#protective robin buckley

[atmilliways]

Wrong On The Money (53)

part 53 of 55 | 1929 words | Teen+

Blackmail fic on Ao3 | on tumblr

Summary:

Robin hadn’t planned on ambushing Eddie. She’d actually been trying not to think about him much, because the whole bullshit blackmail situation made her fly-off-the-handle mad and it was . . . complicated.

I sincerely hope this lives up to all the antici......pation. 🙏

53.

Robin lands on the edge of Eddie’s hospital bed while Steve is off signing his own discharge papers, jostling him enough that he chokes out a curse. “Sorry, but it’s time for your crash course in Steve-sitting.”

Eddie chokes on nothing, going a bright red that pulling his hair across his face does nothing to hide. (Not that it would fool her. She’d picked up on the way Eddie always looked at Steve even before he’d come out to her, it’s so obvious. Nothing’s going to happen her ass.) “In what?!”

She considers her own phrasing, and makes a face. “Don't make it weird, Munson, that’s my platonic soulmate you’re thinking about. If Steve's moving in with you, then you need to know how to take care of him. You know he gets migraines, right?”

The blank look he gives her says it all, but his mouth also asks, “What are migraines?”

Well. She knows Eddie isn’t dumb, but she can’t say he didn’t come by three attempts at senior year honestly. With a sigh, Robin tugs the radio from her belt and holds it up to her mouth, pressing the talk button. “This is Burt Ward to O-Bun-Wan Kenobi, come in O-Bun-Wan.”

“Stop calling me that,” Dustin replies after a short pause. “Over.”

“Sorry kiddo, you know it was Applejack’s turn to pick the call signs. I’m going to need you to keep Farrah Fawcett occupied for a little bit longer than expected, Van Fail-en needs a serious lesson in hair care management.”

There’s another pause, while Eddie twists his rings on his fingers and visibly mouths Van Fail-en and hair care?? to himself, then Dustin’s insistent, “You forgot to say over!”

Robin rolls her eyes. “Whatever, just give me five more minutes. Over and out.”

“Burt Ward?” Eddie asks, squinting at her as she returns the radio to its place on her hip. 

“He played Robin in the Batman movie.” She shrugs. “Erica let me pick mine. Now!” And she claps her hands together, all business. Time to school this nerd in basic dingus maintenance—because while she’s happy to do it, Eddie will be right there if Steve needs help. After what they've all been through together, Robin has faith that Eddie can do the job, even while still on bed rest. “We don’t have a lot of time, so let’s get started. A migraine is like a mega-headache. If Steve starts showing any of the following symptoms, you need to try to get him someone dark and quiet as soon as possible. . . .”

Robin hadn’t planned on ambushing Eddie. She’d actually been trying not to think about him much, because the whole bullshit blackmail situation made her fly-off-the-handle mad and it was . . . complicated.

So, yeah, trying not to think about it, because up until now she’d considered Eddie a friend and the reasons for that are all, technically, still here. Plus, she’s been busy with community college—a compromise between continuing her education as planned, that sliver of fear that things with the Upside Down might start up again, and a steadfast refusal to leave her best friend behind.

And Steve is. . . . Well, she hasn’t seen him so happy in a long time, and never quite like this. Every time he brings Eddie up in conversation (which, like, she can tell he’s kind of walking on eggshells about, but it still happens) he does this thing. This little glance her way after as if to check, and as long as she keeps her expression at neutral he brightens up hopefully by a factor of ten. (Except for when she’d biked up to Family Video this morning and he’d looked so much like shit that she’d tried to talk him into accepting a ride home from someone else. Unsuccessfully, of course, the stubborn dingus.)

In contrast, now, she’s never seen Eddie this subdued. At school he had been the guy who walked on cafeteria tables, stepping around lunches unless they’d belonged to known bullies. In the Upside Down he had climbed a rock before any of them had a chance to warn him about the hive mind vines, and hopscotched his way back down an like over-caffeinated mountain goat. Even still in shock over Chrissy Cunningham’s gruesome death, he’d twitched and flinched at every noise, alternating between gnawing on his lips and on his fingernails.

There’s no fight in him as he bypasses the break room table to slump onto the saggy couch, immediately sliding into the weird sinkhole in the middle that no one can ever get out of in one try. “Look,” he says heavily, staring down at his hands and not so much as fiddling with his rings, “I know you’re pissed at me—”

“You’re damn right I’m pissed,” Robin bursts out, stomping her foot as she thinks about it. “How could you, Eddie? How could you do that when you, of all people, know what it’s like in this town?” She crosses her arms tighter across her chest and glares. “The only reason I haven’t borrowed Steve’s car to run you over with is because you threatened to tell me and not his parents!”

Eddie’s head snaps up at that, and to his credit he looks anguished. “I would never do that.”

“You got close,” she spits. That’s the thing that Steve doesn’t understand; to him, it’s fine because Eddie’s threat hadn’t really been much of one, but Eddie hadn’t known that then. 

If Robin hadn’t been Robin, if it had been some other girl that Eddie mistook for Steve’s girlfriend, that girl could have told Steve's parents. She could have told everyone.

“I know.” Also to his credit, he manages to maintain eye contact, although it looks like it’s costing him a lot. He looks like he’s sinking into himself, hands drifting up to his hair and digging his fingers in as if trying to keep his head from imploding. Or maybe trying to pull it apart. “I know I did. I knew I was crossing a fucking line, alright? But I thought. . . . It’s not an excuse, but I thought it was just going to come out of his dad’s pocket and no one would care.”

That’s not good enough, she thinks, because it does sound like an excuse. But she’d expected him to fall back on saying that he’d thought Steve was still an asshole, like people couldn't change. That the Freak hadn’t given him the benefit of the doubt.

Because Robin hadn't, when she'd first started working with Steve back at Scoops Ahoy. Before she’d ended up tied back to back with the King of Hawkins High in a room with a drain in the floor and realized he was just some guy in a crazy situation, trying to do the right thing. The brave thing. Trying to Indiana Jones his way out of a goddamn mess, at a cost up to and almost including the loss of his own fingernails.

She was anticipating a sob story that Eddie had used to rationalize his actions in his own head, because Steve had told her how Eddie working a part time job and an illegal side job and still trying to stay awake in school had barely enough for two people’s food and rent on his own. And, okay, loathe as she is to admit it, she gets the Wayne part of it—the being so scared you might lose someone that you’re willing to fight God to keep that from happening. 

(“A code, a code, there was a code!”)

But Eddie’s not saying any of that. Maybe (probably) he had thought those things at the time, but he’s not defending himself at all now. Robin tries not to falter, because this was not okay, dammit, but it’s throwing her off. What else had she wanted to say?

Oh, right.

She jabs an accusatory finger in Eddie’s direction, trying to summon extra venom into her weakening glare. “You took advantage of his hero complex!”

He shrugs listlessly, hands still in his hair. “Before March, I had no idea he had one. Are you trying to convince me that Steve’s too good for me and I’m a piece of shit? Believe me, Buckley, I’m well aware.”

“. . . Oooookay,” Robin says slowly, still frowning but with a little less glare. She can’t help it, he’d thrown her off! “As long as we agree on that.”

They stare at each other for a long moment. Finally, Eddie drops his hand back to his lap and leans back, fixing his eyes on the ceiling. 

“I’m sorry I did it, alright? Every time I tell Steve that he says he’s not, because it means Wayne’s still around, and . . . I can’t argue with that part. But I’m still a piece of shit for how it happened, no matter how much he somehow thinks he’s the problem. Which I keep telling him he’s not, by the way, and I’m not going to stop. But. . . .” He pauses to scrub both hands over his face, dragging some of his hair in to cover it. “If you want me to make myself scarce when you’re around, say the word. I don’t have to go to the Party barbecues or whatever. But I’m not dropping Steve until he wants me to go, okay? I know how things went down with Nancy and I can’t do that to him after the shit I’ve already put him through.”

The words, Robin registers, are tense but firm. It sounds like a last stand speech straight out of a film—something where some cowboy knows he’s about to be gunned down but wants to say his piece first anyway. 

What’s jarring is realizing that she’s the firing squad. Eddie is asking her if she wants to kick him out of the entire group, when she’d really only thought as far as kicking his ass. 

His mention of Nancy is throwing her, too. Robin knows that Nancy had never really apologized for bullshit. Not the way Steve told her Eddie has, certainly not the way Eddie is doing now. . . . And Nancy is still a part of the group. 

“Jesus,” Robin mutters. She drops into one of the folding chairs and rubs at her temples. “Consider yourself on probation, alright? Just don’t pull anything like this ever again and we’ll be fine.”

Eddie blinks at her. “Is . . . is that it?”

“I’m still mad at you,” she says. “But . . . yeah. For now. But you’d better not hurt him, or do anything like this ever again, do you hear me Munson? Because I swear to god, I will finish what the bats started.”

“I won’t,” he says, as serious as she’s ever heard him. And they’d gone to war against Vecna together. 

“Alright, then get outta here,” Robin says. She hasn’t unclenched, but. . . . “Go take care of Steve.”

Because someone has to, and she’s stuck here finishing out his shift.

Eddie nods and scrambles up, all his manic energy suddenly back. He’s bouncing on the balls of his feet as she flips the sign and unlocks the door to let him out, and beelines straight for his van the second he gets the chance.

As she watches him tear out of the parking lot, she does feel better about the whole thing—not by a lot, but some. Blackmail or not, Steve seems so happy whenever he talks about Eddie. Robin has never gotten to witness Steve Harrington in full-on relationship mode, and she has a feeling it’s going to be heartwarming, ridiculous, and sappy to the point of being gross. 

She kind of can’t wait.