#NOT ROMANTIC STOBIN

[sunflowersand-bees]

hey just thinking about the fact that no one has told steve harrington that they loved him and meant it

[dreamsteddie]

I love pre Season 3 Steddie AUs so much because there are so many opportunities for Eddie to be so incredibly jealous of his boyfriend's new best friend, Robin Buckley.

Eddie got so used to Steve spending basically every moment of free time he has with Eddie in some capacity, even if it's just them shooting the shit in the back of Eddies van getting high after a long day and he's come to covet his Steve Time like a precious treasure.

And then all of a sudden Steve has a friend his age??? A friend who doesn't have an 8PM curfew???? What the fuck??????

But Eddie doesn't want to be a toxic, controlling boyfriend who doesn't let his partner have a social life! He really doesn't! And he gets that Steve and Robin went through something together that they won't, can't, share with him and they need each other. But he got so used to having all of Steve's time that whenever he has to spend a Saturday night alone because Robin and Steve are having Boy Time watching a soccer game and talking about their crushes, instead of hitting up his own friends or working on a campaign or whatever he just pines and sighs by the window lamenting about whether or not his beloved will return from the war. Wayne hates it.

When Steve and Eddie see each other the next day having spent literally less than 24 hours apart, Eddie latches on like a limpet and demands to be consoled with a thousand kisses and a grilled cheese sandwich.

Eventually, once Steve and Robin are a little more settled after the events of Starcourt, the three of them start spending more time together as a trio which at least allows Eddie to hold his boyfriend during movie night. Eddie reluctantly admits that Robin is actually really cool and they become fast friends right up until Eddie realized Robin is stealing his boyfriend ON PURPOSE.

It's not all the time but what Eddie has come to learn about Robin Buckley is that she is a menace. She'll real you in with her sweet freckles and charming ramblings but she's always looking for a way to fuck with Eddie, especially if he's wronged her first. Eddie returns a tape without rewinding it? Steve won't be at band practice tomorrow, actually, because Robin needs someone to help with her art project due on Monday. Eddie got Cheeto dust on Robin's favorite sweater? Suddenly Robin and Steve have plans to get drunk and plan a way for Robin to ask Vickie out for Valentine's Day. No boyfriends allowed. Eddie stole Robin's favorite Steve Sweater before she could get to it on movie night? Steve rainchecks Eddie for their bi-weekly Let's Get High date because Robin is conveniently sick. Must be because she didn't have a jacket on movie night.

Once Eddie catches on it becomes a fierce game competition between the both of them. Steve acts like he's none the wiser, but he's secretly lapping up all the attention he's getting.

[werepuppy-steve]

i keep thinking about that one bachelor au post so here's my take on it (i've never watched the bachelor or bachelorette so bear with me)

the bachelor au where steve's the bachelor and eddie is a contestant, but not because he actually wants to be, he's just in it for the paycheck. robin is also a contestant but only because her parents sent in her application without her knowing and she isn't out to them yet.

they both think that steve is overrated and definitely over hyped. typical rich kid with enough money to buy people's love, yada yada.

until they both start going on dates with him and then realize that it isn't exactly true. yes, he's rich, but he's also kind and funny and actually genuine once you get past the mask he puts on for everybody. eventually, eddie and robin find themselves looking forward to their dates.

only robin doesn't want to date him. he's slowly moving his way up the ranks to becoming her best friend, sure, but this is still tv. she's still expected to kiss him and confess her feelings for him. and when the time comes for her to do that, she can't.

they're in venice. steve is leaning in and robin is very aware of the cameras filming them. the back of her neck goes cold and her stomach churns and suddenly she's running in the opposite direction. her italian is passable so she ends up getting a taxi back to the hotel production put them in.

she locks herself in her en suite and presses her forehead against the cold porcelain. she doesn't know how long she sits there until her phone buzzes and she checks the notification. the nausea rises up her throat again. she forgot she gave steve her number.

there's a knock on her room door and another text.

r u ok? can i come in?

robin debates it but figures she owes him and explanation. she lets him in and they sit on the bathroom floor. robin tells him why she's on the show in the first place, about how she didn't know her parents signed her up until she got the phone call from the casting director. tells him that even if she gets kicked off, she can still use the money for her student loans.

she stares at the water in the toilet bowl when she comes out to him.

steve is quiet, processing, before he laughs. he's not laughing at her, he promises, but "robin. you're on a show with more than a handful of other queers, you know that, right? i'm bisexual."

and yeah, robin knew that, but it's different when you're not into the guy you're supposed to be romancing at all.

steve reassures her that it's okay, and that he still hopes they can be friends and keep in touch after the show ends.

robin would like that.

she apologizes to the production crew the next day and they're understanding and steve and robin get a re-do of their date. it's much more genuine this time, filled with laughs and digs as they eat gelato along the river and people watch and gossip.

it's the best robin's ever been on.

eddie, on the other hand. he's absolutely head over heels for steve, which is surprising even for him. he's trailer park trash, he's got absolutely nothing on steve harrington. not the name, not the money.

hell, the very first day, he insulted the guy's food choices right to his face without knowing it.

eddie wants the earth to give way underneath him and swallow him whole.

he plays it up on their first date, all fake niceties and empty smiles, until steve tells him point blank, "the guy that said the buffet was shit that first night? i want to get to know him."

eddie's flabbergasted.

steve opens up about all the fake people in his life, the ones who just take advantage of them and use him for their own gains. the ones who don't even bother to get to know the real him. the one that likes to play guitar and hang out with the gaggle of teenagers that follow him around all the time for some unknown reason.

he tells eddie about what he wants to do with his life, not what someone else has planned for him and eddie falls deeper and deeper.

this time, when steve leans in for a kiss, eddie doesn't shy away. their lips press together and it's the best goddamn kiss either one of them have ever had.

the show has a deadline, of course, and steve can't just spend all his time with eddie and robin. there are other contestants. robin knows her rose is strictly platonic and steve has already called her multiple times freaking out about his growing crush on eddie. she knows eddie has this in the bag.

the final night comes and the contestants have dwindled. there's only a small group of them left: eddie, robin, and another guy and girl they didn't bother learning the names of.

when steve chooses eddie after a moment of dramatic silence that kind of puts his own dm dramatics to shame, eddie doesn't hesitate to jump in steve's arms, wrap his legs around his waist, and plant a sloppy one on him right in front of the cameras.

[discocandles]

This is Steve Harrington with any and every girl he's ever befriended.

[infinite-orangepeel]

learning how to become fluent in pet names with the girls

[hitlikehammers]

Steddie Missed Connection AU

feat. Craigslist-trawling-wingwoman!Robin + earnest-LA-transplant!Steve + rockstar!Eddie ✨ inspired by this actual Craigslist love story

It’s always about a 50/50 shot when Robin starts making her little back-of-the-throat squealing noises. Up to a certain pitch, Steve could pretend he had his AirPods on noise cancellation mode.

Once she reached fire-alarm-screeching levels, it overrode the settings and boom: he lost his fall guy.

Thanks, Apple.

But that’s where they are, and the squealing plus the screen in her hands, plus the way her leg’s bouncing against the table they’re both sitting at—which would have overrrode Steve’s AirPod excuse in about a minute because she’s gonna start splashing his glass of orange juice in a hot second—but all of it lumped together?

He’s lucky he’s retained his athletic reflexes post-high school—maybe only because of being joined-at-the-hip with this particular platonic soulmate, really—because by the time she’s swinging her iPad from its case to plop right down in front of him?

At least he’s quick enough to save his overnight oats from becoming aluminum-flavored when she drops the goddamn thing down without warning—caseless, the heathen—and makes indecipherable noises Steve thinks he’s maybe only heard at the zoo as she taps her nail with an migraine-inducing click on the screen.

Steve…supposes this means he’s obligated to look.

He sighs, fully expecting a dumb meme or a ‘cute TikTok’ because he knows who he fucking lives with; he reaches across the table and unfolds his glasses—really, assaulting him with this before he can even get his contacts in…

And it’s a…webpage. Like: just a webpage. A boring webpage, even. Definitely not matching up with the…squealing and table-sized earthquake of bouncing knees. He squints, tries to make it make sense.

Oh. Wow. He didn’t…

Steve did not actually know Craigslist still existed, let alone that people still used it. He was pretty sure the things for sale were always just kidnapping plots with extra steps, and then also that finding a person you walked past that one time was an FYP problem to solve. But.

Here, in front of him, in black and white and honestly like no other color:

Steve squints; it was posted this morning, but only just. Like 4am. So the last afternoon for there to be a one o’clock hour was—

Yesterday.

His yesterday was uneventful. Went shopping with Robs. Filled up the freezer and overbought shit again so they had a kind of massive and wholly mismatched dinner with the leftovers nearly popping open the fridge door. Can’t take the Midwesterner out of the man or woman, apparently.

Definitely nothing like the day this poor soul on a maybe-less-dead-than-presumed website had had. But Steve won’t pretend his heart doesn’t clench a little when he finishes reading because…it’s cheesy.

But Steve’s always been into that romantic…stuff.

“That’s very sweet,” he lands on commenting before passing the tablet back to Robin, who’s staring at him with frankly terrifying eyes. Like: lost-your-fucking-mind eyes.

“Steven.”

“What?”

“Steven.”

“Robin.”

He won’t even pretend he doesn’t jump with the metal slams on the wood where Robin narrowly misses flipping his bowl of sadly-abandoned oats with her iPad again when she slaps it down in from of him and points frantically yet again.

“Look at the location.”

Steve tilts his head.

Oh. He’d just looked at the time. And it’s not like the location in the title was…unique on its own.

“Huh,” he huffs with a shrug when he sees their part of the city listed in the main link up top. “Coinkydink.”

Robin’s growl starts deep, like a diaphragmatic thrum and Steve would be terrified of her if she were anyone else.

As it is: he’s only mildly unsettled. Specifically because the growl rumbles so…long.

Like at least a minute before she screams bloody fucking murder:

“My hair was in the buns!”

And the way she screeches it, and the maniacal twitch of those eyes…she’s saying more than those words, with those words.

Which means Steve has to put in effort to follow her coded message style of communicating, fucking hell. He hasn’t even eaten his breakfast.

He tries to think it through, at least manages to down his glass of OJ so it can’t be a sacrifice to flying iPads when he thinks he…

“Wait.”

Steve frowns. Robin just blinks.

“You don’t,” he shakes his head, or starts to, it’s a slow motion thing; “you don’t like honestly think,” but even as he’s saying it, the look in her eyes starts to make sense, and answers for him:

“This is not about me.”

Because: seriously.

“We were laughing!” Robin is immediate with her rebuttal, still in her screeching era. “No one else was there!”

“Because we specifically time our shopping for when people are at lunch on a weekday,” Steve counters quick, tries to cut her off at the pass; “a statistically slow window of opportunity for us to debate the list!”

“We write the list to avoid debating,” Robin answers in a more sedate, be reasonable now, dingus tone before she shakes her head and scowls and:

“Stop distracting me!”

Yep, back to the screeching.

“Why were you even on that fucking site?” Steve sighs as he crosses his arms and leans back in his chair.

“Steven,” Robin says again in that fucking tone that always means he’s missing the biggest, far-more-important point but does jack shit to help him find it.

“Robina.”

“Not my name, eww.”

“Well, now you know how I feel when you make up a middle name for me,” Steve sticks his tongue out very maturely to her scrunched up face: “they’re never even nice ones,” he adds, because they’re really not; “and I do know that was your next move so,” he smacks his hands opposite the screen on the table in front of him in victory as he crows:

“Denied.”

“This isn’t basketball,” Robin’s working her tongue around her lips inside her mouth, which is always deadly foreshadowing; “you didn’t block my shot or whatever—“

“Didn’t I?” Steve pushes because, well, one, he did, and two, the original conversation was absurd even for them.

“Maybe it was so empty because his security was there.”

Steve frowns. The tone’s too…even. No. No: too haughty.

“The fuck does that mean?”

“I said he looked like a rockstar,” she leans to grab back her tablet and poke near the top, obviously switching browser tabs: “so I did some digging.”

“Robin, what city do we live in?” Steve asks as she works, because yes, Steve remembers seeing a very hot fucking dude staring less in their direction than looking dumbstruck-lost as hell, and he’d considered walking over to ask if he needed help—Midwestern transplant to the bone—which was accompanied by the stray I’d fuck that gorgeous toothpick silly, but in the paper product aisle, like on the 48-count pack of Charmin, he looks soft under all that leather—then both thoughts were swiftly abandoned when the toothpick’s eyes met Steve’s and Steve maybe had to force himself to finish laughing at a joke he can’t remember now, that Robin told, because his skin felt like it was burning a little except the sun had poked behind a cloud, and his throat, it had like, it had just, it—

It just felt…weird.

He does remember that.

“But we don’t see rockstars every day,” which is fair, their neighborhood in particular is less music biz than others.

“Plus, look at this!”

Then she’s shoving the iPad back in front of Steve: it’s a TMZ shot or some other pap photo that’s more than half blur. It is indeed the parking lot at their Costco. And it does…feature a toothpick-esque figure looking similar to the one Steve remembers, but it’s more from the back than the side. And like, anyone can wear that much black in the summer. It’s a free country.

“And look at him!”

She split-screens to a Wikipedia article about a band even Steve’s heard of, if not for listening to them himself. It…he glances at the paparazzi shot.

Lead guitarist of Corroded Coffin Sighted Getting Groceries Just Like Normal People in Mar—

And then he looks back to the wiki: okay. Same band name. The guy with the guitar in the photo looks…

He has the same hair.

“Don’t tell me it’s just coincidence.”

Steve rolls his eyes.

“It is just coincidence.”

“Steve.”

Steve feels his face sour.

“I know that tone,” because he does. It never leads to things he enjoys.

“You’ve thought about him.”

“He was gorgeous,” Steve thinks he surprises her with his honesty but like, what does he have to gain by lying? Plus:

“LA’s is like the plastic surgery capital of the fucking world, it’d be kinda sad if a lot of people generally weren’t pretty.”

“He wasn’t that kind of pretty.”

And fuck if they don’t share a brain cell; fuck if she doesn’t see right through him.

“And that’s not why you’ve been thinking about him.”

And fuck if she doesn’t know Steve, far too well.

“I never once said I’d been thinking about,” he hears the words and knows they’re weak, goddamnit.

“You never had to,” Robin smiles a little and taps an annoying finger at the screen again, that’a somehow flipped right back to the Craigslist ad thingy.

And she’s actually not entirely right, because he hadn’t thought much about the gorgeous toothpick man with curls Steve wanted to be smothered by, suffocate in like a pillow. But when he did?

He’d thought most about how he looked soft, on the inside. Thought wild and idiotic things like maybe his soft could match Steve’s soft when no one else’s ever had and he was always left bruised for it, more than once near-unhealable, and maybe they could, like, if their softnesses matched, then like—

Something.

But Steve always comes on too strong, wants too much, hopes to hard and way too fast, though this shit might take the cake, there: so it was idiotic and he’d left that train of thought to derail on its own and—

Did that come on too strong?

His gaze snags on the words, those exact words up on the screen and he’s very tempted to start growling deep in the pit of his stomach, take a cue from Robin’s absurdity.

“Don’t you have a class to get to?” Steve asks, looking pointedly at the clock on the microwave: he knows she does. Pottery making. For self-edification.

She scowls but looks—swears colorfully because it’s later than she thought as she jumps up and goes to presumably…do whatever she does in the bathroom to get ready to leave and look her lesbian-luring best before she gets smattered in wet clay.

Steve remains unclear on whether that look’s more or less attractive to the specific ladies she’s trying to bait.

Either way: it prompts Robin to drop her one-woman campaign insisting Steve’s soulmate of the romantic flavor is calling our desperately into the void of the internet. But it also, however, has the…side-effect of making the time itself an obvious thing. 11:09.

Rob’s gonna take the car, she’s got…supplies and stuff.

Why that’s important is…lost on him.

He could debase himself and brave the bus, if he got off at Washington and—

What the fuck.

What. The. Fuck.

Steve very forcefully shoves Robin’s iPad back across the table and doesn’t think about anything, especially not the numbers, like the number 214, like two hours and fourteen minutes until—

Steve nearly chokes himself on his fucking spoon with how violently he shoves it, full of oats, between his lips. As if he can shut his brain up as easy as he can his mouth.

It…actually kinda works. He might have chipped a tooth.

——————

In the end, Steve is proud of himself for being reasonable and having standards. He doesn’t take a fucking bus to meet a stranger in a Costco parking lot, Jesus Christ. Come on.

He books an Uber.

(And yes, he and Robin agreed no solo Ubers for a month to save up to have the air conditioner looked at before it copped out on them because their landlord only gave a shit if it was dead-dead and yes, maybe she’d gone so far as to put their account on a hold you had to call and remove to avoid temptation—though of the two of them, she definitely had the bigger problem—but little did she think on the fact that while you had to link a phone number, you could just use Google Voice and make a new account and no, Steve’s not insane, or a hopeless romantic, or almost-asking-for-heartbreak-on-the-regular, thank you very much.

He is resourceful. And it’s only like $15 with tip. It’s a quick ride.)

He asks to be dropped near the back of the lot, and takes the walk up slow. Almost goes the long way, straight into the store. Almost turns back entirely.

But then he sees those curls.

And his throat does the…the weird tight thing for no fucking reason, and his feet don’t ask permission to walk in the direction of the man standing…less dumbstruck, now. Even from the back it’s clear.

Now: he’s waiting.

Steve can barely breathe, can’t fucking swallow for the state of his throat, but his feet still aren’t waiting for permission, so it’s only fucking seconds before he’s close enough to catch a whiff of cologne and then—

“Sorry,” Steve ducks around the man from behind and reaches out automatically to steady him when he startles. “Hey, sorry, you just looked like maybe you were looking for something?” Steve smiles as open, as reassuring as he knows. “Just wanted to check if you needed any help.”

Keep it casual, Steve, keep it fucking friendly and extra polite and—

“Oh my god.”

The guy barely breathes it out, his eyes so wide, and Steve doesn’t know why he hasn’t moved his hand from the guy’s arm but Steve can feel the electric current that runs through him, like the finest grade of trembling. And electricity, right, it travels. Conducts.

In case you felt your heart skip just one beat, didn’t even have to full-on stop—

And even that proximity to this man is nothing compared to hearing his voice, low and a little syrupy even as he stares in shock, in disbelief—and oh. Oh, but what was it the guy had written in his post? About feeling the earth move a little, or like, rewiring your cells just for meeting eyes?

Steve, he’s…

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

“You’re here.”

Steve blinks, rocked back to the moment to deal with the new tilt of the globe and the spontaneous realignment of his insides later. This guy’s looking at Steve like he’s unbelievable, like he’s miraculous, like he’s…

Sunshine.

“I’m here?” Steve asks, a little breathy, a little curious.

“I,” the guy swallows, lips shiny as he bites at them, fucking adorable; “I saw you, umm, yesterday and I maybe, well, possibly I wrote some,” he fumbles and sounds like he’s building up to eventual hysterics, so Steve acts wholly on instinct and reaches further now to catch at both his hands.

“Relax,” Steve breathes out with a smile, and doesn’t overthink smoothing his thumbs over the guy’s knuckles, just in case it soothes him.

“My friend,” Steve lets go with one hand and grabs his phone to show the page he’d loaded on the ride here; “she was convinced it was you, about me. I wasn’t, so,” he shakes his head quick when something falls in the guy’s face, something dims: oh, umm, no.

He cannot have that.

“Not trying to catch you out or something,” Steve exhales it warm, as reassuring as he can, with his whole chest as he grabs the guy’s hands in both his own again—since he seemed to not mind; “just,” and Steve shrugs even as he smiles a little, less self-deprecating with it than he’d probably have landed on if the guy hadn’t reacted to Steve’s hands on his by clinging back so tight:

“Just a little hard to believe, is all.”

The man barely lets the words settle before his jaw drops almost comically and he demands, high-pitched and somehow still rumbling, something commanding in it nonetheless:

“How?”

Like it’s unimaginable. Like Steve reading that post and walking into this lot and striding up to a perfect stranger—who may or may not be very famous but that’s actually not even a little bit of the point—but a stranger who would want to see him—

But then Steve’s meeting the guy’s eyes again; hadn’t wholly realized he’d been staring at their hands more than anything. Those eyes are like the night sky, swirling and endless and sparking in the right slant of light, and Steve feels them like a welcome, like a cushion of the stars, like a safe landing in a chaotic universe.

He doesn’t even know this man.

But he thinks…yesterday. Yesterday, his heart didn’t stop, not like this guy had written, but Steve understands now what it did do instead, the thing he did remember, the tightness in his throat: his heart didn’t stop.

It just surged upward and took up residence to pound at his trachea where it tripped instead. Which is kinda where he’s back to right now.

“Could I,” the guy’s voice is rough, shaky, and so is he, Steve feels it where he’s still got his hand gripped firm; “would it be too much to ask if I could hug you?”

And he huffs a breath, and it sounds too….too small, like he’s afraid or ashamed and it pings something hateful, but so much more protective in Steve’s blood just to hear it as he confesses on a end of an exhale:

“I just want to know if you’re real.”

And Steve didn’t grow up a hugger, but he sure as shit’s grown into one; he’d be one of those people standing in the city with a ‘Free Hugs’ sign without much convincing. But this guy.

This man in front of him who may or may not be famous, is definitely a stranger either way save that he poured out some lines on the internet that maybe exceeded the term ‘heartfelt’ by a mile, who may or may not be standing in here, inside this moment, for something like fate because…Steve did feel it.

Maybe he didn’t think twice about the immensity it could have, not in the moment, because he’d been shopping, and Robin’s story was funny and maybe he was just struck by his luck in living a life with his platonic soulmate and knowing joy; surely your heart can trip for that and just because it never had before, just because it did this one first time when he crossed eyes with a genuinely beautiful man who left Steve with half-a-second’s certainty that looking any longer would flay wide this unknown person’s soul for Steve to sift through: but Steve felt things like that easy, always had. Romanticized nothings like it was a profession.

But it never hit like this had, has—is—before, if indeed this is actually anything—

And Steve’s heart is still tripping but it’s back in his chest, and he knows it because where he’s pressed against this guy’s kinda-gasping chest, now, close and tight? Maybe Steve’s never paid attention before, or maybe Steve’s just never…touched like this before, even if all they’re doing is hugging in a fucking parking lot.

But.

He’s pressed there and his heart’s tripping in his chest and he knows it wholly and fully because he can feel this man’s heartbeat next to his own—and where it should be a battle, because it’s pounding, both of them are, one side literally against the other?

It feels like a caress. It feels like, like…

Steve closes his eyes tight because they start to sting with the single word it feels like: impossible, absurd, but…

Here he is. He’s never felt someone’s heartbeat pressed up against his own before. Definitely never felt—never��dreamt—that it could feel like it fits.

He leans back when he thinks he’s got a hold on the hopelessness of his tender-hearted absurdity, but the guy is staring at him already when he does and suddenly Steve’s got a handle on absolutely nothing except his pulse jackrabbiting some more but then also feeling…like it lost something. Like it’s not complete.

And the man, he’s staring with those eyes so wide again but now it’s like he’s…it’s kinda like he knows. He knows his eyes are going to let Steve flay him wide open.

It’s like he’s begging Steve to…look. To look and less to take, and more to…have.

Maybe, maybe to keep?

And…how?

“Do you feel it?” the guy whispers, those deep dark eyes so big: just these vulnerable, bleeding hearts on main. “Even just—“ he tries to walk back, to open it all up wider, desperate and hopeful and Steve hears all of it because it’s all written in the same key as all that Steve knows, all that Steve is. Somehow.

Somehow.

So Steve blinks, too many times before he grabs the man harder and drags him in again to hold, hold, hold until the heartbeat on either side of Steve’s ribs is reaching for the other, touching. Until they’re holding on, too, and once they do, then he can whisper, warm and maybe wet in the crook of this man’s neck, this stranger who’s holding onto his heart now, unfathomable, as he speaks words he doesn’t have to think about first to know they’re going to shift the world again, this time so they both can know it in the souls of them together, all at once:

“I feel it.”

For @hbyrde36, who requested 'Missed Connection AU' at my HOBBIT-STYLE BIRTHDAY MONTH PROMPT FEST

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @nerdyglassescheeseychick @swimmingbirdrunningrock @goodolefashionedloverboi @sanctumdemunson @theheadlessphilosopher @lawrencebshoggoth

divider credits here and here

💫 ao3 link here

[harringroveera]

The truth serum is still working apparently

[dwobbitfromtheshire]

Lucas: Hey, you want to play D&D with us?

Max: Steve said I can't.

Steve: What? No, I didn't, and I'm not your father.

Lucas: *amused* You can say no.

Max: No, really. . .also, Nancy said I'm grounded.

Nancy: Okay, I am not your mother.

Max: Yeah, that's true. My mom left when I got put into a coma and partially blinded.

Nancy: 🥺 I'll be your mom. Lucas, Max can't play right now. She's grounded.

Steve: Nancy!

Nancy: Steve, our daughter clearly wants to spend time with us!

Steve: We're only a few years older than her.

Nancy: Are you telling me I can't be her mother?

Max: It's okay, Steve. My dad gave up on me, and my stepfather used to beat my mother. I'm used to not having a dad.

Steve: . . . Goddamnit! 🥺

Lucas: You really don't HAVE to play!

Steve: Lucas! Max is grounded! You heard her mother!

Robin walked in just as Lucas walked out.

Max: I've never had an aunt before. . .

Robin: Take all the money in my wallet!

Steve and Nancy: Robin!

[neverthebabysitter]

Ghost! Steve Harrington my beloved <3

Something about a dead Steve who stays as a ghost but not because he wants to stay, afraid of dying, but because he can't leave the Party alone. It just scratches a part of my brain...

I have a lot of au's for this, and au's for the au's, help.

Also, one of my favorite things to add about this, is the implied platonic soulmates stobin, Steve getting attached at Robin in every single one of them in one way or another, whether he can't separate himself from her/ being apart, or he could stay because he has some connection to her that make it possible.

Just- the heartbreak and grief that it would came from Steve's death but also not knowing how to deal with it because he is right there.

Not to mention that Steve may have already accepted that he would die young, but still grieving his own death and what could have been. I'm talking about his developing relationship with Eddie.

Eddie being devastated that he is falling in love with literally the ghost of a person, that they can't have something even when it's mutual, Steve might be a ghost now but he can't stay forever. Steve is dead.

Robin of course isn't having a good time but she already knew that Steve would have died for any of them. She's angry and sad and just wants to hug his best friend after she wakes up from a nightmare only to realize that she can't, even when he's right there.

She loves Steve so she will bear with the weight of his loss. She is happy he doesn’t know the pain of losing half of himself. For him, she will accept that he can go first, he just needs to wait a bit longer for her.

[demobatman]

pulp art cover stobin 😎

(no background vers. below the fold)

;P

[florallylly]

stobin best friends and lavender married in the nursing home telling stories about being tortured by russians and their grandkids are like okay grandpa sure thing. i think they have dementia

[findafight]

I need. NEED. Y'all to understand that in a MCU captain america au Bucky and Steve would be Steve and Robin. Like. The unhinged amount of devotion? Yes. Soviet torture? Yes.

But it also MUST be understood that Steve is Bucky, and Robin is Steve. DO YOU SEE MY VISION.

Steve, charming and charasmatic, looks out for his awkward but good hearted and mildly unhinged (he's no better) bestie until he goes off to war. Robin, a bit of a weirdo, wants to do something to help fight. She ends up in an experimental program, and getting super strength etc.

She gets shipped around as propoganda. She ends up in Italy. She finds out Steve's unit has been captured. Her best friend, the only one who really knows her, the guy she's probably going to end up bearded by. Her sweet cheese.

She goes to save him.

Against all odds she does. He's strapped to a table and muttering to himself and thinks he's hallucinating when he sees her. But she saves him.

They form a strike team, blow up bases, punch Nazis etc. The war in Europe is almost over. Then Steve falls from a train. Then Robin crashes a plane. They both die heroes.

Except.

Robin wakes up. She wakes up in a world not her own and she's scared and frightened and told she has to fight again except this time she's alone.

And she does. She follows orders and fights and tries to figure out how to live when anyone who would understand her is in their eighties at the youngest or dead. How to exist in a world where the only person, even in their own time, who actually knew her, was dead. Dead for a long time. Deified alongside her by America.

So she follows orders. Until she doesn't. Until fury dies and someone with a metal arm and long brown hair shoots at her but holds their own against her enhanced strength. Pushes her, actually, being broader than her.

And she has allies, yes, but when it comes down to it, it's just her and the Soldier. Fighting under the overpass, and there's something about the Soldiers brow, the possible cowlick on his hairline where his long hair should be parted, that pings something in the back of her mind.

The mask slips off. And Robin thinks she's died again.

He doesn't recognize her, but his eyebrows scruntch together in a way she's known for what feels like eons. She's missed him.

A long time ago, longer for some than for her, he had been strapped to a table. She saved him then. She is going to save him now.

On a helicarrier, she can't bring herself to fight him. She knows him, how many hits he's taken, and even after whatever's been done to him, she knows him. Knows he's confused and scared and fighting it. Whatever's taken him away from her.

He knows her too. She can tell by the way he hesitated, pulls back. He's in there. She just has to find him.

She falls.

A strong hand pulls her out of the river.

[steviesbicrisis]

OKAY HERE I AM WITH STEDDIE/EUROVISION BRAINROT

Somehow Corroded Coffin is asked to represent Australia and they are like "European gay extravaganza for a whole week? Sign me the fuck up". And Eddie is in love at first sight with Stefano, the Italian representative for their year, but he doesn't know how to approach him since he only speaks Italian.

Cue to two weeks of rehearsal where Eddie sends him flowers/other gifts to his changing room with poorly-google-translated Italian messages and downloads Duolingo in hopes he turns out to be a linguistic prodigy.

It's only during the Carpet that he realizes, by listening to Stefano talk with the press, that not only he speaks perfect English, but he also has double Italian/American citizenship and his actual name is Steve.

"So Steve, do you have any Eurovision crushes?" is the last question.

"Oh, I have my eyes on Australia, I'll leave it up to you to guess which one of them is it" he winks at the camera and goes away.

More brainrot here

[puppy-steve]

i keep thinking about that one bachelor au post so here's my take on it (i've never watched the bachelor or bachelorette so bear with me)

the bachelor au where steve's the bachelor and eddie is a contestant, but not because he actually wants to be, he's just in it for the paycheck. robin is also a contestant but only because her parents sent in her application without her knowing and she isn't out to them yet.

they both think that steve is overrated and definitely over hyped. typical rich kid with enough money to buy people's love, yada yada.

until they both start going on dates with them and then realize that it isn't exactly true. yes, he's rich, but he's also kind and funny and actually genuine once you get past the mask he puts on for everybody. eventually, eddie and robin find themselves looking forward to their dates.

only robin doesn't want to date him. he's slowly moving his way up the ranks to becoming her best friend, sure, but this is still tv. she's still expected to kiss him and confess her feelings for him. and when the time comes for her to do that, she can't.

they're in venice. steve is leaning in and robin is very aware of the cameras filming them. the back of her neck goes cold and her stomach churns and suddenly she's running in the opposite direction. her italian is passable so she ends up getting a taxi back to the hotel production put them in.

she locks herself in her en suite and presses her forehead against the cold porcelain. she doesn't know how long she sits there until her phone buzzes and she checks the notification. the nausea rises up her throat again. she forgot she gave steve her number.

there's a knock on her room door and another text.

r u ok? can i come in?

robin debates it but figures she owes him and explanation. she lets him in and they sit on the bathroom floor. robin tells him why she's on the show in the first place, about how she didn't know her parents signed her up until she got the phone call from the casting director. tells him that even if she gets kicked off, she can still use the money for her student loans.

she stares at the water in the toilet bowl when she comes out to him.

steve is quiet, processing, before he laughs. he's not laughing at her, he promises, but "robin. you're on a show with more than a handful of other queers, you know that, right? i'm bisexual."

and yeah, robin knew that, but it's different when you're not into the guy you're supposed to be romancing at all.

steve reassures her that it's okay, and that he still hopes they can be friends and keep in touch after the show ends.

robin would like that.

she apologizes to the production crew the next day and they're understanding and steve and robin get a re-do of their date. it's much more genuine this time, filled with laughs and digs as they eat gelato along the river and people watch and gossip.

it's the best robin's ever been on.

eddie, on the other hand. he's absolutely head over heels for steve, which is surprising even for him. he's trailer park trash, he's got absolutely nothing on steve harrington. not the name, not the money.

hell, the very first day, he insulted the guy's food choices right to his face without knowing it.

eddie wants the earth to give way underneath him and swallow him whole.

he plays it up on their first date, all fake niceties and empty smiles, until steve tells him point blank, "the guy that said the buffet was shit that first night? i want to get to know him."

eddie's flabbergasted.

steve opens up about all the fake people in his life, the ones who just take advantage of them and use him for their own gains. the ones who don't even bother to get to know the real him. the one that likes to play guitar and hang out with the gaggle of teenagers that follow him around all the time for some unknown reason.

he tells eddie about what he wants to do with his life, not what someone else has planned for him and eddie falls deeper and deeper.

this time, when steve leans in for a kiss, eddie doesn't shy away. their lips press together and it's the best goddamn kiss either one of them have ever had.

the show has a deadline, of course, and steve can't just spend all his time with eddie and robin. there are other contestants. robin knows her rose is strictly platonic and steve has already called her multiple times freaking out about his growing crush on eddie. she knows eddie has this in the bag.

the final night comes and the contestants have dwindled. there's only a small group of them left: eddie, robin, and another guy and girl they didn't bother learning the names of.

when steve chooses eddie after a moment of dramatic silence that kind of puts his own dm dramatics to shame, eddie doesn't hesitate to jump in steve's arms, wrap his legs around his waist, and plant a sloppy one on him right in front of the cameras.

[withacapitalp]

Forehead Kiss

For the STWG prompt today!

In the end, they had decided to keep getting married a secret. 

“Do you, Steven, take this woman to be your wife? To live together in holy matrimony, to love her, to honor her, to comfort her, and to keep her in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?”

“I do.”

It was just easier to not have to explain it.

“And do you, Robin, take this man to be your husband? To live together in holy matrimony, to love her, to honor her, to comfort her, and to keep her in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?”

“I do.”

Dustin would crow about how he was right that they had been together they whole time, and be kind of a buttface about it. The kids would have an endless list of questions that had no satisfying answers. 

“Then repeat after me- I, Steven Harrington, take you, Robin Buckley, to be my wife,”

I, Steven Harrington, take you, Robin Buckley, to be my wife,” 

Hopper and Joyce would want to sit them down and discuss the importance of knowing what their plan was for the future, which would be well intentioned, but extremely stressful. 

“To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, and to cherish, till death do us part.”

“To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, and to cherish, till death do us part.” 

But most importantly, Steve and Robin kept it a secret, because Robin wanted to be able to come out to the rest of their family. And if any of them ever found out Robin was a lesbian after they got married, they might think that the marriage was a joke, or just some cover to hide who she was. 

That wasn’t why they were doing this. 

“Repeat after me- I, Robin Buckley, take you, Steven Harrington, to be my husband,”

“I, Robin Buckley, take you, Steven Harrington, to be my husband,"

They were doing this because it felt wrong to sleep alone in their beds now, and because of the terror that had gripped Robin’s entire body in a vice when they told her she couldn’t see Steve in the hospital after their final battle against Vecna. 

“To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, and to cherish,"

“To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, and to cherish,"

They were doing this because there wasn’t anything in their vows that wasn’t true. Steve was it for Robin, and Robin was it for Steve. In Hawkins, in Chicago, in a mansion, or under an overpass.

"Till death do us part.” 

"Till death do us part.”

Robin knew now more than ever that there wasn’t anyone else on Earth who would understand her the way Steve understood her. There was no one he would feel safe with the way Steve felt safe with Robin. 

“Then by the virtue of the authority vested in me under the laws of the state of Indiana, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss your bride.” 

Two rings on chains around their necks, a marriage license slipped into Steve’s back pocket, and a soft kiss to the forehead was all they had to show for what they had just done, but that was more than enough for Robin. 

[stealthysteveharrington]

Eddie and Steve decide to get married in a courthouse ceremony with only Robin and Wayne present.

They would have liked to have the big ceremony and reception with all of their loved ones present, would have liked to take the time to save up and really plan out their day, but Steve told his parents about the engagement and was immediately cut off. And since he still works at his minimum wage job with Robin while he finishes up community college (he's considering applying to a 4 year school after for his bachelors, but it just feels so daunting still (Robin and Eddie will convince him eventually)), and with his history of chronic migraines and other various health issues, he really needed insurance. Luckily Eddie scored a mechanics job at a local dealership and gets pretty good benefits from it.

So an immediate courthouse wedding it is. They figure they can still do a big party later, when they've had the time to save and plan.

After the ceremony they stop by the towns Walmart to grab a wedding cake (Robin insists that some traditions can't be skipped. Eddie's always down for cake). The only suitable item they have left in stock is a six pack of Encanto cupcakes complete with little plastic rings.

They take them home and the four of them celebrate. Eddie and Steve trade plastic rings and wear them on their pinky fingers all night, next to their shiny new wedding bands.

Robin insists again that the last two cupcakes get frozen for their one year anniversary, like the top tier of a traditional wedding cake would.

They go to bed that night with the cupcakes in the freezer, the plastic rings in a place of honor, and the knowledge that they can now call each other "husband". And they think, their wedding was pretty perfect after all.