Work Text:
“You look ridiculous.”
Steve’s brows lift as he pinches his shirt with both hands and pulls it out a little to give his skin some breathing room, “Yeah? Not as lanky this time around, am I?”
Robin rolls her eyes and throws his change of clothes at him from over the counter, “Get back into your civvies, you look like a clown.”
“Oh, come on. I can’t look that bad. Really?”
“Steve, you’ll scare the patrons away.”
“I doubt it,” he says, smirking and posing, likely just to make her uncomfortable, “Me? In this outfit? You wouldn’t be able to fill orders fast enough.”
She rolls her eyes, “It’s closing time.”
“Still.”
“Please change,” Robin begs of him, her face scrunching up in disgust, “You smell like a cavity.”
“Mmm, yeah, one of the many perks of working for Scoops again,” Steve says as he walks through the door to the back room, “Not like you,” he sighs in relief as he passes her, leaning in to sniff her hair, “Coffee is gonna cling to you for the rest of your life, you know.”
“I barely smell it at this point.”
“You’ve only been working here a week.”
Robin leans against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest as she hears him changing in the back room, “I desensitize quickly.”
Steve chuckles, voice muffled behind the door, “Yeah? I believe that.”
She waits until she doesn’t hear the rustle of clothing anymore and turns to join him, about to reach out for her bag packed under one of the back counters when she sees him still naked, standing there with one leg in his jeans… and no underwear.
Her eyes flick down from his face to his chest, down his bare waist, the still-healing wounds on his sides, her whole body freezing mid-reach.
Steve chuckles, an edge of nervousness in his voice as he clears his throat, “Uh, don’t you knock?” he asks as he starts to cover himself, but not before she catches a flash of his… everything.
It’s-his dick-his penis-… his-it’s… surprisingly proportional, and not as ugly as the ones she’s seen in her mom’s porn mags. It’s limp, soft-looking, the ‘v’ shape of Steve’s hips all but pointing down at it like a big red ‘look here’ sign, and what does she do? She looks. She looks hard, her mouth drying-(watering?), her heart starting to race.
She tries to keep looking even as Steve hurriedly yanks his jeans up his thighs, tucking himself out of view and zipping up.
“Earth to Robin?” he chuckles, snapping at her, “What the hell, man? I was changing.”
“Uh… I work here,” she says numbly, answering his first question from before while still struggling to get her mind back on track.
Steve laughs again, harder this time, grabbing his shirt from the counter nearby, “No shit, don’t people still knock?”
She shakes her head, clearing her thoughts, “Yeah, I-I guess, yeah,” she can barely feel her lips moving, her tongue is like some bulging muscle in her mouth, her hands are sweaty, and she stares at the last peek of Steve’s pecs before he pulls his polo down, smoothing it out and taking a seat to get his shoes on.
“How’s my hair?”
Robin leans back on the counter to keep herself vertical, her head spinning, “I-it’s fine,” she says as she tries to look at it, tries to judge it like she would normally, like it were any other day of the week.
It’s hard to bring herself back there when her own planet’s axis has just shifted so drastically and she’s left scrambling.
Ever since she was a kid she knew she was into girls - just girls, no confusion there. Boys were gross and boys were dicks, and all boys grow up to be men, and all men do is use and abuse beautiful women. And she hated Steve in highschool. Sure, he was a pretty boy, but he was still a ‘boy’. And he was just like the rest of them.
But he’s not.
And she’s known that for more than a little while but it was only long after she’d written off men completely and started leaning into women, identifying as what she thought she was. Accepting that new chapter of her life and moving on.
Nothing about how she feels about women has changed. But, as she stares at Steve, she realizes that everything about men is changing before her very eyes.
“You’re still coming over to my place?” he asks and she blinks a few times, lifting her brows in confusion, “Your parents are doing the date thing tonight, right? I figured you could just come over and we can binge some more As The World Turns? Dorothy killed Whit with that uh… that uh-”
She winces, shaking her head, “Decanter. It’s called a ‘decanter’.”
“Right,” Steve smiles, “So you’re coming over, right?”
“Is the night going to be interrupted by your budding sex life?” she asks as her eyes narrow, trying to feign casualness at the thought of staying over when… when she’s just seen his penis. Dick? Dick sounds better. Penis sounds so… so… so… not Steve.
It sounds so gross.
Cock.
It was definitely a cock, what she saw.
Why’s she thinking about it hard? So hard, she’s thinking about it. Not… not-…
“You know I haven’t seen anyone since Heidi,” Steve responds, frowning as he observes her and Robin turns away quickly when he starts looking at her with those people-reader eyes of his, reaching down to finally grab her bag - the reason she’d come in here in the first place, “No chicks want a guy that looks like mince meat and all that. They’d take one look at me and gag. It’s like meatloaf up in here-I mean, like you just saw.”
She did just see. And it looks nothing of the sort. The wounds left behind from the bats are… really, well, kind of? Hot? They’re kind of really hot.
Her heart starts thundering again when she remembers watching him working out in his spare room last week while they were catching up on the last few summer movies from ‘85.
Suddenly now, that entirely platonic moment is overshadowed with sweat-soaked, hairy, very male pectorals and the still-healing wounds that served as a constant reminder of how they’d found Steve in the Upside Down, nearly being eaten alive in front of her. Which always leads to her thinking of him beating the life out of that bat thing.
Now she thinks of it and she feels the heat spread down south as fast as it did when she saw his… his… his stuff. His cock.
And she thinks of the shorts he was wearing, those tight ones he likes to wear when he goes on jogs and stuff. She thinks of how she could see the shape of it through them, how she’d groaned about it internally, but kept the disgust to herself.
She’s always hated how just… exhaustingly active Steve is. She gets tired just watching him sometimes, and then she coerces him into ordering out to make up for all the sweating he’s put them both through. There’s something satisfying about watching him stuff his face with pizza, knowing that he’s keeping that physique from really getting out of hand.
“Hey,” Steve touches her arm and she startles, turning to glare at him.
“What?”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Steve moves closer, leaning against the counter with her, “Are you sure? Are we on for soaps? We can get totally trashed and eat like a tub of icecream if you want.”
She snorts a laugh and lifts her brows, “Not sick of being around that shit enough today?”
“Not for you,” he says and she feels her ears burn.
She clears her throat, shaking her head, “No thanks, I think it’s best I go h-home tonight. Maybe they won’t be so insufferable,” she waves off the idea and forces a smile, “Besides, I know you were telling me about that brunette that was eying you during her order.”
Steve looks confused, “Uh, yeah? I don’t even know her name, didn’t get a number, I’m still totally free tonight, Robin, we can hang. It’s-” he stops and she can see the concern turn to gears working in his head before he asks, tentatively, “Is this about Vickie?”
“What?” she blinks, not really sure how he leapt to that conclusion with as little as she’s given him, “Vickie? No, no, it’s not-”
“It’s okay, Robin,” Steve motions to himself, “I get it, I mean, breaking up is a big deal, trust me. I’ve been broken up with tons of times-”
“Yeah, I’m aware,” she snaps, regretting it the moment the words come out and she sees the look of hurt flash on Steve’s face. She winces, reaching out to touch his arm, “I’m sorry. I didn’t… I didn’t mean it like that.”
Steve shrugs and waves it off, then smirks and leans closer, “Are you all snappy because you saw my dick?”
She nearly swallows her tongue.
“I knew it!” he snaps his fingers and points at her, “You’re embarrassed because you saw my dick.”
“I’m… embarrassed that you don’t wear underwear, actually,” she tries evasively, hating how his enjoyment at her own torment makes her want to smile. She shouldn’t smile, he doesn’t deserve it, her heart can’t take it right now, she’s still playing catch up with her own feelings.
“Only in the scoop uniform,” he explains, “I don’t know, the two fabrics felt weird and you could see all the lines - just made more sense.”
She squints, staring at him, “So all that time last year we spent around each other and you were never wearing underwear?”
“Sure wasn’t.”
“I could’ve pants’d you and you would’ve shown the whole mall your little… your little…” god, it’s probably not ‘little’, it was soft and it looked proportional. And don’t men’s things get bigger?
Steve doesn’t seem to take offense to her choice of words, lifting his brow and smirking, “Can’t even say the word? First dick you’ve ever seen? It’s called a ‘dick’, by the way.”
“Steve, you’re being obnoxious.”
“Hey, it’s your fault,” he says, moving to leave the back room, “You’re the one that didn’t knock, you only have yourself to blame.”
Robin follows him out of the shop, locking up and turning to see him walk down off the sidewalk as she clutches the arm of her bag. She stares as Steve reaches in his back pocket for his keys and her gaze drops to the shape of his ass in his jeans, the back of his shirt riding up to show a little skin and she swallows tight.
He’s right, she only has herself to blame for what she’s feeling right now, but that doesn’t make her any less conflicted about all of it.
“Let me at least drive you home,” he offers, “Just promise you won’t hate me about it forever, it’s not my fault you saw.”
“I don’t… I don’t hate you.”
“You just hate that you saw my dick,” he continues to tease her, “Get in the car, Robin, or I’m leaving you here.”
“Alright, don’t get your panties in a bunch,” she says out of reflex and she feels her cheeks warm again, “Not that you have any on in the first place, apparently.”
Steve laughs out loud.
She stops at the car when she passes him by, “Alright, I’m convinced. I’ll stay at your place.”
Robin doesn’t immediately regret deciding to stay the night with Steve, they’ve done it more than a few times at his new place, even though the bed is incredibly small and nothing like his larger mattress at his parents’ place. She’s used to it, familiar with it, but now it’s different.
Now, she’s really conscious of the fact that she showered with his shampoo and that she’s even wearing his clothes to sleep in - two things that aren’t particularly new, but definitely are new now.
Robin feels every touch of his arm when he shifts around in bed (because he moves around a lot in his sleep), and all she can think of is how he’s talked about having sex with Linda a thousand and one times, and Jessica, and the girl with the ‘M’ name that she can never remember, and Heidi, and all of the others she’s long since tried to forget.
It’s been hours of struggling to get to sleep, trying not to lean into him when he’s curled facing her, trying not to turn him over again when his back is to her - but, at least then, she isn’t left to stare like a moron at his sleeping face.
She thinks of the time she finally got up the nerve, desperate to know, and asked him to describe what it’s like to go down on a chick. She thinks of how Steve was so detailed about it, how hot she got listening to him describe it like some sacred, religious experience, and she knew he was hard just talking about it because he’d shifted his legs to hide his boner.
She thinks of Dustin telling her of the countless times he’s walked in on Steve going down on a girl or fucking a girl, and how there was one time that Dustin wouldn’t stop bringing up, how Steve was on his knees in front of her with her hands in his hair. All Dustin saw was the back of his head moving, his mouth between her legs, and how her upper half - completely in view - trembled as she moaned his name.
They’d picked on him about it at the time but now all she can think of is how stupidly, incredibly lucky that girl was to be in that position, and how she now wants nothing more than for that to be her.
Robin doesn’t even realize she’s touching herself until she starts feeling that low tingle running through her as she thinks back, imagining what it would be like as she presses her knees together, an unquenchable, insatiable longing to experience what she knows Steve’s good at attaining for literally every girl he’s ever slept with.
No matter how many times she’s tried before, she’s never managed to actually get herself off, but this time she’s determined. She’s already started so, maybe with him close by, she can get there.
It’s probably wrong to think of him this way when they’ve spent so much time in a platonic relationship that she’s sure his feelings for her have long-since faded into something more brother-like than it had ever been before she told him how she felt about women.
There’s also Nancy to consider, but she doesn’t really intend to deal with what she’s feeling outside of her own body, so… really, what harm could it do?
And now, all she’s thinking about is her first time at Steve’s new place, learning that she wasn’t the first person he brought here, and that he’d invited some complete stranger over on his first night just so he wouldn’t have to spend it alone.
Steve saying ‘no, we didn’t-not in the bed. I pushed her over the counter’, and her gasping and pushing away, motioning down, ‘this counter?’ and his nod, and the thought of him railing a girl against the counter in his new place, christening it like a typical bachelor.
She thinks of Steve referring to getting a girl off as his ‘favorite pastime’ and how many times she’s asked what he’s been up to, and how he’d always say something like ‘passing time’, like it was just a casual thing - like he hadn’t wasted probably hours just eating a girl out. How he’d sometimes work his jaw because of how sore he got it sometimes.
She thinks of Dustin telling her about the couple of times he’s stayed the night when Steve had a girl over, and the one time she made the same mistake herself, listening to the girl screaming Steve’s name over and over loud enough that Robin could hear it from the guest bedroom back in his parents’ house.
It was obnoxious then, but now she uses it to try and get herself off.
There are countless memories to pull from as they’ve gotten closer over the last year. Times where he was so close in her space that she could taste his breath, times where he’d touch her and hold her and comfort her. Times where he was everything she wanted boys-guys-men to be.
Robin pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, resisting the urge to check Steve out when he turns back over to face her side of the mattress. She’s almost sweating at this point, feeling the ache she’s been trying to encourage ebbing even as she’s touching herself. It’s hopeless. She’s never done it before. Why would tonight go any differently?
She struggles against peeking back up through the mess of her hair, continuing to work herself desperately in an attempt to get herself anywhere other than the taunting, teasing, burning sensation between her legs that comes and goes, and doesn’t stay long enough for her to savor.
Robin nearly gives up before she finally folds and looks towards Steve, figuring that he’s here, she might as well take a look and use what she’s got onhand. Desperate times and all of that.
She opens her eyes, turning towards him only to be met with those dark eyes already open as well and staring at her, and her blood runs cold.
Her breath catches in her throat, sweat around her collar, hand stilling and the ache quickly dissipating as the tense air settles between them. She can’t even make out his expression in the darkness, all she can feel is deep fear at what he’ll say.
Steve blinks slowly, the sleepiest smile on his face as he offers, his voice lower than usual, heavier, but soft as he speaks, “Need help?”
Robin feels her heart flutter around wildly like a bird trapped in a house, hitting the sides. She nearly stops breathing altogether, she nearly closes her eyes and starts to pray for the mattress to swallow her up whole like some kind of monstrosity from a Freddy movie.
But… but how can she say ‘no’ to such an enticing offer? And besides, he offered it. If he knows what he’s offering to do…
“Sure,” she says in a small voice, curious to see what he does without her doing or saying anything more, other than agreeing to whatever it is he thinks she’s been up to.
Steve shifts even closer, closing the little bit of space left between them, and Robin, too terrified to move so much as a muscle, honestly, still very nearly dips into him when his weight is pressed into the mattress’s center.
Her hand between her legs is shaking when she feels his join it, replacing her touch with the warmth of his own and palming the front of the damp fabric before moving up, fingers dipping under the hem of the pair of boxers he let her borrow. She’s still shivering as she pulls her hands up to get out of his way, staring at him in the dark of the bedroom, eyes wide, trying to read his face but, honestly, he looks like he’s seconds from falling asleep regardless of what he’s doing.
His touch is confident, fingers brushing through pubic hair that he doesn’t make any note of, even in the unfiltered state of barely awake that he’s in. Instead, Steve groans as two of his fingers slide down between her lips and back up as he drops his face against her neck. And then they start to move.
Robin pulls in a huff of breath she meant to let out, able to feel the bridge of his nose, Steve’s own breathing hot and wet, heavy with sleep as he rolls the tips of his rough digits over her clit and down to below to slide through her slick folds.
His movements don’t make any sense at first - they’re varied, even sporadic, moving all over the place, but they settle after a minute or two when she really starts to feel something more than the dull ache she’s familiar with. It starts small, her breath hitching, and she fights the urge to move against his hand.
Steve must get something from her though, because he focuses in like a laser, like a heat-seeking missile registering probably every sound she makes or something. She doesn’t really know what’s giving anything away, but he finds it, hones in on it like a bloodhound.
Almost at once, the ache turns into a burn of curling waves that rise and rise, bringing tears to her eyes before washing over her, her inner walls pulsing with the strangest, most unusual, most amazing sensation she’s ever felt before.
She fully expects him to stop but he doesn’t, drawing out wave after wave that hit harder at first and he keeps going, urging her through each of them until there’s nothing left, and she’s left spent and panting, and trying to collect herself.
Little trembles run down from her head to her toes as Steve’s movements still, her body humming. Robin doesn’t even realize her eyes are wet with tears until she lets out a shaky breath and tries to look at him again only to realize that he’s fallen back to sleep.
He’s just single-handedly, effortlessly, given her the most jaw-dropping, mind-numbing experience of her life, and he’s passed out… like he didn’t just change her life for the second time today. Like he didn’t just give her her first orgasm ever.
Like some kind of lifeguard resuscitating someone and walking away. Like some rich guy dropping a million dollars into a homeless guy’s lap or something.
She’d be angry if she didn’t love him so much and find it endearing. Besides, he was already so tired, and he worked a double shift, Steve’s had an extremely busy day already, and still he spent the last of it giving her something… something so priceless.
Robin glances down to where he’s curled against her, his working arm slung over her waist, fingers still damp from her, from what he did to her.
God, she really just let him do that, agreed to let him do that, laid back and let him play her like an instrument - and he’s Elton fucking John or something apparently and has all the answers to the female body.
She doesn’t even regret it but… maybe she should? Technically, she took advantage of him in his sleep haze, and she knows how out of it he is when he wakes up in the middle of the night like he did. She’s literally seen him pour coffee grounds into his shoes, try to eat cereal with a straw, put silverware in the freezer, all kinds of things.
And she just let him rub her out like it wouldn’t fundamentally change everything between them.
And it felt amazing.
And she’d probably, definitely, do it again.
That said, things are… really awkward between them the next morning.
Steve won’t meet her eyes even when they’re sitting down and eating breakfast, and then he railroads the conversation by suggesting they watch early morning cartoons.
She agrees to it, of course, but mostly because the silence is deafening and she feels horridly guilty and she doesn’t know how to fix things because, honestly, she doesn’t regret agreeing to let him do what he did, even in his debilitated state.
But she can only handle cartoons until a point and she finally reaches out to turn the tv off, moving her arm out of reach when Steve tries to grab the remote from her to turn it back on.
“Hey!” he sits upright, moving onto his knees to try and get it, “Robin-what? But Wildfire-I wanna know about the Goblin Master-”
“I don’t care about a stupid horse right now, Steve,” she says in her defense as he finally gives up, sitting back in his seat and continuing to complain about it, “Are we going to talk about last night or aren’t we?”
Steve meets her eyes for the briefest of seconds before he looks down, “I… I mean, do you even want to?”
“Well, I’d rather we have this talk and figure it all out now than keep dragging it on and on until one of us eventually snaps,” she says, feeling frantic already.
Steve sighs and drops his head back on the couch, covering his eyes with his hands and groaning before pulling them away and turning to look at her, “I’m sorry,” her brows lift, “What I did was messed up. It’s messed up. I shouldn’t have done it-”
“You shouldn’t have done it?”
“I wasn’t thinking straight,” Steve says as he shifts even further onto his side so he can face her, “I don’t know, Robin, I do stupid shit when I’m-”
“When you’re half asleep, I know,” she agrees, “But I wasn’t half asleep and I still agreed to it.”
Steve’s frown deepens.
“I agreed to it… because I wanted you to do it,” Robin finally says, feeling her body temperature rising just thinking about it, “I wanted… I wanted to feel what it was like.”
Steve blinks owlishly at her before asking, “Feel… what it was like… with a guy getting you off?”
“With a guy, with you, at all,” Robin lists in frustration, “I’ve never-I’d never-I didn’t-”
“Holy shit,” Steve says when he realizes what she’s implying, and then he looks somehow even more nervous and more guilty than he had before, “That was your first orgasm?”
“Yes.”
She wants to hide again, curl into the corner of the sofa or have a hole open up under her feet. God, this is so embarrassing. Last night was embarrassing but this is really a whole other level.
“But… you’re like-…” he clears his throat, “Clearly you’ve-I mean, you were touching yourself.”
“Of course I was,” Robin pulls her knees up to her chest finally and shifts on the couch to turn sideways as well, “I should probably tell you about that too.”
“Tell me about…? About what?” his voice goes low, “About you getting off in my bed?”
Robin looks him in the eyes, searching for the words that feel right, but she doesn’t know how to say what she wants to say. She doesn’t know her own feelings about this whole thing and she definitely doesn’t know his.
She knows he probably, maybe, was into her at some point (it’s still unclear, because she’s sure he was wallowing from his breakup and speaking from a place of denial) but she’s been working so hard on trying to push him and Nancy back together that coming in out of left field like this feels… kind of cruel to both of them.
“I don’t know how I feel,” she finally settles on and sees the look of guilt and worry on Steve’s face ease back a little, warping into concern.
God, he’s concerned, and she’s just a sick and twisted person that can’t get her feelings in check just because she finally saw a guy’s cock, in the flesh… yuck. That’s not… she didn’t mean for it to come out that way.
“Look,” Steve sighs and reaches out tentatively, slinging his arm back on the sofa and shifting closer to her, “I know breaking up can make you do some pretty reckless things, I get it. I went into a freefall after Nance, so trust me, I’m speaking from experience. I literally went looking for a fight with the demo-dog dudes, I came out swinging and put myself in a situation where I could’ve been eaten alive-”
“This isn’t that, Steve.”
He stops, those stupidly long lashes of his flicking about as he blinks at her, “Are you sure?”
Robin groans and drops her head between her knees, squeezing her temples with them, “I don’t know what I’m sure of, but I’m sure of that much. This isn’t because of Vickie, I’m over Vickie, okay? It was a huge mistake and-and-and maybe I get it, you and me can be a lot-”
“Yeah, we’re pretty insufferable-”
“And we’re practically joined at the hip-”
“Good set of hips.”
Robin looks back up at him and smiles, resting her chin on her forearms and staring at him, “Yeah,” she sighs out, a lump forming in her throat and tears blurring her eyes, “You’re my best friend… I don’t want to lose you.”
“Robin,” Steve says weakly and he finally touches her, his hand dropping to her arm as he shakes his head, “Don’t cry, don’t-”
“I’m sorry.”
“Hey,” he moves in as her bottom lip shakes and he wraps his arms around her, “Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. You’re not gonna lose me, okay? I promise.”
She clings to him, leaning into the mix of smells that make up Steve Harrington, god he’s always smelled so good. Before, she could at least appreciate it, but now it causes all kinds of neurons to fire off inside of her, arms and legs tingling at the scent of his aftershave blending in with everything else.
Steve pulls back after a moment and looks into her red rimmed eyes, “Is there anything I can do to help? Whatever it is, I wanna help.”
Of course he does.
Of course he does, because he’s a good person.
“We’re supposed to be platonic,” she says weakly, searching his eyes.
“With a capital P,” Steve agrees, shrugging, “But sometimes that changes and… and it’s okay if it does, if that’s what you want.”
“I don’t know what I want.”
Steve leans against the couch, hands dropping from her shoulders, “I mean, I’m okay with whatever it is, it could be platonic, I’ve done that kind of stuff before, too.”
“What could be platonic?” Robin asks, “What we did last night?”
“Last night or… or if you want more than that. I mean, if I can help you figure that stuff out, I don’t mind being your personal genuina pig.”
Robin sighs and turns her head away from him, dropping her chin onto her left biceps and staring out the window on the opposite side wall, “I don’t want-you’re my best friend, I don’t wanna mess that up.”
“Trust me, I’m pretty sure I already messed it up last night,” Steve says in a low voice, “That’s on me.”
It’s not. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s hers. She walked in on him. She was the one getting off in bed right next to him. And she’s the one that took advantage of him.
“Are you agreeing to do this because you don’t think you have a chance with Nancy?” Robin finally asks, staring at him skeptically.
“Not only because of that,” Steve tells her, sounding a little defensive, “That’s just a fact-”
“You’re wrong.”
“I’m right, and even if I wasn’t, she’s made it clear that she’s not interested in jeopardizing her relationship with Jonathan. I’m not worth it, so that’s it.”
Robin growls lowly and rolls her eyes, “She still likes you. I don’t wanna mess up your chances-”
“I don’t have chances, okay?” Steve sighs and runs his hand through his hair, “And besides, that’s not-... that’s not the only reason.”
She nudges him with her foot when he goes silent, “What’s the other reason?”
Steve sighs again, something long and drawn out, sounding defeated as he squeezes his eyes shut, “Okay, but just, try not to take it personally?”
Robin frowns. Oh god, what’s he about to say? Is he about to flip this whole thing around and prove to her that he actually is like other guys? Because if that’s it, she’s going to give up on men altogether, here and now, and it’ll be final. If this has anything to do with how hot it would be to be in a threesome with two chicks, or-or that he thinks she’s sexy and he wants to see her naked-
“I lied to you,” he winces as he says it and her stomach twists - here it comes, here comes the ‘all men are dogs’ moment, “Remember… when you asked me if I still had feelings for you?” her brows furrow in confusion, so he elaborates, “That time, after that knock down drag out fight with my dad? After Starcourt? And we went to Lover’s Lake and got completely shitfaced. Remember when you were like ‘I’m glad we’re friends’ and then you asked to make sure I didn’t still have feelings for you?”
Oh god.
What is he about to say?
“I didn’t want you to feel awkward about the whole thing, so I lied,” Steve says, his voice going up a little, “You wanted a friend and I wanted to be that friend because I’d rather have that than not have you in my life. I’d date you, I’d do it in a heartbeat, but I knew you didn’t want it, I knew you were only into girls, so I… I lied.”
Robin stares at him in disbelief and, honestly, relief.
Steve groans when he sees the look on her face and he gets up from the couch finally and starts pacing around the room in a frantic sort of way, “I know we agreed not to lie to each other, and I know I-” he drops his hands on the arm rest and leans against it, looking at her on the opposite side of the couch, “But I can’t just-I can’t turn this shit off, okay? It’s just like shit with Nance-god. I’m such a loser.”
He turns away again, one hand on his hip as he leans on his other leg, his back turned to her, “I’m sorry. It was stupid. I should’ve just told you the truth and been honest from the start. I just… I wanted to be… the kind of friend you deserve. I tried not to-”
Robin can’t help it, she starts laughing, tears on her cheeks, voice wet with all of the mixed emotions, but she starts laughing and she can’t stop, even when Steve turns to look at her and gives her a disapproving look.
“Hey, I’m just trying to be honest now, don’t laugh at me.”
“I’m sorry,” she shakes her head, wiping her eyes, “Here I am, worried you’re about to tell me something really messed up, and you’re just conflicted because you still like me.”
Steve crosses his arms over his chest as he watches her dissolve into another fit of giggles.
He moves over and takes the seat beside her, his arm on the back of the couch again and his face super close and Robin sobers back up quickly, heart racing, “So that’s the truth, what’s your truth?”
Robin swallows tightly and shrugs, “I… might be bisexual like you?” she guesses and Steve’s brows jump up his forehead, “But I don’t know for sure.”
He nods slowly a few times, “Can I help? Do you-I mean, do you want me to help?”
“I don’t want to hurt you if I don’t-” she struggles with the words, scrabbling her fingers up the back of her hair, “If it’s just some kind of fluke, Steve-maybe I’m just horny or something and I’m not thinking with my brain. I don’t want to disappoint you if I can’t-”
“Maybe let me worry about my feelings,” Steve suggests, “Trust me, I can handle it.”
“So, if we fool around and do a bunch of things, just to try and figure out if I actually like guys,” Robin says, listing out the hypothetical situation, “And I kiss you, and you-and we have-... have sex and stuff, and-that won’t bother you? That won’t bother you if I tell you I’ve realized I don’t actually like guys? And I just want to go back to being friends? You won’t hate me?”
Steve actually seems to consider it, thankfully. She probably would’ve asked him to give it some time if he’d just outright been like ‘no, we’re square’, and he purses his lips.
“I won’t hate you,” he finally says, shrugging, “I think I’d be okay.”
“You’d be okay?”
“Well,” Steve clears his throat and shifts closer, eyes meeting hers again, “Let’s just agree that this is like… platonic stuff, and no one’s expecting anything on the other side. And maybe it ends after one kiss or one-one whatever, you know? It could end at any point. So it’s just friends, we’re friends, and we’re just…” he shrugs, “Experimenting, right?”
Robin nods in agreement, feeling the cold ache of guilt still running through her. She hates that she’s put him in this situation. It was bad enough when she thought he wasn’t still into her. Somehow, knowing he lied and has feelings for her, it’s worse than before.
But she wants to know. And Steve’s the only guy she trusts. And she loves him, first and foremost as her best friend, and… maybe more, she’s not really sure.
She wants to try.
And if she’s ever going to have that chance, it’s here and now.
Who better to take care of her than him?
“You’re sure?” he asks just in case, “Because I can totally drop this right here and now, and we can just not talk about it. I’m real good at pretending everything is normal.”
He is.
Robin knows he is, considering he’s had feelings for her this whole time and she was never the wiser. She literally confidently told Nancy that Steve and her are just friends, and she knew, not thought, she knew that he was well and truly over her.
“I’m sure,” she says confidently, squaring her shoulders, “I want to try.”
She watches his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows and his hand drops from her arm, “Did you-do you-”
“I want to try now,” Robin confirms the question before he can finish it, “I can’t just agree to this and sit around waiting, I want to try now. I want you to kiss me now, I wanna kiss-”
His eyes drop to her lips and Robin has a split second to think, ‘oh boy’, right before he leans in and kisses her.
Her arms move the moment their lips touch, reaching for him but then not touching him when she’s not sure what’s okay to do, where’s okay to touch. Thankfully, he does it for her, guiding her hands to his face as her knees spread apart just enough to make it easier for him to rest his chest between them.
She expects it to be awkward, even a little bit, or not to like it, but just like everything she’s been feeling last night and this morning, all she wants is more from him (specifically).
Steve catches onto it just like she does, his right arm dropping to grab the cushion and anchor himself with it as his other arm drapes around the armrest at her back. Their mouths part together, his tongue teasing her lips and she feels those tingles course through her, more following when he groans and shifts closer.
She spreads her legs wider to accommodate him and he moves in the moment she does, the fronts of his thighs at the backs of hers, all the bare skin brushing and she knows he runs warm but he feels somehow warmer, almost burning.
Her hands move to his hair, knowing that it’s a weak spot for him and smiling against his mouth when he whines and lashes his tongue out over hers.
Robin nearly clenches her thighs when the dull ache between her legs gets to the point where she needs something more. One of her hands drops from his face, moving between them but Steve stops her, breaking the kiss and pulling back enough to look her in the eyes.
“Do you want me to-”
“Please,” she begs him breathlessly, knowing that he’ll be able to take care of her like he did last night. He did that while he was half asleep, she can only imagine how good he is while he’s awake. Fortunately for her, she won’t have to imagine for much longer.
Steve obliges the moment the words pass her lips and he leans back in to kiss her, the hand holding him up moving between her legs to rub her through his boxers as he shifts to better support himself on his left side.
Robin nearly throws her head back and screams. There’s no testing and shifting around like there was last night, not this time, not at all. Steve homes in exactly as he had before and she bucks into his touch, making this embarrassing, weird whimper sound against his lips as she shakes from head to foot.
He grabs her waist suddenly and yanks her down onto her back on the cramped sofa and she breaks the kiss, gasping and staring up at him in amazement, cheeks flush, smile spreading on her lips.
“Holy shit,” she says as she leans up to kiss him again and she feels his other hand move away, still rubbing her down with his right but she glances between them to see him touch himself, palming his own boxers and she wants to offer to help.
She almost does, when his lips break hers and drop to her neck, sucking her skin and dragging it between her teeth. She almost asks then, while her mouth is free, but then he pulls back to look at her again.
“Still okay?” he asks and she nods, and then he asks another question in the softest, most longing, sweetest tone she’s ever heard come out of him, “Can I eat you out?”
Robin laughs in his face, especially when he smiles sheepishly and shrugs like ‘can you blame a guy for asking?’. He doesn’t get it just yet, but between the question and the tone of his voice, it was the last thing she was expecting him to ask.
She stops and reaches down with both hands to push the boxers down her hips, tossing them aside and staring up at him when she realizes that she’s just exposed her entire lower half to him - something she’s never done for… for, well, anyone. Her and Vickie had barely ever just kissed, they definitely never got this far.
Steve’s eyes widen and he glances down, thumb running up to tug her shirt higher and she arches her back to let him. She doesn’t have to say anything, he gets every implication and she doesn’t know who she has to thank for that, but she’s grateful.
His lips drop to the hem of her shirt, his shirt, dipping under and pressing his mouth to her skin, moving up the swell of her left breast and Robin pulls her lip between her teeth, dropping her head back and grinding up against his stomach as his tongue runs over her left nipple.
She looks down to watch him, only able to see the mess of his hair as he mouths at her chest and starts to move down lower, sucking and biting, leaving marks on her skin as he goes.
“Steve,” she says impatiently, letting out a hoarse groan of relief when he presses his face between her legs, fingers spreading her open as his tongue drags up between her folds, teasing and tasting and then wrapping his lips around her clit and sucking.
Robin’s face scrunches in disbelief, her mouth dropping open, her hand grabbing his hair and almost ripping it from his scalp as she fights the urge to stop him or encourage him.
He hisses in pain, but doesn’t stop what he’s doing, glancing up to her flush face, probably tomato red at this point, and then his eyes drop back down, tongue flicking over her, quickly swiping back and forth. She’s just on the edge when he lowers his mouth again, lapping at her in a way that somehow leaves her feeling more wet than she was before he does it.
“God, that’s insane, it’s too much,” she says numbly, finally able to form words now that he’s giving his tongue a break, “I get it. I thought it was gonna be at least a little weird or gross, but holy shit, I really get it now.”
Steve presses kisses to the inside of her thighs, sucking kisses that sting at the end but make her walls inside clench in strange sorts of ways.
“You can do that cherry thing, can’t you?” Robin asks and Steve glances up to her.
“What, pop your cherry?” he asks back, brows furrowing, “It’s not really like that, Robin, it’s not a cherry-”
“No, no!” she sits up a little, “No, I’m not-I don’t think I’m ready for that just yet. I mean the thing with the uh… the cherry vine-cherry stem! That thing, you know?”
Steve’s eyes glaze over as she talks, refocusing when he realizes what she’s saying, “Oh you mean tying a cherry stem in a knot?”
“Yeah, that thing!”
“Three.”
“What?”
Steve holds up three fingers, “Three times.”
She blinks, confused, “You’ve done it three times?” she asks and he nods.
“Three times a stem,” he says and leans back in, mouth closing around her clit and Robin, still reeling and trying to understand the implications of what he’s just told her, thrusts against his mouth and digs her heels into the couch cushions.
“Steve-oh, fuck,” she moans as she sits up, one hand holding her up as she tries to look at him, “Can I see?” she asks as she grabs his hair, trying to pull him back, “I need to know what you’re doing.”
Steve pulls back to explain, “I’m just swiping it right to left,” and then he shows her, doing it again with his tongue out and the moan escapes her before she can stop it, watching his tongue flick expertly back and forth, and to feel the tingles being drawn down through her like a current rushing down a stream.
She watches him until she can’t and she lets his hair go so he can close his mouth back over her clit, the speed of his movements and the pressure picking up a little when he’s back down on her and that’s all it takes to make the ache punch through, her legs shaking violently to the point of embarrassment that she can’t get them to stop.
“Holy-holy shit,” she pants as her heart races, arms and legs tightening as her left foot slides down onto Steve’s knee, pushing against it to arch her body up against his mouth as she cums.
She stares up at the ceiling in numb dullness, flinching a little when Steve’s tongue drags up through her again, the sensitivity overwhelming but she feels him back off, helping her get his boxers back on and tugging down her shirt before he moves up and hovers over her.
“Still not sure?” he asks, smirking, “Or did taking the edge off help you realize that you were just horny?”
Robin considers her words, eyes moving from the ceiling to Steve’s warm gaze looking down at her and she smiles, “No, it’s… it’s still there, the feelings are still there,” she says and Steve starts to move back, but she stops him, “Can we just lay here for a second?”
“Sure,” he says effortlessly and then he lays on his side, back pressed to the back of the couch so that he doesn’t smush her. She shifts her arm up over his shoulder and pulls his head down so he can rest it on her chest.
He’s tense for a moment but then he all but melts against her like butter on toast, one leg over hers as her breathing slowly levels out.
“I always tried,” she mutters as her words come back to her, “But I’d keep breaking the cherry stems. I’d snap them in half.”
Steve’s fingers play with the hem of her shirt, “Yeah, a lot of people have that problem. I… never really did,” he admits, “Used to do it all the time as a kid, guess it came in handy after a while.”
“I’ll say,” Robin says and laughs, her hand coming up to push her hair back from her face, “That’s insane, I’ve never-… I mean, I knew you were a big deal because I’ve heard the girls you’ve dated, you know? It’s all they ever talk about, and I didn’t get it. I figured ‘how good could it really be?’, right? It’s not all that. But I-no, I-I get it. I totally get it now. It’s wild, it’s the-it’s so intense. I don’t even have words!”
“I don’t know, you sound like you have a lot of words,” Steve says and she can hear the amused smile spreading on his lips as his hand smooths along her stomach.
She likes it. It’s the weirdest thing and maybe it makes sense somehow, somewhere, but right now it doesn’t make any sense. That last week his breath on her neck was like a comfort, sure, but it didn’t make her feel the way it does now.
Or… maybe it did, and she just always assumed it was because she was uncomfortable… because he’s a guy.
If she’s going to test this out, she’s going to need more than what they’ve tried so far, she’s going to need to get involved with his body just as much.
Robin turns and Steve pulls back to give her space but she presses their bodies together, leaning in to kiss him and touch his jaw, his neck, down to his skimpy little crop top, she starts to go lower when she realizes that he’s still hard and what she thought was his hand at the crease of her pelvic bone is the shape of his cock pressing against her.
“Sorry, I can just-” Steve starts to shift back but there’s not really any room, and then he drops his hand between them to adjust himself but Robin stops him.
His eyes snap to hers as she moves her hand from his wrist and drops down to take hold of his cock through the thin fabric of his boxers. It’s surprisingly warm like the rest of him, thick and heavy and she doesn’t hate touching it but she doesn’t have a lot of confidence doing any more than she’s already doing.
If only there was a way to take this even slower while still being involved…
Her eyes light up when she forms an idea and she shifts back, sitting up and looking down at him, “Can I watch you?”
“You-…” Steve stops as he starts to sit up as well but she pushes him back down, “Oh, you want-… I-sure, okay, yeah. I can… I can do that. Are you sure? This is kind of a lot at one ti-”
“I’m sure,” she says impatiently and moves to sit in his lap, his eyes following her as she shuffles back onto his thighs, “I wanna see it-I want-” she clears her throat, “I want to see you jerk off.”
Steve pushes his boxers down, his cock springing out and dropping back against his lower belly, the tip of it wet and sticky with pre-cum and Robin stares at it as he takes it in his hand, pumping the length a few times as his nervous eyes look back up at her.
Robin blushes when his eyes run down her body, not that there’s any of it really on display. She’s wearing one of his larger, more stretched out, worn down Henley’s and a pair of striped boxers, but the way he looks at her makes her feel like some kind of glamorous porn model or something with a set of big breasts and curves for days. She’s none of that, but the way Steve’s eyes drink her in… gives her some dangerous kind of confidence in the moment.
She teases the hem of her shirt and Steve lets out a shaky breath, most of it coming out of his nose, so she teases again, lifting it higher to expose more of her skin.
“Robin,” he mutters, gaze jumping up to her and then back down any time she lifts the shirt a little higher.
“Like what you see?” she teases him, peeking the curve of her breasts from beneath and Steve moans something trembling and desperate. She can feel his legs tense under her.
It’s too fun picking on him like this, so she lifts one corner higher, even higher again, and his breath catches when she shows off a nipple. She shuffles forward on her knees a little closer, able to feel his arm movements on her thigh.
Her attention goes back to his own shirt and she lifts it as well, curiosity getting the better of her as she gropes his chest, thumbs rubbing his nipples before she drags her palms down his stomach, feeling the muscles, his rougher skin under the touch of her finger tips.
She touches his arms with tentative, wandering hands, tracing her nails up the one working his cock, down the one rubbing her thigh, gliding her fingers through the hairs on his forearms, then back the other way. The hand resting on her skin moves up under the fabric of her boxers, thumbing the joint at the inside of her left leg.
As engrossed as she is in watching his hand move up and down, teasing the head of his cock, pre-cum dripping down, she moves her eyes back up to watch his face.
He was everything any girl talked about when they were in school, and she was more than aware of how apparently good-looking Steve Harrington was. It was annoying to hear about it, it was even more annoying when she first saw him, then the second time, and then when she was sharing a class with him.
Girls fawned over him like a bunch of desperate hens, including Tammy, and she was jealous. Robin didn’t get it at all. He was just like his literal best friend, like a carbon copy of Tommy H. and every other guy she knew in school.
Even the nicest ones just wanted a chance to look at her rack or catch a flash up her skirt and she’d assumed he was no different. And, for a while, he kind of was… on the outside, at least.
Who knew that trying to date Nancy Wheeler would end up turning a seemingly bad boy into someone she took pride in calling her best friend?
Regardless, she can appreciate those good looks now, and she kind of has over the last year.
Well, she knew he was attractive, even still being in whatever headspace she’s been in, she knew he was cute - girls liked him, dating was easy, and she could appreciate a good angle from time to time - but it’s just like everything else.
It’s different now.
She feels like she was nearsighted before, but now she can see all of the intricate details. She can see him for what all of the girls have never been able to shut up about - his lips, his jaw, his eyes, the curls of hair falling in his face, the concentration between his notched brows, and then the rest of him.
Before she even realizes what she’s doing, she’s touching his stomach again, smoothing her hands up and feeling the muscles shifting underneath, up over his chest, down his arms, feeling the tight cords of the veins in his wrists.
She looks at all of him and she shakes a little when his eyes flick back up to look at her and they both stare at one another, the desperation in his eyes, and she leans down to kiss him, pulling back when he whimpers against her mouth and she watches in stunned fascination as his head drops back, lips parted, eyes squeezing shut as he cums.
His mouth closes after a second or two passes, the corners of his lips twitching, but Robin can’t look away. She’s seen similar looks on him before, she can almost place it exactly, but it’s knowing the reason this time that makes her feel hot and wet all over.
Her eyes drop to his cock, at the translucent liquid pooling on his stomach and she touches it, bringing it to her lips curiously to taste it.
Both of them freeze up like they realize what she’s done at the same time and Steve stares up at her, shocked, hand still gripping the head of his cock and chest rising and falling as he catches his breath.
She pulls her fingers from her mouth and licks her lips, humming, “Not bad baby batter,” she says, trying to play casual as she gets up from his lap to grab him some tissues, offering them without meeting his eyes as she tastes her fingers again, trying to chase the flavor a second time as he thanks her.
It’s not bad, really, it tastes kind of… tangy and sweet, and she’s tempted to try it again but she doesn’t want to weird him out.
Steve seemed appalled at the idea of what she’d done but, to be fair, she hadn’t really planned to do it, either.
One of the perks of their work schedules these days is the simple practicality of it all. Both of their off days happen at the same time which makes wasting hours away together come pretty easy - something Vickie always complained about, because she’d had work on Robin’s days off.
But now, with Steve, they can spend their entire weekend tangled up in his bed, making out for hours, or lip locking on the couch while watching endless soaps.
The weekend inevitably ends, like it always does, and even though they get the morning to open up the shop together, Steve still has to take his coffee and head next door to the Scoops shop and start his later shift. Which means that she’s bored and stuck with Keith until she’s off.
On the upside, it coincides nicely with Steve’s lunch break and she already has an idea of how she’d like to spend it.
“Say ‘hi’ to your boyfriend for me,” Keith mutters as she passes by with a couple of caffe lattes for her and Steve, “Tell him to drop by sometime in the day time.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Robin says on reflex and almost has to pause at the thought because, even though they agreed on this just being something casual, some friends with benefits kind of thing, it sort of does… feel like they’re together.
It kind of always felt like they were together but more so now than ever before, knowing that she could kiss him if she wanted to. On the lips, if she wanted to.
She doesn’t know how she feels about it - the idea of having a boyfriend, of Steve being her boyfriend - it almost feels somehow childish after everything they’ve been through. That, and she never figured she’d have one.
Guys were garbage two-faced cheaters. But not Steve.
She’s still reflecting on it when she pushes open the door to Scoops Ahoy to let herself in and feels a pit immediately form in her stomach when she sees Steve in his usual spot behind the counter and the girl leaned over it, hands gripped tight onto the ends of his stupid little red-the stupid bandana sailor red stupid thing-
Robin nearly squeezes the life out of their drinks as she watches Steve kiss her and it feels like the ground drops out from under her feet. But she could only be so lucky.
She hasn’t been this jealous of him in years, but never has she been on the other side of it, hurting because of a girl kissing him, hurting… because she’s not that girl.
Steve pulls away and looks over towards the door to see Robin, “Oh, hey, Rob-” she turns before she can hear him say anymore, rushing back out and blindly turning down the alley between the two buildings to try and get away as fast as possible.
She doesn’t even have a car she can go to, she doesn’t drive, Steve drives her everywhere-
“Rob-Robin, wait up,” he says from behind her, footsteps speeding up, “Hey, I said wait up! Robin-”
He catches up to her quickly, grabbing her arm to try and stop her and she turns to push him away but ends up dropping their drinks in the process, the coffee smashing on the ground as he puts his hand against the wall, trying to take hers with his other but she pulls away.
“Don’t-”
“Hey now, what-” Steve follows her steps to the side, keeping in the way of her getting out and he closes his arm on the other side, “Hey, hey, what’s-what the hell’s wrong? Why are you actin’ like this?”
“Why?” she pushes at his chest and tries to shove him away but he doesn’t budge, only managing to push herself back against the wall.
Steve’s brows rise up in surprise, and then he lets up when he realizes what she’s trying to do. It’s embarrassing, how little effect she has on him, mentally and physically.
“Why?” she asks again, trying to recover and hide her shame as much as possible, “B-b-because I thought you were different and I was wrong. B-because the second that I’m not around you-we’re not around each other, I mean-you’re just-... you’re-you’re making out with other girls, like what we did didn’t mean anything at all-”
“Okay, first of all, I wasn’t making out with her. She kissed me-”
“Oh, so that makes it okay,” Robin throws her arms out, “She kissed you, so you’re in the clear, but what did you do before that to get her to want to-”
“Nothing, I didn’t do anything like that,” Steve says as he cups her cheeks, lifting her chin to try and meet her eyes again, even as Robin fights against it, “Secondly, I…” she turns her head away finally, crossing her arms as Steve sighs, shoulders slumping, “I don’t get it, Robin. I don’t understand. You tell me you wanna just be friends and try things out, and experiment with all this stuff with guys - with me - and I agreed. I want more-”
Her eyes snap to him, widening.
“-But I still agreed to it because I want you to be comfortable with… you know, all the weird shit and figuring it all out. And at least then I can, you know, kinda have you, or at least-but we made it clear, we’re still just friends. But then I can’t play the field if I want to? How’s that work?”
Robin stares up at him, tears dripping down her cheeks and she hates this - she hates crying and she hates this feeling of betrayal forming like a pit in her gut. This is why she didn’t want to get involved with guys, they’re all the same.
“I don’t know, I-”
“If you want to be with me, you need to tell me right now,” Steve says in this stern, almost demanding tone, “I don’t play games like this, Robin. I’m either in it or out of it and I…” he sighs and pulls back his hands to rest them on his hips, staring sadly at her with his chin low down, “I want to be in it. But you can’t just tell me this is all to figure shit out when you react like this to a girl at the shop trying to come onto me. I mean, that happens like… multiple times a-”
“She came onto you?”
He nods.
Robin quickly wipes her right cheek and looks away, “She kissed you?”
“Yeah,” Steve says, moving into her view and leaning against the wall again to meet her eyes, “It was pretty atrocious, actually, all teeth and no lip. I was pretty sure I cracked one, do they look okay?”
Robin finally looks at him and laughs when she sees him with his lips outstretched, trying to make it so she can see all of them. She looks, she checks each of his pearly whites, and then she shrugs, “They look fine,” she says finally and lets out a shaky sigh, “I’m going crazy, aren’t I?”
“A little bit.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Steve says as he reaches out to touch her waist, “A little crazy I can handle. Trust me, I’ve been there before. I think we all know what kind of guy I turn into when I get jealous. So I can handle a little bit of that. I just need you to be honest. If we’re gonna do this, I need to know how you’re feeling.”
Robin leans her head against his arm and meets his eyes, “But Nancy-”
“This isn’t about Nance right now,” Steve cuts her off, stepping closer to her, close enough that she can feel the warmth radiating off of him, “This is about you and me and what you want. It’s your choice. Because I can get in line with whatever it is, but I need to know. If you want a relationship, I can do that; I want to do that. I can be a one woman show if you want that.”
Robin feels the tears start to come again and she starts to look away again, but Steve follows her eyes.
“If you want to just be friends and call the whole thing off - pretend like it never happened - that’s okay too,” he says and she knows he means it, she was upset before but, ultimately, she knows him better than that. She does.
And Steve has always been great at playing pretend when she needs it.
She’s disappointed in herself that she thought so low of him so quickly, judging him before she knew the whole story and not giving him the benefit of the doubt. She could use an excuse, say she was just being emotional, hormonal, whatever, but the truth is that she-… it might be that-
“I can do that too, Robin, I can just be friends - I’m good at it,” he takes her hand in his then, looking down between them and then back up to her as he leans in that last little bit, his voice going lower, “But if you wanna keep trying to figure yourself out, figure this out, then I need to be able to do my own thing just as well, just as I’ve done before. Friends with benefits are still just that: friends.”
She lets out a shaky breath, finally looking him in the eyes again.
Steve smiles sadly and reaches up to tuck her hair back behind her ear and she feels her whole body warm at the act, “You can’t have both, because I-… if I hold out hope while we’re just casual, and I don’t date other girls… I’ll do it. I’ll get my hopes up. I can do a lot, I can work with a lot of what you’re giving me, but I can’t do that.”
It’s fair.
He’s fair.
It’s more than fair, honestly. It’s more than she deserves after acting so stupid.
Robin searches his face. She wants to give him everything, she wants to be able to tell him that she’s ready for a relationship, but she knows that she’d be lying.
Backing herself into that corner would only end up hurting them both. But she doesn’t want to go back to being friends, she can’t do that now that she knows what it feels like to kiss him. Which means that she either walks away… or she agrees to friends with benefits still, while knowing that he could and might just hook up with other girls.
And maybe… even find the one. Maybe, still possibly, Nancy.
“I want to be friends-”
Steve’s face, surprisingly, gives nothing away to her. If he’s upset about it, she can’t tell. He just smiles and nods in understanding, “Okay.”
“-with benefits.”
His brows rise, “Uh, are you sure?”
“Look, I know what I did just not five minutes ago was an overreaction, but I wasn’t-” she drops her head back on the wall, glancing up, then back to him, “I wasn’t prepared to see it, okay? I was taken off guard or whatever. We hadn’t talked about that part before, but now we have, and now I’m prepared. I can handle it. And… if I can’t… maybe we can… renegotiate.”
He smiles slowly and leans in to rest his forehead against hers, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay,” Steve says again, letting out a shaky breath.
Robin stares at him, searching his eyes as he collects himself and, only then does she realize what she must’ve just put him through. It would kill him to lose her and he nearly just did. And he put himself out there in a big way, and she’s still probably let him down.
She smiles sadly, feeling the dull ache at the center of her chest drop, “Sorry I complicated things.”
Steve chuckles wetly and clears his throat, shaking his head, “It’s fine.”
It’s not fine and she can tell, so she reaches out to wrap her arms around him and hold him close, touching the back of his hair and running her other hand down his back as he squeezes her tight.
Who knew that just being friends with Steve Harrington would end up making her life so much more complicated than it was when she just thought she was into girls.
“You dropped the coffees.”
“I know.”
“I’ll pay to get a couple more?”
“Yeah,” she folds, leaning into him, “Keith sounded like he wanted to see you anyway.”
“God I… really hate that guy.”
“Me too.”