Chapter Text
“Oh.”
“Oh...”
“Holy shit...”
“Holy shit.”
“Oh....” And suddenly, Steve’s lip trembles and his eyes appear wet. Robin’s heart, which had been in her throat for the past thirty seconds, finally sinks completely. Steve ducks his head slightly, then, and the true panic set in.
“Wait, why are you crying? Is- I'm-” She had expected... she didn't know. Anger, maybe? Hopefully acceptance, or she wouldn’t even have risked but not- She didn’t think he’d be crying.
“No. No, it’s okay, Robin. It’s okay. I’m not-” Steve babbles through tears in front of her, aggressively wiping at his eyes (and then flinching back at the pressure on his bruises) and trying to regain his composure.
Wide eyed and panicked, she almost back tracks “If it's not-”
“No!” He interrupts her, finally looking her in the eye again. He looks devasted, but resolute. “Robin, it's okay. I promise it's okay - I’m just.” He hesitates again, looking away, and Robin is starting to get the sense that he’s not exactly upset about being rejected.
He’s not mad either. She calms herself internally and looks. Really looks.
“You’re just...?” She prompts, delicately.
He lets out a heavy sigh and smiles down at his knees, shaking and still crying but... “You have no idea how relieved I am right now.”
What?
“What?” She responds, parroting her own thoughts that had come screeching to a halt.
He must hear the incredulity in her voice, because he chuckles softly again and continues. “I was so right. With what I said earlier.” He says, leaning his head back on the stall wall, "I wish I had known you so much longer. Then maybe I wouldn't have said all that stuff about liking you just now. And we could have been friends the whole time.”
He looks back at her, and Robin has never been more conversationally lost. Not that she often fairs particularly spectacularly. But he’s clearly trying to imply something, just like she had been trying to imply something to her. But that can’t be right. Because she’s Robin Buckley, nerdy band dweeb who speaks a ton of languages and plays trumpet. And he’s Steve the Motherfucking Hair Harrington.
“Steve, I don't understand.” She does. She thinks she does. But she needs to hear more because if she’s wrong- “You just confessed to me, and now you're relieved I’m- that I like...” And goddamnit this conversation would be so much easier if she could say the word out loud.
Even here. Even after telling someone. She can’t even say it out loud.
Steve is wincing and nodding before she even gets to finish.
“I know.” He whispers. “I know it doesn't make sense, okay, but I've just.” Steve’s eyes dart about, searching for the words. “Been pretending for so long. I couldn't say anything else.” His eyes are pleading now, for her to understand. And she does. She thinks she does, but she just needs to hear- “I like you, Robin. I really like you. So, I thought to keep you with me I would have to keep...”
“Pretending...” She finishes for him, smile watery in mimic of his.
Steve nods, and Robin just wants to dive over the dirty bathroom floor and hold him. How could she have gotten so lucky. That the first person she told would be someone who understood already. She’s about to do just that; just hug him like she wants to, when he continues.
“Nancy Wheeler. Senior year.” Steve’s tone is bitter now. Clearly there's more to the admission that he needs to say. “The reality check I needed to finally admit that none of what I was doing was... Real.”
Another lightbulb goes off in her head “Bullshit.” She echoes his word choice from earlier. Steve’s watery smile turns sardonic in confirmation.
“And you know.” Steve’s on a roll now, bolstered. “Tammy Thompson, I'm sure she's fine to anyone else but from where I was sitting? I fucking hated her.” Robin barks a laugh. “And not just because of her awful singing.”
Robin gasps and smacks his knee “Her singing was not that bad!” She defends.
Steve gapes at her in shock, “It totally is have you heard her?” He rebuts her instantly, like he’s been holding on to this for a while. God, he probably has. “She couldn't hold a tune at all. Completely tone deaf!”
“She was not!” And Robin’s not even really defending her anymore, too caught up in this to be serious. Laughing along to Steve’s rendition-
“She was! It was constant- ‘And I need you now tonight’”
“You sound like a muppet.” She manages through tears and laughter.
“SHE sounds like a muppet.” Steve manages through his own “A muppet giving birth-”
They both break down. Her ribs hurt from it. She can only imagine how Steve’s feel, bruised and battered and sat across from her and-
“Oh my god.” The wheezing is winding down, but she has so much more to say. “We're getting off topic, dingus. You said you hated her for more than her singing.” And all of a sudden, she has to know. Has to keep it going; This euphoric moment of what they’re sharing about each other. Of Robin liking Tammy a little too much, and Steve not liking her at all.
Steve sobers up a little too, chuckling even as he recounts the memory of their shared class. “Yeah, I uh. I hated her for the same reason you hated me.” He grins like he’s about to make a hilarious joke. “She wouldn't leave me alone! I tried everything. All those things you hated. Being dumb. Being gross. Being rude. But she just wouldn't...”
“Take her eyes off you.” Robin finishes for him. That was... also not what she was expecting.
She’s starting to realize Steve Harrington might never have been what she expected at all.
Neither of them are laughing anymore and suddenly, Robin doesn't really want to. Not when she can see Steve, her annoying coworker-turned-friend (was it too early to say best friend? Only friend?) looking stricken. Like he’s grieving something in front of her. She doesn't know what.
“Yeah.” He says, lamely. Like he’d wanted to say something else.
Robin has to try. He’d let her have an outlet. Let her tell him about Tammy, her first real crush that wasn’t just accidentally brushing hands with a girl during soccer and feeling weird about it after. She could give this to him, too.
“And you wanted to be looked at by...?” She tries, careful but hopeful.
Robin isn't great at social skills, but she knows instantly that was the wrong question. He clams up again and shakes his head in a way she knows can't be good for his almost certain concussion.
“No one.” He breathes, panicked but certain. “I couldn't even think- I wouldn't let myself think of it.” His hands grip his knees as he continues, “I think that's why Nance and I... Why I let it go on so long.” Steve’s voice cracks through her name. Like it hurts him to even say it like that... with affection.
And goddamnit, he’s tearing up again. And now so is Robin, she’s always been a sympathetic crier. Robin reaches out across the stall and takes his hand in hers, gripping hard and taking it away from where his nails are leaving dents in his kneecaps. He's already hurt enough.
“She couldn't even look at me sometimes, but I didn't really want her to. So, it worked out.” He grimaces and hangs his head again. “I was so selfish.” He whispers. Like a confession.
“Steve...”
“And now I'm being selfish again because I put all that shit on you and made you-”
“You didn't ‘make me’ anything.” She corrects, not unkindly. She’d wanted him to know, regardless of his reaction. Even if he hadn’t ‘confessed’ to her, she knows deep down she would have told him. After what they’d just been through together, she can’t imagine not have. “And you're not- it was bad for you too, Steve. Doing that. Forcing yourself to-”
“I had to!” Steve’s voice is strangled and wrecked. She grips his hand harder, and he squeezes back as he rambles on “I was basketball captain, swim team co-captain, I had baseball, key club, prom committee, I was on the student council, I was-”
“I know Steve.”
“I had to Robin.” He’s never sounded smaller.
“I know.” And the worst part is, she does. Robin knows.
Steve isn't – wasn't – like her. Not really. There are things that guys, especially guys like him, are expected to do that she used to thank every god she could think of that she wasn’t. It wasn't easy for either of them. She was afraid all the time. But she wasn't exactly a cheerleader. She wasn't popular. If she didn’t have a date to prom, who even cared? Not the Hawkins High student body, that's for sure. It was expected, even. She’d never really had to... perform. Hide? Yes. Every damn day, she’d felt like she was hiding. Scared, alone, and invisible. Terrified of being found out. Town pariah: undercover. But at least no one was looking her way... not really looking.
Not like people looked at – looked to – Steve.
He sniffles and wipes his eyes again, a motion which Robin mimics. “I wish I had known you sooner.” He says again. “Really known you.” He emphasizes, and she knows what he means.
She wishes she’d known, too.
She grins at him, something she’s glad to see him do back. “Well, you have me now.” She jokes, swinging their joined hands between them. “And you can't get rid of me. We're Russian torture buddies now, Harrington. That's not a bond that can be broken ever.”
Steve snorts, an ugly and beautiful sound (then he flinches, because his nose is certainly broken. Robin is getting very worried about his head) “Well, we’ll have to call it something else because I'm not calling it that.”
“What wrong with Russian torture buddies?” She squawks in mock outrage. “You don't wanna introduce me to everyone like-”
“Like what? Here’s my Russian torture buddy Robin,” he drawls sarcastically, though a smile is spreading across his face, adding to her joke, “we nearly died a bunch of times together under a mall, I hope you like her as much as I do?”
She throws her head back and cackles, exactly in time with Steve, “Exactly like that!” She cries, “Leaves no room for any ambiguity as to the nature of our relationship!”
“Oh yeah, I'm sure there’ll be no follow up questions at all” He quips.
“Totally clear cut!”
“Absolutely crystal!”
Then, they’re laughing again and it’s beautiful. Robin can almost forget where they are. What led them here. Partially drugged up (because let's face it; neither of them would have said any of that stuff if there wasn't still a little in their systems), gripping each other's hands on the dirty bathroom floor of the Starcourt mall.
And it's completely perfect, until the door bursts open and-
“Okay! What the hell.” Dustin shouts from the doorway, Erica steadfastly behind him.
Both completely unimpressed.
Robin looks at Steve, and Steve looks back. She thinks she sees in his eyes and hopes he sees it her’s. The quiet relief, both that the interruption was just those two kids they’d risked their lives for, but also that the interruption came at the perfect time. They’d said everything they needed to say (not forever; she had so much more to talk about. Years to catch up on. But enough for right now).
Like recognizes like. They get it. Robin finally has someone who really gets it.
It's enough to make her laugh all over again. This time in pure bliss, bolstered by Steve laughing along right in front of her, his hand still firmly pressed into hers.
“I’m serious!” Dustin cries, arms out in exasperation, “What the hell, guys?! We’ve been looking all over to make sure you didn’t get re-kidnapped and you’re hiding in the bathroom to hold hands?”
Robin almost feels bad for making him worry, but then Steve makes eye contact with her again and shakes their still conjoined hands, raising a mocking eyebrow, and it’s just all too funny. Maybe they’re still-
“They’re definitely still drugged.” Says Erica to Dustin, who has begun to pace the bathroom in frustration.
“Okay. Okay,” he says, “I know what we can do.” Dustin turns back to Erica, seemingly deeming her the only person worth talking to at the moment, “I’m pretty sure the movie is almost over, and we need to get out of here without being spotted by any evil Russians.” he explains, “We can just wait it out and then use the movie crowd to blend in and leave the mall.”
Erica nods, just as serious, and gestures to Robin and Steve “Okay, but what about Tim and Tom over here? Their blood-covered sailor’s getup doesn't exactly ‘blend’.”
“Hey,” Steve whines, “only mine has any blood on it. Rob’s is perfectly fine.” Robin nods her head in agreement. She might have puked a bunch, but Steve took all the hits for her down there... his outfit might have to be burned after this.
Actually, she decides there and then that they’re both burning this uniform. They’re definitely fired from Scoop’s regardless.
“And that’s another thing.” Erica continues, “What happens after we blend and get out of the mall? How are we gonna get away from here?”
Dustin tilts his head in confusion, “We steal a car for Steve to drive, obviously.”
Robin furrows her brow at that and attempts to stand, dragging a swaying Steve up with her. “Woah, woah, little strange child, I don't think Stevie here is fit for driving... or grand theft auto.” As if to prove her point, he leans most of his bodyweight into her, but for some reason shakes his head.
“No, I can do it.” He says. Robin gapes at him in disbelief.
“Steve, you-”
“Have you all forgotten about public transportation?!” Erica loudly interrupts, raising her eyebrow at Dustin incredulously. “I’m not going to jail for car theft when I could be a commie-busting American hero.”
“Okay so it’s settled.” Dustin interrupts, nodding. “The movie should be done any second now. We blend, get out the mall, hop on the bus, find Hopper, and stop the Russians.”
“He says it like it's so simple.” Robin sighs. Steve huffs a laugh from beside her.
“Everything's simple to him.”
Dustin rolls his eyes, “He’s right here.” He makes his way to the bathroom door, cracking it slightly to peer out into the main area of the mall.
Erica, follows suit, so Robin pulls Steve along to hover over the two kids. He’s swaying a little less, but she keeps hold of his hand, just in case. She doesn’t care what Dustin’s plan is, as soon as they're away from this awful mall, Robin is taking her best friend (because that's what they are, she’s sure of it now) to the hospital.
She doesn't need to be an American hero. She just wants them all to be okay. Cracking Top Secret Russian Codes was fun and all, but if she’d known-
If she’d known...
She looks at Steve, who’s looking at Dustin and Erica. She can tell what he’s doing, because that's the kind of thing she can do now. His eyes are clearer than they have been for the last hour; laser focused on those two rambunctious kids. Making sure they're okay. His eyes flit to her’s. Making sure she’s okay.
She knows. She knows that if she hadn’t been here, he’d be a lot worse. Robin doesn't know how she knows, but she does. Steve protects the kids, and her, but she’d been trying to protect him right back. Done a lousy job of it, hence the completely messed up face, but she’d tried.
In that moment, she knows that if she’d known, from the beginning that it would turn out like this. She would do it all again.
She nods to him. He nods back. They squeeze each other’s hands.
“And...” Dustin readies himself at the door, signaling the rest of them to follow on his mark.
“Blend.”
They're out. Weaving between swathes of movie-goers and making their collective way painstakingly to the big glass front doors of the mall. It’s almost too easy, no one even looks at them.
“Well shit, that worked.” Erica comments to Dustin with a smile.
“’Course it worked.” He responds.
Robin doesn't know where he gets the confidence from. She’d love some of it for herself; she can feel her whole body trembling from adrenaline. Steve gives her hand a soft tug and she breathes. Just blend. That's all she has to do. Then, she and Steve can go to the hospital, then home, and they can talk about... Anything they want.
She really wants to talk to him.
For now, she keeps her eyes ahead, skittish and searching for anything amiss.
Dustin continues “Now, we just need to get on the bus with the rest of these plebes, and home sweet home, here we come.”
Robin’s stomach clenches at the same time she feels Steve go slightly rigid beside her.
“Uh, Dustin.” He tries.
“What?”
“Yeah, we might not wanna go to your house.”
“Why?” Dustin asks, and Robin can hear the growing irritation in his voice.
Not that anyone asked Robin, and not that she told them. But her plan was always to go straight to the hospital, so she isn't even sure when Dustin’s house became an option. They’re not even out of here yet, she still keeps looking out for any evil Russians. Maybe they should try for the staff exit. She’s about to suggest as much when-
“Well, I might’ve told them your full name.”
And holy shit. Yeah, he did do that, Robin remembers. She’d had to interrupt him. But that's fine, right? She knows he was drugged; they both were. Their fingernails were going to get pulled out, they would've said anything.
Robin sees Dustin’s face pale as he whispers, “What is wrong with you?”
“Dude, I was drugged.”
“So?”
“So?” Steve parrots, obviously confused by Dustin’s confusion. Robin is a little confused, too. She gets that it's scary for Dustin, having his name known by them, but surely, he understands Steve would never do that on purpose. Robin hasn't known them as a unit for very long, but she sees how much Steve loves that kid. He would never.
“So, you resist.” Dustin insists, “You tough it out.” Robin winces. “You tough it out like a man.”
And suddenly, she really gets it. She thought she understood Steve earlier. What he’d meant when he said, ‘I had to, Robin.’ in that broken and beaten voice. She thought it was just what he ‘had to’ do to survive high school. But Dustin isn't in high school. Not yet at least. But he’d said it and made it true.
Steve toughs it out like a man.
Robin’s heart breaks for him all over again. More than when her dreams of running away to Europe were dashed, because that was her dream. She’d escape high school, and her days of hiding would be over. It can’t be over for Steve. Not as long as he has people to protect. And she knows; he won’t ever willingly stop doing that.
Steve has an image to uphold beyond petty high school hierarchies, kids who look up to him, people who look to him for what to do. How to be. And she finally gets it. It's why he felt like he had to...
Pretend.
In her introspection she almost doesn’t spot it, but her constant anxiety riddled observation has never failed her before. Right up ahead, she sees people being stopped. By a suspicious looking man dressed all in black.
“Guys.” She interrupts whatever dregs of argument are still happening and puts her arm out to slow Dustin. Steve automatically slows when he feels the tug on his hand. She feels more than sees when they notice what she has, all of them stiff with dread.
“Abort...”
It's the first thing Dustin’s said that she agrees with so far.
“Abort. Abort!”
And then they're running back, weaving through the crowd again in reverse. Her blood is pumping in her ears and her heart is in her throat and her and slips out of Steve’s so she can run better (she’s always been a terrible runner, despite the soccer).
She feels like they can’t possibly escape this; it's been going too well for too long. The mall is getting more barren the farther in they go. Soon it'll be just them and the Russians left, and they’ll be caught.
Robin doesn’t think they’ll be treated quite so well the next time.
They're at the bottom level of the mall, in the food court, when her hand gets grabbed again.
“Over here!” Steve hisses and the group follows as he leaps over the counter of Great Cookie, Robin having no choice but to follow, and immediately ducks for cover. Dustin and Erica follow suit, somehow managing to be quiet in their haste. Then, they all wait. And wait.
She can hear them, however faintly. Heavy boots against cold tiled floors. She hears several of them, in fact. It suddenly occurs to her that the uniform she saw the guy from earlier wearing is the security uniform for the mall itself. Of course it was. There were countless security guards for a mall this big, and they’d been right under everyone's noses this entire time. Ready to disappear anyone who got too close to their secret operation.
Robin tucks her knees to her chest and pointedly does not pray. It's a stupid thought to have right now, but she’s pretty sure that if she dies, it would be God’s final trick on her. Making it so she finally finds the acceptance and understanding she’d been looking for her entire life, and then not giving her any time to really bask in it. She doesn't dare look at Steve, afraid that he’s thinking the same thing.
A deep Russian voice speaks into a walkie, and several footsteps convene behind them. This is it. She knows it. Clutching tight to Steve’s hand, she silently hopes he won't suffer too much should they be captured again. She hopes they’ll just shoot. She doesn't think she can do it again; hear his screams through the wall while they beat him senseless. With Dustin and Erica with them, there will be no chance of escape, and Steve will throw himself in front of them every time and suffer for it. She hopes they just shoot. Really, she hopes for-
A car alarm sounds out so suddenly she almost thinks she dies right then and there. But she isn't dead, and that stupid car they have stationed in the center of the mall is ringing out for seemingly no reason and she’s alive and-
The rest of the night is a blur, after that.
She thought the evil Russians under the mall were the craziest thing she’d ever see in her life, but suddenly she’s living in a world with a girl who can throw cars with her mind, monsters made of melted people, and evil forces that can take over people’s minds and turn them evil. Robin isn't certain she truly processes everything, but she has Steve by her side the entire time, an anchor to her almost completely capsized ship.
It’s only when they're outside the smoldering remains of the mall, fire service and paramedics and fucking military everywhere, that she remembers the promise she made to herself.
She stumbles up from the gurney she’s been sharing with Max, patting her gently on the shoulder. Robin doesn't really know Max that well, only from her visits to Steve in Scoops, and for how little she knows Max, Robin hated Billy Hargrove even more... But she recognizes it was her brother, in a twisted way.
“I’ll be right back, okay?” She mumbles. Max doesn't respond, but Robin hadn't expected her to.
Right now, she has to find Steve. There are several ambulances dotted about that he could be at, and Robin finds herself clutching at her blanket in panic at not knowing which he could be in. With the level of beating he took he could have already been whisked away to a hospital, and she’d have no idea. Silently, she curses herself for ever losing track of him.
Just as she’s about to phone it in and ask literally any bystander if they’ve seen him, she spots him. His blue shorts (that he graciously switched with her on their first ever shift together. Back when she hated him and he was trying his best to be liked) poke out from under his own shock blanket, his goofy socks are completely rolled down, and he’s holding some kind of icepack to his head, but it’s him.
Steve is hanging outside of an ambulance that holds Nancy and Jonathan, both tucked into each other and disheveled in their own ways. They’re sitting. He’s not. Its then that she realizes what he’s been doing. She looks behind and sure enough Mike and that little psychic girl Robin learned is called El are just looking away from Steve, like he’d just been there before.
She looks around again and realizes the ambulance Max and herself were at is the last in the row. Steve, even now, even in the monumental amount of pain he must be in, is making the rounds to check on everyone else.
‘You tough it out like a man.’
Robin doesn't know what else to do but shuffle back to Max and put her arm around the young girl’s shoulders. She’ll let Steve do his rounds. Let him take care of everyone. Then, when he finally gets to her, it’ll be his turn. Robin definitely feels like she needs to be taken care of right now, but that's the beauty of finding someone. You can take care of each other.