Her breathing was close by his ear. He closed his eyes. She was so warm.

Together they went to the grocery store. It was super bright in there and Steve almost wore his sunglasses in. He had a hangover but minus the fun of getting drunk. A hangover from saving the world. Robin pushed the cart for him, shoving it and then letting it roll to a stop by itself down every aisle. She hung by her ankles off the back, grinning as the slight breeze from the rush of the cart pushed her overgrown bangs away from her sweaty forehead.

They stood by the melons and pressed their thumbs into the skin, searching for bruises or other forms of mistake. Steve assumed everybody around them thought they were a couple and part of him enjoyed that - the fact that people in Hawkins still thought he could get a girl as great as Robin. It was easier, anyway. Robin held two of the melons in front of her chest and Steve couldn’t get her away from the fruit fast enough.

They stared down the half-stocked frozen aisle and contemplated what milk was best. 

“2 percent,” Steve argued. 

“Skim,” Robin retorted.

“Whole milk,” They said at the same time. And then laughed, because who buys whole milk?

They bought a gallon of each because Lucas, in fact, was a steady whole milk enjoyer. The jugs jiggled in the cart and Robin beat down on the lid tops rhythmically with long, spindly fingers.

The spot at the bottom of the cart, usually reserved for large boxes and bags of water bottles, became stocked up with Eggos. Judging by the amount they needed to buy it was easier to keep it all down there instead of crowding the top part of the cart - which was reserved for an overwhelming amount of Coke and Cheezits.

“You can’t wait five minutes?” Steve asked as he watched Robin rip apart the tip of a Tastycake package like a wild animal. 

“I’ll keep the bag,” Robin promised with a mouthful of the cake, little crumbs landing on her lips. 

Robin poked groups of bananas experimentally as if they held the secrets of the universe. She was very picky about the color they were supposed to be. Steve waited for her, the cart now in his hands, and leaned over the edge. He came close to tipping it over. Robin wasn’t paying attention.

“Steve?” A voice came from the empty shelves used to stock seasonal fruits. “Steve Harrington?” Carol Perkins.

“Hey, Carol,” Steve said. He got off the cart and attempted to appear put together and casual. Not like he was the only one of the two worse for wear - clearly the earthquake had hit Carol hard. Her red hair was pinned up and springing from her head like she’d gotten electrocuted.

“How are you, Steve?” Carol asked, eyes not-so-subtly flicking over to Robin. 

“Oh, fine,” Steve promised, breaking out into an easy grin. “Just fine. You?”

“I’ve been better,” Carol allowed. He noticed she had a knife attached to a loop on her high-rise jeans. 

“Sorry to hear that,” Steve said, because he wasn’t sure what else to say. Carol nodded, eyes far away.

“If you wanna come over for dinner or something,” Carol drifted off. She glanced back at the tiny grocery basket slung on her arm - strawberries, cereal, baby formula. Steve tried to not let his eyes widen too much at that last ingredient. “Um. Yeah. I’m sure you and Tommy have plenty to catch up on.”

“Thanks,” Steve said. He didn’t mean it.

“Yeah,” Carol replied. She didn’t mean it either.

After she’d walked off towards the butcher station at the back of the grocery store, Robin reappeared with two bunches of bananas. They looked perfect, so yellow. Like they’d just been taken off the tree. Steve imagined getting to lie beneath a banana tree, peeling one out for breakfast and falling asleep in the sun. His eyes crinkled at the thought.

“That was awkward,” Robin commented. She dropped the bananas without a second thought into the cart. They barely dodged getting bumped on the sharp corner of the Lucky Charms box.

“She has a baby,” Steve said absently. They started for the Campbell’s cans and Robin hung off the front of the cart while he pushed.

“How do you know?” Robin asked. As they crossed aisles, for a moment stepping back into the center of the store, Steve caught Carol checking out. She wiped a dirty hand down her face.

“She had baby formula in her basket,” Steve said. Robin hummed. “Jesus. She has a baby.”

“Is that more or less shocking than the monster from an alternate dimension?” Robin asked. She leaned into the cart to lift up her hands, trying to judge where he’d place them on the figurative list. Surprisingly, it was a difficult question to answer.

“You know,” Steve began, “I always knew they’d get stuck here together - Carol and Tommy, I mean. But. She’s my age. And she’s got a baby. They’ve got a baby.”

“Chicken noodle or Italian wedding?” Robin held up both cans. She dropped the chicken noodle in the cart without waiting for an answer. She knew what his pick would be instinctively.

“Can you imagine me with a baby?” Steve asked incredulously, careful to keep his voice down. “Worse, can you imagine having a baby now? With Hawkins like it is?”

“Earthquakes and apocalypses happen and life goes on,” Robin replied. Steve waited for her to hop on the front of the cart before he started pushing again. “Haven’t you read The Stand?”

“I can’t imagine having a baby,” Steve continued, completely ignoring her. Robin sighed and drummed the corner of the battered cart. 

“Technically, you kinda do,” Robin said. “You have seven, actually.”

“They’re not babies anymore,” Steve retorted, parroting something Nancy had said months before. “Should we pick up marshmallows?”

“Is that a question?” Robin scooped up a bag from the shelf without getting off the cart. It landed unceremoniously beside the bananas.

“I can’t imagine being at a point in a relationship right now where I’d decide to have a baby,” Steve said. Robin shot him a look.

“You think they decided to have a baby? Carol Perkins and Tommy Hagan just sat down and talked about it and thought ‘you know what? A baby right now is a good idea. Get on the bed, let’s go.’” 

“Can you imagine having a baby?” Steve repeated. Robin lunged forwards on her heels to grab at his cheeks, shaking his face in her hands.

“Steve, snap out of it,” She commanded. And he did. “Is this the official death of the six Harrington nuggets?” 

“I thought I was going to die,” Steve said, furiously blushing. “Why can nobody let that go?” Robin dropped his face and patted one of the hands on the cart handle comfortingly. 

“I’ll let it go,” She offered easily. She definitely wouldn’t. “Ooh - fruit snacks!”

Out in the parking lot Robin leaned on the car and watched Steve slug bags and bags of groceries into the back of his BMW. He heaved at the intense weight of the absurd amount of frozen pizzas they’d bought. She traced some scratches on the side from when Max had headbutted into it last Fall with her bitten-down nail. Her stomach twisted at the memory. Both of them had nearly ripped out their hair then, worried sick about Max and the barely-there cut on her arm. It was all so simple and dumb. 

Hawkins residents mulled like zombies. The cracks in the pavement were no longer from years of battered cars, speeding wheels - they all led like tiny riverbends from the massive oceans that were the opened portals. The faultlines. Steve watched a little girl cling to her mother’s hand and hop over them like cracks in the sidewalk. 

“Step on a crack, Vecna breaks your back,” Steve muttered. Robin said nothing but definitely thought he was losing it. Which he probably was. She clapped a comforting hand on his back and as she went to drop it he grabbed it with his own, squeezing their fingers together tightly. She smiled at him and it meant everything. He shut the backdoor and mindlessly sat in the driver’s seat.

When Robin scrambled her way into the passenger, she slapped the dash a good few times - searching for the best song. Some radio station was playing a hazy version of a Bananarama song. She turned it up. He rolled down the windows. They passed the entrance to his neighborhood if only to pretend a little bit longer that yes, they were normal teenagers out for a drive. Robin stuck her head out the window and shut her eyes.