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Steve knew Robin wanted to get out of Hawkins. In fact, it was one of the first things he’d ever learned about her.
Knee deep in the Scoops Ahoy freezer, doing inventory, before they had even become friends, Robin was mocking him for only now getting a taste of the real world.
Back then, before they had learned their limits, when Robin was closed off and snarky and Steve could only reflect others, they had done nothing but trade snide comments. Everyday they would only make fun of each other unless it was to ask something dumb like if there was extra moose tracks in the back.
When Steve had finally had enough of her ridicule over this being his first job, he had snapped at her.
“Why are you here then?”
As soon as he said it, he winced with instant regret. There were probably a million reasons, the main and most common one being her family simply needed another income to survive, and stupid Steve Harrington was too privileged to think of that.
Instead, she had looked at him, dead in the eyes, and said, “So I can get out of this godforsaken town as soon as possible.”
She doesn’t even know how true that is, he remembers thinking.
Of course, she does now. Maybe that’s why she’s running away like hell is on her heels. Because it actually is.
So yeah, he knows as soon as it’s possible, Robin is leaving.
And he knows he can’t leave. Not when Max is in her coma. Not when Dustin is still mourning Eddie. Not when the town is in ruins and there’s a chance of it coming back. He was tied here, at least at the moment.
And as much as he’ll miss her, he’ll cheer her on, hoping she gets as far away from this place as possible. If anyone deserves to be free, it’s Robin.
Before he had hoped, however foolishly, after the first time, that Robin would be similarly be tied down.
After Starcourt, during the first tentative days of their friendship, their real friendship, not just coworker suffering through a minimum wage job, they were sprawled across his floor and as they tried to get to know each other better. The basics, things they should know, but they skipped over before going straight to deepest secrets.
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Red. What’s your favorite food.”
“Spaghetti? What’s your middle name?”
During this time, Steve had asked her where her dream vacation was.
And like a switch has been flipped, Robin had lit up, and he had known, no matter what, she would leave, and he was happy for it.
It was his first introduction to Rambling Robin. She had talked, unashamed and without pause, about her dreams of traveling. The languages, the cultures, the architecture, the food. Steve himself fell a little bit in love with her vision simply by the passionate way Robin talked about it.
Maybe if they hadn’t been through so much together, if they hadn’t been bonded so completely, he would be scared of losing her. But he knew now, deep in his bones, that it would take more than a few hundred miles to pry Robin away from him.
Steve asked what her parents thought about her plan. It was his roundabout way of asking her if she was running from something, but her answer had surprised him.
“My parents are what I like to call domesticated hippies. They told me, to my face, that I was convinced in a VW van.”
She fakes gagging, and Steve can’t help but laugh.
“Can you imagine?”
Steve can, it explains so much about Robin, but he doesn’t tell her that.
“They can’t complain about my plans without being massive hypocrites.”
It’s true. When he meets her parents, who almost look too normal for how strange they act. But Steve asks, maybe out of curiosity, what the think of their daughter.
Mrs Buckley, Melissa as she insists Steve call her, pinches Robin’s cheek.
“Born to fly this one. That’s why we named her Robin, you know, like the bird. Not just because she has her head in the clouds, but because we knew she would take flight.”
Robin acts embarrassed, but Steve can tells she’s pleased and he takes to calling her Birdie after that.
That summer, late at night during their now common sleepovers, he allowed his emotions to get the best of him only once.
“You could stay, couldn’t you?” He knows it’s a long shot, that Robin was only planning on applying to one in state school, and only as a safety, but he still tries.
Robin looked at him, and ever so gently, and says, “No I couldn’t.”
Steve sighs, he knew that, but he wanted to hope that maybe he’d changed her mind.
“It’s not you,” she continues, as of reading his mind, “It’s this town. Everything about it, not just the… you know. It’s the people and the beliefs. It’s… suffocating.”
“I know,” he whispers, linking their hands intertwining their fingers.
Robin stays quiet, searching for the words. He waits, usually they come to her easily, and he thinks knowing three languages would only help.
“I-“ she stops again, “I think I’ve been searching for somewhere to belong my whole life, and it’s not Hawkins.”
She looks down at their hands, “You helped. I belong with you. But don’t take this the wrong way- I need more. I need people. I need a place where I don’t have to hide and translate myself to be understood. I need a place where I can do more than survive.”
“I know.” Steve answers, because he’s looking for it too. It was why he missed basketball and swimming, not for the actual sport, but the community.
“When I was a sophomore-“
“Uh oh,” Steve starts, “Is this another Tammy story.”
She smacks him, “No but it’s almost equally as embarrassing.”
“Go on.”
“God I was such a nerd,” Robin buries her face in her hand, “I was convinced if I ran away to Paris all my problems would be solved. I called it Operation Croissant.”
Steve laughs, mostly at the name, not Robin’s ill advised plan.
Robin laughs with him, then looks down, “It was actually terrible. Sophomore year. I was so miserable. Focusing on a place other than this was the only thing that got me through it.”
Steve swallows. He doesn’t like what she’s implying.
“I’m glad I met you,” Robin whispers.
He pulls her into a hug, inhaling her lavender scent, “I’m glad I met you too.”
“Don’t worry about a little distance,” she reassures him, “You’re stuck with me. For life. Like a prison sentence.”
***
After spring break, if you can call it that when it was really disaster after disaster, they’re forced to go back to normal and pretend like everything is fine. It’s not.
Steve is washing the buildup of dishes when he hears a shriek.
“I got in!”
The shrill noise startled him and the dish he’d been holding slipped out of his hands and into the sink.
He tried to keep the panic at bay, “What?”
Robin appears in the doorway, breathless, “I got in! To Berkeley!
“That’s amazing!” Steves fear is completely forgotten as hugs her and twirled her around. It’s the first good news he’s heard since the end of the world and he needs it.
Then, listening to her heavy breathing, he asks, “Did you run here?”
“Yes,” Robin says, pulling her very pink face away from his shoulder, “You had to be the fist person I told.”
She grinning ear to ear and Steve can’t even bring himself to lecture her about how stupid and dangerous that is.
“So you’re going. “
Her smile dims.
“I mean can I? Is it bad that I want to?”
“No, it’s not,” he soothes her. If he wants anyone to be selfish it’s Robin. And maybe that’s selfish of him. To wish her far away from the danger when others can’t leave.
He can see the cogs staring to turn in Robin’s head, “But-“
“Don’t worry about that yet. Let’s celebrate.” Steve searches through the drawers until he finds what his looking for.
The key to the alcohol cabinet. He finds the good champagne, the one his father had left the last time he was here.
“Wow,” Robin says when he pulls it out, “I’m never not surprised at how rich you are.”
Steve pops it, and for the next thirty minutes they pretend like the world isn’t crumbling outside the door.
After their small celebration, when they were buzzed but exhausted from dancing around to music, Robin looks him, slightly nervous, “You won’t be mad? If I leave?”
“I could never be angry at you.”
Robin chews her lip as if she didn’t hear him, “I don’t want to leave you. You’re the only real friend I’ve had.”
Steve feels the beginning of that familiar feeling in his stomach, the one he gets when he’s being left behind, but he knows that Robin needs this, and it’s only his insecurity.
“It’s not forever. I’ll be here, waiting with open arms until I can join you.”
“I’ll hold you to it. I can’t survive out there alone.” She knocks her shoulder into his, “Not without my other half. Remember? Combined we make a whole person.”
Steve feels the knot of tension melt before it even fully forms, “I know.”
***
Steve stands in front of Robin’s parents car, running through his mental list.
“Did you remember your pillow? And that walkie Dustin made you? Don’t forget the batteries. With spares.”
“Steve,” Robin says expectantly, “I’ve got it. You’ve double checked three times already.”
He doesn’t open his mouth for fear of breaking down. The kids already had their goodbyes, and even though he wasn’t the one leaving, it still hit him hard.
Now it’s just them, and Steve wants to drag out every last moment he has with her.
Robin suddenly leaps forward and wraps her arms around him tightly. He presses a kiss to the top of her head, blinking back tears.
“You’ll tell me. If anything goes wrong again.”
“Of course,” he promises. Even though Steve knew he couldn’t do it without her, he can’t lie and say he’s not relieved that’s she’ll be far away from the danger.
He tries to change the subject, for the sake of his own mind, “What will you do?”
“Run from the monster. Hope I don’t find a new one.”
Steve laughs wetly at the reference to Robin’s high school imagination, much closer to the truth than she could have ever imagined.
“I love you,” Robin chokes out.
“I love you too,” Steve replies, finally losing the battle as tears begin to slip from his eyes, “Go see the world for me, huh.”
“You’ll catch up.”
“I know. Don’t wait though. Kiss more pretty girls than I could.”
Robin laughs but still blinks back tears, “You’ll call?”
“Every night,” Steve lets go and light nudges her towards the car, “Go on. You don’t want to miss your flight.”
Robin surges forward one last time, squeezing him so tight he can’t breathe. It’s over before he can complain, and she pulls herself into the car before he can get another word in. Maybe that’s for the best, since they’re both seconds away from full out sobbing.
He watches as the car pulls out of the driveway, leaving a trail of dust. The horn blares, and Robin sticks her head out the passenger window, frantically waving until she’s out of sight.
Steve lets it hit him then. That Robin is leaving, and she won’t be back until winter break.
Hawkins won’t be Hawkins without her. Steve doesn’t know what he’ll do without his loud, talkative girl beside him, but the time will pass anyway and he wants Robin to be following her dreams while it happens.
The sun will still shine, the seasons will still pass, and Hawkins will stay the same.
And in the meantime, Steve will wait for Robin, hoping every phone call brings nothing but happiness. And he knows it’s not the end. They’re linked together, and that’s more important than however far apart they are.