Dark Red.

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/39476346.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Relationship: Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Platonic
Character: Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley, Dustin Henderson, Erica Sinclair,
Eddie Munson, Nancy Wheeler, Vecna (Stranger Things)
Additional Tags: Season 4 stranger things, Platonic Female/Male Relationships,
Protective Steve Harrington, Period-Typical Homophobia, The Upside
Down, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Friendship,
Rescue, Blood and Injury
Stats: Published: 2022-06-06 Words: 2396

Dark Red.
by the_nobody

Summary

It only took two words to cause Steve to spiral into a panic.

"Where's Robin?"

OR

When Robin appears to be stuck in the upside down alone, Steve takes a head first dive to
save her.

Notes

TITLE FROM DARK RED BY STEVE LACY

This is set sometime in season 4.

Ignore spelling errors

It only took two words to cause Steve to spiral into a panic.

"Where's Robin?" Dustin asked, looking around frantically.

Steve instinctively checked next to him. To his horror, Robin was not standing with him. In fact,
she was no where to be seen. His stomach sank as the group began to retrace their steps.
"Wasn't she with us when we came back through?" Erica questioned.

"She was with us. I remember." Eddie shook his head, puzzled, "I don't understand."

"If we all remember Robin being with us, then where the hell is she?" Dustin asked, looking over
at Steve, who looked paralyzed as Nancy started to speak.

"Maybe she's stuck. Or she's trapped, or..."

"Trapped." Steve repeated to himself.

He stood frozen for a moment. His mind reeling as he glared at the gate, a gaping red opening in
the ground. He could hear the shrieking from the creatures and the disembodied voices that play
like a haunting backtrack everywhere and anywhere in the upside down. He swallowed hard,
mentally preparing himself for what he was about to do.

Dustin saw it coming, but was still too late to act.

"Steve, don't!" Was all the boy could say before Steve launched himself head first into the upside
down. The last thing he heard was the frantic shouting of the group before he entered the realm of
uncanny.

It was dark for a few moments. He did not remember when exactly he stopped screaming, but he
noted a sudden silence that overtook the nothingness around him. There was no floor beneath him,
it was like he was lying down on air. The only thing he could hear was his own trembling breaths
as he looked down. Nothing. He looked up, expecting to still see the opening above. Nothing.

"Steve." A deep, gravely voice echoed around him.

He frantically swiveled his head the best he could. He found no one to accompany the voice.

"Steve..."

He searched for anyone, anything, but there was nobody around.

"Where is she?" He called out fighting the invisible force that trapped him in the chamber of
darkness.

"You're making a mistake, Steve Harrington."

Steve was flailing to no avail. He realized he had been tiring himself by fighting so much. He took
in some breaths before speaking again.

"Robin?" He desperately yelled, "Robin, are you there? Can you hear me?"

"Oh, Steve, don't you see?" The voice spoke more,

"She's gone too far down." The voice grew deeper, more croaky and sinister as it continued.

Something wet dripped on his cheek. He gasped, hesitating before lightly touching his face. His
eyes widened in terror at his now blood stained fingertips. Muffled screams and cries began to fill
the silence. Another drop fell on him. It stained the denim of his jacket. His breathing hitched as a
few more lone red spots began appearing on his body. The crying sounded familiar to him. It was
not until he heard the calling of his name that he realized the horrible truth.

"Robin!" He called, now fighting more than ever to move.

"I can hear you! I'm here! Robin-"

He felt a sudden drop. As if he was at the peak of a roller coaster ride that was now shooting down
back to Earth at an alarming speed. Steve desperately grasped at nothing as he fell deeper into the
unknown.

"You can't save the doomed, Harrington," Those words making his head spin even more. Blood
drops were falling on him at a rapid rate. Steve realized it was not going to stop. He was in for a
flood.

"But you can join them."

His scream filled his ears as he plummeted, pools of blood following him on his journey
downward.

Robins head hung low in the dimly lit room where she woke up.

"Robin, you still there?" She heard in front of her.

She gasped and her head sprung up. Confusion came over her as she realized she was looking at a
bathroom stall wall. She tilted her head as she touched the tile she was sitting on. From the other
stall, a familiar pair of shoes reached out. Robin looked further, seeing Steve's lower half in his
scoops uniform. She squinted, it's been almost a year since she worked at the mall. Hell, if she was
not mistaken, the mall has been abandoned since...

She gulped.

"Steve?" Her voice full of fear.

"You know something, Robin?" He started speaking, "I kind of always knew about you. You're
different. You always have been."

"What are you talking about, Steve?" She asked.

"The way you look at the girls that come by at work. How you smile when you look at them, how
you run your hands through your hair when you get too nervous. I always can tell what you're
thinking when that happens. 'Oh, God. Do they know?'" A low laugh erupted from the stall that
gradually shifted into a malicious heckle.

"With thoughts as loud as yours, Robin, why wouldn't everyone know about your secret?"

"Can you shut up so we can find a way out of here? You're being a real douchebag right now."
Robin spat.

Steve slowly pulled his legs back into his stall. Robin backed herself into the wall as much as she
could as Steve continued his teasing.

"Are you ready for everyone to know?" He asked.

His voice was different now. It was eerie and slow. Something ulterior was fogging up the room
fast.

"Stop it!" She demanded.

Robin was on the brink of losing control of her breathing. The lights were flickering manically
now. Steve had not said anything for a while, which drove Robin up a wall almost. She looked up
at the lock of the bathroom door.

"Robin..." Her name bounced off of every wall. It rang her ears. Without another thought, she
made her move to the lock when suddenly she was pulled back to the ground. She looked down at
her leg, gripped by a pulsing, grotesque, red vine. It was coming from the other stall which was
now a human sized hole in the ground ready to swallow her. The vine tightened with every squirm.
She screamed to be released as her leg was overcome by numbness.

"Don't you know what could happen if they all found out?" The voice echoed as the room began to
turn. Robin held onto the bottom of the stall wall. She hung there with the vine still trying to pull
her down.

"Let yourself go, Robin. You'd be safer here."

Her fingers were slipping. She looked down at what was attached to her leg.

"Not a chance." She grunted as she kicked the vine with her free leg. A sharp hissing sound
occurred when she attacked it. She kicked it again with more determination. She gave it another
go, this time trying to scrape it off with her boot. It was somewhat effective with pieces coming off
of it and falling into the vast red whirlpool below. She watched it swallow the scraps as her legs
still dangled above it. She gave it one strong scrape, almost falling along with the remains.

"Keep your gross, false reality to yourself you fucking creep! You're not taking me!" She shouted
as the room shifted back to normal, or whatever normal was before everything was tilted. Robin sat
exasperated on the bathroom floor, taking one glance at the toilet before vomiting in it.

Steve woke up on smooth tile. He had no recollection of hitting the ground. He knew he was still in
the upside down, but did not know where in the upside down. He blinked through the haziness of
his own vision. The broken lights above him were buzzing. He sat up and groaned, assessing
himself through all of his injuries, which appeared to only be minor. He realized upon some further
inspection the familiarity of his surroundings. A funny feeling arose in him.

He heard vomiting near him. He looked towards the sound. The wall of the bathroom stall
blocking the inhabitant next to him. It took a few more seconds of gagging and coughing for Steve
to muster out a word, a name.

"Robin?"

All stopped in the nearby stall. It fell silent completely as the pair lowered themselves to the floor
to peak at each other under their respective stall.

"Steve?" She was clearly in a state from what Steve could tell. He quickly began to crawl to her.

"No, don't come any closer." She looked at Steve, who was already halfway there. Steve looked up
at her. She was crying, very obviously frightened by him for a reason unbeknownst to him.

"What? Why? It's just me-" His eyes immediately darted to the slashes that ran up her right leg and
stopped just above her knee. Steve looked at her tear stained face,

"Jesus Christ." He breathed crawling in to the stall fully.

She had pushed herself deep into a corner, shaking and bleeding on the floor. She was disheveled
and hurt and it absolutely broke Steve.

"So, it's the real you this time, huh?" She sniffed, "You're not gonna say anything messed up about
me liking girls or anything this time?"

He held her face. He was almost too afraid to touch her, weary that if he did, she would fall apart
and break right in his hands.

"What happened to you?" He asked her gently, feeling her tears wet his palms. She shook her head
as she cried.

"We all jumped through the gate and then I just remember being in darkness. I fell and woke up in
this stall. I was talking to you, but it wasn't you. You were in your scoops' uniform and I had just
told you about me. It was just like that night at the mall when everything went down. Then you
started saying these awful things, but it wasn't you, it was him. Then you were gone and this vine
tried pulling me down into this hole. The whole room was different, and- and I got it off and I
vomited, like, all of my insides are in that toilet." Robin explained, her hands shaking as she
gestured and pointed her way through her story. Steve moved his hands down to her shoulders.

"And now you're here, and..." she stopped talking and blinked at Steve,

"How are you here?"

"My best friend is trapped in an alternate reality. What? You think I wasn't going to jump in here
and find you? I have a heart, you know?" Steve grinned.

He stood up and unlocked the door. He helped Robin up, placing her arm around him as they
staggered out of the bathroom.

"What if he comes back?" Robin asked him as they hurriedly wandered through the hellish version
of star court mall.

"Well, then I guess I better be game to kick some demon ass." Steve replied half heartedly.

Robin looked around worriedly. "We gotta find a gate way out of here. There's bound to be one
somewhere. I mean, this is where the tragic Hawkins Star Court mall fire happened." Robin said
sarcastically.

"You're right," Steve acknowledged, "When we find it, we'll go through it and we'll get that leg
situation all fixed up, all right? I'm sure the others are worried sick about us, about you."

"Thanks for coming down after me. That's some epic, badass, cool guy in an action movie, stuff
right there." Robin smiled, wincing as she walked.

Steve laughed, "Yeah, I mean, what can I say?"

Robin told him to 'shut up' before he could go on an ego fueled tangent. They both swayed as they
chuckled.

"No, but seriously, Steve. You didn't have to do that. Really, you shouldn't have. This is too
dangerous."

"Too dangerous?" Steve asked, aghast at her comment, "Listen, with all of the crazy shit I've seen
and done these last few years, this falls in like the 'eh' category. Like, I mean, don't get me wrong,
this is dangerous, but there was one time I woke up after a fight and Max was driving my car. The
kid was driving my car, Robin. I'm surprised the world and all of its dimensions didn't collapse
then."

Robin giggled. "Yeah, I guess."

A beat of silence fell over the two.

"Hey," Steve said looking down at the girl. She looked up at him, remains of a smile still on her
face.

"There's not a me without a you. If something would've happened to you here, something worse
than this, I would never, ever forgive myself for sitting by and not doing anything myself. Not to
deprive you of your credit, of course. You probably kicked that monster things ass when I wasn't
there."

She gave him an approving nod before they both laughed. Steve continued, "You're my girl, Robin.
In a totally non binding, utterly platonic way."

They looked at each other as they reached the end of the long hall way they had been walking
down.

"You're a dork, Steve." Robin rolled her eyes.

When they finally reached the gate, Robin could barely look. Her fear of falling back into her own
fears was tremendous. She sighed as she stood before it with her arm still slung around Steve.

"You know, the last time I did this, I got trapped in this thing called the upside down and my best
friend went all evil on me and I was almost murked by a vine. Not fun times." She joked
nervously.

Robins apprehension was loud enough for Steve to notice. He removed her arm off of him, placing
his hands on her shoulders again.

"Nothing is gonna happen this time. I'll make sure of it." He gave her a reassuring grin.

She breathed in for a long time before nodding her head readily. Steve nodded back and looked at
the gate.

"Last one there has to buy lunch next time we're at work!" Robin challenged before letting herself
fall through gate.

"The worlds about to end and you're worried about lunch next week?" Steve called into it.

He sighed, looking around the mall as whispers echoed his name all around him, as if trying to
succumb him in the sound. Steve swallowed hard and tightly shut his eyes, praying that Robin
won't be too hungry on their next shift, before falling in after her.

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