Peaceful bliss, just moments away (Stranger Things)

Bonus: Fireworks and All (Ronance)

Robin was sorting tapes, having fallen into a sort of trance-not the bad kind, the kind where she remembered all the horrible things that had happened over spring break and over again, but a calm one. Something about repetitive tasks was better than anything else for calming her racing mind.

The spell was broken when the door opened suddenly and Robin jumped about two feet in the air.

"Sorry," Nancy said, a sympathetic smile-or maybe a cringe-on her face.

"Steve's not working today, he's probably over at Eddie's," Robin said. Steve and Eddie had been practically glued at the hip since everything that happened. Robin couldn't blame them.

"No, I-" Nancy pulled a tape out of her purse and held it up. "I'm here to return this."

"Oh." She's not here to see you. She never is. "Yeah, I can take that for you."

"Thanks."

They were quiet as Robin took the tape and started typing away on the computer. Things had been... odd, between them, since their shared experiences. They didn't talk much, especially after Nancy went off to college, but even when she came back for Christmas break they'd only seen each other at Steve's place.

Robin tried to look on the bright side. If Nancy really didn't want to see her, she could have just dropped the tape in the return box.

"Listen," Nancy started. "Do you..." She sighed in frustration. "Do you ever feel like you don't have anyone to talk to?"

Robin stopped mid-typing, fingers hovering over the keyboard. "Like, about all the interdimensional monsters, mad scientist lab experiments, and the time loop memories that kind of just feel like the weirdest case of deja vu piled up over and over again until you feel absolutely crazy, or at least crazier than you already did feel?"

Nancy smiled, more of an actual smile this time. "Yeah, like that."

Maybe it was the smile or maybe it was the way Nancy didn't even blink at Robin's ranting, but Robin couldn't help smiling back and continuing, "Steve's a great listener, but I don't want to just dump everything on him, you know? And Eddie! I'm not trying to be mean, he went through a lot, but how am I supposed to talk to him about any of this when he went through all of this like a thousand times over?"

Leaning against the counter, Nancy nodded. "Jonathan tried. He gets most of it. But... we died." She rested her arms on the counter and dropped her chin on her hand. "That's different."

Robin didn't think she'd ever seen Nancy look so... relaxed. She was normally so proper and put together, with perfect posture and everything. "Yeah. I get what you mean."

"Do you ever wish you could just forget again? Be like the others?"

Robin thought of the demobats and shuddered. Thought of seeing Fred, crumpling like a sheet of paper. To a lesser extent, she thought of the pain of seeing Vickie with that guy and knowing she never had a chance.

But Robin also thought of cooking dinner with everyone at Steve's house, laughing together at the stupid Scoops hat despite the horrors they still had to face. She thought of investigating Victor Creel with Nancy, running together across the lawn. And she thought of throwing that Molotov cocktail at Henry Creel, how satisfying it was, and how Nancy blowing him away with her sawed-off had definitely given Robin a bit of a crush.

"Nah," Robin said. "I kind of like being special."

"Me too," Nancy admitted. "I mean, not that I'm all that special, but-"

"You are," Robin blurted out. Her face heated and she waved her hands. "Uh, special, I mean. Because, like, you're smart, and popular, and really cool-"

"Robin." Nancy grabbed one of Robin's hands, holding it still.

Robin stared at Nancy, their faces so close now. She thinks she would have kept babbling if she had any air left in her lungs.

"I'm not misreading this, am I?" Nancy said softly, rubbing her thumb along Robin's palm.

"I like girls," Robin breathed.

"I think I do, too."

They kept staring at each other, the silence thick with electricity. Robin's not sure which of them leaned in first, or maybe they both did, independent of each other and drawn to each other like magnets.

Robin's first kiss was everything she'd ever made fun of in movies and secretly yearned for, fireworks and all.