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Robin Buckley never really liked kids.
She didn’t hate them, of course—but she had her reasons as to dislike them.
For one—the vast majority of them stunk.
Babies smelt like crap or puke, worst of all formula. Toddlers and younger children smelt a way she didn’t exactly have a description for. Something akin to rotting food and smelly drool. Your average ten year old didn’t know what deodorant or perfume was. Teenagers either didn’t think deodorant and showers existed at all—or you were some priss with the world’s most overpowering perfume known to man kind.
Then, you had all the attitude they packed along with them.
Robin would say she was an absolute peach in school, so this logic applied to her as well.
Will Byers was a special type of kid—his only attitude was to her mother and her, apparently overbearing habits that she got a front row ticket to on multiple occasions.
Max Mayfield had a horrid attitude, to be quite frank—or at least she did. Though Robin suggested that it was welcome due to the fact the girl watched her brother get gruesomely impaled in front of her. Max had been nothing but a sweetheart since she had woken up.
She didn’t really know how she tolerated Erica’s attitude.
She did not tolerate Derek’s attitude.
Sometimes—well, most of the time, kids, children and teens all entwined, came with a package of the most vile language, sour smells, and the attitudes of an angry dog.
Robin didn’t like children.
Which, was ironic for her, Y’know, considering she had just raced across a sandy, rocky landscape of an entirely different dimension while being chased by an inter-dimensional, otherworldly spider-like creature that had kidnapped kids with the help of a man-turned-monster, just to help save some kids.
Well, they weren’t just any kids of course—them existing, being there, could potentially collapse a wormhole straight into her own world, and one of them was her friend’s little sister.
Also, they had saved them before.
Robin hated the idea of risking her life for the sake of it, but at the same time, death didn’t feel like an opportunity she was willing to face.
Even now, she didn’t want to face it.
Her side was burning with an unimaginable pain, hot and runny with something wet, but her brain ached for her to ignore and just continue cradling Debbie in her arms, even as sweat gathered beneath her clothes and in her hair, her breathing laboured.
She didn’t dare think about it. She couldn’t. Not now. Not while Debbie’s small hands clutched at her chest, trusting her entirely.
She let her eyes flick to her side for just a second through her peripheral vision.
The sight made her stomach twist.
Red, gleaming wetly in the dim, dust-choked light, creeping through the fabric of her grey shirt, darkening the camo vest she’d barely thought to zip back up that morning. She swallowed hard and looked away.
It wasn’t that bad.
It had to be nothing.
She wasn’t used to injuries like this. Adrenaline had carried her through worse. Probably just a scratch. Just a scratch.
Her chest tightened. She could feel it now, the weight of blood soaking through the layers, heavy on her hip, warm against her skin. Her fingers twitched, reaching for it almost subconsciously, but she pulled them back.
She didn’t have time for that.
She couldn’t.
She had Debbie.
She had the other kids.
She had everyone around her.
She had to be okay.
Not okay, but fine enough.
Strong enough.
Robin didn’t want to end up like Eddie.
Debbie’s small, serious voice cut through her spiraling thoughts. “Robin…you look pale.”
Okay.
Maybe not all kids were horrible.
Sure, Debbie didn’t smell awfully amazing, considering she’d been wrapped up in a thick membrane of what seemed to of been completely raw flesh—but she didn’t pack the attitude of a mother bear or audacious language like Derek.
She smiled, almost wirily, and her face twitched in tune with the pulse in her side. “Its…I-it’s just all this badass villain-slaying I’ve been doing,” she said, and she almost choked on the words because it felt absurd even as she spoke them. “Y-Y’know—Totally normal.”
It was obvious that Debbie wasn’t totally convinced—but that didn’t matter in the moment.
Robin let herself pretend that the warm, sticky blood running down her side didn’t exist, that the dizziness crawling up her spine wasn’t real, that the weakness in her knees wasn’t going to betray her any second. But it was all there, every heartbeat pounding like a warning bell in her chest.
Debbie had stood, abruptly after a bit more of Robins shaky rocking—slipping right from her arms.
Internally, Robin almost panicked.
Though, she just stood up after the girl, hobbling for a moment as she followed the girls gaze.
Henry, impaled, struggling and gurgling on his own blood.
Robin honestly, couldn’t focus on it all. One too many times had she been this close to Henry—enough that right now, she just wanted to back up, curl into a ball and just pray that she made it home safely.
Instead, she staggered her way to where Steve stood.
He almost didn’t notice her, too entranced as Joyce slammed an axe down on the dying man’s throat in front of everyone.
Robin didnt mind.
She was a little relieved even.
Absolutely no threats left.
Well—almost no threats. She still had a gaping wound in her side, and she feared she may be in a very similar situation to Henry quite soon.
She was feeling a little less opposed to the idea the more time went on.
But she still wanted to go home so badly.
She felt every thrum of blood in her temples, every faint stab of nausea twisting her stomach, every prickling tingle of cold sweat sliding down her back.
Abruptly, Robins vision warped.
It almost looked like it was tunnelling—yet it also spotted black all over, making her flinch.
Her heart slammed in her chest.
She could hear it—not just in her ears, but in the hollow of her skull, in the base of her throat, echoing like a drumbeat through every nerve.
Her breath came in shallow gasps.
Everything else was muted, distant. The exhales, the relief, the clatter of the others checking over the kids and each other—it was all just a blur at the edges.
All she could focus on was the thudding of her own body, screaming at her that she wasn’t okay.
Her eyes drifted downward. Her camo vest was torn in jagged lines, the grey shirt beneath shredded almost completely across the side. Just a subtle shift of her weight sent spikes of pain shooting through her ribs, through her hip, sharp and cruel. She swallowed, trying to ground herself.
She tried to tell herself it wasn’t that bad. She’d survived worse. Russians, Henry, Demodogs—
She could survive this.
She had to.
But the blood—so much of it—drenched her side, soaking through her jeans, pooling along her hip, staining everything red. The tear in the shirt was jagged and deep. If she looked closely, she could see torn flesh beneath, glimpses of muscle moving faintly as her chest rose and fell. Her stomach churned violently at the sight, nausea twisting tighter with every heartbeat. She couldn’t throw up. She couldn’t even focus on that. All she could do was feel the dizziness, the racing heartbeat, the heat in her face, the cold in her fingers.
She swayed slightly, gripping Steve’s arm almost without thinking, blinking rapidly to keep her vision from rolling.
Not now. Not now. Don’t fall. You still have to go home.
But her body had other ideas. Her legs trembled. Her breath hitched sharply in her chest.
She tried to steady herself.
Tried to swallow the sharp metallic tang in her mouth, the heat crawling through her blood.
Tried to remember that she’d helped the kids, that she’d kept them safe, that she’d made it through the monster.
That it was almost over.
Her knees gave way.
Her eyes rolled back, vision blurring, chest tightening with dizzying pain. The world tilted, spinning, distant and loud all at once, as she finally let herself collapse backward. Dust and debris kicked up around her—mostly just a harsh puff of sand that made her eyes sting more than they already did.
She landed hard against the ground, head whacking off the hard, almost bony landscape that was filled up with sand.
Robin could hear faintly, just the scrambling of the others around her. Her vision was blurring too quickly to tell who was who—she was seeing doubles and hearing too many echoes.
Her breathing was the loudest.
Raspy, slow, and uneven.
It was even louder than her slowing heartbeat, and through her fluttering lashes, she could see someone with puffy hair staring down at her with tears in their eyes—another ripping their jacket off above her.
There were strong tubs at her right side, tearing her best right off her body, and she felt her throat vibrate with what must have been a groan of pain or something attune to that.
A coughing hack rose from her throat.
Wetness splattered on her chin and nose, her lips suddenly warm from the thick fluid.
It had happened—the injury—in the middle of the running from the giant spider-villain thing that there were currently inside of.
Some sort of debris, a rock, probably, her hit her. It had sent her staggering and tumbling mid run—but her adrenaline kept her going. No time to stop or she’d surely die.
Only after everything settled, did Robin realize that she was hurt in some sort of way.
She tried to ignore the festering pain of it—just some sort of raspy looking scrape or a burning scratch—it didn’t matter. What mattered was getting to holly and the other kids and Eleven at the time.
I mean, she had gotten what she’d wanted, but…
Ironically, Robin Buckley was dying.
Dying for kids. Children. Something she just didn’t like and couldn’t stand.
Somehow, she wasn’t angry.
Two years ago, she thought she’d die in an underground Russian base for the sake of hiding the identity of two children; Dustin and Erica.
A year ago, she almost died trying to kill Henry, who had been after her child friend; Max.
And now, she was actually dying for the sake of not one—not two—not even three, but so much more than just three children, all for the sake of their safety and the world not collapsing on itself like a smushed rubber duck.
Something, a hand, probably, was lightly slapping at her cheek, and her eyes tried to zone in on the person doing it.
The swoop of hair she could see told her that it was Steve—but the angle of which the arm came from told her that it was someone else—the one with puffy hair—so it was likely Nancy.
Then, a pressure was digging into her side.
Right on the wound.
Robin felt her body jerk, flinging upwards just for a second as more wet fluid flooded her mouth, spilling down her chin with a gasping sound of pain—so loud in her own head that it immediately started throbbing—before flipping backwards again.
Jeez.
Robin never thought she’d die like this.
Somehow, dying from falling or something else seemed a lot more favourable to this. The pain was awful.
She think she’d prefer to be cookie-crumble snapped up like Max and the rest of Henry’s victims—because she wouldn’t feel anything.
Maybe even get shot, like that dude Alexei, who Murray blabbed about once.
That would be easier than this.
This was just awful.
Still, her eyes were fluttering, and not in the way that they were trying to remain open. They were trying to close.
And Robin welcomed it.
At least the kids were safe with everyone else, and Henry was dead.
Otherwise, Robin wouldn’t have closed her eyes.