Stonathan ❤️

123

NOT MINE!!

Steve and Robin sleep until two o'clock in the afternoon. It takes until four to convince her that she doesn't need to chaperone him and Jonathan.

"I don't trust that little weasel as far as I can throw him," she insists. She's been standing in the foyer for nearly an hour, holding her shoes but showing no signs of putting them on. "And I don't trust you either. Repeat after me, I have nothing to ap-"

Steve groans. "Robin. I'm a grownup, okay?"

She glares. Slower this time, she says, "Repeat after me."

"I have nothing to apologize for! According to you, anyways. So what, should I just punch him?"

"In a perfect world, I hide in the backseat and wait for the opportunity to arise so we can both punch him." She huffs, but leans down to tug on her shoes. "But you aren't ready to live in a perfect world, I suppose."

Even once Steve finally gets her in the car, she can't quite let it go.

Turning as far as the seatbelt will allow, knees almost forming a right angle with the console, she says, "You know, it seemed like you were actually angry at him for a while. Whatever happened to anger! Anger is healing , healthy-"

"I'm sure I'll be mad at him again once I actually see him. It's just hard for me to stay mad."

Robin barks a disbelieving hmph . "Easy enough for me." She reaches out to squeeze his shoulder. "I can do it for both of us."

―

When Jonathan knocks on the door, Steve is still working on being angry.

Him being early―it's 5:58, exactly two minutes before their agreed-upon time―helps nudge Steve into annoyed territory. His hair isn't finished drying; he was thinking about changing his shirt; Marty has crept out and fallen asleep on his foot again, and Steve had needed those two minutes to figure out how to get free of him.

Ignoring the hisses of protest, Steve extracts his foot from underneath the bulk of Marty and heads for the door, stooping down at the last minute to swipe cat hair off of his pant leg. It's barely been twenty four hours, but Marty sheds like a son of a bitch―anything he's so much as passed by is dusted in white fur.

Even though Jonathan used to have a dog, Steve doesn't remember the Byers' house being particularly covered in hair. Maybe that's what they'll end up talking about tonight: Housekeeping tips and tricks. It would be smart to stick to something like that, something so far beyond surface level that it levitates, sneering, above all of the things they aren't talking about.

There's another round of knocks; Steve spends a few more seconds drowning it out by thinking hard about pet hair. He plucks a few off of his shirt sleeve, his right hip―God, he really does need a lint brush.

When a timid voice calls out, "Anyone home?" Steve finally decides that trying to pick every individual hair off of his clothes is as pointless as whatever conversation he's about to have with Jonathan. He squares his shoulders, sucks in a breath, and swings the door open.

It's not like the person on the other side is a surprise. There's no mystery to it.

It's just Jonathan.

He doesn't look all that different from the last time Steve saw him, except he's not visibly writhing in pain and he's ditched his Serious Newspaper Employee getup for jeans and a t-shirt. He almost looks like any other kid at the end of summer break―his bangs are starting to trail into his eyes, hair a little lighter from the sun.