Stranger Than Fiction
A/N: Hello to all you wonderful readers who happen to have clicked on this story! For those of you who do not know me, my name is ImpulsiveWeaver, and welcome to "Stranger Than Fiction", which is a crossover fic between Gravity Falls and Stranger Things. Truthfully, I'm a bit surprised that there aren't more crossover stories between the two franchises, as they fit together pretty well in my opinion. Either way, I'll be adding one more to the pot, so please sit back and enjoy the story. Remember, I do not own any of these characters or franchises!
"Ok, so, can you just go over it one more time, please?"
Robin threw her head back and made a noise like she'd just been shot, which Steve couldn't help but feel like was a bit of an overreaction.
"How many times do I have to explain this to you, dingus?"
"Look, I'm sorry, but I don't understand why you're even bothering with this stuff in the first place. Your parents want you to have a date to this wedding for a cousin that you've only met like what, three times in your life? Why all of a sudden does it matter to them whether or not you're dating someone?"
"I already told you Steve, my parents are always worried about me, and due to the fact that I haven't had a boyfriend since before I was twelve, they've started pushing me to begin dating again. Apparently, they think that I'll end up as some old lady who owns like fifty cats and does nothing but talk to herself all day."
Steve shook his head and tried to banish the mental image of a 75-year-old Robin stroking a super fluffy cat and mumbling to herself. To help distract himself from any more disturbing thoughts, Steve pulled out the return bin and began moving among the shelves to stack movie tapes back into their respective positions.
The morning had been rather slow at Family Video on account of it being a Tuesday, so Steve and Robin had passed the time by chatting and discussing their plans for the rest of the summer now that the whole thing with the Russians and the Mind Flayer had passed. Steve had planned to find himself a bit of summer romance to keep him busy, though Robin, as usual, seemed content to beat around the bush and mumble about how she was just waiting to make sure that her potential partner would even be interested. Steve had tried time and time again to provide her with a few possible leads on a few girls who might have been her "type", but Robin, ever timid as she was, simply made up repeated excuses again and again as to why she didn't take the leap of faith.
And now, here she was, suddenly asking Steve out of the blue if he could do her a favor and be her pretend boyfriend for a wedding that supposedly her entire family was going to be at.
"Robin, I've met your parents. They're not complete douche bags, you know. Have you ever entertained the crazy notion that they might actually be supportive of you if you'd just spill the beans?"
"Ok, first of all, this entire train of thought you are entertaining right now? I have already gone over it at least sixty times, compared the best possible results with the worst possible results, cross-referenced those with the most likely results, and have subsequently come to the conclusion that telling them right now would only make things worse."
"You can't–"
"Wait, I'm not done yet!"
Robin held up her hand in a halting gesture, causing Steve to roll his eyes and gesture sarcastically that she could proceed.
"Thank you. Second of all, Steve, the best way to keep a secret is to never tell anyone. Ever. Believe me, I almost had a heart attack when I told you, and that was even after you handled it way better than I could have anticipated."
"Yes, well thank you for the compliment," Steve conceded. "But what exactly is your plan here? You're just going to never tell your parents and hope they never question why you only bring your 'best girl friends' home for dinner and never a possible boyfriend?"
"I'm going to tell them, Steve. But the timing has to be right. If I'm not tactful about this then I could totally blow it. I have to make sure the scenario is absolutely perfect. No hiccups, no curveballs, no unknowns!"
"Whatever happened to the unapologetic Robin that I met earlier this summer? The one that wasn't afraid to remind me repeatedly that I was a dingus and that spoke whatever came to her hyper and sarcastic mind? Did she just go on vacation or something?"
"Believe me, she's still there Steve, but she would rather not be singled out any more than she already is by the ruthless, soul-crushing monster that is Hawkins, Indiana. Not when she still has one year of school left before she can get out of this hellhole."
"That's what I was afraid you'd say…" Steve mumbled, mostly to himself as he turned away from Robin and continued stacking movies onto the shelves.
"Look Steve," came her voice from behind him, a lot softer than it had been for the last hour. "When everything happened with Will Byers a few years ago, my parents sort of…freaked out. They started acting overprotective of me and suddenly became super worried all the time. It was like a switch had been flipped in their brains! It was like I couldn't breathe! I couldn't be myself."
"Well, you can't really blame them, can you?" Steve said back, still not turning around to look at her as he continued stacking movies. "Two kids going missing within a week of each other tends to remind some people about how quickly shit goes sideways in Hawkins."
"No, but that's exactly my point. Even after everything blew over, they still never quite recovered to their old ways. And if I tell them the truth now, I'm worried that they're going to become the same overbearing monsters they were before, and I can't take that. Not when I'm still living under their roof."
Steve paused his shelving for a second, mulling over Robin's words in his mind. It took a moment, but he realized that Robin wasn't just doing this to protect herself. She'd been backed into a corner by her parents asking her to find a date on such short notice, and if a secret like hers got out in a place like Hawkins, then it wasn't just Robin that would be targeted. Her parents…all her friends…him. And it wouldn't be just by kids at school either. Parents, coworkers, teachers, lawmakers, they'd be gunning for them all as well. Almost eager to show off how well they fit into the Hawkins community by ostracizing those that were different. Robin sought to avoid the potential of all that in favor of a simple lie for a stupid wedding that wasn't worth sacrificing her facade for. It panged Steve a little bit to think about, but it also panged him to see how bottled up she was all the time. She may have been unafraid to let her insanely blunt, and ever-hyper personality out, but there was a limit to what even Robin could show to the world. She was right, the snarky and brutally honest girl that he'd become friends with at Scoops Ahoy was still there, but the two of them were friends now, closer than friends even. Close enough at least that she felt comfortable enough around him to show just how anxious and jumpy she could be, and how much she desperately desired to be accepted for who she really was.
Wasn't the same true for all of them in some way?
After a second, he sensed that Robin was still looking at him expectantly, and he shook his head and gave a heavy sigh.
"You know if we do this, word is going to get out, right? Even if we say we were only together for the wedding, your parents are going to talk to someone who is going to talk to someone else et cetera, et cetera…"
"It would just be for one week until the wedding is over, Steve. Then we can break up and I can act all embarrassed about it and beg my parents not to mention it to anyone and we can forget all about this."
The irony that Robin trusted her parents to keep one secret but not another was certainly not lost on him, but looking over at her now, Steve could see the anxiety in her eyes about this whole situation. Even though Steve still felt that this was a bad idea, he sighed once more and spoke deliberately and clearly so that there would be no misunderstanding between them.
"I'll do it, but, you have to cover the next three, no…five shifts of my choosing when we get back. And, you have to ask out a girl before the end of the summer. Those are my terms."
Robin's eyes moved from side to side for a moment as she mulled over his words, then she swallowed and set her jaw.
"Alright. You've got yourself a deal, Harrington."
She held out her hand from over the counter, and Steve strode forward and shook it firmly, sealing the deal between the two of them.
"Ok then. So, where is this wedding again?"
…
"Dude, you're just gonna bail on me for a whole week without any prior warning to go to a wedding for Robin's cousin?"
"I don't recall stuttering, Dustin. So what's so hard to understand about this?"
"This is the same Robin that you just spent half the summer convincing me you don't have a thing for, right? Like, I just want to hear you say that it's the same one."
Steve groaned into the receiver. This phone call was going a lot worse than he had imagined, but he could honestly say he wasn't surprised.
"Yes, Dustin. It's the same one. Happy now?"
"And according to you, this is an entirely non-romantic trip that you two are just taking as friends. Alone. Just the two of you. All the way from here to Portland, Oregon."
"Her parents are going too. We are all going in the same car."
"Yeah, and you just said that she's going to hardly know anyone there. And if she doesn't know anyone there then you sure as hell aren't going to know anyone there either. Ergo, you two are inevitably going to be spending a lot of time together."
"Ok, is there a point to this? Because I have to get up early tomorrow and I just want to know if I can expect to get any sleep before then."
"Why can't you just admit that you have a thing for Robin?!" Dustin all but shouted into the phone, causing Steve to reflexively move the receiver away from his face. Once he was sure that Dustin's voice had returned to a reasonable volume, he brought the phone back to his ear.
"I'm done trying to convince you, man," he said tiredly. "I told you before that Robin isn't my type. She's just a friend, but if you want to go along and believe what you want to believe in your magic nerdy la-la land then knock yourself out."
"I think I will, Steve," came the snarky reply. "You know what else I'm going to do? I'm gonna make a big piping hot plate of I TOLD YOU SO to serve to you when you come back from that trip as more than friends with Robin! That's what I'm gonna do!"
There was an angry burst of static as Dustin slammed the phone down on the other end, and Steve barely hesitated before hanging up his phone as well with more force than was necessary.
There was a beat of aggravated silence, then Steve shook his head in annoyance. Dustin could be a little shit sometimes, but that didn't mean that Steve could just shake off the small feeling of regret that he felt about how they'd just ended their conversation. As embarrassing as it was for Steve to admit to people his own age, Dustin was one of his best friends in the world. Surviving life or death experiences against supernatural creatures tended to bring people together like that. For a brief moment, Steve considered picking up the phone and calling back just to not leave their conversation on such a sour note, but he eventually thought better of it and walked upstairs to his room, suitcase in hand.
Taking a moment to mentally run through everything he might need, Steve then strode over the bathroom and grabbed his daily assortment of hair products. A quick weight test of each container reassured Steve that he'd have enough Fabergé Organics products to make it through the next week, but he'd definitely need to hit the store when he came home. He was especially low on Farrah Fawcett Spray, and he briefly considered a nighttime dash to JCPenney to stock up, but decided better of it, as he'd always have the opportunity to get some more when he got back. After all, he'd have plenty of free time with Robin covering five of his shifts when they returned from Portland, so he really shouldn't have been worried about finding some free time.
At the memory of Robin, Steve found himself once again confused and annoyed by this whole situation. If he was being honest, he thought that Robin was blowing this thing way out of proportion. She had made it seem like it was absolutely imperative that she put on a 'straight face' for her family members on this occasion, acting like she saw them all daily instead of every few years when another relative died or got married. It was like she had panicked and had not been thinking straight when her parents had asked her to find someone to bring to the wedding, and she'd gone all in on making them believe that she had a boyfriend, which apparently was why she'd opted out of just doing the easy thing and either bringing one of her female friends from band or soccer. Or better yet, simply telling her parents that she'd not been able to find someone to accompany her and that she'd just have to fly solo. Why had that option not been on the table?
Whatever, it wasn't like Steve could make her change her mind now. She'd already told her parents that he'd be coming and they would be leaving first thing in the morning, so right now, all Steve should've been focused on was packing. He'd have plenty of time to remind Robin of how bad of an idea this all was at the wedding.
Finally exiting the bathroom, Steve deposited his hair products into the suitcase and moved over to his clothing drawers, opening each one and scanning over the contents before selecting a week's worth of clothing and dropping it into the suitcase as well. He'd decided to pack some somewhat nice clothes alongside some more commonplace garments just in case of any situation that might have been called for, as he had no idea just what kind of social settings he could expect when around Robin's family in the unfamiliar territory of the Beaver State. Steve grimaced at Oregon's chosen nickname, then remembered that even though it was summer, Oregon still tended to get a bit chilly at night, so he opened his closet and added his light gray Members Only jacket to the nearly full suitcase.
Finally feeling satisfied, Steve strolled over to his closet one last time to pick out the only suit he owned. It was a standard black three piece, and Steve had only ever worn it a couple of times to a few fancy business dinners with his parents, but he was sure that it would more than suffice for the wedding. Looking at it now, Steve couldn't help but think about his current relationship with his parents.
Upon learning that Steve's grades had not been good enough to get into college, his father had decided that a little manual labor would help him realize how important his future was, hence the whole reason that Steve had started at Scoops Ahoy in the first place. Though his father could have easily landed Steve a job at his firm, the old man decided that he would not throw him a bone until he had learned his lesson. All in all, Steve supposed it had been a fair punishment for his lack of attention to his studies back in high school, but that didn't mean he hadn't felt a slight jab in his chest when his father had chastised him for besmirching the "Harrington name" with his lack of foresight.
Now, after having the chance to mull it over for a good portion of the summer, Steve snorted at the thought.
Harrington name? That was rich. What exactly was the Harrington name supposed to mean anyway? Was it a false source of pride that tried to cover up the fact that his father had never actually worked a day in his life and that all of his success was due to money that he'd inherited? Or was it representative of the signature way that his old man seemed to have a new mistress every single time he came back from a business trip?
In a lot of ways, Steve knew that he was a lot more like his father than he'd care to admit. Though he'd never stooped so low as to cheating on a partner, Steve knew that his father hadn't been smart enough to get into college just like him. The only difference that was made was that Steve's grandpa had thrown the old man a line and had hired him at the family firm before eventually passing on ownership of the company to him anyway before he died. And now, instead of doing the same for his son, Steve's father had told him that he needed to earn his spot at the table. The irony was so thick that he could choke on it.
But in all honesty, Steve was glad that his father had turned him away. The last thing he wanted to do was end up like him. As an added bonus, Steve's sentence to a minimum wage job had allowed him to meet Robin, which Steve appreciated far more than any badge of status or wealth.
Deciding that he'd entertained enough sob story thoughts for one night, Steve hung his suit on the door to his closet so that he wouldn't forget it in the morning, then zipped up the suitcase and set it down with a solid thud on the floor just next to the suit. With the packing finally done, Steve stripped out of his clothes and made his way to the bathroom once more for a quick shower before turning in for the night. It was just over two thousand three hundred miles of driving from Hawkins to Portland, and Steve would need his A-game if he was going to pretend to be Robin's boyfriend for the next week.
Geez, how'd he even get himself into this mess?
…
Robin gave Steve a stunned yet cautiously optimistic look from the back seat of the Dodge Dart as he continued to charm her parents like an absolute pro. Seriously, it was like watching a hypnotist in action. Initial greetings and handshakes had been awkward and stiff to a degree that Robin had begun if it were still possible to back out now, but after no more than half an hour on the road, it was like they had known Steve for years, and if Robin was being honest, it was kind of creepy how well it was going so far. It was like Steve had some kind of secret knowledge of how to talk to them, and after running through a few possible theories, Robin narrowed it down to two: either A.) Steve was good at talking to parental figures because he had been acting as one himself for a group of paranormally inclined children for the last year, or B.) Steve Harrington's hair possessed some sort of supernatural attractiveness to it that affected not only female teenagers, but also parental figures as well.
One of those theories was definitely more logically plausible than the other, but Robin was hesitant to discard the other, as she was still not entirely sure that the top of Steve's head was not somehow paranormally cursed by a love demon or something. Robin shook herself from her thoughts as Steve cracked another cheesy joke from the backseat, which both her parents genuinely laughed at. Okay, what the hell was happening?
Steve's gaze traveled to meet hers when he felt her eyes on him, and he gave her a double thumbs-up and confidently nodded his head in what Robin guessed was supposed to subtly convey a reassuring gesture, but Robin had already been reassured three hours ago when they had still been traveling through the endless flatlands of corn that was Nebraska, so all Steve was really managing to do was make himself look constipated.
Robin gave him an overt nod in a slow manner to express that she was well aware of his performance already and the fact that he was still a dingus, causing Steve to smirk and throw his hands up in a guilty-as-charged gesture like he was proud of the fact, and Robin hid a smirk of genuine humor despite it all. It was often scary how well the two of them could communicate non-verbally, but Robin did not find it all surprising considering the two of them had been spending nearly all of their waking hours of summer together at work or fighting interdimensional monsters and Russians. Robin's smirk widened when she added "Silent Steve-talk" to her already impressive list of languages.
"Wait, I'm sorry Mrs. Buckley, but did you say that Yvonne (Robin's cousin) and Theodore (Robin's cousin's groom-to-be) are getting married after only knowing each other for a few months? Call me crazy, but I think that might be a bit too soon to be considering tying the knot like that."
"Oh Steven, please, Melissa is fine," Robin's mother said with a dismissive shake of her hand. Wow, did that just happen?
"But yes, it's true that Yvonne and Theodore haven't known each other for very long, though we suspect that the marriage might be in response to something…"
Robin knew what her mother was implying immediately, and she watched in a humored silence as Steve frowned in confusion and blinked a couple of times with an exceptionally blank stare on his face.
"In response to…oh…Ohhhh!" Steve said, nodding his head slowly as his mind unraveled the meaning behind her mother's slight secrecy.
"Yep, and I'm sure there's going to be numerous whispers and stares at the wedding. It's only a matter of how much."
"Hm, so much for their happy day then, huh?" Steve said, his voice somewhat disheartened at the thought of the ridicule Robin's cousin might endure on her big day.
"Indeed," Robin's father said from the driver's seat with a shake of his head. "Melissa and I went through something similar actually with Robin. We'll actually not be far from where the two of us–"
"Oh my god! Dad…please!" Robin said, clapping her hands together as though in a prayer to ward off the single most embarrassing words that would have spewed out of her father's mouth in the next few seconds.
"I'm just saying Robin—"
"There is absolutely no reason for you to be just saying anything that you are about to say! I seriously might strangle myself with my Walkman cable if I have to endure any more of what you're about to say!"
A murderous side glance was thrown at Steve as he began to laugh, but her intent behind the look backfired completely as Steve laughed even harder at the tomato-red complexion that had jumped onto her face. Her parents showed telltale signs of barely constrained laughter too, and it was all Robin could do to not force open the door of the Dart and take her chances by tucking and rolling onto the interstate at ninety miles an hour.
…
Steve was waiting expectantly when he heard Robin's soft knock on his door. It was spot on with her personality, and he was almost certain that his neurotic friend had multiple notes and tips on how their first day as a pretend couple had gone so far. In fact, he was almost certain that she'd want to practice a few interactions before turning in for the night.
Looking over at the clock on the night table, Steve noted that it was a little after eleven in the evening, then jumped up from the creaky hotel bed he had been lounging on and answered the door.
Dressed in a larger t-shirt and shorts as her sleepwear, Steve frowned slightly when he saw that she had still opted for tennis shoes. He knew that she had packed a pair of sandals for the trip, and he knew how much would rather wear them given the opportunity, so this was a bit of a surprise.
"Hey," Robin greeted, her tone a little bit rushed and her eyes eager. "Got a moment?"
"Yep, I'm eager to see the judge's reaction to my, let's be honest here, stellar performance so far," Steve said with a smirk before making room for Robin to enter.
"Actually, how about we go for a walk instead. I'd rather not take any chances."
Steve was about to object when he remembered that the room that Robin and her parents were staying in was right next to his. In his experience, motel room walls were not that thick, and his point had been proven when he'd heard the occupants of the other room adjacent to his getting frisky as he'd been brushing his teeth.
"Fair point."
After putting on his own shoes, Steve grabbed his room key and followed Robin out into the parking lot. The motel itself was rather small, but the rooms had been cheap, clean, and had hot water, so Steve felt right as rain. Speaking of which…
Steve raised his head up to look at the dark and heavy clouds that were fast approaching, and he could smell the gathering humidity in the air that tended to predate the coming of a storm. It mixed with the smell of pine and forest, which surrounded the motel for miles around. The atmosphere itself was actually quite pleasant, and though this was Steve's first time in Oregon, he was quickly finding himself enamored with the weather out here as they walked aimlessly around the lot.
"Might wanna make this quick, Rob. Looks like it's gonna storm soon."
Steve gestured to the gathering clouds with his head and put his hands in the pocket of his jacket. Robin followed his gaze and noticed the clouds as well, and after judging the nervous look on her face, Steve smirked and supposed he should have just kept that information to himself.
"Right. Ok," Robin said, fishing into her pocket and pulling out what Steve recognized as a motel-provided pen and notepad.
"Seriously? You actually penned down notes? You know that I'm totally killing it with your parents, right? Another couple of days of this and they might actually adopt me."
"I'm aware, Steve. And that, right there, is the problem!" Robin said. "You've started out too strong, and now, you're going to have to keep up that performance every day for the rest of this week with not just my folks, but the rest of my extended family as well!"
"Easy money, Rob. I think you're overestimating how easy this is for me."
"It may be easy for you, but this kind of thing doesn't come naturally to me, dingus!" Robin replied. "Seriously, it's freaky how good you are at this. And I'm the one that was actually in theater!"
"Playing a witch during a high-school rendition of MacGyver isn't exactly the same as this, Robin. There's no set lines for you to follow, so you've gotta improv a little bit, you know?"
"Glossing over the fact that the play is called Macbeth AND that you are the only person in existence that is capable of confusing it with MacGyver, I think I should at least be able to keep up somewhat," Robin retorted. "I'm serious. I feel like I'm floundering out here while you're swimming circles!"
"You're doing fine. You're just doing that thing where you get into your own head and get paranoid. Relax!"
Robin paused, then Steve nodded encouragingly as he saw her shoulders begin to slowly lose their tension.
"I know, I know. You're right," she said, holding her hands up in a defeated gesture. "I'm just worried about how fragile this whole thing is. But, maybe I oughta take a page out of your book for once, Steve. You're out here owning this whole thing like it's no big deal, and I'm acting like something's going to jump out and bite me at any second…"
As if she had summoned it, a figure suddenly burst from the foliage before them and sped into the parking lot, clutching something close to its chest in both arms.
Robin and Steve both cried out and stumbled back a step as the figure rushed towards them, and before Steve knew what he was doing, he had grabbed Robin's arm and pulled her slightly behind him to put himself between her and the approaching figure.
"Hey, back off!"
His yell caused the figure to freeze in front of them, and in the dim lamplight of the parking lot, the darkened shape took the form of a short old man dressed in nothing more than old tattered rags. His dark brown shirt had more holes than fabric left on it, and Steve could see multiple stains that looked to be from multiple unknown and likely disgusting sources.
Apart from his rags, the only other clothing the old man had on was a cast on his right arm with white rags wrapping around his feet for shoes.
A look to the man's face showed his eyes to be right on the verge of cross-eyed, and as the man breathed heavily through his mouth, Steve saw rows of yellowed teeth with quite a few missing. The look of a psycho hobo was completed by the man's bald head, with the only hair left looking patchy and gross like it had been ripped out in the few places.
Clutched in his hands, the old man held what looked like a wide-brimmed hat that looked like it belonged on a scarecrow. Steve wondered if he wasn't far off considering that the old man was covered in bits of dirt and straw.
"What the hell…?" Robin said, her tone more in genuine curiosity than in fear.
"N-now don't go thinking I took this without permission," the old man said in a high, crackling voice that betrayed that he was even more afraid of the teenagers than they were of him. "That scarecrow was hardly usin' it anyway, and I ain't no criminal!"
"...uh…?"
"It's mine now, you hear! So don't get any funny ideas!"
The man clutched the hat closer and ran away from Steve and Robin, hastily forcing a key into one of the other rooms of the motel before disappearing inside.
The two of them said nothing in a stunned silence for a few moments, then Robin turned to Steve with a wide-eyed look.
"Maybe having this conversation in your room was a better idea after all."
"Agreed."
The two of them turned back around to walk back to their side of the motel, but an idea quickly came to Steve before they got too far.
"Actually, how about the car? That way we can avoid any further encounters with feral old men and have some privacy?"
Robin agreed wholeheartedly, pulling the keys from her pocket and unlocking the car so that they both could slide in. Taking the passenger seat inside the Dart, Steve watched as Robin slid into the driver's side with ease. Plenty of legroom was available since her dad had been sitting in that spot for the last nine hours of driving.
"Oh man, I really did not want to spend any more time than necessary in this car," Robin said as she shut the door behind her, closing the two of them off from any further weirdness outside.
"Yeah, plus, didn't you tell me you totalled this thing during your whole prom stint?" Steve asked as he made himself comfortable.
"That was the previous Dart. This one was a purchase from a used car lot with my saved up money after that whole debacle."
"Ok, but a Dart? Your parents could've gotten a Nova for the exact same price! At the very least it looks better!"
"Steve, we've got at least three more hours of driving tomorrow before we hit Portland. During that time, you are more than welcome to direct any complaints you have with my father's choice in cars towards him—actually no you aren't…"
Robin then took out her pen and notepad again and began hastily scribbling something down.
"...because if you do, not only could it possibly antagonize my parents further, but it could also lead them to talk about the night I crashed the car, which is definitely not a subject that will bode well for this wedding, so absolutely not!"
The next fifteen minutes dragged on as Steve entertained Robin's thoughts and pointers regarding their fake relationship and how her parents had received it so far. Steve listened to her babble on for as long as he could stand it, but before long, he stopped Robin in her tracks and explained that what she was doing was likely the exact opposite of helpful. What they were doing was a lie, yes, but they had to make it seem natural to her parents, and doting over every little detail and overplanning every interaction was a surefire way for them to inadvertently raise suspicion. In reality, all Robin needed to do was act the same way that they always did. Everyone who knew them back in Hawkins already suspected that they were together anyway, so if they just carried on the way they always did, minus a few exceptions, of course, nobody would suspect a thing. It took another five minutes of convincing, but Robin eventually agreed with him, and just as they began to wrap up their conversation, the skies decided to open up at last, and rain began pouring down from the heavens in a heavy torrent that pelted the Dart.
"Great, now I have to make up some excuse to my parents why my clothes are all wet tomorrow," Robin grumbled.
"Just dash over to the door and hang them up in the bathroom," Steve said with a shrug. "They'll be dry by morning, and your parents will never know."
"Ok," Robin said, shifting her gaze to the door to her room to best gauge the distance that she'd have to endure the pouring rain before the safety of her motel room. "On the count of three, we go. Ready?"
Steve gave a thumbs up and grasped the passenger side door handle in preparation.
"One…"
"Two…"
"Three!"
Steve threw open his door just as a bright flash of what he thought to be lightning arced just outside, but as the light faded, Steve caught a glimpse of a man in a jumpsuit just before his door slammed into the figure's back. The force behind Steve's push knocked the figure off balance completely, causing the man to cry out and drop a small object from his left hand.
"Whoa!"
As if in slow motion, Steve exited the car completely and caught the man by his shoulder with his right hand and the object in his left. After taking a moment to make sure they both were secure, Steve let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Forgetting the torrential rain around him, Steve gave the guy a pat on the shoulder.
"Sorry man, I didn't even see you there." Steve squinted at the object he now held in his left hand, which looked to be a weird sort of off-brand tape measure.
"I think your tape measure is ok though."
To his surprise, the man spun around, revealing a furious set of eyes behind a strange pair of goggles.
"Give me that!" the man shouted in a high-pitched voice, snatching the tape measure from Steve's hand, causing him to backpedal in surprise into the Dart behind him.
"This equipment is very sensitive! You have no right to touch that!"
"Steve?"
A quick glance back showed that Robin had stopped right after leaving her door as well, and was now standing frozen with both hands on the frame of the Dart, her expression of a mixture of concern and surprise at the scene before her, the downpour also not affecting her at all as rain soaked into her clothes and hair.. He frowned and turned back towards the man in the jumpsuit.
"Look, I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to break it or anything, but if I hadn't caught it–"
"Hey! I-I told you to let go!" the man shouted, his voice suddenly wavering with worry.
"I did! What are you talking about?"
Steve followed the man's gaze to see that the tip of the tape measure had caught on his jacket as the man had snatched it from him, pulling it out of its housing by about a foot. He shook his hand back and forth in an effort to dislodge it.
"No! Wait!"
The man lunged forward to grab Steve's wrist, but it was too late. Steve's arm shake had successfully managed to dislodge the tip from his jacket, and the measure immediately retreated back into its housing just as the goggled man grabbed a hold where it had been a moment before.
The last thing Steve remembered was a look of absolute horror on the man's face before a flash of white engulfed him.
A/N: And there we go! First chapter down. I have to say, Robin and Steve are my favorite characters in Stranger Things, and I really enjoy watching the chemistry they both have on screen. That being said, I am still not 100% certain that I'm characterizing them properly, so please do not hesitate to let me know at any point in this story if any of the characters don't seem like themselves. Feedback will definitely help me tweak my writing to its full potential! Hope you enjoyed, and I will see you next chapter!
-ImpulsiveWeaver
P.S. To all Universal Doom fans, do not worry! I am still continuing Universal Doom as well. This story is just another product of my impulsiveness!