Chapter Text
Robin hadn't thought that Steve "the hair" Harrington would even have the capacity in him to be friends with someone like her. Someone who would scoff at any couple who could hold hands in the hallways, who clenched her jaw as girls made plans for sleepovers and purposely excluded her, someone who liked girls of all things.
But he was, and he is, and might always be her best friend forever; ever since that stupid day she decided to try and crack a random Russian code. She giggles even now just thinking about it, cracking Russian codes. She thought it might've been something dumb for a video game, nothing for real. Nothing serious, not until everything started making sense. Not until she actually cracked it.
She remembers it vividly, like it was yesterday. And on some sleepless nights after they broke into a Russian lab and barely escaped alive, she feels like it really was yesterday. On nights like these, before her senior year of school, where everything that happened in that small, dinky little room came alive behind her eyelids. The feeling of a syringe in her cheek, poking, stinging, injecting that goddamn drug into her and making her puke her guts out later. Sure, Robin wanted to try weed, she was a teenager after all. But the way it made her feel, was a whole different level of fucked up.
She didn't have it all that bad, one of the only times she's thankful for her born sex. But the sight of Steve being dragged into that room and strapped unconsciously to those chairs (they were really uncomfortable, actually) and left to sit there for hours on end. Steve's entire sailor suit was covered in blood, his eye red and swollen and oh god his nose--
She remembers screaming, being slapped, the sight of those clippers on Steve's finger (it had dented his finger a bit, healing never brought it to look completely normal), and she remembered spilling a few secrets or two. She remembers how she felt the most.
Fear. Terror. Anger. And a bit of glee, but that was mostly the drug talking. Something about dying while high out of your mind with your coworker-turned-friend-turned-best-friend made the whole process a bit easier.
The after affects definitely made things more enjoyable. The way Steve had looked at her, eyes-- well, eye, the other one was nearly closed-- with that softness that she had never seen before. Robin felt her heart constrict, and for the first time since then, she felt even more terrified than when she had felt down in that small metal room. Because yea, maybe she might've died then. But the silence of Steve Harrington, the look he just gave her-- it felt more like she was dying than anything she had felt before.
But he was fine with it. He was totally chill about it. He made jokes with her and he laughed and he was still willing to be friends with her. The thought of his feelings, his confession, didn't hang in the air that much longer. Like he was already getting over it.
And something about the whole scenario made her feel grateful, made her feel not so terribly lonely like she had been years before. Made her chase Steve through the woods back to that stupid car, made her risk her life again for those kids he cared about so much.
It's why she finds herself reaching over her bed to grab at her bedside phone and dialing a familiar number.
two rings later and she felt she could finally breathe again.
"Steve?" She asked to the dark of her room, heart nearly in her throat. They didn't really call, not so late at night anyways, but he answered, and that was all she really cared about. "Are you there?"
"Yeah," A muffled, groggy voice came in along with what sounded like shifting of blankets. "Yea 'm here, what do you need? Are you okay?"
Always the worrier, Robin laughed under her breath, "Yea I just... I couldn't really sleep."
"Oh." he said, intelligently. "Oh no yeah, uh, me too."
"Wonderful, that's great. Me too." Robin whispered, "You free to uh... talk? We haven't done much talking lately. Not since the mall and the Russians and Mind Flayers and stuff like that. I don't know, I'm just kinda rambling now I guess I--"
"Robin--" Steve interrupted, which caused her to shut up thankfully. She tended to ramble when she got nervous, which, is almost usually never, she tends to keep her cool mostly. "You're rambling again."
"Yea I--" She began, "yea I think I could've gathered that."
A laugh and then, "You're right, we haven't talked much. It's, uh, it's been pretty rough for us all, huh?"
"No definitely, for sure." She responded, laying flat on her back in bed now. "So, I'm calling to catch up?"
"Nice one, real smooth Buckley." She could almost feel him rolling his eyes. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, yeah I'm perfectly fine." She tried to joke, not being able to stop how her voice cracked at the end. It wasn't like she wanted to lie about her mental status as of right now, that's not why she called. But something felt like it was preventing her from speaking, which didn't make a lot of sense. She had spilled her guts about her biggest secret yet to Steve, but found that telling him she was scared was a harder pill to swallow? "Actually--"
"I'm not doing too hot either." Steve answered truthfully, and Robin couldn't stop the sigh that came from her mouth as Steve managed to open up first. "So, I think that you might... also... not be doing great?"
"Hit the nail on the coffin, Stevie." she answered with a breathless laugh, "I'm not doing too hot."
"Wanna, um, talk about it?"
"Sure, Stevie, we can talk about it."
"Okay well that's not fair, I open up first you have to open up too." Steve huffed, shifting again like he was sitting up. "Robin you know you can talk to me about anything, I mean, I hope you know that. You called me after all."
"God we are such dorks," Robin nearly giggled, feeling better already, and then after a beat, "I keep on having nightmares."
"Oh yea no kidding," Steve had sighed, " Sometimes it feels like my gut has been socked again, damn. They really knew how to throw punches..." Robin didn't hold back her wince at the statement, hand tightening around the phone out of instinct.
"Yea you were pretty banged up when we were strapped to that chair. And oh god... I made you jump to the scissors and you fell on your side..." Guilt began to eat at her, small glimpses of what Steve had looked like invading her mind yet again. She didn't have it that bad, she didn't know why she kept having these stupid nightmares.
"Oh Jesus, you can remember that much?" And that alarmed her, making her almost sit upright. She didn't, Robin managed to stay still in bed, only her shoulders tensing at the confession. "I remember like bits and pieces, remember uh, confessing, but a lot of other things are kinda faded. Drugs, am I right?"
"Yeah, drugs..." She smiled now, the tension that grew in her shoulders melting away by steady conversation.
"Are you still uncomfortable about the fact I had feelings for you?" Steve had suddenly asked, like the thought was eating at him. From what Robin knew of him, she wouldn't be surprised if he had felt that way. "Because that's totally reasonable, and it makes perfect sense, uh, and I'd get why it would take you this long to talk to me. If-- If that were the case."
"No, Steve. I didn't stop talking to you because of something like that..." Robin admitted truthfully, "In fact, I wasn't really taken aback by it at all."
"Oh. Okay good, that's good. Great actually. Because I still wanna be friends with you and everything." The way Steve's voice became weightless again, not as stiff, like Robin's confession took a great weight off of his shoulders.
"Aw Stevie, you really do care." She couldn't help but grin, not in the teenage crush way, in that kind of sick and lonely "I-don't-have-many-friends" kind of way. It was refreshing.
"Why do you keep on calling me Stevie?" he groaned, "It makes me sound like I'm five-years-old."
Robin couldn't seem to stop laughing, it wasn't even funny. It wasn't even like anything about the conversation was funny. She just couldn't keep herself from laughing about insanity of this situation. Being friends with Steve, being best friends with Steve. It was so unbelievably silly, and she couldn't even catch her breath.
"Oh come on you laugh at this but not at my other jokes--?" Steve sighed outwardly, but she could hear the smile in his voice.
"Sorry sorry it's just--" She felt her nerves settle, like everything that woke her up tonight was slowly being forgotten. "It's nice to catch up."
A beat, a moment, a second.
"Yea, yea it is."
Robin hadn't even realized how late it was, how much time she had spent on the phone. God her parents would kill her. But she felt more relieved, more relaxed, more real when talking to Steve about every-shitty-thing that went wrong over the summer. She hadn't realized that she was dozing off, that Steve had gone quiet, but suddenly the sleepless night was catching up with her.
"Hey you wanna get another job together?" Steve said suddenly, out of nowhere. "I think it would be fun, we make a good team."
And yea, Robin thought, they made a pretty damn good team.