#but nancy needed robin to know otherwise she’d lose her mind

[blob-of-atoms]

No License | Ronance // Robin Buckley x Nancy Wheeler

a/n: Inspired by my post on Robin lying about having a license to see Nancy at the library.

Warnings: none { fluffy fluff } 

Genre: flash fic [ 896 words ] 

Pairing: Robin Buckley x Nancy Wheeler

Synopsis: Robin lied about having her license but for a good reason, and Nancy is always a good reason. 

..............................................................................................................................

Robin closed the door of Nancy’s car with more fervor than she expected. It slammed so hard it  made her twitch. Glancing to her side, she scanned Nancy for any signs of annoyance. 

If only Robin could explain to Nancy that she was excited to be in the car with her and spend a day with just her. But she was scared. Scared that Nancy would suspect her excitement to be about Robin’s growing crush on her. But Nancy said nothing about the door, and instead smoothly started the engine and reversed out of the parking spot. 

Of course Robin had lied about not having a license, otherwise she would be stuck babysitting and she would have missed out on seeing Nancy at the library. Seeing her eyes widen as she looked over book covers and newspaper clippings. No, Robin couldn’t miss that. 

She stared out the window biting her thumb, quickly losing her bravado she had a minute ago when she’d snatched the keys from Steve’s hand. 

Robin couldn’t help but move her eyes away from the passing trees and unto Nancy, who had her hand on the wheel, her wavy bangs covering her blue dove eyes. Robin pondered about how Nancy managed to do everything so perfectly. She struggled with anxious thoughts and jitters that kept her from- well, as her mom put it, ‘ not being so awkward and away in the clouds’. Robin knew that if her mom met Nance, she would plead with her to ‘fix’ Robin and teach her to be more like her. Robin would rather learn everything about Nancy, starting with her favorite songs, or perhaps her favorite food, or even if she also had a raging fear of rabies or if that was just irrational of Robin to think about. 

“What are you staring at?” Nancy chuckled, glancing at Robin before focusing back to the road ahead. 

“What?” Robin scooted up the passanger seat, pulled away from her thoughts, her cheeks quickly filling with red. “N-nothing, I was just…thinking about what we might find at the library! Yeah..” Robin shook her head at her own lame reasoning, turning to look out the window again. 

“Mmhmm, hopefully it’ll have what we need,” Nancy hummed, following a curving road that took them towards the local library. “And if not, we’ll have to move our theories elsewhere. But there’s just something about what Wayne said…” Nancy mumbled, Robin suspected more to herself than to make conversation. 

Before she knew it, her eyes wandered back at Nancy, at her long eyelashes, her pink glossed lips, her soft wavy hair. Robin squeezed her eyes shut. Stop being so obvious She thought to herself. 

“What’s wrong?” Nancy’s soft voice cooed her from her internal struggle. 

“I-it’s nothing, just that the sun hurts my eyes a bit,” Robin mumbled, biting at her thumb again. Another dumb excuse, good going! 

“Well you can put down the sun visor if you want to” Nancy consoled her. 

Robin didn’t know what to do so she did as Nancy said and put down the sun visor. But it was worse because now Robin was staring at her reflection with cheeks flushed red, further reconfirming how she became more of a mess under Nancy’s presence. 

“Yeah, that helps” Robin slid down the seat, but stared back at Nancy again. Even when Nancy was the reason for Robin's distress, she was also the solution. Just being with her calmed Robin down, it slowed down the thoughts that crossed her mind at lightning speed every minute. 

“ Hey” Nancy smiled down at Robin, letting her take a moment of attention off the straight road. “It's great that you helped the kids with finding Eddie.” 

Robin grinned up at Nancy, feeling a touch sad when she broke their gaze to look back at the road. “ By kids do you mean Steve too?” Robin let out a giggle, “ He kept insisting we check on Eddie”. 

Nancy giggled at the idea of a frantic Steve urging everyone to check their radios every half an hour. “Steve is very much the mom of the group, and he’s not helping himself get out of that position.” 

Robin thought Nancy’s laughter was the most glorious sound she’d ever heard. “ Totally, it’s like he only needs to be in a mom book club or have a baby seat for his car.” Her and Nancy fell into a fit of giggles imagining Steve in a book club surrounded by middle aged women and a baby seat strapped to the backseat of his BMW. 

If only she could take a snapshot of this moment, the morning sun hitting Nancy’s button nose and gleaming eyes. Robin imagined she was taking a mental picture and imagined looking back at this moment whenever she felt sad or stressed. 

They spent the rest of the short drive talking and at the idea of Steve doing mom related things. Nancy even leaned her head on Robin’s shoulder for a moment when a joke she told made her laugh too hard. 

All Robin knew was that she would definitely be asking Nancy for a ride to school from now on. Eventually, she would sum up enough of her courage to reveal to Nancy that she did have a license. 

And maybe, just maybe, that she was head over heels in love with her. 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

Breaking down the “leak”

It seems the leak from back in April is on everyone’s minds lately. While I don’t really see anything to suggest it is legit, there’s not really much else to talk about. I think what I’d like to do is go down the leak, bit by bit, and give my thoughts. I’ll be going through the points in the order I see them in a series of screengrabs, so it may not be the order the original post had them. A lot of this seems like it would be from a single episode, likely the first one.

The first thing I see is Steve applying to Hawkins PD, but being rebuffed for his previous vandalism in Season 1. This seems odd considering we never saw the police get involved in that. Steve being a police officer is something born out of fan theory, which further casts doubt in my mind. While it could simply be a nod to fans, it still comes off as out of place. Steve was last shown getting a new job at a video store, and we’re going to see him going for another job already?

The next bit is that Max is depressed and sees the school counselor. She has a fight with Lucas and then dumps him. Working in the school counselor from the earlier reported new characters could have been an attempt to make it seem more legit. I don’t know if that casting report was truly legit since it had more info than I’d expect. Max and Lucas fighting is not terribly surprising. Their relationship was not shown to be all that great in Season 3. Saying Max would be depressed links onto the end of Season 3, so, again, nothing too shocking. This could just be good guesswork as opposed to a leak.

Next is a new character Fred (an orphan, but more on him later) talking to Dustin. Fred tells Dustin that he believes his dad, thought to be dead, is actually alive. He was allegedly experimented on by the lab and then thrown into a mental hospital after he went nuts and killed Fred’s mom. This is a rather big piece of info for a leaker to have. The idea that there were adult test subjects was covered in the Suspicious Minds novel, so it could be a tie-in to that, but this part of the “leak” could also just be fan theories based on that same novel. I can’t see Brenner taking any chances with his work being exposed by throwing a subject into a mental hospital.

Next, we have Dustin having lunch with Nancy and Robin, while Lucas and apparent new character Eddie watch Mike be friendly with a cheerleader. If true, then Season 4 occurs immediately after Season 3, otherwise there’s no way Dustin would be in high school with Nancy and Robin. I was never too clear on what grade exactly Nancy was in, but she could potentially be a senior now. Robin had mentioned being in class with Steve though, so I would’ve thought she’d be his age. Still, it’s possible I suppose. Dustin having lunch with them seems to clash with his Hellfire Club status though, unless this occurs before he joins. One would think he’d eat with his new friends, especially if he ISN’T eating with his old friends. Meanwhile, said old friends are also split, with Lucas hanging out with Eddie and watching Mike be “friendly” with a cheerleader.

The next bit is where we’re told Dustin joins the Hellfire Club (set photos confirm this). It’s described as an elite group of nerds formed by the previously mentioned Fred. Dustin apparently is interested when they play D&D, but Lucas and Mike decline. This both clashes and fits with Season 3. Mike is bothered by Will seeming to move on from D&D, but it could still fit if Mike just doesn’t want to play without Will. Still, this seems to be building a rupture of the Party right after Season 3 showed how good they are together. Yes, it’s normal for kids their age to look to reinvent themselves, but it also goes against what the show was apparently building. Each season does have elements where there’s strife in the Party that gets resolved, but this takes it to an absurd level.

Dustin is then described as being seen as a “runt of the litter” in the Hellfire Club. That’s not really unusual treatment for a freshman in a high school club. His D&D skills and link to Robin gain him cred, apparently. This leads to him getting close to Fred. There’s not a lot here, but this “leak” does spend a lot of time on the Fred/Dustin dynamic.

Next is the “shocker” where Mike and El have a phone/walkie call that doesn’t go well. Mike is losing interest, El picks up on it. She says “I love you” and he says “I know.” Considering the level of detail on some of the other parts, this is rather brief. The exchange is verbatim Empire Strikes Back, and, while that isn’t totally out of the ordinary for this show, it makes me see it as something more fanfiction-y. The idea of them having a “meh” phone call isn’t too weird since we saw at the end of Season 3 that they were definitely not on the same page. It wouldn’t be hard for a fake leaker to come up with something like this. Should it be true, then it could spur El to go back to her possessive and distrustful ways. She may be driven to find out how to get her powers back in order to spy on Mike.

The “leak” specifically mentions there being no plans to include Chernobyl. This is an odd thing to say. I’m not sure how popular a fan theory this is, but it’d be in bad taste to work a real-life deadly disaster into a show like this. I don’t know why the person who wrote this felt the need to specifically debunk this unless they just wanted to seem more legit.

A flashback to Joyce, Hopper, and Lonnie in high school. That’s reasonable, especially since we know Lonnie is back this season in some capacity. I have no doubts that Hopper will be having flashbacks/memories during his captivity. This being believable doesn’t necessarily make this real though, as it’s another thing that’s reasonable to predict.

Despite most of the leak seeming to be from an early point in the season, the leaker goes on to say that there’s 5 major deaths (2 new characters, 3 previously existing characters), one of whom is one of the kids who dies in the final episode. Now perhaps there’s parts of the “leak” that I just don’t see in these screengrabs, but this is very odd. Prior to this is just looks like maybe someone got their hands on the first script somehow, or parts of it anyway. I don’t know how many people would be entrusted with every script, particularly the end, for this very reason. A single script getting out is at least somewhat believable, but this is where I lose any faith in this “leak.”

Finally, the leaker mentions this season taking place over the course of months, ending with the end of the Party’s freshman year. This would indeed be a change from the usual storytelling, and it would have to mean a slowly growing threat as opposed to one already striking in the first episode. That would kinda sorta work now that there’s no superpowered character to fend off the supernatural, but it would leave a lot of skipped time that I’m not sure would work in a show like this.

Will is mysteriously left out of this “leak.” There’s literally no mention of him that I can find unless there’s missing parts I don’t have. Someone who knows who dies would have something to say about Will, but there’s just nothing. It’s especially odd considering that if this is indeed the Party’s freshman year, then Will would have started school with them. The Byers don’t move until sometime in October, so Will would have spent at least a month at Hawkins High. This would also make Season 4 start with the shortest potential time skip, or perhaps no skip at all.

So, IF this leak is genuine:

There is a small, if any, time skip, with Season 4 beginning shortly after the Byers move in October.

Given the above statement, Mike must quickly lose interest in El, possibly even before their planned holiday visit.

The Party falls apart despite them all seeing how good they are together at the end of Season 3.

Max is going through depression, likely related to Billy’s death and everything else that happened (the end of S3 supports this).

Max and Lucas’ relationship gets even worse.

Mike and Lucas don’t want to be seen as nerds

Steve is still just a lost man child, or at least suffering the consequences of having been one for so long.

Robin and Nancy hang out together, and with Dustin until he joins the Hellfire Club

Will is a nonfactor, at least in the episode the bulk of this comes from?

I really have trouble believing this “leak” simply due to how the poster claims knowledge of the ending while the details all seem to be from the first episode. I suppose it’s possible they did legit get the first episode and made up some other stuff, but that seems pointless. For now, I’m just going with the idea that ANY legitimacy in this would be that it’s a real fake “leak” created by someone on the show to mislead fans or create buzz.