“Steve?” Eddie asks, moving to rest her guitar gently on the ground next to her bed. She’s been playing softly for a while now, just strumming at the strings and fiddling with a song that’s been long since written, while Steve worked his way through mending a hole in a pair of Robin’s pants.
Their girlfriend had worn a hole in the inner left thigh, right above the knee, a few weeks ago by pulling at a thread and worrying at the fabric while she waited for the results of her driving test. She’d passed, barely, but her slacks had far less success.
”Yeah, honey?” Steve responds, not looking up from his work The pet name makes Eddie’s throat tight with emotion, since she knows Steve tends to use it only when Eddie’s feeling a bit more feminine. It gives her the courage to say what she’s been trying to for hours now, to give air time to the words that have sat at the tip of her tongue since she woke up this morning. Or maybe before.
“I don’t know, it’s, like, weird?” she starts, the sentence coming out more question than statement.
”Bad weird or good weird?” Steve asks, putting down the slacks and tucking the sewing needle safely into the fabric before giving Eddie his full attention. Steve’s eyes on her feel less like an uncomfortable weight, though, and more like a warm fire.
“Gender weird.” Steve nods, taking her answer in stride, so she continues. “Like, I feel like a chick today but I don’t want to wear a skirt or a dress or makeup really, I don’t want frills or pink and I kind of want to rip my skin off,” Eddie vents, all in one breath.
Her chest hurts and her stomach is in knots. Nothing she’s wearing feels right and nothing in her closet looks like it’ll be any better.
“Ok, baby, hey. It’s ok, can I touch you?” Steve asks, gentle and earnest in that way that only he can be.
Eddie nods, letting Steve pull one of her hands away from where it had been fidgeting with her other one, twisting her rings manically and ripping at her cuticles.
“Can I ask some questions?” Steve asks, cocking his head to the side like a confused puppy.
It’s comforting and kind of heartwarming, and even though Eddie thinks she might puke if she has to examine this too much, the genuine look in his eyes makes her feel a bit better. There’s no judgment there, just Steve’s typical concern and curiosity.
Eddie nods, “I think so.”
“Let me know if you need me to shut up,” Steve teases, and gives Eddie a kiss on the forehead when she nods.
God, how can she stay upset with this dork around?
“Ok, so, you feel like a girl right now? Am I getting that right, baby?” Steve asks.
Eddie nods, glad he’s starting with the basics. “Yeah, definitely girl.”
“Thanks for confirming,” Steve says with a smile. “Umm, ok, so what about the clothes?”
“I just-” Eddie hesitates, cutting herself off. She worries her lip between her teeth, then stops because she hates how pulling at the skin exposes the light stubble that she gets even after shaving, and brings her free hand up to her mouth to chew on her thumbnail.
“Hey,” Steve chides softly, taking her hand away and holding it. She’s stuck with both hands in each of Steve’s, sitting still on the bed beside him, and she very suddenly wants to scream.
There’s too much going on inside of her for her to just sit there, doesn’t he get that? Does he want her to fucking cry, is that it?
The feeling builds when Steve drops one hand, reaching around behind him before grabbing a piece of paper and handing it to her. Eddie’s so fucking confused, and now Steve’s going to, what, take notes on her? Like she’s a goddamn experiment?
The feeling of paper against her fingertips makes her pause her line of thought. It tickles and it’s too light against her skin, the pressure grating on her nerves, and she wants to swat it away.
“Rip this?” Steve asks.
Eddie freezes. Oh.
“Th-thanks,” she stutters, taking the paper and releasing his other hand so she can start to fiddle with it. The paper immediately wilts at the touch of her sweaty hands, and the sound of it ripping interrupts the heavy silence around them. Her shoulders relax, just a bit.
“”M sorry,” Eddie whispers after a second, refusing to look up at Steve.
“What for?”
And fuck, Eddie doesn’t deserve his kindness. “I, I always think the worst. I almost bit your head off for grabbing my hands when all you were trying to do was keep me from hurting myself. Then I assumed you were going to take notes on me, or whatever, like I’m some sort of fucked up science experiment, and why the fuck would I think that about you?”
“Eds,” Steve says, and the pain in his voice makes her shatter.
“I’m so sorry,” she says like a prayer.
“This isn’t an experiment, Eds,” Steve says earnestly.
Eddie huffs out a laugh, hiding behind her hair. She rips at the piece of paper frantically, all electricity and restless energy. Shreds litter the bed and her lap like the saddest confetti known to mankind.
“Look at me,” Steve pleads, and the weight of his eyes on her is stronger than any willpower she might have left. Eddie turns, and Steve’s big brown eyes are wide and earnest, staring right into hers. “You are not an experiment.”
The statement knocks the breath out of Eddie.
She can’t find the words to respond, and all that comes out of their open mouth is a half-constrained whimper.
“You’ve never been an experiment, baby,” Steve says firmly. “Not not when we first started dating and I thought you were just my boyfriend. Not now, when you’re my boyfriend, or my girlfriend, or just plain mine. I love you. Fact. Done. Anything else is just,” Steve waves his hand as if swatting a fly, his eyebrows crinkling cutely, “noise. Extra.”
Before Eddie can get a word in, Steve continues. “It’s good noise, too, Eds. Every new thing I learn about you, and you learn about yourself, is a bonus.”
Eddie feels herself smile around her tears, letting out a laugh that’s equally a sob.
“You’re not an experiment. You’re, like, a really good book. The best campaign ever written,” Steve exclaims, seemingly pretty pleased with himself for the analogy.
“You’re perfect the way you are, and were, and all the ways you’re going to be. We’ve all changed since this started, honey. That doesn’t mean you love us any less, and when you change, it doesn’t mean we don’t love you,” Steve says gently, and he’s so earnest Steve can’t even argue.
“I love you, too,” Eddie whispers, her voice cracking like she’s going through puberty all over again.
Steve pulls back, teary and grinning like a doofus. “So, clothes?”
Eddie sighs, wracking her brain to try and get back into thinking mode instead of kiss-Steve-silly mode.
“I guess it’s, like,” Eddie groans and reaches for her piece of paper again, folding the remaining smooth corner over and over until it’s so soft it nearly breaks off on its own. “So, right now, for example. Girl? Yes. Girly? No.”
It’s stupid, and it’s short, but Steve takes it. “Right. So, no frills, no pink, no… Nancy clothes?”
Eddie huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, no Nancy clothes.”
Steve nods. “What about Robin clothes?”
Eddie pauses. “What do you mean?”
“Well, Robin’s a girl, right?”
“As far as we know, Stevie,” Eddie teases.
“Shut up,” Steve snorts, shaking his head in exasperation. “So, Robin’s a girl. But she hates dresses. She hates skirts. Don’t you remember how uncomfortable she was when she had to play a preppy college girl?”
Eddie nods, starting to catch on. “Yeah, ok,” she breathes, taking a deep breath.
“You don’t need frilly clothes to be a girl, Eds,” Steve says like he’s coming to some profound conclusion, like it isn’t some baseline thing that they should both know by now. And it isn’t, honestly. “Your clothes are girl clothes, cause you’re a girl. Right? Rob’s clothes aren’t guy clothes, even if they are sold in the men's section at Goodwill.” Steve pauses, his brow furrowing. “Wait, that’s bad, isn’t it? Why do we even have a men’s section, if Robin’s gonna buy clothes from there? What if I want to buy a skirt, that’s in the women’s section. This is so stupid!”
“Ok, ok, slow down there, Mr. Activist,” Eddie laughs. “I think I get it. We don’t need to solve the world’s asshole-ness all in one day, but I know what you mean about girl clothes and boy clothes. It’s stupid.”
“So stupid,” Steve nods.
“And don’t think I’m skating right over that “Stevie in a skirt” image, either, yeah?”
Steve nods, giggling. Eddie files away his flushed cheeks for later, forcing the gears in her brain to stop turning down the road of whether it’s a gender thing, a kinky thing, or both.
Not to mention, Eddie hates to kill the mood, she really does, but she also doesn’t feel… satisfied.
“The thing is, I… How are you gonna know? Like, if I’m not wearing “girl clothes,” how will you tell I’m a girl today? Or the other way around?” Eddie worries aloud.
“Your clothes aren’t for me, Eds.”
“I mean, no, but-”
Steve cuts her off with an eyebrow raise so intense it rivals Nance’s. “And I can ask, right?”
“Yeah, but what if I don’t want you to have to? What if I want to look like a girl in boy clothes like Robin and just have people know instead of thinking I’m a dude? What if I want to look like a girl in girl clothes like Nancy and have it be obvious that I’m a girl, not some weirdo modern man in a dress? Or what if I wear a dress and I actually do want to look like a guy in a dress, like you would! What if I want to look like nothing in any clothes and have you just be able to tell? I hate that I have to be so fucking confusing all the time!”
Eddie pants a bit as she falls quiet, heart racing nauseatingly. Steve nods, encouraging her to continue, but Eddie’s got nothing else to say. She’s grateful when Steve starts talking.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Steve says earnestly, eyes big and innocent.
Eddie hates that she’s putting Steve through this. Why couldn’t she have just been born normal? Been born a real girl, one Steve could love in public? Or been born a normal, regular boy, one Steve could love in private but at least it wouldn’t be so damn confusing.
“I don’t know how to fix this. I can’t promise that I’ll always immediately be able to see you for how you are, but that’s not your fault. And I know what you’re gonna say, that it isn’t my fault either, and I won’t fight you on that. I don’t know whose fault it is, but it sure as hell isn’t yours.”
Eddie opens her mouth to talk, but Steve quiets her with a desperate glance, obviously not done.
“I want to know you inside and out, even when you feel that those don’t match. I want to be able to see you and know, just like you want me to. But I also.. Don’t care?” Steve cringes. “Ok, wait, that sounds wrong. I care about you, and about seeing you, and about you being comfortable. It’s just, well, I love you all the time. I love you the same when you’re a girl and when you’re not, even though I might treat you a bit differently one way or another, because that’s just how relationship dynamics work. But I also treat you differently when you’re tired versus when you’re a hyperactive weirdo, or when we’re with the kids versus when we’re alone. Or when you’re all sexy and cool and I want to tackle you off the stage, versus when I see you curled up in my shirt and want to cuddle you until we both fuse with the couch. But I don’t ever see you as anything other than my Eddie, so why would gender… matter? Listen, it’s not coming out right, but you get it, don’t you?”
“I think so,” Eddie whispers. Her chest hurts, for a moment, as she realizes how wise Steve’s managed to become. How caring, loving, he is. She thinks back to the Steve of old, King Steve, and can’t help but feel selfishly grateful if all the shit that brought them here. They’re once in a lifetime, one misstep and this could’ve never happened. It’s rare, nowadays, for them to feel grateful. Eddie let’s it wash over her, a soothing balm to the ever-present itch under her skin.
“I know it’s not a perfect solution. It sucks not to feel seen, I know that, and I can’t even wrap my head around it in your case,” Steve asserts, bringing Eddie back to the present.
Eddie nods, a little unmoored and a lot speechless, and they sit in near-silence for a few moments. Eddie’s paper tearing fills the silence, keeping things from getting too quiet for too long, which Steve is grateful for since he can barely stand it on a good day.
“You don’t confuse me, Eds,” Steve whispers after a beat.
Eddie glances up from her lap, just barely meeting Steve’s eyes. “Really?”
Steve nods, his hair bouncing. “Really. And I’m confused by, like, a lot.”
“Shut up,” Eddie says on instinct, like she always does when Steve gets all self-deprecating, you’re an idiot, Steve Harrington on them.
“Whatever,” Steve pushes on. “I can call myself stupid if you get to call yourself confusing.”
“You’ve made your point” Eddie giggles, trying to hide her relief and joy behind false frustration, throwing her hands in the air.
The paper shreds on her lap jostle with the movement, even more flying away when Steve pounces at her, raining down like snow onto the bed and floor below. But Eddie isn’t cold, with Steve in her arms.