Work Text:
The van was blasting some horrendous rendition of a 70s song as it rocked into Nancy’s driveway. The music had a deep base, complementary of the fact that it was playing what she guessed was just a touch louder than max volume (Dustin had rigged the contraption to ignore the imposed volume limits, much to the annoyance of everyone within a four-mile radius). Had it been a few hours sooner, coming up on sunrise rather than a bright midmorning, Nancy probably would have scolded Steve and told him off for waking up half the neighborhood. As it was, she had no choice but to press her lips in a thin line and swing open the side door.
The scent of leather and mechanical grease clung to the ceiling, overwhelming Nancy as she stepped inside. Seeing her make the entrance, Jonathan twisted the volume nodule down to what was only slightly louder than Nancy deemed acceptable. At least one of them had such decency. In front of her, Steve shifted in his seat to face the back, eyes trained on Nancy’s.
“Morning,” he whistled as she sat. Jonathon smacked his arm, a clear sign that he did not appreciate the gesture. Steve swatted his hand away, but the look of resolve that overcame his face indicated that yes, he understood how Jonathon didn’t enjoy him whistling at the man’s girlfriend. “What’s the story?”
Nancy huffed. “Nothing new since last time. Don’t you think I would have called if something came up?”
Jonathan shrugged at this, his eyebrows knit together. “Don’t call. You can never be too careful, Nance. You never know who’s listening.”
That was a red-faced lie and she knew it. They all did. They knew exactly who was listening, at every waking hour of every waking day. They were trapped like rats in a cage, the pawns of whatever higher power was choosing to keep the threat that was Hawkins, Indiana at bay. They’d grown used to it, after so many months.
The quarantine order had come three weeks before Nancy was supposed to leave for college. She’d been accepted to Emerson’s school of journalism, in Boston, and she had intended for that to be a fresh start. She could be a new person, once she was out of this hell hole that had raised her. She was finally supposed to escape.
Boston meant freedom. Boston meant living beyond just survival. Boston meant exploring-
Well, she wasn’t quite sure what she’d be exploring. But that was exactly it. She didn’t need to know, because Boston would have allowed her to figure it out.
Then they’d built the metal fences and constructed watch towers and Nancy’s dreams of a new life were strangled at the root. No more freedom. No more exploring.
She was stuck in Hawkins indefinitely, just like every other poor soul in the town. No one in, no one out.
Working at the WSQK was a forced compromise, but a compromise nonetheless. She liked it fine. It was the closest she could get to journalism, and if she closed her eyes her work felt maybe like something near writing exposes and margin briefs and less like being perpetually, eternally stuck.
The group was fine, too. Jonathan was her boyfriend; obviously, she loved him. Maybe he could get a bit annoying with how… Possessive he could be. And, sure, he said the wrong thing at the wrong time way too often. Yes, okay, maybe he didn’t trust her much either. Maybe every time she thought about them together—their future, the kids they’d have, inevitably growing old together and grasping wrinkled hands at wrinkled hands as they slowly faded away—gave her a slight sense of impending dread, but.
They were in love. So she loved him. That was how it worked.
Steve had been a bit more complicated. The history between them left an ever present wall of unspoken messages that proved to be a road block, their first few months. But she knew it was true that they wanted different things out of life; Nancy had accepted it years ago. But the quarantine had left them all a bit stir crazy—lockdown goggles, maybe—and it seemed like Steve’s obsession had amped up to full force. It had taken a brief interlude a few summers ago, and Nancy had assumed that there was a budding romance between him and Robin. She’d hoped that would have been the end of whatever Steve had been trying to reach. But he and Robin came out the other end aggressively platonic, and Steve had reverted right back to square one, much to Nancy’s dismay.
Robin, admittedly, Nancy knew criminally little about. The two had what she could only describe as a work friends relationship; they spoke, of course. They joked together. They’d complain about the boys’ antics through coveted teasing and sarcasm. She had seen Robin’s mysterious, nonchalant demeanor slip the past few months and the layer of outgoing hyperactivity peaking through. It had been nice to see her grow like that. But… Nancy didn’t know the girl.
What was more, Nancy had a sneaking suspicion that Robin was annoyed by her, for some unknown reason. There was nothing the other girl had specifically said, but… Something was off in their interactions. Like Robin’s smile was forced, and her laughs were strained, and Nancy couldn’t quite place what it was.
Oh, well. To live and let live, she supposed. All she could do was pray the girl came around eventually.
Steve and Jonathon fought, of course. Who were they without backhanded comments tied to every sentence? A constant competition of manliness, ongoing contest of who could out-chivalrize and out-gentleman the other. Ironically, more often than not, it led to them entirely neglecting the women in the room in favor of fueling their own egos. Nancy found it infuriating. Robin, ever the instigator, found it incredibly amusing, and loved nothing more than to egg them on.
While Robin wasn’t present to toss out jabs, Jonathan and Steve’s fighting remained the case as the van continued to march forward towards the station. They were bickering. Again. What else was new?
It was something dumb. From what Nancy could make out, Jonathon had been dredging on some sound cue for the station he’d been late on. Apparently, his chicken-squeaking was a few seconds delayed and
“Look, man,” Jonathon grumbled. “I’m just saying. They’re barely letting us keep the channel as it is. These cues are important. If the viewers think something is up, it’s our heads on the line.”
In Nancy’s professional opinion, the arguments were pointless. Nothing more than circular debates with no end, that usually only terminated because her or Robin would threaten to smack one of them upside the head. She hated everything about it.
But Jonathon was her boyfriend, and Steve was one of her best friends. So she put up with it. And that was fine.
The van, thankfully, reached the WSQK station building before Nancy had to listen to too much more of their fighting.
The first thing Nancy noticed as she pushed open the thick metal door was the bright red-and-white blinking “On Air” sign plastered to the glass of the radio booth, despite how Robin was reclining in her padded rolling chair. In the middle of a song, Nancy assumed.
Robin looked up from the mess of wires she held in her hands to greet the crew as they made their way inside. She pantomimed an enthusiastic wave, mouthing a bright “Hello!” before bringing a finger to her lips to indicate quiet.
The studio was peaceful. The cold, damp concrete building was unassuming; Nancy had hated it at first. Something about compromising the freedom of Boston for a dim box walled with technology she didn’t understand felt suffocating. But she’d learned to love it, over the months of quarantine. It was, at times, all she had.
This peace was interrupted by a frustrated groan and footsteps behind her.
“Look, I’m just saying,” the voice of Jonathon began. They were still fighting. Great.
“Shush!” Nancy hissed, bringing a finger up to her lips. She gestured to Robin, still splayed across the chair, but adjusting the microphone in preparation to give her next speech.
“Shit!” Steve cursed, jogging into the booth and grabbing a few sound discs on the way. Robin raised an eyebrow at the man, a gesture that urged him to hurry the hell up before he missed yet another cue.
That left Nancy and Jonathon alone outside the booth. A pit formed in her stomach, weighing her down and anchoring her feet to the floor. She suddenly felt very, very heavy.
Nancy knew she shouldn’t dread sitting with her boyfriend. They were in love, and people that were in love wanted to be near each other. But it was just so hard. How did people do this all the time? How was Nancy supposed to do this for the rest of her life?
— — —
The rest of the broadcast went off without a hitch, and only mild threats on Steve’s life from Robin as he panicked through the sound cues. Nancy appreciated the quiet that came from a lack of him and Jonathon getting into petty arguments. Maybe she should try to separate the two more often (or maybe she just needed to invest in a better pair of ear plugs).
“Another day, another stab at the regime!” Robin whistled as she exited the booth. “I’m starved. Who wants to grab a bite after that? I was thinking the diner off of Randolph Street.”
Jonathon rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry. I told my mom I’d be home to help with dinner tonight – Will has some appointment.”
“I gotta bail, too,” Steve sighed. “Dustin has some new tech he wants to install before the next crawl. I promised him I’d stop by to let him take a look at the van’s system.”
Nancy immediately began calculating excuses inside her head as Robin turned her gaze towards the only remaining member of the group. Except, she technically had nothing planned after work that day. And, as she thought about it… It might be nice to learn a bit more about Robin. A one-on-one conversation could make the difference between work friends and true friends.
“I can come,” she smiled at the girl.
The moment of truth came. Would Robin deny it, under the guise of some new plans she just happened to remember? Would she just push it off for another day? Would she laugh in Nancy’s face and hiss as if? (Unlikely, but Nancy didn’t trust her judgement when it came to Robin. Anything was possible).
But no. None of these happened. She gave a bright “Sweet!” with a smile that looked something close to genuine, and that was all.
Robin loaded up the car, Steve started up the van, Jonathan locked up the station building. And then they were off.
The walk to the diner was silent between her and Robin, but Nancy didn’t mind. Any silence she could grab onto, in lieu of Steve and Jonathon’s constant bickering, was welcome.
Before much time had passed, they arrived at the diner, taking a book in the corner and placing their orders with the waitress.
The food looked delicious as it arrived; mouth-watering golden fries and thick milkshakes. They dug in.
Nancy was sure that she and Robin had more in common, but as it stood, the only thing they were sure they could hold a conversation about was the two boys that connected them.
That was how she ended up in the middle of an interrogation about her love life.
Robin gave a playful smirk as she twirled a straw between her fingers. “Can’t blame me for asking! Jonathon’s a cool guy, but if I’m not mistaken…” she punctuated the pause with a dramatic sip of her milkshake. “Seems like he’s been getting on your nerves a little, maybe.”
And, well…
Robin wasn’t exactly wrong about that, was she?
Nancy loved Jonathon. She did. She did. But he was just so frustrating. All he did was fight, like he had something to prove. She could tell, however well he thought he hid it, that he was insecure with their relationship. He would ask for reassurance, then deflect, as if she was crazy for even insinuating that he needed the confirmation.
Plus, he didn’t trust her. He didn’t approve of her. Nancy Wheeler was nothing if not hard-headed and strong willed and willing to put up a fight. She tried to pretend their little arguments didn’t bother her, but knowing he was embarrassed when she stood up for something… That was hard for her to forget.
Sometimes it felt like she needed things he just couldn’t give her. Sometimes, it seemed like he wasn’t even willing to try.
“I love him,” Nancy asserted. Because she did. She had to. If she didn’t love him, then what did she have left?
Robin shrugged. “You can love him, and not be in love with him. You can just stay friends. Nothing wrong with that.”
“Yeah?” Nancy snorted. “Well, you’d know about that, wouldn’t you? I still have half a mind to ask you what happened back a few summers ago between you and Steve. I know you too are just platonic now, but what really went down?”
Robin looked up from her drink, a failed attempt at a poker face written into her expression. Something switched within her demeanor; Nancy placed it. Hesitation.
“Me and Steve? What do you mean?”
“Oh, please. You know exactly what I mean,” Nancy giggled. Robin was playing oblivious? Something had definitely gone down.
“No, really,” she bit the inside of her cheek. “Nothing happened between me and Steve.”
“If you think I’ll be jealous or something, I promise. That ship has long sailed. It’s not like I can judge you for it, either. We all make questionable decisions sometimes. I’ve made plenty, and Steve is just another drop in the bucket.” Nancy took a pause to chew another fry. “If you’re gonna drill me about Jonathon, I can’t return the favor?”
This got Robin to take a breath. She shifted her weight, leaning forwards on the diner table and propping her elbows up thoughtfully. Something was clouding her eyes. Uncertainty? Unease?
Fear?
“Nancy, I promise you,” Robin spoke. “Nothing was going on between me and Steve.”
Nancy often knew when to back down. She knew when to accept what she was given and move on, however dissatisfying the result. But she also had a journalist’s instinct, through and through. She had to know what Robin meant. She had to.
So, Nancy elected to play the skeptic.
She raised an eyebrow but kept her vision trained on the girl in front of her. “Really? No offense, but just saying ‘nothing happened’ isn’t a very convincing argument.”
She shrugged, continuing to play aloof. “He’s just not my type. Not much else to say.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying.” Nancy had set her up with the perfect trap. Here. She’d admit it. She had to. Robin would admit that fine, yes, she’d had feelings for Steve. Even if they had dissipated now, it would quell the ever-persistent thirst for knowledge that roared within her. She’d get the truth.
But the fire in her eyes roared brighter. “Listen, Wheeler, I don’t know what you’re getting at, but just drop it, okay?” And, well. That hadn’t been what she was expecting. Was that… Pain, laced into her voice?
Nancy didn’t understand why it was that big of a deal. Steve wasn’t some jerk. It’s not like she was trying to humiliate Robin! She was just trying to bond over their love lives. That was a perfectly acceptable thing to do.
So why was Robin so skittish?
“It’s really not that big of a deal, Robin. I used to like him too. It’s not that embarrassing to admit. I don’t understand why this is so hard for you!” She said this last part as a joke, with the bite of a laugh. Robin didn’t read it that way.
Her face fell. “You think this is easy?” She leaned forwards. Her voice was a stern sort of quiet, forceful and sharp. “Look. Not everyone is like you. I’m not like you. Maybe it isn’t that hard for you to just say you found some guy cute, but we aren’t all the same. Like I said, Wheeler. Drop it.”
Robin’s tone had a venomous edge. Nancy had no clue why the girl was fighting her on this. It really, really wasn’t that big of a deal. But Nancy Wheeler was a fighter. This only motivated her deeper, rather than having the intended effect of deflection.
“Then teach me, Robin. What am I missing here? Seriously?”
Robin stared at her. A test. She knew what game Nancy was playing. The question was, would she give in?
But then the edge of defiance in her stare dropped just as quickly as she’d adopted it. Robin sighed, resignation etched into her tone. She looked around the diner, and after confirming no one within earshot was paying attention, she leaned in and dropped her voice.
“You’re gonna do it like this?” She asked coldly. “Fine. I like girls. Steve has never been a thought in my mind. Not like that.”
Oh.
Oh, shit.
The weight of the sentence took a moment to register. It bounced around in Nancy’s head before she could pinpoint exactly what the girl had meant.
Robin liked girls. Robin liked girls. Robin liked girls. Robin didn’t like Steve, she liked girls, and Steve wasn’t a girl, and so Robin didn’t like him because she liked girls.
Her chest was pounding madly out of sheer shame. From how hot her face was to the touch, Nancy could only assume she was visibly flushed. Something akin to a ringing was building in her ears, and she felt the vague sensation of nausea.
Nancy had just forced Robin into admitting that she liked girls. Something so personal, so deep, and she’d just backed her into that corner without room for air because she’d so adamantly persisted that the girl told her (granted, Robin could have lied. She told Nancy of her own volition, technically. Wait, no, scratch that. She didn’t want to tell Nancy – it had been evident in the way she’d denied it up until the last second. Her own justification of the prying was exactly what had gotten her into this situation in the first place).
Shit.
What was she supposed to do now?
Say something, probably. Apologize. Grovel on her hands and knees, maybe. But by the time Nancy’s mind caught up with the rest of her, Robin was already pushing herself up from the table.
“I think I’m gonna head out. I’ll grab the bill. See you tomorrow, Wheeler,” her tone like ice.
And then she was gone.
— — —
Nancy felt awful. Truly, terribly, disgustingly awful.
Regardless of whether or not she’d intended for Robin to reveal her secret, that had been the outcome. Nancy had coerced her into sharing something she clearly hadn’t wanted to, and it had gone disastrously, and now Nancy was left wallowing in self-pity in her bedroom with the blinds draped over the setting sun shining in.
Just when Nancy had been trying to befriend the girl. Right after she thought she’d made a breakthrough, and was about to earn a new companion. If Robin hadn’t disliked her before, then she sure as hell did now. Nancy could only imagine how it felt, to be outed like that. Terrible, probably.
And it was entirely her fault.
Great.
Damn her curiosity.
But that exact curiosity was leading her down deeper, more dangerous paths. Ones she knew not to follow, even though her mind was a traitor and didn’t at all seem to mind boundaries.
Robin knew she was… Well, she knew she liked girls. Nancy wasn’t exactly sure how this translated. Nancy had just known she liked boys because it was the obvious choice. It was natural, and everyone else did, so she did too.
And then she’d met Steve, and that had all come easily enough. She gained something through it; status. Desirability. She was cool, in a way she hadn’t been before. But then Jonathon had appeared, and he’d liked her, so she went along with it, and somewhere along the way they’d gotten together. She didn’t see any space in there for disagreement, or any sort of revelations to be had.
So then if Robin liked girls…
Did that mean she’d had crushes on girls? Had she ever been in love? Nancy assumed that she’d never had an actual girlfriend, but that much remained undetermined. It meant that Robin had seen girls, and thought they were pretty, and wanted to be with them. Be with them, in ways Nancy tried not to picture (because, okay, this was invasive. She shouldn’t be having these thoughts anyways. Robin was her own person, and Nancy’s friend, and this was obsessive in a way that didn’t feel healthy nor appropriate).
Nancy couldn’t find it within her to explore why she was so curious about the depth of Robin’s feelings.
But then, there was the fact that Robin didn’t have a boyfriend. Obviously. That much made sense, what with the whole liking-girls part of the ordeal. But Nancy, moreso, was enthralled with the idea of her not being tied to a man.
Nancy loved Jonathon. Of course she did. But she felt almost weighed down, tethered to a past that she’d rather move on from. Robin was
Robin was Boston. She was free, and could move on, and nothing was holding her down, because she didn’t let it. She didn’t need a man.
Did Nancy need a man?
Did she even want one?
No. Okay, no. This was not the time for that sort of self-exploration. She had to apologize to Robin, and make things right, and then she could go on back to her happy and normal life with Jonathon and accept things for how they had to be, because that was her only option.
The thought lingered in her head for the rest of the day that Robin was living proof of another option.
Nancy, for her own sanity, elected to ignore it.
— — —
The car creaked up on the winding road in front of Robin’s house. Nancy had only been here once before, when Steve had dropped her off after a radio show, but that had been months ago. Nancy still remembered the way; she’d stored it in her mind under a folder of Potentially Useful Future Information.
It was dark out, now. The street was illuminated only by a yellowed street lamp lighting the concrete. Robin’s house itself had a flickering light out front, at the top of the driveway. Blinds were drawn to cover the windows of the house, so Nancy couldn’t make out much aside from a muted glow from one of the rooms on the upper floor. Robin’s bedroom?
Before she could find it within herself to drive away as if she’d never come in the first place, Nancy swung open the door and pushed herself up. She was doing this. She had to apologize. She couldn’t be an asshole about this (or, well, more of an asshole than she’d unintentionally been already). Something compelled her to make this right. She needed it.
Her closed fist pounded against the sleek wooden door once, then twice, then three times.
Nothing but silence from the inside.
It came to her mind again that retreat would be a much easier solution. She could turn on her heel now and sprint away and no one would know any different. They’d assume it was the neighborhood kids again playing a ding-dong-ditch prank, and that none of it mattered, and that Nancy Wheeler had never stepped foot on the street.
But that wasn’t who Nancy was. She waited it out, detesting the call of comfort and familiarity within playing it safe and leaving things to be. She stayed.
The door swung open, and behind it sat exactly the girl Nancy had been expecting to see. That made it easier, she supposed.
Robin’s face fell. “What do you want, Wheeler?”
Nancy realized, looking at the way Robin’s silky hair was tousled across her forehead, and the way her eyebrows knit together in a concentrated stare, and the way freckles dusted her cheeks looked almost like specks of gold on the floodlit driveway, that she was utterly unprepared for… Whatever this was.
She felt hot. Was it hot outside? Nancy felt warm and suddenly confined, restricted to a narrow path on the sidewalk, as if the rest of the world didn’t exist. As if this was it – just her and Robin, in that moment, and nothing else.
“I’m sorry.”
“You- what?” Clearly that hadn’t been what Robin was expecting. The hesitant stare was still etched on her face, but less sharply so.
“I’m sorry, Robin. Really. About earlier today. I didn’t… I shouldn’t have pushed like I did. Obviously, I wouldn’t have if I’d known – not that it makes it okay, of course – but I never meant to make you confess something like that. It was really shitty of me. You know, I went in expecting to bond, because even though we don’t talk that much I think we could be good friends. We are similar, even though I know you said that you’re different – which you aren’t, by the way – and I never even thought that-”
Robin cut her off with a snort. “You’re rambling, wheeler. I can barely understand what you’re saying. ”
Nancy breathed a sigh. “Right. Yeah. Basically, what I’m trying to say is… I’m sorry, Robin. I never meant to force you to confess something about yourself. It was wrong of me, and I’m really, really sorry.”
The hesitance had faded entirely from Robin’s eyes, now. She looked at Nancy with an expression that, no matter how hard she tried, the girl couldn’t place.
“I know you didn’t mean it. Obviously, I mean, there’s no way you could have known. I just… It sucks, sometimes, you know? Nobody knows. Nobody can know. I’m stuck, and that’s just how it has to be. Every time I have to confront it – that I’m not normal – it’s just the same thing over and over again. I’ve learned to live with it, but that doesn’t mean it gets any easier.
Nancy nodded solemnly. She had no way to know what that was like.
Or, well… Did she?
No. Stop that. This is not the time for that.
“I really am sorry, Robin. I hope you know this changes absolutely nothing. You’re still you.” You’re still awesome. You’re still free.
Robin’s mouth folded upwards, the beginning curl of a smile. “Thanks, Wheeler, Seriously.” She paused, still lingering in the doorway, hand against the frame. “See you at the station tomorrow?”
Nancy laughed, bright and airy. Genuine. “You know it.”
— — —
By the time Nancy stepped into the WSQK station the next morning, shouts were already echoing around the building.
Robin stood in a corner, headphones on and decidedly not involving herself. As for the other two, Nancy could not stay the same.
They were standing on the other side of the room, locked in dead lares between one another. Fighting.
Again.
Upon noticing the girl entering through the door, Jonathan straightened himself out, combing through his hair and leaning forwards. “Hey, babe-”
“What are you two doing?” she asked cut him off. “Because if you two are fighting again…”
“Nance- come on! He’s doing it to get your attention. Seriously. I mean, can you believe this guy? He’s such a jerk. That’s all he does,” Jonathan hissed.
Nancy wasn’t quite sure what exactly “it” was that Steve had been doing, but it didn’t matter. There it was. The suffocation was back. Nancy’s escape, which had consisted entirely of fantasizing about Robin (Or, rather, fantasizing about the idea of it. Of what Robin represented — freedom. Not fantasizing about Robin, herself. No, of course not. Ha. Because that would be weird, and Nancy was… She wasn’t…), was overwith. She was snapped back to reality. Brutal, cruel reality.
She must have been visibly distracted, because Jonathon prodded her again. “Nance?” He urged.
“I’m done,” she decided with a breath.
“You- what?” It was Steve’s turn to speak up. “What do you mean, ‘you’re done?’”
She shrugged, a smirk playing at her lips. Yes. This was it. “You heard me. Have fun fighting. I’m done with both of you.”
“But-” Jonathan protested.
“Nope. I’m not doing this anymore. You’re both assholes who can’t see past yourselves. Neither of you actually care about me, and I’m not just going to sit in the middle while you try to prove your manliness. Date each other, for all I care. I’m done.”
The room was silent. Robin was staring now, too. Something within her had shifted. Sure, she was still trapped inside Hawkins, and maybe Boston was out of reach, but she didn’t need to remain tied down. She could be her own person. She didn’t need Jonathon dictating her life.
With a resolve that rivaled nothing, Nancy retraced her steps back the way she came, and walked out the building.
It was a warm day. The sun was shining, its rays falling down on the WSQK station. The long shadow of the radio tower fell over the building, shielding it from the heat.
It was calm. Peaceful, even. In a way she hadn’t remembered it to be.
Nancy heard a creaking cut through the air as the door opened again. Great. They were following her? Seriously? She was so done with-
“Nance?”
Oh.
It was Robin.
“Look,” she continued, still standing against the wall of the building. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
Nancy turned to face her, now. The warm wind was blowing her hair, sweeping it softly to the side. Robin took another step forward.
“I’m fine,” Nancy told her. And… It was true, wasn’t it? She was free. “I did it because I wanted to.”
She smiled. “Then I think that’s awesome. Really. I mean, no offense, but it took you long enough.”
Nancy smirked, leaning in to close some of the distance between them. “No, you’re right. I should have done it months ago. I realize that now.”
They were close, now. Very close. When did they get so close? Nancy couldn’t remember. All she could see was the sparkling of Robin’s eyes and the rise and fall of her chest with each second.
Nancy could feel the heat of Robin’s breath on her lower lip. Maybe that was what finally did her in.
Later on, Nancy wouldn’t be able to explain why she did it. She would have no regrets, of course, but the meaning would be lost in time. She suspected that it wasn’t even a conscious thought in her head. It was the rush of the moment. Adrenaline building and choking her and the only way out was-
Nancy kissed Robin.
It was deeper than she had expected. Stronger. Nancy pushed forth, desperate to savor everything. It didn’t feel the way it had with Jonathan; it wasn’t forceful. She wasn’t trying to prove something. She could simply just be, and it was beautiful. She never wanted to leave this moment.
Jonathan and Steve were probably still inside. They were probably still fighting. Nancy knew that, eventually, she would have to address it. She would need to pry herself from Robin’s strong arms eventually. But, at that moment, she didn’t care.
Nancy had been right, before – nothing else mattered. As far as she was concerned, the world was just them. Her and Robin, in the tall grass against the brick wall of the station, basking in the sunlight. They would figure it out. That much, she was sure of.
For now, this was all she needed.