Steve's pinning his polaroids up on his wall when his new roommate walks in.
Steve's immediate thought is oh, I'm gonna hate this guy.
Shaggy hair, leather jacket, rings glinting off his fingers, electric guitar slung over his back. Hot as hell, but compared to Steve's polos and perfectly coiffed hair, they could not be more different.
The guy looks like he had the same thought. His shoulders slump as he takes in Steve's appearance.
A man comes in behind his roommate, toting a suitcase full of clothes. "Oh, are you Eddie's roommate?" he says to Steve, who shakes himself out of his thoughts.
"Yes, I am." he says politely. "I'm Steve Harrington."
The man sets down the suitcase. "Wayne Munson." he offers, shaking Steve's hand. "I'm Eddie's uncle."
He nudges Eddie forward, who lets out an almost inaudible groan. "Eddie." he says snippily, shaking Steve's hand.
This'll be a fun year, Steve thinks.
They don't talk. Steve didn't think he was going to be best friends with whoever he got saddled with, but he thought they could at least be civil to each other. Their room is split down the middle. Eddie's half is absolutely covered in posters and music and cutouts of magazines. Steve's is...almost as blank as his room back home.
He misses the shitheads.
No one can ever tell them that. They'll get even more insufferable.
Once or twice, when Steve comes back from a class, he'll catch Eddie peering at Steve's pictures, but he’ll jump away before Steve can call him out on it. It's awful. Steve misses Robin.
It takes him a horribly long amount of time to stop flinching awake at every little sound. He'd stored his nailbat under his bed, out of sight of Eddie, but every time someone yells in the hallway or shouts in the room next door, Steve startles awake, already grabbing his bat. Luckily, Eddie sleeps like the dead, because Steve's not sure he'd be able to explain the weapon without breaking his NDA.
It's three A.M., early November, when there's a knock on their door. Steve isn't asleep yet, so he stands and answers it.
Eight people pile in, talking in hushed whispers. They slam into him, knocking him over.
In the middle of the hug, Steve counts his kids. It's Dustin, nestled against his side, then Lucas, El, and Will under his arm, Max draped over his back, Erica leaning into his shoulder, and Mike on the very outskirts of the group. He pulls them all in tighter, and they all yelp and squawk at him.
"Let us go, Steve!" Erica says, annoyed.
"Nope." Steve says. "You came to find me at three in the morning, you can tolerate a hug."
"Shoo, move." another voice says, and all the kids part like the sea. Robin pushes her way through the group and hugs him tightly. "I don't know how you do it." she says to Steve. "Driving all these nerds around, it's exhausting."
He buries his face in her hair. "Missed you, Robbie." he mumbles.
She leans her head against his. "Missed you too, dingus."
Steve pulls back. "You got your license!"
"I did!" Robin jingles her keys happily.
Eddie sits up, and everyone in the room freezes. "Wha's happenin'?" he slurs sleepily. Then he registers all the people in the room. "Whoa, what the fuck?"
Steve stands up, brushing himself off. "I'm sorry, man, I didn't know they were coming." He shoots a glare at the group, who looks appropriately cowed. Minus Dustin. Steve can now see whose idea this was.
Eddie swings out of bed. "No, it's- wait, are these the kids from your polaroids?"
"Yeah," Steve says. "Dustin, Mike, Lucas, Will, El, Max, Erica, and this is my best friend Robin."
"Awww, you have polaroids of us?" Max teases over his shoulder. "That's sweet."
Steve reaches behind him and tussles her hair, shoving her gently. "Shut up, shithead."
"Your room is cool." Mike says. "Not Steve's side. But this part is cool!"
Steve glares at Mike, but Eddie grins big. "Thanks! I'm Eddie Munson." He shakes Mike's hand.
"Is that a DnD poster?" Will says. "That's amazing!"
"It certainly is!" Eddie says. "I used to DM back in high school. Played a bit too."
The nerdier section of the group reacts appropriately, oohing and ahhing, while Max and Erica just roll their eyes and nudge each other.
Steve hesitates. “I know these guys don’t really do anything on Saturday afternoons, and I think they’ve been wanting to start another campaign. Would you mind if they come up, maybe every weekend, and you can…” he doesn’t know enough about DnD “…run a game for them?”
Eddie looks amused. “You mean DM a campaign?”
“Yeah, that.” It’s an olive branch that Steve’s offering.
Eddie takes it. “Well, how can I turn that down? Sheepies of the Harrington flock, how would you like to join a new campaign?”
“I’ll keep the rest of you occupied,” Steve mutters as the guys (and El) start talking excitedly. “Max, Rob, you guys wanna find the closest arcade and set some new high scores?”
“Only one person will be setting high scores.” Max says, gesturing to herself, but she looks excited at the prospect.
Steve lets Eddie and the kids talk for a couple more minutes, then claps his hands. “Okay, it is three in the morning and I have a nine A.M. class tomorrow SO! I have enough blankets for all of you to sleep on the floor if Eddie doesn’t mind-“ Eddie shrugs. “Or Rob can drive you back home.”
Steve looks around and Robin is already in his bed, cuddled up like the blanket hog she is. “Okay, well, sleepover here it is then.”
He whisks out his ungodly amount of throw blankets (courtesy of Joyce’s knitting spree) and the kids get together in their usual movie-night-at-Steve’s cuddle position.
Will’s got his head on Mike’s shoulder, Lucas next to Mike, Max leaning on Lucas, El’s head in Max’s lap and her legs thrown over Dustin’s lap, and Erica with her back against Dustin’s shoulder. Sometimes Robin and Steve are wedged into the pile somewhere, but just as often they’re tangled up under six different blankets across the room, which is why Steve whispers “Scoot over, dumbass,” as he climbs into bed next to Robin.
Eddie watches them assume their positions with an expression of what could be awe on his face. “When I saw those pictures,” he whispered, “I thought they were like your siblings? Or maybe old pictures of your friends. I didn’t think you were a soccer mom.”
Steve glares at him, but unlike earlier in the year, there’s no heat behind it. “Hope you like coparenting then, because these guys need to be watched 24/7 or they’ll run off and start the apocalypse.”
Eddie laughs like it’s a joke. To him it is. He hops back into bed. “Goodnight, weird little family.”
The kids murmur a collective sleepy goodnight, and Steve shuts his eyes.
It’s the most relaxed he’s felt since he moved in.
part two!
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Bat Poker Face Training
Dick, Steph, Cass, Tim, and Jason all crammed into someones room, with a kidnapped Duke sitting awkwardly with them, kinda scared.
Duke: “Uh… what’s going on?”
Steph, completely blank faced and standing ominously in the corner: “It has come to our attention that you require training.”
Duke: “Bruce is already teaching me really well-“
Jason, also blank faced: “That’s bat training. This is robin training.”
Cass, carefully but without a single emotion: “Sibling training.”
Dick, face just as blank as all his other siblings: “It’s much more fun.”
Duke, freaked out by the empty faces: “Am I being hazed?”
Jason: “Eh, maybe. Scared?
Tim, not giving Duke a second to reply: “Yes, he is. It’s written all over his face. And while its okay to be scared, sometimes hiding your true emotions in the field is a matter of life, death, and secret identities.”
Dick: “You’re going to be flustered. Humiliated. Terrified. Angry. Relieved. Your vigilante ID dragged through the mud in front of you as a civilian. Someone worried about your civilian ID and you need to keep them away.“
Tim: “Not just as a Bat, but a Wayne. Some dinosaur at a gala is going to say the most out of pocket thing you’ve ever heard in your life and you’ve just got to stand there.”
Duke: “So that’s the reason you’re doing the creepy thing?”
Steph: “Yes Duke. You need to have a poker face that Even Superman can’t break. That even a Fifth-dimensional Imp can’t crack! And that is the purpose of our training tonight!”
Duke, getting the program now: “Okay. I’m ready.”
Jason, allowing a creepy grin to slide over his face: “Don’t be so sure. Because what we are about to show you… it has broken Batman.”
Dick: “Damian is too innocent to see it, which is why he isn’t here.”
Steph: “If you can handle this, you can handle anything.”
Tim, tapping on his computer, chanting under his breath: “the horrors, the horrors, the horrors…”
Duke, terrified of what Tim is about to pull up, on the edge of his seat wondering what on earth can shake the Bat of Gotham, what the family considers too awful for thier arguably LEAST innocent member to see, what vile images he’s about to be shown…
Tap. The screen lights up white.
Duke: “No.”
Jason, grin widening: “We’ll be reading this aloud, for your entertainment.”
Duke, trembling and inching towards the door: “No.”
Steph, vice grip on Duke’s arm: “There’s no escaping it, Signal. This is your mission- to stay completely pokerfaced through Real Person Fanfiction of us- the Batfamily. And co, of course.”
Duke, sobbing: “Please, why… why would you do this to yourselves… oh god, is that… is that… is that Kate with Bruce? She’s a lesbian! And his cousin!”
Steph: “They don’t know that, Duke. They know nothing. And the depths of a human imagination is comparable to the depths of the ocean… there’s some weird shit down there.”
Tim, without a single emotion on his face, least of all mercy: “I had to sit through Young Justice fawning over Dick and Bruce. Do you know what they said? About my own father figure? Right in front of my salad? I was lucky I was wearing a mask. I cried, and I cried in silence. They knew NOTHING, because I showed nothing. This is what you must achieve.”
Jason: “I’ve had to listen to criminals talk about what they’d do to the ‘Prince of Gotham’ and not twitch. I’ve had to listen to both goons and civilians play fuck marry kill with our vigilante identities and not move a muscle. I know this feels like overkill, but trust me, it’s not.”
Dick: “Don’t worry, we’ll keep it mostly PG. Tim? Begin with the wildly out of character and aggressively heteronormative Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman love triangle. Then maybe we’ll work our way up to slash readers and…” shudders in horror, “…batcest.”
Duke: “NOOOOOOOO!!!”
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