Work Text:
It Isn't Painfully Obvious, But It Is To Us!
based off of this post from Tumblr
It was a subtle but noticeable difference to Jonathan. It was a necessary regroup, especially after it was revealed Will had powers. Jonathan had had to cover his ears at the yells of amazement from Dustin and El and they went to hug Will, nearly bowling him over. El’s sister they had found, Kali, was silent during the entire exchange, but she looked drained.
Still, when they regrouped to figure out what to do next, Jonathan spotted it. It was like a beacon, when he saw Mike shifting during Hopper talking. Jonathan glanced over at him, who was sitting squished onto one of the couches with Will, Lucas, and Erica.
Jonathan never thought he’d see the day he’d see Erica Sinclair agree with Mike so much, but it had arrived.
Still, he watched carefully, the way Mike’s knee was touching Will’s. Will might not have been looking so much, too busy talking with El and Hopper, but Mike sure was looking. Jonathan watched as he seemed to freeze as Will’s elbow brushed his, his eyes darting down, and Jonathan recognised this.
From the van. When Will wasn’t looking, Mike was so attentive to what Will was saying and doing. Mike’s eyes never once left Will, and right now, it looked like he was struggling not to stare at Will.
Jonathan hadn’t been sure then, but he was becoming convinced now.
He glanced around the room carefully, only to realise Robin was also watching Will and Mike. Jonathan stared at her, trying to discern her expression, but she realised he was looking at her also. She looked up, then they both looked away.
There was a trickle of ice in Jonathan’s spine. He’d gotten to know Robin a lot better over these last eighteen months quarantined together, and he’d known her from school. She wasn’t part of the popular crowd, like him, and he did remember seeing her group, how she was the only one who didn’t seem to be paired off with anyone.
She was dating someone now though, but Jonathan didn’t know who it was. It wasn’t Steve, that idiot still was fighting Jonathan for Nancy’s attention, but Steve did seem to know who it was.
Hop gave everyone a small while to get themselves together, patch themselves up, get what they needed ready. Dustin was out of basically every single fight after getting his ass kicked by the jocks, completely unnecessarily. Jonathan knew what it was like to be goaded into punching a jock, so he did empathise with Dustin.
He knew it wasn’t going to stop Vecna, but Jonathan still went out to his car to get his mixtapes, walking back into where Robin did her DJ work to see her in there, alone, flipping through some of the records to keep the radio station up. He debated whether to approach her, since they did get along but weren’t particularly close. She was much closer with Steve and Nancy.
It was times like this that Jonathan missed Argyle like crazy. He understood that Argyle had to go back to California, the military let him go because he wasn’t a resident, but in a lot of ways, he wished Argyle had stayed. Jonathan had Nancy and Will, but Argyle had left a huge hole in his life, and someone he didn’t sit around awkwardly with.
“What are you brooding about over here, Byers?”
Jonathan jumped as Robin plonked a box down on the desk he was sitting next to, deep in thought. He sat up quickly, blinking, then shrugged.
“The end of the world? Vecna setting the world on fire? Eternal damnation?” he suggested dryly, helping as Robin began taking various cords and other knick knacks out of the box. She nodded along with what he said, letting out a heavy sigh.
“I can certainly understand the eternal damnation part,” she muttered, walking off to grab another box. Jonathan sorted through what she had put down, not a hundred percent sure what she was doing but guessed was what Hop had told her to do. “Though if we burn, Hawkins burns with us.”
Jonathan let out a snort at that. “I guess that’s the only solace in this. The town that beat us down pays in some way.”
Robin returned, and they worked in silence for a while, only talking to pass things back and forth. Robin sat across from him when they took a break, leaning her head back. Jonathan sorted slowly through some of his mixtapes, only glancing occasionally at Robin as he tried to figure out what to say.
He decided to play it safe.
“I spoke to Will after I got back and he told me he saved Mike from the demo’s,” Jonathan began, and he saw Robin’s eyes click open, staring up at the ceiling. “And you and Lucas too. He said something about having all the answers, and that he’d always had them.”
Robin slowly lifted her head to look at Jonathan, and her face was neutral.
“Oh?” she said, and Jonathan nodded, leaning on his knees.
“He said you’d given him some good advice. That you’ve really been there for him the last few days,” Jonathan continued, and it had turned into a staring contest. “I appreciate that, since I haven’t been around. I always try to listen to Will, to try and understand him, and I’m always there for him.”
Robin’s face twitched, but she didn’t move.
“Mike was right in front him, and Will stopped that demo,” Jonathan said, his voice softer. “Will, he’s… well, we’re all different to the status quo, but him more so.”
Robin nodded once. “I guess you could say that,” she agreed. Her tone was careful, but Jonathan had a feeling, that maybe…
“He and Mike had been a little weird the last two years,” Jonathan mused, sitting back in his seat. Robin’s eyes narrowed at him. “I know there’s a lot going on and things change, but a lot changed with those two.”
“Or things weren’t as they seemed,” Robin said, stunning them both as Jonathan saw her eyes widen. They stared at each for a few seconds, looked away, then back at each other.
“Do you know something?” Jonathan asked.
Silence for a few moments, then “I might.” Robin’s face was still unreadable. “Do you know something?”
Jonathan nodded slowly. “I might as well.”
They both looked away again, Jonathan’s mind racing. He swallowed hard, not really sure what else to say as he slowly turned to Robin again. She was doing the same, and they looked away quickly.
The silence was deafening, but the realisation was even louder. Jonathan nearly choked as Robin gasped, and they both leaped to their feet. The desk chair Robin was sitting in rolled away, while Jonathan’s fully fell back as they pointed accusingly at each other.
“You know!” Jonathan blurted out.
“And you know!” Robin shot right back. They were both breathing hard, staring at each other. Jonathan’s mind was going a mile a minute, and he just knew if Argyle were here, he’d be watching this entire exchange like it was a movie, complete with a bucket of popcorn.
“How did you figure it out?!” Jonathan asked, needing to know. Will was his brother, after all. He couldn’t just let anyone in Hawkins know about Will, not when Will had been struggling with this his entire life.
He didn’t think Robin was the wrong person to know, however. If whatever she had said helped Will, then Jonathan owed more to her than he could probably ever repay.
“I don’t know, I always just had a feeling!” Robin walked around the desk to grab Jonathan by the shoulders, shaking him lightly. “And now, those two, is it painfully obvious or is it just me?”
Jonathan grabbed her arms to stop her shaking him. “I wouldn’t say it’s painfully obvious, but it is to us!”
“I talked about this with Will, he never explicitly said anything, but he was asking me all these questions,” Robin said. “He only even asked me because he walked in on me kissing Vi-”
She cut herself off, her eyes widening again, and Jonathan just waited to see if she said anything else. Robin’s mouth pursed into a thin line, and she sighed.
“He walked in on me kissing Vickie,” she whispered after glancing around. Jonathan had to think for a few moments, and nodded.
“Vickie Dunne? Yeah, I think I know her, she volunteers at the hospital, right?” he clarified. The goofy smile that crossed Robin’s face confirmed it to him, and she released his shoulders. Robin began pacing back and forth, gesturing wildly as she spoke.
“Yeah, we’ve been together for a while, she’s the one I dedicate all those songs to,” Robin started, falling into gush mode for a moment. “I was supposed to take her to Enzo’s and I was telling her when Will saw us and I recognised his bowlcut running away, but once I spoke to him…”
“Robin, Robin!” Now Jonathan was grabbing her shoulders, stopping her. “I’m happy for you, but what did Will ask? Was he okay? Scared? What?”
Robin stopped, taking a few deep breaths, her hair a little frazzled. “Uh… When he finally told me, he was smiling a lot,” she said slowly, thinking. “Like… a lot, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile that much. Then he asked when I knew that Vickie wanted to date.”
Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “That’s certainly one way to put it.”
“That’s what I thought!” Robin told him, grabbing his arms but not moving his hands away. “I actually asked if he wanted to know how I knew Vickie wanted to make out, but he was very specific that he meant dating.”
“What did you tell him?” Jonathan asked. “I can imagine it’s different for… for…”
“For people like us,” Robin supplied for him, seeing he didn’t know what word to use. “It’s okay, Jonathan. He’s new to this himself, he didn’t say anything, but I did explain it’s different than if he knew a girl liked him. She can be a lot more open and direct, in front of other people. But with Vickie, I noticed shared looks, brushing knees, a bump of the elbow… simple stuff but small stuff that grew bigger and bigger until it was undeniable.”
Jonathan had never seen this side of Robin before. When she was still with her old crowd, she’d quite dry, sarcastic, witty. After becoming friends with Steve and Nancy, Jonathan saw her become someone more comfortable in her own skin. Wearing clothes she liked, talking a lot more, smiling a lot more.
Now though, she was brimming with a confidence of someone who was finally able to be herself with other people. Jonathan didn’t take photos a lot anymore, but he wasn’t blind. Being a photographer for so long had allowed him to be able to see more than most did.
And even when he was moping after Argyle left and he watched Nancy laughing with Robin and Steve, of course he’d noticed. He’d noticed different things in all three of them, and the biggest change had, surprisingly, been in Robin.
“I’d heard from Dustin and Lucas that girls always seemed to like Will,” Jonathan told Robin as she finally released him. “Mike never spoke about it, but those two were always so proud that Will attracted so many girls ‘without even trying’, in their words.”
Robin laughed as Jonathan did air quotes.
“That sounds like them,” she said, and Jonathan smiled, feeling some of his nerves at Robin knowing leaving him. “I’m guessing Will never said anything back?”
Jonathan shook his head. “He barely even noticed. He only ever really had eyes for-”
“Mike,” he and Robin said at the same time, and burst out laughing. Robin clapped her hand on his shoulder. It was one of those rare moments, when there was so much tension and so much at stake, that Jonathan remembered that there was always something to laugh about, someone to joke with.
He missed Argyle. But Robin wasn’t so bad. With all the tension with Nancy and Steve lately, Robin felt like a breath of fresh air. Argyle would like her.
“I haven’t spoken to Mike,” Robin admitted as they calmed down. “Honestly, I can’t even tell what’s going on in his head. That kid is locked in a fortress, surrounded by a moat, filled with alligators.”
They both looked toward the door as they heard voices, and Jonathan walked over to look through. He could could feel Robin hot on his heels, as they peeked through the crack in the door.
Will and Mike were stood on the other side. Mike was gesturing wildly, saying something about Will being a sorcerer, and he really was magic all along. Will wasn’t saying anything, just smiling at Mike. Robin was right – Will hadn’t smiled like that in a long, long time.
There was light in his eyes, in his face. When Mike’s arm moved down, Jonathan glanced at him too.
Mike was practically glowing, his eyes sparkling, as he fell silent, smiling at Will. Jonathan immediately nudged Robin back; he felt like he was intruding on something private.
Jonathan turned to Robin, thoughtful, and finally said, “Thank you. With Will.”
Robin raised an eyebrow at him. “For what?”
Jonathan smiled. “You gave him something I don’t think anyone but you could have. You gave him hope. And he found himself.”
Robin blinked a few times, and she smiled back, her eyes a little glassy.
“It was always just him, Jonathan. He always had the answers. He just needed to realise he had them.”
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basically Jonathan and Robin are this image
