At some point during the 18 month timeskip leading into S5, Nancy probably realized that Steve and Jonathan's annoying macho contests weren't going to stop and just started thinking "oh well at least it gives me a minute to dissociate while nobody's looking at me"
It gets to the point where as soon as she sees it starting and just checks out, drops into a thousand yard stare while "I need to prevent the apocalypse" repeats in her head over and over and over until whatever stupid contest is happening is resolved or fizzles out
The boys never notice, but Robin does. After she recognizes that it's a pattern and not just a one off thing or a temporary mood, she waits for it to happen again. Steve and Jonathan start to go at it, Nancy's about to check out, Robin gently bumps shoulders with her.
Nancy snaps out of it immediately. Can't do this when people can see. But also, she's not used to anyone asking her how she's feeling, and she's caught too unprepared to actually answer the question.
"Think these chimps are gonna be throwin’ their poop at each other for a while, you wanna get outta here?" Robin asks. She doesn't know exactly what's going on with Nancy yet, but this bullshit certainly can't be helping.
Nancy looks back at the boys, they're entirely focused on each other, so she says yes. Nancy and Robin quietly slink off together.
Now, Nancy can't check out because Robin knows the rhythm too well. She senses the contests starting even before Nancy can, and any time it happens, Robin immediately stops paying attention to them and starts watching Nancy.
It's a little uncomfortable at first, but it quickly becomes the first thing Nancy looks for in mundane moments of distress. For the first time in a long time, she feels like she's actually being seen.
Everybody tends to just assume ‘Nancy is fine, she's tough, she can take care of herself’, and generally that's true. She still likes and wants to lead and be strong and be the one everyone else can lean on, especially in the life or death situations they keep having to throw themselves into.
But, something about Robin makes her want to be soft. In those quiet, day to day moments; the ones that don't threaten your life but put a little chip in your soul, the ones that she thinks her mother might have been talking about in the kitchen that time, the ones that she can't solve with a bullet, she starts to find herself turning to Robin.
Before long, nothing even needs to be said. Steve and Jonathan get riled up as they always do, Robin and Nancy look at each other and disappear. The boys usually don't notice for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, sometimes longer. Nancy starts to feel like she can actually breathe again, having spent so long being suffocated by these men.
Sometimes they went off and did something, sometimes they just talked, sometimes they just sat with each other. She couldn't remember when holding hands became part of it, but that made her feel comfortable enough to start laying her head on Robin's shoulder, which then led to cuddling. The first time that happened, it only took a few seconds for Nancy to fall right asleep on her.
Nancy got used to being close to Robin. It wasn't a big deal. They were both girls. They were friends, best friends even. Girls weren't like boys. Girls touched each other, leaned on each other, cuddled together even if their skin was touching. She did things like with Barb all the time, it was normal.
Of course, the fact that Nancy started going to Robin first, made sure to pick out a seat next to Robin first, always chose to go with Robin when they had to split up; that only made the boys competitions more frequent, and more intense, which of course only made her take off with Robin more often. Both of them could sense Nancy pulling away from them, and kept blaming each other for it.
Not that Robin would ever, ever complain about any of this. She got to spend more time with her best friend. She saw what a difference it was making to Nancy, and she really liked being able to create this space just for her. She deserved it, after all, and Robin was starting to feel as though she was getting to see a side of Nancy that maybe nobody else had.
It was only a very minor, tiny, barely-worth-mentioning inconvenience that she thought she might have maybe kinda sorta started to fall in love with Nancy about it. Just a little bit. Not that she was ever going to say that out loud in a million years, she wasn't stupid. Nancy was still with Jonathan, officially. Even if she wasn't, this wasn't the time. Even if it was, Nancy didn't like girls.
Robin was pretty sure Nancy didn't like girls. Sometimes, the way Nancy clung to her a little too tightly, the way her touch lingered a little too long, the way they both hesitated when their eyes met; these little moments made her wonder. Dream, maybe. But not hope. It was just her stupid heart playing tricks on her, she knew that, and that was just something she'd have to deal with on her own.
And then Nancy started getting into bed with her. Nothing untoward. Nancy just needed to rest, and usually when she got the opportunity to sleep, she didn't have much time to do it.
"It's just, I fall asleep really fast like that. Would that be okay with you? It's no big deal, it's weird, I'm being stupid. Forget I said anything."
Robin didn't think she had ever seen Nancy quite so bashful before. Almost embarrassed. If she didn't know better, she might even say Nancy's cheeks were looking a little more pink than usual. It seemed to evoke an irresistible urge to give her anything and everything she asked for.
"No! No, it's okay, we can, I can do that."
Robin agreed for purely altruistic reasons, of course. It was practical, efficient. Nancy needed as much rest as she could get, and if this helped, then it just made sense.
That was when Robin found out that sometimes Nancy whimpered in her sleep. She would tense up when she did it, shifting slightly as though she was trying to break out of something that was holding her trapped. Nightmares, Robin figured, some expression of fear that she held down when she was awake. Robin wasn't really sure what to do the first time it happened. She didn't want to wake Nancy, so she just pulled her close and squeezed. That seemed to do the trick. Nancy quieted, relaxed back into peaceful sleep without even a murmur. Just the feeling of her breath brushing against Robin's collarbone. It meant that Robin couldn't move a single muscle, obviously, but that was a worthwhile sacrifice.
Robin didn't mean to kiss her. She really, really didn't. It's just that when they were lying together one night, and those big, beautiful moonbeam eyes were looking at her like that while Nancy explained how much it meant to her that Robin saw her the way nobody else did, it just felt like the right thing to do. Or maybe she just finally couldn't take it anymore. Or maybe she was momentarily possessed.
Whatever it was, their lips met, and for a single moment that seemed to stretch out for eternity, nothing else in the world mattered. Not the Upside Down, not the military, not Vecna. Not the boys and their pointless fighting, not what anybody else might think. The only thing that mattered was her, them, here, now. Her lips felt even softer than Robin had imagined. She knew for sure now, there was no more denying it. She was irrevocably, catastrophically in love with Nancy Wheeler.
The realization made reality slam back into her like a freight train, and when she jolted back and saw the shock on Nancy's face, she tried desperately to claw her way back in time so that she could stop herself from making this terrible mistake and losing her best friend.
"I'm so sorry, holy shit I-I didn't mean to, oh my god I'm so so sorry, please don't be mad, just forget that ever happened and—"
Nancy was shocked, but not for the reason Robin had thought. Her entire world had turned on its axis. Robin's lips were like nothing else, made Nancy feel like nothing else ever had, and a brilliant flash of clarity came with them. So many things fell into place all at once, and the shock on her face was simply the rapid rearranging of the jigsaw puzzle of her life into an image that finally made some sense to her.
Thankfully, Nancy had always been a quick study, and a woman of action. After the couple of seconds it took for her to get back out of her head enough to notice Robin's frantic babbling apologies, Nancy's body moved without thought. She had always wondered at the best way to calm Robin down when she was panicking, when that high-speed mind of hers went into overdrive and the rambling started to spill uncontrolled out of her mouth. Now she knew.
Nancy cut Robin off with a kiss, pouncing suddenly just like Robin had. The satisfaction of Robin immediately falling silent, settling into place and all but melting into her was intoxicating.
This kiss wasn't rushed like the first, and they were both a little out of breath when it ended. Neither pulled away this time, instead touching their foreheads together, eyes still closed. Robin had never dared to think that her feelings would be anything other than unrequited, and she still couldn't accept the idea that this was anything other than a brief moment of beautiful madness.
"Nancy, I-I... are you sure?"
It was all she could think to say, all she could bring herself to say. She felt like she had been cracked open like a coconut, and now her soul was exposed and waiting for a knife.
"If you don't kiss me again, right now, I'm going to scream."
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