As season 5 inches closer, I really wanted to highlight Steve's and Nancy's protectiveness, their roles as the leader/guardian of their groups and how it ultimately relates back to how their relationship starts off in season 4.
We all know Nancy as the gunslinging girlboss but what doesn't get mentioned a lot is why she's like that. She protects other people, often to a reckless degree. It started with Barb, who couldn't tell her story and whose death Nancy felt (arguably still feels) responsible for. Guilt is a huge driving force for her. Nancy feels immense guilt over her best friend's death and stops at nothing to get justice for her. Even at the cost of her own safety. And maybe that's even the point. But that's a topic for another day. I just wanted to put more context behind why Nancy's frequently on the frontlines, gun in hand, why she endangered herself to expose the lab, why she put herself between the kids and Billy's car just to name a few examples.
Nancy has good intentions but she's also putting her own life at risk again and again.
Now enter Steve Harrington.
One of Steve's main qualities is protecting the people that he loves, no matter the danger. Be it beating up Billy or a russian guard, facing a whole group of demodogs. Steve grew up rich, he is athletic, both traits he once used to keep himself on top of the social ladder, he now uses to protect others who may not have that same privilege. He throws himself in the line of danger, often getting himself hurt in the process. Sound familiar?
We get a taste of it in season 3. Both Steve and Nancy assume the role of guardian/leader of their respective groups. It comes quite naturally to them, which makes a lot of sense given their development from the past seasons. Both take on a lot of responsibility with no one really to share it with. And they both come close to losing their own lives in the process. Steve gets tortured by Russians and Nancy almost gets killed by the fleshflayer. There's another event I've mentioned before which was Nancy shooting at Billy's car to stop him. And it seems her bravery won't pay off this time but who's there to save her?
Which leads us into season 4 where we finally get Steve and Nancy in the same group. They have both grown so much these past few seasons but they've never really had someone to share the burden of guardian-/leadership with. Nancy in particular struggles with this, understandably so as her jumping into another investigation just cost Fred his life. She keeps Steve at arms length at first. We see it when Nancy tries to go to the library alone. Steve clocks this immediately, insisting that she doesn't go by herself. It's a small but pivotal moment for both characters as they do share a rather complicated history. In season 1, Steve dismisses Nancy's worry about Barb which drives a wedge in their relationship pretty early on. It does however become a driving force for Steve to change later on. A change that in the latter half of season 2 Nancy only gets glimpses off. Then in season 3 we have the whole Billy incident, where Steve risks his life to save Nancy. We never really get a follow up of this scene so it's left ambiguous as to how Nancy feels about this. There are of course a lot of different ways to read into this so I'm choosing to factor in Nancy's latent guilt over their break up (we see her guilty/sad expressions when Steve mentions it during his confession in the upside down). For all she knows, she just broke his heart, Nancy never thought of it being the driving force behind Steve's development. But here we are now, with Nancy willingly endangering herself again because she doesn't think that Steve's care also extends to her. We see the surprise on her face.
Circumstance gets in the way though and Robin joins her instead. Steve tells her to be careful anyway.
The seed has been planted in her mind, but Nancy doesn't let up so easily.
When she spearheads another mission, this time to 'break' into an asylum to talk to Viktor Creel, she knows she can trust Steve to look after the kids, much to his chagrin. Poor guy just wants to be actively involved and make sure Nancy's safe in the process.
Afterwards we do see them try (and fail, looking at you, Sherlock) to be more casual about each other. Steve and Nancy have only ever been romantically involved with each other so this is an entirely new territory of their relationship for both of them. But that is a topic that deserves to be highlighted on its own.
They do form quite a nice 'work dynamic' out of this though. Steve becomes a steady support for Nancy, but he does push back when he's worried for her/their group's safety. It is such a contrast to the other seasons as now they finally have someone to that has an equal amount of drive to protect their loved ones as each other. (Just to point this out, I'm not trying to shit on Robin or Jonathan here, they just fill different roles in the dynamic)
All of this culminates to the scene on Lover's Lake. Steve once again offers himself up, to dive into the lake. We see immediately how worried Nancy becomes. Though Steve does have a point, that realistically, no one else would be cut out for the job except for him. So he finally seizes the opportunity to contribute (to show how much he's changed). So Nancy just tells him to be careful (rings a bell?).
Steve finds the gate, his courage seemingly having payed off but things go wrong. He gets pulled back through the gate and what does Nancy do?
She jumps after him, no hesitation.
origamiaround
stormborns
gummygunk
kaledo-art
romaincrisis
tangentwithtanner
areudirty
