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jesschalamet

May 19

calelundaa

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞

╰┈➤ˎˊ˗ 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮, 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐞 (𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝)

(pregnancy series 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵➶︎) (navigation)

You spend twenty minutes trying to convince yourself the test is wrong.

Steve spends about thirty seconds convincing you this might be the happiest he’s ever been.

tags: steve harrington x reader, established relationship, accidental pregnancy, dad!steve harrington, soft steve harrington, men crying turns me on, hurt/comfort..?, domestic fluff, post vecna trauma, steve harrington cries first because obviously he does, reader spiraling, steve immediately ready to devote his entire life to this baby, fear of loss, fear of happiness, they love each other so bad it’s embarrassing, “what if he’s upset” meanwhile steve is actively crying from happiness, reader cries over leftovers because hormones are evil, steve would buy her the entire restaurant actually, heavy on the feelings!

warnings: unplanned pregnancy, pregnancy test, nausea/morning sickness, vomiting, crying, anxiety/panic, references to hospitals/monsters/upside down trauma, language (lmk if i missed anything)

from jules- i fully believe steve harrington would start crying within thirty seconds of finding out he’s going to be a dad and nobody will ever convince me otherwise. this is basically just steve loving you so much he short-circuits about it repeatedly lol anyways first chapter yay

cases that never sat right with me: the lo mein incident of 1989 😟

wc: 6.4k

For almost a week, Steve convinces himself you’re probably just getting sick.

The exhaustion is the first thing he notices, mostly because you’ve always been terrible at admitting when you’re tired. You’ve always been the kind of person who insists you’re “not tired” right up until the exact moment you fall asleep on top of him, but lately it’s different. Lately you’ve been drifting off everywhere.

Halfway through movies with your face tucked into his shoulder while he absently plays with your hair, your breathing starts evening out before the opening credits are even over. Normally you’d still be arguing with him by then about his objectively terrible taste in horror movies, mocking the fact that someone who works at Family Video somehow still thinks bad slasher films qualify as “cinema.”

Instead, you stay curled sideways against him with one of his sweatshirts bunched beneath your cheek while the television murmurs quietly in the background, Steve’s hand resting loosely around your ankle like he keeps expecting you to wake up and complain about the movie eventually.

Once, he finds you asleep at the kitchen table with your head resting against folded arms beside a cup of coffee that’s gone cold enough for condensation to collect around the bottom. Another night, he walks into the bedroom to find you sitting upright against the headboard with your glasses still on and an open book sliding dangerously close to falling off your lap.

“You know normal people usually sleep lying down, right?” Steve asks quietly, trying not to laugh as he slides the book onto the nightstand and nudges your glasses up before they fall crooked off your face.

You blink sleepily up at him while his thumb brushes lightly beneath your eye.

“Feels judgmental,” you mumble before immediately falling back asleep again.

Steve just shakes his head softly to himself, tugging the blankets higher over you before climbing into bed beside you a few minutes later, the same automatic way he always does after nightmares neither of you talks about anymore.

Normally, you’d stay awake long enough to complain about him stealing all the blankets while actively cocooning yourself in them five minutes later, or putting cold feet on him on purpose. Instead, the second his arm settles around your waist, you melt against his chest with a quiet sigh, already half asleep again before he even finishes telling you goodnight.

Steve notices that too, even if he can’t explain why it leaves him lying awake a little longer afterward.

Then there was the cologne.

Not even the strong one that burns your nose. Just the stupid, expensive cologne Steve only wears when he’s trying to impress people at work or Robin starts bullying him for “smelling like a teenage boy.”

Usually, you love it. The scent clings to half the clothes hanging in your closet, warm and familiar enough that most of your closet smells more like Steve than it does you now.

But one morning, he leans down to kiss your cheek while you’re standing in the kitchen, and the second the smell hits you, your stomach twists so violently it makes you jerk back on instinct.

Steve pulls back slightly, his hand still resting loosely against your waist as confusion flickers across his face. “What?”

“Nothing,” you say too fast, pressing your hand lightly against your mouth as another sharp wave of nausea rolls through you. “Just—give me a second.”

Concern settles into his expression almost instantly after that, replacing the sleepy amusement he’d been wearing seconds earlier. He watches you turn toward the sink and take a slow breath through your mouth like you’re trying very hard not to be sick right there in the kitchen.

“Hey,” he says more carefully now, brows pulling together as he steps closer again. “Are you okay?”

Before you can answer, another wave of nausea crashes into you hard enough to make your stomach lurch painfully. Your hand clamps tighter over your mouth as you turn abruptly away from him.

“Oh—shit.”

Steve barely has time to step aside before you’re hurrying down the hall toward the bathroom, your shoulder clipping the wall hard enough to rattle a picture frame on your way past, nearly tripping over the stupid, loose floorboard by the bathroom Robin keeps saying one of you is eventually going to die on.

“Baby?” he calls, his voice sharpening with concern as you disappear down the hallway.

You don’t answer before collapsing to your knees in front of the toilet, the cold tile digging painfully into your skin as your stomach finally gives up on you completely. Steve is beside you within seconds, one hand already gathering your hair back from your face while the other rubs instinctively between your shoulder blades with the kind of familiarity that only comes from years of loving someone through every ugly human moment imaginable — panic attacks, food poisoning, nightmares, and one memorably horrific stomach bug Robin still dramatically refers to as “the exorcist incident.”

By Thursday night, he’s almost convinced you’re coming down with the flu.

So when he finds the leftovers shoved in the back of the fridge later that night, he doesn’t think twice about eating them.

The apartment smells faintly like rain drifting through the cracked kitchen window mixed with garlic and soy sauce from the takeout carton balanced loosely in Steve’s hand. The tiny television near the living room hums softly in the background while pale blue light flickers across the dark apartment, Steve flipping lazily through channels with the remote between bites.

One of Dustin’s science magazines still sits crooked on the coffee table despite the fact you texted him twice to come get it before Steve started using it as a coaster.

He’s barefoot, dressed in gray sweatpants and an old Hawkins High shirt so worn thin the collar hangs crooked against one shoulder. Every few bites, his eyes drift automatically toward the hallway, attention catching on the muffled sound of the shower still running. Steve’s always hovered a little whenever you’re sick, the same instinct that once had him sleeping curled awkwardly into a plastic hospital chair for three nights after the upside-down vines left half your nervous system “temporarily inflamed,” according to the doctors neither of you ever really learned how to trust again.

The digital clock on the microwave glows 12:07 in soft green numbers, later than either of you should still be awake, honestly.

By the time the water shuts off down the hallway, Steve’s already scraped the last bite from the bottom of the container without thinking much about it.

Steve tosses the empty container beside the sink and wipes his thumb absently against his sweatpants after licking sauce from it, already reaching for the second carton when the shower finally shuts off down the hall. A few minutes later, the bathroom door opens, warm yellow light briefly stretching across the apartment floor before disappearing again.

You wander into the kitchen still wrapped in steam from the shower, one of Steve’s old shirts hanging loose around your thighs, the faded Hawkins High logo nearly worn away after years of being stolen back and forth between the two of you. Damp hair clings cold against the back of your neck while you rub sleepily at one eye, still looking soft with exhaustion and leftover heat from the shower.

“Baby, oh my god, that smells so good,” you mumble automatically as you drift farther into the kitchen. “I was literally thinking about my lo mein in the shower—”

The words catch halfway out of your mouth.

Your eyes land on the empty takeout container sitting beside Steve on the counter before flicking automatically toward the second carton still balanced loosely in his hand.

You go completely still for a second, staring at it while cold water trails slowly from the ends of your hair down your legs. The television continues murmuring softly in the background, absurdly normal against the awful sinking feeling beginning to spread through your chest.

Steve’s still halfway through another bite when he finally looks up and sees your face properly.

He goes still almost immediately.

The fork lowers slowly while his expression shifts from distracted confusion into growing concern, his eyes moving quickly between you and the takeout containers as he tries to piece together what exactly he did wrong.

“Baby,” Steve says cautiously, already sounding like he can tell he’s in trouble even if he has absolutely no idea for what.

“Did you finish… both of them?” you ask softly, your voice trembling enough now that Steve’s expression tightens almost immediately.

He glances down at the takeout container in his hand like he’s still trying to figure out what exactly the problem is before looking back up at you again. “Uh… yeah?”

For a second, neither of you says anything.

Your eyes burn almost instantly.

The reaction hits so fast it genuinely catches you off guard, a sharp rush of emotion swelling hard in your chest while you stare at the empty takeout containers like they personally betrayed you.

It’s ridiculous.

You know it is.

They’re leftovers. Leftovers should not feel devastating enough to cry over, and yet your vision blurs anyway before you can stop it, your face crumpling hard enough that Steve straightens almost immediately across from you.

A helpless little sound catches in your throat as your lip trembles, your eyes flicking between Steve and the empty takeout containers like you genuinely can’t believe this is happening.

Steve straightens so fast the barstool legs screech across the kitchen tile, the fork clattering from his hand as confusion flashes abruptly into panic across his face.

“Wait— baby, I didn’t know—”

“It’s only the two of us in the house,” you choke out, your voice cracking embarrassingly hard halfway through the sentence as tears spill helplessly down your cheeks. “How did you not know they were mine? Why would you eat both?”

The second the words leave your mouth, mortification crashes over you almost as hard as the tears.

Because now you sound insane on top of everything else.

Steve just stares at you for a second, looking completely thrown, like he genuinely cannot process how this situation escalated into you crying in the middle of the kitchen over leftover lo mein.

“I didn’t know,” he says quickly, the words tripping over each other as he pushes away from the counter. “Baby, I swear to god, if I knew they were yours, I wouldn’t’ve touched them. I thought they were old or something, I don’t know, I just— wasn’t thinking.”

Another strangled sob slips out of you before you can stop it.

The sound wipes what little composure Steve still had clean off his face.

“Oh my god, no, no—” he says immediately, already crossing the kitchen in two quick steps. One hand settles instinctively against your damp waist while the other cups your cheek, his thumb swiping clumsily beneath your eye like he can somehow stop the tears faster than they’re falling. “C’mere, baby.”

A miserable sound slips out of you somewhere between a sob and an embarrassed laugh, and Steve’s expression somehow manages to panic even harder.

“Why are you crying more?” he asks helplessly, his hands tightening instinctively at your waist like he’s trying to physically hold the situation together. He looks genuinely devastated that he’s somehow making this worse instead of better. “Baby, I’ll go get you more right now, okay? I’ll buy six containers. I’ll buy the whole restaurant if I have to.”

You only end up crying harder at that, which seems to completely short-circuit the last of Steve’s remaining common sense.

Twenty minutes later, he comes back through the apartment door carrying three containers of lo mein in a wrinkled takeout bag, hair messy from the wind and looking slightly out of breath like he absolutely broke several traffic laws getting there and back.

By the time your period is four days late, the possibility has been sitting quietly in the back of your mind long enough that it’s becoming impossible to ignore completely.

You still don’t actually think you’re pregnant.

Not really.

Even if you and Steve have never exactly been careful in the way normal responsible adults probably should be.

Mostly, you convince yourself your body’s just being weird. Stress. Exhaustion. Too many sleepless nights and not enough real food lately. But the possibility lingers anyway, quiet and stubborn enough that on your way home from work one evening, you catch yourself pulling into the pharmacy parking lot before you’ve fully decided you’re actually going inside.

The whole thing feels strangely embarrassing considering you literally live with your boyfriend and split grocery lists.

You spend way too long pretending to look at other things first, wandering slowly through aisles you don’t care about while your pulse beats a little too hard beneath your ribs. By the time you finally drift toward the pregnancy tests, your arms are folded tightly across your chest like that somehow disguises what aisle you’re standing in.

The fluorescent lights overhead buzz softly while you stare at shelves lined with bright pink boxes screaming things like early detection and results in minutes.

You stand there for another full minute pretending to compare brands even though your eyes have long since stopped focusing on anything except a handful of repeating words.

Early detection.

Results in minutes.

Pregnant.

Your gaze keeps snagging helplessly on that last one, over and over again, like maybe eventually it’ll stop sounding quite so life-altering.

Eventually, you grab three boxes at random and shove them into your basket before you can talk yourself out of it completely.

By the time you finally make it to the register, the boxes feel impossibly conspicuous sitting in your basket no matter how casually you try to stand there. You avoid looking directly at the cashier through the entire transaction, irrationally convinced she’s about two seconds away from grabbing the intercom and announcing your reproductive situation to the entire store.

You don’t realize how tightly you’ve been gripping the pharmacy bag until you finally loosen your hold on it in the parking lot and see the faint red marks pressed into your palm afterward.

Steve’s already home by the time you step into the apartment, standing at the stove with the sleeves of his sweatshirt shoved messily up to his elbows while something crackles loudly in a pan. The apartment smells like garlic, butter, and whatever overly ambitious dinner he apparently decided to attempt tonight, quiet music drifting from the little radio near the sink.

He looks up the second he hears your keys hit the counter near the door.

Something in his expression immediately softens when he sees you, the distracted focus he’d been wearing moments earlier melting away almost instantly.

“There’s my girl,” he says in that warm, familiar tone that still somehow gets to you after all these years. He abandons the spatula long enough to walk over and press a quick kiss to your forehead, both hands settling briefly against your waist before he leans back enough to get a better look at you.

His expression shifts almost immediately.

“Jesus, baby,” he says softly, brows pulling together. “You look exhausted.”

“Yeah… something like that,” you mutter quietly.

“What’d you buy?” Steve asks, tone light and easy like he’s trying not to push too hard now that he’s clearly noticed something’s off. He turns back toward the stove a second later to stir whatever’s sizzling in the pan.

Your fingers tighten instinctively around the pharmacy bag, the plastic crinkling loudly in the quiet apartment.

You lift the bag slightly without slowing down, trying very hard to look more relaxed than you feel as you continue drifting backward toward the hallway before he can get too good a look at the thin plastic.

“Nothing exciting. I just—” Your voice catches briefly. “I really have to pee, so don’t make fun of me if I run.”

Steve glances back over his shoulder from the stove, clearly caught off guard before a quiet laugh slips out of him.

“Wasn’t really on my list of things to mock you for tonight, no.”

“Yup,” you say quickly, the word coming out with an aggressively emphasized pop of the P that only makes Steve look more confused.

Steve shakes his head to himself with another quiet laugh as you disappear down the hallway, though you can still feel his confusion following you right up until the bathroom door clicks shut behind you.

The apartment suddenly feels very quiet.

For a second, you just stand there staring at yourself in the mirror while your pulse beats unevenly against your throat. The pharmacy bag hangs awkwardly from your wrist, crinkling softly when your grip tightens around it.

This is ridiculous.

Your period is barely late. Plenty of people are late sometimes. Stress does weird things to your body.

Robin was literally a week late once and made Steve drive her to the emergency room at two in the morning because she convinced herself she had a “vaginal blockage.”

She did not have a vaginal blockage.

Turns out she was just severely stressed and apparently hadn’t consumed a vitamin in six months.

Still, your hands aren’t completely steady when you pull one of the boxes from the bag.

A few minutes later, you’re sitting on the closed toilet lid with the test resting across your palm while your knee bounces restlessly beneath the harsh bathroom light. The fan hums softly overhead, loud enough now that it almost makes the entire room feel strangely detached from the rest of the apartment.

At first, you genuinely think you’re seeing it wrong.

You just sit there staring at the tiny result window while Steve moves around the kitchen somewhere down the hall, cabinet doors opening and shutting beneath the quiet crackle of something still cooking on the stove. The bathroom fan hums softly overhead, loud enough now that it almost drowns out the sound of your pulse.

For one suspended second, you keep waiting for the second line to disappear now that you’re looking at it properly.

It doesn’t.

Instead, when you tilt the test slightly beneath the harsh bathroom light, the second pink line only becomes clearer.

Darker.

Unmistakable.

Immediately, your gaze snaps toward the two other positive tests and instructions spread open across the counter before dropping back to the test in your hand again like maybe you somehow misunderstood what two lines meant in the last thirty seconds.

Positive.

Your gaze drops back to the test still shaking faintly in your hand.

It says the same thing.

The harsh bathroom light suddenly feels too bright, every sound in the room collapsing inward beneath the violent pounding of your pulse while your vision starts blurring around the edges.

Positive.

The word smears slightly beneath the sudden sting of tears.

Your knees go strangely weak beneath you, sudden and disorienting enough that you finally understand how people faint over things like this.

“Oh fuck,” you whimper automatically, the sound barely making it out of your throat even though the lines are already dark enough that there’s no possible way you’re reading them wrong.

Your gaze locks helplessly back onto the test while your breathing starts turning uneven all at once, panic curling hard through your chest now that there’s no real room left for denial anymore.

Because this can’t actually be happening—

Except the second line is still there when you blink and look down again.

The realization hits hard enough that tears suddenly spill down your cheeks before you even fully understand why you’re crying. One hand flies up over your mouth as a broken sob leaves your chest, your shoulders curling inward while the plastic test trembles helplessly in your grip.

You’re pregnant.

The thought feels too enormous to properly hold onto, too life-changing to settle cleanly into your head all at once. You keep staring at the second line like maybe if you blink enough times it’ll quietly disappear and everything will slide back into place before this moment ever happened.

But it doesn’t.

The line stays there.

If anything, it only looks darker now beneath the harsh bathroom light while tears continue blurring your vision.

And suddenly the room feels too small for the amount of emotion crashing through you all at once. Fear. Shock. Panic. Something softer buried painfully beneath all of it that you can’t even bring yourself to look at yet.

Another sob catches painfully in your throat.

There’s a baby inside you right now.

The thought lands hard enough to knock the air from your lungs all over again.

And almost immediately, your mind reaches for every terrible thing that could still happen.

Because nothing ever good happens in Hawkins.

How are you supposed to bring a life into a world that’s spent years taking people away from you?

Another shaky sob catches painfully in your throat as you bend farther forward on the toilet lid, one hand pressing hard against your chest while tears blur your vision badly enough that the test becomes difficult to focus on anymore. The bathroom suddenly feels too hot, too bright, your pulse pounding so hard it makes your entire body feel unsteady.

And then, completely against your will, you hear Steve’s voice in the back of your mind from that night in the RV parking lot years ago.

All sunburned skin and tired eyes and quiet honesty while he laughed softly about wanting “six little nuggets” someday like it was the most natural thing in the world to admit out loud.

The memory hits hard enough to crack something open inside you completely.

What if he’s upset? What if he—

Outside the bathroom, the crackling sound from the stove suddenly stops.

Steve’s humming cuts off with it because after all these years he knows the difference between your frustrated crying, your exhausted crying, your post-nightmare crying, and the kind that still sends immediate panic through him before he’s even fully thinking yet.

“Baby?” he calls a second later, concern already creeping into his voice.

You briefly consider throwing the pregnancy test directly out the bathroom window and pretending none of this ever happened.

You squeeze your eyes shut hard, trying desperately to pull yourself together before Steve sees how badly you’re crying, but the second you drag in another breath it breaks apart into another helpless sob anyway.

Outside the bathroom, the apartment goes suddenly quiet.

The low hum of the stove fan cuts off. The music near the sink disappears with it.

“Hey,” Steve says softly from the other side of the door, confusion and concern tangled together beneath the gentle knock that follows a second later. “What happened?”

Another sob escapes before you can stop it, shaky enough to completely give you away.

You hear Steve exhale quietly through the door.

The sound somehow makes your chest ache harder.

There’s only a brief second of silence before the handle rattles gently.

“Sweetheart?” Steve says carefully, his voice softer now, edged tight with worry in a way that makes it painfully obvious he’s already imagining the worst. “I’m coming in, okay?”

You try to answer him, but another shaky breath catches painfully in your chest and collapses into a sob before any actual words can make it out. All you manage is the smallest nod before remembering a second too late that he can’t even see you through the door.

Your hand flies up instinctively to wipe hard beneath your eyes anyway, desperately trying to pull yourself together before Steve walks in and sees the pregnancy test still trembling in your hand.

A second later, the bathroom door swings open.

Steve steps inside quickly, concern already written all over his face, sweatshirt sleeves still shoved messily up his forearms from cooking dinner. The faint smell of garlic and something slightly burned follows him into the room.

His eyes land on you curled forward on the toilet lid, one hand clamped shakily over your mouth while sobs break unevenly through your chest.

Whatever calm he walked in with disappears on the spot.

“Whoa— hey, hey,” he says quickly, shutting the door behind him before crossing the tiny bathroom so fast he nearly slips on the bath mat. “Baby, what happened?”

He drops down in front of you so fast his knees slam hard against the tile, but he barely reacts to the impact. Both hands reach for you instinctively, one settling warm against your thigh while the other wraps carefully around your arm as he tries to guide you upright enough to properly look at him.

“Hey,” he says again, softer now. His fingers tremble slightly while he brushes damp strands of hair back away from your face. “Talk to me, sweetheart. Are you hurt? Did you have another flashback? What happened?”

You shake your head hard, but another sob slips out before you can stop it.

Steve’s expression tightens instantly, his eyes darting over you again like he’s still trying to find whatever’s hurting you.

His hands keep moving restlessly between your face, your arms, your shoulders like if he checks carefully enough he’ll finally figure out what’s hurting you and how to fix it.

“Oh my god, you’re scaring me,” he blurts out, his voice cracking around the words while his gaze flicks frantically over you like he’s expecting to suddenly find some injury he somehow missed.

His voice cuts off mid-sentence as his attention finally lands on the test still shaking faintly in your hand.

Confusion flickers briefly across his face at first.

Then he goes completely still.

For one suspended second, he just stares at it without reacting, still breathing slightly hard from hurrying down the hallway while the bathroom fan hums softly overhead.

And then you watch the realization hit him.

The panic slowly drains from his expression, replaced by something else entirely—something stunned and so openly hopeful it almost hurts to look at.

He keeps staring at the test for another second like he’s afraid blinking might somehow change what he’s seeing.

Then his eyes finally lift back to yours, wide and helpless and already shining slightly around the edges.

“Oh,” he breathes softly.

And somehow that quiet little sound is what finally destroys the last of your composure completely.

A sob breaks hard out of your chest as your fingers tighten around the test, tears slipping helplessly down your cheeks while panic burns hot beneath your skin now that he’s finally seen it too.

“I’m so sorry,” you blurt out suddenly, the apology falling out through tears before you can stop it. “I’m so sorry.”

Steve’s expression immediately crumples into confused concern, his brows pulling together hard enough that it almost makes you cry harder.

“Things were finally starting to feel normal again,” you choke out shakily.

The second you say it out loud, you realize how stupid it sounds. Nothing about your lives has ever really been normal. Not after funerals and hospitals and monsters. Not after spending years learning how quickly normal could disappear.

For a second, Steve just stares at you like he genuinely can’t process the words that just came out of your mouth.

Then his expression turns almost unbearably gentle.

“Baby— what?” He sounds genuinely horrified that you think this is something you need forgiveness for. “What are you apologizing for?”

He scoops your face into his hands so suddenly it catches you off guard, both palms warm against your cheeks while his eyes search frantically across your face like he’s still trying to understand how this conversation somehow turned into you apologizing.

“Hey, hey, no,” he says softly, shifting even closer until his knees slide awkwardly against the tile with a sharp squeak. “Why are you apologizing?”

And then, completely unbelievably, he starts smiling.

Not a small smile either.

It spreads across his face all at once, huge and helpless and so overwhelmed with emotion it almost looks painful. His eyes start glossing over instantly while a shaky laugh slips out of him before he can stop it.

“You think this is bad?” he says breathlessly, sounding almost stunned by the idea. Another shaky laugh slips out of him before he can stop it. “Baby, you seriously think I’m upset right now?”

You stare at him through blurred vision, completely overwhelmed by the fact that he somehow looks happier than you’ve seen him in months while you’re actively sobbing on the bathroom floor.

“Oh, c’mere,” Steve says softly, his voice cracking this time as his thumbs brush helplessly beneath your eyes trying to catch tears faster than they’re falling. “No, no, sweetheart, don’t cry, it’s okay.”

And then his own composure finally breaks too.

A laugh catches halfway into something shakier, while tears spill suddenly over onto his cheeks. Steve ducking his head briefly, like the force of the emotion hit him all at once, and he genuinely doesn’t know what to do with it.

“You’re sitting here apologizing to me,” he says again, sounding completely awestruck, while his gaze flicks helplessly between you and the test still trembling in your hand. “Baby, after everything we’ve survived? You really think I’m gonna look at this and see something bad?”

“Steve…”

“No, I’m serious.” His smile trembles visibly at the edges as he leans forward again, pressing another kiss to your forehead, then your cheek, then the corner of your mouth, like he physically can’t stop touching you now that he knows. “I love you so much. Do you hear me? So much.”

You finally look at him properly through the blur of your tears, and it nearly undoes you all over again.

Because you’ve never seen Steve look at anything the way he’s looking at you right now.

Not with this much open love.

Not with this much hope.

He’s still kneeling there on the bathroom floor, with tears clinging to his lashes and his hands warm against your face, staring at you like someone just handed him every good thing he stopped letting himself want too badly years ago.

And suddenly, Steve doesn’t look young anymore.

Not like the seventeen-year-old boy who used to show up bruised on your porch, pretending everything hurt less than it did.

Not like the version of him that kept throwing himself in front of monsters, Russians, nightmares, anything dangerous enough to hurt the people he loved first.

Somewhere along the way, Steve became someone who spent years protecting children that weren’t even his before he ever really let himself imagine having one of his own.

He still looks like Steve. Still warm hands and messy hair and tears caught on his lashes while he smiles at you like happiness physically hurts to hold inside himself.

But now you can suddenly see every version of him at once.

Every terrible thing he survived.

Every soft thing he kept anyway.

And for the first time in years, he doesn’t look like someone bracing for happiness to be taken away from him.

“I love you,” he says again, his voice rough with emotion. “And I love this baby already. I don’t even know how that’s possible yet, but I do.”

His eyes flick back down toward the test, another completely awestruck smile breaking across his face like the reality of it keeps blindsiding him every time he looks at it.

Then suddenly Steve presses the back of his hand against his mouth, shoulders shaking once beneath a soft, breathless laugh like he genuinely has no idea what to do with how emotional he is right now.

The sound breaks out of him like the happiness physically overflowed before he could hold it in any longer, and before you can even react he’s leaning forward again, pressing another trembling kiss against your forehead.

“You’re pregnant?” he repeats softly, still sounding completely awestruck by the words even while saying them out loud, like some part of him genuinely still can’t believe this is real.

“I think so,” you whisper shakily, which immediately makes Steve laugh harder because somehow the answer is still so painfully you.

One hand flies up over his mouth like he physically can’t contain the smile breaking across his face, while the other stays anchored against your cheek, like he physically can’t stop touching you now that he knows.

“We’re having a baby,” he says, and the words visibly wreck him halfway through, another breathless laugh breaking out of him while his entire expression crumples with overwhelming happiness.

And suddenly your thoughts lurch violently forward without your permission.

Steve half asleep on the couch with a baby tucked against his chest while cartoons flicker quietly across the dark living room, one hand spread protectively over their tiny back even in his sleep.

Steve in a hospital room crying openly before the nurse has even fully handed him the baby yet, laughing helplessly through tears because of course he would cry first.

Steve standing barefoot in the middle of a driveway years from now, both hands hovering nervously beside a bicycle while a tiny furious voice shrieks at him to stop helping.

The images arrive one after another so quickly it almost hurts.

And for the first time since this started, terror isn’t the only thing blooming inside your chest anymore.

For a second, Steve just sits there looking completely overwhelmed by it all, his gaze dropping briefly between you and the test still clutched in your hand while he shakes his head once like the reality of this is hitting him faster than he can keep up with.

Then his eyes lift back to yours.

And the way he looks at you nearly undoes you all over again.

Like you’ve just handed him every single thing he stopped letting himself want too badly years ago.

Then suddenly he’s kissing you.

Hard and messy and emotional, both hands still cupping your face while he smiles helplessly against your mouth like he physically can’t contain how happy he is right now. The kiss breaks apart almost immediately because Steve keeps laughing through it, forehead knocking clumsily against yours while another disbelieving breath slips out between both your mouths.

“I can’t believe this is actually happening,” he laughs softly through tears, forehead still resting against yours while another shaky breath escapes him. “Jesus Christ.”

And somehow the sight of him this happy hurts almost as much as it heals.

Because all at once you realize Steve has probably been quietly dreaming about moments like this for years without ever fully expecting them to become real.

Not after everything.

Not after Hawkins taught all of you how quickly good things could disappear.

The happier he looks, the harder you cry, which somehow only makes Steve smile even bigger every time he glances back at you like your tears aren’t scaring him anymore now that he understands what they mean.

Your smile wobbles almost immediately beneath another wave of tears.

“I’m happy,” you admit shakily. “I think I am. I’m just… really scared.”

Saying both out loud somehow makes them feel more true.

Steve looks at you like the answer is the easiest thing in the world, like it’s the easiest thing he’s ever known about another person.

“Jesus, baby, you already take care of everybody without even thinking about it,” he says softly. “You practically raised half those kids with me. Baby, seriously… you’re gonna be amazing.”

Every emotion on Steve’s face is completely unguarded now, bright eyes and trembling smiles and happiness so overwhelming he doesn’t even try to hide it anymore.

Not after the Upside Down or Vecna or years spent surviving things that should have destroyed people your age.

You’ve never seen him look at the future like this before.

Like he finally believes he’s allowed to have one.

Carefully, Steve takes the pregnancy test from your trembling fingers, holding it almost delicately while his eyes drop back toward the second pink line.

Another smile slowly spreads across his face, not the huge disbelieving grin from before, but something softer now. Something deeper.

His thumb brushes absently along the edge of the plastic while tears continue slipping quietly down his cheeks, Steve staring at the test like the reality of it still keeps hitting him fresh every time he looks at it.

“Oh my god,” he whispers softly, sounding almost overwhelmed by the words themselves. “I’m so fucking lucky.”

And somehow it hurts in a different way because Steve still says things like that sometimes, like some part of him never fully realized loving him was always the easy part.

There’s so much emotion on his face now, disbelief and love and overwhelming happiness tangled together so openly it almost feels too intimate to look at directly.

One of his hands slips carefully from your cheek down to your waist before settling against your stomach through the thin fabric of your shirt. The touch is so gentle it makes your chest tighten painfully, his palm resting there almost cautiously at first like some part of him is still afraid this moment could disappear if he moves too quickly.

His fingers slowly spread against you afterward while his gaze drops downward again, completely captivated by the reality of what’s beneath his hand.

Then his thumb brushes softly beneath the fabric, absentminded and reverent in a way that nearly makes you cry all over again, and you physically watch the realization move across his face once more beneath the tears still shining in his eyes.

Like every time he touches you, the reality of it settles deeper into him.

“Hi, baby,” he says softly before he can stop himself.

The words settle over you with a kind of quiet finality that almost makes your head spin.

Because Steve doesn’t say it carefully or like he’s trying to make you laugh through the panic. He says it instinctively, the same absentminded way he talks to you when he’s half asleep or worried or too full of affection to think before speaking.

Like the baby is already real to him.

Like loving them is already the easiest thing in the world.

And watching that realization move across his face in real time feels almost unbearably intimate, something so open and sincere it leaves your eyes burning all over again.

Somewhere beneath all the fear still clawing through you, something gentler finally begins unfolding beside it. Not enough to erase the panic entirely, not enough to stop your hands from shaking or your heart from racing too fast, but enough to exist alongside it anyway.

Hope.

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