#dishy writes

Robin throws a handful of popcorn at him, her preferred method of rebuke. He's already got a bunch of kernels stuck in his ridiculous hair. Although, are they still kernels once they're popped or do they have a different name then?

Anyway, they're stoned, and watching Legend, and Steve's being annoying. Robin just wants to watch Mia Sara swan around on Steve's big ass TV screen for a couple of hours. But Steve's on a chatty sort of high apparently.

"I don't want to pick a guy, dingus. That's the whole point."

"Purely hypothetically," his tongues too clumsy right now to be saying words with that many syllables, "Like, aliens come down and you need to pick a guy or they'll explode the earth."

"All the more reason not to. Fuck those fascist alien bigots," she says, electing to eat the next handful of popcorn instead of launch it at Steve's face.

"Ugh, fine, then..." he trails off for so long that Robin glances over to find him starring, slack-jawed at the TV, where Lily is decked out all in black now, with the neckline all the way down to her navel.

Robin gets distracted watching that too, but just as she's starting to hope that'll be the end of Steve's line of questioning, he snaps his fingers like he's breaking his own trance. "For ten million dollars! Ten. Million, Rob!" he emphasizes it like it's actually on the table, "You just need to bone one guy. Any guy in the world!"

"Ew, don't say bone."

Steve picks a piece of popcorn out of his hair and bounces it off the tip of her nose.

"C'mon, I'm curious. Because we know it wouldn't be Tom Cruise, so, who would it be?" She tries to ignore him and go back to the movie but Steve won't let it go, he whines, "Roooooobiiiin."

"God, fine! I guess... Bowie. If I had to, which I don't! So who cares?" Steve is unaffected by her outburst, in fact he looks extremely relaxed and sleepy. Annoying. "What about you then? If you had to pick a guy, hmm?"

"Mmmm," Steve humms, eyes closed, "Probably Billy."

Robin frowns at his dopey, placid face, "You mean like Idol?"

"Yeah, he's hot too," Steve mumbles, barely awake.

But instead he finds El, fresh off seeing Mike and Max in the gym and nursing that bitter little sting. So when Billy's like, "Hey kid, you seen a loudmouth redhead around?" she lies and says no.

Billy quickly picks up that this kid is pretty odd and he's like, "You good? Where are your parents?"

"Papa's dead. I live with Jim now. He said not to leave the cabin. No one’s supposed to know." says El, and big ol alarm bells go off in Billy’s head.

"Can't belive I'm saying this, but I think we need to go to the police." he says.

"Jim's a police man."

Of course he fucking is. Creepy fucking nowheres-ville, ass-backwards goddamn town. "Okay, what about your mom? Any idea where she is?"

So Billy helps her track her mom down and then goes with her to Chicago to find her sister, because something absolutely fucked is clearly going on, and then he's in on the Hawkins happenings.

They show up at the Byers together and him and Max are like, "What are you doing here?!"

West, to California. To the coast, the beach, the water.

From the moment he first had to escape his house, small and bruised. Alone and so angry. He would plant himself in the sand, fling himself into the ocean. Let it swallow him whole and spit him back out. Wash him out, back onto the sand. Still whole. Clean and salty and softer at the edges, like a worn down bit of sea-glass.

It works all the way out in Indiana, that compass. Still points him west. It's a sustained ache under his ribs now that he can't just let his feet take him home anytime he needs it.

A girl coyly suggests she could show him Lover's Lake sometime and he jumps at the chance, but it's a disappointing spit of water and frozen besides. The compass needle doesn't even wobble in it's heading. His sends his date home disappointed too.

Steve Harrington's got no direction. He's drifting around on the tide like flotsam. Billy shoves him and he stirs up little eddies, fights the current for a once and kicks up a wake that Billy can ride for a minute and breathe deep afterwards like he's coming up for air.

The crash and ebb and flow around each other for months. Billy learns to read the wave pattern, Steve learns to watch for storm patterns.

Steve's got a pool, which is objectively even worse than a lake. Except, when he says so, Steve tackles him around the middle and sinks them both right to the bottom of the deep end fully clothed. Laughs as Billy curses him out for ruining the half pack of cigarettes in his pocket.

They splash and shove and wrestle their way out of their sodden clothes without getting out of the heated water, because March in Hawkins may be warming up, but it's sure as shit not warm yet. Steve calls him a wimp, climbs out in just his briefs, and canon-balls back in.

They tangle together under the water and Steve only lets him up for air when he really needs it.

Steve Harrington must have a lot of extra iron in his blood or something. The needle's been wobbly for a while, and it spins right off it's axis the day Steve hands him a little newspaper wrapped parcel, "Happy birthday," he says, "Made me think of you."

It's an earring, plain gold stud and fine gold chain with a teardrop stone hanging off it. Rough-hewn, softly cloudy blue. Sea-glass.

Billy's adrift, surprised by a riptide.

Jim's no closer to putting his finger on it by the time he shoulders his way through the press and up to the bar. He flags down the bartender, a skinny guy in a leather vest, who throws him a lazy "What'll it be?" and a somewhat incongruous smile. "Looking for someone," Jim tells him, "Billy working tonight?" The smile melts away with a curled lip and a roll of the eyes. Does this kid have eyeliner on? "Blonde Billy or bleach blonde Billy?" "Uh.. Hargrove." The bartender leans through the open door to the back of house and without taking his eyes off Jim, and with that weird little grin back on his face, shouts, "Billy, there's a bear out here looking for you." Which is a little unfair, Jim thinks. He wasn't that gruff with the kid.

Instead of white-knuckling through years of strained, WASPish, unhappiness, Steve’s parents went through an awful, acrimonious divorce sometime when Steve was in grade school. Steve was treated like nothing more than a chess piece in the negotiations, same as the cars and the lake house.

It makes Steve angry and bitter, turns him into a little punk and a delinquent. He's not worried about being an embarrassment anymore. God he hopes he embarrasses his parents every goddamn day of their lives. He's not a lifestyle accessory, he's not a jewel in their collection. He is a Problem, and proud of it.

Meanwhile, in California, Neil and Susan got together way sooner (like maybe even Susan lied to Neil and he thinks Max is his, i dunno), so she's been Billy’s step-mother since he was like 4.

So she's actually been a major presence in his life and influence on him. Billy’s... quieter. He's not aggressive and brash. He tries not to make waves. After the disaster that is little league Susan and Billy decide that maybe sports just isn't for him, nothing that Neil might get too invested in. So, Billy just tries to keep his head down. Does well in school. Really well, actually. He's kind of a nerd, and a loner. It doesn't really help (he's not the son Neil wanted, too meek, too quiet, too bookish). Susan patches him up every time, holds his hand with a strained smile and says they'll just have to try harder, and Billy just chokes on his anger.

I'm fuzzier on the details of exactly what would have to change in Eddie’s life to turn him into a jock (largely because his backstory is fuzzier) but I'll get him there!

Maybe he doesn't go directly to Uncle Wayne after his dad gets locked up long term. Maybe he's placed with a foster family that's much less permissive of Eddie letting his freak flag fly, much more invested in him being normal. And Eddie, unaware that Uncle Wayne is even a possibility, is pretty invested in not giving them a reason to send him back to a group home.

So they try sports! Anything involving a ball is a lost cause (Eddie’s hand-eye leaves much to be desired) but track is kind of a revelation. An outlet for a lot of the excess energy he's always had that made him 'difficult'. And he likes it, being alone with his thoughts, he can think about whatever weird thoughts he wants while he runs and no one ever needs to know, or call him a freak about it. And, he does genuinely enjoy running, who'da thought? Look at that, he can be normal, and popular!

Ultimately he does end up with Wayne in Hawkins, just later (maybe the family he was with finally get pregnant and start their "real" family, i dunno), like right as he's starting highschool. It's strained between them, because Eddie’s really invested in the idea of being normal, and living with his (admittedly, very kind Uncle) in a trailer doesn't really fit the act.

Ihni! this got away from me (kept me occupied 😅) thank you for the prompt! 💜

"Need a hand, Pretty Boy?"

Steve would roll his eyes if he wasn't right in the middle of fighting off some goon with a machete in a knockoff Soviet military get up.

Once he's broken the guy's wrist and kicked the blade safely off the roof (yes, he'll retrieve it from the fire escape later, Hop) he turns to face Painkiller, gives him a nice big eye roll, so it'll be clear even behind his mask, even from where the vigilante is lounging, up high on a water tank, "Not my name," Steve tells him.

He has to do a quick two-step to dodge one of machete guy's buddies who tried for a low tackle while his back was turned.

Painkiller shouts down from his perch, very much not actually helping despite his offer, "Yeah, but Kid King was a stupid name when you actually were a kid, and you've got to be pushing twenty now," Steve's twenty-two actually, thanks for asking, "When's The Chief gonna let you put on some big-boy pants? When are they gonna let you off the leash, huh?"

Steve trips one of The Kremlin's (stupid fuckin villain name) henchmen into the path of the one charging at him with a lead pipe so they go down in a heap together. Then turns, again, to Painkiller, throws his arms wide, "You see a leash anywhere on me, asshole?"

Steve's been patrolling solo for a couple years now. Even if he's still technically Hopper's sidekick, he's progressing. He's climbing the ladder. And, if he's had the... conversation with Hop a half dozen times in the last couple months about how it doesn't really feel like he is, and it seems like Eleven had leapfrogged past him even though she's five years younger just because she's got powers (and what's a guy like Hop doing with a powered sidekick anyway?), then that's absolutely none of this blonde bitch's business. Because Steve's a team player.

Unlike Pain-in-the-Ass, who showed up one day, out of the blue, with just a bandana covering his face, notorious Mob boss Neil Hargrove's dead body under his boot, and an extensive dossier in his hand that posthumously tied him to a laundry list of stomachturningly awful crimes that no one had been able to pin on him while he was alive.

Who flipped off every licensed hero (big name ones too) who tried to offer him an apprenticeship after that. Skipped sidekicking altogether and flew totally solo, which isn’t how it's been done since, like, the fucking 40s. Which is why he’s still classed as a vigilante.

Why, four year's later, no one's sure of the extent of his powers. Even though he clearly has some kind of powers, nobody walks off the kind injuries Painkiller regularly does without some kind of enhancement. Steve saw him get hit by a truck last week, but tonight, as he jumps down to the level of the roof Steve is on, he looks totally fine. He's got pep in his goddamn step, in his costume that makes a big, defiant point of it. Enough bare skin to scream, Look, ma, no body armor!

"That's so sad, man," Painkiller tsks as he grabs up the lead pipe that got dropped and cracks that last mook standing across the face with a sickening crunch.

He steps over the prone forms of all the other henchmen Steve has laid out and ziptied. He gets right up in Steve's face, "You don't even see it."

Steve is not in the mood tonight.

Because Hop is handling some kind of death ray situation right now, while Steve runs minor interference on the perimeter. Because Nancy's pulling further away everyday, when her coverage of heroes has gotten hostile enough to the whole concept recently that the paper won't run them, and then somehow he's the bad guy when he points out that yeah, obviously they won't print that, Nancy, what did she expect? And there's a whole gaggle of kids in their first domino masks nipping at his heels, progressing in leaps and bounds while Steve's stalled out, and shunted aside.

Steve is so not in the mood.

"You know what I see?" he sneers down his nose, working the bare inch he has on this guy, "I see a tiger hunting rats."

Painkiller laughs like he doesn't really get it, "What?"

"You're scared," Steve says, and the guy stops laughing. "You could be in the Big Leagues in a goddamn second. You're what, indestructible? Got super strength? Electrokinesis?" That last one was a bit of a risk, but Steve's almost sure he's seen him wield lightning in controlled little bursts when he thinks he can get away with it. The gamble pays off, the way those blue eyes widen means he's right, and also right that, "You hide it."

Steve scoffs, prods the ostentatiously bare chest infront of him with two fingers, "You waste your time picking off lowlifes any schmuck with hand-to-hand training could handle because it makes you feel strong."

Steve prods him again, harder, and he sways back a step, even though Steve's just some schmuck, "You're not a vigilante because you don't want anyone telling you what to do, it's because you don't want anyone to know what a scared-" prod, "little-" prod, "boy you are," and one last prod for good luck.

Steve's basically expecting it when the shock and, yeah, fear on Painkiller's face switches lightning fast to anger.

He expects the punch too. Deliberately provoking a guy with super strength, probably not Steve's smartest move.

When he comes to the sun is just starting to rise, and Hopper is crouched over him, tapping his cheek relatively gently, "There you go, kid," he says when Steve starts to come around. "One of 'em get the drop on you?" he asks gesturing to the hog-tied goons scattered around the rooftop.

"Uh, sort of," Steve says, sitting up slow.

Hopper's cowl is hanging loose around his neck, he's sweaty and dirty and favoring his left side pretty obviously. Steve straightens up quickly, "What happened with the weapon? Where's El? Is she okay?"

"Slow down, kid," Hop lays a heavy hand on his shoulder to keep him from shooting to his feet to fast and probably face planting, "El's fine, tired, but fine. She's resting up with Joyce, where I was expecting you to be," he says pointedly.

"The ray?"

"It was touch and go for a bit, but we got lucky, actually. It exploded," Steve blinks, "Generators overloaded and the the whole thing just," Hop times a little explosion with his hands, "Power is out on the east side, fried a big chunk of the grid. Couldn't handle the electric load I guess."

“Oh, Bambi,” the pet names have not abated, “If you’ve been pining for your high school sweetheart for the last thirty years, then I think I might know where your marriage went wrong.”

“No I wasn’t- Thirty? Do you think I’m forty-eight?”

Billy tips his head, his whole body tips a bit actually, and looks him over, “Forty-five?” he offers.