Chapter Text
Everything is cramped inside Eddie’s trailer.
Maybe it’s a little unnecessary to point that out. It is a trailer.
But when all of them are crowded into one small room, half of which was an active crime scene, it didn’t leave much to be desired for personal space.
Not that Robin wants personal space right now. No, while normally she’d be okay with self brooding and sorting through her problems by herself, she figures that in this case it’s better to seek solace in her friends. Nobody should have to go through this alone.
That’s what she thinks as she presses herself against Steve’s chest, both of them leaning against the wall. She’s sure, to the rest of the party, that they look suspicious as hell. Especially when Steve had been not-so-subtly hitting on Nancy for three days, and he and Robin are still claiming to be ‘Platonic, with a capital P’, to quote herself.
But she’s scared out of her life. They were all scared, and Robin wasn’t about to let a little social pressure prevent her from seeking comfort.
Steve is all too happy to give it. He hugs her tightly, his fingers drumming mindless patterns against her back, and she breathes out against his neck as she tries to stay calm. Peeking out from under her bangs, she looks at the rest of the scene in the trailer.
The gaping hole in the ceiling is most obvious, of course, but everyone is choosing to ignore the elephant in the room, for the time being. It isn’t like any of them could do anything about it, unless someone decided to spontaneously gain El-like superpowers.
Dustin is pacing back and forth— when isn’t he?— and muttering to himself, occasionally stopping to glance at the ceiling or beyond the portal itself. Erica sits in a chair behind him, raising her eyebrow at him, but even she isn’t feeling the most talkative. When an eleven year old doesn't feel like making herself everyone else’s problem, you know it’s bad.
Eddie had grabbed his guitar from his room, and was fiddling with it anxiously. Robin can occasionally hear little twings of notes from the strings, but she can tell Eddie’s just trying to pass the time. Find a small comfort in the now, while they still could.
Lucas and Max are huddling on the lone couch in the room, and though they’re too far away to hear, Robin can still imagine the sound of Kate Bush looping in her headphones. Her and Lucas’ position look really similar to how she and Steve were embracing, and really that just made her cheeks feel hotter, because it was just platonic, dammit. She ignores the non existent, imaginary judgment and burrows herself back into Steve’s neck.
Though she doesn’t look, she thinks of the only hallway in the trailer. Where Eddie’s room is. Where Nancy is.
The reason they’re all crammed together in the main room is because Nancy’s claimed the rest of the trailer to herself. Well, they’d all offered it to her, but then realized soon after that there was not enough space for seven of them in one room.
But Nancy needs the space. Freshly out of Vecna Hell, Nancy had been surprisingly calm, if not quiet and fearful. And they can’t stay here forever— there’s a constant, lingering threat of God knows what coming out of that portal, and apparently, the whole town and then some is on the lookout for all of them. Because not only are they wanted by an evil, alien creep who’s grotesquely killing teenagers, but now they’re wanted by the town for conspiring with a ‘known murderer’. Fun.
But none of them want to throw Nancy back into action again, so soon after a Vecna Vision (named so eloquently by Dustin Henderson.) They’ve been given the tiniest bit of breathing room, and damn it, they’re going to use it.
She huffs, and then detaches herself from Steve. She scans the trailer again, looking hesitatingly towards Eddie’s room. Everyone else is finding comfort, out here, but Nancy— Nancy is alone in there. Robin couldn’t let Nancy be alone any longer. Not after what she’d just gone through.
“Rob?” Steve mutters. He holds his hands out, as if pleading for her to come back into his arms, because Robin knows she’s been giving him just as much comfort as he’s been giving her. And Robin really wanted to, she did. She wanted to fall back into his embrace and ignore their problems for just a little bit longer.
But Nancy needs someone to do the same for her, right now. And before they face the real threat, Robin needs to face an enemy of her own. She can’t wait any longer, not after what happened tonight.
Robin leans towards Steve again, leaning her forehead against his. Her voice is low, her throat raw after breathing in the Upside Down air and screaming her lungs out. “I gotta check on Nancy.”
“You sure?”
He holds her hands tentatively. Robin nods, swallowing hard. “Yeah, I’m— I can’t imagine being alone after something like that.”
Steve remains silent for a second, before nodding and releasing Robin. “‘Kay. Don’t take long though.” He raises his voice slightly, so that everyone in the room can hear him. With Nancy temporarily out of commission, he’s become the de facto leader, and Robin can’t tell if that’s a good thing or not. “We gotta pack up and head out soon.”
She gives a half-hearted smile, and he returns it. They’re all exhausted. She lets out a breathy laugh as she walks down the hall, and stops in front of Eddie’s door.
Her hand hovers over the doorknob, shaking slightly. She rapps her fingers as light as she could against the worn out wood. “Nance?”
She pauses. Since when did she start calling Nancy ‘Nance?’
There was no immediate response, and Robin would be busting down the door, half expecting to see a mangled corpse in the shape of Nancy, if she didn’t hear shuffling from inside the room. She chuckles softly, and knocks again. “Nancy, c’mon, I know you’re in there. It’s Robin.”
Finally, she gets a soft, hesitant response. “Come in.” Robin takes a deep breath, before pushing open the door. She walks in, and lets out a heavy sigh. Finally out of that crowded room, but into one much smaller. The air hangs heavier in here.
Nancy sits on Eddie’s empty bed frame, rid of its mattress, a pencil in her hand as she scrawls messy writing into her notebook. Robin shuts the door behind her softly, and takes soft steps until she’s sitting down next to Nancy on the wooden frame of the bed. Their thighs are almost touching, and Robin leans over Nancy’s shoulder to try and see what she’s writing.
“Funny. I thought you’d have better handwriting than that.”
Nancy laughs dryly. “I usually do. When Max was in Vecna’s mind, she drew what she saw. I’m just trying to write it all down before I can forget any of it.”
“You’re a true journalist.” Nancy rolls her eyes, but Robin doesn't miss the smile she earns. Her eyebrows furrow as she tries to make out what Nancy’s writing. “Write what down?”
The pen pauses in Nancy’s hand, and Robin holds her breath. Nancy hadn’t said much after she’d come out from under Vecna’s spell.
They hadn’t been able to get a Walkman to her in time, not willing to force Max to part with hers, but just as Robin had been climbing back into the Upside Down to reach Nancy herself, to sing her favorite song herself, scream it into her ears if it would save her, she’d woken up. Robin recalls Max saying something about having multiple… episodes… before Vecna would finally strike with the intent to kill.
Which means Nancy is now on a time limit.
Just like Max had been. Unlike Max, however, they now know the way to save themselves from Vecna’s spells. But they don’t have any more Walkmans. Or Nancy’s favorite music tape. And it’s the middle of the night, so every music store in Hawkins is closed. And they can’t get back to her house, not with this bounty over their heads.
Nancy tilts her head in thought. “The things I saw… I don’t think it was the same type of thing that happened to Max. It was almost like Vecna was taunting me… Like he wanted to show me his secrets.”
Robin’s eyes widen slightly. “He showed you his secrets?”
“I… think so. I saw his— Victor Creel’s house, before it got all ruined. The rose on the door was the same, so I think it was his house, anyway.” Robin opens her mouth to question what the hell Nancy’s leading up to, but Nancy keeps going. “I saw the kid— Henry Creel, right? I saw him… taunting his family, playing with them, and torturing them inside their own minds, I think.”
Robin looks back down at Nancy’s hastily-written ramble. She reads how Nancy described what she’d seen, everything about the house, the clock, the spiders. It definitely sounds like the Creel house, all right. And everything about this random kid’s tactics sounds a lot like…
“Vecna.” Nancy nods. Robin must have been muttering her thoughts out loud again. She should really stop doing that, before she accidentally reveals a whole lesbian monologue to the party. “But—”
Nancy holds her breath, and Robin leans closer, putting a comforting hand on her back. She ignores the butterflies in her stomach— this is no time to get nervous.
“But then I saw their mom… What happened to her was exactly like what happened to Chrissy, and Fred, and Patrick. Her… bones… just snapped. And her eyes—”
Robin cringes. “Yea, I get it. Vecna’s a creep with a thing for snapping bones and popping eyes, we know the drill. Don’t— you don’t need to describe it in detail again.” She offers a half hearted smile.
Nancy narrows her eyes, pencil tapping against her notebook again before she begins writing again. She writes so fast , Robin can’t even begin to keep up. She watches, adoration blooming in her chest for the way Nancy writes. God, she’s even obsessed with the way Nancy writes. How had this happened to her?
Eventually, Nancy stops writing again, and looks up at Robin for the first time since Robin had come into the room. Robin smiles, and tries not to blush too hard under Nancy’s gaze.
“I don’t really understand what he showed me. Maybe he was just trying to fake me out— like a predator toying with its meal.” Robin squirms at the description. At the idea of Nancy being his prey. Nancy was not prey. She was an apex predator. “But I think he’s connected to the Creels, more than we may have thought.”
“Okay.” Robin squeaks out, breathless again. She didn’t know what to say to that. It wasn’t exactly very useful information, when the entire family was either dead or imprisoned. She wasn’t about to go dig up the mangled, rotting corpses of the Creel family and ask if they knew what happened to their son.
She lets Nancy finish writing, though, and self consciously remembers to take her hand off of Nancy’s back. She doesn’t want to linger or make Nancy feel uncomfortable— or at least, more uncomfortable, because Nancy probably won’t want to be in the same room alone again with Robin after what she has to say.
Eventually, Nancy throws her pen down onto the notebook with a quick breath, and snaps it shut. She stares off towards the wall, her gaze blank, and Robin leans forward. “...Nance? You okay?”
Nancy blinks, and then looks back at Robin again, shrugging as if everything was no big deal. “Yeah, sorry.” She laughs, setting her notebook aside and leaning against Robin. Robin stiffens. Well, this isn’t off to a good start, then.’
She isn’t going to deny the chance to hug her, though. Robin wraps an arm around Nancy’s back, tugging her closer until they’re sitting up against each other. Robin can’t breathe, and it’s all her own fault.
“It’s… okay if you’re not, you know.”
“What?”
Robin tilts her head. “Everyone is out there shaking in their boots right now. Even Erica is freaked out by… all this, and she’s practically fearless. You don’t have to keep pretending like you’re not, too.”
Nancy tenses under Robin’s arm. “I’m not pretending— ”
“You just got Vecna’d , Nancy.”
“Vecna’d? Is that what we’re calling it now?” Nancy squints, and almost smiles.
Robin rolls her eyes. “Vecna’d, Vecna Vision, et cetera. Dustin has too much fun with these things.”
Silence falls between them, and Robin steadies herself. She grabs Nancy’s hands and holds them tight, ignoring the way Nancy sucks in her breath at the action. “Either way, you don’t have to be so strong all the time, all right? Me and Steve, we’re here for you.” She pauses, and then smirks. “And Eddie too, I guess.”
Nancy finally laughs at that, a real laugh, teeth and all. Robin beams, her heart fluttering in her chest. “Poor guy got thrown into all this, didn’t he?”
Robin nods, rocking back and forth slightly as she giggles. “Yea, he really did! Something about playing Dungeons and Dragons just attracts the supernatural, huh—”
Robin cuts herself off with a sharp inhale, because all of the sudden Nancy’s leaning forward, hugging her tightly. She’s half sitting on her lap, burrowing her head into Robin’s neck, just like Robin did with Steve.
Robin’s breath stutters, and she can feel Nancy’s curls on her chin, on her chest. She can feel Nancy’s arms gripping tightly around her waist. Robin feels frozen— she should hug back, she should stroke her hand down Nancy’s arm, or back, or do literally anything comforting other than sit there gaping like an idiot.
But she can’t move, and all too soon, she feels Nancy pull away slightly. Her hands no longer around her waist, but her head still leaning against Robin’s shoulder.
“I… guess I’m not exactly okay.”
Robin can only give a breathy reply. “Yeah, no shit, Wheeler.”
Nancy giggles, and Robin squeezes her eyes shut at the feeling of Nancy’s breath on her skin. This was too much.
“But… I will be, eventually.” The unspoken ‘if I make it through this’ hangs between them. “This… helped. You helped a lot.”
Robin nods, still unsure of what to do with her hands. “Any— Anytime, Nance.”
They lay like that for another beat, and then Nancy’s off of her, brushing her wild hair out of her face and scooching back along the bed. She seemed to realize how out of place that felt for all parties involved.
“Well, anyway, I think we should probably get going. We’re… fugitives, is it? We need to find a safe base.”
Robin’s going to miss her chance. Nancy and her beautiful, ever-running mind, is already ready to jump onto the next target, the next goal, as if she didn’t have her own problems chasing her down. She jumps to her feet as Nancy gathers her notebook, and swallows. Now or never.
“Actually, Nancy, before we go, I had— I have something I need to tell you.”
Nancy pauses, setting the notebook back down, but she stands up off of the bed. “Hm?”
Robin self consciously brushes her bangs out of her face again. Shit. She can do this. She can do this. Can she do this?
“I… I know this is a really awkward and inconvenient time to say all of what I’m about to say, and I’ve been afraid of saying anything, but, well, I think there’s bigger things to be afraid of at this point. It’s just that, we don’t know if you’re going to live, and if you die before I get to tell you then I’m never going to forgive myself. Also, we kind of don’t know how to stop Vecna in general, so maybe all of us will die, and I don’t want to bring this secret with me to the grave—”
“Robin.” Nancy chides.
“Right. Sorry.” She’s stalling. Robin grips the fabric of her jacket, nodding to herself, pumping herself up. “I just… I need to tell you this, in case anything happens to either of us.”
Nancy shakes her head, and though she’s clearly confused and eager to learn Robin’s secret— ever the gossip journalist— her expression is soft and sweet. Robin’s breath hitches. “What is it?”
“You know how I keep saying that me and Steve are platonic—”
"'With a capital P ?' Yes, haven’t stopped saying it.” Nancy rolls her eyes fondly. Robin nods, staring down at the ground.
“Right, yeah. Well, there’s a reason he and I aren’t dating. Because I would totally date Steve. He’s— he’s a good guy. I care about him. He’s just not my type.” Nancy tilts her head, so Robin continues. “Like… really not my type. Like not even in the same ballpark type.”
Now, Robin has only ever come out to one other person in her life, but she has to give the credit to Nancy for figuring it out quicker than Steve did. Nancy’s much smarter than Steve is, though.
She says that with love.
“Oh.” Nancy’s eyes widen, and suddenly both of them find the floor to be very interesting. “You’re a—?”
“Lesbian. Yeah.” The words leave her mouth and take the air in her chest with her. Robin clenches her hands together at her sides, braving a glance back up at Nancy. Nancy is still staring at the floor, wide eyes, and a light dusting of red on her cheeks.
The way that Nancy reacts to this will determine what Robin says next.
“I know it’s a weird thing to say so out of the blue, and we have much bigger concerns, but I just didn’t want to die with the only person who knew to be Steve Harrington—”
That gets Nancy’s attention, possibly more than the lesbian part itself. She glares upwards at Robin, eyes wide, and takes a step towards her. “Steve knows?!”
Robin chuckles nervously. “We had a little confession session back at Starcourt when we were high off our asses on Russian truth serum. He told me he was in love with me, I told him I was a lesbian… a normal night, really. The meat monster kinda ruined it, though.”
She’s deflecting, and Nancy can tell. Nancy takes another step forward, wringing her hands over each other nervously, and Robin swallows, praying she isn’t about to get harassed or yelled out of the room.
Nancy takes a deep breath, before locking eyes with her. Normally eye contact makes Robin uncomfortable, but with Nancy she’s learning to tolerate it. Cherish it, even.
“Robin.” Robin nods. Nancy smiles, and a little bit of hope expands in Robin’s chest. “I… Thanks for telling me, I guess? I’m glad you trusted me. I don’t care whether you’re… into guys or girls. It doesn’t change anything.”
Robin feels lightheaded. “Really? You’re not… creeped out or anything?”
Nancy shakes her head. “I’m pretty sure Jonathan’s brother has had a crush on my brother for years. I’m… not exactly new to the concept.”
Shit. Jonathan. Right. Nancy has a boyfriend.
She’d somehow managed to forget about that when she was wing-manning for Steve. And silently crushing herself. In her defense, though, Nancy seems to have forgotten too.
Robin squints. “Isn’t that kinda weird?”
Nancy shifts, facing down at the floor again. “I… I think I might break up with Jonathan anyway. If we get out of this alive.”
Robin’s eyebrows shoot up. Woah.
“Woah, really?” The woah was repeated for emphasis, because, woah. “But I thought you said—”
Nancy hugs herself. “I know, but then I got… ‘Vecna’d’,” Robin appreciates the air quotes Nancy uses, “and I’ve had time to think. Jonathan was supposed to be here for spring break. If he was here, he could’ve helped so much more with this— maybe it would’ve been more preventable, if he’d been here. I’ll never know, because he’s not. He chose not to come, and didn’t even tell me until the last minute. And now I can’t even get through to him.”
Nancy begins pacing around the room. “I can’t tell if he’s ignoring me, or if he’s in trouble, but it’s his fault that I don’t know. He hasn’t been telling me anything for months, and this is just the last straw—” She stops abruptly, bringing her hand to her mouth in frustration.
Forget about coming out. This is more important.
“I just… we’ve been distant for months. We both know it. We both know it’s coming. It was coming as soon as he moved away from me. Even before that, too. We were both just in denial about it. I may as well speed up the process. No point delaying the inevitable.”
Silence falls between them again, and Robin can’t help the sparks of hope going off in her chest. She hasn’t even given the real, scarier confession yet. And what is she thinking— Nancy’s suddenly going to be single, so she’ll just say ‘fuck it’ and go out on a date with Robin? Being single doesn’t mean she’s any less straight.
Besides, Steve is single too, and he’d been flirting with her all week. A much more convenient option.
Nancy turns back to face Robin, biting her lip. It’s entirely too much, and Robin is blushing again. “Sorry. This was supposed to be about you. Um…”
Robin waves her hand, hoping she isn’t too obvious with the way her skin feels like it’s flaming. “No, this is way more important. There’s nothing to talk about if you’re a lesbian with no love life.”
Nancy raises her eyebrows, leaning closer to Robin. “Really? No love life? There’s gotta be other gay people in Hawkins.”
Robin lets out a heavy breath. She technically had a love life, if crushing on the woman in front of her counts. But that wasn’t going to go anywhere. “If there are, I wouldn’t know where. Most gay people I’ve heard of are guys, anyway. Wouldn’t do me any good.”
Nancy nods, and she seems to go silent. Contemplative, almost. Robin opens her mouth again, but then Steve is bursting the door open. Both of them jump.
“Steve!” “Jesus Christ, you dingus.”
Steve ignores their chides, nodding his head towards the front door. “There’s sirens in the distance. We gotta bail. We can hide out at my house until we figure out a plan.”
Behind Steve, Robin can see sunlight seeping into the hallway. The sun must be rising, and she hasn’t slept in at least 30 hours. She doesn’t even feel tired.
“What about your parents?” She asks.
“They’re on spring vacation.”
“And you didn’t go with them?” Nancy was gathering her things frantically, and Robin doesn’t like how fast things are getting thrown back into reality. She’d been enjoying her own little bubble with Nancy.
Steve hangs his head. “I have a job? C’mon, we gotta go.”
“Steve!” Dustin calls from the outside of the trailer, his voice distant through the thin walls.
“We’re coming!” Steve shouts, and then lowers his voice. “Jeez.”
With a final nod to the front door, he sprints out of sight. Robin feels like she can’t breathe again. No, no no, she’d been supposed to tell Nancy how she felt. This was the only chance she was going to have.
Nancy’s thrown all of her things into Eddie’s backpack that lay abandoned in the corner of the room, and she tosses it on her back. Robin watches her march towards the door, watches her one shot at telling the truth run headfirst back into danger. Her mouth feels dry, and she grabs onto Nancy’s wrist. “Nance, wait—”
Nancy turns back to look at her, and Robin blushes under her gaze again. Nancy gave her a soft smile, and took Robin’s hand in her own. “We can finish talking later, Robin. After we finish this.”
Robin swallows. “A-After?”
Nancy nods. “After. Because we will finish this. I’m not letting myself get killed by Vecna. Then the only one who would know about you is Steve, again. Can’t have that, can we?”
God, she was so pretty. Her self determined smirk, eyebrows furrowed in confidence. Robin’s never fallen harder for anyone in her life.
She swallows, her heart beating faster than when she’d dived into the Upside Down, and nods. “Yeah. ‘Course.”