When Robin first met Steve, she thought he was all arrogance and confidence, thought he was bullshit.
She got to know him, looked behind the picture of King Steve, the fallen jock of Hawkins High. She likes Steve. Loves him like a brother sometimes.
She's surprised though that he's so oblivious sometimes. That guy dated half of the school, okay, all of them girls, even though she knows that Steve Harrington's virginity will forever be Tommy Hagan's greatest steal, but how can Steve be so blind?
Steve's face is flushed when he finds her after the last period, when they are supposed to spend the rainy afternoon on the couch, watching Disney movies or whatever.
"I think Billy is theatening me!" Steve says, eyes huge. Like always when he's talking about Billy. Which he does a lot. Most of the day.
Because they are rivals, he says.
Because he's got a big fat crush, Robin has inferred after the last "Billy Hargrove is disgusting" ramble Steve annoyed her with for two hours.
She suppresses a grin that wants to mix with a sigh which leads to a weird hiccup.
"What's going on?"
"He sent me notes today. This one says 'I'm watching you, pretty boy.'" Steve waves a piece of paper in front of her. Billy's handwriting is surprisingly neat.
That's not really a surprise. Billy stares at Steve as if he's an oasis in the desert. Steve stares at Billy like he's a cake and there's only one piece left.
There's her hiccup again.
" … and the other?" she asks. It's amusing, she has to admit. At the same time she wants to smush them together like the Barbie dolls she had played with as a child. She created epic love stories - lacking Ken the whole time, because a Barbie deserved another Barbie, not some boring ass dude.
Steve ruffles his hair. "It’s even worse. It says 'I'm waiting for you in the parking lot!'"
Robin snorts. That's it. She's glad Billy apparently had gotten around to the realization that it's not a rivalry but the exact opposite. Of course Billy Hargrove can't just say "I like you". That would be too easy.
"I think you're both idiots," she hiccups. Damn, that's getting out of hand.
Steve puts his hands in his hips. "What?" he asks.
"Go to the parking lot!" Robin points at the door.
"I don't wanna fight," Steve begins.
Robin can't stand this hiccup any longer.
"He doesn't want to fight - he wants to fuck," she almost yells.
Steve gapes at her.
"Maybe it's a joke," he manages.
"What if it isn't?" she asks.
Steve's moles drown in the pinkness of his cheeks.
"I… should go," he says. "Thanks, Robin."
"Welcome, dingus."
She shouldn’t follow him, but she still does, because he’s a bit of an idiot and she loves him. She wants to make sure, she isn’t wrong. She peeks around the corner. It's still raining a bit, more a drizzle than anything.
Billy is wearing his tightest pair of jeans. He's leaning against the Camaro, sucking on a cigarette. Pretending he isn't soaking wet. It's almost adorable.
"Harrington, I bet your lame ass still hasn't seen Terminator, " he says, stroking a wet curl out of his dace.
"You don't know that," Steve grumbles.
Billy tilts his head. His face flushes a bit, too. They are matching tones of pink.
"'M drivin'," Billy mumbles.
Steve grins. "I'm buying, then."
Billy nearly drops his cigarette.
"Cool," he says, face still red.
She watches them drive off, high-fiving a very confused Jonathan Byers who just happens to walk to his car.
Her hiccup is gone. Finally.
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45 or 49 for the prompt lists. Idk about characters except Eddie has to be involved for 49 lol
LMAO of course Eddie would need to be involved with the nipple piercing prompt, it's too good. I hope you love this as much as I do
prompt: “What is the purpose of nipple rings?” “Decoration.” “Like a Christmas tree!” (from this list)
Family Video Paradise also on ao3
Thursdays were, without fail, the slowest day of the week at Family Video.
It took about a month of working there for Robin to notice the pattern.
Fridays were the busiest. Families having movie nights, teenagers going on dates, adults eager to unwind from the work week.
Saturdays and Sundays passed in a similar fashion, with more people wanting breaks from reality before work and school started up again on Monday.
This is where the pattern diverted from where she expected it to lead. Instead of Mondays being slow, Mondays were busy with the people returning their movies from Friday.
Then Tuesday with the returns from Saturday.
And Wednesday with the returns from Sunday.
There weren’t many checkouts that happened on those days, maybe a few here and there for sick days and vacations, but by and large, those first three days of the work week were for returns.
This left Thursday as the odd one out. The reset day. Hardly anyone came in because most everything had been returned, and the public would be back the following day to check out something new.
It was quiet. Peaceful even. Keith wasn’t as strict about the movies she and Steve put on in the store because no one else was likely to see them.
Steve would flip through the magazines the store got in the mail, usually some pop culture, borderline tabloid thing that he found entertaining, and she would pick up a film she probably wouldn’t watch on her own time.
Because as much as the store had a pattern, they had a pattern too.
A pattern that started to involve Eddie Munson a little under a year after it had cemented itself into their lives.
Eddie had also picked up on this pattern, and would choose that day to come in and bother them about something or other, which did add a bit of variety to their day, so neither of them seriously wanted to kick him out, even if they threatened to do so.
That’s just how it was.
So this particular Thursday wasn’t out of the ordinary whatsoever when Eddie walked in the door, already making noise like he was going to be a nuisance.
Steve was flipping through his magazine. Robin hadn’t seen which it was that day, but she heard the glossy pages turn as if he hadn’t registered Eddie’s presence.
Not that she had stopped in her task either. She had two movies she was trying to decide between, although one of them was an action movie thrown into the ring for Steve’s sake since she never let him pick.
She probably wasn’t going to pick that one, but she was trying to be fair.
The sound of Eddie picking up a VHS almost made her break. He checked out movies with the kids on Fridays, but maybe he was checking something out for himself.
He set the case down in front of her. Only then did she look up.
“Munson,” she greeted.
“Buckley. Have you considered the merits of-” he glanced at the tape “-Cinema Paradiso.”
“I speak French and Russian, not Italian.”
“You don’t have to speak a language to appreciate art, birdie.”
Robin glared at him for a moment before adding it to her pile. Without her asking, he took the generic action movie she’d grabbed for Steve.
Before she could protest, he interrupted her.
“Don’t give me that, we both know you weren’t going to pick it. Humoring Steve is nice but don’t hurt yourself.”
Steve let out a quiet huff that Eddie probably couldn’t even hear, and she suppressed a smile.
She rolled her eyes instead. “Whatever. Put it on the cart so it gets reshelved correctly this time.”
“As you wish, Bluejay.”
He did as she asked, and before he could go back to bothering her, Steve tapped on the counter.
They both looked over at him, giving him their full attention.
“What is the purpose of nipple rings?”
That wasn’t at all what she was expecting him to say.
Robin choked on nothing.
Eddie had yet to make a sound.
She realized that this was because Steve had asked the question while staring directly at Eddie, as if he was asking him the question, rather than just throwing it out to the room.
“Decoration,” Eddie answered easily as if this wasn’t the most exciting thing to happen in the store on a Thursday.
“Like a Christmas tree!” Robin chimed in helpfully. She’d gotten her voice back, and was curious to see what would happen next.
Steve nodded and went back to reading as if nothing had happened.
“Not so fast, Harrington. I want to see what you’re reading that made that particular question occur to you.” Eddie swiped at his magazine, blocking Steve’s attempt to get it back.
He angled it towards Robin, who was grateful to have an ally in these kinds of situations.
“Hmm. Rolling Stones. I guess that sort of makes sense,” Robin said. “Some of those musicians make eccentric style decisions.” She looked at Eddie pointedly.
He ignored her. “So, there’s a perfectly plausible explanation for why he asked the question. I do have a follow up question though,” he stage whispered conspiratorially.
“Which is?” Robin stage whispered back.
“Why did he ask me?”
Steve, to his credit, looked a bit embarrassed, but remained silent in favor of glaring at them.
“Do you have a theory, Munson?”
“Well,” he had a look on his face as if he was trying to contemplate the state of the universe, “perhaps he thinks it’s the sort of thing I would be attracted to.”
“Could be.” Robin tried to look equally as contemplative. “Or maybe that you know someone with them and might have some knowledge on the subject?”
“Ah yes, stereotyping the metalhead, I see how it is.”
Steve let out an irritated sound which Eddie finally cracked and directed the question at him. “Which is it Stevie?”
“Neither,” Steve retorted.
“Then why did you ask me?”
He didn’t answer for a moment, staring Eddie down as if he would drop it.
Eddie however, refused to do such a thing.
After another minute, Steve gave in. “I thought you might have them and wanted to know why,” he mumbled, clearly embarrassed.
Robin burst out laughing while Eddie’s jaw dropped.
“You’ve seen me shirtless!”
“A while ago, you’ve gotten more tattoos since then.”
“A tattoo is not on par with a piercing, you weirdo. Anyways, the government never gave me my one nipple back and it wouldn’t be worth it unless I could get both pierced.”
“The bats took your nipple, not the government,” Steve reminded.
“Tomato, potato.”
“That’s not the saying-”
“You could get a tattoo of a nipple with a piercing to even it out,” Robin interrupted.
“Not helping,” the guys said in unison.
“It was just a suggestion, geez.”
“There are easier ways to ask if someone has a piercing, Harrington.”
“I was just thinking about it! No better time like the present.”
“You’re thinking about me shirtless? Damn, Stevie, I didn’t know you had it in you.”
This was another thing that had become routine. The flirting.
Robin could have done without that.
Steve flushed a light pink, and Robin gave up.
“My god,” she muttered, throwing her hands up. “I’m going on break. By the time I get back, whatever this is needs to be sorted out. You have 15 minutes.”
And with that, she walked back into the break room. She was glad she’d packed a book and a snack today, so she settled into the beat up couch she was sure upper management found at a thrift store, and glanced at the clock so she knew when she had to go back out.
She gave them a few extra minutes while she finished her chapter, but they probably didn’t really need it.
When she walked back out, Steve was smiling at Eddie like he was the only person in the world, and Eddie’s face was so red it was almost purple.
It took her a second to realize why, and then Steve pulled him closer to kiss him on the cheek before shoving him away with promises of picking him up at the trailer park later that day.
Eddie nodded and stumbled out of the door, groping a few times at the handle before he was able to push it open since he wouldn’t stop staring at Steve.
Robin let Steve keep watching out the door until Eddie’s can tore out of the parking lot before she finally made her presence known.
“Jesus Christ, finally!”
Steve smacked her with the magazine, and she squawked.
“Shut up or I won’t tell you a single detail of that conversation.”
She just gave him a look.
He seemed to genuinely resist for a moment, but then his facade cracked. “I’ll tell you everything, just put whatever movie you’re going to pick into the player so if anyone comes in there’s actually something on the screen.”
Robin looked down at the two movies she had to pick from. She didn’t remember why there had been such a debate in the first place. She chose Cinema Paradiso.
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