#╰ ♡ ✧ ˖ lift the corners of her mouth into a demure smile ┊ visage .

[wascoy]

[luveline]

Hi lovie! A fic request: Eddie or Steve with a reader whose insecure about her stretch marks and just like major fluff

thank you for requesting!! ♡ 1.2k

Steve puts a cupcake in front of you with gold foil and orchid pink frosting, kissing you soundly on the temple. "Something sweet for my honey." 

You laugh at his tone, delight hooked into the corners of your smile. "When did you get this?" you ask, lifting your head from your book to follow his movements. 

Steve rounds the couch to sit next to you. He leans back, crossing his arms over his chest mock demure.

"Does it matter?" he asks. "Just eat it." 

"Doesn't matter, but I don't get how you hid it from me, we've been together all day… Did you really manage to grab this while I was in the changing rooms in Seaver's?" You'd never have guessed he went anywhere —he looked the exact same when you emerged as when you left him, mildly distracted but not bored. He's a sweetheart like that. 

"I'm good, right?" he asks, grinning. 

You peel back the paper and shuffle closer to his side, holding the cake toward him, "You better have the first bite. I'm not sharing." 

Steve takes the cake carefully. His bite is little but adorable, a smear of frosting left lingering on his top lip. You point to it on your own face with a pinky finger, and he licks it away as he passes the cupcake back to you.

"You're, like, the quickest girl ever when it comes to fitting rooms. I had to sprint." Steve smiles as you take your own first bite. 

"I buy the same things every time," you say through frosting, hand held over your mouth. 

"Why is that?" he asks. "You could stand to be a little more adventurous. I'd love to see you in little shirts and skirts and stuff." 

"You don't like how I dress?"

"I love how you dress. But I love your arms and legs too and I never get to see them." 

An odd thing to say but not for him. He slides down the couch and puts his feet on the coffee table, a hand straying on automatic to your thigh, where he gives you a good squeeze. You think about what he's saying through chews. You believe him, you really do, when he says he likes how you dress, that his motivation for what he's saying is simply a desire to see you branch out of a self imposed box, but there's a reason you dress how you dress. He must know it himself. 

Even now you're wearing an oversized shirt, the short sleeves big enough to hide the stretch marks on your upper arms. Steve knows they're there undoubtedly. He's pressed enough kisses over every inch of your arms sitting exactly as you are now, hip to hip in front of the TV. He gets distracted at night, pulling your arm into his chest, chin dipped down to nose at your skin. 

"You don't think it would be, like… brave? To wear stuff like that?"  

"Brave?" 

You take a bite of cupcake so you don't have to talk. Steve's interest is piqued, a shark to blood in the water, though the blood is your embarrassment, and the shark your tender boyfriend. He gets softer the longer you're together, and when he speaks it's emphasised. "What does that mean, brave? You think you couldn't pull that off? Babe, you'd kill in a skirt, you'd kill me." He presses his cheek to your shoulder quickly. "I'd die if you had that mini skirt like Madonna–" 

"Madonna doesn't have a gazillion stretch marks." 

Steve sits up. 

You've dropped him in an awkward position, and you rush to pull him off of your hook, "And she's Madonna, so. I can't be expected to live up to that." 

"Obviously you'd live up to that. And Madonna has stretch marks." 

"You've met Madonna?" 

Steve laughs, pulling his socked feet down off of the coffee table to angle himself upward, taller than you once again. "Yeah, I met her– No. No, but I don't need to meet her to know she has them, everybody has them." 

"Not everyone." 

"I got a wall of 'em on my back, doesn't stop me from wearing that cropped sweatshirt." 

Steve looks fucking good in his cropped sweatshirt, admittedly, confident and gently muscled. Never once have you thought about his stretch marks when you aren't touching them, even when they're on display. But… "It's not really the same, Steve. I have them everywhere. I have them on my arms, I mean," —you shake your head slowly, though you've kept your smile in an attempt to be less obviously pathetic— "who has them on their arms?" 

Steve moves the half of your cupcake you have left and puts it on the armrest before taking both of your hands into his. Yours are a little smaller, a little softer, and cool to his warm. 

"You do," he says, suddenly serious, "and they're fine. They're perfect, because they're on you. I don't know if I'm gonna say the wrong thing so don't wring me out if this isn't the right one, but they're just skin." 

"They're ugly." 

"No, listen. I've never looked at you and thought you should hide them, they're not ugly–" 

"Steve," you say again, startled by his passion, "you don't have to. I shouldn't have said it. It's not like you could tell me they're gross." 

"They're not gross," he says severely. "And I'm not just telling you what you want to hear." Steve drops your hands in favour of your waist. "Come here." 

It shouldn't surprise you to be treated so sweetly; Steve's always sweet, even when he's moody, he'll be frowning and choking the breath out of your chest or rubbing his face roughly against the back of one of your hands. He's a tactile creature, and when he doesn't know what to say he falls back on touch instead. 

"I just thought you were a bit shy about showing skin," he murmurs, pushing his cheek into yours, his lips by your ear, "how can you think they're ugly?" 

"They're bumpy." 

"Jesus, babe. Are you supposed to be like a china doll?" 

You laugh softly, and under the comedy of his question is the reality of what he's really saying. Steve isn't expecting anything but what you have, marks and moles and scars alike. He never thought for a second that they were a reason to hide away in long sleeves. 

"Some of them are bad," you mumble. 

"I like them. I really like them." He pulls away ever so slightly as a warm hand starts to move, your view of his face unobstructed as he teases the hem of your shirt with his fingertips. 

"Weirdo." 

Steve can likely hear the love in your voice as his thumb traces the seam of a stretch mark under your shirt. His touching slows to match, and when he leans down for a kiss, it's twice as reverent as usual, and it tastes faintly of cupcake frosting. Your breath catches at the sound he makes, a contented sigh.

He pulls away again. "You believe me, right?" he asks, the exhale of his words fanning over your lips. 

You nod and tilt your head to one side, wading in for another kiss. He gave a convincing argument, as does his searching palm. 

[pacini]

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