Chapter Text
Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding din-
Steve is standing behind the counter of Scoops Ahoy, hunched forward with his hands covering his face, trying to ignore Mike and the rest of the party.
“I didn’t think you shitheads could get any more annoying.” Steve groaned.
“Hey, we have a deal, Steve” Mike intoned.
“Remind me what this ‘deal’ is?”
“You let us in the back, and nobody finds out about who I saw crawling half-naked out of my sister’s window-”
“Shhhh!” Steve immediately hushes him, looking around in a panic. His anxiety quickly shifts back to annoyance. “Fine. Make sure to bother Robin when you see her.”
Mike pumps his fist in celebration, and heads into the back. The party follows, Dustin avoiding Steve’s eyes when he passes. Steve grabs him before he can follow the rest of the party.
“Woah, not so fast Henderson.” He turns Dustin around. “How did it go?”
Dustin looks down sheepishly. “I didn’t do it.”
“What?! Dude! You’re running out of time! You said she’s moving at the end of the summer right?”
“Yeah, but–”
“No buts, you have to do it the next time you see her dude, do something romantic, like, I don’t know what you nerds do, play comic books with her or something.”
“You don’t ‘play’ comic books, Steve. And that’s not romantic enough, it needs to be something more significant, and at a good time and place. As soon as I get that, then I’ll tell her”
“Clock’s ticking Henderson, you’d better not come crying to me if you chicken out again.” Steve ruffles Dustin’s hair (as much as he can through his ever-present hat), turns him around, and ushers him towards the back room.
Dustin walks through the door, expecting to see Robin listening to music on her break, like she normally does, but he’s instead met with something he was far from expecting. Robin is saying something quietly to Will, with a hesitant smile on her face. Will looks scared, but strangely, like a huge weight had just been lifted off his shoulders. They both snap towards Dustin when they hear him walk in.
“Okay we can keep talking later, go have fun with your friends.” Robin chides softly.
Will nods to her and looks at Dustin, whose puzzled expression must look really funny, because Robin bursts out laughing. “Hurry up Dr. Cerebro! The previews need you!” She teases. “I’ve told you a million times! His name isn’t Cerebro! It’s Professor Charles Xavier! Cerebro’s the machine that he uses to–” He notices her expression of fake interest. “Whatever, come on Will.” He grabs his friend by the wrist and out into the back room corridor. They start towards the theater.
“What were you and Robin talking about?” Dustin asks.
“Oh. Um– nothing. It was nothing.” Will says quietly.
“It didn’t sound like nothing.”
Will dodges Dustin’s prodding. “What were you talking to Steve about? It sounded tense.” Now it was Dustin’s turn to go quiet. “That was– nothing too.”
“‘It didn’t sound like nothing.’” Will mocks. Dustin looks frustrated. “Why don’t we just not talk about the nothing we weren’t talking about.”
“Nothing we were talking about.” Dustin corrects. Will rolls his eyes at him. “Right. The nothing we were talking about that we aren’t going to talk to each other about.”
“Yeah.”
They finish the walk to the theater in an awkward silence. They shuffle into the free seats on either side of the two couples, Dustin next to Mike, and Will next to Max.
“What took you guys so long? You missed the previews.” Max whispers to Will.
“Nothi–” Will stops himself. “I’ll tell you guys after.” Max gives him a weird look and turns her attention back towards Back To The Future.
~~~
“Man, you were right Dustin, that movie was cool.” Mike remarks as the party leaves the theater.
“I know, right? I respect the commitment to the actual scientific principles behind it. Despite how many things were blatantly wrong.”
“Really? Which parts?” Max inquires sarcastically.
“Well, for starters flux capacitors can’t actually exist, and even if they could, it wouldn’t fit inside of a car–” Max grabs Lucas and Will and the three of them start walking towards the nearest escalator. “Hey what the hell! Where are you guys going?!” He yells after them. He is met with silence. “Son of a bitch.” He turns to Mike and El. “Do you guys wanna do something?”
Mike tapped his watch. “Curfew. Good luck with whatever it was that you were so stressed about before we came here.”
El frowned. “Sorry, Dustin. Is Steve still here? Can you hang out with him?”
Dustin sighed. “Yeah, but I want to hang out with you guys. The party! We’ve barely hung out this summer, and you’re leaving at the end of August. Ugh whatever, we still have like a month. Bye guys, I’ll see you tomorrow.” He headed back towards Scoops Ahoy, feeling dejected. Just like when he first got back from Camp Know-Where, and nobody cared enough to stay with him and his Cerebro.
Steve saw him come back alone and perked up at the counter. “What happened? Where are the other little shits?”
“Will, Lucas, and Max ditched us, then El had to go home with Mike. Just like the good ol’ days, right?” He sighed. “I feel like I’m getting phased out of the group. I’m like the sixth wheel.”
Steve thought for a moment. “Wait, how do you feel like a sixth wheel? Isn’t there only two couples in your group? What about the bowl cut kid?”
“Will? What about him?”
“Why don’t you guys hang out?”
“Because he doesn’t want to hang out with me.”
“Who wouldn’t want to hang out with you? You never shut up about your little toys and comics and movies and– science… stuff. Who could find that annoying?” He teases.
“Steve, not the time.”
“Sorry.” He looks away for a second. “But still. You should see if he wants to hang out, he probably wants to get away from those lovebirds as much as you do.”
“Yeah but…” He sees Robin through the open back door of the ice cream parlor reading a book. “Hold on,” he heads into the back.
“Hey Robin.” Dustin strolls up to her. “Whatcha doin’?”
“Uhh, nothing much?” She puts a bookmark in and looks up at him quizzically. “Why?”
“Nothing, I was just curious– what were you and Will talking about earlier?” Dustin was hoping for a reaction to get some information from, but Robin maintained her curious expression. “Oh, he was just asking me for some advice.”
“Oh. That’s it? What kind of advice?”
“Y’know. The usual kind.” She threw up some jazz hands for emphasis. “The romantic kind.”
Dustin raises his eyebrows. Did Will like someone? “Did he say who?”
Robin narrowed her eyes at him. “Why do you want to know?” Dustin immediately gets flustered. “Besides, even if he did tell me, I wouldn’t tell you. That’s a trust violation right there.”
“I’ve known him longer, and let me tell you, he’s never so much as batted an eye towards a girl. So forgive me for being interes– curious.” Robin snorted when he said curious.
“What makes you so confident that you’ve been looking in the right place?”
“What does that mean?”
“Henderson! Come here!” Steve shouts from the front.
Robin smiles smugly, and picks her book back up. “You’ll see.”
Dustin returns to the front of the parlor to find none other than Lucas. Steve is in the middle of trying to give him relationship advice(he and Max are broken up again, for what Dustin believes is like the twentieth time), and Lucas arguing with him over it.
“What?” Dustin asks when he walks up next to Steve. “Oh look, if it isn’t the traitor. What do you want, Lucas?” Lucas looked relieved to see him.
“Dustin, thank god. I need help! Will’s stealing Max away from me! She told me to go grab us some snacks when we walked by the food court, so I did. But when I got back they ditched me! I saw them running into some clothes stores or something.”
“Uh, first of all, no. Second of all, Will doesn’t like Max like that, remember?”
“It doesn’t matter! She broke up with me yesterday and I was just about to win her back, then Will came in and took her away!”
“Did he say, or like, do anything that might’ve–I don’t know–made her want to talk to him or something?”
“No! I mean, there was one thing. During the movie, I heard them whispering a bit, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. But they were giggling. A lot.”
Dustin facepalmed. “That’s definitely something. She’s probably just trying to make you jealous, dude.”
“Okay, enough,” Steve cut in. “Are you sure that's what she’s doing? What if they were laughing at the movie?”
“Back To The Future isn’t a comedy, Steve.” Dustin scolded.
“I don’t know, I found it pretty funny…”
“You were on drugs!” Dustin wipes his face with his hands. “I can’t do this right now, Lucas, you're on your own. I’m going home.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“I need to think.” He looked back at Steve, who gave him an accusatory look, while tapping his wrist. Don’t forget you’re running out of time.