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Robin sat on the couch in her living room, scanning over homework. Part of her wanted to do the work well and get decent grades, while the other part wanted her to give in and say something along the lines of "Fuck it, I'm a senior. What are they gonna do, fail me?" It was one of the few days she hadn't had work, and so she hadn't seen Steve since the night prior. And they weren't clingy or overly dependent on the other, but all things considered, it was definitely odd for them to have been out of contact for nearly twenty-four hours. It really just wasn't like them to not hang out or at least talk on the phone.
It was raining when she looked outside. It had been raining for a while, actually. It was November and as the winter months got closer, the rain still hadn't turned to snow yet. It just kept getting colder.
Robin had gotten lost in thought. She saw the pouring rain outside. God she hoped Steve wasn't stuck outside in it. Just thinking about it made an intense shiver shoot down her back. She turned back to her economics work and tried to use the rain to her advantage, the sound acting as white noise.
"Fuck it," she sighed, pushing the papers off her lap and walking to the kitchen. She put a kettle on the stove hoping some tea might help her focus. She stared at the phone hanging on the wall across the room. She huffed and walked over to it, picked it up and punched in Steve's number. No answer. She called the video store, and Keith picked up. "Hey, Keith, I was wondering if Steve was scheduled to work today... Okay, thanks." She sighed and hung up the phone. He wasn't home and he wasn't at work. He very well could be with Dustin or the other kids, but she didn't know their numbers. And it seemed unlikely, now that the Byers had moved and it was Joyce who usually called him to watch the kids while she and Jonathan had work.
Was it eating her up inside that she hadn't heard from Steve in a full day and she couldn't figure out how to contact him? Yeah, it was, but she'd never admit that, if only to save face. For all she knew he got his ass dragged back into some multi-dimensional bullshit and was dead or dying somewhere. The rain had slowed to an almost stop. She huffed, turned the stove off, grabbed a sweatshirt from the coat rack, got her bike out of the garage and rode off.
Naturally, Robin's first stop was the arcade. If Steve was with the kids, that's probably where he'd be. However, to no surprise, the place was nearly empty as it was a Wednesday night and the weather was too shitty to go anywhere. After that, she decided to just head straight to Dustin's. His was the only address she was one hundred percent sure she knew, and he and Steve were the closest of the kids. She pushed the hood of the sweatshirt off and rang the doorbell. A woman slightly shorter than her opened the door with a look of minor confusion.
"Hello, dear," she said kindly, taking in Robin's damp figure.
"Hi," Robin replied, a bit more awkwardly than she usually would. "Uhm, is Dustin home? I need to ask him something." The woman looked a bit puzzled for a moment and Robin suddenly became very afraid that she had the wrong house. Suddenly her face lit up with realization.
"You must be Robin! See, I almost didn't believe him when he told me he'd made friends with a senior girl," she said chuckling a little. "Dusty!" she called and Robin snorted. "Someone's here looking for you!" Robin was still trying not to laugh when Dustin rounded the corner looking confused.
"Oh! Hey, Robin!" he greeted, smiling. "Is... is something wrong?" Dustin asked, lowering his voice a little and making sure his mother had walked away and wasn't listening to their conversation. Robin rolled her eyes.
"No, nothing's wrong. Aside from the fact that I cannot contact Steve. Have you talked to him today?" She asked.
"Yeah, he picked us up from school. He was weird though," Dustin said, looking about as confused as Robin felt.
"Weird? Weird how?" She prompted.
"I dunno. Just off, I guess. Said it wasn't a good day to go to the arcade and that we should just go home and do homework. Which is bullshit if you ask me. He never says shit like that," he said shrugging. "Did you try his house? He probably just went home."
"I called him a little while ago and didn't get an answer," Robin sighed.
"Steve is pretty shit at picking up the phone. He's probably asleep or something. Just try his place."
After saying goodbye to Dustin, she picked up her bike and headed back towards Steve's neighborhood. It was starting to get much darker out, which meant temperatures were dropping further. And to make matters worse, the rain was starting to pick up again.
"I swear to god, if you made me ride around town looking for you just to find out you slept through the phone ringing, I'm going to fucking end you," she growled to herself.
After the ten minute ride, she made it to Steve's street and pedaled down to his house. The light was off, but she could still see him sitting on the porch, looking very defeated. She literally jumped off of her bike and dropped it in the driveway before running up to him.
"Steve, what the hell?" She asked as she knelt down beside him. She gasped at his exhausted appearance. He was shivering quite violently, which was no surprise. His cheeks and nose were a dark pink and every inch of him was soaked. It answered why he didn't pick up the phone, but why was he outside, sitting on his front stoop in the middle of November? "Hey, dingus," she sighed, shaking his half asleep form. "Why are you sitting in the rain?"
"I locked myself out of my house," he finally answered. Robin looked at him in disbelief.
"I knew you were dumb, but I didn't think you were that dumb. And why didn't you go at least sit in the car?" Steve laughed dryly.
"You'll never guess. I locked my keys in the car too," he said before turning and coughing harshly into his shoulder. Robin winced.
"Please don't tell me you managed to get sick by sitting in freezing rain for hours?" She sighed, looking down at his slouched figure.
"No, I didn't. I felt shitty when I woke up this morning," he answered, almost laughing a little.
"Yeah, because that's so much better," she groaned dropping her head into her hands. She looked at him, slumped over, shaking violently, soaking wet, and in general looking like hell. She pushed his dripping hair back and placed her hand on his forehead. Despite it being nearly freezing temperatures outside, Steve's body was much warmer that it should've been. "Jesus. You're burning up."
"That's not good," Steve sighed, obviously very out of it.
"Yeah, no shit Harrington. You need to get inside," she huffed. But how? Obviously all of the doors were locked if he couldn't get inside. She scanned the front of the house. the windows on the first floor were all screened, so that wouldn't work. "Bingo." She walked off the porch and moved a few feet to the side of the house, before taking a running start. It took her a few tries, but she eventually was able to scale the front of the house, open the window to what she assumed was Steve's bedroom, and jumped inside. She ran downstairs and unlocked and tore open the front door. “C’mon,” she said, leaning out the door and pulling him up by his arm. “Get inside before you catch your death.” Steve coughed again, then sound of it making Robin’s chest hurt in sympathy. “That is if you haven’t already.”
Steve allowed himself to collapse into the couch in the living room.
"Nope, you need to get dry clothes on," she sighed, taking on an authoritative tone. "Staying in those wet clothes is a surefire way to give yourself pneumonia." Steve groaned, but stood and made his way to his room to change. He came back a few moments later in a hoodie and flannel pajama pants. He tossed Robin a different sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants. "Steve, what is this?"
"A change of clothes," he said with a smirk. "You're soaked and shivering," his face dropping and becoming serious. "You'll get sick too if you don't change. You said it yourself." His smirk came back for the last part and he winked at her. She rolled her eyes, but went to the bathroom to change. The sleeves of the hoodie were too big, because her shoulders weren't as broad as Steve's, and she had to pull the string on the sweatpants as tight as it would go so they would stay up, not to mention the legs were far too long, despite the fact that she was only two inches shorter than him.She pulled her hair into a bun to keep the wet feeling off her neck and walked out. Steve was back on the couch and he had the tv on.
"MacGyver? Really?" Robin snorted.
"Shut up, Rob," he laughed. "This is peak television." Robin's laughter fell away at hearing how awful Steve sounded. She really wasn't the mothering type. In fact, situations like these, where someone was hurt or sick, made her nervous because she wasn't sure how to help. But Steve was her closest friend, and she felt responsibility for him, even if it was just because he was the biggest idiot she'd ever met. She made a mental checklist. She needed a thermometer, meds, probably water, and a blanket. The blanket was the first thing she grabbed because there was one draped over the back of the chair behind her. She tossed it to Steve who took it rather gratefully and pulled it over himself. Next she walked back to the bathroom to rummage around the cabinets. She'd managed to find a mercury thermometer and a bottle of cold and flu medicine.
"I'm back," she said before muttering something under her breath about mercury being toxic. "Here, put this in your mouth for three minutes," she told Steve handing him the thermometer before walking to the kitchen to fill a glass of water.
Steve took the thermometer out of his mouth and handed it to Robin, his head pounding too much for him to read it.
"Holy shit, Harrington," she sighed, looking at the thermometer. "You're reading at a hundred and two point three." She looked back at him, and for a split second Steve thought he saw something like fear in her eyes.
"I'm fine, Rob," he said, though his voice cracked painfully. "It's probably just that flu going around. I will live," Steve said winking. Robin frowned.
"Well, I'm sure sitting in freezing rain for three hours didn't do you any favors," she huffed. "Whatever. Take this medicine, dingus."
Steve had taken the medicine and downed most of the glass of water, and so far neither of them were doing much. Steve's head pounded, and as the chill from outside stated to fade, he began feeling a deep ache in his muscles. His head and chest felt hot and stuffy, and simply lying there breathing exhausted him. Robin seemed to notice the discomfort.
"Are you okay?" She asked from beside him.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. About as fine as I can be right now," he said with a small huff and a weak smile. Robin returned the smile, though it was more sympathetic than anything.
"Okay," she said, moving towards him to lean on him. "But, just so we're clear. If I get sick, I will make you pay," she said, mostly joking.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he laughed.
"And what are we supposed to do about your car? The keys are locked inside, right?" Steve groaned.
"We'll cross that bridge when we get there. And, right now, I have a splitting headache and very little will to live, so if we could not reflect on today's mistakes, that would be fantastic," Steve said, though there was no real bite to his words. Robin just laughed.
"Sure, dingus. We can talk about how stupid you are tomorrow."
"Thank you." He said, pausing for a moment. "Wait, hold on, that is not what I meant and you know it," He whined. Robin snickered at him. "You are such a pain in the ass," he managed through his own laughter.
Eventually their conversation died down and they both fell asleep on the couch of the Harrington's living room. When Robin woke up the next morning, she called her house and told them she'd spent the night at a friend's and was on her way to school. After telling her half-baked lie to her parents, she walked back to the couch, lied back down next to Steve and went back to sleep.