I'm forced to deal with what I feel

There is no distraction to mask what is real

I could pull the steering wheel

- Twenty One Pilots

February 13th, 1994 - Boston, Massachusetts

Watching Nancy walk out of the cafe, Robin felt with every fiber of her being that she must be the worst person on the planet.

She obeys Nancy's order to wait in the coffee shop for her to return, mostly because it would be stupid not (for about a hundred reasons, but mostly because it's pretty much guaranteed that she would get lost — she may like Boston better than Tacoma, but know her way around the city she does not). Nancy had left her book at the table, and after it becomes clear she won't be back anytime soon, Robin tries to pass the time by reading it, but her mind keeps floating off in other directions which is how she'd landed on the conclusion that she's simply the worst person on the planet.

Okay — whole planet may be taking it a little far; there's people murdering and kidnapping and buying bunnies as Easter presents just to dump them on the side of the road a week later. Robin is definitely the worst person she's ever met — nobody she's met has ever done any of those things. Except El, who's done the first one, and so has Will, though it's still kind of unclear how lucid he'd been at the time. Hopper is also definitely up there in the confirmed kills department, though killing isn't the same as murder. He did sort of kidnap El, apparently, but she'd been a willing participant in her kidnapping, not to mention how she'd been in a weird government hostage situation before that, so that's also sort of a grey area.

Still, nobody Robin has ever met has ever bought a baby animal as a gift just to abandon it later (that she knows of), which is definitely an objectively terrible thing to do, and while Robin also has never done that, she has been lying to the entire party about a situation that she knows eats away at all of them, and she's been doing it for years.

No one she knows is doing that, either, except for Robin.

Sometimes Robin wonders why the universe isn't throwing more consequences at her for this way that she inherently is. Maybe it's one of those bad things happen to good people type of things, and some saint out there is paying for Robin's sins on her behalf.

Or maybe it dealt her a whole lifetime's worth of consequences from July 1985 to March 1986 and decided that was enough.

Either way, she thinks the universe is letting her off easy.

It's kind of funny, actually, the way Robin's entire life had collapsed in on itself in such a short period of time. For instance, merely eight days separated her parents' deaths and Robin being nearly Vecna'd in the Upside Down.

The Vecna thing sort of slips through the cracks in her processing of everything, Robin thinks.

Whenever she does devote some time to it, she always comes away feeling something like a fraud. Even now, nearly eight years later, Robin still doesn't know why Vecna picked her out of their entire party to hypnotize or possess or whatever it is he did. Honestly, she still can't completely convince herself that it wasn't just really bad nightmares brought on by all the horrible things she'd seen.

(Whenever she voices this, Steve shuts it down immediately, maintaining that it was very real, and would she just stop bringing it up already?)

All this has led Robin to her ultimate conclusion: Vecna had picked her because he knew it would hurt Steve (and the rest of the party too, she supposes, but Steve the most). Otherwise, why wouldn't he just pick Steve? It's not like Steve's hadn't been a vault of untapped trauma he was literally refusing to give the attention it clearly needed.

Like, sure, Robin's parents were dead, and yeah, that fucking sucked, and yeah, she'd felt empty inside for like a year afterward but she'd had good relationships with them while they were alive. She'd been loved and she'd been wanted. Steve's parents, on the other hand, had were barely there, who never cared about him the way he deserved.

And maybe Robin had struggled with her sexuality, struggled with the idea of perhaps being alone and unlovable and wrong for thoughts about girls she couldn't control, but Steve, as it turns out, had done the same.

Also, yeah, she'd been approaching the conclusion that she was socially inept, that nothing she said was right, that she truly didn't have the potential to keep any long-lasting relationships, but it's not like Steve didn't have his own social issues, his own fall from high school grace to grapple with.

Not to mention how Steve has twice as much Upside Down trauma in comparison to Robin, and that's including the Starcourt stuff because while what those Russian buffoons had done to her was bad, it didn't hold a candle to Steve being actually fucking tortured.

And all that's the tip of the iceberg, so why on Earth would Vecna pick Robin over Steve if not to further hurt Steve? To Vecna's credit, if that's what he wanted, he definitely succeeded. Robin is certain that her being Vecna'd was far more traumatizing for Steve than it was for her. She barely even remembers it, honestly, and this experience today, this waiting for Nancy to come back and stewing in thoughts of what she would have to say when she did, might be worse than being Vecna'd — though that particular thought seems like something she could never repeat out loud, not around Steve, anyway.

Robin misses her parents.

Her mom would have been so mad at her for lying to the party about Mike, though it probably would have been more like disappointment than anger but Robin would so much rather face the latter from her mom because she could just get angry right back. She couldn't do the same with disappointment, especially when her parents hadn't really ever let her down. Her mom would have been mad, and she would have told her that it was wrong and that Robin, you need to use her head, but then she would have helped Robin make this right, and her dad would have helped too. He would have chimed in with stupid, corny jokes and unhelpful advice (because he was the nicest person who'd ever lived and never knew how to help when Robin's big mouth and self-serving nature got her into trouble), and then he would have told her to invite everyone over for dinner, because who could be mad over bowls of his famous clam chowder?

(No one could).

They would have helped her fix this, but they aren't here. They're gone, and Robin is all on her own in yet another corner of Boston she doesn't recognize on the coldest day of the winter, and there's nowhere for her to go.

In the end, Robin isn't sure how long she sits in the coffee shop before Nancy returns. She's still on the second page of the book if that's anything to go off of, and it isn't because she hadn't been able to focus for more than a line or two before her plaguing thoughts took over.

But Nancy does return and gestures wordlessly for Robin to follow her back out the door. She does, and Nancy leads her back to the nearest T stop. They switch trains a few times before they end up back on Nancy's street, and then back into the warmth of her apartment. Nancy toes off her shoes and unzips her coat, so Robin does the same, and when Nancy heads up the stairs, Robin follows and Nancy doesn't stop her.

They go all the way up into Nancy's bedroom and shut the door without either of them saying a word.

Nancy sits primly on her bed right in front of the pillows, crossing and un-crossing her ankles while Robin stands awkwardly in the center of the room, unsure if she is allowed to exist in the space or if Nancy is gearing up to kick her to the curb like she probably should.

"You can sit," Nancy says, gesturing to her bed, and Robin is stunned to hear no malice in her tone.

Wordlessly, Robin sits down on the other end of Nancy's bed and draws her legs up close to her chest.

"I'm not gonna, like, yell at you or anything," Nancy continues.

And Robin doesn't believe it, so she says, "I mean…you can if you want." She attempts a smile, "I deserve it."

"No," Nancy shakes her head, "You really don't. I don't think…I, yeah, I probably would have yelled at you if I'd stayed, but that's just, like, a knee-jerk reaction and that's why I left. I thought about it and I…I don't think what you did — what you're doing — is wrong."

Robin's eyebrows fly up.

"You don't?"

Nancy shakes her head.

"I-I-I," Robin stammers, "That doesn't even…I— how…Nancy, I'm a terrible person for doing this to you. Really, truly awful. I—"

"No, you're not," Nancy insists. She pauses, eyeing Robin in the probing sort of way Steve has complained about for years, "You don't actually think that, do you?"

"I…"

Robin overts her eyes, fiddling with the cuff of sleeve, unfolding it and re-folding it and twisting the small white plastic button.

Before she can look up, Nancy is shifting down the bed so they're side by side, hip to hip, the cotton of Robin's trousers pressed against the denim of Nancy's jeans.

"Rob," Nancy says, and her hands come up to cradle to Robin's face, not unlike how Robin had clutched the curve of Nancy's jaw during her first night here. She pulls up just a bit so Robin has no choice but to meet her eyes, "You are, without a doubt, the best person. Honestly, I don't really have the words to explain how wonderful I think you are."

"Nance," Robin chokes, "I lied to you. I lied to everyone."

"Yeah," Nancy concedes, dropping her hands from Robin's cheeks but refusing to let Robin drop her gaze back down to her lap, "Yeah, you did. But…I dunno, it's complicated."

"It's complicated."

"Yeah. It's a complicated situation. Look — I think we all needed to escape Hawkins after everything. Like, we needed to, to heal, I guess. That's why I decided to go to Boston like I planned. My mom wanted me to take a gap year, but…but I just needed to get out. I needed to. I needed to get away from all of that — my family and the town and all those constant reminders of-of everything. I-I don't know — maybe you don't feel the same as me about that, and that's okay, but you left Hawkins too, and so did everyone, eventually. But Mike got stuck because…well, for a lot of reasons, and maybe I…" Nancy trails off, shaking her head, "If he needs to, like, disappear for a while, then he should be able. I-I…I do wish that he didn't have to, and I do wish that he was confiding in me, but I think that's coming from somewhere selfish, and our family's…dynamic, I guess, was always so messed up, so I kind of get why he didn't."

Nancy pauses, and Robin wonders if she should say something, but for the first time in her life, she manages to hold her tongue.

"I'm glad it's you," Nancy goes on, "Like, out of everyone, I'm glad he picked you."

Robin nods.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," she attempts again.

"Don't be," Nancy shakes her head again, "I'm serious — don't be. Mike asked you to keep his secret, and you did. If I was gonna be mad at anyone, it would be him, and I don't think I'm really even mad. Just scared and worried and guilty about my role in it, but that's for Mike and me to hash out when the time is right."

Nancy pauses.

"Also, he did sort of save your life when you got Vecna'd, so…I dunno, you sorta owed him."

Robin's eyebrows flew up.

She'd forgotten about that little detail, probably because she was in her Vecna mind soup at the time and not exactly present in her body with everyone else, but it was true. Mike, out of everyone, had been the one to jam a pair of headphones blaring "Rock Lobster" through a spare walkman onto her head about ninety seconds before her feet lifted off of the ground.

"Shit, you're right. Damn…shoulda led with that."

Robin manages a small smile as she meets Nancy's eyes.

"Do you…" Nancy trails off for a moment, "Is he, like…is he okay, though?"

"I-I really don't know," Robin answers truthfully, her eyes flitting around Nancy's bedroom so she doesn't have to look at Nancy herself, "Like I said, the only thing he ever told me was how to contact him. That's it, I swear. I think…I mean, he's safe, if that helps. I just think he's, like, trying to figure himself out, I guess. He wants to be alone, he just…wanted to know someone would tell him if something, like, happened."

"And if you moved in with me, you'd…" Nancy trails off, looking expectantly at Robin to finish her sentence.

"I mean, I told him I'd let him know if my number changed, so…"

Nancy looks away, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

"Okay," she finally says, "This is all…I mean, it's a lot to process, I guess, but, yeah. I'm glad you told me. Thank you for telling me. That…I can't imagine it was easy — I'm not sure I would have been able to do it if it was me."

Again, Robin nods, still a little shaky and in disbelief about how all this is playing out, but she's selfish by nature so she's not going to turn away from a good thing when it's being freely given, and Nancy certainly is a good thing.

"So you're…"

"Robin," Nancy says, lifting her arms and draping them over Robin's shoulders, her hands tangling in her hair, "We're good. I promise things are good, okay? And you're not a bad person for this. I get it."

Robin nods, and Nancy grasps her hands, squeezing tight.

"Now can you please be excited about your new job? And moving to Boston? Because I'm really excited for you and for us and I wanna tell my roommates so they can stop freaking out about finding a sub-letter."

Robin can't help the smile that begins to creep onto her face.

"See!" Nancy laughs, "You're excited! Let yourself be excited!"

And Robin grins.

"Nance," she says, her voice low, "It's so much money. So. Much. Money. Like, practically triple what I'm making now, and like, cost of living is way higher here so that's part of it, but holy shit, I'm so fucking excited, and Boston's the best city and you're here, and Eddie's gonna move in with Steve so he's not alone and now we won't have to listen to them mope about how much they miss each other anymore, and I think things are…like, things are gonna be so good."

Nancy smiles back at her, wraps an arm around Robin's middle and hugs her as best as she can from the way they're sitting side by side on her bed.

"Hey," Nancy says, looking up at her through her lashes, "You wanna call Steve?"

Robin feels her eyes widen.

"Shit, yeah, I gotta call Steve."

June 26, 1993 - Hawkins, Indiana

"Good visit?" Steve asked.

He was the first to speak since Steve and Robin departed from Joyce and Hopper's house — the House, with a capital H — five minutes earlier.

"Yeah," Robin nodded, because it had been. She'd gotten to make out with Nancy a solid handful of times, which had been pretty damn good, and even if she hadn't, Steve and Eddie had finally confessed their pathetically undying love for each other, which was great in a general sense, but even better specifically for Robin because now she wouldn't have to hear Steve lament about his "unrequited" crush anymore.

It was a good visit.

Steve, discerning as always, asked, "You okay?"

"Yeah, I-" Robin shook her head, "I kinda miss my parents, I guess."

She felt the way Steve glanced at her for a while before his eyes returned to the road.

"You wanna drive by your house?"

Robin shook her head.

"It's…I dunno, it's not really the same."

Steve nodded but didn't say anything else.

Another minute later, he was easing the Beemer into the parking lot of a new, organic-y-looking grocery store that her dad would have loved and her mom would have thought was too expensive.

"Gonna grab something to drink so we won't have to stop for a while," Steve explained.

"Want me to come?"

"Nah, I'll be quick."

Robin waited while Steve ducked inside the grocery store, and he emerged only a few minutes later with two bottles of water in one hand and a paper bag in the other.

He slid the paper bag into the back before returning to the driver's seat and setting the waters in the cupholders.

"Oh c'mon — water?" Robin complained, because she couldn't help it, "You're no fun."

"Yeah, and neither is stopping every eight miles so you can pee."

Robin rolled her eyes.

Once they were back on the road, Robin began sorting through the mess of CDs cluttering the glovebox and spilling out onto the floor of the car, organizing them into the best possible listening experience for their thirty-hour drive back home.

She only looked up when she felt the car slow down and pull onto rough gravel, and when she did, she saw that Steve was parking along the side of Roane Hill Cemetery.

"What're we doing here?" Robin asked as Steve stepped out of the car. He extracted the grocery bag from the back seat before opening Robin's door.

"C'mon," he said, reaching out a hand.

As Robin accepted, she resisted the urge to roll her eyes, knowing she'd only be doing it to downplay the tightness in her chest that she was trying to ignore.

Robin held tight onto Steve's hand, and Steve interlocked their fingers as they headed across the cemetery. It didn't take long for them to get where they were going.

As Robin's parents' gravestones came into view, Steve paused, letting go of Robin's hand to hold out the grocery bag. Robin opened it and saw two bouquets of flowers.

"Wha— Steve, you're such a dick."

"Nice," Steve replied drily, "That's real nice, Rob."

He didn't look all that hurt, thankfully, probably because he knew her well enough to understand she didn't actually mean it. It was more just that sometimes he was so sweet and kind and always got her in a way that she wasn't sure she deserved.

(Though, to be fair, she didn't really think anyone deserved Steve).

"If Eddie breaks your heart, I'm gonna kill him," she settled on saying.

Steve responded by giving her a tiny shove in the direction she needed to go.

Robin paused to pull the bouquets out of the bag, which Steve held onto before taking a step back so she could approach her parents' graves on her own.

The headstones, side by side, were still new-looking even seven years later, not yet victims of the elements other than some moss growing up the side of her mom's.

Her mom would have liked the moss, Robin thought.

Robin didn't know what to do.

She started by crouching to lay each bouquet of flowers at the base of her parents' gravestones, feeling her eyes starting to water as she did.

Robin wondered if she should say something. She knew sometimes people talked to the deceased beneath their feet, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to. Her parents, after all, weren't even beneath her feet. They'd basically been evaporated by the gate, from what Robin understood, so empty coffins had been buried.

She ran her fingers over their names on the headstones, over the words embossed in the smooth, grey stone.

Wife. Mother. Sister.

Husband. Father. Son.

Robin wasn't usually a crier, but she allowed in that moment for her tears to spill over, and when she finally got to her feet, Steve was there.

Eventually, after the tears had run their course but before she'd released herself from the tight hug Steve held her in, Robin wiped her nose on his t-shirt. Steve only made a small noise of disgust.

"Thank you," she said, finally pulling away from him and taking a small step towards the car.

Steve only nodded.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Yeah," Robin nodded in return, "Let's go home."

March 2, 1994 - SeaTac, Washington

The rest of Robin's visit to Boston flew by and, truthfully, Robin doesn't really remember most of it.

Her new boss at the museum had given her the rest of February to get all her affairs in order and make the move to Boston, so the second she was back in Tacoma, Robin had needed to jump into packing and planning and otherwise preparing for the cross-country move (which, as it turns out, mostly ended up consisting of filling out paperwork, faxing it to Nancy to double check that she'd filled it out correctly, and then faxing it again to where it actually needed to go).

She also had needed to put her two weeks in with Books and Balderdash, which had been completely fucking devastating and Robin hopes she never has to do it again.

Robin had told Steve about Mike too, and he'd ended up being a lot more upset about the whole thing than Nancy, which, Robin supposes, shouldn't have come as a surprise.

She also managed to get in contact with Mike himself to tell him about, well, everything. He took it just as mysteriously as he always did, and while Robin did pass on the number for the brownstone in Boston she'll be moving into, she isn't too sure he'll ever call.

Mostly, Robin had spent her last two weeks in Tacoma planning and packing and otherwise preparing herself for the cross-country move, and she'd hit the true point of no return yesterday when all of her belongings got packed into the back of a small moving truck and headed off in the direction of Boston with its accompanying driver, Stan.

Stan is probably halfway there by now, and Robin is only twenty minutes away from the airport (though it would be ten if Steve didn't drive like a grandpa).

With all her furniture gone, Robin had slept in Steve's bed last night. Eddie, who had moved himself and all his stuff out of Indiana and into the apartment two days earlier, had graciously taken the couch so Robin and Steve could have one last sleepover, and in the morning they all went out for breakfast at the only cafe in Tacoma that Robin ever really got attached to. Now, she's sitting in the front passenger seat of Steve's Beemer, bickering with Eddie about what music to play just like they always do while Steve mostly ignores them, just like always.

When they arrive at the airport, Steve eases the car into the drop-off lane and throws on the hazards — Robin had insisted she didn't need him to come with her all the way into the airport, and if she's not so sure about that now she's actually here, well…she can keep that to herself. All three of them get out of the car, and as Steve heads for the trunk, presumably to grab Robin's suitcase, Eddie grins at her.

"Buck," he says, holding his arms out for a hug that Robin feigns annoyance about even as she accepts, "Safe travels, my friend."

"Yeah, yeah," she shrugs, "Take care of Steve."

"I will."

Robin steps back, plastering what she hopes is a threatening expression onto her face.

"I'm so serious, Eddie. Take care of him. He needs it."

"I will!" he protests, "Why do people think I won't? He's, like, the whole fuckin' world, man! What about you and Nance? Try not to drive her too far up the wall, or whatever."

"Shut up," Robin rolls her eyes.

"Look," Eddie says, looking quite a bit more serious, "About Nance — at some point, she's gonna take you to see a ballet. The ballet is not like a concert. The expectation is total silence."

Robin pauses.

"Steve's gonna ask you to do Legos with him, and you're gonna wanna say yes, but it's a trick question. The answer is no. For your sanity, the answer is always no."

"Nance'll want to teach you how to crochet and you're gonna wanna die. She makes it look so easy and it makes no fucking sense and you're gonna feel so stupid."

"Do not let Steve grow a mustache," Robin fires back

Eddie's eyes flash wickedly at the prospect.

"I'm so fucking serious," she warns, "If he has a mustache the next time I see him, I will be obligated to murder you."

Eddie makes a noise of protest, but before he can say anything, Steve approaches with Robin's suitcase in one hand and her backpack in the other.

"Jesus, Rob," he says, "What were you gonna do? Leave these in the trunk if I didn't fetch them for you like a pack mule?"

"Whatever," Robin rolls her eyes, "I didn't hear you complaining yesterday when Eddie and Stan were drooling over your arms packing the truck."

In return, Steve shoves her backpack into her arms, though the tips of his ears do start to turn pink.

When he meets her eyes again, almost all the humor is gone from his face, and Robin knows the same is mirrored on hers.

Robin is vaguely aware of Eddie taking a few steps back.

"Steve, if you cry, I'll kill you," Robin threatens, swallowing the knot at the back of her throat.

Steve rolls his eyes again, but his lips are twisted in a sad sort of resignation.

"Uh," Steve pauses, glancing over Robin's shoulder at the airport entrance behind her, "Be safe, okay?"

"Eddie already said that."

"Damn. There goes all our practice, I guess."

Robin laughs despite being closer to crying than anything else.

She stays rooted to the spot, stuck in place like she'd stepped in wet cement and failed to remove herself in time.

"Rob," Steve says gently.

She exhales, curses herself for how much it shakes.

"Yeah?"

"You, like, ready to head in? I can still come with you if you want. I'll wait 'til the plane takes off."

His face is so earnest Robin can't stand it.

She doesn't want to leave him. She can't leave him. It's Steve. They haven't been apart for more than a couple days since they were tortured together in 1985, (save for the few months when Robin was away for her freshman year of college and Steve hadn't joined her quite yet, and if that's a preview for how this is going to go, it's going to suck). He makes her laugh. He makes her smile. He makes her feel safe. The past six years of living with him have been the best part of her existence and he is the best person she's ever known. She knows that leaving him won't kill her, that their friendship will remain unchanged, that she's heading towards something good, something that feels like Robin. She knows all that.

But how can she walk away from something if her heart and her brain and her gut are all telling her not to?

"I don't wanna go," Robin says, feeling very small as she does.

"Oh," Steve replies, his voice soft.

Robin feels her face crumple as she runs her hands through her hair, and then she's crying. Robin never cries, but now she's crying and Steve is pulling the backpack out of her grip and hugging her, big arms wrapping around her shoulders, and maybe he's crying too but Robin can't tell because her face is smushed into his shoulder and she's bawling like a baby.

For a while, they just hold each other. Steve doesn't say anything and Robin doesn't even bother to try. At some point, another traveler pauses by Eddie and says something sympathetic she doesn't fully catch.

She hears Eddie loud and clear though as he responds with, "They're forbidden lovers, actually — young Jedis about to take their oaths. Very sad stuff."

And Robin's tears have mostly run their course, so the absurdity of Eddie's statement forces a hysterical giggle out of her, and she can feel that Steve is laughing too.

Finally, she pulls away, swiping at the dampness on her face with her sleeve.

"Go, Rob," Steve urges her, "I'll be right behind you."

"Yeah…in two years," she grumbles in return.

"Eighteen months," he corrects pointedly, "I love you. Gonna miss you like fuckin' crazy."

"Yeah," Robin nods, "Love you too."

"You'll call when you get off the plane?"

"Yeah," she repeats.

"Not when you get to Nancy's. When you get off the plane — got it?"

"Jesus, yes, got it," she rolls her eyes.

Steve gives Robin one last hug, kisses the top of her head, and then gently pushes her in the direction of the airport so she has no choice but to begin the treacherous walk towards the door.

She makes it about halfway before she turns back to see that Steve and Eddie are still there, shoulder to shoulder and leaning against the side of the Beemer.

Steve waves and Robin manages a grin as she waves back.

"Go!" Eddie calls, waving her on, "We don't have all day, Buck! I've got big plans with Stevie-boy and the couch you banned us from doing anything fun on until you left."

"Oh my god, shut up!" Steve smacks Eddie's arm, turning bright red as his eyes dart around for anyone who may have overheard.

Robin shakes her head as she finally turns and continues making her way into the airport and towards the whole rest of her goddamn life.

Maybe Robin really is a bad person.

Maybe she isn't.

Or — and perhaps she hasn't spared enough thought to this particular option — maybe things aren't as black and white as she wants them to be.

She can do good and bad. She can hurt and she can make right. She can break things and she can try to mend them. She can hate and be angry and be sad, and have the opposite be true all the while.

She can contain multitudes, just like Whitman says.

Perhaps she still isn't sure, but she has time to figure it out and she has people — some pretty fucking incredible people — on her side while she does.

More than anything, as she walks further and further into SeaTac International Airport, she has a sneaking suspicion (scary as it may be), that things are going to be okay.

Or maybe they'll be even better.

this is the first time i've actually had a whole fic ready before i started posting, so that was fun. i hope y'all enjoyed!

next up: eddie's pov

lyrics are from Twenty One Pilot's "Car Radio"

author's notes:
1. big headcanon that robin would be a The B-52's fan. i feel like "Love Shack" would end up being her all-time fav, but it wouldn't come out until 1989. "Rock Lobster" came out in 1979 and gives me big 'odd duck' robin vibes.
2. and if i said this won't be the last time we see Steve visit the grave of another person's parent?
3. the referenced poem at the end is walt whitman's 'song of myself'. it is long and was a little controversial in its time and robin would probably adore it