Chapter Text
Steve was pointedly ignoring Eddie’s complaints from the back seat as Robin coached him on how the interview would go. At least, that’s where the conversation had started, but now she was certifiably rambling about The Apartment, some movie Steve had never seen, but was growing more certain that he’d be sat down to watch it before long. He was really hoping she’d be able to carry the weight of the interview. He was supposed to be fully recovered from his concussion now, but he still felt like he wasn’t back to normal, back to where he should be. Robin and Eddie and Gareth were all super patient with him when he lost his train of thought or trailed off in the middle of a sentence, but he was worried it would keep him from getting the damn job. He really didn’t want to rely on the money from the government.
If it were up to him, he’d never touch it, just to prove a point, but he’d already had to move some of it to his checking account so he could restock the kitchen after he’d realized how empty it was after getting rid of the old apples and expired milk.
“Why does she get to ride shotgun! You’re my boyfriend, I should be up there with you!” Eddie was outright lamenting now. “Stevieeeee!”
Robin smirked and leaned over so she could stare at Eddie through the rearview mirror, head practically on Steve’s shoulder. “I’m his favorite now, Munson!”
“No way! I had him first!” Eddie shoved a hand up into the front to flip Robin off, making Steve snicker.
He reached over to gently pull Eddie’s wrist away from Robin. “Babe, be nice to her. And for the record, neither of you are my favorite.”
“What?”
“Hey!”
Steve laced his fingers with Eddie’s for a moment as he turned onto the street leading towards Family Video. “Gareth is my favorite, I’ve made this very clear to both of you.”
“What happened to platonic soulmates?”
Steve could feel Robin’s sad kitten eyes, so he didn’t look over. “He was my platonic soulmate first, I have two. And he’s my favorite because he’s not currently arguing over who my favorite is.”
“Does that mean I’m your favorite romantic soulmate?” Eddie shoved himself between the front seats, elbows leaning on the center console. “I’m your favorite romantic soulmate, aren’t I, Steve?”
“You are, obviously.” Steve rolled his eyes, fondness simmering in his gut. He wished he could lean over and kiss Eddie, but he was pulling into a parking space, so he settled for gently knocking their heads together. “Okay. Out of my car. Let’s go.”
Robin snatched Steve’s resume as she got out of the car. “You put Wayne as a reference?”
“Yeah, he’s like, a hard worker and super cool. Plus he thinks I’m a good influence on Eddie.”
“You’re not.”
Eddie snickered, straightening Steve’s vest. “You’re a fantastic influence on me, Stevie.”
Steve stuck his tongue out at Robin and reached over the car until she handed him the resume back. “Woah, what’s going in over there?” He gestured across the street with the paper.
He wasn’t sure if he ever remembered a business being in the building across the street, it had always been kind of rundown. But now, there was a small crew of people doing renovations, and sticking out like a sore thumb was a boy who looked to be around their age in brightly colored clothes and long, long hair tied back in a ponytail. He was holding a clipboard and chatting eagerly with a woman in a hard hat. Robin tilted her head, watching. “I think I heard it’s going to be a pizza place. Some chain from the west coast that’s expanding. I’m not sure why they’d pick Hawkins, but it’ll be nice to have some decent pizza out here.”
Eddie’s face scrunched up and he leaned against Steve. “West coast pizza? Yeah, we’ll see.” He dropped a hand down to give Steve’s ass the quickest little squeeze. “Alright, break a leg in your interview! I’ll be right next door.”
“Break a leg? I thought I wasn’t supposed to break any more bones?” Steve smirked at the exasperated eye roll that earned him. “Okay, okay, I’m going!” He hopped up onto the curb and pulled open the door, making a sweeping gesture for Robin to go ahead of him.
He’d been in Family Video before, it was the only place to rent movies in Hawkins, but he’d never thought about the people that worked there. He recognized Keith from school, he’d been in Eddie’s original graduating class. He was pretty sure he’d been in the A/V club. But Keith glowered at him and Steve had the sinking feeling that he’d been a dick to him at some point or another. He got that feeling sometimes when he could feel someone glaring at the back of his head at Bradley’s or Melvald’s, or when he was herding the kids around town. He squared his shoulders and bumped his elbow against Robin’s as they approached the counter.
She wordlessly slid the resumes across the counter to Keith and Steve cringed at the state of his. It was slightly crumbled and had shaky pen scribbling out one of his references. He had to blink a few times as he thought about the name that had been there, Joyce promising a glowing recommendation when he’d asked to put her name down before he’d even applied at Scoops Ahoy. Robin had managed to get a new copy of hers printed, her references being a teacher who had moved out of town when he’d been a junior, the best English teacher he’d ever had, and one of her mom’s friends, a woman named Dorothy who lived in the city. And Robin had eagerly joked about her being a “friend of Dorothy” too. Which, well, it was cute to see Robin laughing over her own jokes.
Steve shifted uncomfortably and pressed his hands against the counter, hoping it would get them to stop fucking shaking. It was constant and embarrassing and he could barely eat anything with a spoon anymore unless he held the bowl directly under his face. But putting his hands on the counter made it feel like his entire arms were shaking instead.
“Why would you want to work here?” Keith’s voice sounded bored and Steve had to sympathize. It was summer, sure, but it was also the middle of the week and the store was dead. He’d be bored too.
Oh god, if he got this job he was going to be bored.
Steve looked over at Robin, silently pleading her to take the lead, and thank god they were developing whatever silent language they had, because she just smiled at Keith. “Well, after working at Scoops Ahoy, I’d say we really developed a, um, a passion for customer service. I’ve also worked several other retail jobs and really think this is where I can shine!” Her smile looked a little more strained when Keith’s eyes moved to Steve.
“Oh. Um, well, Scoops definitely was… a job.” Oh fuck, he was blowing it. “That we no longer have. So we’re uh, seeking employment… here. Instead.” He could see Robin’s expression out of the corner of his eye and he knew it was bad, but he didn’t prepare. He should’ve thought ahead and prepared for questions, gotten some kind of script in his head for this. “Because we’re passionate about movies,” he tacked on.
Keith’s expression gave away very little, concern twisting in Steve’s gut as he was stared down. “And you don’t work there anymore, why?”
“It burned down,” Robin blurted out. “We weren’t like, fired or anything, really. The whole mall burned down and a bunch of people died. That’s why we aren’t there anymore.”
Steve nodded. A little too fast, actually, his head swimming when he stopped and Robin’s hand on his arm was the only thing that kept his knees from giving out. “We wore the company uniform until the mall collapsed in on itself.” That might’ve been a lie, he didn’t know when the paramedics had changed him out of the horrible uniform. “Because we’re dedicated employees.”
Keith sighed and it looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. “Top three movies. Go.”
“Oh! Uh, The Apartment, Children of Paradise, and The Hidden Fortress.” Robin’s answer came easily.
Steve was trying to remember the last movie he’d seen when Keith snapped his fingers at him. “Uh, uh… oh, Animal House, easy. And… Star Wars!”
“A New Hope?”
“A New what?” Steve blinked and could see Robin dropping her head into her hands. “You know, the one with the little teddy bears?” He tried to imitate the little creatures. Okay, he didn’t remember a lot of the details, he’d watched it with Eddie and kind of ended up on his knees partway through it, and after that he’d been so comfy and curled up in Eddie’s arms that the details had slipped. Shit, one more movie. What was the one he’d watched with Robin…? “And- and the one that just came out? What’s it called, uh, the one with the DeLorean and Alex P. Keaton trying to bang his mom?” He cleared his throat. “Those are my top three. Classics.”
Keith stared for a long moment and Steve felt his heart drop. “You,” Keith pointed at Robin, “start Monday.” He pointed to Steve. “You start never.”
Fuck. Steve hadn’t… not expected this outcome, but it still stung. Maybe he could see if Melvald’s had filled Joyce’s position yet, as much as the idea made him queasy. Summer wasn’t quite over, he could probably work at the pool for a month until he found something else, maybe the pizza place would open by then. Robin pushed him aside gently as he reached for his resume. “Why don’t you give us a minute?”
He nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. He was pretty sure the whole Starcourt thing had made him weaker. More sensitive. He ducked behind a shelf and wiped at his eyes with a sigh. Fuck, he just needed a goddamn job. Eddie was adamant that his father was wrong, but not having a job or any college prospects was making him feel like a disappointment. Maybe he should’ve taken his chances and not lied about IOU. He still would’ve been in Hawkins for the summer, and yeah, leaving Eddie and Gareth and the kids would’ve sucked, but right now he felt useless. He sighed and ran a finger through the dust at the edge of one of the shelves.
Damn it, he should’ve mentioned how good he was at cleaning. He maintained his house, he could totally keep the shelves clean. He looked down at the floor, making a face at a stain next to his sneaker. He could probably clean up the carpets too.
He peeked past a cutout of Phoebe Cates, an advertisement for Fast Times at Ridgemont High, to look at Robin as she spoke to Keith. And when he tried to turn away, his foot snagged on the bottom of the shelf.
He let out a sharp sound as he pitched forward against the cutout. He held his resume in his mouth and managed to swoop forward to catch the cutout before it fell with a sharp swear. Keith and Robin were staring at him and he felt his cheeks flush. “I forgot about Fast Times!” He awkwardly held up the cardboard Phoebe. “Total top three, great movie!”
He cleared his throat awkwardly as Robin grinned at him. He flashed her a thumbs up and she snorted and ducked her head. That had to be a good sign. She waved him over and he did his best to step around the cardboard cutout this time, managing to avoid knocking her over again. “Hi.”
Keith let out a long sigh and pointed at Steve. “You start Monday. On thin ice. Robin is going to be keeping a very close eye on you.”
Steve nodded seriously. “Understood.” He went to lift a hand to salute, but that seemed dorky and would probably look sarcastic. He paused with his arm halfway up, but Robin just pushed his arm down. “What time?”
“You’ll be working opening shifts, 9:30 to 2. We can discuss her hours when school starts at the end of the month. You’ll likely move to closing, got it?”
Steve nodded quickly, feeling like he didn’t quite get it. He wanted to, he really did, his head just felt like it wasn’t keeping up. Robin reached out and loosely wrapped her hand around his wrist, splinted finger pressing into his skin. She definitely got it.
She calmly led him out of the store and waited for the door to close behind them before letting out a little shriek. “We did it! We got the job!”
“We got the job!” Steve held up an arm and laughed as she threw herself against him. “Thank you. I have no idea what you said, but you did it!”
“You don’t need to worry about what I said. You just need to worry about getting your official cinema education.” She patted his cheek. “And I’m taking charge! You’re coming over tonight and we’re watching Citizen Kane.”
“I have no idea what that’s about. Sounds like a plan.” Steve nodded seriously and Robin giggled.
“Okay, okay, come on, we have to see if your boy got his job!” She tugged his arm and pulled him towards the arcade.
Steve wasn’t like, intimately familiar with the arcade. Most of the games gave him headaches, but he liked skeeball well enough and he and Lucas fought for the high score on the basketball game tucked in the back. It was just so damn loud in the arcade though.
Eddie was laughing with a woman behind the prize counter, which definitely seemed like a good sign. When he saw them, he beamed and waved at them. Locks of hair had fallen out of his bun and were framing his face in a way that made Steve want to kiss him. To be fair, most things he did were done in a way that made Steve want to kiss him. “Steve, Bobin!”
Robin rolled his eyes. “He’s gonna have to pick a nickname and let it stick.”
“He’s not gonna do that, you know that.” Steve laughed and headed over to the prize counter. “Hey Eddie.”
Eddie drummed his hands against the counter, rings clacking against the glass unpleasantly. “Guess who’s the newest employee of Palace Arcade!”
Robin squealed. “Eddie! Congrats! Guess who convinced Keith to hire two people for one job listing!”
Eddie held up his hands to high five her, his fingers wrapping over hers. God, his hands were big. Steve tugged his gaze away from Eddie’s hands to grin. “Guess we’ll have to carpool more often.”
Eddie nodded and scooted around the counter, clearly jamming his hip into the corner of it. “Ow!” He grimaced and shuffled to squeeze between Steve and Robin. “Thanks Patricia! See you Monday!” He ushered them out of the arcade and grinned. “Look at that, legally employed twice in one year. You’re not even gonna recognize me anymore.”
Steve tilted his head against Eddie’s shoulder. “I’d always recognize you.” He giggled as Robin pretended to gag. “Shut up, don’t be homophobic.”
“I’m very homophobic. Until I get a girlfriend, I’m going to be homophobic.” She stood on her toes to kiss Eddie’s cheek, making him fake gag too.
“You’re the worst, both of you.” Steve twirled his keys around his finger, fumbled them, and had to bend down to pick them up. “The worst!”
“Yeah, we’re-” Eddie cut himself off. “Is he… waving to us?”
Steve stood back up and looked across the street. Sure enough, the boy he’d seen earlier with the clipboard was waving eagerly at them. Steve raised an eyebrow, but shrugged and waved back. “He’s gotta be new in town. Maybe we’ll run into him.”
Robin shrugged and climbed in the car with a little yell of “Shotgun!” She slumped down in the seat and looked up at the sky. “Probably. It’s not like there’s anywhere to hide in Hawkins!”
“This old bastard of a town.” Eddie got in the back and hooked his chin over the back of Steve’s seat. “So. Where to next, Steve?”
He smiled and started the car. “To the future, I guess.”
“Boo,” Robin jeered from the passenger seat.
Eddie giggled. “She’s right baby, you’re not quite a modern day philosopher.”
He rolled his eyes with a sigh as he backed out of the parking spot. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll stop trying to be introspective.” Steve pretended to be annoyed but in all actuality, well.
He was really fucking happy.