Chapter Text
Eddie isn't big on the new mall in town. He believes big greedy corporations will be the downfall of man and man, has that been easy to spot in Hawkings this summer when the Starcourt mall opened. Suddenly, all the other shops in town were empty, barely making sales and Eddie knows that in just a couple of years all the mom-and-pop shops in Hawkings will close, one after another. So, Eddie has made the promise to boycott this new mall and all the change it brought with it.
That being said, Gareth kept going on and on about how well stocked the record shop there is, not to mention that Robin has been on his ass about coming to see her at work for ages.
It's Wednesday noon when Eddie thinks 'What the hell', sits in his van and drives to the mall. He browses the record store for at least an hour, making mental notes of all the records he wants to buy but doesn't have the money for. After an hour of daydreaming about his very own record library, realising he probably won't ever own most of the records he'd have liked, he decides he should also pop by Robin's work before going back to the trailer park.
It's not particularly hard to find Scoops Ahoy. He feels his mouth stretch into a wide grin before he could even think about suppressing it when he spots Robin behind the counter talking to a customer. And while he is happy to see her, she isn't the reason for the uptick in his mood, but he's pretty sure that the white, red and navy-blue work uniform has something to do with it.
He gets in line and waits for his turn, hiding behind the customer in front of him. As the guy standing in front of Eddie orders and pays, Eddie slams his palms on the ice cream glass case, all theatrics and wide, mischievous eyes, startling Robin, who had just now noticed his presence, and he cackles in her face, pointing a finger at her stupid hat, then again at her stupid apron and then at her even stupider shorts. Robin crosses her arms and scowls at him.
"That's good, yeah," she mumbles annoyed, "get it all out of your system now, because next time I'm punching you in the face, dingus."
Eddie pretends to wipe away a single stray tear while clutching his stomach: "I never wished I owned a camera as much as I do right now."
"You know I can deny you service right?"
"You wouldn't dare!" Eddie puts both his hands over his heart as if he'd been hit with an arrow.
Robin just turns around and promptly ignores him.
"C'mon Robs, I came to see you at work because I'm such an amazing friend. Aren't I just the best friend ever? C'mon, don't do this to me. The uniform isn't even that bad, you look great in it actually! Really makes your eyes pop out! And the hat compliments your head shape so well."
"Alright, now you're just taking the piss."
"I'll be good from now on, I swear. That was my last one."
Robin nods to herself and turns back to Eddie. Then she calls: "STEVE!"
Suddenly the shutters behind Robin, which seem to be separating the employee backroom from the rest of the shop, slam open and Steve 'The Hair' Harrington pops his head through the window, looking at Robin.
"What's up?" he answers.
"Can you man the counter? I wanna take my break now."
Steve agrees easily, mumbling a "yeah, sure" and comes through the door to the counter. And is that a sight to see. Eddie feels he might need a moment (or an eternity) to collect himself after he takes Steve, in all his glory, in. Somehow, the ridiculous uniform looks incredibly cute on him. Eddie can't help himself when he whistles:
"Lookin' good, Harrington!"
Eddie fears his tone might've sounded just a bit too appreciative and not jeering enough, because Harrington's eyes widen, and his cheeks tint a nice shade of red and Eddie can't help but think he looks like Bambi. He can see Steve trying to come up with a response but failing miserably, and he looks so unsure that Eddie wants to coo at him to see Harrington's reaction to that, but he restrains himself from it. In the end, Steve just seems to settle on: "Munson?"
“That’s the name, don’t overuse it,” Eddie replies with a wink.
Steve looks confused: “What are you doing here? Didn’t think this would be your type of thing.”
“And how would you know Harrington? Keeping tabs on me?” that earns Eddie another small blush. It makes him feel like he’s king of the world.
Steve stumbles through his next words. Eddie notes how cute he looks when he’s flustered.
“N-no, no! I just, just meant that, uh… you know?” he finishes lamely.
Eddie takes pity on the poor guy, “yeah, I know. I’m here to see Robin actually.”
Harrington seems slightly surprised at that.
“I didn’t know you two were… friends?” he ends his sentence as a question, unsure if he’s understanding the situation correctly.
“We know each other from band practice,” Robin clarifies. She pushes Eddie towards the exit, clearly eager to start her lunch break.
“Bye, Stevie!” Eddie calls behind him as he lets himself be pushed by Robin.
Steve is wiping the tables when Robin and Eddie return from Robin’s lunch break. And it makes Eddie do a double take. He couldn’t see Harrington’s entire outfit before, but boy can he see it now. For some reason, Steve's uniform shorts are so much shorter and much more fitted than Robin's. Only then does Eddie notice the knee-highs. Eddie is sure his irises are the shape of hearts right now. He let's out a loud guffaw.
“How are your shorts even shorter than Robin’s?!” he asks incredulously. His eyes twinkle with giddiness. He claps his hands like a child in a candy shop.
“It’s confirmed. The owner is a gross pervert,” he strokes his chin in thought, “I’m definitely reaping the benefits though.” He makes a show of looking Steve up and down, who just gapes at him wide-eyed.
“Jesus! That’s… You can’t say that!”
“Why not?”
“You just can’t!”
“Again… Why not?”
“What if someone hears you?”
This makes Eddie shrug his shoulders and he looks at Steve, his head cocked to the side to appear confused. Eddie knows damn well what Harrington means, but that doesn’t obligate him to making this any easier for the other boy.
His face red once more, Steve licks his lips nervously, unsure of how to proceed, and Eddie does not track the movement of Steve’s tongue from one corner of his mouth to the other with his eyes. He really doesn’t. If he were asked though, he would say that this was the moment when he confirmed that when Steve is flustered, his cheeks turn the same shade of red as his tongue.
“You’re gonna get me in trouble for calling,” this is when Steve looks around all fidgety and lowers his voice to a whisper, “… the boss a pervert.”
Just saying that out loud makes Harrington blush again. God, how someone blush so much?
Eddie’s lips break into a mean grin: “You’re absolutely right, Harrington! I guess ‘pervert’ isn’t the right word. I think ‘paedophile’ is much better suited!”
This makes Steve groan. He looks at the floor before turning on his heel to head to the break room, shaking his head the whole way. Eddie’s obnoxious cackle follows him until the doors swing shut behind him and he stops laughing now that Steve is gone, satisfied with his shenanigans and their effect.
He sees that Robin is trying to hide her own laughter to admonish him for antagonising Harrington so intensely, but he doesn’t listen to her any more than he listens to his uncle when he tells him to clean up his shit.
“What was that?”
Robin asks him a couple of hours later, just as they were finishing up for the night.
“What was what?” Steve asks, genuinely having no idea what she’s talking about.
She waves her hand in the air, as if that can convey her thoughts to Steve adequately enough for him to understand her. Steve just cluelessly shrugs at her.
“That!” she says, exasperatedly, “That whole thing with Eddie before?”
Steve scrunches up his eyebrows in confusion, “I really don’t know what you mean...”
“I mean… that I’ve never seen you so flustered before. Even when you’re flirting with girls and you fumble spectacularly, you have no shame about it whatsoever. Like, I’ve never seen you embarrassed, like, ever!” there she waves her hands around like a madwoman. “And you were downright shy when Eddie was here.”
She puts emphasis on the ‘downright’ that makes Steve feel indignant.
“Hey! No need to sound so disgusted when you say it…”
“What? That’s your takeaway from what I just said?”
“No…” suddenly Steve feels as dumb as he did in History class back in high school. Back in high school, like that wasn’t just little over a month ago.
“Why were you acting like a blushing virgin?” Robin points an accusatory finger in the space between his eyes and the motion makes Steve’s eyes cross for a moment.
“I was not acting like… like that at all!” He points a finger right back at her to spite her.
“Don’t you lie to me! You were stuttering and all!” she doubles down on the pointing, her finger almost touching Steve’s forehead.
“I was not!” and Steve’s finger actually touches Robin’s forehead.
“Pshhh!” she lets out, unsatisfied, crossing her arms and turning to the side, so that only her profile was visible to Steve.
“Don’t you ‘pshh!’ me!”
Steve might genuinely be annoyed in this moment.
“Then stop lying!”
“I’m not!”
He was. Truth be told he has no idea why he was so flustered when Munson came to Scoop’s Ahoy today.
Now, in the comfort of his bed, when sleep just can’t seem to come to him thanks to all his monster encounters and he’s staring at his bedroom ceiling, he has all the time in the world to turn what happened earlier in the day over and over. Each time the grip of the embarrassment tightens around his chest, making it harder for him to breathe.
He wants to scream. He doesn't, but he does press the palms of his hands to his eyes so hard it makes black spots burst behind his closed eyelids.
Hopefully, Munson didn’t notice just how rattled Steve was because of his words. That thought is what finally gets Steve’s mind to calm down enough that he’s able to settle down and finally succumb to the sleep that’s tugging at his eyelids.
On the other side of town, lying on his back in bed and slowly finishing half a joint, Eddie is still riding the high of making The Steve Harrington blush more times than he could count, when he puts the joint out in the ashtray on his bedside table and turns on his side, exhaling the smoke one last time before falling into a pleasant slumber, filled with dreams of one Steve Harrington blushing the perfect shade of red.