Chapter Text
It starts with Robin’s comment at Family Video:
“If only we could just, like, combine,” Robin says wistfully, leaning against a row of videos.
Steve’s eyebrows knit together, skeptical. “Combine?”
“No, think about it. I know exactly what I want, and I’ve found the girl of my dream, but I can’t get the courage to ask her out. Meanwhile, you go on a million dates. And you have no idea what you want.”
Steve hummed in agreement, turning her words over in his mind. It’s true, between his long string of not-quite-the-right-girls and Robin’s surety that Vicky was the one; even if she wasn’t.
“So if we just combined…”
Steve’s face lit up in understanding, a small “oh,” leaving from his mouth as her meaning dawned on him.
“...all our problems would be solved. Because I mean, alone, let’s face it…”
“We totally suck.” Steve sighs.
“Totally and utterly.”
Actually, if Steve's being completely honest, it starts with a different comment made by a different person in a very different tone—“stereotypical band dyke,” mumbled by a wannabe jock in a too-tight sweatshirt as he eyed Robin’s trumpet case, covered in stickers and doodles on the check-out desk—but it occurs at Family Video nonetheless. So Steve guesses it’s not quite a lie.
But if anyone asks, it’s Robin’s comment which starts the gears turning in his brain and the sweat coating his palms.
They both laugh it off, move on, fight countless monsters and their own trauma and the urge to give up on real life and hide out in Steve's big, empty house. And for a while, Steve almost forgets.
For a while, RobinandSteve is enough. More than enough. They go back to work, the kids go back to pestering the shit out of him, and, despite the wound-up knot in Steve’s stomach when he hears about the shitheads’ D&D club and the claustrophobic itch under his skin when the sky turns dark, it’s enough.
Then one day, Robin comes into work late, sobbing that Vickie just got a new boyfriend and she'll be alone forever and maybe she deserves it, that or a muppet like Tammy Thompson, and Steve realizes with heart-crushing certainty that he would do anything for Robin Buckley.
It takes over an hour for Robin to calm down, an hour which she spends hiding in the break room and Steve spends scheming. When she returns, dry-eyed and only slightly puffy, Steve doesn't waste any time.
“We should pretend to date.”
“What?” Robin asks bluntly. Steve tries not to wince at her harsh tone, the disbelief and humor behind it. He knows he isn’t actually asking her out, she isn’t actually rejecting him, but something in his stomach clenches up as he remembers Nancy and ‘bullshit’ and he has to look away before the tears gathering in his eyes give him away.
“Just, like, well you know—remember how you said I’m hopeless at dating and, like, you’re, y’know, and h-how if only we could combine,” Steve stutters out, the words tripping over themselves to get his original point across when now the only thing he wants to say is please don’t leave me yet .
“Breathe, dingus. We don’t need you passing out and leaving me with a cleanup on aisle 3,” Robin says, her voice soft even as her words should seem harsh and grating.
Steve's mouth clamps shut but his jaw isn’t clenched and his hands slowly unwind from the fists they’ve ricocheted into.
“Ok, let me get this straight, Harrington,” Steve does everything in his power not to snort at Robin's choice of words. He only kind of fails. “You’re telling me that you, Steve “boobies” Harrington, would give up the seemingly endless sea of babes that crashed through this door, daily, to fake-date band geek and veritable freak Robin Buckteeth?”
“Ok, but, that nickname makes no fucking sense!” Steve bursts out. “You have great teeth! You never even needed braces! God, people, if you’re going to be dicks at least be accurate about it!”
Robin laughs, “Yeah, you’d know all about that, King Steve. Plus, it was your old pal Tommy who gave it to me. Says more about the company you keep.”
The mention of Tommy makes Steve's shoulders climb up to his ears. What does that say about him? That he was friends, best friends, with someone who hurt Robin so badly? Yeah, she doesn’t seem that torn up about it, but Steve knows better. And what does it say about him that he still misses Tommy so intensely? He suddenly feels nauseous and itchy and wrong.
“You’re my company now, Rob, so what does that say about you?” Steve asks, moving out from behind the stacks to elbow past Robin and stand next to her behind the desk.
The chime of the bell strung up by the door interrupts their conversation, and the sight of a middle aged dad making a beeline for the kids section rather than their usual teenage clientele loosens a sigh of relief from his lungs. He doesn't want to deal with another babe right now, while he's being rejected (?) by his best friend.
Robin goes to help him and Steve busies himself with a mindless task at the desk, most of his energy slipping toward watching Robin interact with the customer. He hears the man ask Robin if she has a boyfriend, and, when she declines, what a cute girl like her is doing alone when prom is right around the corner.
If Steve wasn't already convinced of this plan, this interaction sealed the deal. Their "relationship" will make Robin safer, make her feel more comfortable walking around town, help her deflect questions like these. He won’t hesitate, if she says yes. He’d honestly give her the whole world if he could, but that doesn’t seem like an option. This, though, he could give her easily.
Robin ushers the man to the counter with his arms stacked full of movies, letting Steve ring him up and smiling through his frankly gross attempts at flirting while Steve tries to throw his change back at him and get him out as quickly as possible.
“So?” Steve turns to her as soon as the door closes fully, raising his eyebrows as Robin gives him a stunned look.
“You’re serious,” she says more than asks, and her voice wavers with something he hasn’t heard since they were sitting bare-legged and bleeding on the cold tile floor of the mall bathroom. His healed lip and still-healing heart throb at the memory.
“As a demo-bat attack,” Steve tries to joke. It falls flat, but Robin tugs him in for a hug anyway, her hands right above the ridges of scars left behind. The dull sting that always resides there lessens, just a bit.
“Thank you,” she whispers, and Steve resists the urge to thank her right back. He squeezes her extra tight, to make sure she gets the message.
And just like that, Steve has a girlfriend. Who says dry patches last forever?