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Chapter Text

Steve led the way into Eddie's trailer, checking that the coast was clear, and then stepping further inside to allow the others entrance, wishing he had been able to clear the building Erica, Lucas, and Max would be in as well, but knowing that there hadn't been the time in their batshit crazy plan.

"Ok," Steve said, taking a deep breath as he looked up at the rift in the ceiling across the room, "let's do this."

He dropped his bag to the side and strode confidently up to the sheet still hanging where they had left it, but his step faltered when Robin asked, "You know why we always let you go first, right?" in a much harder tone than he had expected to hear from her mouth, and he stopped with a hand on the fabric before he began his climb to send her a questioning look.

"Because you nerds would break your legs if you tried to jump down without the mattress," he tried to answer, though it came out as more of a question, his voice smaller than he had meant to allow it to be.

"No," Nancy scoffed, strolling further into the room to stand at Robin's side, both of their eyes cold and dispassionate in a way he had never seen before.

"That's not it at all," Dustin chuckled as he took his place on Nancy's other side, but the laugh wasn't the normal bubbling sunshine the kid usually overflowed with, instead it was cruel and scornful, and it made Steve feel small for reasons he couldn't explain.

"They're right, Stevie," Eddie singsonged as he added himself to the odd line they had made, even his usual playful cadence sounding mocking, and Steve felt his shoulders hunching automatically as he struggled to understand what was happening.

"It's not that you're better than us," Robin dismissed lightly, though her eyes remained more intense, sharper, and far colder than he had ever known they could be.

"I know King Steve wants to think that," she went on, her smile growing at the slight flinch he couldn't suppress at the name of his old title he'd tried so hard to leave in his past. "No, it's not because you're better, it's because the only reason we put up with such a fucking failure is because you make a damn good sacrifice, Steve."

"… What?" he asked, the voice that escaped his mouth making him sound far younger than he was as he watched the four of them with wide eyes.

"A sacrifice, Steve," Dustin mocked. "Do you not know what that is? It means you're someone we bring with us to get hurt or killed by the monsters so the people we actually care about don't, I thought even you would have the brains for that one, but I guess it makes sense that you didn't know what you've been for the past three years."

Steve took a disbelieving step back, shaking his head. No, surely not. Not Robin, not Dustin.

"Awww," Nancy cooed with a cruel undertone. "Look at his poor little brain working so hard to put one and one together. I'd say two and two, but we all know you're not that smart, don't we no-college-acceptances-Steve?"

Steve's gaze transferred to her, but he couldn't find words as he stared, the hurt in his chest welling up more and more by the second.

"Don't you get it?" Eddie asked, the light in his eyes that was usually so friendly and welcoming turning cruel and demeaning. "Dustin found your replacement, a real upgrade, if I do say so myself, and he doesn't want you anymore. Now, do the last thing we need you to do for us, Stevie-boy, and climb up that rope and distract the monsters by letting them kill you when we most need them to, and you can consider your life a success!"

"Oh," Steve said, feeling vaguely disconnected from his body as everything finally clicked into place. Maybe he really was as stupid as everyone always said. "You're him."

They all four smiled, cruel and predatory, and in the next instant Steve was gone, transplanted into his house. He blinked, baffled as to how he had gotten there, but also feeling vaguely like he had been there the whole time.

His father broke him out of his confused thoughts, stalking into his line of vision with a fire in his eyes that Steve recognized from -, Oh. Oh, that was it. Fire. Steve needed fire, he thought, feeling somehow distant from the realization as his body stumbled backward to get away from his seething dad.

"You will not disrespect me, Steven," his father was snarling, and Steve vividly remembered the night he had accidentally let the question, "Why?" slip out of his lips after his father had given him an order, the rest of the night spiraling downward until he was left, beaten and crying, in a shower of glass, his father casting him a disappointed look and commanding him to clean up the mess Steve had made before leaving for the night.

His father was acting out his part perfectly, the words that were forever etched into Steve's brain being spat out with fresh, hot flashes of hurt, but he pushed them aside and snatched the vodka bottle from the table that would be what his father picked up to smash into his face and jerked it toward the fireplace, pouring a line of liquid that was almost instantly eaten by flame from the hearth to his father’s torso, and then in a wide circle around himself until he stared, holding the bottle and ready for more, from within his protection ring.

“You are always such a failure!” his father shrieked, the words he remembered so clearly sounding odd as another pained voice peeked around the edges, but before he could contemplate that, the scene shifted and morphed around him.

Instead of inside his house, he was standing outside it, shivering slightly in the cold night air. He looked down at the pool only to find it empty and covered in the slithering vines he recognized from the upside down.

“Hello, Steve,” a quiet voice said from behind him, and he kept himself from spinning around, already knowing he would find Barbara Holland waiting to catch him in a spiral of guilt, and instead frantically scanning his surroundings.

Except for the ominous, slithering vines everywhere, everything was how he left it that evening, though there wasn't even a hint of another person in the area, the night dark and silent.

His eyes stared at the beer cans Tommy had left crumpled next to the pool chairs like he always used to do, driving Steve crazy when he had to clean them up the next day.

Why they were catching his eye he didn’t know, but he knew it was better than the illusion of the girl behind him.

“Can’t even look at me, Steve Harrington?" Barb's voice asked, cold and sneering. "Can't look at the girl you murdered?"

Steve tried to ignore her, feeling the back of his neck prickle as she moved closer while he continued to stare at the mess next to the pool chair, unable to explain why it felt so important.

Oh. It connected an instant later. Of course. Tommy hadn't only been drinking that night, and Steve vividly remembered, from the sheer amount he had heard his friend complain over the following days, that Tommy had left a lighter in the pile of trash and Steve had thrown away his favorite zippo.

That was one half of the equation, but he still needed the other. There were beer cans sitting around, still full and unopened, but that wouldn't do him any good, as beer didn't have a high enough alcohol content to burn. He needed something else. His dad's liquor stash was too far away, there was no way he'd make it inside, let alone upstairs before Vecna caught him.

Steve skittered to the side as though afraid of Barb -which wasn't a difficult act to portray- and conveniently brought himself closer to the pile of trash that may end up saving his life, if only he could find an accelerant-, oh, the grill, of course.

Barb was speaking, taunting him over something he hadn't been bothering to listen to, but he didn't wait for her to finish as he bolted, sprinting past the trash and bending to scoop the zippo up without slowing as he pelted to the grill, his fingers closing on the ill-advised can of lighter fluid he kept stored under it -because he was perpetually too lazy to wait for the grill to properly light- just as a vine gripped his ankle in a horrific case of déjà vu.

It didn't matter, though, as the vine ripped him off his feet and dragged him back to Barb, because Steve had what he needed. He let the vine pull him across the concrete and focused on unscrewing the cap of the lighter fluid while still maintaining a firm grip on the zippo, succeeding just as the vine deposited him at Barb's feet.

Without waiting to think about it, Steve doused the vine and Barb's legs and waved the zippo over them, sending them both ablaze, and rolling away as soon as the grip on his ankle was loosened, springing to his feet and pouring a circle of lighter fluid around himself and lighting it before he dared look back to Barb to gauge her reaction.

"You killed me, Steve Harrington!" she snarled, the fire growing up her torso until she was nothing but a pillar of flame, and just before his surroundings melted, Steve heard a scream of pain from the distance that didn't sound human, and he let the proof that he was getting to Vecna shore up his energy reserves.

When he reappeared he was tied up in the Russian bunker underneath the mall, the sergeant he had hoped to never see again looming over him.

"You… you are an idiot, Steve Harrington," he commented with his heavily accented drawl. "You give yourself to save those children, but I will tell you secret."

The soldier leaned in closer, lip twitching up in a crooked grin.

"The secret," he repeated, as though sharing highly coveted knowledge, "is that you do not matter to them except to be shield. They do not love you, they see advantage in having stupid babysitter that will get between them and Russian fists."

The man demonstrated his point by burying a punch in Steve's stomach, and Steve groaned and slumped in his seat around the hit, trying to make himself focus and take in the room, but finding it difficult to pull his eyes away from the table full of torture implements that had haunted his nightmares. There were hammers and pliers, bone saws and knives, and Steve could hear the whispers of the threats to use all of them on him if he did not comply.

He took a deep breath and tried to keep himself from panicking -with limited success-, noting a little hysterically that every last detail was correct, even the stupid fucking gallon of rubbing alcohol that the soldiers had been sure to leave uncapped with jeering remarks that they'd be using it as soon as they broke his skin, or maybe before that if they poured it in his eyes, unless he answered their questio-, Oh. That was it. He had one half of the equation, but where was the other?

He was finally able to pull his heavy head up to look at the interrogator who had been monologuing for several long seconds without Steve hearing a word, and he distantly thought to himself that Vecna needed to pay more attention to when his victims were listening to him if he wanted his digs to have any impact.

The thought almost sent him into giggles, and he realized belatedly that he was very much under the pain-filled effects of living in the moment he had been thrust into, and he could feel the aches in his ribs and wrists along with the absolute pounding of his head as it felt more and more like it would split open.

"I know what will spark your memory, Steve Harrington," the man announced with a pleased little grin at his own pun as he rattled the box of matches he held in Steve's face, and Steve's eyes immediately locked on them. Where they had ignited nothing but a soul deep terror the first time he'd seen them, the second time they were his salvation. He had to time it perfectly. He knew how it played out, he just had to breathe and keep himself from panicking long enough to play his card.

He watched, wide eyed and fearful, as the guard smirked down at him, lazily taking one of the matches out and running it along the side of the box, holding it with the tips of his fingers as he mockingly contemplated dropping it on Steve's bare thigh. Steve had never hated his stupidly short shorts more than he had when he had been tied up beneath the mall, but in the reprise of the situation, having shorts that small would make it easier to dart his legs out without pants getting caught on anything.

That was his opening.

In the blink of an eye, Steve's legs surged outward, one hitting the torture table an instant before his other crashed through the man's knee, and just as he had hoped, the rubbing alcohol toppled, flooding the floor a fraction of a second before the Russian’s fingers spasmed in pain, dropping the lit match onto the lake of accelerant and setting the entire room ablaze.

Steve pulled his feet up onto the base of his chair, trying to stay out of the flames, and watched with wide, petrified eyes as the soldier, who had fallen to his knees in pain, looked up at him with a seething hatred.

"You -," and the creature's voice underneath was audibly agonized, "will pay for this, Steve Harrington."

Steve blinked and he was standing, confused and panicked, in the Byers’ house, Jonathon and Nancy about to be eaten by the demogorgan bursting through the ceiling.

The scene seemed to pause, the demogorgon turning to him with a horrifying gaze that wasn't a gaze at all, its face opening up and emitting the haunting, unnatural voice he was coming to recognize as Vecna.

"They don't care about you," the creature hissed, and it had no eyes, but Steve still somehow felt like its gaze was boring into him. "They had no idea if the creature would stay in the house. It had left before. Left when it took Will Byers. Left when it took Barbara Holland. It could have left when it took Steve Harrington after they sent him to the car under the guise of safety, but really they just couldn't pretend to tolerate you for even one more second, so they sent you into the night, defenseless, and didn't care in the slightest if the darkness found you there."

Defenseless, that was it. The night he was standing in, the night he was abruptly reliving, was the night he had usurped the nail bat from Jonathon and claimed it as his own, and he had never felt more able to take on the upside down than when he had that bat in his hands.

He could see it, held incorrectly in Jonathon's scared grip, no wonder it was so easy for the monster to bat it aside.

Vecna didn't seem to notice his wandering attention, continuing the verbalization of Steve's deepest fears that none of the party liked him, and none of them actually needed him beyond serving as monster bait, but Steve didn't have time for that.

Vecna wasn't saying anything Steve hadn't already thought and tentatively convinced himself of otherwise before, and he certainly wasn't about to let Vecna finish him and turn his attention to Max, El, and who knew who else. Not his kids, not on his watch.

Steve bolted as Vecna was mid-word, and he really should not have gotten away with that twice, but Jonathon was thankfully only a stride and a half away, and Steve grabbed the bat from his hands in a surge of motion before he was spinning, bat already coming around to strike, hitting the demogorgon perfectly in the head, and there was an instant of pain-filled screaming before his surroundings snapped into focus as a different memory materialized.

"You know," his father was back and prowling toward him with a fury in his eyes that turned Steve's blood to ice, and he scrambled backward on terrified instinct.

"You know, Steven," his father continued, his rage almost a physical force, "you are a bigger disgrace, a bigger waste, a bigger failure than I could have ever imagined you being."

They were in the garage, and Steve remembered the day all too vividly. The day his father had broken his arm and left him in an unconscious heap because he had failed his first test of third grade.

"If I had realized what a fucking stupid piece of shit you are, I would have drown you in the bathtub before you learned to talk!" his dad screamed, confident in the relative privacy of the garage tucked behind their house and surrounded by their enormous yard.

Fire, Steve needed fire, he tried to remind himself as he fought to keep from slipping into the terror the day sparked in him. It had been the first time his dad had hit him, but it was far from the last.

There was a gas can in the corner, and a still burning cigarette on the ashtray by the door where it had been set so a perfectly good smoke wouldn’t be wasted because of a failure of a son, but unfortunately the third time was not the charm, and Vecna's bony fingers shot out to grab Steve's left wrist, the image of his father flickering with an image of a horrifying creature that had to be Vecna himself.

Steve didn't think, he turned into the motion instead of pulling away and buried his fist in the face that flickered between the two men he hated most in the world.

It was enough, Vecna staggering back and gripping his nose in a shocked surprise, but Steve didn't wait for him to get his bearings back, darting forward to spill the gas can at Vecna's feet and then throwing the lit cigarette into the mix to watch it go up in flames, Vecna's head raising to pin him under a seething look.

"Maybe it's time to add more players to the game," he hissed, his voice full of pain, and Steve only had one second to worry at what that could mean before he was standing in the next nightmare.

Chapter Text

“Maybe it's time to add more players to the game," Vecna hissed, his voice full of pain, and Steve only had one second to worry at what that could mean before he was standing inside the gym, the walls decorated in silver and blue while a sign over the punch table proclaimed it the Snowball Dance.

Unlike every other time, he did not find himself in his own memory, and he had a sinking feeling for what it meant as he looked around himself and found Max cowering away from a furious Billy.

Steve's feet were moving even before his brain caught up, planting himself firmly between Max and Billy-Vecna with a protective determination radiating off of him so strong it had to be all but tangible.

"Steve?" Max whispered, scared and shaken, and he nodded, snaking his left arm back behind himself to her, and she immediately grabbed his hand and clutched it tightly.

"It's actually me, Maxie," he promised, edging them backwards away from the lethal Billy that was flickering in and out of an equally deadly Vecna. "I'm going to keep you safe, I promise. I'll always protect you."

"Oh, that's so cute," Billy-Vecna sneered, Vecna showing through for longer instances as his anger appeared to be fraying his control. "You think you can protect her? You can't even protect yourself."

"I don't know," Steve postured with a brave confidence he didn't feel even a sliver of, "I've been doing alright so far."

Vecna growled, his eyes sparking dangerously, and Steve backed them up another step, peripherally hearing Max's sharp, panicky breaths behind him, and gave her hand a light, reassuring squeeze.

"You are going to die horribly, Steve Harrington," Vecna promised, raising an arm toward Steve, but there was nowhere to run, and nothing to make a flame.

"No," a voice Steve recognized instantly refuted, and suddenly Vecna was flung to the side and out of sight, crashing into a wall and remaining -at least temporarily- down.

"El!" Max and Steve cried at the same time.

"How did you get here?" Max demanded, but Steve waved his hand through the air as though to strike down the question.

"No, first, El," he said, pointed and urgent, "can you hide us from him?"

She blinked at him with her wide, solemn eyes, her hair inexplicably gone, but her calm confidence still present in full force, and she nodded.

The next second they were in the grade school, the swimming pool that Steve had heard about being turned into a sensory deprivation tank set up in the middle of the floor.

"I cannot hide us forever," she told them both, looking pained to have to admit that.

"This is enough, El," he assured, pulling both girls into hugs they huddled into. "Now we can plan. Ok, we need a plan, do either of you have one?"

"Yes," El nodded against his shoulder. "I will unhide myself and fight him. I have gotten my powers back. He is strong, but I think I can beat him."

"What?" Steve reared back in alarm until he could see her face. "What are you saying? No! Don't meet him in the open and play his game, we're playing by our own rules now, supergirl.

For once, it's not a help to have the home field advantage, because that means that everything we do, we are doing inside his head. Yes, he can manipulate it and change it, but if we get any blows in, they happen inside his head -to his head-, and you have the same powers he does.

El, we need fire. We need something that makes fire, and something that burns, like oil and a lighter. Max, in a pinch, punching him in the face does work, but not for long."

"You punched Vecna in the face?" she asked, an awed disbelief dripping off her tone, and he nodded and grinned at her before returning to scanning the area.

"Sure did," he confirmed. "He definitely felt it, it gave me long enough that I could run to the oil and set him on fire. He doesn't like fire at all, quickest way to have him switch where we are is set him on fire, although he definitively did not like my nail bat either."

"Your nail bat?" El repeated, cocking her head as she tried to understand his words.

"Yeah," he nodded, gaze flicking to her before continuing to scan around them. "My wooden baseball bat that has the nails sticking out of the end of it, I know you've seen it before."

"Oh, yes," she nodded solemnly. "Your nail bat."

"Exactly," he praised, flashing her a grin. "He didn't appreciate being hit in the face with it."

"You are the most badass person I have ever met in my entire life," Max breathed in wonder, and Steve chuckled, but before he could respond Vecna appeared beside him, making both Max and El yelp in surprise, and Steve immediately pivoted to put himself between them and the approaching monster, herding them back a little as Vecna prowled forward.

"No, Maxine," Vecna snarled, "he is not badass, but he is the most annoying person I have ever met in my life. Very clever," he spat the word out like it was an insult, "convincing my sister to cloak you like the cowards you are, but did you really think you would be able to hide forever?"

"Maybe," Steve shot back in a cocky taunt, hoping for a reaction, and he was rewarded with one as Vecna narrowed his eyes and the landscape around them snapped into something new, Steve separated from the girls in the odd, red, apocalyptic version of the Creel house they had suddenly found themselves in.

"Wow, it sure must be nice to be able to just conjure things with your mind," he drawled to Vecna, making subtle eye contact with El over his shoulder, which seemed to snap her and Max out of their scared trances, and Steve continued to back away, hoping to keep the energy focused on himself while El figured out how to conjure things to someone else's mindscape.

"Oh, it is," Vecna purred as his arm came up, and Steve jolted backward until his back collided with something hard and tall, feeling himself pinned to it first with the supernatural power and then the cursed vines that made a reappearance and wrapped around him in a suffocating grasp to hold him to the pillar.

"There," Vecna let a slow, victorious smile curl across his lips. "You just wait here, Steven, while I deal with my sister and the infernal headache known as Maxine Mayfield.”

A panic that Steve tried not to let show on his face squeezed his chest tighter than the vines did, scrambling for a way to hold on to Vecna's focus even if it meant that the man decided he was fed up with Steve and would shatter him sooner rather than later.

"Ok, Howard," he sneered as Vecna started to turn back to the girls that were not where he had left them, and the man paused, turning back to him with a snarl at the ready before he visibly registered the words and his movements stuttered for an instant as his outraged indignation caught up with him.

"My name is Henry," he corrected, sounding viscerally offended, and Steve rolled his eyes.

"Whatever you say, Five," he dismissed, utterly unimpressed, and Vecna seemed to swell with his growing fury.

"I was number One!" he all but screamed, haughty and more than a little unhinged. "I was number One because I was the best of them! I was the best, and Eleven was too stupid to see it while Brenner was too cowardly to embrace it. I was -!"

He froze, looking down at his feet that were being submerged in a clear liquid, though the smell wafting off of it made it abundantly clear it was not water, and he spun in horror, the vines around Steve loosening as Vecna's attention snapped to Eleven, who was sending him a feral smile as she held a lit zippo.

Steve finally succeeded in slipping out of the vines and fell to the ground, looking up only to have his heart freeze in panic.

It only took him an instant to take in how Eleven was tossing the zippo, seemingly in slow motion, while Max stood beside her, but Vecna's hand was already raising to telekinetically bat the flame away, and Steve couldn't let that happen.

Without a thought, without even beginning to register El had conjured it for him, his right hand automatically reached behind him and his fingers closed around the handle of the bat he would recognize blindfolded. He felt like time had slowed, allowing him to see every single millisecond in perfect clarity, and he reached Vecna's shoulder to shove him back to facing Steve just in time for the blast of power to go wide, demolishing a nearby pillar but not touching the zippo that continued its seemingly slow decent down to the rubbing alcohol Vecna was standing in.

"Don't fucking touch my kids," Steve snarled, twirling the bat in what had accidentally become his signature move and then swinging it with everything he had at Vecna's face, sending the shocked creature-like man crashing to the ground just as the pool of liquid he had been standing in burst into flames, completely encompassing him.

Vecna, who had been limp and seemingly grievously injured from the head blow, suddenly shrieked and writhed in pain as the fire started to eat at his skin, but Steve didn't let his guard down, standing with his bat at the ready in case he needed to make another strike.

The need never came, though, as he watched Henry-Vecna-One thrash and scream, more and more of him burning to a crisp and crumbling away before in the space of a second Steve felt like he had been thrown backward, colliding with something that almost seemed like… himself? His senses felt different, more real and more grounded, and he had only long enough to wonder if he had been vaulted back into his body before he was falling, plummeting really, but he had no energy to stop himself.

He was barely able to stop his eyes that had been rolling to the back of his head from continuing the motion, and he had absolutely no ability to keep himself from crashing to the hard ground, but the unforgiving impact he'd expected never came. Instead, he collided with hands and warm bodies that slowed his fall, taking all of the impact and lowering him, limp and exhausted, to the ground.

He was still struggling to breathe and decipher what had happened to him when his chest was being constricted, and he had a brief moment of panic before he realized the pressure wasn’t vines and he wasn't suffocating, instead someone was… laying on him? Laying on him and hugging him, and sobbing on him as well he realized once he convinced his senses to focus.

He barely had enough time to understand what had happened before he was being hit with another body that was shaking and shuddering with the force of their crying, then another, and another, until he couldn't keep track of which was which, could only clench his eyes shut and try to breathe.

"You can't die, not Steve, notStevenotStevenotSteve," he finally understood the voice closest to his ear gasp and cry, eventually parsing through both the meaning of the words and the fact that the person speaking -or rather, sobbing- those words was Dustin.

"You can't die, you're my platonic soulmate, you absolute dingus!" was being sobbed almost too breathlessly to understand from just a little further down, along with "You're their hero, you can't just die, Stevie!" and "You're not allowed to die, Steve Harrington, you're not!", which were all being cried and sobbed into whichever of his body parts the person was closest to.

"'m 'k," he tried to reassure, surprised by how raspy and rough his voice sounded, and it made the people around him cry harder, but the babble of scoldings and demands did silence, so he tried again, though he couldn't muster his voice to much more.

"'m ok," he promised, able to twitch his arms upward to make an incredibly pathetic attempt to rub Dustin's back and Robin's arm, though all he managed was a light tap before his hands fell limply back to his sides.

"You'd better be!" Dustin hiccupped into his chest, almost breathless with the force of his crying, and it was enough to motivate Steve's depleted energy reserves to find the ability to wrap an arm around his shoulders and hitch him into a weak hug.

"I'm 'k, buddy," he promised, voice still rough and exhausted, "I pr'mise, 'm ok."

He let Dustin continue to cry, glad to hear the tone change from devastated to relieved, and tried to raise his other arm to pat the heads of the other people crying on him, but didn't really succeed as much as he had been hoping for.

"How's M'x?" he slurred, trying to force more life into his flagging body, and he felt two of the four heads lift and turn to look at the walkie-talkie that had been left on the table.

As if waiting for its cue, the radio flared to life, Max's scared voice crackling through with a terrified urgency.

"Steve, come in, Steve," she all but demanded. "Steve, are you ok? Steve! Answer me, Steve!"

The audible panic in her voice had Nancy sniffling through her tears and pushing herself to her feet to grab the walkie-talkie.

"Steve is alive," she gasped into the radio, and Steve finally convinced his head to loll to the side so he could watch her through heavy-lidded eyes.

"Is he?" Max barked, as though she didn't really believe the words. "Is he broken? Blind? Unconscious?"

"None of the above," Nancy assured, more of her usual steadiness filling her voice as she stepped toward Steve and gingerly sat by his head. "He's… exhausted, I hope it's just exhaustion, but he's… kind of awake, and he's not broken."

Steve flapped a tired hand to the radio, and Nancy obliged him by bringing it closer and holding the button down for him.

"M'x," he rasped out. "Y'u 'k?"

"Am I ok?" she demanded, sounding outraged for an instant before she burst into tears. "Yes, I'm ok! Am I ok? Are you ok, Steve?"

"I'm 'k," he tried to reassure as he tried just as hard to stay awake, distantly noticing Dustin and Robin were still crying on him.

"You had better be!" she half sobbed, half commanded. "I can't lose another brother, Steve, I can't! And -, and -, and you're a better big brother than Billy could have ever dreamed of being, and if I was this broken up about him dying, can you imagine how much it would destroy me if you -, if you -, if -,"

Steve cut her off as her crying picked up, gentling his tone into something he hoped was reassuring and comforting.

"Hey, listen to me, Maxie," he soothed, his voice still far weaker than he'd like, but at least he was able to enunciate all of the words when he focused on the task. "I'm ok, and you're ok, and we're all ok. I'll… actually, I don't know if I can yet, but someone will come get you three in a few minutes and you'll come here and see that I'm fine, Maxie."

There were several seconds of gasping tears before she announced, "Ok, Steve, and before Dustin gets any ideas, you're the only one that is allowed to call me that," which earned a wet snort of laughter from Dustin and a quiet chuckle from himself.

"Ok, Maxie," he agreed indulgently. "I'll see you in a bit."

"You'd better," she told him, emphatic and wet in equal measure.

"I'll see you in a bit," he repeated as a bracing promise. "Over and out."

"You'd better," she sniffled, though her adamance was obvious. "Over and out."

Steve sent Nancy an exhausted, but grateful, smile for holding the radio, and she ran her hand through his hair in acknowledgement, but didn't verbally respond, instead pushing on to the next topic as she stood to replace it on the table.

"Once I'm sure you're ok, I'll go get them," she offered, turning back to the group. "I can hike out to Steve's car and drive to pick them up so Eddie's poor neighbors don't get their house stolen twice in one day."

Steve snorted, but was beaten to responding by Robin's quick, earnest, "Thanks, Nance."

Steve nodded along, but dropped his attention down to Dustin, who was still shaking and huddled into Steve's chest.

"Hey," Steve said gently, speaking only to Dustin, though he was well aware the others could still hear him. "You doing ok, buddy?"

“I was so scared,” Dustin told him without lifting his face, his back still shaking with quiet crying. “None of us knew your favorite song. You’re my best friend in the entire world, Steve, why don’t I know your favorite song?”

“Because it’s embarrassing,” Steve mumbled, his energy starting to truly desert him.

“It’s embarrassing?” Dustin parroted indignantly. “It’s embarrassing? Oh, sure, Steve. Let’s let Vecna gruesomely murder you so you don’t have to be embarrassed!”

“I didn’t know h’ was c’ming aft’r me,” he protested sleepily, not that it appeared to help Dustin’s outrage at all.

“It was a possibility!” he squawked. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“You nev’r asked,” Steve tried to hitch an exhausted shoulder.

“You didn't ask me, either! I would have remembered if you’d thought to ask!” Dustin spluttered, clearly wrong footed, and Steve huffed a tired laugh. “Why didn’t you ask?”

“‘cause I alre’dy know your f’v’rite song,” he told the kid with a fond exasperation.

“Well -, well -, you don’t know the others' favorites!” Dustin eventually stumbled on his rebuttal.

“Yours is ‘Nev’r ending st’ry’,” Steve recited, struggling to stay awake. “Eddie’s ‘s ‘Mast’r ‘f puppets’, Max’s is ‘Running up th’t hill. Lucas’ is ‘We are the ch’mpions’, Robin’s is ‘You are my sunsh’ne’. Nancy’s is ‘Dang’r zone’, and Erica’s is ‘Girls jus’ want t’ have fun’.”

“What’s yours?” Dustin asked, hitching a breath when Steve didn’t answer and pressing with a more insistent, “What’s yours, Steve? I have to know in case -, in case -,”

His breath was picking up again and Steve resigned himself to confessing if it would keep Dustin from panicking… The things he did for the kid….

“Shh, ok, Dusty,” he soothed, squeezing the arm wrapped around Dustin’s back tighter and freeing his other hand from Robin for a moment to run comforting fingers through his hair. “Ok, fine, the things I do for you, kid. I think we might have actually killed Vecna, but my favorite song is ‘Ain’t no mountain high enough,’ are you happy now?”

“Yes,” Dustin gasped out around another sob, and Steve found the energy to rub his arm up and down the crying boy’s back.

“You all can shut up about it,” Steve told everyone else sternly as he looked over Dustin to the others.

Eddie raised his arms in surrender with an attempt at a playful grin on his face, but he lowered them with a more thoughtful expression.

“It suits you,” he said, studying Steve with those dark eyes that felt like they saw far too much of him. “I mean, from what I’ve seen so far, it’s kind of your anthem. If someone needs you, you’ll be there, no matter what.”

Steve opened his mouth, realized he had nothing to say, and shut it again with a blush and shrug as he hummed a noncommittal noise.

That did earn a round of snorts from Robin, Eddie, and Nancy, but he studiously ignored them, distracted by his exhaustion truly crashing over him, and he idly lamented how badly he was going to ache from sleeping on the ground when he woke.

As though reading his mind, Eddie stepped forward with a quiet announcement of, “Hey, Henderson, I need you to unlock for a second here. Stevie looks like he’s about to pass out, and I think we should get him to Uncle Wayne’s bed before then. I’d offer my room, but we kind of stripped the mattress and then tracked upside down all over it, so Uncle Wayne's would be better."

Dustin reluctantly disconnected, but Steve didn't have the energy to get himself to sitting, let alone another room. Just as he opened his mouth to try to convey that, Eddie slid an arm under his back and pulled him up in one smooth motion, catching Steve off guard with how strong he was.

Steve was confused by what the plan was, but he couldn't make himself muster the motivation to ask the question, deciding he would figure it out as he went. He was too tired to keep himself from curling into Eddie and letting his head rest on his shoulder while Eddie’s other arm snaked under his knees, pulling him even closer for a second before Eddie stood in one, fluid motion, and how had Steve never noticed how muscular Eddie was before?

Oh, Steve realized as he rocked slightly in Eddie's strong arms, Eddie was carrying him to bed. That was kind of him.

The warm hold felt nice, protective and comforting, and Steve found himself wishing Wayne’s bedroom was further away so he could soak in the feeling longer, the desire not helped by the way Eddie hitched him in tighter and laid his cheek on Steve’s hair, murmuring a low, “You’re doing great, Stevie, we’re almost there.”

Steve hummed an appreciative sound, but couldn’t bring himself to find actual words, or even lift his face from the divot of Eddie’s neck.

Much too soon for Steve’s liking he was being gently lowered onto a soft mattress, and less than a second after Eddie had retracted his arms from Steve’s back and knees Dustin was there, tucked into his side as though he had been magnetized to it, Robin quickly following suit opposite him.

Steve felt a tired grin on his lips, but he drifted off to sleep before he could force his mouth to say words.

Chapter Text

“Where is he?” a loud, panicking voice demanded, jolting him out of his doze, and he blinked at the ceiling for a long moment, trying to remember where he was and why there were two people plastered against his sides before it all came rushing back.

“He’s in my uncle’s room,” Steve heard Eddie assure, a little muffled through the door, and Steve only had enough time to tiredly roll his head to the side to look at the doorway before Max appeared in it, Lucas, Erica, Nancy, and Eddie close behind.

"Steve," she breathed, freezing for a second before she was surging forward, unceremoniously pulling Dustin away from where he was tucked along Steve's side and vaulting over him to take the spot, burying her face in Steve's shoulder and squeezing tightly, thankfully keeping a high enough grip she wasn't putting pressure on his stomach wounds.

"Hey, Maxie, we're ok," he soothed, quirking a grin at the indignant squawking coming from Dustin and the way Robin received a similar treatment as Lucas and Erica evicted her and then cuddled into his side, Lucas tall enough to curl around Erica and stay close.

He softened when he heard the almost inaudible sobs Max was crying into his shoulder, her back hitching and shaking, and the other two didn't look far behind.

"We're ok," he promised, tucking the Sinclairs in tighter as well as he rested his cheek on Max's hair. "Everyone is ok. We're ok, everything is ok, I promise."

"You can't die," Max gasped out, the words muffled, but understandable, as she refused to lift her head.

"I didn't," he assured her, squeezing her lightly as a reminder.

"You can't die," Lucas repeated, sounding seconds away from losing it completely, and Steve turned his head to look at the kid, finding the boy staring back, his eyes wide and a little wild with panic, so Steve softened the expression on his own face and pointedly breathed deeper.

"I didn't die, Lucas," he reassured, warm and bracing. "Everything's ok. No one died. Max is ok, I'm ok, you and your sister are ok, everyone else on Team Crazy is ok. No one died, Lucas."

"You came close!" Erica accused, swallowing hard as her eyes welled with tears, and he huffed a laugh and pointedly shrugged the shoulder she was laying on with her brother.

"It wasn't that close," he disputed, pointedly ignoring the, "It was pretty fucking close," that Robin mumbled in an audible undertone. "I'm fine, we're all fine. I'm just a little tired, but Max and El saved the day like the fucking badasses they are."

"We're the badasses?" Max echoed with a vaguely watery indignation. "You're the one that was fighting him off by yourself! At least when El and I came in we weren't alone."

“She makes a point,” Robin agreed, nodding so quickly she almost looked like a bobblehead, “you were under for, like, forever! And all by yourself, and you held him off, and thank fuck, but also how, and also thank fuck, but you gave me an actual, real, legitimate heart attack, Steve!”

Around her the others were all nodding emphatic agreements, but Eddie cut in before Steve could formulate a response.

“It’s usually only, like, two minutes, but you were under for almost half an hour, Stevie. How the fuck were you able to fight him?” Eddie demanded, and Steve lolled his head tiredly the other way to look at him as he hitched a shrug.

“The guy does not like fire at all,” he offered nonchalantly. “A surprising number of my bad memories involve fire.”

Eddie didn’t look like he knew what to say to that, but Max helpfully piped up, "You said another thing he didn't like was being punched in the face."

“You punched Vecna in the face?” Dustin breathed in awe, and Steve chuffed a laugh and tiredly nodded.

“He didn’t take it well,” Steve deadpanned.

“He apparently didn’t take the nail bat well either,” Max pointed out, her usual wry humor starting to return, and Steve huffed another exhausted chuckle at the gaping shock on the faces of everyone else.

“You’d think after I’d already set him on fire so many times he’d be smart enough not to put me in a room with weapons,” Steve pretended to lament to her with a teasing sincerity that had her giggling and burrowing in closer.

“Yeah,” she agreed, looking up at him with a slightly adoring smile, “you’d think.”

“You attacked Vecna with your nailbat?” Lucas asked, sounding disbelieving and wonderstruck in equal measure.

“Yeah,” Steve rolled his tired grin to him. “It only took one hit in the face for him to switch the memory, I didn’t even have to set him on fire that time. When I punched him in the face I still had to set him on fire afterward.”

"Wicked," Dustin whispered from behind Max, and Steve's lips twitched up even as his eyes slipped shut for a moment.

"How many memories were you in?" Nancy asked, and Steve pried his eyes back open to find her cocking her head and studying him intently.

"Uh," he stalled, trying to rally his energy to remember specifics.

There had been the first part with the party, his dad, Barb, then the Russians… then it had been… Oh, right, the demogorgon. Then his dad again, then the dick brought Max into things, then the weird apocalypse Creel house, which was… eight? It was eight. Kind of.

"Well," he finally said, only belatedly realizing he had been muttering to himself as he considered. "I guess there were a total of eight, but two of them weren't my memories, so I don't know if they count."

"They count," Robin insisted, nodding with wide eyes to back up her own point, everyone else nodding their agreements around her.

"You survived eight?" Nancy demanded with a blatant disbelief. "How the fuck did you survive eight of them? I could barely get out of one before he was taking me on his backstory tour!"

Steve shrugged, not knowing how to explain it, pursing his lips for a long second before he offered a simple, sincere, "I had to. If he killed me he was going to move on to Max, and El, and who knew who else next. Couldn’t let that happen."

There was a thick silence that he was far too exhausted to bother trying to understand, quirking a grin instead and adding, "If I have to set Vecna on fire to save Max, then that's what I'll do. I'd be a terrible babysitter if I just let hell-creature-psychopaths from other dimensions kill my kids," which successfully cracked through the odd tension in the air, sending the room into laughter that was harder than the joke deserved as the relief of surviving began to truly catch up to them all.

He let them laugh, enjoying the happy sounds, but decided to move the discussion on before he fell asleep as they all quieted again.

“Hey, Eddie,” he said, blinking heavily while he tried to stay awake. “Could you write the number of your phone and set it on the bedside table?”

“Uh,” Eddie’s brow furrowed in confusion, “sure? But, um, why?”

“In case the girl with super powers you didn’t want to hear about wants to contact us,” Steve explained with a tired grin.

“Yeah, I might have changed my mind on that one, Stevie-boy,” Eddie told him as he obediently found a paper and scrawled out ‘My number is 555-4633-3436’ in large print. “I definitely do want to hear about her now.”

Steve chuffed a tired laugh as Eddie propped the paper against his uncle’s alarm clock, and laughed even harder when the phone in the kitchen rang, not even a full two seconds afterward.

“Oh,” Eddie blinked, seeming too surprised to leave the room to answer it, so Nancy laughed and obligingly left to pick it up.

She reappeared less than thirty seconds later, phone in hand and receiver pressed to her ear, gently tugging the long connection line to make it stretch into the nearby room without pulling it from the wall. The result was that it reached the end of the bed, but not much further, and she shot Steve an apologetic look.

“El wants to talk to you,” she told him, biting her lip and clearly deciding to tell the girl Steve wouldn’t be able to go to the phone, but he extracted his arms from being used as pillows and nodded with a pained, “Ok,” as he tried -and failed- to push himself to sitting.

He fell back to the bed with a groan as his stomach bites flared to life in twin bolts of pain, but before he could continue the attempt Eddie was there, a light hand on his chest keeping him from trying again, Max having somehow shifted off the mattress without Steve noticing.

“Alright, let’s sit you up, big boy,” Eddie murmured, pulling Steve up just as easily as he had the first time and helping him edge down the bed, even the small movement completely exhausting Steve as his energy deserted him at the same time his pain from his wounds returned in full force.

He sat, panting into Eddie’s shoulder, grateful for the fact the DM hadn’t stood to leave him to his own devices, and even more grateful for the arm that had wrapped around his back and the comforting reassurances being whispered in his ear.

It took him a long minute before he could finally breathe through the pain, though he still remained slumped against Eddie, and he reached a shaking hand out for the phone Nancy handed him.

He brought it to his ear, too tired to be embarrassed when Dustin’s fingers curled over his and helped hold it up for him.

“Hey, Supergirl,” he greeted with an exhausted grin, “thanks for saving the day. Are you ok?”

“I am ok,” she said, sounding worried, “are you ok?”

“Oh, yeah,” he tried to brush off her concern, but she remained unconvinced, humming an unimpressed sound but temporarily moving past the statement.

“Is Max ok?” she asked, and he chuffed a breath as he confirmed, “Yes, Max is safe and sound and unbroken. Everyone is ok on this end.”

“Good. Why are there bandages on your stomach?” she asked pointedly, and he chuckled as he rested his head more heavily on Eddie’s shoulder.

“Those are from before,” he told her, Dustin’s arm truly starting to do all the work of holding up the phone and Steve’s hand. “I got dragged around earlier and some demobats got me in the stomach, they’re not from being Vecna’d.”

“And you are ok?” she asked, solemn and serious, and his smile warmed even though she probably couldn’t see it.

“Yes,” he said bracingly. “At some point I need to re-dress my stomach wounds, and I feel like I could sleep for a week from my little Vecna encounter, but I’m ok, kiddo. You and Max saved me.”

There was the sound of a deep, relieved sigh and then an emphatic, “Good, we are coming back to Hawkins.”

“You’re coming back to Hawkins? Great,” Steve blinked at the abrupt change of plans. “Who is we and when?”

“We is Will, Jonathon, Mike, and Argyle,” she answered easily, “and I hope we will be there tomorrow.”

“Ok, tomorrow, good,” he nodded, realizing he was completely slumped against Eddie as his eyelids drifted lower despite all his best efforts, “good. Can’t wait to see you, Supergirl.”

“I cannot wait to see you, either, Steve,” she told him, earnest and sincere, and his smile twitched upward even as his eyelids fell completely closed while he curled further into Eddie’s warm hold, and he distantly felt the phone being removed from his face while his arm was gently lowered down to lay on his lap.

“Do w’ need t’ m’ve?” Steve slurred out, unable to pry his eyes back open. Clarifying, “M’ve t’ anoth’r trail’r ‘cause ‘f th’ gate?” when people didn’t seem to understand his first question.

“Oh,” Eddie’s voice said above him, and Steve was almost distracted from the rest of the answer by the way fingers carding through his hair had him melting even further into Eddie’s hold. “I don’t think so? About a half a second after you started falling it just… closed? I don’t know, man, it was weird. Now it looks like it was never opened, it’s just my regular old trailer ceiling. Maybe you three really did kill Vecna and it closed the gates he’d been holding open?”

Steve’s brow furrowed in confusion, and he hummed an intrigued sound, but fighting against sleep was a losing battle he would have to surrender to sooner rather than later.

“Alright, sweetheart,” Eddie’s voice whispered in his ear. “Let’s get you lying down again.”

Too tired to even nod or hum, Steve only slumped into the warm support and let Eddie shift him around until he had once again picked Steve up, standing from the bed and waiting for a long second that took a delayed moment for Steve to understand was waiting for someone to rearrange and pull back the covers. He didn’t fully grasp the realization until he was being set onto a warm, soft mattress and covered with blankets, the mattress dipping on either side of him as two warm bodies crawled into the bed to curl into him, joined by a jumble of other quick movements from other people piling into the remaining space around them.

He wanted to crack his eyelids to see who they were, but he fell asleep -feeling warm, comfortable, and incredibly loved- before he could muster the effort.