Chapter Text
“Rob?” Steve picks up the phone on the fourth ring and Robin breathes a sigh of relief.
“Steve, I need your help, I’m going for ice cream with Nancy tomorrow, and as she hung up the phone, she said ‘it’s a date’, but I can’t tell if she meant ‘it’s a date’ platonically or if she meant ‘it’s a date’ romantically, and if she meant it romantically, does that mean she likes me? I haven’t even told her I like girls! She meant it platonically, right? She probably meant it platonically. But, Steve, I think I might, maybe, um, like, actually, I think I might like her? Nancy. I think I like Nancy. Romantically. So. Uh. Yeah.” Steve is quiet on the other end of the line for a moment. “S-Steve?” Robin bites her lip nervously.
Nancy probably didn’t mean it like that. She probably meant ‘it’s a date’ like the way her mom means it, when she goes out with friends and marks it in her calendar. She probably meant it the way Robin says it to Steve when he picks the movie they’re gonna watch at their weekly movie night. She probably meant it in the most platonic, un-romantic way humanly possible, and Robin’s probably deluding herself.
“Okay. Yeah. That’s a lot to unpack.” Steve sounds stunned. Robin takes a deep shaky breath. “So, uh, you’re going for ice cream with Nance, tomorrow. That’s nice.”
“Stev-uh!” Robin enunciates the last vowel, adding a syllable to Steve’s name in exasperation. Just give her an answer already!
“Okay, okay. So you wanna know if Nancy meant ‘it’s a date’ platonically or romantically. Did you try asking?”
“What!? You know I can’t do that! If I ask and she gets offended then she’s not going to want to be my friend anymore, and I will have lost yet another female friend because of some stupid crush I had on them, and I can’t do that with Nance. I just can’t!” Barb. Vickie. Robin refuses to add Nancy’s name to that list.
“Okay, jeez. Y’know, I am probably the worst person for you to be asking this, to be honest. Nance and I dated, yeah, and we’re friends again now, sure, but I don’t even know if Nance is straight.”
“You’re obviously delusional, Steve, because there is no way that Nancy Wheeler isn’t the straightest straight girl to have ever walked the earth.”
“Well then what are you even coming to me for?” Steve gives an exasperated sigh on the other end of the line and Robin replies with a frustrated one of her own.
“Because what if she’s not, Steve? What if Nancy Wheeler likes me? Then what?”
Steve takes a moment to reply. “Robin. I’ve seen the way she looks at you. I’m, like, ninety percent sure she’s never even made fuck-me eyes that hard at me, and we dated for a year and a half. If she doesn’t like you romantically, then she’s gotta learn the difference between fuck-me eyes and I-like-you-platonically-as-a-friend eyes. I mean, seriously!”
“Not helping!” Robin paces back and forth across her carpet, getting more and more anxious by the second.
“Robin, seriously, I think you should assume it’s romance. What’s the worst that could happen?” Steve sounds so nonchalant that it’s actually pissing Robin off.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” She’s about ten seconds away from a full-on freak out. “What’s the worst that could happen? Steve, you are aware that being homosexual in Hawkins, Indiana is about one of the most dangerous things you can possibly do with your life, right? World-ending monsters aside. When I came out to Vickie and I tried to ask her on a date, she literally ran away screaming.”
“I’m sure she didn’t actually-”
“Steve, she called me a slur, threw the towel she was holding at my head and yelled at our supervisor that she was quitting before doing one of those, like, full-body shivers you do when you touch something gross, and then speed-walked as fast as she possibly could out the door.”
“O-okay, yeah, that’s pretty bad.”
“God, Steve, what do I do?” Robin groans. She plops herself down on the edge of her bed and puts her head in her hands.
------
Nancy shows up for their ‘date’ exactly on time. Robin is eight minutes early, having run to the park from Family Video to limit her (very high) chances of being late. Robin waves at the brunette as she steps out of her car, looking just slightly more dressy than usual in a lilac dress, light blue sweater and a pair of pink flats. Robin feels a little out of place in her usual jean jacket, cargo pants and doc martens. She nervously runs her fingers through her wind-tousled hair to try and flatten it just a bit as Nancy gets closer, smiling brightly. She wraps Robin in a hug as soon as she gets close enough.
“Hi, Rob.”
“Uh,” Robin takes a second to comprehend what’s happening before wrapping her arms around the smaller girl and hugging her back. “Hi.” Nancy smells like flowery perfume and strawberry shampoo and her hair tickles Robin’s cheek. Robin is acutely aware that the hug lasts slightly longer than she’s been told is socially acceptable for friends. Eventually, Nancy pulls back and gives her a soft smile. Robin returns it a little less smoothly.
“So, uh. Ice cream?” She tries to break the slight tension in the air and Nancy laughs softly (which Robin immediately overthinks: why is she laughing? Did Robin say something wrong? Isn’t ice cream why they came to the park in the first place?)
“Of course. Let’s go!” Nancy grabs Robin’s hand in her own before Robin can fully spiral and tugs her across the grassy field to the other side of the park (Robin’s brain blanks out at the contact).
Nancy gets a single scoop of cookie dough and Robin gets a double scoop of mint chocolate chip. They sit on the grass to eat, Robin spreading her jacket out under them so they don’t have to touch the spiky grass texture, and Nancy strikes up a conversation about college, because, right, she’s got an early acceptance to Emerson, which she’s obviously very excited about.
“I mean, I’m so ready to be out from under my parents’ roof; they’re impossibly strict. Nevermind the fact their kids have saved the world, like, four times in a row. But at the same time, I feel like maybe I’m not ready to go? I’m only eighteen, you know? Not really ready to adult that hard.”
“Right.” Robin nods, attacking her ice cream with her tongue.
“What about you? Are you ready to be out in the world?” Nancy looks… uncertain? Robin can’t exactly tell what her face is trying to say.
“Uh, well, I’m not going to college. Not yet, at least.” She licks at where her ice cream is starting to drip around the edge of the cone to avoid rambling.
“Oh. Why?” Okay, she’s not getting out of this.
“Well, I’m poor, for one thing. And no scholarships for the weird kid.” Not that she applied for any. “Plus, I want to travel. College isn’t really my bag.” She shrugs. Nancy nods. Robin continues to lick her ice cream. She’s almost down to the cone. Nancy has barely made a dent in hers. They sit in a comfortable silence for a few moments before Nancy speaks again.
“I’ll miss you.”
Robin’s face scrunches in confusion. “What?”
“When I leave for college. Whether that’s two months or a year from now. I’m gonna miss seeing you all the time.”
“Why?” It’s only after she says it that Robin realizes she might’ve come off as rude.
“Really, Robin? You can’t think of a single reason why I might miss you if I don’t see you for months on end?” Nancy looks hurt and Robin scrambles to backtrack.
“N-no! I meant, like, ‘why would you miss me ?’, e-emphasis on me. Not like ‘why would you miss me?’, emphasis on y-you. B-because I’m definitely going to miss you, but you’re so… good and wonderful and, um. I just meant that I’m weird and I- I ramble, and you don’t even like me. I mean, y-you avoided me forever after spring break, didn’t even talk to me for months, and I- I missed you, but you didn’t seem to care at all, and I just wanted to know why you’d say you’re going to m- miss me if you really, really aren’t. ‘Cause you didn’t.” Robin grimaces as she stops herself from rambling further. She hates her own brain sometimes.
Nancy is gaping at her, ice cream melting down the cone and dripping onto her fingers until she jolts at the cold and switches which hand is holding it in order to lick the ice cream off. She looks back to Robin with an expression of… pain? Realization? Robin sucks at emotions.
“Robin…” she sighs softly. “Is that what you really think?”
Robin takes a moment to consider the question. Yeah, that’s exactly what she thinks. She nods.
“Oh, shit.” Nancy takes an entire bite out of the top of her ice cream. (Robin flinches in second-hand tooth pain.) “Robin, I don’t hate you. I never hated you. I wasn’t avoiding you because I didn’t want to be around you. I missed you the whole time. I just thought you didn’t want to be around me .”
What?
“What?”
“I thought you didn’t like me.” Nancy sounds small, hurt. “You always acted so distant when we were together. You focused so much on Steve after everything that I figured you two must be in a relationship. Which, by the way, I was not jealous of you for. I’m most definitely over Steve. I just thought you two didn’t want anything to do with me after that. At least Steve still talked to me like normal.” Nancy looks down and fiddles with her ice cream.
“Steve and I aren’t in a relationship.” It comes out before Robin can process the rest of what Nancy said, but once she does, she frowns in confusion. “I wasn’t normal?”
“Uh, no?” Nancy looks confused, too. “I mean, not like you were being weird, or anything. I’m not calling you weird. I just…” she trails off, biting her lip.
“I thought I was being friendly… what did I do wrong?” Robin’s heart speeds up. Her whole life, she’s been told she sucks at social interactions. She doesn’t pick up on social cues and comes off as rude and gets too excited and rambles. She thought she was getting better at that. She really thought she was doing okay.
“Well, you never made eye contact when we were talking. Like, ever.” Robin hates eye contact. It makes her brain feel itchy. She never knows how much to make, and tends to overcompensate by forcing eye contact for long periods of time, which then makes other people uncomfortable. She hadn’t noticed herself avoiding Nancy’s eyes, which tends to be the case with people she’s comfortable around. If anything, it was a sign that Nancy was one of her closest, most trusted friends. But of course, Nancy didn’t see it that way.
“And you barely replied when I was explaining anything.” Robin hates small talk. Her lack of response was probably just her way of being invested in the story. She didn’t feel the need to make socially-appropriate hums in response because she felt safe with Nancy.
“You always brought the conversation back to yourself when I was trying to tell you anything.” Robin relates a lot of things back to herself as a way to show she’s listening, as a way to have empathy. She was just trying to tell Nancy she understood.
“And you looked so uncomfortable whenever I was around.” She rarely hung out with Nancy on her own. It was always in a big group, with Steve and Jonathan and the kids and Joyce and Hopper and Murray and- it was too loud. She was uncomfortable because of the number of people, not because of Nancy. Nancy was never too much.
“I’m not trying to harp on you, Robin, I’m really not. But it hurt that you didn’t want me around. Or at least, that’s how it seemed.”
Robin’s heart is going a million miles a minute. She feels sick. All of the ways she was trying to show Nancy she trusted her, she loved her, were taken as rude and uncaring. God, she hates herself sometimes.
“I’m so fucking stupid,” she whispers.
“What?” Nancy looks at her, confused and a little hurt and uncomfortable and unsure.
“I’m so fucking stupid.” It’s a little louder this time and Robin feels her eyes filling with tears. No. She cannot cry, not now, not when she needs to explain to Nancy, tell her why everything she just said is so correct but still so wrong .
“No, Robin, you’re not stupid.” Nancy doesn’t sound sure.
“No, I am, I’m so, so, so, so, so stupid. I’m so fucking stupid.” Her hand moves without her permission to come down against her forehead, the heel of her palm smacking harshly against her face over and over and over.
“Hey, no, Robin, don’t do that!” Nancy grabs her wrist, tries to tug her hand away. Robin jolts at the touch. It’s too much. “Sorry, sorry, I’ll stop.” Nancy lets go of her. Robin is barely aware of her almost-finished cone falling onto the grass as she directs her nervous energy away from her head to instead smack the heels of her palms into one another in her lap. Nancy still doesn’t look happy about it.
“I’m sorry, Nance,” Robin whimpers, “I didn’t mean to.”
“Didn’t mean to what?” Nancy asks. Robin rocks back and forth as she considers the question.
“Everything.”
Nancy hugs her. It’s tight and deep and Robin thinks she’s going to hate it because she hates hugs, but it’s good. It’s so good.
Nancy starts to pull back. “I’m sorry. You don’t wanna be touched right now.”
“No-” Robin leans back into Nancy and the girl only hesitates for a moment before she wraps her arms around Robin again, squeezing her tight.
Robin flinches when something cold drips onto her back. She pulls back harshly, rubbing at the wet spot and squirming.
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry. Did I drip ice cream on you?” Nancy asks, immediately moving to survey the damage.
“Its- it’s okay.” Robin takes a shaky breath, rubbing at the spot a little more harshly. “It’s okay. I’m good.” She nods jerkily. Rubbing helped. The cold spot is mostly gone. She’s okay.
“Robin…” Nancy bites her lip again. “I’m sorry.”
“About the ice cream? Don’t worry about it. I’m fine, seriously.”
“No… about…” Nancy takes a deep breath. “About before. If I’d just asked, if we’d just talked , neither of us would’ve felt unwanted. I really missed you. I’m glad Steve invited you to the party, even though it ended badly.”
“Me too.” Robin glances down. “I guess you should finish that ice cream before it melts any further.” She nods to where Nancy’s cone is dripping all over her hand and the grass.
“Oh, yeah, you’re right.” Nancy licks around the base to clean up the ice cream there before holding it up to Robin. “Want a lick?”
“No, I’m good. I’ve had enough.” She shakes her head. Nancy continues to eat her ice cream with a shrug. “But, uh, Nance?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I- can I explain myself? Please?”
“About… what?” Nancy’s confused, Robin’s pretty sure.
“Uh, about, um, the stuff you said? Y’know, the ways I wasn’t listening? Because, uh, I actually was. Listening, I mean. I don’t always show it in the most normal ways, and I’m sorry I didn’t explain that beforehand.” Nancy’s confused face only grows.
“What do you mean?”
“Uh, I just mean that I’m not normal. I’m weird and fidgety and spacey and… my brain just doesn’t always work the way it’s supposed to. I think the things you wanted me to do to show I was listening are… kind of hard? And I felt comfortable enough with you to not do them, but I promise I was still listening. You obviously just didn’t see it that way, so I’m sorry.”
“No, Robin, I’m sorry.” Nancy bites her lip. She takes one of Robin’s hands in her own. Robin flinches at the touch and she backs off. “Spring break was… weird. But I didn’t really make the effort to understand why you were acting the way you were. I just assumed. Plus, I think I get what you’re trying to say about not listening the way you’re ‘supposed to’.”
(Robin isn’t sure why she puts air quotes around the ‘supposed to’. Air quotes signify sarcasm, as Steve told her, but there wasn’t anything sarcastic about Nancy’s statement. Isn’t what Nancy said exactly what you’re supposed to do?)
“And I love your so-called weirdness. I should’ve figured out that you wouldn’t necessarily show that you were listening the way, like, Steve does, or whoever. You’re so unique, Robin. And that’s a good thing.” Nancy offers a soft smile and Robin can’t help but return it.
“So we’re good?” she asks.
“Yeah. We’re good.” Nancy nods.
Robin looks down and fidgets with her fingers. “There’s one more thing I’ve been meaning to ask you about.” No, don’t ask that. Her mouth is ahead of her brain again. Shoot.
“Yeah?”
“This, uh, date.” Don’t phrase it that way. Bad idea. Go back go back go back go back- “You meant that platonically, right? Like the way my mom says ‘it’s a date’ when she goes for coffee with her friends. You didn’t mean like it’s a romantic date. Right?” Robin’s mouth is way too far ahead of her brain for anything she says to be coherent.
“Uh…” Nancy blushes and looks away. She definitely meant it platonically.
“Not that I would ever think you’d think about me romantically.” Robin’s lips move without her permission. Again. “B-because obviously you don’t. You’re straight as a- a ruler, or something. And, uh, I am too, of course.” Liar .
“Robin, stop.” Nancy orders. Robin’s mouth clicks shut. Nancy exhales, slow and shaky. “I’m not.”
“What?”
“Not. Straight.”
Oh.
Oh. Shit.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. I’m bisexual. It means I like girls and guys.”
“Oh.” Is ‘oh’ all she can say? Really? That’s exactly how Steve reacted when she came out and she hated it.
“Yeah. And, I totally don’t expect you to feel the same way, but I kinda meant it romantically? It sort of just slipped out.”
“Oh.” Nope, you cannot just say ‘oh’ again. SAY SOMETHING. “Uh, cool.” Robin mentally facepalms at her own lack of tact. “S-so, you like girls.”
“Yeah?” Nancy’s face is completely unreadable. There’s too much new information in Robin’s brain.
“So, um. Me too.”
Nononono don’t say that-
“Oh. Cool.” Nancy looks utterly terrified.
“And, uh, I was kinda hoping it’d be romantic? The whole ‘date’ thing. I kinda wanted it to be a date-date.” Stop. Stop. Stop.
“Really?” Nancy bites her lower lip.
Robin looks up, away. “Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay, it’s a date-date.”
“Oh. Okay.” It’s a date. Robin is on a date with Nancy Wheeler. Cool.
“Robin?”
“Yeah?”
“D’you wanna head back to my house?”
“Uh…” Robin takes a second to ground herself, shakes her hands out nervously. She’s on a date with Nancy Wheeler. “I guess?”
“Okay.” Nancy’s hand hovers over her own. Robin gives a little nod to signal to her that it’s okay, she can touch. Nancy’s hand is cool as her fingers slip between Robin’s. Robin's heart stutters.
“Okay.”