Chapter Text
It had been a week since everything went down at the Byers house. A week since the chaos, the screaming, the smell of fire, smoke and blood. And yet Steve found himself sitting in the middle of the junkyard, surrounded by rusted cars and broken scraps, his face twisted in confusion.
How? How had it worked?
He replayed the moment over and over. Nancy had fired a gun—an actual fucking gun—straight at the monster, and it hadn’t even flinched. The bullets tore through the air, but the thing just kept coming, relentless and unstoppable. But when Steve swung the bat he had managed to drive it back, forcing it into the bear trap. A bat (there's bunch of nails in it but still it's just a bat). And somehow, it had worked.
The memory gnawed at him. He couldn't understand what was happening. But ever since that night, something inside him had shifted. His body buzzed with a strange, unnatural energy, like he’d overdosed on caffeine or chugged a dozen energy drinks. He was stronger, faster, sharper. His muscles felt alive, his reflexes too quick to be normal. And above all, he was overflowing with restless energy that refused to fade.
Sleep had become impossible for him. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt like he was vibrating, his heart racing as if he were still in the fight. So he came here, to the junkyard, night after night, smashing and wrecking whatever he could find just to burn off the excess power surging through him.
The bat was always in his hands. He swung it against old car doors, against piles of scrap metal, against anything that would shatter or bend beneath his strength. Each strike echoed through the empty lot, a reminder that he wasn’t the same anymore. Sweat dripped down his forehead, but he didn’t tire. He couldn’t tire.
And that was the part that scared him.
Steve leaned against the hood of a rusted truck, breathing hard though his body didn’t need the rest. His hands trembled—not from exhaustion, but from the realization that he was changing. He wasn’t sure if it was adrenaline, trauma, or something else entirely.
But there was one thing Steve knew for sure. It was the bat.
This bat was the cause of everything. The night of the fight, he had grabbed it without thinking, just another weapon in the chaos. But afterward, when the dust settled, he realized he couldn’t let it go. He tried once—left it in his room and went to school—but within minutes his chest tightened, his skin crawled, and a restless panic surged through him. The farther he got from the bat, the more anxious and unsettled he became, like his body was tethered to it by invisible wires.
And then there was the sound.
At first he thought it was his imagination, the ringing in his ears from too many sleepless nights. But no—when the junkyard was silent, when the world around him held its breath, he could hear it. A low hum, faint but steady, pulsing from the bat’s core. It was like electricity running through the wood and nails, a vibration that seemed to sync with his heartbeat.
Steve gripped the handle tighter, staring at the weapon under the moonlight. The nails glinted, the wood scarred from battle, and yet it felt alive in his hands. Not just a tool, not just a weapon—something more. Something wrong.
He wondered if the monster had left a piece of itself behind, fused into the bat when he struck it. The bat wasn’t ordinary anymore. It carried something different, something that had chosen him.
The thought made his stomach twist. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want to be bound to this (maybe) a cursed weapon, didn’t want to feel like his veins were filled with lightning. But at the same time, he couldn’t deny the truth: the bat gave him strength. It made him faster, sharper.
Steve couldn’t decide if it was a curse or a gift. The bat pulsed in his hands like a living thing, humming faintly as if mocking him with its secret. He stared at the bat, nails glinting faintly. It wasn’t just a weapon anymore. It was a symbol of whatever had happened to him that night. A reminder that he had crossed some invisible line.
He wanted to ask someone, to tell someone what was happening to him, but fear kept his mouth shut. Fear of what they’d think. Fear of what he’d become.
The truth was, he had no one to turn to. He had already distanced himself from his so-called friends, the ones who had once filled his house with laughter and shallow parties. Even if he hadn’t cut ties, he couldn’t imagine explaining this to them. They wouldn’t understand. They’d laugh, call him crazy, or worse—believe him.
Nancy was out of the question. Their relationship was hanging by a thread, fragile and fraying with every passing day. He could feel it in the way she looked at him, the way her words carried no weight. She was going through the motions, but her heart wasn’t there. Her mind wasn’t with him. And Steve knew it. He was clinging to something already gone, terrified of the moment that thread would finally snap.
Jonathan? No. He’d rather suffer alone than confide in him. Sure, Steve knew he’d been an asshole to Jonathan, pushing too far, saying things he couldn’t take back. But in his mind, he had his reasons. Reasons that didn’t matter now, not when the world had shifted into something darker and stranger.
And then there was Nancy’s brother and his little group of nerdy friends. They knew about the weirdness, about the monsters and the Upside Down. But Steve couldn’t bring himself to go to them either. He wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t part of their world, not really. He was the outsider who had stumbled into it, swinging a bat with nails, pretending he belonged.
So he kept it all inside. The restless energy, the sleepless nights, the gnawing hum of the bat that never left his ears. Alone in the junkyard, surrounded by rust and ruin, Steve Harrington carried a secret that was eating him alive.
---
For a year, Steve held on. He clung to the fragile thread of their relationship, convincing himself that if he just tried harder, if he just stayed, things would work out. But Nancy’s drunken outburst at the party wasn’t a shock—it was an acknowledgment of what he had already known deep down.
All he could think in that moment was, Ah, so this is it.
And then came the look on Nancy’s face. The hesitation. The silence that stretched between them when he asked her the simplest, most devastating question: did she love him? He begged her to say it, to give him something to hold onto. But the pause, the flicker of doubt in her eyes, drove the nail deeper into his heart than any words ever could.
It wasn’t anger that consumed him—it was clarity. The realization that he had been holding onto something that was already gone. That Nancy wasn’t really there with him anymore, not in the way he needed her to be. Her heart was elsewhere, her mind already drifting toward another life, another person.
For Steve, that hesitation was louder than any confession. It was the moment he knew he had lost her.
All he could do was what he had done for a year—slip into the junkyard in the dead of night and unleash the anger and frustration that gnawed at him. Night after night, for twelve long months, he wrecked and smashed until his arms ached, until the hum of the bat quieted in his chest. Nobody knew. Nobody ever saw.
There had always been a fragile hope that Nancy might notice, that she might realize he was changing. But she never really looked at him. She didn’t even know he had quit the basketball team months ago, walking away from the dream he’d carried since freshman year.
Steve told himself it was for the best. He was afraid people would see what he was becoming, afraid they’d realize he was different—abnormal. Afraid that one day, in a moment he couldn’t control, he might hurt someone. The power was intoxicating, yes, but it was unpredictable. There were nights when it surged too strong, when his grip tightened too hard, when the bat hummed louder than his own heartbeat.
So he quit. He let go of the dream, the team, the future he thought he wanted. Because the truth was, he couldn’t trust himself anymore.
And in the silence of the junkyard, surrounded by rusted metal and broken glass, Steve Harrington carried the weight of a secret that was slowly breaking him apart.
Steve had nothing left—not even a thread to hold onto. He felt himself slipping, falling deeper into an abyss he couldn’t climb out of. Fear choking him, weakness hollowed him out, and most of all, he missed Nancy. Even if their love had been one-sided, even if it had grown hollow, she had been his anchor. Without her, he felt like he could lose himself at any moment.
He didn’t even realize where his feet were taking him until he stood in Nancy’s driveway, flowers clutched in his hand. A pathetic gesture, maybe, but a desperate one. He wanted her back. He wanted something to hold onto.
But instead of Nancy, he got a chubby kid in a baseball cap. Steve squinted, trying to remember the name. Dunkin? Durkin? No—Dustin. One of Mike’s nerdy friends.
“Steve, is that for Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler?” Dustin asked, eyeing the flowers.
Steve blinked. “No…?”
“Good.” Dustin snatches the flower.
Steve frowned. “Hey, what the hell?”
“Nancy isn’t home.”
“Well, where’s she?” Steve pressed with frustration.
“Doesn’t matter. We’ve got a bigger problem than your love life.” Dustin’s tone was firm, almost commanding. “Do you still have that bat?”
A pang shot through Steve’s chest. The bat. Why was Dustin asking about the bat?
He stuttered, suddenly defensive. “B-Bat? What bat?”
“The one with the nails.”
Of course he had it. He couldn’t throw it away, even if he wanted to. But why was Dustin asking about it now?
“Why?” Steve demanded.
“I’ll explain on the way.”
“Now?”
“Now!” Dustin barked, already getting into the car.
Steve hesitated. But he couldn’t ignore the kid—not when he was literally asking about the bat. The bat that hummed in his hands, the bat that had changed everything.
With a sigh, Steve Got into the car. Whatever this was, it wasn’t about Nancy anymore. It was about the bat. And he had no choice but to follow.
Well, shit. Talk about overthinking. He had nearly worked himself into a panic attack, convinced Dustin had somehow figured out his 'situation'—the bat, the energy, the secret he’d been hiding for a year. But no. It wasn’t about him at all. It was about a lizard. A freaking lizard.
“How big?” Steve asked, trying to keep his voice steady.
Dustin held out his hand. “First it was like this…” He spread his fingers a few inches apart, then widened the gap. “…Now it’s like this.”
Steve blinked. “I swear to God, it’s something like a lizard, okay.”
“It’s not a lizard,” Dustin shot back, his tone sharp.
Steve narrowed his eyes. “How do you know?”
Dustin folded his arms. “How I know it’s not a lizard?”
“Yeah,” Steve said, exasperated. “How do you know it’s not just a lizard?”
Dustin’s face hardened. “Because its face opened up… and it ate my cat.”
Steve froze. His stomach dropped. 'Well, fuck me and my shitty luck.'