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So if I say something that upsets you, just know that I know it's a flaw. Believe me, my mother reminds me daily.
When Robin had first said that, Nancy had thought it was an exaggeration. Yes, Robin had been driving her up the wall at the time, but she couldn't imagine anyone telling their child, daily, that something they so clearly couldn't control was a flaw.
And that had been right at the start of them knowing each other: before she'd realised just how smart Robin was, before Robin had saved her from Vecna, before Robin had held her and made dumb jokes and put up with all the stupid romcoms Nancy had needed to watch when she and Jonathan broke up.
Before Robin Buckley had become her fucking girlfriend.
And Nancy is still questioning how she got so fucking lucky on that front, but the point is: Nancy can't understand how anyone that knows Robin would consider literally anything about her a flaw.
Over the last few months since they got together (secretly, of course), Nancy had fallen for everything Robin did. She loved how she fixated on things and could ramble about them for hours, she loved the little bank of phrases Robin would repeat when she was busy or excited, how Robin would tap her fingers against her legs when she was happy.
And similarly, she'd learned how Robin worked as a person. Non-literal language tripped her up and she didn't always identify sarcasm right away, despite her own mastery of the subject. She didn't pick up on cues from people that they weren't listening to her, she didn't like eye contact and any eye contact she gave had to be earned. And for all Robin was a more than gifted talker, she had her moments where it was all too much and she couldn't get her mouth to form words at all.
Those moments were the ones where Nancy would sit quietly with her, sometimes holding her and sometimes not (because sometimes, that contact was just too much for Robin to handle) and watch whatever movies Robin wanted, listen to whatever music Robin liked. Sometimes she even read aloud to her.
For all Nancy worries about her girlfriend in those moments, she knows it never lasts for too long and Robin more than supports her in her own moments of weakness. They love each other, and Nancy would never trade Robin for the world.
So yeah, safe to say that, no matter how they started off, now Nancy knows Robin, really knows Robin, she can't understand how anyone would find her flawed. Because to Nancy, Robin was perfect.
Steve is the first one to make her think that maybe Robin wasn't exaggerating about her mother.
They're hanging out at Eddie's trailer, a steadily increasing occurrence since the defeat of Vecna, with Steve and Robin arriving last. Robin smiles at her and kisses her cheek (okay...secret apart from Steve, Eddie and the kids), then goes to argue about music with Eddie, while and...uncharacteristically quiet Steve immediately beelines it to Eddie's kitchen.
Nancy follows after him and places a hand on his shoulder when he grabs a beer from the fridge. "Are you okay? You look-"
"Pissed off?" Steve asks, sighing when Nancy nods, "It's her fucking mom again."
"What about her mom?" Nancy asks, tilting her head in confusion. She still hasn't met the woman, mostly because it's just easier for her and Robin to hang out at Nancy's.
"She tried to make Robin make eye contact with me when I picked her up" Steve huffs, "'Robin, at least look your friends in the eye when you say thank you.'" He says, in a high pitched, whining voice.
"Why would she do that? She knows Robin hates eye contact."
"She doesn't care Nance, she wants Robin to be 'normal.'" Steve groans, making air quotes around the word 'normal.'
Nancy turns to glance back at Robin and Eddie, watching them animatedly discuss some band Nancy's never heard of. "...but she is normal."
"Not enough for her mom." Steve rolls his eyes with a sigh, "C'mon, we better break that up before it lasts all night."
It's a few weeks after this that Robin asks Nancy to come over to her house. Apparently her mom wanted to meet Robin's new 'friend' and had practically ordered Robin to invite her over.
Nancy obviously agrees, because she wants to spend more time with Robin, but it's only as she's packing a rucksack to take with her (she's staying the night) that the conversation with Steve comes back to her.
She wants Robin to be normal.
Steve had to be wrong, right? Robin doesn't exactly speak poorly of her mother, indifferent at times maybe, certainly she gets frustrated with her, but she's never said anything overtly bad.
Nancy sighs and throws her bag over her shoulder. She's overthinking. She has to be.
"Hey!" Robin smiles when she opens the door.
"Hey" Nancy chuckles, giving Robin a quick hug in lieu of a kiss, "your house is nice." She complements as she walks in.
"Don't let mom hear you say that, she'll never let you leave." Robin laughs, leading her into the living room.
"Don't let mom hear you say what?" Comes a voice from the kitchen, and Nancy turns in time to see a woman, maybe half a foot shorter than Robin, but with the same red hair and freckles, walk in holding a kitchen towel. "Ah, you must be the Nancy I keep hearing about." The woman smiles, offering her a hand.
"Uh...yes, Nancy Wheeler. Nice to meet you." Nancy smiles, recovering from her slight surprise at the woman's arrival, and shakes her hand.
"Diane Buckley, lovely to meet you." Diane smiles, before glancing past Nancy to Robin, "Don't suppose you could teach my daughter some of those manners." She says lightly, before dropping Nancy's hand.
Manners? Nancy thinks, as she vaguely hears Diane tell Robin that dinner should be ready in an hour. Robin doesn't have bad manners.
"Oh, and Robin, your father's staying back at work, so he won't be joining us for dinner." Diane adds, and it's only then that Nancy realises the woman spoke slower to her daughter.
"Oh...okay." Robin deflates a little.
"Well, go on, show your friend to your room! She needs to put her things down."
"Yes mom." Robin takes Nancy's hand and leads her through to a relatively small bedroom that screams Robin. There are various band posters on the walls, a desk covered with so many books, some in other languages, and a few half-finished art projects strewn about the place.
"Feel free to put your rucksack anywhere" Robin says, gesturing to the room as she closes the door behind them, "just watch that canvas, it's still wet."
"I didn't know you painted?" Nancy asks, sitting on the bed.
"I...may have read a book on different watercolour techniques last week and it spiraled from there."
Nancy chuckles "Well...you're pretty good."
"Thanks!" Robin smiles, sitting down next to her and kissing her forehead. Nancy gives her a soft smile and leans into her side. For a few moments, they just sit like that, enjoying being together.
"...what did your mom mean about me teaching you manners?" Nancy asks after a little while, "You're many things, but impolite is not something I'd ever call you."
"Ignore her, she's always on about manners and politeness and shit. She thinks that just because I don't understand why you shake someone's hand, that means I must be rude."
"...That's bullshit."
"Oh, I know." Robin chuckles, but Nancy can hear the tiredness behind it, "Dad's way more chill, he usually keeps her in check. But if he's working, she's probably gonna be on my ass about it all night."
"Why the hell would she? She knows you can't help it."
"Well...actually, she thinks I'm just lazy or something." Robin admits, rubbing the back of her neck.
"...she what?"
"It's not a big deal! She just...wants me to get better." Robin shrugs.
Nancy wants to argue, wants to grab Robin's shoulders and shake her until she understands there's nothing she needs to make better. But that's not going to help, so instead, Nancy sighs and kisses her softly. "Personally, I like you the way you are." She assures.
Robin wraps an arm around her and kisses the top of her head in response.
An hour later, Diane called them through to the dinner table. Robin pulls a small face when she sees all of her food touching, and Nancy almost points out that robin doesn't like that, but she bites her tongue.
Maybe Robin just never told Diane that?
"So, Nancy" Diane smiles at her, as she sits down, "Robin says you're a budding journalist?"
Nancy blushes a little "uh...well, I hope to be one. I'm an editor on the Weekly Streak for now, but the dream is being a proper reporter."
"An ambitious goal, I wish Robin had a plan like that."
"Mom..." Robin sighs, in a way that implies this is not the first time this conversation has come up.
"I'm only pointing it out Robin." Diane replies, and again Nancy notes how much slower Diane speaks when addressing Robin...like she's talking to a small child or something. "Musician is hardly a proper career."
"No, but music teacher is and-"
"Look at me when you're speaking, Robin." Diane sighs, exasperated.
She is. Nancy thinks. She's looking right at you?!
Robin tenses a little and forces herself to make eye contact with her mother. "And if I don't go into teaching, I could do theatre sound tech or-"
"It's a waste of your time, Robin. Aside from anything else, you'll never be able to make decent money." Diane immediately dismisses, "And how do you expect to teach when you won't demonstrate basic common sense-"
"Sorry" Nancy interrupts, lightly holding Robin's hand under the table, "just...why are you speaking so slowly to her?"
"So she'll understand me. She was a slow talker, didn't learn until she was 4, so I make sure she gets every word I say." Diane sighs, as if it's obvious.
"She understands me and our friends just fine without us speaking to her like she's five." Nancy says, barely keeping her statement passive-aggressive instead of agressive-agressive. She really does not like the way this woman is speaking to her girlfriend.
"Perhaps if she stopped acting like a five year old, I wouldn't need to treat her like one. Robin, stop playing with your food." She suddenly snaps at the younger redhead, and Nancy glances over just in time to catch Robin putting her fork down, from where it had been pushing the chicken away from the potatoes.
"I don't act like a five year old!" Robin defends herself, and Nancy swears she sees red flash in her vision when Diane tuts dismissively.
"You're making a scene in front of a guest."
"Actually, she's not the problem here." Nancy spits, "My problem is the woman who seems to he acting like Robin's incapable of doing anything."
She catches Robin looking at her out the corner of her eye, and Robin may struggle reading facial expressions but she herself is an open book, so the shock on her face is obvious.
"I don't think she's incapable." Diane defends, with an eyeroll, "I think she's lazy and refuses to engage with people in the proper-"
"Lazy?! She speaks four languages! Five if you include the Russian she's learning! She's one of the best brass players in band, she's top of her class in everything except physics,l and she's teaching herself watercolour!" Nancy lists off, glaring at the Buckley matriarch, "How the fuck is that lazy!?"
"I don't mean academically." Diane states, again like it's obvious, "I mean, she's lazy when it comes to being a proper member of society! 2 customer service jobs and she still cannot be bothered to keep her attitude in check, watch what she says and appropriately engage with people. Before Steve, she hadn't had a proper friend since the 6th grade because she couldn't muster the energy to behave properly!"
This time, Nancy really does see red.
"She's your kid! How the fuck can you say any of that about your own freaking daughter!? Robin is one of the kindest, bravest, intelligent people I've ever met! Who gives a shit if she misses social cues, or doesn't like her food touching, or if she struggles to speak sometimes!? She's amazing, Steve loves her, Eddie loves her, I love her and the kids think she's one of the coolest people on the planet. Does that sound like someone that doesn't 'appropriately engage with people' Mrs Buckley?"
Nancy watches with a sense of satisfaction as Diane stutter through a half-assed response and spots Robin's, frankly, starstruck expression beside her. Nancy huffs "I think we'll stay at my house tonight instead, if that's okay Robin?"
"U-uh...y-yeah. Yeah just...let me get some stuff." Robin says, snapping out of her trance and following Nancy back to her room.
"Are you okay?" Nancy asks softly, once they're in the car and heading to the Wheelers. "Sorry, I didn't...I didn't mean to start yelling like that or-"
"No one's ever done that before." Robin cuts her off, in a quiet voice.
"Ever done what?"
"...defended me like that to her. Dad tries but...even he never says things like that. He gets I can't help it, but he still tells me to try harder. To...to fix all of it."
"Robin" Nancy sighs, pulling over so she can turn to look at her, "...there's nothing about you that needs fixing."
"You say that!" Robin says, and she doesn't sound angry, she...resigned, like she really belives it "But I drive people nuts when I meet them! Either I'm an annoying disaster like I was with you, or a sarcastic, snarky asshole like I was with Steve! And neither of those are good and Mom's right, I can't be a teacher with my attitude and I definitely can't do 9 to 5s and shit and-"
"Robin." Nancy says firmly, taking both of Robin's hands in hers, "You know I don't lie to you, right?"
"Of course, you promised you wouldn't."
"Right, so listen to me. Your mother is completely full of shit."
"But-"
"But nothing. Robin, I meant every word I said to her. Our friends love you, the kids adore you, Max practically considers you a sister for fuck's sake. I love you, and no, not in spite of your 'quirks', I love you because of them." Nancy says it all as earnestly as she can. She brings a hand up to cup Robin's cheeks and guides her so their foreheads are touching. "So fuck what she thinks" she adds in a whisper, "because everyone who you helped to save the world? We think you're perfect, I think you're perfect."
Robin stares at her for a moment, full eye-contact with tears in her eyes, and Nancy's about to tell her she doesn't need to do that, when Robin surges foreward and kisses her. Nancy immediately melts into it, as she's done dozens of times over the last few months.
When they finally break apart, Robin brushes some of Nancy hair behind her ear, while Nancy catches a few tears that have started to fall down Robin's cheek with her thumb.
"I don't know what's wrong with me-" Robin starts
"Nothing." Nancy stops her quickly. "There is nothing wrong with you. It's just...it's part of you, it's who you are. Anyone who has a problem with it, isn't worth your time."
Robin goes quiet again, then kisses Nancy's cheek. "I love you too. So much."
Nancy gives her a smile and pulls away to drive again. "So, my place? You can have movie pick."
Robin laughs and squeezes her hand "Sounds perfect."