Work Text:
Three. That’s how many front teeth Eddie knocks out of his head trying to pull off some boneheaded trick at the skate park. “Owwwww,” he whines pitifully from the back seat of Steve’s car where he’s got his head in Robin’s lap, the sound muffled behind a bag of frozen peas pressed to his mouth.
“Yeah, well,” Steve says, stepping harder on the gas. Eddie’s teeth are in his pocket. “That’s what you get for trying to impress a little girl.”
“Excuse you,” Max glares from the passenger seat. “I’m fifteen tomorrow.”
“You’re a baby.”
“I have tits!”
“Ew.” Steve doesn’t want to think about her tits, for god’s sake.
“Steve,” Robin chides, adjusting Eddie in her lap as they round the last corner into town. “Don’t body shame.”
Max ignores her. “Whatever.” She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. “It wasn’t even impressive.”
“Hey!!” Eddie sits up; takes the bag off his mouth to protest; ends up spraying blood across the roof of Steve’s car as they go over a speed bump. Goddammit. Goddammit, he’s lucky Steve would do anything for him.
Steve scowls at him in the rearview and pulls up to the dentist’s office. “You’re cleaning that up.”
—
They get Eddie in to see the dentist surprisingly quickly.
Steve goes back with him, hangs out at the edge of the exam room and horrifies the assistant when he fishes three teeth roots-and-all out of the blood-stained front pocket of his jeans. Eddie’s all loopy on laughing gas so they can reimplant the two front teeth — “we’ll need to replace the lateral incisor” — and the whole ridiculous ordeal is kinda worth it when, at the end of the appointment, just the two of them alone in a tiny room, Eddie looks up at Steve like he hung the moon, gives him a big gap-toothed smile, and says “hey” like ‘I love you.’
He reaches out to hold Steve’s pinky. “Thanks.”
Steve squeezes back and says, “Any time.”