Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s odd, Nancy thinks, how little she really knows about Robin Buckley. 

She hadn’t really clocked it, at first, what with the world ending once again and some creature from another dimension coming to terrorise them – once again . It hadn’t registered as a thought to even be had at all until they began their “shot in the dark” mission at the library. It was then that Nancy realised that Robin said a lot without actually saying a lot. 

At least with her.

You see, it’s more “I’m Robin, I work with Steve,” and less “I’m Robin, we’ve had English and Math together for three years,” something Nancy wouldn’t know for some time. It’s not that Robin is invisible, far from it, but when she talks it’s always more information about other people, other things, other anything. 

Not herself, though; never herself.

It bugs her, if she’s being honest with herself, but only slightly. Robin seems to know quite a bit about her, her life, and her relationships. Which is probably due to her and Steve being the best of friends, and subsequently Dustin to an extent, and you know the Hawkins High gossip line never ceases to have her in its grasp, despite her not being a part of a popular crowd or involving herself in any drama since she dated Steve. 

So yeah, she’s sure Robin has been able to find out a lot about Nancy without having to talk to her. But, if Nancy were focused, she'd realise the same could be said in reverse. If she were to think hard enough, she’d remember that she’d heard Robin’s name in the Hawkins gossip line before, but she hadn’t known Robin then and so hadn’t retained the information; hadn’t felt Robin was important enough to know then.

But she knows Robin now. 

Except she doesn’t.

Nancy knows next to nothing about the girl she has helped save the word with. Twice , might she add. A girl she has gone on not one, not two, but three discovery missions whilst they were dealing with Vecna, and yet here she is, seemingly at square zero with this strange yet oddly endearing girl.

Not that Nancy has thought about this much – she has – but, if she were to create a comprehensive list of all the things she knows about Robin Middle Name Buckley , things that aren’t common knowledge, she’d need no more space than the back of her hand. She could probably list about three unique things she knows about Robin off the top of her head right now:

1. Robin doesn’t get along with her mother (‘believe me, my mother reminds me daily’, echoes in her mind).

and

1. …

Well, Nancy thinks, that just won’t do. 

She doesn’t really want to say she’s scheming, but if Nancy invites Robin over for a sleepover to get to know her better and Robin agrees, well, that’s just making friends. And if she’s armed with a barrage of invasive questions she “randomly found” in one of her mother’s magazines, well, that’s just getting to know her friend better. After all, she can’t share a bed with a stranger, can she?

“How many questions are there?” Robin had asked when Nancy had brought up her plan to get to know her better. Nancy had originally planned on just staging a twenty questions type thing with Robin, but then she didn’t want the pressure of having to come up with questions on the fly or for asking something she shouldn’t.

“About 36,” she had answered, swiftly moving to pick up the stack of questions she had collected from various magazines, figuring that was the safest method to go with; no worry of thinking of questions on the spot - or thinking of the wrong ones. Completely random, plus Nancy figures ‘Questions for Developing Relationships’ can apply to developing friendships. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?

“Do I get to hear your answers to these questions?” Robin asks, and Nancy’s brain stops momentarily. She’d been so focused on getting to know Robin that she forgot that Robin would be wanting to get to know her , too. No one has known her, not really, since Barb. There’s people who think they know her; who know the version of herself she desperately tries to be; who she wants to be: Nancy Wheeler, respected journalist, fearless leader, gunslinger extraordinaire. 

When really she’s just… Nancy.

“Why don’t we take turns asking?” she suggests, trying to quell the nerves fluttering in her stomach by handing Robin the cards to pick her questions.

Robin grins as she accepts the cards, instantly shuffling them with ease, and Nancy finds herself momentarily drawn to the movement of her hands. Robin is surprisingly dexterous for someone who said they were severely uncoordinated, and for someone who runs weird. Nancy pauses at the thought, Robin’s voice once again echoing in her mind.

2. It took Robin six months longer than other babies to learn to walk.

“Do you want to start?” Nancy startles slightly at the voice, noticing Robin’s hands have paused their movements and are holding out the cards, half in one hand, half in the other. Nancy makes to reach for one half, but Robin quickly tugs her hands away, hiding them behind her back with a laugh.

“Left or right?” Nancy raises an eyebrow, squinting her eyes as Robin sways from side to side, as if trying to sway her decision.

“Right.” Robin hands over the half that was in her left hand because ‘you never said if you meant my right or your right’. Nancy sighs and pulls a card, knowing the exasperation she will likely experience for the rest of the evening is her own fault.

She finds she doesn’t mind it.

“Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?” Robin sits there for a moment, knees coming up to her chest to rest her chin upon as she ponders the question. Her eyes sweep across Nancy’s room as if she’ll be able to find her answer on Nancy’s walls, pausing on something in the far corner.

“Stevie Nicks.” She says resolutely, and Nancy knows Robin had spotted her Fleetwood Mac tapes, so she prods, ever so slightly. 

“Really?” 

“Yeah! Imagine the stories she could tell, Nance. The places she’s been, the people she’s met. And, I mean, I was never really one for high school gossip, at least not one to listen to it” she pauses, frowning slightly, “but if it was anything like the Rumours album I think I definitely would have paid attention. Plus she’s, like, ethereal…” her voice trails off awkwardly and her eyes widen as if her brain has just caught up with her mouth. Nancy wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case. She decides to throw Robin a bone.

“High school gossip really doesn’t compare.” Robin smiles at her agreement and quickly picks out her own question to ask.

“Would you like to be famous? In what way?” Eager eyes meet her own.

“No,” she answers without hesitation, “not really. I mean, I want to be a journalist, you know?” Robin nods, she’s sure everyone knows this about Nancy. “I want to be well-known, well-respected, but being famous is… I think it would be too much.” 

“It’s like everyone knows your name but not who you are,” Robin muses and Nancy smiles, because she gets it.

“Okay,” Nancy picks another card, “before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?”

“Bold of you to assume I ever make phone calls, Wheeler.” Nancy again finds herself raising her eyebrow at Robin’s antics, a bemused smile working its way onto her mouth as she just continues to stare at Robin, waiting for what she already knows the answer is going to be. 

Robin fidgets under her watchful stare, twirling one of the rings on her fingers in a continuous motion. Nancy can’t help herself when she reaches over and settles one of her hands over Robin’s for a moment, hoping to soothe whatever nervousness she has unwittingly dug up, before pulling away.

“I, uh, don’t really rehearse anything, but I usually have a mental script prepared,” she trails off, an embarrassed glint in her eye, before she closes her eyes entirely and picks another card at random – a complete opposition to Nancy’s more ordered approach to her cards. 

“Anyway, what would constitute a “perfect” day for you?”

Right now, sweeps in and out of her mind, too fleeting to register, but the sentiment lingers. 

“Honestly, any day when there aren’t any monsters from alternate dimensions, or where the world isn’t ending, or foreign governments aren’t scheming against us is a perfect day for me,” and the laugh she receives for her answer sparks something inexplicable in her chest; something familiar that Nancy doesn’t yet want to name, and so she occupies herself with selecting the next question.

“When did you last sing to yourself or someone else?” Robin hesitates to answer, shrugging as Nancy squints at her, “come on, you’re telling me you never sing?”

“Not really,” she shrugs again, “I mean, I guess I sing in the shower, and sometimes in the car with Steve. My voice isn’t anything special, I don’t think.”

“I think I’ll be the judge of that,” and Robin’s eyes widen in a panic, as if Nancy has just told her she’s due on stage any minute, “but not right now.” Robin sighs in relief and shuffles the cards in her hands. Robin’s eyes widen as she pulls the next question out, squinting at the card as she pulls it closer to her face.

“I’m not sure I get this one,” she frowns, pulling the card away from her face, “If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?”

Nancy mulls the question over, “so live for 60 years with either the mind or body of a 30-year-old?” Robin shrugs, handing the card over to Nancy, who takes it and reads through the question a few times. Focused solely on the question in her hands, Nancy misses the way Robin’s own focus seems to be on her. “I think I would keep the mind of a 30-year-old, make sure I have my faculties about me until I die.”

“Sounds like a good plan, I think I’d do the same, honestly,” Robin agrees and Nancy smiles as she picks the next card, smile immediately disappearing, “what’s wrong?” Robin leans forward as if to look at the card, but Nancy snatches it away, holds it close to her chest. She can’t meet Robin’s eyes, mind swirling with ways this card has almost come true, for the both of them.

“I’m not sure this card is appropriate to ask,” Robin’s frown matches her own and Nancy’s breath hitches when Robin asks her, voice softer than she’s ever heard it,

“Ask me anyway.”

“Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?” the air is still, neither girl daring to move as the question lingers between them. Robin once again draws her knees to her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around her shins. Nancy feels compelled to mirror her position, instead she crosses her legs and lays her hands in her lap.

“I’ve had a few,” Nancy tilts her head at Robin, “hunches, I mean,” she clarifies and Nancy waits for her to elaborate, to go on one of her endless rambles, but she doesn’t. She’s quiet and Nancy knows there’s something there; something niggling at the tip of Robin’s tongue, ready to be revealed, but she holds steadfast. Despite her desire to pry the answer from her as she would any person she interviews, she realises that she doesn’t want to. Robin isn’t some random interviewee for the paper, no, she’s… a friend.

Nancy lets the questions drop, reaching forward to tap the stack of cards in Robin’s hands, gaining her attention.

“What do you got for me, Buckley?” and if Robin notices the exaggerated excitement in Nancy’s voice, she doesn’t comment on it. In fact, she seems glad to move on and seemingly absorbs the energy Nancy is putting out, her knees dropping to the bed as she perks up.

“Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.”

“We both like to solve mysteries, have the same taste in music, and,” Nancy draws out, brain going blank trying to think of a third thing until she looks up and sees Robin’s impossibly blue, impossibly kind, eyes, “and, you know, the trauma .”

“I didn’t know Johnathan liked the Go Go’s,” Robin laughs, pointing to a poster in the corner of Nancy’s room, causing Nancy to stiffen at the realisation that she hadn’t been speaking about Jonathan when she said those things. She hasn’t thought much of Jonathan at all recently, given their recent split. Not that anyone else needs to know that right now.  

“Yeah,” Nancy tries to laugh it off, peering at Robin and wondering when she’d replaced Jonathan in her head with Robin; her new partner in crime, or, well, in helping to solve crime. Mysteries. Shaking her head, Nancy continues with the questions, “for what in your life do you feel most grateful?”

“Okay, and when do you get the deep, thought-provoking questions, Wheeler?” Robin teases as she gets up from the bed, pacing the room until she reaches Nancy's dresser, picking up the little music box she had been so enamoured with the first time she’d been in Nancy’s room. She turns it around in her hands a few times, Nancy’s eyes following her movements. 

“I think, and don’t judge me,” she tries to say mock-sternly, but it ends up falling flat, “if I’m being honest I’m most grateful for getting that job at Scoops Ahoy. And before you call me crazy, I need you to know that my life before that was… non-existent. I didn’t really have a purpose, I didn’t even have any friends, not at that point. I was just coasting through life, just going through the motions ,” she says with a wave of her fingers not holding the music box, “but then I got that job and I met Steve, and suddenly I was solving super secret Russian codes and fighting flesh monsters, and then I got to be a part of it. Plus I got to meet you,” she fiddles with the edge of the music box and Nancy notices a red tinge blossoming on her cheeks, “and, and everyone else, of course!” Nancy just smiles.

“You’re not crazy,” she reassures, “but you will make me crazy if you don’t sit back down.” Robin acquiesced, placing the music box back onto the dresser with the utmost care and then, without a single care, she jumped back onto the bed, jostling herself and Nancy and causing the both of them to dissolve into a fit of giggles.

Nancy hasn't felt so light in a long, long time.

“Oh shoot, the questions,” Robin mumbles as she rolls into Nancy’s space, freeing the questions from where they had been crushed under her body. Nancy feels her breath hitch as she hesitantly places a hand on Robin’s shoulder to steady her, ignoring the warmth of the other girl’s body and the way her heart stutters.

“You good?” She asks when the feeling of Robin becomes a touch overwhelming.

“Yeah!” Robin exclaims as she turns around, smile bright and beaming and oh , if Nancy thought it was overwhelming before. “Oh, how the tables have turned, Wheeler,” Robin flicks the current question card between her fingers, though there’s not even a hint of the smile that just occupied her features. She looks uncertain, her teeth worrying her bottom lip.

“Just ask it,” she sighs, knowing it can’t be worse than asking how you think you’ll die in a town like Hawkins.

“If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?”

Okay, it’s worse.

Nancy’s eyes widen, looking to the ceiling for some God given strength because there are so many ways for her to answer this question. Too many. She could talk about the barriers she was born with that were then ingrained into her as she grew up: sit straighter, dress this way, act that way, you can’t say that it’s unladylike, boys won’t like you if you do that. She knows, somewhere deep in her heart, that her mom tried her best, but there’s only so much you can do in a household run by someone like Ted Wheeler.

She settles on something safer.

“I think I’d change how I was raised to think,” is what she decides on, knowing Robin will get the message, “there were a lot of things I was raised to believe; things my dad said, mostly, that as I’ve grown older I’ve come to realise it was all just… bullshit. ” It feels good to say; to let the burden of so many hateful things just float into the air like confetti.

“Rock on,” Robin holds a hand up for a high five and Nancy laughs, genuinely, as she slaps her hand against Robin’s. It’s quite possibly the worst high five in Hawkins’ history. “No, come on, Wheeler, you gotta look at the elbows,” Robin instructs as she holds her hand up once again.

“Look at the elbows?” Robin nods, “your bony elbows?”

“I take offence to that,” Robin huffs, but doesn’t lower her hand. Rolling her eyes, Nancy dutifully focuses on Robin’s elbow and goes in for another high five. It’s marginally better than the last and Robin cheers, doing a ridiculous little dance where she sits, looking awfully comfortable on Nancy’s bed, but Nancy can’t help the grin that overtakes her features. She shoves the other girl, giggling with her as she exclaims, without much thought,

“You are an idiot, Robin Buckley,” and oh , Nancy thinks, oh shit.

Chapter Text

After her little moment with Robin, and by moment Nancy means life-altering discovery, Nancy did what any sensible girl her age would do.

She buried it. 

Seriously, she attached approximately six cement blocks to it and threw it into the Mariana Trench in her mind, never to be thought of again. She’s not being dramatic, she’s being practical, because how is she supposed to be around Robin and function like a normal human being if she can’t stop thinking about her. 

And therein lies the problem: two weeks later and she can’t stop thinking about it; about her.

Usually she’s really good at getting rid of unwanted thoughts, repressing them until she genuinely forgets about them – well, that is, until they creep up on her in a moment of weakness or a nightmare. This time is different, though, it’s like her mind is refusing to cooperate and has turned those cement blocks she used to bury the thoughts into polystyrene, helping them rise right back to the surface.

That’s besides the point.

The point is that every time Nancy has seen Robin, or even just heard her name, since that night she can’t help but be pulled back into that moment where everything seemed to stop, and it was like she was seeing Robin for the first time. Robin in all her endearing dorkiness.

Nancy shakes her head as if she can erase her thoughts like an Etch-a-Sketch.

Now is not the time to get lost in those thoughts, especially since the object of said thoughts is right next to her reading some book that Nancy doesn’t know what it is because it’s in French.

French.

It had been Nancy’s idea, foolishly, to have the other girl over to hang out now that school is officially over for them, for good. She knows Steve has planned a party for them to celebrate at the weekend – somehow convincing Keith to allow him and Robin the weekend off, for once. But she had wanted to have Robin, just Robin, over to spend some time alone; her subconscious had practically begged for it.

Robin had immediately made herself at home, flopping onto the bed with her backpack still on, face buried into the pillows at the head of her bed. Nancy had laughed and taken a moment to let her eyes sweep over Robin’s disheveled form before laying next to her on the bed, keeping a safe distance.

Which is how she has found herself in her current predicament.

Robin had eventually dragged herself from her position and set up, now resting against the pillows and had taken a book out to read, something about needing some time to regain her social energy after work. Nancy got it, sometimes just the idea of talking to people was exhausting, and so whilst Robin had grabbed a book from her bag, Nancy had picked up the newspaper she had stolen from her dad earlier in the day to read and to do the crossword.

It had been like this for the best part of an hour, sharing comfortable silence that was only interrupted when Nancy would have to get up to change the tape playing the Go Go’s. It was nice, Nancy realised, to just do nothing; to do nothing with someone. 

“Hey,” it’s Robin’s turn now to interrupt the silence, Nancy hums in acknowledgement, “we never did finish those questions.” Nancy pauses, grip tightening on the newspaper ever so slightly. Her eyes flick to her desk, where the questions had been sitting for two weeks.

They’d made it through ten questions last time, Nancy feigning tiredness once she’d had that thought, to which Robin had agreed with a yawn and, after some argument about sleeping arrangements – ‘ I’m fine on the floor, Wheeler,’ ‘just come here, Buckley’ – they had taken their sides of the bed. Robin had fallen asleep almost instantly; Nancy didn’t sleep a wink.

“Well,” Nancy clears her throat, pulling her eyes away from the cards to look over at Robin, who has been watching her intently. “Apparently the cards are meant to be done in three sets, and we didn’t finish the first set, so we could finish the first set tonight?” she suggests, not eager to have any more groundbreaking revelations, at least not this evening. Robin nods in agreement before she perks up, eyes widening and body practically vibrating.

“I have an idea,” she gets up from the bed without further explanation, circles the room with her hands raised in front of her, before she zeroes in on the cards and picks them up. She flicks through them, seemingly removing the ones they have already done and placing them back on the desk. She shuffles the ones in her hands and Nancy, again, finds herself transfixed by the action. 

“So,” Robin startles at Nancy’s voice, almost dropping the cards, “are you going to share this idea?”

“Give me a number between one and twenty-four,” is the response she gets, and Nancy huffs slightly.

“Eight.”

“I’m going with thirteen,” Robin says and when she flicks through the cards again, counting under her breath, Nancy begins to understand what Robin is doing. “Here’s your eight,” Robin hands over a card, “and here’s my thirteen,” and now they both have a card each to finish the first part.

“You should go first this time,” Nancy suggests, settling back into her bed as she toys with the card in her hands. Robin beams as she comes to sit on the edge of the bed, crossing her legs.

“This one’s a doozy, Wheeler,” Robin whistles, “maybe I should have gone with eight. Okay, take four minutes,” Nancy’s eyes widen, “and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.”

“Maybe you should have gone with eight,” Nancy mutters, though not bitterly, hoping Robin has learnt enough about her to read this cue. There’s a niggling in the back of her head that calls out that this would have been the perfect card for Nancy to ask Robin to get all the details she feels she’s missed; that she should feel bitter that she’s on the receiving end, but there’s something in the way Robin’s giving her this look that is so uncertain , that Nancy forgets what being bitter even means.

“Figures the person who can speak a mile a minute without even needing to take a breath would be the one not to get this card,” Nancy jokes, relief filling her when Robin smiles at her, without teeth for once. It’s a softer smile, one Nancy hasn’t been privy to before, but one she’d like to see again.

“Do you think when it says ‘take four minutes’ it’s for you to have four minutes to think or for you to talk for four minutes?” Robin questions, turning the card over in her hands as if the answer will be on the back of it.

“I assumed talk for four minutes, but now I’m not sure.”

“What if you took four minutes to gather your thoughts and then four minutes to talk?” Robin suggests, and Nancy finds herself nodding, reaching over to her bedside table to the notebook that lives there. 

Nancy begins to write things down, feeling that even if she had the full four minutes, it would not have been enough time to write anyone’s life story, never mind hers. Nervousness builds up her spine as she realises everything she’s writing down will soon be said out loud, so she shies away from certain things; things she doesn’t deem important. She hesitates as she gets to her Sophomore year, writing as little as she can.

“Time?” she calls out, not looking up from her notebook.

“You’ve got thirty-four seconds, Wheeler.”

Nancy doesn’t think she’d written this fast for her final exams.

“Okay, time. I gave you an extra few seconds because, damn , if I can talk a mile a minute, then you can write a mile a minute. No wonder you’re going into journalism,” Nancy blushes at the compliment, looking anywhere but at Robin’s impressed gaze, when she notices that Robin isn’t wearing a watch.

“Did you actually time me?” She questions, eyes squinting as she purposely looks from Robin’s empty wrist, to her digital clock, to Robin’s eyes, which now have the sense to look a bit bashful.

“I’m really good at mentally keeping time,” she offers, her shoulders rising to meet her ears as if she’s not sure of the fact she has just provided. Nancy just laughs in disbelief.

3. Robin is a walking stopwatch, apparently.

Nancy reaches over and fiddles with her digital clock, setting an alarm for three minutes from now.

“When it hits 21:34 I’ll start and then the alarm will go off four minutes from that time. Not that I don’t trust you not to keep an accurate time,” she reassures when she notices Robin’s eyebrows pull together, “but because I don’t trust you to actually stop me from talking.” Robin looks affronted at the accusation and goes to answer, but is stopped when Nancy points to the clock, “time?”

“Let’s hear your life story,” Robin rolls her eyes, but the mirth in her eyes gives her away.

“Well, I was born on the twenty-first of November 1967, right here in Hawkins to Ted and Karen Wheeler; only child for four blissful years before Mike came along, then Holly was born at the turn of the decade and I became a big sister to one idiot and one angel. I went to Hawkins Elementary, then Middle, then High; not surprising seeing as that’s what every child in this town does.” Nancy takes a pause, looking down at her notes again, noting the scarcity of her earlier years compared to the last four.

“When I was five, I broke my right arm, right above the wrist. I was out with some family friends and an older cousin, and I was so convinced I could go the highest on the rope swing. Spoiler: I couldn’t, and I didn’t know how to stop, so I just let go and landed right on a tree root.” Robin winces, bringing her hands to cover her mouth. “Yup,” Nancy nods, “trouble was that I’d also hit my head really hard and was bleeding heavily from my nose, so they all panicked that my nose was broken and rushed me home. It wasn’t until my mom sat me down to clean my face that she realised my arm looked weird.”

“Gnarly,” Robin comments.

“When I went to Middle School I was a hall monitor,” Nancy decides to ignore Robin’s ‘of course you were’ , “and one time I caught these two older girls smoking in the bathroom, but I was so scared they’d beat me up that I just wished them and their lungs luck and ran away.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“How very Robin Buckley of you, Nancy Wheeler.”

“I didn’t have very many friends growing up, I had a lot of acquaintances, you know?” Robin nods, “but when I got to High School I met Barbara Holland,” something flickers in Robin’s eyes, something that Nancy would call hurt, but she doesn’t dwell on it, not for now, and continues, “and we just clicked. She got me through Freshman year, always so calm and collected, where I was overly neurotic and obsessed with my grades. She even got me that Tom Cruise poster,” she points to the wall, “we went to see Risky Business together right before Sophomore year.” Nancy stops, feels tears well in her eyes as she thinks back to the moment and how everything from that moment forward changed her; changed everything.

“I’m not sure how much Steve has told you about everything before Starcourt, but Sophomore year is when everything flipped upside down.”

“Pun intended?” Robin asks in a small voice, to which Nancy just rolls her eyes, feeling grateful for the way Robin has the ability to lighten the mood with just two words.

“Skipping over everything with Steve, I’m sure you know how that goes,” Robin nods, “I spent a lot of time investigating with Jonathan when Will went missing. One time we were looking in the woods and I found this gate that led to the upside down, and I went through it by myself. That was the first time I saw a Demogorgon,” she says offhandedly and Robin’s eyes widened, “definitely not the last time though. Jonathan and I went to lure one to us not long after that,” she says as she shows Robin the scar on her hand, “it was stupid, but we did some damage.” Robin lightly traces over the scar on her palm, and Nancy barely suppresses the shiver that runs down her spine.

“The summer before junior year was spent with Steve, mostly, sometimes I’d hang out with Jonathan, too. Did you know I spent about a month working with Joyce at the store?” Robin shakes her head, “yeah, my first real job outside of selling lemonade outside my house. It was nice, for the most part, but they took me off the register when I mouthed off to some old man treating me like a second class citizen. I was happy stocking shelves, though. They didn’t ask me back the next summer, obviously, but I was at the Hawkins Post the next summer, so it didn’t matter.

Steve and I broke up midway through the first semester of Junior year, there was just a lot happening with us, what happened to Barb…” she trails off, looking away from Robin for a moment.

“I’m glad her parents got some closure, in the end,” Robin’s voice is quiet as she reaches out to give Nancy’s hand a squeeze. Nancy squeezes back, grateful for the support.

“Yeah, me too. Junior year was spent trying to expose Hawkins Lab for what happened. Oh, I met Murray Bauman that year, crazy guy, cray accurate psychoanalysis skills. Don’t get caught up in a conversation with him if you can help it.”

“Noted,” Robin salutes.

“The rest of that year was spent fighting Demodogs, yup Demo dogs ,” Nancy reiterates at Robin’s alarmed expression, “think Demogorgon on all fours. And helping to expel the Mind Flayer from Will.

You know how the summer goes: Russian conspiracy, return of the Mind Flayer, Starcourt being burnt to the ground. Though, amongst all that, one thing I remember most is a conversation I had with my mom after a bad day with the men at the Post where I got fired. She encouraged me to keep going, to keep fighting. It’s the first time I ever heard her swear, she called them shitheads.” Nancy laughs, recalling how shocked she had been when the words had tumbled out of her mom’s mouth.

“I have to agree with her, Nance, they sound like shitheads.”

“They were. I feel like you know everything that has happened since that summer, at least the important things. Well, except maybe-” She’s cut off by her alarm blaring, and she jumps to turn it off.

“Except what?” Robin leant forward in expectation. Nancy smirks, poking Robin in the forehead to push her back a bit, so she’s sitting properly.

“Nope, my four minutes are up, you get no more information,” Robin huffs.

“That’s not fair!” Nancy really shouldn't find her pout so endearing, but she does. She also shouldn’t be acknowledging that thought, but she does .

“Let’s get your question out of the way, huh?” Nancy looks down at her card, laughing at the simplicity of the question Robin gets compared to her own. “If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?” Robin is still pouting as she appears to be pondering the question.

“Can I change it, so I can remove an ability? Because I think, perhaps, I’d like to be able to have the ability to control the amount of words that come out of my mouth at any one time. Like, I’d get rid of my ability to ramble because I know it annoys people and, hey, it even annoys me sometimes.”

“Robin,” Nancy frowns, dipping her head to catch Robin’s eyes that look so incredibly sad, it breaks Nancy’s heart. “Two things: first, I, and many other people, love your rambling, okay? No, hey,” Robin tries to look away, but Nancy reaches a hand up, cupping her reddened cheek to keep her attention. “Your rambling is endearing, more than it should be, and educational a lot of the time. It also makes you, you, and you’re pretty special. Fuck what anyone else says, especially your mom,” she tacks on at the end, quieter so as to not startle Robin more than she already has.

Robin looks at her with widened eyes, shocked that Nancy remembered her throwaway line at the library.

“What’s the second thing?” Robin asks in discomfort, not used to having such kindness boldly thrown her way.

“You didn’t answer the question, so answer it properly.”

“In all seriousness, I’d like the ability to do math in my head, or be magically able to dive without having to pay for lessons.”

“I thought you were like a human stopwatch,” Nancy questions, preparing to get rid of the third thing on her list she thought she knew about Robin.

“Yeah,” Robin trails off in confusion, “that’s just counting.”

“What grade did you get in math?”

“B+,” and Nancy rolls her eyes.

“I’ll take the ability to drive as an answer, but you’re holding out on me, Buckley.” Robin shrugs with a smile that says she doesn’t care in the slightest. She sits up in place, an idea forming in her head that could either lead to great things, or disaster. “You know, I could teach you to drive, free of charge.”

“Really?” Robin asks in excitement and Nancy nods.

“You’d have to drive the old wagon, though, but I’m sure my mom wouldn’t mind,” and in lieu of an answer, Robin surges forward and wraps her arms around Nancy’s shoulders. Nancy sits, stunned, before her brain catches up and has the sense to return the hug. 

Their first hug.

Nancy simultaneously feels herself light up with joy and die a little inside.

Chapter Text

Nancy has been sitting in her car outside of Family Video for going on fifteen minutes now, trying to build up the courage to go into the store.

It’s Wednesday afternoon, and Nancy knows for a fact that this is the day when Robin has one hour of her shift without anyone in the store. Keith will have been in for the morning set up, with Steve coming in for the late afternoon to closing shift.

It’s a quiet day, quieter than it would be at this time any other time of the year, with it being summer. Most kids are out spending time with their friends doing God knows what – Nancy hasn’t seen Mike outside of family breakfast in at least a week, but he’s safe, she knows. They all are now. 

Back to the matter at hand, the point Nancy is trying to make is that the shop is quiet and Robin is alone. She decidedly ignores why she decided to come see Robin at this precise moment; when she knew they weren’t going to be disturbed.

She doesn’t know why she’s so nervous to go inside – she does – when all she’s wanting to do is ask Robin if she’d like to go for dinner after her shift. It’s not like she’s asking her on a date.

She’s not .

Really, she’s just asking her friend, who she has completely normal and friendly feelings about, if they would like to grab a bite to eat later. Casual. She used to grab a bite to eat with Barb, (and Steve, and Jonathan). It doesn’t matter how endearing she finds this friend, or how much she likes listening to her talk, or how transfixed she gets by their hand movements, or how much she likes trying to find constellations in her freckles. 

All normal things.

Nancy sighs to herself, bringing her hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose. She feels like she’s slowly turning into Robin with how much she has begun to overthink things. She didn’t even know it was possible to ramble in your thoughts until recently. She gets out of the car and heads towards the doors to the shop, hesitating briefly before squaring her shoulders, with a brief reminder that Nancy Wheeler doesn’t get nervous.

With that, she pushes through the doors, jumping momentarily at the sound of the bell that hangs above it.

Robin is there to greet her immediately.

“Hey, Nance!” Robin is currently sitting on the counter, one foot dangling down, singing back and forth, whilst the other is planted firmly on the surface.

“Hey, Robin,” she looks around the empty store, then back to what she assumes is a VHS tower that Robin has been building, “busy day?”

“Oh, we’ve been super swamped,” Robin plays along, sagging her shoulders exaggeratedly as she wipes nonexistent sweat off her forehead, “invisible customer after invisible customer.”

“Well, if you’re too busy I can always come back later,” Nancy makes to leave, taking a step towards the door; she doesn’t mean it, not in the slightest, but the adorably alarmed look Robin gives her makes it worth it.

“No! No, you can stay,” Nancy nods, smiling as she nears the counter, pressing her weight against it as she leans over to get a bit closer to Robin whose cheeks have suddenly gotten pinker, if Nancy’s not mistaken. “What brings you here, anyhow?” Robin inquires, and it’s Nancy’s turn to blush. She feels that nervousness creep in again, but she bites it down; there’s absolutely nothing to be nervous about.

Friends ask friends out all the time.

“Are you free after your shift, by any chance? I was thinking we could check out that new diner just outside of town.”

“I’m more than free. Absolutely nothing at all scheduled for my evening. I’d be delighted to go to the diner with you,” Robin rambles, wincing slightly as if she herself is just registering that she didn’t answer like a normal person; it comforts Nancy more than it should, that her nervousness is mirrored, and her expression softens.

“I’ll pick you up at 5?”

“See you then!”

That wasn’t so hard, Nancy thought as she returned to her car, a pep in her step. She gets in and turns the ignition, smiling when the radio kicks in and smiling as ‘Dreaming’ by Blondie filters through her car.

The last time she was in the car with Robin, the other girl had asked if she could put one of her own cassettes in, Nancy had agreed. Since then, Robin hasn’t asked for it back and Nancy hasn’t dared to take it out. It was like getting a little glimpse into what made Robin who she was; all the little intricacies that Nancy was starting to get to know; to get the chance to adore.

When she arrives home, her body vibrates at the idea of having to spend two hours by herself, stuck in waiting mode until she can go pick up Robin from work. She decides to put herself to use in hopes that the time will go faster, helping her mom around the house. Her mom looks at her in question, trying to pry out an answer in that way only she can, but Nancy steadfastly ignores her eyes.

She’s not sure if she can talk to her mom about whatever this is. Not yet, anyway.

So, at exactly 14:47, Nancy helps sort and fold the laundry, which takes her to 15:02. She sighs, usually that job takes her twice as long. Next, she offers to vacuum the living room, trying to take her time with this chore, (and to also annoy her dad, who grumbled for five whole minutes about his peace being disturbed before he dragged himself to his study). When she checks the time again, only another twenty minutes have passed.

Jesus, did I develop super cleaning powers today?

Nancy sighs again, putting the vacuum away before sliding into the kitchen and helping to put away the dishes her mom had cleaned. When she’s done, the clock reads 15:42, causing her eyebrows to pull together in a frown and for her mom to pick up on her mood.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Nancy startles, her mom’s hand coming to rest on her shoulder to soothe her shock.

“Not today,” she replies, shoulders slumping in hope that the answer will be enough. Karen’s lips pull together in a thin line, but she nods.

“You come to me when you’re ready,” she kisses Nancy on the forehead and makes her way towards the study.

15:44.

Nancy spends the next hour in her room, laying haphazardly across her bed as she stares blankly at the ceiling. She’s trying to pinpoint where exactly this behaviour is coming from. This neurosis that she only used to get around Steve and Jonathan and…

See, there’s been a voice in the back of her head that has been calling to her for weeks now, asking for her to listen and to acknowledge what has been staring her in the face. To connect the dots that already have a serrated line for her to follow and join them together. All of the clues are there for her, but she, in true Nancy fashion, has buried the voice somewhere deeper in her subconscious than before.

When Nancy dares check the time again, she’s glad to see that it’s 14:23, meaning she can plausibly leave in the next twenty minutes and whilst she’d be a bit early picking Robin up, she doesn’t think the other girl will mind.

With those twenty minutes in mind, Nancy decides to get up from her bed to freshen herself up a bit. When she’s ready to go, she picks up her purse from the end of the bed, but something catches her eyes.

There, on her nightstand, sits the stack of cards that she and Robin had been working through. She bites her lip, mulling over whether she wants this casual dinner to be something… more. She knows her answer, in her heart, so she swipes the cards off her nightstand and rushes down the stairs, waving goodbye to her parents.

It’s a seven-minute drive to Family Video, Nancy makes it in five.

Not on purpose.

She doesn’t hesitate before leaving her car and entering the store. She notices that Robin is nowhere to be seen, instead Steve sits on a stool behind the counter, head in his left hand as it seems he has lost the battle against staying awake. She bites back the disappointment at not being greeted by Robin’s beaming smile, and so decides to cheer herself up a bit.

Nancy eases her way over to the counter, surprised the ringing of the front doorbell didn’t rouse Steve from his slumber. She moves the little bell they keep on the counter to get their attention if they’re in the back of the shop right under Steve’s head and dings it as loudly as she can. 

Steve immediately sits up, falling off the stool into a pile of empty boxes in the process. Nancy covers her mouth, eyes widened, as Steve looks up at her blearily. Robin rushes in from the back, almost tripping over, well, herself, Nancy notes, before she skids to a halt.

Robin’s eyes flicker from Nancy, to the bell, to Steve, then back to Nancy, before she lets out a loud, unrestrained laugh, and it’s like Nancy can feel her soul singing along to the sound.

She never wants it to stop.

But stop it does when Steve throws one of the boxes to his right, hitting Robin square in the head and sending her tumbling backwards onto her butt.

“Asshole,” she grumbles, throwing the box back at Steve and hitting him in the shoulder.

“Nancy started it,” is his response as he falls back into the bed of boxes. Robin’s gaze meets her own, but all Nancy can do is shrug, smiling gently at Robin. She waits, patiently, until there it is.

Robin beams up at her, practically scampering to her feet.

“What time is it, Stevie boy?”

“Time for you to leave,” he mumbles, eyes closed once more.

“I made you some coffee, it’s in the back,” Robin says as she picks up her keys from under the counter. Steve waves her off, finally opening his eyes again. They share a look, communicating something Nancy can’t decipher; the pink dusting Robin’s cheeks making her want to know all the more.

Robin rushes towards the door, holding it open expectantly for Nancy, who says her goodbye to Steve.

“What was all that about?” she can’t help herself from asking, glancing back to the store.

“Oh, Steve had a date last night and is super tired today,” Robin deflects, fiddling with the keys in her hand as she makes her way over to the passenger side of Nancy’s car. Nancy decides to let it go.

The car ride is unusually silent, the only noise coming from Robin’s cassette playing through the speakers, and Nancy is tempted to break out the questions in her purse a bit early when she hears it.

She’s not sure if she’s supposed to be hearing it, if Robin is even aware that she’s doing it; is aware that she can be heard, but she’s singing along quietly to the tape. Her hands are drumming the beat to the song as she looks out the window, voice matching the tune perfectly.

Nancy finds herself at a point between being transfixed by Robin’s voice and wanting to call her out for lying to her the other week.

4. Robin can sing (“my voice isn’t anything special” my ass).

Nancy settles on the former; it gives her more opportunity to hear more of Robin’s singing and the intricacies of her voice. It’s clearer than her speaking voice, lighter in a way that could carry Nancy into the clouds if she let it.

And she wants to let it.

They arrive at the diner too soon for Nancy’s liking, with Robin immediately jumping out of the car, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she waits for Nancy to follow her towards the entrance. Nancy grabs her purse, locks the car, and takes a moment to admire the way the neon sign of Tom’s Diner lights up Robin’s features.

She’s starting to understand why Jonathan used to carry his camera around with him all the time, because this is a moment she would like to capture.

They shuffle their way inside, Robin once again holding the door open for Nancy to enter first. She’d hated it when Steve and Jonathan did those things, but it’s different with Robin, she knows. It’s not coming from a palace of forced chivalry.

Nancy frowns, she needs to stop making comparisons between Robin and her ex-boyfriends.

They find a booth in the far corner of the diner and sit across from each other. Robin immediately grabs a menu, and Nancy watches as her left hand comes up to fiddle with her ear as she puts her full concentration on reading the men. She watches her for a moment more before looking down at her own menu.

When the waiter comes to take their order, Robin orders a plain hamburger, fries, and whatever the specialty milkshake is. Nancy opts for the same, but with a coffee instead.

“Gotta say, I’m disappointed in your choice of beverage, Wheeler,” Robin teases, leaning back in the booth. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Nancy rolls her eyes, waving her off. “Don’t cry to me when you have a stomach ache later.” Robin sticks her tongue out and Nancy has to bite her own to keep from commenting. “I have the questions, by the way,” she says offhandedly, trying to be casual when in reality she is anything but.

Robin perks up in her seat, arms coming to rest on the table as she leans closer to Nancy, excitement written clear as day across her features.

“Can we start now?” She asks excitedly, practically bouncing in her seat, and Nancy doesn’t have the heart to say no. Thankfully, she doesn’t have to as the waiter appears with their drinks and Robin’s eyes widen at the milkshake that is put in front of her.

“Would you like to know what it is?” the waiter asks, looking between Robin and the milkshake.

“No, thank you,” Robin answers politely, eyes now on the heap of whipped cream. The waiter nods and leaves them be, heading towards a table with new customers. Nancy stares at her curiously. “I want to try and guess all that’s in it,” Robin says without looking up, answering Nancy’s unasked question.

“Of course you do,” she laughs, reaching for the little pots of coffee creamer and putting two in her coffee. She doesn’t notice the squint of Robin’s eyes at her comment, the mischievous glint that sparks in them. She does notice Robin reaching for the straw to put in her drink, but doesn’t think anything of it, focusing on stirring the creamer into her coffee when it hits her.

Literally.

Nancy looks up slowly, expression blank as Robin stares back at her, straw hung loosely between her lips and a guilty, yet self-satisfied expression on her face.

“Wow,” she says monotonously, surreptitiously reaching for the straw wrapper that had hit her and fallen next to her in the booth, “you know, I’d expect that behaviour from Mike,” she scrunches the paper wrapping up in a tight ball, making sure Robin’s eyes don’t stray, “even Holly,” she brings her hand up to rest on her lap, “not you.”

That’s a lie, this is exactly the type of behaviour she’d expect from Robin, but it’s not like she’s going to let her know that and get away with it.

“I’m sorr-” Robin begins, but Nancy chooses that moment to strike, throwing the paper ball and hitting Robin right between the eyes, causing her to go cross-eyed and for her straw to fall from her lips into the mess of whipped cream. Robin sits stunned, eyes flickering from the tiny paper ball that had landed an inch to the left of her milkshake, to Nancy, who sat innocently sipping her coffee.

“Touché,” Robin squints, adjusting her straw in her drink before leaning forward to take a sip, “cookies n cream,” she exclaims with a nod, taking another sip, humming in delight as she does. “So, questions?” Robin insists again, but Nancy can’t help but be drawn to the small piece of whipped cream that has attached itself to the corner of Robin’s mouth.

“You’ve got a little,” she points and Robin reaches up, on the wrong side, to wipe and Nancy huffs, “let me.” She reaches forward and swipes the bit of cream with her thumb, not even thinking before she puts it in her mouth to clean it off. 

She freezes, eyes darting to where Robin is also frozen in place, pink to her ears.

“Here’s your order, ladies.”

“Oh, thank god,” Nancy whispers, taking her eyes away from Robin’s own wide eyes. She thanks the waiter as he places the plates down.

Nancy’s mind is running a mile a minute, in complete disbelief at what she had just done, and she’s sure Robin’s is moving just as fast from the look she’s giving her fries; looking at them like they have all the answers. Nancy looks at her own fries.

Maybe they do.

She feels something build in her chest, something uncontrollable, and before she knows it she starts giggling, honest to god, giggling. Robin soon follows, the tension that had built between them dissolving into thin air.

“How about we eat our food and then work on some of those questions with dessert?” Robin’s eyes light up, both at the idea of continuing the questions and at the promise of dessert. And Nancy’s not sure when Robin got so excited about this question game, about getting to know Nancy and letting Nancy get to know her, but she’s glad she is.

“Sounds like a plan.”

Chapter Text

“I think I’m going to go with a chocolate fudge sundae,” Robin says as she looks at the dessert menu. They have long since finished their burgers, making small talk as they ate that Nancy would ordinarily find useless because nothing of interest would ever be discussed. But Robin has this knack, at least in Nancy’s opinion, of making the most mundane things appear interesting.

If the phrase ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ was about information then that would describe Robin to a T, because:

“Did you know that, though french fries are now exclusively made of potatoes, the term used to refer to a cooking method rather than a food. French fries used to be called “french fried potatoes,” meaning that they were potatoes that had been “French fried.” To “french fry” a food meant to deep-fry it. Other foods that were commonly “french fried” included onions to make onion rings and chicken to make fried chicken. Now, thanks to state fairs, you wouldn’t believe all the wacky foods people have deep-fried. Like, I hear in Scotland they have something called a deep-fried Mars Bar, which is basically a deep-fried Milky Way. Can you imagine?”

And Robin had continued eating her fries once the info dump was over. Also, to Nancy’s delight, there was only a slight raising of the shoulders and ducking of the head, and no apology in sight for the ramble. 

Nancy couldn’t help the proud grin as she took the last bite of her burger.

Now, to any other human, that would have been a whole lot of nothing, but to Nancy it meant a great deal. Plus, she now shares some (possibly) useless trivia with Robin, and will hopefully be on the receiving end of more.

“A chocolate fudge sundae sounds good,” Nancy agrees as she yanks the menu away from Robin, who whines in protest and Nancy has to keep herself from reaching across the table and smoothing out the crease between her eyebrows with her thumb.

What is happening to me?

Nancy focuses on the menu, noticing they have some diner staples in the form of apple and cherry pie, too many cake variations, and a decent selection of ice cream.

“I’m kind of torn between the carrot cake and the strawberry shortcake,” Robin hums in reply, looking from the menu to the clear display case housing all the desserts.

“I’m allergic to strawberries,” Robin says offhandedly, making Nancy’s decision for her. Not that it would matter if she did order the strawberry shortcake, it’s not like she’d be going close to Robin with her mouth or anything, or that she’d want to. Nancy slams the menu down, causing Robin to jump in place a little, solidarity, she thinks, nodding to herself.

When the waiter comes, Nancy relays both of their orders, Robin preoccupied with the stack of questions that Nancy had finally pulled out of her purse, tilting her head only slightly when Nancy ordered the carrot cake for herself.

5. Robin is allergic to strawberries - do not consume.

“How many questions were there supposed to be altogether again?” Robin asks once the waiter has left.

“36,” she replies, “there’s meant to be 3 sets of 12, to be precise.”

“And we’ve done 12 already?” Robin asks, shuffling the cards in her hands as Nancy nods in confirmation. Robin then begins to deal them out into four separate groups, as if she were dealing four hands for a round of gin, and Nancy finds herself following the movement. It’s becoming a habit, she realises, watching Robin’s hands as she does the most mundane things.

Her eyes snap up once Robin is done dealing to find an ocean of blue already staring back at her, expression frustratingly blank. Nancy smiles awkwardly, accepting the cards being handed to her, inhaling sharply as their fingers brush. Robin tilts her head in curiosity, still looking at her, before she stacks two of the three remaining piles and hands them to Nancy with a smile.

Nancy quickly puts them away in her purse, grateful for the reprieve. When she turns back, Robin is holding out her fist, still smiling as Nancy raises her fist in response, ready to bump it for what will probably be the first and last fist bump of her life.

“Rock, paper, scissors?” Robin says, and Nancy finds herself laughing.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah!” is Robin’s enthusiastic response, “to decide who goes first this time, seeing as it’s like a Round 2, and we’ve both already had a chance at going first.”

“Fine,” Nancy huffs good-naturedly, going through the motions, and if she takes slight advantage of Robin’s fine motor skills to lose at the last second, well that’s her business, and the cheer Robin does as she cuts Nancy’s paper is more than enough to let her know she made the right choice.

“Okay, Nancy Wheeler,” Robin begins, shuffling through her cards until she pulls one from the middle, “If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future, or anything else, what would you want to know?”

Nancy sits back, pressing her hands into the seat either side of her. She knows her immediate reaction would be to answer positively; knowing what the future holds, if there are any major changes or dangers lurking around the corner. But, if there’s anything these last few years have taught her, it’s that the future is uncertain.

“I’m not sure, honestly. I mean, I think we know better than most people on this planet that what you thought the future could hold can change in the blink of an eye,” she pauses, “I think if I wanted to know anything about the future, it would be if the people I care most about and I were content. We wouldn’t have to be happy,” she rolls her eyes at herself, “but I’d like for us to be content with our lives. Settled,” she amends at the end, fighting the urge to take it all back, worrying she showed her cards too early.

But Robin is Robin.

“Wow,” is all she says, but there’s a softness to the way Robin is looking at her now, as if there’s a part of her that knows – Nancy hopes she does – that she’s high on that list of people she cares about.

Nancy offers the flicker of a smile and picks the card at the very top of her pile.

“Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?” Robin’s expression darkens momentarily, before a faux happy mask is being put in place.

“Going to Europe,” she starts, “I had this silly little idea of escaping to Europe in ‘83, I even called it “Operation Croissant”, stupid, right?” she laughs self-deprecatingly, trying to play it off as a joke, but Nancy doesn't laugh, not when Robin’s eyes cast downward and her shoulders hunch together. “It never happened, obviously. I had no money and no one to go with,” she finishes, not meeting Nancy’s eyes, and her heart aches.

There’s more to this, Nancy knows, and just as she’s about to pry, the waiter arrives with their desserts. Robin perks up immediately, Operation Croissant seemingly already forgotten and Nancy decides to let it go, at least for now.

“What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?” Robin asks on her turn, before shoveling an unholy amount of ice-cream into her mouth. Nancy grimaces at the inevitable brain freeze Robin is going to get.

“Honestly, surviving and graduating high school,” she answers.

“Amen,” Robin holds her hand out and Nancy rolls her eyes before giving a half-hearted high five.

“Is this becoming our thing now?” She asks, and Robin just winks. Nancy feels like she needs to start keeping count of the amount of times she sighs or rolls her eyes around Robin and have the other girl reimburse her. “What do you value most in a friendship?” is her next card, and she places it to the side.

“Loyalty,” is her quick answer, “what is your most treasured memory? Oh, that’s a good one.”

Treasured memory, Nancy thinks.

“So, does this make us friends? As in, officially?”

“Uh, yeah. I mean, right?”

Nancy overthinks.

“I think one of my most treasured memories is,” she hesitates, hoping Robin doesn’t pick up on the phrasing, “is the first time my parents took Mike, Holly, and me to the beach. It wasn’t too long ago, but it was before all this chaos began. There’s nothing particularly special about it, but I just remember it being peaceful. We all got ice-cream, even my dad, and we helped Holly build a princess castle in the sand.”

“That sounds nice,” Robin smiles.

Nancy picks up the next card in her pile, rolling her eyes at the predictability.

“What is your most terrible memory?” She asks, watching as Robin’s lips purse, eyes roaming the ceiling as if she’s trying to look into her own brain for the memory.

“Going to have to give it to those Russians. Man, do they know how to intimidate teenagers who work shitty jobs at ice-cream shops,” she laughs, but there’s no humour there. Nancy has a feeling these questions, at least this set, aren’t as lighthearted as she may have initially thought.

Robin mindlessly swirls her spoon through her mostly melted sundae as she randomly selects her next card, groaning as she reads it.

“Remember that question I got about my hunches on how I’ll die?” Nancy nods, “well, this is worse. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?”

Nancy doesn’t say anything, but she finds herself unable to look away from Robin. Robin, who is currently wincing from the brain freeze that Nancy had predicted she would get. Robin, who is apparently powering through her brain freeze and turning her sundae into ice-cream soup. Robin, who has no idea that she would be the thing Nancy changes.

Robin, who Nancy doesn’t know why. 

“My perm,” she jokes, and Robin chokes on her current spoonful of sundae, trying to contain her laugh behind her hand. Nancy can’t bring herself to laugh, instead she wonders if Robin has been altering answers as much as she has; if there are truths that Robin, like herself, can’t bear to see the light of day; can’t bear to admit they are truths.

“Seriously?” Robin asks once she’s settled down.

“No, honestly I think I’d leave Hawkins and go anywhere, maybe Europe if I could ever find anyone to go with,” she hints, swinging her leg under the table until her foot brushes against Robin’s ankle. 

“Right, yes. I hear Europe is great,” Robin stutters, clearing her throat and refusing to make eye-contact. It shouldn’t be as adorable as it is, or at least Nancy shouldn’t think so. She shouldn’t be endeared by how shy Robin gets when Nancy, well, what is she doing?

Flirting.

Nancy stomps the thought down, the voice in the back of her head becoming tiresome. Ignoring it, she picks the next card from her pile.

“What does friendship mean to you?”

“Everything,” Robin sighs out without missing a beat, still not looking up into Nancy’s eyes. Nancy waits for her to elaborate, because whilst Nancy gets it, wholeheartedly, she’s interested to hear why Robin thinks so. But Robin just picks her next card from the bottom of her pile, and Nancy realises that maybe that was too loaded a question for Robin. 

‘I had no one to go with’, spoken mere minutes ago, echoes freshly in her mind.

Robin reads the next card and her eyebrows shoot into her hairline, she blows air into her pinkened cheeks, quickly asking, “what roles do love and affection play in your life?”

Nancy raises an eyebrow, tapping her fingers on the table once, twice, thrice, waiting to see if Robin will finally look up; she doesn’t. Nancy thinks back on past relationships, where Steve had been possibly over-affectionate, Jonathan hadn’t been affectionate enough, at least hadn’t initiated it enough.

Now, Nancy’s not an affectionate person, her household growing up is a testament to that, but she remembers sleepovers at Barb’s where they’d huddle together under a makeshift fort, touching from shoulder to hip without a care. She remembers easy touches of the wrist at lockers, hugs given in greetings and goodbyes, and heads on laps with hands in hair.

It’s not that Nancy needs affection, no, but she craves it.

“They play a decent sized role, I think,” she says, and she knows she sounds wistful as she says it; no hugs from her father since she was in single digits, love out of obligation, boyfriends who never held her hand first, best friends who always did. Robin finally looks up, though, and Nancy sees it, the love and affection in her eyes, surely a mirror of her own.

She wishes she didn’t.

She wishes it wasn’t.

Giving Robin a sad smile that she knows the other girl doesn’t understand, she moves on to the next card. Robin’s not the only one that can give answers that only warrant more questions.

“Alternate sharing, something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items. Okay, I’ll start, you’re very smart,” Robin scoffs, but Nancy knows exactly what Robin’s GPA was when they graduated. Not that Robin told her, of course not, but she is a journalist, after all.

“You’re loyal,” Robin smiles as if she’s sharing a secret.

“You’re talented.”

“You’re fearless.”

“I like your sense of humour,” Robin scoffs again, looking away, but Nancy just shrugs. “What? You’re funny.”

“Sure, Nance,” Robin’s eyes roll as they focus back on Nancy, “you’re a natural-born leader and fiercely independent.” 

“That’s two,” Nancy notes with a smug grin, “you’re witty in a charming way. Right, last one, Buckley, make it good.”

“I don’t think you realise how much you mean to people, like, you think you don’t matter to people as much as they matter to you, but even thinking that you’d still literally stand in front of a speeding car to protect them. You always put others before yourself, even if that puts you in danger. It’s admirable, really.”

Nancy is speechless, Robin kept her gaze the entire time she was speaking, steadily maintaining eye-contact, as if she didn’t want Nancy to miss a single thing of what she was saying. As if she wasn’t reading Nancy from the inside out.

“I didn’t know you were there for that,” is all Nancy can whisper out, is all she feels safe saying.

“Forever Steve’s passenger,” Robin shrugs, “at least until we get me in your car for those driving lessons you promised,” Robin teases and Nancy knows exactly what she’s trying to do.

“Don’t try and distract me, I know I have one left to give you,” Robin swallows, looking anxious all of a sudden. “I think you camouflage well, hiding yourself from everyone, giving people a little glimpse of the real Robin Buckley and from what I’ve been gifted of her so far, she’s a phenomenally kind and giving person,” Robin blinks as she looks away, “whom I’m so glad I’m getting to know.”

“Ditto,” Robin laughs, though it’s watery, and Nancy gives her the mercy of looking away to wipe her cheeks; extending that mercy to herself as she quietly sniffles. Nancy only looks back when she’s sure the both of them are composed.

“Last card for me?” Robin nods, toying with it as she hesitates to ask, and Nancy knows she’s in for it when Robin practically winces as she asks,

“How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?”

These cards aren’t half full of leaded questions, Nancy thinks, sending a silent prayer up for the last set to be kinder. Maybe she shouldn’t have taken these questions from that magazine, though Nancy is tempted to find the magazine again and find out what the actual deal is with some of these questions.

Nancy wonders if people do this in one sitting; wonders what the outcome is. She wonders if people are doing it for the same purpose she is, or if they have different motivations.

“We’re not very warm, at all, but I suppose I’m close with my mom, and Mike, of course. I had a good childhood, I know I’m privileged in a lot of ways to have had a childhood with no cares or worries, but I don’t think my family knows how to be happy,” Nancy rambles, the last bit slipping out before she could think to stop herself.

Her eyes widen, but all Robin does is give her a sympathetic smile and reach over the table to hold her hand, brushing her thumb against the back of it, and it soothes Nancy in a way that she doesn’t want it to stop.

“It’s okay to think that, you know,” Robin reassures in that quietly calming voice of hers, and Nancy lets out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, letting the stress of that thought melt away as Robin’s kept rubbing a soothing circle into the back of her hand.

“Thanks,” Nancy clears her throat, ready to move on, “how do you feel about your relationship with your mother?” 

Jesus H. Christ.

Robin’s hand freezes on Nancy’s own, so she turns her hand over to hold Robin’s, squeezing it in a show of comfort.

“I’m not too jazzed about it,” Robin mumbles, squeezing Nancy's hand tightly, who has to stifle a wince at the surprisingly strong grip. Robin loosens her hold, instead playing with Nancy's fingers as she continues her thought, “we don’t get along very well, it’s like I can never do anything right. I could literally just be breathing, and it’d be something worth criticizing,” she breathes a disbelieving laugh, looking to the ceiling briefly before dropping her gaze again to meet Nancy’s.

The crooked smile she gives her doesn’t reach her eyes, but Nancy can see some relief there at being able to share this with someone. Nancy knows she herself feels lighter after this evening.

“Not what you’re used to on dinner dates, huh?” Nancy teases, not picking up on her slip up.

“Never been on a dinner date to compare,” Robin shrugs, “this one will be hard to beat, though.”

“I’m sure,” she says dryly before softening her gaze, “I’m glad we’re doing this.” Nancy doesn’t know what exactly she’s referring to; the questions, the dinner, the thing blossoming between them.

Robin squeezes her hand once, twice, thrice, before letting go.

“Me too.”

Chapter Text

Nancy doesn’t see Robin for a week following their little excursion to the diner.

It’s not on purpose, though Nancy felt oddly exhausted once she returned home, which she accredits to bearing an inch of her soul to Robin. She’s been on an assignment with The Hawkins Post as to why the local pool seemed to turn green overnight (spoiler: the new pool staff didn’t put any chlorine in the water, and it has been unnaturally warm), and Robin has been working back to back shifts at Family Video because Steve has been away on his parent’s obligatory family holiday.

Needless to say, Nancy has missed her. Not that she would admit that.

So, on the first day they both have free, Nancy had called ahead to make sure Robin was free for the whole day, so they could spend it together. Just the two of them.

When they settle on a time, Nancy yells an empty goodbye into her house and begins her journey to Robin’s, making two stops on the way. The first stop was at the gas station to make sure her tank was full for her plans, the second being the bakery to get herself and Robin some breakfast and much needed caffeine. 

She rolls up outside of Robin’s house a little after nine and notices the other girl already waiting on the stoop outside her front door, a noticeable slump in her shoulders that leaves as soon as she notices Nancy. Robin jumps up, barely avoiding tripping over her own feet, before she makes her way over to Nancy’s car.

“Taxi for Robin?” Robin asks in lieu of a proper greeting, causing Nancy to roll her eyes (that’s number one for the mental tally).

“Get in, loser,” she responds in jest, and Robin grins as she opens the door and slides into the car.

“Watcha got there, Wheeler?”

“Breakfast,” she hesitates, handing one of the brown bags over to Robin who takes it eagerly, “it reminded me of what we talked about at the diner and I figured, well, you know, if you can’t get to Europe yet then I’d bring a bit of Europe to you, and they were croissants, so,” she trails off, waving her hand to dismiss the thought, but Robin gives her this look, filled with an emotion Nancy knows but doesn’t quite want to name, and practically dives over the centre console to pull her into a hug.

Nancy freezes, feels Robin’s breath on her neck, feels something pulling deep in her chest, before she returns the hug, resting her forehead against the side of Robin’s head, closing her eyes as she takes the moment in.

They stay like that for a moment too long before Robin pulls away, pulling the croissant out of the bag and taking a bite.

“ C’est magnifique!”

Nancy all but dies.

“You, you know French?” there’s an uptick to her voice towards the end, not the usual uptick when asking a question, but because her voice cracked. Cracked.

“Mhmm,” Robin hums around another bite of her croissant, completely oblivious to the effect she is having on Nancy.

“I’m fluent in four languages, you know,” she says as if she’s commenting on the weather. Nancy stares, watches as Robin takes a sip of her coffee and unsurprisingly burns her tongue because she doesn’t have the patience to wait for it to cool down. 

The duality of this girl never ceases to amaze her.

6. Robin speaks four languages. Four. Four!
7. Robin will inevitably burn her tongue on any and all hot beverages.

Nancy tries to focus on her own croissant, taking bites in between her examination of Robin, who can speak four languages. It really is a simple process to follow, take a bite, look at Robin, forget to chew so the pastry becomes soggy, swallow with a grimace, and go back to watching Robin.

It’s itching at her.

“Which languages?” she asks, finally, knowing she won’t be able to continue until she knows. Nancy has never met anyone who knows more than two languages, let alone four .

“Well, English, of course, and French, which you just found out,” she’s counting on her fingers on the hand that is holding her coffee and Nancy has a mild concern that she’ll drop it, “I also know Swedish and German from my mom’s side of the family. God forbid you go to a big family meet up and can’t talk to Farfar Johan or Tante Ilse about, like, stamps,” she says with an eye-roll, taking a hesitant sip of her coffee before continuing, “Dad’s side is all American so nothing interesting there, although he did teach me Pig Latin before, you know,” she shrugs, looking out the window towards her house.

Nancy doesn’t know, but she doesn’t feel like now is the time to ask so, instead, she says,

“Tell me something in Pig Latin,” and really, of all the languages Nancy has the option of hearing Robin speak, she goes with that.

“ Ouyay areyay ivineday. ”

“What does that mean?” and Robin blushes, before she merely raises her free hand and taps the side of her nose twice.

Nancy sighs. (That’s two for the mental tally.)

“Oh!” Robin jumps up excitedly in her seat and rummages through her jacket for a moment. It’s the one with all the patches and Nancy takes note that one of them, endearingly, reads ‘Handle With Care’ . She smiles to herself, thinking how accurate that patch is for Robin to have.

“I have a new mixtape, some old favourites and some new things I’ve been listening to recently,” she hands the tape over to Nancy to inspect, but Nancy pushes her hand back.

“Surprise me.” Robin makes quick work of ejecting the tape that was already in the player and inserting the new one and pressing play. Nancy is greeted by something she can safely say she hasn’t heard before. There’s a lot of synth happening.

“What’s this?”

“It’s uh, ‘Cars’ by Gary Numan. It came out like seven years ago, but I was searching through some old tapes in my house, and it was on an album called ‘The Pleasure Principle’ and I mean, how could I not ,” she laughs and Nancy, again, feels her eyes draw skyward (That’s three) but she laughs, regardless. “It’s got a good vibe, and it’s not too similar to what I usually listen to. There’s a song about an android wanting to become human, which is frustratingly relatable,” she mutters as she runs a hand through her hair, tugging for a moment before she refocuses, “plus I enjoy the sounds, very electronic and robotic.”

“I like it,” Nancy nods along to the rhythm, surprising herself with her enjoyment of the song.

“So, where are we going, Wheeler?”

“Well, I thought we could find an empty parking lot somewhere,” not like that , “and maybe get you behind the wheel for your first official driving lesson.”

“What is your official driving instructor name? Wheelin’ Wheeler? Wheeler’s Wheels? ” Robin jokes, but the way her fingers twirl the rings on her hands and the sway of her left knee gives her away. Before she can even think through the action, Nancy reaches over and places her hand on Robin’s knee, stilling the movement.

“If you’re nervous and need more time, we can do something else.” Robin doesn’t reply, gaze fixed on where Nancy’s hand is resting close to her knee. Before Nancy can panic, Robin turns to her, chin dipped as she smiles.

“Might as well rip off the band-aid,” Nancy nods, returning the smile. With a quick squeeze of Robin’s knee, Nancy puts the car into gear and pulls off.

Robin sings along quietly as they drive, and Nancy listens eagerly to the lilt of her voice, feeling an overwhelming sense of pride that Robin feels comfortable enough around her to sing. Nancy doesn’t realise she’s been smiling for the entirety of the drive until they find an old, abandoned car park on the outskirts of town, and her cheeks ache.

Nancy wastes no time in launching into a thorough introduction to the car, sounding much like her dad when he gave her her first lesson, but Robin nods along, eyes as focused as Nancy has ever seen them. Robin asks questions when she needs, absorbing all of the information like a sponge, which Nancy supposes she is, given all the knowledge she has about a vast array of things. It takes a few minutes for Robin to grasp the concept of the gear shift, but once Nancy feels like she has covered all of the nexeccarry bases, she opens her door and steps out, waiting for Robin to do the same.

Robin takes the long way around the back of the car, bouncing nervously on the balls of her feet, bottom lip caught between her teeth, and hands gripping the hem of her jacket. Nancy reaches down, placing her hand on Robin’s wrist, and looks up.

“I know I sprung this on you and just offloaded a lot of information, but don’t feel like you have to start today,” she offers, but something solidifies in Robin’s eyes.

“I’m ready,” she says with a sure nod, stepping past Nancy and sitting behind the wheel. Nancy turns, leaning slightly into the car with one hand resting on the door, the other on the edge of the roof. She rests her head against her bicep, watching as Robin buckles herself in, checks and adjusts the rearview mirror, wiggles the gear shift to make sure it’s in neutral, all the while repeatedly muttering ‘ ABC’ under her breath whilst nodding her head from right to left.

With hands placed firmly at 10 and 2, Robin turns to Nancy with wide eyes and a nervously excited smile. It’s adorable, and it takes almost everything in Nancy note to say so. Instead, she hands the keys over to Robin and heads around the car to get into the passenger seat.

It feels weird, Nancy having not been a passenger in this car since she learnt to drive. Her dad has his own car and her mom doesn’t drive much anymore, leaving the wagon to Nancy, and probably Mike next year.

That’s an odd thought.

Nancy shakes it away, Mike growing up is one of many thoughts Nancy is happy to lock away in the box in her brain labelled “denial.”

Once Nancy is settled and buckled in, Robin slowly puts the keys in the ignition, hand so tense her knuckles have turned white. Nancy leaves her for approximately 76 seconds before she interferes. She reaches over, covering Robin’s hand with her own and, waiting for the nod, helps turn the keys to start the car.

The engine roars to life and Robin moves her hand back to the 2 position.

“Okay,” Nancy begins, “we’re going to start off easy, okay?” Robin nods. “We’re going to start with getting you familiar with the pedals first. Just the pedals.”

“Okay.”

“Now, I want you to put your foot in front of the brake pedal,” Robin does so with little hesitance, “good, now remind me which foot you use for each pedal.”

“Right for the accelerator and brake, left for the clutch,” Nancy smiles as Robbin recites verbatim what she had told her.

“Great, we’re off to a strong start, Buckley. Now, what do you do before you even think about moving off?”

“Check your mirrors and surroundings, making sure to hit all your blind spots,” Robin does the actions as she recites them.

“Good, now all I want you to do is release the handbrake,” Nancy instructs, tone gentle as she notices Robin’s fingers tap against the wheel, “take your time,” she reassures, remembering how she was in her first lesson, full of nerves and apprehension.

Robin takes a deep breath and takes a quick look down at the pedals to make sure her foot is still in the right position, when she sees it is, she does her observations again, hand coming down to the handbrake as she finishes. She does another sweep, which is unnecessary considering the parking lot is completely abandoned, but Nancy supposes you can never be too careful.

Especially in Hawkins.

Robin lowers the brake, hand quickly moving back to the steering wheel as the car begins to roll forward.

“When we get to the second set of spaces, I want you to brake gently until we’re at a complete stop and put the handbrake on, okay?” Robin nods to show she’s understood, not daring to take her eyes off the road in front of her.

When they get to the spaces, Robin presses down on the brake pedal, it’s a bit jerky but much better than Nancy’s first go. She practically almost caused her dad to fly through the windshield she pressed down so hard and fast.

“You did great!” Nancy exclaims once Robin is done and finds herself raising her hand, Robin grins as she returns the high five and Nancy realises too late what she’s done and groans as Robin giggles beside her.

They go through that action a few more times, each time Nancy adds a new instruction to get Robin used to the brake pedal and also getting her started on steering. She’s surprisingly good. When Nancy asks her if she’s had any driving experience before, Robin asks if ‘ racing race car beds with Steve at the furniture store until they got kicked out’ counts. To which Nancy adds another notch onto her mental tally.

Once Robin seems pretty confident, Nancy dares introduce her to first gear.

Robin gulps.

Nancy has her go through the steps with her on how to start from stationary: clutch, first, bite, release break, ease forward. Simple enough, but Robin has them run through it 8 times before she even makes her first attempt.

And she’s a natural.

Nancy is, genuinely, flabbergasted. Aside from some jitters, both from Robin and the car, it’s perfect. 

“Are you sure you’ve never driven before?”

“Nope.”

They run through that a few more times before Robin asks if they can take it up a gear. Nancy’s mind immediately takes her elsewhere; somewhere like that little box of denial in her mind, somewhere she cannot simply write off as a friendly thought, before her brain catches up and realises Robin is asking if they can try going into second gear.

She really needs to get a hold of her thoughts.

Nancy nods, allowing Robin to verbally go through the process of changing gears, knowing if it was anyone else, with a less pleasing voice, Nancy knows she’d be feeling the beginnings of irritation. She knows that, under usual circumstances, her left eye would definitely be twitching by now. But it’s not, because Nancy doubts there’s anything Robin could do that would annoy her, or make her feel anything bar the ever-growing fondness she feels for the other girl.

There’s traits Robin shares with people who have annoyed her in the past, quirks that Nancy has never found endearing. 

Nancy has a far removed aunt from Ireland who has mastered the art of taking three paragraphs to say a sentence that made her want to bury her head under a pillow with wishes for her to just stop talking. There are jokes that Nancy knows for a fact Robin has picked up from Steve, because she had heard them from Steve himself and hated them. There was a boy Nancy had a crush on in the fifth grade, up until she realised how much he talked with his hands, waving them about like those inflatable noodle things outside of car dealerships, that quickly killed that crush. 

Nancy even remembers the nervousness Barb exhibited around her for the first 4 months of their friendship, that hadn’t really annoyed her, but it set her own nerves on edge.

But now, Nancy loves when Robin goes off on a tangent about everything and nothing. She loves listening to her talk, pausing only to check if she’s said too much, but Nancy continues to surprise herself by always encouraging her to continue. She loves hearing the facts and how Robin could talk for 10 minutes about how she thinks Aliens is better than Alien, but that they’re both masterpieces in their own right. 

Nancy laughs at Robin’s jokes, even the ones she has unfortunately inherited from being around Steve all the time. But she laughs and she means it, because they’re funny when Robin tells them. She finds she’s laughing more now than she ever has, and she hates that she hopes it’s the same for Robin.

Nancy watches Robin’s hands too much, she knows, but there are some parts of a patented Robin Ramble that require hand movements to complete the story, and so Nancy has come to understand it and pay attention to the movements. Her movements are always fluid and precise; intentional. She likes looking at her hands and the way they move, the way they look from many years in band, the way they’re so gentle when they come into any contact with Nancy.

And the nervousness. The way Robin reacts to Nancy with nervous anticipation; knowing that it’s Nancy who can make Robin Buckley shy and quiet doesn’t set her nerves on edge, it sets them on fire.

Robin turns to her then, stealing her attention momentarily. Nancy hadn’t realised she had gotten so lost in thought, but she notices that the car is in neutral and park, engine completely switched off. But Robin is looking at her, smile beaming, eyes wide in wonder and excitement, hands moving frantically as she begins talking a mile a minute about the wonders of driving. Talking to Nancy as if she hadn’t been sat next to her the whole time (and to be fair, she hadn’t really been present for that last few minutes).

And Nancy lets her talk, physically unable to keep the joy radiating from Robin being mirrored in herself. She doesn’t think she’d even want to begin to try to conceal it. 

The niggling thought that she should be annoyed; that Robin should be annoying her given her history, burrows itself into her mind. She should be annoyed, or irritated, even vexed, but she’s not. And the only reason Nancy can even give herself for why she hated these things on other people, but adores them on Robin, is because it’s Robin, and they weren’t.

And that’s becoming a problem.

Chapter Text

Nancy lets Robin lead the discussion the entire drive home. Though Nancy’s sure Robin doesn’t even realise that Nancy had stopped responding five minutes ago. Not that Nancy minds, she likes listening to Robin talk.

Nancy has stopped trying to justify why she likes these things about Robin. She’s coming to accept that she just likes all the little quirks that come with being friends with her. And it truly isn’t Nancy’s fault if she can appreciate how nice of a speaking voice Robin has; you’d have to be mad not to.

When she reaches the junction that has the route to Nancy’s house on the left and the route to Robin’s on the right, Nancy’s mind is telling her she needs time to process the problem that is Robin and how she feels about her, so she says,

“Do you want to come back to mine?” No. “My parents are out grocery shopping, so we should have some privacy for a little while,” Double no.

“Sure!” Robin says, and Nancy feels both elated and furious at the response.

The rest of the drive is spent in silence, Robin humming lightly under her breath and tapping along to the beat of the song on her thighs.

It’s adorable, and Nancy hates it.

Hates herself for how endearing she thinks it is. God, Robin’s not even trying to do anything and yet here Nancy is, being charmed by everything she does. She can’t remember being so attuned to Steve and his movements, finding them anything other than boyish; or Jonathan and his idiosyncrasies being more than just Jonathan being Jonathan; which has nothing on Robin being Robin .

It’s not normal.

She’s not normal.

Nancy almost misses the turn into her driveway, taking a harsh swerve that sends Robin flying into the passenger side door.

“Sorry,” She winces, but Robin just shrugs it off, like always.

“No big,” she turns to Nancy, “I think when you almost get choked out by otherworldly, hive mind vines, everything else pales in comparison, you know?” and Nancy does know. She knows that for the rest of her life, she’ll think of the pain caused by the Upside Down and have this unwitting comparison to the mundane pain of life. She knows that she’ll never be afraid as she was when getting lost in Vecna’s mind.

Though, she supposes, her fear of Robin comes alarmingly close.

“Yeah,” her response is delayed, quiet, and Robin looks like she wants to launch into an apologetic tirade, as if she doesn’t have as much a right as everyone else affected by the Upside Down to talk about it. So Nancy smiles, it’s just a small quirk of her lips, but it's genuine, and it seems to relax Robin some.

Nancy unbuckles her seatbelt and reaches over to unbuckle Robin’s, before exiting the car and heading up the drive. Robin follows, brushing up against her shoulder as she stops to unlock the front door.

The house is quiet when they enter, eerily so, and Nancy has to swallow down the fear that she isn’t really here in this moment, but Robin’s presence beside her is calming.

Reassuring.

More so than anyone else has ever been to her.

They head into the kitchen to get some snacks, seeing as it was around lunchtime, but Nancy didn’t feel up to eating a full meal, and Robin had told her once that lunch confused her too much to commit to it. Like, were you meant to have breakfast food or dinner food, and what was lunch food? Nancy hadn't questioned her further.

Nancy makes them some tea, also, mostly to calm the edge that had crept up on her nerves.

Once they’ve gathered their haul, they head up to the comfort of Nancy's room, and once Nancy sees the newly familiar green walls, she sighs in relief.

Once Vecna had been dealt with, Nancy had felt the need to completely re-decorate her room. Her parents hadn’t questioned her when she’d come home one weekend after spring break with enough green paint to paint the whole house, in fact, her mom had helped her pick out the right decor to go along with the new look.

It had been a good day, all things considered.

Nancy sets both mugs of tea down on her bedside table whilst Robin dumps the snack on the bed, right before she dumps herself on the bed. Nancy stands with her hands on her hips, looking down at the mess of food and limbs.

“What am I going to do with you?” She pinches the bridge of her nose in faux exasperation.

“Love me?” and it’s said so innocently, but Nancy pinches hard enough to see stars.

“Amongst other things,” she lets slip. When she removes her hand, she has to blink a few times for the dots to leave her vision. Robin is looking at her strangely, something unnervingly knowing in her eyes. So Nancy removes one of the pillows from the head of her bed and throws it at her.

Nancy Wheeler, fighting feelings with violence.

“Hey!” Robin exclaims, aiming to throw the pillow back, but thinks twice once she eyes the steaming mugs by Nancy’s hip. Her eyes narrow, likely at the injustice of it, and so she places the pillow beneath her head to rest, face squishing in a way that reminds Nancy of one of the mornings during spring break where Nancy had been awake before everyone, bar Max.

Nancy hadn’t been able to put a name to what she thought of when she’d seen Robin that morning, but she can now.

With that thought invading her mind, Nancy sits on her bed, taking her mug into her hands to warm them. She at least knows to wait a little while before attempting to drink a hot beverage. Robin’s eyes haven’t left her since she settled, the scowl having faded all on its own into something softer.

Something that Nancy secretly hopes is reserved for her.

Nancy has to fight the urge to squirm at the thought. Instead, she focuses on anything that isn’t Robin in her room, but the more she looks around, the more she sees parts of Robin scattered everywhere. From one of her jackets draped across the chair in the corner that Nancy had borrowed on a chilly evening and failed to return, to a stack of tapes that Robin had thought she would like, to a drawing Robin had given her after a particularly dull shift at Family Video that has been pinned proudly to the door of her wardrobe.

There’s even a stash of candy that Nancy hates but Robin loves that sits on her desk, right next to the questions.

The questions.

Nancy had willfully forgotten about the questions after their time at the diner; feeling they had revealed too much and nothing at all. It was a strange dichotomy that Nancy hadn’t been able to deal with; the knowledge that she was being painfully honest, yet withholding parts of herself from Robin; parts that she has no reason to not trust Robin to handle with the utmost care. And yet, she finds herself reverting back into the Nancy that would do anything to protect herself, even from the people she loves.

God.

Robin catches her gaze, and her eyes light up when she recognises what has caught Nancy's attention. She doesn’t make a move, though, doesn't say anything, just lets her eyes fall back to Nancy, who had been watching Robin’s reaction with interest. She’s waiting for Nancy’s cue, and it’s in that moment that Nancy sees the same uncertainty reflected in her own eyes.

Nancy takes a sip of her tea, nodding her head towards the cards, and Robin takes the invitation to scamper off the bed and grab them. Nancy enjoys the familiarity of Robin sitting back on the bed, legs crossed, and hands sorting through the cards; picking out the ones they have done and shuffling the rest.

They’re down to their last twelve, Nancy realises, and as unnerving as this experience has been and as much as her soul aches, she’s not sure she wants it to end.

Robin wordlessly hands her her half of the cards, Nancy accepts them with one hand, taking another sip of her tea with the other before she sets the mug on the side. Robin nods her head down at the cards, rocking forward slightly, and Nancy takes it as her cue to start.

She doesn’t even look at the card before she reads it out.

“Make three true “we” statements each. For instance, “We are both in this room feeling …” Okay, we are both women.“ It’s a cop out, but Nancy will be damned if she’s the first one to break beneath the surface.

“We are both drinking tea,” Robin says, making a grabby hand and Nancy rolls her eyes as she hands the tea over, hand hovering as she waits for Robin to be done, so she can set the mug back in a safe place, not quite trusting Robin not to spill the drink over her sheets. Especially after the hot chocolate debacle.

“We are friends. Officially,” Robin laughs, but it’s strained, she doesn’t meet Nancy’s eyes as she continues.

“We are both hiding something,” Robin’s voice is quiet, scratchy against Nancy's ears, and she’s still not looking at her and Nancy has forgotten how to breathe because does she know?

“We’re both scared,” it’s too honest for Nancy, but she knows it’s true, and it’s enough to get Robin to look at her again, nodding so slightly that if Nancy hadn’t been staring at her so intensely, she would have missed it.

“We’re… safe, in this room,” Robin offers, looking at Nancy in uncertainty, so she finds herself nodding to reassure her.

“We’re safe,” she reiterates, both for herself and for Robin. Robin holds her gaze for a beat too long before focusing on her card.

“Complete this sentence: “I wish I had someone with whom I could share …”” she looks at Nancy expectantly, and Nancy knows exactly how she wants to answer. She wishes she had someone she could share all her fears with; someone she could share her darkest secrets with without judgement; someone she could share all the ugly parts inside of her with and for them to still find them beautiful. 

She decides to be honest, because whilst she has been truthful this entire time, she hasn’t been honest. With herself. With Robin.

“I wish I had someone with whom I could share all the innermost parts of myself, without fear of how they’d react. That they could accept those parts of me as me .”

Robin’s eyes give nothing away, her gaze holding steady. She nods once and gives Nancy’s knee a tap. Nancy hadn’t even realised it had been shaking. She releases a breath, barely able to contain the smile as she flicks through the cards, taking a leaf out of Robin’s book and picking one at random.

She frowns.

“If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for them to know.” Nancy’s too preoccupied with the wording of the question, barely remembering that the prerequisite of the cards is to be complete strangers and she and Robin have far surpassed that by now, to see that Robin has frozen in place. “I mean, we’re definitely already friends by now, but what should I know about you, huh, Buckley?” and Nancy’s laughing, but when she looks up Robin looks close to tears, teeth biting painfully into her lower lip.

“Hey,” Nancy tries to soothe, scooting forward, but the minute their knees touch, Robin recoils as if Nancy’s touch burns. Nancy doesn’t dare move again, partly so as to not startle the other girl again, and also because of how close Robin is to the edge of the bed. The last thing either of them need right now is a concussion.

 “Whatever it is, you don’t have to tell me, okay?” She tries again, beginning to worry as Robin continues to not say anything. Robin gets off the bed, so suddenly it makes Nancy jump, and begins pacing the length of the room, hands fidgeting with the rings that live on her fingers. Nancy lets her, familiar with the coping technique she herself uses when her thoughts become too much, and she needs to process them.

There’s something methodical about the way Robin paces from one end of the room to the other, pausing for approximately two seconds every fifteen, and Nancy realises that Robin must be counting the seconds in the same way he is.

When two minutes have passed and Nancy is about to reach her limit with worry, Robin stops dead, turns to her, and says,

“I’m a lesbian.”

Nancy’s taken aback, not because the information is shocking in any sense of the word, but because she hadn’t realised sooner. All the vague statements and the insistence on her Platonic with a capital P relationship with Steve had been staring her right in the face the entire time.

God, she’d been so stupid.

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes at herself, she realises she’s been leaving Robin hanging as she works this out in her head. When she looks at Robin again she looks petrified, and Nancy’s heart breaks because it hits her all at once how much of a big deal this is to Robin; how much trust she’s putting in Nancy right now, and it clicks, in hindsight, why friendship means everything to Robin; why loyalty is the most important aspect because, Nancy figures, Robin hasn’t had many people be loyal to her in any way that matters. 

And you need loyal people when you’re living a life like Robin is going to have to live just to be herself, and Nancy feels like she could cry along with her.

It isn’t until she rushes off her bed and pulls Robin into the tightest hug she can muster that she realises she is crying with her.

Robin’s shivering in her arms, more so than when they were fighting off Vecna.

It takes a moment for Robin to respond to the hug, but the moment she does, it’s with the same veracity as Nancy. She buries her head into the crook of Nancy’s neck whilst Nancy does her best to rest her cheek against Robin’s, and it makes Nancy chuckle to think of Robin having to stoop to fit them both there.

“You’re too tall,” she laughs.

“Have you considered that maybe you’re just too short?” Robin retorts without missing a beat, and Nancy smiles because there she is .

“I resent that,” Nancy pulls away but keeps a hold of Robin, hands resting in the crook of her elbows. Robin’s eyes are sheepish as they meet her own and when she tries to look away, Nancy just reaches up and rests a hand on her cheek, drawing their eyes together once more.

Nancy doesn’t say anything, just tilts her head forward slightly and raises her eyebrows, waiting for Robin to nod in understanding and to just take a breath. Nancy swipes her thumb over her cheek, wiping away the lone tear, and leads her back towards the bed. She hands Robin her tea, which has long since gone cold, but neither mind as they take a moment to just sit and finish their tea.

Nancy looks at the cards scattered in front of them and catches a glimpse of one of Robin’s. Reaching for it, she picks it up and hands it to Robin, who frowns as she hands her empty mug over to Nancy.

“Tell your,” she pauses as she reads the rest of the prompt, “tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time.”

“I like that you’re brave,” Nancy responds without hesitation, “I like that you’re so unapologetically yourself in a world of people who are too scared to do the same. I like that you know something about everything. I like that you care so much about people. I like that you would do anything for anyone and not expect the same. I like that you’re in my life,” Nancy finishes and Robin is sat wide-eyed, giving Nancy the most incredulous expression, but Nancy stands by everything she says.

“I think you were only meant to say one thing,” Robin laughs awkwardly.

“I like that you can’t even take a compliment,” she pokes Robin on the nose, causing her to scrunch it up and bat Nancy's hand away.

“Stop that.” Nancy grins and turns towards her cards, a lightness blooms in her chest at the easiness in which she and Robin can just be .

“Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.” Robin groans and flops back on the bed, arms spread and head dangling off the edge of the bed. Nancy nudges her thigh with her foot, “c’mon.” Robin lifts herself up onto her elbows, a scowl planted firmly on her face that is being intermittently directed at the cards in Nancy’s hands and Nancy herself.

“You’ve rigged this, somehow,” she mumbles. “Fine, now that you know about me, I suppose I can share with you the embarrassing moment I came out to one Steve Harrington in the filthy men’s bathroom of Starcourt, high off our asses on Russian drugs, and he made fun of my crush on Tammy Thompson.” Robin’s eyes widen in horror at the same time Nancy’s widen in delight.

“Tammy Thompson?” and her voice is pitched too high for it to be natural. “Really?” Robin nods and Nancy laughs, “but Tammy Thompson’s a dud.”

“Not you, too,” Robin moans as she flops back onto the bed, arms coming up to cover her eyes.

“Robin,” no answer, “ Robin,” said girl peeks from between her arms, but it’s not good enough for Nancy, who crawls over until she’s lying next to her. She pulls Robin’s arms away from her face, who doesn’t put up much resistance, and mindlessly reaches up to fix her bangs, hand lingering as she says, “You could do so much better than Tammy Thompson.”

Robin’s eyes are wide as they stare back into Nancy’s, gaze flickering downward momentarily, but Nancy catches it; catches herself doing the same a second later. She doesn’t know what possesses her in that moment, but she finds herself leaning forward, just close enough to-

“ Nancy! Come help with the groceries!”

Chapter Text

If Nancy wasn’t so startled, she would have noticed how Robin’s eyes have turned a shade of blue that could compete with the brightest of storms, swirling with emotions that Nancy would be able to identify in a heartbeat, should she choose to.

But she is, so all she can see in Robin's eyes is the wide-eyed panic as they both shoot up on the bed.

Now, if there’s one thing Nancy Wheeler is good at, it’s internalising. It’s how she’s gotten as far as she has, internalising her anger, her sadness, her panic; anything she feels the world isn’t ready to see; anything Nancy isn’t ready to show. So, Nancy takes in the situation and forces a sense of calm to overtake her. She keeps hold of Robin, hand delicately holding her wrist; just enough for Robin to know that Nancy wants her to stay here, with her, but also not so strong as to force Robin to make a decision she may not be ready to make.

God knows Nancy isn’t. 

There’s a tiny part of her that is terrified that Robin will flee out the window, abandoning Nancy where she is. But, as Nancy is learning Robin is prone to doing, she stays. With her.

Nancy feels the weight of the moment crumble off her shoulders as Robin scoots closer, knocking her left knee with her right. Nancy knocks back before excusing herself.

“Best not keep her waiting, I’ll be back in a few,” Robin gives her a nod, lips pulled tightly together, and Nancy walks out of the room with as much poise as she can muster. Once she’s clear of her bedroom door, she leans against the wall and closes her eyes. She takes a deep breath and tries to will all of the thoughts that had been rampaging through her mind away. When that doesn’t work, she repeats in her head like a mantra:

‘Nothing happened. Nothing was going to happen.’

It's a lie and she knows it, but she’s come to find comfort in lies.

When she feels ready she all but runs down the stairs, almost crashing into her mother once she reaches the bottom.

“Woah!” Her mom catches her by the shoulders, “where’s the fire?” in my heart, Nancy thinks, wincing internally because that’s not good .

“You wanted help?” and she’s out of breath in a way that she knows isn’t from the stairs. Her mom looks at her curiously and fixes a few errant hairs on Nancy's head, smiling once done. She doesn’t say anything as she leads Nancy into the kitchen, where two brown paper bags filled with groceries sit. Nancy wastes no time in putting things away in the fridge, Karen leaning against the counter as she observes Nancy.

She tries not to let her mother’s gaze get to her, but she’s looking at her as if she knows something; looks at her in a way that only moms can.

“Is Robin staying for dinner?” she asks once Nancy is done with one bag, putting a hand on Nancy's when she reaches for the second, halting her movements. Nancy looks at her in confusion, until Karen nods towards the entryway, where they had kicked their shoes off earlier.

Nancy doesn’t know what to make of the fact that Robin has been around often enough for her mom to recognise her shoes.

She never recognised Jonathan’s. Or, at least, never made the effort to.

Nancy shakes her head, not trusting her voice to not betray the emotions swirling around in her mind. Karen smiles, setting the non-perishable groceries aside.

“You tell her she’s welcome anytime,”

“I will,” Nancy says it like a promise, “I think she’ll be around more often,” she continues.

“It’ll be good to see her around the house,” Karen says, “she’s a keeper,” is the last thing she says, offhandedly, before she leaves the kitchen, patting Nancy on the shoulder as she does. 

Nancy is frozen in place, her mother’s words ringing in her head. She knows her mom knows her too well for there to be any plausible deniability in what she said; in what she meant . The subtext is there, because of course it is, but it was said in such a way that Nancy doesn’t think her mother left any lines for her to read between. 

It’s just… there.

Had been there all this time, if Nancy had been brave enough to see it. She looks to where her mother went and feels an inexplicable sense of relief wash over, shadowing the ever-present anxiety that Nancy has become accustomed to. She looks to the stairs then, fixes her resolve, and heads up the stairs.

When she gets back to her room, she feels the small smile that had worked its way onto her face after talking to her mom drop when she doesn’t immediately see Robin where she left her. She drops her gaze, and feels the right corner of her mouth twitch as she spots Robin lying on the floor, heels pulled up so her knees are swaying in the air.

Nancy lets herself stare, just for a minute, leant against the door frame with her arms crossed. Robin is just laying there with her eyes closed and Nancy realises she had put one of Nancy’s tapes on to listen to, fingers dancing in the air along to the tune as she listens to ‘Wishin’ and Hopin ’’ by Dusty Springfield.

It’s an old tape of her mother’s and not something Nancy would think Robin would pick, but here she is again, surprising Nancy.

She lets her get to the end of the song before she creeps towards her and leans over to rest her hands on Robin’s knees, startling the other girl.

“Jesus!” she exclaims as her eyes widen, softening immediately when she sees Nancy hovering over her.

“Enjoying yourself?” Nancy teases, squeezing Robin’s knees and moving them from side to side.

“I was,” Robin rolls her eyes and lifts herself up onto her elbows, smiling up at her in a way that Nancy can’t help but to return. The ease of it all pulls at Nancy’s heart because why couldn’t it always be this easy?

Nancy heads back over to the bed and lies down, rolling onto her side so that she’s facing Robin, who has since sat up and scooted closer to the bed. Robin brings her arms up to rest on the edge of the bed, her chin coming to perch on her forearms as Nancy tucks an arm beneath her head.

“Can we continue the questions?” Robin asks, and Nancy had almost forgotten that that is what they had been doing before… before nothing happened. Disappointment settles in her gut. She’s not sure if the disappointment comes from her own insistence that nothing happened, when something definitely did, or the fact that nothing happened.

She’s not sure she knows what she wanted to happen.

(She is.)

Nevertheless, Nancy reaches backwards, blindly reaching for the stack of cards that Robin immediately yanks out of her grasp, ignoring Nancy’s ‘hey! ’

“It’s my turn to ask,” is what Robin replies, a smirk crawling its way across her lips that quickly evolves into something more excited, “I have an idea.” Nancy waits patiently, looking down into Robin’s sparkling eyes, for her to elaborate, sighing in fond exasperation when she doesn’t.

“Go on, what’s your idea?”

“Well, we only have, what,” Robin stops to count the cards in her hands, “seven cards left. Which means we only have seven questions left before this whole thing is over. The questions, obviously, not our friendship,” Robin amends, frowning as she goes on, “because that would be really sad, and I don’t know about you, but I think I’d be devastated if this were to end.” Robin looks down at the cards, index finger tapping along the edge.

“Me too,” Nancy whispers, letting the arm that isn’t supporting her head dangle over the edge of the bed, the tips of her fingers brushing lightly against Robin’s shin and if Nancy isn’t mistaken, she swears the other girl shivers. “What’s your idea, Robin?”

“I think we should pick one of these cards to save for last. Randomly, of course, so that we have something to look forward to towards the end and it,” she hesitates, “it takes the pressure off of whatever the last card is, like it could be the dumbest card we’ve encountered so far, or utterly devastating . And isn’t that spectacular?”

Nancy doesn’t know how the prospect of devastation could be spectacular, in fact she’d do anything to avoid it, but she finds herself agreeing. She’d agree to anything Robin asks of her.

“One condition,” Robin nods, “I get to be the one to ask you the question.” Robin ponders the request for no longer than four seconds, to which Nancy is grateful, lest the other girl figure out Nancy’s ulterior motive, before she agrees.

“Deal.”

Nancy feels minutely guilty at Robin’s easy agreement, but the way Robin is looking at her, eyes all soft around the edges and head tilted ever so slightly to the left, she thinks she knows. Because of course she does, and of course she would do this for Nancy; put herself in the line of potential devastation, so Nancy doesn’t have to.

“Okay,” Robin holds up the cards so that the question side is facing the floor and fans them out. Nancy takes a moment before she picks the second one from the left and holds it between her hands, whilst Robin divides the remaining cards into three groups of two. She places one set in the space between Nancy’s torso and the edge of the bed, another on the floor beside her, and the last set on Nancy’s bedside table.

“Might as well save some for another time,” she says as she holds out her hand for the card Nancy has. Nancy hands it over, eyes questioning as Robin gets up from the floor, wincing as she hears the crack of her knees, and heads over to her dresser. It clicks, then, when Robin picks up her music box that holds Robin’s beloved ballerina, and places the card inside for safe keeping. “Remind me it’s there,” Robin says as she sits herself back on the floor, much to Nancy’s confusion.

“Why are you still on the floor?”

“It’s comfy,” Robin shrugs as she picks up her cards, “When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?” Nancy’s eyes widen as she sinks back into her bed, laying flat. She stares at the ceiling at the faded glow in the dark stars that she couldn’t bear to get rid of when she did her redecorating.

She thinks of countless times spent crying alone in bathrooms, over Steve, over the stress of school, over everything that can go wrong going wrong, over Barb. She thinks of ‘it’s bullshit’ and being Nancy ‘the slut ’ Wheeler and that conversation she had with her mom about the shitheads at the Hawkins Post and how all that feels like it was a million years ago. 

“Aside from twenty minutes ago?” She tries to joke, but it falls flat, Robin barely managing a smile in response. “The week after Vecna… I didn’t really see anyone,” Robin nods sympathetically, she had done much the same. “I spent that time walking around like a zombie just trying to process all that had happened and all that could have happened and one night I suppose it got too much and so I just… Cried for everything we’ve lost. I have no idea how long I was crying alone but,” she pauses, eyes watering at the memory she’s about to share, “but Holly came in, little arms full of stuffed toys, and she just placed them all around me, including her favourite stuffed penguin that she can’t sleep without, told me to ‘feel better soon ’ and left. God knows that made me cry harder,” she gives a watery laugh.

“That little girl is too smart for her own good.” Nancy can’t help but agree. She rolls back onto her side, facing Robin again and noticing the slight redness to her eyes. She picks up her next card and finds herself smiling, albeit apprehensively, at the role reversal of an earlier question.

“Tell your partner something that you like about them already.” Robin immediately perks up.

“Do I get to cheat like you did? Because I’m like 99.9% sure you were only supposed to say one thing earlier.” Nancy rolls her eyes, holding up three fingers.

“Three. You get to list three things.”

“Well,” she holds up her index finger, “firstly, I like how blunt you are. You don’t mince your words, and I appreciate that you’re not hard to understand. Like, if you tell me you’re not angry at me, I trust your honesty enough to know that’s true.

Secondly, on the topic of trust,” another finger goes up, “I like that I can trust you, implicitly. You’re the most ridiculously trustworthy and dependable person I know.” Robin hesitates then, third finger raised as she dips her eyes, and Nancy hadn’t realised how long they’d been making eye contact until she found herself missing it now that Robin had broken it.

“Thirdly, and this one may be a bit selfish, but,” she laughs mirthlessly, “but I like how you don’t make me feel… abnormal.” Robin glances up momentarily, but doesn’t elaborate further. Not that Nancy needs her to, because she likes to think she knows Robin well enough by now to get it.

Nancy waits until Robin looks at her again, cheeks dusted pink enough to almost drown out the feathering of freckles. Robin clears her throat, looks down at her next and last card for the time being.

“What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?” Nancy blows out a breath, Robin doing much the same.

“I think we burned that bridge a long time ago,” Nancy surmises, “If we can’t joke about what we’ve been through, then what’s the point?”

“Exactly.” Robin agrees. 

“But,” Nancy starts, “if I had to pick something, I think the deaths suffered along the way would be my answer.” Her voice quietens towards the end, the room silent except for Robin humming morosely in agreement. “I don’t think we can joke about that.” Robin shakes her head in agreement.

“Next question?” Robin asks quietly, leaning her body against the edge of the bed, close enough that Nancy can count every freckle on her face.

“These questions give me whiplash,” Nancy states as she reads the next card, pulling it away from her face and back again, “your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?”

“This is going to sound lame, but I’d save my French horn. It was, uh, the last thing my grandma gave me before she passed when I was younger, so it holds a lot of sentimental value. I think I’d set everything on fire just to keep that If I had to,” Robin glances up and takes note of Nancy’s intense expression, “sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Nancy whispers and leans over the edge of the bed, movements more sure than her judgement, placing her lips against Robin’s forehead, holding them there for a beat too long before pulling away. Robin’s eyes are closed as she breathes deeply, and for that Nancy is glad, because she doesn’t think she’ll survive it if Robin catches the heat racing up her neck to her ears.

“Thanks,” Robin murmurs, turning in her place so her back is now towards the bed, and Nancy takes the opportunity to play with Robin's hair; running her fingers through the silky strands. Robin leans into it, and Nancy can see enough of her face from the side to see that her eyes have closed.

“Have I told you about my dad?” Robin asks after a while, breaking the comfortable silence they had been in. Nancy doesn’t stop her movements, but her brain wracks itself for any time Robin has spoken about him.

“Not much other than his side of the family was the uninteresting side,” she comments before remembering, “and that he was the one that taught you Pig Latin – which you still haven’t told me what you said, by the way,” Nancy says with as much annoyance as she can muster: none.

“Maybe someday,” Robin laughs, though it’s broken as she follows it on with, “he died when I was a kid.” Nancy’s taken aback at the abruptness of Robin’s statement, like she had to get it out quick enough for her brain to not register she’s saying it. She’s not sure how to respond, so she just continues her ministrations, almost methodically. 

Nancy wants to ask Robin how he died, how old she was and how she found out because she can’t help but feel curious about this massive life event that Robin is sharing with her, finally. She wonders if Steve knows – he probably does – and she wonders how many other things there are that Robin hasn’t shared with her (the small, hopeful part of her brain wants to tack on a yet to the end of that sentence.) She wonders why Robin feels comfortable telling her now, especially after she already shared something so monumental not even two hours ago. 

Nancy supposes that’s why, the wound of honesty has already been opened.

“What was he like?” Nancy finds herself asking instead and Robin turns her head to face her, cheek resting on the edge of the bed, her smile sad. Nancy adjusts so she’s now brushing the hair away from Robin’s face, hand coming to rest just below her ear.

“He was funny, really funny, and smart. He’d take me to the library every Saturday, and we’d go to the park right after and just read for hours. One time we went in the height of summer, and we’d both forgotten the sunscreen. We were so red and my mom got so mad,” she laughs, and it surprises Nancy how genuine it is. “He was always patient with me and understanding in all the ways my mom wasn’t,” she hesitates, “ isn’t ,” she corrects, and Nancy decides to pocket that little bit of information for a later date.

“He sounds great,” Nancy whispers, not sure what else to say; not sure what Robin wants to hear.

“He was,” Robin stares at a point just behind Nancy’s head, eyes unfocused, “thank you, for today. For the driving lesson and the impromptu therapy.” Her eyes refocus, and all Nancy can note of Robin’s expression is how tired she looks, but perhaps the least stressed she’s seen her in a while. “Thank you for being you,” Robin says, not giving Nancy a chance to respond – not that Nancy would even know how.

“I think I’m going to head home,” Robin says once she catches a glance at the clock and Nancy wants to say something, anything, to get Robin to stay a bit longer. But she understands it’s been a long day, for the both of them, really.

“Want me to drive you home?” She offers, but Robin shakes her head.

“I think I’d like to walk, you know, get some fresh air.” Nancy knows what that’s code for: I need time alone to think.

Maybe Nancy should go on a walk to get some fresh air sometime.

Nancy leads Robin through the house, thankful her parents are nowhere to be seen. They stand by the door, shuffling awkwardly, before Nancy realises they’re both being dumb and pulls Robin into a hug.

“Call me when you get home?” her voice is muffled by Robin’s shoulder. Robin pulls away, smiling a bit easier now.

“Of course.”

Chapter Text

For the next week, Nancy feels stuck. Since she bid Robin farewell that evening, she hasn’t seen her, but they have spoken on the phone every evening, talking about everything and nothing.

Robin claims to have been roped into a “house gutting ceremony” as she phrased it over the phone when she’d mentioned how her mom was on a cleaning kick and wanted to get rid of all the clutter in the home. She didn’t sound too happy over the phone, and Nancy can only imagine the memories that have been sown into said “clutter” that are now being thrown away like meaningless garbage.

The time away from Robin gives Nancy time to think , and she finds herself taking a leaf out of Robin’s book and taking a small part of her day to go on a walk to be alone with her thoughts, because God knows she wouldn’t get the same peace at home with Holly rushing about all the time and Mike and the party starting a new campaign that had them yelling so loud Nancy heard them from her bedroom with the door closed.

She loves those kids, but even her patience wears thin from time to time.

So, that’s where she finds herself now, on a walk through Hawkins, taking in the repairs that are still happening city-wide after the destruction of the “earthquake” over spring break. The construction noise and chatter from groups of people she passes by gives her mind the needed white noise she needs to take stock of everything that has happened since then.

Take stock of everything that has happened with Robin.

Nancy likes to think she has a good memory; it being something all good journalists need so that no detail gets missed. But when she thinks back to the original reason she wanted to get to know Robin, she finds herself drawing a blank. The voice at the forefront of her head says that it was a type of recon mission, to know everyone on your team because that’s what they were: a team.

But, the little voice in the back of her head tells her of another reason; a reason that Nancy hadn’t felt compelled to listen to until now. A reason consisting of feelings bubbling just under the surface towards this peculiar girl who was like no one Nancy had ever met. Because she hadn’t taken these precautions with anyone else, she hadn’t had to, not really. But something had drawn her to Robin, and her conscious brain had filled in the reasoning for her.

She’s not sure exactly what changed, or when it did; she’s not sure if anything had changed at all; that this had been here this whole time. She’s not sure if the feeling has always been there, or if it grew as she got to know Robin better. So, she goes through the mental list she has been keeping of all the things she has learnt about Robin.

1. Robin doesn’t get along with her mother 
2. It took Robin six months longer than other babies to learn to walk.
3. Robin is a walking stopwatch, apparently.
4. Robin can sing. Like an angel, actually.
5. Robin is allergic to strawberries.
6. Robin speaks four languages. Fluently.
7. Robin will inevitably burn her tongue on any and all hot beverages.

Nancy frowns to herself at the superficiality of the list. She knows there’s more to it, things Robin has said and done that Nancy has subconsciously decided to keep close to her chest. Realistically, she knows no one will ever get a hold of this list as it does not exist anywhere but her mind, so there’s no real reason to keep them hidden. But, there are some things, special things, that she wants to keep a secret even from herself. Because, as much as Nancy likes to think she can fix things, she’s also aware of how easily she can ruin them.

And this isn't something she wants to ruin.

She pauses in her walk and notices that she’s by one of the many abandoned parks. She heads over to the rusted swing set and takes a seat, wincing at the creak it gives, and gently begins pushing herself backwards and forwards with the balls of her feet. She lets the breeze clear her mind, head tilted back with her eyes closed as she lets the dimming sunlight warm her face.

She lets herself not think for what feels like the first time in forever, letting her senses be filled by the smell of grass, the sound of the swing creaking on each pass, the birds in the trees surrounding the park, the feel of the chains in her hands as she finally lets her feet push herself off the ground.

She swings until she feels she’s high enough, eyes finally opening, mind blank, as she jumps out of the seat. Her heart stills in her chest, her breath catches in her throat, and she feels her stomach leap into her chest.

It feels like flying, just for a moment, before she’s falling, falling, falling.

She lands awkwardly on her feet, immediately rolling forward onto her knees with her palms smacking heavily into the grass in front of her. She stays there, just for a moment, to let her breath catch up with her, before she leans back onto the balls of her feet.

She looks down to her hands and knees, muddied from the landing, but she feels fine. No cuts, no bruises, no pain. And when her mind catches up with her, the first thought that creeps into her mind is Robin.

Because falling for her had been painless, too.

It hits her all at once, had been hitting her this whole time in a vain attempt to get her attention, but Nancy had always been stubborn. She wasn’t going to listen to something she wasn’t ready to hear, even if it was coming from herself.

She focuses, then, on a new list. A list she hadn’t even realised she’d been keeping. But, this one wasn’t about Robin, per se, but was wholly about Nancy and the things left unsaid.

She lets herself think, finally, of how readily she had changed her plans to fit around Robin – do I get to hear your answers to these questions? — and it hadn’t even been a demand, just something Robin had asked out of curiosity and Nancy had caved like a house of cards.

She thinks about how she could sit and listen to Robin talk all day. She thinks about how she could listen to Robin not talk all day. 

She thinks about how Robin had slowly been bringing her own walls down whilst simultaneously, and without any effort, had been bringing Nancy’s down with them. And Nancy had let her.

She thinks of how they’re polar opposites and yet seem to fit together like pieces of a puzzle (she thinks of how she internally cringes at the cliché coming from herself, knowing she’d swoon if Robin were to say the same.)

She thinks about how, when she last saw Robin, she’s sure she was going to kiss her. She thinks about how much she wanted that to happen.

Nancy looks down to her hands again, mud still coating her palms, and she notices with some relief that they haven’t changed. She sits back onto the damp grass, legs kicked out in front of her and, yep, they’re still the same too. She wipes her hands on her trousers, leaving streaks of mud, before reaching up to touch her face, feeling all the bumps and dips that are usually there.

It’s all the same. No Change.

She’s still Nancy Wheeler.

She wants to kiss Robin Buckley, and she’s still Nancy Wheeler.

An emotion begins to bubble in the pit of her chest, something she hasn’t let herself feel in a long, long time. It’s almost unfamiliar to her, but Nancy’s able to recognise it for what it is.

Hope.

Quickly, she rises from the ground and dusts herself off. She heads back towards the entrance of the park and pauses. If she were to turn right, she’d be a fifteen-minute walk from her house and would be able to make it home just in time for dinner. If she were to turn left, she’d be approximately ten minutes from Robin’s house.

She turns left.

She doesn’t have a plan, at least nothing further than showing up on Robin’s front doorstep. What would she say? I love you. What would she do? Kiss her. Would she be brave enough to do any of that? Yes. 

She makes it to Robin’s in seven minutes flat, mind swirling with thoughts of what she could do, what she would do. But when she knocks on the door, it’s Robin’s mom that answers.

Nancy has never met the woman before, at least not officially, but she’s intimidating in a way that Nancy thinks must just be innate. Tall and beautiful, much like Robin herself, but in place of the gentle smile that Nancy is coming to realise may have been reserved for her (there goes that hope, again) sits an unimpressed frown.

Nancy realises that she must look a mess; hair askew, mud all over her trousers, and sweat clinging to her forehead.

“Hi, Mrs Buckley, I was wondering if Robin was home?” Mrs Buckley’s frown deepens as her eyes sweep across Nancy from head to toe and back again. 

“I’m afraid not,” is her swift reply as she shuts the door in Nancy's face. Nancy jumps back, startled by the action, and feels herself deflate. She steps off the porch, turning away from the house as she walks down the drive. She makes it about two steps before she hears a voice call out to her.

“Nance?” Her head snaps up and there’s Robin, walking quickly towards her with a box of pizza in her hands. “What are you doing here?” She inquires, head tilting just so.

“I was just-” and Nancy freezes. All the courage she had mustered on her walk over had left her the minute the wrong Buckley had answered the door. Robin stares at her intently, but Nancy finds herself being the one to avoid eye-contact, for once. She kicks at a piece of gravel by her feet, perturbed by the sudden role reversal. She doesn't even notice Robin has closed the distance until she asks her,

“Is everything okay?” and when Nancy looks up, Robin’s eyes are swimming in concern. Nancy can’t stand it.

“Yeah, of course!” She’s overcompensating and she knows it. “I was just in the neighbourhood,” lie, “when I happened to stop by your house,” another lie, “and I wanted to see how the house gutting ceremony was going.” Her smile is bright, too bright, and Nancy worries Robin will be able to see it for what it is.

A facade.

“Oh!” A look of confusion, and perhaps disappointment, sweeps across Robin's face, “it’s going, you know?” Nancy nods, “I’ve managed to stash away a few things that belonged to my dad, hopefully my mom didn’t notice.” Nancy nods again, not really sure what to say. It’s been awhile since she’s felt so off kilter.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Robin asks again, quieter this time, and Nancy has to fight to keep herself from crying.

“Yeah,” she replies, but Robin doesn’t look convinced, not that Nancy has given her much of a reason to believe her. Robin looks to the box in her hands, then to Nancy, then to her front door. In one motion, she puts the box on the ground and sweeps Nancy into a hug.

Nancy almost lets herself cry, then. Because this is all she wants, but she feels like there’s something in the universe telling her she can’t have it; that she doesn’t deserve it. And try as she might not to listen, she’s inclined to believe it.

Robin holds her as if she’s scared she’ll disappear if she lets go. Nancy relishes in the feeling, so much so that having to tear away from the hug physically pains her. She wipes her watery eyes with the heels of her palm, pressing harshly until all she can see is stars. When her eyes clear, all that’s left is one star: Robin.

Robin, whose smile burns brighter than the sun, and Nancy can’t help herself from being stuck in her orbit.

“I’m okay,” she whispers when Robin looks at her worriedly. “I promise,” she implores with false confidence as she reaches for Robin’s hand, squeezing it three times, before letting it go. Robin looks like she wants to say more, but her front door opens and her mother steps out, arms crossed with an unreadable expression on her face. Robin gulps as she rushes to pick up the forgotten pizza box.

“Call you in an hour?” Robin suggests, and Nancy nods, watches as Robin rushes up to her front door. She waits, smiles as Robin turns around once before scurrying into her house. Robin’s mother lingers for a moment, staring Nancy down, and she feels her smile fade as the woman slams the door, again.

Nancy rushes home, apologises to her mom for missing dinner, and waits by the phone in her bedroom for Robin to call.

She doesn’t.

Nancy waits for close to an hour, eyes switching from staring longingly at the phone, to the music box Robin is so enamored with. She can’t even look at it now without associating it with the other girl. It was just a little trinket she got from her mom on her tenth birthday, and she’d never found the wonderment in it that Robin has, but she finds herself having a fondness for it that she’s sure is an extension of how she feels for Robin.

Sighing, she wanders over to the side of her room that houses all of her (and subsequently Robin’s) music. She flicks aimlessly through the tapes, pausing on one of the many tapes Robin has made her this summer, when her mom walks in carrying a plate and glass of water.

“I brought you some toast, seeing as you missed dinner,” she says, coming to sit beside Nancy on the floor, folding her legs neatly beside herself. Nancy takes the offered items and places them to the side, grateful for the gesture, but she’s not sure if she can bring herself to eat quite yet.

“Thanks,” Nancy tries to smile, but it’s as if the action causes her pain, and her mom notices. Karen scoots closer, keeping some distance.

“What's going on, sweetie?” she asks, expressions worried. Nancy looks at her mom, eyes flickering from one eye to the other, before she drops her gaze to her hands that are painfully tense in her lap. She doesn’t know how to approach this topic with her mom, though there’s a large part of her that knows her mom suspects something. So, there’s no use in deflecting, even if it would be easier.

Nancy blows out a breath. “Do you ever feel like everything has changed, when really nothing about you has changed?” She chances a glance at her mother, who is looking at her in confusion, and Nancy sighs. “I mean, there’s something that has been true about you, for years probably, so you haven’t changed as a person. But this thing,” she hesitates, “this thing is so monumental it changes everything. ”

Her mom stays quiet for a moment, observing her with narrowed eyes, but Nancy knows she’s not being judged. “You know, change isn’t always a bad thing and a lot of the time when things change it’s because they were meant to.” Then, carefully, Karen asks, “Is this about Robin?” and Nancy knows she should feel some type of shock that her mom has read her; has read the situation so easily. But, Nancy has always wondered where she got her inquisitiveness, her journalistic instinct from and, well, it would appear she is her mother’s daughter after all. 

She nods once, a sharp movement. She feels tears well in her eyes as her mom looks at her with nothing but understanding. She’s not sure if she was expecting judgement, but she’s glad it’s not there. When the tears threaten to fall, Karen’s expression softens as she opens her arms, and Nancy falls into them, letting herself be comforted for the second time that day. Buried into her mother’s chest, she can feel the vibrations of her voice as she says,

“You’re still my daughter and nothing will ever change that. Nothing will ever change my love for you, do you understand?” Her voice is firm, more determined than Nancy has ever heard her, and so she feels herself nodding along. “You deserve good things,” she sweeps Nancy’s hair away from her forehead, placing a kiss there, “and if Robin is this good thing then you definitely deserve her. What’s holding you back?” Nancy shrugs, removing herself from the embrace, not sure how to put into words all the ways in which she feels like this isn’t meant to be.

“Listen to me, my daughter is one of the most head-strong people I know, and she doesn’t let anyone, not even herself, or the girl she likes,” Karen bumps her shoulder, drawing a watery laugh out of Nancy, “get in her way.”

“Yeah,” Nancy agrees, feeling her resolve strengthen again. “I don't know where all this came from,” she dismisses, wiping her tears with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. Karen tuts.

“Don’t dismiss your feelings,” she pauses, grasping Nancy’s hand, “I know this house hasn’t been the most… open, shall we say. But I never want you to feel like you have to hide yourself or your feelings from me, okay?”

“Same to you,” Nancy counters, and Karen rolls her eyes good-naturedly. They sit there for a moment, Karen looking through some of the discarded tapes, smiling to herself when she sees one labelled ‘To Nance, from your Robin’. Nancy blushes as she notices what her mom is looking at. Karen just winks.

“Now,” Karen exclaims as he lifts herself up from the ground, “I know it’s warm outside, but why don’t we head downstairs and make us some hot chocolate, hm?” Nancy smiles and follows, phone call forgotten.

Sitting on the kitchen counter, laughing as Holly soon joins them and gets whipped cream all over her face, Nancy finds that maybe things don’t have to change for her to get what she wants.

Chapter Text

Nancy doesn’t see Robin.

She doesn’t even hear from her, not since she bumped into her outside her house. A large part of Nancy is worried. Worried about Robin’s mom seeing something neither of them wanted her to see; worried about Robin being alone in that environment; worried about Mrs Buckley knowing about her .

Almost a week goes by before Nancy finally caves in and calls Family Video one evening, knowing Robin’s shift pattern like the back of her hand, but when she gets Steve on the other end, telling her Robin has called in sick all week, Nancy’s worry grows tenfold.

She’s worried because she knows, she knows , that Robin’s mom is nothing like hers, and that she won the damn lottery with her mother’s reaction to finding out about her feelings for Robin. She certainly accepted them quicker than Nancy did. 

Nancy doesn’t think twice before she grabs her car keys and leaves the house, her mom calling after her in worry, but Nancy is scared, and she cannot waste any time explaining, no matter how much her mom means well.

It’s not the first time Nancy has sped through Hawkins, and it’s certainly not the first time she has sped when the stakes are so high, but it is the first time Nancy has felt so clueless about the situation she is heading into. She has no plan, no idea what to expect, if Robin is even home . 

When she gets to the house, there’s no car in the driveway, which eases some of the tension that had built in Nancy’s shoulders. The relief builds as she notes that all the lights are off in the house, except for the light that Nancy knows is Robin’s room.

She exits the car, the sureness of her steps lessening as she draws nearer to the house because what if everything is okay? What if Robin was just busy and you were overreacting? What if Robin was avoiding you on purpose? Nancy shakes the thoughts away as she steps up on the porch, knocking lightly on the door. She waits approximately twenty-seven seconds before the door swings open, and any relief Nancy felt up to that moment instantly vanishes as she gets a good look at Robin.

The first thing she notices is the slump in her shoulders, as if the large hoodie she is wearing is physically pulling her down. There are dark circles under her eyes and her skin is pallid, shining bright white in the moonlight. She looks tired . Nancy doesn’t know what to say or how to feel, because she hasn’t seen Robin look this bad since immediately after Vecna, and it immediately sets her nerves on edge, the urge to wrap Robin up in a blanket of safety and protect her from whatever has hurt her is overwhelming.

“She knows.” Nancy's brain freezes, eyes widening as she looks up into Robin’s unusually dull blue eyes.

“How?” Nancy finds herself asking before she can stop herself. Robin doesn’t answer, but the look she gives Nancy before averting her gaze to a point just over her shoulder, tells her everything she needs to know. Nancy turns back, memory flashing with an abandoned pizza box and the feeling of warmth. “I’m so sorry,” she breathes out, turning back to find Robin’s eyes already on her, scrutinising.

Nancy feels naked under her stare, unused to this side of Robin. She’s gotten used to the occasional silence, the inquiring glances, the uncanny ability Robin has to look right through her , but she’s never felt as unsure as she does right now. Because Robin’s not saying anything and she’s looking at her as if, as if she’s done nothing wrong.

Nancy deflates, momentarily, before a surge of bravery filters through her veins.

“Pack a bag.” Robin’s eyes widen, ever so slightly, before she nods and wordlessly retreats into her house, leaving the door open for Nancy to follow. At least she hopes.

She follows her up to her room, eyes caught on Robin’s mismatched socks as they trail up the stairs. She can't help but smile, knowing that whatever Robin is going through right now, there are still elements of the real Robin, her Robin filtering through.

Robin’s room is a mess. Not that it’s ever particularly tidy, everything strewn about in organised chaos, as Robin would like to say. But this… this is worse than Nancy has ever seen it. There are clothes all over the floor and any unclaimed surface. There’s a broken glass in the corner that Nancy quietly goes over to tidy whilst Robin searches for her backpack and some clean clothes. There are tapes everywhere, but none of the ones Nancy is used to seeing. There’s some old bluesy music mixed with some heavy metal. Nancy’s eyes widen as she skims over them, before she refocuses on the task she has set herself.

By the time she has collected all the small pieces into an old cup, Robin is sitting on the bed, head in her hands. She’s not crying, though. No, Nancy guesses she’s too tired to cry.

Wordlessly, Nancy places the cup on one of the few empty surfaces and takes a seat next to Robin. She wraps an arm around her shoulder and pulls Robin’s head to rest on her shoulder. She runs a hand up and down her spine, feeling the notches on every pass. Robin intakes a large breath, and then another, before she breaks.

It takes all of Nancy’s strength not to get up and find Robin’s mom as Robin heaves with sobs, breath coming unevenly, shoulders shaking as she cries into Nancy’s shoulder. But Nancy stays. Like Robin always has for her.

She brings up her other hand and cups the side of Robin’s face, pulling her deeper into her shoulder. Robin takes the opportunity to throw her hands around Nancy’s waist, holding on for dear life, which is all it takes for Nancy to let out a few tears, because nobody deserves to cry like this; like their world is crumbling all around them.

Especially not Robin.

Nancy doesn’t know how much time has passed before Robin finally calms, but the sky outside has grown darker.

“Come on,” Nancy urges gently, turning so she’s now facing Robin. Softly, so softly, she wipes the tracks of tears from Robin’s face with the end of her sleeve. Robin attempts an apologetic smile, looking semi-embarrassed, but Nancy just shakes her head because there’s nothing to be sorry for.

Nancy helps Robin up off the bed, not letting go of her hand as she swings Robin’s backpack over her shoulder and leads her through the house; leads her down the driveway and helps her into the car, placing the bag into the foot well by Robin. She leans over to buckle Robin’s seatbelt, hand resting on her knee as she pauses to take Robin in, notices how much lighter she looks, even if only slightly.

Robin attempts a smile, it’s small, but there’s a light coming back to her eyes; Nancy smiles in return before closing the door and racing around the car to get into the driver’s side. She starts the car without pause and pulls away from the Buckley residence, startling slightly as Robin’s hand comes to hold hers over the gear stick. When she turns to look at her, Robin is looking out the window, but the hint of a smile hasn’t left her face and Nancy feels something erupt in her chest; something good.

Something like love.

Nancy takes her time on the drive, feeling in no rush to leave this bubble her and Robin have created. But soon she finds herself pulling into her driveway and rushing to turn the engine off and exit the car. Robin looks at her strangely, eyes following her as she passes in front of the windshield, before Nancy comes to open the passenger side door, grabbing the backpack before she reaches for Robin’s hand, scared that if she were to let go for longer than a minute, that Robin would disappear.

It’s not an unfounded thought, she realises.

She guides Robin up the driveway, unsurprised to see her Mom waiting by the door, arms wrapped tightly around her waist and worry becoming clearer as they get closer. Nancy shakes her head slightly as they step up onto the porch, but Karen shakes her head in return and completely detours Nancy before pulling Robin into a hug.

None of them say anything, but the way Robin’s shoulders relax, no longer hugging her ears, makes Nancy all the more grateful for her mom being who she is. Robin doesn’t cry, but when Karen pulls away, keeping a comforting grip on Robin’s shoulders, Nancy can see that she wants to.

“Let’s get you girls some tea,” Karen ushers them both inside, directing them into the kitchen where a kettle has already been set to boil. Nancy wonders, briefly, how long her mom had been waiting by the window; how she knew .

Nancy and Robin take a seat at the kitchen counters whilst Karen flutters about the kitchen, placing mugs on the side and pulling out the old teapot that belonged to Nancy’s grandma. The kitchen is silent, save for the sound of the water boiling. 

Robin’s hands are tapping on the counter in a rhythm that Nancy can’t place, so she slowly reaches over, covering both hands with her own. Robin freezes, eyes wide in fear as she looks to Nancy, then to Karen, who is pretending not to watch them, though the slight smirk on her face gives her away.

“It’s okay,” Nancy whispers, tightening her hold. Robin continues to look at her before she relaxes, hands finally still, though her knee begins to bounce below the counter. Nancy lets her have it, she supposes there’s a lot of anxious energy flowing through Robin’s mind and body right now. Not that she could blame her, honestly.

Once the water has boiled, Karen wastes no time in filling the teapot, allowing the tea bags to steep as she takes a seat across from both girls.

“Are either of you hungry?” She asks and Nancy looks at Robin who doesn’t look like she’s going to answer anytime soon, but the rumble of her stomach gives her away and Karen smiles, though there’s worry behind her eyes “Well, I suppose that answers that question.” She busies herself with preparing a quick snack, PB&J sandwiches, from the looks of it.

“When was the last time you ate?” Nancy quietly asks once her mom has turned away, only receiving a small shrug in return. Nancy’s brows furrow in worry as she takes Robin in now that they’re in the harsh light of her kitchen. Her face is gaunt, skin paler than when she had seen her in the dim moonlight, paler than when they had been in Robin’s room.

“What day is it today?” Robin asks, eyes scanning the kitchen for the calendar, Nancy presumes.

“Friday,” and Robin winces, teeth biting on her lower lip, which looks unbelievably chapped and sore, Nancy realises.

“A couple days ago? I really don’t know,” Robin’s shoulders slump, the fatigue clearly wearing her down. Nancy decides not to press any further, leaning over to press a quick kiss to Robin’s temple, who jumps at the action. Nancy decidedly ignores the curious gaze being sent her way.

“Alright, ladies, two Wheeler house specials,” Karen places a plate in front of each girl, along with two mugs. Robin immediately reaches for her mug, taking a sip and immediately wincing at the heat. Some things never change, Nancy thinks as she starts with the apple slices on her plate.

They eat in silence, Robin picking through her plate, alternating between her own apple slices and her sandwich. Nancy spends more time watching Robin than eating her own food, but one glance at the knowing look her mom shoots her over the rim of her mug has her eyes glued to her plate as she finishes her own sandwich, cheeks flushing in embarrassment.

It's one thing for her mom to know about her feelings, but to catch Nancy Like that? God.

Nancy drinks her tea, trying to avoid looking Robin’s way again, lest she be swallowed by the ground in embarrassment of her mom catching her again.

“It’s getting late,” Karen says, looking between the girls. Nancy looks behind her to the kitchen clock, noticing it’s getting closer to eleven.

“Is it okay if I shower? I know it’s late, but I just feel…” Robin trails off, not meeting Nancy or Karen’s eyes as she pulls on the hoodie that hangs off her frame with a grimace.

“Why don’t you girls head upstairs and I’ll get some fresh towels for Robin.” Robin nods in thanks and slides off the stool, pausing in the doorway when she realises Nancy isn’t following.

“I’ll catch up, okay?” Robin nods in understanding, looking briefly to Karen and offering her a smile before she heads upstairs. Nancy waits until she hears her bedroom door open before turning to her mom. “Robin and her mom have had a… falling out. It’s not really my place to say over what, but is it okay if Robin stays, maybe for the weekend?”

“Of course it is, honey,” Karen replies, collecting the empty mugs and plates and placing them in the sink. Nancy smiles, once again feeling grateful for her mom, before she all but races upstairs.

She finds Robin sitting on the floor by her bed, legs stretched out in front of her as she looks up at the glow in the dark stars on Nancy’s ceiling.

“You know, if you squint hard enough, the stars on your ceiling kinda resemble the Andromeda constellation.” Nancy looks up, not quite seeing what Robin is seeing, so she sits next to her on the floor, shoulders close enough to touch, craning her head back to get a better look.

She still doesn’t see it.

“Is there a story behind it?” Nancy asks as she traces the stars with her eyes.

“ In Greek mythology, Andromeda was the daughter of King Cepheus of Ethiopia and Queen Cassiopeia, who managed to offend the Nereids, who were sea nymphs, by claiming she was more beautiful than they were.

The nymphs complained to the sea god Poseidon and he sent a sea monster, Cetus, to flood and destroy Cepheus’ lands as punishment for his wife’s boastfulness. When the king sought advice from the Oracle of Ammon on how to prevent complete destruction of his lands, he was told that the only way to appease the gods and nymphs was to sacrifice his daughter to Cetus. So Andromeda was chained to a rock and would have been left to the monster if the hero Perseus hadn’t come along and saved her. 

In the story, it was the goddess Athena who commemorated the princess Andromeda by placing her image among the stars, next to the constellations representing her husband Perseus and mother Cassiopeia.”

Nancy stares in wonder, her eyes having left the stars long ago in favour of watching Robin recount the story.

“You’re amazing,” Nancy whispers, not able to help herself. Robin tears her eyes away from the ceiling, looking at Nancy in curiosity. She holds her gaze, eyes twinkling, and Nancy’s not sure if she has it in her not to say what she’s thinking; what she’s feeling. But she knows now’s not the time.

“Alright, Robin, here’s your towels.” Saved by the bell, Nancy thinks as her mom enters the room. Robin whispers a quiet thanks as she stands from the ground and takes the towels from Karen, Nancy soon following. 

“You girls let me know if you need anything, okay? Wake me up if you have to.”

“Will do, mom.” Karen looks between them, eyes softening as they settle on Robin. She places a hand on her shoulder, rubbing gently, before bidding both girls goodnight.

“I’m just gonna…” Robin motions towards the door.

“Of course, take all the time you need,” Nancy says, internally wincing at her own awkwardness, “and feel free to use anything of mine.” Robin nods and exits the room. Once she’s gone, Nancy slumps onto her bed, exhaling a deep breath as her back makes contact with the mattress. She has less than a couple minutes of peace before Robin scurries into the room, wrapped in only the towel.

“I forgot my pj’s,” she rushes, looking for her bag which, Nancy realises, is still downstairs.

“Just take something of mine,” Nancy avoids looking at Robin as best she can. She rifles through her dresser until she finds a decent pair of shorts and an old, soft t-shirt that Nancy thinks (read: hopes) Robin will steal because of how nice it feels to wear. Robin smiles in appreciation and rushes back out of the room.

“Jesus Christ,” Nancy takes a deep breath, wondering, briefly, what deity has decided to test her today.

Robin doesn’t take too long in the shower, returning in less than ten minutes to Nancy sitting at her desk. Nancy looks up once she notices Robin stood hesitantly in the doorway, fiddling with the towel in her hands.

“Here,” Nancy gets up from her spot and takes the damp towel from Robin’s hands, draping it over the back of her desk chair. She knows her mom will complain about it in the morning, but Nancy can’t find it in herself to care.

“Thank you,” Robin whispers once Nancy is facing her again.

“It’s just a towel,” Nancy laughs, but Robin shakes her head.

“No, I mean thank you for everything you’ve done today. I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve you,” Robin laughs self-deprecatingly, gaze fleeting.

“Robin,” Nancy trails off, frowning. She takes a step closer and grabs each of Robin’s hands in her own, pulling her ever so slightly closer. “You deserve everything in the world, Robin, and so much more .”

“So do you, Nancy.”

Nancy can’t help but smile, Robin soon following suit.

“C’mon, let’s go to bed.”

Chapter Text

Nancy can't sleep.

Her mind is a cacophony of thoughts and feelings; about her, about Robin, about what comes next, and as much as she tries to turn it all off, so she can get some rest, she can’t. And from the way Robin is laying stiffly next to her, occasionally tossing from one side to another, Nancy imagines she’s feeling much the same. It takes Robin tossing for the umpteenth time before Nancy feels like she needs to intervene.

“Robin?” Robin freezes her shuffling.

“Sorry,” she apologises and Nancy feels like she’s going to have a talk with her about her penchant for apologising for things that don’t need an apology.

Nancy shuffles until she’s laying on her back, turning her head to look at Robin, who had paused her movement so that she’s laying on her side, facing Nancy. It takes Nancy aback, just for a moment, to have Robin so close to her, yet not close enough.

“Come here,” Nancy whispers as she raises the arm closest to Robin, who just stares at her blankly before she shuffles forward, hesitantly resting her head on Nancy's chest, right above her heart. 

Nancy hopes she can’t hear how fast it’s beating.

“You okay?” Nancy asks, bringing her chin down to rest on the top of Robin’s head. She feels Robin nod, muttering a quiet yeah , and it’s as if something in both of them settles, because a few minutes later Nancy feels Robin relax in her arms, just as her own eyes grow heavy enough to sleep.

Before Nancy can even register she’s fallen asleep, she’s pulled from her dreamless sleep back into the land of consciousness. The light filtering through her curtains isn’t what wakes Nancy up, nor the sound of birdsong just outside her window, but the gentle touch of the tips of Robin’s fingers dancing in a shape Nancy can’t quite make out on the skin just above her hip bone. She’s humming, too, Nancy can feel the vibrations. It’s a nonsensical tune, maybe a lullaby if Nancy were to think hard enough. But she thinks they both deserve a morning of peace, and so she begins to trace her own shape on the exposed skin of Robin’s shoulder.

A heart.

Simple, maybe a bit cliché, but Nancy doesn’t mind. She finds there are a lot of things she used to think about love, about how it should be, that just aren’t true when she’s with Robin. Maybe it was always supposed to feel this different; this comfortable. Or maybe it’s just Robin. Nancy doesn’t know, and she can’t find it in herself to care in this moment.

They lay like that for a while, Robin long having stopped her humming, the room descending into a silence that the both of them have started to find comfort in. Nancy had always found comfort in silence. Silence usually meant everything was at peace; no sound of her parents arguing, of friends disappearing into the night, of the world ending. But, the more she has gotten to know Robin, the more her feelings for her have grown into something she can no longer contain – not that she would want to, anymore – the more she has come to find solace in the near constant stream of consciousness that falls from Robin’s mouth. Her voice itself is comforting, smooth and low, but also having her voice around means having her around, close to Nancy.

Her presence is a comfort; a comfort that Nancy doesn’t want to ever have to let go.

So, she holds on tighter to Robin, who stills her hand and rests it at the curve of Nancy’s waist, tightening her own grip in response, and Nancy begins to wonder when they stopped needing words to communicate what the other needs.

Nancy finds herself smiling, staring at the ceiling in a dreamy way that would have her mom teasing her should she walk in.

“I can feel you smiling,” Robin mumbles, shifting slightly to rest her chin on Nancy’s sternum, a mock glare on her face, though the smile she is unable to hide on her own face just makes Nancy smile wider.

“Morning to you, too,” Nancy replies in lieu of responding, glancing from Robin back to the ceiling. The sight of Robin fresh in the morning isn’t something Nancy thinks she’ll get tired of, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t overwhelming. “Sleep okay?” Robin nods, 

“Yeah, you?”

“Better than I have in a while,” Nancy whispers, chancing a glance back down to Robin who is looking at her in a way that Nancy can’t misunderstand because she knows, she knows , that’s exactly how she’s looking at Robin right now.

Turning to the clock on her bedside table, Nancy realises they have woken up with the sun, the rest of the house likely not to be awake for another hour or two. Perfect, she thinks as she lifts herself up onto her elbows, Robin begrudgingly moving to lay next to her on the bed. Nancy instantly misses the warmth.

“What do you want to do today?” Robin shrugs as she brings the covers up to her shoulders, burrowing herself into Nancy’s bed, and she finds herself smiling at how endearing it is; feels joy fill her at how comfortable Robin is with her. “How about a lazy day?” Nancy suggests once it’s clear that Robin isn’t going to respond, and the way Robin’s eyes light up from where they’re peeking out from the edge of the covers gives Nancy the answer she needs.

Nancy quickly heads over to her cassette player and rummages through her collection until she stumbles upon a tape that she hasn’t listened to in a while; one that she always used to play on Sunday mornings, back when her life wasn’t so hectic, when she could afford to have time to relax. Which is what she has now, with Robin.

She puts the tape in and turns to the bed, where Robin is watching her intently. She allows her hips to sway, ever so slightly, as she walks back over to the bed. Robin raises the covers and Nancy jumps into the cocoon of warmth, giggling as Robin wraps herself and the covers around Nancy. 

Nancy soon settles into the embrace, roles reversed as her head now rests on Robin’s chest, her hand laying just above where Robin’s heart is beating a beat too quickly. Nancy can’t blame her, her heart is beating at the same rhythm, if not faster.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you as an Etta James fan,” Robin says after a moment, voice muffled from where it’s resting against Nancy’s head.

“Guess I’m just full of surprises, huh?”

“That you are.”

“You know,” Robin says after a little while, “ A Sunday Kind of Love sounds perfect, don’t you think?” And it takes Nancy a moment to realise that Robin’s referencing the song that is currently playing. She listens to the lyrics for a moment, taking them in for what feels like the first time.

“Yeah,” Nancy adjusts herself so she’s sitting up slightly, head resting in the palm of her hand, “like love should be something enduring. Something that lasts through all of the challenges life puts you through. Something where you can go home to someone and have things just be easy. Like a Sunday morning. ”

“It should be a comfort,” Robin says as she looks up at Nancy, “like you’ve found the person you want to spend all your Sundays with. No more flings or, or hookups, just someone who you can wake up to in the morning and still feel so happy to see them. Like, you’ve seen this person at their worst, they’ve seen you at your worst, and still they want to be that person with you when you wake up on Sunday.”

“Yeah…” Nancy draws out, unable to tear her gaze away from the way Robin is looking at her. The tape clicks in that moment, Nancy letting the static play out for a beat before she goes to flip the tape. “I’m going to get us juice and something for breakfast, okay?” Nancy says once she’s clicked play. Robin nods from her spot on the bed, and Nancy hurries out of the bedroom down the stairs.

Thankfully, the rest of the house is still asleep, so Nancy pops some bread in the toaster and gets two glasses ready. She opens the fridge and pours one glass of orange for herself and a glass of apple for Robin, closing the fridge in time for the toast to pop up. She puts some butter on the slices, piling them all onto one plate, before reaching for a small tray from under the counter to carry everything up to the room.

“At last!” Robin exclaims as Nancy re-enters the room. Robin is now sitting upright on the bed, two pieces of paper and Nancy’s music box sitting in front of her, and it takes a moment for Nancy to click that Robin is also referencing the song that is playing from the cassette player. Nancy tries, and fails, not to read too much into it, but who is she kidding at this point.

“What do you got there?” Nancy inquires, though she knows exactly what Robin has in front of her. She sets the tray on the bedside table before taking a seat on her bed, Robin looking at her sheepishly as her fingers drum on the bedspread.

“Well, I figured we could finally finish this today, and it still counts towards our lazy day because it’s just talking, right?” Nancy nods, smiling slightly at Robin’s reasoning, the other girl not knowing she doesn’t need to come up with a reason to get Nancy to do something with her. 

“Eat first,” is all Nancy says as she reaches for her glass of juice. Robin takes her time eating her toast, picking the slices with the least butter, and Nancy adds it to her list of curiosities about Robin.

Once they finish their breakfast, Nancy making sure Robin has drank all of her juice because God knows the girl needs all the nutrients she can get after the week she’s had, Nancy sets the remaining two cards between them. Three cards and they’re done. It’s bittersweet, Nancy thinks, to know this is ending, but knowing that they’ll continue on once the last card is read, stronger than when they started, is a comfort to her. Because she knows now, without a shadow of a doubt, that Robin will stay. And Nancy will, too.

“You pick first,” Robin says once all the dishes have been put to one side, and Nancy doesn’t need to be asked twice. She picks up one of the cards, reads it, and immediately tears it up without hesitation. Robin looks at her in bewilderment, eyes questioning as Nancy heads to place the ripped pieces in the trash.

“We don’t need any more questions like that,” Nancy says as she reaches for the other card. Robin nods, and doesn't question Nancy as she lets her pick up the penultimate card. “Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.” Robin blows out a breath, appearing to mull the question over a few time in her head.

“Well, it’s the age-old problem of falling for a friend and not knowing what to do about it,” is all Robin says, looking at Nancy nervously, though she’s sitting unnaturally still.

“Well, do you think you’re the only one who has fallen?” Nancy asks, trying to keep her voice level, even if her heart is trying to beat itself out of her chest.

“I mean, I’d like to think I’m not the only one. But, it wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong,” Robin shrugs and Nancy frowns because who in their right mind wouldn’t fall for Robin Buckley?

“Well, I don’t think you’re wrong this time,” Nancy pauses, taking in Robin’s reaction, before continuing, “and as to how you seem to be feeling about this problem… You seem nervous, which I can understand, but you don’t seem scared.” Robin tilts her head in curiosity at the last statement.

“Why would I be scared of them?” Nancy shrugs, not sure if she could articulate her thoughts surrounding her own realisation of her feelings for Robin. The fear that surrounded her when she was coming to terms with everything. The feeling of falling without knowing that anyone would be there to catch you was absolutely terrifying. But she knows differently now; knows that Robin is there, and will always be there to catch her.

Robin doesn’t question her further, but gives her a look as if she knows, and Nancy wouldn’t be surprised if she did. Robin reaches down for the music box, opens it, and offers the final card to Nancy. She goes to reach for it but hesitates and looks up to Robin who is looking at her gently. Nancy shakes her head and pushes the box back towards Robin. The prospect of devastation no longer scares her as much as it did. Not when she’s with Robin.

“You sure?” Nancy nods and Robin only hesitates for two seconds before she picks the card out and places the box next to her on the bed, still open so the tune continues to play. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“Okay, If you were to die today with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?” Potential devastation , Nancy thinks, at the same time she thinks now may be the best, and only, chance to say what she wants to say. She doesn’t even have to think.

“If I were to die today, I’d most regret not having told the person I’m in love with that I love them. And I do, Robin, I love you so much it scares me. Not because the thought of having feelings for you is terrifying, no that’s been the easiest thing to come to terms with because you’re so, so easy to love, Robin. What’s scared me is how strong these feelings are, because I never knew love could feel like this; could fill you with so much joy and terror at the same time. And for why I hadn’t told you, well… I’ve known for some time now, but every time I thought it was the right time, or the right moment, something got in the way. But it’s been eating at me ever since I realised that I couldn’t hide it anymore, that I didn’t want to hide it anymore. And that’s it, really, I love you Robin Buckley, please say you love me, too. Please tell me I haven’t read any of this wrong. ”

There’s a silence, for what could have been one minute or one hour, Nancy doesn’t know. It’s as if time has slowed down as she looks at Robin, practically begging her with her eyes to say something, anything, but she seems frozen in time.

“Please say something,” Nancy all but begs, hands painfully tense where they’re tangled together in her lap. Robin’s gaze snaps to Nancy’s, eyes looking at her as if it’s the first time.

“Give me a minute, this never happens,” Nancy’s panic gives way to confusion as she watches Robin shake her head as if to reset her thoughts and pinch her arm, Nancy stops her on the third pinch. “Am I dreaming?” Robin suddenly asks, gripping Nancy’s hand in her own, and all Nancy can do is blink at her.

“You’re not dreaming.”

“So the girl I’m in love with really just confessed to loving me?” Robin asks, voice pitching up towards the end of the sentence as if she can’t quite believe it and Nancy feels a laugh break its way out of her mouth, abrupt, until another falls out that sounds more like a sob. Of relief, mostly.

“She did,” Nancy confirms.

“You love me?”

“I do,” Nancy’s voice is softer this time as she watches Robin process everything, watches as Robin repeats ‘ you love me’ under her breath just once, before she meets Nancy’s eyes. Robin’s eyes are watery, but there isn’t an ounce of sadness and Nancy knows that Robin is feeling the same amount of relief and just pure happiness that Nancy is currently experiencing.

“I love you, too, Nancy.” And Nancy doesn’t know what else to do in that moment but kiss her.

So she does.

She reaches up and cradles Robin's face with her hands, wiping a stray tear before she pulls her closer. When their lips meet it’s like everything falls into place for Nancy. There’s no fireworks or big exposition, but a warmth settles deep in her gut that this feels right . And Robin’s lips are so impossibly soft.

Nancy pulls away after a moment, just to take it all in; to know this is really her life right now.

“Hi,” she grins, taking in Robin’s dazed expressions she can’t help but lean in for another peck.

“Hey,” Robin’s grin matches her own and when Robin pulls Nancy back in, their kiss is all smiles and teeth, but Nancy can’t complain when it’s caused by the sheer amount of joy and contentment caused by the person you love, loving you in return.

“I was wrong, you know,” Robin says as she pulls away, smile still in place.

“What do you mean?”

“I was wrong to assume that the end of these cards wouldn’t be the end of our friendship. Instead, it’s the start of something more,”

“Dork,” Nancy laughs as she collapses back onto the bed, pulling Robin with her until the other girl is laying on top of her, hands either side of Nancy’s head as she supports her own weight. Nancy leans up at the same time Robin leans down, lips meeting in a kiss that is softer, slower than the last.

“I don’t think I’ll get tired of that,” Nancy confesses as she bites her lip.

“Me neither,” Robin grins, stealing another kiss.

“Oh, there’s still one thing I don’t know about you after all this, Robin Buckley.”

“Oh yeah?” Nancy nods, though her eyes are fixated on a point south of Robin’s eyes.

“Yeah, your middle name.”

“Oh," Robin pauses as if to think it over, "I don’t have one.” Nancy rolls her eyes, because of course she doesn’t.

“You’re an idiot, Robin Buckley.”

“Love you, too, Nancy Wheeler.”

Chapter Text

Summer.

Nancy is excited.

It’s not a feeling she has truly let herself acknowledge in some time, at least the positive connotations of it. Sure, she’s been excited to meet a deadline for class or for the paper, and she’s been more than excited to put Vecna and everything to do with the upside down behind her. But recently, she’s been feeling excitement in the true meaning of the word, been feeling eagerness in a way she hasn’t before, and it has everything to do with Robin.

See, every time she sees Robin she finds herself missing her, already excited to see her again before she has even left Nancy’s presence. And it’s nice, she thinks, to feel that about someone; to feel love the way it was meant to be felt.

All encompassing.

Nancy would be remiss to say that even if Robin wasn’t physically in her presence, she was still with her somehow. But, back to the matter at hand.

Nancy is excited because she’s taking Robin on their first official date. They had both agreed to do something utterly cliché, something every teenager (though they’re a bit past that now) in love does with their significant other. Which is how they had settled on going to the roller rink. 

Nancy hasn’t been to the roller rink in what feels like years , frequenting the joint when she was in her early teens. It always seemed like the quickest and most exhilarating way for Nancy to have fun, at least before… everything.

Robin had seemed happy with the idea, if not a bit apprehensive, and Nancy had conjured this image of Bambi on ice when she imagined Robin in roller skates. She’d made sure to reassure Robin that she’d be at her side the entire time, holding her hand to make sure she wouldn’t fall, not on Nancy’s watch. And Robin had blushed so prettily, said ‘I know, I trust you’ in such a way that Nancy almost, almost hesitated before kissing her.

Because that’s something she can do now.

Nancy has to resist the urge to release an honest to god squeal.

She’s currently on her way to pick Robin up for their date. Things have been okay with Robin and her mom, okay enough for Robin to feel comfortable enough to live there until the fall. They don’t talk anymore and Robin is pretty much fending for herself which, Nancy notes with a frown, isn’t too dissimilar to how she had already been living.

When she pulls up, Robin is already sitting on her doorstep waiting for her. She perks up immediately when she catches sight of Nancy’s car and rushes down the driveway where Nancy greets her with a quick kiss to the cheek once Robin settles into the passenger seat.

“Ready?” Nancy asks as she puts the car in gear. Robin reaches over to cover Nancy’s hand with her own.

“Definitely.”

The drive isn’t too long and within ten minutes of arriving they are already laced up in their skates. Nancy’s a bit overwhelmed by the rush of nostalgia and longing this place brings up; all the missed years spent growing up too fast, but Robin’s hand holding steadfast in her own helps. Robin squeezes her hand three times, gives her an understanding smile, and leads her over to the edge of the rink.

Nancy settles into it immediately, dropping Robin’s hand momentarily to get herself reacquainted with the feeling of the wheels beneath her feet. She turns around and immediately reaches for Robin’s hand, guiding her slowly into the rink before she can second guess anything. Though, she’s probably already quadruple guessed everything in that quick mind of hers, Nancy knows.

Robin stumbled a few times as her wheels hit the smooth surface, hand holding Nancy’s in a death grip.

“It’s okay, you got this,” Nancy whispers as she instructs Robin to set her knees and keep her feet straight. She pulls her along the edge of the rink, and Nancy feels a smile begin to overtake her features when Robin steadies herself, wobbling less and looking like she’s actually enjoying herself.

Nancy had asked, what with Robin’s persistent comments on her coordination, why she’d agree to this as a date, all Robin had said was ‘I’d do anything that makes you happy, Nance’ . Nancy had melted on the spot. So it elated Nancy to see Robin enjoying herself of her own volition, not just doing something because Nancy wants to. It’s a nice change. To share the enjoyment.

When Robin takes a particularly big stumble, almost wiping the both of them out, she excuses herself to the bathroom. And Nancy knows Robin well enough, knows of Robin’s disdain of public bathrooms, to understand that she is more than likely slipping away to give herself a pep talk.

It’s adorable.

Nancy lets her go, watching her until she disappears behind the faded green doors of the restroom, before she steels herself. She hasn’t skated in a while, but she’s had the chance, slowly skating around the rink to dust off some of the cobwebs.

She takes it slow at first, mostly occupying the outskirts of the rink, before she lets herself go a bit faster, circling in until she’s on the inside of all the other stragglers hugging the barriers. She does a quick jump, grinning as she lands as steady as she’d hoped she would, letting it fill her with the confidence to pull out some of her old tricks.

She weaves through the other people, grateful the rink isn’t packed, switching from one foot to the other. She does another jump to turn herself backwards, looking over her shoulder every now and then to make sure she doesn’t crash into anyone. She closes her eyes, just for a second, to feel the moment because she hasn’t felt this free in a long time.

When she opens her eyes, they immediately zone in on Robin, who is standing at the side of the rink and holding onto the barrier for what appears to be dear life. Her cheeks are a rosy pink, eyes following each and every one of Nancy’s movements. 

Transfixed.

Nancy laughs and skates her way towards Robin. She mock crashes into the barrier, letting the weight of her movements carry over so that she can knock her forehead against Robin’s shoulder, pausing there for a moment too long to breathe Robin in.

Yeah, Nancy thinks, this is definitely what excitement is supposed to feel like.

Autumn.

As much as Nancy has to say in the negative about growing up in Hawkins, she never thought anywhere could beat what it was like to live there in the fall. That is, until Boston.

There’s something about being able to appreciate the crunch of the autumn leaves, of the cooling air and greying skies, without the ever present judgement of those around her. Plus, there’s the freedom of being able to have one hand warmed by her to-go cup of coffee, whilst the other is kept warm in the hand of her beloved, without feeling like there are eyes on them. Nobody knows them in Boston, would never suspect that they are anything more than two friends holding hands, and it’s nice, in a devastating way. But Nancy has come to love devastation; Robin was correct in saying that it could be something spectacular.

They’re on their way to their standing park date, which is where they take the limited free time between their studies and their jobs to take a walk around the park. And with the first week of October comes the first true days of autumn, which Nancy loves .

They’d made a quick stop at their local coffee shop, where the staff already know them by name, even though they’ve only been living in the area for just under two months. But they spend many an evening there studying or meeting up in their free time. They’re well known there enough to have even been offered jobs from the sweet old lady who owns the shop. They’re happy in the current part-time work they've found, though Nancy can tell Robin gets more and more tempted each time she’s asked.

Nancy digresses, she really has been spending too much (read: it could never be too much) time with Robin for her thoughts to devolve into aimless rambling.

They’d found a little park about a week into living in Boston that never seemed too crowded, even at the end of summer when the nights were still warm, and so had designated it their park. And it’s not so much as a date, Nancy realises, as it is taking the opportunity to be together in public, even if the public isn't aware, or anywhere remotely close to being ready to be aware. It’s still nice, that even if the people aren’t listening, that she can still tell the world that this is my girlfriend.

Even months later, Nancy still doesn’t feel used to saying that, still makes her internally giddy. She squeezes Robin’s hand in her own, waits for Robin to face her, and leans up to give her a quick kiss now that they’re covered by the trees surrounding them.

“What was that for?” Nancy shrugs and takes a sip of her coffee, smiling over the rim as she swings hers and Robin’s hand between them.

Winter.

They’re back in Hawkins for the holidays. Robin, thankfully, staying at the Wheeler household at Karen’s request, more than anything. Not that Nancy or Robin would have tried to disagree, far from it. But Nancy saw the look on Robin’s face when her mom had called and requested to be put on speaker so she could ask (demand) Robin join them from the holidays, and she knows how much that means to Robin, especially after going no-contact with her own mother.

They’d decided to take the long drive back to Hawkins, taking their time along the way to see some sites and whatever weird attractions Robin had seen on pamphlets at rest stops along the way.

Nancy wouldn’t have had it any other way.

They’d arrived the evening before Christmas Eve to much fanfare in the Wheeler household. Karen had greeted them both with hugs, Nancy noted how her mom held Robin for just that bit longer; held her just that little bit tighter, and if Nancy saw the tears in Robin’s eyes when she pulled away, she wasn’t going to comment on it. Holly had bound over to them and immediately dragged them over to one of the presents she was allowed to open early, mostly as a ploy to keep her distracted until Christmas Day. Her father had greeted them with a nod and not much else, not that Nancy really cared. And Mike had greeted Nancy with a grimace, but had pulled Robin into an awkward side-hug.

Now that was something Nancy could be bitter about. In private. Because she’d sooner die than take that moment away from Robin. But that didn’t stop her from tripping Mike up when he made his escape to the basement after it happened.

Christmas Eve had passed without much fuss. Nancy and Robin helping her mom in the kitchen to prepare for the next day. That is, until Nancy got herself kicked out of the kitchen for being a “hindrance.” Robin had laughed loudly as Nancy trudged out of the kitchen to join Holly in the living room to watch a Christmas film.

Even though she was banished from the kitchen, Nancy still found herself periodically going into the kitchen under the guise of bothering her mom and Robin (and she has the spatula shaped mark on the back of her band to prove it) but she also used it as an excuse to steal a kiss, or dozen, from Robin in the comfort of her own home.

She has the spatula mark to prove that, too.

Christmas morning itself was as chaotic as it was every year, especially so when adding Robin to the mix. But the thing with that is that, when Nancy took a moment to sit back and observe the room, she found herself endeared to how seamlessly Robin fit into her family picture, and how easily the rest of the Wheeler’s found it to include Robin in their traditions.

Truly, no Wheeler was safe from one Robin Buckley, it seems.

Nancy actually finds herself having to battle Holly away from Robin when it comes to their evening tradition of bundling up in no less than four layers and going to sit in their backyard and stargaze until midnight. It’s one of Nancy’s favourite traditions, one of the few traditions her family has that Nancy would continue with her own family, should she have one, one day.

It’s in moments like these, head nestled into Robin’s shoulder and Robin’s hands held tightly in her own because she forgot her gloves, that Nancy knows it’s all worth it.

Robin will always be worth it.

Spring.

With spring comes the regrowth of nature that had died during the winter. As cheesy as it may sound, Nancy likes to compare her relationship with Robin to spring; ever-growing, ever evolving, and ever-changing.

Few things compare to the sprinkle of warmth that accompanies the spring sun in Nancy’s mind, especially when you add in the fact that she’s taking in this moment with Robin. They’re at their park, nestled under a tree providing some shade from the sun. Nancy is leant against the trunk of the tree, her long forgotten book in one hand – she finds Robin’s freckled face a much more inviting read – her other hand nestled in Robin’s hair where the other girl is resting with her head in Nancy’s lap.

The park is quiet, save for the birdsong echoing around them, and Nancy could easily mistake Robin for being asleep with her closed eyes and serene expression. She bumps her knee, jostling Robin’s head and she peeks an eye open, looking up at Nancy with an eyebrow raised.

“Hey you,” Nancy smiles, looking down at the girl who has truly changed her life for the better.

“Hey back,” Robin smiles as she opens both eyes, tilting her head slightly to get a better look at Nancy.

“You know,” Nancy begins, trying to play coy even though this has been eating at her for the best part of a year. She places her book to one side, using her free hand to cup one of Robin’s cheeks, “you never did tell me what you told me in Pig Latin that one time.” Robin’s brows furrowed in confusion, just for a moment, before her features ease and a soft expression overtakes her face, eyes filled with what Nancy is no longer afraid to name: love.

“Do you really want to know?” Nancy nods, and Robin reaches for the hand cupping her cheek, pulls it in front of her face so she can press a gentle kiss to her palm.

“Tell me,” Nancy implores, voice carried away with the breeze. Robin sits up so only a hairsbreadth separates her face from Nancy’s.

“I said,” she whispers, and Nancy can feel the movement of Robin’s lips on her own, “That you, Nancy Wheeler,” Robin leans in for a kiss then, grazing Nancy’s bottom lip with her teeth as she pulls away, cupping Nancy’s face with her hands, “you are divine.”