Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gareth was hallucinating. 

That was the only explanation that made sense. He wasn’t sure he’d ever gone this long without sleeping, so it made sense that his brain had gone a little wonky. 

Steve Harrington had just burst into Eddie’s hospital room, reached under the couch by the window, pulled out a bat full of nails, and dashed back out into the hallway.

Gareth stared at the door for a moment and then looked over at Jeff who was sitting on the other side of Eddie’s bed. Jeff was looking at the door, mouth open and appearing just as confused as Gareth felt. Wayne, who’d been standing beside Gareth’s chair near Eddie’s head, had flinched when the door slammed open and raced to the foot of the bed, but paused when Harrington had made for the couch instead of Eddie. 

Gareth had only spoken to Wayne once during the week after the first murder and before Eddie turned up at the hospital. He’d been stoic and silent since Gareth had shown up at the hospital yesterday, and other than a quiet greeting and a few questions about how Gareth’s family was holding up after the earthquake, he’d stayed that way. Jeff got the same treatment when he’d shown up a few hours later. And Dustin Henderson had popped in a few times to sit with them for a while, but other than that, they’d been left alone. 

Some of Hawkins was clearly still under the impression that Eddie was responsible for the killings, the image of his missing poster graffitied with devil horns and accusations coming to mind, but the police had seemingly backed off. There was no officer posted outside the door, nor had any stopped by the room since Gareth had arrived. There was no way that could last, even if they’d dropped Eddie as a suspect. Someone was bound to come by at some point, asking questions none of them had answers to.

Or for something worse. 

But Harrington hadn’t stuck around, hadn’t even looked at any of them in the scant few seconds he’d been in the room. 

And where the fuck had that bat come from?

“What in the–”

The door swung open again, cutting Jeff off mid-sentence. Robin Buckley stood in the doorway this time. She glanced around the room, focusing in on Eddie for a few seconds before walking up to Wayne.

“Mr. Munson, right?”

Wayne stared at her, but did nothing to respond. Buckley didn’t seem to care.

“There’s a bit of a situation downstairs. I don’t think… it should be okay. We shooed them off earlier, and it shouldn’t be any different. Except this time Lucas said he saw two trucks pull up instead of just the one, and he couldn’t see super clearly because it’s dark out, but he thinks they were holding…” She trailed off and then shook her head. “Anyway, the cops aren’t really around, so maybe that’s why they came back. But like I said, it should be fine.” She looked at Eddie again and her eyes hardened.

Gareth moved toward her. “What are you even talking about? Who’s downstairs? What’s going on?” What was she doing here? What was Harrington doing here? 

She looked up at Gareth and then back to Wayne. “Nothing good.” She reached behind her back, moving her shirt aside to grab at something. “Like I said, we should be able to handle it. But just in case…” 

She held out a handgun, grip pointing toward Wayne, who gave her a baffled look. Buckley shook the gun a bit, waving it in Wayne’s direction until he slowly reached out to take it from her. She nodded and backed away.

“It should be fine. And one of us will come back and let you know that everything’s good. But I should… yeah.”

And with that, she bolted out the door, presumably following Harrington.

Gareth felt like he’d been hit by a bus. Jeff didn’t look much better.

Wayne stared down at the gun in his hand for a moment, before doing something with it that Gareth couldn’t put a name to, but made it clear he knew how to handle it. He looked back at Eddie for a moment before walking over to the door and locking it. 

“What the fuck?”

.

Jonathan was sober for the first time in what felt like ages, but was likely just several days. Or maybe a week. Probably several weeks.

Being friends with Argyle just kind of implied regular weed access. Jonathan had always preferred smoking to drinking. And Nancy was all the way back in Indiana, unable to give him that look she always gave him whenever she smelled it on his clothes.

Going through the latest Upside Down bullshit half high and desperate not to come down from it had been weird in the moment, but slightly terrifying in hindsight. He remembered a muddled conversation with Steve after Starcourt, both of them standing behind an ambulance while Robin sat in the open back doorway. Steve had been covered in blood, and both he and Robin had been pale and shaky.

“I don’t think it’s completely out of our systems yet,” Steve had said, pinching the bridge of his nose. Jonathan had hoped he didn’t have another concussion, unlikely as that had seemed.

“What did they give you guys?”

“No idea.” Robin had looked like she was about to either pass out or throw up. Steve had moved closer to her so she could lean against him. She’d buried her face in his side when he tugged her closer. “It was bright blue, like fucking Kool-aid. But scarier.” 

“I thought it might’ve been LSD or something, but neither of us started hallucinating.” Steve had looked close to passing out himself, wincing when Robin pressed into him, but wrapping his arms around her anyway. “Now I think it was probably some sort of benzo mixed with who knows what.”

Jonathan thought seeing them both crash like that would put him off drugs forever. But less than a year later and he’d been voluntarily, and eagerly, high during a shootout and cross-country rescue mission. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it, but they’d all made it out mostly alright, so he did his best to ignore the creeping guilt. 

It was hard, especially when his mom could sometimes read him like a book. She, Hopper, and Murray had just gotten to Hawkins, only a few hours after Jonathan, Will, El, Argyle, and Mike had. They’d met up at their old house, the only place they’d been able to get to without much trouble. Hawkins looked like a bomb had gone off in it, and Jonathan wasn’t eager to drag the kids around anywhere they didn’t absolutely need to go. 

Will and Mike were trying to get in touch with the rest of the group in Hawkins, sending out periodic messages using the walkie. Mom was fussing over Hopper, who was fussing over El, who was napping fitfully in Hopper’s lap. Murray had disappeared somewhere down the hallway. 

“Your house has a wicked vibe.” Argyle was sitting on the floor across from Jonathan, leaned back against the wall his mom had once strung Christmas lights across to speak with Will across dimensions. 

Sometimes Jonathan wished he was perpetually high.

“Do you mean that in a good way or a bad way?”

Argyle shrugged. “Neither, I guess.” His eyes were closed. He seemed far too relaxed compared to the rest of them, but considering this was his first time dealing with all of this, Jonathan couldn’t really hold it against him. “Just feels very present, ya know?”

Jonathan didn’t know, but maybe it wasn’t so strange that someone could pick up on the house’s ever present connection to the Upside Down. “Technically not my house anymore.”

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s moved in, my guy. Think that means it’s still yours.”

The bank probably thought differently, but Argyle had a point. The house looked frozen in time, like no one had stepped foot in it since they’d left at the end of last summer. Jonathan wondered if they’d even tried selling it. Maybe the house would always be theirs, intrinsically linked to his family and the monsters they’d been fighting since ‘83. 

“We’ve got them!” 

Mike’s shout was jarring, making Jonathan jump to his feet without even realizing it. El jerked awake and scrambled out of Hopper’s lap to crowd around the walkie with the boys. She hadn’t said much about what had happened with Max when she went under, but Jonathan could read between the lines enough to know that it was bad. Bad enough to make El the most anxious out of all of them to get back to Hawkins. Hopper’s miraculous reappearance had been the only thing keeping her from tearing into town on her own. 

She grabbed the walkie from Mike. “Hello. Who is there?”

“Hi, El. It’s Nancy.”

“Is Max okay?”

The silence was deafening. Jonathan already thought it was odd that Nancy was the one on the other end of the walkie. Why wasn’t it Dustin or Lucas? Were they hurt too? 

“She’s… We’re at the hospital. Everyone’s here.”

“We’ll go there now.” His mom’s tone left no room for argument. Will relayed the message and everyone made their way outside, including Murray, who’d reappeared just in time to load into one of the cars.

They pulled up to the Hawkins General twenty minutes later, having had to take a few detours around the destruction. Most of the town seemed to be without power, so the hospital stood out like a beacon in the middle of the night. Nancy was waiting for them in the empty lobby. She was in clean clothes, but it looked like she hadn’t slept in days. She was twitchy in a way she only got when she was anxious about something out of her control. 

Jonathan couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked to her. 

She turned as they all walked in. Mike was quickly enveloped in a crushing hug he seemed mildly surprised by, but returned nonetheless. El and Will got quick shoulder squeezes before Nancy made her way to him. He thought it might be awkward, but they’d always done best in high stress situations. Sometimes Nancy and Jonathan didn’t feel like NancyandJonathan until the Upside Down started causing issues again. This was no different.

He hugged her tight, burying his face in her neck and breathing her in. She smelled like laundry detergent and gun oil. It wasn’t unusual, but it probably meant she was armed. Which meant the danger had very recently passed.

Or that it wasn’t fully over.

He pulled back, still holding her but wanting to catch her eye. Her mouth tightened and she tilted her head a bit, looking behind him for a second, before meeting his eye again. 

So they weren’t in immediate danger then. But she was still on guard.

Then her whole face shifted into blatant shock.

“Hopper?!”

The former chief was hobbling his way in, assisted by Murray. He just shrugged in Nancy’s direction before collapsing into one of the chairs near the front desk. 

“He’s been in Russia apparently,” Jonathan tried to explain. “Mom and Murray went and broke him out of prison.”

Nancy whipped her head back around to stare at him, opening and closing her mouth a few times without actually saying anything. She finally shook her head. “That makes absolutely no sense.” But she didn’t seem concerned about figuring it out.

Which was odd. Nancy always wanted to figure things out. 

Something was definitely still wrong. 

He quietly introduced her to Argyle, ignoring the confusing look the other man was sending him. They said polite hellos and then she pulled him in the direction his mom and the kids had gone, toward the front desk to talk to the nurse sitting behind it. 

“Are they with you dear?” she asked Nancy with a small smile, obviously knowing the answer already. 

“Yes. They’re here to see the same people.”

It would have been funny, seeing all three kids spin in unison to look at Nancy, except nothing was funny about any of this. 

“People?” Will’s voice cracked and Jonathan felt his stomach swoop in response. “We knew Max… who else is hurt?”

Nancy, rather than answer Will directly, turned to look at Mike. “Eddie’s pretty banged up.”

Mike looked baffled, and then confused. “What do you–”

“He’s not too bad off,” Nancy cut him off. “Well, he was, for a while there. But he’s better now. We got him here in time.”

“How'd he get mixed up in this shit? He wasn’t supposed to!” Mike looked mad now, which probably meant he was trying not to cry. Will and El both clocked it, and each grabbed one of his hands.

Nancy reached forward to squeeze his shoulder gently as well. “Wrong place, wrong time. But he’s going to be alright. I promise.”

Jonathan nudged her when she pulled back from Mike. “Who’s Eddie?” he asked quietly.

Nancy opened her mouth to answer, but the sound of screeching tires echoed through the lobby, effectively silencing all conversation. They all looked out through the glass doors into the dark parking lot. Two pickup trucks had just skidded their way into the lot, thankfully stopping a good distance from the building. 

“Fuck.” Nancy turned quickly toward the desk, but the nurse waved her off, picking up the phone.

“I’m calling them now.” 

Nancy nodded and turned to face the front doors again. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why won’t they just give up?”

“What’s going on?” Hopper was struggling to his feet using Murray as leverage despite the other man’s quiet instances that he should stay sitting down. Nancy ignored him, so he asked again, slightly more frustrated. “Wheeler, what the hell is going on?”

Nancy pushed Jonathan behind her and grabbed Argyle’s arm, dragging him back as well so that she was between everyone and the front doors. She glanced back, not at Hopper, but at the nurse again. “Are they–”

“Already on the way down. They saw them from the windows.”

Hopper pushed his way forward, nudging Jonathan out of the way, and grasping Nancy’s arm. “Wheeler.” She finally looked up at him, steel in her eyes. “What is–?”

She shook his arm off none too gently and turned around again. “Nothing good.” Jonathan turned as well and saw six men making their way across the parking lot. The two in front were each holding something. 

One had a wrench. The other had a shotgun.

He saw the moment everyone else in the room registered it as well. His mom quickly grabbed the kids and shoved them all behind her, Murray stepping forward as well. Hopper snagged Jonathan and Argyle, shoving them that direction as well. But in his weakened state, he only managed to make them stumble backwards slightly. 

“Dude, what the hell?” Argyle whispered in Jonathan’s ear. “I thought we were in the aftermath bit now. Like the part of the story where everyone starts healing or whatever. You didn’t say there’d be more guns.”

Jonathan didn’t know what to say. He’d thought they were too.

The men finally made it to the lobby doors, marching through them and coming to a stop just past the threshold. He recognized some of them, in the way that you always recognize people from the town you grew up in. The guy with the wrench was definitely related to the new mayor, one looked young enough to still be in high school, and two of the others made him think of his father. Which probably meant they’d run in the same circles.

Shotgun guy stepped forward and pointed at Nancy, thankfully not with the gun. “We talked about this, girl. Now you’re just going to let us through.”

“Fuck you.”

“You’re going to let us through, and no one else will get hurt. We’re finishing this. Now.”

“It’s already finished. It’s over, and everyone was wrong. The police were wrong, the town was wrong. Just go home. ”

Nothing was making any sense. Jonathan looked over at Hopper, but he looked just as confused, but a lot angrier. He was eyeing the gun warily.

The guy laughed, stepping forward slightly. “We’re not going anywhere, until that fucker is dead.”

A door suddenly slammed open to Jonathan’s right, the one leading to the rest of the hospital. 

Steve Harrington stood framed in the doorway, backlit by the blue tinted fluorescent lights of the hallway. He, like Nancy, was wearing fresh clothes, though they looked like scrubs. A ragged looking mark encircled his neck, and the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes were identical to Nancy’s. He was barefoot.

The nail bat dangled from his right hand. 

He took a second to look at the men by the door before walking to the front desk and leaning his bat against it, and marching forward past Nancy. 

“I told you this would be strike three, Danny.”

“Oh fuck you, Harrington. You should be–”

Steve punched wrench guy right on the nose. 

Jonathan was shocked enough that he missed the next few seconds. When he tuned back in, Steve was holding the shotgun by the barrel and using it to bash the owner’s knee. He quickly spun around and slid the gun across the ground until it stopped near the door he’d emerged from. In the same turning motion, he brought an elbow up to clock a third guy in the chin. He went down hard.

What the fuck?

Hopper stepped forward, but Nancy, without taking her eyes off the scene in front of them all, held a hand out against his chest, easily keeping him back. She turned slightly, just enough to shake her head at him before taking a couple steps forward herself. She didn’t join in, much to Jonathan’s relief. However, she did bring her right hand around to hover at her back, just above the waistline of her jeans. She gripped something underneath the hem of her sweatshirt, and Jonathan felt Hopper tense up even more beside him. 

Steve continued beating the shit out of the rest of the men.

Jonathan had always thought of Steve as good at taking hits, good at protecting, the one to step forward and take the heat so that someone else didn’t have to. It had been annoying at first, something that didn’t fit the mold for what Jonathan expected him to be. But the longer they orbited each other, the longer it started to make sense. Steve could be mean, but not really violent. Or at least he wasn’t usually the one to initiate it. 

That had clearly changed. 

He could still take hits, and he was right now. Wrench guy had popped back up and managed to clip his arm before Steve had disarmed him. A trail of blood had made its way down his arm to pool in the crease by his elbow. 

But he was giving as good as he got, and more. All six of the guys were on the ground, in various states of injury. Steve stood above them, breathing slightly labored. One of the guys tried to reach forward to grab the discarded tool, but Steve simply nudged it away and then landed a solid kick to the guy’s sternum. He didn’t try again.

Then it was quiet, broken up only by the quiet groans of the still conscious men on the floor. Steve was still keyed up, the tense line of his shoulders blocking the path between the negated threat and the rest of the group. Nancy seemed to relax a bit, not letting her guard down, but at least releasing her grip on the gun tucked into her jeans. 

Jonathan wanted to look back at the kids, wanted to check with Argyle and his mom, but he was frozen. He couldn’t take his eyes off Steve. 

.

This was like something out of one of those shitty action movies Robin hated. Standing between a group of people he cared about (plus some new guy, and fucking Chief Hopper?) and the ‘villains’, slightly ruffled and just bloody enough for it to start dripping lightly onto the floor, Steve looked like an avenging hero. Robin had no intention of ever telling him this, but judging by the looks Will, El, and Mike had on their faces, she had a feeling this moment would slot itself right beside Demodog Fighter Steve in the party’s ever-evolving lore. 

Steve would hate it. Monster fighting was one thing. Cutting a group of people down like he just had was going to make him shifty and off-center for ages. Robin wasn’t looking forward to it. She hated when he felt guilty for protecting people. 

Danny Hawthorne looked to be collecting himself for another confrontation. Robin doubted it’d be anything physical, his nose was streaming blood and his shoulder looked very dislocated. And being Mayor Hawthorne’s son had awarded him the ability to use his words as effectively, if not more so, than his fists. She didn’t want to take any chances though. 

Moving away from the door enough to catch Will’s eye, she waved him over, indicating wordlessly that he should drag Mike and El with him. Robin wanted them out of range, and she knew Steve would too. One of the kids in a hospital bed was already one too many. If Jason had still been alive, Robin was pretty sure the bruises on Lucas’s face would have guaranteed an even bloodier encounter with Steve than this was turning out to be. 

The kids shuffled past with no issue, but crowded right behind her so they could continue watching. Joyce was the only one who seemed to notice the movement, nodding in Robin’s direction before shifting to stand more firmly next to Murray. 

Robin glanced around, noticing the shotgun on the floor only a few feet away. She picked it up gingerly, not quite confident enough to hold it right, but knowing enough to keep it pointed at the ground. Guns were definitely not her forte, the limited knowledge she did have coming from Steve, who only knew how to use the one his father usually kept locked in the safe at his house. He’d pressed it into her hands just a little while ago, saying a quick “just in case” before sprinting out of Max’s room. 

She’d maybe been a little too happy to foist it off on Wayne Munson, but it honestly seemed like he’d make better use of it than she would if things got desperate. Grabbing the shotgun was more about getting it further away from the people who’d brought it than actually using it herself. 

Speaking of which, Hawthorne had finally managed to get to his feet. He was cradling his arm against his torso, clearly in a good amount of pain, but the hatred in his eyes was enough to make Robin tense up.

“You are dead, Harrington. Fucking dead.”

Steve looked down at himself consideringly. “I think I’m alive actually, despite everything that’s happened the past week and a half.” 

“My father is going to–”

Steve scoffed. “Your father is barely less corrupt than Kline was. And twice as skeevy.” He looked Hawthorne up and down, mildly playing up the petty mean girl persona that always made Robin giggle. “He may have been able to bribe your way through a degree from Purdue, but I doubt he’s got the kind of pull to sweep away a murder charge.”

“Oh, but Munson does?”

“Eddie had the good sense to just not fucking hurt anyone.” She could tell Steve was trying to temper his anger, making it seem more like disdainful irritation. The bruises, blood, and probable broken bones of Hawthorne and his crew didn’t really help. “He’s innocent and you know it. Everyone knows that now. It’s blatantly fucking obvious. Even without the police spelling it out for everyone, which they did.”

“He is not innocent. He’s a goddamn monster.”

Steve stilled. 

It was like the temperature had dropped a few degrees. Robin felt goosebumps pop up across her arms, and behind her she felt one of the kids shiver. Murray took a small step back, and then looked around, seemingly confused before zeroing back in on Steve with a look in his eye that Robin wasn’t sure she liked. 

She had never bought into the whole King Steve thing, even when they were actually in school together. Steve Harrington was a person, just like everyone else. Sure he was an asshole but so were a lot of people. Hell, she was kind of an asshole. It’s part of why they clicked so easily at Scoops. And sure he lived in a big house out in Loch Nora and his parents had money coming out of their ears, but he still went to Hawkins High. Joined the same sports teams, drank from the same kegs at house parties, sat through the same bullshit history classes. 

He was just like everyone else. 

But then she met Steve. Not Steve Harrington, just Steve. 

And Steve was goofy, and caring, and acted like some sort of cross between a single mom and a fun older brother. Steve was her best friend, the person she told practically everything to, the person who knew her inside and out, the first and only person she’d ever told that she liked girls. Steve was who the kids bugged for rides, and free meals, and sleepovers. 

Steve was also the person who ran back into a house with a demon crawling out of the wall. Steve was who the kids called when they had nightmares, who Robin went to when she had them too. Steve made himself a target in the Russian bunker under Starcourt because he understood the situation enough to realize they were going to hone in on one of them, and he’d do anything to keep it from being Robin. 

Steve was a protective force of nature. But when he directed that energy in an offensive way… The pile of dead bats in the Upside Down version of Hawkins was a testament to just how much he could do. The fact that Eddie wasn’t among them was another.

Steve was staring at Hawthorne, not glaring, just staring. It seemed to have more of an effect on the rest of the guys Hawthorne had brought with him. She saw one stagger back, bumping into another who had just gotten back to his feet. One who was still on the ground gripping his knee started shuffling backwards, damn near crawling in the direction of the parking lot. Hawthorne himself was holding his ground, but Robin noticed a slight tremor in the hand cradling his injured arm. 

After an uncomfortably long minute, Steve stepped forward so that he was barely a foot or two away from the other man’s face. “You don’t know what a monster is.” His tone was flat, unemotional in a way that Steve rarely got. “You’re going to scrape your buddies up off the floor, and then you’re going to leave.”

“You think you can just–”

“You are going to leave.” Steve stepped forward again, forcing Hawthorne back. “If you don’t, if you make me drag you out of here, it’ll be in pieces.”

Hawthorne shot him a disbelieving look. “Is that a threat?”

“No one would care enough to do anything about it. Your father hates you, would sell you out in a second if it meant advancing his political career. Your mother’s been doped up on oxy since you were in high school. Kelly is only going to marry you because of the family money, which isn’t even yours because like hell would the mayor leave you in his will. He restricted access to the family accounts as soon as you got back, right? And you’ve been living off your mom’s credit cards?” Steve took another step, forcing the other man back again. “You are nothing. To me, to everyone here, to everyone you know. I’ve already spent too much energy on you tonight, more than you’re worth. So you’re going to walk out of here, get in your truck, and go the fuck home. Otherwise, your fiancé will have to find a new dumbass to start cheating on.”

Robin’s mouth dropped open, and she saw Jonathan’s and his long-haired friend’s do the same. She heard Will choke back a quiet laugh behind her. Joyce’s eyes were wide and her lips were pressed together tightly, like she was trying to control her expression. Hopper looked uncomfortable, and made to step forward again. Nancy held him back.

Hawthorne was furious. He opened his mouth a few times, but nothing came out. Robin didn’t think the shakiness she saw in him was all anger. One of his buddies tugged on his arm, motioning toward the door. He glanced once at Steve before looking away quickly, nearly flinching.

“Come on, man. They’re not worth it.”

“He can’t just fucking say that shit to me, and think he can get away–”

“I know, but come on.” He gave Hawthorne another yank, leaning close to whisper in his ear. Robin couldn’t hear what he said, but Steve clearly could.

He laughed mockingly, tossing his head back in a loud guffaw. “You can kiss that baseball scholarship goodbye if I see your face in here again, James. Bit hard to pitch with an inverted elbow.”

It was quiet again for a few seconds before Murray piped up. “That’s called hyperextension.” Joyce elbowed him hard in the gut.

Steve didn’t turn. He kept his eyes fixed on James. “I didn’t mean hyperextended. I meant inverted.”

James’s eyes widened and he dropped Hawthorne’s arm. He turned on his heel and marched quickly out the front door into the parking lot. The other guys followed suit, some more quickly than others, a few with significant limps. Hawthorne was the last to go, sending Steve a withering glare that fell a little flat with the way he was still shaking and clutching his immobile arm. 

Steve stared back. “Tick tock, Danny.”

Chapter Text

The last few days had been beyond exhausting. Mike didn’t think he’d ever get used to all this bullshit, but something about this go around was making him want to sleep and not think for a week straight. He’d only gotten a few hours here and there in the van on the way back to Hawkins, and his eyes felt unreasonably heavy. El had been distracted by thoughts of Max, so he and Will had done their best to distract themselves from worrying by playing word games and actually catching up. 

Talking with Will had never been this awkward, and it made Mike feel weird and guilty. He knew it was probably his fault, but he didn’t know why. Will and El clearly got along better now, so it couldn’t be that, but something was still off. If he really thought about it, things had been off ever since Will came back from the Upside Down.

And that wasn’t surprising or anything, who wouldn’t be different after a week in another dimension? But even after the Mind Flayer and the rest of that year and the following summer, they were still tiptoeing around each other. Sometimes it felt like they were old school friends trying to reconnect rather than actual current best friends. 

Mike was trying not to think about it. 

Steve was providing a very confusing distraction.

“Is this new?” Will whispered, elbowing him lightly. Both of them were staring over Robin’s shoulder. “You didn’t tell me Steve had turned into a badass.”

“Because he isn’t,” Mike scoffed weakly. Because Steve was just Steve . He was annoying and dumb and kind of a jackass sometimes. And yes, he drove them around pretty much whenever they asked, and let them hang out at his house, and filled that role of ‘the only trustworthy semi-adult who was in the know and still in Hawkins’ better than Mike had expected. But he was also Nancy’s goofy ex-boyfriend who hung out with like one person his actual age and a bunch of freshmen. He was a nuisance but mostly harmless.

Clearly not completely harmless though. Mike watched as blood continued trickling down Steve’s arm, past his bruised knuckles, dripping onto the tile floor. He was still staring out the hospital door with a look on his face that Mike didn’t recognize. 

The last however many minutes had been wildly out of character for Steve. Mike wasn’t sure which was more outrageous, the physical beatdown or the conversation that followed. 

Will turned toward him, raising an eyebrow. “Seriously, dude.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. It’s just Steve.”

“Yeah, ass-kicking Steve who didn’t even need his bat to decimate those guys. What the hell was that?” 

Robin snorted, making them both startle. Without looking back at them, she made her way over to the rest of the group. Nancy turned toward her and took the shotgun Robin hastily shoved in her direction. Steve shook his head a bit and turned as well. Robin reached out and poked around the new cut on his arm.

“Well that was something.” Her tone felt way too light for the current situation.

“Yeah, probably shouldn’t have done that,” Steve replied, reaching up scratch at his neck. 

“Might keep them away for a bit longer this time,” Nancy said with a shrug.

“Or just piss them off even more.”

Robin moved closer to Steve, leaning against his non-bloody arm. “It may have pissed them off, but I think it probably scared them, too. They were so focused on you, I don’t think they even noticed the undead cop over here.”

Steve looked up and Mike watched blatant shock overtake his face when he saw Hopper. He blinked a couple times before shaking his head again.

“What do you… How?”

“I was in Russia,” Hopper grunted. 

“That doesn’t...”

Hopper sighed impatiently. “I fell through a portal under Starcourt.” The words still sounded odd coming out of Hopper’s mouth, no matter how many times Mike heard the story.

Steve and Robin both flinched. They pressed in even closer together and seemed to have a short conversation made up entirely of blinks and eye movement. Mike was used to them talking without actually talking. Despite his annoyance at Dustin constantly insisting that the two were dating, Mike wouldn’t really be too surprised if it was true. The two of them insisted they were just friends, but judging by how much time they spent together, and how they seemed determined to inhabit the same physical space ninety percent of the time, there was definitely something more going on there. He didn’t really care either way, but Dustin and even Lucas sometimes talked about it often enough that he sort of had to have an opinion.

He decided to use the pause in conversation to join everyone in the middle of the room, Will and El following behind him. 

Steve and Robin were still staring at each other.

“What?” Hopper’s tone was nearing what he used to use with Mike anytime he wanted to hangout with El. 

Robin finally looked away from Steve and over at him. “That sort of explains… Well, it gives context to something we were confused about before.” 

Nancy’s face scrunched up. “What do you mean?”

Steve muttered something Mike couldn’t make out, but it didn’t sound like English.

Hopper’s eyebrow twitched and his shoulders tensed. “What?”

“Was there a…” Robin trailed off, glancing at the nurse behind the front desk before meeting Hopper’s gaze again, speaking more quietly. “Were there any… creatures in Russia, wherever you were? Like, of the Upside Down variety?”

Hopper nodded tightly.

“Huh.” Robin shivered and Steve reached out to tuck her under one of his arms. 

Mike felt like he was missing half the conversation and judging by the expressions on everyone’s faces except for Steve and Robin, they felt the same. So he didn’t feel too bad about interrupting.

“Whatever. Hopper’s back, we can talk about it later. What the hell was with those guys though? What were they doing here? They were talking about Eddie. Why were they here to hurt him?”

Nancy, Robin, and Steve were silent.

Hopper didn’t let it stay that way for long. 

“Tell us what’s going on. Now.” Mike twitched a bit at his tone. He felt Will beside him do the same. Steve seemed largely unaffected, instead trying to wipe at the blood on his arm with the hem of his shirt. Nancy was fiddling with the gun, not meeting anyone’s eyes. 

Robin turned to Mike. “They were dumbasses. They were here to do dumbass things. And yes,” she nodded at him sadly. “They were here to hurt Eddie–”

“Kill him.” Nancy’s voice cut in. She looked up at Hopper. “They were here to kill Eddie.”

“Munson? Why would they want to–”

“It’s a long story.” Steve looked tired all of a sudden, pinching the bridge of his nose. The bags under his eyes were nearly as dark as the bruising around his throat. His hand shook as he brought it back down. “One we really shouldn’t be rehashing down here.” He nodded his head toward the hallway he and Robin had come from. “Let’s go back upstairs. We can talk about it there.”

“And someone is going to bandage your arm and check your sides. I’m pretty sure you pulled your stitches again,” Robin said in a tone with no room for argument. 

Steve raised his eyebrows at her, but she just pointed at the dark patch on his shirt. 

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Let’s go upstairs.”

.

Wayne knew he was making Eddie’s friends nervous. He’d been pacing back forth at the foot of the bed, and checking the hallway every few minutes. The gun the Buckley girl had handed him felt heavy in his hand. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d held one with the knowledge that he might actually have to use it. 

But Eddie was here, and he was hurt, and Wayne didn’t know who or what had hurt him. The Harrington boy had come tearing into the room only to grab a hidden weapon and sprint back out again, followed by Buckley shoving a gun into his hands and running after him. 

Eddie wasn’t friends with those kids. Wayne knew who they were, but that was just a product of living your whole life in the same small town. And he knew Eddie didn’t hang out with them. He couldn’t remember him ever mentioning the girl, and Harrington’s name had only come up in the middle of the occasional rant. And not in a positive way.

So what were those kids doing with Eddie? According to the nurses, they were the ones who’d brought him here, along with Nancy Wheeler and Dustin Henderson. At least Henderson was in Hellfire, but Wheeler was only connected to Eddie through her brother. 

What the hell had Eddie been doing with them while on the run from the police, with a murderer on the loose? And how did he end up so badly hurt that he hadn’t woken up the entire time Wayne had been here?

And who or what was downstairs that made Harrington think he needed a nail studded bat? Made Buckley think they should have a second line of defense ‘just in case’? 

Wayne wanted to believe it was an overreaction. Kids were dramatic sometimes, made things out to be bigger than they actually were. But his boy was laid up in a hospital, covered in far too many bandages and hooked up to way too many machines, and before that he’d been on the run from the police for murders he definitely didn’t commit, and the town itself seemed to be falling apart, literally.

Wayne hated not knowing what was going on. He wanted to march downstairs and see for himself, get Buckley or Harrington or even Wheeler to tell him what was going on. But no way was he leaving Eddie unprotected, not for a second. 

So he paced. He checked the hallway. He relocked the door. And he paced. 

About half an hour in, someone knocked on the door. Eddie’s friends had been talking quietly but they quickly fell silent. Wayne didn’t move. He gripped the gun tighter, still pointing it at the floor. 

They knocked again.

“Mr. Munson, it’s me. It’s Robin, from earlier. Everything’s good now. It’s, uh, it’s all clear.” She sounded awkward, but genuine. Wayne let out a breath and stepped forward.

Buckley and Harrington were in the hallway, the latter leaning against the wall beside the door rather than standing in front of it. Buckley was fidgeting in front of him, wringing her hands, and glancing back at Harrington. “We figured we should come tell you they left. And it’s fine now… sort of. Obviously it’s not fine fine, I mean. Eddie and Max are both here, so of course it’s not fine. Hawthorne and his band of assholes are gone though, so that’s good. But we don’t know if they’ll come back, so that’s probably not good–”

“Robs.” Harrington reached out and grabbed her hand. 

She took a breath, seemingly collecting herself. “Right. Okay.” She nodded and looked back at Wayne. “Do you mind if we come in and explain some stuff? I know we probably confused you earlier. And Steve says we should probably do this now, while everything’s quiet, and while the kids are being looked after by someone else finally. And also you’re his family, you deserve to know what we can tell you. And you guys are his friends.” She peeked over his shoulder at Gareth and Jeff. “We’ve been staying away since you all got here, because you’re his actual people, not just the ones he got thrown together with in the middle of all this shit. But we’re still worried about him. And we just… can we come in? Please?”

She rambles like Eddie does sometimes.  

Wayne opened the door a little wider and let them shuffle in. They both made a beeline for the bed. Buckley sidled up next to Gareth and rested her hand on Eddie’s forearm, carefully avoiding the IV. Harrington walked over more slowly, not quite limping, but haltingly enough that Wayne figured some unseen injury was slowing him down. The only visible marks he could see were the bandage on his arm and some bruises on his hands. 

And whatever the hell had happened to his throat. 

Wayne hadn’t clocked it earlier, but he got an eyeful now. Angry red marks and black and blue bruises circled Harrington’s entire neck. The whole thing was scratched up, but the bruising was concentrated in one distinguishable line just below his chin and all the way around, disappearing under his hair. 

Eddie was banged up and bleeding, and on so many medications Wayne had stopped listening when the nurse was listing them off. He hated seeing him like this, it made his stomach ache in a way that it hadn’t since Eddie had shown up on his doorstep all those years ago, backpack thrown over his shoulder and trying to wipe away the tears in his eyes. Seeing him lay here half dead, knowing he couldn’t do anything except watch and hope he got better, was agonizing. 

But Harrington’s neck made him uneasy. It scratched at something deep in his brain. He suppressed a shiver as the boy made his way over to Jeff’s side and slipped his hand around Eddie’s wrist, squeezing it slightly. 

What or who did that to him?

Gareth and Jeff were silent. They hadn’t moved to make any more room for the two newcomers, but they didn’t completely rebuff them either. The two were eyeing up Harrington warily, but the other boy either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Despite Buckley’s earlier insistence about explaining things, she didn’t seem all that eager to get started. Instead, her and Harrignton just stared at Eddie’s face, like they were waiting for him to suddenly wake up or move around. Wayne gave them a moment before deciding to press the issue. He wanted answers.

“What happened?”

The girl turned to face him, tilting her head slightly. “I’m not actually… I don’t know where to start.”

Wayne willed away his impatience. These kids were antsy as hell, neither of them had even sat down. Harrignton was clearly nursing his own set of wounds and Buckley hadn’t stopped twitching. Getting angry at them wouldn’t get him the information he wanted. And they’d come here with the intention of at least telling him something . 

“How about you start with what happened downstairs just now?” He glanced between the two of them. “You mentioned Hawthorne?”

Harrington nodded, looking up at Wayne. “Danny. He showed up with some of his piece of shit friends and a couple kids from the high school.”

“And they were here to…”

Harrington nodded his head in Eddie’s direction, tightening his hand around his wrist. Wayne wished he was surprised, but the police had all but outright stated that Eddie was their prime suspect, and the town had apparently run with it. He was more surprised the cops weren’t here, banging down the hospital door to cuff his unconscious nephew. 

“The police don’t seem all that concerned. Figured we’d’ve seen them by now.”

“They are very aware that Eddie didn’t do anything,” Buckley cut in. “A couple of them were here initially, but the fact that he, ya know, didn’t kill anyone was abundantly clear by that point. There isn’t any concrete physical evidence tying him to the murders other than Chrissy being in the trailer. And the only ‘eyewitness’ claiming that he killed anyone was Carver–”

“Who then proceeded to track down some of the kids and beat the shit out of Lucas while Max was being murdered right fucking next to them.” Harrington looked ready to murder something himself. He loosened his grip on Eddie’s wrist, not letting go completely, but turning to face Wayne more fully. “The cops took our statements and left pretty quickly, said they’d come back when Eddie and Max woke up, and we haven’t seen them since. Unfortunately, they didn’t feel the need to tell the rest of the town.”

Buckley picked it back up again. “Carver and most of his buddies got caught up in the earthquake, and most people have been distracted by the whole ‘town splitting in half’ thing.”

“But not everyone?”

Harrington shook his head. “Hawthorne’s shown up a few times, mostly just to mouth off, but then he brought a couple friends and started trying to get past the front desk. We made him leave, but the nurses were getting worried. So they called the police, but they got the whole ‘we can’t really do anything unless he hurts someone, plus we’re really busy, didn’t you see the earthquake’ bullshit. Y’know, like the hospital isn’t chock full of people from it right now.” He rolled his eyes. “We told them to just call us if he came back and they’ve been keeping people out of the lobby as much as they can.”

The lack of doctors and nurses trying to enforce visiting hours made more sense at least. Something about that was still odd. Sure the kid had the weight of his last name behind him, but Harrington couldn’t be more than eighteen or nineteen. And the rest of them were still in high school. They were essentially acting as hospital security. 

A group of teenagers. 

Fucking hell.  

“And then he did come back?”

“Yeah.” Buckley ran her free hand through her hair. “With a bigger group and shotgun.” 

“What the fuck? ” Gareth had been quiet up to this point, him and Jeff just listening with increasingly worried faces. The idea of an armed group of guys coming to kill Eddie had clearly scared him as much as it did Wayne.

“Oh, we took the gun, don’t worry. Nancy’s got it now.” Buckley smiled at him. Gareth did not smile back. 

Jeff was looking at Harrington, specifically the hand he was still holding onto Eddie with. The bruised and slightly bloodied knuckles stood out against the white sheets and Eddie’s pale skin. They’d done more than just take the gun. And judging by the lack of fresh bruising on Harrington’s face, whatever had gone down had ended heavily in their favor. 

Wayne walked up to the end of the bed, looking directly at the boy. “Any chance of them coming back?”

“...Maybe.”

Buckley scoffed. “Not Hawthorne. And if he does, which would be incredibly stupid, he’d be coming back with a broken nose and a dislocated shoulder, not to mention–” She opened her mouth to continue, but stopped after catching the look on Harrington’s face. They stared at each other for a moment, and then Buckley turned toward Wayne again. “Anyway, they probably won’t come back. Not anytime soon. And hopefully the police will get their crap together and actually say something publicly. But you should probably keep that for now.” She pointed at the gun in Wayne’s hand. He hadn’t realized he’d still been holding it.

He put it away and couldn’t help but notice Harrington’s shoulders drop just a bit, losing a small bit of tension. 

Christ, this was a situation.

Movement by the door made them all look up. It was Henderson again, along with another kid around his age. The new kid ignored everyone, heading straight for the bed, shoving Jeff slightly to get to Eddie’s side. Wayne had already met the other two freshmen Hellfire kids, so this one had to be Mike Wheeler. 

Buckley and Harrington shared another look before backing away from the bed. The latter reached over to ruffle Wheeler’s hair and pat his back. The kid only scrunched his nose, attention clearly focused on Eddie. Buckley made her way to the door, nodding at Wayne and squeezing Henderson’s hand on her way by. 

Harrington paused by Wayne. “We’ll come by again later, if that’s alright?” He waited for Wayne to nod before continuing. “If Hawthorne or anyone else causes any more issues, we’ll handle it. I promise.” 

The way he said it made it sound like a god damned oath. 

“Max’s room is five doors down on the left. If you need anything, we’ll be there.”

“Sleeping hopefully,” Buckley piped up from the doorway. “There are three whole adults here now, four if we count Mr. Munson. They can hold the fort down for a bit. I’m tired as hell, and I know you’ve been up for at least 36 hours. I’ll pin you down to the couch in there if I have to.”

Harrington snorted, but didn’t protest. He walked toward the door as well, stopping to hug Henderson, which the kid returned gently, avoiding Harrington’s sides and gripping at his shirt. The older boy stepped back, ruffled the younger kid’s hair, and tossed an arm over Buckley’s shoulder. 

And with that they were gone. 

Wayne wasn’t sure he felt any better. He was used to being responsible for Eddie, he’d been his legal guardian since he was twelve. But suddenly he was in charge of ‘protecting’ the rest of the teens in the room. Despite Buckley’s insistence that they were out of the woods for the moment, the borrowed gun felt heavy where he had it tucked into his jeans. 

Jesus.  

“What the– ”

“You’ve said that like five times in the past hour.” Jeff looked over at Gareth, raising his eyebrows

“And I still haven’t gotten a satisfying answer!” 

Wayne let out a long sigh, scratching the back of his neck. 

He wasn’t sure he wanted any more answers.

.

“So are we just… not going to talk about it?” Will didn’t relish drawing attention to himself, but he was still really confused.

After squeezing into Max’s room, and letting everyone hug or say hi to Lucas, Dustin, and Erica, Hopper turned toward the older kids and all but demanded an explanation. 

Steve, Robin, and Nancy took turns explaining what sounded to Will like a heavily edited version of what happened. They hit the important parts clearly, but Dustin looked like he was two seconds away from interrupting the whole time. They also seemed oddly blasé about the fact that the three of them and Munson had spent a significant amount of time in the Upside Down. 

At any rate, three people had been killed by someone named Henry Creel, who was also One, who was also Vecna? The whole town thought it was Munson doing the killing, which was why the guys downstairs wanted him dead. The real bad guy had tried to kill Max, and sort of succeeded but not really. And then Munson got chewed on by some bats, Lucas and Erica were attacked by the basketball team, and Nancy shot the shit out of the monster. 

Also, when Henry (or whatever his name was) sort of killed Max, the entire town split apart. Everyone was calling it an earthquake, and Owens hadn’t shown up yet to tell them to say anything different so they just went with it.

The three of them had clearly left a lot out, but it satisfied Hopper enough to let Robin drag Steve out of the room, hopefully to find bandages. Steve had still been bleeding from his arm, half-heartedly pressing the sleeve of his shirt against it, and Robin had been eyeing the growing red spot at his side the entire time and nearly snarling at Hopper whenever it was her turn to speak. Will was half convinced Hopper let them leave just to get her to stop glaring at him.

“Talk about what?” Mike was picking at his nails, a nervous habit he must have picked up recently. They were both sitting by Max’s bed, Mike squished between Will and Lucas. 

Dustin leaned forward from where he was sitting across from them next to El and Erica. “No he’s right. They left out, like, all the interesting details. You won’t believe–”

“I actually meant why aren’t we talking about the fact that Steve just beat the absolute crap out of some guys and then threatened to kill one of them. And meant it.” 

The room went awkwardly quiet, which was saying something seeing as Max was literally comatose in between all of them, and she wasn’t even who they were talking about. 

(Will wasn’t going to pretend he wasn’t doing this on purpose. Max and him had never been particularly close, but the thought of her never waking up was horrible. He couldn’t imagine what Lucas was feeling right now, what El was. Steve could be quite the distraction.)

“He did what?” Dustin looked equal parts confused and shocked. He turned toward Nancy. “I–I know he said before–”

“We probably won’t have any issues for a little while.” Nancy was leaning against Jonathan, standing at the foot of the bed. She hadn’t let go of his hand since they’d entered Max’s room. “Hopefully, anyway.”

Hopper closed his eyes and rubbed at his forehead. “Is there a reason you all didn’t just call the police? I know I’m not in a position to smooth over the weird stuff anymore, but this seems sort of like a… normal thing. A more human thing at least.” 

“Normal?” Dustin’s voice increased in pitch. Will expected anger but all he heard in his voice was more shock and a healthy bit of sadness. “Is it normal for an innocent person to be hunted down by an angry mob trying to kill him?”

The former chief had always been far better at actions than words, case in point the whole back and forth nonsense with Will’s own mom, something he and Jonathan would joke was more juvenile than anything the two of them ever got up to. If the two of them had ever taken the time to just sit down and talk, they probably could have avoided most of their extended ‘will they or won’t they’ situation. 

“I don’t know that I’d call Eddie Munson innocent.” 

It kind of tracked that he’d put his foot directly in his own mouth.

Dustin gaped at him for a moment before his face twisted into a sneer eerily reminiscent of Robin’s just a few moments ago. “Fuck you.”

Hopper’s mouth dropped open, something Will had seen so rarely it likely would have made him giggle in any other situation.

No one was laughing right now.

“Dustin!” The call came up from a couple places around the room. Will was flabbergasted. Dustin had never been one to mince words, but this was a bit much even for him, even in an Upside Down situation. And this was Hopper. Former chief of police, grumpy takes-no-one’s-shit Hopper. 

Dustin didn’t back down, glaring up at the increasingly confused man. Will glanced away, casting his eyes around the room, uncomfortable with the tension. 

Nancy was looking at Hopper, pressing her lips together in what Will thought was an attempt not to say anything. As the uncomfortable silence continued, Nancy dropped Jonathan’s hand and rounded the bed to stand behind Dustin. She squeezed his shoulder gently, like she had done to Will and El downstairs. “He didn’t mean it like that.”

Dustin shook his head, finally looking away from Hopper. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I know.” Nancy’s words were clipped, like she was frustrated. 

Dustin let out a mocking laugh that, instead of breaking the tension, seemed to elevate it even more. “In fact, it’s sort of the whole problem.” 

Nancy turned toward him, essentially putting herself between him and Hopper. Will couldn’t figure out what the expressions on their faces meant, so he kept looking around the room instead. 

Hopper’s shocked confusion was slipping into frustrated anger again, something that didn’t bode well for anyone. Will’s mom was edging toward Hopper, clearly trying to be subtle about it but not really succeeding. Jonathan and Argyle looked equally perplexed, which was honestly the most realistic reaction in Will’s opinion. 

Lucas and Erica were silent and unmoving. Lucas hadn’t looked away from Max and his sister was staring at the sheets directly in front of her. Will couldn’t see her hands, but judging by her hunched up shoulders he thought they were probably clenched. 

“I mean, Robin got it right.” Dustin was looking at Nancy, but it didn’t seem like he was actually talking to her anymore. “Way back at the cabin. Hunt the Freak.” He shook his head, letting out another scathing laugh that made Will’s stomach clench. “Hell, maybe it is normal. Jesus.”

Nancy’s hand clenched where it still rested on his shoulder. She turned abruptly, letting go of Dustin and facing Hopper. “The police weren’t any help. They only recently figured out that Eddie didn’t have anything to do with the murders, and they weren’t too concerned with letting people know he wasn’t involved.”

“Probably because they all but gave their blessing to people like Carver and Hawthorne,” Dustin mumbled. Nancy ignored him.

“We weren’t getting any help from them, so we had to do the best with what we had. And that wasn’t much.” Nancy jerked her head towards the hospital bed. “Max and Eddie were down for the count, Lucas was beaten up, Dustin was barely walking, and Steve was one infected bite away from being in a hospital bed himself.”

“So you clearly needed back up!” Hopper spit out, throwing his hands up.

“From who?!” Will flinched at Nancy’s yell. He wasn’t the only one. She looked a bit startled herself, but only lifted her chin and continued in a more measured voice. “You were dead, Joyce was in California, and Murray was God knows where. We can’t trust the feds half the time and they weren’t even here anyway.” She took a step forward. “No one was coming to help. We had to figure this shit out on our own. And we were up against something that had been planning this since before El had even escaped from the lab.” 

Will’s mom moved closer to Hopper. “Nancy–”

“You all just fucking left.” Her voice didn’t crack but it was a close thing. Will saw Erica reach out and grab one of her hands. Nancy squeezed back. “People were dying, and we knew it was related to the Upside Down, but no one was here. I was researching with Robin, and Steve was keeping the kids safe. And that was it. A bunch of teenagers watching over another group of teenagers.”

Hopper was quiet. He looked uncomfortable, but Will thought his silence had more to do with his mom’s hand on his arm. 

She looked close to tears. 

Murray, who Will had honestly forgotten about, was quiet at his spot by the door. 

Will felt a rising frustration in his gut, one he’d repressed out in the desert, looking for El and running from Brenner’s men. Hadn’t he thought the same thing? Him and Mike and Jonathan and Argyle had been trying to track down El, dealing with the very real threat of being shot. And he’d known his mom and Murray were off doing something important, probably. 

But had it been more important than them? More important than keeping El away from Brenner, and making sure him and Jonathan didn’t die? Hadn’t that been the priority since all of this had started? 

Did Will need to get trapped in the Upside Down again to rank high enough of the danger scale to warrant a reaction?

It was a selfish thought, especially with the proof of what they were doing standing here in the room with them. The frustration didn’t go away though. 

Nancy’s obviously hadn't either.

“So yeah. Some assholes started making trouble downstairs, and Steve threatened them with retaliation if they tried anything again. And then followed through to make sure they knew he wasn’t kidding.” She crossed her arms and looked at Hopper and Will’s mom head on. “What exactly do you think we should have done differently? Let them come upstairs to finish Eddie off? Show them Max’s door as well, just for kicks?”

It was silent in the room again. Will sort of regretted starting the conversation in the first place, even though it had veered way off course from his initial question. But this maybe felt like something that needed to be hashed out sooner rather than later. Nancy and Dustin were powder kegs, ready to explode at the slightest provocation. Lucas and Erica were stone silent, still barely reacting to anything in a way that made Will nervous. He hadn’t gotten a good read on Steve or Robin, but based purely on what happened downstairs and Robin’s insistent glare before they left, he figured they were in a similar boat. 

Also, Max was more than half dead, lying silently between all of them. The tubes and wires trailing from her body made her look far more fragile than Will had ever imagined. 

Dustin stood up abruptly, chair scraping against the floor behind him. He didn’t look up for a long moment, but when he did, his gaze focused on Mike. “Wanna go see Eddie?”

Mike looked startled at being addressed out of the blue but nodded quickly, standing up as well. He stepped around Will, looking at him for a moment. Will just nodded, slightly jealous that the other boy had a convenient way out of this situation. Dustin skirted past Nancy, not looking anyone in the eye as he sped toward the door. Mike followed seconds after. 

The door shut behind them with a loud click. Will wished he was on the other side of it.

Chapter Text

Dustin was pretty sure his ankle was going to fall off. He hated to admit it, but Steve had probably been right to keep bugging him about staying off it for a few days. Once he’d gotten the boot for it and was able to leave the crutches behind, he’d been back and forth between Eddie and Max every few hours, only stopping to sleep when one of the older kids forced him to lie down. It was taking every bit of restraint he had to not sit down and prop his foot up on the end of Eddie’s bed. 

He shifted slightly where he stood next to Mr. Munson, putting more weight on his good leg. The older man glanced down at him. “You can sit down if that’s bothering you.”

The empty plastic seat next to Gareth was tempting but Dustin stayed where he was. The pain in his leg wasn’t annoying enough to outweigh the swirling anxiety in his gut. 

He knew he’d messed up back in Max’s room. He was trying to hold onto the anger, but it was turning into shame a whole lot quicker than he wanted. Hopper had said something stupid, but he’d been dead for months (imprisoned? Dustin wasn’t too clear on the details of that yet). It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t around to help this time. Plus he’d looked about two seconds from collapsing ever since he’d limped into Max’s room. And Steve, Nancy, and Robin had explained everything to the newly arrived group, but they’d glazed over a lot of information. 

Everyone needed to get on the same page, and Dustin hadn’t helped by storming off and dragging Mike with him. The other boy didn’t seem to be in any hurry to move away from Eddie though, so it looked like Dustin would be hobbling back alone.

“I actually need to get back.”

Mr. Munson raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t object. Mike looked up at the statement but Dustin waved him off. “It’s fine, just come back in a bit.” 

The hallway was empty when the door shut behind him and he took a moment to just stand there and breathe. Everyone is still alive. That’s what he had to keep telling himself. They were significantly more banged up this time, but everyone was alive. Even Hopper. 

Dustin’s mom had always been one to look on the bright side of things, even when the situation was categorically terrible. He tried to channel that energy now as he walked toward Max’s room. Vecna was gone, hopefully forever. Two of their group were in the hospital but no one was dead, and someone they had thought was dead had actually turned out to be alive the whole time. They’d started off this whole nightmare of a week in three groups separated by thousands of miles, but now they were all in one place. Hawkins was a mess, but the dimensions hadn’t merged and no new gates seemed to have been opened besides the ones they already knew about. 

Not that they had gone looking or anything. Dustin had only left the hospital once, when his mother had shown up and physically dragged him out of the building. He’d complained the whole way home, taken a short shower, and slept for ten hours straight. When he’d woken up, he’d immediately called Steve to come pick him up. 

Everyone else had been the same, too afraid to be separated for longer than necessary, even if they were technically safe at the moment. 

Raised voices down the hall interrupted his thoughts. They were coming from around the corner at the end of the hallway. Dustin crept forward slowly, passing Max’s room and stopping just past the last door. 

“I don’t care about your policies. And neither do you if you’re going to pick and choose which ones to follow apparently. This is bullshit–Let go of him!”

That was Robin. 

Dustin peeked around the corner and couldn’t hold back a sharp gasp. Robin and Steve were surrounded by at least four police officers. Robin was being held back by one, all but yelling in the face of who Dustin recognized as the chief. Steve was being cuffed by another, body facing away from Dustin.

Steve.

Who’d apparently beaten the absolute shit out of the guys who came looking for Eddie tonight. 

It only got more confusing, the longer Dustin thought about it. Steve was a lover, not a fighter. Even with no one really contradicting what Will had said earlier, it was still hard to believe. The scene in front of him shifted the needle just a bit further.

“Self-defense isn’t a crime, you dipshits! You left us to clean up your mess and now you’re punishing him for it, what the fuck?” Robin jerked forward, but the officer holding her arms kept her from bumping into Powell. 

“Miss Buckley, please calm down. We just need to ask Mr. Harrington a few–”

“Then why are you cuffing him?!” 

This was bad. The anger from earlier flooded Dustin’s system, but he still had a clear enough head to realize stomping over toward the commotion in front of him wouldn’t solve anything. So he turned and sprinted back towards Max’s room, ignoring the flair of pain in his ankle with every other step he took. 

The door bounced against the wall when he slammed it open, and he took a second to feel guilty at making everyone in the room jump before facing Nancy.

“Cops are here.” 

Nancy tensed, narrowing her eyes. “What do they want?” Hopper made an aborted move toward the door, but was stopped by Will’s mom. 

“Steve and Robin are with them.”

It didn’t take Nancy more than a few seconds to realize what he meant. A series of different emotions crossed her face before it settled into something coldly blank. She nodded and marched past him out into the hallway. Dustin turned to follow and heard multiple people behind him do the same. 

Robin’s voice was echoing down the hallway now, still not clear enough to make out words this far away, but loud enough to notice she was getting more upset. Ahead of Dustin, Nancy had broken into a jog and quickly turned the corner. Dustin cursed his ankle as he was forced to slow down by a sharp jolt of pain radiating up his leg. Hopper quickly overtook him, following Nancy around the bend. 

Will’s mom paused by Dustin’s shoulder but he waved her on from where he was leaning against the wall. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine. It’s just a sprain. Go.” 

She hesitated but Murray grabbed her arm, nodding at Dustin as he tugged her along.

Nancy’s voice had joined Robin’s, interspersed with an unidentifiable male that Dustin guessed was one of the officers’. He looked down the hallway, cursing how many more steps it would take him to get there. Maybe he should have taken that nurse up on the offered wheelchair. 

After another minute or so, he finally managed to stumble his way around the corner. Steve was still handcuffed, but standing away from the cops now, behind Robin and Nancy. Nancy was staring down the police chief, who kept subtly glancing away from her to look at Hopper with wide-eyes. The other officers hadn’t even tried to not look shocked, gaping at him shamelessly.

“I still don’t understand what you’re doing here.” Nancy’s tone was icy. 

Chief Powell sighed. “We need to question him regarding an open–”

“Is he under arrest?”

“...No.”

“Then why did you cuff him? I wasn’t aware that you restrained everyone you needed to question during an investigation.” Nancy squared her shoulders and tilted her chin up. “And while we’re at it, which investigation? The one about the murders over the past couple weeks, or the one where an innocent man was hunted for sport?”

One of the other officers finally looked away from Hopper to step up beside the chief in front of Nancy. “The one where Danny Hawthorne showed up at the precinct tonight looking like he’d gone a couple rounds in a boxing ring. The one where a high schooler came with him to tell us about how he’d been threatened with severe bodily harm by someone with a bat.”

There were a few seconds of silence before Robin broke it with a mocking laugh, nudging Nancy as she turned to face Steve. “Second one then.” She dug into her pocket and then reached behind Steve to get at his hands. 

Steve had been glaring at the officer next to Powell even before he’d turned to face them. Whatever Robin deposited in his hands made him focus his attention on her instead. She winked at him, squeezing his arm gently, and turned back to stand shoulder to shoulder with Nancy. The other girl hadn’t moved other than to raise her eyebrows.

Dustin walked closer, coming to stand next to the other adults who were just a few feet away from the standoff. He didn’t like the tension in the air. Seeing Steve cuffed and Robin upset had made him feel weird. He’d held on to the anger to ignore the queasy feeling in his stomach. He didn’t know why, out of everything, this made him nervous. 

It wasn’t like they were fighting off Upside Down monsters. These were normal people. 

“So you’re here to ask us about how they’ve been trying to kill Eddie for the past few days.” Nancy nodded, looking between the two men in front of her. “I’ll admit, that’s a bit surprising, considering your lack of interest in it up to this point. But it’s a welcome change.”

The officer beside the chief scoffed. Powell sent him a sharp look. “Callahan–”

“I know you’ve been getting away with shit left and right the past few years, Harrington, but this won’t fly anymore.” The officer, Callahan apparently, stepped forward, ignoring Nancy altogether and speaking over her shoulder. The attempt at intimidation was mitigated somewhat by the fact that neither of the girls moved. So really, he sort of just shuffled into them. “You can’t beat someone’s face in and expect no one to do anything about it.”

Dustin was… confused. And judging by the looks on everyone else’s faces, they were as well. Steve didn’t exactly go around beating people up all the time. If someone pissed him off he usually just ignored it or muttered a scathing comment. Dustin hadn’t known him during his peak of popularity, but he got the feeling Steve had been more the type to cut people down with words rather than punches.

He was glaring at Callahan now, clenched his fists at his sides. Dustin hadn’t seen him this angry since–

Wait. 

He looked down. The unlocked cuffs clinked together from where they dangled from Steve’s left hand. 

.

Steve was seething. He had been for days, far too on edge and tense. Anger didn’t sit well in his head. It made him feel fuzzy, kind of like when he got a migraine. It did have the benefit of distracting him from the pulsating ache in his sides though. 

He wished it could take his mind off of Max and Eddie, motionless and wrapped up in far too many wires and tubes for just two people. Steve had lost count of the amount of antibiotics they had Eddie on, and Max was only a few numbers off from having more broken bones than intact ones. 

He hadn’t been able to look at Eddie without seeing phantom blood all over his face and chest. He’d spent nearly an hour in the hospital shower a few days ago, scrubbing his arms until they were red, trying to chase away the slick feel of the other boy’s blood. Steve wanted to scream and cry and sleep, and he couldn’t do any of that right now. Robin had been shuffling him from room to room for the past couple days, keeping him sane and present in a way he appreciated beyond belief. The fact that she refused to move away from him unless absolutely necessary, and gripped his hand whenever possible, at least indicated that she needed him right now as well.

He was teetering on the edge of becoming untethered. 

Phil Callahan was an easy target, one Steve felt barely any guilt about directing his rage toward. Sure he was a different flavor of gross than Danny Hawthorne and his brand of small town bigot, but he was still far more skeevy than his uniform suggested. 

Robin sent the man a scathing look. “But you can show up to a hospital with a shotgun and a crew of other lowlifes to murder someone?” She tilted her head mockingly. “Sounds a little backwards to me. They teach you that at the academy, officer?”

Steve bit his lip to keep from grinning. He wasn’t sure if Robin realized just how pointed that barb was. Callahan’s eye twitched, but he kept looking at Steve. Robin turned her head slightly, meeting Steve’s eyes with a questioning look. He winked, making her eyes widen a bit before she turned back and straightened her shoulders. 

Nancy was ignoring everyone but chief Powell. “We told you days ago that we were worried about someone coming after Eddie. The nurses called you and said people were actively coming after Eddie. Last night, six people showed up and said ‘we’re finishing this’. They said ‘we’re not leaving until he’s dead’.” She subtly shoulder-checked Callahan out of the way and stood toe to toe with Powell. “We did everything we could to do this non-violently, and you refused to help us. It’s infuriating, but I’m not surprised. It almost seems like that’s what you wanted to happen. A neat little bow on a bullshit investigation.”

Nancy was lethal, even when she was only using her words. 

The chief shook his head, looking uncomfortable. “That’s not–”

“A town pariah, primed and ready to take the fall for a slew of murders he didn’t commit. None of you had the guts to do it yourself, so you figured ‘surely one of those trigger-happy locals will take care of it for us’.”

“Miss Wheeler, that is completely out of li–”

“No. You told us you couldn’t spare any officers for security when there was a known threat to Eddie’s life, when Hawthorne kept coming back and harassing the nurses.”

“We’re a small department, Wheeler. And in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a lot going on out there,” Callahan snapped. 

Nancy didn’t even look at him when she replied. “You sent three officers and the chief of police out to ‘ask someone some questions’. Please, tell me how worried you are about allocating your resources appropriately.” 

Steve glanced down the hallway, taking in their audience. Joyce and Murray were bracketing Dustin, the three of them watching Nancy take on the policemen like it was a particularly interesting tennis match. Hopper stood a little closer to the action. 

Fucking Hopper. That had been a shock to the system and Steve was still having trouble processing it. 

The old chief had carried the frustrated anger from the lobby into Max’s room, and it didn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. Steve was surprised he’d held back from interrupting so far. He also couldn’t tell exactly what the man was angry about in this situation, so maybe it was for the best. 

“Sir, we don’t have to explain anything to them,” Callahan said to Powell, backing away from Robin and turning toward the chief. “They’re a bunch of kids who don’t know how to–”

There we go.

“A bunch of kids, huh?” Steve stepped up beside Robin, tossing the handcuffs she’d helped him unlock at Callahan’s chest. The officer staggered back, more in surprise than anything. “The three of us are eighteen. I’ll be nineteen in a few weeks. Technically, that makes us adults.” 

Callahan looked between him and the cuffs, face twisting into something ugly. “Oh, barely, you entitled prick. You clearly have no idea how to act around authority fig–”

“So eighteen is barely an adult?” 

Steve knew he’d probably be leaving this conversation with a new black eye. But it might be his only shot at getting out of this unscathed, legally at least. He’d known what happened earlier would have consequences, beyond the ache in his knuckles and the shame swirling around in his gut. 

Baiting Callahan would get the police off his back at least. 

“That’s an odd stance to take. Especially for you.”

He also didn’t mind airing out some of the creep’s dirty laundry. Living off of late night diner food when he didn’t feel like cooking for just himself had finally come in handy. Patty had been working the night shift for as long as Steve could remember, and she always had the best gossip in town. Add in that he got to see what everyone in town was renting to watch, plus who they came into the store with half the time (or left in the car in an attempt to be discrete despite the fact that the entire front of Family Video was made of glass), and he had enough dirt to make the Upside Down look shiny.

Nobody grew up with Carol Perkins as a best friend and just ignored shit like that. It was so much more effective than a well-timed punch, no matter what Tommy had always said.

Callahan’s face was turning a deep shade of red. Robin pressed her shoulder against Steve’s and he knew she’d be elbowing him in the gut if he wasn’t missing chunks out of it at the moment. Nancy and Powell were looking between him and Callahan now, Nancy with curiosity and Powell with clear trepidation. 

“You think you’re so fuckin’ smart, don’t you?” The man was practically spitting, teeth clenched and shoulders rising up to his ears. One of the other officers tried putting a hand on his arm but he roughly shoved it away. 

Powell took a step toward him, one hand raised placatingly. “Phil, come on. Let’s–”

“Of course not,” Steve cut in. “I know I’m nowhere near smart.” He let his lips curl up into a smirk. “But I’m also not dumb enough to date Lori Hawthorne behind the mayor’s back.”

Robin sucked in a sharp breath beside him and clapped a hand over her mouth. He didn’t look over, but he heard a squeaky “what?” that could have only come from Dustin, followed by a choked off laugh. Powell looked beyond surprised, the other officers did not. Gross.

Steve ignored them all and turned his head to look at Robin. “You’re in AP Chem with her right? She make a decision about IU yet? I know her dad was pushing for Purdue.” He smiled at her a little, playing it up. “It’s a big choice, y’know. Deciding where to spend the next four years. Especially when you’re so young.”

Steve probably should have been looking forward, but he did manage to catch Callahan’s movement out of the corner of his eye. Before he could brace himself for the impending contact, he was yanked back. Callahan’s fist swung around but only managed to clip his jaw. He was quickly restrained by the two other officers, trying to fight them off to no avail. Powell had fully stepped fully in front of him, his back to Steve.

The hand on Steve’s elbow squeezed tightly before releasing him. Hopper brushed by his shoulder, nudging him toward Robin and Nancy. The former turned him toward her, lightly cupping the back of his head and inspecting his face.

“Get him out of here.” Hopper’s voice didn’t allow for any argument. “Right now, Calvin.”

To Powell’s credit, he did so with nothing more than a nod, clapping a hand on one of the other officers’ shoulders and not so gently shoving them all down the hallway. He turned back to look at their group, an uncomfortable expression on his face. “We still need to talk about what happened. Everything that happened.”

“Later.” Steve commended Nancy for sounding as agreeable as she did. He doubted he or Robin could have pulled off quite that balance of condescension laced respect in her tone. “It’s been a long night. Why don’t you come back tomorrow? We can give you the rest of our statements and plan out what we’re going to do about possible future threats to Eddie.” 

Powell looked like he might say something in response, but made the smart decision to turn and follow his deputies into the stairwell. 

“Well that went better than I thought it would.”

“Steve. ”

.

One Week Later

The last thing Eddie remembered was dying rather tragically in Dustin’s arms, like a truly heartbreaking finale in a fantasy book series. Or at least an important turning point. He’d been staring at the kid’s tear streaked face, haloed by the dark red sky and splattered with Eddie’s own blood.

He didn’t remember there being too much pain, right at the end. It was a sharp contrast to how he felt now, a sharp bone-deep ache all over his torso painful enough to pry him out of unconsciousness. 

And wasn’t that a trip? He didn’t die after all. 

The annoying beeping clued him into the fact that he was in a hospital. He tried moving, but found it wasn’t really worth the effort, too much pain and stiffness. Hell, even his eyelids felt glued together. 

“Hey, I think he’s twitching.”

That was Jeff. 

Shit, maybe he should try a little harder. He focused all his effort toward one arm and managed a pitiful squeeze of the hand currently gripping in his. He got a surprised noise in response, and a tight squeeze back.

“Oh my god, Eddie?”

“Mmmf.”

“Take your time, dude. You’ve been asleep for ages.”

“Unconscious.”

“Shut up.”

Jeff and Gareth. He kind of wanted to cry. If it turned out Frankie was here too, he just might. 

He should really open his eyes.

It was a struggle but he finally managed it, blinking up at the ceiling light. He looked to his right and came face to face with a smiling Jeff, Gareth perched right beside him. 

“Hey, man.”

“You scared the shit out of us. What the hell?” Jeff shot the other boy a look and shoved him away. “What? It’s true!”

“Maybe save it until he’s been awake for more than ten seconds, you moron.”

God, he’d missed them. Eddie’s week of horror hadn’t even lasted a full seven days, but it had felt like a lifetime. He thought he’d never see these guys again, never hear them bicker like a couple of senior citizens, never watch them have a prepubescent slap fight. 

They were both okay, though. Okay enough to come see him at least. 

But where was–

“You just missed Henderson, by the way.” Jeff had leaned forward a bit, speaking more softly than he had been before. “He’ll be so pissed he wasn’t here. Been in here as much as he’s been in Mayfield’s room, I think.”

“Dustin’s okay?” Eddie’s voice sounded worse than it did after a show, gravelly and harsh. He wondered how long he’d been out. 

Gareth nodded eagerly. “Yeah. His ankle was a bit messed up, but he’s barely limping anymore.”

Eddie nodded, but then processed the rest of what Jeff had said. “Wait, Max is… she’s here, too?”

The grins on the other boys’ faces dimmed and they nodded together. Gareth’s voice was quiet as well when he answered. “She’s down the hallway. I don’t think she’s woken up yet, but we haven’t visited or anything so maybe…” He trailed off, but Eddie got the gist. The two of them didn’t know Max. Eddie had only really met her recently, but apparently the Upside Down had a weird way of tying people together. The younger Hellfire kids’ odd attachment to Steve Harrington had been baffling not that long ago. Now it made an unfortunate amount of sense. 

“The others?” A series of coughs interrupted him, making his sides hurt far more than his throat. Jeff seemed to pull a pitcher from thin air and pour him a glass of blessedly cool water. He would have downed the whole thing if the other boy hadn’t taken it away after a few hasty sips. Eddie tried to glare but it just made his eyes ache. “How are the others? The Sinclairs? Wheeler? Are Steve and Robin okay?”

Gareth’s face twisted into something odd, not mean but maybe frustrated. He opened his mouth but a sharp jab from Jeff cut off whatever he was going to say. The two looked at each other for a minute, eyebrows moving in a silent conversation Eddie didn’t have the energy to try and parse out. It ended with a huff from Gareth and a quietly muttered “we’re definitely asking him later” that Jeff ignored.

“Lucas and Erica are probably in Max’s room. Lucas looked a little bruised up for a few days but he’s mostly healed now. Erica’s fine from what I could see.” Eddie had always appreciated how no nonsense Jeff could be when the situation called for it. He was sometimes the only one who kept their sessions from going off the rails. Practical, reliable, always steady Jeff. If the other boy wasn’t hilariously heterosexual, Eddie would have married him in a heartbeat.

Also if gay people could marry each other.

Also, also if he wasn’t half dead because of stupid hell dimension bat bites.

Also, also, also if he wasn’t trying to stave off the return of a truly embarrassing crush on former Hawkins High royalty. 

He wondered if the way his mind was slipping could be blamed on his injuries, or possibly the drugs flowing into his system via the multiple IVs he could feel. 

Did I really call him ‘big boy’? Fuck me.

“I don’t know which Wheeler you meant, but they’re both fine too. Mike got back a few days after… everything. He’s been up to visit a few times. So has Nancy.” Jeff was doing a good job of masking how odd it was to say that Nancy Wheeler was visiting Eddie Munson in the hospital. 

Eddie nodded like it made perfect sense. “And Steve? Robin?”

Jeff didn’t answer. He and Gareth both glanced away from Eddie for the first time to look across the room. Eddie tilted his head to follow their gaze and couldn’t hold back the sigh of relief at seeing the tangle of limbs on the small couch up against the far wall. Steve and Robin were only distinguishable by their respective hair, twisted together impossibly, Steve’s face smushed into the back cushion, Robin’s buried into the crook of his neck. 

“They’re in here more than Henderson.” Gareth’s voice was confused, but still quiet. “I don’t even think they’ve left the building since you and Mayfield got here. They have a duffle bag full of clothes and shit stashed in here somewhere, but I’m pretty sure Wheeler was the one to go get all of it. Harrignton seems pretty banged up. The nurses tend to check on him every other time they come in here for you, but they never forced him into his own room or anything.”

Eddie wanted to cry. They hadn't left him behind. They made sure he got back. 

He had no memory of getting back through the gate, getting to hospital, any of it. They’d gotten him here. Someone had probably carried him out of there. They carted him all the way to hospital. 

And then they stayed. 

Eddie hadn’t thought he’d live to see the end of everything. He saw Chrissy’s body rise up to the ceiling of his trailer, saw her bones break for no logical reason, saw the same thing happen to Patrick a few days later, and he knew he wasn’t going to make it out. He was going to die, and there was nothing to be done about it. Staying behind to distract the bats, to keep Dustin safe, was barely a conscious decision. He was a dead man walking, why not spend his last moments being a distraction?

But he’d made it. He was alive and breathing and he got to see his friends again, old and new. Shit, he’d be able to see Wayne again. A few tears did finally slip out at that thought. 

He thought he’d be dead.

Looking over at the sleeping mass that was Steve and Robin, he couldn’t have been more happy to be wrong.