Eddie is holed up in the office of his and Steve’s home working on some writing when he notices an odd kind of commotion coming from upstairs.
Now, he and Steve have three daughters under the age of ten, so commotion is pretty much a baseline for them, but it’s odd because it sounds like Steve might actually be involved this time, and that makes it especially weird because Eddie was pretty sure that Steve was taking the kids to see a movie to give Eddie a few hours to maybe hit that word count goal (he probably won't, but whatever).
It's just about odd enough for Eddie to go investigate further and, indeed, he finds a very much ticked-off Steve standing outside of their middle daughter Robbie’s closed bedroom door.
“What the hell is going on?” Eddie asks.
Steve rounds on him.
“She’s driving me insane,” Steve says, “That kid is you in a seven-year-old’s body, and I’m going insane.”
“Wait, can you…” Ed shook his head, “What’s happening?”
“I thought it would be fun to take the girls to that new Nanny McPhee movie because they liked the first one, right?” he starts
“Sure.”
“The second – the second – I suggested it, Robbie starts ranting and raving. Ed, do you know what she said to me?
“Oh god,” Eddie said warily, “What’d she say?”
“She said sequels aren’t passion projects, Papa. They’re just for money. Who the fuck do you think she learned that one from, Ed?”
And yeah, shit, that might be Eddie’s bad.
“Whatever,” Steve says before Eddie has a chance to respond, “So she doesn’t wanna go – that’s fine – but, shocker, the other two still want to go, and just as we’re walking out the door, Robbie demands that we wait for her because she actually does want to come and now,” Steve pauses to hold in a laugh as Robbie scutters out of her room in the direction of the bathroom, one shoe on and an earring half-in, “Now we’re gonna be so fuckin’ late because this one can’t just throw on a sweatshirt and get in the car.”
Eddie knows for a fact that Robbie had spent the entire weekend in the same pajamas she’d worn to bed on Friday night, but now she’s donned a denim dress with a red t-shirt and black tights underneath. She’s got black combat boots on her feet (just one at the moment, actually), and she’s wearing the leather jacket Eddie had found at a thrift shop in New York to complete the ensemble.
“Look at this kid,” Steve says, following Robbie into the bathroom and watching as she tried to fix her earring with one hand and her hair with the other, “Robbie, it’s August. It’s almost ninety degrees outside. Maybe think about ditching the leather.”
“I don’t care,” she fires back, “It’s about the look, Papa.”
“We’re going to a movie theater. It’ll be pitch black. Nobody will be looking at anything other than the movie. Let’s go.”
But Robbie is already pushing past him with a belligerent, “Outta my way. I gotta get another necklace.”
Steve manages to snag Robbie by the back of her jacket and swing her up into his arms.
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” he says as Robbie furiously tries to squirm out of his grip to no avail, “Oh, I’m Robbie and I’m four feet tall and I get up-in-arms about everything and I’m gonna wear a leather jacket in August even though I once got heat exhaustion at the mall and gave her dad a fuckin’ heart attack.”
Robbie is in giggling hysterics by the time Steve ends his onslaught of mockery and puts her down.
“What do you think?” Steve asks, “You ready to go?”
“Yeah,” she says, and then she asks, “Can you help me find my other shoe?”
“And now she’s asking me for shit,” Steve comments in disbelief as Robbie ducks back into her room. He looks at Eddie, “Seriously, you need to call Wayne and apologize for everything you must have put him through.”
“Alright.”
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