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They take a break, biking all the way to the Wheeler’s home took its toll on his now weary body. He finds himself in a familiar room, while dilapidated and covered with dark wet, slimy things. It reminded him somewhat of the simpler times where he didn’t know shit like flying flesh eating bats existed.
He sits on Nancy’s bed. Eyes focused on the once colorful, now murky cards she used for their study session way back when. He smiles softly, remembering the times where he had everything. Popularity was fun, being “The King” was fun, having Nancy Wheeler as a girlfriend was fun. God, he was so superficial.
Then Will Byers disappeared, and his world turned upside down.
His brother and mom searching desperately for him, their grief and pure desperation was scattered around town in the form of flyers with the kid’s face on it.
He laughed at it. Tore it down, stomped on it.
Steve shakes his head and groans, closing his eyes, “God,” he murmurs, inwardly cringing at the thought of how much of a shithead he’d been.
Hell, even the people he hung around with were absolute asshats. It only took Jonathan kicking his ass for him to realize.
He’s somewhat grateful, only wishing he didn’t have to receive a black eye to get the message. Another part of him feels he deserved everything that happens to him, including now, bite holes and all.
He’d like to think he has changed since then. Became a less ignorant, more caring person. Treating Nancy better, being more understanding to her and Jonathan’s friendship— and even when that went to shit he accepted that she’d never love him like she used to, or at all.
In hindsight he realizes how selfish he’d been. Not realizing what kind of toll Barb’s death took on Nancy. How he hadn’t realized until it was too late that he should’ve been more present and not just in this made-up universe where shit didn’t go bad and the government didn’t practically threaten them and their family to silence.
Byers- 3 Harrington— 0 , Steve thinks bitterly with a throw of the darkened and dampened cards back onto the dresser.
He guesses it’s his curse, to be doomed to an endless cycle of failed attempts at love. Robin, he thought, would break that.
The once annoying girl who was his coworker at a shitty ice cream parlor he was forced to apply for. The person who called him names for months on end until he eventually got used to it, called her names back, the person who for seemingly no reason didn’t like him… an enemy turned friend.
Somewhere along the line he fell for her.
He’s not sure when. Maybe it was the endless insulting banter, the nicknames, the tally board, Dustin’s constant prodding and pushing, the whole stop-the-Russians-to-save-the-world-thing…
Steve Harrington has never been sure when he falls, he only knows the landing.
There’s the harsh and his first landing with Sarah Witherman, 6th grade. Who dumped him in his garage because he couldn’t take her to the spring formal due to him being grounded that week for pulling a prank on the now retired Principal Keefskee.
Then the cold landing with Kathy Fitzgerald, the captain of his Middle School’s cheer team. Dumped him and poured frozen yogurt on his head in his dad’s new car, he got grounded for that too.
And of course there’s Nancy Wheeler’s landing, him being a distant boyfriend caused her to drift away and into the arms of Jonathan Byers… harsh, but fair. He takes full blame for it, it helped him grow in more ways than one.
This landing, in particular, was a very interesting one. He never expected Robin to come out to him, to be so brave to tell him, of all people that she liked girls.
Of course he understood. But he’d be lying to himself if he said it didn’t take some getting used to; compartmentalizing how to navigate and understand a person you have feelings for and needing to understand that they’re physically and emotionally unable to feel that way about you.
It’s cool at times, it feels like he has someone who understands him and his plight for the attention from other girls. It’s nice to have the insight of another woman who helps with him navigate how to approach or detach from someone without them breaking off on bad terms (results varied, because Robin is not the typical girl and her advice sucks most of the time). Other times, it’s torture. Realizing just how beautiful she looks whenever she does something as mundane as drinking coffee in the early morning hours, hair frizzy and eyes droopy with the lingering haze of sleep. How she would grumble appreciatively whilst sipping languidly from the foam cup. He tries not to pay attention to her pink lips, or how her eyes twinkle whenever she laughs and the cute scrunchy thing she does with her nose, and the fumbling she does with her hands whenever she’s nervous.
Sometimes compartmentalizing doesn’t work and he forgets. He says something he shouldn’t, he looks where he shouldn’t, he feels what he shouldn’t.
He doesn’t really know what he wants. He’s almost 20– harboring feelings for a girl that’s quite frankly out of his league, and out of his realm of ever getting. He would like to think of this as torture, that having her around is absolute agony but he could never bring himself to regret anything about how him and Robin were. They were them. She’s Robin Buckley, his best friend. That’s enough.
It may not be anything romantic (Platonic with a capital P) but it was a relationship he maintained, he cherished. That counts for something.
Harrington— 1
He exhales a laugh from his nose. Who woulda thunk, his most stable relationship is with a girl who doesn’t even love him.
He winces as he slides down to sit on the actual floor, his sides making his nerves contort in pain. He groans softly and hangs his head between his raised knees, using his forearms to rest his forehead on.
“Hey dingus, foaming at the mouth yet? We were just about to leave… hopefully.” a familiar voice called out to him.
He doesn’t raise his head, only groaning a half-hearted ‘go away’ before wincing again. Robin doesn’t deter, plopping on the opposite side of Steve, reminiscent of the fateful stalls.
“Your son is about to rescue us, get your ass up so we can get the hell out of here.”
Steve frowns at her, raising his head to see her moving to sit in a cross-legged position and adorning an ever-smug look.
“I’m not his mom. I'm not anyone’s mom.”
Robin scoffs and casually plays with the hem of her ridiculous dress, eyeing him incredulously.
“Sure.”
“You’re the one dressed like my great aunt Beatrice!”
“Hey dip-shit this is Nancy’s wardrobe, I’m just borrowing it.”
“Your hair looks just as ridiculous. Is that Nancy’s too?”
“Oh fuck you!” Robin snorts and throws a wet piece of something at Steve, who stiffly dodges it and laughs.
“I happen to like my hair,” she says in a faux British accent, patting it dramatically.
Steve continues laughing but the pain shoots up again, causing the air to leave his lungs and he heaves.
“Ah! Okay, okay. Shut up, you’re gonna kill me,”
“Not if this place does it first, those bat-things were everywhere. I’m surprised that Vec-nor dude isn’t tearing us to shreds right now.”
“Vecna.”
“Oh God, Harrington, not you too,”
“What? That’s his name. That’s what Henderson said.”
“You’re such a mom,”
“I’m not a mom!”
“A total mom.”
“And what does that make you, the dad?”
Robin snorts again, quickly regretting it but failing to straighten out and the sudden shift of the looks on her face makes Steve’s chest bubble with her infectious laughter, holding his stomach in pain.
“I mean if you want me to be,” She says between hiccups.
“Ow, ow.” Steve struggles for breath, tears of pain and hilarity pricking the corners of his eyes.
“Honey I’m home!” Robin continues in a horrible impression of a deep voice, her snort turning into fits of both giggles and full cackles.
Steve doubles over, his sides aching but the laughter helped. He’s sure he’s bleeding again,
“My hero,” A fit of laughter bubbled from his throat again. They were enjoying a brief respite of humor on what had been a long and dark day. Robin quickly became even more drunk with hysterical laughter as she imagined carrying Steve bridal style through the door to be met with Dustin and his crew playing D&D at the kitchen table.
“I’ll be sure to sweep you off your feet next time,” she teased recklessly, making an exaggerated swooping gesture with her arms. Her hand had come to cover her mouth as she continued to laugh, trying desperately to not hiccup.
When she dried the tears in her eyes, Robin realized that Steve was smiling at her, no longer laughing. She could feel goosebumps crawling up her neck, making the hairs on her arms stand on end. The way Steve softly smiled at her… something in the air had shifted between them, and the only primal part of her brain that Robin had no words for understood what it was. All she could do was sit there feeling the softness of his gaze flush across her chest, climb up the column of her neck, to bloom pink on her cheeks.
Muscles in her stomach twisted into knots, and she felt like her skin was burning everywhere his gaze shifted. “What, you're gonna make fun of my face too, Harrington?” Not sure why she’s so breathless,
“Who’s to say you already haven’t?” He finally replied in a soft voice.
“Haven’t what?” Robin continued to now nervously play with the hem of the dress.
“Swept me off my feet,”
Robin is sure she wants to laugh, brush it off like another one of their jests but the feeling fluttering in her stomach wasn’t funny.
It’s surprising that she’s feeling the exact way that Vickie and Tammy made her feel, except it wasn’t Vickie nor Tammy making her feel this way right now— it was Steve.
She isn’t blind. Steve is handsome and charming, everyone knows that— accepts it, even. She knows that Steve has had his fair share of sexual affairs and failed dates over the past year. Him hopelessly looking for someone to actually love him for him, and not the idea of the “Steve Harrington” of yester-years. The cocky, pompous piece of shit he spent his entire high school career being, failing ridiculously every time and her all the while laughing while consoling his bruised ego.
She wasn’t the type of girl to normally fall for his charms, she still isn’t. Yet he’s not the same guy from Mrs. Clicks class, either. He doesn’t go by “King Steve” or “The Hair” anymore. He cringes at the name nowadays, now he’s just Steve. Steve Harrington, her best friend.
He’s supposed to be an asshole, a spoiled rich kid with a trust fund to fall back on whenever times get hard. The type of asshole who doesn’t accept people like her because that’s just who he is— but he is none of those things.
He’s Steve Harrington, who underneath the quippy one-liners and hairspray is a kind-hearted, awkward guy who means well. A hard worker who yearns for love because he never grew up around it, who despite his sarcasm, accepts all in his own dingus way… who shrouds his own insecurities in overconfidence and jokes, who has become best friends and guardian to a group of kids who think the world of him, someone who puts his life on the line for them time and time again. He’s the bravest boy shes ever known, and he doesn’t even know it.
The thought of them being together wasn’t as weird as she’d thought it’d be. It’s still weird— or maybe it wasn’t that weird and she’s just overthinking it. It’s Steve.
“You sure you didn’t hit your head too? You’re sure sounding like it,”
Steve laughs curtly with a slight shake of the head, “Nah, I’m thinking pretty clearly… I'm just not sure if I like what I’m thinking.”
“Might be a sign of the rabies,” Robin feigns a horrified gasp and she nudges him with her foot.
They both laughed again but the tension that had settled in the air sucked the joy right out.
She likes him. A lot. In a way that’s difficult for her to understand but she’s not willing to rule it out just yet. She just needs time to sort this all out, sort herself all out. She likes girls. Her liking Steve doesn’t change anything, it didn’t change anything. She’s asking Vickey out when they get out of here and save the world.
If they get out of here.
If they save the world.
“We’ll get you checked out if we get out of here.”
“Look at you, Little Miss Optimistic,” Steve begins to laugh but he coughs.
“Someone has to be.”
“I thought you were more of a realist.”
“Yeah I think the last of my realism was left back at the Russian bunker under the Mall,”
“At least we made it out of there,” he coughs again.
”Your face looked like a piñata after a divorce settlement.”
”Tomato Tomato, Robs. Bottom line, you’re getting out of here.”
Robin doesn’t answer.
“Hey, you’re gonna make it out of this.” Steve reassures softly, as if he could read her troubled mind.
Robin wants to scoff. She knows Steve Harrington well enough to read between the lines.
I’ll get you out of here even if it kills me.
As if she needed protection, as if she thought twice to come to this stupid upside-down world to help him even though she knew there was barely— if any chance they’d swim back to the surface. She chose this, and for Steve she’d choose it again. She chuckles dryly, clearing her throat a bit from dust and God knows what else that accumulated in her dry lungs,
“Don’t go getting all martyristic on me, Harrington. We’re both making it out of this.”
Steve pauses, the ghost of a smile wafting his features, but a more heavy expression settles. He exhales, eyes fervently focused on his grime and blood ridden hands. He was never great with hiding emotions, especially with such an expressive face. Something was bothering him, that much she knew.
“Steve…”
He shifts, he knows that tone, that familiar tone that told him she’s concerned. His eyes lifts to hers, brown meets blue, but they quickly move away from her apprehensive gaze. He shifts again and he’s not sure why this time, wincing as his tender sides flexes, clearing his throat again.
“Don’t move too much, dingus.” Robin jokes with a playful smile. He smiles wryly, still finding the floor more interesting than actually looking at her. He coughs, violently, and recoils in pain.
“Steve,” she tries again.
“I’m fine.” It sounds more robotic than it should, especially from someone who could touch their kidneys directly if they wanted to with just a finger. That’s when Robin finally sees him. He’s hunched over, slick with grime, water, blood and sweat. His neck marked with livid red imprints of attempted strangulation, his body bruised and purpled with cuts smattered sparingly across his skin.
Her eyes flickered to and fro between his bloodied fingers and the dark stain growing at his hastily bandaged side, and with barely a thought she had closed the distance between them, dropping down beside him.
“Let me take a look,” she said and Steve gave her a look before reluctantly shifting just enough to expose his left (thankfully the only worse) side. The fabric of Nancy’s makeshift blouse-bandage was badly torn, exposing the dirty and punctured flesh. He closed his eyes and groaned loudly when Robin placed her palm over the wound, the pain of it almost causing him to topple over.
She thought the hidden underground Russian bunker would be the last time she’d ever see Steve Harrington like this, beaten and bloodied…
Steve’s face of bereft drained of all color, the now obvious shadows under his eyes so pronounced that they could have been carved into his face. He had broken into cold sweat and he was shivering visibly. She mopped his dark brow with her dampened sleeve, startled by how sweltering his skin felt even through the fabric. She sobered up quickly from her growing state of panic at that.
"Steve. Listen to me," she called out to him and grasped at his equally warm arms, trying to control the tremor of her hands. Her voice remained even, firm, betraying none of the fear that was threatening to swallow them both.
"We need to replace those bandages. Let me take off your bandages." She emphasizes the word bandages to make sure he isn’t losing consciousness.
Without a word protest Steve complied, too tired to care for modesty, removing Eddie’s vest. Robin took over, her fingers working fast and soon freeing him of the bloody and likely infected straps of garment.
Without stopping to think she bit at the fabric of her— Nancy’s— blouse, shredding it into long makeshift bandages using her hands and teeth. The side of Steve’s abdomen was splayed with a deep shade of purple and crimson, spattered holes gaping and leaking deep red wetness still trickling down and slowly dying the waist of his trousers.
She cupped her palm under Steve’s chin, leaning closer and tipping his head back to look into his eyes. His gaze was strangely unfocused and Robin felt another pang of fear at the pit of her stomach.
“Steve, stay with me okay? I need to see, can you hold up this flashlight?”
His hands trembled worse than ever as he held the light. Robin tenderly touched the wound, the slightest touch made more blood seep, dark liquid also pouring from the holes. She exhales and with a sinking feeling Robin realized the wound was much worse than she had anticipated. She swallowed and picked up the largest torn part of her blouse, her face hesitant as she brought it closer to his side.
“Sorry, I'm new to this, so this is definitely gonna hurt,”
Blood oozed generously from the wounds each time his chest rose and fell. Gritting her teeth Robin pressed the folded cloth over the gaping wounds, doing her best not to let her resolve crumble when Steve wailed pitifully, his entire slender frame shaking from pain and exhaustion. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she whispered continuously as she did her best to fasten the replacement “bandages” around his waist to hold the cloth in place somehow and apply some pressure on the wound.
She finally tied the last knot, carefully testing that the contraption would stay in place. Blood was still seeping through the bindings and she could only pray that it would at least slow it down. She gave Steve a worried glance, his face even paler than before and drenched in sweat. His lower lip trembled from the effort of holding himself upright during the procedure and when he lurched forward, Robin was ready for it. Her arms encircled him as gently as possible, trying to support his weight.
"It’s alright, try to hold on just a little bit more and you’ll be able to rest," she breathed shakily, trying to sound reassuring. She slowly managed to move behind him while holding him up and then lowered him with agonizing slowness, letting his head come to rest on her lap.
His breathing was laboured, the rise and fall of his chest rapid as though he had just ran a mile. With quivering fingertips she brushed strands of his infamous hair that matted to his drenched forehead, watching as he worked to catch his breath.
"How do you feel now?" Robin asked softly, slowly stroking back his hair.
Steve let out a noncommittal noise, his shoulders rising in what might have been a shrug. “Like shit,” he finally managed to say in a weak voice. His leaned his head against Robin’s hands, the feeling of her fingers combing through his hair strangely soothing. It faintly reminded him of someone he had known before and he tried to focus on the hazy memory, but no face or voice appeared to accompany his recollections.
"Everything will be fine, I promise," she told him, willing herself to believe it. You’re usually the one reassuring me, dingus. She thought as she saw his eyelids were becoming heavier.
He tried to fight against the exhaustion but the promise of undisturbed sleep loomed over him and it was too tempting to resist.
"Steve?"
If I close my eyes just for a little while…
"Don’t fall asleep!"
He barely registered that she was shaking him, his head lolling from side to side as though boneless.
“Steve!”
—
“Goddamnit, Dustin, you’re gonna break his neck!” someone said, someone Steve knew belonged to the face he’d seen before, and something about it comforted him. That someone’s hands replaced Steve’s on his back and a new set of fingers wrapped around the wounds.
“He’s not moving anymore,” said that hands’ owner, and the blue eyes were staring down at him again.
“…Steve…”
It was calling out to him. Steve tried to answer, but he couldn’t seem to find his tongue. The world was starting to get dark.
“Steve?”
The eyes were closer now, and Steve was able to make out the rest of her face. The brows knotted in the middle of her forehead, familiar short-cut brown hair that he was so adamant gave her away, but she always never listened to him. Still suited her, though. Robin. He mouthed her name, trying to speak but could only choke out empty noises. His eyelids started to feel heavy again. He was so tired…
“Steve!”
There was always a certain amount of shock to hearing her say his name like that. Maybe it was because Steve didn’t feel real anymore.
He heard the unmistakable sound of Dustin’s voice hovering over him. It sounded muffled, he couldn’t tell if he were screeching, blabbing about some more mystical monster stuff he had the slightest clue about, or shouting to the others. He feels himself being lifted, then he hears Robin’s voice call to him again, her voice more soothing than he’d remembered it ever being. A thumb, sticky with blood, brushed against his jaw.
“Shit, we’re losing him!” he heard Robin say.
Whatever happened next was lost to him.