it's okay to frown (smile upside down)

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/39483969.

Rating: Not Rated

Archive Warning: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Relationship: Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington
Character: Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley, The Party (Stranger Things)
Additional Tags: Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Friendship, Good Friend Robin
Buckley, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder - PTSD, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Steve
Harrington Has PTSD, i'm sorry steve i love you, robin is the best tho,
Protective Robin Buckley, The Party Friendship (Stranger Things),
Post-Season/Series 03, Family Video (Stranger Things)
Stats: Published: 2022-06-07 Words: 957

it's okay to frown (smile upside down)

by sparklyjimin

Summary

Robin forgets, sometimes, now that they're settled into a version of life that resembles
'normal', that Steve's been through more of this shit than she has. But she's not a self-
proclaimed outstanding best friend for nothing, and goddamn she's going to convince him
that it's going to be okay if it's the last thing she does.

Or, an unexpected power cut at Family Video sends Steve spiralling, but Robin is there to
save the day.

Set between S3 and S4.

Notes

See the end of the work for notes

It's just after 4pm on a Wednesday when the lights in Family Video begin to flicker, before
shutting off completely.

It's early December, the middle of a cold 1985 winter, and Robin and Steve only have an hour left
on shift before they can clock out and go the hell home where there's actually decent heating, so
forgive her if she's a little annoyed at this sudden predicament.

It's beginning to get dark out, so they're plunged into near-darkness for a split second. Robin blinks
a few times as she gets used to the adjusted lighting, and then huffs out a reluctant smile and turns
to Steve, ready to laugh - it reminds her a little of the power cut at Starcourt over summer, when
they were still working in Scoops Ahoy, and that ended up with her being thrown into a world of
Russian spies and telekinetic teenagers and monsters from alternate dimensions, so of course the
first thing she does is have a quip ready to shoot at her friend.

It dies on her tongue when she sees him.

Steve stumbles backwards away from the counter as though he's been burned.

"Steve?" she ventures. "You okay, dingus?"

He's breathing a little fast for her liking, and her initial reaction is confusion. He was absolutely
fine not ten minutes earlier, joking about Robin drooling over the girl who'd just been in to rent St
Elmo's Fire, and then making jabs at the girl's taste in movies.

"My - Robs, my bat's in the back. I need you to get my bat." Steve's grabbing at her shoulders and
pulling her downwards towards the floor, his own knees buckling in the process, so they're both
hidden from view under the counter. Idly, Robin wonders if there are any customers left in the
store.

His bat?

She sees the way that her friend drags his body into a ball, pressed against the wall, damn near
hyperventilating, and suddenly the dots start to connect in her mind. She's seen the bat - she made
fun of it the first time she went to his house, propped by the front door with nails sticking out at
jagged angles, and had been quickly silenced when he recounted what he used it for. Fighting -
demo-dogs, she thinks he'd called them. In a rush, she remembers the correlation between
flickering lights and the Upside-Down, and his panic makes a lot more sense.

Robin forgets, sometimes, now that they're settled into a version of life that resembles 'normal', that
Steve's been through more of this shit than she has. But she's not a self-proclaimed outstanding best
friend for nothing, and goddamn she's going to convince him that it's going to be okay if it's the last
thing she does.

She lunges forwards and grips onto Steve's forearms, pulling them away from where he had them
wrapped around himself, mentally kicking herself for the moment of confusion where she could
have been trying to comfort him anyway.

"Oh - Steve, no, it's okay," she says desperately.

Steve shakes his head, looking closer to tears than she's ever seen him, and it's frankly disarming.

"I need to contact the kids," he gasps out between breaths.

"No, no, it's just a power cut," she says, feeling his hands settle around her arms in return. "It's not -
it's not that. It's just a power cut."

Steve visibly tenses, his eyes wildly scanning the area behind her.

"Hey, dingus, look at me. It's just a power cut."

His eyes finally lock onto hers and she attempts a smile past the overwhelming concern she's
feeling for him. It takes a second, but then he takes a deep, gulping breath and presses his head
backwards in frustration.

"Shit," he huffs out, voice sounding weak, but neither of them let up their grip on the other's arms,
even if Robin's knees are starting to ache where she's pressed awkwardly against the floor in front
 of him.

Robin watches as he inhales a few more times before letting go to scrub a hand over his face.

"God, I'm sorry," he starts.

"Uh-uh," says Robin. "No unnecessary apologising. Party rules, or whatever."

Now that Steve looks a little calmer, she takes the opportunity to slide across the floor and jam
herself into the small gap against the wall beside him, wrapping her arms around him.

"Still," he says weakly. "I shouldn't have panicked. God, over a damn power cut."

Robin shakes her head. "It's okay. You do know it's okay if you're not always okay, right? You've
basically saved the world on, like, three separate occasions, I think you're allowed to be a little on
edge sometimes."

Hell, she's only really had one run-in with the Upside-Down, and she still wakes up with
nightmares half the time. It's not an experience she's keen to repeat. She couldn't even fathom going
through that on multiple occasions and coming out of it mentally unscathed.

Steve is quiet for a moment. "Wait - party rules? Since when did you listen to the kids?"

Robin allows herself to laugh. "Hey, Dustin might be a little shit sometimes, but he has a point
sometimes. The Party's good for you."

She feels him smile where he's leaning on her shoulder. "Yeah, I guess it is, huh?", he says, and
then after a beat, "Thanks, Robs."

"Anytime, dingus. Now - what do you reckon we leave early and go steal Mrs Byers' nice hot
chocolate? We can't do much without the computers now anyways."

As she vaults over the counter to turn the sign on the door over to Closed, she thinks she really is
lucky. She and Steve might have become friends under wildly dysfunctional circumstances, but
somehow she wouldn't want to change it for the world.

End Notes

steve and robin are my favourite best friends and also possibly my favourite fictional
characters of all time, so it only felt right that i put them through some more fictional
trauma. bc how else would i express my love.

the title is taken from mxmtoon's 'frown' :)

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