As Scottie drove to the school, his hand held tightly in Stephanie's, Marceline averted her eyes to the window. Bright green trees towered over them, restless leaves fallen to the ground kicked up with the speed of the car and the sun shined beams between the branches.
Everything looked normal, but Marceline was convinced something lurked in the shadows. Even as a kid, the dark was an eerie kind of restless in the small town. Maybe it was a childish fear, the unknown following her until she knew not to be afraid one day. But that feeling never subsided.
There was a laboratory a few miles outside of the sleepy town. She'd passed it a hundred times wondering what could be going on inside. For a while, it seemed like nothing. Only a few cars sat outside and hardly anyone ever came in or out, just supply runs from what she could tell.
Then, four years ago, the truly strange started to happen. Will Byers went missing and nothing like that had happened in a long time. Lights would flicker sporadically, Will's dead boy washed up to shore, the middle school had been destroyed and then… Will was alive and it was like nothing ever happened. But the weird things kept happening.
Marceline had pulled out her notebook, resting it on her lap, the one with her theories. Ones people would make fun of her for but needed to get out of her head. She'd been working on the places where magnetism seemed to act on its own accord when the car stopped.
Stephanie and Scottie were staring at Marceline when she looked up. Both with expectant grins that made Marceline on edge.
"Are y'all coming?" Marceline asked, her hand resting on the handle.
"We have… a few things we need to talk about," Scottie explained, trying to suppress the grin.
"We'll catch up," Stephanie added.
"Oh… kay," Marceline muttered, ducking out of the car.
Yeah, they're definitely going to make out.
Marceline settled her head back into her notebook dodging sweaty teenage bodies swarming the parking lot. Her thoughts returned to the page thinking how those two years of the quiet oddities, the things you could dismiss for being a one-off occurrence was beginning to scream in their faces. Juse the past summer during fourth of July people were dying, going missing and the mall had burned down.
Marceline was convinced she was on the precipice of figuring everything out. There was just one factor she wasn't considering. One thing that would make everything make sense and that—
A brick wall rammed into Marceline's shoulder and her notebook flew to the ground between sneakers hustling for the gym. Annoyed, she walked over to pick it up, but the person—not a brick wall—had beat her to it.
Silver rings and thin fingers sent chills down her spine. Her eyes narrowed critically as she watched him stand. His curly mop of dark hair hid his face until he whipped it back and produced a shit-eating grin at her.
"Looks like you dropped something," Eddie stated, holding the notebook out to her loosely.
Marceline scowled. She hated down easily he could rake irritation through her veins. One small stare, smile, word and she was ready to snap a pencil in half. Instead, her lips crowded into a thin line and she reached out to snatch the notes from him but he was faster.
"Wait! Hold on," Eddie mused, tapping his finger to his lip and stared at the page she'd been furiously scribbling theories into curiously. Then, he slowly turned away from her with the notebook lowered as he hunched over to read her compacted print. He hummed and ahhed until he was satisfied with his readings. Then, he turned back to stare at her with furrowed brows as he considered her with amused confusion.
"This isn't English homework. Are you doing extra credit for Mr. Coulson?"
Marceline crossed her arms over her chest. She wasn't going to answer him. She just waited expectantly for him to stop playing games and let them part ways.
"Or, maybe you're looking to DM a game soon," Eddie said, raising his brows in consideration then shook his head. "Sorry, Marcy, we're finishing our campaign tonight, and I already have a solid plan for the next one."
Marceline caught her notebook when he stopped paying attention to it and instead at her reddening face. He smirked, cocking his head as he tip-toed around her, bent at the waist as he put his face right up to hers.
"You're always more than welcome to join. I still have your character sheet for the Noble Elf Alchemist," he whispered teasingly, sticking his tongue out.
"Shove it, Edward," Marceline bit back, frustrated as she pushed him away from her.
A lanky arm wrapped around Marceline's shoulders, practically vibrating from the amount of energy stored inside her body, as she exclaimed, "Yeah, fuck off, Edward!"
"Robin," Eddie greeted. His dark eyes turned the color of coal and he forced the distaste into his tone. His gaze flickered to Marceline, pleased by how he'd gotten under his skin. "Let me know."
Eddie winked at Marceline and headed in the opposite direction of the pep rally. Robin raised the bird to Eddie's back then turned them toward the gym.
"I've always hated that guy, you know that?" Robin muttered darkly, rolling her blue eyes in annoyance.
"I know you do," Marceline sighed, patting Robin's hand on her shoulder half-heartedly.
"What were you two talking about anyway?" Robin asked, furrowing her brows.
"I dropped my notebook when I ran into him," Marceline said.
"Just your luck," Robin said, chuckling under her breath.
"I know. It was all my theories, too. I really need to keep a separate notebook for home as a backup that way if I accidentally toss this in the water or something I'm not losing everything," Marceline rambled, looking down at the notebook and flipping through the pages. "Oh, by the way, I was able to get into the basement at the library to look into the lab files. Thank God for Nancy Wheeler letting me work part-time at the school's newspaper. Anyway, I found something—"
Robin's skin turned clammy against Marceline's skin and a shutter of nervous energy sparked the air around them. Robin pulled away, her smile awkward and her eyes darting to look everywhere but at her.
"Oh, hey, I'm so sorry Marceline," Robin cut her off. Her face had turned sheet white even her freckles, and little beads of sweat gathered at her hairline. "I gotta get ready for the pep rally, an-and you do, too, right? So, um, I'll see you later!"
Robin waved frantically, turning on her heel with a noticeable cringe at herself for her actions before disappearing into the crowd of other uniformed band kids.
Marceline let out a knowing huff of air and shook her head, disappointed. Ever since Robin started hanging out with Steve Harrington because they worked at Scoops Ahoy! together during the summer, she had been acting weird. If it wasn't because Marceline was close to Robin and knew she wasn't interested in Steve because she would rather be looking at Tammy then she'd think it was because of that. But this was weird, it was like Marceline was getting replaced.
Before the last summer, Marceline and Robin would have sleepovers and stay up late talking about all the weird things that happened in Hawkins. Making up theories of where Will could have gone, if it was even the real Will since there were two bodies and especially what was going on inside that lab.
Now, Robin hardly gave her the time of day.
"Hey, Marceline!" Chrissy Cunningham cheered when she noticed her approaching.
Marceline shook her head, dismissing the thoughts inside her head and put on her best smile to get ready for the pep rally.
Author's Note
Season 4, Episode 1: The Hellfire Club
I added in an additional chapter before this one establishing Marceline's home life! This chapter has been previously posted (but is edited, nothing major) but the one before this hasn't so be sure to check it out.
Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment if you'd like. However, this is an all kind of reader safe space. So even if you ghost read or comment every chapter, I hope you know it means the world to me that you've come into this fic I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and until the next one.