ava

Prepare yourself for a decent amount of rambling this is literally the entire timeline of an AU I’ve been thinking about literally nonstop all week and I need to get this out into the internet:

• 1989: Mike and Will get together this summer. Think of the classic Byler 1989 summer tropes and vibes (tmmd;tmms, super soaker etc whatever it’s cute and wholesome but also a little angsty... okay, it's really angsty, actually.... no one is coping well over the loss of Jane. )

They go to college together in Chicago and are roommates. Max is still in Hawkins working on her high school degree. Dustin goes to California for school, Lucas goes to D.C.

Honestly, this year is the least fleshed out except for the fact that Mike is still struggling a lot with internalized homophobia and doesn’t come out to anyone. This causes some friction in their relationship- Will doesn’t understand why Mike is so scared to tell their friends. Mike doesn’t understand why Will keeps on pushing him.

• 1990: Mike bottoms for the first time. Not much on that besides it’s a spiritual awakening for both of them but also sends Mike further into his self deprecating spiral. Actually, no, because more on that is it’s actually pretty detrimental for his mental health and how he views himself and his masculinity and he would try to overcompensate.

Things start to become more strained between Mike and Will. That summer everyone is home for break and Mike ends up coming out to them. He doesn’t come out to any of his family. He becomes insufferable (vocally he will not shut up to the party about how perfect Will is but he’s still being weird about being physical with Will even if it’s just the five of them).

When they’re at school in Chicago (fall 1989- Spring 1991) they’re very co dependent. Literally attached at the hip and with each other 24/7 because they just love each other so much! But, they don’t go on dates. They don’t hold hands or kiss in public and when people ask, even if they’re a very clear safe space, Mike will adamantly insist that they’re just friends.

The tension builds. Will think Mike is embarrassed by him. Mike thinks he’s just protecting Will (and himself).

• 1991: Jane comes back and out of hiding and isn’t dead because I said so. She comes back that spring when the snow melts. Max graduates with her high school diploma. The party spends that summer hanging out with Jane and reconnecting.

Mike doesn’t want to tell her about him and Will. He makes up some excuse about not wanting to hurt her. Will is very upset. Will ends up telling Jane, who is very supportive, but this causes a fight between Mike and Will. This is their first real fight. They’ve argued before, sure, but they’ve never fought like this. They make up within the week, though.

It’s August, now, and they’re getting ready to go back to school. Well, Mike is getting ready to go back. Will is getting ready to leave.

Will is transferring schools to an art school in California. He doesn’t tell Mike until literally the last possible second. He’s been terrified of Mike’s reaction this whole summer.

Mike is fucking pissed because what do you mean Will has known about this for months and hid it from him like that’s actually so fucked up? He feels abandoned. He feels betrayed. He feels like Will is leaving him.

They get into a Huge ass fight. Will tries to explain himself (he’s suffocating in Indiana and needs to leave- he needs to be independent and open and free to be himself- he doesn’t want to breakup with Mike, he just needs to get away from that childhood trauma). Mike isn’t hearing any of it.

They both become vicious as they say things they never let themselves say to each other. Mike becomes cold and detached. Will becomes heated and angry. They both attack each other’s characters, their families, their unhealthy coping mechanisms (Will running, Mike being suffocating).

They breakup. Will goes to California and Mike goes back to Chicago. He hates his new roommate. He starts to go through the 5 stages of grief over losing Will (again, may I add).

Denial hits him pretty hard and he spirals over the course of the fall semester. He fails out of classes. He gets arrested. He gets kicked out. Will still doesn’t call. Thanksgiving rolls around, and there’s a huge Wheeler family fight (Mike doesn’t actually instigate this time, Ted does). Ted makes keeps making rude comments about Mike wasting their money on a liberal arts degree. Mike finally explodes and says they don’t have to worry about that anymore because he got kicked out.

Things escalate, and Mike ends up saying something along the lines of “yeah, well if you’re that disappointed at me because my education then you’d shit your pants if you knew what Will and I did in bed.” Holly is crying. Nancy is appalled. Karen slaps him. Ted is dead silent as he gathers Mike’s things and throw them on the front lawn.

Mike drives to the Byer’s. Will is in California; he didn’t come home for thanksgiving. Things are tense especially between Mike and Jonathan (and him and Hop but not as much) but it’s nice and Mike has a renewed sense of confidence.

• 1992: He drives to Will and Dustin’s apartment. He takes his sweet ass time (nerves) and gets there in time for Valentine’s Day. It’s perfect. He walks up to the front door with nothing but some flowers he picked up off the roadside. Carlton answers the door. He recognizes Mike. Mike leaves without saying anything and books it across the country to DC. He’s angry. He’s sad. He makes it to DC in 3 days.

Max is going to school for physical therapy and is in EMT school to help pay for her education.

He shows up on Lucas and Max’s doorstep and they take him in. His anger stage of grief lasts a year and is veryyy intense. Max hates having Mike live with them. She still talks to Will and thinks that Mike is in the wrong.

During the day, Mike is angry, volatile, irritating…. He complains about Will nonstop and goes on ridiculously long rants about him. At night though, Max gets woken up multiple times throughout the week to Mike sobbing in their living room. Her defenses start to break down, especially hearing from Will about how well he’s doing in California and how he’s living his best life and moving on while Mike is literally acting like Will fucking died and like it’s the end of the world.

There’s some cute bonding madwheeler moments tucked in there. One night when Max wakes up from Mike crying, she decides to go out in the living room. She makes them tea and sits with him while he cries.

They stay in DC for the holidays. Lucas stays with them. One night after Lucas goes to bed, M&M get drunk and open up to each other. Mike tells her stuff he hasn’t even told Lucas or Dustin (his suicidal ideation). Their relationship shifts from an irritated sibling-like one to protectors.

• 1993: everyone gets together in the spring to celebrate the grads. Mike and Will fight a lot. Mike almost always instigates it. He just wants Will’s attention …. It pisses everyone off, but especially Max. She’s still edging the line of whose side she’s on (much like everyone else in the party). No one wants to be caught in the middle of their fight.

Max and Lucas are disappointed in Mike because he promised to be civil.

Max overhears them talking one day. Mike is trying to apologize to Will and fix things. Max is really proud of him- she didn’t think he’d do that. Will basically laughs in his face and then things devolve into another huge fight. Max starts to really sympathize with Mike throughout this argument. She understands him deeply now, and understands why he’s acting the way he is and honestly she really relates to him. They handle and process their trauma/ anger in the same way.

Everyone takes Will’s side on this one. Even Nancy. Even Lucas (he’s still pretty neutral though tbh). They’re just fucking exhausted from all the fighting and to be fair Mike IS the one who starts it like 8/10 times.

Max takes everyone’s attacks on Mike’s character as a personal attack on HER character because she sees a lot of herself reflected in Mike and yes, she’s become pretty defensive over him over the past year.

Max starts encouraging Mike’s bitchiness and they start to ice Will out. They make Will cry by the end of the trip, but Mike feels vindicated because Will made him cry. Max only feels a little bad. This causes a huge rift in the friend group.

Mike cuts everyone off except Max and Lucas. Max and Jane get into a huge fight and she stops reaching out to the others. Lucas keeps in touch with all of them and updates them on Mike and Max. Will asks about Mike all of them time.

There’s an incident one day on the metro. Max falls and almost gets hit by the subway. Lucas freezes (trauma response) and Mike saves her. Mike’s bargaining stage is in full throttle. He works on himself and makes himself better. He tries to call Will to make amends but gets no where. He doesn’t think he’s worth anything unless he’s saving someone. Mike is desperate. He tries to orchestrate ways to fix his life, to prove he is worthy of love, or to get Wills attention. When he saves Max from the incoming train, part of his subconscious feels like a "heroic act" might fix the broken fragments of his life.

By the time November rolls around he’s in a deep depression.

He spends the last week of December calling out to everyone and apologizing/ making amends.

The last person he calls is Will. It’s not a happy conversation. It’s not heated, just… sad. Bittersweet. It feels like an ending.

Him reaching out to people inspires Max and she starts to rebuild the bridges she burnt last year.

• 1994: NYE, Mike scales the suicide barriers at the Duke Ellington bridge and he jumps.

Max is off duty, but her scanner is on. She catches a report of someone on top of the bridge. She checks the living room. Mike is gone. She wakes up Lucas, and they rush to the bridge. She drops off Lucas on the foot path and drives down to the trailhead. She trusts that Lucas can talk Mike down but she’s seen enough stuff go sideways to be prepared for the worst case scenario.

Lucas… well, Lucas freezes again. His throat constricts when he tries to yell. He wants to reach out for Mike but he can’t. He’s a couple of feet away when Mike jumps. This haunts Lucas for a very long time, especially after what happened with Max at the metro. Lucas and Max are extremely traumatized after this.

So…. Max saves Mike’s life. He gets acute pneumonia and his right leg is incredibly fucked up. Lucas sprints down and they haul him into Max’s car and speed off to the hospital.

Mike is unconscious/ put into a medically induced coma. Lucas calls Nancy. Jane is visiting Jonathan and all three of them drive down from New York. There’s a lot of uhhh complex emotions and relationships in this.

For example, when Mike calls Jonathan he doesn’t accept the apology. He’s in full defensive big brother mode. He and Nancy get into a fight and he realizes that Mike has always been a pseudo little brother to him. Nancy also makes him realize how much of his life he’s revolved around being Will’s big brother. He tries to call Mike to apologize on NYE but it goes straight to voicemail…

Also feels important to note that when everything blew up in 93, Nancy and Jonathan would probably argue about it but not as much as Max/Jane or even Lucas/ Dustin would. Nancy doesn’t make being Mike’s sister as much as a personality trait as Jonathan does. She’s just his big sister. She can acknowledge his flaws and doesn’t feel the need to fill the “fierce protector” role for Mike. He’s an adult now, it’s time to start testing him like one. Jonathan still struggles with doing that with Will.

Sooo, Mike looses his right leg below the knee.

When he’s in surgery, the five of them decide to keep this between the five of them and whoever Mike decides to tell himself. Jane (or Lucas) would call Dustin though and tell him that Mike is in critical condition in the hospital. Dustin lies to Will and says it’s a work emergency. He doesn’t know all of the details (Mike jumped/ he lost a leg) and doesn’t want to worry Will/ make things tense between them again. He’s already in shambles over the phone call from the night before.

Anyways, they decide to respect Mike’s boundaries and not push it because he couldn’t handle seeing Will (or his parents). Tbh Will also wouldn’t be able to handle seeing Mike in that state. The amount of guilt and resentment that would build from both sides would be detrimental to their relationship if they ever tried to salvage it.

When Mike wakes up he’s incredibly embarrassed and refuses to speak. He’s borderline catatonic. Nancy, Jonathan, and Jane go in first. They’re the closest thing he has to a bio family rn. Max and Lucas decide to take a backseat (they’re both racked with guilt).

The doctor tells them to be careful about jostling him/ ripping stitches/ etc. Nancy sits on the edge of his bed and rests her hand on his shoulder. Jane sits down in a chair and takes his other. Jonathan hovers. Mike doesn’t move or say anything. He cries silently.

When Max and Lucas go in, Max pulls him into the tightest fucking biggest hug ever. Mike completely breaks down.

He tells the doctors he didn’t mean to jump. It was an accident. It was a dare. He was drunk. He doesn’t want to die. Only the last two aren’t lies. He was incredibly drunk when he jumped, but actually junking made him realize he wanted his current life to end. Not his entire existence. He doesn’t regret jumping. He regrets not trying to change something sooner.

Recovery is hard. It’s the hardest thing Mike has ever done. Nancy and Jonathan move to Maryland. Jane bounces back and forth between them, Montauk, and California.

Max takes it upon herself to be Mike’s PT. Lucas takes it upon himself to care for both of them.

Mike hates it… he feels like a burden, he feels ashamed that Max of all people is the one there for him when he sobs from the pain or collapses on the ground. He blows up on her one day and says she should be doing this for an actual paying client. She says family doesn’t pay. Mike learns how to accept help after this.

Mike gets a tattoo to hide his sh scars.

MML get dragged to Montauk for Thanksgiving. Will spends it in CA (Jane spends it with him). Mike and Will’s avoidance issues go fucking crazy in this btw.

Thanksgiving is actually such a turning point in Mike’s recovery. Joyce and Hop are both understanding/ forgiving/ loving/ good parents. He learns he doesn’t have to be “whole” to be loved. He learns that recovery isn’t linear. He learns what it’s like having family that doesn’t turn tail as soon as things get hard.

So, Mike genuinely starts to work on himself and his mental health and grows/ matures a lot after this.

Max graduates! It’s a small celebration.

• 1995: Mike gets really good at getting around on his crutches. He figures he’ll have to get used to them because prosthetics are extremely expensive.

He still has bad days, but they become further and fewer between the good days. He’s trying. He has a good support system. He slowly gets better.

Everyone collectively pool their money together and get him a prosthetic for his birthday. Mike is excited, but it ends up being extremely heavy and uncomfortable. He gets bad blisters and after a month or two ends up going back to his crutches.

He’ll still try to use the leg, but something with the alignment is definitely fucked up and he has issues walking through the pain/ soreness/ stiffness. The leg gets out in the back of his closet.

Lucas’ heart literally shatters into a million fucking pieces so he decides to put his mechanical engineering degree to good use and make a new leg for Mike. He outsources the mock-up sketch to Will, who got his degree in graphic design. Lucas tells him it’s for some client. Will takes it gladly because he needs the money.

He makes it look like something out of a sci fi movie. It’s sleek, designed to be light weight and mobile. Lucas told him it was more of a concept piece, anyways. Something that’s supposed to be high tech and cutting edge. He asks Dustin for help with some of the technical stuff. Dustin side eyes him hard. He doodles little hearts and stars on the hardware. He can’t help himself- he likes to add little bits of Mike to everything he makes, even if it’s subconscious. Lucas will probably scrub out the doodles anyways. At the very least the line tech won’t keep them in- too expensive for no structural purpose.

After 3 failed prototypes Lucas makes a leg and it fits and it’s great and yes he kept the doodles even though it took him an extra three weeks on the lathe and wayyy too many hours at the shop after work.

Dustin moves to Baltimore.

Will finds out that Mike was in the hospital but only knows that he had pneumonia and he has knee complications from it (playing telephone with Steve and Robin).

When Will finds out about this, at first he’s mad- like wtf what if Mike had DIED and no one told him??? What if he never got to say sorry???? What if the last time he saw Mike they were fighting and the last time they talked they both ended up in tears?????

Will wants to reach out soooo so badly but he refrains. His emotions towards Mike soften a LOT and he waits for Mike to reach out to him first. He respects Mike for keeping his boundaries and not dragging Will into his mess. Will wants to be including in that mess btw… but he wants Mike to want him to be included in that. He doesn’t want to overstep before they’ve even fully made amends. He doesn’t want to push things and then end up pushing Mike away.

• 1996: JANCY WEDDING BECAUSE I SAID SO! 🫵

Over the past two years Mike gets really comfortable on his prosthetic and with his disability. He still wears long pants most days, but he’ll wear shorts. He’s not ashamed, he’s proud. He’s a survivor.

All of the past anger, hurt, resentment from both Mike and Will is gone at this point. They’ve had three years to grow independently and become comfortable with themselves and who they are as individuals and without the boundaries of “Will and Mike.” Their negative emotions turn into longing and want instead of a sense of need and codependency. They both miss each other so much it’s sickening but they’re both too terrified to call because they’re both convinced they’ll get brutally rejected. Mike would, but he’s also extremely worried about how that’ll affect his recovery.

Will gets a job at one of the museums on the national mall. Nancy and Jonathan’s wedding is in the fall; he moves a couple weeks after.

Gonna try my best to keep this brief but…..

Jancy wedding takes place on the coast. The week leading up to the ceremony, the wedding party stays in a rental (maybe two rentals idfk). Will is going into this expecting a repeat of 1993. Mike is going into this having fully accepted that he and Will will never get back together.

Maybe they can be friends though? Mike would really like for them to be friends again.

Will is gagged at how amicable Mike is being. His walls break down shamefully fast. They’re both civil but still keeping their distance. The party sees this and a plan is hatched.

Will and Mike get put into the same room. Classic one bed trope. Mike would resist heavily at first but then give in when Nancy gives him a death glare.

This kind of poses an issue, because Will doesn’t know about Mike’s leg and the wedding party is worried about Will finding out and creating a scene. Jancy honestly does not gaf because they’ve had enough of Mike and Will’s shit and are both pretty confident at this point that they’re mature enough to handle things like adults.

Mike in all honesty thinks that someone 100% told Will in those two years and Will has just respected his space/ recovery boundaries. On his bad days he would convince himself Will just doesn’t gaf. During the week leading up to the wedding, Mike still hides his leg. He knows how jarring it could be since Will still hasn’t seen it yet, but honestly it’s been pretty normalized for Mike at this point. Again, he’s not embarrassed about his leg or what happened in 1994… there’s no reason for him to make a scene.

The first night neither of them sleep (okay they’d sleep but not for a while) but they also don’t say anything. Mike goes to bed before Will does and tucks his leg in between his side of the bed and the side table. He gets up before Will does and puts it on.

Night two they end up apologizing to each other. They get closer throughout the week. During the days they don’t interact a shit ton tbh- Mike sticks with Nancy and the bridesmaids (lower impact activities and that’s his sister bro) and Will sticks with the groomsmen (he’s been feeling super isolated in California since Dustin moved but this week solidifies that no one actually hates him etc). At night, though, they talk a lot and bond and it’s cute and wholesome or whatever.

Anyways cue cute anecdotes throughout the week including Will being accommodating of Mike’s leg thinking he has a bum knee and Mike being absolutely smitten.

Tbh Steve and Robin also don’t know about Mike’s leg- they haven’t seen him without it yet and it hasn’t been explicitly said. A lot of the jokes Mike/ the rest of the party makes about it go over their heads.

Cut to the ceremony and reception. [insert absurd amount of unnecessary details here]. Mike goes a little crazy with the dancing at the reception and by the time they get back to rental he basically goes straight to bed because he’s sore as fuck. Nancy and Jonathan have already driven off into the sunset, so there’s an empty room.

Will still decides to go to the room he shares with Mike.

All of the lights are off and Will thinks Mike is asleep. He’s not. As soon as Will’s back hits the mattress Mike says his name. He says something sweet (probably an “I miss you” or “I love you” or “I don’t want to lose you again” or “I don’t want us to be strangers again”). Will confesses back. They’d probably apologize again. They’d probably start crying. They would 100% start making out.

Things start to heat up and Will runs his hands down Mike’s hips and thighs to hitch his legs around his own and then he feels it. Or, actually, he doesn’t feel it. Because Mike’s right leg is gone.

They talk about it. Mike doesn’t lie, but he’s not blunt. He tells Will he had an accident and fell off a bridge. He got pneumonia. His leg wasn’t salvageable. Max and Lucas saved his life.

Will remembers the phone call. He knows what the tattoo is covering. He can read between the lines. He doesn’t say anything to Mike besides that he’s proud of him. They fall asleep in each other’s arms. Mike spends the next week on his crutches.

And yes, the leg design does get addressed.

[NOTES: lmfao I hate the 1995 portrait literally did it in 15 minutes rushed as fuuuuuh….

I have like… probably about 60k words in notes for this AU I’m ngl…. I think I could ramble about it for a very long time but I’m gonna try to harvest those feelings into a fic 💆

If you’ve made it this far wow! You deserve an award or smth because damn that was long. Do you want to be friends?? I’m still looking for a beta lwk…