WHO: Steve Squared WHAT: The future is wilder than Steve imagined, and nobody thought to tell him. WHERE: Edge of town by the forest WHEN: Afternoon, backdated to after Steve's net post. RATING: PG-13 for possible language
Steve can't help but feel like he's been living in a state of endless confusion ever since arriving to Starklandia.
There's a lot he doesn't understand - look, he gets it. Not only did he somehow travel between parallel universes, but he jumped 30+ years into the future. That's bound to come with difficulties, right? Right. Anybody would be bewildered in his place. It's not just that he's dumb, okay? He's not. Really. Contrary to popular opinion - whatever. The point is, even Nancy would be taken aback by everything - just because Hopper doesn't seem to give a shit (and after everything, can Steve really blame him?) doesn't mean it's not totally weird.
He likes to think he's managing pretty well, all things considered. Tony had run through a lot with him - some of it, too fast for him to fully wrap his brain around - but Steve had managed not to break the phone again since Tony fixed it, so. Points there. He even got a message up! He was talking to people via text, how cool was that? Granted...Gwen had helped him with the - she called it a 'capslock', Steve had been focusing on remembering all the buttons - and she'd filled in some more, uh, details Steve had been lacking but hey! He was trying here, okay, and he thought he was making progress.
Of course, now he had to figure out how he felt about the cancer thing (that couldn't be real, right? Cigarettes causing cancer?), but everything kind of came to a screeching halt after his conversation with Steve. Gay marriage was legal?? And nobody thought that was an important detail!
The thing is, he's not sure if the guy is pulling his leg or not. And it's not really something Steve's comfortable continuing to discuss over a public network (he's still working on the making-it-private thing, best not to risk it), because what if he is fucking with him? There's a reason Robin never actually said it to him out loud and Steve - he feels like he's right to be wary. Especially with everything in the news - well, his news, back in 1985, they're calling it the gay plague and a whole host of other awful things, people screaming profanities in the name of the lord and others, on the other side, dying on hospital steps -
He wants to know if it's true. If things are better. If it is, the future...might not be as bad as Steve thought.
If it isn't, he's just gonna hope he didn't accidentally sign up for an ass-kicking.