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“Uh oh,” Robin whispers.
Steve takes in a deep breath, tightening his hold on the steering wheel, “Rob?”
“So,” the paper map wrinkles next to him, “I think we just missed our last stop for the next hour.”
Steve focuses on the other cars rushing by.
“NOOOOOO!” Eddie screams from the back, until there was a crash in the backseat leading to muffling Eddie’s despair.
“Hey! That's my stuff you’re messing around!” Robin twists from her seat and slaps Eddie with the crumbled up map.
“Don’t make me turn this car around!” Steve shouts. He cannot tug Robin back to her seat because right then many cars are entering the highway into his lane.
“I sure hope–OW! — I need to pee!” Eddie shouts.
“Should've gone on the last stop!” Robin responds.
The slapping between Eddie and Robin increases and Steve is annoyed, tired and just done. It didn't help when the sun reflecting on the cars got to his eyes. And now his headache is threatening to become a migraine.
Best not risk it, so Steve drives on the side of the road to park.
He couldn’t enjoy the sudden silence when he had to close his eyes tightly. A soft curse behind him was the only warning before someone slowly put something over his head.
For a moment voices said something softly before it’s replaced by clothes being slapped, leaving only the running engine of the car.
Each heartbeat pierces through Steve’s head. A cold bottle touches his cheek. He opens his bleary eyes. He A blurry image of a bottle lazily reaches the given bottle and stretches his free hand for the aspirin to be dropped in.
After a long while, Eddie whispers, “Stevie, best you switch.”
“...fine,” Steve sighs. He promised to trust Eddie and not push through the pain. Then he only remembers snapshots: Eddie guiding him out of the car, door closing behind him and a seat belt clicking. A shirt was caught in the window next to his head, blocking the sun for sure.
Eddie eyes Steve, who curls up his seat and goes to sleep.
“I hate it when he gets like this,” Robin who was fidgeting in her seat.
“Not going to say don’t worry, but I can give you my utmost sacred oath, I will watch over him,” Eddie looks at Robin. She gives him a shaky smile.
“Swear on Dustin’s mom?”
“Of course,” He returns his attention to the car. Gas is three quarters full, the A/C is running, and mirrors in position.
“Thanks,” Robin opens the map.
“Oh, let me see your map,” Eddie turns around, giving gimme hands, “Need to know how far we need to go, since I have to hold in my pee.”
Robin gives him a bottle. He stares at it then Robin's wide smile, holding back her laughter. He stares at her. Just as he opens his mouth, Steve grumbles next to him.
They both freeze for a minute. After a couple of cars pass them by, Steve’s breath deepens. Eddie and Robin sigh in relief.
“Give me the stupid map,” Eddie growls. Robin gives him the map and the bottle.
Placing the empty bottle between his legs, Eddie carefully stretches the map. He frowns. The map is moved closer to his face, and still sees no difference from when he first saw the map.
"Robin…why did you choose the longest route to your university?”
“What?!" Robin gasps, off-beat and too loudly.
“M’faul’,” Steve grumbles. Eddie tugs up the extra shirt over Steve’s eyes.
Steve lazily slaps his hands.
“Knew Robin didn’t…want to leave yet…”
Robin looks down. She picks on the loose thread of her worn flannel tied around her waist.
“You didn’t have to…”
“But I’ll miss you even though–” Steve freezes.
A speeding car goes by.
“Steve…?” Eddie asks, not bothering to pull up the shirt.
Steve eyes Eddie and raises an eyebrow.
Eddie frowns, mouthing what.
Steve jerks his head toward Robin.
Eddie looks between Steve and Robin until he gasps. He nods so hard; the car began to shake. Or it could have been a couple of cars rushing by, too fast for comfort.
“You are already talking in code just…just like we do Dingus!!!” Robin beams at him. Eddie frowns. Not the response he was expecting.
“R’bn,” Steve whines. Robin only lets out one apology before covering her mouth with both hands. Steve eyes Robin suspiciously. He slowly turns to Eddie before giving him an equally slow nod.
“Robin…just wait for us. Hold out one semester, then you will able to visit you every day,” Eddie looks at the map again, “Given that we are moving to the same city as you.”
Robin snaps to Steve’s bashful smile then at the rear mirror meeting Eddie’s nervous look.
“How?” she chokes out.
“We have been saving money like crazy,” Eddie explains.
At Steve’s groan, Eddie laughs, “The brats were not happy from the snack and ride cut downs we had to do. Fortunately Dustin stepped it up and became their personal driver.”
Robin blinks at them for a long moment. Just as Steve and Eddie drop their smiles, Robin somehow screams with her mouth closed–thankfully– and grabs both of them. She cries and laughs, tightening her hold.
“...definitely, the sooner we go, the faster you guys can get ready to join me,” Robin shifts in her seat, barely holding the urge to jump up and down in the car.
“...after you go pee in the bushes,” Steve chuckles, pointing at the bottle Robin gave him.
“Glad you peed,” Steve comments, staring ahead.
Eddie slides down his seat and groans loudly, “Glad it was a small headache after all.”
Robin leans between the seats and stares along with Eddie and Steve.
In front of them is a long line of cars, not moving. Apparently by the rushing emergency vehicles, there is a car crash or something. When the vehicles passed through the shoulder, Steve’s car was already back in the road.
Except it stopped moving for an hour.
“Well, good thing I have some board games,” Robin said.
“What? Counting how many red cars we see isn’t fun enough?” Steve jokes before taking another sip of his bottle of water.
Not to be confused with the one Eddie threw into the trunk of the car before he went to take care of business in the forestry next to the shoulder Steve parked earlier.
“Depends what kind of games,” Eddie narrows his eyes. She pulls out monopoly.
“NO!”
“Who ate my brownies?” Eddie grumbles.
“Bownie, Bowie, oh!” Robin giggles, “Steve, Dingus, you told him? That cycle thing?”
Steve blushes, “You shouldn’t have eaten Eddie’s special brownies, Rob.”
“No wait, what is this cycle thing?” Eddie smirks at Steve. Robin hums, waiting for Steve.
“Yes, Rob, I told him about the…bicycle thing.”
“You did?” Eddie mentally goes through all the funny anecdotes he hoarded about Steve.
“Ste, Steph, Stebbie, Stevie,” Robin pats the middle space between Steve and Eddie, “If he doesn’t know, how will he…”
Robin leans over, eyes wide at Eddie before whispering loudly, “He won’t know about your disgusting non-straight crush on his raccoon ass.”
“Wait…is she saying bicycle?”
Robin crackles, “Can I tell him, tell him? Pretty please with a butterscotch on top?”
Robin blinks each eye and Steve groans into this hands.
“Ok, ok!” She slaps Eddie’s chest, “So, so, when we looking info for you know, Dorothy things.”
Eddie moving the car slowly forward. Finally after two hours and a half!
“Edmund listen!”
“Robin, you ate my brownies!”
“Anyways, Steve said, said, super excited he’s a bicycle.”
“Were you drunk?” Eddie leans back from Steve’s grab, tricky in a small car.
“I got too excited and mixed my words, I meant bisexual.”
“Aww!” Eddie leans over to kiss Steve. He flicks off the car next to them when they press their horn at them.
“At least we don’t have teenagers making out in the back,” Robin grumbles. Her voice trails off and snores began.
The car starts to move to school zone speed.
“You knew she would eat them,” Steve comments, not looking at the map. They really were near the exit. He must have taken a wrong turn after the last gas station stop. He seriously thought he had told Eddie about the detour.
Steve sighs. That morning they did left late, so there was no time for any updates.
“I’m sorry.”
“What? For what?” Eddie gave a quick look at Steve.
“I thought I did told you, but then I forgot,” Steve smooths the map.
Eddie hums, “I mean, yeah, would have been nice to know.”
They pass a highway sign stating the nearest exit is half a mile away.
“But I also know how much you miss Robin and I will never take you away from her,” Eddie grins, “Besides you’re a package deal and I love Robin like a sister in law.”
“Love you too, Dingus Two,” Robin mumbles and goes back to snoring.
“Hell yeah! I got a nickname,” Eddie wiggles in his seat.
The exit appears and now only a couple of streets before they reach Robin’s college dorms.
Steve startles at something touching his left hand. Eddie’s eyes are focused in merging into the service road, but his right hand is brushing his.
As the speed of the car slows, Robin wakes up, groggily.
All the while, Steve holds onto Eddie’s hand.
He isn’t going to be alone when Robin leaves. Eddie will be there.