Work Text:
When he was told to get a job Steve wondered if he should have carried on retying his parents connections to him for the first time in years. He doubted it would change anything though, so carried on accepting the instruction.
If he did a couple of charms to ensure wherever accepted his application couldn’t be brought or bullied by his parents and should be somewhere he could find more important connections for himself, well, that was nobodies business but his own.
He hadn’t expected Scoops Ahoy to be the one that stuck though.
~
Thinner than a spiders thread but still strong; that was the connection that Steve saw appear for his coworker the day he started with Scoops Ahoy and it confused him.
There were two other staff members they might work with and both of them had embroidery floss connections, easily snapped, so he wasn’t sure why Robin was different, beyond the likelihood they’d share the most shifts together.
“Enough staring at the air, Harrington. We’ve got customers incoming.” She clicked where he’d been debating the string before pointing over the counter.
Perhaps the difference was that she didn’t care about who he’d been in school one bit and, even if she seemed to dislike him, was getting to honestly know him.
~
At least the mall didn’t appear to be a focus of the webs at the moment too.
Steve had looked after the first time they dealt with the Upside Down and spiders could build their webs quickly. Once when Nancy was trying to make him study in the library he’d even found a book that mentioned caves made of spiders webs.
It only made him call the web of the Upside Down’s connections a web more resolutely, but also he worried that would be the fate of Hawkins. It meant he kept watch on the connections around him, hoping they would never be swallowed into the web of monsters the lab had brought to it.
Each time he saw more webs appearing he wanted to tear and break them, but couldn’t bring himself to do so. What worse thing could doing that thoughtlessly cause?
~
“I don’t think we’re going to be heroes, Dustin.” Steve groaned.
He’d thought there was no chance the Russians had anything to do with the mess of webs the lab had caused growing recently; had hoped the webs that were near the mall were because of the tunnels from last time since none ever seemed to be in the building except when the kids and their connections from fighting it were around.
But now Erica and Robin were touching the web and they hadn’t left the damn lift yet.
“Doubted you would from the start. The army doesn’t like small town kids getting honours over them for this shit.” Robin quipped, “Why have you seen sense now?”
He shrugged, trying to think up a plausible excuse, “Unless we’re lucky hiding whenever those doors open we’re more likely to just be missing people, right now.”
“Then let’s get hiding places sorted now!” Dustin insisted, jumping up and looking at the various things in the lift with them.
Steve wasn’t hopeful that any hiding place would be good enough to save them.
~
Their hiding places had only delayed this. Stopping Dustin and Erica from getting captured too was barely a victory and Steve no longer cared about the damage he could be doing.
He was captured, had no guarantee the kids were safe and was certain that Robin wasn’t, so he was going to fight with every method he could.
His hands might’ve been restrained but he cut and hacked at every string, thread and rope the Russians in his cell had. They deserved no connections and he’d do all he could to make it so.
He’d answer questions, obscure anything he knew and tear away, seeing the changes, the anger and pain the bastards would never understand.
Even when they knocked him out he was grimly satisfied knowing he’d done more damage to them than any pain they could be putting Robin through or his kids might face.
~
There was another rope among his connections: That was Steve’s first thought when he woke after the torture, feeling the weight of his connections before any physical sensations.
He was right but also wrong. There was a new rope there, pulling off into the Russian basement, probably to Erica, he thought when he opened his eyes, but the weight came from a chain going behind him to Robin as she babbled pleas for him to wake up and threats to their capturers.
~
“I didn’t want the web to get you; To get anyone else.” Steve muttered into the toilet. Throwing up wasn’t fun, even if the high from whatever they’d been given had been and he blamed those two things for the empty belief that he could talk to the toilet in place of Robin and she wouldn’t hear.
Robin let out a confused grunt, “What web? Are you still drugged?”
“Yeah, throwing up doesn’t get rid of something injected. Are we still telling the truth?” He asked, glad there wasn’t any compulsion to explain more.
“Try lying to me, about whatever web you mentioned, maybe?” She offered, a thud suggesting she’d kicked her legs up the cubicle wall.
He groaned, deciding to give it a go and hoping she’d let him end after one sentence. Coming down from a beating and drugs was not how he wanted to explain his powers to anyone. “That’s what connections to the Upside Down look like. Okay, you tell me something now.”
“Not something you want to explain?” She wryly muttered, “Ask me something. I don’t know what to say.”
Steve shrugged, “When was the last time you wet yourself?”
He was listening and taking part in the conversation to the best of his abilities. He wanted to understand what Robin was saying and how she reacted to the confession he found himself making, but the chain distracted him.
It had changed colour when he described Robin as his crush, thrumming with emotion, and with everything they’d just gone through he couldn’t remember what a murky dark blue usually meant beyond that he’d usually been the one it came from in the past. It had been years since he’d seen the shade though: Of that Steve was sure.
He much preferred the rich green it became when he joked about Tammy being a dud, a playful, joyful colour that he tried to get the kids to show as often as he could.
~
The Upside Down was shut down and Steve hoped it would be for good now. Lingering webs did not support that hope, but at least they were far far fewer than had been around Hawkins just a few days before.
After the fire, Steve had gotten home late and only just mustered up the energy to shower before curling into his bed, whining when his injuries made getting comfortable so much more difficult.
He hadn’t been surprised that Robin called and then got her Dad to bring her over early the next morning and was actually more surprised that Dustin and Erica hadn’t tried the same thing. They had both radioed him instead, checking he was alive and updating him on anyone else they’d spoken to that morning. Erica did complain that now she had to copy her brother in asking for a radio which wasn’t cool at all.
“Why are there stones in your sofa, Steve?” Robin called, having been set on collapsing onto a couch while he got drinks and snacks.
Steve smiled at the question since most people didn’t notice them at all. “They’re crystals. Dad hates them.” He knew that wasn’t an explanation, but wanted to go into explaining how he could see connections as well as witchcraft slowly, with humour if possible now.
“Why are you hiding crystals in your sofa then?” Robin asked, watching as he carried the tray he’d put together through.
He shrugged after putting the tray down to avoid anything spilling, “First it was because they’re meant to encourage peace and communication but now it’s because my parents stay here less when I’ve got them placed. My dad is anything but peaceful apparently.”
“Is that like, witch stuff?” Her nose scrunched as if just asking that was absurd.
He nodded, “Yeah, but not to the extent you’re probably imagining now.”
She straightened, leaning towards him, looking eager, “Explain.”
~
A week had past since they fought the mindflayer and Robin became the first person Steve fully explained his witchcraft too and one thing kept confusing Steve.
Usually if a connection confused him, he’d have to just watch, try and learn from seeing how the person it was for interacted, and make guesses, but this was multiple connections and he could talk to Robin about them now.
That was why after all the kids had been with him for the afternoon, he began, “I don’t get it. The connections didn’t change.”
Robin looked from him, to the door as if one of the kids would come back in to explain, “What connections?”
“To Hopper.” Steve pointed out the door. “Nobodies connections changed except growing sad.”
She frowned at him, stating as if he was missing something obvious, “Well, he did die.”
“These aren’t connections to someone dead! I’ve seen those with Barbara Holland and Bob Newby. They change when someone dies. Hopper’s haven’t.” He folded his arms with a huff, “And I don’t get it.”
“Do you think he survived?” Robin asked slowly, but had to follow it up with the obvious next question, “Why wouldn’t he have come to us then?”
Steve looked at her thinking, his expression slowly getting sadder, “I’m going to strengthen those connections and do everything I can to send him help, but yeah, I guess the happier alternative for now is depressingly that he died.”