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Nancy Wheeler was a badass. Ask any of her friends, pre or post-1983, they would tell you without fail that she was badass, tough, strong, and not to be messed with.
Steve could tell you about her unwavering stare down the barrel of any gun of your choice, and her impeccable aim as she sought to take down anything in her way, be it monsters or academia, she would pass through it all with flying colours.
Jonathan could tell you that her sense of truth and justice was only rivaled by his own mother, and even then it was potentially an even playing field. He could tell you how quickly she put stupid things aside to help people she believed deserving, and how she’d do the same even when he didn’t think they were.
Robin could tell you about her unending drive to succeed. How any riddle could be solved under the penetrating gaze, any mystery could be solved in an afternoon, maybe two if it included supernatural monsters.
Barb would have told you about how stubborn she could be, and strong, and how that used to work in their favour when it came to studying, tests, and parental conundrums. She would have told you how it became a little more annoying when it came to boys.
Even Argyle could utter a simple “Nancy’s stupid cool, my dude, she’s totally wild,” and it would have all of that behind his statement.
All of them were right, of course, but there would be something they neglected to mention.
Not because they didn’t know, or they hadn’t seen, but because they knew her, whether through experience or proxy.
Eddie didn’t have that history or information.
So when Nancy ‘impeccable aim, truth and justice, mystery solver, strong and stubborn, stupid cool, guns-plural-in-her-bedroom’ Wheeler showed up at his trailer at three in the morning with nothing on her but a nighty and some boots, soaked to the skin with rain, needless to say he was a little surprised.
“Nancy?”
“...H-Hi,” she stammered out, pulling her arms tight around herself. “I, I’m so sorry, I can go-”
“No! No, no, uh, come on in.” He held the door open, gently ushering her inside. She followed, taking in the small living room, and the seemingly endless amount of mugs.
An hour ago, Eddie would have called himself the weirder dresser of the two, with his cropped red t-shirt and pajama pants with ducks on them, his hair up in a bun half the size of his head. Now, with Nancy in her purple night gown that just went past her knees, and the tall combat boots he vaguely recognized from The Warzone, he was more than willing to award her that title.
He carefully closed the door, trying not to startle her. She still just stood a little past the entry, looking as if she was waiting for something. It was then that his brain really caught up with the situation and he remembered the rain. “Couch is right there, you can take the boots off if you want, but we don’t have a fireplace or… whatever you dry your boots on, I dunno.” He tried for a joke. She smiled a little, wordlessly heading over to the couch and starting to take her boots off. “Cool, uh, sit tight, I’ll get a blanket, um, we have some hot chocolate if you’re down?”
She nodded, pulling her feet up under her, curling up against the armrest and keeping her eyes off him.
Christ he had no clue what he was doing. So he did what he did best and retreated to his bedroom, yanking a blanket off his bed and grabbing the one pair of clean socks he had left in his drawer.
He should call the others, right? Or at least he should call Jonathan. No, shit, Jonathan was in the middle of driving back up from California. Steve maybe?... Yeah no definitely not. Last thing Nancy needed was her ex, no matter how chill they were now. And Robin was out of the question. He loved that girl but she didn’t seem like the comforting type. So that left him.
Shit.
He sighed, forcing himself back out into the living room, preparing himself for an awkward silence or stiff conversation.
He was not prepared to come back to see Nancy curled up in the corner of the couch, clinging to Wayne’s throw pillow like it was the only thing keeping her alive. Given how hard her shoulders were shaking, and the barely muffled sobs that echoed through the trailer, it might have well been.
“Nancy?” He sat down tentatively, not getting to close, just putting the socks down next to her. She looked at him, her eyes wide, but responsive. He listened closer, hearing the sound of hurried breathing, and he saw how quickly the throw pillow was moving.
“I, I can’t breathe, I-I can’t breathe, wh-why can’t I breathe?” She wheezed, her eyes not leaving his face. He sat there for a second, stunned as he found himself in the situation: Nancy Wheeler was having a panic attack on his couch.
He quickly shuffled closer.
“Can I touch you right now?” He kept his voice soft. She nodded, still trying to get a handle on her breathing. “Okay. I’m gonna take your hand, you don’t need to do anything for a sec.” He did as he said he would, gently prying her right hand off the pillow, and placing it on his chest. “You’re doing great, Nancy, you’re doin perfect. Now just try and match my breathing, can you do that for me?” She nodded again, taking a shaky breath in with him. “Hold, two, three four, five, six, seven. Out, two, three, four, five, six, seven.” He gently squeezed her hand. “We’re gonna do that again, think you can handle that?”
“Y-Yeah.”
“Sick. In for four, hold for seven, out for seven.” They just sat there for some time, just breathing together, slowly bringing Nancy back to a functioning breath cycle. How he was managing to actually stay calm was beyond him. Maybe Wayne had just helped him through so many of his own that he had picked up a thing or two over the years.
Before too long, Nancy had slumped back into the couch, breathing on her own without his help now, her face red with emotion. Eddie rubbed her shoulder. “You did good, Wheeler.” She smiled a tiny bit, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Not that he was sure on that one, she was avoiding eye contact.
“I, I’m sorry,” she whimpered, unable to look at him. He draped the blanket around her shoulders.
“Hey, hey it’s okay, Nancy, you’re fine,” he assured her, awkwardly wrapping his arms around her. She leaned into his touch, burying her face in his chest as the sobs grew into wailing.
Now, despite the nature in which he’d met Nancy, Eddie knew how to handle someone crying. You couldn’t be a responsible, morals-included drug dealer without babysitting folks through some real bad trips. Eddie had heard people crying over things from dead moms to the fact that they couldn’t be a mango. But there was a difference. Those people were customers, usually folks that forgot him when he wasn’t in their line of sight.
This was Nancy Wheeler, the girl who shot down monsters and dark wizards and- ohhhh.
No fucking wonder she’d shown up at his place in the middle of the night. He’d only gone through this once, and he could barely fall asleep without dipping into his stash, and even then nightmares still plagued him. Nancy had been doing this for years. Fending off monsters and government agents and more monsters and everything in between. And she never seemed to snap, crackle, or pop under the pressure. She made plans and sprung traps and fired guns and most of the time she won, but she couldn’t be strong all the time, none of them could.
Eddie thought back to one of the first few times he’d hung out with Steve, Robin, Nancy, Jonathan, and Argyle, after everything in March had happened. Everyone had gone around, talking about how they got involved. Argyle and him most recently, Robin with the Russians, Steve with the demogorgon, Nancy with Barb, and Jonathan with Will.
Eddie remembered Barb. She’d been on her way to being the sophomore valedictorian when he was in his Junior year, and Nancy had been right next to her. Then Barb disappeared. He’d never thought anything of it till March. He wondered how much worse it would have been had he come into this insane spooky world at a young age. There was no way he could have handled it how Nancy did.
It was easy to forget she was younger than him, with her goals and her guns, but as she cried out what was probably more than a few months’ worth of breakdowns, he remembered.
He felt some of his awkwardness bleed out of him as he rubbed her back, falling into a comfortable and familiar caretaking role while she sobbed into his chest.
“It’s okay, I gotcha Wheeler, I gotcha. You just cry it out, kay?” He didn’t need a response, and she didn’t give one. She just kept crying for as long as she needed, the wailing soon falling to sobs, the sobs falling to whimpers, and finally the whimpers into slow, if slightly ragged breathing. He patted her back again, settling in for a slightly uncomfortable rest. “Get some sleep, I’ll call the others in the morning.”
“Are you sure?”
“Wheeler, I’m not making you trudge all the way back to Maple street in the pouring rain after you just broke down on my couch, that would be very not-metal of me, as Dustin likes to say.”
She giggled, so he counted that as a win. He also counted it as a win when she unfolded a bit, stretching her tiny body out on the couch, but still holding onto him.
“Night Eddie. Thanks for… y’know.”
“Any time, Wheeler, any time.”