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It had been building for a while, their connection– little glances when no one else was looking, the way their personalities complimented each other so well. It seemed, to them, that in the long run, they were inevitable.
They met (properly, that is, outside of the hallways of a school filled with nothing but stereotypes, or a battle which resulted in the destruction of Starcourt Mall and the near deaths of several of their friends) for the first time in the spring of 1986, when a string of bizarre murders once again disturbed the peace in Hawkins.
Robin was working at Family Video with Steve when Max and Dustin had burst through the doors, a mildly panicked expression on Dustin’s face and thinly-veiled concern on Max’s. The murders, apparently, had been blamed on Eddie Munson, and now he’d gone missing. Eddie was an easy target in a place like Hawkins– he didn’t care about fitting in, he played Dungeons & Dragons (‘they worship Satan’, whispered people in town), he did what he wanted to do and didn’t apologize for it. So of course, when the first of the murders (Chrissy Cunningham, who had no reason to be at Eddie’s place) happened in his own trailer, he didn’t stand a chance against the rumors.
Nancy had hated Robin at first, she was sure of it. Robin wasn’t the greatest at social cues, but after just a few interactions it had been perfectly obvious that something about Robin irritated Nancy to no end. She just didn’t know what it was.
But she was who she was, and she’d treated Robin with as much civility as she could muster against the soundtrack of her nervous chatter and the way she constantly talked about Steve. Maybe that was the reason, Nancy had wondered. Did she still have feelings for him? Surely, she wasn’t jealous. She was with Jonathan– artistic, collected, relatively normal.
But is normal what you really want?
And then Robin had assured her, in no less than fifty words, that she was definitely not dating Steve, they were just friends (platonic, with a capital P!), promise, nothing at all going on between them. Then Robin had pulled an emotional monologue out of her ass in front of the director of the mental hospital who was shutting down every other avenue in which they could proceed (they desperately needed to talk to Victor Creel, and this was the only way), convincing him to let them in despite the administrative procedures they hadn’t actually followed and the lack of proper paperwork. Then Robin had figured out how to save Max’s life in the middle of escaping said mental hospital after the director had threatened to call the police on them (they had, after all, lied to get an audience with one of the hospital’s most notorious patients). Then Robin had pulled a demon bat from the Upside Down off of Nancy’s back and held it down while Nancy destroyed it. Then Robin had wrapped her slender fingers around Nancy’s wrist, searching for comfort in her presence.
And, well, that changed absolutely everything. How could it not?
Nancy fell for Robin after that.
And she fell hard.
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At first, she hadn’t done anything with those feelings. This was the 80s, after all, and they lived in a small, conservative, midwestern town. One wrong word in front of the wrong people could land you in a whole mess of trouble. Never mind the fact that she and her friends and family had just gone through (were still going through) almost unimaginable trauma. Never mind the fact that Hawkins was being completely locked down by the military as a result of… the recent earthquakes. Or so they’d been told.
Nancy, of course, knew it was much, much worse than that.
When the first flakes had started falling, those flakes that were neither snow or ash, but an announcement of something much deeper and darker, Nancy knew that whatever had just begun by splitting the town in two was so very, very far from over.
Being trapped in a government-enforced quarantine had many undesired consequences, and one which laid heavily on Nancy’s seemingly capable shoulders was the sudden impossibility of her moving away from Hawkins to begin her studies at Emerson College in Boston. She’d been forced to defer, even had to send a letter stamped by the United States Military expressing Our sincerest apologies, President Koenig, Dean Roberts, but Nancy Sophia Wheeler is a citizen of Hawkins, Indiana, and at this time its residents are not permitted to leave unless given express permission by the Government of the United States and the Department of Defense and Miss Wheeler does not currently have this approval, and as an unfortunate result, she will not be able to attend your institution this fall. But if she really thought about it, Nancy didn’t think she could’ve just left like that, anyway, not after everything that’d happened over the Spring Break from Hell.
She and the rest of her class year still graduated from high school, of course, but the ceremony felt incomplete– so many of their peers had been lost, or injured, or moved far, far away, before the lockdown had been enforced.
During the summer that followed, though, things had, generally, settled down. They hadn’t seen any sign of Vecna since the night the rifts had opened up, and in the weeks following the attack, the military took steel bandaids to the roads and hills to cover up the scars. They established a base called the MAC-Z at the intersection of the cracks and built fences around a twenty-five mile radius of downtown, letting no one in or out without a justifiable reason. The Party, too, had settled into an uneasy routine, rotating between the radio station (where Nancy, Steve, and Robin had all gotten jobs), the hospital (to visit Max), the Wheeler house (where the Byers were currently living), and Hopper’s reconstructed cabin near the woods.
The radio had fallen into their hands through a kind of happy accident. After an abrupt departure by the previous host, Jimmy ‘Fast Hands’ Lee, (who had fled the station and, in fact, the town of Hawkins itself, almost as soon as the earthquake had started), the building was left open and basically unguarded until the military had casually suggested to the Hawkins Police Department that someone (or someones) should return and continue broadcasting as a way to regain a sense of normalcy and order in town. Hopper pulled some strings, which led to paid positions for Nancy, Steve, and Robin. The building sat on the top of a hill, a few minutes drive out of town, which meant it was as safe a place as any for the Party to make their plans. They converted the basement into a hidden bunker, filling it with charts and books and a projected map complete with color-coded pink and orange segments based on what each sector contained. Anything that might be useful for hunting down and killing Vecna, once and for all.
Robin had taken over the WSQK broadcast with the help of Steve and was now live on the air every weekday and occasional Saturdays (depending on the possibility of a burn at the MAC-Z and the necessity of coded messaging that could reach the whole town).
And, like many summers that had come before, a sense of boredom arose despite the unusual circumstances. Nancy, apart from her work as station manager and intermittent patrols with Hopper, didn’t have a whole lot going on.
Which left her mind free, for the most part, to think about very few things besides her growing feelings for Robin.
As the months passed, Nancy grew more and more enamored with Robin and her completely unique way of being. And unlike Steve or Jonathan, the attention Robin paid to Nancy was as unexpected as it was welcome. Neither of the boys had ever said something terrible to her, never treated her like some of the boys at their high school treated their girlfriends, but they had never really encouraged her to grow and stretch her wings on her own. They had treated her like a princess, yes, but they had never truly listened to Nancy when she talked.
Robin was different. Robin listened to her. Robin wanted to hear her crazy theories, no matter how outlandish or how relatively normal. Robin encouraged her to follow her dreams. Robin listened and added on to her ideas, fanning her sparks into flames. It was Nancy's idea to start using Robin's broadcasts as coded messages, in which Robin (under the guise of pop culture trivia or similar) would provide the details of an evening crawl to the rest of the group.
Could anyone blame her for falling in love?
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Of course they could; this was Hawkins, Indiana; it was the 80s; Nancy wasn't stupid.
So she was careful (when was she not?). She left lingering glances on Robin's eyes, her hands, even her lips, sometimes. She invited Robin over to her house for late night movies which inevitably turned into sleepovers (she had a queen sized bed, there was plenty of room for both of them). She accidentally walked too close to Robin when she passed her in the hall at the Squawk, giving her shoulder or hip a little bump. She broke up with Jonathan (they both knew that whatever they had wasn't really working; they were better off as friends). But she never said anything out loud. Just in case someone was listening.
But after nearly four months of pining, to Nancy's immense relief, Robin finally caught on. Or, at least, she finally decided to do something about it.
They were both still at the station one night when it happened. Steve had gone home, proudly boasting about the fact that he had a second date tonight (unfortunately a rare occurrence for him, and even rarer since Hawkins had split at the seams). Robin was wrapping things up for the day, making sure all the records and sound effect tapes were in their proper places, and Nancy was tidying up the office.
She was just reaching up to straighten a few stray binders on one of the higher shelves when she heard the door click shut behind her, quickly followed by a soft breath and the feeling of someone just behind her.
“Need some help, Wheeler?” Robin whispered, the puff of released air ghosting Nancy's ear.
“Oh!” Nancy gasped, turning her head to face Robin’s, which was barely a foot away from her own. “Sorry, I didn't see you there. I was just trying to– uh,” Robin’s hand was now resting on hers, and Nancy found herself unable to focus on both things at once.
“Trying to…?” Robin prompted. She was smirking.
Nancy took a shuddering breath that she did her very best to hide. “Trying to straighten up these binders,” she said quickly, cringing at the irony of the word. “But I’m not quite tall enough without standing on a chair or something.”
“Well, I’m more than happy to help,” Robin responded, voice low. “With… the binders. Or, you know, whatever else you need.”
Nancy watched as she reached up to the shelf and pushed the binders into a more upright position, then lifted and arranged the ones that had fallen on their sides. She could still feel the weight of Robin’s hand on her own, never mind the fact that Robin’s front was so close to Nancy’s back that she could feel the taller girl breathing.
Robin lowered her hand but didn’t step away. Nancy took a deep breath and turned around, looking directly into Robin’s bright blue eyes.
“Hi,” Nancy stuttered (was it normal to stumble on such a simple word?).
“Hey,” Robin replied, voice perfectly calm, if slightly amused. “Is there anything else you need help with before I go?” She bit her lip, a flash of nervousness flitting across her face.
(A cautious invitation, extended by someone who cares, deeply.)
Nancy swallowed, trying to keep her hands from shaking. She nodded slowly, not trusting her mouth and brain to work together the way they usually did, afraid she’d scare Robin away. She tried not to stare at Robin’s mouth but her efforts were fruitless; Robin's lips just looked so plump and soft.
“I–” she tried again, only managing to let out a squeak. She shook her head, frustrated.
Robin rolled her eyes, playfully reaching out and curling a strand of Nancy’s hair around her finger. She raised an eyebrow. “Just gonna stand there looking shell-shocked, Wheeler, or did you have something to say?”
The tiniest speck of Nancy’s long-forgotten hatred of Robin Buckley announced itself with defiance. “Is this how you get everyone to fall in love with you?” she asked, desperately trying to regain some semblance of control over the situation.
Robin blinked and took a step back. “Oh,” she mumbled, breaking Nancy’s gaze. “I thought, because of the last few months especially, you maybe wanted– nevermind.”
“Wait, no! I mean,” Nancy said, eyes wide. “I didn’t mean it like that.” She took a deep breath. “It’s just, I can't stop thinking about you. It feels like the world is ending and Hawkins was almost destroyed and Max is still in a coma, and practically all I can think about is what it would be like to kiss you. And I know that probably makes me, like, a terrible person or something, but I can’t help it. And it’s been getting harder and harder to hide this from you, or concentrate fully on the crawls, because we work together so often and everything, and I–”
But she was cut off by the force of Robin’s mouth crashing into hers, spurred by pure excitement and joy. “Knew it,” Robin purred into Nancy’s open mouth. She brought one hand up to trace the line of Nancy’s jaw. “You haven’t been able to keep your eyes off me since my speech at the mental hospital, isn’t that right?”
Nancy let out a strangled moan in reply, reluctant to pull away in order to respond (not that she’d even be able to form a proper sentence after what Robin had just done). But her hands scrabbled for purchase on Robin’s body and came to rest on her hips. A few seconds later, Robin gently broke the kiss.
“Are you okay?” Robin asked. “I’m really sorry for springing on you like that, I totally should’ve asked first, and if you never wanna see me again I totally understand, we can just forget tonight ever even happened, we–”
“Robin. Shut up,” Nancy choked out, cutting the younger girl off. She looked up at Robin, cheeks flushed, chest heaving. “I didn’t… wanna ruin our friendship. I never would’ve forgiven myself for destroying the best thing I’ve had since… since–no, nevermind. But,” she continued, pushing her rising emotions about that thought back into their usual box, giving Robin a onceover, “Never apologize for kissing me again. That was one of the hottest things you’ve ever done.”
“You’re telling me it wasn’t the hottest?” Robin asked, feigning offense. “You mean there’s something more attractive than me pinning you to a bookshelf and initiating our very first kiss?”
Nancy smiled and rolled her eyes. “Definitely top five,” she admitted.
Robin looked at her for a second, as if trying to figure out exactly how to express whatever she wanted to say. “You’re not a bad person for wanting a connection with other people, Nance,” she insisted. “Or for, like, thinking about me all the time.” She let out a giggle, grazing the pad of her thumb across Nancy’s lips, then grew serious again. “We all see how hard you work, how much you care about every single one of those kids, and Steve, and the others. God forbid you do something for yourself every once in a while. You know?”
“I know,” Nancy sighed, deflating a bit into Robin’s arms. “I just still feel so guilty, sometimes. No matter what I do, it’ll still be my fault.”
Robin raised an eyebrow, confused. “What’ll be your fault?”
Barb, she thought, the name creeping its way from the back of her mind and making a home in Nancy’s throat. But she couldn’t make herself say it. Her eyes wandered left, right, then behind Robin, down to her feet. She’d heard it for so many years now; from her parents, from Fred (another death, far too soon), even from Principal Higgins, over a year ago now.
She still couldn’t say it herself.
Robin’s brows, furrowed in concern, suddenly relaxed. Something dawned on her face.
“You mean Barb, don’t you?” Robin whispered, thumb caressing Nancy’s arm. Nancy nodded, tears brimming in her eyes.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Robin murmured, and the look on her face made Nancy want to cry. “Baby, Barb’s death was not your fault. You were just frustrated and you lashed out. How could you have known that there was a blood-sniffing wacko monster out there? She should’ve been safe, she was in Steve freakin’ Harrington’s backyard! And you were young–I mean, we’re still young, but you were even younger then, obviously–and you can’t blame yourself for her being taken. Nance, please… believe me. It wasn’t your fault. I swear.” She stroked Nancy’s arms, moving slowly up and down, then pulled her in close for a hug.
“Mmph,” said Nancy into Robin’s shoulder. She lifted her face off of Robin’s sweater, eyes shiny with tears. “Promise?”
“Promise.”
Nancy pulled back and sniffled. She looked at Robin, tentative, hopeful. “You called me sweetheart,” she stated.
“Yeah, I did,” Robin replied. “Did you like that?”
(A cautious acknowledgement, offered by someone who cares, deeply.)
“I loved it, Robin.”
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As the months passed by, the days began to turn colder, and like the embers of a dying fire, summer faded gently into fall. School was back in session, which meant that Robin was obliged to take a step back from broadcasting to complete her senior year. Her voice still grazed the airwaves most days, but her schedule shifted from the ritual of daytime conversations to later time slots, starting in the evening and running until close to midnight.
It wasn’t intentional, at first (she was only trying to stay up to date on any pertinent information) but Nancy began to listen to Robin’s broadcast every night, imagining that she was curled up in bed with her instead of all the way across town. After an embarrassingly short amount of time, Nancy couldn’t comfortably fall asleep without the melodic pattern of the younger girl’s speech filtering through her head.
Nancy also began giving Robin occasional rides to and from school, her house, and the radio station. Not every day (that would draw too much attention, and with everything the Party was attempting to do, attention was the last thing they needed). But Wednesdays were Robin’s night off, and nearly all of them were spent with the two of them wrapped in Nancy’s blankets, sharing hungry kisses after long days apart, the door firmly locked behind them. In the mornings, against her better judgement, Nancy would send Robin off with a graze of lips against her palm. Anything more would be scandalous if seen by wandering eyes but she was finding it increasingly difficult to keep her hands off of the girl she found both so stunningly beautiful and exceptionally intelligent. At the radio station, when they were alone, they'd kiss in the bunker, lit up in front of the map of Hawkins as they reminded each other what they were fighting for.
By mid-November the Party had completed seven crawls, and they had yet to find any evidence of Vecna.
“Where could he be hiding?” Nancy muttered during one meeting, half to herself, running a hand through her hair. She was stressed and worried and doing her very best to hide it.
Robin noticed, though. Robin always noticed.
“Maybe we actually managed to kill him?” she suggested. “We did hit him with three molotov cocktails and a shitload of lead and steel. Who could survive that?”
“An evil magic creature like him, probably, if anyone,” said Will. “As much as I hate to admit it.”
“His body wasn’t there when we came out of the house, remember?” Steve asked. “Couldn’t that mean–”
“We must just not have looked in the right place yet,” Mike interrupted. “I mean, look at all of the things the army is doing. The MAC-Z. If Vecna was dead, why would they still be so interested in the Upside Down?”
“They know something,” Nancy agreed. “They’re doing things in there, testing. We just don’t know what.”
“So we just keep going? Sneaking through the gate in the back of their trucks and hoping we find some small thing that will lead us to Henry?” El demanded, standing up and pacing around the room.
“Exactly,” Hopper stated, looking at Joyce, who nodded. “I don’t like it any more than you do. But we move quadrant by quadrant. Carefully. We report what we see. We keep going until we find that monster. And then we destroy him.”
“It’s the safest way, El,” Joyce added.
“That could take forever,” El complained. “He is probably building an army as we speak.”
“Listen, kid, I don’t know what else you want me to do,” Hopper groaned. “It’s the best plan we have, for now. So we keep following it.”
El didn’t look satisfied, but she flopped back down onto the couch with a reluctant nod of her head.
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Fall turned to winter, and winter turned to spring. The crawls continued, the search for Henry carried on. Nancy listened to every single one of Robin’s broadcasts, and at some point she must have figured out what Nancy was doing (she’d seen Nancy’s AM radio next to her bed, tuned to the WSQK frequency, after they’d spent about an hour making out and Nancy had gone for a bathroom break), because she began to play tracks that Nancy recognized instantly as some of her very favorites. The first few times, she’d thought it was a coincidence. But one night, when Robin opened her show with the words Good evening, Hawkins, a big thanks for listening in! I wanted to start tonight off with a tune for a very special someone, then played Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time just hours after they’d had an in-depth discussion about it, everything clicked into place.
A bubble of warmth bloomed in Nancy’s chest.
Robin was playing those songs for her.
Because she knew Nancy was listening.
And lucky thing that they had a meeting the next day for an upcoming crawl, because Nancy didn’t think she could’ve waited any longer to see Robin again after that.
They’d paused the mission planning after an hour or so for a few minutes of fresh air and snacks. And Nancy tried to pay attention, she really did. In fact, she was usually one of the leaders, as she could be trusted to make considered opinions. But that night, Nancy’s mind couldn’t be further from the Upside Down. Her skin felt too tight, and she was barely following the conversation as it flowed. She couldn’t stop sneaking glances at Robin on the other side of the room.
So the second the words “take a few minutes to yourself” left Hopper’s lips, Nancy shot up out of her seat like a rocket and rushed out of the basement, her shoes slapping against the tiled floor.
“Whoa, Nancy, you okay?” Mike asked, alarmed, as she all but ran out the door.
“Yep, fine! I’m good! Just need some air,” Nancy managed to call back. She walked quickly down the hallway and into the foyer, pacing small circles on the linoleum. She went outside, breathing in the chilly March air, willing it to ease her aching chest or at least help calm the storm that was raging in her mind.
It didn’t work.
She was just turning to go back inside when Robin rushed out the open door, holding Nancy’s coat in one hand and her own in the other. Nancy stared at her, eyes wide.
“It’s cold out,” Robin said, gesturing to the thin sweater that Nancy was wearing. She gestured to Nancy’s coat. “Don’t want you to catch a cold.”
“I’m alright,” Nancy protested. “I just needed to cool off.”
Robin looked confused. “Did we say something that upset you? Did I do something wrong? Or Hopper?”
Nancy laughed and shook her head. “Not at all,” she assured, warmth flooding into her voice. “Not one little bit.”
Robin didn’t look convinced. “Nance, what’s wrong?” she pressed. “You’re worrying me.”
Nancy strode up to Robin and grabbed her hand, pressing close to the taller girl to whisper in her ear. “Not here,” she hissed. “Come with me. Now.”
Robin was clearly bewildered, but she followed without complaint. “Where are we going?” she asked, Nancy pulling her along.
“Oh, you’ll see. Don’t worry,” Nancy smirked. She yanked the heavy door open and started walking purposefully down the hall. “There!” she announced, pointing to a door marked Control– Water.
“A… storage closet?” Robin inquired, more perplexed than ever.
“In,” Nancy commanded.
“Yes, ma’am,” Robin said, stepping into the closet. Nancy followed her in and flicked on the light, a dim bulb hanging above them. She shut the door behind them.
“Are you bringing me in here to murder me, or like, yell at me? Because you said before that I didn’t do anything wrong, and I can’t remember doing anything to upset you, I don’t think, but I could have forgotten, I have a not-great memory for that kind of thing, I–”
Nancy cut her off with a desperate kiss, hands flying to Robin’s face, her shoulders, then down to her hips. She stepped forward, forcing Robin back against the wall, then latched her mouth onto Robin’s neck, sucking softly. Robin let out a whimper, hands coming to rest on Nancy’s sides.
“Hey, Nance, uh,” she managed to say, heaving in a breath of the heated air that floated between them. “Not that I’m against this– at all, mind you, just– what’s brought this on?”
“You’re driving me crazy,” Nancy explained simply. “You play me songs on the radio to surprise me and bring me flowers on the weekend. You make me feel like the most beautiful person on the entire planet. I can’t stand being apart from you. So,” she added, brushing her lips against Robin’s jaw, “This is… a thank you. A kiss in a closet where no one will find us. And,” she paused, trailing off. Because saying it out loud would make it real.
Robin raised an eyebrow. “And…?”
“I think I’m falling in love with you, Robin,” Nancy whispered. “I’m in love with you, and I’ve never been happier, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Do any of us know what to do, really?” Robin replied, leaning into the kiss with a blissful sigh. “I’m falling for you too, by the way. And I promise you, we’ll figure it out. We can figure anything out. As long as we’re together.”