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Robin had been sure that the weirdest part of all this would be the actual insanity of fighting monsters from an alternate hell dimension. Or last summer’s spy thriller chaos of finding and infiltrating a secret Russian base. Or maybe even becoming best friends with Steve Harrington could be up there on the strangest unfoldings of the past year of Robin’s life.
Turned out the weirdest part was going back to school.
It had been harder at the start of the year, after the summer.
Nightmares still woke Robin up at least once a night - the haze of drugs fogging her head, the feeling of her hands bound behind her back and a nauseating, heart-stopping kind of fear coursing through her whole body, bright, blinding colours of fireworks, the revolting squelch of the Mind Flayer, the sight of one of its terrifying tentacles spearing through Billy’s chest.
But unlike the eerily uneventful rest of the summer that had followed, now that school had restarted, the weight of those nightmares wouldn’t tumble off her shoulders seeing Steve everyday. God fucking knows when Steve Harrington had become her go-to person, but his constant presence after everything at Starcourt became a calming and unfailingly reassuring reminder that the things Robin saw every time she closed her eyes wasn’t her going insane , that she wasn’t alone.
Throughout the rest of the summer, Dustin and the other kids would swing past Family Video and that had helped too. They were another reminder of how much Robin’s life had changed, and she’d quickly grown fond of their stupid, adorable little faces. She got to know the others a little better, especially after Joyce decided to move her family to California and the kids decided to spend every waking second together until Will and El moved away, coming by every other day to rent out a new movie (and Steve and Robin giving them employee discounts every time). Sometimes Lucas brought Erica and despite her smartass comments every second sentence, Robin recognised the slightly softer, familiar smile of camaraderie she’d shoot Robin and Steve when she walked into the store.
But then school had started again, and truthfully, Robin had no idea what she’d imagined walking into senior year would feel like but it wasn’t this. (It didn’t help that she’d barely slept the night before; it had been hot and the heat kept morphing into the smokey, humid, firework-blazing air of the Starcourt in Robin’s dreams, startling her awake every few hours until she eventually rolled out of bed just before sunrise.) The halls were manic - as they always were on the first day after a break - and just like that, Robin was immediately on edge. She hated crowds. She hated loud, back-to-school shrieks of delight from all these people acting like they hadn’t seen their friends in years when in reality, it was probably just a month apart spent vacationing at their family’s extravagant lakehouse. But more than anything, this year, Robin hated that the main, post-summer gossip that was richoetting around the school made all the hairs on her body stand upright.
“I can’t believe Starcourt burnt down, I loved that place!”
“I know, I hope they rebuild it. It was the only interesting thing about Hawkins.”
“Holy shit guys, did you hear about Billy Hargrove? Apparently he died !”
Robin stiffened, shoving her locker open with a little more force than necessary and immediately glancing around her, silently praying Max wasn’t nearby (although there was no way she wouldn’t hear somebody talking about it at some point during the day). So far, Max had seemed to be coping with everything oddly well, but Robin suspected that wouldn’t last long. Especially given that every stupid Hawkins High School student seemed intent on discussing it. Robin sighed, resting her head against her locker door.
Not their fault , she told herself firmly. If you hadn’t been there, you would be just as curious about what happened.
And just like that, the sound of Max’s shrill scream was echoing in Robin’s head, the sight of Billy’s body hitting the floor with an awful, final thud replaying in vivid clarity behind her eyelids, the blood all over his body making a nauseating wet sound as he slammed down onto the tiled linoleum.
The high pitched, trilly screech of the bell made Robin jump, but it also snapped her back into now, into packed hallways and first day of senior year , and with a shaking exhale, she slammed her locker shut and tried to navigate the swarms of students around her as she stuffed her textbooks in her back.
It had all been uncomfortably normal. Robin’s regular friends - not that she had that many - waved at her on the way to first period, calling “See you in band later!” as they passed and that was the where all the familiarity ended. Dustin, Mike, Lucas, and Max had promised to come find her and say hi at some point in the first week but Robin was sure they’d all be more than preoccupied trying to get through the chaos of the first ever day at high school. Steve was going to pick her up after school so they could hang out that evening, maybe go see a movie.
Just seven hours and then you can vent about your horror movie of a summer induced nightmares , Robin thought, ducking into her first period AP English class, so distracted that she almost missed Nancy Wheeler glancing up just as she walked in. Almost, but not quite. Maybe Robin’s brain had been so fixated on something, anything , that was both familiar from the summer but also equally reassuring, that the second she saw Nancy, a momentary calm settled, assuaging the turbulent memories playing ping-pong in Robin’s head.
They both froze, seemingly remembering simultaneously that the last time they’d properly seen each other had been at Starcourt. With everything.
Something in Robin’s chest tripped with hope. How had she forgotten Nancy? Nancy was in her grade and everything - maybe she could be at school what Steve was outside of school; a friend who’d been through all this insane bullshit, who made Robin feel like she wasn’t losing her mind and vice versa, maybe -
But then Nancy had dropped her gaze back down to the desk, turning away and not even saying hello. Not a single indication that they knew each other. Which, Robin supposed, if you took the ridiculous science fiction fuckery of the Mind Flayer and the goddamn Russians away, they didn’t. And unlike Steve or the kids, Robin hadn’t gotten to know Nancy any better over the rest of the summer. They weren’t friends.
Suddenly, Robin felt so tired. She kind of wanted to cry, which felt as stupid as it sounded in her head, so she grit her teeth, claimed a desk around the centre of the room, and slouched into it with a sigh. She didn’t even really blame Nancy. Not only did they have very little, very shaky common ground anyway, it wasn’t like Nancy was having a grand old time right now even without the summer trauma; her boyfriend was about to move across the country in a month, and if how the kids were taking Will and El’s impending move was any indication, Robin was sure that Nancy and Jonathan were struggling to come to terms with it too.
And so senior year had unfolded much the same. The Byers moved to California. Robin developed a crush on Vickie. Nancy became editor of the school paper. Max and Lucas broke up. Dustin, Mike, and Lucas joined the Hellfire Club. Lucas made the basketball team. Robin and Steve worked at Family Video. Almost eight months of normal.
The nightmares started to fade, Starcourt (thankfully) never got rebuilt, and Robin started to chalk everything that happened that summer to one, singular, insane what the actual fuck event in her life.
And then spring break happened.
Maybe it was the fact that most of Robin’s experience of The Weird the last time had been in the ‘scary Russian base’ realm of it all rather than ‘monsters and possession and creepy hell dimension leeching into our world’, but she swore it hadn’t felt like this last time.
Maybe it was because they hadn’t had El to save their asses until the very end. Or because the real adults weren’t around to make any of the big calls. Maybe it was because this time, Max and Nancy had almost been killed in the most haunting, gruesome thing Robin had ever seen in her life.
Maybe it was because the first time round, Robin hadn’t realised what she was signing up for. It was the most exciting thing that had happened in her boring, quiet, very carefully hidden Hawkins life, it was the first time she’d been surprised by people (namely, Steve), it was scary, sure, but also intriguing and mysterious and Robin’s curiosity had never really gotten her in trouble as a kid so why wouldn’t she follow it wherever the hell it led? She hadn’t realised what kind of shit she would stumble into - being tortured and drugged by Russians, almost being killed by the Mind Flayer, or perhaps worse than any of it, the nightmares that would plague her every night for months after.
This time, it was as though every new thing that had happened, Robin catalogued it away for something that would inevitably haunt her a few weeks from now. If she was still alive, of course.
And sure enough, she’d been right. It all came to a once again dramatic, dangerous, emotionally devastating end (with El defeating Vecna, helped by them destroying the Creel house both in Hawkins and in the Upside Down, Will’s connection to the Upside Down providing insight on how to trick him which had wound up being a distraction in the form of Eddie playing Pink Floyd on top of the Upside Down version of his trailer, Joyce and Murray showing up with Hopper alive and apparently having been kept prisoner in fucking Russia which of course led to an emotional reunion between him and El, plus an awkward mid-end-of-the-world reunion between Nancy and Jonathan, and between it all, Lucas and Will had also gotten Vecna’d, Eddie almost died like three times, Robin almost got suffocated by Upside Down vines, somehow with the help of Owens’ last sway in setting up government coverups Eddie’s name was cleared, and they all emerged from it significantly more fucked up than before).
Robin didn’t sleep for almost two days after.
The second half of spring break passed in a haze. Steve and Robin had work (and were both on warnings for having not shown up in almost a week). After shifts, they both automatically gravitated towards the Wheelers, checking on the kids who were still trying to process everything.
( Max’s depression, El still being traumatised over Brenner and the lab and 001, Will’s sexuality tumbling out into the open amidst all this other chaos, Mike, Lucas and Dustin determinedly trying to be Will’s friend again )
Somehow, they were still those sweet, wonderful kids Robin loved so much. Seeing them was still filled with laughter and fart jokes and excitable catch-ups and begging Robin and Steve for movies from Family Video and reminding El about how fun her powers could be when not triggered by sadistic government psychopaths, teasing Dustin about Suzie and the Neverending Story, Robin and Steve exchanging grins at Lucas and Max’s soft, teenagers-in-love rekindling.
With the Byers’ California house destroyed, Joyce and Hopper figured sticking around in Hawkins - especially to give the kids a chance to properly reconnect - was the best course of action, much to everybody’s relief. They checked into a few motel rooms, the state of which didn’t really matter because Will, El, and Jonathan spent most of their time out anyway.
Once again, Nancy pulled away.
It hurt a little more this time but Robin did get it. Nancy and Jonathan had a lot to talk through, and Robin really had no idea if it was a how can we fix this relationship talk through or a I think we should end this relationship talk through. Plus, Nancy had emerged from this shit show with the same haunting, lingering resurgence of trauma as Max but she didn’t have the same closeness with a group of annoying friends who wouldn’t leave her alone until she opened up about it. Robin knew Nancy wouldn’t give in that same way if she, Steve, Eddie and Jonathan were to pester Nancy into just talking to them, and while Robin had really gotten used to being friends with Nancy over the past week, she wasn’t sure how much that friendship extended to life outside of saving the world and each other from Vecna.
And so as spring break came to an end and tumbled towards the last chunk of the school year, Robin tried to mentally prepare herself for the same kind of first day as the start of the year.
Once again, it was manic. Everyone had a million things to say - particularly about the serial murders around town, about Jason’s fanatical ravings which, thanks to the spectacular government coverup, now seemed like paranoid, conspiratorial delusions.
Suddenly, everybody wanted to be Eddie Munson’s friend, the same way they’d all pretended to give a shit about Will when he ‘died’. Robin saw a group of guys in their year - guys who she’d seen at parties with Jason just a month ago - clap Eddie’s shoulder and go “I never thought you did it, man.”
Eddie arched an eyebrow and just gave them a half grimaced smile, scoffing as soon as they were out of earshot. His eyes flickered around the packed hallways uneasily, pausing when he spotted Robin at her locker. He grinned wryly at her and absolute relief cracked open in Robin’s chest. She returned it with a smirk, offering him a small salute before grabbing her AP English books, slamming her locker closed, and slinging her bag over one shoulder.
Maybe she could crash the Hellfire lunch table at the cafeteria. She’d overheard Lucas, Mike, and Dustin insisting to Max that she should sit with them once school restarted, that Eddie wouldn’t care if she didn’t join Hellfire. Surely he would extend the same courtesy to Robin.
It had to be different this time. Robin didn’t think just putting one foot in front of the other and resolutely deciding things were going to be normal would cut it with the suffocating trauma from this round of saving the world. It made her shiver a little and Ellen O’Grady gave her a funny look as they both squeezed through the doorway into the classroom. Robin ignored her, beelining for her desk and dropping into it with a sigh. It was 8am and she was already getting antsy. Maybe her ‘moving out of home as quickly as humanly possible’ fund needed to be reallocated to a ‘therapy’ fund.
That was a problem for later, she decided, tugging her copy of Merchant of Venice out of her bag and grimacing as she flipped through the last third, still pointedly unread. Finishing the play had been their spring break homework but Robin was pretty sure Mr. Syms wouldn’t accept the real reasons why she hadn’t gotten round to it as an excuse. Robin slouched in her chair, wondering how she could bullshit her way through this class with absolutely zero idea how this play ended (and truthfully, no memory of the first two thirds of it either) when someone brushed past her in the aisle to get to their desk, now-far-too-familiar perfume catching Robin’s senses unexpectedly and Robin’s gaze snapped up just as Nancy dropped into the seat in front of her.
Robin straightened in surprise. Nancy didn’t sit here. She sat across the room by the window.
But Nancy glanced over her shoulder, gracing Robin with a small, slightly shy smile that took Robin so aback that she couldn’t even figure out how to remind her brain to return it. Those few seconds of shock were all the time it took for Nancy’s smile to shift into concern.
“You okay?” she asked, soft enough that nobody would hear it, soft enough that Robin could tell she wasn’t just asking about here and now at 8am on Monday morning in AP English, but about everything else .
Robin blinked. “I -” Snapping out of it, she pushed her hair off her face. This is Nancy , she thought. You know Nancy. You saved the world together. You saved her from Vecna. You’ve worn her goddamn bra. “Yeah,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as breathless as she felt. “I uh - I didn’t finish reading Merchant of Venice. ”
Nancy’s lips tugged upwards and she arched an eyebrow. “Oh? Busy spring break?”
Robin’s dry laugh was soft, just a little puff of air but she knew Nancy had heard it. “Not really. Pretty uneventful actually.”
Nancy laughed at that, the kind of laugh that made something warm blossom between Robin’s ribs and had a few of their classmates glancing over in surprise (which Robin couldn’t really blame them for - Robin Buckley and Nancy Wheeler had quite literally never properly interacted within the walls of Hawkins High, so them having a friendly conversation was definitely noteworthy). Nancy didn’t seem to care that other people were looking, instead tugging her own copy of Merchant of Venice from her bag and swapping it with Robin’s. Robin flipped it open, eyes widening with disbelief when she saw the full play, from start to end, annotated in neat, impeccable detail.
“What the hell, Wheeler?” said Robin incredulously. “When did you find the time to do this? Were you studying in our nonexistent downtime in the Upside Down or something?”
Nancy rolled her eyes, swatting Robin’s arm. “I’ve read it before. ”
“Oh, of course you have.”
Nancy opened her mouth to shoot back a retort of her own when Mr. Syms cleared his throat to get everybody’s attention.
His speech was one that Robin was certain she’d hear replicated in every class she had today, droning on about the tragedies that befell Hawkins over spring break, how he was sure many of them were still on edge and uneasy about it all but how it shouldn’t come in the way of their studies, especially this close to the end of senior year, and if anybody needed extra allowances, this needed to be requested with the guidance counsellor and the principal.
Robin watched Nancy stiffen just imperceptibly as Mr. Syms spoke, her eyes dropping down to her desk and her nails picking at the worn corners of Robin’s copy of Merchant of Venice . Nobody else would notice. Nobody else would even think of noticing. Robin so badly wanted to reach out, brush her hand against Nancy’s elbow as soft reassurance that hey, it’s okay, we all survived. But people had stared enough at Robin and Nancy just talking to each other, and Robin was still far too firmly in the ‘freaks and geeks’ camp of school hierarchies to be clear of some asshole deciding to spread a Robin Buckley is a raging lesbian rumour-that-wasn’t-exactly-a- rumour. Something that Nancy also didn’t know. So Robin curled her fingers into her palms in her lap, chewing the inside of her cheek as she desperately waited for Mr. Symes to shut up and move on to the actual lesson (which she still didn’t really want to hear about but she would absolutely take over reliving the trauma she still hadn’t processed yet).
Eventually, things shifted past Hawkins’ annual horror show recap tailored to all those trusty residents who had no idea what had actually gone on. But even as she opened Nancy’s copy of the play, whatever the hell Mr. Symes was talking about became faint, background noise because Robin was immediately struck by the annotations scribbled over the pages before her. As it turned out, the constant surprise that was Nancy Wheeler wasn’t limited to world-ending, apocalyptic situations like having guns in a shoe box in her bedroom, or falsifying paperwork in order to sneak into an asylum. Robin had expected Nancy’s notes to be structured, relevant to school, or just the context of the play. But Nancy between definitions of Shakespearean terms, historical context jotted down in margins, sections relevant to their upcoming essay underlined, Nancy had written out opinions, reactions, notes and thoughts and ideas that Robin found far more interesting than anything printed on the pages.
There was something delicate about the curls of Nancy’s y’s and g’s, the careful pin-prick of the dots above her i’s. Something intimate about all of Nancy’s casual, personal thoughts about a centuries-old story just there for Robin to read. It occurred to Robin then that she’d only really known Nancy in those deliberate, all-or-nothing moments of having to save the world, and that this was another side of her entirely.
Robin flipped through the pages, pausing when she found a piece of a paper, clearly ripped from a notebook, paperclipped to the first scene in Act 3.
Nancy’s note was titled: ‘Hath not a Jew eyes?’ speech.
Before she could stop herself, Robin’s eyes darted down to scan the note’s contents.
I don’t think I’ll ever understand hating people just for the sake of it, Nancy had written. Robin felt like her heart had leapt into her throat and gotten stuck there.
I know this play is more complicated than that, but the point still stands. I remember when Mike first made friends with Lucas and Dad kept trying to make excuses why Mike shouldn’t hang out with him. It was only when he found out that the Sinclairs lived in the ‘good part of town’ that he decided it was fine. They were a ‘good family.’ It was such bullshit. Jonathan (and Mike) told me about some of the kids who’d pick on Will - call him queer because he was quiet and shy and they thought he was weird. Dad always used to say that as insult too about guys in bands who wore eyeliner or got piercings, he’d say “Since when did looking like a queer becoming some cool thing for kids?” with so much malice in his voice. I didn’t know what it meant for so long, but when I found out, I just didn’t get it. It’s a different way of loving someone, right? Why the hell does it even matter? Why did Lucas being black matter so much? Sure, hate people for being cruel, or unkind, or violent, or even apathetic sometimes. But what’s the point in hating people for just being another kind of human being? We’re more alike in all the things we share than we are different in all that little stuff people seem to hate each other for. Everyone seems to love using God as an excuse too, but from what I remember, God’s just meant to be love, right? Love thy neighbour? I don’t know, it’s not like I’m some reigning authority on the subject. I’m only 17 and we only ever go to church for Christmas and Easter but after everything that’s happened in the past year - Will disappearing, the Upside Down, everyone almost dying , everything with Steve and Jonathan and Mike losing Eleven, all of it - it just feels like there are bigger things to worry about. How can you hate a person for just existing?
Robin slammed the book shut, grateful it was a paperback and that the thump of it closing was muffled by Mr. Symes’ droning voice. Her heart was racing so fast, in any other circumstance, she would’ve assumed she was about to have a panic attack.
God, Nancy Wheeler really was just. Full of surprises.
Surprises that Robin was just not equipped to deal with right now, this early on the first fucking day back at school after the most hellish two weeks of her entire life when she wasn’t even sure how she was supposed to cope with the next seven hours. But now she was sitting here with the knowledge that if Robin were to come out to Nancy right now, today, maybe she’d be cool with it. And that was meant to make things easier, better , but instead it was making Robin’s head spin because all she could picture as she closed her eyes was the gentle curves of Nancy’s a’s and e’s and the words how can you hate a person for just existing? as though writing that hadn’t brought Robin’s entire goddamn world to a halt.
Every tiny little ounce of focus Robin had went from the details of Nancy Wheeler’s Shakespearean annotations to a scene in Act Two Mr. Symes had decided to recap. Thank god. She passed the hour by jotting down every monotonous point he made about the scene Robin truthfully couldn’t even remember reading the first time, and by the time the second period bell rang, Robin was almost glad that the next class she had was Math. At least it was straight forward (and she was far less likely to stumble upon deep, philosophical musings in a classmate’s notes about algebra).
But then Nancy turned in her seat as everyone started packing up, smiling at Robin with those goddamn doe eyes and dimples and maybe, somewhere in the back of Robin’s brain, the thing that clicked in that moment was obvious, but again: she was not equipped to deal with this right now. So she pushed the tiny little sparks of something starting to light all the way back to a place in her mind where they could stay firmly hidden, and matched Nancy’s smile as well as she could.
“Thanks for this,” she said, pushing the Merchant of Venice across the desk towards her. “Turns out I didn’t even need to cheat off your brilliant interpretations of Act Three anyway.”
“Why don’t you use my brilliant interpretations to study it for tomorrow then?” smirked Nancy, pushing the book back towards Robin, their fingers brushing as she did.
Robin hated this stupid, stupid book. She managed a laugh, tugging it back towards her and dropping it into her bag with slightly more care than she would with her own.
“Do you have band at lunch or anything?” Nancy asked as they both joined the lines towards the door.
“Not today,” said Robin.
“Cool,” said Nancy, pausing to let Robin go through the classroom doorway first (which, what the fuck , Robin was really tumbling towards her brain short circuiting sometime soon because it turned out Nancy Wheeler could be chivalrous as hell and Robin had no idea what to do with that) and then saying “I’ll see you at lunch then.” She gave Robin a wave and disappeared into the crowds of 9am students bustling anywhere and everywhere, leaving Robin to stare after her like an absolute idiot.
“Since when are you and Nancy Wheeler friends?” asked Ellen O’Grady.
Robin considered smacking her judgemental little face with Nancy’s copy of Merchant of Venice. “Since spring break,” she said instead, turning away from Ellen before she could reply and trying to remember where the hell her Math classroom was.
The cafeteria was worse than the before-school hallways had been. God, Robin well and truly could not wait to graduate from this place. Dumping her tray of mystery meat goop, some undetectable form of carbohydrate, and jello that looked like an odd greeny red colour that she didn’t even want to discern the flavour of down onto a table, Robin let her bag fall to the ground with a thump and dropped to a seat.
It occurred to her that it looked kind of pathetic sitting here on her own. In her periphery, she could see some of the band kids claiming a table, but Robin wasn’t sure she could stomach the “So what happened to you all break? You like, vanished off the face of the earth?” questions so she promptly looked away. A few tables away was the Hellfire Club, their intense, passionate conversation making Robin smile a little. It was just Eddie and another couple seniors right now, the kids still on their way from their last class. Eddie must’ve felt someone’s gaze on him because his eyes circled the room before landing on Robin, unease immediately softening into relieved recognition. He smiled - not a wry kind of smile like earlier, in the hallway, but a real, sweet, genuine smile - and Robin caught movement in the corner of her eye, glancing over in time to see Nancy taking a seat opposite her and giving Eddie a wave.
“Hey,” said Robin, unable to hide the stupid, puppy-like earnestness in her voice.
“Hey,” Nancy returned with just as much warmth. She nodded in Eddie’s direction. “Glad he’s not getting too much shit from everyone.”
Robin glanced around quickly, lowering her voice. “Yeah, well. The government coverups are always creepily remarkable, huh? And the people in this damn town love not thinking for themselves, so.”
“Careful Buckley, or you’ll become the town conspiracy theorist,” teased Nancy.
“Oh, wonder where that might be coming from,” Robin shot back with a grin. “Not like we’ve lived through like, five different real life conspiracy theories or anything.”
Nancy picked up her own carton of jello with a revolted expression. “Jesus Christ. This literally looks like they could’ve had a processing factory in Vecna’s lair or something, what is this stuff?”
Robin almost spat out the unfortunate sip of water she’d taken, snorting with laughter.
“Classy Robin,” said Dustin, seemingly appearing out of thin air beside the table and making Robin jump.
“God, you need to wear a bell or something!” she hissed, whacking his arm. Nancy just rolled her eyes, pushing her tray away a little and resting her arms on the table.
“How’s your first day back going?” she asked, voice a little gentle in that big sister way that made Dustin, Mike, and Lucas immediately soften a little from the Big Gruff Teenage personas they were clearly trying to adopt.
“It’s fine,” said Lucas with a shrug. “Kinda weird. They’ve already given us so much homework.”
“You guys doing okay?” asked Robin. “Where’s Max?”
“Guidance counsellor,” said Dustin. At Nancy and Robin’s alarmed faces, he quickly added, “She’s fine! She just wanted to get some extensions on a couple essays.”
“You guys don’t need that too?” said Robin.
“Nah, Nance helped me with mine last week,” said Mike, shooting his sister a grateful look.
“And we copied his,” said Lucas, grinning. At Nancy’s suddenly stern expression, his grin dropped and he hastily said, “Not like, copied. Used as … a reference point.”
“Uh huh,” said Nancy, arching an eyebrow. “Sure.”
“I hope Joyce gets Will and El re-enrolled soon,” said Mike, fiddling with the straps of his bag. “It’ll be cool to have the whole Party back together again.”
The sweet adoration for his friends was clear in his voice and it made Robin’s chest warm with her own fondness for these goofy kids. God, they really were just too good for everything they’d been through.
A piercing whistle cut through the cafeteria, snapping all their gazes over to the Hellfire table where Eddie was leaning against his chair.
“You guys coming or what?” he called. “Wheeler, Buckley, stop stealing my protégés!”
Nancy scoffed and Robin flipped him off, but they both gave the kids an encouraging little nod.
“Go on,” said Nancy. “Mike, I don’t have anything with the paper today so I’ll give you a ride home, okay?”
Mike nodded. Dustin seemed to be struggling to produce something with his bag, and Robin opened her mouth to tell him that once again, no, no matter how elaborate and intriguing a character he made for her, she would not be joining Hellfire, when he dropped a thin stack of crumpled pages onto the table next to Robin’s lunch.
“And this is …?”
“My French homework,” said Dustin promptly, giving her a puppy-eyed, toothy grin.
“ No -” Robin began but he was already walking backwards towards the Hellfire table.
“Just check it for me!” he shouted over the loud chaos of the cafeteria. “I’ve got it next period!”
“ Why the hell would I - ”
“ Thanks-love-you-byeeee! ”
And then he’d turned his back on her, already swept up in whatever passionate conversation was unfolding amongst Eddie and the others. Robin glowered daggers in his direction before dropping her eyes to the homework he had unceremoniously dumped before her.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she muttered, snatching it up to peer at it properly. “Christ Henderson, conjugate your damn verbs.”
“Is French your secret best subject or something?” asked Nancy, sounding both amused and curious.
“Huh?” Robin lowered Dustin’s homework slightly so that she could see Nancy’s face. “Oh. No, not exactly. I don’t even take it. I just … speak it.”
Nancy’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “What? You speak French?”
Robin laughed with slight embarrassment, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks. “Yeah. Couple other languages too. My dad’s French so I’m kind of fluent.”
“ Fluent ?” echoed Nancy, her jaw dropping. “That’s so cool , how did I not know this about you?”
Robin shrugged. “I mean, I guess we sorta skipped the interesting facts part of getting to know each other. You gotta go from 0 to 100 when you’re saving the world together, right?”
Nancy’s smile was a little softer this time. She knocked her foot against Robin’s lightly. “Touché.”
The place where her bare ankle had brushed Robin’s suddenly felt like it was on fire. Those little, meaningful sparks started to reignite in the back of Robin’s head, the words how can you hate a person for just existing? once again making Robin’s breath snag on the edges of her ribs.
Not the time , she told herself firmly. Whatever lightbulb-type epiphany wanted to go off in her head really needed to wait until she’d at least survived this first day. Until Nancy wasn’t sitting right in front of her, tugging an article for the paper out of her bag to edit as she ate as though she and Robin sitting together in easy, comfortable quiet was a normal, everyday thing.
Robin hoped it became a normal, everyday thing.
That prickle on the back of her neck, the slight lurch in her stomach at a too-cold breeze or the sound of clock ticking from a classroom, or even just someone shouting too loud, all felt like it eased a little with Nancy, the same way it did around Steve, or the kids. Nancy’s joke back in English about a boring spring break, her easy quip about the jello looking like something out of the Upside Down -
Robin had truly underestimated just how much easier dealing with all of this would be having someone around who had been through it all too.
“You okay?” asked Nancy.
Robin startled. Oh shit , she must’ve been staring. But Nancy didn’t seem perturbed, just had a gentle look on her face.
“I’m glad we’re friends,” Robin said before she could stop herself. Shit, maybe she needed a smack in the forehead with Merchant of Venice.
But Nancy’s face broke into an absolutely brilliant smile, one that made Robin’s heart swoop so low into her stomach, it felt that ridiculous kind of fluttery. Oh fuck.
“Me too,” said Nancy. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was gonna get through today on my own. I figured if I didn’t get to talk to you or Eddie at least once, I was going to wind up having a clock-induced panic attack in the girls toilets or something.”
Robin bit her lip. “I was thinking the same,” she admitted quietly. “It took so long for me to get back to some kind of normal after last summer, I already knew this would be so much worse.”
Nancy took a deep breath, fiddling with the plastic seal of the jello tub. “Look,” she said, so quiet that Robin had to strain to hear her. “I’m uh - I’m not good with letting people in. Not even the people I’m closest to, just ask Jonathan and Steve.”
“Nance -” Robin started, already unsure what the hell to do with wherever this was going.
“Don’t worry, this isn’t gonna turn into a big emotional thing,” Nancy said quickly, shooting Robin a grin. “I just wanted to tell you that I want to let you in, so if I start to pull away, don’t let me okay? I don’t think I realised how badly I missed having people around who knew me - really knew me - until spring break and I don’t wanna let myself fall back into pretending I’m good on my own. I’m not gonna get mad if you call me out for being a distant asshole or something.”
Robin laughed, but she also let the fuck it part of her brain take over and reached across the table to squeeze Nancy’s hand for just a second. “Okay,” she said. “Steve and I were gonna get pizza after he finishes work. D’you wanna come?”
The relief on Nancy’s face was palpable, but she still seemed a little guarded. “Are you sure? I don’t wanna … you know … interrupt.”
“ God Nance, how many times do I have to tell you? There is truly nothing going on between me and Steve, never will be. Platonic with a capital P, remember?”
Nancy gave her a long look with that unnerving Nancy-Wheeler-budding-journalist-extraordinaire level of determined intrigue in her eyes. “Why?”
Robin’s mouth went dry. “Huh?”
“Why aren’t you and Steve dating?”
Robin was halfway hoping a goddamn gate to the Upside Down would open beneath her so that one of those creepy Mind Flayer vines could latch around her ankle and yank her away from this conversation.
Shit, shit, shit.
“We’re just … not,” she said weakly.
Nancy raised her eyebrows. “You’re just not ,” she repeated.
“Mm hm.”
“Steve’s a great boyfriend,” said Nancy, and there was a soft reminiscence in her voice that made Robin’s stomach jolt uncomfortably. “Us working out isn’t a good example - I was awful to him, which I’m sure he’s told you.”
“He hasn’t,” said Robin, to which Nancy looked a little taken aback. “He just said that you were going through a lot back then and the relationship didn’t work out.”
“Oh,” said Nancy in barely more than a breath. “Well, that’s what I mean. I broke his heart and he hasn’t even told his best friend a single bad thing about me. He’s such a good guy and you’re both already so close, and you’ve both been through all of this bullshit together.”
“I know, I know,” said Robin, her knee bouncing anxiously. She was worried it would bang on the table and send their lunch flying everywhere but she couldn’t keep still. “It’s not … look, Nancy, it’s hard to …”
“I just want to make sure it’s not me getting in the way,” said Nancy before Robin could finish. Robin tamped down the near hysterical laugh that threatened to bubble past her lips. Those sparks in her head were near impossible to ignore and oh Jesus, the fucking irony. “Because I’d be totally okay with it. I’ve never seen Steve be so real and sincere and himself in the whole time I’ve known him more than he is with you.”
“I really don’t think I’m the one he’s interested in right now Nance,” said Robin in a desperate attempt to deflect.
Colour rose to Nancy’s cheeks. “I mean, he said that he would date you back when we first broke into the Creel house,” she fired back, sounding a little defensive. Almost immediately, she winced. “Shit. I probably shouldn’t have told you that.”
Robin groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “No, it’s - I knew that already. He told me he liked me last summer, the night everything happened at Starcourt. That’s not -” She took a deep breath, forcing herself to look Nancy in the eye. The open, honest curiosity in Nancy’s expression made Robin want to look away instantly. She willed herself not to. “Listen, Nancy,” she said and she knew she hadn’t quite managed to hide the shake in her voice this time. “I love Steve. I do. He’s my best friend in the whole world, he knows me better than literally anybody else, and I know what a great guy he is. But we’re not dating. I’m not interested in him like that and he knows it. He’s known it for almost a year and he’s not pining after me, that’s not what this is.” I hope , she thought. Maybe it was that sinking unease that hooked itself into her chest suddenly that made her say, without fully thinking about it, “So he’s all yours, okay? I’m not even in the picture.”
Nancy had a funny look on her face that Robin couldn’t pin down.
How can you hate a person for just existing? rang through her head like church bells.
Even then, she couldn’t say it. Not here, not on the first day back at school, not when Robin had just started to count on the fact that she and Nancy were friends.
Because maybe philosophical musings on a hastily scribbled note Nancy had written a year and a half ago might not translate to Nancy’s current opinions on stuff like this. Maybe Nancy was cool with it in theory, or from afar, but would be weirded out by Robin having worn her clothes, slept in her house, be sitting this close to her now.
Robin knew this was panic, the spiral of what-ifs, what-ifs that had been wiped away by whatever Russian drug she and Steve had been given and led to her big, terrifying secret tumbling out in a disgusting bathroom stall. But there was no Russian drug right now, and it wasn’t just her and Nancy, sitting on the floor with the world ending right outside the door. They were at school, in the cafeteria, where anyone could hear and Robin really didn’t think bare minimum coping with today included coming out to Nancy Wheeler.
“Okay,” Nancy said finally.
It should’ve been relief Robin felt, knowing the conversation was over.
Instead, her eyes burned. She looked back down at Dustin’s homework, the letters blurring a little.
“So I’m not interrupting a date or anything if I come get pizza with you guys tonight?” asked Nancy.
“Not even remotely,” promised Robin with a tight laugh. She managed to catch her breath, exhaling slowly and letting Dustin’s messy scrawl come back into focus. “Why, uh … why don’t we invite Eddie too? And Jonathan?” She braved a look at Nancy, who immediately smiled when Robin’s gaze met hers.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “It’ll be good for Jonathan to have some friends in Hawkins who aren’t his ex-girlfriend and her ex-boyfriend.”
Well shit , once again.
“Ex-girlfriend?” Robin echoed. “I didn’t realise you guys -”
Nancy bit her lip. “Yeah.” She shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. We talked about it a lot once he came back and we both knew we’d drifted apart. It wasn’t messy or anything, and we still love each other a lot. Just not like that anymore.”
“You really are the poster-girl for healthy, amicable breakups, huh?”
Nancy rolled her eyes, kicking Robin under the table. “Shut up. Check Dustin’s homework.”
Robin huffed over-exaggeratedly. “I’ve only read half a page and I already know it’s pointless. Steve’s gonna force me to help him study this weekend, ugh. ”
“Well, maybe we can all get together and have a study day or something,” said Nancy, her eyes still looking at Robin with a careful, gentle kind of warmth. “The kids too, god knows they didn’t do any work over break. You can help Dustin with French. I can help you with Merchant of Venice. We can both help Eddie with that History test he really needs to pass.”
“There it is,” Robin said, smirking.
“There’s what?”
“The proof that when she’s not running around saving the world, Nancy Wheeler is a nerd -”
“Oh my god -”
“I can’t believe a week and a half ago, I was watching you shoot Vecna in the face with a shotgun and now you want us to spend the weekend studying Shakespeare.”
“We still need to graduate !”
Robin laughed. Properly, easily, without hesitation or caution or attempt to cover up something real. Because that whole concept - saving the world a week ago and having to focus on finals coming up now - was just so ridiculously insane that Robin couldn’t help but be overwhelming grateful Nancy was sitting here experiencing it with her.
Eddie too, from across the room.
Jonathan, when he got re-enrolled.
At some point, Robin knew she couldn’t keep hiding from Nancy, would have to tell her the truth about why she and Steve weren’t a thing. She’d also have to sit down and face those little, lightbulb moments in the back of her head, sparking like when you hotwired a car, lighting a fire of warmth and comfort and adoration that seeped through Robin’s entire body and she knew what it was, what it meant, had known from Tammy Thompson and Vickie and now, the way Nancy smiled at her over Dustin’s French homework and Upside Down jello.
But not right now.
Right now, Robin could just exhale and realise she’d already made it through half of the first day back at school.