Chapter Text
Eddie looks down at the small child holding his hand and wonders when his life went completely sideways. On the bright side, this is a temporary thing – he’s not looking to become a father-figure to anyone – but on the downside, he’s been thrust into responsibility he is absolutely unqualified for. Still, it’s a favor for Chrissy, and this is her big break to help get her out from under her mother’s thumb. And Eddie will do anything for Chrissy, even manage her rambunctious five-year-old while going through training at the fancy company job she just got.
“Are you ready?” Eddie asks.
The little girl looks up at him with her big, brown eyes that see way too much. “Are you ready, Uncle Eds?”
Ouch. Eddie wasn’t looking to be called out by a five-year-old.
“This is your school,” Eddie reminds her.
“So, why are you here?”
Damn this unfairly brilliant child.
“Because someone has to drive your stinky butt around.”
“My butt is not stinky!” El yells at him.
“Are you sure?” Eddie asks, leading her to the front doors.
“My butt is not stinky!” She insists.
Eddie shrugs. “All right. Let’s go in, Miss Not-Stinky-Butt.”
El stomps her little feet, making her shoes light up, but follows Eddie into the building. It’s only the first day, so they won’t be here very long – maybe half an hour to acclimatize El to the new room and for Eddie to meet the teacher – but Eddie’s still nervous as he walks down the hallways to get to El’s assigned room.
Eddie leads El into the classroom and trips over his damn feet. Standing across the room, chatting with a parent, is the most gorgeous man he’s ever laid eyes on. Brown, fluffy hair that is glossy and gleaming under the lights. His brown eyes are big, almost doelike, and they crinkle as he smiles. That smile lights up the whole room, stealing all the air from Eddie’s lungs. He’s built strong, like a man who works out regularly, wearing a simple polo and jeans.
Eddie stands frozen in place, watching as a tiny hand reaches up for the man to get his attention. One tug and the man looks down. He crouches to speak to the little boy demanding his attention. Even from across the room, Eddie can hear the high, squeaky voice, but he doesn’t pay attention to the child, not when he’s got the most gorgeous man available smiling and chatting and engaging with this small child.
God, he’s too hot to exist.
“Come on!” El drags Eddie further into the room. Eddie stumbles along behind her, startled by the strength in such a tiny child’s frame.
The room is clean and tidy, with sections split up for things like reading, blocks, and a play-pretend corner, and a cozy corner for calming down. The walls are decorated with the alphabet and numbers with lots of empty wallspace for whatever projects the children do. The middle of the room has a series of tables with chairs, and nametags stuck to the table, presumably for the kids when they do actual work. And there’s a big electronic board in front of a plush alphabet carpet that is currently playing some gentle music. The big, fluorescent lights have been covered with thin cloths, all printed with images of the sky on it. The cloths soften the lights and also make the ceiling more interesting to look at.
Eddie thinks he should do something like that for his apartment. He has just enough time to admire the decor before El tugs on him again.
El takes Eddie over to the bookshelves first, wanting to pick up every single book to determine if it passes her muster of being a valuable addition to her learning environment. Eddie kneels down and chats with her, offering to read them, but El doesn’t want to read the books, she just wants to inspect them.
And then they go to the quiet corner, full of pillows and bean bag chairs, and El drags Eddie to the ground, burying him in the stuffed animals and blankets. Eddie hesitates for a long moment and then bursts out of the fluffy objects with a mock-roar, making El scream with delight. He has to be a monster five more times before El is distracted by another student. A little boy walks over to her and introduces himself, sweet as can be.
It’s about ten seconds and then little Mike is pulling El along to meet his other friends.
Eddie watches El go with a grin. They have only been in the room fifteen minutes and she’s already forgotten he exists. He’ll still be present during the first few weeks, bringing her into the class and spending some time in the room to make her feel more comfortable. Hopefully, in a month, she’ll be perfectly happy abandoning him at the door to go play with her friends.
“Done playing already?”
Eddie jumps and looks up at the god given human form. The man holds a hand out, silently offering to help Eddie to his feet. Eddie takes the hand and immediately regrets it, because his skin is hot, his hands soft, and electricity zings between them, little sizzles of heat burning Eddie from the inside out. Eddie shoves his hands into his pockets to hide the way they tremble in excitement. This is his first time meeting El’s teacher and the last thing he wants to do is make it weird.
“Well, I’ve been abandoned." Eddie nods at El, chattering excitedly with four little boys.
“El, I presume?” The man asks, also looking at the group.
“Yep!” Eddie realizes he hasn’t introduced himself. He wipes his hand on his jeans, just in case he’s sweaty, and offers his hand to the man. “I’m Eddie. I follow that one around.”
“Steve Harrington,” the man shakes Eddie’s hand with a firm grip and a bright smile.
“Harrington. That’s gotta be tough for kids,” Eddie comments.
The man shrugs. “Not as hard as you’d think. All those sounds are easy. The ‘st’ in ‘Steve’ is way harder.”
“Mr. Steve!” One of the boys with El stumbles over his feet as he runs up to Steve. He’s got big, curly hair, and a large gap where he’s missing his front two teeth, his lisp impeding him not at all. “We wanna play dragons, but Mike wants to be the red dragon, but Lucas wants to be the red dragon, and then Will said we can’t all be red dragons, but then Mike said we need a princess to capture, and El said she didn’t want to be a princess, and then Max said a bad word, and—”
Steve holds a hand up to stop the rambling. “I am the princess, and it’s going to take the might of all the dragons to capture me. Also, there’s a red dragon on the wall over the book nook. So, you all have to pick different colors. How many different colors can you name?”
Suddenly, the man is surrounded by the four little boys and El and another little girl with red braids hanging down her back, all clamoring to shout every color they know at him. Steve just laughs. He shoots Eddie a wink. Eddie’s heart stops in his chest. This man is too gorgeous for words.
“Everyone, go find a pillow with your dragon color!”
The kids sprint off, tripping over themselves and each other to get to the quiet corner.
“Well, you have this well in hand,” Eddie says, more than a little impressed. “I only have to deal with the one and I’m exhausted after five minutes.”
Steve shrugs. “It’s just practice. I’ve been doing this a few years and you get used to finding ways to distract them so you can breathe. If all else fails, I play the Quiet Game.”
Eddie tilts his head. “What’s the Quiet Game?”
Steve grins. “I lay on the floor with my eyes shut and tell them that I’m a sleeping giant. They have to line up all the chairs across the room without waking the sleeping giant.”
“Did you just weaponize nap time?” Eddie asks, completely in love with this stranger already.
Steve winks at him. “Works like a charm.” He nods at the far corner, where the other adults are chatting and watching as they’re blatantly ignored by their children. “The parents are over there. Stay as long as you and El want.”
“As you wish, princess.” Eddie can’t help but flirt, shooting Steve a wink before retreating to the corner. Steve’s ears go pink, but that’s probably because he forgot that he proclaimed himself a princess already. It’s better for Eddie’s sanity this way, because Steve can’t scramble his brain from over here, right?
Wrong, because Eddie spends the next half-hour lusting over El’s kindergarten teacher like an absolute whore. Steve is beautiful and funny and charming and the kids already adore him. Well, except for Mike, who has decided that Steve is awful because El obviously likes him, and Mike is desperate to keep her attention.
It’s so fucking cute that Eddie has to bite back laughter.
El sprints up to him, grin bright on her face. “I made a castle!”
The dragons have indeed built their own castle, though it’s not really big enough for Princess Steve to fit inside, so they shove his top half in the castle and all “stand guard” around his feet.
“Max! It’s time to go!” One of the mom’s calls. The red-headed girl swears, making the mom turn bright red, and stomps away from the horde of dragons.
“Bye, Green Dragon Max!” Steve calls from his position inside the castle.
“Bye, Mr. Steve!” Max obligingly follows her mother out of the room.
After that, a little boy runs over to his mother, asking to go home because he’s tired. His mom picks him up and carries him from the room, after Steve calls a goodbye to “Purple Dragon Will”. And then “Blue Dragon Lucas” goes home, followed by “‘Yellow Dragon Mike” with the world’s biggest pout. “Pink Dragon Dustin” is livid when his mother insists on them leaving, going on the world’s most adorable rant about how unfair it is that he doesn't get to stay and play.
And then “Orange Dragon El” runs up to Eddie, smile bright on her face.
“How’s my girl?” Eddie asks. “Having fun?”
“Yes! I made a friend!”
“You did?” Eddie gasps. “Who’s your friend?”
“Mike and Max and Will and Dustin and Lucas!” El trips over the names a couple times, but she beams with pride when she finishes.
“That sounds like more than one friend,” Eddie says, thoughtfully. “How many is that?”
El says the names again, counting on her fingers. She holds her hand up. “Five!”
“You made five friends?!” Eddie puts his hands on his chest. “You’re so good at making friends! How did you do that? I want to learn how to make friends!”
“It’s easy!” El proclaims. “Just be nice and say ‘hi’!”
“That easy, huh?”
“Try it!” El insists. She points at Steve, finally detangled from the pile of toys and blocks that made up the “castle.” “He’s old, too! You can be friends!”
Ouch.
Eddie knows better than to risk not humoring the child. He waves at Steve. “Hi!”
Steve fights back a laugh. “Hi!”
Eddie looks down at El. “That’s it? We’re friends now?”
El hums thoughtfully. “No, you have to say something nice first!”
“You are the most gorgeous man I’ve ever laid eyes on,” Eddie blurts out, like a complete moron.
Steve turns bright red and Eddie just knows he ruined everything.
“What’s that mean?” El asks, more irritated than anything else.
“‘Gorgeous’ means ‘really, really pretty’,” Eddie explains.
El looks up at Eddie with the tiniest furrowed brow. “Mr. Steve isn’t pretty.”
Eddie hears Steve choke, but he is preoccupied with the small child. “‘Pretty’ is an opinion. That means that you might think differently from someone else. So you don’t think Mr. Steve is pretty, but I do.”
“But who’s right?” El demands, stomping her foot.
“No one.” Eddie shrugs. “For opinions, no one is right. It’s just different.”
El frowns, taking that in. “Okay. But your opinion is weird.”
Steve chokes on laughter, turning away to avoid being seen by the child.
Eddie kneels down with a grin. “That is true,” he admits, “but just because you disagree with someone, you should still be nice.”
El sighs, rolling her eyes in an expression that perfectly matches her mother’s. “Fine. But you’re still weird.”
Eddie shrugs. “Yep. Am I friends with Mr. Steve now?”
“No!” El turns to the teacher, who is still red and trying to swallow his laughter down. “He said you’re really, really pretty! Say something nice back!”
Steve turns to look at Eddie, that brilliant smile making his eyes crinkle in the most adorable way. “You are really funny and charming,” Steve says.
Eddie’s heart stops in his chest, the compliment digging under his skin. Eddie wants to throw himself at this man, wants to kiss those gorgeous lips, wants to sink his hands into that fucking perfect hair to find out what delicious noises he can pull from the teacher’s throat…
“Now, you’re friends!” El declares.
Steve looks down at El, breaking their eye contact, and Eddie is finally able to breathe. God, Eddie is getting aroused by his best friend’s daughter’s kindergarten teacher. Okay, that’s too complicated to think every time. El is basically his niece in all the ways that matter and for the next couple of weeks, while Chrissy is training with her new company, Eddie is El’s guardian.
It’s a good thing he works for Uncle Wayne and is able to take off these few weeks easily.
“Well, it was nice to meet you, Orange Dragon El,” Steve tells her. “Thank you for helping me make a new friend.”
El nods firmly and turns to Eddie. Eddie sighs and gives her a look. “What do you say when someone thanks you for something?”
El glances over her shoulder at Steve. “You’re welcome!” She turns back to Eddie. “I wanna go home now.”
Steve fights back laughter as El tugs on Eddie’s hand. “Say ‘goodbye’.”
“Bye!” El doesn’t even glance back this time.
An argument for another time.
Eddie smiles at Steve. “Bye, princess. I’ll bring the Orange Dragon back tomorrow.”
“Bye, dimples.”
Eddie trips over the threshold again. God, Steve is too perfect to exist. And he gave Eddie a pet name?! They don’t even know each other, and yet Eddie is already in love. Eddie is in love and in lust with his niece’s teacher. He really is morally bankrupt. He should avoid Steve at all costs to stop being weird.
Except he has to bring El back tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. For the next two weeks Eddie not only has to bring El, but he also has to literally stay in the room longer and longer until El is more comfortable in the space. Today was a great start, but when they stay longer, El will start losing patience and the other kids are going to feel less enthusiastic about the new toys and new person telling them what to do. Eddie’s pretty sure that tomorrow will be tougher.
Shit. He’s not getting away from Steve any time soon.
“Can we get ice cream on the way home?” El asks him as he buckles her into the carseat. He’s using Chrissy’s car temporarily, because his van doesn’t have a backseat for a carseat, and it’s still weird having to bend down so much to get in.
“Why do you think we need ice cream?” Eddie asks.
El thinks hard for a long moment. “We both made friends today.”
Fair enough. Eddie nods solemnly. “You’re right. We do need ice cream.”
And Eddie will talk himself out of flirting with the gorgeous kindergarten teacher. Hopefully. Maybe.
Steve groans and bangs his head on the table. He’s a complete and total idiot.
“Still thirsting after your student’s father?” Robin teases, completely unbothered by Steve’s distress, like the traitor she is.
Steve lifts his head to glower at her. “This isn’t funny, Rob.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Is not.”
“Is, too.”
Steve growls in frustration and drops his head back on the table. “God, why is he so hot?!”
They’re sitting in Robin’s classroom. The day hasn’t quite started yet, but any minute, the receptionist will unlock the front doors and they will be swarmed with kids. Robin has fourth graders, so she doesn’t have as much parent involvement as Steve does. Steve gets to experience the parents for a good month before it’s just him and the kids.
It’s been two weeks and he is still fucking obsessed with Eddie Munson.
He should really not be crushing on the father of one of his students but he can’t fucking help it. Especially since he’s been spending so much time with the man every day. So he knows exactly how good of a person he is, exactly what his sense of humor is, exactly how adorable his dimples are, exactly how thoroughly Eddie would pin Steve down and ruin him…
“Because you’re a whore for a strong man, and he’s both a strong man and also sweet and caring and doting on his daughter, so you know he’s a sweetheart underneath the gruff exterior.”
Steve lifts his head, blinking in shock at his best friend.
Robin shrugs. “I may not play for the same team, but I can see the allure.”
Steve sighs heavily. “It’s so inappropriate. I’m teaching his daughter. If anyone found out…”
“Oh my god, it’s not that serious.” Robin rolls her eyes. “Even if you ask him out on a date, which we both know you won’t because you’re a coward, it’s not against any code of ethics or anything. You’re totally in the clear.”
Steve shakes his head. “Someone somewhere will be pissed about it. Besides, let’s not forget the actual point: he’s got a daughter. Meaning he’s probably got a wife. Not interested.”
Robin raises her eyebrows at him. “You don’t know that.”
Steve opens his mouth to argue and she holds a finger up to silence him.
“You, of all people, should know about bisexuality. And also, where is the mother? Is he wearing a ring? Has she made an appearance? He could be a single dad. Or a widower. You don’t know.”
“I’ve heard him say to El ‘let’s go find mommy’. Multiple times,” Steve points out.
Robin shrugs. “So not a widower. Unless they’re going to a grave or something. Still doesn’t prove that they’re married. You could ask him. But you won’t.”
“I am not flirting with my student’s dad!”
“No, ‘cause you’re a coward.”
Steve flips off Robin, scowling.
“Be nice to my girlfriend.”
Both teachers look up to see Nancy walking into the classroom. Robin lights up and Steve grumbles.
“She deserves it.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t.” Nancy steals a kiss from Robin, and hands over her lunch. “You forgot this at home.”
“Thank you!”
“Let me guess: you’re talking about your unholy crush on your student’s father.” Nancy asks, voice dry.
Steve flips her off, dropping his head onto the table with a loud groan.
“You should flirt with him.”
Steve’s head jerks up in shock.
Nancy shrugs. “Seriously. The guy has been flirting with you for two weeks, and it’s not like you’re using his kid to get closer to him.”
“That’s just who Eddie is,” Steve mutters. “He flirts with everyone.”
“Not me,” Robin reminds him, unhelpfully.
“Yeah, because you’re not interested at all.”
Robin rolls her eyes, reaches across the table and smacks Steve across the back of his head.
“Ow!”
“Shut up, dingus. You’re just mad that you don’t have a good excuse to not flirt.”
Steve rolls his eyes. “Maybe the fact that the guy is the parent of one of my kids has eluded you. That is a perfectly acceptable reason to not flirt.”
“Coward,” Nancy tells him.
“I hate you both. You’re utterly useless.”
“That’s my cue.” Nancy steals another kiss. “See you later, honey.”
“Bye, sweetie.” Robin watches her girlfriend leave, hearts in her eyes in the most gag-worthy display. Steve might be mooning over Eddie, but at least he doesn't look like that.
Robin turns back to Steve. “How about this: just flirt with him once. If he’s not into it, he’ll shut you down. And he seems like a good guy, so it’s not like he’s going to do something insane.”
Steve really, really does not want to entertain Robin. Flirting with Eddie is going to be disastrous. Either Eddie will shut him down and then Steve has to be mortified for the rest of his life, or Eddie will flirt back and then Steve has to deal with the fact that he’s flirting with his student’s dad. He’s still not sure he believes Robin about him being ethically in the clear.
“Rob…”
Robin points a finger in Steve’s face. “Nope. I’m tired of you being single and alone. Flirt with the guy. Just once. And if he shoots you down, you can lord it over me for the rest of time. Deal?”
Steve sighs, but obliges Robin’s proffered fist with a bump. “Deal.”
At least if he tries, then Robin will shut up about it.
His composure lasts until Eddie walks into Steve’s classroom, right on the heels of his daughter. Steve loves the girl already. El is adorable and blunt – even more so than other five-year-olds – and she doesn’t let the boys push her around, which could easily have happened, especially since the four boys she spends the most time with have been friends since they were in diapers. Those four are strong personalities and could easily have run her over, but El’s held her own.
As has Max, but she’s a stronger personality than any of the boys. El also hasn’t let her one female friend push her around. She has great self-advocacy skills already.
El zooms into the room, smiling brightly and sprinting over to Max. The two girls start babbling instantly. Steve chuckles at their excitement and glances over at the parents. Max and El have settled into the classroom really nicely, and probably don’t need all that much more support from their parents. Both of them have been able to last the entire school day with their parents being around for only half that. Steve thinks in another week they’ll both graduate to full-time schooling without their parents.
Eddie stands beside Max’s mother, Susan, grinning at the way the two girls have immediately become best friends. Susan seems pleased as well. Steve walks over to them, steeling himself for the brilliant smile about to be turned his way.
Sure enough, Eddie looks up, and Steve almost trips over his feet. The man has dimples for crying out loud! He’s sweet and adoring to his daughter! He’s absolutely hilarious! How is Steve supposed to not just fall in love with the guy?
“Hey, princess.”
And he still has not forgotten the way Steve declared himself a princess to keep the five-year-olds from having a full-on revolt. The fact that Steve likes the pet name far more than he should ever admit, especially in front of children, is entirely beside the point. Jesus, Steve needs to keep himself in check. Just because Eddie is walking sex, that doesn’t mean he can just be a horny disaster at work.
“Hey, dimples.”
God damn it.
Steve doesn’t know why the endearment slipped out of his mouth that first day – okay, that’s a lie, it’s because he’s utterly helpless to Eddie’s sweet charm – but it has also slipped out every single day since, making Steve a total creep, because he’s giving endearments to his student’s father!
Susan says nothing about it, which might be the worst part.
“Did you have a good weekend?” She asks, instead.
“Yes. Very relaxing,” Steve replies. “Sat at home and read books and did nothing.”
Eddie sighs. “I wish. That child is so full of energy that it hurts.”
“Mr. Steve!” El runs headlong into Steve’s leg, nearly knocking him over. She hugs his leg, looking up at him with her big smile. “I told the boys not to, but now they’re making a book ramp!”
Steve looks over at the four boys and fights back the urge to roll his eyes. These four idiots have the most intense creativity, and that leads them to so many things that they’re definitely not supposed to do.
“Are books for building or reading?” Steve calls, watching the four spines straighten immediately. “Mike, Lucas, Will, Dustin. You can’t read more than one book at a time.”
Steve can hear the grumbling as they obediently start returning the books from the construction of the ramp back to the bookshelf. El bursts into movement to run across the room.
“El! Walking feet!”
The girl slows to a quick walk, rushing to get back to Max as they harass the boys.
“How was your weekend?” Steve asks Susan.
Susan chuckles, waving his words off. “Wrangling Max and Billy. I think they’ve finally stopped hating each other on principle. Billy let Max sit next to him on the couch yesterday.”
“That’s amazing.” Steve knows the blended family hasn’t had the easiest time, and he can tell at a glance that Max is very protective of herself, but her friendship with El has really helped open her up. He’s glad that things seem to be settling at least a little at home.
Susan’s phone starts ringing before she can say anything more, and she sighs. “Hold on, I’ll be right back.”
She steps out of the room to take the call, leaving Steve alone with Eddie. It’s both the best and worst thing he can imagine.
“Well, El is doing really well transitioning to school,” Steve tells Eddie, looking across the room to keep at least one eye on his charges. “I think by this time next week, she’ll be able to handle school by herself.”
“Aw, she’s growing up.” Eddie pretends to wipe a tear from his eye before grinning again. “I’m glad she’s got the world’s best teacher to look out for her while I’m not around.”
“She’s a sweetheart,” Steve agrees, trying not to blush at the compliment. He’s been complimented before and it hasn’t thrown him off like words from Eddie do.
“She’s not the only one.”
Now, Steve blushes, laid low by a gorgeous man flirting with him. Every other day, Steve would brush off the words, pretend like the flirting is just a compliment. But, he promised Robin. And if he flirts, then Eddie can shut him down, and then he can go back to pining and being miserable.
“No, she really isn’t.” Steve shoots Eddie a wink, just to make it abundantly clear that he is, in fact, flirting. Eddie’s face goes slack with shock. After a moment, the words hit him and a delightful pink tinge burns across his cheeks. God, he’s so unbearably cute.
“Mr. Steve!” Dustin trips over his feet, trying to get to Steve. A ramble emerges from the child’s mouth, half incoherent with his excitement. Steve bends down to try to make sense of the words coming out of Dustin, and is only able to parse one out of every three words. His necklace falls out of his shirt, dangling in front of Dustin’s face. The boy is briefly distracted by the glitter of the ring on the chain, so Steve tucks the necklace back away to get him to focus.
“Dustin, take a deep breath,” Steve orders. The boy sucks in air. “All right, now slow down. I can’t understand you when you talk so fast.”
“Lucas took my book!”
All the rambling for that. Steve fights back the urge to laugh or shake his head. He doesn’t want Dustin to think Steve isn’t taking his outrage seriously.
“Did you ask him for it back?” Steve asks.
“Yes! But he’s not listening! And then he said that it was his turn, but I wasn’t done!”
That’s fair enough. Steve would get pissed if someone took something from him without asking, too.
“I understand. Let’s go talk to Lucas.”
It takes ten minutes to get through the five-year-old drama, in which Lucas had asked for the book, and Dustin ignored him, so when Lucas asked a second time, and Dustin continued to ignore him, Lucas took the book. Steve had to manage the situation and get them both to realize that neither one of them handled the situation appropriately and they needed to learn to share and listen to each other.
Steve checks on the other kids in the room, having to tuck his necklace away a few more times. He should get a longer chain so he doesn’t have to keep fussing with the necklace. Or maybe wear a higher collar, because this is just annoying. Then, he goes to the parents to let them know he was about to start storytime. While the parents are still in the room, the children like to drag their parents to the carpet for storytime, and Steve knows it can take the adults a little longer to get onto the floor than their kids.
When he looks at Eddie, the man is avoiding his gaze. Steve wonders why. Was it the flirting? He knew the flirting was a bad idea. He’s never going to trust Robin ever again.
“Storytime,” Steve warns Eddie.
Eddie smiles and nods, moving to the carpet to plop down.
Damn it. Steve just ruined everything.
Steve goes to each child, letting them know that they’ll be starting storytime soon, so they should finish up playing and clean up. And the whole time, his stomach twists into knots, his heart stumbling in his chest, and regretting ever listening to his best friend. Eddie never skips an opportunity to talk to Steve, to flirt with him. And he isn’t even looking at Steve anymore.
Steve should apologize. He should find a quiet moment to pull Eddie aside and apologize, because he definitely crossed the line. After storytime, maybe. Or when Eddie leaves to let El have some time alone in school. Or maybe when Eddie comes to pick her up.
Steve doesn’t get the chance.
When storytime is done, Joyce tries to leave to give Will some alone time, and he has a complete meltdown about it, which happens to all Steve’s students at some point. There comes a day where they just can’t handle not having their parent around, and tears ensue. So, the other boys try to calm Will down, and then Joyce scoops him up to calm him down, and then Mike blames Max for making Will cry, and both Karen and Susan have to get their children to keep things from coming to blows. Steve is managing the whole situation, but the parents always like to get involved, especially because they’re actually present. By the time everything calms down, Steve looks over to see Eddie bidding El goodbye and then he’s gone.
Shit. Steve will have to apologize at pickup. Easy enough.
Except everyone shows up to pick up their children at the same time, so Steve doesn’t get an opportunity to talk to him at all. Steve barely has enough time to hand over El’s backpack and smile at Eddie before he’s got a massive juice spill – how Dustin got his hands on the juice, Steve has no idea – and has to go run to save all the five-year-olds from slipping and falling, or worse, starting a juice fight.
“Sorry, dimples,” Steve throws out, hurrying away.
It’s only when he’s passed off his last student, leaving with a brilliant smile and a hug, that Steve realizes that he fucked up, calling Eddie by that stupid pet name that his stupid brain stupidly came up with.
Cursing under his breath, he trudges over to Robin’s room. She’s sagged in her chair, head flopped back as she breathes slowly. One hand is fiddling with the ring on her necklace, an idle motion that she picked up ever since she started wearing it. Steve drops onto the floor beside her desk, groaning as his spine decompresses. Robin grunts in response.
“I fucked everything up,” Steve announces, also reaching to fiddle with his ring.
“You didn’t,” Robin replies.
“I did. I flirted.”
“You did not.”
Steve turns his head. Robin is still just staring at the ceiling, draped over her chair in her post-school-day exhaustion. “I did.”
Robin turns her head, brows raised in disbelief. “You didn’t. You probably said one flirty thing and then gave up when he didn’t immediately respond.”
“First of all, ow. Second of all, he stopped talking to me.”
Robin blinks, startled. “What?”
“I said the one flirty thing – fuck you, by the way – and then he stopped talking to me. He barely even smiled at me after that. So, yeah, I fucked everything up.”
Robin sits up, brows furrowed in utter confusion. “That doesn’t sound right. What exactly happened?”
Steve recounts as best he can remember, “I flirted, but then got interrupted by one of my kiddos, and then when I was able to get back to Eddie, he was avoiding my gaze and not talking. I tried to find a good time to apologize, but shit got crazy at pickup, so I wasn’t able to.”
Robin chews on that for a long time. “That doesn’t sound right,” she repeats.
Steve shrugs. “That’s what happened!”
“I believe you,” Robin tells him, settling back in her chair, “but maybe something else happened that you don’t know about. Did he get a text or something? Maybe something bad happened at work or something.”
“You don’t have to try to give me hope,” Steve tells her.
“It’s not hope. I genuinely think that something else happened. Why would he avoid you after flirting with you for weeks?”
Steve shrugs, grumbling under his breath.
“Anyway, I think one attempt does not mean that you fucked everything up. Try again.”
“No.”
Steve flinches when a pen hits him in the head. “Ow!” He glares at his best friend.
“Actually ask the man on a date, instead of making some tiny little flirty comment, and then I’ll support your notion that you fucked everything up.”
Steve sticks his tongue out at her.
Robin ignores him. “Try one more time. Ask him out. Seriously ask him out. And then see what his response is.”
Steve really does not want to fuck things up anymore than he already has, but Robin does have a point. And maybe it was just coincidence that Eddie stopped talking to him.
Steve fiddles with his ring. “Fine. But I’m blaming you if it all blows up in my face.”
“Deal.”