Chapter Text
Indianapolis hummed differently than Hawkins.
It buzzed.
Not loud enough to be chaotic, not quiet enough to be sleepy. Just constant motion — traffic lights blinking through humid evenings, construction scaffolding clanking in the wind, radios humming from open apartment windows. Danielle, or Dani as she preffered, had grown to love that sound. It meant things were happening. It meant there were always corners left unexplored.
She sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor, bass guitar resting across her lap, long brown curls drooping across her pale freckled face, fingers lazily plucking through the opening riff of a song she’d been trying to perfect for weeks. Her amplifier crackled faintly with each note — not broken, just old. Her dad insisted it gave the sound “character.”
Behind her, the door to his workshop stood open, light spilling out into the hallway. The smell of solder and machine oil drifted through the apartment, familiar and grounding.
“Your timing’s off,” her dad called without looking up from the circuit board he was bent over.
Dani rolled her eyes. “You say that every time.”
“And I’m right every time.”
She adjusted her rhythm anyway.
Moving to Indy after the divorce had felt like stepping into someone else’s life at first. She’d been thirteen — angry, confused, stuck between parents who suddenly spoke to each other like strangers forced into polite conversation.
But her dad had filled the quiet with projects
Engineering puzzles spread across kitchen tables. Late nights rewiring broken radios just to see if they could be improved. Weekend trips into abandoned buildings slated for demolition where he taught her how to spot unstable flooring and how to listen to walls before trusting them.
Urban exploring, he called it.
Dani called it controlled trespassing with educational benefits.
Somewhere between climbing rusted staircases and learning how circuits breathed electricity, she figured out two things about herself:
She loved building things.
And she definitely liked girls.
That realisation had come slowly — glances held a little too long during school band rehearsals, the flutter of nerves that never quite happened with boys. She’d told her dad one night while they were eating takeout Chinese on the floor, both of them surrounded by dismantled VCR parts.
He’d blinked once, shrugged, and passed her the soy sauce.
“Cool,” he’d said. “More options.”
She’d laughed so hard she nearly dropped her noodles.
By seventeen, Indy felt like home.
Which was exactly why she volunteered for summer science camp in Hawkins.
Not because she missed it.
Because Dustin was going.
She stepped off the bus outside the campgrounds into thick summer heat and the unmistakable scent of pine and mosquito spray. Dustin barreled into her like a missile, nearly knocking her over.
“You actually came!”
“You sound surprised,” she laughed, ruffling his curls.
“I’m not surprised! I just — I mean — okay, I’m surprised.”
Camp turned out to be equal parts chaotic and nostalgic. Dani helped supervise radio equipment stations and robotics workshops, quietly fixing wiring mistakes before counselors even noticed them. Dustin hovered constantly, dragging her into every experiment like she’d never left Hawkins at all.
By the final week, sitting beside him on the dock watching fireflies blink across the lake, Dustin nudged her shoulder.
“You’re gonna stay in Hawkins a bit… right?”
She hesitated.
Indy meant independence. It meant late nights soldering circuits and sneaking through empty construction sites. It meant being the version of herself she’d built piece by piece.
But Dustin looked hopeful in a way that twisted something in her chest.
“…Yeah,” she said finally. “I think I will.”
The Henderson house felt smaller than she remembered.
Warmer too.
Her mom nearly cried when she walked through the door, pulling her into a hug that smelled like laundry detergent and leftover spaghetti sauce. It was strange and comforting and overwhelming all at once.
Within three days, Dustin was asking for rides everywhere.
Mostly to the new Starcourt Mall.
Danielle didn’t question it at first. The place was massive — air-conditioned, neon-lit, packed with music and crowds. It made sense he’d want to spend every spare second there.
Besides, he kept mentioning Steve worked there now.
Steve Harrington.
The memory surfaced instantly: perfect hair, smug grin, general high school menace. She hadn’t liked him much back then. But Dustin clearly adored him, and Dustin was usually a decent judge of character.
So she kept driving him.
Every day.
Dropping him off in front of a store called Scoops Ahoy where he disappeared behind a sailor-themed counter and didn’t emerge again until closing.
Danielle leaned against her car one afternoon watching him run inside, arms already waving like he was mid-story before he even reached the door.
“…Huh,” she muttered.
It felt weirdly familiar. Like Dustin was building his own version of the independence she’d found in Indy.
She slid her sunglasses back on and turned toward the row of storefronts lining the mall corridor.
One shop caught her attention immediately.
Rows of vinyl displays. Posters plastered across the glass. Music spilling faintly through the doorway like an invitation.
Dani smiled.
Maybe Hawkins wasn’t done surprising her yet.