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When Peter first saw Number Eleven, he was awestruck by just how tiny she was. She was younger than any of the other test subjects had been when they arrived at Hawkins Lab, and he had a suspicion that she may have been here from birth. She couldn’t have been more than three, playing with the older girl Number Eight.
He thought Brenner could no longer surprise him with his cruelty, but this made his stomach turn. Eleven still had her hair, long and wispy, and she likely had no tattoo yet. She played with the toys happily, blissfully unaware of the hard life that awaited her.
Peter resolved at this first sighting to keep his distance. He tried to stay away from all the kids, to be only the orderly Brenner wanted him to be, but the rebellious flame still flickered somewhere deep within, and he found himself talking to the children sometimes even when it wasn’t necessary, feeling the kinship of their trials though they didn’t know it. But he knew he had to stay away from Eleven. She was too small and innocent, and he feared he might do something regrettable if he saw Brenner sinking his talons into her.
But as usual, his life always seemed to pivot in the undesired direction.
Peter wasn’t always in the Rainbow Room, sometimes assigned to other areas of the facility where testing was conducted. He only caught glimpses of Eleven for a while, as it seemed she had not yet been cleared for the types of procedures her fellow subjects endured, and he was content to let it stay that way.
One day he finally ended up on duty in the Rainbow Room while Eleven was there. He observed her from afar; she seemed to have taken a shine to Eight, and Eight didn’t seem to mind despite the age difference. It was good to see them getting along, but knowing they would be pitted against each other eventually tainted the otherwise innocent image.
He zoned out for a while after that. Thoughts of escape occupied his mind most of the time, along with the faint memories of the outside world. Movement in his periphery brought him out of his mind, and he was surprised, almost dismayed, to see Eleven walking towards him. A crayon clutched in one tiny fist, she stopped not far from him, and just stared.
Peter was used to being stared at. That’s what young children did most of the time, it seemed, especially those who did not have a chance to learn the ways of the outside world. Eleven was no exception, her gaze curious and innocent, but she did not lose interest and turn away after a few moments had passed.
As much as he wished for her to go away, she didn’t, and he had to do his job lest he face unpleasant consequences.
“Hello,” he said softly.
“Hi.” Her voice was as small as the rest of her, but she didn’t seem frightened by him.
“Do you need something?”
Eleven shook her head, her whole body swaying a little with the motion.
Peter let out a soft, weary sigh. “What’s your name?” He knew the answer already, of course, but he wanted to see if she knew.
“‘Leven.”
To hear such a dehumanizing number spoken in that innocent voice made Peter feel all the more contempt for Brenner. But he smiled at her, and said, “I’m Peter.”
Eleven swung her arms, testing his name. “Peeehh…”
“Eleven!” Eight called from across the room. Immediately, Eleven turned and ran to her without so much as a glance back. Peter looked away from her, hoping that would be the end of it.
It wasn’t.
Eleven continued her staring whenever he was around. It didn’t last too long, her attention drawn quickly to other things, but it was consistent. He didn’t know what her powers were yet, but he wondered if she somehow knew what lay dormant beneath Soteria.
He managed to keep his distance, until the day Terry Ives broke into Hawkins Lab.
It all happened in an instant. One moment, everything was calm as the children played amongst themselves. The next thing Peter knew, the door of the Rainbow Room opened and an unfamiliar woman walked in. He didn’t know what to make of it, thinking she may have been some new doctor, until she approached Eleven.
“Jane…” The name was unfamiliar, but the woman spoke it with such love and relief that there was no question who she was.
Then, she was gone, her screams echoing through the halls as she was dragged away. Guards filled the doorway, shouting something about a security breach with no regard for the increasingly frightened children.
Peter legs started moving before his mind could catch up. Eleven’s face had begun to crumple, and by the time he reached her she had begun to cry openly. He picked her up easily, finding she hardly weighed anything, cradling her to him as she wailed, putting his body between her and the door. He fervently hoped she had no knowledge of who had just walked into the room, the woman’s screams still echoing in his ears, and that it was only the commotion that had upset her.
“We need to get the kids to a secure location,” one of the guards ordered.
Peter and the other orderlies were ushered out with the children and led deeper into the lab. He did not relinquish his hold on Eleven, and he found himself threading his fingers through her downy hair, hoping to be of some comfort as she wailed inconsolably. Finally, they were bundled into an empty testing room, the cacophony of voices and footsteps dying away as the guards shut the doors. All the children were shaken, some sniffling quietly, but Eleven was the most upset, being the youngest.
Peter pressed his back against the wall, the coldness of it balanced by Eleven’s warm weight in his arms. He felt like a blade was sinking into his chest, more painful than anything Brenner had ever done to him. That woman had been Eleven’s mother, he was sure of it. He didn’t know what her plan was, how she thought she could escape, but he wished she had managed to take Eleven—Jane—and run far away from the lab.
But she hadn’t succeeded. She had tried despite the utter impossibility, for the sake of her daughter, and Peter knew with cold certainty that she would never be seen again.
He has tried to shield Eleven from the horror as best he could, but it was not enough. She was still sobbing and hiccuping, a large damp spot starting to form on the shoulder of his uniform.
“Hey.” He shifted her in his arms so he could see her face, red and tear-stained. “You’re okay.”
To him, the assurance sounded hollow, inadequate beneath the weight of what had transpired, but apparently Eleven thought differently. The distressed lines on her face relaxed slightly, and she drew in another deep, shaky breath, but did not cry out. She fixed him with that same stare through watery eyes, sniffling loudly.
Peter used his sleeve to wipe some of the wetness off her face, and she did not fight or protest. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Better?”
Eleven nodded silently.
Peter moved to put her down, but Eleven made a distressed noise, her fists coming to grasp at his shirt with surprising strength. “You want to stay?”
“Yeah,” Eleven whispered.
“Okay.”
She rested her head on his shoulder, and he stroked her hair absentmindedly as he let his thoughts wander to the unfairness of it all. Despite the lack of familiarity between them, Eleven seemed comfortable with him, and he was surprisingly at ease.
The calm was disrupted when Brenner and his men arrived. The doctor cast a cursory glance over the children until his eyes came to rest on Eleven. Something strange rippled across his face—relief, perhaps—before his expression shifted to something harder as he saw Peter.
Peter tensed instinctively. He knew that look; despite his hazy memories of the time before his powers were nullified, he remembered Brenner’s expression laced with displeasure, which usually preceded the white agony of electricity seizing his body. There was no electricity now, but Peter fought the urge to shrink away regardless.
“Take them to their rooms,” Brenner said to the guards, reaching out towards Eleven.
Peter handed Eleven over, having no choice but to obey. She let out a small whine at the exchange, her eyes remaining on Peter despite being in Brenner’s arms. He looked at the floor, wanting to quell the nascent ache in his chest.
He did not see much of Eleven for a while after that, and he told himself it was better that way. After the incident with the intruder, security was tightened, and the facilities were shifted to somewhere deeper in the lab. He escorted the children to and from individual testing, or merely stood watch over them. He saw Eleven at a distance, and he made sure not to get too close lest her attention be drawn. She was always preoccupied anyway; Eight had fully taken her under her wing, and the two were rarely seen apart despite the large age difference. She helped Eleven along, and shielded her from the innocent but disruptive roughhousing of the older children.
Some time passed. Peter was never sure how long it had been; he kept time by watching the clocks, knowing when to wake and when to sleep, but the days blended together when sunlight was a distant dream. He kept maintained the distance between himself and Eleven, until the dreaded day finally came.
It started off like any other. He noticed Eleven was not in the Rainbow Room, but he dismissed it as a doctor’s visit. It wasn’t until the end of the day, when he was walking through the halls towards his own room, that he heard it.
Children crying was a sound he had become accustomed to. As an orderly, he was supposed to just let them cry unless something was seriously wrong, since they would eventually wear themselves out. But this was a different type of crying, more than annoyance or anger or fear. It was a cry born of pain, deep and long.
At first, Peter did not want to recognize the voice, small but persistent. But his feet turned him in that direction nonetheless, a cold feeling growing in his chest as he neared the children’s rooms. As he feared, Eleven’s door was shut, and the crying came from within her room.
He hesitated for a moment. The children were always under surveillance, and Brenner would know he had gone to see her, which would likely end in pain for him. A particularly plaintive cry banished these thoughts, and he closed the distance between him and Eleven’s room.
His heart sank when he opened the door. Eleven was curled on the floor, her bedsheets hanging askew like she had fought with them. Her hair was practically gone, shorn to the scalp, and she hugged her left arm to herself as she cried.
“Eleven?” he asked softly, letting the door fall shut behind him.
Eleven was too distraught to acknowledge him, so he knelt by her side, feeling like his heart was going to crack. As gently as he could, he took hold of her left arm, drawing it away from her body, and found it bandaged with fresh gauze where a new tattoo surely lay.
Peter bit his lip, his own wrist throbbing in sympathy. He didn’t have clear memory of getting his tattoo, but he knew that it had hurt. Not knowing what else to do, he scooped her into his arms and sat down on her bed, rocking her gently.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, though he knew she would not understand. He ghosted his fingers over the remnants of her hair, and it prickled unpleasantly against his skin. She was too young for any of this. The youngest of the others thus far had been five, which was no less monstrous, but she was so small and innocent, hardly able to form a sentence, and yet she was forced to bear these atrocities.
He had known this day would come, but for all the distance he has tried to put between them, it seemed his heart was done for whether his mind wanted to admit it or not. It hurt him to see her in such pain, and never before had he felt such a strong desire to dig his fingers into his neck and rip out Soteria.
But he didn’t. He sat and held her, hoping that he was enough.
Eleven eventually exhausted herself, her sobs tapering into shaky breaths. She clutched her arm fiercely, looking him in the face for the first time.
“Hurts,” she said.
“I know, ladybird.” The endearment slipped out before he could think, an old nickname for his sister from his childhood. “It will go away.”
She reached up with her right hand, touching the bristly remains of her hair, and her face began to crumple again.
“Hey, I’ll tell you a secret,” he said, wanting to prevent another outburst.
That caught Eleven’s attention enough to keep most of the tears at bay, though her lower lip wobbled dangerously.
“My hair was short like this too, once, and I didn’t like it either, but it grew back. Yours will grow back too.”
Eleven eyed him, her frown turning pensive. She reached up, pressing a tiny hand into his hair, and he did not protest, as it was better than a fresh wave of tears.
“Short,” she proclaimed, her tone taking on a petulant edge as she studied him.
Peter couldn’t resist a small smile. “I know, but yours can be long again one day.” It was an empty promise, as long as they were here in the lab, but he knew what utter hopelessness felt like, and he did not want her to feel the same. It may have been cruel to promise something that would likely never happen, but it seemed crueler still to leave such a young mind in despair.
“Long,” Eleven murmured thoughtfully, stroking his hair with shaky but well-meaning hand, enjoying the softness against her skin. “It’s pretty.”
“Thank you.” The ever-increasing weight on his shoulders eased just a little.
Eleven played with his hair a while longer, and he could only imagine how messy it had become, but she finally drew away, fixing him with a serious look. “Peter.”
He looked back at her, surprised that she had remembered his name. “Yes?”
“Thirsty.”
He smiled at her grave tone. “We can’t have that, can we?”
He brought her a glass of water and she drank the entire thing, dehydrated from crying. When she was done, he brought another with a crushed dosage of pain medication dissolved inside. She screwed up her face at the unpleasant taste, but drank it obediently.
“Does it still hurt?” he asked her after the medicine had time to take effect.
Eleven shook her head, fidgeting with the bandage on her wrist.
“Good.” Peter glanced at the clock on the wall. It was only eight in the evening, but that was late enough for the younger ones to be in bed. “You should go to sleep.”
Eleven did not complain, her little frame bowing with exhaustion as she shuffled beneath her bedsheets. Peter stood to go, but she reached out and grabbed the back of his shirt. “Stay?”
Peter’s gaze flickered to the camera mounted in the corner of the room. “Until you go to sleep, okay?”
Eleven deemed this a good compromise, curling herself into a small ball at the head of her bed while Peter sat at the foot. It did not take long for her breathing to slow as she fell asleep, but Peter stayed a little bit longer before getting up and turning out the light, shutting the door quietly behind him.
The next day, as Peter suspected and dreaded, Doctor Brenner called for him. They met in Brenner’s office, a windowless room as cold and lifeless as the rest of the lab, that fit a man like him. As Peter entered and saw Brenner, he wondered if he had finally overstepped the point of no return.
“You were with Eleven last night,” Brenner said with no preamble, his face as stoic as ever. “Why?”
Peter could not stop the tensing of his muscles, fighting the urge to look away from him as he answered quietly, “She was upset and in pain. I thought she might hurt herself if she were left alone, since she’s so young.”
Brenner did not reply for a long moment, the tension becoming almost unbearable for Peter. “Eleven seems to have taken a liking to you.”
It took Peter a moment to find his words. “…She has?”
“She asks about you, and I can’t help but wonder why.” Brenner leveled him with a calculating look.
“I don’t know,” Peter answered honestly. “She just…stares at me sometimes.”
There was another torturous pause. “Have you told her anything?”
“No,” Peter said defensively. “Nothing.”
He expected Brenner to drag the conversation on until it finally ended with a taser in his torso, but the doctor only nodded thoughtfully. “That is interesting. Preliminary tests suggest Eleven is very powerful, perhaps powerful enough to unconsciously sense you.”
Peter said nothing, his heart jumping nervously.
“You are right, however,” Brenner went on. “She is younger than the other children, so some extra help would not be unwarranted. Since she seems so fond of you, perhaps it’s for the best that you continue to help her, since I’m not always around.”
It was almost mocking, the way he made the suggestion. Peter could not leave the lab no matter how badly he wanted to, and they both knew it. But now that he had ordered it, Peter’s desire to help Eleven diminished. Brenner never allowed anything without an ulterior motive.
“If that’s what you want, Doctor Brenner,” he murmured.
“Children are stubborn sometimes, so perhaps having a friend around will make her more compliant.”
There it was. Peter bit the inside of his cheek so hard he tasted blood, fury burning in his chest. Being a tool for Brenner was bad enough, but manipulating a child for his advantage was even worse.
“Yes, sir,” he whispered.
“I’m glad you finally have a chance to become more than your failure.” Brenner waved a hand. “You’re dismissed.”
Peter turned and stalked from the room without another word. One day, he was going to get Eleven out of this lab.
As much as Peter wished Eleven would keep her distance, that was easier said than done. She had no knowledge of nefarious intentions, and when she saw him, her smile was just as sweet as it had always been.
Fortunately for him, Eight continued to take up a considerable amount of Eleven’s attention, giving her less time to interact with him. For a while, they saw each other frequently but their interactions were sparing. Eleven would wave at him enthusiastically as she passed, and he would return it.
But it all changed when Eight escaped.
The fact that he had managed to escape at all astounded Peter, and in the days immediately following her departure, he expected to see her return, dragged back unwillingly. However, as the days wore on, he did not see her again, and Brenner became increasingly agitated as Peter realized she had escaped for good.
Her flight was a double-edged sword. On one hand, she had proved that it was possible to get out, albeit with the aid of powers, but on the other she had left Eleven behind, alone. Peter did not truly blame her for leaving Eleven behind. Escaping was already hard enough, let alone with such a small child in tow. But Eleven was acutely aware of Eight’s absence, searching for her everywhere and crying when she found nothing.
At first, Peter hoped another one of the older children might step up and fill the gap, but it seemed they had already started to give into the sense of competition and distrust Brenner had begun to sow amongst them. Eleven got in the way of one of them in her self-contained play, and Peter saw the look on the older child’s face.
Absolutely not.
He reluctantly stepped up to fill the gap left by Eight, and Eleven accepted it immediately. He did not mind her at all, her innate sweetness and curiosity a glimmer of light in his otherwise dark existence. His reluctance only stemmed from the knowledge of Brenner’s manipulative intent, but he hoped to be gone from the lab before the true manipulation could begin.
With Eight’s escape spurring his thoughts, he began to plot a way out. He would have to wait until Eleven was older, when she could understand what was going on and had control of her powers, and he would make a way for her to escape.
But for now, he would care for her, not for Brenner’s sake but for her own. When the time came, she would escape the lab for good.
Eleven didn’t feel good. She stared down at her breakfast, and though all her brothers and sisters were eating, she had no desire to join them. Her body ached, and her skin felt sweaty though she couldn’t stop from shivering. The sound of the others’ voices rang unpleasantly loud in her ears, and it all felt like too much. Tears built in her eyes, but she tried to hold them back. She was five, and she wanted to be a big girl, so she wouldn’t cry—
“You alright, ladybird?”
Eleven jumped as a voice cut across her thoughts. Peter stood on the other side of the table, looking down at her with a small crease in his brow. Relief flooded Eleven; he always made things better.
“Eleven,” he tried again when she did not answer, “are you okay?”
She shook her head. “I feel bad.”
Peter frowned, reaching across the table to touch her forehead. She leaned into his touch, his hand pleasantly cool against her skin that suddenly felt too hot.
“You have a fever,” he announced, his frown deepening.
“What does that mean?” Eleven asked worriedly.
Peter’s frown turned to the reassuring smile she was familiar with. “It means you’re sick, but you’ll be okay.”
“Sick…?” Eleven had heard of the other children being sick, but she had never been.
“Do you want to go back to your room?”
“Yes.” Normally, Eleven would loathe the idea of returning to her room for the day. It was empty and boring in comparison to the Rainbow Room, but now she longed to lay in bed. She stood up, eager to get out of the loud cafeteria, and the world wobbled beneath her feet. Everything tilted, and she thought she was going to fall. Strong hands took hold of her before she could, lifting her from the ground.
“You’re okay,” Peter murmured.
Eleven pressed her face into the crisp white fabric of his uniform, his very presence seeming to dispel some of her discomfort. She loved him, sometimes even more than Papa. He never asked her to do any tests that made her head hurt and her nose bleed, but he was always there when things felt scary. He taught her things, like how to write her name (and his name when she asked), and sometimes brought her pieces of candy. She didn’t know why, but he felt Good to be around, warm and safe.
“Did the nurses give you any shots yesterday?” Peter asked softly.
Eleven sighed, the swaying of his walk soothing her as he carried her through the halls. “Yes. Didn’t want to.”
“I know.” Peter resisted a sigh of his own. All the children, including him, had experienced what Eleven was currently going through. In order to build up their immune systems, they were injected with strains of viruses that they would not otherwise be exposed to. He vaguely remembered several bouts of sickness that had left him exhausted for weeks.
“Will I get better?” Eleven asked, her voice impossibly tiny.
“Of course.” Peter nudged Eleven’s door open with his foot, stepping into her room. “That’s what I’m here for.” He put her to bed, pulling up her blanket and making sure she had her stuffed lion that she had acquired from Brenner somewhere along the way.
“Papa’s tests…” Eleven mumbled. “What about Papa’s tests?”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it.” Peter straightened, intending to go inform one of the doctors of her condition, but as he turned, he felt an odd sensation, akin to a hand wrapping around his wrist.
“Stay,” Eleven whispered.
Peter looked down at his wrist and saw nothing restraining it. He turned back, and the sensation disappeared, Eleven’s little face staring at him pleadingly.
Something bittersweet rose in his chest. He had never seen Eleven’s powers before.
“Alright, ladybird,” he said. “I’ll stay.”
Eleven did not understand Peter fully until she was seven years old. She could never put her finger on the familiarity she felt with him. It seemed like he was someone more than just Peter, her friend.
But then he started trying to help her with her tests, warning her of dangerous things, and trying to facilitate an escape. She was ready to go with him, no matter what, but that idea was shattered as they sat before the pipe he told her to crawl through.
“I’m not going with you, Eleven.” Peter took her hand, squeezing it gently. “I meant what I said when I called this place a prison, and everyone here is a prisoner, not just you. Not just your brothers and sisters, but the guards, too, the nurses.” She saw the sorrow in his eyes. “Me.”
He showed her Soteria, and she can’t stand the idea of leaving him behind, so she wanted to make the device go away in the hope that he could still somehow come with her. It was difficult to cause him pain, but she wrenched Soteria free.
She felt him for the first time, as he went to pick up the bloody device on the floor, and she almost couldn’t breathe. She could feel him, in the same way she perceived her brothers and sisters, and she began to understand the familiarity, the Good.
Her understanding was cemented when he attacked the guards chasing them, pulling her into a nearby closet. He showed her the hidden mark that lay beneath his sleeve, and she knew.
He was her brother.
And then he was gone, leaving her to wait in the closet. She stayed, anxiously awaiting his return, until something shifted. It was as though a light had gone out, and the Good she had felt had turned Bad.
Heart pounding in her chest, Eleven searched for Peter in the halls, only to be greeted with blood and twisted bodies. The Bad feeling grew and grew, filling her mind, and she sobbed as she ran, wanting to find him and get out.
She found him in the Rainbow Room just as Two slumped to the floor, dead, and when he turned around, it was not Peter looking at her.
“I asked you to wait.”
That was not his voice. She tried to run, but she was trapped, and she could only watch in terror as the Bad thing in Peter’s body approached him.
“Why do you cry for them, Eleven?” He touched her with a mockery of Peter’s gentleness. “After everything they did to you?”
As he spoke to her of things she did not understand, she felt utterly lost. Anger boiled within her as she looked at the bodies of her siblings on the floor, and her heart felt like it was cracking into pieces. Was he always this way?
“You tricked me,” she whispered.
She did the only thing she could think of in her panic, and defied the Bad feeling. Her mind reached out to a nameless shadow she did not know, and as she pressed Peter’s body against the wall, she willed him away. Blood and tears streamed from her eyes as her heartbeat roared in her ears.
Everything was still, and she wept alone. She had gained a brother and lost him, all in a matter of minutes.
Seven years later, Eleven still didn’t know if it had all been a lie. She remembered the Good and the Bad, and she held them both in her heart as she set her mind against Vecna’s darkness in the Upside Down.
“Hey, ladybird.”
Eleven’s breath caught in her throat as she looked across the Void. She saw him, not Vecna who she had been warring against, but…
“Peter?”
He smiled at her, the same smile she remembered, but it was sad. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
Tears burned in Eleven’s eyes. It could be a trick, an illusion, but she felt the Good lingering beneath the Bad, like the sun behind a heavy cloud. But she could not blindly trust it; she remembered everything now, and she had seen too much.
Her feelings must have showed, because Peter said, “You probably hate me now, and I don’t blame you.”
“Why did you do it?” Eleven asked. “Why did you kill them all? Why have you killed so many?”
“It wasn’t me,” Peter said. “There’s something else, something that has imprisoned me, ever since I can remember. When I had Soteria, I was free, but I had no memory of it, so I thought it would be okay…”
Eleven started to understand the Bad feeling. She had felt it before…
“He made me do those things. He made me kill them.” Peter’s voice broke, and he paused. “He’s been using my body, for so long.”
The Mind Flayer. Eleven swallowed back a sob. “Was it a lie?”
“Was what a lie?”
“Everything. All of it.” Eleven exhaled shakily. “Did you ever care about me?”
Peter met her gaze, and she could see the gleam of unshed tears. “Eleven, I never stopped.”
A sob wrenched itself from her throat, and she crouched down, losing the strength to stand as she curled in on herself. Familiar arms wrapped around her, and for the first time in seven years Peter held her, just like he had so many times before.
She flung her arms around him, and knew it had not been a lie.
“Don’t cry,” he told her, though he sounded close to tears himself. “Eleven, I need you to listen.”
Eleven clung to him, and she raised her head, looking him in the eyes.
“He senses you. He’s going to come for you.” Peter swiped away a tear with his thumb. “You need to go before he takes you, too.”
Eleven shook her head. She could feel the dark pressure, the Bad feeling of Vecna—the Mind Flayer—building like a flood. “I’m going to help you.”
She was not scared of the Bad anymore. Only angry.
Peter woke up to a cacophony of voices talking near him.
“Who is that guy?”
“He came out of a Gate in the ceiling!”
“Ew, he’s covered in that nasty…”
Footsteps shuffled around, followed by the sound of an impact.
“Ow, what was that for?”
“Don’t get too close! He might be Vecna!”
“Vecna? Come on, this is just some guy!”
Peter opened his eyes, and was greeted with several unfamiliar faces. Wooden floorboards creaked beneath him as he started to sit up, but he stopped when he saw the barrel of a gun.
“Don’t move.” The girl held the gun with confidence, and he could tell she had experience shooting it.
A boy with curly hair leapt into his field of view. “Are you Vecna?”
Another kid grabbed him and pulled him backwards. “Dude, really?”
“What?”
Peter opened his mouth to speak, but he started coughing instead. He doubled over, feeling like his lungs were full of cotton, and noticed he was covered in black, tar-like slime. Something disgusting came out of his mouth, more black slime spattering on the floorboards.
“Steve, what are you doing?”
“Relax, he’s like, dying or something.” A strong hand pounded against his back, helping the rest of the mess to come up, and Peter gasped, taking his first full breath.
“Give him this.”
“Are you sure you want that stuff on your jacket?”
“Just give it to him before I change my mind.”
A jacket was thrown over his shoulders, abating the chill he hadn’t even been aware of. After taking a moment to catch his breath, he looked up at his spectators again. One of them—Steve?—crouched over him, while the rest of them loitered behind the girl with the gun.
“Where’s…Eleven?” His voice rasped unpleasantly in his throat, like it hadn’t been used in years. He couldn’t quite remember, but maybe it had been years.
The curly-haired kid bounced forward again, halfheartedly restrained by Steve. “You know Eleven?”
“Where is she?”
“She’s on her way here, probably.” The kid leaned closer, his eyes widening. “He has a tattoo like she does!”
One of the other kids crowded forward. “Let me see!”
“Ow, Lucas!” Steve pushed them both back. “Give the guy some space, okay?”
Peter looked down at himself dazedly. His clothes were still intact, but tattered and covered in slime. A good chunk of his left sleeve was gone, revealing the tattoo he had always been ordered to hide.
“Hey, man.” Steve caught his attention. “You alright?”
“I will be…I think.” Peter sat up fully, reaching up to feel at his neck. Soteria was gone, a bolus of scar tissue sitting in its place, but he felt far too weak to even try to use his powers.
“Dustin, go get him something to drink from the car,” Steve said, and shouted after him, “Water, not beer!”
Dustin returned quickly, handing the water over. Peter accepted it gladly, using some of it to wash the remainder of the foul substance from his mouth before drinking. As he did, he realized where he was sitting: his childhood home, namely the attic.
Before he could summon the energy to start asking questions, he heard the shriek of tires outside.
“They’re here!” Dustin shouted, flying out of the room with Lucas on his tail.
Footsteps thumped loudly somewhere below, accompanied by a new group of voices. The footsteps got closer, as did the shouting.
“El, wait a minute!”
“Let me go! I need to see him!” Peter swore his heart stopped altogether. Though it had aged, he would never forget that voice. He scrambled to his feet, and nearly fell over, though Steve managed to catch him.
Then Eleven was there, standing in the attic doorway. She had gotten so much taller, her frame no longer painfully thin.
“Your hair.” He spoke before he could think, smiling ruefully. “It’s still short.”
Eleven marched forward, ignoring the protests of the people behind her. No longer trapped behind Vecna’s shell, Peter was bedraggled but intact. From what she could see, he had some scarring on his hands and feet, and probably more hidden by his clothes, but he was whole and alive.
“You…you…” She was overjoyed and angry all at once. “You…idiot!”
Peter laughed, a rare sound from him in her memories. “I deserve that.”
Eleven rushed forward, throwing herself into his arms, and only Steve’s intervention saved them both from crashing to the floor. She was laughing and weeping all at once, and so was he. He cradled her to him like he had long ago, with a care that had never faded.
“You’re okay,” he murmured into her hair.
“Yes,” she replied with a tearful smile. “I’m okay.”