Chapter Text
Summer in Hawkins could be stifling. That was one thing that hadn’t changed since his youth.
The sun beat down with a relentless glare, driving families toward the coast or the sanctuary of the public pool. The streets were once again teeming with children and teenagers, drifting toward the recently opened shopping centers. Hawkins was still Hawkins—it just had a bit more concrete and a few less bikes abandoned on front lawns.
The atmosphere always made him nostalgic.
Steve leaned back in his dining chair and let out a long sigh, his mind drifting to a different kind of summer. Days at Scoops Ahoy, ice cream melting too fast, endless shifts… and discovering a secret Russian base alongside Robin, Dustin, and Erica Sinclair.
Good times, if anyone asked him.
Now, however, things were different. The Upside Down was gone, the government had stopped experimenting on children, and Hawkins had returned to its mundane roots. That meant his life was supposed to do the same.
In theory.
In practice, his greatest adversary was the hulking desktop computer in front of him. It emitted an unsettling hum as it struggled to load the Hotmail page his son, Oliver, had helped him set up.
"Are you sure it opened right?" Steve asked, squinting at the screen.
"Dad, for the tenth time, yes," Oliver replied, sighing with a level of patience no twelve-year-old should possess.
Steve winced. His son was far too patient with him. It wasn't that computers didn't exist in the eighties—they did—but they were simpler. Or at least, that’s what he chose to believe. He’d never been a friend to technology; he’d always had Robin or Dustin for that.
"You’ve been asking him the same thing for half an hour," Hannah complained from the table. She pulled out one of the small white earbuds of the iPod he’d given her for Christmas.
"At this rate, Oliver’s gonna have more gray hair than Dad," Paul, her twin, teased. He let out a sharp grunt a second later when Stevie pelted him squarely in the face with a pillow.
Steve didn't even bother to scold them.
If he could talk to the twenty-year-old Steve who swore he wanted a big family, he would’ve told him never to think about that. With four it was fine. His wallet—and his sanity—would thank him for it.
Hannah and Paul shared an age, but little else. At fifteen, they had adopted styles Steve never could have imagined in his own youth. Hannah had embraced a dark aesthetic: nearly everything she wore was black, she brushed her hair as if the brush were optional, and she always kept bangs swept over her face. The black eyeliner and spiked accessories seemed to be part of her very identity.
Paul, on the other hand, was pure noise. Ripped jeans (which he’d torn himself), black boots, and band tees Steve only recognized because Jonathan had mentioned them once or twice. Sometimes he’d steal his sister's eyeliner; other times, he'd steal Steve’s hair gel to create impossible styles.
Oliver was different. He always had been. Intelligent, curious, and infinitely patient, especially when it came to explaining how to send an email to his father.
And then there was Steve Jr.—or just Stevie. Eight years old, too much energy, and zero fear of chaos. He was usually glued to Paul’s side, as if the two of them shared a private reserve of hyperactivity. He looked too much like his mother, who’d unfortunately had to travel to Texas to care for her sick sister, leaving Steve in charge of the whole circus.
"Who are you emailing first, Dad?" Oliver asked, pointing to the blank field.
Steve didn't hesitate. "Robin."
Oliver began rattling off instructions as Steve typed with agonizing care. Within seconds, his son scolded him for using all caps.
"You don't have to write everything like that," he said. "It looks like you're screaming."
Steve shifted uncomfortably. "I'm not screaming."
He deleted the text anyway.
He ended up sending five emails in total: Robin, Jonathan, Nancy, and Dustin.
It wasn't an impulsive decision. He’d been thinking about it for days. The Hawkins heat had made him sentimental, and seeing his kids bored, moping around the house, reminded him of what his own summers used to be: chaotic, long, and filled with adventures that felt like they’d never end.
He had the space. He had a whole month ahead of him.
So why not get the group back together?
Thinking of Dustin—and everything he’d been through since his wife’s passing—made Steve press his lips together. Thinking of Leo, his nephew, was the final push he needed. In the email, he asked Dustin to invite the rest: Lucas, Max, Will, and Mike.
His kids needed to know what a real Hawkins summer was like.
"Are you sure they'll come?" Hannah asked, watching him with genuine doubt.
Steve smiled, resting his arms on the table. "Sure. Who wouldn't want to spend the summer with the Harringtons?"
Hannah stared at him with an expression that was equal parts disbelief and secondhand embarrassment.
"Yeah... obviously," she muttered, pushing back from the chair and heading upstairs.
Steve watched her go, then turned back to the glowing screen. Maybe they wouldn't all come. Maybe bringing everyone back wasn't the most sensible idea.
But then again, Hawkins had never been a place for sensible decisions.
And the summer was only just beginning.