Chapter Text
Eddie manages to stay away from Scoops Ahoy for a whole week before he's once again wandering into the ice cream parlour. He's in twice more the same week, and again the week following. Robin Buckley is laughing at him for it. She's laughing at Steve as well.
His visits so far have consisted of flirting with Steve or chatting with Robin for ten minutes, and then weaselling Steve into giving him free ice cream before he leaves. His fourth visit is shaping up to be much of the same, until Robin tilts her head to the side to look past him and grins.
"Harrington's least annoying child!"
"Hi Robin, is Steve around?"
Eddie turns to the origin of the voice, and finds a small kid with an unfortunate haircut. He's shifting on his feet nervously as he offers Robin a smile.
"He's just gone out for a smoke, should be back in five. Wait for him with the rest of us!" she offers, throwing an arm out to gesture at the two of them. The kid turns to look at Eddie, wide eyed confusion blooming on his face.
"Hi," says Eddie, grinning.
"... hi." The kid glances back at Robin with what Eddie can recognise as a 'help me' expression.
Robin takes pity on the kid, chuckling. "Will, this is Eddie Munson. He's ... a regular, he comes here to pester Steve. Eddie, this is Will Byers. Like I said, he's the dingus' least annoying child."
Will Byers ... that's ...
"Oh! One of the ones Stevie wanted me to invite to Hellfire!" he realises, grinning. Will blinks, surprised.
"What's Hellfire?" he asks. And then, "Steve talks about us?"
Robin rolls her eyes. "Of course he talks about you. You're, like, his only friends." Will frowns at that, looking suddenly defensive, but Eddie decides not to let the kid be on the losing side of an argument in defence of his babysitter.
"Hellfire," he announces, "is my Dungeons and Dragons club. I'll tragically be remaining in high school next year, so, as per Stevie's request, I am offering you and your friends places in Hellfire."
"You play DnD?" Will asks, sounding awed. "That's so cool! I've been playing for years, with my friends!" His face falls a little at that. "They don't wanna play anymore, though. I don't know if they'll want to join your club."
Eddie recalls what Steve had said when he'd first made his request — "Don't want 'em to stop playing, it'd upset Will. I think a change of scenery might help."
A change of scenery, huh?
"Whatcha losing them to? Girls? Popularity? No matter, young one! I can be very persuasive." Robin rolls her eyes, turning away when an actual paying customer steps up to the counter. Will's mouth turns back up at the corner, not looking like he fully believes Eddie but at least more optimistic than he was.
Steve emerges from the back as Robin finishes with her customer, adjusting his hat with an annoyed frown. Eddie hides his amusement behind a handful of his hair.
"You're a minute late, dingus," Robin informs him. "Also you have a child and your regular to entertain."
Eddie sees Steve's mouth form a confused 'mine?', and flushes slightly. Steve looks up and finally spots them, then, a grin spreading across his face. "Will!" he says. "Munson!"
"'Lo Stevie!"
"Hi, Steve." Will plays with his hands self consciously, and Steve frowns.
"Don't see you round here without the other gremlins much, what's up kid?"
Will sighs. "It's ... everyone's too busy for me. And Mom didn't want me to be home alone, so ..." He shrugs. "She trusts you, so I said I could come hang out here. I hope that's okay. Sorry for being a bother."
"Hey, no," Steve says quickly, looking a little pained. "Don't apologise. I'm happy to see you, obviously. It's completely okay and you're not a bother." He smiles and claps Eddie on the shoulder. "This one, on the other hand ..."
Eddie lets out an offended gasp. "Me? A bother? Please, you love my company, Stevie," he replies assuredly. He can hear Robin rolling her eyes at them. Steve shakes his head exasperatedly.
"You know that Robin can also serve you, right?" He begins assembling Eddie's usual order. "It's what she's there for."
"No, don't." His coworker waves him off, leaning against the back windowsill. "Give him more work."
"Buckley'd never pay for my cone."
"You're both bothers," Steve decides. "Will, you want anything?"
He clearly does, but he fiddles with his hands for a moment before shaking his head. "It's fine, I don't have any money." Steve frowns glancing over at him.
"Doesn't matter," he says, handing Eddie his ice cream and then leaning over the glass ice cream display so that his face is closer to Will's. "Eds' already mooching off'a me, what's another? As long as you don't tell the other dipshits, I'll pay for you, yeah? Vanilla?"
Will nods, and they're graced with a tiny smile from him again.
"Nice going," Robin says as they watch Steve eat his lunch with Will. Eddie turns to look at her, confused.
"What?"
Robin's grin is sharp and foreboding. "The way to Steve's heart definitely seems to be through his kids. I think Will likes you, so that’s one down!" Eddie’s face heats up and he decides not to reply. Still, maybe there’s something in what Robin said. If he hangs around Scoops enough, he might befriend more if Steve’s kids. For no reason other than winning Steve’s friendship, of course.
Steve spends a lot of time with Robin and the kids after Starcourt. It's only partially voluntary — they all know where he lives, and invade his house whenever they feel like. He spends a lot of time with El and Will, specifically. He tries with Max as well, but he only succeeds sometimes. Before the latest Upside Down shit, Max had preferred being away from home at his house, to the point she's basically claimed one of the guest rooms. Steve suspects she might be distancing herself from him specifically out of guilt; for seeing him as something like a brother when Billy was her brother.
Still, he tries to see her whenever he can. Hopes she'll come to him when she's ready. For now, he spends as much time as possible with El, and by extension Will. El's reacting almost the complete opposite to Max, clinging to everyone she cares about like they could disappear at any moment. It breaks Steve's heart. And, as much as he respects Joyce's decision to leave — agrees with it, even — he can't help but worry about El being without the rest of them in a months time. Without him.
On their last day in Hawkins, he sees them off with the rest of the kids and Nancy. He makes them promise to call him every week. Gives them his number, and then gives it to Joyce too for good measure.
After they leave, Steve tries to find a new normal. A new routine. He goes to work at Family Video. He starts hanging out with Robin, and goes back to hanging out with Dustin. He re-establishes basketball afternoons with Lucas on Friday, and bothers Mike about spending time with his friends instead of moping about El being in another state.
No matter what he's doing, he worries. Mostly it's about Max, in her self-isolation. Or often it's about Will and El, alone in a new place starting high school. They're the sweetest of his kids, but he thinks high school might ruin them. El, who's behind socially, academically. Who'll be so easy to single out and mess with. Little Ellie who doesn't deserve that. And Will, who cried into Steve's side after he came out in the backroom of Scoops Ahoy, who's spent the last few years feeling different and alone, even standing among people who he called friends and family. He knows the sort of people who become targets well, hates the reason why, wishes desperately that his kids could be exempt from that. El and Will especially.
The kids call him once a week, as promised. Will tells him about the art he's doing, or a book he's read. El likes to tell him new things she's learnt. Neither of them talk about school.
All this to say, that Steve only really has time for his kids and Robin in the time following Starcourt. And yet, he spends an inordinate amount of time thinking about Eddie Munson. Missing him. Well, shit, he thinks.