Stressed out Hawkins Post Nancy coming to Scoops every day, not for Steve, but because arguing with Robin is like her own personal stress reliever.
This continues even after she quits Hawkins Post, after Jonathan is gone, and Nancy starts coming into Family Video all the time. Literally for the sole purpose of her and Robin tossing insults back and forth, arguing over the tiniest and most mundane things.
Except this time it’s a little more dangerous because they’re not in the middle of a crowded mall. Jonathan isn’t waiting in the car outside. On this particular day, Steve isn’t even working. And Nancy lets herself get carried away. Maybe she grabs Robin’s tie and gets in her face, backs her into the counter. Maybe she gets one last insult out before she realizes how glassy-eyed Robin has gotten… How close they are… How Robin’s hand instinctually landed on her hip. But she doesn’t pull away. They both just… stand there. Looking at each other.
Then they jolt apart and pretend that nothing happened. And Nancy doesn’t go into Family Video alone, anymore. Or at all. And it’s easy to pretend it’s not because of that moment because just a week or so later, the world is ending again and Nancy doesn’t even have time to think about that moment in Family Video.
When it calms down again, it’s a little harder. Nancy feels like she’s constantly right next to Robin at the station, and it’s… different being around her now. After all, they finally decided to be friends, officially, even if Nancy is still unsure what they were previously if not friends. Enemies, probably. Or something close to it.
Steve and Jonathan are still at their bullshit, fighting over her like rabid dogs, acting as if she isn’t even there. Or, maybe, like her thoughts on it didn’t matter as much as one of them winning their stupid little dick measuring competition.
And it pisses her off. She feels, all of a sudden, so alienated from the rest of the group. And maybe part of her has a tiny bit of irritation at Robin, too, though she can’t piece together why exactly she feels that way. Maybe because the one person she should be able to hide away with is her friend but she feels like she can’t do that because— because— Well… She still isn’t sure exactly why she isn’t comfortable being around Robin, now…
So, after a big fight with Jonathan where she finally cracks and breaks up with him, Nancy goes back to WSQK to see if her irritation can help her dig up a better plan for the next crawl. She storms past the radio booth, her nerves already firing when she sees Steve’s head perk up like an excited dog, and she rushes downstairs.
She’s getting papers together, dragging out a whiteboard, when she hears heavy footsteps behind her.
He’s trying to comfort her, putting Jonathan down and almost acting satisfied that it didn’t work out between her and Jonathan, and she fucking snaps. She tells him to fuck off with all his macho bullshit, that it hasn’t just been Jonathan but both of them that have driven her to the edge. That she can’t stand another second of either of them and their petulant whining and that, rest assured, neither of them would be the so-called ‘winner’ of their stupid game.
Steve is suitably chastised, clearly upset, and he runs upstairs. Probably, she thinks, to whine to Robin. And, for some reason, the image of him and Robin shit-talking her riles her up even more and she storms up there.
They both turn when Nancy walks up the stairs, Robin’s headset half-hanging off her head as she finishes up her set and, silently, Robin snaps her fingers at Steve and points to the door.
Steve grabs his coat dutifully, huffing, and rushes out, leaving Nancy to stand silently in the doorway of the booth as Robin’s voice croons (Has it always been so raspy? The lowest notes are sending sparks down to the base of Nancy’s spine and she keeps thinking of Robin in her Scoops Ahoy outfit and how she smirked while they were in the middle of arguing, how she let her voice drop so low that Nancy almost had to lean in to hear her) and she effortlessly rolls through the remainder of her show, her eyes never once landing on Nancy (Nancy remembers the way Robin looked at her as she pressed her against the counter of Family Video, half-lidded and panting, Nancy’s knuckles pressing into the divot at the base of her throat as she balled her tie up in her fist)
The ‘On Air’ sign flicks off and Robin twirls around in her chair, her head already tilted and her eyes squinting like she’s examining every inch of Nancy, and Nancy absolutely lays into her as well.
It feels like before, but it also doesn’t. None of Nancy’s arguments are making sense but it doesn’t matter, not when Robin is looking at her like that. Not when she’s gotten up from her chair and sidled up to Nancy, countering every word she says almost effortlessly.
And Nancy has the realization that arguing with Steve and Jonathan that day didn’t feel like this. Had never felt like this. And there may be a reason for that.
Robin is an inch away from her, leaned down so they’re eye to eye, and Nancy shoves her backwards until she’s pinned against the desk, a stack of vinyls falling off the edge, and kisses the absolute daylights out of her.
And, maybe, after all this time, it turns out Nancy had been pent up for something a little bit more exciting than an argument.
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