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Robin was going to die. She was going to die here, in the middle of the Starcourt Mall, because she couldn’t leave well enough alone. Shit. Shitshitshitshit.
She curled tighter into herself, trying to make herself disappear into the concession stand. Next to her, Steve had his hands on Dustin and Erica’s shoulders. It wouldn’t protect them, it wouldn’t save them, but they were babies, and it had to count for something, right? Robin was going to die, and they would die with her, and that wasn’t fucking fair. All she wanted was a not terrible summer job to start putting some money aside for college, and instead she was going to die, with two babies and Steve The Hair Harrington. Who might be her best friend now. That was what happened, when you came out to someone for the first time, right? They just jumped to first place in the friends ranking? Oh, and the traumatic Russian torture, life-sacrificing, and truth serum… That too. Maybe mostly that, come to think of it.
The mall was silent enough that they could hear the Russian’s footsteps when he wasn’t hissing into his walkie-talkie. He kept walking. Towards them. And Robin’s Russian might not be up-to-snuff to understand all of what he was saying, but she heard his voice change crystal clear. Steve tensed, and she knew he had caught it too. Sharing a look, her face fell at the despair in his eyes.
Yeah. The Russian had figured where they were.
Steve’s jaw clenched, and Robin knew what he was about to do. Not caring about making noise anymore, Robin grabbed his arm and pulled so he couldn’t jump up and draw the Russians’ attention away from them. His face fell even further. He patted her arm, his mouth doing something complicated to try and convince her to let him go. Which had about zero percent chance of happening, for the record.
By then, Dustin and Erica had figured something was going on. Dustin looked between the two of them, clutching at Steve’s dumb Scoops Ahoy shirt.
“Steve!” He hissed, ready to scold Steve, only to be interrupted by an ear-splitting alarm.
They all startled. Luckily, the Russians yelled in alarm, even more surprised. From the sound of it, they even turned away from the concession stand. Robin and Steve shared a confused look and he mouthed ‘Car?’
Oh, the display car. That would track, considering the mall’s alarm would be a lot louder, and like, everywhere. But why would the car’s alarm start? Why would it even be turned on? The mall was swarmed by teenagers everyday, if the car had an alarm it would be ringing all the tim-
With a screech of metal and glass, the display car went flying, slamming into the two Russians on its way to the opposite side of the foodcourt. Robin yelped and curled into the floor, arms covering her head like it would protect her from flying cars. Steve dragged Dustin and Erica into his chest.
Breathe in.
Silence.
Breathe out.
More silence.
Erica shoved away from Steve, rolling to her feet. Unwilling to let Erica put herself at risk by being the first to look above the counter, Steve rushed to do the same, and Robin had to scramble after him. Dustin, cursing under his breath, was the last one up.
The foodcourt looked exactly like it had moments before, except for the trail of destruction left in the car’s wake. And the two Russians sprawled on the floor. Who were definitely sleeping, and not anything else that made her nauseous just thinking about it. People could definitely take a car to the head and walk it off.
Said car was now flipped over, a good hundred feet from where it used to stand.
“What the-” Robin said, looking all around for whatever could have thrown it with that kind of force, but there was nothing else out of place. She turned to ask Steve but caught him looking up at the walkway.
The little girl, Robin was almost sure she recognized. She’d been at Scoops Ahoy a few days ago, right? With the red haired girl Steve kept arguing with? The other kids were also definitely part of Steve’s brood. But the two older ones- Wait, was that Nancy Wheeler? And… the Byers’ guy that always had a camera?
What the- Why were they here?
Before she had the chance to ask Steve, Dustin took off running. Steve was just a second behind him, because he was Steve. Which left Erica and Robin with little choice but to follow, if they wanted any explanation.
Dustin threw himself at the brown-haired girl and the boy holding her as soon as she limped down the stairs, laughing. “You flung that thing like a Hot Wheel!”
He hugged the two of them tight before he was passed off to the next members of the group, a kid with a bowl cut and another who looked a lot like Erica. The limping girl then launched herself at Steve, clutching at his waist. Steve swayed for a moment, but he hugged her tightly, rubbing her back. The other red-headed girl also skulked over to him, punching him on the shoulder and allowing him to ruffle her hair. She didn’t even scowl, just leaned into it, staring at Steve’s black eye with a worried frown.
“Lucas!” Erica shrieked, and yep. Robin might be an only child, but her cousins weren’t, and she knew a sibling tone when she heard one.
Lucas let go of Dustin to stare down at Erica, more horrified than seeing your sister in public warranted, but then there were murderous Russians out and about. Maybe a little bit of alarm was justified.
“What are you doing here?” Lucas asked, looking between Erica and Dustin and Steve.
“Ask them, it’s their fault.” Erica rolled her eyes, waving at Robin and Steve. Which was a little unfair. Dustin was definitely as much at fault for involving Erica as Robin.
“True, yeah. Totally true. It’s absolutely our fault.” Steve nodded, wincing, because apparently he hadn’t puked all the drugs from his system yet.
“You got her involved?” Lucas asked, disappointment all over his face, like he couldn’t believe Steve had been this irresponsible. And like… to be fair, when they had gotten Erica involved, they hadn’t thought the Russians would like… torture kids.
“I don’t understand what happened to that car?” Robin asked instead, because honestly? Why wasn’t anyone else freaking out about flying cars?
“El has superpowers.” Dustin, the absolute little shit, shrugged like Robin really should know better than to ask such obvious questions.
“I’m sorry?” Robin asked, because no amount of attitude was going to make up for the fact that Dustin had just implied that someone in their group had ‘make cars fly’ super-powers.
“Superpowers. She threw it with her mind. Come on, catch up.” Steve said, waving limply at the whole gaggle of children.
Okay. Best friend or not, Robin was going to punch Steve Harrington in his good eye.
“That’s El?” Erica asked, and just like that, Robin had lost her only ally against this band of crazy people who talked about people throwing cars with their mind like they would a mildly above average lawnmower.
“Who’s El?” She asked again, because there were at least six children here, and frankly, none of them seemed in ‘car-throwing’ shape.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” Nancy asked, finally catching up to the brood of middle schoolers.
First of all, ouch. Nancy and Robin had been in two classes together last year. Just because Robin was a little quiet in class, didn’t mean Nancy should have just forgotten her entire existence.
But also… It wasn’t like Robin had studied Nancy Wheeler, okay, and like, even if she had it’s because Nancy Wheeler was extremely pretty, despite being too much of a priss for Robin’s taste. Or… Well, Steve swore she wasn’t a priss, and right now Nancy looked like she could chew through steel, which was doing uncomfortable things to Robin’s belly, but that-
That wasn’t the point, okay? The point was that she was currently rocking a wet poodle hairdo, complete with the smeared make-up and the frizzy hair. She was faring better than Byers, who looked like someone had actually tried to drown him and he was very sad about it. But still, Nancy Wheeler never had a hair out of place, and at the moment, Robin wasn’t sure she had a single hair in place.
She was also glaring at Robin with a suspicion that would have been a bit intense even if Steve hadn’t sworn like… fifteen minutes ago that they had never dated, not even close. Steve Harrington could get lost, because Nancy didn’t look very sisterly right now.
“I’m Robin. I work with Steve.” Robin said, giving Nancy a little wave like that would clear up anything. The death glare was really starting to become a bit much. Like, it was really hot, but also felt like a real threat to Robin’s ongoing ownership of kneecaps.
“Steven Romuald Harrington!” Someone bellowed, and Robin took a step back just in time not to be bowled over by a frazzled Eddie Munson as he hopped over the railing to launch himself at Steve.
“Eddie!” Steve’s entire countenance switched from ‘harried mother’ to ‘puppy dog’ as he stumbled forward to meet Eddie halfway.
Swearing a blue streak in front of some very impressionable babies, Eddie grabbed Steve’s face to inspect his bloody wounds.
“ ‘Go with Nancy!’ he says.” Eddie grumbled, fingers very soft on Steve’s bruises. “ ‘I’ll be fine, go watch her back! I’m not going to get into trouble at Scoops!’ he says. Like a fucking idiot! ”
Robin watched them, something settling into her gut. Nevermind the Russians, the fact that Eddie and Steve’s friendship had survived the both of them graduating High School might have been the most unbelievable thing to happen to her that summer. It’s not like she thought about them all that often, prior to Steve being hired at Scoops, but like… If asked, she would have said she expected Eddie to disappear into the ether, running away to a big city to lose himself into the underground, while Steve took over his father’s mantle and reigned over Hawkins.
“I’m fine, Eds. Top Shape.” Steve said, not trying to pull away from Eddie, who had moved on to lifting his eyelids to look into his eyes.
But no, Eddie had stayed, and seemed to spend every minute he wasn’t working at the record shop across the foodcourt loitering at Scoops, making fun of Steve’s terrible flirting attempts with Robin.
“I’ll be the one to decide if you’re fine, Steven. Me and the doctor.” Eddie answered.
Then again, considering Steve’s brood of nerdy little kids, maybe his friendship with Eddie Munson made more sense. They-
Steve, rolling his eyes at Eddie’s fretting, leaned forward and kissed him. On the lips.
On the lips.
Eddie, far from being put out by that development, melted into it, using his grip on Steve’s jaw to pull him closer. Because they were kissing. With tongue. Eddie and Steve. Eddie Munson and Steve Harrington. And no one else was reacting. Nancy just rolled her eyes, and the floppy haired kid joke gagged, but in a ‘my brother is kissing’ kind of way, and… And Eddie and Steve were still kissing, like that was a thing they just did.
“What the fuck? ” Erica screeched.
Eddie and Steve jumped apart. Before Robin had the opportunity to agree with her only ally’s bewilderment, Eddie’s eyes jumped to her, and he pushed Steve behind him.
“He’s concussed. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, he didn’t mean it. It’s the hair, you know? It’s long.” Eddie babbled, face crumbling into a panic Robin could feel in her soul. He didn’t even try to defend himself, just to give Steve plausible deniability.
“ Long hair? ” Erica asked, crossing her arms to stare down at a man two feet taller than her. “You look nothing like a girl.”
“Erica, not now. ” Lucas hissed.
“Eds, it’s okay.” Steve tried to shift from behind Eddie, but Eddie pushed him back. At the corner of her eyes, Robin caught Nancy and Jonathan bracing themselves, ready to intervene. Ready to intervene to protect the boys from her. “It’s okay, Robin’s-”
Steve stopped himself mid-sentence, throwing her a look over Eddie’s shoulder. Because Steve knew. Steve was the only person to know that of course Robin was safe. But also, Steve knew, and Robin hadn’t told him not to tell others, what-
“Robin’s cool, Eds.” He finished, smooth enough that he could probably pass off the hesitation on the drugs. Or the concussion. Or the general mayhem. “She’s really cool.”
“I’m super cool!” Robin rushed to agree, waving at herself. “Well, no, I’m like, really not cool, but I’m cool with boys kissing boys. Or you know, boys dating boys? And girls dating girls, that’s cool too! I’m just cool with all of it. Ice cold, even!”
Eddie blinked at her babble, less panicked than momentarily overwhelmed, but this time he didn’t stop Steve from stepping away from him. Just for a moment, because Steve crowded back in to kiss Eddie’s cheek. Eddie’s eyes never left her, still checking her reaction, and she gave him her best thumbs up.
“Dude, the hair thing didn’t work on us when we were twelve. ” Dustin, either deciding he was done with the weird tension, or never fully noticing it in the first place, cut right through it with his dulcet screech. “Why would it have worked on her? She cracked a Russian Top Secret Code. ”
“And you look nothing like a girl.” Erica added again. Bless her heart. She would be a terrifying teenager in a couple of years.
“Russians? Wait, what Russian?” Byers talked for the first place, apparently the only person in the mall with a sense of perspective.
Sadly, they wouldn’t get the opportunity to indulge his apropos inquiries, because right at the moment one of the babies crumpled to the floor.
“El!”
Oh, that was El.
One field surgery later, as well as a full-team debrief -including the Chief of Freaking Police, for some incomprehensible reason- and Robin was skipping towards the exit with her fellow troopers. First Dustin and Erica, because they needed to get to Dustin’s thingamajig to serve as navigators for the adult-adults -neither Steve or Eddie counted as ‘adults’, thank you very much. Then Steve and her, because they had been sent as support after Dustin had helpfully informed Joyce and Hopper about the drugs and interrogations and they were banished from the ‘real’ operation. And like… yeah, cool whatever. The babies needed someone to get them where they needed to go, and Robin might not be a Steve-level fusser, but she pack-bonded with the little fuckers and she’d rather keep an eye on them. If it got her away from Starcourt too, well, that was just a happy coincidence, right?
“Alright, Stevie, remember, if you need to puke you need to warn us in advance.”
Oh, yeah, Eddie was also coming, because he wasn’t leaving Steve out of his sight for the foreseeable future. Or ever. His words.
“I already puked it all out.” Steve promised, patting Eddie’s frizzy hair down.
“Throwing up in a public bathroom is the worse.” Robin agreed.
“The two of you were cackling like hyenas when we found you.” Erica rolled her eyes.
“Laugh so you don’t cry.” Robin stage-whispered her way.
They pushed the mall’s door open, Steve already spinning his borrowed keys around.
“Oh, man, now this… this is what I’m talkin’ about!” Steve crowed, waving at the convertible.
“Toddfather?” Robin asked, because while she hadn’t paid enough attention to Steve’s car rants to remember what the model was supposed to be, she definitely could judge the terrible vanity plate.
“Oh, screw Todd, Steve’s her daddy now!”
“Hand the keys over here, big daddy, you’re not driving the babies around until you get cleared by a doctor.” Eddie grabbed the key from Steve’s hand before he could protest.
“Can everyone please stop calling Steve ‘Daddy’?” Erica fake gagged.
“Don’t talk to your daddy that way!” Robin scolded her.
There was a minor scuffle over seating, but Robin managed to beat Steve to the shotgun seat, and Erica, to her horror, was stuck with the middle seat, courtesy of being the smallest.
“Alright, ser Dustin, where to?” Eddie asked, the car whirring to life.
“Weathertop.” Dustin answered, fiddling with his walkie talkie.
“Weather-what?” Steve asked.
“Just drive!”
“Okay, Jesus!” Steve groaned, Eddie spinning out of the parking lot with a cackle.
Dustin gave Eddie enough directions for him to turn the car towards the other edge of the town, because of course. Hawkins was like a mile wide, how was it that everytime they needed to get somewhere, it was on the other side of the country? Forget the Russians, that was the real mystery.
Two arms wrapped themselves around Eddie’s shoulders from behind, startling Robin into squeaking. Not Eddie though. He leaned back into it, seemingly used to it.
“I love you.” Steve mumbled, face smushed against the head-rest.
“Love you too, baby.” Eddie answered, patting Steve’s forearm, like it was that easy. That simple. Wistfulness bloomed in Robin’s torso, and she curled into herself a little bit. Eddie raised his voice a little to be heard in the backseat. “Is he still buckled in?”
“Yup.” Erica rolled her eyes.
“He’s just being sappy.” Dustin added, with the blandness of a teenager who’d seen this too many times.
“Our Stevie, sappy? Blasphemy.” Eddie snorted, but seemed happy to let Steve cling to him, as long as he was safe.
“Disgusting is what it is.” Erica poked Steve hard in the ribs.
Steve sprung back, doing an admirable job of putting his hands on his hips, despite being smushed in a back seat with two other people.
“You can’t say that!” Dustin shrieked, truly insulted.
“Being queer is perfectly normal-” Steve started lecturing.
“I don’t care that you’re queer. Eddie’s cool. You’re just schmoopy, it’s embarrassing .” Erica rolled her eyes again.
Eddie barked a laugh, looking into the rearview mirror to presumably catch Steve’s eyes.
“Stevie-”
“No.”
“Come on, you already have Dustin and Max, and Hopper won’t let me steal El away-”
“You’re not adopting the kid who always insults me!” Steve protested.
“Dustin and Max insult you all the time!”
“I do not!” Dustin tried to say.
“I don’t want to be adopted by some metalhead!” Erica spoke over him.
“I thought I was cool? ”
“Not that cool. Anyway, if Steve’s got Dustin and Max, who’s got Lucas?”
“Lucas is the only one of you shrimps I trust not to stick his fingers in electrical sockets to prove a point.” Steve answered, ruffling Dustin’s hair before he had the chance to protest. “Lucas doesn’t need adult supervision.”
“Steve and Meister are co-parenting Lucas.” Eddie corrected. “They are a beautiful family, brought together by basketball and an inexplicable fondness for anchovies on pizza.”
“Meister? The meathead? He knows about this shit?” Erica asked. Robin had to agree. Meister had come around Scoops a few times, to hang out with Eddie and Steve and make awkward conversation with her.
“No.” Steve answered.
“Yes.” Eddie answered.
“O-kay?” Robin asked, looking between the two of them.
“The kids talk about Upside-Down shit around him all the time, he’s not that oblivious.” Eddie waved his fingers over his shoulder at Steve.
“It took him months to catch on that we were together, and we kissed in front of him all the time.”
“There’s a difference between us dating and interdimensional monsters being real.” Eddie said.
“So us dating is more unbelievable than the Upside Down?” Steve asked.
“Yes.” Eddie and Robin answered in unison.
“No!” Steve shouted.
“Eddie is way too cool for you.” Erica sniffed.
“Okay, yeah that’s fair.” Steve nodded, leaning back into his seat.
Eddie snorted and turned back to give the road his full attention, which was probably for the best. No one else was out and about at the hour, but who knew when more Russians would appear?
“You doing okay?” Eddie asked her, low enough not to get the peanut gallery involved.
“I- This is a lot, I don’t know.” Robin answered, fingers’ tapping on her knee. In the backseat, Dustin and Steve were loudly informing Erica that she couldn’t tell anyone about SteveAndEddie. Because Steve and Eddie were a thing that the whole group had known about. For… years apparently.
“Yeah, I get that.” Eddie nodded. He was remarkably calm, by his standards. He’d always seemed a nervous, jittery one to Robin, but somehow, the town being overrun by a monster didn’t phase him anymore than his boyfriend being beat up by fucking Russians. Or maybe he was so phased he just flipped over to the other side.
“How-” She started asking, biting her lip.
“Yeah?”
“How long have you been together?” She asked all at once.
Eddie threw her a long look from the corner of his eyes, but eventually he hummed and looked back to the road. “A year and a half. We got together when I was a senior. The first time. Steve was a junior because I like ‘em young.”
Robin snorted, doing the math in her head. “Was that- When Steve stopped being…” She had never paid too close attention to the coming and goings of the popular crowd, but Steve Harrington’s fall from grace had been hard to ignore. A lot of people had blamed it on Eddie too, which had seemed a little dramatic to her at the time, but if they had started dating…
“The King? Not exactly. We were messing around for a little while before that-”
“We were dating. ” Steve called out from the backseat.
“We were messing around. Anyway, then the first round of Upside Down bullshit happened, and Barb died, and us, and suddenly being the big men on campus didn’t seem to matter that much anymore, you know?”
“Yeah, that-” Robin twisted around to look at Steve, who was back to arguing with the babies in the backseat. They had moved on to swearing Erica to secrecy about the Russians. Steve hadn’t been what she would have expected, not from the start of the summer. He was… easier to be around than any rich kid forced to find a summer job had any right to be, but if he had been fighting for his life for years now… That had to put things in perspective. It did explain how he surrounded himself with little shitheads.
“What about the flirting?” Robin asked, because her friendship with Eddie had been built upon the ‘You suck’ board. “I mean, maybe you guys are open-minded, I don’t judge, it’s just, it has to suck, but I don’t know, maybe it works-”
“Robin.” Eddie interrupted her. “Breathe. It’s- I mean, it’s not fine, it sucks that Steve has to pretend to flirt and date girls to keep up appearances, but, you know, it’s fine.”
“Oh. You… You don’t mind?” Robin asked, because if she ever miraculously found a girlfriend, but then had to watch her flirt with guys, she might cry.
“I very much fucking mind that it’s something we have to do, at least until we can get away from Hawkins. But it’s not like Steve’s going to actually cheat on me. Like, have you met Steve?” Eddie snorted.
“Yeah. He’s weird.” Robin smiled.
“The absolute weirdest, most loyal man you’ve ever met.” Eddie added, also smiling. “You’re stuck with him now, I hope you realize that.”
Robin opened her mouth, already indignant, but she closed it slowly, looking over her shoulder. Steve, feeling her gaze, smiled at her, giving her a dumb little finger wave. In the dark, it was harder to make out the purple bruises and the blood, and he just looked like a dorky teenager. A dorky teenager who had been a riot to work with, who had sacrificed himself so she wouldn’t be tortured, who had taken her coming out in stride… Who in hindsight had probably not been confessing his love for her in the bathroom- oh god, he had been talking about being in love with Eddie, Robin was such a fucking idiot.
Steve, who was just like her, or close enough to not matter, who was in love with a guy, who’d been dating a guy under her nose all summer and she hadn’t known.
“Please, he’s stuck with me. ”
Eddie rolled his head back to bark out a loud laugh, right hand reaching out to clap her shoul-
“Left, turn left!” Dustin screeched out, throwing himself forward.
“Turn? On what road!?” Eddie shouted back, his two hands back on the wheel.
“Turn left!”
Cursing loudly, Eddie slammed the wheel and the car spun into the dark, off the road. Robin yelped and tried to grab anything to steady herself. She found nothing but the seat, and she clutched to the cushion as the convertible bumped along the field. This car had definitely not been built to withstand cross country.
“Dustin, where are we going?” Steve yelled over the din.
“Up!” Dustin answered, even louder.
“Henderson, this is a car, not a fucking plane!” Eddie said, doing his best to find ‘up’ in the dark.
“Hopper is going to fight Russians, and you two are complaining about driving us somewhere?” Erica asked.
“Driving somewhere implies roads! ” Robin said.
The car started rumbling ominously around them. Robin might not know anything about cars, but there was no way that sound wasn’t bad news. Was the car going to catch fire or something? Just what they freaking-
The car stalled, running into a bump it couldn’t climb over. It whined around them as Eddie spun the wheels a few times, but no dice. The Toddfather wasn’t going any higher.
“Hope you put on your hiking shoes.” Eddie groaned, swinging his door open.
Thankfully, the car had taken them most of the way there, because Robin’s work shoes were not suited to traipsing around the countryside. Dustin led them to a mess of metal and antennas. Robin couldn’t see any reason for it to be called Cerebro, quite honestly, but Dustin and Erica made quick work of setting up their gizmos. Faster than she would have thought, they had a line to Hopper. Seriously, how many times had Dustin done this? He was like… twelve? Fourteen? Eight?
Robin crouched with the kids, to provide… moral support. Steve and Eddie walked a little further away, so Steve had space to pace around. Apparently used to this, Eddie just crouched down in the middle of Steve’s circuit, keeping an eye on his boyfriend - boyfriend, Steve Harrington had a boyfriend- without trying to stop him. They were talking, low enough that Robin couldn’t make words over Erica and Dustin arguing with that Murray guy.
For a few minutes, nothing more happened. Just the kids being sarcastic little shits to grown adults, and the boys orbiting each other. Which, frankly should have made her suspicious, but hey… She was the new kid on the job. The job being fighting Russians and… interdimensional monsters? Maybe? The only one she’d seen so far had been whatever El had taken out of her own leg, and that had been… lackluster. Disgusting, for sure, but not exactly intimidating…
Then again, that just made them harder to catch, and who knew if there were other slugs crawling around, trying to get inside people? What if there were some here? She wouldn’t see them with the long grass, what if one of them got inside her, oh god-
“What is that?” Steve said, jerking to a stop. Robin and the kid turned around, looking at him then at the mall, which was flashing like a fucking disco ball.
Eddie sprang to his feet, stepping next to Steve “Any chance someone decided to hold a rock show at Starcourt?”
“Other than you?” Steve asked.
Dustin ignored them, scrambling for his walkie-talkie and switching to the ‘Griswold Family’ channel, asking for them to check in. Something wet slurped on the other end, and-
It screeched, deep and rough and ear-splitting and alien, and like, yeah, okay, maybe there were some actual monsters involved in this because that didn’t sound like Russian. Like, at all.
“Griswold Family, this is Scoops Troop! Please confirm your safety!” Dustin called out, but no one -or nothing- else answered him.
“Fuck!” Steve said, jumping up. Without another look, he stuffed his hand into Eddie’s pocket, grabbed the car key and took off running down the hill.
“Where are you going?” Erica shouted, scared under the bravado.
“To get them out of there! Stay here, contact the others!” Steve shouted over his shoulder. Eddie cursed and took off running after him.
“Shit.” Robin said, and she followed suit. The kids didn’t need her help to work the machine, and there was a monster at the mall.
“Robin!” Dustin screamed, and she stopped for a second, all ready to defend herself, but he just threw her the spare walkie-talkie. “Stay in touch!”
She grabbed it, stupidly touched he had given it to her, and not to Eddie, who he had known for years at this point. Holding it securely against her chest, she took off at a sprint again, hoping Steve and Eddie wouldn’t just leave without her.
“Does he usually do this?” She asked Eddie when she caught up with him, a few feet away from the Toddfather machine.
“Every fucking time!” Eddie roared, launching himself into the passenger's seat.
Steve had already started the car, throwing it into reverse as soon as Robin had closed her door.
“Every fucking time, Ser Steve just has to be the knight in fucking armor.” Eddie kept complaining, holding to the door as Steve spun the car onto the road and floored it.
Eddie had been pretty careful on the way to Cerebro, probably out of deference for the kids and Steve’s probable concussions. Steve had no such compulsion. He drove like a maniac, hands crisped on the wheel.
“So the stupid protectiveness is just a thing then?” Robin asked, clutching to the front seats for dear life.
“It’s not stupid. ” Steve protested.
“Oh yeah, that’s the Harrington Special. How do you think he keeps getting concussions?” Eddie said.
“Good, I was worried I was just special.”
“What did he do?” Eddie asked, distracted from Steve’s insane driving.
“You know, just threw himself between me and a Russian interrogator. Like you do.”
“Did you want to be tortured?” Steve asked.
“I wanted no one to be tortured! And I don’t want you to be tortured for me!”
“The first time this bullshit happened,” Eddie said, “Steve got himself almost brained by a Fed to defend El, and then, already concussed, he tried to beat down a fucking demogorgon with a chair. ”
“Better than a slingshot!” Steve said.
“Congrats, babe, you were slightly more useful than a twelve year old. Until you were tackled into a wall. ”
“You know, I don’t love you two ganging up on me.” Steve said, like Robin and Eddie hadn’t been ganging up on him since his first day at Scoops.
“What the fuck is a demogorgon ?” Robin asked.
“I mean, it wasn’t a real demogorgon, the demogorgon is a Demon Lord from the Abyss, it’s just what the kids call it, which is stupid, but no-one listens to me ab-” Eddie started ranted, letting go of the car door to gesticulate.
“Upside-Down monster. Looks like a man, except gray and slimy.” Steve cut in. “No face, big stupid mouth.”
“How does it have a mouth if it doesn’t have a face ?” Robin asked.
“Because the universe is a cruel and unkind place, lady Buckley.” Eddie answered. “There is no justice to be found, and monsters abound.”
“Any chance this is a nightmare and I’ll wake up soon?”
“If you make it work, please let us know.” Steve said, drifting out of the last turn before Starcourt. The mall came into view. Robin only had a second to take in the flashing lights, before Eddie cursed and she noticed Jonathan’s car was still in the parking lot.
Nancy was standing in front of it, stance square and immovable, like she was ready to take on the world, or at the very least the car speeding towards her. As if in slow motion, Robin watched Nancy Wheeler raise a gun and without missing a beat, start shooting at the car. Flooded in the car’s headlights, hallowed by the colored flashes from the mall, curly hair falling in front of her blazing eyes, she looked like some avenging angel.
Robin stared at her, stomach churning, for a bit too long, apparently, because Steve and Eddie noticed long before her that the car wasn’t slowing down, despite all of Nancy’s efforts.
“Fucking Hargrove!” Steve yelled, foot stomping down on the accelerator and the Toddfather bounced forward.
Robin yelped and scrambled for something to hold on. Eyes barely peeking above the window, she watched Nancy duck down at the very last possible moment. Just in time for Steve to slam into the other car, sending it flying away from her and the kids.
Robin unfurled herself from her protective curl, twisting to check on Steve and Eddie. Steve had his right arm stretched out in front of Eddie, as if that would prevent him from flying forward, if push came to shove. But neither boys seemed in any worse shape than they had been five seconds ago. Which, in Steve’s case, was still pretty bad, but she was ready to take it as a win, given that the other car was now catching fire .
“You okay?” Steve asked them, patting Eddie’s chest.
“Ask me tomorrow.” Robin panted, making a quick inventory of her fingers and toes.
Eddie just grabbed Steve’s hand and squeezed it, a thousand words seeming to pass between the two of them. Outside of the window, Nancy waved at Steve, unharmed and… unfairly pretty for a girl who had almost gotten smooshed into paste. For a moment, they just breathed. Until something shifted in the shadows above the mall.
Some huge, and dark, and with at least six legs that Robin could see.
“Oh shit.”
There were helicopters flying over Starcourt. The sentient black suits they carried swarmed around, coming and going from the flaming husk of what had once been the biggest mall in the Three-County-Area. When they’d appeared, Steve had sighed, and Eddie had rolled his eyes, and both of them had told her not to sign anything Hopper or Joyce hadn’t checked over.
Now Robin was sitting at the back of an ambulance, someone that might have been a real, normal EMT checking her over. She was pretty sure the Russian Drug had all been flushed from her system, mostly by all the fear and adrenaline, but the woman kept talking about her getting some blood drawn to run some checkups. Robin had never been too bothered by needles before, but now, all she could think of were the Russians stabbing truth serum into her veins, and of the huge syringes they had shown Steve and her but had never had the chance to use.
She wasn’t super thrilled about more syringes, was the thing. It seemed really stupid, after throwing fireworks at a goo monster and watching it kill a boy her age, but she didn’t want anything to do with needles. She wanted to shower, and curl up in a bed, and cry a little, and wake up a week ago, when none of this had happened and she was still being a dumb kid with Steve and Eddie.
But no one was coming for her. Her parents had probably been in bed for hours now, tired from arguing about how worried they were about her, but not from actually looking for her. Steve didn’t have anyone coming from him either, but he was keeping himself busy fussing over the kids. Especially Max, who was distraught enough to not even pretend she was clutching back at him.
Eddie had slipped away to call his uncle, check in, and tell him not to come and get him, because apparently one of them had a responsible parental figure. Well, that wasn’t fair. Other than Max, all the kids’ parents were trickling in to scoop up their shrimps, hugging and crying. Nancy had been whisked away with her brother, and Jonathan had helped his mom fold El and Will into a tight hug.
It didn’t make Robin feel any better about sitting alone at the back of an ambulance, watching her newly minted best friend being also alone to try and soothe a grieving fourteen year old who was also alone.
“All clear?” Eddie asked, reappearing just as the EMT finally let her go, with one more strong piece of advice to go to a hospital soon.
“Yeah, probably maybe not going to fall over dead any minute now.” Robin nodded, wrapping her arms around herself. It was the middle of summer, she shouldn’t be feeling cold.
“I would advise against it, Steve is in fussing mode now.” Eddie dropped himself next to her and knocked his shoulder against hers.
“Doesn’t matter if I’m dead.”
“Sounds like a challenge for Mom Steve.”
Robin snorted, looking down at the pavement. Eddie bumped into her again.
“Look, I know this is a lot. Especially the first time. If you want to come over to Steve's to get yourself together a little before you have to deal with your parents, you’re very welcome. In fact, I think Steve might break down a little if he has to let you out of his sight right now.”
Robin blinked, looking up at Eddie, then at Steve who was talking to Erica’s mom now. Eddie’s offer was a relief of a magnitude that surprised her. By all normal metrics, she barely knew Steve. A month ago, she despised him. Yesterday, she would have sworn until she was blue in the face that Steve was the straightest man in the country. Now he was her best friend, and he might be the only thing keeping her from exploding, and- And she still hadn’t known his parents weren’t in town until a few minutes ago.
“Relax, Buckley.” Eddie snorted, misinterpreting her silence. “I’m far too gay to fall for your many charms, you’ll be safe with us. Steve’s got like 3 spare bedrooms.”
Robin rolled her eyes, elbowing him in the ribs.
“Thank god, because I’m too tired and-” She paused for a second, eyes flitting up to Eddie’s and back down. Steve knew, and Steve was her best friend, and Steve was with Eddie, and Eddie was cool, and she had told Steve and he’d been great, and she was tired and alone and tired of being alone. “I’m too tired and gay to turn down another guy tonight.”
Just because she’d been wrong about Steve coming onto her didn’t mean it hadn’t taken a lot from her, okay?
Eddie’s face lit up, and he drew her into a side-hug, squeezing hard enough to cut her airflow for a second.
“Enough, enough, easy on the injured masses!” Robin wheezed, squirming until Eddie let go of her with a barked laugh.
“You two seem cozy.” Steve said, walking over to them. Max seemed to have been handed to Erica’s family. Robin was kind of surprised Steve had let go of her, but maybe the actual adults didn’t want to leave a teenager in charge of the other grieving teen.
“Just talking about how cool Buckley is.” Eddie drawled, giving her a shake and wiggling his eyebrows at Steve. Steve seemed to catch his meaning immediately, expression lifting for the first time since he drove them back to Starcourt. He bounced over to Eddie, slapping his shoulder.
“I told you! I told you, and you swore it was impossible there’d be another queer person in Hawkins! Statistically anormal you said! I told you so. ” Steve whispered gleefully, low enough that none of the suits and EMTs around him could hear.
Eddie groaned, jumping away from Steve and dragging Robin with him.
“Please, please tell me you have a functioning gaydar.” He begged, doing that wet cat thing with his eyes. “We can’t let Steve have all of it. That’s too much power for one man.”
Steve rolled his eyes, catching Eddie’s shirt to drag them towards where his car had been parked, far enough from the mall that it hadn’t been caught in any of the cross-fires.
“If I had a gaydar, I’d have kissed a girl by now.” Robin said, not minding too much that Steve had jumped to her other side and she was now squished between two men in dire need of showers.
“That’s just because you have terrible taste.” Steve said.
Eddie’s eyes lit up, smelling blood. “ Tell me. ”
“Don’t you dare!” Robin tried to warn Steve, but he was unfazed.
“Tammy Thompson!”
“Tammy Thompson?!” Eddie yelped. “Come on, Buckley, you can do so much better than Tammy Thompson! ”
“She’s pretty! And she’s got dreams, and ambitions, and-” Robin tried to argue.
“ I can sing better than Thompson! She sounds like a Muppet!”
“That’s what I said!”
“What would you know about being into girls?” Robin asked Eddie, falsely indignant.
“I am a man of culture and taste in all things, my lady!” Eddie tried to spin around, forgetting he was still holding onto Robin, and Steve by proxy, and almost sent them all tumbling down.
“I have watched you eat a banana Steve had dropped on the floor.”
“And it was delicious !”
They reached the beemer, and Steve stuffed Eddie into the backseat. Robin skipped to the passenger door.
“So, where to?” Steve asked once the car roared to life, looking at Robin.
“I was promised a shower and a spare bedroom, Steven Romuald Harrington.” She said.
Steve smiled, and drove the three of them home.