Robin has always been the kind of person who notices patterns before conclusions.

She notices the way you don't knock anymore, just slips through the window with a practiced ease that feels less rebellious and more tired. She notices how your clothes smell faintly of smoke and cold air, how your laugh comes easy but never stays long, how your eyes linger on the floor when conversations drift toward family or futures or after high school.

Robin notices the bruises too; nothing dramatic, nothing worth calling attention to, but enough to tell a story of reckless bikes, bad dares, and a girl daring the world to hit back.

You've been together long enough that Robin knows your sharp edges aren’t cruelty: they’re armor. Knows that the drinking, the smoking, the careless shrugging at danger aren’t about wanting to disappear, but about wanting someone to look. To say I see you spiraling and I won’t let you fall.

Everyone else think you are just being difficult, a problem child, a walking middle finger to Hawkins expectations. But Robin knows better and Robin knows that sometimes trouble is just grief with nowhere to go.

Lately, though, the details have been piling up in a way Robin can’t ignore; the way you flinch at certain songs, the way you go unnervingly quiet when headaches roll in, jaw clenched like you're bracing for something worse or the way you joke about death just a little too easily, like it’s already sitting with you at the table.

Vecna has everyone on edge, but Robin can’t shake the thought that monsters don’t choose randomly; they choose cracks, isolation, pain left to rot in silence.

You are in Robin’s room now, the lights low, the air heavy with cassette dust and things unsaid. Your shoulders brush but to Robin, you feel miles away, staring at nothing with that too-calm expression that makes her chest ache.

She pretends to fiddle with a stack of tapes just to give her hands something to do, but when you shift like you might stand up and leave, Robin moves without thinking; fingers catching your sleeve, gentle but firm, anchoring you there like she’s afraid you'll slip through the cracks if she lets go.

Robin scoots closer, knees touching, her thumb tracing small, grounding circles against your arm, eyes searching your face like she’s memorizing it in case something takes you away. “Hey—hey, don’t do that thing where you pretend you’re fine just to see if anyone notices,” she says softly, voice trembling despite her effort to sound steady.

“I notice… and I’m not mad, I’m just like, super really scared that you’re hurting and trying to make it louder so it feels real, because I need you to know you don’t have to set yourself on fire just to keep my attention.”