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Steve realizes after setting his alarm to make sure he wakes up on the hour if he accidentally dozes off—can’t fucking sleep with a concussion—that…it’s probably fucked up that he didn’t need a professional to look him over to know that he does, indeed, have at least minor head trauma. Like, it’s probably not normal to just know you’re concussed based on accumulated experience.
Like, it’s not quite melted people monster levels of fucked but it’s…it’s still fucked.
The best he’s done is finish getting the worst of the blood and…other fucked up shit off his skin, stripped his uniform into the trash can, thinks probably he’ll burn it if the garbage doesn’t come before his head stops throbbing, he didn’t even remember what fucking day of the week it is, and now he’s set the alarm for an hour from now, groans because he wants more sleep than that, goddamnit, but he’ll take what he can get and he’s half-conked out by now anyway so, probably won’t take much to get back under: but he’s slipped under his sheets, and his eyes are already closed and he’s–
He’s thrown with limbs flailing—no matter how tired he is, the adrenaline must still be ready at the surface, goddamn—into sitting up shaky for the absolute fucking assault happening on his front door at…motherfuck, 2:43? A-fucking-M?
Who in the fuck—
Steve tries to bury his head in his pillow, tries to just ignore it. It’s probably someone drunk from the actual holiday festival or some shit. Plenty of rich assholes who wouldn’t have given a shit if anyone died down the road just hours ago.
But eventually not even all of his pillows can fully out-weigh the knocking.
And like, his pulse is pounding in the swelling around his eye at worst and the whole of his goddamn head at the least, and that’s honestly already more than enough of an incessant knocking to be suffering through. He needs this extra layer to go away.
He’s at the top of the stairs before he remembers he doesn’t have any clothes on. He really stripped out of his clothes, he hadn’t half assed it.
He whole assed it, which is why his whole ass is hanging out right now. He snorts—regrets it immediately but fuck it, that was funny—then shuffles back for at least a pair of sleep pants.
Though y’know, whoever thinks it’s acceptable to knock for going on probably over five-minutes-straight in the middle of the night?
They maybe deserve to be exposed to him in the buff. He’s decent enough looking that he doesn’t think it would’ve scared them off but, hey.
The shock might have.
He gets down the stairs, clinging to the banister because he’s definitely not super steady on his feet, head goddamn spinning after bending to pull on his sweatpants—bad move, very very bad move—but he makes it. He yanks the goddamn thing open without even bothering to check the peephole.
So not only is it a surprise to almost get clocked in the face again by the rapid-fire knocking fist he almost doesn’t dodge in time before it realizes it’s target’s been flung open, but the owner of the fist: one Robin Buckley, seemingly…redressed in her Scoops uniform after a shower, for the damp tips of her hair.
That’s the bigger surprise by far.
“Jesus,” Steve hisses as he stands back up as straight as he can, realizes that’s a lost cause, and tries to lean his weight on the door in a way that looks closer to cool and unbothered than pathetic and physically necessary.
“I thought you were dead!” Robin shouts but her voice is all…waterlogged and hoarse so it’s not actually that loud. Shaky, too. “Again!”
Steve glances behind her, looking for a bike, or maybe she got a ride but: nothing.
He narrows his eyes.
“How the hell did you—” he doesn’t even get to finish when she apparently reads his mind and launches into full rambling mode, which is both painful to his banged up brain but also, weirdly, kinda fucking comforting.
He’s grown accustomed to it, he guesses.
“I told my parents the police needed to take statements,” she blurts with her eyes stretched big, bigger than Steve’s ever seen them and he’s seen her terrified, like, we-are-absolutely-about-to-die terrified. “Convinced them to leave because it was gonna take forever, and it’s the police station, not many places more secure than that,” Steve snorts; especially without Hopper—a fact he cannot process right now, like, physically not capable, option not found—but the Hawkins Police Force, a bastion of safety?
Robin squints at him before amending, if confused for it: “In theory,” and then diving back in to wrap up her babbling:
“And promised I’d call them when I was done.”
Steve nods—not a great lie but not the worst one—when again, he regrets moving his fucking head but also, the unavoidable reality of how Robin arrived here:
“Oh my God, did you walk—”
“You left without getting medical help!” she screeches, but it’s still too hoarse for it to carry and shakier, now, too.
“I’m fine—” it sounds as useless and untrue as it…maybe half is. Because he is fine. The drugs were the worst part and those wore off hours ago—the rest is just…variations on a theme.
Like when they added the cone pieces to the scotcheroo flavor to make the U.S.S. Butterscotch. This shit isn’t new, just different shapes and sizes.
“I tried calling you!” She goes back to her failed shrieking but, oh, oh no she looks a little like she’s gonna cry but also like she maybe wants to choke him or something. “You didn’t answer!”
And oh. Oh, shit, yeah. He learned the first fucking time that the ringing did not get along with concussions. And he didn’t want to wake up having to clean up puke, so.
Yeah, he pulled the line out soon as he walked in.
“And then I knocked forever and you didn’t,” Robin gasps, trembly like a sob and screams:
“I thought you had died.”
Steve is touched, astonished, and horrified in…nearly equal measures.
“Get in here,” he reaches for her arm and ushers her inside, kicks the door closed and locks it before walking her shaking frame to the kitchen, sitting her at the table, checking her over like he’s learned to do with the Party by now like an instinct: no new injuries or ailments.
Just the reality of what reality is now sinking in.
He remembers that, the first time. He doesn’t envy her.
He reaches out and debates laying a hand on one of hers atop the table. He decides to largely because he wishes someone had been there to do it for him.
“We should call your—” he starts but she’s…she’s not listening.
Her eyes are so far away.
“Robin?” he ventures, careful. He knows people react to this shit differently. It’s like grief—it is a kind of grief. Losing your sense of the world.
“I don’t know how someone changes so quick.”
Her voice is a scratchy kind of whisper. Steve doesn’t know which of them she’s talking about, but he does think she means one of them.
“Because this…” she flaps the hand not under Steve’s back and forth between them. “It’s not trauma,” she says, more forceful than anything she’s said yet, like she’s steadying at least for now. Which is enough.
“Or not mostly trauma,” she concedes, and honestly that makes Steve feel more confident in her frame of mind but—
“Maybe judge that when you’re actually clear of the immediate trauma,” he says, not unkindly, but also like…reasonable.
Robin still glares at him; he crosses his arms over his chest and stares back before she gives in, sighing, pretty fucking dramatic about it actually. He feels like he’s gonna get new marks in the ‘You Suck’ column.
Which is probably burnt to a crisp now but, point stands.
“It is definitely not more than three-percent because of the trauma,” she concedes with a scowl. “And believe me,” she points a finger at him like she’s trying to be threatening and failing miserably: “I am very well aware of the damned trauma.”
Well, yeah: she’s still fucking shaking.
He puts his hand back over the one she hasn’t moved. It feels…like a thing he should do.
“Hey.”
He looks up when she speaks: her voice is more her voice but she sounds a little…hesitant.
“When you said you had feelings,” she starts, and Steve groans. He’d been drugged, and now he’s concussed, he cannot fucking deal with—
“Robin—”
“No, no I’m going somewhere here,” she shakes her head, then puts her other hand over his, like she’s keeping him where he is on purpose before she hits hit straight in the fucking for:
“Were those feelings like,” she sucks on her lower lip; “like l,” she stumbles, then squares her shoulders but won’t look up, stares at their hands: “l-love, feelings?”
Fucking…Jesus.
“No,” and that’s the truth; “no, not that serious, not even close.”
Because he did have feelings. The start of them. But it was a crush.
Barely that. Steve might fall quick but…this ain’t that.
“But in the romantic…” Robin keeps at it anyway, awkward as fuck; “category.”
“I guess?” Steve shrugs, because like, what else?
“I thought you were dead tonight,” Robin says, and yeah, she’d said that. “Twice.”
That too.
“And it felt like my heart was breaking,” she adds on to the point and…oh. “Or the world was ending.”
She sounds like she means it. She…
She hadn’t said that before.
“And it’s not like it was just the death part, because there was so much of that, like so much,” Robin says in one quick burst and then finally takes a deep breath, like she’s thinking on her words before she lets them spill out this time. Steve’s learned she tends to mean them most. Or else…holds them closer to the chest. More important.
“What if I thought I could love you, but not romantically?”
Steve had long stopped guessing what Robin was going to come up with, generally. But fucking hell, that’s not even close to what he could have expected like…
What the fuck?
“Like, platonically?” Robin says, at least an octave too high. “Because I think, not that I have a lot of experience but, like, the signs are there that this feels like something enormous, like the start of this gigantic thing that could basically change my whole life, kinda, so,” she looks at him, kinda desperate, and all Steve can really focus on is, well:
“What’s ‘plate-tonically’?”
Because all Steve heard was ‘plate’ and given the state of his head right now? Not the best association to land on.
And hopefully not the right one. He does like Robin. He cares about her, truly does. She’s one of them now, she’s family. She matters.
He doesn’t want her to come at him with a plate.
“So probably most important to start with is it’s basically like, a close and deep and intimate connection that is absolutely one-hundred percent devoid of romantic feelings,” Robin does her trademark dump-all-the-information-in-one-breath thing again, and Steve’s not super fast with that on a good day, though he’s gotten a lot better.
But this is not a good day.
“Or sexual one,” Robin tacks on frantically while Steve’s still picking through all the first set of words. “No sexual feelings either.”
“So,” he draws out eventually, trying not to furrow his brow—because that’s also, like, oww—but struggling hard; “so it’s like a sibling?”
Robin bites her lip, tilts her head. He knows that face. He’s not totally wrong, but more wrong than right, at least for whatever she’s trying to get at.
“More like your best friend,” but now she’s biting her lip at herself. “Your most close, bestest friend.”
She frowns and Steve holds back a smirk; he’d put money on one of those words being wrong, even if he’s not completely sure which one.
“It’s named after a philosopher,” she changes tactics, but sounds kind of…subdued even as she still rambles—Steve can’t figure out if she’s toning it down because she knows damn well Steve doesn’t know shit about philosophers, or because she’s feeling the hit of…the events of the last few days, especially the last few hours.
Steve is familiar with how that lands.
“He, umm,” Robin tries to pick back up, but it’s a little weird, kind of concerning, how she’s weighing her words, breaking them up.
“He thought that some loves could transcend the physical.” She turns her stretched-big eyes on him directly then:
“That those could be bigger than romance and sex as a rule.”
Steve…Steve’s never thought of that before. Marriage, kiddos—that was the blueprint. He didn’t think outside that.
Until maybe…end of last year. Late October.
Probably.
But he…he thinks maybe he likes the idea of it. He’s long since figured out he’s…he loves quick, and a lot of people, probably most people, can’t handle that. He’s…the one thing he maybe’s got too much of, versus falling short as not enough, is loving—and it’s as bad or worse than the not-enough thing.
But what if it didn’t have to be? It kinda sounds like Robin’s talking about something wild where maybe some of his too-much-love could form and be a good thing. Like a…like it could do something good. Could be something someone could want.
Like maybe the only reason it’s fucked him over this badly, was he was supposed to be fitting into a puzzle he didn’t even know existed, versus the one he’d had for fucking ever, that’d hurt every time, if he’s honest, to try and shove his heart into.
“Do you believe in soulmates?”
Steve startles a little when Robin’s voice breaks a silence he hadn’t entirely noticed settling; probably a pretty long one, too, if the edge of hesitation, almost fear in her voice tracks.
“I don’t think so,” Steve answers, but he doesn’t sound convinced—thinks that’s probably the most accurate way to answer that anyway. “At least not anymore,” he says more confidently, then confesses, more vulnerable than he’s used to, almost definitely influenced by the brain injury, and maybe, just maybe a little by the suggestion of Robin having…having an idea for where Steve’s love can go, and not just rot.
“I really wanted to,” he admits, and it’s small. His voice is small but…he says it. He says it and goddamn it, he should be proud of saying it. Out loud. To another human person.
He almost got killed by commies, and then a melted giant peel-spider. He’s gonna be fucking proud for just a second, here.
“So platonic is also like,” Robin eases in again, still kinda hesitant, and still beyond Steve’s bruised brain to parse out; “have you ever heard of a platonic ideal?”
She’s gotta know he has absolutely fucking not.
“It’s like the most…the most thing of a thing. Like the perfect epitome of the thing,” she says, and she sounds…she sounds like her voice is going to give out, she looks like she’s going to fall apart any second as she whispers:
“I think you might be my platonic soulmate.”
Steve should call her parents. Or put her to sleep. He could not ask any questions, or encourage her to say more things.
“Why do you think that?”
Steve’s concussed, he can’t be held responsible for making the smart decision on everything right now, goddamn.
“My chest hurt like I was dying, when I thought you were dying,” Robin responds in a monotone, less like she isn’t feeling but more like she can’t handle feeling out loud; Steve gets that. “There’s no one so impossibly different from me whose company I enjoy like I’ve come to enjoy yours. I,” she hiccups a little and her hand—which Steve kinda forgot was over his, which was over hers—tightens:
“You feel different.”
Steve knows better than to pretend she means, like, the feeling of his actual hand.
He breathes with that for a few seconds. He doesn’t move his hand.
She doesn’t move hers.
“Can I be super honest with you?” he ultimately asks, and she turns red-rimmed eyes his way.
“These are really big words and really big feelings that you’re talking about,” he says, admits, placates, all of the above: “and I am really tired and very concussed,” he nudges her foot so he doesn’t have to move their hands.
“You’re at least also really tired.”
She laughs a little, wet and thready. He smiles a little, not so different.
“Concussed me thinks that I would really like to be your plate-ical soulmate, seems a step up from your schmuck,” this time he nudges her knee because he leans in a little to add:
“Which I did enjoy, I was being honest.”
“I think you’re usually being honest,” she says, soft like he’s not sure he was meant to hear it, or maybe she didn’t know one way or the other herself.
“Would being that, to you,” Steve asks, also not sure if he wants her to hear it but he doesn’t try to make it optional; “does it work both ways?”
She tilts her head, damn; he thought he was pretty clear.
“Like you’d be my playdough-tic soulmate, then, too,” he tries again; “like, also.”
She huffs, and smiles at him a little:
“Yeah.”
He doesn’t know why it hits him so hard, knocks the wind out of him.
“Oh.”
And she…she’d talked about almost like a good thing. With him.
At least not a bad thing.
“Steve, you look like shit.”
He glances back up at her, and she’s looking at him, almost soft. Like she did on the bathroom floor. No drugs involved.
“Oh, thanks,” Steve deadpans; “are insults in the job description for pla—”
“Platonic soulmate,” she saves him from another creative pronunciation; “and not specifically, you’re just special.”
She says that like a nice thing, too. What the fuck.
“Honesty is though, I’d say,” she squeezes their stacked hands again; “and taking care of each other.”
She already said she thought Steve was honest. And the other part, he’s actually really good at.
“Then,” Steve takes the hand he’s got and eases Robin’s from on top of his, pulling her from the chair and steadying her on her feet.
“In the interest of starting out on the right foot, if less-concussed me and less-traumatized you still think this is a good thing,” and he says it with a little bit of humor, because he doesn’t think tomorrow, or…later-today him will feel different, not really, and he’s hoping more by the second that later-today Robin doesn’t either, but: taking care of each other.
That part first.
“There’s a spare bedroom upstairs, you need some sleep,” he ushers her a few steps first to the phone on the table between rooms, a pit stop.
“Call your parents, say your coworker brought you home because he said you looked too tired to stand up and his house was closer.”
Because he knows by now how some parents—mostly the little shitheads’—care about where the hell their kids are. He always knew deep down his parents were the fucked up outliers, but.
He leans on the wall and lets her lean on him as she dials, and explains, and is probably convincing largely for the way she yawns every other word.
He walks the both slowly up the stairs once she hangs up, and passes his room to the one just next door, so he’ll hear her if she needs him.
But just as he’s about to go grab her a big shirt and something to wear on the bottom for sleeping, he feels her hand clench on his forearm.
“Steve?”
“What’s wrong?” He sounds way more put together than he’d expected; like his body could fight through and be ready for battle again despite everything—it’s weirdly reassuring, even just in theory.
“I don’t want to be by myself tonight.”
Robin’s voice is so small again, and, oh.
Oh, and that he can take care of that easy.
“Come on, then,” he eases her hand off his arm and into his grasp and leads her back to his room, sits her on his bed at the corner her hadn’t disturbed and gets her a shirt, some warmup pants from basketball, the ones he never used with a drawstring so they’ll fit okay and points her to the bathroom.
She’d been cleaned off when she arrived despite the disgusting mess of her uniform—he’ll be putting that into the trash in the morning, he’s confident he can convince her—but he hears the shower turn on. He knows there’re towels in there at least but he goes to the closet in the hall while she’s occupied.
She’s wringing at her hair when he gets back.
“So you can curl up in it, and if you need to reach out and know someone’s here,” he holds up the biggest blanket he owns and tosses it her way: “no chance of it feeling anything but pla…whatever.”
Robin looks at him…so tender. So…
So like he did something good. Like maybe he’s something good.
She cocoons herself immediately before Steve even has a chance to crawl into the bed after shrugging on his own tee, making sure she’s comfortable.
She rolls into him, just tangling herself in the blanket all the more, but doesn’t shy from nuzzling her full face into the crook of his neck. She’s one-hundred percent going to drool on him or some shit.
He thinks it might be the first grin he gives since he saw everyone off safe, when he smiles at the ceiling while he flicks off the light.
He just really hopes Robin won’t change her mind about the paleontologic soulmate thing when the concussion alarm goes off in like…twenty minutes.