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Nancy Wheeler was not the type of girl to fall for someone just because they bat their eyelashes at her. She was not the type of girl who would allow anyone to stand in her way of anything. Nancy Wheeler was headstrong, independent, and powerful. She could do anything she wanted to, anything at all, she knew that, and she made sure everyone who stepped into her path knew that. She could do anything- then why was she finding it so difficult to look at Robin in the eyes?
It was simple; she had an idea and would execute it perfectly. It didn't matter what her old asshole boss, her male counterparts, or any other damn person said. She could do anything.
She could have stopped it when Robin offered to tag along. It was just a trip to the library to research an idea that had been forming ever since she had talked to Eddie Munson's uncle. Just a slightly loose thread that she wanted to pull at. She was perfectly safe at the library- but she didn't stop it. Not when Robin told Steve that they didn't need him to protect them, not when she got in the passenger seat of the car and started talking non-stop, Nancy couldn't even bring herself to stop Robin from talking when the dreaded topic of Steve came up.
Nancy hadn't seen her boyfriend, Johnathan in months, and for some reason, it didn't matter. She had stuff she needed to do, she was a journalist chasing a story, she had a never-ending hunger for the next intriguing thing she could find, and she seldom found herself missing him. She was so engrossed in her research sometimes, that she didn't even know what was going on around her. But she couldn't tune Robin out.
Robin, who was incessant, Robin who said all the wrong things that somehow sounded so right coming from her mouth. They weren't friends exactly, but after the incident at the Starcourt mall, it's not like Nancy could pretend she didn't notice Robin at all anymore. They were the same year at school, and she was always hanging out with Steve Harrington, which made her very hard to miss- and for someone who had graduated almost a year ago, Steve sure did hang out at the school a lot.
Robin was cool, even Nancy had to admit that. She could talk a lot, sure, and really quickly too, moving her hands nervously, always settling on a train of thought and deciding to say it out loud, which seemed to be an impulse control problem. Every time they walked past each other in the hallways, Robin would give Nancy a nervous smile which Nancy would return back. Soon, it became the best part of her day (without her even realizing what was happening). Robin, the quirky, fast-talking nerd, who Nancy wouldn't have ever thought would come across her path, much less be best friends with Steve, had suddenly become the one person whose smile she looked forward to. She found herself standing around the hallway for just a second longer than she needed to, just to catch Robin's smile, just to have Robin walk past her with her warm grin that made Nancy genuinely want to return it back. Nancy would never admit it; not to herself, much less to anyone else, how much Robin's smile actually meant to her.
And maybe that's why she didn't stop Robin from coming along with her to the library.
She didn't know for sure, but when she saw Steve again, at the trailer park there was something about him that seemed- different. Robin and Steve were together a lot, constantly, it was annoying. Robin was not the type of girl Steve would even look twice at. She was a nerd in every sense of the word, and Steve Harrington with a nerd? That was unheard of. And yet, there they were, Steve, giving her rides to school as he did for Nancy. Steve looking at Robin the way he used to look at her, just Steve being a better person for Robin. Where was this when they were dating? Why couldn't have Nancy gotten this Steve? Instead, he waited for them to break up before realizing that he could be so much better. Of course, none of that mattered now because she had Johnathan. And she was deeply in love with Johnathan. She loved him, right?
But then, why didn't she stop Robin? She wanted her away from Steve, right? That wasn't fair to any of them, and Nancy knew that, but she couldn't help it. Nancy didn't know why Steve deserved that smile, she didn't know what he could have possibly said to win her over, how he could have possibly apologized for being a dick in high school, and yet there Robin was, getting out of the car with him once again, and Nancy couldn't take it.
She was quiet the whole ride over to the library and then even at the library, she tried to keep quiet and chase her story, and what a story this was. Then Robin's constant barrage of words that kept hitting Nancy like a gun she was so adept at using turned into the sharp stabs of a knife.
"Steve and I are just friends," she said. "Platonic with a capital P." And suddenly, Nancy felt her hands unclench. She didn't even know how stiff she felt until Robin said those words. "Platonic with a capital P," so Steve didn't love her, not like that anyway. And she didn't love him back. She didn't love Steve Harrington. Somehow, this was the best news Nancy had heard all day.
Her jaw relaxed, and she felt much freer, it was like a fog had lifted from her brain and she could concentrate ten times better than she could a minute ago. And then, Robin smiled at her, the same smile she'd been giving Nancy for months, and the fog was back. The feeling of not being able to breathe, of not being able to think, to know nothing, to see nothing but Robin's smile, and it was overtaking her. She felt like she was falling, and it wasn't fair. She needed to be grounded, for the sake of the town, for Chrissy's sake, she was the journalist here. She needed to put her attention into nothing but her work. And it was just a smile, it shouldn't have turned her inside out like this.
Despite herself, Nancy smiled back.
Robin was an amazing company, she was smart, she could think outside the box and she never doubted Nancy, not once. Even when Nancy was just thinking out loud, Robin never interrupted her or told her that it couldn't work once. Robin was supportive in every way that a friend should be, Robin who couldn't shut up for a moment turned out to be a great listener.
Back at home, Nancy and Robin had settled on going to meet Victor Creel, there had been some pushback from Steve, and Nancy couldn't help feeling a little bad for him. It must not be very interesting to sit around at home with people five years younger than him, but she was right, they weren't babies anymore, and Max was in real danger. It wasn't fair that it was Max, but this wasn't the time to get distracted, this was the time that she needed to do something, and she could do anything.
They needed to go talk to Victor Creel and their personas were perfect- academic scholars, women in a field where women hadn't broken into yet. It was the perfect cover until the director took one look at them and decided it wasn't.
Nancy wasn't the type to back down, she would say anything to get where she needed to go, and maybe that's why the words, "it was our fault," started passing through her lips until Robin stopped it.
In the first words, Nancy thought that Robin had screwed them. Her angry outburst at the director was bound to get them kicked out before they could go in to see Victor, but she watched his face closely as he listened to Robin talk, and his expression looked surprised. He couldn't believe this girl was talking to him like that, and maybe, just maybe, her irritable outburst would get them in.
Robin stood up to accentuate her point and Nancy turned her head towards her, looking up at her in awe. Nancy would have never thought to say any of this, Robin was delivering a performance so convincing that even Nancy fell for it for a minute before realizing that it was all a facade. Robin, standing up for them, yelling at the male director on a power trip. Robin, looking completely fearless, and stronger than Nancy had ever seen anyone- Robin who was standing up for them, for Nancy in a way that no one else had, not Steve, not Johnathan, maybe not even her own parents. She couldn't believe that after all, Robin was putting her foot down, and suddenly, Nancy was glad that it was Robin who was there by her side instead of anyone else.
Nancy's jaw dropped, as the director gave them fifteen minutes, it was open as she stood up and followed Robin out of the room, it was open when Robin held out a hand which Nancy low-fives, it was open when the second their hands' touch, Nancy felt a spark that jolts her back into reality. Nancy's jaw dropped at Robin's performance, and that was something that had never happened before. How could someone who was as awkward as Robin be so ferocious? How could she be so convincing, how did she manage to stand up for Nancy when no one else had before?
Robin was perfect in every sense of the word. Yes, she was awkward, yeah she could be nervous, but she was there when it really mattered. She could stand up when it really mattered, she stood up for the people she loved, she was funny and smart, and beautiful in the best ways.
It wasn't fair that Steve got to hang out with her more than she did. One thing was clear to Nancy now though. The clarity had set in like cataracts being removed from her eyes when Robin was yelling at the director- she wasn't jealous of Robin for hanging out with Steve. No, it was so much worse than that. She, Nancy Wheeler, was jealous of Steve for being able to hang out with Robin, for working with Robin- for getting the best parts of Robin. How was it that she was jealous of Steve for anything? And how is it that she had fallen head-over-heels for this girl over a smile?
Nancy Wheeler's life turned upside down three years ago when Barb died, but this, this was so much worse. Steve Harrington's development in the last three years may have been great, but it wasn't enough to warrant as much time with Robin as he was getting. That should be her listening to Robin's rants, that should be her reassuring Robin that everything would be ok, and that she could do anything, that her clumsiness didn't matter, because when things really mattered, she wouldn't mess up.
It wasn't fair that Steve Harrington was living Nancy's life and he didn't even love her, not in the way that Nancy did. Not in the way that Nancy could continue to love her forever, to hold her hand when they're in scary situations, to stand up for her just as much as she would Nancy. It wasn't fair, but it was what it was, and that's how it would always be.
Nancy could do anything she wanted, she truly believed that, and she didn't care even when her bosses at her internship told her not to chase a story. She did and she ended up uncovering something big- unpublishable, but big. She didn't care that Johnathan hadn't stuck up for her in front of them, she never really thought he would. She was right, he didn't understand what it was like being a woman in a room full of men. Robin did, and Nancy was sure that Robin would have stood up for her, she did stand up for her, and Nancy loved her for it. It wasn't fair that she lived during a time when she had to be so scared to tell the girl she loved how she felt about her, but that's what it was like.
It wasn't fair that out of all the things she knew she could do, this was the one thing she couldn't. It wasn't fair that a lifetime of successes had led to this, the one time she would fail, and it would be the most important thing in her life- all the things she could do, and it was not fair that this was the one thing she couldn't.