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nancywheelersgirlfriend · 1 year

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Robin goes to Nancy for help trying to date Vickie but she ends up falling for her along the way.

Practise kisses, dances etc and maybe sneak in some Nancy jealousy because that’s always fun!

thank u for the prompt, beautiful anon!! i am terribly sorry for the wait.

eternally complete (2,801 words)

“You didn’t tell me Vickie worked here.”

Nancy was proud she managed to bite down the scalding remark burning at the back of her throat, leveling the side of Robin’s lovesick face with a glare instead. Robin, of course, took no notice. Even blocked by her chunky pink sunglasses Nancy knew her eyes were laser-focused.

“I didn’t know,” Steve retorted absently from Robin’s other side, sprawled out on his stomach for proper tanning. His eyes were screwed shut against a heady Hawkins sun.

“You work here,” Robin said, and there were hints of accusation in her tone.

“I would’ve told you if I knew,” Steve said, placatingly, and he reached out a lackluster hand to bat at her elbow for emphasis. Robin seemed satisfied by this.

The girl in question - Vickie Matthews, Hawkins senior and brass section leader - was meandering her way up the lifeguard ladder on the opposite end of the pool. She swung pale legs over each rung, red hair dripping down the base of her neck. Some part of Nancy’s brain she refused to associate with helpfully remarked that she looked a bit like a wet rat climbing out of the pool like that. Nancy blamed that particular thought on the heat, as well as the one that came after it.

Robin had turned on her side to face her, stricken with a sudden anxiety she never seemed to completely get rid of. The sun caught on the bridge of her freckled nose, in between the lighter strands of light-brownish-red hair, and it made her look halo-esque. Nancy’s mouth, suddenly, went desert dry.

“You have to help me,” Robin said. Nancy blinked.

“With what?”

Robin gestured unhelpfully with her head back towards the general vicinity of Vickie, shaking her hair out like a dog. Nancy pushed her sunglasses up into her hair. Her forehead appreciated the respite from her sweaty bangs, strung out and drying incorrectly from going in the pool earlier that morning. When Robin refused to elaborate further, Nancy gestured with her own hands in a circular motion. She felt a little silly, but then again - it was difficult not to feel silly doing something stupid in front of Robin.

“With Vickie,” Robin said at last, and then furtively glanced around them, as if speaking her name aloud was some crime against nature. In the sticky, sulfuric heat, Nancy’s patience wore thin quickly. She bit back another harsh reply as a whistle sounded out through the pool. Steve jolted awake.

Vickie let the whistle drop back down to the crest of her collarbone, gesturing and shouting something inaudible at two boys who had been running by the side of the pool. When Nancy returned to Robin, she grimaced at the hazy expression on her face. Her mouth was practically hanging open.

Nancy wasn’t sure what to ask first.

“Why?” She decided on. Robin lifted her own sunglasses in a need to be taken seriously, and it made her hair stick up as if electrocuted behind the large shades. Nancy fought the urge to reach over and pat the strands down. Robin seemed on the verge of exploding as she struggled to form proper sentences. She rested a hand against her mouth, but that did nothing to block the blush from quickly spreading across her face. Realization hit Nancy like a freight train. The sick feeling in her stomach, surely, was just a product of rotting out in the sun for too long. “Robin. Do you like Vickie? Like-like her?”

“Shout it, why don’t you,” Robin muttered furiously, her blush quickly approaching firetruck-red territory. “I don’t think the whole pool heard you the first time.”

“And you want my help with, what - asking her out?” Nancy asked. She glanced over Robin’s shoulder, half-hoping Steve would be sitting up and staring back with a similarly incredulous expression. Unfortunately, he’d gone back to sleep.

“Nancy Wheeler, investigative journalist,” Robin said, voice deepening an octave as she took on gruff, Film Noir undertones. “She attacks the case just like she attacks demo dogs - with brute force.”

“Why do you think I’ll be any help?” At this, Robin had the decency to look abashed. She dropped her hand from her mouth and let it fall limply into her lap.

“Out of the three of us, you’re the only one with any real relationship experience,” Robin said. At Steve’s offended snort/snore, she was quick to amend with: “Or - positive relationship experience.” Nancy felt a little sorry Robin was so easy bashing her previous relationship with Steve, but she didn’t feel sorry enough to correct her on it.

“I don’t know how to talk to women,” Nancy said.

“You are one,” Robin pointed out helpfully. Nancy opened her mouth and then closed it. Sometimes, it was just better to go along with it.

“Okay, well. First lesson: don’t curl up into the fetal position when you’re trying to impress her,” Nancy said, pointedly looking down at the way Robin had pulled all her gangly limbs in close. Robin looked as if she had only just realized she had turned her entire body mass toward Nancy. Slowly, she unfurled her legs and stretched them out onto the patio chair. Nancy swallowed and forced herself to look back up at Vickie instead, whose face was shrouded by the umbrella over the lifeguard chair. “See? Now she’s actually got something to look at.”

“You think she’s looking at me?” Robin asked, and Nancy’s stomach performed another impressive somersault at the hope in her voice.

“I can’t see very well,” Nancy said, flopping back onto her own lounge chair and sliding her sunglasses back down. Robin shifted again in her chair, attempting to prop herself up like she was practicing for the centerfold. Nancy squeezed her eyes shut tight - it was too early in the summer to deal with that.

About two weeks of tortuous conversations with Robin about Vickie (because that was all she talked about) later, Nancy had finally found a bit of peace in the midst of a post-party breakfast. She padded around her kitchen in her mother’s slippers, pretending not to watch Robin take tentative sips of her milk-addled coffee as she poured cereal for the both of them. Often, they slept over at Nancy’s house after Steve had them over - if his couch was taken up by the kids. Sleepovers were often, actually, without the excuse of a hangover. Or a nightmare. Sometimes Nancy just liked having Robin over so that, in the middle of a shockingly cold night, she could crack open her eyes and see how Robin’s eyelashes fluttered against her cheekbones as she slept.

“So - what’re we doing today?” Nancy asked as she slid over a bowl for Robin and plopped down beside her at the counter. It took a few seconds for her to notice Robin’s lack of a reply. The other girl was stirring her Lucky Charms absently, though there was a guilty look on her face. “What’s-”

“Vickie and I are hanging out today,” Robin said all in one go, a big rush of words that, had Nancy not been so experienced in the art of Communication With Robin, would’ve been completely unintelligible.

“Oh,” Nancy said, wincing inwardly at how obvious her disappointment was. She felt a little silly about it, anyway. It wasn’t as if they had to spend all their time with each other. Just most of it. All Nancy asked for was for Robin to be at her side every second of the day - not that big of a deal. Especially in the summertime, when there was nothing better to do but lay on the kitchen floor and waste away. “Oh. That’s good.”

“I asked her the last time she came into Family Video,” Robin explained through a mouthful of marshmallow, “and you and Steve were out fixing your car. Remember - last Monday, when it broke down.”

“Right.”

“She just kept talking about how badly she wanted to see Aliens, and you know I loved the first one, so - I asked her if she wanted to go.”

“I’m proud of you,” Nancy said, but the words tasted like ash. At that praise, Robin’s face lit up like a switchboard. It only added to Nancy’s churning stomach. Suddenly, she wasn’t that hungry. Her spoon dropped listlessly into the cereal bowl below her.

“But I have no idea what to do,” Robin said, gripping the counter with a sudden intensity. “I’ve never - I mean, I haven’t - I don’t even know if it’s a date. But if it is - I have no fucking idea how to go on a date. I’ve never been on one. Obviously.”

“Obviously?” Nancy parrotted. Robin snorted self-deprecatingly and took another spoonful of cereal.

“I mean, look at me.” She gestured down her front. Nancy’s eyes traced the glimpse of shoulder bone at the edge of her baggy sleep shirt, her cracking fingers.

“Robin, you-” Nancy stopped herself, shaking her head. It was getting a little difficult to speak. “You’ll be fine.”

“You don’t know that,” Robin groaned dramatically, folding in on the counter and hitting her forehead against the granite top with a soft thwap. “Fuck, ow.”

“What are you worried about?” Nancy asked, shrugging. “You’ll just sit next to each other in the theater. Maybe brush hands with her in the popcorn bowl. Kick her foot with yours. It’s not that hard.”

“Don’t movie dates come with the implication that you’ll be-” Robin cut herself off, glancing over at Nancy with wide eyes. Her next words were whispered. “Like, making out? ‘Cause it’s dark.” Nancy’s face went up in a flush. She pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, attempting to forcefully push out all mental images that particular sentence conjured up.

“You’ll be fine,” Nancy repeated in a daze.

“I’ve never kissed anybody before.” If Nancy wasn’t so tuned in to Robin’s every minute move, she would’ve missed that.

“Seriously?” Nancy asked, immediately feeling terrible for the way it made Robin’s face drop exponentially. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I’m just - surprised.” Clearly, Robin didn’t share the sentiment.

“What if I’m a terrible kisser?” Robin asked, all shaking nerves and moving hands. The cereal threatened to escape the bowl and run onto the countertop. “What if my mouth smells like fish? What if I use too much tongue and she thinks I’m trying to eat her? What if I don’t use enough tongue and I’m boring? I don’t want to kiss like a Mormon, Nance, I’m better than that. I’m trying to impress her. Vickie’s had a boyfriend, she’s experienced - I’m going to be terrible and fuck it all up and everything’ll fall apart before it’s even begun.”

Nancy held up a gentle hand to stop her, and the words were coming out of her mouth before she even knew what she was saying.

“I’ll teach you. How to kiss, I mean.” Robin’s mouth promptly snapped shut. She turned back to her cereal and took a fast bite, face a confusing red color.

“You will?” Robin asked after a moment, muffled by marshmallow. “You’d do that for me?” I’d do anything for you. Nancy shocked herself with the intensity of that tidal wave thought, which crashed over her in a devastating mass of Robin, Robin, Robin. If just thinking about kissing her made her feel like this - what would it feel like to actually do it?

Outwardly, Nancy shrugged.

“Sure.” Inwardly, she was screaming. There seemed to be something crackling between them, before Robin looked back up from her cereal through her bangs and smiled hesitantly.

“She’s picking me up at three,” Robin said, the implication clear. Nancy nodded, took a deep breath, and got up.

They didn’t speak as they headed up the stairs back to Nancy’s bedroom, where the messy bed (proof of their co-existence) and clothes strewn across the floor (a mixture of Robin’s and Nancy’s) stood out like blaring, blinking red lights. As Nancy sat down on the end of her bed on autopilot, a worry began to uncover itself. If Robin sensed something - if she could tell Nancy’s feelings - through this kiss - what would happen?

She felt the mattress sink with Robin’s weight. A tentative hand against hers on the comforter, contact that had become second nature suddenly unfamiliar.

“You don’t have to,” Robin said. Nancy looked up, saw her stark blue eyes. God, she was gone.

“It’s fine,” Nancy said, managing a hesitant smile. “Don’t want you to kiss like a fish.” Robin laughed, all high-pitched and nervous.

Nancy glanced down at Robin’s lips. She was biting her bottom one anxiously, a silly expression that, somehow, tightened the iron-fist grip in Nancy’s stomach. She leaned forward. Seconds before impact, she felt rather than heard Robin’s sharp intake of anticipatory breath. Robin smelled like dew and milk and shower and Nancy was tumbling through the Upside-Down.

Her lips were soft, slightly chapped from absent neglect. They pressed, inexperienced, at Nancy’s own, until Nancy reached up with both hands to tilt Robin’s face. Their noses pressed together as suddenly something in Robin’s mind clicked. Her hands came up to rest against Nancy’s, holding them in place. Holding them together. Nancy tugged lightly on Robin’s bottom lip - she’d spent too much time watching Robin bite and wanting, desperately, to do the same. Robin took another sharp breath through her nose, adorably overwhelmed. She was like a furnace underneath Nancy’s fingertips, burning harshly through her skin and melting her to nothingness. If Nancy pulled back and found herself a puddle on the ground, she would’ve been happy it had been Robin. She would happy it was Robin, in any case.

When she pulled back, Robin’s eyes were a little glazed. She kept her hands clasped to Nancy’s as if forgetting they were there in the first place. The air turned tensely awkward.

“That’s why Steve’s such a bitch when he isn’t getting any,” Robin whispered, and it was so stupid and such a Robin thing to say Nancy couldn’t help but laugh. It was, strangely, on the verge of harsh tears.

“I think you’re ready,” Nancy said, clearing her throat. When she wiggled her fingers purposefully, Robin seemed to snap back to focus. She let Nancy drop her hands into her lap, rubbing palms together and trying to prolong the feeling of Robin’s warm cheeks for as long as possible.

“You’re very good,” Robin said, still as glazed over as before. Nancy was thankful she seemed so disoriented - maybe it made her blush less noticeable.

“...thank you?” Robin reached up with two fingers to press on her lips. Those blue eyes swung to meet hers, glaze clearing out and something new, unidentifiable, replacing it.

“Um. She’s picking you up at three, right?” Nancy said, shifting over to glance at her bedside clock. “If you wanna borrow something to wear - I mean. I know you don’t particularly like my closet.”

“You wear it all better than me,” Robin agreed. Nancy cut herself off. She flopped face-first onto her comforter, hoping to fake tiredness so she wouldn’t have to show her smitten face. “You really think I’m ready?”

“Yes.” Nancy’s reply was muffled.

“So - you don’t think we should, um. Do it again?” Robin asked tentatively. “Just to make sure?”

Nancy froze, hands clenching the comforter.

“Am I misreading this?” Robin spoke again, significantly more nervous than before. “Um. If I am, don’t say anything. Or do. Do whatever you want, I don’t want to - I mean. I’m sorry. I’m being stupid.”

“Robin, you’re-” Nancy sprung to life, returning to her place on the side of the bed and at Robin’s side. “You’re never stupid.” Robin let out a little breath.

“Oh.” It sounded revelatory. “I, um. Can I borrow your phone?” Nancy furrowed her eyebrows, confused.

“Um. Sure. Why?” Nancy asked, sickly worried Robin was about to say to ask Steve for a ride or to call Vickie to get her here earlier. Robin smiled a nervous, toothy smile. It was brighter than the sun.

“To cancel,” Robin said. “And, um. Completely unrelated to that, I’ve got two tickets to Aliens this afternoon - if you’ve got nothing to do.” At first, Nancy just blinked. Then, a tentative grin spread across her face. She laughed, surprised.

“I did really like the first one,” Nancy said. “But, uh. You know the implication that comes with a movie date, yeah?”

Robin’s eyes twinkled. Her smile spilt her face in two. Nancy wanted nothing more than to kiss that mouth again. And again, and again…

“Yeah,” Robin said, aiming for casual and landing somewhere in the ‘giddy’ zone. “Yeah, I know.”

“Good,” Nancy said, leaning forward at the same time Robin was. They’d always been on the same wavelength, anyway. “Me too.”

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monstrousfemale · 2 years

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Thinking about Robin, mouth dry and stale, staring at Nancy as she talks to Steve. I wonder how many times Robin has wished so hard she could just "be normal", just suck it up and go on a date with a guy like her parents always encourage her to. I wonder how many times as she’s taking Nancy in, she is overwhelmed by the idea that this is a blessed feeling, to be so involved in another woman, even if she can’t have her.

Thinking about Robin, heart tight, watching as Nancy laughs with her, cares for her, then jumps into dark waters without a second thought the moment she is worried about Steve. I wonder how many times Robin has hated Steve just a little bit, because he had once dangled "normal" in front of her. Because he once had looked at her and had wanted something from her that she could never be. And he is her best friend, the best person in her life, the only person who loves her for who she is. But sometimes Robin feels that small twinge again, of betrayal. It's small and petty, but he's the one who fell for her, and that was a little bit on the side of unforgivable. She thinks they're even now that she’s in love with his ex.

Thinking about Robin, hands slick with cold sweat, when Nancy's eyes linger on her lips. When Nancy stands a bit too close. When Nancy goes on and on, wild and brilliant, smiling at her as she discusses politics, the world, anything. I wonder how many times Robin has sat by herself on her bed, holding herself together tightly, thinking about women, about their pretty lips, and their curves, and boobies. How many times she has gotten to the very verge of falling in love so completely with another woman and all the times has had to hold herself back because she doesn’t want it all to be too much, doesn’t want to get hurt again. Thinking about how Nancy sawed her way into her heart, made a home there before Robin even knew what hit her.

Thinking about Robin, feeling resigned about Nancy fucking Wheeler. Thinking about how she knows she would never have a fucking chance. Thinking about how she’d eventually have to tell Steve that she has the hugest crush on his ex, and will he forgive her? It’s not like it could ever be anything, anyway. Thinking about Steve loving this woman, how he had fought to get over the way she had made his heart do cartwheels, because he truly does respect her so, and he had known the only way for them to be friends would have been to let it go. And if he had let her go, why wouldn’t he be able to let Nancy go now?

Thinking about Steve bumping his shoulder against Robin’s, leaning his head on top of hers, letting her hide her tears in his neck. He tells her it’s okay, he’s not mad, this is crazy, she doesn’t need his blessing to have her heart broken.

Thinking about Nancy, out of balance, coming around to Steve’s house in the middle of the night on a Tuesday, eyes a little crazed, hair wild. For just one moment, he thinks about himself. For just one moment he thinks she is there for him. He realizes that’s not what he wants, not really. A part of him does still have fondness for that particular dream. But it’s not as big as the part that’s head over heels for Eddie Munson. He tells her that, not out of cruelty, but because he sees it in her face that it would free her to hear it. That he’s in love with someone new. Steve loves someone else, fully. Steve has him now, and he’s no longer stumbling around in the dark clinging to the bits and pieces of his first love.

Thinking about Nancy, face open and honest, saying “how did you know?” and Steve asking “how did I know what?” and Nancy, impatient, breathless: “how did you know you like Eddie as much as you liked me once?” Steve doesn’t even flinch. He says “that’s an awkward ass conversation, Wheeler” but he also says “he makes my chest hurt a little, he makes my head spin.”

Thinking about Nancy, brave, coming to Robin’s house. Touching her things. Staring at the massive poster of Ripley on her bedroom wall. Robin sitting on her bed, legs bouncing, fingers anxiously tangling on her blankets, gripping tight because she doesn’t fully trust herself not to reach out. In this space, just the two of them, the homely smell of her room is overtaken by Nancy’s perfume, citrusy and sweet. Nancy smells like paper and like fruit and like heaven.

Thinking about Nancy and Robin, sitting on Robin’s bed, wide eyes all over each other’s face. Nancy’s hand reaches first, touches Robin’s shaky fingers on top of her duvet. Robin holds on tight. It’s all she can do. Stuck thinking about Robin’s relieved breath against Nancy’s lips, and how her clumsy kisses would be endearing, and how they’d bump noses, teeth would clash, and they would laugh, and they would touch.

Thinking about Robin, at ease. Nancy is her safe harbor. Nancy is what she’s been craving for so long, and Robin’s crushed heart is finally at peace, in one piece, beating wild. Nancy’s careful fingers are splayed on top of her chest, grounding her.

#ronance #robin x nancy #nancy x robin #stranger things #st #ronancy #monstrous writing #i had a tough day #this is what came out of it i guess #monstrous lesbian #lesbian and himbo

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