Chapter Text
Even when they were just a cluster of scrawny kids on bikes, Mike was always the one with the plan. He wasn’t the strongest—Lucas could out-sprint him, Will could duck and vanish when games turned rough, and Dustin’s mind was a machine, sharp and tireless. Mike was something different. He was the center they all orbited, the one who held the whole strange mess of their group together, no matter what the world threw at them.
It wasn’t anything he decided or wanted. The pull to lead felt more like gravity, a weight that had settled on his shoulders back when monsters were just stories, and every problem could be solved with a secret handshake or a thrown D20. When the real dark things crept into their lives—the things that no parent or teacher could see—Mike never hesitated. He was the first to believe, the first ready to fight, even as he tried to deny it, always ready to drag the group deeper into adventure if it meant saving a friend.
He asked the questions the others were too scared to voice. He argued with the grownups, especially those who have a habit of acting like they knew better, and challenged the cops. When Will disappeared, it was Mike’s face people remembered, grim and determined, refusing to let the world shrink around their loss. When El stumbled out of the night and into their basement, Mike was the one who promised her she was safe, who swore—quietly, fiercely—that he’d never let the bad guys win.
His courage wasn’t loud. He doubted himself, ached with fear like the rest, but he hid it because someone had to. When the Upside Down bled into Hawkins, when monsters prowled and all the doors felt less sturdy than they were yesterday, the others would look to Mike and know that as long as he had hope—he had to have hope—there was still a chance. And so, he bore it: every burden, every secret, every impossible decision.
He would never admit he needed protecting, too.
Somehow despite it all, he was the last one standing.
None of his plans work, in the end they weren't enough. He was a leader who couldn't protect those that stood behind him. He couldn't look out for the party, couldn't even be with them at the end.
Mike’s world was a graveyard. Not the literal, stone-and-flowers kind—though he could rattle off the rows at Hawkins Memorial by heart—but the slow, empty drifting through a town drained of the people who ever made it matter.
A town with barely anyone left.
He couldn’t forget the way they’d gone. El’s eyes, wide with fear the moment before she vanished beneath the surface. Will’s hand slipped out from his. Lucas shouting his name in the dark, so loud at first and then so small—so final. Dustin was gone before anyone could scream. His parents, little Holly, Nancy. Even those kids. Every door Mike opened was another empty room.
Some mornings, he lay in bed and counted his breaths, not because it calmed him, but because it felt wrong that he could still do it. He could still walk. Still eat. Still bike to the middle of town and sit on the curb and watch the birds peck at old wrappers. He waited for someone—anyone—to walk up, to tell him this was a bad dream. But Hawkins was silent except for the wind and the far-off hum of the power station.
Mike talked to ghosts. He muttered apologies to the quiet echo in his bedroom. Blamed himself because he was the one who thought they could save each other, fix everything with walkie talkies and plans and trust. He could still hear his friends’ jokes, and then he’d say something back, but the silence after made his skin crawl.
He wouldn’t let himself forget, though. Survivors always say it gets easier, but Mike clung to every memory, every burst of laughter in the Wheeler kitchen, every wild bike ride, every promise made in a circle of trembling flashlights. Better the ache of memory than the total blankness that tried to eat him, like the thing from the Upside Down, only bigger and colder.
Every day he carried his guilt like armor and like a wound—a way to remember and a way to pay what felt like his debt. They were all gone. He was still here. The pain reminded him he hadn’t left them behind.
Hawkins was an active war zone, bordered off from the rest of the world. Most of the survivors got out when they could, the others didn't make it in time. The military sealed them within this hell, it was only a matter of time before the monsters got them.
He never saw it coming. Mike ran through scorched woods under a sky streaked sickly purple, breath scraping his throat raw. Branches clawed at him, ripping his shirt, snatching tufts of hair. Somewhere behind, the creature shrieked—the sound of metal twisted and tortured—much too close. He tripped, fell, palms driving into black mud. A flash: claws like knives. He rolled, too late. The thing caught him, slammed him down, all seven limbs pinning him in wet, cold ground. More and more monsters keep appearing, new ones they've never seen before. Sulfur filled his mouth. Its face—rot, darkness, a twisted smile—descended. Mike screamed, but no one could hear except the thing. Its claws slid under his ribs, fire racing up his spine, then slick, ravenous agony. He reached for his bag, knowing he carried one of Nancy's guns inside, but the monster dragged him out of reach.
He died thinking, Please, not like this. Not before he gets to avenge any of them.
Mike awoke with a jolt, heart pounding so hard he thought it might break through his chest. Sunlight poured through faded curtains. The scent of breakfast, not of fire, drifted on the air. He gasped, clutching his side—no blood, no pain, just fingers small and soft. Tiny battered hands, a kid’s hands.
He stumbled to the mirror. A gap-toothed grin, wild hair, a face he hadn’t seen for years. His face, eleven years old again. The shouting downstairs was his mom, her voice young. The calendar on his wall read November third, 1982.
Mike, who’d died in the Upside Down, was back at the beginning, no, before the beginning. An entire year before everything started. Mike knew: the nightmare wasn’t over. It was just beginning again.
Mike always made it look easy. The plans, the speeches, the wild, desperate moves when things got bad—his friends counted on him to know what to do next. It was his job. He was Mike, the Paladin, the unofficial leader. If he looked scared, if he shook, he hid it behind the quick bark of an order or the hurried sketch of a map nobody but him could read, but sometimes—late at night, elbows propped on his desk, the house flooded with silence and that sharp ache of missing people—he felt raw and small. Those were the moments his well-practiced words dried up. He’d stare at the phone, thumb hovering over the buttons, wanting to dial someone, anyone. Wanting to say something simple, like “I need you,” or even, “I can’t do this alone.” The words sat heavy in his mouth, never making it out.
Even worse is trying to say, “I love you,”. He’d rehearsed it, quietly, alone—standing in front of the mirror or mumbling into his pillow. Sometimes he’d almost try, almost let the need spill out in a conversation, but it always died in his throat. If there was anyone else going around, he’d be worried about what they’d think. That if they saw the whole truth—the scared and directionless part, the part that wasn’t sure—his grip as their anchor might slip away. It wasn’t pride, really, or even stubbornness. It was the sense that if he crumbled, they all would. He’d grown so used to keeping their world upright, watching for cracks and patching them before anyone else noticed. To admit he needed help felt like opening the front door to the Upside Down and saying, “Come in, I’m out of ideas.”
He lay awake, the words rattling around in his head, wishing someone would notice before he had to say it. Wishing—just once—he could hand off the burden without all the noise, and let someone else be the strong one, if only for a minute.
Mike felt it long before he admitted it, that cold more absolute than any Hawkins winter. It pressed into his bones at night, a nagging certainty that the monsters weren’t finished with him, that the trembling at the edges of the world was only the start. The others still believed—wanted to believe when they had the chance—that maybe, this time, everything was over, that they could go back to arcades and bike rides, to arguing about Star Wars in Mike's basement.
Mike smiled for them anytime the conversation came up. He tried. But every day, he saw signs the others missed—shadows narrowing across driveways, a breeze too chilly for even November, the feeling that each echo in the woods carried someone or something listening. He lay awake and turned it over in his mind, the way he did with chess problems or science homework: if the Upside Down came back, what would he do?And the answer kept winding back to a single, gut-hard truth. He couldn’t risk them. Not again. He pictured Lucas’s broken arm, Will’s nightmares, El standing bloody-nosed and dazed, Dustin’s terrified whisper: We’re not ready. He remembered their faces after every fight, the relief scuffed up with new scars. He’d been the one to lead them—sometimes into hope, too often into danger. This time had to be different. He can't lose them, not again.
So he started planning in secret. Kept a flashlight and a bat under his bed, personally adding nails to it. A notebook full of routes, timelines, and blind spots only he knew. The next time the world cracked open, Mike would walk into it alone—through the woods, down into the dark, bat clenched hard enough to make his palms ache. He’d be the shield, no matter how scared he was, because if he couldn’t save them all, he’d at least save them from this. He ran a lot, fast paced jogs for as long and as far as he could go. Practicing. Training his endurance. He told no one. Pretended, for as long as he could, that regular life was enough. And when the moment came, as he always knew it would, he steeled himself to go—not because he didn’t need his friends, but because loving them meant facing the darkness so they wouldn’t have to.
There was something wrong in the town of Hawkins, Indiana, you didn't have to be in the know to realize something wasn't right. Not with the land or the people themselves.
It was a hidden truth that everybody knew yet never addressed.
Lady Hawkins loved her land and her people, even those that weren't born here yet came to stay. Every person within Hawkins was her fated child. The good, the bad, and the monstrous. Even then, she had her favorites, those that she paid just a little more attention to. Those she mourned while living, those she wished that she could save yet could not interfere.
However, this is the first time she's experienced a child coming back.
She can sense what they've been through, the way death hovers over them like a shroud. This is one child she already lost, one who has found nothing but misery within her boundaries. One whose home has no longer felt like a home in years. A child who grew to fear her as time had passed. A child should never fear their mother. She may have failed this child once but Lady Hawkins was determined to save him now. It's why the moment he came back, the moment he ran from his house with a family that didn't notice his departure, she latched onto him. She cannot defy what fate has in store for the boy, but she can aid him in little ways. She can open the land to him, give him direction in times of need. Obscure his presence as needed, or as wished by the boy. She will look out for him as she should've in the past.
One year. One single year passes by in the blink of an eye. It's like he barely has any time at all before he's out of time.
Mike tried, really he did.
He went out on patrols through as much of Hawkins as he could every night.
He started training himself to build up his endurance.
He was becoming self-taught in regards to hand to hand combat. He's been to the local library so often that each of the librarians that work there now know him by name.
He's gotten away with stealing lighters, and even two pocket knives from the grocery store anytime he went with his mom.
He built his own nail bat and has it stored in the back of his closet.
The thing is, physically he is still just some scrawny little kid. He's limited in how much he can do, and get away with.
He was so paranoid about it all that it's like he's constantly thinking he's being watched. It doesn't help that everyone and their mother decided to start being real nosy. Mike can barely get anything done by himself without someone popping up to ask what he's doing. Since when did they care? Certainly not the first time around, and it's not like he tried reaching out to any of the adults or even his sister and her friends. It's just anytime he's not with the party, it seems as though someone thinks something is wrong with him. His parents don't notice, not really, not since he still invites Lucas, Will, and Dustin to come hang out in his basement. Only, it's not as often as it used to be. He can't hang out with them as much as he used to when he was younger.
He needs all the time he can get with planning.
Only it's like the less he saw of them the more Nancy or even Jonathan and Mrs. Byers would try reaching out to him. Each one of them would ask, ‘Did something happen? Are you okay?’ He doesn't understand it. Is it really so odd for him to just want some alone time?
It doesn't help that one of the nights he tried searching through the woods by Mirkwood, trying to note if anything's changed over the months. Hopper of all people was the one to find him. Mike barely biked a couple of feet before he heard sirens and someone calling out for him to wait a minute.
He wasn't expecting to see Hopper, or for him to get out of his truck and do that slow jog thing over to him.
It was only October- already October, the 29th to be exact. He had until November 6th to keep an eye out for the Demogorgon. Since it's already this late, less than eight full days before Will disappears. Why was Hopper here?
“Hey kid, what're you doing out so late?”
Right.
Hopper doesn't know him, doesn't know what's coming. None of them do. Mike grimaced, he always hated it whenever someone questioned him. It was weird. However it always felt like no matter what he said, it wouldn't be enough. They always expected more.
Saying he's just going for a walk gets him a hard stare and an order to get in the truck. The whole drive back to his house is an interrogation on what he was really doing outside, if anything was going on or if he was planning on meeting up with someone. What did Hopper think he was some sort of deviant? Mike has to practically beg Hopper not to get out to speak with his parents. They'd never let him hear the end of it, especially not his dad.
.
.
.
It starts as it always does, with the comments from others. It started off small, something mentioned off hand without any real thought behind it. Over time, more comments were made by more and more people.
It kept building up until it became them telling him what he was thinking, what he felt.
Now he can't even speak his mind without them saying how he's changed or asking if something was wrong because of his “sudden” mood swings. They're not mood swings, it's the same festering anger that's been in him all these years.
You can't blame him for not liking Will back, he's not an idiot of course he noticed how Will was with him. The only reason why he never brought it up was because he didn't want to make things awkward between them.
You can't blame him for not “showing emotions” or reacting the same way the others had from everything that's happened. Others got angry, drank, smoked, got high, and even tried to distract themselves from everything that happened.
There's nothing wrong with losing feelings for someone. Others had different relationships over the years, some even remaining single.
There's nothing wrong with being unsure about a relationship.
He's not being a bastard, or an asshole, or whatever you want to call him just because he feels the way he does. It doesn't have to make sense to the others, as long as it makes sense to him.
It's his life too, not just theirs. It's not just their feelings, their opinions that matter.
Mike doesn't want to deal with it. He doesn't want to talk about it either.
Now that he's been here for a year? A year of having to lie to his friends, of sneaking out and hiding everything he's been working on? A year of seeing just how young they all were when this started. A year of seeing the budding crush Will had for him? A year of seeing and now understanding the looks his parents gave one another, the snide comments, and Nancy's annoyance? A year of witnessing how isolated and detached Holly seemed from kids her own age? A year of catching glimpses of just how naive and truly clueless people were… Mike didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to think about it, and he certainly didn't want to have to address most things.
Only, he doesn't have a choice.
If he stays back, if he continues preparing yet not fully going through with anything— he'll just become a witness yet again to everything Hawkins and his friends, his family, will go through.
People think it's puberty.
He hears their comments, he knows that they think he's distancing himself and acting strange because he's growing up. That he's having an early rebellious phase. That he is pretending to be one of the cool kids—
Mike tried not to let his anger show. It's not their fault, they don't know what's coming.
No he's not going through puberty, not yet anyway. No he's not acting out or being rebellious like some teenager going against their parents.
No he's not trying to pretend to be one of the cool kids, one of the popular kids who think that they're all that.
Mike is trying to survive, and make sure the others all do too.
Or if they do end up dying despite everything he does, then maybe this time he'll die too, and stay dead.
Mike doesn't say a word about his run-in with Hopper, and for now it seems like Hopper hasn't told anyone about it either.
The night the others are downstairs in his basement with him, playing the very same campaign that he's debated on changing over and over again, Mike invites them all to sleep over. He spent the whole week begging his mom to let them sleep over, even asking her to speak with the others’ parents to get approval. Now it's just up to them to agree.
He asks them if they want to sleep over after the game ends with the dice lost.
They agree, and finally Mike can feel some of the tension leaving him.
The next day they all have to wake up extra early, the others need to be able to get to their houses and get ready for school. Mike doesn't ask for permission before he finds himself on his bike, riding alongside Will to the Byers household.
.
.
.
Two days later, Mike is out walking around yet again, only this time he's walking closer near Benny's. It's not time yet for him to run into Eleven, it's way too soon. However, if he can find her sooner… El told him about Benny, about how kind the man had been and how the bad people hadn't hesitated in killing him to get to her. He never knew Benny, never ate at his restaurant either, but he can vaguely recall seeing the guy in passing. If he can find a way to save Benny and find Eleven sooner? He'll do it.
The rest of the party is at home, getting ready to turn in for the night. Ever since he first woke up in the past, he made sure to make it a habit to use the walkie every night to check in with the others, brushing it off as simply wanting to say goodnight to them. Lucas called him corny, and Dustin had smiled at him while agreeing, but all of them were going along with it. Will always answered first, then Dustin, then Lucas. Soon, when the time is right, he'll have Eleven and Max joining the nightly check-ins. If he can find a way to reach her, then maybe Kali too.
Mike finds El the same night Will is supposed to go missing, only he knows Will is okay because he's with Lucas and Dustin sleeping in the basement. Mike was supposed to be down there too, but had waited until after everyone else fell asleep before he layered up and left on his bike. At first he was only going around to make sure he didn't see anyone else outside this late at night. He wanted to see for himself that the Demogorgon didn't grab anyone else. He's not foolish enough to believe that without Will the Demogorgon will just stay away, it killed Barb before and probably a bunch of others they didn't know about. He bikes out past Mirkwood, but doesn't see anything there, he keeps going until he loops around by Benny's. It's too soon for Eleven to be there, but she could always be somewhere in the area. She told him how she didn't go straight to Benny's, too scared of getting found by people from the lab. So she hid out in the woods, hungry and cold until she accidentally found Benny's restaurant and snuck inside.
Mike doesn't go inside, it's too late for him to be out by himself and he doesn't want to risk Benny trying to call anyone.
Mike leaves his bike behind some trees near the road. He has enough layers on with his best sneakers so that the cold doesn't bother him. It'd be nice if he had remembered to bring a scarf or even gloves, but at least it's not as cold as December will be. He's shivering slightly but not enough to be worried about it.
He can tell it's going to rain soon, he didn't need his memories of the future for that. He could smell it in the air.
He didn't call out for Eleven. Anyone who knows her name right now are the bad people from the lab and he doesn't want her thinking he's working with them. Mike doesn't have a compass with him, or a watch, but he thinks it hasn't been too long. The sky would look lighter, wouldn't it?
He should've brought a weapon. Anything to defend himself with.
What is he going to do if he runs into the Demogorgon? Scream and run away? Or what if he runs into anyone from the lab looking for Eleven? He highly doubts they'd take whatever excuses he can come up with and let him walk away.
.
.
.
Lady Hawkins has been watching after her son since the year he came back. She can tell that he is preparing for something, something big yet she does not know what to do to help him. Until tonight. Until he came out into the woods, searching with a fervor that startled her.
“Come on, Eleven… where are you?”
He's searching for the girl? The one who fled, her terror great enough that it spread out through all of Hawkins?
The girl who was not theirs, but they had welcomed in with joy.
If their child, their son, is searching for her then it must be connected to their coming back. Their coming back and the changes she could feel trying to infect her Hawkins like rot in her roots. Something had changed, something bad was coming and it seemed to be connected to her child. Hawkins swore to look after what is hers, and her son was one who she promised to look after and protect. She can lead him to the girl.