Soph's Writing Side Blog

Robin lounged across the couch, legs stretched across Steve’s lap. They were joking about the contestants making fools of themselves on Family Feud.

“Ugh,” Robin grimaced mockingly, “where are your parents?”

Steve laughed and shrugged. “Who knows at this point.”

Just then, the phone on the hall table began to ring, drawing both Robin and Steve’s attention. “Wouldn’t it be wild if that was them?” Robin whispered.

“I doubt it.” Steve shoved Robin’s legs off of his lap and stood up from the couch.

She gaped at him. “Hey!”

“Move, then,” he snarked back, earning a middle finger in return.

The phone continued to ring sharply until Steve reached it and lifted it from the base. “Harrington residence,” he said on cue.

“Hey, Stevie,” said a girl’s voice over the phone.

Steve furrowed his brow, trying to place the familiar voice, thinking that it must be someone he’d gone out with. “Hi, who is this?” he asked lightly.

“Your sister,” she said with a chuckle.

Steve brightened with recognition. “Amy! Hi!”

“Hi, how are things?”

“Good, they’re good.” He leaned against the hall table casually. “How are you?”

“Oh, you know…” she trailed off. “Hey, are Mom and… Jeff there?” she asked, changing the subject abruptly.

Steve frowned. Even after more than 20 years, Amy refused to call her step-father ‘Dad,’ not that Steve could blame her. He barely felt like calling him that either at this point. “No, they’re out of town, I can give you their hotel number—”

“No, no, that’s okay,” she cut off. “I wanted to talk to you.”

His frown deepened. “Is everything okay?”

There was a soft shuffling noise on the other end. “Yeah, yeah, it’s just…”

She sounded uncertain and nervous. It made Steve nervous. “Amy? What’s wrong?”

“Um…” She laughed awkwardly. “I’m pregnant.”

Steve’s eyebrows shot up and he fell silent.

After nearly a minute, Amy spoke again. “Steve?”

“Yeah, I’m still here, I just… Wow,” he breathed.

Amy hummed nervously. “Yeah. I know.”

“Does…” Steve shifted the phone in his hand. “Does Mom know?”

“God no,” Amy said, “I don’t even know how I would tell her.”

“Wow, okay. Um…” Steve didn’t know how to respond. Part of him jumped for joy. Pregnant. His sister was pregnant. He was going to have a niece or nephew. A baby. But Amy didn’t exactly sound excited. “Is this, I mean— are you, um.”

When he failed to continue his thought, Amy responded as best as she could. “I can’t keep it.” Steve’s stomach fell a little. “Oh. Are you going to, uh, get rid of it?” he asked slowly.

“No,” she laughed, slightly hysterically. “I couldn’t. I mean I could, but I don’t want to.”

Steve was confused then. “What?”

“I just,” she sighed, “I can’t afford it, and I’m nervous about the safety and the legality, and—” she stopped abruptly. “I don’t want to.”

“But you can’t keep it?”

“No.”

Steve blinked. “So what, you’re going to give it up for adoption?” he asked.

“I mean, if I have to.” Steve was more confused. “The thing is, I can’t afford to keep a baby. I mean, I’m single, working for minimum wage, and I am so not ready to be a mother. And the father has made it clear that he wants nothing to do with it, so much so that I can’t even reach him.”

That made Steve angry. “Asshole.” She gave a breathy laugh. “Yeah. He is. And you and I both know that Mom and Jeff would never be okay with this.” Steve nodded sadly. “But I still feel like I have a responsibility to give this baby a good life. So that’s why I called you.”

Steve frowned again. “Me? Why?”

“I, um. I want you to think about this, I don’t need you to answer right away, it’s totally up to you.”

“You’re making me nervous,” he laughed awkwardly.

She chuckled back. “Yeah. So. I want you to adopt the baby.”

Steve froze up. “Me?”

“Yeah.” After a long stretch of silence, Amy went on. “I know that it’s a huge ask, but I know that you’ve always wanted kids. You would make a great dad. You’re so great with kids. And this way, the baby would still be in my life.” There was more silence. Amy piped up again. “So… What do you think?”

“I,” Steve stuttered. “You want me to take it?” he repeated.

“Yes.” The gears were turning. “Look, I know it’s a lot. I still have like eight months before the baby is supposed to be born. That’s plenty of time to think.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Steve stopped again. “I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you,” Amy said earnestly. “Take your time, think about it. I’ll call you again soon.” Steve nodded distantly. “Oh, and, Steve?” she added quickly, “don’t tell your parents yet please.”

Steve blinked. “Right. I won’t.”

“Thanks. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Yeah. Soon.”

“Bye, Steve.”

Amy hung up and Steve simply stood there. The dial tone rang out in his ear as he tried to process everything she’d said.

With his good ear being filled with the droning beep of the phone, he didn’t notice Robin trying to get his attention until she passed a hand in front of his face, startling him out of his thoughts.

He looked at her and put the phone back on the hook. “What happened?” she asked, presumably for the second time.

“I…” Steve blinked and thought about it. “My sister is pregnant.”

Robin’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh wow,” she said, “is that a good thing, or…?”

“I mean… She doesn’t want to raise it.”

“Ah,” Robin hummed, “so she’s going to—” she stopped and gestured vaguely.

Shaking his head, Steve said, “No, no, she’s going to have the baby, but she wants… she wants me to adopt it?” He was still trying to fully process it.

Robin blinked in surprise. “Oh. Okay. Are you going to?”

“I don’t know,” he groaned, “she told me to think about it.”

“Okay, well what are you thinking?”

“I don’t know!” he exclaimed, “I just started thinking about it!”

“Okay, okay! Calm down.” She grabbed his wrist and gently led him to the couch. “Sit down and take a minute.”

Steve sat, his leg immediately began to bounce and he chewed on his lip anxiously. He stared at the coffee table intensely. Robin sat next to him and watched him silently. After a few minutes of watching his mind race, she quietly asked, “Do you… want some help thinking about it?”

Steve looked up at her and considered for a second. Finally, he nodded quickly and said “Yeah. Yes, help me think about it.”

They both shifted on the couch, facing each other. Robin stared at him. He stared back. Suddenly, she said, “Let’s do pros and cons.” She got up and jogged over to where her bag was sitting on the floor. She pulled out a notepad and a pen and hurried over to sit next to Steve again. She clicked the pen and wrote across the top of the page “Having a baby.” She drew a line down the middle and wrote “Pros” and “Cons” at the top of the respective columns.

When the page was ready, she looked up at Steve. “Okay,” she said, “give me a pro.”

Steve stared down at the paper, brow furrowed in concentration. “A pro. Um. I love children,” he said. Robin scribbled down “I love children” under Pros. “And Amy was right, I have always wanted to be a dad,” Steve added. Robin copied down his words again.

“Okay, and what about a con?” she prompted.

Steve groaned nervously. “I’m too young to be a father,” he said.

Robin wrote it down. “People have had children at your age and even younger,” she pointed out.

Steve thought about it. “I’m not ready to be a father.”

“You have until the baby is born, right?” Robin said as she wrote, “So that one could change.”

“What are you doing?” Steve asked her, frustrated. “This is pros and cons.”

“So far,” she pointed at the page, “your cons are fears, not facts.”

Steve glared at her incredulously. “I’m single.”

Robin wrote it down, but commented, “That can change, too.”

“Oh yeah,” he grumbled, “I’m totally going to find a girlfriend in the next eight months who will be willing to raise my sister’s illegitimate child with me.”

Robin shrugged. “You might.” Steve rolled his eyes. “Another pro,” she said.

Steve thought for a moment. He played back what his sister had told him. “The baby would still be with its family.” Robin scribbled it down. “And Amy would be able to be in her baby’s life.”

“Good point,” Robin said as she wrote it down.

“She also asked me to do it, so I feel like I should.”

Robin stopped. “She gave you the choice, right?” Steve nodded. “Don’t should on yourself.”

He blinked at her. “What?”

She shook her head, short brown hair swishing with the movement. “Nevermind. If you did adopt the baby, though, it would make Amy happy. Would that be a pro?”

Steve scratched at his chin. “Yeah, I guess so.” Robin wrote it down. “My parents wouldn’t like it, though.”

Robin added that under the “Cons” column. “Yeah, no shit,” she muttered.

“And I can’t raise a baby by myself,” he said.

“You won’t have to,” she assured him, even as she added the thought to the list.

Steve scoffed. “How do you know?”

Robin looked up at him and stared at him earnestly. “You aren’t alone. There are plenty of people who would be happy to give you support.” “Like who?” he said in disbelief.

Robin quirked an eyebrow. “Me, for one,” she said, jabbing the pen against her nose. “You’re stuck with me, Dingus. I could help you cook, watch the kid if you’re busy, and I can teach them how to be awesome,” she said, “I could be like the cool gay aunt.”

Steve laughed, feeling some of the tension release. “Yeah, right. ‘Cool.’ If you say so.”

Robin grinned, satisfied with cheering him up. “And there are the others,” she went on, “Mrs. Byers would be willing to give some advice I bet. And you could get babysitting help from the kids, Dustin would definitely be up to it.”

Steve sat silently. “Huh. Yeah, I guess so.”

Robin wrote down “I would have support” under Pros.

“I’m just not sure,” he added after another minute.

Robin pursed her lips thoughtfully. “When Amy told you she was pregnant, how did you feel? Like your immediate gut reaction?”

Steve leaned his chin on his hand. “I was excited about the idea of her having a baby,” he replied eventually.

“Okay,” she said, writing on the page again. “And how did you feel when she asked you to adopt it?”

Steve frowned. “I was shocked. I couldn’t really process it.”

“Sure, but once you processed it, how did you feel?” she pressed.

Steve studied her. “I… I felt like… I wanted to do it.”

Robin raised an eyebrow. “You wanted to say yes?”

Steve hesitated. “Yes. And then I started thinking about how it would work, how I would afford it, if I would be any good at it, or–“

“But you want to adopt the baby?” she interrupted.

“Yes, but it’s not that simple, Robin!”

“I know, obviously I get that.” She wrote down “I want to keep the baby” and underlined it. “You have eight months to figure out the logistics, to think about how it would work,” she told him, “but it sounds like you want to do it.”

Steve frowned in concentration. He reached over and took the list from Robin and studied it silently.

I love children.

I’ve always wanted to be a dad.

I’m too young.

I’m not ready. I can’t do it alone.

I would have support.

I’m excited about the baby.

I want to keep the baby.

“I’m scared,” he told her.

“That’s okay,” she replied.

Steve had spent a few more days thinking about the decision. This mostly entailed him turning to Robin with another fear about how things could go wrong. She made a point to reassure him that he was going to do great. “You are caring and selfless and responsible,” she would tell him, “you can do this.” How she became his personal life coach, she had no clue. They added a few points to the Pros and Cons list, but the decision was basically made.

They were sitting on the couch once again as Steve held the notepad and studied the list again. “Why do you still need the list?” Robin asked with an exasperated sigh.

“I’m just trying to weigh them out,” he replied.

“We’ve been over this, Dingus,” she said as she took the list out of his hands. She dropped the notepad onto the coffee table and turned to look at him. “You want to adopt the baby. You have time to prepare. There is no real reason why you can’t or shouldn’t adopt the baby.”

“I know, I know, but what if something goes wrong?”

“Things go wrong all the time,” Robin retorted, “this is Hawkins. But we can handle it, that’s what we do.”

Steve’s leg bounced furiously. “We can handle it,” he echoed softly.

He jumped when the phone began to ring. He looked at Robin who simply gave him an expectant glance. Taking a shaky breath, Steve got up and walked over to the phone. He picked up the handset and held it to his ear. “Harrington residence.”

“Hi Steve,” said the voice on the other end.

“Hey, Amy.”

“So… Have you thought about what I said?” she asked with no further preamble.

Steve gave a breathy laugh in response. “Oh yeah, I’ve thought about it. I’ve basically done nothing but.”

Amy chuckled warmly. “Yeah, I figured. And what do you think?”

His eyes darted over to where Robin was lounging on the couch, watching him eagerly. She gave him an encouraging nod. “I…” he hesitated as he weighed his next words, “I think that I do want to adopt your baby,” he said.

What sounded like a relieved sigh hissed through the speaker on the phone. “Okay, good. Great. Are you sure?”

“No,” he said with a slightly hysterical nervous laugh, “but we’ve talked it through a ton, and,” he paused to look at Robin, “we can handle it.”

Amy hummed softly. “We?”

It took a moment for Steve to understand what she meant. “Oh yeah, um, Robin, she’s been helping me think through the decision,” he explained.

“Oh, right. Robin’s your…?” she trailed off, waiting for an answer.

“She’s my friend,” he answered. That was an oversimplification, but he didn’t feel like going into that.

“Okay, so your ‘friend’ is going to help you raise my kid?” Amy asked, sounding unconvinced.

“What?” He glanced over at Robin again. She tilted her head in confusion. “I mean, she might, but…” he stopped uncertainly.

“I doubt Mom and Jeff would like that you’re ‘living in sin’ with a ‘friend,’” she said sarcastically.

“Oh, no, seriously,” Steve cut in, “Robin’s my friend, but we’re not together.”

“She’s just a friend? Really?” She still didn’t sound like she believed him.

There was nothing ‘just’ about his relationship with Robin at this point, but that was too hard to try to explain. “Yes, really.”

“So why are you planning to co-parent with a friend?”

“I’m not?” he said, even more confused, “why would you assume that?”

“You said ‘we.’”

Silence fell as Steve puzzled over her words. “What?”

“You said ‘we can handle it,’” she elaborated, “in that you and your ‘friend’ can handle it, right?”

Robin was standing beside him then, trying to hear the conversation on the other end. “ Oh, yeah,” Steve muttered, realizing what she was referencing. “I just meant that, like, I know that I can handle it because I have support,” he said, echoing his list.

“Aha,” Amy responded. “That’s good, then. Um hey listen, I have to run, but I will talk to you soon, okay?” she said in a sudden rush.

Nodding, Steve said, “Okay, sure.”

They said their goodbyes and Steve hung up the phone. “What was all of that?” Robin asked when he had set it down.

“She assumed that you were going to co-parent with me,” he summarized.

Robin blinked at him and considered this. “I mean, I’m going to be over all of the time to help, but not exactly.”

“That’s what I said,” he replied. He scratched at his chin thoughtfully before adding “But how is that going to work?”

Robin tilted her head. “What?”

“By the time the baby is born, you’ll be starting college, right?”

Robin froze. “Oh yeah…” She stood there, staring blankly into space which resulted in her eyes boring a hole into Steve’s shirt. “Well. I could defer.”

Steve’s brow furrowed. “No way, Robs, this isn’t your responsibility, it’s mine.”

She frowned back at him. “Steve, if you’re having a kid, I’m going to be there to help you.” Robin had a look in her eyes that said she was working through something in her head. “It would be easier for there to be two of us. And I think that it would be better for the kid to have two parents. We could work together to look after the kid, work to provide for them, and if we did it together…” she looked directly into Steve’s eyes then, “Plenty of guys start families while they’re in college, so why can’t I?”

Steve blinked. “You’re serious?”

“Deadly,” she said, “we’ve been discussing this running on the assumption that I’d be helping anyway, right?” She gestured excitedly with her hands as she spoke. “It’s not so crazy. I think we can do it.”

Steve gaped at her. “You really want to adopt a kid with me?”

She shrugged, giving him a crooked smile. “I’ve been helping you herd a group of rowdy fourteen-year-olds for over a year, I don’t see the difference,” she joked.

Dustin was waiting on the couch for Steve to finish getting ready. They were already running late for the fair, but Steve insisted that he fix his hair before they left even though Dustin insisted it looked the same as always. Eddie was wandering around the living room, looking at all of Steve’s stuff. He would occasionally pick something up and study it, apparently incapable of sitting still.

He picked up some brochure from the mantle and skimmed over it. “Is Steve planning on moving or something?” he asked.

Dustin’s forehead scrunched up. “No, why?”

Eddie showed him the paper, “it looks like he’s going through the classified for houses and apartments,” he responded.

He glanced at the paper again before something else caught his eye. Eddie made a beeline for the coffee table and dropped the paper amid the clutter, scooping up a notepad that sat in the middle. He turned it around and read over the page. As he did so, his eyebrows lifted in surprise.

“What is that?” Dustin asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

“Dude,” Eddie breathed, “I think Steve knocked up some girl.”

“What?” Dustin jumped up and stumbled around the coffee table to join Eddie. Eddie turned the notepad to let him see.

“It’s a Pros and Cons list to decide whether or not he wants to keep a baby,” he said. “Who’s Amy?”

Dustin studied the list. The name was familiar, but he was struggling to place it.

“What are you guys doing?” Steve said, unimpressed when he came into the room. Both boys’ heads snapped up to look at him.

Eddie straightened up and smirked at Steve. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend right now, let alone a pregnant one,” he said.

Steve gave him a confused stare. “What? I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Dustin snatched the list from Eddie and waved it at Steve. “So who did you knock up?”

Following the movement on the notepad with his eyes, Steve opened his mouth to speak. Then a look of realization crossed his face and he burst into laughter.

Dustin and Eddie exchanged confused glances.

“I didn’t get anyone pregnant,” he explained, “it’s my sister. She’s pregnant.”

“You have a sister?” muttered Eddie.

“Wait, then why are you making a list about whether or not you want to have a baby?” Dustin demanded.

“Me and Robin are going to adopt the baby,” Steve said as if it were the most normal thing in the world, “I would have told you guys soon enough, but we’re still working on finding a place and figuring out how we’re going to do it all.”

“Ah, you see? He is moving,” Eddie added triumphantly.

Dustin waved him off, “You and Robin are adopting a baby? Together?” Dustin asked incredulously.

Steve squinted at him. “Yes. And before you say anything else, no, this does not mean that we are together.”

Dustin rolled his eyes. “I do not understand you at all.”