trailer / teaser / edit for i dug my heels into the gravel (as evidence for you to unravel) - a robin buckley x nancy wheeler story
Years after leaving Hawkins, Robin Buckley comes back with unfinished business: Nancy Wheeler.
Nancy has built a quiet life on a farm outside of town, rescuing animals and keeping the world at arm’s length after the heartbreak that followed their brief, intense love in Massachusetts. When Robin shows up at her gate again, Nancy isn’t sure she can risk opening that door twice.
But Robin is done running.
As old feelings resurface and Robin’s past - including her ex, Vickie - reappears in town, both women are forced to confront the question they never truly answered before:
Was their love just a mistake they survived… or the one thing worth fighting for?
i am generally more partial to black widow nancy and winter soldier robin (with a side of captain america steve - hello, "who the hell is buckley", it writes itself!), but rewatching thunderbolts the scene with young yelena and anya screamed robin and nancy, so red room ronance au was born.
also i didn't initially intend to imply nancy escaped and robin got left behind (likely because she sacrificed her chance to make sure nancy got out) and then turned into taskmaster against her will, but cutting the clips brought the whump into being.
hope the vibes are enjoyable and again if anyone wants to use this edit as inspo for a fic plz do!
i am not going to discuss shipping here whatsoever bc that is a Whole Other Thing. but i feel like so many people just misconstrue nancy’s wishes and make it very black and white. never did nancy say she doesn’t want kids, or that she doesn’t want marriage. she said she doesn’t want six kids, she doesn’t want to settle or be stuck. you can have your own personal belief and theory on if she wants kids or not, but assuming that anybody who wants a career automatically doesn’t want kids is kind of sexist? there are so many working mothers out there, and it’s not one or the other. along with that, independence doesn’t equal being single and no relationships forever. nancy taking some time to figure out herself and her desires after going through an incredibly traumatic 4 years is different than never being in a relationship ever again. having a career, a couple kids, and a spouse surrounded by friends and people who care about her is completely different than being a stay at home housewife with no support system. once again, i am not saying you have to personally believe that she wants kids, i don’t think it’s her end all be all goal. but in 10 years when she’s worked through her past, established a career and a home in a city? maybe she would visit the idea.
honestly like all nancy wants in the end is safety and peace, to love and to be loved.
personally i'd see her as a foster mum who loves each kid the same, no matter if they stay for one night or for years.
and when she's asked if she would like to adopt some of these kids eventually, of course she says yes. they're her kids, no matter what dna says.
and out there on that old farm that once belonged to her grandfather, she lives that peaceful life.
it's loud and colourful and exciting. so many kids got lucky enough to call it their home.
some came to stay, some just needed a safe haven. but each and every one received the same love and care from nancy.
and whenever steve comes over to visit, she teases him about having more children than him, because after the second, he decided that he's done having kids. they're so much work, after all.
and romantically, you ask?
nancy did love someone, years ago. but ever since that someone tragically passed away, she's been living on her own with her kids and the animals.
there's this little space just outside her kitchen window, a bird house and a bird bath surrounded by trees and shrubs. the morning light hits it just right, so the water sparkles in the sunrays while nancy makes breakfast for the kids.
there's this little bird, who comes to visit every morning without fail.
one day, her youngest daughter, barely two, points at it as nancy holds her in her arms, watching the animal bathe in the water.
"look mummy, who's this?" she asks, tilting her head. the bird chirps loudly in return.
"that's a very special bird," nancy answers and smiles. the smile is fond, but it carries something heavy. "it's someone who loves us very, very much, reminding us that they're here."
the bird chirps once more before it flies away and nancy puts the little girl down.
"what bird was she talking about?" the newest addition to their family asks nancy's oldest daughter later, in a quiet moment, as they load the dishwasher together.
he's just arrived a few days ago, he isn't familiar with the farm and the family - not yet.
the oldest daughter just smiles, closing the dishwasher with a soft click. "that bird stops by the bath every morning," she says and looks out the window.
I think ao3 is literally the only site where no censorship means no censorship. you can post the most vile things on there — things that will get taken down on any other platforms — and ao3 will protect you, your works, and your rights to create whatever you want, however you want.
and no, this isn’t me saying “write that messed up, disgusting thing” because while, yes, write it if it’s what you want (I myself enjoy writing dark fics, something I believe would be considered “vile” to a lot of people), this is me saying in a world of censorship and capitalism, ao3 really is a treasure.
Mike is not Will's Tammy because Robin isn't solely talking about Tammy in her speech to Will.
She is also talking about someone else.
Let me explain.
(Note: This entire post is based on two anon asks I received here and here which both made me reevalue Robin's entire speech to Will. So shoutout to the anon who brought all for this to my attention in the first place even if it's not entirely what they had in mind because yes, Robin sounds like she's more in love with Tammy than she ever was with Vickie and I believe there is a reason for that. Update: @ms-anne-xia has since come out to be the anon who fist sent me the asks so massive thanks to her for changing my perception of Robin's entire speech)
It's kinda embarrassing but we as a fandom have never realized what an excellent liar Robin actually is. Every season so far as provided us with at least one notable example of her lying talents.
In S3 she makes Dustin and Steve believe that she speaks russian when she actually speaks pig latin. (thanks to @somethings-wrong-with-nana who pointed this out to me)
In S4 she manages to convince the director of Pennhurst(!) to let her and Nancy into a highly restricted ward by telling him a story she made up on the spot
Again in S4 she convinces Dustin and Eddie that she was the one who put Nancy in charge and therefore Dustin has to listen to every word she says (This is also the second time she makes Dustin believe one of her lies; meaning that he should have known better but he falls for them anyways)
See what I am talking about? Robin doesn't always tell the truth, especially when she wants to accomplish something. She is never malicious about it as she either has very good reasons for doing so (keeping the kids safe and off the boat/ getting an interview with Victor in order to find out more about Vecna) or is just messing with her friends.
This is probably why we never realized how good she actually is at lying. Plus we always had markers to tell us that she wasn't telling the full truth so there was never any doubt about her untruthfulness.
But what if the markers would suddenly cease to exist? Would we as the audience still be able to tell?
Apparently not as I have not seen anyone doubt any of her words whatsoever. That's including me of course because I also had no idea at first (So again shoutout to my anon/ @/ms-anne-xia for bringing this part to my attention)
Once we take a closer look into Robin's speech to Will in the tunnels however we should notice how full of weird discrepancies it actually is. Also remember Robin at Pennhurst? How she convinced the director with a story she made up on the fly? I think there is a case to be made that she tries the exact same thing with Will in S5. Except Will would be even easier to fool than the Pennhurst director and to make matters worse for Will, there is also no one around who could even tell him about Robin's tendency to lie. (Dustin, Steve and Nancy are all far away in the UD)
Robin tells Will that she first fell for Tammy in 9th grade which is already something that should make us raise our eyebrows because this is not the defining moment she names Steve when she is on the floor in the russian base with him. She tells Steve she fell for Tammy in a sophomore history class. This would imply 10th grade.
But there is an even greater and more glaring discrepancy in her story and it's about the moment she reclaimed herself over her feelings for Tammy.
Robin: But then one day, I was cleaning bat shit out of my parents' garage, and I found this 8-millimeter film reel. You know?
And it was just from this silly movie that I made in fourth grade, but I got it up on the projector, and all of a sudden, I was looking at this little version of myself.
And that little me, I could hardly recognize her. You know, she was so carefree and, like, fearless. She just loved every part of herself. And that's when it hit me. It was never about Tone-deaf Tammy.
It was always just about me. I was looking for answers in somebody else, but I had all the answers.
Robin tells Will that she got over Tammy after she found an 8-mm film reel, saw her care-free young self and then finally realized it was all about herself all along.
It's a very inspiring tale of self love.
It's also complete and utter bullshit.
You see, we can actually very accurately pinpoint the moment Robin got over Tammy because we have seen it happening with our very own eyes in S3 when she was in a bathroom stall with Steve. We can say this for sure because if she would have been over Tammy by this point, she wouldn't have talked about Tammy in the way she did.
Robin defended Tammy multiple times during this conversation. When Steve accused Tammy of bad singing Robin disagred with it. When Steve implied that Tammy might be a bit overambitious, Robin defended Tammy again by saying that she has dreams.
If Robin's tale of the 8-mm film she supposedly did as a kid would have been true then she wouldn't have defended Tammy at all. She also wouldn't have sounded as hurt as she did when she told Steve about her crush on Tammy.
Then there is finally the moment when Robin truly got over Tammy. It happened when she joined Steve's laughing because this is most likely the first time she's ever put herself over her feelings for Tammy. She made fun of someone who was once very important to her and now she is finally able to laugh it off with a friend and move on.
This happened right before our eyes. If you don't believe me go and rewatch S3E7. It completely contradicts Robin's story.
Moreover there are still some minor inconsistencies in Robins tale which are not entirely impossible on their own but would require you to do some serious mental gymnastics if you were to take them at face value:
We know Robin is poor and can't drive and yet she finds that 8 mm film reel in her parent's garage (while cleaning out bat shit. Yeah. I am very sure this happened)
She apparently made that movie in 4th grade. That would mean that she was 9 years old at the time. So she as a 9 year old, had access to a camera, knew how to use it and made a movie about herself
While it is unclear how old Robin actually is, she is supposed to be around either Nancy/ Jonathan or Steve. This means that she would have been 9 years somewhere in the mid 70s and look, I'm only taking a guess here but buying a camera plus a projector later (bc of course she and her family are also in possession of that) must have been pretty expensive (especially at that time) and would probably not be your highest priority to get if you are poor
If you are the cameraman/director of a movie, you're also rarely in front of the camera
That being said, Robin's story at first glance still sounds very convincing and that is because it isn't completely false either. There are moments of truth in it but these are not necessarily about Tammy directly. She talks to Will about her true feelings. The entire speech hits hard and is so heartbreaking because Robin in a way is opening up to Will and advises him to do something she herself is also in the process of doing.
It's not about Tammy though. It's about Robin's feelings for someone else and no, it isn't about Vickie either.
Because once you notice how much some parts of Robin's story actually fit Robin's impression of Nancy Wheeler in S4 it becomes hard to ignore.
If you are in a classroom (sophomore history) with someone their hair rarely gets a chance to blow in the wind.
If you see someone standing on an open road during a windy day however ...
Look, I am not saying Robin didn't have a major backlash to her time of being in love with Tammy during her speech but that is because falling for Nancy must have felt very similar to how she fell for Tammy back in the day. To Robin there must have been some very undinable paralells.
It's about her once Nemesis and now best friend: Steve Harrington.
When she was in love with Tammy she was in high spirits at first until she noticed how Tammy wouldn't stop staring at Steve. That is how she concluded that Tammy is in love with him. In S4 she most likely experienced something very similar with Nancy. Robin noticed she started to fall for her but then she also saw Nancy staring very intensely at Steve who at the time was also shirtless. Seen from Robin's POV Nancy was also showing attraction to Steve's very naked and very masculine chest. So of course she must have come to the same conclusion she came to when she was still in love with Tammy. She thinks she's loosing the girl she likes to Steve.
Except this time it's not the same as it was back then because now she can't blame Steve as easily as she could before because he's her best friend now and a person she wouldn't want to hurt or stand in his way to find happiness.
Sounds familiar, right?
If you are into byler you've probably seen very similar sentiments before. Will post S3 wouldn't want to hurt or get in between Mike and Jane because both mean a lot to him and he doesn't want to see them both be hurt or sad.
One of the most common complaints I have seen regarding Robin's advise to Will in this scene is that her love for Tammy and Will's love for Mike aren't comparable at all because the situation is entirely different. I completely agree with this but only if you think Robin is solely talking about Tammy.
Robin has never known Tammy very well but she does know Nancy. Nancy was the one how was impressed by her when she lied at Pennhurst and got them both their interview with Victor. Nancy was also the one wanted to be her friend and then proceeded to choose Robin over and over again all while ditching the guys she's in a love triangle with.
Nancy adores Robin just as she is.
To Robin Nancy is everything Tammy was but leagues better as she's close to Nancy in a way she never was with Tammy.
This is what makes Robin's feelings for Nancy so similar to Will's feelings for Mike. They are both genuine and rooted in a deep connection that makes both Robin and Will feel seen by the other in a way they don't feel seen with anyone else.
Will once lied and used El as a shield to convey his true feelings for Mike. Would it be so unsurprising if Robin were to do something very similar by talking about Tammy when she actually means Nancy?
But why you might ask.
Why would she even fall for Nancy in the first place? Isn't she with Vickie?
Yes she is with Vickie (I will go back to that in a bit) but if we take Tammy who Robin most certainly was in love with at one point as the blue print of the type of woman Robin likes then this trajectory leads us directly to Nancy Wheeler without even the slightest sliver of doubt.
Going by optics alone Tammy mirrors Nancy's S3 style down to a T. Same hairstyle and same make-up (credit to @whiteshoespinklaces who told me about this) but their connection goes way beyond looks. Tammy and Nancy share a lot of very defining character and personality traits as well. I will only give you short bullet points here but you can read this post if you want a more detailed version.
Tammy is ambitious and wants to be a singer/ Nancy is ambitious and wants to be a reporter
Tammy is very confident in her abilities and so is Nancy
Both feel like Hawkins isn't appreciating their talents enough (Is everyone saying that Tammy is a bad singer or not? Yeah I am very well aware that there are some real discrepancies between Tammy's talent for singing and Nancy's talent for writing but this is about how both women perceive and present themselves to the outside world. Also, remember the paper Nancy worked for in S3 and the guys who only laughed at her and her ideas?)
Both want to leave Hawkins and go to a place that recognizes their talents (Tammy wants to go to Nashville while Nancy wants to go collage)
Both women are unwavering in their will to pursue their dreams
If Tammy was the one to set a pattern for Robin then Nancy is the one to fit it best except this time it's different because Nancy isn't some fleeting dream to Robin. Nancy is tangible, her friend and makes Robin feel seen and appreciated in a way that Tammy never did.
So why wouldn't she fall head over heels for Nancy then?
Before I move on though I want to point one thing out and that is how Robin is oftentimes wrong when she assumes things about people. She states it herself. She is bad at picking up on social cues.
Yet she is also basing her entire perception of Tammy, Nancy even later Will and Mike on social clues she isn't able to read well. (How could this not end in disaster?)
I'm gonna start with Tammy here because the only source that she was ever in love with Steve is Robin herself. Why? Because she wouldn't stop staring at him during class. Steve never seemed to have picked up on this though which might be because he's bad at noticing people who really seem to like him or it might be because Tammy was never in love with Steve to begin with. (again thanks to @/somethings-wrong-with-nana for telling me)
During Robin's confession in the bathroom stall she also gives us another perfectly valid reason as to why Tammy could have stared at Steve. Steve while being in class asked stupid questions and got bagel crumbs all over the floor. He was a mess. It's entirely possible that Tammy found herself unable to reconcile the popular and good looking image of Steve with the fact that he's also incredibly messy. So she might not have ben able to stop staring at him but not because she was in love him. She might have stared at him like you sometimes aren't able to take your eyes off of a traffic accident. Too horrific to look away.
Moving on to Robin's view on Nancy's feelings. She knows Nancy has a boyfriend. She also knows Nancy has been with Steve once in the past. Then she sees Nancy staring at a shirtless Steve. To Robin this must confirm that Nancy much like Tammy is straight without a doubt.
Never mind that Robin has no idea of their history, or of Nancy's trauma of losing Barb and that she wouldn't want to lose another friend in the same way. Also never mind that she also couldn't see Nancy's face and see how hard it actually was at the time (and never showed any attraction at all.)
Later Nancy confirms it herself that she isn't interested in Steve (or Jonathan for that matter) but Robin doesn't know that. She just assumes she's either in love with Jonathan (a guy) and if it's not him she's in love with Steve (another guy) with no room left for her.
This then makes Robin think that her chances with Nancy are just as non-existent as they were with Tammy so she does the best thing she can think of and tries to move on by being with someone else.
This "someone else" is Vickie.
There are a few things however that stand out about Robin's relationship with Vickie especially early on. It starts with Robin constantly lying to her and canceling their dates because to me that seems like see would rather not spend a lot of time with her and prefers the company of her other friends.
This is underlined by the fact that Vickie doesn't even know who Will is at the start of the season. We know the Wheelers house to be some sort of a hub and not only does Nancy live there, Jonathan and Will do as well. It's also been a year and a half since the Byers came back from California meaning that Robin would have had plenty of time to try and integrate Vickie into her circle of friends at least as another friend and yet it does not seem like she has done that (because if she did Vickie would have met Will before and would have know who he was.)
On the contrary it rather seems like Robin wants to keep her girlfriend apart from her actual friends who she likes to spend her time with. (Very much like Mike never bringing Jane when he went out with his friends in S3.)
But even if Robin doesn't want to hang out with Vickie she still has something going for her which Robin can't deny. Vickie much like Robin herself is also queer. Therefore it doesn't matter if Robin and Vickie share a meaningful connection or not. Vickie is the safe option for Robin. They're a couple because they both like women and that is it.
It comes as no surprise then that their relationship is almost entirely focused on the physical as well because this is the only value they both can get out of said relationship and in itself this isn't a bad thing at all. If you are queer, want to be sexually active and also live in a small town under quarantine then having someone you can get physical with is huge even if it rings hollow when it comes to emotional connection. (Even though in the end it's also incredibly unfair as Robin and Vickie are not on the same page when it comes to their relationship. Vickie also deserves to be treated better)
Up until this point though Robin is dealing with her own shit (longing for Nancy while being with Vickie) and that is sad and heartbreaking on it's own but it gets so much worse when this stops being solely about Robin and how she deals with her problems.
This is then also finally the part where I talk about Robin's motive as to why she is lying to Will in the first place. Yes, I know I have rambled long and hard about Robin's relationship with Vickie but it is vital to understand why Robin acts like she does towards Will in S5.
So what's her deal? Why is she lying to Will?
I do believe that Robin thinks herself and Will to be in the same situation. She is in love with Nancy but thinks she has no chance as she believes Nancy to be straight. Likewise she also picked up (correctly this time) on Will's love for Mike but she also believes Will won't ever have a chance with Mike as she also perceives him to be straight as he has a girlfriend.
So she tries to help Will in the best way she can because remember: Robin is not a malicious liar. It was always harmless teasing or she had a very good reason for lying and I don't think it's any different here.
Robin is trying to spare Will the same heartbreak she is currently suffering: being in love with a friend who you think could never love you back because you believe them to be straight. She is wrong of course. Mike does love Will back but I don't think Robin picked up on that. Much like she never picked up on Nancy not loving Steve (or Jonathan) and possibly Tammy not loving Steve either.
Then she moves on to try and impose her own way of dealing with things onto Will. She's trying to let him find confidence in himself by making up a story about self love and then later tries to stir him into the same direction she's also moving towards to with Vickie.
She wants him to avoid the risk of telling Mike about his true feelings, look for a safer option instead and for that purpose she also describes her relationship with Vickie as much more positive than it actually is.
And Will believes her every word because of course he does. The audience does it as well. Robin has also successfully fooled Steve, Eddie, Dustin (twice!) and the director of Pennhurst. If none of these ever directly picked up on her lies then Will isn't going to do it either. He's also much more gullible than any of them and doesn't even know about Robin's lying tendencies in the first place.
She's so good at convincing Will that he not only listens to her advise of forgetting Mike, he also later searches for his very own safe option in a gay bar which is where he's sure to find other people like him. So he never has to try and confront his feelings for real and risk them being rejected (or reciprocated.) Robin has protected him from both.
He's satisfied as he can finally be open with his queerness but he isn't entirely happy either.
And that's a thing that is true for everyone in this show. Everyone is satisfied but no one is truly happy because everyone chooses the safe route in the end instead of risking anything at all.
They are all conforming as no one seems to be able to open their mouth and say what they actually want.
( @greenfiend @anime97-99 @hawkinsschoolcounselor I'm tagging all of you here in case you want to see a completely different take on Robin's speech to Will in S5E4)
ronance will always be the biggest fumble in television history. like u had maya hawke and natalia dyer ready to kiss eachother and you just. didn't let them?
Robin being terrified of touching Nancy because Steve mentioned once that Nancy always hated physical affection.
Robin jumping through hoops to make sure she never crosses any boundaries. She’ll hug everyone in the room goodbye and then just wave at Nancy. She always curls into Steve’s side, throws her arm around Will’s shoulders, pokes at Max’s sides until she’s throwing punches, but she won’t even sit next to Nancy unless she actively comes over to sit next to her and, even when she does, Robin always makes sure she keeps some space between them.
And Robin is so happy and bright as she does it because, even though she does subconsciously want to express her affection for Nancy with physical touch, she’d rather die than make Nancy uncomfortable in any way.
She wants to be a good friend, even if that means she has to struggle to reprogram herself to not offer physical affection when that’s her love language. She figures out other ways to make up for it, complimenting Nancy every single time they see each other, making little comments about an article of hers so that Nancy knows she took the time out of her day to read it, picking up little rocks and flowers on a walk and immediately giving them to Nancy…
She’s doing incredibly well. Only problem is that Nancy is about to chew her own arm off if Robin doesn’t give her a goddamn hug right this second.
nancy who thinks that because she and robin are both girls they’re on the same wavelength about what signals mean and that her crush is obvious. so she’s doing things like showering at robin’s house and calling for her to bring the extra bottle of shampoo while she’s naked in there.
meanwhile robin’s never had a girl best friend so she thinks “oh wow this is just what straight girls do together huh”
I’ll never stop thinking about how in season 3 nancy was faced with sexism that she faced head on and was then told by jonathan to just suck it up because this is how the real world was so she did and her natural course of action for the penthurst scheme was to blend in, dress up and suck up all the insults thrown her way and robin was the one who showed her other approaches work as well and yk what? Nancy never took shit from a man again AMEN
The headcanon abt Robin never having a crush on Tammy Thompson and only saying that bc she didn’t want Steve to know she had a crush on Nancy Wheeler is actually so important to me and, honestly, I’m accepting that shit as canon
