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disparate youth, pt.1

Steve Harrington x f!reader // part one // part two // part three // part four // part five // part six // part seven // ongoing //

Outer Banks, summer 1995. Steve’s parents are celebrating their thirty year anniversary with a week of parties, photos, and perfect appearances. Steve shows up out of obligation - and brings you as his “girlfriend” for survival. You’re only supposed to be his buffer. But the longer the week goes on, the harder it gets to tell where the performance ends. Fake dating + there was only one bedroom? What could possibly go wrong?!

word count: 5k

As always: Steve Harrington deserved better, so I gave him softness. 🌊

Thank you to @keer-y for being the greatest cheerleader.

Steve arrives before everyone else.

That part is deliberate.

The house is locked when he gets there, which shouldn’t bother him but does. His parents are out for the day, finalising the last of the arrangements before the horde of Harringtons and Harrington-hangers-on descend on the place tomorrow. His mother had talked him through the security system over the phone the night before, making him write and read back the codes until she was satisfied he wouldn’t accidentally set off every alarm and summon half of Spindrift’s security patrols in under seven minutes.

They have a system. One he’s learned how to move around.

The door slides open smoothly beneath his palm, glass cool against his skin. The place greets him with salt air and quiet wealth - pale wood, white linen, light spilling everywhere like it’s been waiting.

It smells like the ocean and citrus cleaner.

Someone’s already put flowers out. Pink hydrangeas and stargazer lilies in a wide bowl on the kitchen island, petals plump and deliberate, like they were chosen for how well they photograph. Steve pauses there longer than he needs to, one hand still on his duffel strap, the other resting uselessly against the counter.

This was where they came when Hawkins shut down.

He doesn’t think it like an accusation. It’s just a fact that sits strangely in his chest. They’d been on the coast when the quake hit, and when the quarantine followed, it had made sense to stay. The beach house was safer. Easier. They wired him money. Checked in when they remembered.

They waited it out in sun and space and safety, while Steve stayed behind in a town that felt like it was trapped in amber.

He shakes the thought off and moves further into the house.

Every room faces the water. That’s the first thing he notices. The ocean is everywhere - framed in glass, reflected in mirrors, humming low and constant through open doors and windows. Steve sets his bag down in the room his mother had told him to take - not a primary suite, not one of the rooms with balconies, just a nice guest room at the back with a partial view and someone else’s throw blanket folded at the foot of the bed.

Afterthought-adjacent.

He exhales, slow, steady, and rolls his shoulders. It’s fine. He’s used to this feeling - like he’s stepped into a life that was already in motion, like his presence doesn’t disrupt anything, just fills in a gap.

Outside, the deck creaks softly as the wind moves through it. Steve wanders out barefoot, a beer taken from the fridge cool in his palm, and leans his forearms on the railing. The beach stretches out before him, pristine and empty, sand as smooth as untouched paper. For the rest of the week it’ll be loud with cousins and laughter and the clink of glasses, but for now it’s just him and the sea and the low ache of something he hasn’t quite named.

He thinks, briefly, about leaving early.

About doing the polite thing, the expected thing. Showing up for the big party, smiling, staying just long enough to be counted, and then heading home.

Then he thinks about you.

About the way you’d looked at him over coffee when he asked - careful, curious, kind. About how you’d said yes without making him explain himself. About how you’d laughed and said, “Well. I’ve never been to the Outer Banks.”

Steve lets himself smile at that.

You’ll be here tomorrow.

Steve pictures it easily - you flying in once your installation is finished, apologising for being late even though he’d never once suggested you should cancel. He’d shut that down immediately. He wasn’t about to ask you to bend your work and life around his parents’ idea of a perfect week.

He’s here early because they wanted him here early. The three of them together in the house first, before the noise and the arrivals and the performance of it all. A unit. A picture that still makes sense if you don’t look too closely.

The thought of you stepping into it - into this place where everything feels perfect, and he never does - steadies him in a way he didn’t expect. Like he’s bringing something vivid into a space that’s always felt faintly pastel.

The ocean rolls in below, patient and endless. He could take or leave the beach house, but the water - the sound of it, the smell, the way it keeps its own time - makes everything else easier to bear. It reminds him that not everything is arranged for show.

Steve straightens, drains the last of his beer, and heads back inside to open windows, to make space.

This time, he thinks, he won’t be the only one who came because he had to.

****************

He hears the car before he sees it.

Gravel under tyres, unhurried. The sound carries easily through the open house. He’s in the kitchen, rinsing out a glass he already knows belongs in a particular cupboard. He dries it carefully, sets it back exactly where he found it, and waits.

The front door opens.

Annabeth Harrington comes in first, sunglasses still on despite the cool shade indoors, her pale linen dress untouched by the car. She pauses just long enough to take in the space - the counters, the flowers, the light - not checking for mess so much as confirming order. The kitchen is as it should be.

“Steven,” she says, leaning in to brush his cheek. It’s an air-kiss - proximity without weight - affection observed at a polite distance. Her expensive perfume wraps around him in a way her arms never do.

“Hi, Mom.”

Annabeth sets her bag down and slips out of her sandals. “We were tied up all day,” she says lightly. “Lunch ran long.”

Steve nods. It doesn’t occur to him to ask where they were. He already knows - a lunch club, a committee, a gallery thing, people who’ve folded this place into their lives the way he never would.

She looks at him properly then, her gaze taking inventory the way it always has - clothes, posture, the faint tiredness he hasn’t quite shaken yet.

“That job of yours… you must be exhausted,” she says. Not unkind. Just observational.

“I’m fine. School’s good, the kids are great.”

Danny follows a step behind, already mid-thought. He looks sun-browned and settled, like a man who’s grown into the life he chose and stopped questioning it years ago. Semi-retired now, technically. A word that seems to apply more to his calendar than his posture. Authority clings to him the way the salt air does - invisible, assumed, never needing to announce itself. Steve’s pretty sure he’s never relaxed a day in his life.

He moves through the house and into the kitchen with quiet certainty, opening doors without looking, crossing rooms as though they were extensions of himself. This place fits him.

“How was the drive from Norfolk?” he asks Steve, drawing open the sliding doors to the deck, his eyes drifting away from his son and out toward the water.

Steve nods anyway. “Yeah. Had to wait at the desk for the car, traffic was bad getting out. You know how it is.”

Danny hums, satisfied, thoughts already elsewhere - even as Annabeth glides in beside him with a glass of wine poured and ready for him.

“Still doesn’t get old,” he says, looking out across the ocean like it’s putting on a show just for him.

****************

Annabeth and Danny move through the house together without thinking about it.

They don’t touch much - not demonstratively - but they’re aligned in smaller ways: the way Danny steps aside just as Annabeth reaches for the wine, the way she answers questions he hasn’t quite finished asking. They’ve been calibrated to each other for decades, finishing each other's sentences, their movements smoothed down to efficiency.

High school sweethearts, everyone always says it like it explains everything. The Harringtons. A story people like to believe in.

To the outside world, they’re flawless. Successful. Enduring. The kind of couple people gesture toward at dinners and say that’s how you do it. Steve has heard it his entire life.

He knows better - not in a bitter way, just in the way you know something when you’ve grown up inside it.

There have been others. Always discreet. Always managed. His father’s absences explained away as work, his mother’s tennis schedule stretching longer and longer into the afternoons. None of it dramatic enough to fracture the image. None of it ever spoken aloud.

What holds them together isn’t fidelity so much as agreement.

They chose each other early. They chose the life. They chose the look of it. And they’ve never once invited Steve into that choice - not purposefully.

Watching them now, settled and seamless in a house that fits them perfectly, Steve feels the familiar distance settle in. Not sharp. Not new. Just established.

They are a pair.

He has always been adjacent.

Dinner is easy and well-practised. Annabeth pours the wine. Danny talks about the anniversary plans, who’s flying in when, how full the house will be over the week. Names are dropped into conversation that Steve half-remembers from childhood dinners where he’d been told to sit up straighter, speak more clearly, smile more.

“And you’re in the back room? White curtains?” Danny asks, casual, as if confirming a seating arrangement.

“Yeah, the - “

“Good. That room’s quiet.”

Annabeth nods, already moving on. “Your friend arrives tomorrow, you said?”

“Girlfriend. Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Well,” she says, a small smile settling into place, “that’ll be nice. I’m assuming the two of you will share?”

He’d been expecting it - his mother’s particular brand of curiosity, gossip-gathering disguised as vagueness. He has his lines rehearsed.

“There’s no reason not to. We’re together, so.”

“Mmm. Yes, you did mention that.”

Not warmth. Not dismissal. Just accommodation.

“What did you say she does again?” Danny says, rejoining the conversation after having drifted out of it minutes before.

“Windows, Dad. Stained glass conservation, it’s -”

“Stained glass, huh?” Danny cuts in, thoughtful rather than dismissive. “That’s not something I’d imagine Hawkins has much call for. Does she get a lot of work?”

Annabeth answers before Steve can finish.

“She keeps busy,” she says smoothly, as if this is information she’s already filed away. “It’s very specialised. Churches, art, restoration projects - isn’t that what you said, Steven?”

Danny nods, satisfied with the shape of the answer. “Makes sense,” he says. “Hard to scale something like that.”

Steve feels the familiar impulse - the old one - to smooth it over, to translate, to make it sound more impressive than it needs to be.

He doesn’t.

“She’s good at it,” he says instead, steady. “People seek her out.”

Annabeth glances at him then, just briefly. Not surprised. Not displeased. Simply noting the correction.

“Well,” she says lightly, “that’s fortunate.”

The conversation moves on.

Steve stays where he is, the words still warm in his mouth. He hadn’t raised his voice. He hadn’t explained. He hadn’t asked them to understand.

He’d just said it like it was true.

And for the first time all evening, that feels like it’s enough.

****************

After dinner, the house fractures neatly.

Annabeth heads upstairs, already mid-conversation on the cordless, her voice carrying faintly down the hall as she settles into one of the bedrooms to talk through schedules and arrivals. There are lists to be confirmed, timings to adjust - the quiet competence of someone who has always managed the order of things from a distance.

Danny disappears into his study off the living room, door closing softly behind him. Steve catches a glimpse of spreadsheets spread across the desk, reports faxed over earlier in the day, the low murmur of calculation resuming as easily as breath.

No one assigns Steve anything.

He’s done well enough. Said the right things. Filled his place at the table without much disruption.

So he takes another beer and steps out onto the deck instead.

The evening air is warm, the boards still holding the day’s heat. Beyond the railing, the ocean moves steadily, unconcerned, its rhythm unbroken by the house behind him. Steve leans his forearms against the wood again and lets the sound of it wash over him, shoulders loosening now that there’s no one left to perform for.

For a moment, it’s just him and the water - and the quiet relief of being finished.

He stays on the deck until the sky darkens properly, the house behind him settling into its evening rhythms. Doors close. Footsteps fade. Somewhere upstairs, his mother’s voice drops into the measured cadence she uses when she’s coordinating things that matter.

He lets it go.

He’s done what was required of him today. Shown up. Answered questions. Taken up the right amount of space without colouring over the lines. There’s a quiet satisfaction in that.

Tomorrow, at least, he won’t have to do it alone.

He thinks about you then, not in any charged or complicated way, just appreciatively. You didn’t hesitate when he asked. You didn’t tease him or overthink it or turn it into a performance. You’d listened, nodded once, and said, Yeah, alright. I can do that.

Robin would have, too. She had, once.

His mouth twitches as the memory resurfaces - his grandmother’s ninetieth birthday, the careful fiction of that trip unravelling in real time when someone had stumbled across Robin kissing his cousin Lucy in a quiet corner of the house. The sharp intake of breath. The pause before the whispers started. The room watching.

His mother’s expression - appalled, not by the kiss, but by Steve’s deception and the way it had collapsed so publicly.

The lie hadn’t just cracked. It had imploded.

Lucy had guessed immediately, of course. Known Robin wasn’t his girlfriend. Known what Steve had been doing, and why. She hadn’t meant to ruin things for him - she’d sworn that later, earnest and miserable - but intent didn’t matter once the damage was done.

The Buckley bridge is thoroughly burned now. The Harringtons remember. Annabeth, especially.

Which makes this - you - different.

You don’t play at it. You don’t improvise chaos into the margins. You don’t clock the deception and file it away like a secret you might use later. You just show up. Do what you said you would. Make space for him without asking for anything in return.

Steady. Sensible. On his side.

Steve lets the thought settle, warm and grounding, and turns his attention back to the deck - the light, the noise, the movement of it all - carrying that quiet certainty with him like something he didn’t realise he’d been missing until it was there.

The thought of having someone else in the house - someone who knows how to read a room, who won’t need translating, who can exchange a look with him across a table and know exactly what it means - makes his tension drop for the first time all day.

An ally. That’s all.

And right now, that feels like exactly what he needs.

Steve finishes his beer and heads inside, locking up the way he was shown, moving quietly through the house like a guest who understands the rules. Upstairs, he leaves the bedroom window wide open and lets the sound of the ocean pour inside.

Tomorrow will be busy. Loud. Harrington-heavy.

Tomorrow, at least, he’ll have backup.

****************

Steve positions himself with his right shoulder angled toward the speakers above the gate.

It’s habit now, ingrained enough that he doesn’t think about it - a quiet adjustment so the announcements come through cleanly, so he doesn’t have to ask anyone to repeat themselves. The airport is loud in a diffuse way, sound bouncing off glass and tile and bodies, and he lets his left side deafness drown the majority of it out.

He’s early. Of course he is.

He leans back against a railing, legs crossed at the ankle, a coffee cooling in his hand. His glasses sit easy on his nose - they always do - the world crisp and manageable through the familiar frames. He doesn’t think about them much anymore. They’re just part of him now, like the way he tilts his head to listen, like the scar on his belly that pulls faintly when he turns too fast.

What’s different is everything else.

The shirt is linen, soft with wear, unbuttoned lower than he’d ever risk back in Hawkins, sunglasses hanging at the join. The sleeves are pushed up, the collar open enough that the thin silver chain at his throat catches the light when he shifts, glinting against the dark thatch of hair there. Beige cargo shorts skim his knees, comfortable sneakers planted easy on the polished floor. He looks… loose. Not careless - just a little more free.

Beach Steve, Robin calls it.

He’d dressed this way without thinking, and only realised it standing here, unobserved. This version of him makes his mother purse her lips and say something about his posture. He knows she’s already threatened to task Maggie - who comes in to clean three times a week - to raid his suitcase and starch everything in sight while he’s out. He doesn’t let that thought linger for too long.

Steve scans the arrivals board, then the crowd, attention sharpening as the doors slide open and passengers begin to spill through. He straightens a fraction, alert now.

There.

You come through with your bag slung over your arm, hair escaping whatever effort you’d made earlier, eyes already searching. When they land on him, your face shifts - not surprise, not assessment. Recognition. Relief.

Your gaze flicks over him, quick and instinctive, and he sees the exact moment you register it: not the glasses - you’ve seen those a hundred times - but the looseness of him. The open collar. The ease in his stance. The fact that he looks like he belongs to the light and heat pouring in behind him.

You smile before you reach him.

“Hey, you,” you smile, wrapping him in a one-armed hug with your bag caught between you.

“Hey,” he squeezes back, easy.

You start apologising immediately, because of course you do - late flight, tight connection, something about baggage. He cuts you off gently, shaking his head.

“Don’t,” he says. “You made it.”

You pause, looking at him again, slower this time.

“You look… relaxed,” you say. “Is that a beach-house thing, or an airport miracle?”

Steve snorts softly. “Give it ten minutes in the traffic out of here, then we’ll see.”

You laugh, and something in his chest settles - uncomplicated, familiar.

He takes your bag without asking and falls into step beside you as you head toward the exit. When you talk, he angles himself toward you automatically, right side open, listening. You don’t comment on that either - you never do.

Outside, the doors slide open and warm air rushes in, salt-thick and bright. Steve blinks into the sun, swapping his glasses over, adjusting easily.

An ally, he reminds himself.

But walking beside you, shoulders loose, shirt open to the breeze, he realises something else, too - something small, but real.

This version of him feels easier to be.

And for the first time since he arrived, he doesn’t feel like he’s about to put armour back on.

****************

The car Steve hired for the week smells faintly of sunscreen, coffee, and the generic pine air freshener swinging from the rear view. The radio’s tuned to the local pop station and he’s already singing along under his breath - every word of Waterfalls, no hesitation - before the realisation catches up with him.

He drives with one hand on the wheel, the other resting loose against his thigh, the windows cracked to let the heat bleed off. You sit angled toward him, knees tucked up slightly, bag at your feet, already halfway into problem-solving mode.

“Okay,” you say. “Let’s get our story straight.”

He grins, tapping his fingers on the wheel. “Knew this was coming.”

“You invited me to impersonate your long-term girlfriend in front of your parents and extended family for a week,” you remind him mildly. “I’m absolutely allowed to mind-map.”

“Please don’t actually make one.”

Your smile is infectious. “No promises.”

You start with the basics. How long you’ve been together. Where you met. Who asked who out. Steve answers when he can, shrugs when he can’t, lets you fill in the gaps with a confidence that suggests you’ve done this kind of narrative stitching before.

“Farmers’ market,” you say. “You were enamoured with my baubles - that part’s true enough,” you add with a smirk.

“Yeah.”

“And we didn’t date straight away,” you add. “Friends first. Slow burn.”

Steve snorts, eyes still on the road. The corner of his mouth twitches like he’s trying not to smile. “My mom will hate that. She wants me married off by thirty.”

“Tick tock, Harrington.”

The line settles between you, easy and companionable, the road stretching out ahead in a long, sun-bleached ribbon. The radio murmurs on, something forgettable now, and Steve adjusts his grip on the wheel as the conversation naturally shifts gears.

You talk about boundaries next. What’s believable. What’s comfortable.

“No pet names,” he says immediately, too quick. “I’ll end up insulting you.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” you agree without hesitation. “That would raise questions.”

“Minimal PDA,” he adds. “My parents get weird.”

You consider that, eyes flicking briefly to the road, then back to him. “Define minimal, and define weird.”

He gestures vaguely with his free hand, already regretting this. “Weird - I’ve mentioned mom’s marriage plans. PDA? You know. Standing close. Occasional arm.”

You blink at him. “Occasional arm?”

Steve glances over, wary.

“Jesus, Steve,” you continue, deadpan. “Maybe I should throw in a flash of ankle and really scandalise you.”

He laughs, despite himself. “I’m serious.”

“I know,” you say, still amused. “I’m just trying to picture how Victorian we’re aiming for.”

He shakes his head, jaw tight but smiling. “Just - normal. Nothing showy. No tongue at dinner.”

You hum, thoughtful, and then reach over and take his free hand, experimentally.

Steve glances down. Your fingers slide between his, interlacing easily, decisively.

He stiffens. “Oh. No. That’s -”

“Not a fan of interlinked?” you ask, openly entertained now.

“I just - ” He tries to extricate himself, failing because you tighten your grip. “I prefer folded. Like this.”

He demonstrates, turning his palm up so your hand rests on top of his, contained, tidy, fingers separate but together.

You stare at it for a beat, then at him. “That looks like we’re about to thank the Lord for what we’re about to receive.”

“It looks respectful.”

“It sorta looks like you’re escorting me to my execution.”

“Okay, but -”

“Nope,” you say, already rethreading your fingers through his. “Interlinked reads as more affectionate. We’re madly in love, Steve. We’ll go with that.”

Steve exhales, long and suffering, but he doesn’t pull away again. His thumb shifts despite himself, settling against the side of your hand, grip loosening as the argument resolves itself in your favour.

“You’re going to win all of these, aren’t you?”

“Aw look at you, you’re learning!”

He shakes his head, breaking into a bright grin despite himself.

The road hums beneath the tyres, the afternoon stretching ahead of you, and for the first time since he asked you to do this ridiculous, generous thing, Steve thinks he might actually be looking forward to the week.

Your joined hands rest easily between you, no longer a point of debate.

He keeps driving.

You keep holding on.

By the time the house comes into view, the sun slanting low over the drive, the plan is mostly settled. You’re aligned. Coordinated. A team.

Steve feels… ready.

****************

The house is much louder than Steve expected it to be.

He hears it long before he opens the door - voices overlapping, laughter spilling out through the open windows, the low clink of glass on stone. Cars crowd the drive at slightly careless angles, already claiming space. A cork pops, followed by a cheer when the bottle overflows.

Welcome drinks, then.

Steve slows without meaning to, the guest set of keys warm in his hand. For a split second, he considers the mechanics of it - who’ll see him first, whether his mother is already in host mode, whether his grandmother will comment on the pounds she’s sure he’s gained since the last time she saw him, like it’s a record she’s been keeping.

Then you squeeze his hand.

Not tight. Not urgent. Just there.

You feel it too - the noise, the shift in atmosphere - and you tilt your head toward the house, mouth quirking.

“Looks like we’re fashionably late,” you murmur.

“They’re early, actually,” he says, automatically.

You smile at that. “Of course they are. Shall we?”

You step inside together.

The entrance hall and kitchen are buzzing, the details clicking into place - the counters, the island flowers, the view of the water framed through glass. He knows it by sight rather than feel. But it’s different now. Messier. Alive.

His grandmother sits at the head of the island, a glass of something pale and bubbly in her hand, silver hair immaculate, posture relaxed in the way that only comes with age and authority. Aunt Juliane - whom Steve hasn’t seen since a long-past funeral - leans against the counter, mid-story, while Uncle Rick nods along dutifully beside her. Their daughter, Lucy, watches everything with the kind of sharp curiosity that makes Steve feel briefly catalogued, her champagne still untouched.

Conversation stutters as Steve feels the shift of attention turn toward them.

Annabeth turns first.

“Steven,” she says brightly, already moving forward - and then, seamlessly, “And here she is - ”

Air-kisses. Floral perfume. Steve barely has time to register it before it’s happening.

You step in before he can fill the silence.

“Hi, Mrs Harrington,” you say, smiling easily. “It’s so lovely to finally meet you!”

Steve senses it then - the smallest adjustment. The way his mother stills, just for a beat, reassessing.

Something shifts.

Not dramatically. Just enough.

Annabeth’s smile sharpens into something warm and practiced as she takes you in - your posture, your clothes, the fact that you’re still holding Steve’s hand. She reaches out, touches your arm lightly.

“We’re so glad you could make it,” she says. “Steven’s told us all about you.”

Steve resists the urge to laugh.

His grandmother turns next, her gaze assessing but kind. “Well,” she says, lifting her glass, “it’s about time.”

You laugh, just a little, like you’ve been let in on the joke.

Introductions blur together after that. Names, relationships, questions asked out of politeness rather than curiosity. Someone presses a drink into your hand. Someone else asks how your flight was. Steve answers when needed, fills in gaps, but mostly he watches.

He’s struck by how easily you settle into it.

You read the room the way he never quite learned to - gauging who needs eye contact, who prefers distance, when to speak and when to let silence do the work. You turn your body toward him without clinging, keep your hand in his without making a show of it. When his aunt asks what you do, you answer simply, confidently, without dressing it up or sanding it down.

Steve notices his mother listening - not interrupting, not correcting, just filing things away. He catches his father hovering near the deck doors, gaze drifting back more than once, noticing the way Steve stands less hunched than usual, shoulders loose, presence steady.

He feels it, the quiet surprise of being observed without being appraised - and realises, distantly, that he’s not doing anything different at all. He’s just not doing it alone.

Around them, the house keeps filling in. Voices rise and overlap, greetings called across rooms, someone laughing too loudly from the deck. More Harringtons filter through the kitchen - a hand claps Steve on the shoulder in passing, a name he half-recognises called from behind him, a stranger introduced as family. The air grows warm with bodies and perfume and wine.

Lucy catches his eye at one point, eyebrow lifting, mouth twitching like she’s spotted something interesting. Steve ignores her.

The drinks keep coming. The noise swells. Someone turns music on - low, inoffensive. The house hums with it all, a careful chaos layered over its usual polish.

After a while, Steve leans toward you.

“We should drop our bags,” he says under his breath. “Before the martinis come out.”

“Ah,” you say. “Pre-cocktail escape window. Lead on.”

No one stops you as you slip out of the kitchen and up the stairs, conversation folding back in behind you like you were never the point.

Only when the door to the bedroom closes behind you does Steve let out the breath he’s been holding.

He smiles at you, tired but genuine.

“See?” he says quietly. “Survivable.”

He has no idea what’s waiting for him in the wardrobe.

The room is immaculate.

Not hotel-clean - intentional. His suitcase is gone. His duffel, too. In their place: the wardrobe door stands open, revealing his clothes hanging in neat, starched rows. Shirts pressed crisp enough to hold shape on their own. T-shirts folded with military precision in the drawers. Even his underwear, stacked neatly with frightening technique.

Steve closes his eyes briefly.

“Please tell me this is a joke,” he says.

You step in beside him, taking it in with open fascination. “Wow.”

“Maggie,” he mutters. “She’s been in my things.”

“She’s very thorough.”

“She’s starched my casual wear.”

You pick up one of his shirts, rubbing the fabric between your fingers. “This could stand up on its own.”

“My mother hates a wrinkle,” he says flatly.

You glance at him, then at the room, then back again.

“And she didn’t tell you?”

“She… threatened,” he says, like this is a known phase in a longer process.

“Just… took the liberty?”

“Always does.”

You don’t joke this time. You set the shirt back carefully, then turn to him.

“Well,” you say gently, “at least we know where we stand. And, where your shirts stand.”

Steve exhales, slow and resigned. “Yeah.”

He looks around his room - their room, now - and feels the old instinct rise. Adjust. Conform. Put the right version of himself back on.

Then you drop your bag onto the bed with a thump and start rummaging through it, letting your belongings fall where they may.

“Okay,” you say briskly. “Rule number one: if she touches my clothes, I riot.”

That gets a laugh out of him before he can stop it.

And standing there, in a room that’s been curated without his consent, with someone who’s very much here by choice, Steve realises something important.

This week might be survivable after all.

Maybe even… okay.

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