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.