Chapter Text
Steve’s the one who invites her to the party. It’s at Nancy’s house (first surprise; Nancy Wheeler is not the kind of person Robin expects to host parties), and Steve insists Nancy wants Robin there, too (surprise number two; Robin is ninety-nine percent sure Nancy hates her, even after everything they’ve been through with Vecna). Apparently her parents are away for a week-long trip to Disneyland with Holly and Nancy needs to ‘get it out of her system’, in Steve’s words. Robin agrees to go before she can really think about it, and then regrets it for the entire week leading up. She tries to back out over and over, but Steve just shakes his head and insists she come, making up all kinds of excuses like “I need a buffer between me and Nance or one of us is gonna jump the other’s bones” which only makes Robin feel like gagging a little.
When the Saturday of the party arrives and Robin gets up the courage to actually walk the eight blocks between her house and Nancy’s, she still hesitates at the door. Steve said he’d be here but what if he backed out? What if he got sick? What if something came up? She doesn’t want to be here alone.
She can hear music coming through the walls, a loud baseline thrumming through her entire being. She usually likes the feeling of music reverberating in her chest, but in this case it’s just a reminder that she’s about to be in hell.
The door swings open before she can overthink knocking and Mike is there, looking confusedly at her. Robin doesn’t really know Mike. She hasn’t spent a lot of time with him outside of the ‘saving the world’ stuff, and he was in California for most of that, but she’s glad to see a familiar face.
“Hey, Robin!” He says, a little scream-y in order to be heard over the loud music.
“Yeah. Mike. I mean, you’re Mike. I’m Robin. Obviously. Steve invited me. I hope that’s okay. Is he here? Steve, I mean?” Robin is aware she’s mostly rambling. She does that when she’s nervous. Finding her best friend’s ex-girlfriend’s little brother at a party where she’s sure a fifteen-year-old doesn’t belong does that to a person.
“I think I saw him earlier. You wanna come in?” Mike holds the door open and Robin gives him what she hopes is a friendly smile as she enters.
“I think he was in the kitchen. Follow me, it’s this way.” Mike leads her down the hall. Robin can’t help looking curiously around at the Wheeler house. She’s seen it before, both in the couple minutes she spent here with Nancy before they had to interrogate Victor Creel, though she hadn’t really had time to get a good look at it, and when they were in the Upside Down, though it had looked different then, being set four years in the past. It’s entirely too pink and frilly for her taste. Too rich-looking. Mike and Nancy and a third child (Holly, Robin thinks she remembers Nancy saying) are featured heavily in the photographs on the wall, along with the other kids who’ve helped them save the world over and over again. She guesses Ms. Wheeler likes to keep track of her son’s friends. Nancy doesn’t seem to have too many pictures with friends; not nearly as many as Mike, anyway. There is one red-headed kid who pops up every so often, whom Robin recognises as a young Barbara Holland. She knew Nancy and Barb were close. It must’ve been hard on Nancy when she died.
Mike leads her into a large-ish and expensive-looking kitchen, where she finds Steve leaned against a counter, red solo cup in hand, talking to a girl Robin vaguely recognizes from school or the mall or somewhere. She breathes a sigh of relief.
“Steve!” She pushes past a couple of people and in between Steve and the girl he was probably hitting on, knowing him. “Thank god you’re here.”
Steve gives her a crooked grin. “I said I would be here, Rob. What, did you seriously think I’d bail?”
Robin feels self-conscious all of a sudden. “N-no. Of course not. But, I don’t know, you might’ve gotten sick at the last second or had an emergency or, or… I don’t know.” She winces. It sounds stupid, now that she’s saying it out loud.
“I would’ve called, Rob. I wouldn’t have left you hanging like that.” He wraps an arm around her and Robin tucks herself into his side. He smells like hair product and the leather of his jacket. It’s familiar and soothing.
“Well, you obviously don’t need to be talking to me. You’ve got weirdo over here wrapped around your little finger.” The girl he was talking to butts into the conversation, throwing Steve an angry glare before stalking away through the crowd.
“Wait, Cheryl, no!” Steve groans as she flips him the bird over her shoulder. “You’re throwing me off my game, Rob. We look too much like a couple,” he comments. Robin thinks he might mean it lightheartedly, but it still stings, just a little. Like he doesn’t want her there.
“Well, we aren’t. If people can’t get over me hugging my best friend then they shouldn’t be dating you, anyway,” she grumbles.
“Jealous, much?” He cracks a cocky smile.
“Oh shut up.” Robin lets herself smile a little, too. The party is more bearable from her position tucked next to Steve. He talks to people and drinks beer and lets Robin be his moral support from a place where she doesn’t really have to socialize.
Nancy finds them after a little while. She’s not drunk-drunk, but she’s at least a little tipsy and Robin doesn’t love the way she talks extra loudly and is overly touchy. Nancy is normally a safe person. She and Robin really bonded while they were fighting Vecna over spring break, but after the world saving was over, they kind of fell apart again. It’s almost awkward talking to her now.
Steve and Nancy want to head outside for a smoke. Robin scrunches her nose at the thought. She hates that they do it, hates the smell that lingers on Steve afterwards, hates how Nancy gets uppity after she’s smoked, like the entire world is below her.
“I’m just gonna stay here, I think.” She gives a pained smile, trying to silently give them the message not to leave her. They don’t pick up on it.
The party is somehow louder, brighter, and more crowded without Steve. She moves around the edge of the kitchen towards the dining table where there is a stack of solo cups and a bowl of something alcoholic, judging by the slightly acrid smell that hangs in the air around it.
“What’s in this?” She asks a random teenager who’s holding a cup of the stuff.
“No idea. Something not too strong. Fucking Wheeler priss.” He dances off to join a crowd of his friends and Robin scrunches her nose again. Worth a shot? Sure.
The alcohol burns her throat as she swallows and she coughs lightly, eyes watering and face reddening. She can see people watching her, some with leering smiles and some with unimpressed scepticism. She takes another sip. And another. And another and another until the cup is empty. She refills it.
Someone tugs her onto the makeshift dance floor that is Nancy’s living room and she cringes at the feeling of ten bodies immediately pressed against her own.
“Loosen up!” Someone shouts, she thinks at her. Maybe she should try. Maybe Steve and Nancy are right and parties aren’t actually that horrible and if she just loosens up she’ll actually enjoy herself. Maybe it’s a mindset.
It’s not a mindset. That much is made clear when exactly thirty seconds of bodies brushing against hers and foggy lighting and thrumming baseline and the scent of grain alcohol and all of everything starts making her skin itch, like she wants to peel it off. Her head is starting to hurt from all of the noise and she kind of feels like throwing up but also kind of feels like that would just make it worse. She’s completely uncomfortable as she pushes through the crowd towards the front door. She’d much rather be with Steve and Nancy, even if it means dealing with their smoking, than exist in this place without them for any longer.
They aren’t on the porch.
They aren’t anywhere outside.
Robin can’t find them.
Shit.
Robin presses back into the crowd after a moment of mental preparation and looks frantically around the kitchen/dining/living room area. They aren’t there. They also aren’t in the basement where Mike and the rest of the kids are playing DnD (so that’s why they’re here, not for the party). They aren’t upstairs in Nancy’s room, or Mike’s, or Holly’s, or Nancy’s parents’. They aren’t in either of the bathrooms. Robin returns to the ground floor to scan it one more time and nearly whimpers when she still doesn’t see either of them.
She feels like crying. Her entire body is thrumming with a painfully static energy. Her hands flap nervously at either side of her (she has to ignore many strange looks. She knows she’s weird, other people don’t need to point it out for her). Her skin is hot and uncomfortable, itchy in a fiery ‘too much touch’ way. Her ears hurt from the loudness and the complexity of noise here, her head spinning from trying to decipher the hundreds of voices that surround her. Her nose is assaulted with sour alcohol and salty sweat and it makes her nauseous. She discards her now-empty solo cup in the trash in the kitchen. If she drinks any more she’s probably going to be sick.
Robin is starting to get frantic. Steve wouldn’t just leave, would he? And this is literally Nancy’s house, where would she have gone? Unless they left together and went to Seve’s house to have sex or something? Or maybe they’re hiding somewhere? But why ?
Robin is suddenly aware of a salty something invading her lips and stinging slightly against her tongue and-
Oh.
She’s actually crying.
“I’m gonna head to the bathroom real quick.” She excuses herself to no one in particular, then slips back through the crowd and up the stairs to the second floor bathroom where she changed into Nancy’s entirely too tight and too itchy clothes over spring break. She doesn’t bother turning the lights on as she enters, but locks the door. She needs to not have anyone interrupt her right now. She leans against the counter, stares into the sink through blurry eyes and watches her tears fall into the porcelain. She’s having what she recognizes is probably a panic attack. Her breathing is sharp and ragged. She feels sick. She wants to go home. She wants Steve .
Robin paces back and forth across the bathroom, letting her hands flap wildly and her head jerk backwards, over and over and over again. She’s done this when she’s upset for as long as she can remember. Her dad calls it a ‘quirk’. Her mom calls it immature. She doesn’t have control over it; it’s just something that happens.
The lack of stimuli in the bathroom, the dark, the thick wooden door dampening the sound of the party outside, the slight chill in the air, a reprieve from the hazy heat of so many bodies in close quarters, all contribute to how fast she’s able to recover. Or, at least, how fast she’s able to stop panicking. She splashes her face with cold water and her breathing, her heart rate, are under control. Mostly.
“Robin?” A voice sounds from outside the door. Nancy’s. Oh, thank god.
“Yeah, it’s me.” Her voice is raw from crying.
“Steve and I were looking for you. Someone said you were kind of freaking out… You okay in there?”
Robin nods, remembers Nancy can’t see her. “Yep. All good. Just need, um. Need five more minutes?” It’ll probably be more like ten.
“Okay, well… I can stay right here outside the door, okay? So you can find me when you’re ready.”
“Yeah, okay.” Robin’s voice breaks as a fresh round of tears comes on. Happy, this time. Relieved?
She goes back to pacing. Closes her eyes. Lets her hands resume their flapping. She accidentally bumps into the counter in the dark and recalibrates. Smacks into a wall. Adjusts again. Her hand crashes into something on the counter and it goes clattering to the floor, shattering on impact.
Robin’s eyes fly open. Oh, shit. She just broke something.
“Rob, you okay in there? I heard something smash.” Nancy’s voice again.
She’s going to be so mad. Or her mom is. Or her dad or Mike or someone is going to be so mad -
“Just, uh,” she lets out a soft whine, her heart speeding up again and her eyes filling with tears once more. Shit shit shit shit shit shi-
“Robin, if you broke something, don’t worry about it. Seriously, are you okay?”
Robin lets out a soft sob. She doesn’t know what to do.
“Robin, I’m seriously starting to get worried.”
Robin sobs again. Takes in a loud, shaky breath. She’s trembling.
The lock clicks open without warning and then Nancy’s there, bringing loud and bright and smelly with her. “Sorry, that lock is really easy to pick. I figured you might want some help.” In the glow from the doorway Robin can make out what exactly it was that she broke: an expensive looking vase. There were obviously a bunch of flowers inside, because they’re now strewn all across the floor and there’s a puddle of water steadily expanding across the tile.
“Nancy, I am so, so sorry.” She waits for Nancy to get mad, to yell, to tell her that she’s never allowed inside her house ever again.
“Rob. Seriously. It’s okay. I mean, my mom isn’t going to be happy, but I’ll buy her a new one. No worries, I promise. You’re good.” Nancy’s words are muffled, like she’s underwater. They barely register in Robin’s brain.
“I’m sorry,” Robin whispers again, “I’ll fix it.”
“No, Robin, there’s no fixing this. It’s fine .”
“No. I can fix- I can…” Robin starts collecting pieces of vase off the floor. She can fix this.
“Stop, you’re gonna cut yourself. I’ll go get the broom.” Nancy takes off downstairs again. Robin continues scooping pieces of ceramic into her hands until there’s none left on the floor. She stands awkwardly in the middle of Nancy’s bathroom for another minute before, somehow, her brain decides that she can’t be here anymore, and the next thing she’s aware of is Steve helping her into the backseat of his car and then walking (being supported) up the steps to her house. She’s still clutching the broken pieces of the vase in her hand, determined to make it better.
She drops them onto her desk before Steve tugs her into the bathroom to brush her teeth and wipe her face with a damp washcloth, and she vaguely registers feeling nauseous, and then Steve’s tucking her into bed, and someone’s telling her she needs to drink water, and then she’s asleep.
—————
Robin wakes up the next morning with a pounding headache and a churning stomach. She finds a couple of Tylenol and a full glass of water on her bedside table, probably left there by Steve, and downs the meds before chugging the rest of the water. It’s a little warm after sitting out all night, but it’s still exactly what she needs.
It takes four hours and three tubes of gorilla glue, most of which ends up on Robin’s hands, before the vase starts to resemble what it looked like before Robin broke it. It’s nowhere close to perfect. She walks out to the field behind her house and picks the prettiest bunch of flowers she can find to tuck into the vase before returning to the Wheeler’s.
She hesitates at the end of the driveway. The vase isn’t nearly as pretty as it was the day before. It’s lopsided and spiky in places where the ceramic was too broken to be fixed and there are strings of glue hanging off of it all over. She probably shouldn’t be returning it like this. She really should’ve just bought a new one, but it would’ve cost her entire last paycheck plus some and she really can’t afford to spend that kind of money right now.
She places the vase on the stoop, rings the doorbell, and flees.
——————
She gets a call from Nancy that afternoon.
“Robin.”
“Nancy?”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Do… what?”
Nancy laughs. A real, deep, delighted laugh. “ Robin .”
“ Nancy. ”
“I’m serious. Thank you. It’s beautiful.”
Robin toes the carpet on her bedroom floor. Her face is hot and her throat is dry. “You don’t have to say that. It’s nowhere near as pretty as it was before. The flowers kinda hide the worst of it. It’s really bad, I know.”
“No, it’s not. It’s beautiful, ” Nancy reassures, “Robin, I’m serious. It’s so pretty. I prefer it this way. It’s unique and homey. And even if it wasn’t pretty - which it very much so is - the fact that you spent the time to fix it and pick those flowers makes it such a special gift. I love it.”
Robin’s blush grows. A smile creeps up on her lips and she runs a hand down her face to stop its growth. “Thanks.”
“Of course. Hey, are you free this evening? We could get together for a movie or something.” Nancy sounds genuinely curious, like she actually wants Robin there.
“Uh, Steve and I actually have plans…” Robin chews on her thumbnail as she waits for Nancy’s reply.
“Oh. Uh… maybe tomorrow, then?” She still sounds like she truly wants to see Robin, and it hurts so bad that someone actually wants her just when she isn’t available.
“I have a late shift at work tomorrow. I’m sorry, Nance, I really am. I’m not trying to make excuses. I know it sounds like I am, but I promise I’m not. I really do want to see you, I’m just busy, and-” Nancy cuts her off.
“Robin, it’s fine . Is there a time you are available? We don’t have to watch a movie. We could go for ice cream, or just walk around the park. I really don’t care what we do, because it’s not the thing itself that matters. I just want to see you.”
“Right. Okay. Yeah.” Robin flips open the calendar on her desk. “I’m working tomorrow morning, too, but I’m off at one and then I don’t start again until six. We could meet then?”
“Yeah. That sounds great, Robin.”
“Okay, uh, so I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Wait! Where are we meeting?”
“Is the park good? My house is within walking distance if we want to head back there, and there’s an icecream truck that always parks there on Sundays.”
“Yeah. Okay. I’ll see you at the park tomorrow at one fifteen or so.”
“It’s a date.” Wait, what?