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Even after the earth splits open and hell dribbles out, even after his friends were bitten and torn, even after the small town he never really dreamed of staying in began literally crumbling away, Steve Harrington still wanted a wife, six nuggets, and a Winnebago.
He’s nineteen and single when he ends up with one nugget and a car seat in his BMW.
It’s complicated and simple all at the same time. He’s with Robin, working another shift at the local disaster relief. He hears his name - Harrington, Harrington, Harrington - repeatedly in the buzz amongst the crowds, usually with gratitude. His parents, often and currently away, are sending their help in the form of money. It’s helpful, and it’s what this town needs.
(He does wish his mother would call more often.)
He’s folding clothes from the donation pile when one of the firemen from Hawkins’ station - his shirt says Coleman - comes over, a baby slung across his chest. He starts carefully going through Steve’s stack that he dubbed super tiny holy shit, stopping to yank out the one that had frilly lace around the collars and sleeves.
“Hey, Tim,” He holds up the onesie for another fireman to see. “You think this’ll fit her?”
Steve tunes out the conversation in lieu of looking at her, the tiniest baby he’s seen in a long time. She’s got a mop of dark hair on the top of her head, dark brown eyes, her mouth in a soft line as she blinks looking as best she can to the world around her.
“Harrington.” There’s his name again. He looks up from the baby and sees the two firemen smiling at him. “You wanna hold her?”
He does.
She hardly fusses as she’s placed in his arms. She wiggles a little, her eyes all on him, and he breaks out into the stupidest grin when she manages to grab his finger that’s gently brushing the soft skin of her cheek.
It’s all over from there.
Steve is quite the baby hog as Tim and Coleman explain the baby’s situation. There’s a small death toll in the wake of the earthquake, but they’re happy to report that there are no kids left without at least an aunt, an uncle, or a grandparent of some kind.
Except for the baby in his arms.
They tell them how they found her: alone in an apartment complex, split in half and already abandoned due to the Earthquake that left half of it crumbling. They ran her footprints and spent the last few days trying to find out who she is, but the answer is simple and sad: she’s been abandoned. She’s got no one and nothing, not even a name.
“She doesn’t even have a name?” Steve whispers.
“She doesn’t even have a birth certificate. As far as the state of Indiana is concerned, she doesn’t exist yet.”
They go on to tell him the firemen at the station have taken turns watching her until a foster parent can be assigned to her. But with the disaster that is Hawkins, it’s been hard to get done in a timely manner.
And well: Steve’s got a simple answer for that one.
“I can watch her. Foster her. She can stay with me.”
He wrangles his friends into his living room that evening to help him pick out a name.
A birth certificate needs to be completed yesterday, but they tell him that if he wants to pick, it better be ready before Tim comes back tomorrow morning or her literal government-given name is going to be Baby Girl and that’s just not good. He wants more time, but he figures he’s out of government favors to ask after his foster parent application was expedited.
They all have their methods. Mike goes straight down the Nerd Chute and presses for Leia in honor of the space princess herself right out the gate. Robin innocently brings up the name Whitney five minutes into the task and when Steve tells her that his eighth-grade girlfriend was named Whitney she cackles for another five minutes and her helpfulness turns into a game of How Many Of Steve Harrington’s Girlfriends Can I Name Before I Get Kicked Out which Dustin has way too much fun participating in as well.
Argyle starts alphabetically. Like, very alphabetically. Steve is pretty sure he’s only on Alison after twenty names and Jonathan has to bribe him to order some pizza to get him to stop.
Will, bless his heart, knocks it out on the first try. He grabs a baby book, flips to a random page, and asks someone to call out a number. El, sunken far into a recliner and wrapped up like a corndog in so many blankets, pokes her little head out, gives a cheeky smile, and says, “Eleven.”
Will reads out the eleventh name on the page.
“Hannah.”
Dustin absolutely lights up. “Oh, cool! Palindrome name.”
“Paladin?” Steve has got the majority of the couch, the baby on his chest as she sleeps. His knuckles gently brush up and down her spine. “Isn’t that something from your D&D game?”
“It is actually, and I’m totally telling Eddie when he wakes up that you retain nerd information,” Dustin informs, “But I’m talking about a palindrome. It’s a word spelled the same forwards and backward. Racecar. Kayak. Radar. Hannah.”
“Forwards and backward,” Steve mumbles. He thinks of the crawling story he told Nancy in an attempt to explain who he is. “But not upside down.”
Will laughs a little. “Right.” He reaches over and gently brushes the baby’s cheek. “Never upside down.”
Eddie wakes up in the hospital from a three-week coma, sees Steve Harrington in the chair beside him with a baby in his arms, and promptly asks, “...Just how long did I fall asleep?”
“Dude. It’s been almost 10 years.”
“...What?”
“No, Eddie, I’m kidding -jeez, that heart monitor is insane - please don’t have a heart attack Dustin’s gonna kill me -”
Max wakes up in the hospital from a four-week coma, sees Steve Harrington in the chair beside her with a baby in his arms, and promptly says, “Where on Earth did you get that thing?”
This time, he doesn’t cause the patient to go into near cardiac arrest. “Technically, the food drive.”
“Oh, sweet.” And she falls back to sleep almost immediately.
For the first time in years, The Harrington house slowly fills with noise.
Steve was never fond of the quiet. Before the Upside Down shit went down, he filled the void by having people over, whether that be small parties by the pool or ragers that Hopper and his crew had to shut down. After the monsters and the alternate dimensions, well: the silence wasn’t just unpleasant, it was terrifying. He’d turn the dryer on just to fall asleep.
Hannah is a baby, and by default, she’s a bit noisy; but he doesn’t mind it. She makes bursts of sounds, sometimes quiet and sometimes shrill, and he’s quick to learn what they all mean. If she’s not making noise, then Steve is - washing her bottles, cleaning her clothes - doing whatever it is he needs to do to take care of her.
But it’s not just him. The Harrington house becomes a revolving door for the citizens of Hawkins. Eliza, the old lady with the lavender house three doors down, brings him the biggest casserole he’s ever seen. Mr. Farmer, a mechanic and not an actual farmer, brings him an old bassinet that hasn’t had a need in the family for almost ten years. Coleman, the fireman, brings him a few groceries, just to help him out.
(He also leaves an application for firefighter training on the counter, but Steve decides to leave that for a rainy day.)
Then Robin flat out starts nesting and moves in, most of her clothes stuffed lazily into a duffle and declares herself Aunt Rob. Despite his efforts to remind her to take her shoes off in the house, he hears the constant squeak of her boots on the tile floors, the soft sound of her music spinning on the records from the room she claimed, her chatter as she tells Hannah the latest town gossip.
One day, she makes sure Steve overheard the gossip. “Guess what? I heard since Max and Eddie need a little more space to heal they’re gonna come and stay here.”
He thinks of Max’s propensity to argue, of Eddie’s inability to never shut up. He thinks of the noise and smiles.
“Oh yeah. It’s about to become a damn zoo here, Buckley.”
Robin’s cackle is loud.
“Picture this, Hannah Harrington: a ghastly field. Grey and smoky, dripping with feather-like ash and stricken with lightning that’s red and angry as if betrayed by the hands of Zeus himself! But there is hope, a new god: It’s Metallica, and I am their prophet.”
Eddie arrives with the same amount of fanfare that Steve imagines he’s possessed his entire life. He’s not without his vibrancy, his hands always moving wildly when he talks, the cane that he uses constantly being twirled as an accessory and extension of his stories.
He’s drawn to Hannah like a moth to a flame, almost a more terrible baby hog than Steve. He talks to her like she’s anyone else with a fully formed vocabulary, a bit like Robin, but he’s able to throw his voice and waggle his eyebrows, contort his face into something that has Hannah absolutely captivated every time. She hangs on his every word, his stories always able to pull her out of a cranky spell.
“You know,” Eddie says one day when Hannah falls asleep on Eddie’s chest in the middle of a story like she always does. “One of these days, I’m gonna force her to stay awake for the entire story. She always falls asleep right before I get the part about me almost getting eaten to death by bats.”
Steve laughs. “Maybe she doesn’t like scary stories.”
“Oh, but Sir Steven? The ending?” He gestures to the living room around them with his free arm. “Is so sickeningly sweet.”
Steve finds the smile that grows on Eddie’s face is just the same.
Max struggles.
That’s the only way Steve can describe it. Eddie is slow to move around, twirling a wooden cane that slowly gains childish carvings and stickers - Will even going as far as to paint flames on the bottom - but Max can barely move. She’s in a wheelchair, perpetually exhausted. Steve gives her the master bedroom and Robin sleeps on the other side of the king bed because Max can’t get up on her own.
To put it simply, her recovery is very slow and the kid is very miserable.
Steve does what he can, but it’s hard. He’s always got music playing whether it’s the radio or Eddie strumming away. Nancy reads to her, and Jonathan takes her out to the park, but it never really feels like it's enough despite their best efforts; Steve enrolled as a firefighter and with all of them having weird job schedules, Max doesn’t have something stable.
Which is why one day, Robin declares that the one thing that will solve all of Max Mayfield’s problems is to get her a dog.
“A dog, Rob?” Hannah is babbling in his ear as he holds her to one hip, the other arm holding a giant bag of groceries. He imagines a dog weaving between his legs at a moment like this and despairs. “That’s not an easy pet.”
He tries to convince her that maybe a cat would be better, and Dustin is eagerly agreeing, but Max is apparently allergic. Steve literally goes down the whole list of small, cuddly animals that don’t need walks: rabbits, guinea pigs, and a fish tank. The last one isn’t fuzzy and cuddly but Steve will suggest anything else at this point.
“What about a snake?” Eddie suggests. “I know a guy, could even get a wicked python.”
Steve takes 2.6 seconds to imagine a snake in his house and folds.
The next day Robin returns from her day adventure with Max with a little white puppy, faint black spots speckling her fur, including one large one around one eye.
“Look at her!” Robin coos, holding the Dalmatian puppy up for Steve to see. “The shelter found the litter dumped off the side of the highway.”
Max is all smiles as she wheels herself into the house, something Steve hasn’t seen her do. “I thought it was fitting since you’re a firefighter now. Plus look! She has a perpetual black eye. Just like you.”
There’s a glimmer in her eyes, one he hasn’t seen in a while. It makes him happy, but also very suspicious. “I’m almost afraid to ask what you’ve named her.”
“Zebra. Obviously.”
Eddie cackles so loud it wakes the baby.
“Are your parents ever going to come home?”
The question is asked innocently enough. Steve is elbow-deep in an old recipe box, pulling out yellowed cards with handwriting that has such a flourish that he can’t really read it. The holidays are creeping up fast and he feels ill-prepared. He’s found one for what he thinks is the red velvet cake he was obsessed with when he was six. “Eventually. My mom manages to drag my dad back sooner or later.”
Eddie tilts his head, expression pinched, like his thoughts are so heavy they’re actually starting to physically weigh him down. “Nancy once told me your dad was an asshole.”
He pulls out another recipe. It’s just labeled chicken dish. “He can be, I guess. We don’t have a ton in common, so we tend to butt heads. Aha!” Steve nearly gets a papercut as he pulls out the Willy Wonka Golden Ticket: a recipe for clementine cake. He shakes the card before he flicks it with the back of his hand in victory. “Bingo. Mom’s best-kept secret.” He grins.
Eddie is still uncharacteristically quiet, vibrant features softened under the kitchen light. He plucks the card out of his hands more delicately, treating it like some sort of artifact. To Steve, it kind of is. “What’s she like?” He asks, eyes deliberately scanning the card and avoiding his gaze.
“My mom?” Steve blinks, leaning over to peer over Eddie’s shoulder. “Oh, she’s great. She’s….” Flashes of his childhood flood his mind: the first time she taught him to ride a bike, the summers spent in the pool, the early spring trips to the ice cream parlor for peach sherbert.
His memories with his mother are vibrant, though few and far between. They feel like snapshots - tiny precious polaroids - sepia-toned at the edges.
He misses her.
“She’s great, I promise. I love her. I know she’s not here but she’s just…” Steve shrugs helplessly. “Doing the best she can.”
He knows what that must sound like to others, and pictures the unsure expressions on Nancy or Robin’s face, but Eddie doesn’t look like that. His smile is faint and weary, almost too frail for his face. “I understand,” he says softly. “That’s all we can ever do, right?”
Steve sighs, letting his chin fall onto the top of Eddie’s shoulder. “Yeah,” he says, the word lost in the cotton fabric of his shirt.
Sometimes, Hannah can’t sleep.
Steve doesn’t blame her. He has his share of sleepless nights. The only difference is that he’s not exactly screaming his head off. Well, at least not for hours on end. But still, he doesn’t mind. She’s small, she’s helpless, and she needs him. To love her, to take care of her, to try and understand.
He tries everything. All of Joyce’s tips and tricks, as well as his own instincts. Sometimes they work, but it’s not a guarantee. Nothing is.
Until he remembers a song.
He doesn’t know the name, or who sang it first - but his mother had a nice and simple voice, and sang like she was sharing a sweet little poem. The words are a little jumbled, but he remembers the gist of it, the western tune tattooed on his brain.
Steve rocks her back and forth and keeps his voice low - it's a special gift just for her ears. He sings of wide river valleys dusted in red sunsets and redder leaves, of homes by the ocean and cowboys so true.
It becomes a guarantee, and it only makes him love her that much more.
Halloween isn’t scary.
Well, at least not this year. They’ve had enough scares for a lifetime. But the younger kids, they’re still kids, and well, they’re still in need of fun. Scary movies and haunted houses are replaced with pumpkin patches, hayrides, and apple picking.
One day finds the lot of them in Hopper’s woodsy backyard gutting and carving pumpkins. Steve isn’t surprised when five minutes in, pumpkin guts end up in Nancy’s hair and down Mike’s back, and he’s less surprised when both Dustin and Lucas manage to nearly lose a finger with the knives Hopper specifically told them not to use, all while Zebra gets into anything and everything she can find.
“No one’s gonna be better than me,” Eddie whispers to Hannah, who has been bundled up and captured by Joyce. He’s spent the better part of the last hour with his tongue poking out of his teeth in concentration. “I’ll be damned if I let Buckley beat me with her little ghost.”
Steve glances over to where Robin is seated by El, helping her with her pumpkin. They’re both doing matching Ghostbuster logos. “I dunno, man. Their pumpkins look pretty good.”
Eddie scoffs, attempting to brush his hair out of his face with his wrist to avoid getting pumpkin in his curls - he is wildly unsuccessful. “Um, excuse you,” He turns the pumpkin for Steve to see. “My alien kicks their ass.”
Without really meaning to, Steve gasps in delight. He’s not been able to get a great view of Eddie’s work from his spot on the porch, but he’s pleasantly surprised to see what’s been in the works. “No way! E.T! How’d you do that man?”
Eddie’s smile matches Steve's, lips curling in a cheek-splitting grin, complete with twinkling eyes. “Yeah? Pretty good?”
“Dude, that’s insane. Dustin!” He calls him over. “Did you see Eddie’s pumpkin?”
Dustin isn’t paying attention on account of him begging Hopper for the illegal knife back to fix his Millenium Falcon back. Max, however, is relaxing against Lucas’ shoulder, her simple Jack-O-Lantern finished ages ago. She gives the two of them a bit of a mischievous grin. “Wait until you see Will’s.”
Will is sheepish as he shows his nearly completed, hand-drawn, and originally crafted dragon.
“I give up,” Eddie declares, falling back into the leaves with a dramatic flair. He pretends to plunge the knife he has into his chest. “Stick a fork in me, Byers, why don’t you?”
Hannah giggles at Eddie’s theatrics, causing him to sit up and give her a pretty smile. “Is my demise funny to you, peach?” She seemingly laughs harder now that leaves have joined the pumpkin in Eddie’s hair. “I’ve noticed you haven’t carved anything, Dad.”
It takes a moment for Steve to realize Eddie is talking to him. “Oh. I dunno. I’m not as artsy as you guys -”
“No, no, no, won’t do. C’mon! It’s your girl’s first Halloween. You have to!”
Steve is more or less in comfortable silence as Eddie collects supplies and a pumpkin in front of him, Hannah in his lap as he sits beside Steve, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee.
“Go on,” Eddie says, happy little words blowing against the apple of his cheek. “I’m here if you forget how to draw a triangle.”
It ends up being a cute little thing with spirals for eyes and uneven fangs in its devious smile. Steve’s pretty sure Eddie puts enough pumpkin in his hair to make a pie and Dustin manages to sneak over and shove a seed so far up Eddie’s nose it’s probably embedded in his brain (that Max yells she isn’t sure he has).
It sits on his porch, too afraid to put a candle to it.
It’s still nice.
.
Thanksgiving is a loveable shitshow.
Hopper and Eddie immediately volunteer to strictly be in charge of slow smoking the turkey, but Steve knows it’s a clever ruse to smoke and drink far away from the kids, and honestly, he doesn’t blame them after the catastrophe that was the group grocery store trip: a lot of yelling about cranberries versus premade sauce, ingredient for a pumpkin pie, and El trying to sneak boxes of Eggos into his cart.
With Argyle as his designated sous chef, Steve pulls off a pretty hefty meal. Robin spends the majority of her time at the kitchen island trying to make as many fruit pies as she can and Steve is surprised to find that she ends up making three: pumpkin, apple, and blackberry.
She’s helping set the long table when he leans into her shoulder and whispers, “The lattice on the blackberry could use some work.”
“Ugh, shut up!” She screeches, grabbing the rag on her shoulder and whacking him with it as they laugh. He finishes setting down the forks when her arms suddenly come around his middle and he feels her bury her face into his back.
“Hey, babe.” the words slip out in an amused huff. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She nods before she stands on the tips of her toes to rest her chin on his shoulder. “I just love you.”
He turns in her arms, wrapping his arms around her waist in mimicry. His gaze dances across her face, looking for something furrowed or sad. He doesn’t see anything like that - only contentment. “I love you, too.”
Robin beams. “I’m proud of you.”
He blinks. “For what? The green bean casserole wasn’t that hard.”
There’s a shriek of delight that catches their attention; from the dining room, he can see Will running around with Hannah high in the air, pretending she’s an airplane. Dustin is burying Max in a pile of leaves and Lucas and Mike are creeping up on him, a bag of collected ones prepped and ready to be dunked over his head.
They both laugh when Dustin falls over in a heap. Hannah, tucked safely in Will’s arms, giggles her happy little laughs.
“For that,” Robin says simply, letting her head fall to the top of her head. “You gave her a home.”
He drops a kiss on her head, warm and gentle, and hopes she knows how much of a home she gave him, too.
“This one! This is the one, I’m sure of it.”
Steve sighs, one that really makes a hunch of his back before he squints up at the tree that Dustin has painstakingly looked for while trudging up the tree farm for the last hour. Mike forgot the tape measurer when they all stuffed themselves into Eddie’s van but Dustin promised that it would be fine and he could eyeball it and it’ll all work out perfectly.
Steve doesn’t really buy that.
“Dude. It looks too tall.”
“It’s not. The snow and the sun it’s making a glare - it’s tricking your already shitty eyes. This is fine.”
“It doesn’t even look like it’ll fit on the top of the car.”
“It wouldn’t fit on your car which is why we brought Eddie’s van. And really. Are you about to deny our darling Hannah the Christmas tree of her dreams?”
Steve’s eyes drift down to where Hannah, bundled in so many coats she looks like the Michelin Man, is strapped to Dustin’s front in her carrier, shrieking and kicking her legs with delight.
“Alright, peach. The Rockefeller tree it is.”
Steve needs muscle and not useless shrieking so he tells Mike to meet up with El and Will at the cocoa stand. Lucas helps him cut down the tree and he’s pretty sure they’re both thinking about murdering Dustin as he yells out useless instructions - the only thing stopping them from ramming the tree into him is the fact that he’s got the Hannah buffer.
It’s just as frustrating getting the tree into the house. El has a perpetual nosebleed in silent assistance while he, Lucas, Nancy, and Robin are practically screaming at each other to make it off the car, into the doorway, and upright into the foyer.
And guess what.
It’s too tall.
The top of the tree slants to the side, mimicking the end of a Santa hat. They can’t put up a traditional tree topper, but Will ends up making a cool star out of paper that they end up tying up there, and the whole Santa hat look is complete.
The tree becomes a collage of the Harrington’s nice crystal ornaments and the ones the kids make or buy for cheap. All in all, he thinks it looks very them. The lights are strung, the presents wrapped, and Steve tries not to think of his mother’s favorite angel tree topper that wouldn’t have made it on the top anyhow.
They do Secret Santa. Steve draws Nancy’s name and absolutely despairs for a week straight, and Robin and Eddie have to hear him go back and forth, wanting to get her something nice without coming on too strong or giving the wrong message. In the end, he still leans on the honest and mushy side because it’s still Nancy and he’ll always love her in some kind of way.
It all works out in the end when she gives him a teary smile and a hug after opening the leather journal and the handwritten note he wrote her.
Steve is the last to receive a gift, and Eddie is the last to give one. “Hope you like it, Stevie,” he says, trading a carefully wrapped gift for Hannah.
As Eddie rocks her back and forth on her hip, he opens the box to reveal a denim vest, much like the one Steve borrowed that fateful day in the Upside Down, but this one has its own patches.
“I picked them out myself,” Eddie preens. “Painted the back and everything.”
Steve is touched but then howls with laughter when he pulls out a second, Hannah-sized one. Steve thinks it’s too cute, crying with laughter as he tries to tell Eddie that she’s going to outgrow it in about three days but Eddie doesn’t care. Anything for a photo he says.
And Steve’s gotta say - their Christmas pictures that year are quite something.
Somewhere after Christmas and before New Years Steve accidentally kisses Max.
In retrospect, he can’t believe it didn’t happen sooner. Hannah is cute enough to eat which means he’s constantly kissing the crown of her head, kissing her cheeks, and blowing raspberries on her stomach. So one day, after he’s scrambling to let Zebra out and leave the house before his shift at the fire station, he leans over and kisses Hannah from her place in the baby bouncer. “Bye, peach,” he mumbles into her cheek before he moves over and does the same to one Maxine Mayfield who is sitting on the floor beside her.
He doesn’t realize what he’s done until he’s got one foot out the door and Robin shrieks, “Hey, where’s my kiss!?”
“Sorry, Max!” he squeaks, trying not to look back. “Baby Brain? Won’t happen again.” He tries to duck as Robin races towards him, but it’s useless. “No, Rob, please, you have lipstick-!” she grabs his cheeks and places a quick firm kiss on his lips.
“Mwah!” Robin declares, patting his cheek before she rubs off said lipstick with a wet thumb. “I hate being left out.”
When he comes home, he makes sure Robin is nowhere to be seen before he kisses Hannah in greeting; he dares catch Max’s gaze, only to find her sporting a playful pout with her index finger pressed into her cheek.
“Aren’t you gonna say hello?”
He rolls his eyes before he reaches over and gently tips her head forward, smacking a kiss to the top of her head. “Hey, kiddo. Missed you.”
“Oh, so it’s true?!” Eddie squawks from the couch. The light and airy tune he was playing on his guitar turns a little sour, like the soundtrack of an intense movie. “Buckley told me but I thought it a lie. I’m gettin my kiss. C’mere.” He puckers his lips. “And by all means, use your tongue.”
Steve chucks a throw pillow at his face. “In your dreams, Munson.”
But dreams turn into reality when they all huddle at Steve’s house on New Years’ Eve. Midnight strikes and Eddie grabs him by the collar, hauls him to his face, and kisses him with tongue just like he wanted.
The kids get a picture of it, and it’s up on the fireplace mantle in a week.
When Hannah gets sick for the first time, she really goes all out.
It starts with Steve calling Joyce Byers at two in the morning when Hannah’s fever starts creeping up fast. The snow is piling up outside but she makes it to his house in the blink of an eye to help him. He’s ready to make whatever weird home remedy moms seem to know but Joyce is only there five minutes before she breaks his heart by telling him she really thinks they should take her to the hospital.
Robin and Eddie end up coming with him, and the emergency room wait is one of the most miserable experiences of his life. He’s never liked seeing someone sick but having Hannah sick is absolute torture. The poor thing is wheezy and far too warm, her whining so much softer because her lungs just aren’t working the way they should. There isn’t a cuddle in the world that can make her feel better, and it rips his heart into pieces.
It doesn’t stop him from murmuring sweet nothings to her. His lips are like a phantom, ghosting over her forehead with soft kisses. “I know you don’t feel good, peach. It won’t last. Just hang on, honey. I’ve got you.”
It turns out to be a nasty upper respiratory infection. Out of an abundance of caution, they admit her for intravenous medications to get her fever down quickly, and once deemed manageable, Steve is sent home with a plethora of instructions, medicines, and fear in his heart.
He doesn’t sleep the whole day, and aside from a ten-minute doze here and there, he doesn’t sleep the next night either. He holds her close and studies her carefully, watching the rise and fall of her chest, listening for something that doesn’t sound right, ready to race back to the hospital if need be. Zebra is unusually quiet, always following Steve as he moves from room to room, only to settle on the floors a few feet away, protecting, just like him.
In the warm light of the lamp-lit living room at two in the morning, Eddie catches Steve staring at the phone on the wall in the kitchen.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Eddie asks. “Or, rather, you need a quarter for the phone?” He jokes. “I can call Joyce if you need me to.”
Steve’s laying on the floor, propped up against one of the recliners, a pillow behind his back. He doesn’t really know how he ended up there but Hannah is asleep and he doesn’t dare move. “No, I don’t need to call her.”
Maybe it’s the storyteller in him, or his upbringing on the sidelines and propensity to watch and listen, but Eddie can always hear the words unsaid. He heaves himself off the couch and comes to sit beside him, and they're knee to knee again, shoulder to shoulder. “Have you called your mom?”
Steve rolls his tongue along his teeth. His emotions are all over the place. “I don’t know what to say to her.”
Eddie shrugs. “Just say hello. She can go from there.” He leans down, lips almost on the shell of his ear. “Moms are good like that.”
He shifts slightly, careful not to jostle Hannah. He looks Eddie up and down as if he could find the answer written on him someplace. He finally meets his eyes. “Do you talk to your mom?” He asks because he realizes then and there, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything about his mom.
Eddie’s smile is wry. “I do, but not in the same way you do.” He looks up, and his gaze stays there and -
“Oh,” Steve breathes out. “I’m sorry. ”
“Me too.” Eddie sighs. “Uncle Wayne said she was selfish to take all those pills, but I dunno. It's complicated. I know that she-”
Steve waits with bated breath.
“She did the best she could.”
“I don’t get it.”
Beside him, Mike sighs, exhaling every bit of breath in his body. Eddie, bless him, is on a mission and has more patience than Steve has ever seen him possess. “No, no, it’s okay. Don’t get discouraged. I know it’s a lot, and your brain just wants to reject it, but, once you get it you get it. Get it?”
Steve looks down at the homemade instruction sheet - the handwriting of Dustin, Mike, and Eddie spread about - and tries not to feel overwhelmed. “So I start with picking a race.”
“Uh-huh. We’re not focused on getting a campaign together just yet. I just want you to try and build the character.”
Steve’s nose wrinkles as he looks at the list to choose from. Hannah’s in a sling, sleeping against his chest, and he stops himself from bouncing his knee up and down. “So there’s humans, elves, and half-elves. But a half-elf is not a halfling.”
“Correct.”
“....Then what’s a halfling?”
“If you think too long about this, we’ll never get anywhere,” Mike says.
"...Can I be a paladin?"
Eddie's smile is....interesting. He might finally be cracking. "I do remember Dustin telling me you retained that word. But that's a class and not a race."
"And those are....different?"
Mike's forehead hits the table.
Not wanting to test anyone's patience any longer, Steve makes an impulsive decision. “I want to be a Dragonborn.”
Mike groans and Eddie smacks him upside the head. “Excellent choice, Steve.”
“Can I name her Hannah?”
Mike says no at the same time Eddie says of course.
Steve laughs. He isn’t sure if he’s ever gonna play the game, but dipping his toes in their world puts a smile on Eddie’s face that tattoos itself in his memory for years to come.
One day Steve comes home covered in soot with the taste of someone’s last breath on his lips.
He’s a zombie in his own home, his brain unable to process it. His life horrors thus far have been neatly separated into another entire dimension, and he hasn’t had something so difficult, so sad, so completely human, kick him in the face like this in some time.
He’s got a sprained wrist and a dislocated shoulder that he may or may not have had Coleman pop back in himself, but he doesn’t care. He keeps Hannah in his line of sight at all times, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest, and tries not to remember the smell of deep burns.
Dustin is the one that pulls him into a hug first, and then the truth is falling out of Steve’s lips in an exhausted sigh.
“I couldn’t save the kid.”
He squeezes Steve harder and maybe it should feel like the air is getting sucked out of him, but it does the opposite. It’s a familiar doppelganger of hands cracking ribs and lips on lips - it’s the grip of Dustin’s hands in the back of his shirt that reminds him that his soul still breathes.
Max and Robin want to throw Hannah a birthday party.
Steve doesn’t oppose celebrating, but he thinks a party of their typical Thanksgiving or Christmas scale seems like a bit overkill. The girls assure him that he’s being stupid and it doesn’t matter that Hannah will never remember it because Steve will. He’ll remember how much he loved her.
Can’t argue with that.
Robin and Nancy go with him for the essentials: balloons, streamers, little party hats with pom poms on the top, and elastic strings that are definitely too tight for any adult's head. Nancy walks into a bakery and stares at the choices all while Steve has a grip on her elbow, trying to get her back out the door.
“But they have cinnamon flavor,” Nancy tells him and he smiles because it’s been a long time since he’s seen her puppy-dog eyes and childish pout. “Oh! Oh! Peaches and cream! Steve!”
“I can bake her a cake,” Steve whispers, trying not to insult the shopkeeper. “I want to bake her cake. Okay?”
He ends up with the back of his car filled with ingredients for far too many cake options: confetti, pumpkin spice, double chocolate, lemon, and a coca-cola cake, which is beyond him -
When Steve walks into the house, there’s already a cake made.
Clementine.
Eddie’s in the kitchen at the sink, washing a pan. The groceries in Steve’s hand kind of fall gracefully at this side as he stares at the kitchen island, counting the candied clementines, staring at the glaze like he’s afraid it’ll drip off the plate entirely and walk away. He blinks. “You baked?”
“No,” Eddie admits, eyes flickering up the stairs. “I mean. I helped, but, um, actually, -”
“Steve! Honey, is that you?”
He whips around, sure that his eyes are deceiving him before he’s collected in a bone-crushing hug, his nose assaulted by the scent of perfume that he hasn’t smelled in months.
“Mom?” He whispers, his arms coming to hug her back. His finger grip her corduroy jacket and her blonde hair tickles his face and it sinks in. She’s here. “Mom!” He laughs, the shock wearing off. The house is filled with their laughter, lung-popping in a way that gives him an airy, drunk feeling.
When they pull back she cups his cheeks in her hands. He waits for her to smooth her thumbs along the stubble of his jaw before she plants a kiss on the apple of his cheek. “Hey, peach. Long time no see.”
He leans into her touch and smiles.
Bertie Harrington fits right in.
Steve didn’t really have any doubt. Part of the deal with being one of the town’s most favored neighbors means you’re quite the charismatic individual. His mom has always had a voice that invites you in, warm and tinted with a country twang that is hard to pinpoint if you didn’t know any better. She’s always standing tall, her hair in perfect loose curls, clothes immaculately tailored. She’s a homemaker, always has been at heart, and within just a few days she takes to helping Max keep her hair braided, makes sure Robin always has clean clothes and makes sure Eddie always has his cane within reach.
But he sees some change. For one, her make-up is lighter, her red lipstick long gone and he can see the freckles on her face. Her clothes are more relaxed - jeans and a t-shirt - and frequently steals one of Eddie’s favorite jean jackets. She looks older in a way Steve relates to, aged by life’s difficulties, by circumstances out of one’s control. But, she smiles more. Looks happier.
She doesn’t mention his dad. He doesn't either.
Hannah is often attached to her hip, along for the ride for whatever his mom might be doing. The morning of Hannah’s party, she’s at the stove making omelets for breakfast, quietly asking Max to chop peppers, onions, and mushrooms.
“I’m never gonna get her back, am I?” Steve teases, hiding a grin behind his coffee mug. Zebra waits patiently behind Max, who starts tossing pieces of pepper over her shoulder.
Bertie simply hums, dropping a kiss on Hannah’s cheek. “I’d never take her from her dad. We’re just bonding! Look, us foster kids, we gotta stick together.”
This is all stuff Steve has known, but it’s new information for the rest of them. Robin’s mouth is faster than her brain. “You were a foster kid, Mrs. H?”
But it’s okay. His mother has never been shy. “Sure was. Let’s see: there was Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence, Mr. John, Miss Candy, Mr. and Mrs. Marks. Oh, and of course, Mrs. Queen. God, I loved Mrs. Queen. She painted her brick house black and planted violets everywhere.”
It’s quiet as she finishes the food, only passing Hannah back over to Steve before she sits down, the last to dig in. She kisses his cheek and watches as he picks at his food. “You ate too much clementine cake, didn’t you?” she whispers conspiringly.
He gives her a guilty smile, his nose wrinkling. “It’s my favorite.”
Another kiss finds its way into his hair. “I know.”
It’s no surprise to Steve that about thirty seconds after cutting the cake Max shoves a piece of it down Lucas’ shirt.
It’s all in good fun. There’s nothing but smiles and laughs to go around. Nancy and Robin decorated the living room with lavender balloons and silver streamers. El has discovered just how fun noise makers are and Hopper goes way overboard on the gift-giving.
Hannah doesn’t cry until Mike accidentally pops a balloon and scares her.
“Shit, shit,” he curses, rushing to pick up Hannah to soothe her. He shoots Steve a sheepish look as he passes her over to him.“Sorry, man.”
She screams her poor little head off for about two minutes straight before Eddie runs out of the room only to return with his acoustic guitar. “I got it, I got it,” he says, fiddling with the pegs on the headstock, plucking the strings into tune.
Steve’s heard Eddie play the guitar countless times - from Metallica to silly little acoustic runs - and he’s heard him sing, too. But as he leans in close, strumming a familiar tune, he realizes it’s the first time he’s ever heard Eddie sing without trying to elicit a laugh.
His voice sounds like honey. “From this valley, they say you are going, I will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile -”
Steve feels his heart hammer in his chest, both touched at the sight and embarrassed at the realization that he’s been heard. But then his mother is lighting up, slapping his shoulder, and whispers it’s your song! In his ear before jumping in.
“For they say you are taking the sunshine, that has brightened our pathway awhile.”
As expected, it soothes Hannah immediately. Steve has just enough time to wipe her tears and hand her over to his mom before Max comes over and smashes a piece of cake into his hair.
Typical.
But he doesn’t mind. She seems so much like herself these days, full of snarky comments and sly grins. The wheelchair has been abandoned in the corner for a week now.
Eddie meets him by the sink to help pick frosting out of his hair. He’s got two party hats that sit like horns on the top of his head, but all in all, it looks silly with the metallic pom poms and the button that says Birthday Girl pinned to his jacket, courtesy of Robin.
“I didn’t know you sang so well. Thanks for doing that.”
“Of course. Wouldn’t be a bitchin’ party without a few tears.” He swipes his finger along Steve’s brow before he sticks it in his mouth, licking it clean. “But really, it was no trouble. I hope you know that I’d do anything for her. We all would. We all really love her, man. So, thanks for loving her first. She’s lucky to have you.”
Steve flushes and takes some of the frosting on his face and swipes it across Eddie’s nose to distract from his blush. It only serves to egg him on.
Whether or not Eddie leans over and licks frosting off of Steve’s ear is no one’s business but his own.
Until the photo that Jonathan takes makes it up onto the wall with all the others.
Bertie Harrington tumbles back out of Steve’s life as quickly as she came crashing in.
She doesn’t go without saying goodbye. She makes him one last breakfast and explains to him that she’s got unfinished business, both professionally and personally.
She makes a confession into the steam wafting from her coffee mug. “I’m sorry your dad and I haven’t been around the last few years.”
He doesn’t understand his parents, not really. Scott Harrington is dull and unapproachable, only putting on the charm if there's money to be earned. He's not some cruel villain in his storybook, but not all that special either. His mother is just the opposite, so vibrant when his dad's not around, but when they're together she's subdued and pale, and it seems any love they once had is gone, despite her protests. But it isn’t until he’s sitting there at the table with Hannah bouncing in his arms does he realize it’s never been about his dad. Steve would give Hannah the world. Any loving parent would. Which is exactly why his mother chases after his father, keeping his tongue out of other women’s mouths, making sure that he is the one and only son, heir to the endless opportunities their family has. This is the world she has to give.
He wants to tell her that he’d rather just have her. Her smile, her laugh, her sweet idioms, and her effortless style. He wants his mom around. But it's not that simple. They aren't the same. He knows this.
She’s just doing the best she can.
He supposes that’s all he can ask for.
“I understand. It’s okay.”
When they hug goodbye, he manages to keep the tears at bay. “Bye, Mom. Take care.”
“You too, peach.” The back of her hand gently brushes against the velvet soft skin of his daughter’s cheek. “You’ve got a real angel. I’m so proud of you. What you’ve done for her, it means a lot to me. The home you made with her. You’re a remarkable young man.” She kisses his cheek. “I love you both.”
She leaves, and it's a long time before she returns.
A few weeks after her party, the adoption papers are finalized. Hannah, with the hand-picked birthday and the carefully crafted name, officially becomes Hannah Harrington.
Steve wants a small celebration, something just for him to hold close. He takes her to the nearest zoo in hopes of learning a new little piece of her. He can tell she likes the otters and the bright colors on the peacocks, but the gorilla scares her too much. She’s wary of elephants, the flamingo's silhouette confuses her, and he spends fifteen minutes saying Zebra Zebra Zebra, trying to get it to be her first word because he thinks it’s funny, but she ends up just crying when he doesn’t let her pet it because, unfortunately, it’s not their dog.
They feed a giraffe. He helps her hold a cracker up and he’s delighted by her happy shriek when his purple tongue comes out and slobbers on her hand as it swallows the cracker whole.
When they come home, Eddie is at the kitchen table, scratching away at a notebook and strumming a song that sounds awfully like another cowboy song. When he looks up and sees it’s Hannah that's arrived, he gives a dazzling smile and she claps her hands as best she can in return, declaring,
“Eddie!”
Steve sighs, while Eddie’s eyes go wide as he stands up, chanting "no way no way!" Because of course, Eddie's name would be his daughter’s first word.
But Steve can’t find it in himself to mind one bit.
(Even if he lost a bet with Robin and Nancy.)
The next time Steve comes home covered in soot, he’s got a smile of victory and the exhaustion of a job well done. His heartbeat roars in his ears and he’s alive, alive, alive.
When he walks into the kitchen, there’s a cake on the counter.
Clementine.
Eddie’s at the table instead of the sink this time, nursing a cup of coffee. There are two plates set out, clean, with forks set neatly across them.
Steve blinks, gesturing to the setup of it all. “You baked?
The chair screeches against the floor as Eddie stands up in a clumsy rush. He swallows thickly, wiping clammy hands down the front of his jeans. “Um. Yeah. This time I baked. All by myself.”
He walks closer to the counter, counting the candied clementines, staring at the glaze like he’s afraid it’ll drip off the plate entirely, and walk away. “You baked my favorite,” he whispers like a confession, like something sacred between them. And in the warm light of the kitchen, he supposes it may be.
Eddie’s smile goes crooked, soft and warm. The nervous energy starts to fade away. “I did,” he says just as quietly. “So won’t you sit by my side if you love me, do not hasten to bid me adieu?”
Steve laughs a little, stepping even closer. “If I love you, huh.”
His gaze flickers down, a moment of shyness before he meets his eyes again. “That is how the song goes. Right?”
Steve hums, reaching over to push back some of Eddie’s hair from his face. “I suppose it does.”
When they kiss, it tastes like clementines.