Work Text:
Steve likes to talk.
This isn’t groundbreaking news. There’s no need to alert the media so they can arm themselves with their bulky cameras and oversized microphones with the tacky news channel stickers, no need for them to pile into their news vans and helicopters and swarm the gilded cardboard box that Steve hides inside in Loch Nora, reporter-appropriate loafers and stiletto heels denting the manicured front lawn that Mrs. Harrington still apparently hires someone to maintain on a regular basis despite not having stepped within viewing distance of it in a month (or has it been two?).
Anyways. Moral of the story: there is none. There’s just the objective fact that Steve Harrington likes to talk, and is admittedly quite good at it. Like, Olympic-level good at it. He’s going for the gold without breaking a sweat.
He talks about Dustin, who is basically Robin’s step-child (nephew? overconfident little brother?) at this point. He talks about Max and Lucas and Erica (and even Mike, with a sense of Stockholm Syndrome-esque fondness underneath all the exasperation). He talks about the weather and how (before the Russians and the giant flesh monster and everything that followed) the summer heat used to turn the inside of his car into a weaponized oven if he forgot to park it in the shade after dragging his aforementioned rugrats to the arcade (and there’s always a practiced reluctance etched into these rants, as if he could fool anyone into thinking he hadn’t gotten a certain amount of joy out of funding Max’s unchallenged reign over half the games in the place). He talks about running into Claudia Henderson outside of Melvald’s and getting wrangled into following her back to her cozy dining room for lunch (the epilogue to this story being a tense stand-off with her cat, who Steve theorizes spawned from the Upside Down and is just really good at working undercover). He talks about the updates he gets from Dustin and Lucas on the Byers (and the super-powered girl who went with them), which always leads to half-assed musings of taking Robin on a road trip West just for a change of scenery.
So, yeah, Steve Harrington has a pretty impressive talent when it comes to talking. He fills in silence like he’s getting paid government hush money to do it. Which is why it takes Robin an embarrassingly long time to realize that in all of these conversations they’ve shared, very rarely does Steve talk about himself.
You’d think after the interdimensional madness at Starcourt (“More like Hellcourt,” Steve had giggled once, during one of the many 3 AM hangouts they had in the month following the experience, when spending nights alone meant staring up at her bedroom ceiling, plagued by needles and sterile air and the image of Steve, broken and bloody on the cold ground and not waking up why won’t he wake up—), she would have picked up on this.
Not that it truly feels like a brag or anything, but Robin does kind of (really really really) pride herself in having developed a freaky mind-meld codependency with Steve “The Hair” Harrington. The cause could be scary Russian drugs or proximity to the man-made gate into Hell or maybe it’s just the result of a truckload of shared trauma suffered within a very short period of time, but. That’s not her point.
Robin’s point is that there’s a cheap, fabric store thread tied to their pinkies that tethers them together and part of that unexpected, mildly unhealthy connection should mean that Robin sees shit. It should mean that she knows things. She should be able to peek into one of Steve’s ears and see his thoughts racing around and bumping into one another, and it shouldn’t matter how quickly they slide away from her because she’d still pick up the gory details of each and every one.
And once Robin realizes this, once she realizes the gross imbalance between what Steve talks about and what she actually knows about him, it’s just another thing that keeps her up at night.
It’s also what keeps her from actually listening to him right now as she studies him from her sprawled out position on his bed. She’d flung herself across it sideways almost immediately upon entrance to his bedroom, legs hanging over the edge and neck craned at an awkward angle to track the rut he’s currently pacing into his carpet.
“-and the look this lady gave me, Rob, you wouldn’t believe it. It’s not like it was my fault it was the last box of fucking penne pasta in the goddamn aisle, but Claudia asked me to pick some up for her because she got a new recipe from Laurie during church service last Sunday, and what was I going to do? Let this random stranger steal the last box to make some shitty dish with expired tomato sauce? Not a chance in hell-”
And, okay, peripherally Robin is listening because not only is Steve good at talking but he’s actually funny as all hell when you really get him going, seriously, she wants to get him on tape so the sound of his bitchy ranting can rock her to sleep at night. But, again, that’s not the point here, okay?
Because all Robin can focus on now, is this:
“What’s your favorite food?”
“-and I swear this lady was going to ask for the manager of the stupid store, like I was committing a crime by- huh?”
And he just. Blinks at her. With his big doe eyes clouded over in confusion as he’s pulled out of his residual rage over this elaborate grocery store offense. She can see the way he plays back her question, trying to fit the pieces together.
The result is this: “Why?”
Robin drags herself upright to stare at him, eyebrows raised. “What do you mean ‘why’? It’s just a question. It’s typically something you answer.”
And there’s the Steve she knows, losing the off-kilter edge to his gaze as he crosses his arms in response to her sarcasm. She can tell he’s amused by it, entertained even as he musters up enough offense to shoot back, “Were you even listening to a word I said? Because-”
“Yes, right, the penne thief was trying to get you banned from the only grocery store in Hawkins. I got that. I was paying you my undivided attention and I am disgusted and outraged on your behalf, beloved. All that food talk just got me thinking, which created a beautiful transition into our new conversation. So? Favorite food? Thoughts?”
And when he doesn’t answer, Robin tries to throw him a bone: “If you could ask Claudia to make any food you wanted, what would you choose?”
Steve tilts his head, eyes glancing away from her as he responds, “I like everything she makes.”
That wasn’t what I asked.
Before Robin can interrogate him further, he continues, “Oh, one time she made this casserole dish that I’d never had before. It looked pretty complicated, but it was right before Dustin went off to that nerd camp for half the summer and he was really dreading the idea of eating shitty camp food. I still don’t really know what was in it, but it tasted like magic. Next time it’s on the menu, you’re definitely coming with, alright?”
“Wow, letting me crash family dinner, huh?” Robin teases, a rush of warmth expanding in her chest.
Steve rolls his eyes as he flops onto the bed, half on top of her and nearly squishing her in the process. She huffs out a laugh and tries to shove him away, “Get off of me, dingus-”
Which was the wrong thing to say, clearly, because he just shimmies closer, tucking his dumb head full of dumb fluffy hair under her chin. She can’t imagine he’s very comfortable, but she stops trying to push him off of her and just rests one of her hands on the back of his neck, fingers disappearing into the brown locks tangling together near his nape. He lets out a little huff when she starts combing her fingers through it, one of his hands coming up to play absentmindedly with the edge of her shirt collar.
They lapse into comfortable silence for a moment before Steve mumbles something into the space between her collar bones. Looking down at him, she grins and prompts, “What was that, grumpy?”
He presses closer and repeats himself, “can’t really call it family dinner if you’re not there, anyways.”
And, wow, okay. That makes the little Robin in her brain want to melt and maybe also direct her to do something insane like cry about it. How do you even respond to that? All she can think to say is, “I’ll put it on my calendar, then.”
She can’t help the way she sinks into the bed when she feels him smile against her neck, warm and cottony and safe in this plaid nightmare of a bedroom with her best friend.
(It isn’t until much later that she realizes he never really answered her question.)
*****
After further evaluation, Robin has come to a somewhat disturbing conclusion.
It’s not just that Steve doesn’t talk about himself. It’s that he actively refuses to talk about himself.
And what’s more disturbing is she can see how he scams his way out of it. He almost always includes himself in the narrative he’s relaying, placing himself in the story he weaves for her in a way that makes her think she’s learning more about him. But anyone paying close attention would see that he does it in a way that puts him on the outside. He’s always a background character, someone present in the plot but never at its center.
And when Robin tries to shift things so that he’s at the forefront, he somehow always manages to slide out of frame again without her even noticing.
It’s incredibly frustrating, and she’s trying really hard not to take it personally.
Because they’re better than that, right? Robin will admit she’s not super well-practiced in the art of having a best friend, but it feels like rule number one is that best friends get first dibs on, like… knowing who you are.
And there’s a huge part of her that wants to just ask why he’s doing it, that just wants to know why he’s not trusting her with these pieces of himself. She’s not really the best at reading people, she’ll admit it. Things like tonal shifts and microexpressions tend to fly over her head, a secret language she’s not yet been able to master. But Steve should be different, right? It feels so intensely like he should be different.
She wants him to be different.
(And as much as there’s that part of her that wants the answer, there’s another, bigger part of her that’s afraid it will shatter this new sense of self she’s created, this version of her that exists next to him. There’s this horrible feeling settling into her gut that maybe that thread she imagines pulling taut between them isn’t really there at all. And it’s that fear that keeps her here, analyzing the tilt of his eyebrows and the slant of his shoulders in a desperate attempt to convince herself getting close to someone like this isn’t some awful mistake that’s going to suck the warmth right out of her and leave her empty in a way she’s never allowed herself to be.)
*****
“Hey, you okay?” The question comes during a closing shift at Family Video, the muffled noise from the television in the far corner and the dim lighting separating her and Steve from the outside world. She’s been sorting through the same stack of tapes for the last fifteen minutes, which obviously has not been a good cover for her dismal mood. When she finally risks a look at him, he’s watching her with a frown.
Robin turns away from him again and stares at the worn edge of one of the tapes, murmuring, “I’m fine.”
A deep sigh cuts through the stale air of the store. She does her best to ignore the muffled sound of his approaching footsteps until suddenly he’s next to her behind the counter, arm pressed against hers and it’s pretty frustrating how that familiar warmth returns to her chest almost immediately.
If she’s being honest, it scares her.
“You’re a shitty liar, Buckley.” He says it with a hint of amusement in his voice, and for some reason that undercuts the warmth he’s brought with a simmering anger that lashes through her.
“Yeah, you’d know all about that, I guess,” and then she’s sliding away from him and taking the tapes with her to the shelves near the back. She pushes down the regret that bubbles up right away, because goddammit she didn’t want to open up this can of worms. She just wants to not care about it, to give Steve the space to tell her things in his own time, but just how much time will it take? How many dodged conversations can they have before she has to take a hint and realize she had this all wrong? She needs space. She needs to do her job and go home and sleep and then she can get rid of this ugly insecurity that’s sinking like a rock in her stomach. Resolutely, she pays no mind to the confused noise that leaves his mouth even as she senses him following her.
There’s a moment where he doesn’t say anything, just stands there watching her set the tapes in their rightful spots on the shelf. Then, “Did I do something? Because I’m real confused right now, Rob.”
And she can’t help but wonder how true that is. It’s not like he ever fucking tells her anything about how he feels, so how can she trust it?
She reigns it in, though, just stares at a copy of The Toxic Avenger and hopes he’ll just leave her alone so she can get herself together and be normal about this. Of course, Steve doesn’t get the memo and just pushes some more, “Robin, you’re really freaking me out. Just say what the hell is wrong and I’ll-”
“You’ll what?” She doesn’t know where to put all of the frustration she’s feeling, because where the hell does he get off pressing her to spill her guts over something when he can’t even tell her what his favorite goddamn color is? “You’ll talk it out with me? Let me get all my feelings out so there’s another piece of me I’ve let go of while you continue to bullshit me?”
And, wow, she really fucking hates the expression on his face. The surprise and the- the hurt as if he has any right to feel it. As if he’s not playing her with this stupid family shit he’s pretending to buy into. God, she’s so mad.
It only gets worse when he starts questioning her as if he doesn’t know what she’s talking about, “Bullshit you? Over what? Over what, Robin? I’ve never bullshitted you.”
“You do it all the time, Steve! You don’t tell me shit, it’s like… I don’t know! It fucking sucks.” She can see that he’s not getting it, that her frustration is leaking into him somehow because his shoulders are rising up to his ears and his face is taking on this pinched look like he has a migraine.
She’s expecting him to yell at her. To come clean and say this has all been a giant joke or something, she doesn’t even fucking know anymore, but she needs him to tell her the truth so she can get rid of all this confusion and frustration that’s warping her brain like clay.
If she can trust anything, though, it’s that Steve Harrington loves to defy every expectation.
Because he doesn’t yell or say any of the ugly things that the little Robin in her brain has been conjuring up to ruin her day. Instead of any of that, he just studies her face silently for another moment, and then the tension spills out of him all at once. And all that’s left is that upsetting concern she’d seen moments before. It has her skin buzzing, like she wants to lash out but doesn’t know how to do it without hurting herself in the crossfire.
“Rob,” and his voice is so fucking gentle, where the hell did it come from? It reminds her suddenly of garish bathroom tiles and ridiculous work uniforms, just the two of them in their own little world, Robin sharing that first real secret with him as they protect each other from the nightmarish chaos spinning around them.
When she doesn’t answer, not even sure how to get anything resembling a sound past her clenched jaw, he just nods to himself and starts walking back towards the check-out counter. An icy feeling lances through her as she stares at his retreating back. Because she expected this right? It’s what she gets for acting fucking insane out of nowhere, expecting all this emotional availability from some random guy she used to glare daggers at in some random class he never cared about in high school.
(You don’t mean that, the little Robin in her brain whispers to her.)
“You coming?” Steve’s voice snaps her out of her emotional crisis, and now that she’s risking a glance at him again, he’s shut down the computer they use to track rentals and has migrated over to the exit, jacket on and eyebrow raised. His car keys are dangling loosely from one hand.
Yeah, alright.
*****
They end up at the quarry, somehow.
It’s late even with them closing Family Video twenty minutes early (and Robin just prays Keith doesn’t find out because he’s annoying as hell when he tries to mimic being an authority figure to them), and there’s no one but them here. After driving over in uncomfortable silence, Steve had simply turned off the ignition and gotten out, not waiting for Robin but not really rushing her out of the passenger seat either. He’s just resting against the hood of the car with his back to her through the windshield, shoulders slumped and arms crossed.
Taking a deep breath, Robin finally works up the courage to get out and join him. She keeps some distance between them, which feels so foreign and wrong and cold but necessary all the same.
Neither of them say anything for a while, and all Robin can do is try not to work herself into that buzzing, angry feeling again. She closes her eyes and focuses on the slight chill in the evening air, on the sound of Steve breathing next to her. She knows he’s waiting for her to break the tension, to take the lead, and she’s both grateful and annoyed with him for it.
Finally, “I’m sorry.”
And she finds that she really is. She doesn’t know why she blew up at him back there, why his concern made her skin itch and irritation vibrate through her ribcage.
(She does know, if she really thinks about it. She was thinking about it back there. But she wants to shove it back into that little box it climbed out of, wants to go back to ignoring the feeling and just exist in the easy moments with this person she cares so fucking much about. She just wants to go back to easy, detached friendships. Not ones that take up space in her chest and strangle her heart like it’s going to burst open, bloody and raw, if he walks away. But that’s not his fault, really. He didn’t ask for that.)
“You don’t need to be sorry, Robin,” And she can feel him looking at her, can picture how shiny his eyes look when he’s sad. She doesn’t meet his gaze even as he continues, “I just need to know why so we can fix it. I want to fix it.”
And there’s that feeling again, like something is squeezing her heart. She feels stupid, and embarrassed. She doesn’t want to have this conversation anymore.
But she will.
“I…” And god, how to phrase it without sounding like a crazy person? “I feel like I don’t know you, sometimes.”
When she finally looks over, she knows she’s not explaining it well enough. Can see even through the moonlit darkness that he’s feeling some type of hurt over what she said. She can’t deal with that, so she tries again, “It’s not- It’s not like that, exactly. I do know you, and you’re my… I see you as my best friend. I’ve never felt this way about another person before. And like, obviously we had that whole conversation on fucking doomsday so you know I don’t mean it like- like that, but it still feels so fucking intense. Like, in no time at all you’ve become my favorite person in the entire world, and I feel like we’re becoming extensions of each other and I want to just lay out my every thought to you all the time because you’d get it, I just know you would. But,”
And she wants to stop talking, she really does. She can feel her mouth moving faster than her brain is processing what she’s saying but she can’t stop she just can’t-
“But it feels like you’re holding back and it makes it all feel so lopsided. Like you know everything about me, but I just know about Dustin and his mom and the kids and the- the fucking cashier at the corner store and don’t get me wrong, Steve, I love hearing about them. You love and care about all these people so I feel like I also do through some sort of osmosis, but I just. I want to know you. I want to know what your favorite movies are, and whether you like breakfast over dinner and what nightmares are making you wake up in a cold sweat whenever I stay over. I want to know the most mundane shit about you, and I want to know more about why your parents are never around and how that makes you feel so I can help you not feel it, and I just- I-”
The words are passing through the air at lightspeed right now, evaporating one after another between them and she feels humiliated even saying all of this out loud because how fucking pathetic can someone be over a person they’ve only started to get to know in the last several months, and she’s so sure Steve’s going to laugh at her and tell her that the intensity is weird as fuck and he’s going to leave-
A hand grabs hers, and it wraps around her fingers and squeezes them gently but it feels so so solid and-
And Steve is looking at her with more kindness than she’s felt from maybe anyone ever, and somehow she knows he’s listening to every single word she’s said. More than that, he’s not interrupting, he’s waiting for her to finish vomiting out all these thoughts that have been plaguing her for eons and suddenly there’s a lump in her throat the size of Texas.
“I just,” she croaks out, squeezing his hand back, “I want to know that you feel it, too. That I’m not crazy thinking that maybe we’re actually best friends here. I want to say something really cheesy and embarrassing because best friend doesn’t even really cut it, but we can cross that bridge later. So… yeah. I’m done now. End scene.”
And god, Steve Harrington isn’t a real fucking person. She must’ve died in that Russian base and now she’s in limbo hallucinating this guy because he just slides closer and lets her continue holding his hand like a lifeline. She can see him chewing on the volcanic eruption that just spilled from her mouth, considering every stupid run-on sentence she made him sit through, and the level of consideration just makes that lump get bigger and bigger until it’s not only Texas but also half of Mexico and-
Deep Breaths. No turning back now, Buckley.
Eventually, Steve looks back out over the quarry and whispers, “I don’t know what I’m doing, Rob. I’ve never, uh… had. This. With literally anyone.”
Robin swallows, and somehow knows where she needed his supportive silence, he needs something a little different, so she urges him on softly, “yeah?”
He nods, a jerking motion as he squeezes her hand again, “Yeah… I, uh… I don’t really have much practice opening up to people. It feels like no one’s ever wanted that from me. Like… if I start talking about myself and take up that space, they’re gonna realize I’m not what they really wanted at all. And I just, uh… don’t think I can deal with that again in like, any capacity, and especially not if it’s you. You mean the world to me, Robin. I thought maybe I’d keep you around longer this way.”
And, god, jesus christ-
Steve lets out a short, strangled sound when she crushes herself against him in a hug, and maybe that’s proof enough that she’s not the only one with a lump in her throat that’s now the size of North and South America combined. Something settles when he hugs her back, arms strong and safe around her, the force of it causing that ugly insecurity inside of her to shrink, just a little.
The silence does start to get to her though, so in true Robin fashion, she moves things along, “What if I ask you either/or questions? Like, pancakes or waffles?”
She feels more than hears the giggle he breathes into her hair, and just like that the warmth is back, spreading like a blanket over her. She can’t help but grin when his voice, still so gentle, drifts between them.
“Pancakes, for sure.”