Chapter Text
If Steve gets a boyfriend before Robin gets a girlfriend, she’s going to kill him. “But Robin, I’m straight.” Straight my ass. Whatever the hell was going on between him and Eddie was absolutely not heterosexual. Robin could only do so much; it’s up to Steve to listen to her and maybe read one of the zines about bisexuality and liking more than one gender that she keeps sliding under his door. He has a wonderful lesbian wingwoman/platonic soulmate at his full disposal, and he’s wasting it. Ungrateful.
At least Eddie is fun to hang around with, even if he does keep making eyes at Steve whenever he gets the chance. If this was a cartoon, his pupils would be little hearts. Right now, though, his eyes are red, probably due to the large cloud of cannabis-scented smoke that has permeated the entire apartment. Plus side to the Steve-and-Eddie-homoerotic-friendship situation: free, high-quality weed (no pun intended). If she was going to have to deal with the barely concealed forlorn glances and pining across the room, she was at least going to be high out of her fucking mind.
“Dude, this movie is kind of scary.”
“It’s Back to the Future, how is it scary?”
“Not like scary scary but like…weird. Like, she’s trying to bang her own son.”
“She doesn’t know that's her son!”
“It’s still weird!”
Robin just watches the exchange, smirking at how close her friends are sitting together on the couch. Maybe she could start a bet with Chrissy on how long it’ll take them to get their shit together. She gives them three weeks until she walks into them making out on their couch. If you told Robin from six months ago she would be (platonic) soulmates with an ex-frat boy and be best friends with a gay, drug-dealing metalhead, she would have laughed in your face and maybe gotten you admitted to a mental institution. Life is funny that way, one moment you’re in the middle of your Intro To Latin class while some douchebag-looking guy next to you gets more and more flustered because he realized he was in the wrong room, and then next you’re sitting in an apartment you share with him, smoking weed on the couch watching him make heart eyes with said gay metalhead. If only her little sapphic teenage self could see her now, still single but surrounded by people who like her for all her weirdness anyway.
Damn, she really needs to get laid. The phone ringing shakes her from her weed-fueled lament of her love life (or lack thereof) and she goes to pick it up since these two idiots are too busy arguing over the stupid movie to move their asses and get it.
“Heyy, Buckley-Harrington residence, Robin speaking, how could I be of assistance on this fine Friday evening?”
“Um, hi, this is Nancy Wheeler, is Steve there?”
“Oh, uh, I’ll tell him to come over here.”
Holy shit, who the hell is Nancy Wheeler and why does she sound so hot?? Her voice is kind of bitchy and self-actualized but in a way that feels less pretentious and more like she deserves to have arrogance because she’s actually smart.
“Steve!” Robin whisper-screamed, holding the phone away from her face. “Who is Nancy?”
She watched the color drain from Steve’s face. “Oh fuck, that’s my ex, why is she calling?”
“Why would I know? She called you! Answer the phone!”
“Fineeee.” He grumbled and shuffled over to the phone. “Hey Nance.”
Robin plopped down on the floor next to Eddie and started shoveling popcorn into her mouth. She snuck a glance at him mid-chew and looked at the hundred-yard stare on his face.
“ whas wron ‘ddie.” She said with her mouth full, bits of popcorn flying out and sticking to his faded Alice in Chains shirt.
“Who the fuck is Nancy??”
“No clue, Steve’s never mentioned her before. She has a hot voice though.”
“I’m ignoring that comment. Do you think he’s never talked about her in a ‘she’s unimportant’ kind of way or ‘I’m still not over her’ kind of way?”
Robin burped and shrugged at him. “Hell if I know, it's weird that she knew our apartment number.”
“Robin, you’re not helping!” He whisper-screamed at her and he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.
“By brother in Christ and queerness, I am high out of my fucking mind right now. I am barely aware of the fact that I’m even alive.”
They stopped their bickering and fell silent when they heard Steve put down the phone.
“So, my uh, ex, Nancy is coming over to visit tomorrow with her brother and his friends.”
“What?” Eddie asked. Steve sighed aggressively and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I used to babysit Nancy’s kid brother and the rest of his little group of dorks, and I may have offhandedly mentioned to Dustin, one of the dorks, that you also like the nerd game that he does, so they’ve managed to harass Nancy into driving them all over to visit without giving me any warning at all. So, yeah.”
“Are you, uh, still romantically interested in her?” Robin questioned.
“Dude, how is that the most important thing you could think to ask right now? I have to start planning an entire D&D campaign right now!”
From Steve’s description of his ex-girlfriend, whom he no longer has any romantic interest in, Nancy is kind of uptight and preppy, very smart, has a tendency to be incredibly blunt, and for some unknown reason, a large affinity for guns. Robin was expecting a girl with perfectly curled hair, maybe Mary Janes, and a plaid skirt. What she was not expecting (and seems neither was Steve) was the girl who stood on their doorstep looking like she just stepped out of one of Eddie’s band posters.
“Um, hey Steve. Good to see you.” Nancy said with an awkward but earnest smile.”
“Hey, good to see you too. I uh, like your new look.”
“Thanks. I forgot it’s been so long since you last saw me, I’ve changed up my style a little bit.”
“Yeah…” They paused in awkward silence, just looking at each other and not saying anything. “Oh, this is Robin, she’s my best friend.”
“Hi, it’s nice to meet you, I’m Robin, oh shit I guess Steve already said that and you’re Nancy, uh, obviously, it’s cool to connect the voice with the face since we’ve only talked on the phone.” Robin rambled, face turning pink as she continued to stumble over her words. “How about you start getting your stuff out for your car so we can set you up in the living room?”
Nancy nodded politely and started heading back down to where her suitcases were. When she was out of sight, Robin grabbed Steve, dragged him inside, and slammed him against the wall.
“What the actual FUCK, Steve! You didn’t tell me your ex was hot?? What the hell is wrong with you? She has an eyebrow piercing! Do you understand me, Steve, an eyebrow piercing!” She screeched as she shook him by the shoulders.
“I had no idea she had an eyebrow piercing or those ripped tights and everything else! Last I saw her, she was a cardigan addict with thirty pairs of ballet flats!”
“Well, clearly not anymore! I’m going to have a heart attack! My lesbian heart can’t handle this!”
“I can’t believe you have a crush on my ex, what happened to ‘bros before hos’?”
“I can’t believe you are using derogatory language towards women in front of someone who literally took women’s studies last semester.”
“Robin, stop deflecting.”
“Steve, would me having a crush that will probably go nowhere on your super hot ex-girlfriend genuinely make you uncomfortable? Because I will stop if it does.”
“I’m being overdramatic. I don’t care, I’m over her.”
“Good, because I need to inform you that she is so incredibly out of your league that it’s unbelievable you even managed to date her at all.”