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Up and down goes the small pink pill, bouncing across Eddie’s hand. He twists it between his fingers, bounces it across his knuckles - it glances off one of his many rings occasionally, but never drops, is always caught by a steady palm, and flicked back into rotation. Steve watches idly - the movement is mesmerizing, even more so because he’s a little high, relaxing on Eddie’s narrow bed as Eddie scribbles into a notebook.
Whether the scribbles are song lyrics or campaign ideas Steve doesn’t know; he’s asked before, but Eddie wouldn’t tell. He’s been weirdly uptight all day, actually, more quiet than usual, but asked Steve to stay when he offered to fuck off if Eddie needed some space. (It’d make sense if Eddie needed space, really; they’ve been hanging out so much recently, but there’s something about each other’s company that makes both of them feel safe, and neither of them usually gets much of that, anymore.)
“Okay, I’ll bite,” Steve says, stubbing out the joint in Eddie’s bedside ashtray. “What kinda pill is that?”
Eddie doesn’t glance up, but Steve feels the weight of his attention shift as his fingers pinch the tablet to stillness, at least for the moment. “Estrogen,” he says, sounding contemplative. “The other kind of E.”
Steve frowns, because he’s a little faded, sure, but not high enough for Eddie to be this confusing. “Wait, isn’t that like, hormones? Thought you only sold drugs.”
“Yeah, this is just for me,” Eddie says, then shrugs. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
Steve sits up, runs a hand through his hair - the kids like to joke about him having a “Mom-Sense” like Peter Parker has a “Spidey-Sense” (whoever the fuck that is), and they’re not wrong; he can always tell when someone is struggling more than they're letting on. “Yeah?”
Eddie does look up at him, then. Doesn’t exactly look nervous, more… tired, if anything.
“I think I’m a girl.”
Steve blinks, considers this. Doesn’t consider doubting Eddie, because that’d be fucking stupid - Eddie likes to act impulsive, but someone who can plan eleven-hour campaigns and still have four super-geniuses howling with shock and betrayal at the end of it? Someone like that doesn’t speak without thought. “How come?”
Eddie huffs out a long breath, spins around in the wobbly desk chair. “Wheeler Junior was being a sore loser, said I’m just like his sister. I know he was trying to piss me off, but I can’t stop thinking about it. The thought makes me fucking giddy.”
Steve nods a few times, plucks at a loose thread on Eddie’s comforter. “Huh. Yeah, kind of makes sense, actually.”
Eddie squints at him. “It does?”
Steve shrugs, a little embarrassed, but the weed has loosened his tongue enough to admit, “You’re pretty.”
Eddie raises an eyebrow, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his - her (?) mouth. ”Boys can be pretty.”
“Yeah, but you’re like, girl-pretty. Don’t laugh, it’s a thing! It’s like - like, I can see a guy and go yeah, he’s good looking, and that’s it and I go about my day, but with girls there’s like this sense of awe? It’s like, wow, she’s pretty, can I get her to smile? I kinda wanna know what her hair smells like.”
Eddie stares at him incredulously, and Steve gives an annoyed huff, only just manages to bite down on overexplaining how last week he actually thought he was bi for a hot second, before he realized that apart from Eddie, guys still seemed about as sexually alluring as housetrained rats.
Well, not apart from Eddie, now, because Eddie is a girl. Problem solved.
“So what do I call you now?”
“Hmm?”
“Like…” Steve waves his hand vaguely. “Do you want a new name? Or something?”
Eddie starts bouncing the pill across her fingers again. “No, Eddie is fine. It’s… neutral, I like that. But use girl words, I guess?”
Steve frowns. Maybe he is too high for this. “Like… babe? Sweetheart?”
Eddie barely manages to tamp down on a laugh. “Like she and her, dude. Like Eddie’s driving the other girls to Nancy’s because Robin doesn’t have a car, and Max and El are underage. Five minutes as a girl and you already want to climb me like a tree, is that it?”
Steve blushes, lobs Eddie’s dog-eared copy of the Silmarillion at her, which she dodges expertly, cackling in that wild way that she has. Still Eddie. Still pretty. “Shut up, it’s not like that,” Steve grumbles, and Eddie grins, tugging her hair in front of her mouth.
“Keep telling yourself that, big boy.”