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Steve was picking up Robin and Dustin from school. As usual Robin had shown up almost immediately after the bell rang and was now sitting in the passenger seat listening to one of her language tapes, as she often did to help her relax after a long school day. Steve didn't really understand how more studying was supposed to be relaxing, but if it helped her who was he to question it.
Since Dustin was taking forever and he had nothing better to do while he waited, he decided to clean up some of the mess the kids always inevitably left in his car. He was putting empty candy wrappers into a small trash bag he kept in the car for this exact reason and gathering several CDs that were spread out across the backseat to put them back where they belonged when his eyes suddenly caught on something unusual.
"Robin, why is there a bra in the backseat of my car?"
"It was uncomfortable", she replies, pausing her tape.
"Uh huh, you realize that doesn't actually explain what it's doing in my back seat right? I mean seriously, what is it with you and bras? Last week you threw one directly in my face..."
"I didn't know you were standing there!"
"... and the other day I found one in the kitchen sink! The goddamn kitchen sink, Robin!"
"Yeah okay I don't actually have a good excuse for that one, but hey at least in comparison finding one in your back seat is like way less weird, right?"
"If Henderson sees that there he will literally never believe that we aren't dating..."
" He already doesn't."
"Fair."
Robin stuffed the bra in her backpack before Dustin arrived anyway, because Dustin really didn't need more ammo to tease them about their nonexistent relationship and also she probably didn't particularly want a fifteen year old boy to see her bra.
"While I would love to hear more about..., whatever it is you're actually talking about, to be honest I lost track like five minutes ago, I really do need to shower. So you can either follow me to the bathroom or pause your rant until I'm done."
Steve picked up the clothes he had laid out and headed to the bathroom.
When Robin stopped pacing back and forth across the room and actually followed him towards the bathroom while she continued rambling, he paused in the doorway and turned around with a slightly confused look on his face.
"Shit! You were joking, obviously. Sorry, I'll just wait out here. I'm being weird, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."
Her voice was slightly panicked and she could feel her face turning red.
"Robin breathe, it's fine! It just wasn't expecting you to actually do that."
"I mean I wasn't gonna follow you into the shower or anything, cause that would be like super weird and also eww, I definitely do not want to see that!", she shuddered slightly at the thought of seeing Steve naked before continuing her explanation, "I was thinking I could just look away while you're getting undressed and like talk to you through the shower curtain you know..."
"Yeah, that sounds nice actually."
"It does? I mean, uh... great, good, cool", Robin said as she continued hovering in the doorway.
"So are you coming?"
"Oh, yeah, right! Sorry!"
There wat a brief awkward silence while Steve took off his clothes and got in shower. To distract herself Robin started rifling through the collection of hair products and other things that were lined up on the counter, before she sat down on the ground, leaned back against the bathtub and started talking again.
"So anyway, as I was saying before..."
She continued talking about whatever came to her mind until Steve turned off the water and asked her to hand him a towel.
She thought this whole situation should probably feel awkward and and weird, but really it just felt comfortable, like they had always done this.
Steve stood in the kitchen waiting for their popcorn to pop and thinking about how at this point it felt like Robin spent more time at his house than she did at her own and honestly, Steve liked it that way. It made made his big empty house feel less lonely and more lived in. When he glanced over at the sink he could see two sets of dirty dishes from dinner. Upstairs in his room there was a drawer full of Robins clothes, even though most of them usually ended up on the floor or strewn across his desk chair anyway. And in the bathroom her toothbrush sat next to his and her makeup was haphazardly spread out on the counter. Her chaos made this house, that had been cold and sterile his entire childhood, feel like an actual home.
When the popcorn was done he returned to the living room and found Robin splayed out on the couch, taking up the entire space, but instead of using the empty armchair Steve simply sat down on top of her.
"Oww Steve, get off of me, you're like way to heavy!"
"Are you implying that I'm fat?", Steve asked in mock offence.
"No, I'm implying that you're bigger than me and I'm pretty sure you're cutting off the blood supply to my leg!"
"Well scooch over then."
"I can't, you're sitting on top of me!"
Steve got up with a dramatic sigh and Robin pulled her feet closer to herself, giving him just enough space to sit down, only to immediately deposit them right in his lap.
Resigned, Steve didn't even bother to protest this and simply rested the bowl of popcorn on her legs so he could grab the remote to start the movie Robin had picked for them.
Eddie parked his van outside Family Video, a place he went to surprisingly often these days, though he always tried to come during the store's least busy hours to avoid running into too many people.
Movies were a good way to pass the time, but if he was being honest with himself the main reason he came here was to have an excuse to spend time with Steve and Robin. The two were an odd couple and not someone he ever thought he would be friends with, but they were fun to hang out with and some of the only people in town that didn't look at him like he was some kind of monster.
When he entered the store it was just Robin behind the counter, looking bored out of her mind. Steve was nowhere to be seen, which was unusual considering him and Robin seemed to be attached at the hip most of the time.
"What, no Harrington today?"
"Nope, he abandoned me to go on date and I have been bored out of my mind!"
"Wait, a date? I thought you two were..."
"God no! Despite whatever Dustin may have told you, we are just friends. Platonic with a capital P!"
"Alright, copy that. You know, your relationship has always seemed a little strange to me anyway, although I'm actually not sure if this makes it more or less weird, to be honest."
"No idea. I just wish Dustin was as easily convinced that we're not dating, cause it's getting kind of annoying at this point."
"Yeah, Henderson is like a certified genius or some shit, but sometimes he can be really fucking stupid."
"Hey, not that I'm complaining or anything, but weren't you just here yesterday?", Robin asked. Some people might be confused or annoyed by the way she switched topics seemingly at random, but Eddie found it kind of comforting, like their brains operated on the same wavelength or something.
"Well I gotta keep myself entertained somehow and there's not exactly a lot to do when half the town still thinks you're a goddamn murder, so movies it is." He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice, but some of it seeped through anyway.
"Yeah, people really suck sometimes, don't they. But hey, if you're bored, do wanna hang around till the end of my shift and keep me company so I don't die of boredom? You can even come sit behind the counter if you don't want people to see you. Not that anybody is renting movies on a fucking Tuesday anyway."
Accepting her offer Eddie spent the next thirty minutes prancing around the store, enthusiastically recounting the events of his last DND Campaign while Robin restocked and rearranged various tapes. To her credit she actually seemed genuinely interested in what he was telling her.
As predicted there wasn't a single customer in sight and he wondered how this store was even still in business. Just as that thought crossed his mind the bell above the door jingled, announcing the arrival of a customer.
Following Robins suggestion he darted behind the counter to hide and hoped that whoever just entered the store hadn't already seen him. From his new position on the floor he watched as Robin greeted what appeared to be some old lady with a friendly but not particularly enthusiastic smile and recommended her some movie he had never heard of before.
After that the store got a little bit busier for a while, so Eddie mostly stayed behind the counter as they argued about what did and did not count as good music in between customers. When somebody came in to rent Fast Times it seemed spark some kind of memory in Robin and as soon as they were out the door she started talking again.
"You know, the one good thing about Steve not being here right now is that it means I don't have to listen to another rant about boobies. Like I get it dude, boobs are great, but that doesn't mean I wanna talk about them all the time..."
Eddie was stunned into silence for a moment as several puzzle pieces suddenly clicked into place in his brain. He stared up at Robin who only just seemed to have realized what she said and now looked like a deer in headlights.
"I knew there was a reason I liked you so much!", he exclaimed and Robins expression shifted from fear to confusion, so he continued, "I mean, us queers gotta stick together right!"
"Shit I had no idea you were... you know. Sometimes this stupid little town makes it so easy to forget that I'm not the only one, that there are other people like me out there."
"It can certainly get lonely sometimes", Eddie agreed. "Does anyone else know, about you?"
"I mean Steve knows obviously."
Eddie looked at her as if she had grown a second head "Steve?! Obviously?! As in King Steve, popular jock and known high school bully?"
"Come on dude, you know he's not like that anymore!"
"Yeah no, I know. Honestly, he seems like a genuinely nice person these days and I know you guys are like best friends or whatever, but still, Steve?"
"I get it, objectively he seems like a totally bonkers choice, but... "
"Seriously, what would possess you to tell Steve 'I want six kids and a white picket fence' Harrington of all people that you're gay?", he asked, accidentally interrupting her because he was to distracted by this new revelation. The thing was, Robin being gay was not particularly shocking, he probably would have figured that out a lot sooner if he hadn't though her and Steve were dating, but the idea that someone like Steve Harrington could be totally cool with someone like him was completely mind blowing, like probably more so than the fact that monsters existed.
"Well, Russian truth serum for one..."
"I'm sorry, did you say Russian truth serum?"
"Oh yeah, it's a whole thing. Me and Steve got kidnapped by evil Russians and the we watched Back to the Future while drugged out of our minds and then we had a heart to heart on the floor of a mall bathroom, all while wearing these silly little sailor costumes! Oh, and Dustin and Erica basically had to babysit us the whole time, so like taste of their own medicine I guess..."
"That sounds trippy, even with everything I've seen recently."
"It really was."
There was a little pause before Eddie starts speaking again.
"You know, I kinda wanna see what Steve looks like in a, and I quote 'silly little sailor costume' now."
"Oh, yeah no we totally burned those", Robin says, "sorry to disappoint."
"Bummer."