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Will is laughing. Not the type of laughter that comes and goes quickly, a snort or giggle shared between friends over a joke. Will is laughing, and it’s a full on clutching his stomach, head thrown back, knees wobbling type of laughter. The kind of booming laughter that is loud enough to startle Joyce and Nancy’s hushed debate into complete silence. The kind of laughter that makes his eyes shine with unspilled, mirthful tears when the light hits him just right.
Mike is staring, but in his defense, so is everyone else.
Everyone, that is, except for Robin Buckley. Robin, whose shaking shoulder is pressed flush against Will’s as she falls apart with hysterical laughter of her own once their heads bump. Robin who - to Mrs. Byers’ apparent indignation - gasps out:
“Really thought she was onto us and we’d need to shove it up our ass, talk about a shitty situation.”
Baffingly, Will finds it hilarious. Mike can only watch in disbelief as his best friend’s knees finally buckle and he topples down, but not before grasping at Robin’s shirt and pulling her down with him. Something that, apparently, she finds hilarious, as they continue losing their minds in a tangle of limbs.
“What the fuck?” It’s Steve that voices out the exact words blaring in Mike’s mind. “Did they inject you with something at that hospital? Are you guys high? We have a family to kidnap.”
This, at least, seems to sober both of them into some semblance of sanity as they slowly detangle. Will raises first and offers his hand to Robin, who accepts it with a faux swoon. Either he pulls her up with too much force, or she springs up with too much energy, because she stumbles right into his chest once they’re both finally standing rightside up.
And. Okay. That’s… physics. It happens, sometimes.
Except Mike has expected them to take a step back, widen the distance between their bodies once they regain their balance fully.
And that is not what happens. At all.
They grin at each other for a second too long. Robin then does take a small step to the side, but she is still pressed right against Will, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, thigh to thigh. Mike is waiting for his best friend to move away like he usually does when it’s either him or Jonathan that invades his personal space for too long.
But Will doesn’t.
He stays in place even when Nancy starts going over the key points of their mission one last time. He’s practically glued to Robin, with a soft grin never leaving his face. The kind of grin that used to be reserved for late night conversations in the Wheeler’s basements after Jonathan had sneaked into Nancy’s room, or for movie nights with Holly sprawled across both of their knees, or for noisy meals when one of them would deliberately steal the last piece of bacon to annoy Mike’s father.
It’s a smile that, for the longest time, Mike has selfishly considered as one that Will reserved especially for him. His Mike smile.
The only other person he’s ever seen it directed at - exactly the same, down to the crease in the corner of his left eye - was El. And, as far as he knows, it has only happened once. Last spring, when she’d called Will her brother for the very first time.
Secretly, if Mike is being honest, it had annoyed him at the time, too. Even if El became a sister that the Byers’ brothers never had, the smile had always been Mike’s. Will has a different one reserved for his family and their extended party of friends, and that should have been the one that El elicited.
But. Whatever. It’s El, so it was alright. Even if she’d broken up with him a day later, jokingly saying Will had smiled at her sweeter than Mike ever would.
It was El, so it was fine. Girlfriend or not, she’s one of his best friends, and she’s Will’s sister, so it’s different.
But. This time, it’s Robin Buckley. Older, vibrant, unknown.
Mike has always considered her to be a friend of Nancy’s and Steve’s and maybe Jonathan’s. Someone who, for some reason, got tied up in their shit related to the Upside Down and took on the role of their informant and cryptologist.
But truthfully, Mike doesn’t really know Robin, and he doesn’t really consider her a friend, and truthfully he can’t really be bothered to get to know her. She’s an acquaintance through a series of tragic events, kind of like that doofus Murray. She sends them coded messages on Crawl timelines and Holly loves her program and that’s it.
To Mike, she’s, and really not to be an asshole, a quirky nobody. He knows she holds some importance to Lucas and Dustin after the events with Max and Vecna, but Mike wasn’t there to experience a majority of these and bond through shared trauma. Neither, for that matter, was Will.
And yet. Yet. Will is smiling at her with his softest smile, pressing against her as close as the several layers of their clothes allow them to be, like she’s someone special. Like she’s someone special and not just some loud radio host that came with Steve Harrington in a buy one, get one free kind of deal.
“Dude, you’re grinding your teeth so hard that it’s making me miss my dentist.” Dustin nudges him with his elbow, and Mike relaxes his jaw at the accusation.
“I’m not.”
“You so are.” He turns to glare at Dustin, but his friend’s eyes are looking straight ahead, at the same pair that Mike himself has been observing for the past five minutes. Dustin’s eyebrows are furrowed and his bloody nose is scrunched ever so slightly. He looks genuinely puzzled and blindsided, not a common occurrence for him. The fact it isn’t only Mike that is weirded out by Will’s newest friendship is a bit of a reassurance.
“Huh. I guess it weirdly makes sense.”
Nevermind. Dustin has no idea what he’s talking about.
“What are you talking about?” It’s Lucas that asks this, and Mike is glad to hear the same confusion echoed in his voice. At least one of them hasn’t gone mental.
“No, listen, it makes sense. You don’t hang out with her as much as I do, so you might not know this, but Robin’s kinda weirdly good with people. She’s terrible at boundaries and sort of forces you into a friendship. I mean, I’m pretty sure that’s how she got to Nancy and Max in the first place. So it makes sense she’d be good with Will.”
Except it doesn’t, Mike wants to scream, because Will is guarded around strangers and friends alike, and his armour is made of unbreakable steel. He shies away from touches and doesn’t allow himself to be too vulnerable for long, not even with his family or Mike. It’s been 18 months since California, and even after all this time, it feels like there’s parts of Will that are locked in a vault.
Some random girl wouldn’t be able to crack that vault open in a single day if Mike hasn’t been able to in months. And he’s been trying.
“Okay, you didn’t hear that from me.” Dustin’s voice drops down to a whisper, and Mike forces himself to look away from the pair and focus on his bloodied friend. “But a few months ago, Will told me he’s sick of everyone treating him like glass. Not letting him play a bigger part in the crawls and all. And, shit, I probably do that to him sometimes, too. You know? We all do.”
The three of them share a guilty look. It’s Will. How could they not? Eddie is dead, Max is in a coma, and Will’s connected to the Upside Down. Of course it’s hard not to be afraid for his safety when he’s this vulnerable against their enemy.
“And Robin doesn’t.” Lucas says, realization in his voice. As if on cue, all three of them watch as she pushes away from the wall, hooks her fingers into their friend’s jacket and tugs roughly to get him to follow her towards Jonathan. He does so with an easy grin, and something akin to acid burns in Mike’s stomach.
“Exactly. Robin doesn’t. She’s been dragging him around like a sack of potatoes all day. Look at him, he loves it. Also, she totally got him to disobey Joyce when they snuck out last night to track Vecna. He must be high on freedom.”
“She what?” Out of all the unbelievable things that have happened in the past 24 hours, somehow, Will disobeying his mother seemed like the most shocking one.
Dustin snorts, and instantly winces in regret when pain catches up with him. Some of the blood from his nose splatters to Lucas’ arm, who squawks in disgust. Undeterred by the ‘Gross!’, Dustin continues.
“Yeah, it’s kind of funny. Joyce told us over the radio yesterday that Robin and Will went to fix the flux capacitor, and that it was a two-man job, and they’d lied, obviously. They’d just dipped to do some digging on Holly and Vecna. Joyce was so mad when she realized she’d been duped that even I was scared. I’m pretty sure she hates Robin’s guts.”
Mike thinks about the glare Joyce had directed at the girl when she and Will started explaining their plan. It had confused him at the time, but in light of the new information, he gets it.
“Also, come on. It’s kind of obvious when you really think about it. Like, all the clues are there.” Dustin grins up at them, a sentiment neither Lucas nor Mike return. Lucas still looks unconvinced, and Mike feels like he’s going to throw up, because out of all of them, Dustin is the best at connecting dots. Except Mike doesn’t like where these dots are leading.
“They have a similar taste in music, and you know Will’s obsessed with music. They’re both kind of artsy, I’ve seen her doodles. She’s kind of nerdy with her niche movie knowledge and Will’s, well, Will. They’re both weirdly good with people and pep talks. And most importantly, she knows about all this shit, with the demos and Vecna and everything. She gets it. Can you really imagine Will with someone who doesn’t understand this?”
No. Mike can’t imagine Will with someone who doesn’t understand.
And Robin doesn’t. She can’t.
Not when she didn’t know Will before everything, not when she wasn’t there when he went missing, not when she wasn’t there to grieve when they’d found his fake body double, not when he’d been controlled by the Mindflyer. She wasn’t there for any of it, not like Mike and the Party had been. She’s never heard his screams of agony. She’s never held him through the terror. She’s never wiped his tears.
Robin doesn’t understand.
“I don’t see it,” Lucas still sounds unconvinced, and Mike’s glad at least one of his friends hasn’t lost his damn mind. “I don’t think she’s really his type. And isn’t she kind of too old?”
“Dude, Robin’s 19, she’s not a grandma. And anyway, it’s not like Will’s ever told us what his type is.” Truth. Romance has never been a big part of their conversations, except that one summer before the Byers had moved away. Mike doesn’t like thinking about that summer, bitter memories of his own cruelty a constant reminder of his own shame. “How do you know he doesn’t like cool, rebellious older girls? Hm? Maybe he’s looking for a real woman, not a girlfriend.”
“Because I know Will, and my gut is telling me you’re wrong. Robin’s cool, but she’s not his type.” Briefly, Lucas’ eyes glance at Mike. It makes his stomach twist anxiously, but before he can analyze the look, his friend turns away from him once more.
“Well, your gut is wrong. I can see he’s clearly smitten. Look, they’re fused to each other. It’s adorable.” Dustin, relentless, gestures at where the Byers brothers and Robin are bent over a radio. Infuriatingly, the girl’s shoulder is still pressed against their best friend’s like it belongs there.
Will’s still not leaning back.
What the actual fuck happened in these twenty four hours?
“Your eyes are swollen, man, you can’t see shit. Right, Mike? Mike?”
He’s not listening, feet already moving towards the group on their own accord. He shoves his way into the small space between the Byers brothers, elbow knocking into Will’s. It gets him to look up with startled, warm eyes. Once he realizes who it is, the grin on his face softens into a smile, the smile, and some of the acid raging in Mike’s stomach settles. Will’s elbow nudges him back, and the room seems to brighten with the sunlight pouring in through the window.
“Hey, runaway.”
Will’s nose scrunches up with a snort. “Did my mom complain to you?”
“Nah. I heard from Dustin. He said she sounded pissed over the radio after you went rogue.”
“Yeah, well. It’s fine now. We… talked it out?” It sounds more like a question than reassurance, and both Jonathan and Robin are visibly holding back their laughter, betraying the fact they’ve been eavesdropping on the conversation. It seems either Will or his companion in crime has filled the older Byers brother in on the details of Joyce’s reaction.
Mike thinks it’s a little unfair, because Jonathan has been giving him the stink eye since California for some reason. His current theory is that Jonathan blames him for crashing their lives in Lenora and bringing them back into danger into a quarantined city. And yet Robin - who actually potentially put Will at risk by sneaking off with him without informing anyone after Holly’s been snatched by Vecna - got a free pass? A shared laugh? Okay.
Mike has grown up in a household with two sisters, he is no stranger to double standards.
Will seems to realize that there’s two more people in this conversation than needed, and gives Mike the follow me look. Wordlessly, both of them move towards an empty corner of the room, away from everyone else’s chatter and prying eyes. It’s hardly private, but there’s few instances these days when real privacy can be guaranteed, so they have all grown out of being picky.
Will sits down against the wall with a quiet exhale. There’s a flash of something on his face when Mike leans against his shoulder, but it’s gone too quickly to decipher.
“So… Nancy said your mom woke up after her surgery.”
Oh. Oh, no, no, no.
Mike can’t do this. Not now.
“Will-”
“No, I. You don’t have to talk about it. I know it’s… hard. I know. I just, um. We tried to visit her, but they wouldn’t let us. But Robin knows a, a woman there, I don’t remember if she’s a doctor or-”
“Will-” Mike tries to interrupt, because he can’t suppress both his grief over what’s happened to his family, and annoyance that spikes up every time he hears Buckley’s name.
“-or a nurse. Robin always bribes her with twinkies so she can visit her fake grandma. I mean, not the point. What I mean is, I got her some roses, and the woman is supposed to pass them on, so. Hopefully, it makes her feel less alone there while we go get Holly, yeah?”
Mike exhales. Considers his options. Chooses pettiness, and if it sounds bitter, at least he can argue he is going for an indignant son impression on his mother’s behalf. “You got Robin flowers?”
It’s worth it, because Will’s face scrunches up with annoyance. He looks so cute, and for the first time in over twenty four hours, Mike feels like he can breathe.
“Yes, Mike, I got your mom’s favourite flowers and asked the woman Robin is always bribing to give the flowers to Robin, with Robin standing next to me, right after we stole drugs mind you. Drugs that, by the way, we almost got caught with.”
Mike grins, “The thrill of it all, and you still don’t forget the flowers. That’s so romantic of you.”
“You’re insufferable.” Will’s fighting off a smile, and losing, even with teeth biting into his lower lip. His eyes are shining, hazel and warm and so reminiscent of home.
Mike bumps their shoulders, once. “Hm, and yet, my dear Will, you adore me.”
He’s waiting for his friend to move away. To deny the words. To break his heart and go back to Robin.
But Will lingers. Presses back. Stays.
“We’ll find her, Mike. Holly. We’ll get her back home.”
Objectively, it’s a baseless promise. It’s been hours since she’s been taken, the chances of her being fully unharmed are minimal, and there’s no guarantee they’ll get to her on time, even with El down there. There’s no saying if any of them will make it back from what is clearly the last war they had been preparing for, but not sufficiently enough for it to matter.
Will’s shoulder is warm.
Mike closes his eyes, just for a moment, and lets himself breathe.
He has to be brave about too many things now, but maybe. Maybe after all of this is done. Maybe then, he can be brave to fight for what he wants. Fight Robin Buckley for it, if he needs to.
“Oh, yeah, I see what you mean now actually. Wow. Blatantly under our noses.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying, man. I felt like I was going crazy but you see it, right?”
“My eye is swollen, Lucas, not blinded.”
Mike has no idea what they’re talking about, but he can hear both Dustin and Lucas choking with laughter. Mike is not petty, but if he was, he’d add both of his friends’ names to a list of people he’ll have to fight, right beneath Vecna and Robin.
But for now, he rests his head against Will’s shoulder, and Will lets him.
For now, just for a moment, he feels like he’s already won.