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

[hey_dingus]

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!"

Comments

[hey_dingus]

"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."

[haplesshairpile]

"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?"

[hey_dingus]

"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.

[haplesshairpile]

"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."

[hey_dingus]

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."

[haplesshairpile]

"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."

[hey_dingus]

"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.