with me,” she knew she was referring to that conversation. She still couldn’t believe she told him… and that he didn’t care! “and I need someone to talk to, too, or I’ll go insane. Before, I wanted to forget it all happened, but trust me, that just makes things worse.”
He looked down at his hands for a few seconds, before closing his right hand on a fist and raising it towards her. “Plus, you and me, Buckley. We decoded the secret Russian message, we went through the elevator from hell, the truth serum and the- the saw, the weird creepy torture devices- we went through those-those morons together! I’m afraid to say we’re bonded for life.”
She gave a small huff of a laugh at that and raised her fist to bump his, but she couldn't stop the tears from gathering in the corners of her eyes. It felt like such a stupid thing to get emotional about after the week she’d had, but here she was. It shouldn’t be that comforting, those stupid words of his, but she had never felt as close as she had to a person she barely knew.
She felt like she should thank him, but she couldn’t get the words out. She looked up at him. He looked slightly worried, but he had a comforting smile on his face and- she leaned in and hugged him. She laid her head on his shoulder and- perhaps this was a horrible thing to do. Two days ago, he’d told her he had a crush on her, after all. She should stop.
His hand automatically went to her shoulder and pulled her closer. She closed her eyes and decided she was going to be a little selfish tonight.
“So,” she said, desperate to get out of this vulnerable and emotional mood they’d gotten stuck in, “what happened next?”
Steve took a while to figure out what she was talking about. Or perhaps he was trying to remember where he left off. Whatever it was, it only took a few seconds before he was back to his story.
Robin found out how Steve first met Hargrove -and boy was that depressing to talk about, they had to pause for a while at that point and stop cuddling to take in the fact that he was dead. He was an asshole but- but he’d sacrificed himself for his sister- or was it the other girl, the one with the powers? Whatever it was, he was just a kid her age, and he didn’t deserve to die like that.
Back to the story, she found out how he met Hargrove and then- then how Nancy Wheeler broke his heart. Oh, he didn’t say it like that, but she wasn’t stupid. She could read under the lines. He recited what Wheeler said verbatim -or so it seemed to her, how many times had he recalled her words, to be able to say them so flawlessly- with what she thinks is meant to be a nonchalant expression but just made him look like a kicked puppy.
He continued, and he spared no details. He was wording things as nicely as he could, but she could tell that the rumours about her and Byers running off together behind Steve’s back, while not without purpose, were most likely true.
Soon it turned dark again, although she was glad to finally get the origin story of how Steve Harrington became a mother of six… though it seems like it started with three at the time, no wonder he was softer with those three, they went through some shit together.
After a while, Steve was done. He’d glazed over the events at the Byers’ house, probably because it wasn’t relevant to the question Robin asked, but the relationship bits were clear.
“So she just- she just fucked off with Byers without breaking up with you?”
Steve pulled a face.
“I- we had a fight before, you heard me… maybe she thought we’d broken up, it was pretty bad”
“Well, yeah… but you didn’t”
“Well- but maybe she did-”
“But she didn’t ask! Stop defending her, Steve!”
“Well, I just think- ok yeah, so it wasn’t right. I know that. She was awful to me in those weeks. But- it was a year ago! People make mistakes,”
“Well, sure,” she said slowly, “but do you want to be friends with her?”
Steve gave her a confused look.
“No? I mean- I loved her but… I don’t really love her still. And we have too much history to be friends again.”
Robin grinned at that. Bingo.
“Sooo, you don’t have to keep defending her. You know what she did sucked. You’re allowed to complain about it!”
“What?”
“Come on, do guys not bitch about their exes with their friends? We’re bonded for life, right?”
Steve looked at her with searching eyes before giving her a grin.
“Yeah, bonded for life,”