Work Text:
Well if I could apologize.
Put the light back in your eyes.
No one’s ever looked at me that way.
“Just be careful.”
“Yeah. Don’t worry.”
El and Mike’s whispers are barely audible in the quiet of the night. They have their foreheads pressed together, their hands intertwined; the radio station’s neon signs are glowing over their heads but they don’t notice - too busy staring lovingly into each other’s eyes.
Lucas can’t quite pinpoint the feeling building in his chest. Envy? Nostalgia? He just wishes it wouldn’t hurt so much.
And he can be honest in his own head – even if Max had been there, and they were still together, they wouldn’t get all mushy like Mike and El. That just isn’t their style. Maybe Max would punch his shoulder and threaten to kill him if he didn’t come back alive – or something along those lines; and then she’d hug him, throw him a fiery look and smile that sly smile of hers that he used to love.
He thinks of her now, lying on a hospital bed like a broken doll. Her red hair in two tight braids; face so pale, eyes closed, staring into nothingness.
His chest constricts even more.
“Hey, lovebirds!” he calls Mike and El, pointing the bike’s light at them. “Time to go.”
The sudden flash blinds them, and they finally separate; but Mike tells her something else, his voice still soothing: “I’ll be back before you know it. Promise.”
El nods and releases her grip on his hands. Her eyebrows are scrunched in worry as she glances at the van where Steve and Jonathan are waiting for them, working up the last details of the plan; then she turns to Lucas. “Don’t do anything… rush,” she warns him, somehow menacing. “Just stick to the plan.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And if anything goes wrong, you just - abort.”
“Yeah. Roger that.”
Lucas hopes his tone sounds cheerful enough, but her expression doesn’t ease one bit. He gives El a quick hug, then swallows the lump in his throat as she and Mike share another heartbreaking look - and they take off, riding into the night.
*
“Hey?”
They are leaning against the van, bikes forgotten on the ground; waiting for the signal to start the operation. Darkness and silence all around – yet it feels like a clock is ticking in the air, setting the rhythm for their breathing.
Mike is fidgeting, looking very young in his military attire; his eyes are narrowed to slits, like he is searching Lucas’ face for some kind of disease.
“What?”
“How have you been holding up?”
Lucas’ heart skips a beat. “What do you mean?”
“Well…”
He sees Mike swallowing hard, pouting, like he is trying to find the right words. “We haven’t spoken much lately, with everything that’s going on,” he explains, “but I know it’s been tough for you. With Max and all.”
Tough. Lucas has been visiting Max at the hospital every day for almost eighteen months; the bare walls of her room have become as familiar as those of his own house. He is something of an expert on Wonder Woman now - collected every comic he could find in order to read them to her. He’s been telling jokes to her lifeless form, and crying in silence when no one else is around. School has been even more tiring; he has put on a normal face for his friends, acting like everything is okay and he is not still having nightmares about Max lifting up in the air, her bones breaking one by one like twigs. Tough is a euphemism.
“Don’t sweat it, man,” he says instead, averting his gaze. “I’m fine.”
They need to focus on the mission at hand right now: stopping Vecna. He is not in the mood for pep talks, and even less for stupid shit speeches like the one his parents tried to feed him last week; about how it’s been more than a year and maybe he should spend less time at the hospital and move on with his life. Max would want you to, they told him.
Like hell she would. Max wanted to live, that’s what she wanted; she told him herself, as blood poured out of her eyes and she trembled in his arms, feeling her life slip through her fingers. And Lucas just stood there, powerless; helpless. Watching the girl of his dreams fade away - unable to hold on.
Mike’s frown calls him back to the present. “Look, I know that you’re not fine, okay? I get it. Nobody knows it better than me.”
It’s useless to try and deny it again, so Lucas just shakes his head in defiance.
“How could you possibly understand, Mike?”
“Well, remember when El went missing for almost a year and we all thought she was dead? Remember how I kept saying that I was fine?”
Lucas holds his breath. Yes, he remembers that year.
El had vanished into thin air after defeating the Demogorgon. In a way Mike had faded away too, walking around like a mean, bitter ghost of himself; plain miserable, even while acting tough in front of everyone else. Lucas wonders why he never made that connection. “You’re right,” he admits. “Sorry. I forgot.”
“It’s okay.”
Mike furrows his brow, as if talking about those memories still hurts. “I called her every night on my damn Supercom, even though she never answered. I thought I was going crazy. I never told you guys, because… I don’t know, I guess I felt stupid. For having hope.”
An understanding passes between them, and Lucas feels tears prickling at his eyes.
“Just like you go to the hospital everyday,” Mike continues, “and read comics to her, or make her listen to Kate Bush, or whatever. It’s okay to have hope. We all do. And, my point is… El came back.” He puts a hand on Lucas’ arm, squeezes it. “If El came back from the dead, then Max can definitely wake up from a coma.”
Lucas nods. He knows they can’t be sure about that; and there’s nothing in Mike’s little speech that he hasn’t heard before. But somehow he feels the weight on his shoulders get a bit lighter. “Yes. I mean, if Demogorgons exist…”
“… and Mind Flayers…”
“…and parallel dimensions…”
They break in a nervous chuckle. “Yeah,” Mike agrees, “then anything is possible.”
There’s no need to say anything else. It’s always been like this, with Mike. They might butt heads every now and then, and even give each other a hard time; but at the end of the day they’re brothers. And even more similar than they let on.
Lucas puts on his binocular, staring into the distance.
“Let’s kill this son of a bitch.”