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It was almost three months after Eddie left Hawkins that Robin finally managed to track him down.
It wasn’t like she was surprised that he’d run the fuck away from it all as soon as he could, but like, he could have left a freaking forwarding address. Steve was no help at all. Wayne had just given her a long look, telling her Eddie would be in touch when Eddie was ready to be in touch, and Dustin had been all shifty about it until finally Robin had yelled at him enough to frighten an address out of him.
“Jesus, fine, you harpy.” He scribbled it on a post-it, then gave her a sideways look, like he wanted to say something else.
“Spit it out, Henderson,” she said, snatching the note before he could take it back. “What is it?”
“Just… be nice, alright?”
“What? What’s that supposed to mean, I’m always nice!” But Dustin was already shutting the door in her face, leaving her standing on the step with her mouth open. Be nice. What the fuck. She was nice. Why wouldn’t she be nice to Eddie, anyway? Henderson was such a little weirdo.
-
Robin hiked her satchel onto her shoulder, then checked the note that Dustin had written her, even though she’d checked it ten times already. This was the right door; on the top floor of a skinny, three storey brick apartment block near Wrigley Field. She hovered, then mentally shook herself. It was Eddie. Whatever he’d run away from, he was still her friend. She missed him. Robin gave the door a jaunty knock.
There was silence, then a bit of scuffling as someone looked through the peephole, then some more silence.
“I know you’re there, Eddie.” Robin leaned forward until her eye was against the glass. “I can hear you.”
There was a snick, and the door unlocked, and one of Eddie’s big, dark eyes appeared around it, the rest of him hidden behind the door.
“Robin,” he said, then seemed to be lost for words.
“Well? No hug? No ‘Oh, Robin, how I’ve missed you! How’ve you been since our fun trip to the hell dimension?’ What the fuck, Munson? Do you know how hard it was to get this address?”
“Who did you get it from, anyway?” Eddie was still half-hidden, but she could see that he was starting to smile at her.
“Dustin is easy to extort.”
“Fuck. Knew I shouldn’t have trusted that little shrimp.” He hesitated for a moment more, then opened the door to let her in.
He looked different, somehow. She squinted at him, and he shrank a little under her gaze, and they stared at each other for a long moment.
“Have you done something to your hair?” But no, that wasn’t it.
“Um,” Eddie said, then laughed. “No, not really.”
“Hm. You look good.”
He did. He was holding himself differently, Robin realised. That’s what was different. Was it? And then he smiled at her, a big, proper smile, and Robin felt something inside her flip happily.
”Munson,” she said, and stepped forward to grab him into a hug. He flailed his arms around for a moment, then brought them around to rest on her shoulders. “I missed you. Where the fuck have you been?”
“Uh,” said Eddie. His breath was warm as it ruffled against her hair. “Here, I guess. Ran away from my problems, as always.”
Robin extricated herself, then punched him in the shoulder.
“Ow!”
“Don’t do it again! Seriously man, we’re your friends. Whatever it is, you don’t need to run away from us. You can’t. We’re not just going to… give up on you.”
“Thanks, Buckley,” he said, rubbing his arm. “I missed you too, I guess -”
“Oh, thanks, I guess-”
“Shut up, I did! I just… needed to be somewhere else.”
“Yeah. I get it. I do, man, but can you at least tell us where you’re going so we don’t have to be worried that you’re dead in a ditch somewhere?”
“I told Dustin. And Steve.”
“Steve knows? Steve knew you were here and didn’t tell me? What the fuck? Since when are you all buddy buddy with Steve?”
And wow, that feeling was horribly like jealousy. Robin squashed it back down where it had come from. It was totally fine for Steve to have friends that weren’t her. For Steve to have friends that were Eddie, apparently.
Eddie looked shifty. “Yeah. We, uh. We talk. You know, sometimes.”
“About what?”
They were still standing in Eddie’s doorway, and the grin that had been on Eddie’s face had slid off and been replaced with a wobbly, nervous sort of expression. He stepped behind her and closed the door, then took her bag from her shoulder and dumped it beside the couch.
“Okay, sit.”
She would have argued, but the weird expression on his face made her nod and sink onto the couch. Eddie hovered for a moment before sitting down on the edge of the table opposite her, his elbows on his knees.
“Steve, uh. Steve noticed something. About me.”
“Okay,” Robin said slowly. Eddie looked down at his hands, and picked at the edge of a nail. His rings glittered in the evening light that was streaming in through the window.
“And I knew… I mean, you told me what happened when you. When he, you know. Found out about you. So I, um. Told him. About me.”
“Oh. Oh!” said Robin. And then, oh. Eddie and Steve? But no, Eddie was here, and Steve was still back home making moon-eyes at Nance, and why did that thought make her feel relieved?
“It’s not what you think,” said Eddie, twisting one of his rings around on his finger. He looked up at her, and raised his eyebrows, as if willing her to get it without him having to say anything, but Robin could only look blankly back at him.
“I still like girls. I only like girls, actually.” He licked his lips, a nervous little flicker of tongue, then stared towards the window, the pinkish light washing over his face.
“I just. You know. Am one. Um, as well.”
Robin blinked. Eddie had turned those big, dark eyes on her, and it was like one of those magic-eye pictures that you stared and stared at until suddenly there was a dolphin leaping out at you, or a butterfly. It was like Eddie’s face came into focus, all at once, and Robin saw all the parts of a whole and for a second she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t seen it before now.
“Uh, can you please say something,” said Eddie.
Robin blinked, and all she could think of was, “I can’t believe you told Harrington before me. Harrington,” and Eddie’s eyes crinkled up sweetly.
“He kinda guessed, actually. Or, not quite. But he knew there was something. He’s a good listener.”
“Yeah,” said Robin. Her head was still swimming, but she could see the nervous tap tap tap of Eddie’s toe against the ratty carpet. “I’m sorry if I ever… if there was ever a reason you felt you couldn’t. Um. Tell me.”
“Just chickenshit,” said Eddie, and then she smiled properly again, and Robin felt that weird flipping feeling inside her stomach again as her world rearranged itself and settled around her and oh, fuck. Then she realised something else, and felt outraged all over again.
“Wait a second. Henderson. He told me to, and I quote, “be nice,” to you.”
Eddie groaned and pulled her hair over her face, then peered at Robin through it. “Yeah. Steve is a good listener, but he is horrible at subterfuge.”
“Ah.”
“It was quite sweet, really. Watching him struggle to pick the right word. He just slipped up once, with Dustin. That kid is fuckin’ sharp.”
“Yeah. Explains why he basically refused to talk to me about you. I thought you guys had a fight or something! Am I really that fucking oblivious?”
“I mean, I hope not. I didn’t really want anyone finding out yet.” Eddie leaned back in her chair and pulled one of her legs up to tuck her arm around it. “Sorry.”
“No, I mean, I’m sorry. For like, tracking you down or whatever. I just missed you. And, I dunno, I was kinda worried about you.”
“Thanks, Buckley.”
“I mean, we basically just introduced you to literal hell. We weren’t exactly expecting you to be okay after that, we just usually… I guess we usually lean on each other.”
Eddie let her chin rest on her knee, her hair falling all around her face as she nodded.
“Yeah. I just. I needed to work this one out on my own, for a bit. Away from Hawkins.”
“Well, yeah, I get that now,” said Robin. “So, like, sorry for just turning up unannounced or whatever. I would have called ahead, but I was afraid you might say no.”
“I might’ve,” said Eddie. “Coward, remember?”
Robin picked up a squashed cushion from the couch and threw it at her. “I don’t think you’re allowed to say that any more.”
“I guess,” said Eddie. “I don’t feel, like, brave or whatever. Henderson told me it was. What about you? Do you feel brave?”
Robin hugged the other cushion to her chest and thought about it for a moment. “I guess I just feel like there’s no other way for me to be.”
Eddie was nodding again. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, exactly.”
-
Robin stared at the ceiling above the couch and listened to the sounds of Chicago at night through the open window. The almost constant wail of sirens, doors slamming. One person singing, another shouting. Someone next door was showering, she could hear the pipes creaking as they pumped tepid water through the building, and none of those things were the reason that Robin couldn’t sleep.
She was thinking about Eddie. About the tell-tale nervous knot in her stomach that had settled there when Eddie had hugged her before retreating into the bedroom. She couldn’t believe it - Steve was going to make fun of her forever. Robin turned around in her sleeping bag and groaned into the cushion. She was going to make it weird. She knew she was, because she always made it weird and because she’d known Eddie for years but she hadn’t known this! Such a vital piece of information, kept and carefully guarded, and now Eddie had trusted her with it and she was immediately going to turn around and fuck it all up.
“Why are you like this, huh?” she said to the cushion.
“Like what?” said Eddie, and Robin shrieked and fell off the couch with a thump. She looked up, and Eddie peered over the back of the couch with a concerned expression on her face and an empty glass in her hand. She gave the glass a demonstrative wiggle.
“Sorry, I was trying not to wake you.”
“It’s fine,” Robin scrambled clumsily back onto her makeshift bed, “just, Jesus. Creepy much?”
“I was trying to be quiet. Were you talking to yourself?”
“No. Shut up.” Robin crossed her arms over her chest and tried not to look at Eddie’s, but her eyes drifted down and took in the little sleep vest Eddie was wearing. It was white, with an edging of delicate scalloped lace, and it made Robin feel hot and cold just looking at it. Eddie watched her.
“What do you think?” she said. Then she struck a little pose, hip tilted, and tugged on the lace hem. “Pretty, huh?”
“Pretty,” Robin echoed stupidly. She closed her eyes, and tried to stop herself wondering if Eddie was wearing matching panties. Jesus, she was a pervert. She felt the end of the couch near her feet sink down, and a warm hand press into her shin.
“Alright?”
“Yeah,” Robin croaked, then cleared her throat. “Yeah. Just, uh. Tired. Couldn’t sleep, I guess.”
“Yeah,” said Eddie. “Thinking?”
Robin looked up at her, then. Her eyes were so expressive; like big, dark pools, and there was a little crease between them, like she was worried that Robin… that Robin wouldn’t-
“Not about you,” said Robin automatically. “Or, well, actually yes about you.” Oh fuck, why had she said that? “But only because I’m an idiot,” and fuck, that was worse, why was she still talking? “I’m not making any sense. Please ignore me. You’re distracting. I’m distracted. I’m tired and distracted. Please just forget everything I just said?”
“I’m distracting?” said Eddie, and there was that stupid smirk that was so familiar and so different all at once.
“You’re -” Robin gestured at her. “With the lace, and the arms, and… pretty,” she finished lamely. “I’m going to go to sleep now. Bye. I’m sleeping.”
“Okay,” Eddie said slowly, but there was still a smile in her voice, and she gave Robin’s shin a little squeeze as she stood up to leave.
-
After she’d packed up the next morning, after Eddie had made her shitty coffee and surprisingly decent eggs, Robin stood in the doorway and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
“Um,” she said, then realised she didn’t have anything to say. Eddie was still wearing the little lace vest, and she’d pulled on a pair of jeans but her feet were bare. Her hair spilled over her shoulders like a fluffy lion’s mane.
“Don’t be a stranger,” Robin said, then winced. Ugh, why couldn’t she ever be cool.
“I’m getting a phone put in next week,” said Eddie. “Call me?”
Robin looked up sharply, and Eddie was biting her lip against a smile, her cheeks pink.
“Uh, yes. Obviously. I’ll call you. Um, do you have my number, I can write it down. Do you have a pen?”
“I have your number, Buckley,” said Eddie. She was smiling, her face crinkled up sweetly.
“Hah, yeah, obviously. Sorry. I’m being weird, aren’t I? I’m always weird. Sorry.”
“Yeah,” said Eddie, and she stepped right up into Robin’s space, crowded her against the door. “I kinda hoped you would be.” And Eddie’s eyes were so dark and her hair was soft and smelled like clove cigarettes.
“Yeah?” Robin breathed.
Eddie’s hand was on her waist, hot through her shirt. Eddie kissed her.