Chapter Text
"Hello."
Robin looks up from her Mar's bar to a girl who looks slimy, but not in a creepy way. Just…goopy, like someone had played a nasty prank on her.
"Need. Find home."
"Oh, jeez," Robin whispers to herself as she sits on the curb in front of the payphone, waiting for her dad to pick her up. "Kid, where are your parents?"
The girl's face scrunches in pain as she plays with the frayed ends of her pink dress, wiping away at the dripping blood from her nose. Some bum from the trailer park probably forgot they had a kid again.
Robin sighs as she shrugs off her jacket and offers it up to the kid, "Here."
The girl stares at her wide-eyed, frozen, unsure of what to do.
"Well?" Robin asks, shaking the coat, and smiles as the girl swipes it. Yeah, she's never going to see the damn thing again; she really spent a pretty penny on the buttons and patches adorning it.
"Warm," the child says as she shrugs it on and nuzzles into it, the cold wind still biting her nose. Robin pats the curb for her to sit on and lets the kid settle before she eventually drags them both to the police station in the morning… too much of a scare with the last missing kid.
"Y'know, I wanted to go bald when I was younger," Robin says jokingly, trying to make conversation and making a shaving motion over her head.
"Papa. Responsible." The girl says, fidgeting with the zipper up and down. "Discipline."
Robin winces at the mess she stumbled into. "Well, guess that answers one of my questions."
Robin's still grounded after the dance stint, but maybe if she makes the kid look cute for her dad, she can bum the night before the inevitable. "Ya' have any siblings? I always wanted a sister, but at least my parents knew how poor one kid makes ya'. Killed that dream real quick."
"Siblings?"
"Y'know, siblings," Robin says with a wave of her hand, making a gesture of two kids walking on her palm.
"Mike. Nancy?"
"Yeah, the Wheeler kids." Robin snaps her fingers, and the kid jumps unwillingly. "Sorry. Ah, jeez, sorry."
"Fine," The girl whispers back, going quite once more. Robin leans back and forth, rubbing her legs. Good going, Robin says to herself under her breath.
"Not much of a talker," Robin asks. The girl shakes her head side to side in trade. "Figured."
Oh dear god, what do you even do in a situation like this? It's a kid, not like stranger danger is a thing, and it could be worse. She could be home alone for the millionth time this break, but she wanted to get some candy and a pack for her dad; she got the candy bar and kid instead.
"You?" El asks with a nudge.
"Me?" Robin says, pointing at herself, looking to her left and then her right in case she's mistaken, much to El's delight: "Names Robin, like the bird."
El looks at her in curiosity, and Robin stares right back.
Thankfully, their staring contest is put on pause as she spots Dad's Dodge Dart pulling up through the haze. Robin shakes the snow that has built up on her sneakers and swipes at El.
"Well, c'mon," Robin waves for her to follow, and leans through the car window, patting for the lock, "This is…"
"El." Eleven murmurs.
"El'," Robin says as she jingles the lock til it clicks.
"How do you do, fellow traveler," Richard says with a tip of his imaginary hat. Robin tries to yank the seat forward as her dad looks at El with worry, but it doesn't budge. "She'll have to sit in your lap, kiddo, since… You know when."
"I'm sorry, jeez, how many times do I have to say it. I promise to rebel against the system responsibly," Robin says as she plops into the passenger seat. El wriggles her way around Robin, and her cold hands land on Robin's sides, sending a shiver down her spine. "There's the middle seat—" El digs herself deeper into Robin's chest. Okay, guess she has a leech now.
"Jeez, the cold is getting to ya'," Robin says as she subtly inspects El's arms for bruises and holds El just as tight when she spots some faded yellow splotches. Her dad looks from the corner of his eye to El, eyebrows pinched in concern. Robin shakes her head at him, a problem for the morning.
"If you could have any meal, right now, what would it be?" Robin asks, rubbing El's back as her dad starts to pull out of the parking lot and back to the house.
"…Waffles," El murmurs into Robin's chest.
"Waffles it is," Richard says as he taps the wheel. "We should have some Downyflakes in the freezer."
El grumbles discontentedly for reasons Robin can't pinpoint; alas, beggars can't be choosers.
"Feel better," Robin asks as she shuffles into her dad's old Fleetwood Mac shirt and boxers as they make their way out of her restroom and to her room. El subtly shakes her head like a dog to get the water out of her ears.
El wanders around the remnants of Robin's ragged room, and just for a moment, Robin is insecure about the lack of everything. Yet too much of her at the same time, but El places a hand on her old David Bowie poster; one of Robin's "cousins" had mailed it to her as an early Christmas present.
Robin yanks her closet open to find the spare pillow and blankets Kate left last time to hide her wince at the thought of everything that remained post-cleansing being a hand-me-down.
El, however, looks at Robin in question, tilting her head. "Eyes."
"David Bowie, my dad collects all his vinyls," Robin says as she turns around to throw the spare pillow onto the bed. "I've been eyeing this used cassette from the store off downtown."
"Music."
"Music," Robin points to El's Blondie shirt that swallows her, and flicks up at El's jaw playfully.
"Music." She says it's something new, something to be discovered, but bangs her head frantically with excitement and starts mumbling out, "Should I stay. Should I go?"
"The Clash, good taste child o' mine," Robin says with a wry smile, but rushes to the side of her bed, and scrounges through her drawer for her well-loved Sanyo cassette player. "Come here," Robin says, making a grabby motion toward El and gently adjusting the sides of the headphones so they don't slip off El's El'shead. As she presses play, Diamond Dogs croons out, and Robin forms a twist of a smile at the pure glee that runs through El's face. Poor fucking kid, deprived of good music.
El flops onto the bed, muttering along, cute, as Robin kneels on the floor beside her bed, chuckling.
"Home." El mumbles sleepily, pulling a blanket to cover her face. The heater never really reached her room, so Robin threw another blanket over El just in case.
"Yeah, we'll get you home in the morning." Robin murmurs and tucks El in tight, who clutches the Sanyo like a lifeline. Robin turns off the light with a beginning of a hum and yanks the bedside lamp chain as she picks up where she left off from the night prior.
The wisps of Rebel Rebel bleed through as Robin rereads One Hundred Years of Solitude til sleep takes her. It's homey, it's warm, and Robin doesn't remember ever having anyone sleep in her bed other than her parents.
And well, Barb.
In the morning, she wakes up to a cold, empty bed and wonders if the weird girl she met was just some odd, vivid dream.
"Do you—" Robin says mid-chew of a bowl of cream of wheat, cringing at the crunchiness. Nothing screams healthy than a crunch in something that is meant to be soft.
"Don't talk with your mouth full," her mom says, dropping her bowl in the sink, and hurrying out of the kitchen, pointing to her dad. "She gets that from you, and please Richard, don't forget the trash tonight."
"I thought we had a new servant for that," Richard says, the goop clinging to his beard, and leans over to Robin, secretly whispering to her, "I'll get you a new book if you do."
"No bribing in my house, all deals are legal around these parts." Her mom says with a faux southern accent, rolling her eyes at them both.
"I wouldn't be late if we didn't have… and she's gone," Richard begins, but is harshly shut down at the sound of the slammed door. "Come on, otherwise we're going to be late. I'm working a double, so please get the trash; your mom is probably going to forget all about it."
Robin slurps the remainder and rushes to grab her bag. Her dad was still fussy about the damage to his car and how her bike wasn't meant for a vehicle like his.
"Have you seen my jacket?" Robin shouts as she hurries down the front steps, rechecking her backpack, "Where the hell did my Sanyo go…"
"Just use mine! Hurry up, or we're going to be late," Her dad shouts from the driver's seat.
She wonders, though, as she shrugs into the flannel coat from the wall hook, where her Sanyo went, and resigns herself to her cruel fate and poor memory.
Listening to her dad's Billy Joel cassette for the seven-thousandth time, and his horrible rendition of Vienna. It completely slips her mind to ask her Dad about El.
"Tomorrow night?" Kate says, plucking her reed as they walk to the band's storage room. "You Me. Billy Idol, I got this shit imported, Robin, it'll really rock your fucking world."
"No dice, " Robin says with a mock salute, "I'm a loyal patriot through and through."
"You're fucking full of it," Kate says with a nudge as they wait for the storage room to clear out, "Imported. Straight from the UK."
"One, I lost my Sanyo. Two, I don't have a stereo because my parents refuse to have noise louder than their authentic hippie shit due to their shit sleep schedules, and three, I am still grounded." Robin says, as she taps her finger with every point of her fucked up nerd life.
"Then sneak out and come to mine," Kate whines as she leans her head back and grabs at Robin's arm. "Are you going to make me enjoy this all by my lonesome?"
"You believe too much in how my parents sleep like the dead," Robin says with a deadpan as she shakes Kate off and plops her French horn next to the others. "Hey, do you think he'll let me switch to trumpet?"
Kate gasps, and Robin's straight face falters for a second as Kate looks at her like she killed her dog. "Kidding, of course."
"You switch to trumpet, and I'll personally make sure your parents know about that time you stole their weed for last all-state."
"I'm kidding, jeez. Can I not jest? Am I not here for your amusement?" Robin says haughtily and taps her hands.
"Enjoy a Friday with me, please?" Kate pleads, and Robin feels herself wilt a bit. Kate never really did this before Dash. Robin would bob her head, occasionally complimenting the composition, then head home and read a book until she passed out.
"What is this really about?"
"That easy?" Kate asks, and Robin gives her a look. This stinks, stinks to the high hells. "It seriously did arrive…but I wanted to go to a party and if you cover for me—"
"—Called it," Robin says sarcastically.
"You can come."
"Thanks, but no thanks," Robin says with a wave of her hand. It was a pity invite. She'd rather not be invited at all.
"Then just stop by my place, listen to some music, make it seem like I'm there, and boom, we're in business. You can take my Ideal vinyl, even. I know you've been wanting to learn German."
Robin pauses to think about the logistics, though, her dad'll be out, and her mom will be passed out on the couch as reruns play because of her 'back pain'. That was how her Fridays have always been…well, most days now. "Maybe."
"Fuck yeah," Kate pumps her fist in the air as they go their separate ways, "You won't regret this."
Robin smirks as she trudges down the hall and to Spanish, but it falls right off her face as she passes by Barb's old locker. A frown begins to form as Nancy and Steve block it from view, giggling and kissing like a love-sick couple.
As Nancy looks away from Steve, she meets Robin's eyes for a fleeting second, and Robin rolls her eyes as she pulls her eyes away from the horror show. This was the friend that Barb left her for. Some preppy girl who ditched her for Steve Harrington? Some fucking friend.
She trudges through the halls; the clatter of music and high school despair runs its course. Robin's main goal for the week is to pester the trumpet players in front of her, to teach her everything they know before she finalizes her transfer. She was getting bored with the French horn, Spanish was getting duller by the day, and she needed something to keep her from going crazy before she graduated.
She thinks she's home free to enjoy her Friday by her lonesome and re-watch Space Odyssey and the other French pieces her dad still had from his heyday, but Kate shouts at her to wait up.
"Seven. Tonight." Kate says, partially out of breath.
"Maybe, no promises."
She rushes to her room past her knocked-out mom, only to find a little gremlin with wide eyes, significantly less goopy, on her bed, holding a paper plate with Eggos.
"How did you…"
"Home," El says as she shoves another piece of waffle into her mouth. Throwing the Sanyo at Robin's feet. "Dead."
"I…" Robin tries, but all she can stare at are the crumbs and syrup that are for sure all over her sheets. She yanks the plate out of El's hands and drops it on the floor, and ignores El's shout. As swipes at the blankets of crumbs.
"Bad men. Looking for me." El whispers as if it were a secret.
"I get it, CPS sucks, cops are shit, but you can't just—" Robin runs a hand through her hair, and tugs it slightly at the fact that she'll have to wash the sheets before bed. "—wait, who let you in? Does my mom know you're here?"
"...No."
"Okay, well, but you can't stay here either. Where do you live, huh? I'll drop you off on my way out."
El frowns and, confusingly, points downwards.
"Not. Home."
"Home."
"We're full, no strays allowed."
El huffs at that, "Food. Clothes. Home."
"True but—"
"Protect," El starts and jabs Robins' chest.
"We live in Hawkins. The most dangerous thing here is when there's ice on the steps. Try again."
El raises an eyebrow, then tilts her head in response, and Robin feels gravity give way as she shakily floats up off the ground. Robin feels the air leave her lungs and fights the overwhelming dip in her gut as she goes airborne.
"Oh my god." Nope, she shrieks as her whole body is pressed against the popcorn ceiling. What the hell, what the hell. "What the actual fuck."
El promptly drops her, and Robin yelps as she hits the ground hard.
"Honey?" She hears her mom call out.
"I'm fine, just fell on something," Robin wheezes as she lies on the ground trying to catch her breath.
"How do you—" Robin whispers excitedly, Oh my god, there's an X-Men in her house, "—do that."
El face pinches, "Special?"
Poor kid can barely fucking talk, but Robin is great at talking; her parents always tell her she never shuts up. "Okay uhh…"
El lifts her hand again to demonstrate, but Robin crawls forward and slaps it down. "No. No powers in the house."
El looks up at her and frowns.
"Words, please." El shrinks in on herself and opens her palm, but Robin waves her hand to block El's psychic waves. "I think I'll actually throw up if you do that again."
El sighs and sprawls on her bed as Robin takes a deep breath in, and they come to a standstill. There's a kid with superpowers. An X-Men, a bona fide Captain Marvel, though she didn't hear a crack of lightning or the magick words. Just silent focus and control.
"Were you raised in a test tube or something? They should've taught you to talk before they dropped you off with Xavier," Robin says as El peers up and slaps at her in frustration.
"Not. Important."
"No Xavier? Got it, how about Frankenstein? Doctor who made—" El wasn't an abomination nor a monster; she was just a new form of life. Evolution. "—A man, come back, you sure talk like him at the beginning."
El nods frantically at that, then looks confused, and Robin groans. "We're getting nowhere, shit."
She's learned four languages and is attempting to learn Latin. She could play charades with a partially mute girl… except she sucks at body language, and Robin gathered some old scraps of paper and color pencils. She watches as El doodles men in blue coats and a man with white hair shooting at them on the pages. Violently, bloody.
"Bad Men?" Robin says with a grimace as she taps the page.
El nods as she crudely draws what Robin presumes is the two of them. She grabs another pencil and draws a house around their stick figures. "Safe."
Robin huffs, rubbing at her arm, "Glad I can make you feel safe."
"You. Lonely." El says, and Robin tries not to wince at that scathing mark.
"Okay, yeah, keep rubbing it in, why dontcha?" Robin says, turning away in embarrassment, "Plus, I'm not that lonely; I have two whole parents." Robin waves two fingers in front of El's face. "Two whole ones."
El frowns. "Lonely. Cold. Safe."
"Oh, I wasn't lonely, I was just—" That snowy night, it must've looked like Robin was all alone, too. Robin crams that feeling of dread down where she can't see and focuses on the task at hand; that's a problem for future Robin. Chronic loner gets caught by psychic kid more at ten, shut up, shut up. "—it's not important. How long have you been on the run for?"
"Long," El says forlornly.
"So these bad men…" Robin waves that off and runs a hand through her hair, "They're hunting you down, and they want to—" Kill? Test. Use? "—capture you again, but you need to seal this door close?"
El nods at that, "Yes. Find. Mike."
"Mike, as in Mike Wheeler?"
"Yes. Friend."
Robin tilts her head to the side at why the hell the Wheelers are involved, but they did tend to stick their nose in every crevice of their side of the suburb. Although she has school in the morning…
"It's late, El." It's Dangerous. Robin wonders if the evil men know about her, too…what they'd do to her.
"Mike." El whines.
"Fine, we're going to bike by and see if he's there, and we'll part ways, but if it's too dangerous, we're hightailing out of there. Got it?"
"Got it."
Robin opens the door, checks for Yvonne De Carlos' voice and her mom's snores, but El tugs on her shirt as she shuts the door. "Hightail?"
"It means leave. Go." El frowns but concedes, standing behind Robin, waiting. Robin lifts a finger, making a shush motion, and opens her bedroom window.
"Well?" Robin says as she jumps out the window, holding her arms out for El.
El throws herself, but as she lands in Robin's noodle arms, Robin lifts her as if she weighs nothing; the kid was as light as a feather. Robin holds her a bit tighter as they make their way around and to her bike at the side of the house.
Robin lets go of the handlebars as they cruise down the hill and deeper into the suburbs, the houses getting nicer and nicer as they make way, as Robin listens to El's direction. Robin swears they go in a circle at one point, but it's the blind leading the blind out here. She always thought she'd get princess cooties if she were near Nancy for more than a minute.
"Stop."
Robin slams on the brakes and backpedals so they don't swerve out. And as she looks, she spots a sea of officials' cars. "Shit."
"Shit," El says, and it sounds so childish.
Robin playfully swats at El and lightly reprimands, "Don't repeat that. Bad."
"Sorry." Robin can tell El's not telling the truth, but she lets it slide.
"Tomorrow it is," Robin says, about to rush back home before anyone spots them. That is, until El flings herself off the back, running past Robin and through the Wheelers' front lawn.
"El, come back, you can't just, dammit," Robin yelps as El brushes the imaginary dirt off her arms and walks to the front of the Wheelers' house. Oh, they're so going to get caught.
Robin accidentally stumbles into El, who stops at the front window and looks through the curtains at someone. Robin looks through as well, and lands on a lovesick Mike Wheeler. Oh brother.
"We have to go, you can reunite with your boyfriend when the cops aren't bugging his place," Robin says as she keeps looking at the surrounding cars that were still on, but no officers are in sight, and lets El have her moment with her "friend." Friend. No one looks at their friends like that.
Well. She looked at Barb like that once, years ago…in a friendly manner, of course.
She notices the windows on the other side at the front ripple, "Shit, come on, El. We have to go."
"But—"
"It's not safe, we have to go now."
"No. Mike." Robin puts a hand over El's mouth, muffling the screams, and El squirms and bites, but Robin doesn't give in.
They flee into the night, as Robin swerves out of the street and through the dirt paths. The sound of yapping officers trails them as they run through the open yards and out to the forest. It's eerily quiet when they cross the tracks.
"Don't run off like that."
"I hate you," El says as she slams her fists against Robin's chest, and Robin feels a pressure in her chest as she's slammed into a tree.
"I don't want you to fucking die, you dingus," Robin wheezes. "It's fucking Wheeler, not something worth being caught for."
El stands over her, her eyes burning with hatred. "Well? Gonna finish me? Or were the agents going too?" Robin taunts.
El stomps off through the forest, and Robin curls in pain. Fuck…her bike.
"Fuck." Robin shouts, hearing the birds' flapping echo through the forest.
"You can't do that again," Robin says as she shakes her mom's old muscle relaxant pill bottle into her palm. "Alone at least."
El turns to look at Robin, whose cheeks are tear-stained. "Not hate. You."
"I know, emotions suck," Robin says as she dry swallows the pill.
El curls up, "Sorry."
"Come on, promise me," Robin said, extending her pinky. "Don't leave me hanging. These pinky promises are a sacred thing."
"Promise?" El says sorrow dripping, but hope too, to see that dweeb again.
"Downright a fealty to you, milady," Robin says as she reaches under her bed and puts on a Space Oddity—familiarity yet new, something soothing that'll help the kid. It'll let her stop crying and slamming her fists against Robin's chest, and as much as she hates the big guy, she hopes to God it helps El.
"What. Fealty?"
Robin blows a raspberry, maybe they need to read a thesaurus and start from scratch; damn, kid, needs to express herself outside of tantrums and broken words.
She looks at her meager books, crammed in the bottom of her closet, and plucks Sir Toby Jingle's Beastly Journey; they can have some fun before they get into the nitty-gritty. "You ever heard of knights?"
"No. Paladin." El says, tilting her head in confusion.
"We'll start small," Robin says as she waves the book, dropping the needle as she walks towards their bed.
"Keep the door locked no matter what, my parents can't know you're here," Robin whispers as she finishes getting ready, sifting for her rings.
El nods, not even bothering to look up at Robin as her finger hovers over the sentence in an old picture book.
"I mean it, El, you can't leave this room if I'm not here."
"Promise."
"El! What is my one literal rule?" Robin shouts as she sees El on the living room floor in front of a static TV.
"But—"
"My mom could come back any time, I, uggh," Robin groans, hands running down her face as she shoves El down the hall and to her room. "I don't ask much from you—"
"Lonely. House."
"I can't exactly take you to school."
"Mike."
"Go then, go run to Wheeler, I didn't even ask for you," Robin shouts, lifting a hand.
"Fine."
"Fine!" Robin shouts back as El slams their bedroom door. Robin screams in frustration into the couch cushion.
"I'm sorry," Robin says as she steps into their room after dinner with a napkin full of scraps.
"Friends don't lie."
"I am sorry though. I don't want my parents to spot you and—" Robin fidgets with her rings,"—I care about you. You're just…so young. I don't think the bad men looking for you will care who gets in the way. And that means my parents. Me."
El looks at her, confused, and Robin wonders whether she realizes how much of a mess they are in, really. "You should be in fucking school, making friends. Doing kid shit, not being hunted down by the government. And fuck El, I'm not even sixteen yet, I can barely fucking sneak you dinner, we're lucky enough that my parents don't give a single fuck about me."
El throws the sheet off her and sits on her knees, looking up at Robin in shame. "I don't want to say this to guilt-trip you, but I wish it were anyone but me who found you. At least they could've kept you safe."
"You. Want. You." El says shakily. "Not. Weapon."
"You are not a fucking weapon, and whoever put that idea into your head can suck a fat one." Robin rambles, pressing her palm to her forehead.
"Mouthbreather," El whispers teasingly, which makes Robin giggle.
"Yeah, mouthbreather."
"I can't," Robin says as she clamps her lock shut, ignoring Kate, and beelines to the entrance.
"You are always busy, what's new, but Robin, you got an actual invite. Plus, we haven't hung out in literal months—"
"I just can't." Robin knew inherently that they weren't even really friends anymore, just a shared class, really. She's fine being alone again; there was never any drama that trailed with it. Mostly… she has a superhero in her room. She wonders if she's Batman or Robin, DC or Marvel. "I'm fine doing nothing on Halloween, but handing out candy to kids in an empty house."
Kate scoffs at that. "No one likes being alone."
Robin's learnt to be okay with it, after Barb, Mr. Hauser, after being the weird nerd, and she's not even really alone anymore. She has El, and El doesn't mind Robin's ramblings, interests, or her horrible pitch as she plays Corey Hart over and over again.
She's not alone anymore.
"—And, don't even get me started on how you switched to trumpet, you traitor," Kate says as she jabs Robin's shoulder, knocking her back to reality.
"Ouch, hit me where it hurts, why dontcha," Robin says as she playfully clutches her hands to her chest, and walks backwards.
"Fine, Ms. Antisocial—" Robin acts as if she got shot and grumbles as Kate shoves her, making Robin stumble, "—you owe me. Plan your costume, nothing nerdy, or I'm giving you my old angel outfit."
"I am not dressing up," Robin groans, letting out a grunt as she bumps into someone. "Plus, I am once again busy."
"Watch where you're going," Billy hisses at her. Robin subtly uses her middle finger to scratch her eye.
Fucking prick.
"Free entry to Tina's party," Kate says as she waves the orange paper in Robin's face. "Robin, we're almost done with high school, don't you want to do something actually fun for once?"
She has enough at home. "I mean—"
"You and Samantha are going, so help me," Kate says as they go their separate ways.
"Party?" El asks as she goes through Robin's bag, pulling out all the new notes and topics she covered today. El stumbled sometimes, well, a lot of the time, but she loved everything Robin could offer. The librarian was probably sick of how Robin pushed the rule of ten for rentals.
"Not my scene," Robin says as she fidgets with the living room TV. She lifts a copy of The Clairvoyant and The Evil Dead for El to pick from—a treat since her parents were out of state for their little camping retreat back to Massachusetts.
"You can go," El says from underneath her ghost sheet and taps The Evil Dead VHS.
"You sick of me already?" Robin asks teasingly, and El shakes her head violently and rushes to hug Robin—big softy.
"Pigs can’t see under the sheet, perfect opportunity," El says shyly as she plays with Robin's rings. "You have fun. Win."
"What would your story be? You can't just walk up to Mike and his gaggle of nerds. He'll want to see your face," Robin says sassily, and lifts the sheet to gaze at El. "What then?"
"You come then."
"And chaperone two lovebirds? No thanks."
El whines, is about to punch Robin, but Robin holds El's fist tight, "Words, El."
"Mad." El grunts as she tries to wriggle out of Robin's grasp.
"I know, but why? Am I being unreasonable here? I'm hearing you out, El."
"Miss him," El says, tears beginning to form. It breaks Robin that El cries, cries because she's angry. She's sad. She's frustrated. Robin still doesn't know what El sees in a fucking Wheeler of all people, but he makes El feel like a girl. A normal girl without powers, and as a person, if she had to guess. Robin tried her best, but it probably helped that El for sure had a crush on him.
"I know you do. I never hear the end of it." If El could write books for that boy, she would be worse than Raymond Carver.
"Miss him."
"Are you sure?" Robin asks sternly.
"Mike." So she lets El go and calls Kate. Just one night for both of them, but Robin can't shake the nauseous feeling in her stomach.
"Home at midnight, I'll leave the window open in case," Robin says once she's off the phone, and kisses El's fist. "If you get in trouble or caught, run. Run, and I'll find you."
El lets out a shriek of joy and runs through the room, chanting Mike's name—the things Robin does for the people she loves.
She is fucking going to party, dammit. Robin thinks as she covers her face with her hands.
She hates this fucking party.
Robin slinks through the place and scratches at the wings' straps that dig into her shoulders as she tries to find the restroom. Damn halo, damn wings, damn heat of the fucking house. Shitty but strong alcohol, and she can't shake the fear that lingers in the back of her mind.
El roaming the streets in search of a punk ass kid, and here she is trapped in a room because everyone around her thinks they know better, know what she wants and needs to—
"Watch it," Robin hisses, as Harrington rushes past her and out of the restroom.
"All yours," He spits back.
"Jesus, who pissed in his fucking cereal," Robin says as she pushes against the door and comes face to face with a plastered Nancy. Fuck her stupid fucking fuck luck.
"Get out," Nancy shouts at her.
"I just needed to pee, god dammit," Robin yells quietly, and points at Nancy, "Turn away, or get out, I don't care."
"Fuck you." Robin raises her eyebrows in challenge, hand on her pants button. Nancy then squirms into a ball with a flushed face, slowly but surely crawls into the tub, and yanks the curtain shut angrily. "Fucking bullshit."
Robin unbuttons her pants; she's too tipsy for this. "I don't know what Barb saw in you."
Robin expects some quippy curse or insult that she's heard through her time in Hawkins, but what she doesn't expect is for Nancy to start sobbing. "Ah fuck, I didn't mean to say that out loud, damn alcohol. I swear, Tina is trying to drug us or some shit."
"Shut up," Nancy murmurs through sobs, and Robin zips her pants up, yeah, Wheeler, this whole night is bullshit.
"Y'know, I was never really good at shutting up; it's a chronic disease I suffer from. Foot in mouth disease." Robin says hastily, and Nancy snorts at that.
"He's bullshit." Nancy groans.
"And yet you're dating him."
Nancy says with finality, "Dated."
"Guess royalty is still not enough for you, huh?"
"It's all my fault."
"You're right, probably," Robin says, like it was a fact. "That guy worships you. I don't think you even noticed that he left his posse for you."
"My fault," Nancy slurs, and Robin winces, leaning against the bathroom wall, slinking down til her ass hits the tile as Nancy murmurs to herself. "My fault. All my fault."
"I was joking, God Wheeler is the world ever not on your shoulder. This, it's just sad," Robin says, as she fingers the tiles' crannies. "No one expects you to last, to… be this perfect popular girl."
"I'm not perfect," Nancy says sleepily. "Why can't I be—"
"It's utter bullshit being perfect, Wheeler, you’ll just end up like every other girl in this town, no matter what."
Nancy chose Steve, like any other girl she knew who picked a hot boy over their best friend. Robin wants to be snarky, to be mean with Nancy. Still, it falls flat because Robin can't deny that it feels like she's talking to Barb again, from that summer years ago, when they drank vodka thinking it was water after playing on Barb's trampoline in the humidity. How Barb told her that the first summer they lived through would be the coldest. That everyone's first friendship would be their best, would shape them as a person.
"Y’know, up until this point I’ve hated you. You stole my best friend, and even then, you threw her away, but this has made me see you in a new light. You can’t fucking handle your liquor, either." Robin confesses.
"I’m the most sober person here—"
Robin can’t help but cackle. “You’re so weird, Buckley, you always glare at me, it’s not my fault—“
"Aww, you noticed me," Robin says teasingly. Nancy yells at her to shut up again, like a petulant child.
"I see you, and you hate that, don't you?" Robin says, contemplating opening the curtain to face Nancy.
"I don't get you." Nancy blurts, and Robin laughs at that even harder. "I didn’t even mean to—Barb never told me about you."
"Barb never mentioned you either, it was just so out of the blue."
"...We could've all been friends," Nancy murmurs as she looks at the curtain and to where Robin sat.
"We couldn't have, you were such a priss back then. Actually, answer me this: how do you get everyone to love you? What makes your prissiness?” Robin says, fluffing her hair dramatically, even though the curtain separates them. “So alluring to people, huh?”
“I don’t know.” Nancy blurts.
“Nah, it’s a genuine question, don’t give me that bullshit.”
“I told you I don’t know,” Nancy says, and it sounds so unsure in a familiar way that gives Robin false hope. Robin turns away from the curtain and to the door. She knew that; she thought the whole school knew that, because it never made sense to her how Nancy Wheeler, of all people, would settle. “It’s not your sole responsibility to carry all of this alone. Harrington doesn't seem to be this emotional guru, but you'd think he'd know this was eating you alive."
"You're so weird."
"If it gives you any peace of mind, you'll forget this ever happened and go back to living in that little box you put yourself in,” Robin bangs her head to the thrum of the music and waits for Nancy to say something, but all she hears is Peter Schilling through the walls.
"Nancy?" Robin asks after a bit, then pulls the curtain aside to reveal Nancy Wheeler, passed out cold. "Ah, jeez."
Robin slowly lifts Nancy, and fuck does she need to work out more. Maybe she'll pester a tuba player on Monday, but for now, she needs to get Nancy home before some perv sees her.
"Hey, I can give you both a ride home," Jonathan says with a tap to Robin's shoulder, as she's almost out the door.
"Aren't you the pervert who took photos—?" Robin asks, to which Jonathan's face flushes, and he stares at the ground. "You are, aren't you?"
"That was a misunderstanding." Jonathan stutters out.
"We're good, it's like less than a mile," Robin says with a tight smile.
"How'd I know you’d still be here?" Robin slurs as she trudges up the stairs, trailed by her own little ghost.
"It's 11:59," El whispers from under the sheet and runs her hand along the stairs' handrails.
"Almost midnight, Cinderella," Robin says, shuffling Nancy's arm a bit to get a better grasp of her as they make their way up the stairs.
”Sick?" El asks, poking Nancy's cheek.
"Just sleepy," Robin says as she gently lays Nancy down on her side, then looks for a trash can. Not that she cares.
"Go home?"
"Yeah," Robin asks, and winces as she rubs her eyeshadow into her eye, and drops the can by Nancy’s bedside.
"Did anyone else see you?" Robin asks, lazily pushing El out of the room and looking back one more time at Nancy before she shuts off the lights.
"…Just Mike," El says as they walk out and back home.
"Good."