#nanny!steve

Sweet baby Mia sits a few feet away from them near the end of the counter, strapped snug and safe into her little bassinet, surrounded by soft pastel toys and her blankie. A small arching bar holds dangling plastic shapes that sway gently when she bats at them with itty-bitty fists. She’s got one sock half-kicked off, a drool-wet bib, and the serene confidence of someone who has never once had to worry about a mortgage or Russian torture chambers.

Robin crouches down in front of her immediately.

“Hello, my precious capitalist overlord,” she coos, wiggling a little yellow duck so it spins. Mia squeals softly. “Did you sleep well in your absurdly expensive crib paid for by morally ambiguous tech money?”

“Don’t call her that,” Steve mutters.

“What? Precious?”

“Overlord.”

“She is an overlord. Look at her. She owns you.”

Steve glances down at the baby… and damn it, she smiles at him like she knows she just won something.

He melts. Just a little.

“Traitor,” Robin says to Mia. “Thought we were having a moment.”

Steve reaches down and taps the bar dangling over Mia so the toys jiggle again, keeping one eye on the front windows. He always does that now. Reflexively. Subconsciously. Like he’s been appointed guardian of all vulnerable life forms within a five-mile radius.

“Seriously though,” Robin continues, standing back up. “You don’t have to be here this early.”

“Yeah I do.”

“No, you don’t. I can handle tapes without your rugged maternal presence.”

Steve shrugs. “I like being here.”

His best friend softens in a way she tries very hard not to show. The mall burned three months ago and she still feels it under her skin sometimes, like glass dust. Steve being around helps. The baby being around helps more than she ever expected.

Plus? Robin Buckley fucking loves Mia.

She didn’t even know she loved babies until this one showed up with her gummy grin and her warm little noises. Now she spends half her life restocking VHS tapes while imagining a hypothetical future where she is a designated lesbian vodka auntie to any kid fortunate enough to call Steve “Dad.”

“Also,” Steve drawls, ripping open a box with his keys, “I brought the muffins.”

Robin almost drools. “You brought the muffins.”

“I brought the muffins.”

She damn near sheds a tear. “The muffins…?”

“Yes, theeee muffins. From the café.”

“On whose card?”

He waves her off. “Doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me ethically.”

“It’s on the Brownes’. Relax.”

“Ah. Blood money muffins.”

“Corporate money.”

“Same difference.”

Mia smacks a toy loudly and Robin puffs a laugh.

“See? She agrees.”

Steve flashes a grin while opening the box of pastries. “She’s just thrilled because Mama actually left us a few fresh bottles of boobie milk instead of formula today.”

Robin reels, making a face. “Boobie milk–?”

“Booooobies, boooobies,” Steve sing-songs to Mia, who instantly starts babbling and giggling. “Weeee love booobies, Aunt Robin looooves booooobies, and Steeeeve does toooooo…”

Robin can't even help the way she wants to laugh while staring at him, mouth agape, eye twitching. Because as far as best friends go? She seriously hit the jackpot with this strange, sassy, heterosexual male that used to infuriate her back in high school. And now, here they are: working at a video store for a slimy franchise owner that she manages while Steve works part-time as a keyholder. He fetches them expensive lattes and fresh lattes from the marketplace cafe across the street multiple days a week, while she fantasizes about Vickie and vents about it over kale salads and “the muffins” – which is the cafe bakery’s made-from-scratch, raspberry-chocolate muffins.

It’s mundane.

It’s domestic.

It’s perfect.

And then there is the quiet, ridiculous subplot of Steve Harrington’s love life — which somehow keeps happening whether he wants it to or not.

Only this time?

This time, it’s pique playboy shit.

It’s not like high school anymore, where swagger and confidence did most of the heavy lifting. Back then he’d dated like he was collecting trophies. Now he dates like a guy who’s tired but hopeful, a little bruised around the edges, trying to remember how to be normal with girls who have absolutely no idea what he’s survived. Just that he’s himself got a big boy job… and a baby girl on his hip.

The first time he brought Mia into the store on a weekday, three different women asked him if he needed help “watching his daughter.”

Daughter.

He’d laughed so hard he almost dropped a stack of returned tapes.

“Nope,” he’d told them with an easy smile, bouncing the baby. “Not mine. I’m just the help.”

Apparently, being “just the help” is catnip.

Robin notices everything, of course. She notices the way girls soften when he carries Mia around like a human accessory to his charm. Notices the way they linger at the counter, suddenly very interested in renting movies they’ve never even heard of.

And she definitely notices the bakery girl across the street.

She’s no doubt the one who boxed up the muffins and sealed the coffee lids with a kiss today. Her name tag says LISA, she wears her hair in a glossy ponytail and she so violently blushes whenever Steve orders food that Robin swears the tomatoes in the bisque have competition.

“You’re aware she practically wants to climb you like a tree, right?” Robin mutters one afternoon while he unpacks a box of horror flicks.

Steve tilts his head. “Who?”

Robin just gives him a look, like really? “Lisa. The cute cashier girl who bats her babydoll blue eyes every time she rings up your to-go order?” 

He just shrugs, feigning innocence. “She’s just being polite.”

“Uh-huh. Polite enough to draw little hearts on your coffee cups every time?”

He glances at the most recent latte. Damn it, there’s a heart.

“Coincidence,” he insist with a sly smirk.

Robin loudly slurps her latte. “Your entire sex life is coincidence.”

That part, at least, is true.

Because yeah, Steve still has hookups. He still asks girls out, still gets asked out. He goes on dates to the diner and the bowling alley and that weird little mini golf place in Roane County whenever he can take Mia, or when Sharon wants to stay home with her and be alone.

He even tried dating an Ivy League college girl recently. Senior. Home for fall break, thought he was “so mature” for his age.

That lasted exactly two weeks.

Mostly because she got jealous of a literal infant.

“You canceled on me again for babysitting,” she’d accused over milkshakes.

“It’s my job,” Steve had replied, completely baffled. 

“Well it’s weird.”

Weird.

Weird?

He paid for the shakes and never called her again.

He tells Robin about it later and she nearly keels over.

“You got dumped for being TOO responsible?” she gasps.

“Apparently.”

“Oh my god,” she wheezes. “I’m framing that. Also?” She drops her voice so that it's an inaudible whisper, mouthing exaggeratedly, “What a cunt. Byeeee.”

He snorts fondly, wholeheartedly agreeing.

Ever since he started nannying, Steve’s began to figure out which girls fall under the build-a-future with column — and which fall under the “that sounds nice in theory, but I kinda just wanna have sex and be called babygirl.” 

Sometimes, he’s filing them under the latter category.

But most of the time, his romantic life is a lot lighter. Easier. A little hilariously awkward. Girls he meets think he’s sweet and funny and charmingly devoted to his “niece.” They don’t see the cracks underneath his beauty, don’t see the nightmares or the scars.

They just see him.

And he likes that.

He likes knowing he still has it. That the signature Harrington charm hasn’t been permanently rewired by demogorgons and Soviets and assholes from California and morally ambiguous employers.

It’s just… channeled better now.

Plugged into something steadier.

Instead of sneaking girls into his parents’ empty house, he’s learning how to invite them into a life that includes early mornings and part-time shifts and a precious baby girl who occasionally projectile-spits up on his best sweatshirt.

He’s even got a system.

Dates on Thursdays. 

Hookups on Fridays. 

Recovery on Saturdays with Robin and Mia and the muffins.

“So lemme get this straight,” Robin says when he explains that. “You have… assigned days of the week for sluttiness.”

“I do not have assigned—”

“You have a slut schedule.”

“It’s efficient!”

She stares at him, then abruptly bursts out laughing, clutching the counter. “Only you would turn sex into a work calendar.”

Steve can’t help laughing too, cheeks a little pink. “Hey, trauma makes you organized.”

“Please don’t put that on a Hallmark card.”

“Noted.” 

He leans over and wiggles a toy at Mia again. “Besides, somebody’s gotta keep the population of Hawkins entertained.”

Robin snorts. “Yeah well, just remember: condoms, yes. Emotional damage? No.”

“Always.”

“And cute ghost sweaters are still a no.”

“Absolutely.”

They grin at each other across the counter, warm and familiar and perfectly in sync. Steve Harrington, former King of Hawkins High, current designated manny, still very much a heterosexual disaster (but a lovable one) and Robin Buckley, a tragically gay icon and former band geek turned local video store manager — just trying to find her place in this world, one quip at a time.

And somehow? That combination is working out for them just fine.

The morning crawls by in that easy October way — slow, golden, a little sleepy. There are fake cobweb displays near the horror section Keith insisted they put up. A cardboard skeleton dangles crookedly by the register. And now, jelly stickies shaped like fake blood droop from all the windows.

Steve hates it.

He stares at the display like personally offended him. “Christ, when did those come in?”

“Keith ordered these,” Robin mumbles disdainfully. “Apparently? He thinks Halloween equals ‘scare customers into Blockbuster.’”

He pokes it. “This thing is nightmare fuel.”

“You literally fought an interdimensional monster.”

“Yeah and now I’m fighting cheap Walmart décor triggers.”

She grins at him. “You’re getting soft, Harrington.”

He scoffs. “I’m not soft.”

“Right. You’re getting… whipped.”

He opens his mouth to argue, then shuts it.

Because whipped is exactly the word.

By noon he’s bouncing Mia on his hip while helping Robin reorganize the comedy aisle.

“Okay, important question,” she says, scanning barcodes. “How do you feel about the phrase ‘daddy energy’—”

“Absolutely not.”

“Okay but hear me out—”

“Nope.”

“You didn’t even hear it.”

“Still no.”

Steve crosses the street halfway through the shift and comes back with two more steaming lattes, two grilled cheeses with hot cups of tomato bisque, and a giant side of seasoned garlic fries because he knows Robin will never ask him for it – even though the parmesan on top always makes her see God.

He never lets her pay him back. 

He never lets anyone pay him back for anything anymore.

Purpose sits on him like a warm flannel shirt.

The bell above the door jingles.

Then it nearly gets blown clean off its hinges.

“SUP MOTHAFUCKASSSSS—”

Dustin Henderson and Mike Wheeler burst through the front doors like they’re being chased by the literal concept of adolescence. Robin jumps a mile. Steve spins around so fast it makes Mia’s toys rattle.

“Jesus Christ!” he snaps. “What the hell is wrong with you two—?”

“Also, language!” Robin scolds automatically.

Dustin immediately freezes when he sees Mia.

“Holy shit,” he whispers reverently. “Is that the baby?”

“LANGUAGE,” Steve and Robin say in perfect unison.

Dustin holds his hands up. “Sorry, sorry. Hi Mia.”

“She can’t even understand us,” Mike argues.

“She understands vibes,” Steve says firmly. “And your vibe is ‘feral raccoon with a potty-mouth,’ so shift gears.”

Mike rolls his eyes skyward, but he’s already obeying. Dustin drops his backpack and becomes a completely different human being in less than three seconds. Kneeling next to the bassinet. Making ridiculous faces. Wiggling the little arch bar like he’s discovered a new species.

Mia giggles.

She actually giggles.

Mike crouches beside Dustin, suspicious at first, then slowly smiling at the baby too. He wiggles a plastic star and Mia grabs at it, delighted.

“Dude,” Mike murmurs. “She’s kind of awesome.”

Steve faintly scoffs. “Kind of?” 

“Okay she’s really awesome, geez. Relax, mom.”

Steve just shoots him a wry look, but it’s gone in a blink. Next to him, Robin peeks over the counter with just her eyes visible, watching like a spy.

“She hasn’t cried once,” Dustin brags. “And she’s still cheesin’.”

“We get it, she likes you,” Mike snarks.

“No shi–I mean, no… shoot. I’m great with children.”

“You are a child.”

“Somantics.”

Steve shakes his head fondly while the boys compete to make Mia laugh harder. They’re careful with her. Gentle. Trustworthy. The same stubborn kids he’d die for, now freshman in high school... treating this baby like fragile treasure.

“Okay okay,” Dustin says, standing back up, looking at Steve with a grin. “So. Big idea.”

“No.”

“You didn’t even hear it!”

“Still no.”

“Halloween costumes!” Dustin announces, spreading his arms. “She’s four months old. That means she’s prime pumpkin age.”

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. Mia chews on a toy, blissfully unaware.

He clicks his tongue like a mother. “Henderson? She is not trick-or-treating.”

“WHAT?” Mike shouts. “That’s lame as hell.”

“Hey,” Robin warns. “Watch it.”

“Sorry,” Mike mutters to Mia, pouting. “Didn’t mean to say hell. You’re very pure.”

“Good save, Wheeler,” Steve deadpans.

“This is a core childhood memory in the making!” Dustin flings an arm out at Steve. “It’s your job as a glorified manny to see it through!”

Steve’s hands go to his hips. “Um, it's my job to be responsible with her.”

Dustin rolls his eyes. “We will responsibly push her stroller door-to-door.”

“She’s not going door-to-door,” Steve argues. “She doesn’t even have teeth.”

“Babies don’t need teeth to experience free candy, Steve.”

“They experience free formula.”

“That’s basically candy.”

“Dustin.”

“I’m just saying—”

“No.”

Mike slowly raises a hand. “Okay but…what if—”

“Also no.”

Robin watches it play out with a soft, private warmth. She roasts Steve about almost everything. But not this. Never this.

Because she knows he needs it.

The boys hang around for almost an hour just to sit with Mia while Steve finishes up. Lucas calls on the store phone – and even he asks to say hi to the baby. He and Max swing by some shifts, too. Even from California, Joyce calls and checks in, along with El and Will. Jonathan, too. Every single person in Steve Harrington’s life adores Mia. After all… she’s a part of their lives now.

She is the newest, littlest member of the party.

By late afternoon the sky outside turns charcoal gray.

Autumn thunderstorms. Normal. Seasonal. Totally harmless.

Still eerie as shit.

Steve notices first.

He always does.

“Hey Robs,” he says quietly, gaze fixed out the window. “What’s the forecast?”

“Weather Channel says rain soon-ish,” she murmurs, ignoring the chill up her spine. It’s just regular bad weather, she tells herself. “Just lightening and grumbles for now.”

Steve nods, gaze fixed on the dark clouds. “Right.”

The video store goes a little quiet as thunder rumbles. Low, bass-deep.

Mia babbles happily over the noise.

“Dude,” Dustin whispers. “It got dark really fast.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees quietly.

They don’t mention the Upside Down.

They don’t need to.

Everyone always feels weird whenever the weather gets like this. Something about stormclouds makes them wonder if they’ll turn black and red any moment, with veins of lightning that look like neon blood. Nothing’s happened since Starcourt, though. Not since the mall went down, and took Chief Hopper with it. Not since the Byers’ relocated with El, out to the west coast in Lenora Hills. Not since Billy got plunged through the chest with a puncture so brutal from the Mind Flayer, that it scarred Max for the rest of her already difficult life.

It haunts them all.

It follows them all.

No matter what they do, or how much they all continue carrying on, the Upside Down never stops plaguing their lives.

“C’mere,” Steve quietly murmurs while carefully taking Mia from her bassinet. The drool blanket is already draped over his shoulder before he lets her little head rest there, tiny little noises slipping from her while she settles with ease in his hold. He tilts his head back, securing the pacifier. “There ya go…”

Before the rain can come crashing down, the door jingles again.

Max Mayfield skateboards right up to the door, hoodie damp with mist. She yanks it off when stepping inside, hair wild, eyes tired. The boys straighten. Steve tightens his hold on Mia just a bit.

“Hey,” Max mumbles, a bit absently.

“Hey,” Steve replies. “What’re you doing here?”

She reaches into her backpack. “What, I can’t hang with you guys on my lame Saturday?”

Everyone stiffens instantly.

“No!” Dustin shakes his head, startled.

“What? Of course not—I mean,” Mike stammers. “I mean of course, you can.”

Max lifts an eyebrow, still digging around her backpack.

The boys smile awkwardly. 

Robin reappears, clearing her throat. “Hey cutie, where’s Lucas?”

The redhead instantly goes rigid, eyes on the contents of her backpack. “He’s, umm. With Jason. Basketball practice, I guess.”

Steve’s brow furrows. “On a weekend?”

“Yeah, apparently that’s what they do.” Max’s tone is clipped, expression cold. “They ball every day of the week. And the arcade isn’t exactly ‘popular kid coded,’ or the skatepark, so… you guys are stuck with me.”

Everyone’s hearts sink.

Mike presses his lips into a hard line, silently seething. 

Dustin manages to keep a more neutral face, but even he looks disappointed. Upset. Bitter.

Robin knows better than to coddle her, so she keeps typing into the computer.

Steve just sighs, knowing all too well that Sinclair just wants to feel included and find his place in the world. He’s been there. Hell, he’s still there. Doesn’t matter that he’s no longer in high school. Doesn’t matter that he’s landed himself a full-time job with benefits and a promising future. Because that future…? It’s still up in the air.

He’s still dribbling.

And so is Lucas Sinclair.

“Anyway,” Max blurts, a little too forcefully. But she exhales deeply and schools her face…pulling out a tiny knitted beanie.

It’s orange. It's wonky. A little crooked at the brim.

Steve’s eyes go wide.

“Made this,” she mumbles. “Figured she might need it. Since it’s Halloween and all.”

Her sexy babysitter’s face softens, his doe eyes twinkling.

“Max,” he breathes. “This is… awesome.”

Despite herself, Max lightly smiles. Even with the eyeroll, she can’t help but feel her heart pinch while watching him set it carefully onto Mia’s head… seeing it fits just right. 

Steve swallows, tilting his head to look at Mia as she feels the new warmth of the crochet hat. “Whaddaya say, huh?”

Max leans down and makes silly faces at her. “Don’t mention it,” she winks, tickling her cheek. “Little pumpkin.”

Baby Mia beams at her, which brings out Max Mayfield’s rarest smile. 

The storm outside feels a little less frightening now. Robin watches from behind the counter sipping her latte, smiling like an idiot. Because across all the noise and trauma and ruined malls and broken families… Steve Harrington standing there with a baby wearing a knitted pumpkin hat on her head looks like the most hopeful thing she’s seen in months.

“Pumpkin costume is still a no, though,” Steve says over his shoulder.

Dustin groans. “Damn it.”

“LANGUAGE.”

Max snickers quietly.

Outside, thunder rolls.

Inside, Mia trumpets and babbles.

And for now, that’s enough to make everyone think danger might not be as close as it seems.

…until it is.

Because two weeks later, on October 21st, Chrissy Cunningham’s murder makes news headlines.

s4 | ep 5: The Earthquakes

The first thing Vecna gives him isn’t pain.

It’s distance.

Steve doesn’t see Nancy’s bullets tear through whatever passes for flesh in the Upside Down anymore. Not really. Not the way he expects. Instead, the Creel House drops away beneath him like a trapdoor, and suddenly he’s not standing in rotting red vines or gun smoke or the echo of his own heartbeat.

He’s above Hawkins.

Too high. Too far.

“…Nance?” He circles. “Robs—Nance—??”

He didn’t see them.

Just his hometown, sprawled beneath him like a broken model. Streets split, houses buckled in, roofs peeled back like scabs torn too soon. The ground itself looks wrong, jagged and cruel, fissures ripping through neighborhoods he knows by heart. It’s silent in that way only nightmares are. No screaming. No sirens.

Just inevitability.

“No,” Steve breathes, even as the word catches uselessly in his throat.

The vision doesn’t linger where it should. Like downtown, or the trailer park, or the high school. It slides, dragging him like a hand around the back of his neck, steering him toward the edge of town.

Toward the Brownes’ estate.

The house sits at the end of its long, winding drive like a corpse propped up for viewing. One wing has collapsed entirely, swallowed by a yawning crack in the earth. The pool is split in two, concrete buckled, water draining into the ground like blood into soil. Marble columns are snapped clean through. Tall windows are blown out. 

…and then the nursery.

The nursery.

Or what’s left of it.

Steve’s breath leaves him in a violent, broken sound at the sight. The room is half-exposed to the sky now, pink wallpaper torn open and cream curtains fluttering uselessly in a wind that doesn’t exist. He sees the crib on its side. Stuffed animals scattered like casualties.

Too small.

Too fragile.

Too—

“No—no, no, no,” he says, louder now, desperate, his hands curling into fists. “Don’t you fucking—”

But then he hears the cry.

Mia’s cry.

Vecna doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to. 

That sound is enough and he knows it.

The vision tilts and Steve sees it.

The collapse. 

The moment the rest of the house gives way. 

The ceiling caving in. 

The walls fold in like paper.

The crib disappears.

…and Steve screams.

——

“STEVE!”

He comes back to himself with a sound torn straight from his chest.

Robin’s hands are on him, gripping his jacket, grounding him, her face pale and smeared with grime. Nancy is shouting something. His name, maybe, maybe not. The gun is still in her hands, smoke curling from the barrel, but it looks wrong, alien.

He stumbles forward, breath coming too fast, too shallow.

“We have to go,” he chokes out. “We have to go now.”

“Steve, wait—” Nancy startles, but he’s already moving.

“It was their house,” Steve panics, wild-eyed. “He showed me the Brownes’. I saw it. I saw it—”

Nancy’s soul plummets. “You mean like—”

“Like what he showed you.” Steve’s already sprinting. “They’re not safe—”

Robin doesn’t ask him to slow down. She just turns and runs with him, heart in her throat, because whatever the hell she sees on his pretty face… scares the absolute shit out of her.

They don’t talk on the way back.

There’s no point and there’s no time.

The world is ending.

——

Hawkins is already screaming when they come through.

Sirens. Smoke. People running into the streets in pajamas and coats thrown over shoulders. House slippers and peril. Cracked concrete and demolished homes. Wrecked cars and splintered mailboxes.

The ground trembles again — an aftershock that rattles windows and sends Steve’s stomach lurching into his spine from the driver’s seat. 

He doesn’t even remember getting back to his BMW. Just that suddenly he’s behind the wheel — hands shaking, blood dried around his neck in an angry ring, ribs screaming every time he breathes.

At the fork, Nancy peels off in her car with Dustin and Eddie, in the opposite direction. Hospital, now, no argument! That’s what Steve had demanded, the moment they’d all reunited — finding Eddie bleeding out. And it didn’t matter that he’s still a wanted man, that he’s on the run, because now his abdomen is more guts and gore than it is intact, “—and fuck, he needs medical—right now!”

Dustin hadn’t fought on it.

Neither did Nancy, who’d volunteered herself as their ride.

Steve doesn’t stop to watch her go down the lane. He just floors it.

Robin follows in the Winnebago.

She keeps him in sight the entire time, knuckles white on the steering wheel, watching the taillights blur through dust and debris. She’s never seen him like this. Not after Billy. Not after Starcourt. This isn’t anger or adrenaline.

This is terror.

They reach the estate in minutes that feel like hours.

And Steve knows, he knows, before he even pulls up.

The street is lit up like a crime scene. Fire trucks. Police cars. Ambulances. Red and blue lights strobing across all the twisted iron gates and manicured hedges now trampled to shit.

The house?

The house is gone.

Not all of it.

Just half.

Just enough.

Enough to mirror Vecna’s vision that raided Steve’s brain like prophecy.

“Fuck.”

Steve slams on the brakes and stumbles out of his car, pain flaring white-hot through his side as his boots hit the pavement. He doesn’t feel it. He barely feels the ground.

He’s running.

“Steve!” Robin shrieks, jumping out behind him. “Steve—slow down—oh my god—”

He doesn’t hear her.

Because the Brownes’ estate is pandemonium. 

Firefighters are shouting, equipment is clanging, neighbors are crying behind police tape. And that same chunk of the house, just like the vision had shown him, has collapsed entirely into a sinkhole, rubble piled high like a grave.

The part still standing?

The nursery wing.

Steve’s chest tightens so hard he thinks his ribs might snap.

He charges forward.

But a hand grabs him hard across the chest.

“Whoa, whoa—hey!” Officer Callahan barks, hauling him back with surprising strength. “You can’t be here, man—this area’s restricted—”

“LET ME GO!” Steve snaps, struggling against him, breath violently hitching. “Please—please, I gotta get in there—”

“Sir—”

“I’m her nanny,” Steve blurts, his voice cracking so badly it barely sounds like him. “I’m her babysitter—fuck, man, I live there half the time—please, let me go, I gotta get her—!”

Callahan freezes.

Just for a second.

Then forces himself to say, “You gotta calm down—”

“She’s a baby,” Steve shrieks, tears burning his eyes now, vision going fuzzy. “She’s four months old—she sleeps on the right side, the nursery’s on the right side—please, you don’t understand—!”

Behind Callahan, firefighters are moving through the wreckage, methodically, carefully. Steve sees one of them shake his head, and something inside his chest splinters.

“No,” he says, hoarse. “No, no, no—”

Another tremor ripples through the ground.

“Shit—everyone out!” someone yells.

The remaining portion of the house groans.

Steve’s heart stops.

For one horrifying second, he thinks it’s happening again. That he’s about to watch this life die for real this time. Just like the underworld’s prophet said it would.

…but then a firefighter emerges from the debris.

Huddled over something.

Cradling something.

Steve’s knees nearly give out.

“Jesus Christ,” Callahan breathes.

It’s a baby.

Wrapped in a soot-streaked blanket. Her tiny pink beanie pulled low over her ears. Her face is scrunched, red and furious, a cry ripping from her lungs that has never sounded so fucking beautiful in Steve’s life.

“Mia,” he rasps, choking on a sob. “Mia—oh my god—”

He surges forward again, and Officer Powell steps up beside them now while Callahan feebly holds Steve back — then lets him go without thinking.

Powell takes one look at the pretty boy’s face.

At the way he’s shaking.

At the way he’s reaching.

At the way his doe eyes are locked on that baby like she’s the only real thing left in the world.

“He’s clear,” Powell says calmly, firmly. “That’s her caregiver.”

Callahan nods once, dazedly. 

Powell nods at the rescue team. “He’s family.”

The firefighters hesitate, then nod, carefully adjusting their grip as they move toward them with the miracle in one of their holds.

Steve barely remembers how to breathe.

The second Mia is in his arms, the world cracks open.

She looks up at him, wide-eyed and confused, lower lip trembling… and she recognizes him. Knows him. Wants him. Her little cry softens into a broken whimper, little hands curling into the front of Steve’s torn jacket.

And he collapses inward.

“Oh, baby,” he croaks, voice wrecked. “Oh, Mia—Mia, I got you—”

He presses her to his chest, burying his face into the beanie that she always wears when it’s cold, breathing her in like oxygen. Tears pour down his face unchecked as he rocks her gently, swaying on unsteady legs while his breath catches in his throat.

She’s warm.

She’s alive.

She’s here.

And he smiles, even while he weeps his heart out.

Robin stands just a few feet away, hands over her mouth, crying openly now. Callahan looks away, swallowing hard, jaw tight. Even the firefighters pause, something reverent settling over the scene. 

Powell can’t even believe this is the same boy he chased down an alleyway. 

Back in ‘83, when shit got weird in Hawkins the first time around.

He’s realizing now… that he understands less and less, every passing day.

Behind them, Mrs. Browne is being loaded into the ambulance, dazed and drunk, blood matting her hairspray. Badly concussed, but the alcohol running through her systems dulls the ache from where she took a beam to the head. From the next gurney over, Mr. Browne slurs something incoherent, reaching weakly toward the wreckage as his leg bleeds beneath the tourniquet.

“She’s… good…?” he mumbles, eyes crossing from blood loss, head lolling. “The—baby’s…”

Powell nods once. “She’s safe.”

Steve doesn’t hear any of it.

He’s too busy nuzzling Mia’s forehead… whispering nonsense apologies and promises into her skin. His shoulders shake as relief crashes through him — bone-deep and overwhelming.

“I’m right here,” he wetly murmurs, soothing and devoted. “I’m right here...”

It’s crazy to think, he just said those same words to Nancy this morning. After she fell into his arms, when Vecna let her go. He’d sworn them to her. Over and over. Needed her to believe that, to feel that, more than anything.

But saying them again now to this little life in his arms feels so much heavier. So much deeper, and scarier, and desperate.

“I’m right here…” he swears again to his number one girl.

The house collapses fully behind them with a roar of sound. The entire team jumps back, a chorus of startled gasps and exclamations harmonizing with it.

But Steve doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t even look.

Because he’s already holding what matters.

——

They guide him toward the ambulance gently, like he might shatter if handled wrong. Steve lets them. He climbs in with Mia still tucked tight against his chest, his fingers curled protectively around her little back. EMTs fuss over him — blood pressure, concussion protocol, questions he barely registers.

“Name?” one asks.

“Steve,” he answers absently. “Harrington.”

“Any pain?”

He nods vaguely.

“Where,” they ask, strapping on fresh gloves. “How bad?”

Steve doesn’t answer, staring at Mia.

The paramedic tilts her head. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Steve shakes his head.

All he can feel is her breathing.

All he can hear are her small, hiccupping sighs as she settles against him.

Safe and sound.

Powell stands outside the open doors for a moment, watching the way Steve presses a kiss to her head, eyes closed like he’s praying. Something in his expression softens as he witnesses the scene unfold…

“Sir—”

“Can you check her, please?”

“We’re going to,” the medic assures him, quieter now. “Just gotta—”

But Steve shakes his head, mumbling something along the lines of no when they reach for Mia so that they can check him further. Eventually, they begin looking her over while he holds her the entire time. Checking her tiny pulse, for any signs of bruising or distress. Powell watches them find nothing wrong with her, not a single scratch or injury in sight. And he sighs to himself, trying to figure out when this kid who used to throw house parties and shotgun beer with his obnoxious friends and flee from the cops, became this. This paternal figure of maturity at just nineteen years old, cradling someone else’s child, as if she’s his own to protect.

The doors close.

The sirens start again.

And as the ambulance drives forward, Steve Harrington rides away from the wreckage with his whole world held in his arms.

S4: Aftershocks.

The BMW is already in the driveway when the ambulance pulls away.

Steve barely registers how it got there. Later, he’ll realize Officer Callahan must’ve driven it, red-faced and serious and completely uncharacteristic. But right now, all he can see is the familiar shape of his house rising up out of the dark.

Lights are on inside.

The porch light is on. 

Every light is on.

That shouldn’t matter. It does anyway.

It feels like a signal flare. Like proof that something in the world is still waiting for him to come back alive, even in a place that he’s never felt beckons him home.

Because when has this place ever truly felt like home?

The ambulance doors open with a dull clang, and Steve steps down carefully onto the pavement, every movement stiff and aching, Mia bundled securely against his chest. A paramedic gives him a look that says: don’t go play hero tonight. Steve just nods, murmurs a quiet thanks, ignoring pain blooming hot and deep in places he knows he’s going to regret later. But Mia’s warmth anchors him, her weight the only thing keeping him from falling apart. He turns toward the front door.

It opens before he reaches it.

His mother stands there, framed by the light spilling out behind her.

Helene Harrington, in a cardigan thrown hastily over her silk blouse, her hair pulled back in a way that suggests she didn’t think about it — just did it, with the same haphazardous rake of fingers that her son inherited. 

No makeup. No jewelry. Barefoot.

She takes one look at Steve and goes utterly still before relief takes over.

“Oh my God,” she says softly. “Steve.”

Steve opens his mouth but nothing comes out.

He knows what he looks like. He caught a horrifying glimpse of himself in the ambulance window… blood dried along his temples, knuckles scraped raw, jacket torn and filthy. 

He looks like someone who should not be holding a baby.

She grips his shoulders.

“Is she alright??” Helene’s gaze worriedly falls on Mia, who just tiredly coos. It only baffles her more. “Where’ve you—”

Helen cuts herself off, staring at her son. And for a fleeting second, so quick Steve almost misses it, something naked crosses her face. Fear, sharp and immediate. Awe. Relief so strong it nearly breaks through her composure.

Then it’s gone.

The calm settles back over her like armor.

One sharp, shaky intake of breath… then a slow exhale.

“Come in,” her voice wobbles, stepping aside. “You’re freezing.”

Steve moves automatically, his body still locked in crisis mode even as his feet cross the threshold. The door closes behind him with a soft click that feels impossibly loud… sealing the night, and everything that came with it or tried following him home, outside.

“…no, that’s not acceptable. You can’t just—listen to me—”

Steve flinches despite himself.

His father’s voice carries from the study — sharp, clipped, mid-phone call. It cuts through the moment. But Steve doesn’t try listening to the words. He knows that tone. Legal disaster. Liability. The town fracturing beneath itself and people already looking for someone to blame.

Hawkins-is-on-fire mode.

“—you seriously think I’m just gonna twiddle my thumbs? Where is my son, Jeffery—?!”

Oh shit.

Steve’s entire body goes taut.

Helene doesn’t turn around, shaking her head as she closes the door. “Your father’s been trying to reach you,” she says evenly. “Hours. He’s been calling around for hours.”

“I didn’t—” Steve swallows. “There was no phone. I mean—service was—”

But then she’s hollering for her husband before he can keep bluescreening… because that’s why his dad sounds livid right now? Worrying about him?

“James, here’s here,” Helene hollers, her eyes then flicking toward the baby, realizing it might startle her. But Mia doesn’t whine or fuss. 

Steve still hasn’t even fully processed it when his dad’s voice abruptly halts, cutting off mid-shout. He catches movement out of the corner of his eye… a pause, the muffled sound of a voice on the other side of the landline.

His father steps into the hallway just enough to see him.

They lock eyes.

Nothing is said.

His dad’s gaze sweeps over him. The blood, the torn clothes, the baby… and something tightens in his jaw. He crosses the space in two steps, tossing the landline aside, letting it dangle from its cord. And he grips Steve’s shoulder, firm and grounding, fingers digging in. Like he needs to feel proof. Proof his son is solid. Standing right in front of him. Real.

Alive.

Then he releases him just as quickly, turns back, and lifts the phone again.

“I’ll call you back,” he snaps quietly, and disappears back into his study while he shoves the phone back onto the wall. Needing a minute.

Steve exhales shakily, eyes downcast, mind reeling.

Mia coos, lightly stirring in his arms, her little eye searching the ceiling.

“Steve,” Helene says again, quieter now while pinching her nose, just like her son always does. “What happened.”

He shakes his head automatically. “I’m fine.”

“Steven,” Helene warns, gently but firmly. “You look like you walked out of a war.”

“I’ve looked worse.”

“Like when.”

“Like Starcourt?”

Her eyes flash. “That’s because you were in the middle of a natural disaster.”

He doesn’t miss a beat, countering. “And that’s exactly what this is.”

His mother gives him a look. One brow lifts, just slightly.

“You’re bleeding in camo.”

“I—yeah. It’s nothing.”

“You look like a Republican.”

He huffs. “I went to the shooting range with Nancy.”

Helene reels. “Nancy—?!”

“Yes, we just—” Steve cuts himself off, gritting his teeth. Then sobering when little Mia suddenly makes a little trumpeting sound, tongue raspberry-ing. He instantly melts, forgetting whatever rebuttal he’d been scrambling to find. The softest sigh slips through his nose as he adjusts the blanket. “She goes there when she’s sad,” he murmurs. “Grieving Barb. So I go with her to make sure any pro-gun hotheads leave her alone while she shoots.”

That seems to do the trick.

Which is funny, given the fact it’s not even a total lie. It’s just also thought on the spot, spoken with a strange sort of ease while Steve adjusts the baby in his arms.

His mother’s eyes flick to Mia again. “And her?”

“She’s okay,” he says immediately. Too fast. “She’s fine. Mia didn’t—she’s… she wasn’t hurt.”

Helene’s brow furrows. “How’d you get there?”

Steve just stares at Mia, not even hearing her.

“Steve.”

“Ran.”

Helene studies him for a long moment… and Steve knows that look. He’s seen it across dinner tables and over newspaper headlines. It’s the one that says you’re not telling me something, but I’m deciding whether to push.

The silence that follows is heavier.

Eventually, Helene reaches out. Not for Steve, but for the edge of Mia’s small blanket — fresh and clean, donated from the paramedics.

“May I…?” she asks.

Steve hesitates. The instinct is immediate and visceral. His arms tense, and his chest tightens painfully. Every cell in his body screams no.

He swallows.

This is my mom, he tells himself. This is safe.

So he nods.

His mother takes Mia with practiced ease, her hands sure and gentle as she tucks the blanket closer and settles her against her chest. Mia doesn’t cry. She doesn’t even fuss. She just blinks up at Helene with those wide, solemn brown eyes, studying her face like she’s cataloging it for later.

“Well,” Helene murmurs, something warm threading through her cool voice, despite herself. “Aren’t you something.”

Mia blinks slowly when Helene tenderly strokes one finger between her eyes, and the tiniest little coo of a breath slips from her little mouth. Helene smirks, quietly fond, whispering something inaudible to her.

Steve watches, throat tight.

It hits him then, quietly and sideways.

This is the first time he’s ever seen his mother hold a baby. At least like this. Not at a party or a shower. Not in public. Not to be polite at a christening. It’s not even formal or awkward or stiff, it’s just… natural.

She’s a natural.

And it’s so unusual to witness, making Steve wonder if she ever held him like this when he was a baby. 

The realization, strangely, doesn’t hurt the way he expects it to.

It just settles. Unanswered and weighted.

“Her parents are at the hospital,” Steve says after a moment. “They’re—fine. I think. They were home. Took the night off. Got drunk.”

Helene’s expression pinches, eyes never leaving the baby as the information lands. “But they were home?”

“Yeah.” Steve’s eyes fixate bitterly on the untouched wine glasses along the wet bar, just past his mother’s head. “Drinking, I guess. Apparently, the liquor helped ease Mrs. Brown’s concussion.”

His mother’s eyes flick up. “She’s concussed?”

Steve just stares at the wet bar for a second too long, his brain snagging on the wrong detail, like a skipped record. Then he looks at Mia. “She’ll be fine. Speaking from experience.”

That almost makes his mother laugh. 

The blunt delivery of it, dryer than gin, is so darkly humored that Helene finds herself biting down her lip to keep from snorting.

“They’ll be fine,” Steve adds with an exhausted sigh, roughly raking his hand through his greasy locks of hair. “She’s—staying here tonight. With us.”

Helene nods once. “And they know she’s here with you?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

She softens. “Of course it doesn’t.”

They meet each other's gaze. And it’s charged, so much left unsaid while not needing to be said at all. Eventually, Steve averts his mother’s eyes, peering down at Mia in her arms.

Another pause.

“We’ll keep her safe,” Helene says without question, accepting the fractured explanation without pushing. Without demanding the parts he can’t give her.

Steve exhales with relief. 

“I’ll go make up the guest room,” she says.

“No.” The word comes out sharper than he intends. He winces, then softens immediately. “I mean—she’ll stay with me. In my room. In case she wakes up scared, or—confused.”

Helene looks at him then.

Really looks.

She looks at the way her son’s arms are still curved, like he expects to take Mia back any second. At the way he hasn’t sat down. At the way that his big, beautiful brown eyes keep flicking to the doors and windows like he’s bracing for something else to break through.

She doesn’t argue.

“That works, too,” she murmurs.

Steve nods. And for the first time since he walked through the door, he feels like he might actually breathe.

Later, he showers like he’s scrubbing blood and gore off his conscience. He doesn’t linger. Can’t stand the distance from the wee one, who’s now getting her diaper changed by Helene in the master bedroom. But Steve’s still thorough in a way that borders on compulsive. Shampoo worked into his hair twice… conditioner slathered, worked through the strands with rough fingers. Water scalding hot as it beats down on bruised muscles and stiff joints, all smeared with soap. He remembers what the paramedics told him while disinfecting his wounds. Specifically the angry welt around his neck, along with his ribcage.

Steve now disinfects the cuts on his knuckles with a hissed breath, his teeth clenched, waiting for the sting to ground him.

It doesn’t, really.

The shaking in his hands eases eventually, though, enough that he trusts himself again. Enough that when he shuts the water off and stands dripping for a second too long, he knows he can hold her without trembling.

He doesn’t even recognize himself in the mirror. Doesn’t care to look. Instead of combing through his hair, he just harshly towel-dries the damp locks while shoving his toothbrush and paste into his mouth until his gums sting. So that he doesn’t taste blood anymore. Or the salt still dripping down his throat from his earlier dismay. From the sobs that’d worked their way up his gut, into his chest and over his trembling lips.

Steve doesn’t rinse until the spearmint kills off the last tastebud, serving as a cruel reminder of the last few hours. And when he walks back into the house, hair damp and curling slightly at the ends, skin flushed pink from heat… his living room looks almost surreal.

He freezes in the doorway.

Mia is swaddled anew, wrapped neatly and securely, Helene seated on the couch with her cradled against her chest. The television is on, the local news looping shaky footage of cracked roads and panicked anchors, but there isn’t any audio. It’s like a silent horror film onscreen…

Helene looks up immediately. “I muted it,” she says, already reaching for the remote anyway, images still flickering when she flips channels. “It’s… a lot.”

“Thanks,” Steve murmurs.

She studies his face. “Does anything hurt?”

“Yeah,” he says honestly. Then, after a beat, “But I’m fine.”

Helene hums softly… the way she does when she doesn’t quite believe him but isn’t ready to argue. She takes in the sight of his crooked Henley, looking tugged over his head without much thought. The way his eyes look fatigued, but still darting around before landing on Mia — making his irises twinkle and melt again.

“She didn’t fuss once,” Helene murmurs, shifting on the couch. A faint smirk tugs at her lips. “Even when I changed her.”

Steve smiles, small but real. “Yeah. She’s like that.”

The little pacifier in Mia’s mouth twitches sweetly as she sucks it while Steve makes his way over to them, crouching in front of his mom. His thumb gently strokes her forehead as her eyes droop.

Just then, Steve’s father strides past them from the study, 

Phone calls forgotten, jacket slung over one arm, dark circles under his eyes.

He pauses mid-step when he sees Steve, his gaze sharp and assessing — cataloguing damage, maybe, the way he does with everything else. And his son lets him, allowing himself to feel small beneath his gaze. But this time? It doesn’t come from disappointment or disapproval. It’s just… domestic.

It’s fatherly.

James finally steps closer, glancing over at his wife cradling the baby, then at his son again. He sighs. “You’re alright?”

Steve blinks, then nods. 

Once, twice.

After another charged silence, James presses his lips into a tight line — then pats his son’s damp hair with gruff reverence. Physical affection hasn’t ever come easily for him. It’s a foreign concept. But the effort is there.

“We’ll talk later,” he mutters quietly. “Just glad you’re home.”

It’s firm but not unkind. 

Steve just nods again, words failing him.

Because that’s all either of them has right now.

“Heading out?” Helene asks him softly.

James sighs. “Not long. Just checking on Brent’s house down the road. He’s still in Philly with Linda and the girls.”

His wife nods, visible relief in her eyes. “Be careful.”

Her husband’s rigid posture, his somber expression, doesn’t change. But he does wink, even through the composure. It matches her own. And Steve just watches the two of them share this tiny moment before his dad tilts his head, glancing down at Mia.

And before he can think better of it, James brushes her tiny cheek before he quickly caresses Helene’s. Then he disappears down the hall again, already checking his pager, steps steady and controlled while opening the front door, then closing it softly so that it doesn’t startle Mia.

Steve lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

He scrubs his face, hands twitching. Needing to hold something. Mia, really. 

But then he feels his stomach rumble.

“I should feed her,” he mumbles, almost to himself.

Steve heads into the kitchen anyway, because standing still feels wrong. He rinses his hands, then begins reaching into the pantry where his babysitter duffel rests with all of Mia’s formula, along with Dustin’s snacks and Holly’s favorite candy.

Helene leans against the counter, watching him while swaddling the baby. “Is she always this easy?”

“Usually,” he says while warming the milk with meticulous care, testing the temperature against his wrist, then again. Just to be sure. Even though he’s done this a hundred times before. “She likes motion.”

His mother hums, considering that. “Well,” she offers gently, adjusting Mia on her chest, “you should eat something, too.”

“In a minute.”

“You always say that.”

“I know.”

Steve just squints at the bottle — entirely too focused.

Helene tries another approach. “Baby sleeps, you sleep. That’s what people always told me.” She shrugs lightly. “Same thing with meals.”

Her son glances over his shoulder, snuffing a half-assed laugh, resuming his work. “That work with us?”

His mom grins. “We got the hang of it, yeah.”

His back tenses a bit. But she can see the little smile pulling at his lips, even from his side profile. So she takes that as a win. His hands are steadier now. Focused. Busy. Being useful.

“…you didn’t answer me earlier.”

Steve keeps his eyes on the bottle. “About?”

“What happened.”

He exhales through his nose. “There was an earthquake.”

“I know that.”

“I was with Nance.”

“I know that, too.”

“Then we felt the quakes, I drove her home then raced over to the Brownes.”

“Thought you said you ran.”

“I ran when the road stopped being drivable.”

The silence stretches.

“Help was already at their house,” Steve continued carefully. “The Brownes’ place. Part of it collapsed.”

Helene’s jaw tightens. “Were they… stuck?”

“Just her,” Steve shakes his head, rinsing a fresh lid — the vein in his temple prominent. “Nursery side of the house hadn’t caved yet.”

That makes Helene’s ice run cold.

Because the fact that Mia was still inside, after her parents barely survived?

She swallows. “And you…?”

“Watched them get her out.”

Another pause. 

Longer.

But Steve finishes warming the bottle and reaches for Mia. Helene hands her over without comment, watching closely as Steve adjusts his grip, tucking her in against his chest — cradling her head just so, fastening the swaddle.

“There ya go,” he breathes, nearly inaudible. 

Helene doesn’t even know what to make of it.

Her son. Her pretty boy heartthrob of a son. Former king of the halls. Legend among ladies. Lifeguard and swim team champion. All charm and bravado… effortless swagger and perfect teeth. Friday night lights and diner dates. Jock clique ring-leader and popular kid…

Mr. Funny.

Mr. Cool.

The king of Hawkins High himself.

…now swaddling a newborn baby like a young dad, or like an older brother that never got to be one until now.

Steve settles onto the chair and brings the bottle to her lips. Mia stirs, makes the tiniest sound — not a cry, not even close — just a soft, questioning noise.

“Hey,” he murmurs sweetly, his voice dropping into something warm and low. “Hey, sweet girl. I’ve got you.”

He rocks her gently, barely moving, brushing his thumb along her cheek until she latches properly. She settles immediately, eyes fluttering closed again, fingers curling tight around his thumb.

Helene goes very still.

She watches the way her son’s entire body softens around her. The way his breathing slows to match hers. The way his face — battered, exhausted, still too young — looks suddenly, achingly gentle.

“You’ve done this before,” Helene observes quietly.

Steve huffs a soft laugh. “Once or twice.”

She crosses her arms loosely. “You still look like you ran through hell.”

He finally looks up at her. “One shower’s not gonna fix that, Mom.”

She raises an eyebrow. Just one, just enough to challenge him without heat. “You sure didn’t run through anything?”

He hesitates.

“I ran,” he shrugs instead. “No telling what all I bumped along the way.”

Helene considers that. “Did anyone see you?”

“…what, like the neighbors?”

“The medics, Steve…”

“Yeah. Paramedics looked over us both.”

“…and they let you leave.”

“Yes.”

“Looking like that.”

He smirks. “Starting to bruise my ego here, Ma.”

Helene presses her lips into a tight line, smirk betraying her. But the concern doesn’t leave her eyes. She sighs slowly, eyeing his neck. “They at least give you some medication?”

“Two steroid shots to hips,” he winks. “Felt great.”

“What about over the counter?”

He nods. “Prescription for muscle relaxers will be good tomorrow morning.”

She nods back, like she’s checking boxes in her head. “Good.”

A little tinker of noise slips from Mia’s lips around her bottle, eyes shining up at Steve. He scrunches his nose at her, teasingly nudging it against her small forehead, adoring the way it makes her own face light up with innocent glee.

Then her eyes droop more as the warm milk soothes her in his hold.

Helene smiles to herself. “How old is she again?”

“Four months.”

“…and you’re full time now.”

“Forty hours, give or take.”

Helene swallows. “That’s a lot of responsibility.”

Steve sighs, adjusting the bottle. “Yeah, well. That’s what happens when you become a parent. Your life is your kids.”

The words land too close.

Your life is your kids.

Somehow, that feels like a jab without it being intentional. Or maybe it is, and he just found a way to say it in a way that’s just honest rather than cruel. Just personal without solely victimizing himself.

Helene hates the way it makes her heart twist.

But more than that, she hates how much she wants to yank her son right out of that chair and hug the everliving daylights out of him. To ask him what the hell she could’ve done better. To beg him to blame her outright, for not being a jovial soccer mom with snacks in her purse or candy wrappers all over her floorboards.

“Steve.”

He glances up.

She hesitates. Opens her mouth, then closes it. 

Steve’s brow furrows. But he waits.

“Chief Powell called.”

He blinks.

Once, twice. Three times.

“Why?”

“Wanted to check in,” she tells him slowly, shuffling her feet against the chilly tile flooring. “Make sure you’re both alright.”

He knows that’s not all. 

Which is why he doesn’t say anything.

Helene’s eyes wander to the tea kettle, wondering if that might help her keep going. Or making him a sandwich. Keep her hands busy. Keep her focused. Useful. 

Like mother, like son.

“Also told me Sharon was asking for her at the hospital,” she continued while opening up the fridge. “Turkey or chicken?”

Steve blinks repeatedly, processing the duality. “Asking for her?”

“About her,” Helene corrects herself quickly. “Turkey or chicken?”

“Chicken. What did she say?”

“Just wanted to make sure she’s safe.”

“What, like it just now hit her?”

Helene fixes him with a calm look, removing contents from the crisper. “She’s concussed, Steve.”

“So?” His eyes flash. “I’ve been concussed. Last fall. And this summer. I still made sure every single one of those kids—my friends—that all of them were safe before I got carted off on a stretcher.”

The fridge closes. “You didn’t even let them do that.”

“Yeah? Well, I got checked later. Thanks to you and dad.”

She sighs. Yeah, that’s true.

“You were smashed at that Fourth of July party, Mom.”

“I know, Steve.”

“And you still dragged me to the ER.”

“I know.”

“You and dad hauled ass to me.”

“Because you’re my son.”

“Mia’s her daughter.”

Checkmate.

The heated truth lands harder than the deli mustard hits the sourdough.

Then suddenly, piercing the silence, a sad whine leaves Mia’s mouth around the bottle, tragic and precious all at once.

Steve looks down at her immediately. “Shhh—no, no… shhh, you’re okay…”

Helene’s entire soul aches while she spreads the stoneground mustard, her eyes peeking up at him while he soothes the baby. His firm grip on the bottle falters just enough for Mia to make another tiny sound, her brow creasing… and he leans down, pressing his forehead lightly to hers, while whispering nonsense reassurance until she relaxes again.

“…I’m sorry,” she says softly, down at the glob of mayo. “That was—”

“It’s fine,” Steve says, too quickly. Then quieter, “I just… I don’t like thinking about it.”

She nods solemnly. “Neither do I.”

Neither of them pushes it any further. And Helene doesn’t offer him any sort of advice or words of wisdom. She just quietly observes the way he tests the bottle, the way he murmurs softly when Mia stirs, and the way his shoulders finally drop when she settles into his arms again.

She watches him like she’s seeing something that she cannot unsee.

Eventually, Mia eases and the sandwich is made. Helene serves it on a plate with some leftover cucumber salad, knowing it’s his favorite. Then, she pours a glass of ice tea. Knowing damn well caffeine is the last thing he needs, but figuring the peach flavor is something he’ll enjoy anyway.

“Here,” she nods at him, setting it down. “Made you two. Because if you were shooting at that range before racing across time? Then I know you didn’t get a snack along the way. Or eat dinner.”

Steve’s eyes flick up, taking in the sandwich. 

He scans the way she’s not left a single veggie out of place, knowing that it’s his favorite. He clocks the second sandwich, made the same… although, it’s a bit cleaner. Not as messy. Not prepped quite as nervously. And he feels his mouth watering at the sight of the chilled cucumber salad, freshly seasoned, peppered and marinated, knowing it’ll taste even better today than yesterday.

He offers his mom a soft smile as she starts the kettle. “Thank you.”

She just nods, pouring honey into her cup with a chamomile teabag.

The news footage still flickers silently on the TV. Sirens. Cracks in pavement. Words scrolling along the bottom of the screen. Even though it’s still muted, it’s chilling to see. Interviewers look rattled. People they question are crying. Emergency vehicles work overtime— paramedics and firefighters and police all hustling through the streets…

Helene reaches for the remote and turns the TV off entirely.

The room settles into real quiet now.

“You’re very good with her,” Helene says again.

It’s not praise. 

It’s an observation. 

Just the facts.

Steve swallows. “She’s easy.”

They both know that’s not the whole truth.

Helene watches as he feeds Mia, her tiny fingers wrapped trustingly around his thumb, her body completely relaxed against him… and the way he smiles at her, even with the crash of adrenaline weighing down on him. 

Something in her expression shifts — a recognition, perhaps. 

Or regret. 

Or something unnamed entirely.

She turns away first this time, busying herself with nothing in particular.

And Steve stays where he is, holding the center of the room together without even knowing he’s doing it.

A little pink onesie tumbles slowly inside the washer, fabric softening with every turn, its matching cap bumping gently against the glass. The sound is rhythmic, almost hypnotic. And next to it, Helene folds clean laundry with a practiced precision — towels aligned, edge to edge, linens smoothed flat and washcloths stacked just so.

She barely registers the clock on the wall ticking past midnight.

The honey-chamomile tea sits half-finished on the counter, long since gone lukewarm. It hasn’t settled her nerves the way she’d hoped. Neither has the passage of time dulled the adrenaline still humming beneath her skin. So she keeps her hands busy, folding and refolding, listening to the house breathe around her.

From the living room, she can hear her husband’s radio murmuring the late-night news at low volume. He’s seated at the dining table, she knows, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, pen scratching methodically across his legal pad. Earthquake assessments. Property damage. Liability. All the ways disaster turns into paperwork by morning.

It’s how he copes.

She doesn’t interrupt him.

Upstairs, the house is different.

Steve constructs the blanket tent on his bed with quiet reverence in his room. He’s careful with every movement, as though sound itself just might fracture something fragile. Pulled are arranged just so — one to anchor the big duvet against the headboard, another to brace the side. Soft blankets, comforters, layered carefully… creating a warm little hollow in the center of the mattress. He tests it with his hand, pressing down gently, making sure it’ll hold.

It’s muscle memory, this. 

This half-forgotten something that feels deeply familiar.

Not here. Not in this room. Not since he was small enough to need someone else to tuck him in. But the motions come naturally anyway, instinct guiding his hands where thought might falter.

The cassette player is placed nearby, angled just enough that the sound will carry but not overwhelm. He hesitates for a second before pressing play, his thumb hovering over the button like it’s something sacred.

“Thought we could listen to our favorite,” he murmurs, barely above a breath.

Track #7 clicks into place.

“My Favorite Things.”

The first gentle notes spill into the room — strings and piano, both weaving something soft and familiar through the air. The melody settles over them like a blanket, warm and safe and unassuming.

Steve shifts carefully on the bed, easing down with Mia tucked against his chest. Her small body fits there like it was meant to from the start, her head nestled just beneath his chin. Almost immediately, her hand drifts upward… tiny fingers brushing until they find his.

She always does.

She always will.

Her little fingers curl around his index finger with surprising strength, like an anchor thrown without hesitation.

Steve’s breath shudders.

For a long moment, he just watches her.

The rise and fall of her back, against the rise and fall of his chest. The faint crease between her brows that smooths as she relaxes. The way her lashes, wispy and dark, fan softly against her cheeks. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t want to miss anything. Not even the smallest shift, the tiniest breath.

Every time his eyes close, the memory claws its way back in.

The sound of wood giving way. The sickening lurch in his stomach as the floor collapsed and the walls caved. The image of the crib disappearing in a thick cloud of dust and splintered boards.

His heart stutters hard enough to hurt.

So he sings.

It’s barely more than a whisper at first, his voice rough and frayed around the edges, but the words come anyway — familiar, practiced, worn smooth by repetition.

“Raindrops on roses,” he murmurs, almost smiling despite himself. “Whiskers on kittens…”

Mia shifts slightly, pressing closer, her gentle breathing evening out as if she recognizes it. As if the song is something she’s always known.

He hums between the lines, filling in the spaces where his voice falters. And when he reaches the chorus, he lowers his head, brushing his lips tenderly against the fine wisps of hair at her crown.

“You like this part,” he whispers, like it’s a secret between them. “Don’t you?”

She answers with a soft sound — not quite a sigh, not quite a breath — and tightens her grip on his finger.

Steve keeps going.

“Brown paper packages tied up with strings…”

The words blur together after a while, half-sung, half-murmured. Sometimes he forgets the next line and just hums instead. Sometimes he stops entirely, pressing his cheek to her head, breathing her in.

She smells like baby soap and milk and something indescribably her.

It feels unreal. That she’s here. That she exists. That somehow, impossibly, she’s part of his life now. Woven into it without warning, without permission, without any guarantee he was ready.

But here she is.

And here he is.

“…I won’t let you go,” Steve murmurs softly, not stopping the song, letting the promise slip between the notes. “Not ever.”

The cassette clicks softly as the track loops back to the beginning.

Minutes stretch. Then hours.

His bedroom grows warmer beneath the blankets, the night pressing gently against the windows. Steve’s voice grows quieter, his humming slower, the tension in his shoulders finally beginning to ease.

His exhaustion creeps in slowly, mercifully.

His arm curves instinctively around Mia, protective even in sleep, fingers still curled loosely around hers. The music continues on, a soft guardian standing watch when he no longer can. And for the first time since Vecna invaded his mind, Steve Harrington rests without fear. 

Because this time, the thing he’s protecting is safe in his arms.

More of my own face cards / casting inspo for the characters (because why the fuck not): James Harrington: Pierce Brosnan (like c'mon... a James Bond type of daddy as Steve's Harrington's dad? hot.) Helene Harrington: Lily van der Wooden(still 100% stand by this) The Brownes: Serena van der Woodsen & Paul Giamatti (except Serena is 39 and still childish, while Paul is very "Nanny Diaries" character coded) Lisa: McKenna Grace (like she'd be the ultimate cafe cutie)

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Steve drove the nearly two-hour stretch to Ivywood Community College from Lake Wasawee like it was nothing. Coffee thermos balanced between his knees, radio low, mind already ticking through notes he’d half-memorized the night before. Sometimes he stayed with Robin those nights, unless they both crashed on his bedroom floor at his parents’ house. More often than not, he stayed at the latter. The house that’s always felt more like a museum exhibit dedicated to his childhood than somewhere anyone currently lived.

But the more he drove there, finding his mother already waiting for him with a home cooked meal after classes let out, having already made an extra plate for Robin with a shrugged “I just figured you’d both be studying together” — and his father started sitting with him at night for twenty minutes or so, when he got back from the office… it started feeling more like a place to land, than it did somewhere inevitable.

He just wasn’t used to it.

Either way, he didn’t mind.

He’d drive anywhere for this reality.

Ivywood was… good. Better than anyone in Hawkins ever gave it credit for. Clean classrooms. Professors who remembered his name. A real lab for his Wednesdays at 7:45 a.m. that made him feel like a functioning adult instead of a guy cosplaying responsibility. He was knocking out his basics — English comp, psych, biology, anatomy. Everything that he’d need before applying to nursing programs the following year.

Because it turns out? A college counselor had told him he could cut his time in half, so long as he focused. So, he did.

One year, Steve had decided. One year of this, then onward.

The idea didn’t scare him.

That alone felt revolutionary.

Tuesdays were worse on paper. 8 a.m. then 10 a.m., then 1:10 p.m. then 3:05 p.m. — but somehow? Easier to stomach. He and Robin often grabbed breakfast burritos from the same grimy diner across from campus with their notebooks soaked across the tabletop… but ignored for the first half hour, while they talked shit about everyone around them. Students who all shared the same idea: early morning breakfast specials before class.

“Okay, but tell me why every single guy in your lab class looks like he’s either going to cry or propose marriage,” Robin said one Tuesday morning as they plopped down at a booth.

Steve snorted. “Because it’s pre-med community college students. We’re all emotionally compromised already.”

Robin made a face. “You’re not compromised,” she muffled with a mouthful of eggs. “You’re thriving. You’re, like—dangerously hot right now. Community college Steve Harrington? With a future? It’s unsettling.”

He shot her a look. “You’re literally sitting right here, planning a future.”

“I’m gay and immune,” she deadpanned. “Plus, I see you covered in spit-up on the weekends. Kills the mystique.”

“Rude.”

“Accurate.”

Steve would just roll his eyes, reviewing his homework. 

But he caught the longing stares from his peripheral vision. Girls who would kill to see him slam them harder than he slammed down his breakfast burrito, or slurp them up instead of his iced black coffee.

Robin always caught it up, snickering into her scramble. “Just wait ‘til you’re in scrubs. They’re gonna cum on the spot—”

“Robin Marlene Buckley—” he hissed, flicking his wadded up straw paper at her while she just sksksksksk’d like a smug asshole.

By Wednesday afternoon, after his lone morning lab, he’d be back on the road — heading toward the lake house, trading his textbooks for bottles and burp cloths. His nanny shift ran from noon until seven, and by the time he pulled into the gravel drive, he usually felt that familiar loosening in his chest.

Like he’d been holding his breath all week and only just realized it.

Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays. Those were Mia days. All day. Sundays were negotiable. Half days or full, depending on Sharon’s mood or Kenneth’s work (or “whereabouts”) but Steve never minded staying longer.

The guest house out back had truly become his own space. His own bed, his own slice of “home.” A life that felt earned, albeit insanely so. The baby monitor on his bedside table kept him calm at night — allowing him to find sleep, knowing that all he had to do was sprint across the lawn, into the main house, where he’d mount the stairs up to the nursery if Mia stirred, or if there was any sign of trouble.

Steve’s nightmares lessened, even without sleeping in the nursery.

And threaded through all of it was Robin, orbiting in and out like a constant.

Some weekends, she stayed with him at the lake house, her giant duffel bag dropped unceremoniously by the door, textbooks fanned across the dining table while Rosa and Marisol moved quietly around them. Of course, Robin adored them. And they adored her right back, cooking for her like she was a third daughter, correcting her Spanish with affectionate brutality.

“You’re saying it like a white girl ordering tapas,” Marisol scolded teasingly.

Robin beamed. “I am a white girl ordering tapas.”

Those weekends were domestic in a way Steve’d never known how to want before. Study sessions that blurred into movie nights. Burned eyes from too many hours of reading. Coffee mugs abandoned everywhere in his kitchen, laughter ricocheting off the high ceilings.

Magic, tucked inside the mundane.

And yeah, people around town noticed him too. Every time he’d hit the bank downtown, or the little coffee shop, pushing Mia in the stroller — girls drooled more than the baby did. Even the bank tellers, women well into their thirties or older, found themselves stumbling over their words. Forgetting his receipt. Asking twice if “that was all he needed,” or stalling by asking “how old is your daughter?” 

The hottest “manny” alive was the talk of both towns.

But at Ivywood, especially.

Girls asked for his number like it was nothing. Slipped notes onto his desk, or found excuses to partner up in lab. He went on dates. Dinner here, catching a movie there. A few hookups that were fun, consensual, uncomplicated.

He didn’t pretend otherwise. 

And even if he did meet with one girl more than once, he didn’t jump then fall for them the same way he did Nancy. He couldn’t. That shit was hard enough the first time, and he wasn’t going to risk heartbreak like that again. 

Especially when it still wasn’t all the way healed to begin with.

But for now, Steve Harrington found contentment being back on the market. He could more than afford it now. He made his own money, saving it well and spending it wisely.

Maybe that’s why his BMW still felt absurd sometimes. Not because it didn’t suit him, but because… well, it wasn’t his. Technically, it was. But on paper, it was co-signed in James Harrington’s name. His daddy’s money had funded the vehicle. So while it was sleek and well maintained, it didn’t feel as earned as Steve would like it to feel while driving it through this new life.

Even so, he drove it like he’d earned every mile.

Because that’s all he could do now: drive forward, not backroads. 

…and yet?

Every time he caught sight of Nancy Wheeler while back in Hawkins, every time her hair caught the light just so, every time she laughed at something he said while stopping by to visit the kids playing DND in Mike’s basement, or if she walked into the diner with Jonathan while he was there studying and saw them grabbing a booth together… something old and aching tugged at him.

It wasn’t even about wanting her back, exactly.

It was about what she represented.

A future. 

A family. 

A lifelong partner.

A reason to settle down.

The version of himself that wanted permanence instead of motion.

Because being Mia’s nanny didn’t soften that longing. It only sharpened it.

By mid-February, Valentine’s Day loomed like a joke that Steve couldn’t quite escape.

He had a date, though. A good one, at that.

Her name was Elise Hampton. Dark long hair, perfect smile. A wicked sense of humor, killer style. Going into pharmaceuticals. They shared two classes and an easy, effortless rapport. She was going into the same career field as him. Same path, same long game. Just different lanes within the same field.

When he asked her out, she smiled like she’d been waiting.

“Was starting to wonder if it was my imagination,” she told him outside on the little campus lawn, where he’d finally asked her out after weeks of flirting.

Steve took her to Enzo’s. 

He’d made the reservation. Ordered a bottle of her favorite wine. Candlelight. A table tucked into the corner like a secret. Conversation flowed effortlessly. Intelligently. They talked about anything ranging from films to music. Clinical rotations and professors they liked. How terrifying it was to want something so badly and still have to wait for it.

She laughed at his jokes. 

He listened every time she spoke.

And he loved the way she listened, too.

After Steve paid the tab, Elise had lingered in his car as he dropped her off… lip caught between her teeth, eyes round and swimming with desire, asking him with her gaze without even having to verbalize the question.

Stay the night?

So he did. 

Conveniently, it was a Saturday night, which meant that he didn’t have nanny duties in the morning. Sharon had taken the full weekend off, which gave him the liberty of enjoying a lazy Sunday. So he’d be able to lose sleep without suffering through class or a full shift the next day.

Upstairs in her cozy apartment, things unfolded naturally. 

Heat and hands and quiet urgency. Nothing rushed, nothing hollow. Steve’s lips caught hers in a tender kiss that turned into fire. Ties heels came off. Her dress hit the floor as he wrenched off his blouse. Her moans sang with his, bedsheets ruffled and stained with pleasure. He made her see stars, and she made sure to let him see no less. Every lap of tongues, every lustful hum into each others’ mouths, every slick-lathered swipe of her portal, every thrust of his hips grinding into her own… sent them into a dizzy spell.

It was good.

It should have been enough.

But sometime long after midnight, staring up at the ceiling while Elise slept curled against him… Steve felt it. That familiar low, the gaping hole within the void of his own mind.

The absence.

He thought of Mia’s laugh. 

Robin’s voice across the table. 

Nancy’s impossible, lingering imprint. Her eyes, her sighs, her integrity… her cue cards that she’d let him flip through to help her study while refusing to let him sleep with her that soon, that fast, that easily.

He thought of a future that still felt just out of reach.

He thought of the Winnebago dream, and who sat there in it beside him.

I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.

That’s what his brain supplied, unhelpfully. That’s the only sentence his mind could fully muster, despite the millions of scattered thoughts and feelings that overflowed and made him drown.

He left before dawn.

Wrote a note. Simple. Kind. Half-honest.

“Duty calls. The boss needs me back at the lakes. I’ll call you.”

He left it on her pillow.

Then he drove.

The radio stayed off, the windows rolled down. Trees whirred by, traffic lights glowed in the thick fog of early morning. Hardly anyone was awake, and that strangely brought him comfort as he followed the familiar route with intuition, with muscle memory, instead of a map. 

He passed his childhood home.

He passed the street leading to the Wheelers’ house.

He passed the broken lane, leading to the Brownes’ ruined estate.

Instead, his trusty Beamer hit the highway and made for Lake Wasawee.

The sky was still pale, still dim, by the time Steve pulled into the lake house drive. He tripled his keys in his hand, checked his wristwatch. The world was hushed, still waiting for him… 

Inside the main house, the TV murmured softly.

Steve stepped into the living room and stopped.

Mia was on her stomach in her playpen, fists curled, legs kicking with fierce determination while Mickey Mouse played on low volume. She grunted, face scrunched in concentration, like she was wrestling the concept of movement into existence. Crawling hadn’t become a mastered feat yet, but she made a valiant effort to change that every single day.

The sight of her trying made Steve’s heart set itself straight, chest loosening. He smiled to himself, carefully dropping his bag.

“Ohhhh Miaaaa,” he softly sang, just above a whisper. 

Her head popped up in soft surprise.

His eyebrows wiggled. “Is that my best girl?”

Her face lit like the sun. Tiny arms flailed. A sound escaped her that was half gasp, half laugh — hnnng! And he gasped right back, mimicking her fondly.

Steve crossed the room in exaggerated, tiptoeing steps. “Is this what we’re doing now? Practicing for the baby Olympics?”

He scooped her up, pressing her close. She babbled against his shoulder… warm and solid and real. Constant in a way that nothing else seemed to be.

Behind him, Sharon paused in the kitchen doorway.

She watched for a moment. Silently, something unreadable flickering across her face. Then she took a slow breath, putting on her best warm smile before pretending to “notice” him.

“You’re home early,” she hummed with easy surprise.

Steve looked up, Mia still nestled against his chest. He shrugged, a sheepish smile gracing his features. “Hey, yeah—sorry. Couldn’t stand seeing just how bad it all still is over there.”

“Ah,” she mused with understanding. “Not exactly day-off material, huh?”

“Nah,” Steve shook his head, gently bouncing Mia. “Least not with my friends out of town or stuck in church all day.”

None of his friends were out of town.

None of them were at church past 10 a.m.

Sharon hummed absently, then took a sweat in the recliner, smiling wistfully. “Good Valentine’s Day, at least?” she asked slyly.

“Yeah,” Steve said easily. “It was.”

She raised her brows, eyes breezily mischievous in her own unique way. “So then…” she amusedly pressed, letting it dangle a moment. “Second date?”

He considered that. Then stiffly grinned. “Maybe. Yeah.”

She studied him. “Think she might be the one?”

Steve just glanced down at Mia, who reached for the TV remote with grave intent. His brow slightly furrowed, her words flipping over in his mind. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Guess I’ll know when I know.”

Sharon nodded slowly, lips curving into something almost wistful.

Then she rose to stand, her satin robe catching the light. “Well. At least enjoy your morning off, okay?” She tilted her head, gesturing as she made her way down the hall. “There’s fresh coffee in the kitchen. Was just about to take a quick shower.”

“Thanks,” Steve lightly hollered, watching her go.

He settled onto the couch with Mia warm in his arms, the world finally quiet. She pointed at the TV, cooing. He narrated it for her, voice low and fond. And in that quiet, he wondered… guiltily, tenderly… who she loved most.

Her mother, turning on the faucet upstairs.

Her father, away on business for the weekend.

Or her nanny, who wondered what it meant that he hoped, just a little, that it might be him.

END OF CHAPTER 

s5: ep 10 (continued)

FRIDAY • February 19, 1986 

The lake house felt like it was holding its breath.

Outside, the sky was a color palette of old bruises. Purples and sickly grays, layered so thickly they looked painted on. The lake itself had gone eerily still, its surface dull and metallic, like something waiting to crack. Even the trees along its shoreline stood stiff and uneasy, bare branches clawing at the lower hanging clouds.

It gave Steve the heebie-jeebies.

Inside, though? It was warm.

He sat at the big coffee table with his entire academic life splayed out in front of him like a crime scene. Syllabi stacked and overlapping. Spiral notebooks cracked open to half-legible notes. Index cards littered with anatomy terms that he still couldn’t believe he’d volunteered to memorize. A mug of refilled coffee, gone lukewarm now at his elbow.

He stared at one page, pen hovering.

“…okay, but that makes literally no fucking sense,” he muttered under his breath, dragging a hand down his face. “You cannot expect me to memorize seventeen bones in the wrist and also write a cohesive essay about Freud’s mommy issues in the same week. That’s cruel.”

From the floor beside him, Mia responded by aggressively gnawing on a little plush giraffe.

Steve glanced down, the corner of his mouth lifting immediately. She was sprawled comfortably on her back in the playpen, legs kicking lazily, a halo of wispy baby hair sticking up in every direction. Currently, Lady and the Tramp was now playing quietly on the television nearby — something about the old animation style holding her attention more than anything else.

“You agree, right?” he asked her seriously, tapping the pen against the table. “This is academic warfare.”

Mia kicked again, then rolled slightly onto her side, making a pleased little sound that Steve chose to interpret as full endorsement.

“Thank you,” he said solemnly. “Finally, someone on my side.”

He went right back to his notes, mumbling as he flipped pages. He narrated his thought process out loud, not even aware he was doing it anymore.

“Alright. English paper due Monday. Psych quiz on Tuesday. Bio lab report— absolute bullsheeza, by the way—due on Wednesday. Anatomy exam next Friday, which means I should probably start panicking… now.”

He looked down at her again, expression flat. “See, this is why you should enjoy being seven months old. No deadlines. No student loans. Just Disney, eat, sleep, burp, diaper change, repeat.”

Mia had rolled onto her stomach now, propped awkwardly on her forearms, chewing determinedly on her own fist like it personally offended her.

“Hey, hey—” Steve said gently, pushing himself off the floor with a light grunt and crouching beside the playpen. He swapped her fist for a teething ring, pressing a kiss to her crown. “Hands are friends, but not those friends.”

She accepted the toy with solemn gravity, then leaned against the mesh side of the playpen so she could better see the TV.

Steve watched her for a moment longer than necessary.

Then the phone rang.

The landline’s shrill trill cut through the quiet simplicity of the morning, sharp and intrusive. Steve barely reacted at first, eyes still flicking between Mia and his notes, reaching for his pen tucked behind his ear on autopilot.

The phone rang again.

He sighed, standing. “Alright, alright. I’m coming. Jesus.”

He picked up the receiver. “Browne residence?”

“Have you watched the news yet?”

Robin’s voice crackled through the line, breathless, already halfway to panic.

Steve frowned. “Good morning to you too, Buckley.”

“I’m serious, Steve.”

He glanced toward the TV, where Lady and the Tramp were serenely sharing spaghetti. “No. I haven’t. I’m occupied with—”

“Okay, well you should be less occupied and more aware of the impending doom upon us.”

Steve’s mind went to the worst of places. “Rightside-up impending doom? Or he-who-must-not-be-named type—”

“Rightside-up-whatever-the-fuck weirdness Mother Nature has in mind.”

“…that’s not comforting.”

“Just turn it on.”

He huffed, wedging the phone between his shoulder and ear while carefully transferring the call to the kitchen landline so he could flip on the second TV without disrupting Mia’s movie. Bella Notte began playing as Steve made his way out of the living room, plucking the remote and flipping channels until the local news appeared as he snatched up the corded phone near the kettle.

“You on it yet?”

“Just a second, Dingus,” Steve absently grumbled, squinting at the television screen where a meteorologist stood in front of a violently colorful map.

Steve’s brow furrowed.

“Oh,” he said slowly. “That’s… not great.”

Robin exhaled sharply. “Right?”

The forecast was grim. Severe thunderstorms rolling in from the west. High winds, lightning, flash flood warnings, and (like the universe just couldn’t help itself) an abrupt temperature drop.

Rain would freeze.

Ice and sleet and hail would form blizzard conditions by nightfall.

“—and these severe conditions are supposed to last until Sunday afternoon,” the meteorologist was saying grimly, gesturing all over the green screen.

Steve stared at the television. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“I wish I were,” Robin sighed. “It’s already getting ugly here. Big gray clouds. Like charcoal gray. Light rain. For now. Roads will be getting slick soon.”

He looked out the kitchen window. The sky seemed to press closer here, too. Darker than it had any right to be all morning. Seemingly within seconds.

“Don’t drive,” Steve said immediately.

“I wasn’t planning to—”

“Robin.”

She hesitated. “Okay, I was planning to, but—”

“No,” he snapped. “Absolutely not. You skip class. You stay put.”

She scoffed. “You don’t get to parent me.”

“I absolutely do,” he shot right back. “I’m a nanny now. It’s basically my entire personality.”

There was a pause.

One second, two seconds.

Steve’s eyes narrowed. “Robs.”

“I’m coming anyway.”

His stomach dropped. “What—?”

“I’ll skip class. I’ll leave now.”

“Robin, no—”

She talked over him. “I’m already packed! I’m hanging up.”

“Robin!”

“Love you!”

The line went dead.

Steve stared at the receiver, then slammed it back into the cradle with a huff. “God damn it.”

He roughly raked a hand through his hair, heart thudding uneasily. Relief and dread tangled in his chest until he couldn’t tell them apart — staring between the news station and out at the approaching doom outside the window. 

But as the weatherman kept droning on, Steve turned back toward the living room. Mia was watching him now instead of her cartoon, dark eyes wide and curious… almost concerned.

“Hey,” he said softly, crossing the room and lifting her out of the playpen. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”

He held her close, humming to her, rocking gently as he moved through the house, checking locks out of sheer instinct. Front door. Back door. Windows.

Every single point of entry inside the house.

Storm clouds outside seemed to roil and shift unnaturally. Swirling. Swelling, like something coming to life, slowly but surely. 

Steve wasn’t sure if the sound of distant thunder was real or in his head. And for a chilling second, every old fear whispered at the back of his mind…

Demogorgans.

Upside Down.

Vecna.

Unfinished business.

Steve tightened his hold on Mia. “Nope,” he murmured. “Not today. Not ever.”

He kissed her forehead, then picked up the phone again, dialing…

Rosa answered on the second ring. “Steve?”

“Hey, Miss Rosa,” he said gently. “How you doing?”

“I am watching the news,” she said, voice thick with concern.

“Yeah,” he sighed solemnly. “That’s why I’m calling.”

“It looks very bad...”

“Listen—don’t come in today. Or this weekend.”

There was a puzzled pause on her end. 

He could practically hear Rosa’s brow furrowing deeply.

“…but Mrs. Browne—”

“Will understand it’s not safe,” Steve finished confidently. “Trust me. I’ll vouch for it. I’m making the call. She and Kenneth won’t argue.”

Another beat.

Then another.

Until finally, Rosa sighed. “Are you sure, Mr. Steve?”

“Yeah,” he assured her. “I don’t want you or Javier risking it. Stay home. Be safe.”

“…and Miss Mia?”

“I’ve got her,” he said firmly. “We’ll be fine.”

There was one more pause. Then, softer, “You are really sure…?”

Steve smiled despite himself. “Rosa. I can cook. I promise. Probably.”

She laughed at that, quietly. “Okay. But you call if you need anything.”

“I will. Scout’s honor.”

“Okay,” she chuckled warmly. “I will check in later…”

His smile deepened. “We’ll be here.”

After they hung up, Steve set the phone down, looking out at the gathering storm outside, peering through the high windows.

Mia babbled softly in his arms, utterly unbothered.

Steve held her tighter. “Alright, kid,” he murmured, lips to her temple. “Looks like it’s just us for a bit.”

Outside, thunder rolled low and distant.

Inside, the house stayed warm. Lady and the Tramp kept vibrantly flickering across the television screen. The weather forecast stayed on the kitchen TV. Lake Wawasee’s water rippled icily. The Brownes’ brick house braced itself.

…and Steve waited for Robin to come home.

——

1:48 PM

“If we die because Mother Nature took us out in all her ironic glory, instead of getting slaughtered by the supernatural apocalypse—right under our feet? I’m haunting Larry Klein’s pompous ass specifically.”

Steve barely has time to turn before Robin barrels past him, her socks wet, jacket half-zipped, hair blown completely feral by the wind. She nearly clips the doorframe dragging her duffel behind her like a body.

“Hi to you too,” Steve greets her flatly, instinctively shifting his weight so Mia, strapped snug against his chest in her little carrier, doesn’t jostle. “You know, most people knock.”

Robin whips around, eyes wild. “I did knock. With my car. Against God’s will.”

She kicks the front door shut behind her, shoving her shoulder into it until the deadbolt clicks. The lake house shudders faintly, like it heard her and didn’t appreciate the tone.

“Hi munchkin, bubaloo, cutie-patootie, moo-moo-moo,” she obnoxiously coos at Mia, lips puckered like a blowfish while sweetly pinching her cheeks, nose to nose — then smacks a kiss to Steve’s cheek before continuing forward.

Steve watches the door for half a second too long.

“…you seriously made it here in under two hours?” he asks her, trying to sound normal and failing just a little.

“One hour and twenty-two minutes,” Robin boasts, already unzipping her bag and dumping its contents onto the guest bed in a chaotic landslide. Clothes. Books. Cassette tapes. Something metallic that clatters ominously. “Which means I broke at least four traffic laws, one personal moral code, and—uhm, possibly time itself.”

“That’s—” Steve frowns, doing the math. “Robs, that drive’s almost two hours without bad weather.”

Robin chirps with amusement then points at the window, where the stormy sky is already darkening like a nasty bruise spreading under skin. “Yeah well, I had that to beat. So I drove like the devil himself was riding shotgun, telling me to punch it.”

Mia lets out a pleased little babble, tiny hand curling against Steve’s hoodie.

“Don’t encourage her,” Steve murmurs to her automatically, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before looking back at Robin. “You could’ve waited. I told you not to drive.”

She snorts. “You told me not to drive the same way you tell people not to do drugs. With zero actual authority.”

“I am authority,” Steve argues, glancing down at Mia for validation. “She can vouch. Tell your crazy aunt I’ve got authority here, please.”

Mia kicks her feet like she knows she’s being discussed.

Robin softens immediately, just a hair. “Okay, fine. She’s very intimidating.”

“Right?” Steve asks smugly, grinning down at Mia.

“Someone has to be.”

Steve shoots her a wry look. “You done?”

Robin puffs her lips, flopping down onto the bed a harsh exhale. “Yeah, that’s all she wrote.”

“Hurray.”

“Christ, Dingus,” she groans, the words muffled in her palms before peeking through her fingers. “That storm?—followed me the whole way here from Hawkins. Trees bending sideways. The lake looks like it was trying to climb out of itself.”

Steve’s jaw tightens. “Yeah. Sharon and Kenneth called again. Flights are officially grounded. They’re stuck in Florida.”

Robin blinks. “Huh. So they’ll miss this next round of apocalypse, too. Gahd, why is it that the adults around these parts never actually stick around for the most suspicious happenings, or even if they do… they aren’t worried.”

“They’re worried,” Steve adds, defensive without meaning to be. “About Mia. About… everything.”

“…I know,” Robin says quietly. “I didn’t mean—like, I just—” She gestures vaguely. “Absentee doesn’t mean heartless. I get it.”

Steve nods. He’s already had that conversation with himself. 

Twice.

Mia squirms, letting out a soft sound of disgruntled protest.

“Hey, hey,” Steve murmurs instantly, bouncing her gently. “You’re good. Snug as a bug, safe and sound.”

Robin watches his actions. Automatic, instinctive, not even breaking the flow of their conversation… and something in her chest tightens.

She clears her throat, sitting up. “Okay, so. Logistically. I’m in here because if the power goes out? I want to be near you and the baby. And the food, and the—you know. Walls. Are they—?”

“Brick,” Steve confirms. “Concrete foundation. Built for harsh weather.”

“Love that.”

“Kenneth walked me through storm prep earlier like I was twelve.”

Robin smirks. “To be fair, emotionally speak—”

“Don’t finish that sentence.”

She grins. “—you are twelve.”

Steve scowls. Then he scoffs like a brat, turning on his heel. “Just gimme the soggy socks and lemme show you the drill.”

She salutes him theatrically. “Yes, Captain Banana Split.”

“I’m about to make you sleep on the roof.”

They move through the house together — Robin peeling off her damp socks, Steve adjusting Mia’s straps as he checks windows and doors again. Locks, curtains. Deadbolts, emergency camp lights. Generators, backup generators.

The heavy, reassuring thunk of solid construction.

“You already checked this one,” Robin notes.

“Checking again,” Steve quips. “Redundancy builds character.”

“Paranoia builds character.”

“Same thing.”

Another low rumble of thunder rolls overhead, distant but present. The lights flicker, too. Just once, but that’s enough to trigger the 1983 core memory and the LiteBrite signals from last year.

Steve freezes completely.

Robin follows suit, eyes tracking.

Mia gurgles obliviously.

“…cool,” Robin mutters. “Love that.”

“Unless we start getting morse code flickers,” Steve mumbles.

They exchange a look. 

No jokes this time. Just shared understanding.

“Mother Nature’s being a bitch,” Robin says finally.

“Language—” Steve reflexively starts.

“Jerk!—sorry, being a b—big…jerk,” Robin corrects, smirking.

Steve glances down at Mia. “Should we make her eat bar soap?”

Mia gnaws thoughtfully on the strap near her face.

He nods. “That’s a yes.”

“That’s not a yes,” Robin sputters defensively.

“Prettttttty sure that’s a yes.”

They drift into the living room, where Steve kneels by the VHS player.

“Oooooh, what’re we putting on?” Robin asks, wriggling her brows.

“Dealer’s choice,” Steve drawls, popping open a plastic case, eyes playfully dragging down to Mia. “But she likes the old ones.”

Robin watches as Mia tracks his every movement, her brown eyes wide and intent as he places the Lady and the Tramp VHS into the rewind machine — then begins clicking a new one into the player.

“…that’s freaky,” Robin says fondly. “She watches you like you’re the moon.”

Steve shrugs, pretending his throat doesn’t tighten. “Good taste.”

He slides the tape in.

Sleeping Beauty.

Robin beams. “Oh hell yes. Maleficent scared the shit out of me as a kid.”

“Watch it,” Steve warns. 

“Sh—shoot. Scared the… shoot.” Then Robin snickers. “We’re doomed.”

Steve sputters, reeling with bewilderment. “You can’t do anything—!” 

After another snort-worthy, wholesome roast-fest, they begin settling. Robin’s on the coach and Steve’s standing while the television goes pale blue, right before the silver Walt Disney logo forms across the screen. He’s shifting Mia gently against his chest, where she’s still strapped in.

The movie barely has time to start before…

CRACK.

Lightning splits the sky, white-hot and immediate. 

Thunder detonates simultaneously, loud enough to rattle the windows.

Robin yelps, jumping.

Steve’s arms snap tighter around Mia, heart in his throat.

Mia blinks. …then her face crumples.

And a tiny, wounded sound escapes her before she starts to cry.

“Oh—oh, hey—shhh,” Steve breathes, panic slicing through him as he rocks her instinctively. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, angel, it’s okay—”

The crying little angel in his arms, looking up at him in pure terror, breaks his heart clean in half. 

He shushes softly, murmuring nonsense, spinning just enough to distract her, pressing kisses everywhere he can reach. “You’re safe. I’ve got you. It’s just noise. Just noise. No monsters.”

Robin’s hands are over her mouth, eyes glassy.

Mia’s little cries taper off into little hiccupping whimpers, then fade completely as Steve gently turns toward the TV, pointing.

“Look,” he whispers. “Colors. See? Pretty.”

Mia stares, newly mesmerized by the vintage font and orchestral score.

Robin exhales shakily. “Jesus.”

Steve doesn’t look at her, but his voice is steady now while he gently thumbs the corners of Mia’s wet eyes. “She’s okay. Just startled.”

“I know,” Robin says. “You’re just… good at this.”

He swallows. “I mean, I’m… scared too.”

His best friend nibbles at her lip, fidgeting. “I know.”

They stay quiet for a moment as the storm presses nearer. Sleeping Beauty is now just past the opening credits, its golden storybook opening as the man begins narrating. Mia’s glossy eyes focus on the king and queen, while Steve and Robin keep their eyes alert but sit close to each other now on the floor. 

“…thus today would they announce that Phillip, King Hubert’s son and heir, to Stephen’s child would be betrothed. And so to her, his gift he brought…”

“Wait—hold up…” Steve leans forward, squinting. “What?!”

Robin’s also blinking at the animated scene. “So like… this kid’s arranged to be married to this royal family’s newborn baby daughter—”

“And meeting her,” Steve adds, completing her thoughts. “—while she’s still a baby. In a crib.” He stares back at the screen incredulously. “And he’s eight.”

Robin’s eye twitches. “Times were weird, man.”

Steve just puffs a laugh that’s not really a laugh. He shakes his head, looking down at Mia. “No arranged marriages for you. Or weird age gaps. Got it?”

Mia just takes a little gasp of breath, making a grabby hand at the three good fairies now glittering down from the ceiling and making an appearance at the newborn baby princess’s party.

He smiles softly, then watches the movie again.

Outside, the wind howls.

Inside, the house holds.

Then a nostalgic crackle sounds off from the kitchen and from Robin’s hip.

The walkie-talkies.

“—hello? Steve? Robin? Do you copy?”

Mike’s voice. Tinny, familiar, high-strung for no reason.

Steve grins while Robin rolls her eyes, but there’s no heat. Just fondness.

The walkies crackle  again. “Dingus-half scoops troop, do you copy.”

“We copy, Wheeler,” Robin drawls into hers, smirking. “You forget the lingo? Over?”

Dustin cuts in immediately. “I told him to say ‘over,’ but he panicked. Over.” “I did not panic,” Mike snaps, before awkwardly adding, “over.” “So that makes full Scoops Troops on deck,” Erica chimes in, snarky as ever. “Glad to know you’re both alive, soldiers. Over.”

Steve grins wider, jutting his chin at Robin — gesturing. “Gimme.”

She tosses it. And he catches it easily, his profile at her so that he’s got Mia faced away from it, shielding her in case he misses. Which, he doesn’t.

He clicks it on. “Miss you too, Sassypants. Where’s your bother? Over.”

Lucas’s voice comes through next, warm but tired. “I’m with her. Storm’s bad here. Hospital’s solid though. Over.”

Steve’s smile softens. “Good. You staying with Max? Over.”

“Yeah, our parents decided it’s safest we camp out here and wait it out. Just in case. Over.”

Robin leans closer, murmuring, “Tell him we love him.”

“We love you, man,” Steve murmurs sadly. “Glad you’re all together. Ov—no, wait. Dustin? Mike? Where’re you guys staying? Over.”

“Older Wheeler here,” Nancy’s voice chimes in, unusually playful. 

Steve’s brows raise, cheeks flushing.

Robin smirks at him way too broadly for his liking.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Mom,” Nancy continues. “I’ve got ‘em all under house arrest with my mom. Three-day basement party. Over.”

That earns a sheepish smile from Steve, lip catching between his teeth as he lifts the walkie again. “Well be sure to have Holly give Dustin a hard time for me in DnD. Willing to bet she’s got a better grasp on the game than he does now. Over.”

A staticky scoff sounds off from Dustin. “I won’t insult Holly’s intelligence by saying no, but uhm—no. Asshole. Over.”

“LANGUAGE,” multiple voices chime in.

“He’s with Mia, dipshit,” Mike adds.

“LANGUAGE!” Steve and Robin growl in unison.

There’s a pause.

Then Dustin clicks in again, low and mumbled. “I sawwy, over.”

Robin wheezes, bent at the waist, hands on her knees. “As I said. Hopeless.”

“Also, Nancy,” Dustin squawks again. “I’m gonna stay with my mom, down at the nursing home. Make sure she stays sane. Over.”

Steve suddenly stiffens. “Wait,” he clicks in. “Henderson, where are you right now? Over.”

No answer.

His eyes narrow. “Henderson.”

Still no answer.

“Henderson—”

“I’m in the cafeteria getting pudding,” Dustin snaps. “Christ alive, Steve, just gimme a god—dang second to answer. Over.”

Steve scoffs, even though none-deep relief washes over him with a huff. “So then you’re already there. Safe and sound. Over.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“And you’re not leaving.”

“I am not leaving.”

Steve sighs, parental tone softening. “And your mom’s alright?”

Even Dustin’s voice softens. “Yeah, man. She’s in her element. This place is her zone. Plus she’s got me here to bother her now. Over.”

With that, Steve finally lets himself release whatever breath he didn’t realize he was holding. His shoulders visibly loosen, the tension in his spine melting. And the entire time, Mia just watches the movie in his arms while Robin grins to herself.

Then she clears her throat. “Ahem.”

Steve glances at her, watching her reach for the walkie.

“Gimme,” she whispers, mimicking him earlier.

He makes a face, tossing it.

She catches it one-handed. Way too smug about it. 

Then she clicks in again. “So Nance, you gonna be able to hold down the fort over there at Casa Wheeler? Over.”

“Oh, yeah,” Nancy drawls slyly. “Steve’s gonna need to watch out. Else… he miiiiiight just find himself some competition. Over.”

Steve smirks, doe eyes wistful. He walks over to Robin, speaking into it while she holds down the button. “You better watch that mouth, Nance. Over.”

“Make me. Over.”

That makes Robin’s brows hit the ceiling. She gapes at Steve, eyes alit. And an entirely undistinguished squeak escapes her.

He literally has to bite back the lovesick grin on his face, a breathy chuckle now bubbling from his throat. But before he can say anything—

“I’ll help keep her mouth occupied. Over.”

Jonathan.

The entire party line goes quiet.

Steve visibly bristles.

Robin winces, nose scrunched with discomfort.

The kids on opposite sides of Hawkins all flinch and bite their nails.

Then Nancy, prim as ever, chimes back in. “That’d actually require you to get off the back deck porch swing and help me in the kitchen. Over.”

Oh shit.

Now everyone is holding their breath.

“Jonathan,” Joyce suddenly chimes in. Not impressed. “You’re still out there? It’s a monsoon outside. Get in. Now. Help your girlfriend—and Mrs. Wheeler. I told you to help while I’m gone. Over.”

At this point, Steve’s just irritated.

With Jonathan.

With the universe.

With the fact they all can’t be together.

With the fact Nancy’s still pulling her own weight with a stoned boyfriend who just can’t seem to figure out she doesn’t want make-up sex or quick-fix dates at the diner or Enzo’s.

“…sorry,” Jonathan mumbles. “Just—needed some air. Over.”

Robin scoffs. “That’s rich,” she tells Steve, not clicking in yet.

He’s already got his jaw set, teeth grinding. “Seriously, what’s his deal…”

She just shrugs, sighing disapprovingly.

Steve clicks back in before he can help it. “Nance, is Miss Karen feeling any better? How about your dad? Over.”

There’s a brief pause.

Until Nancy clicks back in. “They’re a lot better. Just headcolds. No um—you know… ash-ridden viruses, or… supernatural plagues. She’s napping. Dad’s watching TV. I’m making sandwiches. Over.”

He faintly smiles to himself. “Fluids. Vitamins. NyQuil on tap. You got this.”

Mia’s sweet little coos harmonize with his voice. 

She’s gnawing on her little fist now, her eyes nervously tracking Maleficent.

Steve eases it out of her mouth on autopilot, replacing it with her pacifier. “At least it’s the perfect weekend to be sick,” he adds lightly into the walkie while Robin holds it for them. “Over.”

Nancy’s easy chuckle filtered through the speaker. “Well I’m on nurse duty… so keep the pre-med school tips coming, Manny. Give Mia a squeeze for me. Robin, keep those two in line please. Over.”

Keep them safe for me, please.

Robin two-finger salutes. “Ten-four, soldier.”

Steve blushes to himself, hiding his smile in Mia’s hair.

The kids all keep talking a bit more over the walkie. Will’s quiet voice chimes in with Joyce later, signaling that he’s with her for the day. El and Hopper are there, too. But they stay off the line for safety protocol. They’re all four safely housed in Murray’s bunker for the long weekend ahead, along with both him and Eddie.

Eventually, it goes silent for a handful of seconds.

Then the walkie crackles again.

Just static at first. Long enough that Steve frowns and Robin tilts her head.

Then?

“Well, this has been a touching little communal check-in,” Murray Bauman’s voice cuts in dryly — unmistakable as ever. “Very Leave It to Beaver, if the Beavers were all emotionally stunted child soldiers with unresolved trauma and access to military-grade communication devices.”

There’s a beat.

Dead silence across the channel.

Robin’s mouth falls open.

Steve blinks. Once, twice.

Then Murray continues, unfazed. “I just want to clarify something before I go back to stress-organizing canned goods and teaching Johnny Storm how not to electrocute himself with my generator—”

A faint, indignant, “I know what I’m doing!” from Eddie echoes distantly in the background.

“—which is this,” Murray pressed on. “If anyone here is harboring unspoken feelings, passive resentment, or romantic tension that’s being sublimated into caretaking behavior and storm preparedness, now would be an excellent time to acknowledge it. These situations have a way of accelerating into emotional reckoning. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do suppressed feelings. Over.”

Robin makes a noise somewhere between a choke and a bark.

Steve’s ears burn. “What the hell—”

“And before anyone gets defensive,” Murray adds briskly, “I am not singling anyone out. I’m simply observing patterns. For instance: overprotective blond male with a martyr complex, a manny who reads bedtime stories for a living but fights evil on the side, his hyper-competent best friend with abandonment issues, his walk-‘em-down baddie ex who only pretends she’s oblivious—”

“OH GEEZ,” Robin explodes, doubling over.

“—a vulnerable infant acting as an emotional stabilizer—”

Steve reels back. “What—?!”

“—it’s a classic configuration,” Murray still finishes, smug as ever. “Textbook, really. Freud would have a field day. Over.”

Someone in the background (Hopper, Steve would bet money on it) mutters, “Jesus Christ…” and Joyce’s voice follows, sharp and warning. “Murray.”

“What?!” he snaps back. “I’m being helpful.”

“You are not,” she states flatly.

A pause.

More static.

Then Murray sighs, long and theatrical. “Fine. I’ll wrap it up. Bottom line: stay inside, stay warm, don’t repress anything that could get you killed later, and if the power goes out? Candles go away from the baby. Over and out.”

The walkie clicks dead.

Silence.

Until Robin loses it.

Steve laughs so hard he has to bend over, making Mia squeal-laughs with delight at the noise as her yellow pacifier twitches.

For a moment, the storm doesn’t feel so big.

Because even worlds apart, they’re all still in this thing together.

——

6:02 PM

By six o’clock, the lake house smells like butter, garlic, and something warm enough to feel like a promise.

Steve stands barefoot on the kitchen tile, Nike socks abandoned somewhere near the couch hours ago, hoodie sleeves pushed up to his elbows, an oven mitt clamped around one hand while the other stirs a pan with confidence. The windows over the sink have gone nearly black with rain, streaked and rattling as wind drives sheets of it sideways off the lake. Every so often, the glass shivers like it’s thinking about giving up.

Inside, though… it’s golden.

Soft overhead lights. The low murmur of the weather channel from the small kitchen television. The hum of the oven, the clink of a spoon against ceramic.

At the table, Robin Buckley is performing for her life.

“Here comes the airplane,” she informs gravely with her eyes going comically crossed as she swoops a tiny spoon through the air. “Direct flight. No delays. Complimentary snacks.”

Mia sits bundled in her high chair like a little queen, wrapped up in a fuzzy cream-colored throw blanket that’s already smeared faintly orange at the corner. She wears her new footed onesie patterned with little blue ducks, her cheeks pink with warmth, her brown eyes locked intently on Robin’s face.

The spoon reaches her mouth.

She opens without hesitation.

Robin freezes, spoon hovering. “Oh my god,” she breathes. “Dingus, you— saw that, right?”

Steve glances over his shoulder, smirking. “Saw what?”

“She didn’t even fight me,” Robin says, awed. “She just… accepted it. Like a polite little Victorian child.”

Mia gums the spoon thoughtfully.

“That’s because,” Steve says, shaking the pan, “that’s not garbage baby food. That’s the fancy stuff.”

Robin squints at the tiny glass jar sitting on the table. “This says ‘Beech-Nut Naturals.’”

“Exactly.”

“That sounds like something rich people feed their dogs.”

“It’s organic,” Steve says defensively. “No additives. No preservatives. Rosa said it’s basically baby haute cuisine.”

Robin scoffs. “She’s seven months old, Steve. She would eat a leaf if you presented it with enough enthusiasm.”

Mia smacks her lips, clearly considering that option.

The television murmurs behind them.

“—conditions along Lake Wasawee continue to deteriorate as wind speeds increase, with sustained gusts now reaching—”

Thunder rolls low and long, not sharp enough to startle, just deep enough to be felt in the chest. But Robin doesn’t flinch. She just dips the spoon again, making a quiet little nyoom sound as she guides it back toward Mia.

Steve watches them for half a second too long.

Then he turns back to the stove before Robin can catch him.

He’s making lemon chicken piccata. Thinly pounded chicken breasts seared golden, finished in a sauce of butter, garlic, capers, and fresh lemon juice — served over buttered pasta with a side of roasted green beans blistered just enough to char. It’s simple. Clean. The kind of food that tastes like someone took their time.

The kind his mom used to make when she was home.

“Steve,” Robin says around another successful airplane landing. “Be honest.”

He hums, plating the chicken.

“Is this your way of seducing me?”

He snorts. “Please. If I wanted to seduce you, I’d just exist.”

“You’re so tragically heterosexual,” she mutters.

“And devastatingly competent,” he adds. He points the spatula at her, cheeky as ever. “Your future wife will thank me one day when I give her all my recipe cards for reference.”

Robin rolls her eyes, but there’s no bite in it. Just fondness. Something warm and settled in her chest that has nothing to do with the food… and everything to do with a fairytale that she refuses to not believe in, despite the harshness this world has to offer girls like her.

The weather channel continues.

“—flash flood warnings remain in effect for Kosciusko County and surrounding areas. Residents are advised to stay indoors and off the roads—”

The rain intensifies, hammering the roof now, loud enough to drown out the softer sounds. Wind actually screams down the chimney.

Robin finally notices.

She glances toward the nearest window, then back to Mia, whose attention has drifted to her own fists.

“Hey, peanut,” Robin murmurs to her softly. “You’re doing great.”

Mia blinks up at her.

And the backup babysitter winks, smooching her temple before spooning the last little scoop of her baby food and bringing it to her lips with a cooed, “one more bite, baby girl,” sweetly rolling off her tongue.

Steve carries two plates to the table, setting them down carefully. The food steams. He places a fresh bottle of warm formula beside Mia’s tray.

Robin looks up at him. He gives her shoulder a brief, grounding squeeze.

“I’ve got her,” he says quietly.

She doesn’t argue. Just leans in, presses another kiss to Mia’s fuzzy head of hair and whispers, “You’re doing so good, bug.”

Mia grabs at her finger.

Robin smiles like it physically hurts, then begrudgingly steps aside.

Steve dabs Mia’s mouth with a cloth, gentle and practiced — then unbuckles her and scoops her up. She settles immediately against his chest, cradled in his hold, bottle tipped to her lips as he sits, her back tucked into the crook of his arm.

Robin watches him do it — effortless, natural, like this has always been the shape of his life. And she feels that familiar swell of gratitude rise up again.

Of all the people.

Of all the timelines.

She got him.

She got Steve Harrington as her platonic soulmate with a capital P.

They eat. For a few minutes, it’s quiet except for the storm and occasional suckle from Mia’s bottle.

Then Robin groans softly. “Okay. No jokes.”

Steve lifts an eyebrow.

“This is stupidly good,” she sighs, mouthful of food. “Like… offensively good.”

He grins. “Yeah?”

“I hate you,” she adds, shoveling in another bite. “Why is the chicken tender? Why is the sauce balanced? Who taught you this?”

“My mom,” he says casually. Then adds, softer, “She had her moments.”

Robin nods. 

She knows.

She thinks of Helene Harrington, bustling and distracted but present. Thinks of Sharon and Kenneth, loving but distant. Thinks of the way Steve looks at Mia sometimes, like he’s learning something retroactively.

The TV murmurs again.

“—temperatures are expected to drop sharply overnight, bringing freezing rain and sleet—”

Right on cue. The lights flicker.

Hard.

Robin inhales sharply, hand darting out to Mia’s shoulder on instinct.

Steve freezes mid-bite, fork half-lifted.

Suddenly, thunder cracks overhead — sharp and violent.

…but the lights steady again.

Mia doesn’t react. She just keeps drinking her formula, calm as anything. Robin exhales, forcing herself to relax. She resumes spooning the rice pilaf into her mouth like nothing happened, even though she swallows it thickly… feeling a chill run down her spine. Steve watches her and Mia. Then the windows, and then the TV again.

The forecast hasn’t changed.

Tomorrow will be worse.

They both finish dinner slowly.

Robin insists on doing dishes. Steve protests weakly, then relents… standing and lifting Mia, her bottle nearly empty now.

“Bath time soon,” he murmurs to her, pecking her little button nose. “Then we get you into some fresh PJ’s, and a diaper, and a bed time story.”

She sweetly coos while Robin runs hot water in the sink. Steve just keeps on murmuring to Mia, making ridiculous faces. She responds with a gummy little smile, eyes already drooping...

Lightning flashes.

Hot. Blinding. Apocalyptic.

The house goes dark.

Robin yelps. Steve lunges instinctively toward her, clutching Mia tight.

For three heartbeats, there is nothing but rain and wind and blackness.

…then the generator kicks on.

A low mechanical hum sounds off. 

A few lights flicker back to life. Not all, just enough to feel safe.

Steve’s breathing is loud in his ears.

Robin laughs shakily. “Okay. Okay, we’re good. Let’s go ahead—make use of these camping lights. That way, we're all set.”

“Agreed,” he mutters with a huff, roughly raking a hand through his chestnut waves of hair. “Hell, I’m lighting the fireplace.”

She snaps her fingers and points with a nod. “I’ll grab the logs.”

The camping lights click on.

The living room fireplace is lit.

The storm roars.

Their walkies crackle.

“—checking in.” Dustin’s voice. “Everyone okay? Over.”

Steve exhales, smiling faintly. “We’re good, Henderson. Lake house just lost power, but the generator kicked in. Over.”

“Power went out here at the home, too,” Dustin sighs. “Everyone’s freaking out except my mom. She’s thriving.”

“Of course she is,” Robin mutters, brows pinched.

“Wait,” Steve adds warily, already voicing her exact thoughts. “So you all lost power over in Hawkins… at the same time? Over?”

Dustin clicks in again. “Seems like it. Over.”

Steve sighs deeply, hating the irony of it.

It’s too coincidental and he knows it. Robin, too.

Mike’s voice chimes in. “Holly rolled a nat twenty.”

It’s exactly the diversion they need.

Steve snorts. Of course he’s showing her how to play DnD.

“She’s a natural, I’m telling you,” Will chimes in cheerfully. “She really is,” Jonathan chimes in too, playing in the basement with them. “I can confirm, she’s kicking my butt. Nancy’s, too. Over.”

Robin smiles sadly, just happy to hear they’re all keeping themselves busy.

Will and Joyce report from Murray’s bunker, Miami Vice in the background as Johnny Storm (aka Eddie Munson’s alter ego) chimes in a few times.

Lucas reports from the hospital while Erica steals his fries.

Dustin reports he’s been given his own unoccupied “old man” room.

Mia finishes her bottle, safe and sound in Steve’s arms.

…and yet?

As Steve holds her, something cold coils in his gut.

A memory.

A voice.

You won’t save them next time.

He looks down at Mia’s face, peaceful and trusting, and tightens his hold just a little. Because upside down or not, Vecna or no Vecna… he’s right here.

And he’s not letting go for one goddamn second.

Outside, the wind howls like something alive.

Inside, the safety remains.

For now.

It’s somewhere between eleven o’clock and midnight when the nursery officially becomes neutral ground.

The storm has settled into something steady but relentless outside — rain needling the siding, harsh gusts of wind pressing their palms up against the windows like they’re testing for weak spots. The heavy-duty generator hums low and constant through the walls, a mechanical heartbeat that makes the house feel awake even when everything else is trying to sleep.

Sharon’s already called twice to check in, relieved to hear they’re alright. But for the first time, she sounded truly unsettled being away from Mia. She and Kenneth are no doubt stuck in Florida until late into next week until the snow thaws, assuming the blizzard does its worst here up north. But she knows, of all the people for her seven-month-old to be snowed in with — it’s none other than Steve Harrington. World’s best babysitter. Number one “manny.” Golden boy popular kid turned protector of innocence.

She’d asked Steve to put Mia on the phone for her the second time that she called. And he’d done exactly that, letting the sounds of her splish-splashing in the bath calm her nerves. Even Kenneth had added commentary… weirdly pleasant. Almost domestic, in his own bizarre sort of way.

But the power lines would no doubt be shot to high hell tomorrow. And that’s why Steve had told them both to take their time while holding Mia upright in the water as Robin kept the phone steady. Soon enough, reception got really shitty and the line got disconnected.

Now bath time is long since over.

A bedtime story had been read in the recliner.

The lullaby had been sung. My Favorite Things, of course.

…and the baby was dreaming.

Inside the cozy nursery, the lights are dimmed to a warm amber glow. Mia’s moon-shaped nightlight casts soft stars across the ceiling, slow and drifting, like she’s sleeping under a moving sky.

She is, miraculously, out cold.

Fast asleep. Peaceful. Unbothered. One chubby fist tucked up by her cheek, the other flung dramatically over her head like she passed out mid-victory pose. And on the floor, directly beside her cozy crib — Steve and Robin have constructed what can only be described as a war crime against interior design.

Pillows. So many pillows. 

Couch cushions dragged in from the living room. Two mismatched blankets layered and twisted into something resembling a nest. A sheet tented over the backs of a chair and the crib rail, creating a lopsided little fort that feels both ridiculous and perfect.

They’re curled up inside of it like kids at a sleepover they weren’t technically allowed to have. Robin’s on her side, facing Steve, her chin propped on her arm. He’s mirroring her, one knee bent, socked foot peeking out from under the blanket. Their voices are reduced to whispers and stifled breathy laughs, the kind that make your chest hurt because you’re trying so hard not to be loud.

Robin presses two fingers together and makes them walk across the blanket.

Steve watches, suspicious. “What are you doing.”

“Sh. Don’t rush them,” she whispers. “They’re on a journey.”

“That’s my thigh.”

“They don’t know that.”

She makes the fingers hop, chirping a soft boinnnggg sound effect. 

Steve clamps a hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking. “Robin,” he hisses. “Stop. I swear to God, if you wake her—”

The tiniest little sleepy sounds off.

Both of them freeze.

They hold their breath, eyes locked on the crib.

One of Mia’s legs twitches. She sighs in her sleep and rolls her head slightly to the side, utterly unconcerned with the idiots guarding her like gargoyles.

Robin slowly exhales and presses her face into the blanket. “We almost had to flee the state,” she whispers. “I’m not emotionally prepared to run again.”

Steve nudges her foot with his. “You’re the one who started finger theater.”

“It’s not theater,” she hisses back. “It’s performance art.”

“Go to sleep.”

“No.”

“Then go get us a snack.”

“Bitch—you get us a snack. I don’t know where they stash the good shit!”

Steve snorts into his bicep, then groans. “Honestly, I’m still way too fucking full after going back for that second chicken breast.”

“Same,” Robin whispers with a mock-grave nod. 

The wind howls outside, a harsh thwack of wind slapping against the house.

She shifts closer, lowering her voice even more. “Okay, but real talk. Do you think classes are getting canceled this week?”

Steve hums quietly. “If they’re smart.”

“They’re not,” Robin says immediately. “They made us all come in during a literal gas leak.”

“True.”

“And that one time the power was out and Professor Harris was like, ‘Just squint and imagine the whiteboard.’ In a damn windowless room.”

Steve snorts, burying his mouth in the blanket. “I forgot about that.”

“He tried to draw with a flashlight.”

“That explains so much.”

Robin grins at him in the dark. “If we’re actually snowed in, though? Kind of a blessing.”

Steve nods. “Yeah. I could actually finish my psych paper without wanting to claw my eyes out.”

“I could do my stats homework without panic sweating.”

They share a quiet, mutual shudder.

Robin tilts her head. “You cool I just stay here with you if it gets bad?”

“Obviously,” he whispers. “Not like I’m gonna kick you out and make you stay in a guest room when we’ve shared a bed way too many fucking times.”

“Good,” Robin says softly, like it matters more than she wants to admit.

She studies him for a moment, the soft spill of light catching in his eyes. He looks tired. The good kind, though. The kind that comes from long days and purpose and responsibility that fits him better than it has any right to.

“Hey, so,” she murmurs. “Radio station called me today.”

His brows lift. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she whispers. “They want me to start doing assistant shifts regularly. Like… fifteen or more hours a week. Not just a scattered intern schedule.”

“That’s awesome.”

“With actual taxed paychecks. No cash under the table.”

“Hell yeah. Welcome to the government owned work life.”

“I get paid actual money,” she beams, awed.

Steve smiles big. “M’so proud of you.”

She shrugs, trying not to glow. “It’s nothing yet. But maybe… eventually… I could pitch my own segment.”

He snorts. “Oh God.”

“Don’t ‘oh God’ me,” she grins. “I’m serious. I was thinking—”

“No.”

“Hear me out—”

“Nope.”

She grins wider, feral now. “You could co-host with me.”

He chokes on a laugh so hard that he has to roll onto his back and bite his sleeve. “Absolutely not.”

“Oh, come onnnnn—”

“Hard pass.”

“Steve Harrington, local heartthrob turned radio darling—”

“I will sooner fake my own death.”

She leans closer, whispering conspiratorially. “You know it would be fun.”

“It would be chaos.”

“Exactly.”

Steve shakes his head, smiling despite himself. Then he sighs. “I don’t have time, Robin. Between classes and Mia and—”

“I know,” she assures softly. “I know.”

She means it. He can hear it.

“But still,” she adds, winking. “You could make a guest appearance.”

He bites his lip, considering that. “Yeah,” he whispers, nodding slowly. “I’ll tell you what. You get that segment? I’ll be your first guest.”

Robin smiles brighter than the sun, holding out her pinky. “Deal.”

They lock pinkies, kissing their respective fists and shaking on it. Then Steve shifts on the blankets, rolling onto his side so he’s facing her more fully. One arm tucks under his head, the other resting loosely between them, his fingers absently worrying at the edge of the blanket.

“Sooo,” he murmurs, voice low and casual, like he’s just thinking out loud. “If classes do get canceled next week, it’s actually kind of perfect timing. Gives us space to breathe.”

Robin hums. “Mm.”

“Because community college is really just the runway, right?” he continues. “Like—year one is fundamentals, year two’s for proving you can survive the workload without fully losing your mind, then it’s off to the real meat grinder.”

“And yet we’re cramming both years into one.”

“Yeah, ‘cause we’re overachievers who’re off their rocker.”

She lets out a quiet snort. “Comforting.”

“I’m serious,” he says, whispering more animatedly now. “Like, I’ve been looking at nursing programs already. Not applying yet, obviously, but just… comparing. There’s a couple that’re actually really solid. Good clinical placements. Decent pass rates.”

Robin nods, eyes on him. “You’ve done research.”

“Yeah,” he says, a little sheepish. “Which feels illegal somehow.”

She smiles faintly.

“And you,” he adds, pointing at her with two fingers, smirking. “Admin work in a medical setting is no joke. Gynecology offices, imaging centers—those places always need people who actually know what they’re doing.”

“Bold assumption,” she whispers.

“Hey,” he smirks. “You’re terrifyingly competent.”

Robin exhales through her nose, amused.

“And hey, listen—that radio gig?” he continues. “You should take every hour they offer you. Like—every single one. Even if it’s annoying. Especially if it’s annoying.”

“Why?” she asks softly.

“Because loans,” he says immediately. “Because this all gets expensive fast. And I don’t want you getting stuck later wishing you’d taken more shifts now.”

Robin’s fingers start to fidget with the blanket.

Steve doesn’t notice. 

“I mean, community college helps, obviously. But once we transfer…?” He whistles under his breath. “That’s when it hits. Tuition, books, housing—” He waves a hand vaguely. “All of it.”

She nods. 

Quiet.

Too quiet.

“And look,” he adds, lowering his voice even more… like this is the important part. “I’m good. Like—actually good. My parents set up that college fund for me forever ago, and now that I’m finally using it, it’s covering tuition. Which means everything I make from nannying? I’m just saving.”

Robin’s lips twitch happily.

“And I don’t have rent,” he continues. “No utilities. No groceries, really. So—” He shrugs. “If things get tight for you at any point? It’s not a big deal.”

Her brows pinch. “What do you mean…”

“I mean,” he nudges her knee with his. “That I’ve got you.”

Her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

But it makes her entire face and chest ache all the same.

“I’m not saying that to be weird,” he adds quickly. “Or brag. I just—I want you to know I’ve got you. Wherever we end up. Whatever we do.”

She swallows hard.

“And wherever we go,” he says, softer still. “We’ll figure it out together.”

The words hang there.

Robin goes very still.

Too still.

“…hey.” 

Her eyes flick up at him. “Huh?”

He tilts his head, frowning. “Buckley, you good?”

She nods, eyes on the blanket. “Yeah. Yeah—sorry. I’m listening.”

Steve studies her face. The way her mouth keeps worrying at itself. The way her fingers won’t stop moving. It makes him feel a strange sense of concern.

“Then why are you making that face?” he asks quietly.

Robin just stares at him, like she’s wondering if she should keep playing it off but knowing it’s no use. Steve knows her too well. And he already knows that something’s up, so there’s really no point.

Silence stretches.

But he waits.

Then Robin’s voice, when it comes out… is smaller than usual. 

“My parents have been talking.”

His stomach tightens. “Talking about…?”

She hesitates, then exhales. “Moving.”

The word hits him like cold water.

She keeps going, words tumbling now, rushed and soft. “They think Hawkins is—I don’t know. Done. Like it’s—not coming back. My dad’s been looking at jobs out west. Better opportunities. Safer places.”

Steve stares at her.

“They’re not saying tomorrow,” she adds quickly. “Or anything. Just… maybe within the year, or… half a year.”

His chest aches.

“I’d have to transfer schools,” she continues, voice barely above a whisper. “Leave everyone. And I know it’s not stupid of them to think this way, I just—”

But then she finally looks up.

…and she sees his face.

Wide-eyed. Stricken. Devastated.

Her stomach drops. “Steve—”

“That’s not happening.”

She blinks. “It’s not definite—”

“Because it’s not happening.”

“Steve—”

“No.”

She tries to smile. “Dingus—”

“Don’t laugh,” he scolds sharply. Regardless of their tones staying hushed, it still has heat behind it. “Don’t do that.”

“I’m not—”

“You are.”

Robin sighs, defeated. “They might not even—”

“I don’t care,” he cuts in. “They can move. That’s fine. You’re not going with them.”

She lets out a sad little huff. “Where else would I live?”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“You live here because you work here,” she reminds him gently. “You know I can’t move in with you, guest house or not.”

“That’s not the only option.”

She searches his face. “Name one.”

Steve sits up abruptly, breath sharp. “My parents’ house. I’ll get my old room back. You can have it. They’ll be fine with it.”

“…okay, but—”

“Or Murray’s. Eddie’s already there. Plenty of space.”

“Steve...”

“Or the Wheelers’. Nance sure as hell would love the company. Just literally anywhere. Hopper’s cabin for all I care. You’re not leaving.”

“Hey.” Robin reaches for his hands, grounding him. “Dingus. Hey.”

Steve’s breathing hard now, eyes bright. “You’re not moving.”

There’s fear there. 

There’s codependency.

A refusal so deep it hurts.

Love. Unconditional, true, platonic love.

Robin nods slowly, eyes glassing over with tears. “Okay…”

Steve stares harder at her, brown orbs boring into her soul. Scanning her for any half-truths. Doubt. Weakness. Betrayal. And even though he finds none, he still doesn’t let it rest just yet. “Okay what.”

She swallows before tightly managing, “okay, I’m not going anywhere.”

He’s quiet for a moment, vulnerability flashing through his hardened gaze. 

Then finally, his shoulders sag.

He blinks hard, swallows harder. Then rakes a hand through his hair, staring up at the top of the pillow fort like it’s the only thing holding him together as he lets himself lay down again. After he takes a few steadying (albeit shaky) breaths, Robin slowly scoots closer and presses herself into his chest.

“Friends don’t lie,” she whispers, tenderly teasing but no less sincere.

Steve scoffs softly, but his arms come around her immediately — pulling her into his chest as he tilts his cheek against her crown. They stay like that, storm roaring outside, Mia sleeping beside them, the world held at bay.

After a few minutes, Robin pulls back with a sneaky grin.

“You know,” she murmurs mischievously. “I could always fake my own disappearance. Give my parents no reason to come back, or guilt me for not moving with them. Be the next Will Byers: two-point-oh.”

Steve gapes at her.

She makes jazz hands, her expression resembling that of a crazed mime.

He smacks her with a pillow. “What’s wrong with you.”

She hits him back. “Everything.”

He just reels with sputtered snorts and laughter, making her pantomime cackling like a supervillain while they become a tangled mess of wrestling limbs before freezing on instinct — their eyes darting to the crib. Mia snores softly, snug as a bug, safe and sound. Completely undisturbed.

So they dissolve into silent laughter again, until they can't keep their eyes open any longer. 

END OF CHAPTER

MY LIBRARY CARDHOLDERS: 🩵

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Robin saw it happen over and over again. That look. That helpless, wrecked kind of joy. Like someone kept reaching into his chest and squeezing his heart in their fist, only he liked it. Or maybe he didn’t, but he’d rather die than give it back.

Which meant neither of them got to bitch, even once, about being snowed in.

They had fresh coffee, a structurally sound mansion disguised as a cozy lake house, enough food to survive the apocalypse, and a seven-month-old baby girl who had apparently decided the blizzard would be an excellent time to reinvent mobility. They’d practically become an orthodox little family unit without ever needing to say it out loud. Robin in Steve’s crewnecks. Steve with Mia balanced on one hip while he made grilled cheese and talked shit about Freud. Robin lying on the floor with the baby, making up deranged little songs about vegetables while Steve studied at the coffee table.

Outside was hell.

Inside was routine.

And the longer Sharon Browne stayed away from it all, stranded in Florida with a private jet that still couldn’t fight ice and bad luck and Midwestern weather tantrums… the more something inside her sharpened.

That was the interesting part.

Because Sharon’s spent months moving through motherhood like a woman floating through a perfume ad — beautiful, practiced, a little untouchable. She loved Mia, yes, but often in the way that seemed easiest to survive. When Mia was soft and clean and drowsy and smiling. When her little outfits were tasteful. When the scene looked right. When the labor had already been done for her, tenderly, invisibly, by the hot young nanny she’d hired and the women who kept her household functioning.

But distance did something brutal to illusion.

Distance made space for panic.

It made the nights longer. The airport delays crueler. The good weather she had along the gulf coast made the monstrous weather back up north — back home — feel personal. It made Sharon call twice a day, then three times. It made her ask Steve to put the phone on speaker so that she could hear Mia breathing, babbling, splashing in the bath. It made her go quiet for a beat too long when Steve casually said, “She’s good, Sharon. Promise. She’s trying to crawl into the fireplace and Robin just taught her how to make a growling noise, so honestly? We’re thriving.”

Kenneth was different.

That man wore concern like irritation. Like bad customer service or a delayed shipment. 

He hated not being able to get back on schedule. Hated not being able to move the pieces around with his own hands. Hated being outmaneuvered by weather. And yes, somewhere under all of that was worry. Real worry. About Mia. About optics. About Sharon if he was being honest. But it arrived in him sideways, stripped down to clipped questions and dry exhales, some blunt instructions to “make sure the damn generator stays running.” However, one night that week, he’d actually asked to be put on the phone with Mia while he sat out on the patio of his suite. At almost 2 o’clock in the morning. Drunk… and the most honest he’d sounded ever since hiring Steve as their nanny.

Parental concern served seven months late with a vengeance.

And Steve, in the privacy of his own thoughts, was glad.

That made him feel like shit.

Not bad enough to stop.

Because good, he though.

Good.

They should know what distance feels like. They should be made to feel the helplessness of it. That low, creeping dread of not being able to reach the person who matters. The frustration of knowing someone else gets to be there in your place. They should feel some version — even a watered-down, privileged, temporary version — of what it was like to be caught in Vecna’s hands last October and forced to watch a false vision of Mia buried in rubble while he could do nothing but scream inside his own skull.

They should feel it.

They should suffer from it.

And every time Sharon’s crooning voice came warbling through the landline and Mia looked right up at Steve while listening to her mother — curious, calm, pacifier bobbing — some ugly, selfish, deeply human part of him felt… satisfied.

He’d nuzzle Mia’s forehead and grin to himself while Sharon cooed uselessly through speakerphone, lovesick and victorious.

Terrible but true.

Then finally, after nearly a week of delays and reroutes and weather maps and irritated airport staff and one failed attempt at chartering a route north through somewhere that wasn’t under ice advisories, they finally got back.

Sharon cried when she saw Mia.

Only for a few minutes. Not dramatically. Not enough to ruin her makeup or destroy the image. Just enough that Steve noticed and politely looked away while handing her over, because she’d actually looked really fucking rattled.

Kenneth stood back and waited his turn to hold her, hands in his coat pockets, watching like someone who'd expected to feel less than he did.

Then life resumed.

Not exactly as it had been before. Nothing ever did, not in Hawkins… not anymore. But resumed enough that days became days again. Steve went back to Ivywood. Robin did, too. They sat through lectures on psych and anatomy and statistics while still half-existing in that blizzard bubble mentally. He drove the endless near-two-hour commute with a paper cup of gas station coffee and Robin’s voice still lingering in his head from whatever they’d studied together the night before. And he kept killing it, whether he admitted that to himself or not. So did Robin. Steve’s grades were strong. Robin’s were chaotic but excellent. They studied on Mondays and Tuesdays in Hawkins. He drove back to Lake Wawasee on Wednesdays and stepped straight back into Manny Mode at noon sharp — all through the long second half of the week.

Then spring break hit.

And the Brownes decided the ocean would be “good for morale.”

That was Sharon’s phrase.

Kenneth called it “a useful reset.”

Steve privately called it a logistical nightmare wrapped in sunscreen.

Because in reality, it was just an excuse to get away, day-drink, and visit with some other wealthy married couple who’ve been friends with the Brownes for years. No doubt snobby, impersonal and self-absorbed. The Campbell’s is all he’s been told, as far as their names go.

He still packed the bags.

Of course he did.

By now, he knew the choreography of travel with the Brownes down to damn muscle memory. Sharon needed her cosmetics case, a garment bag, three magazines, and her dignity transported untouched. Kenneth needed two pagers, one briefcase, and the illusion that no one was inconveniencing him. Mia needed enough gear to sustain a small nation.

But all that Steve needed was Mia.

Well… that and plenty of hair products in travel-sized bottles.

Travel day was strangely a breeze.

Steve handled Mia.

Always.

By the time they all reached the airport that early spring morning, the air was cooler than it should’ve been but finally clean of snow. The military presence around Hawkins had become another ugly part of the wallpaper, and Steve felt it in the back of his teeth as they drove past checkpoints and caution tape and roads that still looked bruised from winter and disaster and secrets. He tried not to let it settle too hard in his chest.

Spring break, he told himself.

Beach. Salt air. Distance from all the rot.

Still, the dread stayed coiled somewhere low and quiet.

The Indianapolis airport itself was all polished floors and fluorescent light and businessmen moving like their briefcases had blood in them. Sharon stepped through it all like she belonged in a perfume campaign — cream slacks, silk scarf, sunglasses bigger than God, Mia in her arms wearing the prettiest little pale yellow knit set Steve had ever seen, complete with tiny socks and a tiny bonnet that made her look like she ought to be painted in oils and framed above a fireplace.

Kenneth was already on one of those giant brick-like mobile phones, briskly speaking to somebody in Chicago like he could personally will the market to behave if he insulted it hard enough.

Steve followed with the diaper bag over one shoulder and a small weekender over the other — dressed in dark jeans, white sneakers, and a light blue button-down rolled to the forearms over a fitted white T-shirt. Casual enough for travel. But put together enough to make every woman under forty within a fifty-foot radius look twice.

And they did.

A sexy receptionist at the check-in desk smiled at him first before she caught herself and redirected to Sharon. A brunette in a navy suit at security gave him a once-over so obvious it bordered on rude. Even one of the TSA ladies — older, ring on her finger, no shame whatsoever — took the boarding pass from him and said, “Well, don’t you clean up nice.”

Steve just flashed the polite, dashing smile he wore like second skin. “Try my best, ma’am.”

She snorted. “Mm-hm.”

Sharon, who’d been in the middle of adjusting Mia’s little sunhat for no real reason, caught that exchange without letting herself appear to be. Something flickered across her face and was gone again just as fast. 

Complicated thing, jealousy.

Complicated thing, attraction.

Complicated thing, watching your own baby reach for your nanny before she reaches for you.

At the gate, Sharon’s mobile rang again. Of course it did. She shifted Mia on her hip and answered with immediate charm, all marble-mouth warmth and polished exasperation.

“Hi, darling, yes… no, we’re boarding now—”

Mia, deprived of direct attention for one whole second, twisted toward Steve and made a tiny demanding sound.

He was already there before Sharon had even fully looked up.

“Got her,” he said, easy as breathing.

Sharon handed the baby over automatically.

See, that was the thing… She didn’t hesitate because it had become natural. Because Steve taking Mia had become as thoughtless and efficient as eating or breathing. And Steve knew it, too. He took Mia into his arms with effortless confidence, one hand supporting her back, the other smoothing her bonnet once she’d settled.

“C’mon,” he murmured. “Lemme show you something cool.”

He carried her toward the big terminal windows where planes taxied in and out beyond the glass, huge and gleaming and impossibly loud. Mia went still in his arms, awestruck.

Her whole body changed when she was fascinated by something. Even as a baby, Steve could tell. Her breath would catch. Her little lashes would flutter against those big brown eyes… and her pouty mouth would part into that tiny perfect little oh.

“There,” he whispered sweetly, pointing. “See that? Big guy.”

Mia made the smallest little sound in her throat. Half hum, half gasp.

“That one’s ours? Maybe. Unless your rich parents upgraded us into another tax bracket while I wasn’t looking.”

He glanced down at her.

She was still staring out the window, then up at him, then back again like she was making sure he saw it too.

Behind them, Sharon was still on the phone. Kenneth was on his own. For a weird, suspended minute… it was just Steve and baby Mia in the middle of a crowded airport full of strangers, and yet it felt more private than most rooms.

Boarding first class was its own little circus of subtle superiority. Sharon had champagne in hand before she even sat down. Kenneth was still speaking in low, clipped tones into his phone as they moved down the aisle. Flight attendants smiled like professionals and then visibly lost composure once they clocked Steve carrying Mia like he’d been born to do it.

“Oh my goodness,” one of them said before she could stop herself. Blonde, gorgeous, somewhere in her twenties. “She is precious.”

Steve smiled. “She knows.”

That got him a laugh.

Another attendant — brunette this time, sharper, with a killer jawline and a wedding ring she clearly did not consider a personality trait — leaned in, just a little. “Would you like help getting settled?”

“I’m good,” Steve winked, shifting Mia higher against his shoulder. “Thanks, though.”

Her gaze flicked from him to Sharon and Kenneth already settling across the aisle together, then back to Mia in his arms.

Interesting.

“You sure?” she asked. “We’ve got a bassinet attachment if you need one.”

Sharon looked over then, accepting a tall flute of complimentary champagne from the other attendant. “He’s got her,” she said smoothly, with a smile that could mean anything.

And that was the quiet thing that kept happening, all flight long.

People noticed.

Not because Kenneth and Sharon didn’t care. That would’ve been simpler. But because there was something so obvious, so immediate, so alive in the way Mia tracked Steve. The way she reached for his collar. The way that he bounced her lightly on his knee once they were seated. The way she stared out the little oval window while he narrated the entire process in a low, sweet murmur like she was his tiny, extremely judgmental co-pilot.

“That’s a wing,” he told her seriously. “Very important. Do not let me forget it.”

She slobbered happily against his knuckle.

Steve had refused the champagne with a grin and a polite, “No thanks. Still on duty.”

The brunette flight attendant had smirked. “Shame.”

Steve had laughed under his breath, because of course he had.

And to make matters even more obnoxious… Mia was perfect on the flight. Not good. Not well-behaved. Perfect. She kicked her sock-feet. She looked out the window like she’d ascended to heaven. She accepted a warm bottle midway through without complaint and then, halfway through some pocket of sunlight over clouds… she fell asleep draped across Steve’s chest while the low drone of the plane swallowed up everything else.

Across the aisle, Sharon watched him over the rim of her glass.

Not staring. She was much too refined to stare.

But watching…

…and feeling all sorts of things she had no intention of naming.

They arrived somewhere warm and expensive and scrubbed by salt.

The coast.

Not Florida again — too obvious, too crowded, too many people who knew too much about their names and faces. Somewhere quieter. Somewhere old-money discreet. A place with dune grass and weathered boardwalks and a private beach house so large it might as well have been another hotel.

By the time they were all checked in and unpacked, and Steve had gone through the ritual of laying out every one of Mia’s things in exact little stations — diapers here, bottles there, hats, toys, blanket, sunscreen, tiny sandals she wouldn’t wear because she was still a baby and babies believed in chaos — the late afternoon sun was already beginning to gold the horizon.

And then came the beach.

Mia’s first beach.

Steve would have liked to pretend he was normal about it.

He wasn’t.

He carried her out toward the sand in a white tee gone translucent at the shoulders from sea air, sunblock already rubbed into his forearms and neck, khaki shorts, sunglasses pushed up into his hair. Mia wore a little striped little one-piece with a broad-brimmed beach hat and enough baby-safe sunblock on her cheeks to qualify as a glaze.

The moment the wind hit her, she blinked.

Then smiled.

Then she saw the water.

And everything in her tiny body went still with awe.

“Ohhh, girl,” Steve murmured, wrecked already. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

The ocean came in silver-blue and endless, waves folding over themselves again and again like a miracle too arrogant to ever stop performing for them. The sand was warm. The breeze was steady. The air tasted like the vacation itself.

Somewhere behind them, Kenneth had already found a cluster of men to talk business-adjacent bullshit with over beer. Sharon was stretched on a chaise under an umbrella, sunglasses on, magazine open, piña colada sweating in the sun beside her.

…and Mia was discovering the entire planet all over again.

Steve set up camp near the shore with military precision. Blanket and towels. Shade. Toys. He sat cross-legged in the sand with Mia balanced between his legs, helping her pat at damp sand while she made breathy little sounds of concentration.

“This,” he told her mock-solemnly, scooping sand into a small mound, “is architecture.”

Mia slapped it.

“Okay. Demolition. Also valid.”

She actually laughed at that. A full-body, delighted little squeal that made two women walking by in bikinis turn and smile without even meaning to.

Robin would have had a field day with this, Steve thought.

Then shoved the thought away before it could ache too much.

He built a terrible sandcastle with her. Not because he knew how. Because he absolutely did not. But he did know how to hold her little wrists gently and guide her hands while she patted wet sand into lopsided towers.

“Look at us,” he whispered. “Civil engineers.”

She sneezed from laughing too hard.

Later, he carried her down to the shoreline and held both of her little hands while her feet dangled into the foam for the first time.

The wave touched her...

She jolted.

Looked at the water.

Looked up at him.

Then made the most scandalized baby sound of her life.

Steve barked out a laugh loud enough that Sharon lowered her sunglasses from across the beach just to watch.

“Cold,” he informed Mia, grinning. “That’s called cold. Welcome.”

Another wave rolled in, higher this time, licking at her ankles.

She kicked.

Then she was laughing.

And that did something dangerous to Steve’s insides.

He lost hours to it.

To her.

To the way she wanted everything. The shell he handed her. The edge of his sunglasses. The bright yellow bucket. The sound of gulls overhead. The line where the sea met the sky. The shape of his hand pressed into the wet sand. The fizzing retreat of the tide.

Sharon did join them for a while.

To her credit, she really did.

She came down in a white cover-up over a swimsuit that probably cost more than Steve’s first two paychecks combined, skin already warm with sun and two drinks past relaxed. She crouched in the sand beside Mia and laughed softly when the baby grabbed at one of her bracelets.

“Look at you,” she crooned, brushing windblown hair from her face. “You’re having the most glamorous little day.”

Mia smiled at her. Then immediately twisted back toward Steve whenever he started making absurd seal noises to get her attention.

Sharon’s smile held.

But something in her eyes shifted.

Not anger. Not even resentment.

Just the uncomfortable sting of seeing proof of a hierarchy no one had ever spoken aloud.

She stayed a while longer. Dug her manicured fingers into wet sand. Let Mia pat at them. Kissed her daughter’s temple and made her giggle… and then eventually drifted back to her chair, to her magazine, to yet another drink, to watching from a safer distance where her feelings didn’t have to be quite so visible.

Kenneth wandered over once with a beer and a line about Steve “looking like a goddamn postcard for modern day masculinity” — which was so dry and borderline insulting that Steve nearly snorted seawater through his nose.

“What’s that even mean?” he asked.

Kenneth took a pull from the bottle. “Means if women keep looking at you like that, I’m gonna have to start charging finder’s fees.”

Steve rolled his eyes and went back to helping Mia inspect a shell.

Still, Kenneth lingered a minute longer than expected, watching the baby kick at the tide. “She likes it,” he said, almost surprised.

Steve glanced up at him. “Yeah.”

Kenneth nodded once. “Huh.”

To Steve’s surprise, he didn’t leave. In fact, he stayed long enough to watch his daughter keep wading her feet in the ankle-deep tide while her nanny just kept a steady hold of her wrists — allowing her the most protective freedom, never letting his grip loosen but also letting her explore. And then finally, after she caught sight of a seashell being washed up onto the shore, she steered her feet towards it. So Steve waddled her back up onto the wet sand, where she could crouch down and claim the shell for herself.

All the while, Kenneth stood right there curiously… almost hovering. 

Mia actually lifted the shell with a gummy grin, looking right up at her father… as if offering it to him. Like look, Daddy! Look what we found!

And to Steve’s surprise, Kenneth actually smiled. 

Crookedly, at the corner of his mouth. But his cynical eyes softened while he knelt down into the sand, one eyebrow raised, smirk growing as he carefully accepted the seashell.

“All for me, huh?” he murmured to Mia.

She just stared between him and the shell in his hands… and then squeaked up at him as she fell forward — onto all fours, crawling closer. Observing him and the shells between his toes in the sand.

And for a while, Kenneth actually found himself transfixed with her.

With his child in the sand.

With the light in her brown eyes.

With the little sounds she made and babbles to no one.

…and then he left.

That was about as close as the man got to wonder. And it’s the closest Steve came to blurting something that would likely cost him his job, as he watched Mia’s childlike gaze follow her absent father’s vanishing figure. 

By sunset, the beach had emptied itself into gold.

Sharon had already gone inside to shower off the salt and put on something silkier for dinner. Kenneth had vanished to make a call or five. The sky bled into peach and rose and bruised violet over the ocean… and Steve remained exactly where he was with Mia tucked against him in a soft towel, fresh bottle in hand, little beach hat crooked over one brow.

She drank sleepily while watching the sun sink.

Then she’d look up at him.

Then back at the horizon.

And then up at him again, smiling with that gummy, exhausted little look that always made him feel like his ribs were too small.

“You had a big day,” he told her quietly.

She blinked.

“Plane. Ocean. Sand. You licked a shell at one point, which… not ideal.” He adjusted the bottle slightly. Her fingers patted lazily at his wrist. “Number one girl,” he murmured. “Beach. Snow. Come hell or high water…”

The waves kept coming.

The light kept lowering.

And deep under the peace of it, that old dread shifted in him again.

Because back in Hawkins, things were getting weirder. Darker. A hell of a lot more controlled. More watched. The military didn’t just leave, and the upside down didn’t just stop. And Steve knew, in the ugly little private place where he’s kept the truth… that this kind of beauty never lasted long for people like them.

What if the Brownes wanted out for good?

What if one day they decided the safest thing, the smartest thing, the only thing… was to move somewhere far, far from Hawkins? Somewhere sunnier. Cleaner. Safer. Somewhere no one talked about gates or ash or missing kids or military cordons.

What if they left?

Steve knew what he’d do.

He’d go.

That was the awful, simple truth of it.

He would leave Hawkins. Leave Robin. Leave the kids, leave Nancy. Leave whatever future he’d just started building. He can take his classes anywhere if the need arises. Transfer if he has to. Start over if he has to.

Because there was no version of his life now that existed without Mia in it.

That thought should have terrified him more than it did.

Instead, it just sat there, firm and undeniable as bone.

He’d cross that bridge when he got there.

That was future-Steve’s problem.

Present-Steve had a sun-drunk baby in his lap and a sky turning holy over the water. So he leaned down and kissed her warm forehead.

“…you know,” he told her, voice husky and serious like she was capable of answering back in full sentences, “I think this might be your color palette.”

Mia made a tiny sleepy hum around the bottle.

“Agreed,” he said.

She smiled.

And Steve, sitting there in the tender hush between daylight and dark with salt drying on his skin and true love sitting too heavily in his chest to ignore, smiled right back like the whole goddamn world had been made just to let him witness her seeing it first.

The next morning along the New England coast arrives like it has nothing to apologize for.

Sunshine spills over the water in lazy bands of gold, stretching across the ocean until the whole horizon looks like it’s been brushed with melted brass. The tide rolls in slow, steady breaths against the shore below the deck, and somewhere down the beach a seagull screams like the entire concept of this morning has personally offended it.

It’s going on ten.

The deck behind the beach house has already warmed beneath bare feet, the wood holding the sun like it intends to keep it. Breakfast is now scattered across the outdoor table in the way breakfast food always ends up scattered when no one’s in a hurry: a basket of pastries from a bakery Sharon insisted on driving twenty minutes out of the way to find, a silver carafe of bold coffee steaming beside three mugs, bowls of fruit, a small porcelain dish of honey that Sharon claims tastes “completely different near salt air.”

And sweet Mia Browne — eight months old, soft-haired, doe-eyed and now donning a pale blue romper with tiny embroidered sailboats — sits happily in her mother’s lap.

Sharon holds a small porcelain bowl in one hand and a baby spoon in the other — feeding her something that looks far too artisanal to be considered baby food. It’s a whipped apricot purée with creamy yogurt folded through it, imported from somewhere that probably has groomed goats with names and philosophical opinions.

Mia does not care.

She just opens her mouth obediently for the spoon.

“Good girl,” Sharon murmurs warmly. “Look at you. Completely civilized.”

Mia swallows.

Then immediately reaches for the orange slices on Sharon’s plate.

Her tiny hand opens and closes in the air like she’s trying to negotiate.

Sharon laughs softly. “Oh absolutely not,” she tells her. “You are not ready for citrus rebellion yet.” She kisses her head, realizing just how soon Mia will be eating solid foods one day as she bittersweetly sighs “soon enough, though” into her crown.

Inside the kitchen, Steve is pouring himself coffee and trying not to grin.

The patio doors are wide open, letting the ocean air move through the house in slow, salty currents. He leans against the counter while stirring sugar into his mug, watching the moment unfold outside.

Kenneth stands a few feet away beside him.

For once… he isn’t on the phone.

He isn’t pacing, either. No clipped business voice, no blunt irritation bleeding through conversations with men in other cities. He’s just standing there with a mug in his hand, watching the deck through the open doors.

His pager buzzes against the counter.

Kenneth glances down at it.

Grunts.

Lets it buzz again.

Then, with a quiet finality that makes Steve pause mid-stir — he flips it face down and slides it away.

“That noise,” Kenneth mutters, reaching for the coffee carafe again, “can wait ten minutes.”

Steve lifts a brow. “Historic moment.”

Kenneth gives him a flat look. “Don’t get used to it.”

They carry their mugs outside. The deck smells like strong caffeine and salt air, the scent of buttered pastries wafting in the seabreeze. Sharon looks up as they step through the doors.

“Ah,” she says lightly. “The men return.”

“Tech free men,” Steve says with an easy grin as he drops into the chair right across from them.

Mia notices immediately.

Her face lights up with a little hum.

But she doesn’t reach for him this time.

Instead? She looks between him and Sharon with the intense concentration of someone trying to decide which adult currently holds the most interesting option.

Sharon raises another spoonful of purée. “Focus, darling.”

Mia obediently opens her mouth again.

Steve hides a smile behind his mug. Because it’s the first time in a while that she’s sat this long in Sharon’s lap without immediately trying to climb toward him. Part of him feels relieved — it’s good for Sharon, good for Mia, good for everyone.

But another part of him, quieter and slightly more selfish, misses the grabby little hands that prefer him over anyone else.

Kenneth settles into the chair beside Sharon and tears into a croissant. Then he presses a lazy kiss into her temple, which makes her smile briefly as Mia keeps eating from the spoon.

The table falls into easy conversation.

Not intimate exactly, but familiar. Eight months of full-time employment does something strange to the space between people. It smooths the edges just enough that conversations stop feeling like obligations and start sounding like something closer to normal.

Sharon asks about Steve’s classes.

Kenneth mutters something about pre-med being “academic self-harm.”

Steve tells them about Robin arguing with a psychology professor for nearly forty minutes over Freud.

Sharon laughs.

Kenneth shakes his head. “That girl sounds exhausting.”

“She is,” Steve says fondly.

“Been meaning to ask,” Kenneth says, leaning back as he squints in the sun. “She your girlfriend?”

Steve awkwardly swallows a bite of watermelon. “Oh, uhm—no. Nope, she’s definitely just a friend.”

That makes Kenneth arch one suggestive brow. “With benefits?”

Steve blinks once, then twice.

Then shakes his head jerkily. “No. No way.”

“Not tryna catch you out if you are,” Kenneth shrugs nonchalantly, chomping another bite of pastry with zero shame, never brewing eye contact. “A guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.”

“She’s just a friend,” Steve insists calmly. “I wouldn’t have her over if it were any different.”

Kenneth considers that.

He nods slowly, humming into the next sip of his coffee before bluntly asking, “Is she gay?”

Mia bangs her spoon against the table.

Divine intervention, really.

A big wave of relief washes over Steve as Sharon tries not to laugh outright while catching the utensil. “Violence will not accelerate breakfast.”

Kenneth glances toward the ocean beyond the railing. “Depends what you’re hitting.”

No one reacts.

Except Mia.

She bursts into laughter.

Not polite baby chuckles — real laughter, the kind that makes her whole tiny body bounce. Her shoulders shake. The spoon drops entirely. Apricot purée smears across her chin.

The table goes silent.

Kenneth slowly looks over at her.

“…what?”

Mia laughs harder.

Steve snorts. “Well,” he says, roughly scrubbing his face once over, “guess she likes your material.”

Kenneth narrows his eyes at Mia like she’s suddenly become an accomplice. “Glad someone’s got taste.”

Mia squeals.

Sharon dissolves into laughter too. Even Steve can’t help but chuckle along, tilting his head at the baby with fond amusement etched across his face…

And then, suddenly, Mia coughs.

Just once at first.

But then it deepens.

Sharon pats her back automatically. “Aw, sweetheart…”

Another cough.

This time harder.

Her little face starts looking blue.

Steve’s chair scrapes back immediately. “Hey—”

Mia coughs again. This time it doesn’t stop. Her tiny chest jerks forward, her eyes now bugged slightly. And it hits Steve like a freight train… but before he can act on it first, someone else is already swooping in.

Kenneth is already swooping in.

His chair hits the deck behind him as he reaches across and scoops Mia out of Sharon’s arms. “Easy, kid—hey, hey…”

He turns her against his chest, one hand supporting her stomach while the other pats her back firmly. Mia’s coughing doesn’t cease, but it ebbs a bit.

Steve’s pulse spikes. “Should we—”

“It’s not solid,” Kenneth says calmly. “All soft food. She’s fine.”

Mia coughs again, her little face turning red.

Sharon’s hand is pressed to her chest worriedly, brows pinched with genuine concern in her green eyes. “Honey, are you—are you sure?”

Kenneth nods, not looking away from Mia. “Positive, yeah.”

Steve hovers uselessly beside them, not relaxed.

But Kenneth just keeps patting her back in steady rhythm. “There you go,” he murmurs quietly. “Get it out.”

Another cough.

Then a wet sputter.

And then a small blob of purée lands on Kenneth’s sleeve.

Mia gasps.

Her breathing steadies.

The coughing stops.

Her brown eyes are all watery now, lashes damp with tears from the fit — but she’s breathing normally again, no longer choking.

Kenneth keeps rubbing slow circles over her back.

“You good?” he murmurs.

Mia blinks up at him… then babbles hoarsely.

“There we go,” he exhales, voice unusually warm.

Steve realizes his hands are still shaking. He sinks slowly back into his chair while Sharon leans forward, brushing Mia’s tears away from her face.

“Oh sweetheart…” she coos sadly, visibly relived.

Kenneth doesn’t hand her back right away. Instead, he shifts Mia onto his hip and walks her toward the railing.

“Look,” he says quietly, pointing toward the water. “Boats.”

Several small boats drift across the distant waterline.

Mia watches them with rapt fascination.

She starts babbling again.

Kenneth nods like she’s made a compelling point. “Yeah. Big ones.”

Behind him, Steve stares, heart still pounding.

Across the table Sharon watches him.

Really watches him.

The way his eyes track Mia. The way his shoulders stay tense long after the moment has passed. The way he’s watching Kenneth warily, as though he’s not sure he can trust Mia in his arms instead of his own.

Something thoughtful flickers in her expression.

Then she smiles suddenly. “You know,” she says casually, sipping her drink, “you should go out tonight.”

Steve blinks. “What?”

“You heard me.”

He laughs awkwardly. “I really don’t go out anymore.”

“You’re nineteen,” Sharon states bewilderedly. “Not eighty.”

Kenneth snorts from the railing. “Kid, go hit on some chicks. Hell, get laid. It’s spring break for Christ’s sake.”

Steve nearly chokes on his coffee. “Jesus.”

“I’m serious,” Sharon insists, grinning now. “Get drunk. Do something stupid.”

“Really, I’m good,” Steve insists back.

“You’re boring,” Kenneth replies flatly.

Steve rubs the back of his neck. “I just—”

“You take care of our child nearly six days a week,” Sharon interrupts with a radiant smile on her face. “You can take one to go be a college student who’s on vacation.”

He opens his mouth to protest.

She waves a hand. “Hell—take two days. You deserve to be young.”

Kenneth nods. “Go shotgun a beer with somebody.”

Steve looks between them, shifting in his seat. “Believe me. I’ve shotgunned way too many beers with friends. All through high school.”

“That was high school,” Sharon laughs loudly.

“You’re not in Hawkins anymore,” Kenneth drawls, almost scoffing. “That was child’s play. Whatever parties you got into there weren’t shit.”

Mia babbles in his arms, pointing out at the ocean.

Kenneth smirks at her, following her gaze.

Sharon nods at Steve, who’s still staring at them. “Psst. Hey. Mr. Mom.”

He finally looks at her then, his expression still unsure.

But Sharon just winks. “Go meet someone sexy. Who knows?” She wiggles her eyebrows at him, singing, “she could be the ooonnnneee…”

Steve hesitates.

His eyes drift back to Mia.

Kenneth is still holding her, pointing out boats like a tour guide.

Sharon follows his gaze, her brows now furrowing as a new thought crosses her mind. “You don’t think we’d leave our baby here all alone,” she asks him gently, though genuinely. “…do you?”

Steve's eyes go wide as he shakes his head quickly. “No, I didn’t—”

“You thought it,” she says with an amused smile, though she’s totally serious.

An awkward laugh tumbles from Steve. “It’s… not that. I don’t think that.”

Sharon tilts her head. “You know we love being around her.”

“Of course—”

“We don’t just keep you so that we don’t have to be parents.”

“—of course not,” Steve stammers, visibly uncomfortable at the way Sharon keeps smiling as she says everything. He rakes a hand through his hair. “I’m just really not into going out anymore. Think I partied too much and sorta just got—burnt out, I guess…”

Kenneth turns around.

“I want a day with my daughter,” he says bluntly.

Those words land heavier than expected.

Steve looks at him. And he finds that the man is now staring back at him with an unreadable expression as he holds Mia, who’s now looking between them as she fists her father’s linen shirt in her tiny fists.

But Kenneth shrugs before his statement can sit heavily. “She’s funny.” He glances down at her, pinching her cheek… which makes her grin up at him in childlike delight. “Might get her to help me write some more jokes.”

Mia squeaks.

Steve exhales slowly, nibbling at his lip.

Because there’s no arguing a man who happens to be your employer, and is now asking for you to step back so that they can be alone with their child for a day.

“…okay,” he finally relents.

Sharon claps her hands together once. “Perfect.”

“Now go,” Kenneth adds, nodding toward the door with a smirk. “Grab your swim trunks. Hit the beach. Catch some volleyball babes. They’ll know where all the best parties are at tonight.”

“Oh—definitely go to The Mariner’s Club,” Sharon adds excitedly, snapping her fingers like the name has just come back to her. “That’s the one with the rooftop terrace and the ridiculous frozen drinks. Everyone under thirty goes there after sunset.”

Kenneth snorts softly from where he’s still leaning against the railing with Mia perched on his hip. “That place is basically a mating ritual with a dress code.”

Sharon waves a hand dismissively. “Exactly. Perfect for him.” She points her spoon toward Steve like she’s assigning him a mission. “They’ve got live music most nights, and the bar wraps around the entire patio. Private view of the water from up there. It’s very ‘spring break but pretending it isn’t’ vibes.”

Kenneth shifts Mia slightly as she leans forward to watch a sailboat glide across the horizon. One of her tiny hands curls into the linen of his shirt while the other points enthusiastically toward the water.

“Yeah,” he adds, almost as an afterthought to his wife’s point. “And if that’s too crowded, there’s The Lantern Room down by the harbor. Smaller crowd. Still full of college kids, just fewer idiots trying to impress each other.”

Steve looks between them, squinting in the sunlight that illuminates his pretty face… which still looks unsure.

“The Lantern Room?” he repeats.

Kenneth nods once. “Old converted boathouse. Good music. Decent beer on tap. The kind of place where people actually talk instead of screaming over speakers.”

“Mm,” Sharon tilts her head, thinking as she sips from her mimosa. “Isn’t that where Julie’s nephews said they were going?”

Kenneth hums. “Yeah. That’s the one.”

She brightens immediately. “Oh perfect! They’re about your age. Dartmouth boys, I think. Or maybe Boston College?” She shrugs, clearly unconcerned with the exact details. “Nice kids. Handsome. Very fun. Total chick magnets.” She winks. “They’ll adopt you immediately.”

Steve laughs awkwardly under his breath. “You guys are setting me up with strangers now?”

Kenneth shrugs again, completely unfazed. “Kid, you could walk into a local grocery store and make friends in the produce aisle,” he deadpans. “Don’t act like this is new.”

That part lands a little differently than Kenneth probably intends.

Because Steve knows it’s true.

He’s always been able to do that.

Back in high school it’d been effortless — a grin, a joke, a few shared beers and suddenly there was a whole circle of people around him. Parties had formed around that kind of gravity. Tommy H. yelling across basements while Carol sat perched on someone’s shoulders. Music loud enough to shake the windows while the night blurred into something reckless and simple.

But those people aren’t his friends anymore.

And the people he does call friends now… they’re nothing like that crowd.

Robin arguing with professors.

Dustin quoting physics at the worst possible moments.

Nancy staring down monsters like they owe her money.

Eddie blasting Metallica in Murray’s bunker.

Lucas and Erica sniping at each other like seasoned generals.

Those friendships weren’t built in loud rooms or at parties with cheap beer and shallow laughter. They were built in war zones.

Steve glances up from his lap after a moment. Kenneth is still standing there with Mia on his hip, pointing out boats like they’re discussing shipping routes. Sharon is smiling at him expectantly…

…and Steve suddenly realizes something strange.

He genuinely doesn’t know what kind of people he’d be friends with now if he met them fresh.

That newfound realization lingers for half a second before Kenneth breaks it with a low chuckle.

“Besides,” he adds, nodding toward Steve’s empty coffee cup, “those places are full of exactly the sort of chaos you’re supposed to enjoy at nineteen.” He adjusts Mia’s little bucket hat. “Good drinks, good music and girls who won’t remember your name tomorrow.”

Sharon shoots him a look. “Charming.”

“I’m honest.”

She turns back to Steve with a grin. “Ignore him. But do go.”

Kenneth gestures toward the water again as Mia babbles happily in his arms.

“Seriously,” he says. “Hit the beach for a bit, meet some people, then head into town tonight. Mariner’s Club if you want noise, Lantern Room if you want conversation.”

He pauses, eyeing Steve over the rim of his mug.

“You’ll figure it out.”

Sharon nods approvingly. “And if you run into Julie’s nephews, just tell them you’re with us. That’ll get you a drink faster than anything.”

Kenneth smirks slightly. “We’ve hosted many a hungover night for ‘em. Least they can do is buy our manny a couple drinks.”

Steve laughs despite himself. “That feels like cheating.”

Kenneth just raises his cup of coffee. “Call it networking.”

At that, Mia hums a gleeful little hynnng up at him before beaming at Steve.

He smiles crookedly at her, uncertainty still written across his features. So he stands up, knowing that if he keeps looking at her then he’ll never leave this beach house. 

Steve gathers the plates automatically and carries them into the kitchen. And from the doorway he glances back…

Kenneth is still holding Mia.

Sharon is laughing warmly.

The three of them look… easy.

Like a family.

A real family.

Even though they’re not.

But even so, Steve forces himself to look away. Forces himself to empty the plates into the trash, then load them into the dishwasher. Forces himself not to look back as he makes for the stairs then heads straight into his room to pull out a pair of fresh swim trunks from the dresser.

Then he starts sifting through his other clothes…

Two shirts.

A button-down.

He lays them out on the bed for consideration, now feeling a strange sense of imposter syndrome. Or rather, like someone who used to be something he no longer remembers how to be. 

Through the open window, he can hear the ocean and Mia’s laughter drifting up from the deck below.

Steve runs a hand through his hair.

Freedom is right there.

Waiting.

He just has to go take it.

He pulls on the swim trunks, and then leaves his t-shirt abandoned — opting to go shirtless. To let his abs show. To let his sunkissed skin be on display… maybe win him a nice face.

“Fuck it,” he mutters, lathering on a sheen layer of sunscreen before tousling his hair in the mirror with some product. “Guess we’re doing this.”

On the way down to the beach, Steve lets himself think about regular college aged things that guys usually think about. The things he used to think about. Booze. Parties. Girls in bikinis. Getting laid. Getting lost in the moment while shoving off the future like it’s “tomorrow problem.”

He does his best to let his old mindset override his new ways.

The one that makes him glance back at the beach house.

To the deck, where Mia is still laughing.

Where Kenneth is still holding her.

Where Sharon is still laughing.

Steve exhales, slipping off his shoes once he’s at the end of the boardwalk. “One night’s not gonna kill you,” he tells himself.

Then he heads for the beach — the day stretching wide and reckless ahead of him, and the night waiting somewhere beyond it.

By the time the night really gets going, Steve Harrington’s already three drinks in and laughing like he hasn’t laughed in months. The Mariner’s Club turns out to be exactly what Sharon promised — rooftop bar wrapped in polished brass railings and ocean wind, the kind of place where the music hums through the floorboards and the mood lights glow amber with ambience instead of neon with fever. The expanse of oceanview is visible in flashes between people moving past the high terrace windows, moonlight cutting silver paths across the water below.

It’s crowded in the good way.

Not packed shoulder-to-shoulder.

Just loud enough that voices blend together into a warm buzz.

And somehow, within the first hour — Steve has already been absorbed into a group.

A real group.

Not the polite, passing conversation kind. Nah, this is the kind where people start handing each other drinks and pulling chairs closer, before suddenly? Someone is telling a story that has everyone leaning forward to hear the end.

Julie’s nephews had been easy to spot immediately.

Two brothers who look similar enough to be unmistakably related — tall and broad-shouldered, windburned in that expensive coastal way.

The older one had introduced himself first.

“I’m Luke,” he’d said while clapping Steve on the shoulder like they’ve known each other longer than all of three minutes. “And that idiot over there is my brother, Connor.”

Connor, twenty-one and already holding two beers, grinned from across the bar. “Don’t listen to him,” he’d hollered. “He’s just mad because I’m younger and better looking.”

“You’re younger,” Luke had deadpanned. “That’s where the list ends.”

Steve liked them already.

Which is why they're here now, talking like old friends.

They go to Dartmouth and Boston College, respectively. They’re finance and political science majors who immediately start roasting each other like it’s an Olympic sport.

But they’re not assholes.

That’s the thing Steve notices right away.

They’re sharp.

Funny.

Comfortable in their own skin.

And they bring friends with them — three girls and another guy who joins later with a round of drinks and a loud cheer.

The girls introduce themselves between laughter.

Kate.

Lisa.

And the one Steve ends up talking to the most — a girl named Margot.

Margot is the kind of beautiful that doesn’t try too hard. Sunkissed skin, loose Loose linen blouse. Thin gold hoops that catch the light when she laughs.

She leans on the table with her chin resting easily in her feminine hand, lithe fingers adorned with mismatching rings, while Connor gestures wildly — now mid-story.

“So this guy,” Connor is saying, pointing across the table at Luke, “tried to sneak a lobster out of a restaurant once.”

Luke sighs. “That is not what happened.”

“You stuffed it into your fucking backpack.”

“It was a misunderstanding.”

“You were stealing seafood.”

Margot laughs and looks at Steve. “Please tell me this is the first time you’ve met them.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, smiling into his glass. “And I already feel like I’ve known them my whole life.”

Connor points triumphantly. “See?!”

Luke shakes his head and looks back at Steve. “So you’re the nanny.”

Steve almost chokes on his drink. “Guilty as charged.”

Connor grins. “Dude, Sharon Browne told my aunt about you last summer.”

“All good things,” Luke adds quickly, tone sincere. “Honestly, I’m impressed. I wasn’t sure they’d ever find someone they trust, but a former lifeguard turned babysitter pro is one helluva resumé.”

Steve allows a sheepish chuckle at that, nodding humbly. “Word travels fast.”

Margot straightens slightly. “Wait,” she says slowly. “You’re a nanny?”

The other girls look up immediately.

Steve rubs the back of his neck, chuckling lightly. “Yeah.”

“…and you’re straight,” Lila observes warily, though she’s smirking.

Connor nearly spits his beer.

Now Steve just laughs helplessly. “Yeah, I’m straight.”

Kate leans back in her chair and exhales dramatically. “Well now that’s just— totally unfair. Why can’t my gaydar scope those out?”

Margot raises her glass in quiet agreement.

Luke chuckles and looks back at Steve. “So how the hell does that happen?”

Steve shrugs. “Long story.”

Connor leans forward eagerly. “Short version?”

Steve takes another sip of his drink and smiles. “Kid I know introduced me to the family. Or well…” He snuffs a fond laugh. “His mom did.”

“What kid?” Kate asks curiously.

“Friend of mine back home,” Steve smirks. “Used to babysit him. Believe it or not, we’re friends now.

At that, Lisa's eyes light up with glowing curiosity. “Wait—how old is he?”

Steve hesitates.

“…freshman in high school.”

That gets a few surprised looks.

Margot tilts her head. 

“You’re friends with a high schooler you used to babysit?”

“It sounds weird when you say it like that,” Steve laughs. “But yeah. One day I’m driving over to my ex-girlfriend’s house with flowers, getting cock blocked by a middle schooler. The next thing I know, I’m helping him look for his cat. And trying to convince him his pet gecko is actually a snake. And driving him and his friends to their Snowball dance that weekend, after one of ‘em begs me to help him score basketball hoops and a skater girl he’s crushing on.”

Connor grins widely. “Okay now I’m intrigued.”

“I have questions about the gecko,” Kate points. “A lot, like—a lot.”

“Wait wait wait,” Margot laughs deeply, waving her hands. “Please tell me his cat was found.”

Steve lies like a pro. “Safe and sound. Stuck in a tree.”

Subtext for: he was absolutely eaten by the gecko.

“Good,” Margot laughs breathlessly, beaming at him.

Somewhere, Mews is rolling in his grave.

Lisa grins into her cocktail. “Even without context, that was better storytelling than anything I've had to read all semester. I’m hooked.”

“Well yeah,” Kate exclaims gleefully. “Keep going! Start with the gecko.”

Steve grins back, shaking his head. “It’s… complicated.”

“Try us,” Luke says eagerly.

Steve stares at his drink for a second.

Then shrugs.

“Let’s just say that kid’s the reason I’m a nanny in the first place.”

Connor leans back, impressed. “That’s actually kind of badass.”

Margot studies him for a moment. “You don’t seem like someone who’d end up doing that by accident.”

Steve snorts. “Trust me, I did.”

Her expression softens. “Good accident I hope?”

His smile only deepens. “Best accident.”

That earns a tender beat as she smiles at him, eyes twinkling in the low light.

Then Luke leans back. “What about school?” he asks.

Steve nods at him. “I’m knocking out basics at a community college right now.”

Luke points immediately. “Smart.”

Steve blinks. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, man,” Luke laughs. “Fuck, I wish I’d done that.”

“It’s true,” Connor points at his brother. “He says this every semester.”

“Because it’s true.”

Steve frowns. “You’re telling me Dartmouth tuition didn’t scare you straight?”

Luke shrugs. “Tuition’s not the problem.”

“What is?”

“Time.” He gestures toward Steve. “You’re saving two years of it.”

Connor raises his beer. “To the efficient king.”

Margo raises her glass, glowing. “The efficient king.”

Lisa and Kate echo it as well.

They all clink glasses.

Steve actually smiles to himself at that. The efficient king. 

It suddenly gives all new meaning to his old nickname, King Steve. It makes him feel strangely accomplished… like he’s actually been making some wise decisions along the way, and never took the time to fully grasp it. 

He realizes something even stranger.

They’re not humoring him.

They actually mean it.

Margot smiles quietly beside him. “So you’re going into nursing school?” she asks.

Steve nods. “Eventually.”

Her eyes sparkle. “That’s hot.”

That earns her a warm laugh from him. “I don’t think anyone’s ever said that before.”

Kate leans across the table. “No, seriously.”

Lisa nods. “Hot and noble.”

Connor points dramatically. “Future doctor energy.”

“Not a doctor,” Steve corrects amusedly.

Connor grins. “Yet.”

The conversation keeps rolling from there. Stories. Jokes. Drinks appearing and disappearing. Luke telling Steve about Dartmouth winter parties. Connor describing Boston bars that never close. Margot asking about Hawkins and whether or not Indiana is “as rural as the movies make it look.”

Steve finds himself talking more than he expected.

About Robin — “my best friend who can outsmart everyone.”

About Dustin — “the most genius fourteen-year-old on the planet.”

About how weird it is to suddenly be responsible for a baby girl.

They don’t judge any of it.

They just listen.

And they laugh.

And they ask questions.

At one point Connor shakes his head and says, “Dude, you’re like the world’s most wholesome party guy.”

Steve coyly raises an eyebrow. “That’s a thing?”

“It is now.”

The music shifts around midnight.

The rooftop bar fills with more people and someone suggests dancing.

Connor throws his arm around Steve’s shoulders. “C’mon, King.”

Steve laughs. “Oh Lord, don’t call me that.”

“Too late.”

They call him that all night. King. And for the first time in ages, the nickname feels earned. Feels noble. And when they all head inside, where the music is now louder and the lighting turns darker, deeper…it feels like a fever dream.

It feels almost like an unorthodox speakeasy.

Low ceilings.

Velvet booths.

A dance floor that moves like a living thing.

Steve loses track of how many songs pass.

Connor disappears with Kate.

Luke drifts toward the bar with his girlfriend — a quiet brunette named Allison who arrives halfway through the night, looking like Audrey Hepburn from the 80’s.

Lila spins someone else across the dance floor.

…and Margot ends up dancing with Steve.

Closely.

Naturally.

Sensually.

It’s that sexy sort of dancing that happens when both people already know they’re flirting. When they can both let loose, let it be whatever it’s meant to be.

Her hand rests lightly on his shoulder.

His hand settles at her waist.

“You’re having fun,” she says, head tipped back as she looks up at him with a breezy sort of warmth as the lights catch the blue in her eyes.

He tilts his head impishly, crookedly smiling. “I am.”

Margot somehow steps closer into his space. “You looked nervous earlier.”

Steve laughs softly. “I was.”

Her eyes shine at that. “Why?”

He thinks about that for a second. 

“Guess I haven’t done this in a while.”

Margot tilts her head. “Done what?”

“This,” he gestures vaguely at the room. “The whole… being nineteen thing.”

She smiles at that. “Well you’re good at it.”

He grins back. “Guess it’s like learning to ride a bike.”

She hums at that, chin to his chest as they sway. “Or maybe re-learning how to… just after it’s been a while.”

That actually makes Steve ponder for a moment. 

He keeps gazing into her ocean eyes, lifting his hands to cup her face, gently tucking her hair behind her ears so that he can see her glowing up at him… They dance through another song. And then another… and then another…

At some point Connor stumbles past them holding two shots with Kate close behind him, fixing her hair — clearly after having a little dark corner fun…

“Shots, then beach house!” he shouts over the music.

Luke groans from across the room while Allison laughs, hugging him closely as he nuzzles his face into her neck. Lisa’s now sitting at the bar with them — already happily drunk and bantering with Kate, as she sidles her up with an extra shot.

Margot laughs, glancing back up at Steve.

“You up for that?”

He shrugs, expression warm. “Sure.”

__

The beach house belongs to one of Connor’s friends. Or maybe his parents. It’s hard to tell. All Steve knows is that it’s massive and sitting directly on the water… and it’s half a mile down from the Brownes.

Music starts again inside within minutes.

Someone opens another bottle.

People scatter across couches and kitchen counters and balconies.

Steve ends up on the back deck with Margot watching the ocean as they sip the last of their drinks.

“You fit in here,” she tells him softly.

He leans on the railing. “Do I?”

“Yeah.”

Steve watches the water for a second.

It feels good.

Easy.

Normal.

Margot bumps her shoulder lightly into his. “You thinking too hard again?”

He side-eyes her coyly. “Maybe.”

She nods slowly, eyes lingering. “Don’t,” she says quietly before reaching for his hand. “Just enjoy it.”

Steve does.

They end up in one of the upstairs bedrooms eventually with the lights off… the ocean breeze moving through the curtains from the open balcony.

They kiss.

Slow at first.

Then deeper.

Clothes come off.

The bed creaks softly when they fall back onto it.

The details blur into warmth and choppy breath and the synchronized rhythm of naked bodies finding each other in the dark. She sighs into his mouth… he hums into her neck. She tells him that he’s never done this before, “not while on vacation…” and he lets himself believe her. They go until the sheets are all tangled and their limbs are boneless from climax.

Hours pass.

And eventually the rest of the house grows quiet.

The ocean keeps moving outside, the breeze carrying sand across dunes. 

Steve lies there staring at the ceiling while Margot falls asleep beside him… because the alcohol buzz fades, and his mind drifts.

For a moment, he thinks about this town. This coastal city and this group of friends that have made him feel like he belongs, like he’s maybe got a future outside of just his job and a decent career…

Then he thinks about Mia.

About the way she laughs.

About the way she grabs his shirt when she wants to be picked up.

When shadows start dancing across the ceiling, Steve finally closes his eyes and lets sleep pull him under while Margot sleeps in his arms…

But somewhere deep inside his chest, something twists.

The kind of tension that comes before a storm.

And in the darkness he can never escape, all the nightmares that continue to live behind his eyelids, something moves. Something familiar, something that hasn’t dragged him down in over a year.

But that’s because nightmares know exactly when to strike…

When you’re least expecting it.

{CLIFFHANGERRRRR}

@slutforpumpkins @mersaoba @msliz @pinkpantheris @finniewolfsoft @tangledluver @midnights-19 @thegoldengirl2006 @yikesmama3 @thecreelhouse @raspberry-sunshinee

It sat parked near the lake in all its nautical blue-and-white glory like an insult on wheels.

From a distance it looked almost harmless. Cute, even. Retro. Festive.

Up close, it still made something ugly twist in Steve’s stomach.

Not enough to ruin the day. Not even close. But enough that every time he or Robin caught sight of it, one of them would look at the other and immediately know. The tiny sailor hats the staff were wearing. The polished window. The stupid jingle painted along the side. The sheer obscene audacity of it existing in his line of sight on a day when he was in a linen shirt and khaki trousers instead of polyester humiliation.

At one point Robin drifted up beside him near the drinks table and followed his gaze.

“I know,” she murmured flatly.

Steve didn’t look at her. “I can hear the uniform in my nightmares.”

Robin took a sip of lemonade and made a face. “Imagine almost dying under a mall, then having to look at your trauma in the form of a franchise-catering vendor at my goddaughter’s birthday party.”

“She’s not your goddaughter.”

“She is in spirit.”

He glanced at her then, fully now… and the two of them just stood there for one loaded second before snorting at the same time.

That was the thing about Robin. With anyone else, the Scoops truck might have started a whole conversation. With her, it was a full telepathic exchange in two seconds flat.

She looked amazing, too, which irritated him on principle. Not because she was hot to him — tragically gay, thank God — but because she had shown up in cream slacks and a tucked striped button-up with rolled sleeves and managed to somehow look like a rich camp counselor and a radio intern and a woman who could ruin a man’s life, all at once. She’d taken it upon herself to help direct people toward the photographer station and the food tables and the bunny area. Not because anyone had asked her to, but because if there was a large event happening and Steve Harrington looked even mildly overwhelmed? Robin Buckley became structure itself.

“So we currently have a twelve-year-old dictator manning the gift table,” she informed him.

He looked past her to where Erica Sinclair stood wearing a balloon crown like it had been forged for her by a tiny tyrant in a fairy kingdom. She had both hands on her hips and was currently telling a seven-year-old girl with a ballet bun and prim nose that if she touched one more present without her permission, she would “personally send her to another dimension.” Which, in a way… she sort of could do if the moment called for it. 

“Yeah,” Steve drawled slyly. “Seems under control.”

“Dustin’s still moodier than a menopausal queen,” Robin added underneath her breath. “Mike keeps telling him to chill, and Lucas looks like if he smiles too hard he might actually crack in half.”

Steve’s eyes drifted over the crowd until he found them.

Mike and Lucas were both fourteen and somehow having the time of their lives — which on one hand felt age-appropriate… and on the other vaguely humiliating. Mike had a fox’s face painted on him, and was now carrying Mia around from station to station with the self-importance of a knight escorting a princess through a kingdom that had fallen in love with her on sight. Lucas had a leaf-green design curling around one eye and a balloon sword tucked through one belt loop because one of the artists had insisted he needed one. Dustin, whose face had a tiger painted across it like he was trying very hard not to enjoy himself, trailed behind them with a ridiculous amount of attitude and an actual softness in his gaze every time Mia laughed.

Steve had been watching Dustin carefully lately. Too carefully, probably. The kid had an edge to him that hadn’t been there before. Or maybe it had, but grief sharpened everything. Max was still asleep. Eight months now. Eight months of hospital rooms and hollow hope and swallowing down the fact that the world had kept moving anyway. On top of that, Eddie was stuck in hiding for the unforeseeable future with seemingly no end in sight. Same with El… 

So yeah. Steve knew Dustin was hurting. 

He just didn’t always know where the hurt was going to land.

Today, it landed quietly.

When Mike stopped to let Mia touch the ears of one of the bunnies through the mesh enclosure and Lucas crouched beside them grinning like a fool, Dustin hung back a little. Watched the whole thing with his hands in his pockets. His smart mouth finally still. And for just a second Steve could see it plainly in the kid’s face — that strange stunned ache of watching a baby be celebrated and wondering what that kind of certainty of love would feel like if life had gone differently. Claudia Henderson had loved her son through every hard thing under the sun. She’d never once let him doubt it. And maybe that was exactly why Dustin could see so clearly what was missing elsewhere.

Steve didn’t say anything.

He just filed it away.

And then there were “the ladies who lunch.”

The women who had started this whole damn manny saga arrived around noon in a cloud of perfume, laughter, and gossip that could probably be tracked by weather satellites — Karen Wheeler in soft blue, Sue Sinclair in sharp white linen, Claudia Henderson in a floral dress that looked like joy itself had gotten dressed in a hurry. They came bearing gifts and lipstick and the sort of delighted chaos that only happened when women who had all survived early motherhood together got to re-enter baby-world without the sleep deprivation.

“Look at him,” Claudia stage-whispered the second that she spotted Steve holding Mia near the photographer. “Would you just look at him…”

Karen slyly pressed her lips together, eyes sparkling. “Best recommendation we ever made.”

Sue lifted her champagne flute. “A public service, really.”

None of them said a word about the fact that, months and months ago, over lunch, they’d steered Sharon toward hiring Steve specifically because he was young and hot and safe in the particular way that a beautiful straight boy could be safe in a filthy wealthy marriage with hairline fractures. But mutual satisfaction lived in their faces anyway. Their harmless, wicked little secret. The best intervention they’d ever staged.

And they weren’t wrong.

Steve looked unreal today.

There was simply no polite way around that fact.

He’d dressed for the heat in a cream linen button-down with the sleeves rolled carelessly to his forearms, the top buttons undone enough to show the hollow of his throat and the first warm line of his chest. Light trousers. Brown loafers he kept slipping out of whenever he ended up on the grass with Mia. Sunglasses sometimes pushed up into his hair. A tan that spring break had deepened just enough to make him look permanently sun-kissed. He was carrying a one-year-old in one arm and charming guests with the other — and somehow managing to look like every heterosexual fantasy and every maternal instinct trigger all at once.

Sharon was not blind to any of this.

In fact, Sharon was enjoying the shit out of it.

Every time that one of her friends or one of their acquaintances made some breathy little remark about “that gorgeous nanny of yours,” she’d laugh and swat at the air and act scandalized, but it never quite masked how pleased she was. She wore pale yellow silk and enough diamonds to refract sunlight like an attack, and she moved through the party with the glowing triumph of a woman who was finally, finally getting her turn. New mother. Founder. Rich wife. Beautiful hostess. Woman with the most enchanting daughter in the room and the hottest manny in the county.

And for all her vanity, Steve had to admit one thing:

She had thrown one hell of a party.

Mia, who (by rights) should have been overstimulated into tears by noon… spent the entire day fluctuating between shy wonder and total enchantment. She wore a cream little dress with tiny embroidered flowers at the hem and soft gold shoes she immediately tried to kick off. Her dark hair, still baby-fine but growing into its own, had been brushed smooth and pinned back with the tiniest clip. Her little gold studs, which Steve was still privately furious about, though less openly homicidal than yesterday, caught the light every time she turned her head.

…and God, she was beautiful.

People kept stopping dead just to look at her. Not because she was dressed up, not because of the money surrounding her, but because Mia had the kind of baby face that made grown adults look briefly religious. Huge brown eyes. Thick lashes. Serious little mouth that could split without warning into a grin so bright it made people laugh in self-defense.

Shy one second. 

Radiant the next.

There were points in the day when she clung a little to Steve’s shirt and then tucked her face into his shoulder if too many strangers came at her too fast. And then five minutes later she’d be sitting in his arms waving solemnly at a balloon giraffe like it was an old friend. She loved the bunnies most. Then the face painter, who painted a tiny daisy and honeybee on the back of her hand because Sharon had vetoed anything “too much” on her actual face. Then the ice cream truck, which she mostly loved because everyone else reacted to it like it was a miracle on wheels.

Rosa and Marisol and Javier were there too.

As guests.

Not in aprons. Not circulating with trays. Not lifting a finger unless it was to point at something cute Mia was doing. 

They’d tried being the help.

But Steve had put a stop to that early.

“You’re not working today,” he told Rosa for the third time when she tried to tidy a stack of plates near the charcuterie station. “Sit down. Eat something. I mean it.”

Rosa clicked her tongue at him in Spanish. Marisol laughed behind her hand. Javier, who said little but observed everything… just smiled his gentlest little smile and nodded as if to say “yes, yes, the boy is right” — while accepting a plate from one of the hired servers.

Steve loved them for obeying almost as much as he loved them for trying to fuss anyway.

Joyce arrived late with Jonathan and Will, Nancy beside them in a pale dress that managed to make Steve’s pulse do something stupid before he got a grip on himself. Joyce kissed his cheek, kissed Mia’s forehead, pressed a birthday card from Hopper and El discreetly into his hand… then a wrapped birthday present from Eddie right after that.

“From your resident fugitive,” she murmured with a wink.

Steve grinned so hard it hurt. Erica appeared like a shark scenting blood and whisked both gifts off to the table before Will could even properly set down the painting he’d brought.

“It goes on the gift table,” she hissed, dragging him.

Will breathlessly whined. “But I wanna give it to her early!”

Erica huffed, halting in her tracks before shoving him towards Steve and Mia. 

“Fine.”

It was beautiful — soft little watercolor animals gathered beneath a tree, a tiny girl in the middle holding a plush rabbit. Steve looked at it and nearly had a stroke from emotion right there in broad daylight.

Jonathan, meanwhile, got ambushed in the best way possible. 

Steve found him near the side gate, camera already around his neck — and shoved an envelope into his hand.

“What’s this?” Jonathan asked.

“Your pay. Duh.”

Jonathan frowned. “Dude—”

“Don’t argue. I told you I’d put you to work.”

He opened it and peeked at the check inside…

His eyes widened. “Eight hundred?!”

“Shhh.”

Jonathan nervously glanced around before turning back, hissing it under his breath again. “Eight hundred—?!”

“Yeah, man.” Steve nodded. “There’s two hired photographers and they suck already just by existing. You’re here because I need pictures that don’t look like they were taken by a Victorian prison warden. Candid ones. Real ones.”

“…you actually got them to hire me?”

Steve just shook his head and shrugged nonchalantly. “No. I did.”

Jonathan blinked, eye twitching. “What?”

“I hired you, Byers.” Steve clapped his back, expression sly. “Still catching up for my 1983 alleyway faux-pas. This oughtta cover the rest of my tab.”

“You literally gifted me this camera.”

“Mm, no. Nancy did.”

Jonathan squinted at him in speechless, stunned bewilderment.

Because that was such a crock of shit.

Steve bought him that camera and he knows it.

“Film costs money,” Steve added. “So does time.”

Jonathan just stared at him with that hollowed-out, startled expression of a person who had expected politeness and gotten generosity instead. 

“Steve…”

Steve sighed, too casual by half. “Just cash it, alright? And if you need more for development, tell me.”

It was the sort of thing that could have become weird if either of them let it… But neither did. Jonathan folded the envelope slowly, looked at him for one quiet second, and just nodded.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Yup.”

And then Steve was gone again — because Mia had started reaching for the balloon arch and someone needed to save it from destruction.

Nancy saw all of that.

Saw Steve hand Jonathan the envelope. Saw Jonathan go quiet. Saw how naturally Steve moved throughout the party like someone both hosting and working it — somehow neither diminished by the labor nor desperate for any attention because of it. Saw Margot arrive not long after and be folded into the day with frightening ease.

That was perhaps the cruelest part.

Margot fit.

She came in a white sundress with a woven bag and sun-gold skin and that smile that hits Steve before it even hits her face. Helene lit up when she saw her. James liked her instantly in the specific paternal way of rich men who knew how to disarm a room without overpowering it. Robin adored her still. Sharon, naturally, found her gorgeous enough to be useful and… charming enough to be slightly irritating.

Steve warmly kissed her cheek hello, while balancing Mia on one hip and a fresh paper cup of lemonade in his free hand, offering it to her flirtatiously — and the simplicity of that image lodged somewhere mean in Nancy’s chest.

Not because he was being improper.

Because he wasn’t.

Because he was being perfect.

Charming but not desperate. Attentive but not pathetic. Warm without giving too much away. Margot stepped into his orbit like she’d learned its weather and wasn’t afraid of it. And every time Steve glanced toward her later, there was this private little current between them — not enough to make anyone else uncomfortable, yet just enough to make Nancy feel acutely, unwillingly aware that other women got to know certain parts of him now.

She hated that.

Or rather, she hated that she cared.

Jonathan noticed her noticing… said nothing…

…and took more pictures.

Because that’s what they did best as a couple: say nothing at all.

The same couldn’t be said about the youngest Wheeler.

Holly seems to have found her voice much sooner than her older sister has. She appeared in a starburst of long, sunshine yellow ribbons and unabashed enthusiasm sometime after she’d visited the face painter — who’d given her the most sparkly, whimsical design of a woodland nymph. One second Steve was balancing Mia on his hip near the gift table while trying to stop a toddler in suspenders from body-checking the balloon artist’s swan display, and the next—

“STEEEEEEEEVE!”

He turned just in time to catch a blur of little-girl momentum launching itself at his side.

Holly Wheeler, seven-going-on-eight and wearing a pale butter-yellow dress with puff sleeves and two pig-tales that had already come half-undone from play, skidded to a stop in the grass with flushed cheeks and the kind of grin only little girls and deeply unwell gamblers ever wore.

“Whoa, whoa—” Steve laughed, steadying Mia with one arm as Holly nearly crashed landed into his leg. “Easy, Holly Jolly... you tryna’ take me out at the knees?”

Holly beamed up at him like he had personally invented birthdays. “No,” she said very seriously. “I was trying to find you.”

That got him right in the chest for no damn reason.

“Well,” he said, shifting Mia higher on his hip. “Mission accomplished.”

Holly’s starry-eyed gaze immediately flicked to baby Mia, and her whole face softened into something so openly sweet that it would’ve been sickening if it weren’t so genuine.

“Ohhh,” she breathed. “Hi, Mia.”

Mia, who just spent the last ten minutes alternating between royal solemnity and shrieking over a balloon rabbit, blinked down at Holly from Steve’s arms with big, dark, curious eyes.

Holly reached out slowly. Not grabby. Not reckless. Just one careful finger… held in front of Mia like she was approaching a woodland creature who might spook.

“Happy first birthday ever,” Holly told her softly.

Steve had to bite back a grin.

“Dang,” he murmured, pretending to pout. “No hello for me? Just immediate flattery for the birthday girl?”

Holly glanced up at him, rolling her sweet eyes in a way that was so violently Nancy-coded it nearly took him out.

“Hellooooo, Steeeeeve-uh,” she said, indulgent as hell. And then she leaned in closer to Mia again. “I like your dress.”

Mia stared at her for another second.

Then, as if deciding Holly Wheeler was acceptable, she offered up one sticky little hand.

Holly gasped. Not a regular gasp, either. This was that full-body, life-altering little-girl gasp that made Steve laugh outright.

“She likes me,” Holly whispered. “Steve—she likes me!”

Steve shifted his weight, smiling down at both of them. “Well of course, she does,” he said. “You’re both the prettiest princesses in all the land.”

Across the lawn, Jonathan lifted his camera.

Click.

He’d been halfway through photographing the French face-painter’s Parisian masterpiece on a six-year-old dressed as a pegasus when Holly’s delighted squeal pulled his attention sideways. And through the lens, he caught Steve standing in the middle of the chaos with Mia on one hip and Holly hovering at his side like a tiny moon orbiting a sun she had no plans of ever doubting.

Jonathan smiled to himself.

Because it was objectively a good picture.

Because Steve, damn him, kept accidentally becoming one.

And just a few yards away, Nancy turned at the sound of Holly’s voice and found herself stopping cold. Her ex-boyfriend was laughing… her little sister was talking to him with all the unfiltered devotion that little girls reserved for horses, princesses, and beautiful older boys who were nice to them.

And Mia…

Dear god, Mia was tucked into Steve’s side with one baby hand fisted in his shirt, gazing between them with that serious little face of hers — as if she, too, understood that whatever this was… it belonged to him.

Something inside Nancy shifted.

Not sharply.

Worse.

Softly.

Softly enough that she had time to feel it happen.

Steve looked easy there. Easy and bright, made for it in a way that almost felt cruel. One-year-old baby on his hip. Her little sister standing beside him, gazing up like he’d hung the goddamn moon over Lake Wawasee with his bare hands. All that warmth. All that steadiness. All that… stupid, natural tenderness that never seemed forced… never seemed performative, never looked like a boy trying on adulthood for the sake of being praised for it.

He just… fit.

And the thought that hit Nancy next was so awful in its clarity that she nearly looked over her shoulder, like maybe it had come from somewhere else.

She had never imagined children with anyone but him.

Not really.

Not in the actual marrow of herself, or even the quiet part of her mind where futures formed when no one was watching. Not even with Jonathan.

But with Steve, she had.

Even when she’d been too angry to admit it. 

Even when she’d chosen otherwise. 

Even when she swore to herself that she was far too smart, too ambitious… too unsentimental to want something as ordinary and terrifying as a family.

With Jonathan, she could imagine love. Could imagine work. Apartments and newspapers and movement and espresso mornings on a cracked terrace… survival and long, hard years of trying to become themselves.

But children?

That picture wouldn’t hold.

No matter how many pictures Jonathan took, that one never clicked.

And now Steve Harrington stood barely twenty feet away holding a baby and making Holly Wheeler laugh, and Nancy realized — with sudden, nauseating force — that the only future involving children she had ever been able to see clearly had his face in it.

“Oh, honey!—there you are.”

Karen appeared at Nancy’s elbow in a drift of perfume and blue silk, looping an arm through hers before Nancy could get ahold of her expression.

“C’mon,” her mother said warmly, already leading her toward one of the drink tables. “Sue’s telling the most ridiculous story about a European magician at Emily Patterson’s anniversary dinner, and I need you there to confirm I’m not hallucinating.”

Nancy let herself be pulled.

Because what else was she supposed to do?

Stand in the middle of the fucking lawn and stare at Steve Harrington holding a baby and indulging her little sister’s rambling and… accidentally becoming every buried thing she had never managed to stop wanting?

She smiled because Karen was looking at her.

Laughed because Karen laughed.

Accepted a glass of champagne because it was handed to her and because saying no would’ve required more honesty than she currently had access to.

As Karen chattered beside her, warm and bright and just a little wine-flushed already, Nancy took a sip and felt the bubbles sting the back of her throat.

Her mother loved her children more than she loved her marriage.

Nancy had known that for years without ever fully naming it.

Mrs. Wheeler stayed because staying was what good mothers did. Because children needed stability. Because marital disappointment could be folded up and swallowed with wine if you were practiced enough at it.

…and standing there with champagne in hand while Steve’s laughter carried faintly across the lawn, and Jonathan made love to his camera more than he did her… Nancy had one brief, ugly thought:

Is that how it starts?

One glass at a time.

One good smile in public.

One private grief swallowed whole.

…because it’s easier than detonating your life.

She took another sip.

Then looked up in spite of herself.

Steve had crouched down now so Holly could show Mia the balloon flower she’d gotten from one of the artists. Holly was explaining it with solemn importance. Mia was trying to eat one of the petals. Steve, naturally, was narrating the whole thing like it was breaking international news.

Nancy laughed before she could stop herself.

And across the lawn, Steve glanced up at the sound like he’d felt it.

Just for a second, his eyes found hers.

Then Holly tugged on his sleeve, Mia squealed, and the moment passed.

But not before it left a mark.

The Campbell’s arrived shortly after one, Luke and Connor with their parents in tow. Julie was loud in exactly the way Steve remembered her from spring break — all perfume and volume and harmlessly insane commentary, while John Campbell was exactly what he’d been before too: beyond unexpectedly wholesome, deeply funny, and genuinely glad to see people. He and James hit it off almost immediately over drinks while Kenneth, still dry and smug but more relaxed than Steve had maybe ever seen him, traded little deadpan jabs with both of them from the shade of the tent.

Kenneth actually looked like he was having fun.

Not fake-fun. Not performance-fun. Real enjoyment (no doubt helped along by a steady, carefully managed stream of alcohol) and the fact that for once, everything in his life had been curated down to a single mission: let this day go well. He wasn’t sloshed. Neither was Sharon. But they were both glowing with that loose, buzzed warmth that made them less brittle around the edges.

Of course, Kenneth didn’t gush. 

He would probably die first. 

But every so often, Steve would catch him watching Mia with this look that… hovered somewhere between silent disbelief and reluctant pride, and it was enough to throw Steve off balance.

One moment in particular lodged itself under his skin.

Mia had just been passed from Steve to Lucas to Connor to Steve again, all while laughing hysterically over a balloon bunny rabbit that looked vaguely demonic, when Kenneth drifted over with a beer in hand and said to no one in particular, “She’s got my timing.”

No one answered.

Probably because no one knew what the hell that meant.

But Mia, hearing his voice, just looked up and laughed like it was the funniest thing anyone had ever said.

Kenneth blinked.

Connor snorted into his drink.

And then even Kenneth had to laugh, low and surprised, while Steve stood there trying not to make too much of the fact that his employer looked, for one brief unscripted second, like an actual father who had no idea what to do with being loved by his child and was getting over it in real time.

“Don’t take too much credit, Mr. Browne,” Luke drawled respectfully, although his impish wink gave away just how perceptive he truly is whenever it comes to this family. “She’s the daughter of two business minds.”

Steve grinned at him, catching the all-knowing glint Luke’s eyes whenever he glanced his way. And it made him realize all over again, just how good it was to meet him on spring break. 

They’d kept in touch.

They’d actually kept in touch. 

Luke had rang him a few times from Dartmouth, asking if he’d made summer plans yet. If he’ll be with the Browne’s the whole time, or could be spared a long weekend off to come hit the Maldives with him and his frat brothers. 

Hell, even Connor had called him up once. 

A little buzzed, but not less sincere. Undoubtedly on purpose. Music blaring in the background of some house party, warbled through the wall phone as he said something along the lines of — “you should be here with us, man!” Steve had laughed so hard, then stayed on the phone with him for a whole fifteen minutes before Connie let himself be dragged back into the party.

Because Connor hadn’t called him just for a drunken laugh.

He’d called Steve for advice.

Actual advice. 

About his purpose.

About his career choice.

About not knowing what he wanted to do.

“How do I do it, man?” Connor had asked. “How do I… stumble into what I’m s’posed to be?… like you?”

The question had puzzled Steve. 

More than anything, it humbled Steve.

Because he was beginning to realize that was almost him. He easily could’ve wound up at some Ivy League college (if he’d been academically motivated enough) with zero clue as to why he was there. Nothing but parties, sex, loud music and fraternity pledges… just like Connor.

Instead, he got to take life slow.

Land a solid job.

Figure out where he feels called.

…and take his time getting there, because he could afford it.

Steve’s earned himself a reality he never knew he could have. And now he’s watching Connor orbit around him like a metaphorically adopted little brother, here at Mia’s birthday party. He watches Luke carry himself with maturity that far exceeds his age, carrying Allison’s purse without having to be asked. He feels the vibration of his own laughter, along with Margot’s at his side, taking in the new unexpected circle of friendship that he’s made.

And it’s the warmest thing.

Especially when Robin joins in.

That’s when it really feels full.

There was so much easy camaraderie all around.

There was tension too, of course. Tiny fault lines running under the whimsy.

Sharon watched Helene and James more than once with a smile that stayed bright and eyes that did not. There was something in the way the Harringtons moved around each other now — not clinging, not showy, just settled. In tune with one another. He found her when he entered a conversation. She passed him a glass without asking what he wanted because she already knew. Their marriage no longer sparkled in public the way flashy marriages did. It burned lower. Steadier. More dangerous for being real.

Love rekindled.

Love still healing.

Sharon clocked that.

Clocked it and drank around it.

Because whatever she and Kenneth had once had, it was not that. 

Their marriage worked. It functioned. It glittered beautifully when viewed from outside. But it did not orbit. It did not come home for love. It did not choose and re-choose in the dark.

Helene, for her part, moved through the party like a quiet correction to every loud thing around her. She didn’t need the spotlight. Didn’t need anyone to know which caterer she’d recommended or which musician she’d discreetly told Sharon not to hire or which florals she’d gently redirected away from looking like a funeral. She simply existed with her hot-weather elegance and dry little smile, and when people gravitated toward her anyway, it only made Sharon’s old envy hum louder under the skin.

Not because Helene tried.

Because she never had to.

And underneath all that, under twisted balloons and bunnies and toasts and layered cake and old-money spectacle… Steve kept having these tiny painful moments where he would look around… and realize just how much life could contain all at once.

Joy. Grief. Want. Regret. Hope. Money. Children. Friendship. The knowledge that Eddie was missing all of this. The knowledge that Max still slept. The knowledge that the world in Hawkins was still wrong even with summer light on it. The knowledge that James had once been less faithful than anyone's guessed and that somehow Helene had loved her son enough to choose him over being chosen by her husband. The knowledge that he himself could be standing in the middle of a one-year-old’s fantasy birthday while wondering, in some private locked room of his chest, what he would become if Mia ever stopped needing him.

But today, mercifully, none of it curdled.

It all just existed.

By late afternoon, the party had settled into that beautiful half-delirious state all good events reached when everyone had been fed and sun-warmed and emotionally softened. Kids ran with painted faces and sticky hands. Adults drifted with second desserts and gossip. The bunny conservatory remained a bizarre and endless hit. The Scoops Ahoy! truck had lines all day. Mike had somehow gotten blue frosting in his mop of hair. Dustin had let Mia pat his tiger-painted cheek without a single sarcastic comment. Erica still guarded the gifts like a tiny jewel thief king. Will stuck close enough to the edges to observe and sketch in his head. Joyce witnessed the whole thing with that openmouthed happiness mothers got when they were suddenly reminded how good it could feel to witness a small child be adored by a crowd.

And then it was time to make a wish.

The big cake drew applause, while Mia’s little daisy cake drew tears.

They’d gathered everyone toward the main table while Sharon glowed and Kenneth stood at her shoulder while Steve hovered just close enough aside to intervene if sugar-based disaster struck. Mia sat in her little high chair in front of the daisy cake, Cuppy abandoned for once beside her bib, eyes wide with the solemn concentration of someone trying to understand why a room full of adults had suddenly become insane.

“Happy birthday to you…”

Everyone sang.

Some off-key. Some were tipsy. Some were genuinely emotional.

“Haaaaapy birthday dear Mia…

Happy birthdaaaaay tooo youuuuu!”

Sharon and Kenneth leaned in to help her blow out the little candle (because of course she couldn’t yet), and the moment that flame went out, the whole party burst into cheers loud enough to make Mia startle and then laugh so hard that that she slapped one frosting-covered hand straight into the center of her own cake.

Steve lost his mind.

Robin lost hers with him.

Sharon laughed until she cried. Kenneth’s biggest smile came and went too fast for those expensive photographers to catch.

…but Jonathan caught it anyway. 

Because Jonathan Byers always caught things people didn’t mean to show, and Steve had learned that firsthand.

Ironically? That worked in his favor now.

The sun was lowering by the time people started to leave for real, reluctantly, dragging children and balloons and leftover slices of cake and painted faces toward waiting cars. No one wanted to go. That was maybe the best proof of success the whole day offered.

Steve stood near the drive at sunset with Mia asleep on his shoulder, saying goodbye to guests one by one while she finally, finally surrendered to serene exhaustion in his arms.

She had gone all day.

All fucking day.

No meltdown. No catastrophe. Just joy.

Pure joy.

Her cheek was warm against his neck. One little hand was fisted loosely in his shirt. Her daisy dress was wrinkled. Her gold studs caught the last of the light. She smelled like baby shampoo and frosting and expensive sunscreen and sleep.

Every few seconds, Steve would look down at her and feel something inside him threaten to split open from sheer stupid love.

He managed to keep it together by being, as ever, Steve Harrington about it: smiling, winking, thanking people. Letting the older women tell him what a natural he was. Letting the younger ones look at him a beat too long. Letting Sharon boast lightly from across the patio that yes, that was her manny, and wasn’t he divine, and no, she was absolutely not lending him out.

Margot came up beside him at one point while the sky went watercolor over the lake and murmured, “You’ve got cake on your collar.”

He shifted Mia slightly with one arm. “Occupational hazard.”

Margot smiled and brushed it away with two fingers, eyes twinkling. “Y’know, you look good like this.”

He glanced at her, tired and glowing and unable to stop the vulnerable truth from landing in his eyes before it reached his mouth. “Yeah?”

Her smile deepened. “Yeah.”

Steve’s own smile deepened, too. 

His gaze flicked down to her lips, then back at her ocean eyes before leaning in and pressing a dizzying kiss to her full lips and forehead.

For a second, with sunset on the lake and the last of the guests drifting away and a sleeping one-year-old in his arms, Steve almost let himself imagine the whole impossible thing — a life that somehow held all of it. Love, friendship, work, purpose, family… some version of a future where nothing had to be sacrificed at the altar of something else.

Almost.

Then Mia sighed in her sleep and pressed closer, and that particular thought dissolved into something quieter and more immediate.

Across the lawn, Helene now stood with James under the string lights… and watched him. Just for a second. Long enough to feel that old, deep certainty settle in her bones all over again.

He was everything she had gotten right.

Whatever she had failed at before or beside that truth? It no longer mattered half as much as it once had. Steve stood there in the last gold of the day with a child asleep against his heart and the whole party still glowing gently in the wake of him, and Helene thought, not for the first time, that loving him had never been the complicated part.

Only learning how to do it in time.

James glanced at her. Followed her gaze. 

And he smiled, just faintly.

Because he understood too.

And maybe that was the strangest miracle of all.

“Can you believe we made that?”

Helene glanced up at him in soft surprise, her brown eyes flickering over her husband’s handsome face as he looked out at their son… then down at her.

She hummed, the corner of her lips curling upwards. “We did, didn’t we.”

They stared out at him and Mia for a long, tender moment.

Then James arched one mischievously impish eyebrow at her. 

“Ya wanna do it again?”

Helene’s warm smile dissolved into a deadpan expression so damn fast, that it gave James whiplash while he snickered instantly. She swatted at him with an amused grin sweeping across her face as he tugged her in closer, staring out at the scene again before finally making the trek back to Hawkins.

By the time the last car rolled away and the hired cleanup staff began their quiet, efficient work around the perimeter, the party felt less like something that happened and more like a fever dream everyone had agreed to believe in for one perfect day.

Steve stood out on the patio with Mia asleep in his arms, rocking her without realizing it, while lantern lights flickered across the emptying lawn… and the remnants of her fairytale kingdom glowed softly in the dusk.

She’d had the most magical first birthday in the world.

No, he corrected himself silently, looking down at her with a smile so tender it almost hurt. The world had gotten lucky enough to witness her first birthday.

That was different.

That was everything.

He pressed one kiss to her temple, then another, then another for no reason except he could. And there, in the summertime wrecked aftermath of a long day, too beautiful to entirely trust — Steve Harrington held the sleepiest little birthday girl in Indiana and did what he had done all year long.

He kept loving her like it was the simplest thing in the world.

And maybe, for him, it was.

END OF EPISODE

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