Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Robin Buckley did not hate Nancy Wheeler. She was indifferent towards her. And why wouldn’t she? They were in the two polar opposites of the Hawkins High Social Spectrum, or the H2S2 for short.

Nancy Wheeler, how to begin to describe Nancy Wheeler? Textbook overachiever, spotless record, top grades, heavenly eyes.

Then there was Robin Buckley, band kid, nerd, lesbian.

In truth, the only reason why Robin would be relevant in The Nancy Wheeler Journal was because she was Nancy’s biggest competitor for the highest marks. Robin didn’t really care about it. Oh, but Nancy? Nancy was going to hold on to that title even if it was the last thing she did in life. It was funny, seeing Nancy Wheeler’s little pinched mouth fight back a frown whenever results were announced. Sometimes it was her, sometimes it was Robin, sometimes a draw, her face contorting in pride, dissatisfaction or barely veiled disappointment at the teacher for leaving her to tie with the weird girl who spent most of her time doodling tits on her converse.

That was, of course until Robin found her crying in the bathroom of a party beneath the sink, her smudged mascara like ink, spilling from the plume of her eyelashes and down into the dry paper of her cheeks.

Now, now, Robin wasn’t drunk (or at least she didn’t believe so). Sure, her mind was a bit hazy, her thoughts a little bit more scattered, her limbs a scrambling mess, but that was the usual. Only this time, the extra alcohol had seemed to have given her a looser tongue and very misplaced feelings, for before she could even start to comprehend what the hell was happening, she found herself kneeling in front of this girl to whom the most she could say she felt for was annoyance.

“Hey, are you ok?”

She lifted her head, pausing for a second as her mind registered where the voice was coming from.

Robin could see Nancy actively fighting back tears as she muttered, “Umm, yeah, yes.”

“Are you sure?” A crease formed between Robin’s brows as Nancy’s face scrunched up, her lips tightening and her big eyes only getting bigger. After a few seconds of staring, the sobs finally broke their way out of her chest, like an arrow shattering her ribs and hitting Robin’s own heart too at the sight of the streaming tears.

“No- I am not.” She sighed, bowing her head.

Robin repositioned herself so that both were side by side, her back against the wall beneath the wash, and wrapped an arm around the small girl’s shoulder pulling her close. She suddenly became aware of just how fragile she was, air heaving out of her lungs, bird-bones shaking beneath her grip. She leaned further into Robin’s touch, craving the warmth it offered.

“St- Steve and I broke up.” She chuckled, ad if finding the whole situation funny. “Well, I broke up with him. After he said that he loved me. After he was there through it all. And I just couldn’t say it. Couldn’t feel it.” A second round of sobs racked through her whole body, and Robin just held her closer, fearing that she was the only thing that kept her from falling apart.

“Because that’s who I am, isn’t it? I take and I take and I take, but when it is my turn to give back, I just can’t.” Nancy closed her eyes tight.” First Barb, now Steve. Why can’t I just do it? Why can’t I just be a good girlfriend?”

Nancy’s face was now buried in Robin’s shoulder, lips pressed against her shoulder. Robin enveloped the smaller, finer, lighter girl in an embrace, combing her fingers through her curls.

“It is not your fault you don’t love him. You are not obliged to love him.”

The words were quiet, murmured, but they still were enough calm Nancy little by little. “You can’t choose who you love, no matter how much you want to. And that does not make you a bad person.” Robin’s hand caressed the back of her head, the other rounding and rounding her spine.

They stayed like that for a few moments, and Robin didn’t know if it was because of the alcohol, or the dim light, or the confortable weight of the other girl’s body pressed against her own, but she found herself now drifting off, her eyes closing and her breathing evening, and then…

…

Robin woke with a start as several fists thumped against the bathroom door. She was left in a daze before remembering where she was and what she was doing. She looked around, but Nancy had disappeared from the little room, and people were already shouting increasingly obscene thing at her from the outside. With one last look, she hurried to unlock the door and rushed out, doing her best to ignore the other kids’s sighs of relief and annoyance at her. Checking the clock seating over the chimney, Robin realized just how late it was, and that tomorrow she had school.

She was still vaguely intoxicated, which would explain why she decided it was a good idea to walk home alone, in the middle of the night, drunk. At least it was only two blocks.

Miraculously, no creep crossed her path, and by the time she made it home, the lights were already out. She had promised her parents she would be back by 10’o’clock but it was already past midnight. Hopefully, she would only be grounded till senior year.

Sneaking into her room, she plopped down in her bed, not bothering to get beneath the covers, memories of the night still circling her mind.

Chapter Text

Robin was beginning to believe that that night had never happened. That she had never gone to that party, to that restroom. That she had never seen Nancy Wheeler curled up against the filthy wall, crying. That she had never held her close and consoled her. That she never felt butterflies every time she thought of the two of them, pressed together and hidden beneath the shadows, blanketing them in its grim safety.

How could it?

It was all starting to be a bit too much for Robin, so she decided to collect the data, get her facts straight, separate the real from the fancy.

It wasn’t quiet so difficult to know what had happened with 100% veracity, as any rumour that might include Steve Harrington would spread like a plague over the entire school, everyone now apparently infatuated with the idea of the king falling a little closer to the peasants reach.

Either way, Robin knew three things for certain…

Fact one: Nancy and Steve had broken up.

Fact two: it had been Nancy who had ended things with Steve.

Fact three: it had all happened in that same party where Robin thought she had comforted Nancy.

For that last bit was surely just part of the cheap-liquor-induced hallucination Robin had suffered after falling asleep beneath the sink.

It was still impossible for Robin to reconcile what her head seemed desperate on believing with what her eyes now saw as she scampered from class to class, for Nancy Wheeler was as formidable as ever, all pastel skirts, blue eyes and heart-pink lips.

Because if it had actually happened, it seemed as thought Nancy had forgotten it.

Robin hadn’t expected Nancy to suddenly care about her and talk to her and think about her. She hadn’t wanted it, nor would she ever. But something was bound to happen, right? Even if it was all a figment of her imagination, a daydream, a part of her she fought to bury couldn’t help but long for that touch, that look.

Because it made Robin feels as though she wasn’t quite so useless to the world, as though she actually mattered to someone.

She had to remind herself time and time again that they were the two opposite sides of the H2S2. That they were never supposed to interact, that Nancy would look down on the others and that Robin would be the others who in turned yearned spurned those on the pedestal.

A week went by, and then two, and Robin was almost convinced she was getting over the whole thing, rolling her eyes whenever the shorter girl would raise her hand to answer the question no one bothered listening to, and scoffing while teachers bathed her in the praise she desired. Did this girl ever get tired of her own voice?

That was, of course, until the grades of their latest exam were announced. It was for their chemistry class, which she coincidentally shared with Nancy. Robin had put quite the effort on it, staying up for long, sleepless nights going over her notes and reviewing the topics they had seen for the last fifteen years. As she went over to the board to check the results, elbowing her way through her classmates until they finally parted in her wake, she saw that she had gotten the top mark out of all the class. Ha. She was proud, because no matter what some pocket-sized princess might think, Robin did care about school, and she put just as much effort and time as anybody if not more into her grades, and she deserved it. Robin was already turning to see the expression on Wheelers’s face, picturing the small furrow between her brow, the wrinkle beneath her lower lip, when she saw her smiling from across the classroom. Or smiling as much as Nancy Wheeler could. It was more of a lower case “u”, private and reserved and sincere, forming a slightly off centred smile. A smile directed at her, at Robin, as if proud.

Robin, not knowing what else to do, grinned back.

The act apparently brought Wheeler back to reality, the spell that had fallen over breaking as she seemed to realise what she was doing, a look of horror fleeting through her stormy eyes and quickly being replaced by a pinched grimace and pursued lips. It must have been a trick of the light.

…

The day went on without any more occurrences worth noticing. Te dnd kid did his daily monologue at the school cafeteria like character in his own Shakespearean play, stepping on a at least a dozen lunch trays and rendering them unusable, Steve Harrington received like the tenth love confession of the week while still looking like a kicked puppy over his and Nancy’s break up, and Robin managed to remain under the wolves’ radar until the last period, where she was roughly shoved into a wall for one reason or another by the new school bully, a guy named William Hargrove for whom the moms at the public pool liked to swoon over like moths pulled to the flame.

Nothing, except the fact that Robin seemed unable to replay Wheeler’s little smile all throughout the day, which was starting to become annoying.

At the moment, Robin had convinced herself that it was just her mind playing smoke and mirrors with her eyes, bending reality to fit the scenarios she had created in her head, but each time she thought about it, the image seemed so stark in the morning light and busy air.

But no, because if the party was fiction then so was the smile, for Robin had no reason or evidence that Nancy Wheeler had cried and cared for her.

Better to forget it all, or she would be late for class.

Chapter Text

Nancy Wheeler couldn’t say she hated anybody. Rather, she hated some quirks of everybody. She hated the loud squishy noises made by Carol’s gum chewing. She hated the mocking glances Tommy H would shoot at the teacher’s back in order to make the class laugh. She hated the way Robin Buckley would stumble and scramble, as thought her lanky limbs were beyond her control. She hated how the corners of her moth would open up like the drapes over a theatre revealing the luminous smile.

So it was completely understandable that she would be thoroughly annoyed at the teacher for pairing them together for the most important project of the semester.

She knew Robin was smart, or, more precisely, she only knew Robin was smart.

Nancy had never really cared for anybody outside of Barb, and then Steve for some time, but she was observant enough to know who were her biggest academic rivals, no matter how odd they were, and she knew that behind that dumb grin was a girl who spoke four languages and played the trombone.

So there was no reason for Nancy to be as uncomfortable as she was at being paired off with Robin for the Spanish project.

But… No. No and no and no and no.

Nancy didn’t even remember it all that well. She had been drunk on two types of poison, and so had Robin. She probably had just done it out of pity. A girl crying in a party’s bathroom was no breaking news, and Robin would have done the same for anybody else. She seemed like that kind of person.

Either way, it was as it was and Nancy wouldn’t allow a petty misunderstanding to cost her Spanish.

Still, she couldn’t keep the little wings fluttering in her ribcage fighting to get out as Robin sat down next to her, backpack plopping into the floor and eyes alight with a wit few people expected, framed by stars of freckles.

“Hi,” Robin said.

“Hello,” Nancy looked away.