Chapter Text
“I miss summer.” Robin pulled her sweater back around her chest, trying to make it look form-fitting. “My boobs look better in summer.”
“Your boobs always look great.” Steve was petting Rusty on her bed, watching as Robin was trying to pick out a sweater. She was still switching back and forth between one with pink and red stripes, and a blue checkered one. “Why does it matter which one you wear?”
“It matters a lot.” Robin brushed her hair out of her face, looking at herself from every angle in the mirror. “I’m going to see Nance after our shift, and I need to look good.”
“Nancy would still see you if you were wearing a trash bag. Is there anything special happening today?”
“No. Probably not. But—” Robin sighed and put on the blue checkered sweater again. “I’m going blue. Blue is good, right?”
“Blue is great. But what?”
Robin pressed her lips together in a smile and sat down next to Steve, crossing her legs on the bed. She pulled on the hems of her sweater and fiddled with them in her lap. “I had sex with Nancy. Well, I think so. I think it counts.”
“Now that I did not see coming.” He chuckled. “Was it good?”
“It was awesome. But I still don’t feel any sexual attraction toward her. Toward anyone. Nance said it doesn’t matter; I can still identify as asexual, you know? But it was pretty fun.” Robin leaned back into her pillow and thought back to the way Nancy had made her feel. “She was so sweet,” she said. “And she consistently asked for my consent, checked in with me, talked to me; it was—it was amazing. I trust her so much.”
“You’re perfect for each other.” Steve smiled, scratching Rusty’s ears who purred in his lap. “And you wanna ask her to be your girlfriend or why the stress about the sweater?”
“I don’t know.” Robin shrugged. “Maybe she’s not ready for that. I don’t want to pressure her.”
“Birdie. You had sex. Nance is not someone who keeps casual. She’s totally in love with you.”
“God.” Robin buried her face in her hands before running them through her hair. “I hope so. I’m really in love with her. She’s so hot. And so kind, and she talks to me like I’m her whole world. If she’s not in my future, Steve, I don’t want it. I want her.”
Steve didn’t reply, kept absentmindedly petting Rusty and staring at the wall.
“Hey, Steve.” Robin snapped her fingers. “Did you OD over there?”
“No.” He chuckled. “I’m just thinking.”
“Thinking about what?”
“Eddie.”
“Trouble in paradise?” Robin sat up straighter, welcoming Rusty when he changed his cuddling spot from Steve’s lap to hers. “Is everything okay?”
“I love him. I really do.” Steve ran one hand through his hair, turning his face toward Robin’s. “But I can’t have the future I always wanted with him.”
“What’s the future you always wanted?”
Steve sighed. “Kids, marriage. Not in that order.”
“Oh.” Robin looked down at Rusty. “Yeah, I guess that’s not really an option.”
“I don’t want to lose him, but how much can I sacrifice for someone I’ve dated for maybe two months? He makes everything better, he cares, and he makes me see things I hadn’t seen before. But I’ve always had this idea of my life, and I still want that. I still want kids, and I want to get married, and I want to raise my kids free from prejudice and hate. It’s like I can’t have both. I can’t have the life I want if I have it with Eddie.”
“Steve.” Robin placed her hand on his shoulder calmingly and briefly leaned her head against it before looking back at him. “This time you’re spiraling. Let’s think about this.”
“Yeah, talk me through it, please.”
“Maybe you can’t get legally married. But you could still live together, and we could have a little ceremony anyways, just us. I mean, that’s way down the road. But if you ever get to that point, we’ll have a little ceremony and celebrate together. It’s not the real thing, but it’s a possibility. And one day it will be legal, and then we can all get married to whoever we want to get married to.”
“What about kids?” Steve asked. “We couldn’t even adopt.”
“I don’t know. I mean, I never really considered having kids because I never assumed it’d be a possibility for me, but if it was, I’d have them. But I’d hate to be pregnant. Maybe kids are not an option for you if you date Eddie, or maybe it’ll be possible eventually. Maybe surrogacy would be more available for you at some point. The future is super uncertain, and I think what matters most is what you have now. The question isn’t whether you can have all this with Eddie, the question is whether you’d be okay with not having it. And that’s a big decision to make.”
“A giant decision.”
“I can’t help you make that decision.” Robin lightly squeezed his shoulder. “Hey, maybe we could open a daycare. It’s not the same, but we’d still be around kids all day.” She laughed a little, coaxing a smile out of him. “You can choose your future, Steve. You can date Eddie and climb over obstacles all your life, or you can go back to only dating women and get the easy future. Back into the privileged life, if that’s your cup of tea. Neither Eddie nor I have that option, and we’ve both been dealing with that all our lives. It’s still open for you, so you can choose either route. But if you love Eddie, and you want him in your future like I want Nancy in mine, you need to consider what’s more important to you.”
“Tell me what to do,” Steve pleaded. “You always know what to do.”
Robin scoffed jokingly. “Dude, you live with me. You know I got no idea what to do, ever.”
“Hm, good point.” He bumped her shoulder and grinned. “Why are we even friends?”
“You love me.” Robin shooed Rusty off her lap and stood up, stretching out her hand. “Come on. We have a shift to get to, and I have a question to ask my soon-to-be-girlfriend.”
Steve took her hand and let himself be pulled up, throwing one last glance in the mirror before following Robin outside, hand in hand. “So, you wanna drive us today?”
“Pfft, please, I’d kill us. You wanna die?” Robin took two steps at once, holding onto the strap of her bag with one hand and Steve’s hand with the other. “I need like a dozen more lessons.”
“I’m free tomorrow,” he suggested. “I’m free today too, but I’d imagine you’re not.”
“Definitely not. Tomorrow’s good.” Robin let go of his hand to hold the door open for him and followed him outside to the car. “Depending on how today goes, I’ll either drive us off a cliff or safely to grab dinner in celebration.”
“I’d prefer dinner.”
“Last outfit check.” Robin turned to Steve before entering the car. “How’s my sweater?”
“Your sweater is adorable, and your boobs look great in it.”
“Perfect. Let’s go.”
El and Max sat in the library after class. They had a few tests coming up, and El was trying to study, although it proved hard to do so with Max sitting across from her.
“I miss seeing,” Max murmured like she hadn’t meant to say it. “Studying already sucks, and it sucks more like this.”
El crossed her arms on the table and leaned closer. “Do you need me to read anything to you?”
Max shook her head. “No, I got it, it’s just taking forever.” She was tracing the pages in her books, a concentrated look on her face. “Who the hell thought biology was a good subject to teach to teenagers?”
“I kind of like it.” El shrugged. “But it is hard.”
“Yeah, you with your straight A’s, how do you do that?” Max resignedly stopped tracing and looked at her. “I mean, you had virtually no education before you left the lab. And you’re still better at it.”
“Joyce and my dad helped me a lot.” El closed her book. “When I was just starting to live, they made sure I could keep up. Can’t your mom help you too?”
“I doubt it. She’s not any good at this stuff either.” Max dropped her head forward, letting it hit her book on the table. “I just wanna be able to see again and learn like a normal person by staring at the pages until my eyes burn.”
El smiled lightly, reaching out to softly caress Max’s scalp with her fingers. “It’s hard,” she said quietly, “I know. I’ll help you in any way that I can. Are you taking the test on paper?”
Max shook her head on the table. “No. I’d fail. I get to take it orally at the same time in a different room. Which sucks, ‘cause I can’t think about my answers for long or skip over tasks.”
“Once it’s over,” El said, “I’ll take you out for ice cream. Just you and me.”
“Ice cream in October?”
“Or waffles. Or crêpe, or dinner. Your choice.”
Max lifted her head and smiled a little. “Okay,” she said. “Yeah. That sounds nice.”
“Maybe we can practice the test together,” El said. “So you can practice giving answers.”
“Sounds hard.” Max sighed and blew a strand of her hair out of her face. “I know, I know, you’re just trying to help. I’m being whiny. Ugh.” She dropped her head forward again, resting it on her arm over her book.
“You’re not being whiny. You’re gonna do great. Just remember the waffles afterwards.”
“Or the ice cream, or crêpes, or dinner…” Max chuckled. “Yeah. We can practice. Maybe Mike can get some of Nancy’s old notes.”
“Sounds like a plan.” El leaned back in her chair and drummed on the table with her fingers. “We can all study together.”
“I miss seeing,” Max said again. “I miss reading with my eyes and I miss looking at you. At all of you, I mean.”
“I read some blind people see with their hands,” El said. “Like, faces and stuff.”
“I’m not gonna start touching your face whenever I miss seeing.” Max propped her head on her fist. “I don’t think I’m ready to face that it’s my only way of seeing,” she added quietly.
“Okay.” El slowly opened her book again. “We should keep studying.”
“I should keep sleeping,” Max said. “Fine. But only for the waffles.”