Chapter Text
They’re just friends. Best friends, even. That’s what Steve told Dustin. Told Jonathan. Even told Robin. Nancy, too. Repeated it in her head like her own personal mantra. Like it was gospel.
But friends don’t let their gazes fall to each other's lips when they think no one’s watching. They don’t let their hands brush, don’t feel sparks when skin meets skin.
And they certainly don’t push each other against guest beds in their friends' weird uncle's house, their hands in each other's hair, tongues sliding against each other's lips.
♡♡
Nancy’s never been in Philly before. It’s… Strange. Different from Massachusetts. A hell of a lot different from Hawkins. It’s too quiet there. Too suffocating. She doesn’t understand why Steve would want to stay.
Steve.
She isn’t sure why he still plagues her mind after all these years. Why, when she drifts off to sleep at night, it's not Jonathan's eyes she grieves, it’s his.
Since that one Spring break, the one that changed everything, she can’t help but think of him. Can’t help but remember how his breath hitched when she pressed the scraps of her sweater against his wounds. Can’t help but replay the sounds of his soft little groans echoing in the thick air of the Upside Down. How those deep honey irises burned into her so intensely, the wind got knocked out of her and never came back.
But it isn’t only the weird sexual tension between them that never got solved that keeps her mind occupied. It’s how he made her laugh, even in her darkest moment. When she thought all hope was lost, when she truly believed that she’d never smile again. He brought that light back within her. The same light Jonathan had slowly sucked out little by little…Until there was none left at all.
Then he poured his heart out to her, which made everything a thousand times worse. A thousand times more complicated. And not in the sense that she felt disgusted by his confession, but that she wanted it. To spend her winter and fall chasing stories, to spend her summer on the sand, in his arms. The waves tickling the soles of their feet, their faces burned pink.
But it made her queasy to think about. To think that she’d wake up next to him one day and all she’d see is Barbara Holland's face. Eyes glassy, still begging for help. Skin rotted, crawling with maggots, her limbs tangled in vines.
So, she pushed the feelings away. Denied, denied, denied. Convinced herself that they were just friends. Never anything more.
Then Joyce took an axe to Vecna's neck. Chop after chop, Nancy hoped to feel that sweet sense of relief flood into her bones. Finally, the man, no monster, who took Barb from her all those years ago was finally gone. Reduced to nothing more than a pile of vines and blood too black.
But it didn’t come.
Not when she still wakes up grasping her chest, choking on her own guilt, screaming Barb's name. Night after night, she looks at the empty space next to her, vision black and fuzzy. For hours, she wraps her arms around her legs, closing her eyes and pretending like someone’s there to hold her. Pretending like someone’s there, rubbing circles in her back, and telling her it’ll be okay.
It got worse and worse each passing night. So bad that she dropped out of her dream college. Left everyone she met there behind, running from the guilt she knows she can not escape. Then the lies began. Mountains of lies she had fed to her friends. Told them she wanted to be out there, in the real world. Find herself instead of wandering aimlessly.
But that’s exactly what she’s been doing for almost 2 years. Wandering. Searching for meaning in a life so bleak she wished it were a dream. A dream she could awake from any time she pleased.
But it isn’t a dream. Isn’t some sick sitcom where a camera crew is going to burst out of some bushes and yell: “We tricked you!”
With a quick breath in, she shakes her head, trying to focus on not getting lost. Now’s not the time to think about it all. About the boy, she wishes she hadn’t let go. About the girl, she wishes she could’ve saved. Philly's too big, too crowded to be distracted.
Nancy shoves through crowds of people, dodging shoulders, skirting around piles of trash littered on the sidewalk. The sour smell of cigarettes wafts around her, soaking into her clothes and swirling around her head.
Why she agreed Philly would be the best place all those months ago is beyond her. Still, she’d walk through junkyards just to see her friends. Just to have a little distraction from her own mind. It’s only been a month since she last saw them, but it feels like an eternity.
Soon, she arrives at the house. Smack dab in the city. It’s larger than she thought, a sizable townhome connected to tens of others, all carbon copies on the outside. Quickly, she double-checks the address Robin gave her that she sloppily scribbled down on a piece of paper.
As soon as she confirms it, she walks up the cement steps, heels clicking against the rough surface softly. Her knuckles tap against the door, one, two, three times, before it swings open.
On the other side is Robin, a giant smile on her face. Her hair is noticeably longer than it was the last time Nancy saw her, the ends of it splitting and lighter than her roots.
“Wheeler!” Robin squeals, pulling Nancy towards her.
Nancy laughs, her own arms snaking around Robin’s body. “I missed you!” she whispers into her hair.
Robin steps back first, taking in Nancy’s outfit. “Are you meeting up with some babe later?” She questions, the corner of her mouth twitching up.
Quickly, Nancy shakes her head, her curls bouncing with the motion. “No? Why? Too much?” Nancy says, suddenly feeling insecure.
“No! You look good, I promise!” Robin responds, a little too loudly. With an apologetic look, she lowers her voice, “Haven’t seen you in a skirt in a while. Anyone special you’re trying to impress?”
She can just about feel her cheeks pinkening. Maybe she did spend some time digging through her closet this morning. Maybe she did take a little extra care when doing her makeup. But not for anyone specific. Definitely not.
“Wha- No! Steve and I are just friends, Rob. I’ve told you that so many times.”
Robin just smirks in response and turns on her heel, calling over her shoulder, “I didn’t say anything about Steve!”
Nancy flushes even deeper, sucking in a breath.
Well shit.
She rushes after her, following her down the stairs quickly. Robin stops in the middle of the room, throwing her arms out. “Welcome to the best place on earth!”
Nancy smiles, taking a moment to look around. It’s furnished nicer than she expected, with light brown hardwood floors, brightly colored couches, and a pool table on the far side. A TV sits on a dresser in front of the couches, wider than Nancy’s own at home.
“Wow,” Nancy whispers, laughing softly as Robin flops down onto the couch. “Where’s that weird uncle you mentioned?”
Robin shrugs. “Slinging drugs somewhere.”
Nancy’s smile immediately drops, her eyebrows pinching. Just as Nancy’s about to apologize, Robin quickly fixes her tone.
“No- Sorry. Joking. He’s always traveling. So I get the house to myself if I ever want it.”
“Oh. Right,” she chuckles, sitting down next to her, legs crossed. “So… Where are-“
Before she can finish her sentence, voices sound from a room on the far side of the basement. Out walks Steve and Jonathan, holding beers and laughing about something.
Not able to help herself, Nancy’s eyes skip over Jonathan completely, landing on Steve instead. The last time she saw him, he was decked out in typical dad wear, beige suit and ugly tie. It was completely unlike Steve, and a part of her felt sad for him.
Now, though, he’s dressed in a cozy knit sweater, a wash of jeans she’s never seen him in before covering his legs. His hair is less styled than it was the last time she saw him, wavy, thick brown tendrils curled at the nape of his neck. It looks like it did when they were teens.
He’s in the middle of a sentence, some stupid remark to Jonathan, when suddenly he freezes. Time slows to a halt once their eyes meet. Almost as if the Earth entirely stops spinning on its axis. Honey irises meet the blue of Nancy’s, wide and glossy.
It’s only been a month, but god, it feels like years.
Like a rubber band snapping into place, everything moves back into motion, Jonathan rushing toward her. She stands up from the couch, her smile soft.
“Nancy!” He exclaims, giving her a quick hug.
“Hey,” Nancy whispers, squeezing him softly before he pulls away.
Steve is slower to get to her, and the corner of his mouth quirks up slightly. His fingers tighten around the cold beer in his hand. “Hey, Stranger.”
“Steve,” she smiles. “No more Levi’s?”
He rolls his eyes in response, taking a swig of his beer. “No. Don’t act so surprised, I have taste.”
Before Nancy can tease him back, Jonathan cuts in. “Yeah, washed out jeans and my grandpa’s sweater,” he chuckles.
Steve shoves his arm in response, rolling his eyes. Nancy’s eyes follow his figure as he turns to sit on the adjacent sofa.
Shaking the thoughts out of her head, Nancy sits down next to Robin, taking a bottle of beer out of her hand.
For the next hour, they all fill each other in on their life recently. Robin tells everyone that she and Vickie are doing well, even planning to go on a trip somewhere over the summer. Jonathan drowns in his movie, boring everyone with the details of how he filmed each scene.
Eventually, the conversation shifts to a place Nancy would rather it not be.
“How’s Kristen?” Robin asks, taking a sip from her own drink. “You use any tips from that sex ed class you’re teaching on her?”
Nancy almost chokes on her drink, making a soft sputtering sound into the glass. Luckily, only Robin notices. She sends a look in Nancy’s direction, which she doesn’t have time to decipher before Steve’s scoffing in response.
“Come on, really?” He groans. “Gross, dude.”
Jonathan elbows him, egging him on. “Come on, man, what’s going on with Kristy?”
“Kristen,” Nancy corrects, barely meaning to.
Steve scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. “Didn’t work out."
Huh?
Nancy really thought they were set. They had been dating for almost 9 months, the last time they had talked. Something in her heart tugs at the thought of Steve being open. Free.
Quickly, she folds those feelings up and packs them into the corner of her mind, not wanting them to see the light of day ever again.
“Guess you’re not getting your six little nuggets any time soon, huh?” Jonathan teases.
Everyone laughs, the line becoming a group inside joke. Except Steve’s laugh is duller. Not like the deep, real laughs Nancy used to pull from him. His jaw clenches slightly, eyes not meeting anyone else’s.
No one notices but Nancy.
A part of her regrets telling Jonathan. Regrets mocking something that’s obviously so dear to him. Despite them not being on the same page, being at different points in their lives, she knows how much it means to him. Which just makes her feel infinitely worse.
At some point later in the night, Jonathan makes some lame excuse to leave. Something about Will needing a ride home from somewhere. Robin just shrugs, standing up to hug him. Nancy does the same, her touch not lingering for long.
Steve and Robin continue to chatter away while Nancy allows herself to sink into the cushions and just listen.
After one too many drunken sex jokes, Robin decides to call it a night. She stands from the couch with a stretch, her back cracking quietly. “You guys don’t have to leave yet. Stay over if you want.”
It’s not exactly a hint. Not Robin trying to shove them together as she did over that one spring break, but she says it with a tone that makes Nancy flush. Before Nancy can argue that she has work early the next day, Robins is already up the stairs.
Then comes the silence. The uncomfortable, unrelenting silence. Millions of unsaid words sit between them, lingering like a bad smell. It seems so easy when they’re in the group. So easy to tease, to prod him. But alone? It’s all gone.
Nancy crosses her ankles, then uncrosses them. She folds her hands. Unfolds them. There’s a low ceiling light buzzing overhead, casting everything in a dim yellow haze that makes Steve look softer around the edges, like an old photograph she’s kept too long in a drawer.
“So,” Steve says, and then stops. He rubs the back of his neck, a habit she remembers too well. “Uh. Basement’s… nice.”
She almost laughs. Almost.
“Yeah,” she says instead. “Very… Buckley-esque.”
That earns her a huff of a smile. It fades quickly, like he realizes smiling might be dangerous.
They lapse back into silence. Nancy counts the seconds without meaning to. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Each one feels like a question neither of them wants to ask.
She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed this—missed him—until now. Until the absence of everyone else leaves nothing to hide behind. No monsters, no missions, no noise. No Jonathan. Just them and everything they never said.
Steve shifts his weight. The couch creaks beneath him.
“You’ve been—” he starts, then stops. “You’ve been busy.”
It’s a nothing sentence. She knows that. He knows that. But it’s the closest either of them has gotten so far.
“Yeah,” Nancy says. “You too.”
He nods. “Guess that’s what happens.”
Another long stretch of silence. This one is sharper.
Nancy’s gaze drifts to his hands. She remembers them on her back, her hips, steady and warm, remembers how safe she used to feel with him—even when nothing else was. That memory hurts more than she expects.
“I didn’t think,” Steve says suddenly, “that I’d ever get you alone again.”
Her breath catches before she can stop it.
“Why?” she asks, too quickly.
Steve’s eyes flick up to hers. He holds her gaze for a second longer than is safe. “Just… feels like there’s always someone else around now.”
He says it like they need supervision.
Do they?
“Yeah,” Nancy says quietly. “I noticed.”
She breathes out, drumming her fingers against her knees. “So… Kristen? Do you want to talk about it?” Nancy asks quietly, brushing her hair behind her ear, not sure what else to do with her hands.
Steve looks down at his feet, thumb brushing the opening of his beer. “Not much to say,” he begins. “Happened a few weeks ago.”
Nancy nods. She’s about to apologize—for what, she’s unsure—but Steve interrupts her.
“I met someone. Last week. Megan.”
“Megan,” she repeats. Her name leaves a terrible taste in her mouth.
“She’s an assistant teacher. Up at the high school.”
Nancy’s eyes flick up. Her heart squeezes in her chest. At the thought of this being his 4th girlfriend in the last year.
Pushing those thoughts away, Nancy hesitates, choosing her words carefully, like she always does. “I think maybe you don’t give yourself enough time to feel things.”
His brows knit together. “What does that mean?”
She gestures vaguely. “The dating. The jumping from one girl to the next. I’m not judging you. You don’t owe anyone anything.” She rushes the last part, afraid he’ll hear it as criticism. “I just think… you’re trying not to sit with it.”
Steve’s shoulders stiffen. “With what?”
She shouldn’t say it. Shouldn’t say what's sitting on the tip of her tongue. Something that they haven’t discussed in years.
“With us,” she says softly.
That lands.
“Us?” Steve says slowly, sitting up slowly.
“I know I never answered you,” Nancy says, the words tumbling out before she can stop them.
Steve freezes. Slowly, he looks at her. “You don’t have to.”
“I do,” she says. “I should have. A long time ago.”
He exhales through his nose. “I figured the silence was the answer.”
“It wasn’t,” Nancy says immediately. “I was scared.”
He tilts his head slightly.
“You were offering me so much, lying so much on the line for me. And, I mean, Steve… It was a lot to take in. Six kids?” She laughs softly, but Steve doesn’t return it.
He stands up, placing his beer down on the coffee table between them. Slowly, he walks around the room, toying with some trinkets on a shelf. “It was never about the kids, Nance.”
Her eyes flick up.
“You remember what I told you that day? How the most important part of that dream was you? I would-” Steve clears his throat quickly. “I would’ve given up everything for you. I didn’t need 6 kids. I didn’t need 2. Hell, I didn’t even need one.”
Before Nancy can even process any of his words, his earth-shattering words, he continues.
“Plus, I had the group. That was enough for me. Still is,” he adds on in a whisper.
What?
Nancy’s heart sinks to the bottom of her chest, fluttering against her ribs. The realization smacks her in the face like a tidal wave. She hadn’t realized how deeply she’d misunderstood him until now. How she’d taken that dream and reduced it to logistics. Instead of listening to the part where he’d said her name.
Nancy stands slowly, like any sudden movement might shatter what little courage she’s holding onto. She steps toward him, stopping just short of closing the space completely.
“Steve- I didn’t… I didn’t know,” she whispers.
“It’s fine, Nance. It was years ago. ”
Nancy steps closer. Dangerously so. “It’s not fine. I thought you were asking me to choose a life I wasn’t ready for,” she admits. “I didn’t realize you were asking me to choose you.”
Steve finally turns around, his honey eyes glossy with unshed tears. Nancy hates seeing him cry. Hates that she’s the one who made him.
He sniffles, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. “Why are we even talkin’ about this? I know we hadn’t been in the cards for a long, long time. We wanted different things, didn't we? Jonathan said so himself.”
Nancy flinches at the mention of Jonathan. “What- I don’t care what he said,” she spits out with a shake of her head. “He’s right that I wouldn’t give up on my future. Not for anyone. But that’s the thing, Steve. You never asked me to give up anything for you. You just wanted to be a part of it.”
Steve exhales, a sound that’s half relief, half ache. “I would’ve waited, Nance.”
“I know,” she whispers. “If I had known-” she breathes out shakily. “I would’ve said yes.”
His breath hitches in his throat. “What?”
“I… That spring break… Even during all that bullshit… Things changed for me. My feelings changed.”
“What’re you saying?”
“I realized that Jon and I didn’t work together like I thought we did. That you and I never had a real chance. That… I felt things for you that I shouldn’t.”
All her words are carefully past tense, carefully placed.
Deny, deny, deny.
Steve lets out a soft, incredulous laugh. “Jesus.”
Nancy looks down at her shoes. “I didn’t know how to be two people at once,” she says quietly. “The girl who wanted more than Hawkins. And the girl who—” Her voice falters. She presses her lips together, then tries again. “Who needed you.”
Steve steps closer. Not enough to crowd her. Just enough to be there.
“I didn’t need you to be anybody for me,” he says softly. “I just needed you.”
“I know,” she whispers. “And I’m sorry I figured that out too late.”
They stand there, close now, the past folded in on itself between them.
Steve shifts his weight, hands sliding into his pockets like he doesn’t trust them to stay still. “I guess… Our timing was always off,” he says. “Two people who wanted the same thing at the wrong moment.”
Nancy nods, because that’s the safest explanation. “Yeah. Timing.”
She hates how much it feels like a lie, even as she lets it settle between them.
“I don’t regret it,” Steve adds after a moment. “Being with you. Even how it ended. It… made me who I am.”
That makes her smile, small and sad. “You did that yourself.”
“Maybe,” he says. “But you made me want to be better.”
Nancy’s heart flutters, her stomach clenches. She can barely look in his eyes without wanting to throw up. Punch herself in the face for ever breaking his heart.
Steve clears his throat. “So… we’re okay, right?”
The question is careful. Neutral. Like he’s asking about a healed bone that still aches when it rains.
Nancy meets his eyes. Holds them. “Yeah,” she says. “We’re okay.”
They both believe it. Mostly.
Steve smiles, a real one this time, and steps back, giving her space she hadn’t realized she was leaning into. “Guess that’s good.”
“Yeah,” Nancy echoes.
With another clear of his throat, he scratches the back of his head. “You staying over? Robin mentioned something about a guest room. I’ll take the couch.”
Nancy shakes her head. “I’ve got work early tomorrow. I’m gonna head out.”
“Alright,” he smiles. “I’m glad we talked. Really.”
She agrees with a smile. Turning on her heel, she makes her way over to the stairs, Steve watching her retreating figure. Before she disappears from view, she speaks up. “Steve?”
“Hm?”
“See you next month.”
It takes him a second to respond. “Yeah. Next month.”
♡♡