Chapter Text
October, 1987
Robin knew it would be a bad day before she even got into the station. Something about the morning just sat wrong in her stomach. Of course, most days now ranged from ominous to apocalyptic, so this deep seated gut feeling wasn’t an accurate indicator of anything anymore.
It was supposed to be a good day, was the thing. It was rare that the air was clean enough to be outside without masks. They should be out, enjoying it! But even with the sporeless air and the gray sky promising a normal storm for once, her gut just wasn’t getting the memo.
It felt like anticipation. Like that day they’d peered out of the gymnasium-turned-relief-center, wondering why it was goddamn snowing. And unfortunately, her gut was proved correct when she and Steve traipsed into the station for their morning shift, only to find the whole station down.
No lights, no broadcast, just dead air.
“Damn,” Steve sighs, “I told you we were overdue for a crash.”
They weren't strangers to fiddling around with expensive and dangerous radio equipment. In fact, Robin might go as far as to say that besides Dustin, they might even qualify as experts on the subject. Or at least the closest thing Hawkins had to boast of, ever since Jimmy Fast Hands fled town over a year ago. But every time something went down, there was a chance it didn’t come back on, or that this thing would be the one to fry them. Robin was half convinced that today would be that day.
Maybe she could convince Steve to just turn around, call it an early week.
Most things turned back on all right, resetting the breakers seemed to do the trick, and even the most sensitive of equipment fluttered back to life after a hard reset. Robin and Steve breathed twin sighs of relief when the dials flickered back on.
“Must’ve been another power outage or something,” Steve shrugs, fiddling with his headset.
Electricity was managed by the government, which meant strict guidelines and a lot of bullshit. Blackouts and power surges had become the norm, and it was still unclear if that was due to military tampering or the regular-old alternate dimension bleeding into theirs. Robin had her bets on military, Steve, on the Upside Down.
But! Despite their source, the power grid wackiness was incredibly annoying and also terrifying if you thought too hard about it, considering how close they come to, 1: frying a bunch of very sensitive electrical equipment here at the squawk, and 2: frying Robin, Steve, and Jonathan, as they fiddled with said sensitive electrical equipment.
High voltage and amateur radio repair were a dangerous combination that they had yet to fully reveal the extent of to Joyce and Hopper. As far as the Adults were concerned, the radio station needed no repair and was incredibly safe, thank you very much.
But keeping the station up and running was already a dicey situation for a bunch of 19-year-olds. The new inter-dimensional interference? Steep learning curve didn’t even begin to cover it. The spores that rained down like ash refracted and attenuated radio waves, especially in dense amounts. Day to day, the moderate dusting of them just made the signal a little weaker, a little jumpier maybe. But during the near-weekly ‘dust storms’, the ones that sent electricity flickering and residents sheltering in place until it passed? Well, during those times radio equipment tended to go haywire, signal barely reached a mile radius, cracking and thin. Smoke and spores would erupt from the rift-plates like they were pressure valves, plunging Hawkins into wind-whipping white.
Trying to stay alive during the slow creeping apocalypse was hard enough, managing the power outages and the spore storms for the station was like trying to juggle water balloons. Something was bound to pop sooner than later.
Robin lamented the horrific death of Bob Newby on a day to day basis, revealing a never-before-seen hole of regret in her psyche. She hadn’t had any idea of his involvement with the group before she ever set foot in Starcourt. In fact, she honestly hadn’t even known he was dead before her and Steve had practically moved into the station. But damn if she wouldn't give her immortal soul in exchange for a payphone to the afterlife, because Radio Shack was practically rubble inside the MAC-Z, and Mr. Clark refused to answer their phone calls during school hours.
But today was a rare day when their cobbled together knowledge was enough to get everything back online, and Robin got ready to kick off her usual morning call only 25 minutes behind schedule.
KKKSHHSHH “Robin? Steve? It’s Nancy, over.”
Steve grabbed the walkie out of his bag at their feet, chomping on a red vine he had half hanging out of his mouth. Robin nearly tripped over the bag, trying to scrape together a semblance of a morning line-up.
“Hey Nance, it's Steve, what's up?”
“Why isn't Robin answering her walkie? Over.”
Steve rolled his eyes, probably at the fact that it was obvious that he was Nancy's second call. Or honestly, probably third. He lazily swiveled his chair to watch Robin's frantic scrambling. She swore she had just grabbed Tiffany’s I think we're alone now. It was the most crucial part of her lineup. She'd promised Holly she’d play it for her in the morning, and she would most likely be at school any minute, missing the morning squawk completely.
“She's otherwise… occupied,” Steve drawled as Robin shot a glare at him.
“Tell her I forgot it in the basement or somewhere around here, I haven't seen it since we got here,” Robin threw over her shoulder as she shoved her way out of the booth. Must’ve left the record… there! On the coffee table, score.
“—not on the air?” Nancy’s garbled voice is saying as she re-enters the booth.
“Steve.” Robin verbally prods from the doorway. He waves her off, answering Nancy.
“Uh, yeah. About that, another surge must’ve flipped the breakers. We came in this morning to find everything dead.”
“Steeeeeve,” Robin prods again.
“Oh my god, what? I'm being interrogated right now,” he whines as he swivels back towards her.
She holds up two albums. “Album number one or album number two?”
He squints, dadlike.
“Are there issues getting everything back up and running?” Nancy asks.
“Yeah, one second, Nance,” he says, distracted.
Robin can picture the frustrated shake of her head, Nancy is probably doing in the parking lot of The Hawkins Post.
Steve squints harder.
“You really need to get your eyes checked out, dingus.”
“Yeah, with what eye doctor?”
“Um, the normal doctor? I think they need to check you for brain damage, too. When was the last time you got a check-up?”
He rolls his eyes. “Two Mondays ago, just like you.”
Robin snorts, I mean like an actual doctor, stupid. One you can talk to about a glasses prescription or something, not the haz-suits and their Geiger counters.”
“I don’t need glasses. And lay off, I saw one like senior year-ish, you don’t need that stuff past high school.”
“Dude, regular doctor’s visits reduce your likelihood of preventable diseases by like 80%.”
“Okay, well, I don't have any preventable diseases, Robin.”
“Pretty sure your nearsightedness is preventable. They've invented these magical new medical devices, called glasses—”
“Hello?” Calls Nancy from the walkie, I'm seriously annoyed voice ringing out loud and clear.
“Gimme that.”
“Hey—!”
They scuffle for the walkie, and Robin comes up with it when she tugs on the redvine between Steve's teeth. He loosens his grip to defend that, which apparently is much more important.
“Sorry Nance, Robin here. Stevie woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I think he’s cranky that his hair is flatter than usual.” She sticks her tongue out at his indignant squawk.
“Robin,” Nancy’s voice is instantly warmer, coming in gently over radio waves. “Did you get everything all up and running alright?”
“Yeah, I think so. We had to do a total disconnect before flipping the breakers again, but everything is booted up and seems to be functioning normally. We had an iffy moment where the transmitter didn’t wanna play nice, but we seem to be doing okay now; signal holding steady! I'll be on air in the next 60 seconds or so.”
“Alright Rockin’ Robin, I’ll be listening for you.” Is it just her, or is it warm in here? Is Nancy’s voice warmer, teasing almost?
“Yes, ma'am," she salutes, and Steve scoffs.
“Let me know if there’s any more issues. Nancy, over and out.” The walkie goes dead as Robin passes it back.
“It’s crazy how much her tone changes when she's talking to you.” Steve grumbles.
“Well maybe if you quit your macho chest beating competition, she might actually talk to you instead of going out of her way to avoid you.” A twinge of annoyance hit Robin at just the reminder of it.
“I'm literally never doing anything!” Robin rolled her eyes. This was a frequent argument. “I’m just sitting there, being totally normal, and then Jonathan starts making everything weird— “
“Oh, so it was absolutely necessary to take your shirt off when you were messing with the breakroom sink?”
“We needed a rag! My shirt was the fastest thing I could think of!”
“My bad, I forgot that your shirt had better sponge capabilities than the paper towel I brought you.”
“We shouldn’t have needed it if he hadn’t— “
“Okay wow, I actually remembered I don’t care about plumbing and your incredibly extensive knowledge of it that you picked up… where exactly?”
Steve sniffed. “It's just common knowledge.”
“Yeah sure. Sure, it is dingus.”
The records were locked, she glanced at the clock. Only 31 minutes behind schedule. Well, what can you do? She snapped on her headphones and watched Steve do the same, settling in, the way he did every shift. “Alright Stevie, going live in 3, 2...” one, she mouthed.
“Gooooodmorning Hawkins, and welcome to the morning squawk coming at you live from WSQK 94.5 FM. Apologies for the late start this morning, we ran into a few unexpected technical difficulties! But we're here, we're back, and ready to make it up to you with this morning's scintillating weather report.” She taps the ‘applause’ note, taped to the window.
“Looks like we're gonna be seeing some colder weather dropping in, a high of 46 expected today. But we're definitely seeing the lower end of it right now, hovering around a cool 38 degrees. Looks like we’ve got low chances of dust storms this week as well; you can thank the rain for that. And so while you don’t have to worry about sheltering in place as much for the next few days, you’re going to want to carry an umbrella and a raincoat! We're gonna see some drizzle this evening and some on-and-off rain showers all tomorrow as well, so enjoy the fresh air and take the time to get outside and replace your filters, folks! Maybe even stop by the Hawk if you’ve got time, they're doing a re-showing of Taps all through the weekend, very exciting stuff.
And speaking of very exciting news, I've got a message from our friends in green. They would like me to remind our loyal listeners to please respect curfew and avoid the construction zones. For real kiddos, I’m guessing you trespassers know who you are. In addition, please avoid the band-aid reconstruction efforts near Jefferson. In fact, I'm going to level with you guys, just avoid taking Mack and Washington altogether; the backups were nasty this morning.
Alright, with that bright and sunny news, This is Rockin’ Robin, here to kick off your overcast day with a little upbeat request from a very special listener. Here's Tiffany's I think we're alone now.”
Hand off the broadcast button, she dialed the sound all the way up as the opening notes gained traction. The on-air light flickered off, and Steve chucked her a redvine which she barely batted away. She had just brushed her teeth, dude, come on.
“You gotta stop calling it the metal band-aid,” Steve told her, sipping his coffee which was a horrible combination by the way. Ugh, coffee and red vines. “You know they don’t like that.”
“They just don’t have my sense of humor. And besides, I’m not calling them Fault-line Trench Plates, it just makes people more scared of them.”
Steve raised an eyebrow. They both knew it was maybe better that people were scared of them.
“Come on, we can't have a little levity about our governmentally imposed martial law?” she cajoled, jokingly.
“I think our levity,” he flashes his eyebrows, “ is gonna get us in trouble someday,” he says, grinning. Which, fair, probably. The maps and radio gear and the freakin flame thrower concealed in the basement were definitely not government-sanctioned.
“I think they’re probably more offended by your rubber chicken being played while I encourage compliance,” she said, nodding at the stupid thing currently sitting on top of the tape deck.
Ugh, shouldn't have reminded him about it. Steve grins, squeezing the abomination. Squaw-AUUUuuuuuuuu the dumb thing wheezes, sad and rubber. Robin sipped her coffee and made a face as she twirled in her chair, popping her headphones back up in the universal signal of I’m not listening to you. Setbacks aside, today would be fine. Great, even! It was always cause for celebration any time the station was up and running smoothly after a blackout. She just wished she could kick whatever cloud was looming over her head.
...
“I swear, Steve, it's boiling in here.”
“I literally feel totally fine,” he said, “have you tried taking off your jacket and not drinking a hot beverage?”
“No dude, the coffee is needed, it’s important. It’s my drug of choice.” She bangs on the ventilation system that is supposed to be delivering fresh air into this god-forsaken booth.
“Steve, I swear there’s nothing coming out of this and I'm choking on hairspray.”
“You’re so dramatic.”
“No I'm telling you, hairspray and red vines are a poisonous combination. Its effects have never been studied before, and we don’t know what kind of toxic effect could be taking place in our lungs as we speak. That’s, like, my number one fear in life, actually. Asphyxiation. It’s really cruel of you to subject me to this, Steve.”
“You have a new greatest fear every week.”
“Not true! I'm very reasonable and predictable.”
“Last week you said your number one fear was home invasions.”
“And that was a very real fear. You were a brave man to help me move past that.”
He snorted. “—But in the meantime, I swear this vent isn't working, can you watch the booth for like 5 minutes? I need some air.”
Steve waved her off, returning to his magazine. Typical teenage boy.
The air was fresher out of the booth, but not much cooler. Robin frowned, the records and most of the equipment needed to be kept at a pretty specific temperature range. It would not be good if they were left in the heat for extended periods of time.
She went to fiddle with the AC. Honestly, she could probably just open a door, but… you had to be careful about that, nowadays. Anything might wander in.
But the heat had also been off, she frowned. They hadn’t thought to turn that back on after the surge; that was it. She clicked the Honeywell down a few more degrees. Still nothing out of the vents. Huh…
She pushes out of the rooftop door, immediately gusted with fresh cold air and blinking in the too-bright, gray light.
“Okay, AC unit, AC unit,” she mumbled.
There it was, the bleached white unit humming along at the far end of the roof. It rattled the same as it always did, but the little fan on the top wasn't spinning.
Robin located a bent stick back near the door and stuck it between the bars of the fan cover, trying to flick it into action. The propeller spun in a promising way for about 5 seconds before it lost momentum and spun back the other.
Hmmm. Okay, that was probably not right. The thing was still humming, though, maybe the fan wasn’t meant to spin? She returned back inside and tested the vent right above the breakroom table, still no cool air.
“Fuckkkkk,” she groaned. “Steve! I think the AC just up and died on us!”
...
“Dude, I already took a look at it, it’s working fine,” Steve said in his politely restrained annoyance as Jonathan poked the unit.
“Oh and you know so much about HVAC systems?”
Robin sighed. Maybe asphyxiating on Steve’s hairspray in the booth was worth not having to deal with this.
“Well I'm telling both of you dinguses it’s broken,” she put in before it could become a whole thing.
They ignored her.
“I know enough! The damn thing is still making noise, therefore it's running.”
“There’s no cool air coming out of the vents,” Jonathan grunts, fiddling with something on the far side. “And the fan’s not running. I know what a broken AC unit looks like, Steve.”
“Um, are we forgetting that I was the one who actually found that out, orrrr…?”
No response.
“Byers! Byers! Hey! What’re you doing, man?” Steve complains, as Jonathan produced a screwdriver from nowhere.
“I'm fixing it! What’s it look like?” He bites back without looking up.
“We don’t even know it’s broken!” Steve yelped as Jonathan gets some ancient panel off with a bang. A puff of spores poured out, as they all hacked, dragging bandanas up from around their necks. Just because storms weren't predicted didn’t mean you didn’t have one at the ready.
When it cleared off, dusting the roof around them, Jon peered into it. Like any of them had a chance of knowing how to fix this dumb thing that was probably at least as old as them.
“Jesus, we need insurance,” Robin muttered. She might as well have been addressing Jesus himself, because the other occupants were too high on testosterone to remember she was there.
Jonathan was already poking around in a mess of something.
“Look, I already found the problem; these filters are full of junk, it’s a miracle it's lasted as long as it has.”
“Dirty filters wouldn’t stop the thing from running,” Steve scoffs.
But Robin scowled, both at being completely invisible and also at sensing yet another trip to the hardware store. Filters were in high demand these days, she didn’t want to know what they’d cost. But hey they were practically frequent flyers of the sandwich shop next door, so. She tried to push aside her annoyance at the boys (at one of them specifically) to envision her ideal sandwich in an attempt at something like meditation.
The sound of gravel under tires hit her ears, a car pulling into the parking lot. The familiar barely-there wine of brakes at the end of stopping. Robin walked over to the edge to see the Wheeler station wagon pulled up and parked, horribly crooked. She couldn’t help grinning at the sight. Thank God, a relief from this testosterone.
Nancy squinted sceptically up at her from the ground. “Steve’s hairspray choke you out?”
“My lungs are still too damaged to joke about it.” She leaned over the edge to call, “I had to drag myself half-dead from the booth.”
A smile. “Cleaner air up there?”
Robin hears the clang of something being dropped. She glances back to the layered bickering of the most annoying boys in Hawkins, each looking like they were trying to half-squeeze into whatever cavity they were messing with.
“Hey meat heads! Try turning it off before we mess with it, maybe?”
Jonathan nearly hit his head trying to lurch out of the unit without looking like he was backing away from it too fast.
“I wish I could say there was,” She said, turning back to Nancy, “but I think the air is clogged with something worse up here,” she stage-whispers down.
Nancy winces up at her. “What’s broken now?”
“Better come up and check.”
Nancy surveyed the still buzzing unit with the panel door leaning up against it.
Jonathan's got his hands shoved in his jacket, shoulders nearly up to his ears. He's standing directly next to Nancy, a little closer than he really needs to be, if Robin's being honest. Steve is leaning too-casually against the unit. It feels like a standoff as they all survey the thing, waiting on Nancy's orders.
“And we're sure it’s broken,” Nancy asks skeptically
“That’s what I said.”
Jonathan tries to ignore Steve, as if Steve’s whole thing isn’t working as hard as possible to be unignorable. Based on Jonathan's response (or lack thereof) Steve’s little Cheshire grin has started up, knowing that ignoring is just as big an admission of how far up his ass Steve had managed to climb.
“I told you, the AC’s not pumping out, and the filters are toast. I've replaced these filters before, at our old place. We just gotta get some new ones.”
Steve gets lazily to his feet, lightly kicks the box, so Jonathan has no choice but to glare at the sound.
“And I'm telling you Nance, dirty filters don’t make a whole unit stop running. You hear the buzzing, Byers? It means it's still working.”
Throughout his little statement, Robin can see Jonathan’s shoulders hike up higher, his fists shoved deeper. Her own fists fought the urge to curl, this little show they did had gotten old months ago.
“Because you know so much about AC units,” Jonathan huffs in his I'm trying very hard not to care about this, voice.
“Um, hello?” Robin tried to cut in. “I would like to add my opinion to the ring? Not to take a side here, but the AC is definitely not working, and I, for one, am the person who has to spend the most time choking on your hairspray in the extremely under-ventilated booth down there.”
“Thank you,” Jonathan threw sharply at her, which honestly felt pretty rude even if she was technically on his side. She very much didn't want to be, and also, it felt like the most recognition she’d gotten from the guy in the entire time he’d been here today. Her lips curled sharply in the specific way Jonathan Byers always brought out in her. It was just such a Jonathan thing to do, to only remember her existence when he could use it as a tally under the scoreboard of Jonathan v. Steve.
Robin didn’t normally dislike blending in, she had attempted to do that her entire high school career. But there was a difference between blending in and being ignored. And when you were one of three people in a room, or one of eight kids in Hawkins who knew about alternate dimensions and monsters, it definitely verged into ‘ignored’ territory.
Except no– she could handle being ignored; she had handled it for 19 years in her own house. Purposeful ignorance was an acknowledgement in and of itself. What she couldn’t handle was just not even fucking existing.
Robin’s locker had been one down from Jonathan's since 4th grade, separated only by Annie Butler, who had tragically died in the ‘mall fire’. Despite this, Jonathan really didn’t seem to remember Robin’s existence, too wrapped up in his own bubble of misery. Now, he only spoke to her in half-surprised greetings when he nearly ran into her in the hallways, or stilted questions about where they kept the ladder or if that chair was taken. He slunk around the station with a permanent downcast look and baggy band tee, unless Nancy was there, in which case he followed her around like a dog who was expecting to get kicked by his owner.
When he was forcibly reminded that Robin existed and was part of their little monster hunting group, he treated her with an air of surprise and mild confusion. Like she wasn’t one of Nancy’s good friends, like she hadn’t been here for the last two fucking years.
Which was fine, she told herself. She didn’t care. She wasn't going to beg for Jonathan Byers' approval.
But as Nancy grew tenser with his quiet expectations and his critical eye, Robin grew to have… a mild resentment towards him. She had never brought up the sore topic to Nancy, but yeah, she was kind of sick of her boyfriend. And they were normal, completely valid reasons to dislike a friend's boyfriend, Robin routinely assured herself.
But the thing that drove Robin bonkers, was that sometimes, Nancy acted like she didn't like him either! Her avoidance or whatever weird dance they were doing just made it all the more clear that no one in this situation was happy, so why couldn't they just talk about it and work it out?
Or better, breakup, a terrible part of her whispered. She worked very hard to ignore that part of her though.
Nancy was just, ugh. Frustrating. Bull-headed.
Sometimes it felt like she was looking past Robin and on to the next thing, and then other times she smiled at her and showed up at Robin’s house, laughing like she didn’t want to be anywhere else.
It was just— It was all just too much. To have all of Nancy Wheeler’s attention, and then to be starkly reminded that it was all in her head and that Robin Buckley was a non-factor in whatever stupid game the three of them had been playing for the past year.
It was whatever. The three of them could operate in their own little love triangle, what did she care? Jonathan Byers just really pushed her buttons sometimes.
Him and his judgy little comments, barbed enough to push everyone away and subsequently prove himself right. Him, with his misery he carried on him like a full-length coat that he refused to take off. Robin didn’t get it, he had everything.
He had the mom that never expected him to be anything other than himself, the little brother that looked up to him, people who never questioned why he was there during crawls or briefings (cough, chough, Hopper). He even had Nancy Wheeler and the picture-perfect future with her if he just got his head out of his own ass.
And, and, and.
And all he ever seemed to do was frown about any of it.
Jonathan was a special kind of frustration to her, one that grated against some exposed nerve that got the-traumatized every time he looked through her. She’d tell herself she was over it already, that it was whatever, and then late at night find herself fuming. Feeling enormously empty and pathetic for how well he got under her skin for someone who probably didn’t think much of her at all.
She knew why he bugged her the most, specifically, out of the three of them.
“Robin?”
Robin realized she had been staring stormily out into the distance while the boys argued about old filters and circuit breakers. She snapped back to Nancy all of a sudden, shoving down the oily anger that had coiled up in her stomach at her lapse in control.
“Yeah? Sorry, just spaced out for a second.” She smiled guiltily
Nancy looked at her, with her eyes squinted ever so slightly, concern on her face. “Are you okay?”
Robin wondered if that had been the first time Nancy had tried to gain her attention. But, as usual, the full attention of Nancy Wheeler, though she pulled at it with both hands in almost any given situation, was absolutely too much—trying to redirect and distract the second she received it. Don't let her look too long, the shrill signals in her brain screeched. Nancy Wheeler was way too smart for anyone's good. Especially those keeping traitorous secrets concerning the girl in question.
“Oh yeah, totally!” She grimaced, rubbing her forehead, “just a headache.” And it was then, she realized, touching it, that a dull ache sat heavy behind her eyes and pricked one incredibly tender point behind her temple.
“Still not over that head cold?” Nancy asked, thoughtfully.
“Nah I think I am, now. This headache just keeps hanging on, probably leftover drainage or something.” She winced. That was gross; she shouldn’t have said that.
Nancy grimaced, remembering the headcold/sinus thing Dustin had passed around. First to Steve and Mike, and then making its way across the whole group, ending with Robin without a voice for three whole days. That had been a huge pain in the ass for anyone to get messages about supply runs and dust storms out, not to mention the annoyed calls they'd gotten from Hawkins residents, demanding to know why their favorite station was down again.
Nancy watched her, storm behind her eyes. “What were you thinking about, just a second ago?” she asked, thoughtfully. “Where did you go?”
And here was the reason Robin had to buck Nancy’s attention off when she got it. She grimaces, scrambling. “I was, I was just thinking about Mel’s, wondering if they’re open today. I’ve been really craving that Italian sandwich lately, but also wondering if it’s even worth the risk, because I always have to watch them make it, otherwise they go way too heavy on the—“
“Mayo,” Nancy agreed with a scrunched-up nose
“Exactly! Anyways, I haven't eaten since a granola bar this morning and I'm starved. And I was thinking about how I'm going to have to be an annoying customer and demand just the right amount, because I didn’t say anything last time and it was just way too much.
“The right amount of mayo on a sandwich is none,” Nancy declared, with a scrunched-up nose.
“Of course you would think that.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” Robin felt the nervous flop of her tongue that was about to start scrambling for any lifeline in the nearest vicinity. “It means you’re Nancy Wheeler.” She gestured violently. “You're the type of girl to just get right to it— meat, cheese, lettuce, maybe tomato— no condiment getting in the way. You drink your dad's shitty beer without wincing; of course a dry sandwich is nothing to your scorched taste buds.
“My sandwiches aren't dry—why are we arguing about condiments?”
“I'm not arguing about condiments, you are,” Robin replied, hands up defensively.
Nancy sighed and shook her head, curls bouncing around as she did so, distractingly. But a pursed-lip smile softened her face as she looked at Robin, and— Nope!
“Sorry, what were we supposed to be talking about again?” Robin asked.
“Fixing the AC unit.”
“Yes please,” Robin grabbed that like it was a lifeline, and she was drowning. “Please can we fix the AC unit? It’s totally unfair to expect me to wear a mask both outside and inside. That’s just straight up diabolical Nance.”
Nancy looked at it with trepidation. “Robin, it's October.” She wrapped her own jacket a little more tightly around herself, looking troubled out at the wind that shook the dancing trees. The unspoken truth of the fact was that Hawkins was already unseasonably cold for October, just like it had been last year. And the cold was the least of their weather worries, but still. Winter loomed over the entire town.
“Pleeeease,” Robin widened her eyes. “I'm begging you, if I want to be able to breathe in that box, fresh air is like the base most layer of my hierarchy of needs.”
Nancy huffed out a laugh. “I don’t know how you go about even figuring out how to fix one of these things.”
“I can fix it,” Jonathan cuts in, sensing a moment to prove his knowledge.
Nancy's mouth thins like she's annoyed at him for inserting himself into their conversation. “Jonathan,” she starts, lips pursed.
“It’s literally, like, 40 degrees out here,” Steve huffs from somewhere behind him and is consequently ignored.
“I can,” he states petulantly. “I fixed the AC when it died on us in the old house. This thing isn't that much different.”
“It’s an industrial roof unit, Jonathan, that's way different from—“
“I can do it if I find the manual,” he cuts her off, brooding look on his face.
Nancy holds herself back from whatever she was going to say. “Okay, fine,” she says, something in her tone perfectly conveying you’re being unreasonable but I'm done arguing with you. Tension spills from her frame. “Let’s go see if there's a manual somewhere.”
...
There is, in fact, a manual somewhere. It’s hidden among the many binders that Robin had thrown together on a shelf in the lobby. Jimmy Fasthands' style of organization left much to be desired, even compared to how Robin liked to keep her room—looking almost fresh off a tornado.
During their rigorous cleaning of the place that spanned nearly 4 months, they had found numerous binders and packets randomly stapled or shoved behind equipment. They had decided to compile it all on the ‘hell shelf’ and had to go back and reference it constantly. So all in all, them having a manual, and Robin having found it amongst everything crammed on the shelf, was a minor miracle.
They placed it out to try and make heads or tails of it. Jonathan was slumped, arms crossed in a faux-pout when Nancy had claimed the front seat and began poring over the text. One sharp finger marking the line of her reading, and Steve peering over her shoulder, unwound in the picture of ease as he cocked his head, trying to make sense of it—or honestly, trying to read it at all from that far away.
“You're gonna give yourself a headache,” Robin smacked him on the arm.
“I'm helping,” he complained back.
“Here.” Nancy muttered, flipping the page. “Problems with start-up… electrical… hmmm. Capacitor, okay.”
“Alright, let's check the capacitor first,” Robin agrees, trying to make sense of the graphic, upside down.
“Simplest fix is the best fix,” Steve agrees.
“That's not the way you use that saying,” Robin crinkles her nose.
“Um no? It totally applies. The capacitor is the simplest fix, therefore it is the best one.”
“Uh, no. That only applies when you have two solutions to a problem, and one is statistically harder than the other. So you'd say the simplest fix is the best fix and go the easiest route. But in this case, we only have one solution, and if that's not the issue, then we’re in for a lot of dense reading.”
Jonathan makes a noise. “Technically, the busted filters are the simplest fix,” he mumbles.
“Ha, ha.” Robin says dryly
“I'm just saying,” he shrugs as Steve rolls his eyes.
They trudge back up the stairs through the roof hatch and under the bright gray sky. Robin shields her eyes in the sudden burst of light, making out the darker storm clouds in the distance. “I hope it doesn't rain anytime soon,” she says. Jonathan grunts without looking up.
Typical.
“Don't worry, between me and HVAC-expert, Dr. Byers,” Steve says sarcastically, we’ll have this fixed in a jiff.” Robin elbows him.
Jonathan hits the red-handled mechanical lever with a metallic chu-nk before he does anything else this time, so, progress.
Steve starts unscrewing before Jonathan’s even fully circled around to join him on the opposite side. Jonathan glares and starts on it as well, going too fast for it to be casual.
Robin sighs, she can feel Nancy winding up tighter with each twist of Jonathan's driver. Maybe getting this stupid thing fixed isn't worth sitting here in this minefield. Johnathan finishes his side and starts tugging the metal sheet off before Steve can get out of the way, resulting in a bang as it hits his knee and a quick scramble to grab it. When it's off, though, all 4 of them peer unsurely into it.
There’s some large housing container underneath the fan box, and big gaping spot for half of it, full of more summer snow and an old chip bag has somehow been caught. Probably there since the last time somebody had to take a look at this thing. To the left, there's a shallow housing unit with a fat coil of different wires zip-tied all together. It's hooked into some cylindrical things, but it’s not definitely not enough to run the whole thing.
“So this is the electrical compartment,” Steve asks untrustingly.
“It's what the manual said,” Jonathan shoots back defensively.
“Man, I told you we shouldn't mess with this thing—”
“We’re gonna need it to work sooner rather than later.” Jonathan bites back.
“Yeah, not for another 6 months.”
Nancy lets out a sharp breath, turning on her heel to walk away, but Robin steps closer to peer at it. “Oh, idiots,” she drawls. Steve finally turns to look at her when she pokes him.
“What, Robs. What, what?”
“Maybe we should be looking for signage,” she says, tapping the yellow electrical sticker on another panel near the top. Tired, peeling caution stickers peeked out, half hidden by the top lip.
“Huh,” he says and Jonathan rolls his eyes like he too hadn't been the plural in Robin’s idiots. Under that panel was another mess of wires, but not all bound in a huge cord, instead running from a couple of battery pack-looking things and clipped into a motherboard. They all breathe sighs of relief to recognize the illustrations from the instruction manual.
“Here,” Jonathan mumbles, bending thick black wires out of the way to tap the oval capacitor, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. He goes to unscrew the bracket holding it in place, popping it out to take a closer look. “It’s definitely swollen.”
Nancy hums from over Robin's shoulder, making her jump; she hadn't heard Nancy return. Jonathan turns it over in his hands before using his screwdriver to bump the cables where they connect to the conductor things sticking out of the top.
"What are you doing?” Steve asks. “I'm jumping the cables,” he mutters, “so they don't electrocute me when I pull them off.” Steve doesn't have anything quippy to say about that, and it's enough of an admission somehow that Robin just knows they're both tallying marks under Jonathan's column on the whiteboards in their brains. Robin just rolls her eyes at the pair of them.
Jonathan pulls the cables off, turning the part over in his hands. “There,” he says, a little cocky lopsided smile directed at Nancy, like he’s expecting a reward.
She just arches an eyebrow at him. Maybe she smiles a little bit at him, maybe. It’s hard to tell, honestly.
...
All four of them end up at the hardware store after Robin signs off at five, the prerecorded music for the 5-10 slot on the cartridge tape, loaded into the broadcast cart player.
It's awkward in the Wheelers' station wagon, Robin and Steve in the back, Jonathan and Nancy up front. It really didn’t really require all four of them, but Steve had wanted to come along and no one wanted to say how awkward that sounded with the three of them, so enter: Robin, the human buffer.
“Oh Nance, avoid Mack—”
“And Washington,” Nancy nodded with her hands at 10 and 2. “Don’t worry, I remember.”
Nancy always drove with her hands at 10 and 2, even when they weren't at a checkpoint. It made her flippant attitude regarding road laws even funnier when she broke them, seat firmly at a 90 degree angle with the world's most uptight driving posture.
The guard waved them lazily through from his position in the booth, gate arm permanently upright until 10pm.
As they drive down Montgomery Road, Robin catches a quick glimpse of Jefferson, past the now abandoned bowling alley. The latest site of the rift-plates failing to keep their dimensions separate, teemed with military construction crews and equipment, a small crane lifting a piece of mangled metal from the rift. The sounds and voices of the construction would’ve been familiar, un-note worthy, if it weren't for the men with guns along the perimeter, or the red glow that lit up the construction crane.
As they pull into Hansons & sons hardware store (a mouthful, she knew), Robin groaned dramatically, really putting it on to combat the stiff atmosphere of the car.
“Aww, come onnnnnn.” A paper sign was taped inside the door of the sandwich shop, visible from the hardware parking lot. The handwriting proclaimed:
Sorry, we’re closed :(
check back on tuesday!
“Their freezers must have gone out again,” Steve sighs, equally mournful.
“This is the last straw,” she complained. “I’m filing a formal complaint.”
“With who?” Nancy snorted.
“Vecna himself, obviously. I mean the sandwich shop is just too far. At this point I’m gonna have to buy them a backup generator myself.”
“With what money?”
“Owens has to have some connections.”
But no one laughs.
Okay, harsh. Not her best work but come on, cut her some slack! She sighs, maybe they're just all on edge the way she is.
Hanson’s is dimly lit and sad inside, just the way it was last week. It was the smaller of the two hardware stores that Hawkins had once boasted of, and now the only one, given that ACE was now rubble inside a blackout zone. Despite Hansons’ overwhelmingly white cinderblock interior and sad lighting situation, it had become a reliable social hub in the last year. Its stock pushed the definition of ‘hardware,’ and might’ve been better classified under military surplus or doomsday prepper store.
A very large section of it was dedicated to air filters, masks and purifiers. All stupidly expensive given their demand. Neil at the counter nods at them, toothpick stuck out of his stiff set mouth. They’re regulars.
Unfortunately, the fact that they did this last week and will probably do it again next week, doesn't make things any less awkward. The buzzing fluorescents do little to help the atmosphere as Jonathan pretends not to care when Steve finds the right capacitor before he does, or when Jonathan picks up a couple filters anyways, because of Steve’s grumbling and despite Nancy’s debates. Robin sighs. Yes, a normal friend group here. Definitely no interpersonal drama.
The worst of it is definitely at the checkout counter though. When Steve pulls out his wallet and Jonathan shoves his hands in his pockets until his shoulders are at his ears, but doesn't say anything. Throughout the whole thing, Nancy stays focused. No nonsense, like a general on a mission. Robin imagines that they might just accidentally leave her there if she wanders off.
At least Neil always tips his hat at her as he deeply discounts their purchases. Perks of advertising the place for free on the only radio station in town.
Relief clicks into place with the new capacitor, as everything gets put together smoothly after a brief argument about which wires went into which port. Robin watches the clouds creep closer with rain, but miraculously, they hold out.
She feels the pressure drop, though. Something buzzing in the air, signaling to her brain, rain, or possibly storm.
With the last panel put into place, and the lever flipped back, they all hold their breath as Steve clicks the Honeywell down a few degrees. They hear the boom of the air turning on, and air conditioning starts rattling out of the vents.
Robin whoops, and Nancy smiles at Jonathan, who smiles back. Robin and Steve elbow each other without any attention from the other two. It's okay, she thinks, as both her and Steve try to pretend like they're not watching Nancy and Jonathan. They can be normal friends, she thinks. It shouldn’t be this hard.