Chapter Text
The phone rang in the middle of the night, ripping Steve out of a comfortable sleep. His eyelids were heavy as lead, but he hurried into the hallway as quickly as he could and mumbled something into the phone that he was too tired to make out.
“Did I wake you?” he heard Eddie’s voice on the other end.
“Of course you did,” Steve replied. “It’s like two in the morning. You could’ve woken Robin.”
“My bad. I don’t sleep at this time; I always forget you do.”
Steve ran his hand through his hair and rubbed his eyes. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Then why on earth did you call?” He tried to sound as upset as he could while whispering into the phone. He wasn’t actually mad at him, but the grogginess clouded his brain.
“Wanna come over?” Eddie suggested. Steve could hear the grin in his voice.
“What, now?”
“Yeah, now. We have a terrible idea to follow through on, remember?”
“I’m so tired,” Steve complained.
“What’s a terrible idea without some even worse timing?”
Steve chuckled lowly. “You make a convincing case.”
“My uncle’s at work.”
Steve glanced around the hallway. The door to Robin’s room was closed, there didn’t seem to be any noise or movement coming from there. “Alright. I’ll be there in fifteen.” Before hanging up, he added, “I’m not sleeping with you. Making out, only.”
“Works for me, Stevie.”
Robin startled out of sleep. Her hair was sticking to her face and her heart was beating uncomfortably fast. She kicked the blanket off her bed and forced herself to stand up with shaking legs. “Crap, crap, crap,” she mumbled to herself between uneven breaths. Every step to the door of her room felt unbelievably slow and heavy, but eventually, she made it into the hallway.
“You’re fine,” she said to herself, “you’re absolutely fine.”
She knew that these were only the beginning stages of her panic attacks. There was a chance it would get a lot worse soon, but if she reached Steve before that, he’d be able to calm her down and help her through it before it got to that point.
She knocked on his door once, then again after he didn’t answer. “Steve!” she called, “I’m coming in.”
The moon shone dimly through the half-open blinds. Steve’s bed was empty and unmade. He’d usually make his bed when he left it. He usually didn’t leave at night or stay elsewhere without informing Robin about it in advance.
His shoes were gone too, and so were his keys.
Robin knew she had to get a handle on herself quickly before the slowly growing panic in her chest got too bad. It was still manageable; but she remembered the times she fought through a panic attack that made her feel like she was actively dying, and she wanted to avoid that at all costs.
It was hard to dial the number with trembling fingers, but after an excruciating amount of time, she managed to dial it without any errors. It rang four times until Nancy picked up.
“It’s me,” Robin said quickly. “Can you come over?”
“It’s three in the morning.” Nancy sounded tired, and Robin internally beat herself up for waking her. “What’s wrong?”
“Steve’s not here,” Robin muttered, forcing herself to take a deep breath in. Her lungs felt like they were closing. “Please? Please come.”
She heard Nancy’s breath on the other side. “Okay,” she said finally. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Hang in there.”
It only took twelve minutes until Nancy sat down on the living room floor with Robin, but it felt like an eternity.
To her relief, the panic attack didn’t turn out as bad as it could’ve been, and Robin didn’t need her breathing exercises. Just being near Nancy felt like enough.
“I’m sorry I made you come over,” she said quietly. Her head was resting on Nancy’s shoulder, and she wiped the last of her tears away. “I thought it’d be worse.”
“It’s okay,” Nancy said, “I was awake anyways.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“I wasn’t.” Nancy looked down to her and smiled weakly. “But I’m glad you called me.”
“You’re happy that you drove here at three in the morning?”
“I’m happy that you felt like you can trust me enough to ask for my help.” Nancy held her closer, letting their heads rest together. “Does Vickie know about your panic attacks?”
“Crap,” Robin cursed. “I should’ve called Vickie. She’s my girlfriend now, she should be the first name in my head when I need help, right? Do you think she’d be mad?”
“It’s okay,” Nancy reassured her. “It’s still new. When you can’t think clearly, it’s easier to rely on long term information rather than new input. It’s perfectly normal.”
Robin couldn’t tell if Nancy was lying, but she chose to accept the explanation about why Vickie’s number didn’t even cross her mind and moved closer to Nancy. “How many days until your test?” she asked.
“Three now.”
“You’re feeling confident?”
“Not at all.” Nancy chuckled lightly. “I should be. I know all of this crap. I memorized every little detail, there is nothing they could ask me that I wouldn’t know.”
“But it feels weird that it’s going to be over.”
“Yeah.” Nancy sighed and stared at the wall. “For the first time in my life I won’t have to feel like I’m missing out on everything because I’m either studying or fighting monsters. How do normal people do it?”
“Couldn’t tell you. How do you not have panic attacks every night?”
Nancy shrugged lightly. “What does it feel like?”
Robin thought for a moment. “Like I’m dying.” She paused. “I mean, I’ve already almost died before. You too. But it’s not like that. It’s not like vines wrapping around your throat or like Russians threatening to kill you. It’s somehow all your worst memories combined, quietly killing you from the inside. And you can’t do anything about it. It feels stupid, too, because they’re just memories. They’re over.” Robin hadn’t noticed at what point she started fidgeting with her fingers, but when she felt Nancy’s warm hands close around hers, it suddenly seemed easier to talk about her nightmares. “It replays in my head over and over again. It’s real in that moment, to me anyway. I feel dramatic for having them so often. Once in a while, sure, but almost every damn night? I’ve only been involved in this for a year. And with the Russians, Steve got the worst of it, I got away mostly unharmed. I shouldn’t feel like this, I should be taking care of the others who’ve been a part of this mess for so much longer.” She lifted her head to find Nancy already looking at her with sad, soft eyes. “I should be fine,” she said. “I should be moving on.”
“I think you’re brave,” Nancy stated confidently. “You relive your nightmares constantly. And yet you keep standing, you keep fighting, you keep laughing.”
“That doesn’t make me brave, that makes me desperate.”
“Desperate to live despite everything,” Nancy decided. “That’s brave. You’re brave.”
“You really think so?”
“I really do.”
“You’re losing a lot of sleep recently because of me,” Robin remarked. “I’m sorry about that.”
“You have to stop apologizing. If I didn’t want to do it, I wouldn’t.” Without looking at Robin, she added, “I meant what I said the other day. About you being my best friend.”
Robin pressed her lips together in a smile. “You’re mine too.”
“Right after Steve,” Nancy said with a grin.
“Yeah.” Robin chuckled. “There’s just a special bond to between two tragic little retail workers.”
“Where is he, by the way?”
She shrugged. “No idea. He didn’t mention anything, and he doesn’t usually leave without telling me Goodbye.”
“He’s probably fine,” Nancy said. “Probably with one of the kids.”
Eddie’s lips hit Steve’s over and over again. Steve felt as though a fire got ignited in his heart any time he tasted the faint hint of weed on Eddie’s lips, and whatever it was he had eaten for dinner.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” he mumbled between kisses as Eddie’s hands wandered up and down his back.
“Just enjoy it,” Eddie said and gripped his shoulders.
Steve’s hands were tangled in Eddie’s hair. He had always loved feeling Nancy’s hair when he was kissing her too, and it felt almost more intense with Eddie. They slowly sunk down on the couch without interrupting their kisses, almost missing the edge and falling to the floor.
When he felt a tug in his hair, Steve pulled away from Eddie’s lips and showed a playfully annoyed look. “I said I’m not sleeping with you.”
“Is a little tug in your hair all it takes for you to sleep with someone?” Eddie replied with a grin and let his fingertips graze the back of Steve’s neck.
“Of course not, but you know that I like it.” He swatted at Eddie’s hands until he moved them away and down his back again.
“I like your muscles,” Eddie noticed, and his voice sent a shiver down Steve’s spine. Eddie traced his back muscles gently, digging his fingers into Steve’s hips as he leaned in to kiss him again.
“I like your hair,” Steve murmured back.
“I like how kind you are,” Eddie mumbled.
“Hey, casual and physical, remember?”
“I like... your ass?”
“Christ.” Steve snorted and laughed into the crook of Eddie’s shoulder before lifting his head up again, inches away from Eddie’s. “You’re not in such a bad shape yourself, Munson.”
Eddie grinned at him with a slightly lifted eyebrow. “I like when you call me by my last name.”
“Maybe I’ll do it more often then,” Steve whispered seductively. Their lips were almost touching now.
“Yeah?” Eddie’s hands moved lower down Steve’s back, hooking his fingers into the belt loops of his jeans.
“Mhm,” Steve mumbled and kissed him softly. “I’ll do it when we’re with the others,” he added, “and you’ll know what I’m thinking of when I do it.”
“Imma tug your hair again if you keep talking like that,” Eddie said hoarsely and pulled him in closer for a kiss, hungry and passionate. When they parted again, he locked eyes with Steve. “I can’t believe I missed out on your flirting skills for all these years.”
“To be fair, I would’ve never flirted with you up until last year or so.”
“Call it character development.” Eddie grinned and kissed him again.
Steve didn’t know what time it was at this point, and he didn’t care. He had no responsibilities for the day, and if it was possible, he would stay with Eddie all night and all day.