FanndÄs Maddson

He loved Dustin and he'd die fot the kid but Eddie couldn't do this on his own.  He needed help.

Frank had alot of people after him. Currently, he was laying low. He'd cleaned up the streets but everyone was looking for him.

That's how he found himself ten states away, pulling his truck off the road into a heavily wooded area.

No one would find him here and he could rest for a little while.

He turned off the truck, moving to stretch out in the cab. He winced, planning on his next move. He checked on his side. " Damn it..." he grumbled seeing some of his sitching had popped. With that he moved to get out of the truck.

For the most part his memories had come back; Bucky was working on atoning for his past and trying to make changes for the better.  Sam was the one keeping the world safe and the Avengers had disbanded.

Bucky was living a mostly quiet life and had even run for congressional office.  He didn't think he'd win but he wanted to change Brooklyn for the better.  He still wanted to help people; this was a different way to do it.

He wasn't living his life with mysterious that needed to be uncovered or any shady government agency he had to take down.

Life was great.  Then he saw him! A face he knew but had no idea why.  A part of him, said he needed to let it go. But he couldn't do that.   He was never one to let things go.

Buck ends up doing all he can to find out who this man was.  But he was even more of a ghost then Bucky had been.

After seeing that man in a crowd , it took him about a month to find a lead to go on.  That's how he found himself on the edge of a very large private property.

Thunder cracked; rattling the windows. Bucky turned to look at her; so much pain in his blue eyes.

Fannie let the doctors check her over and tend to her wounds, but her only questions were about Eddie and the baby. When they finally quit fussing over her, she all but ran to Eddie’s side. She held his hand as she sang to him, talked to him about how amazing their life was going to be, trying to be positive. When Steve joined her, she took his hand in hers.

“He’s okay….gonna be so pissed about his hair,” she smiled, wiping away her tears. “And the baby is okay…they did an ultrasound and said everything is fine, but they want to keep an eye on things…you should sit down,” she smiled, bringing his hand to her mouth and kissing it gently.

Steve slept until he woke up feeling feverish. Something was wrong. Eddie sensed it. He doesn't wanna wake Fannie knowing she needs her rest.

Tonight is like any other night. But she asked him for something a little stronger.

" You sure about that princess?" He wondered. " You know we don't have to do this. We could sit and talk."he offered.

There's too many people for his liking. He's on edge and because it's a full house--he can't be alone with Steve or be all over Billy.

Blood pooled in his fur, he had gotten the blade out but the wound was deep. He managed to make it a good distance but his vision was swimming. He collapsed as everything went dark.

" Billy?!?!?" The redhead exclaimed, hands coming to touch his arm. How did he not notice her?

" Shit bird?" He croaked out.

" Let me get someone; okay ? Try not to move." And with that Max rushed out of the room.

The tow truck rattled like it was being held together by prayer and nicotine.

By the time it rolled into the gravel lot behind Hawkins Auto & Tire, the July heat had already melted the edges off the afternoon. Cicadas screamed from somewhere beyond the tree line. The air smelled like motor oil, sunbaked asphalt, and incoming rain.

Perfect.

She pushed the passenger door open with the heel of her boot and stepped down slowly, silver rings catching sunlight as she swept a curtain of dark curls away from her face. Black lace fluttered at the sleeves of her blouse. Too many necklaces glimmered against sun-bronzed skin. Every inch of her looked expensive now — not in the polished Hollywood sense, but in the Stevie Nicks-at-midnight, pawn-shop-gold, smoke-on-vinyl kind of way.

A far cry from the quiet Hawkins girl she used to be.

“Think your alternator’s cooked,” the driver muttered around a cigarette before wandering toward the garage office.

She barely heard him.

Because behind the shop, half-shadowed beside the open bay door, stood a man she was almost certain had once died.

Or maybe that was just how Hawkins remembered him.

Eddie Munson leaned back against the brick wall with all the careless gravity of someone who never learned how to belong anywhere else. Shirt tossed over one shoulder. Grease streaked across his hands. Tattoos she didn’t recognize winding down his arm. His head bent toward the glow of a phone in his palm like the whole world hadn’t just tilted sideways.

For one impossible second, she forgot how to breathe.

No newspaper clipping. No whispered hometown rumor. No blurry tagged Facebook photo from years ago could’ve prepared her for the reality of him standing there in living color beneath the Indiana sun.

The screen door slapped shut behind her.

Eddie looked up.

And suddenly she was seventeen again, all sharp elbows and unsent love songs.

He blinked, registering a voice in his ear, a few hands on his chest. Concubines chosen for today's festivities. He swatted the hands away.

" Pardon..." He stood, feeling a tightness in his chest. Everything felt too loud. He moved to leave one of his advisors asking.

" Where are you going my liege ?!?" And advisor called as he rushed away heading back toward his chambers.

" What are you looking at , Freak?" Jason practically snarled from his seat.

Eddie simply laughed; something dark and ominous in it. The whole town thought he was some Satanic , metal musician. If only they knew the truth....

Eddie had given up his humanity long long ago. He'd been born at the start of the Victorian age. He'd lived through the Antebellum period, the Civil War and seen industrialization first hand.

History he was good at. The other subjects didn't interested him as much. He could graduate and move on but he felt safe here and had taken to bringing the outcasts and the like under his wing at Hawkins High.

He was a creature of habit. And after being alive for so long things get boring. So he pretended to be a super senior. No one the wiser about his true nature.

“You know,  you can use the front door,” Fannie called to Eddie from her bedroom window. “We’re not kids anymore…besides, you’re useless to me dead or injured.” She flashed him a sweet smile, excited to see him. The summer was winding down and she was getting ready to head back to classes. In fact, she should have left last week, but the idea of leaving him again was too much. They’d always been friendly during school, but when she ran into him over winter break her freshman year, something changed. 

Maybe it was being away from Hawkins, actually being able to be herself without feeling like she was constantly being compared to the other girls in town. Maybe it was getting out of her head, and getting the courage to say more than hi to him. Whatever “it” was, this thing between them had grown to be more for her. But she doubted he would ever see her as more than a friend with benefits, another notch on his belt. But gods, when she looked at him, he was all she could see. All it would take was him asking her to stay, and she would. Even if it only meant there was a slight chance there could be something more.

It feels like it's been hours. Hopper checked his watch sure enough four hours had passed, it nearly midnight. No one had passed him on this road. Usually people flew by.

He was about to call it a night when someone raced by him. He knew that car.

Fannie Maddson.

Hopper followed after her, flipping on his lights, motioning for her to pull over.

The gym was supposed to be a refuge. It felt more like a holding cell.

She was one of the lucky ones. She always had been. A house still standing. A family still breathing. A smile she’d been taught to wear like armor—bright, practiced, reassuring. Everyone assumed she’d be fine. That she was fine. But tonight wasn’t about her neat survival. It was about stitching something broken back together, even if the seams showed.

She stood behind the donations table, fingers absently sorting canned goods, eyes drifting instead. The crowd moved in uneven waves—murmured conversations, flinching silences, people glancing over their shoulders as if the walls might listen. Everyone was searching for something. Or someone. Proof that the town hadn’t taken everything.

Her gaze kept lifting, betraying her.

She was looking for the boy they whispered about.

The one teachers avoided saying aloud. The one whose name had turned sharp in people’s mouths. She’d known him long before the rumors, long before fear rewrote him into something monstrous. She knew him as loud laughter echoing down hallways, as wild hair and band shirts and a presence that felt too big for Hawkins to contain. He had never looked at her long enough to really see her—why would he? She’d been just another cheer uniform in a sea of them.

But she had seen him. For years. From the margins where curiosity felt dangerous and sympathy felt like rebellion.

And when the gym doors finally opened again, she held her breath—because if he walked in now, everything would change.