hey_dingus | Move on up, toward your destination [Steve, January 10, 2020]

They've known it was coming. Robin's made it clear that on her eighteenth birthday, she'll be out. It doesn't matter that the staff had insisted it was perfectly okay for someone over the age of majority to stay until the end of the school year. It definitely doesn't matter the way some of the less subtle staff members had implied that a woman of freshly eighteen moving in with a man of the same age was the type of endeavor that might land her pregnant in the gutter (the joke was on them, twice over). Robin wanted out. She wanted her own bedroom, her best friend, and even her evil little hamster.

There's not really a big moment of anything. Robin doesn't have much stuff at the Home and the majority of it has already been left at the apartment already. All that's left, on this fine Friday morning, is the duffle bag of clothes she needs to sling over her shoulder. Her phone and wallet grabbed and she's out the door, never to sleep at the Children's Home again.

The only pit stop she makes is near a bakery, grabbing two huge double-chocolate muffins and a pack of birthday candles.

She takes the first bus she catches and lets herself in to Chelsea Cloisters, cheerfully riding up to the fifth floor. "Steeeeve!" Robin calls through the door. Then she knocks smartly with her knuckles. "Steeeve! Guess what day it is!"

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"Come on, even you have to admit it," Robin says. It's a little easier to talk about as a concept. Pinup fashion, Robin has noticed, is definitely a thing these days. People genuinely think of them as sexy and classy and even her straight classmates have Bettie Page on their purses and mirror compacts.

"Coffee sounds amazing right now. You got a lighter? I want to put a candle on my muffin." Just because.

"I am not debating the hotness of pin up girls," Steve replies as he fiddles with the coffee maker. "Of course it's hot. Girls are hot."

She asks for a lighter and he looks at her for a moment before pulling a small pink box out of the cupboard and setting it in front of her. Inside is a cupcake with white frosting and colored sprinkles, with one candle sticking out of it. "This was supposed to be for after dinner."

"That we can agree on." It feels good, joking about it, even if it's just with one person.

She's about to start razzing on Steve when he gives her a funny look but then he turns around and puts down a birthday cupcake and it's the goofiest little thing. Initial defensive instinct tells Robin to tease him but it's quickly overwhelmed by the fact that she's really, truly touched by this.

Steve Harrington set up her bedroom and got her a plant. Steve Harrington got a cupcake in a pink box for her birthday. Robin's smile is nervous because it's not used to sincerity. "We are so cheesy," she finally says, but she thinks Steve will get it. "I'm still putting a candle in the muffin. Then I can blow out my candles twice. And that, Steve, is luxury as far as I'm concerned."

Steve prepares himself for her to crack a joke, but he isn't all that surprised when she doesn't. Neither of them ever really had anyone that truly saw them, all of them, including all the hidden away and shitty parts of themselves. Until now.

"What are birthdays for, if not luxury?" Steve smiles and sweeps the cupcake off of the counter to return it to the cupboard for later, and then pats his pockets, only to remember that he's in his sweats.

After quickly bounding to the living room, he retrieves his lighter and goes over to present it to Robin with a dramatic flourish. "Put the candle in there, so I can sing."

When she doesn't tease, Robin sort of expects Steve to tease back. It's still weird, knowing just how much she doesn't have to pretend with him. Weird, but good. Still, she doesn't expect to get through today without at least taking some shit–it's not a birthday if she doesn't.

Steve better not sing like a muppet.

"You look a little too excited about that," she says, flicking open the lighter against her candle.

She knows what he's going to do. Of course she knows, but she lights the candle anyway. Steve stands in front of her and starts to sing the birthday song in a completely normal way, up until the third line.

"Happy birthday dear Robin," he shouts out in his best and loudest muppet voice, reaching out to grab her face in both hands. "Happy birthday to yooou."

And then he leans in and gives her smacking kiss on the forehead before letting her go. "Now make your wish, dingus."

He starts to sing and there's a second, a very split second, where Robin thinks this might not be going where she fears it is. And then it does. Steve smushes her face all while doing his very best impression of Kermit and part of her wants to headbutt him when he kisses her. She doesn't, but she does whack Steve lightly on the arm.

"If this is your idea of a welcome party, I should never have come here," she lies.

Her phone chimes again with another Nile notification and she rolls her eyes. "Better eat up."

"Bullshit." He grins at her and reaches up to ruffle her hair before grabbing the rest of his muffin and shoving it into his mouth, mumbling around it about coffee.

He pours two mugs and slides one over to her before grabbing the creamer from the fridge. "Are they here?"

"Yeah, we can buzz them in right?" They might have to pause to put this thing together but they shouldn't have to leave. That's just not civilized. "Honestly, it's so weird how they can just tell us these kinds of things. It's like something out of Space Odyssey." But not too like it, she hopes. The last thing they need is something like HAL.

Robin pours an excessive amount of creamer into her coffee and then glances around until she sees Boris' travel ball. "Don't let that one escape."

"I try not to think about it," Steve replies, gently nudging the hamster ball with his foot until he's roaming away from the door. He buzzes in the delivery guys and opens the door as he waits for the elevator.

It dings and Steve looks over, eyes widening when he spots two men carrying a large box down the hall. "Uh, Robin? Did you order anything else? Like a dresser, maybe?"

"What?" Robin asks. "No, why?" The answer presents itself immediately as she follows Steve to the door. The box they're carrying is so huge that Robin has to check her phone, twice, to make sure that nothing else she ordered is due to be delivered today. Nothing, nothing at all.

Stomach doing a funny sort of flip, she navigates to the page for the enclosure she bought and slowly rereads the measurements for the first time.

"Oh my god. I screwed up," she says, unable to help the hysterical giggle that follows. She totally screwed up and it would be so much worse if it weren't so goddamn hilarious.

"Ya think?" Steve asks, eyes frantically wide as the delivery men cart the giant box inside. Robin laughs and Steve shoots her a wide eyed look, but he can't help it. He cracks up too, and the delivery guys share a look as Steve directs them to Robin's bedroom.

"Yeah, you guys can leave this monstrosity in here," Steve tells them, huffing out another laugh as he looks over at Robin. "And I thought the hamster was spoiled before."

The delivery guys clearly have no idea what they're even carting, much less why its delivery is so funny to them, but Robin nods and lets them set it down. She thanks the men profusely for the help and then goes to find the hamster ball.

"Oh god," she says, holding up the hamster in comparison to the flatpack box. "I should've gotten something stronger than coffee."

"Robin, this thing says team lift on it!" Steve says once the delivery men have gone. "It says assembly required, Robin!"

He lets out a cackle and drops down onto the end of her bed, shaking his head as she comes back with the hamster ball. "I don't even know if I have the tools required to build this hamster mega mansion."

"Oh my god, are we going to have to go to the hardware store? Maybe it'll have one of those hex key things in it?" It's not like that's actually, really a problem but the idea of leaving this thing behind feels mind boggling. Like if she doesn't get the momentum going now, then it's never going to happen.

Holding the ball at eye level, Robin stares in at Boris. "You had better be, like, the best goddamn hamster on the planet after this," she warns him.

Move on up, toward your destination [Steve, January 10, 2020]

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