Hi folks!! I'm June. All of my work is based around a fem!reader, and smut is usually afab readers. however no other physical descriptions of the reader are really mentioned. Thanks for lookin' 🖤
blurred lines by @ellemj (43.2k, angst, smut, fluff)
When choosing a female agent to send back in time to gain young Sergeant Barnes's trust, everyone's in agreement that it should be Sharon. Until Bucky, the man that you barely get along with, speaks up and lets everyone know that it could only be you.
his and his only... for 24 hours by @salem-s (25k, fluff, smut)
The last person you would ever consider dating — much less touching with a ten foot pole — is Bucky Barnes. Yet somehow here you are: packing a bag to spend the night of the Fourth of July as his fake girlfriend, all to get his pestering family off his case. But admittedly you can’t help but lean into the bit. Just a tad. Especially when his ex-girlfriend makes it very clear she wants him back.
nine lives by @thebarneschronicles (9.4k, smut, fluff, slight angst)
Bucky Barnes drives you insane—in every possible way. The bickering, the reckless plans, the way he smirks like he knows exactly what he’s doing to you. But when a mission goes sideways, leaving you both bloodied and too close for comfort, the tension between you ignites into something impossible to ignore.
two tickets to iron maiden by @superbassbuck (two shot - 38.2k, smut, angst, fluff)
You're the picture-perfect popular pretty girl—all style, smiles, and social status. Bucky is the typical campus dirtbag—loud music, attitude, and bad decisions. You can't stand him, and he fucking hates your guts. That is, until one house party changes everything. When Bucky catches you headbanging to classic rock instead of pop, instead of hating your guts, he ended up being inside your guts. You’re desperate to keep your arrangement quiet for the sake of your reputation, but Bucky is growing tired of being your dirty little secret.
daily rounds by @to-cross-the-stars (9.4k, smut, fluff)
You thrive in your little routine, running the campus library like a well-oiled machine. Unfortunately, part of that routine includes seeing the face of a particular security guard who can't help but get under your skin.
page turner by @cursedheartsclub (10k, fluff, smut)
When you fall behind on your Avengers book club reading, Natasha suggests Bucky help keep you on track.
to have and to hold by @unificsation (8.8k, slight angst, smut)
as a one-year anniversary gift, you propose that you and your husband divorce. he decides to teach you a lesson: that the king of new york doesn’t give anything up, least of all his darling wife.
fatal attraction by @honeysucklewatr (2.35k, slight angst, smut)
he doesn’t have to explicitly say it but you can tell bucky doesn’t like you. he makes your life infinitely harder as the newest recruit. so when he purposefully sabotages your mission, tensions rise because you’re not taking shit from someone that’s not even your superior—no matter how hot he is.
this is (not) okay by @artficlly (9.1k, smut, fluff)
personal assistant rules: don’t crush on bucky barnes. definitely don’t misinterpret a flower purchase and spiral into silent heartbreak, and absolutely never ever get stuck alone with him in an elevator.
STEVE ROGERS
phantom limb by @crybabycabin (17.2k, angst, smut, fluff)
steve rogers has spent two years keeping you at arm’s length. but when a mission goes wrong and his skin meets yours, suddenly every wall he’s built starts crumbling.
dog house by @lunexiax (12.3k, smut)
Everyone knows that yourself and Steve should never have been put on the same team; you fight like dogs and spark like live-wires. But maybe not all of that tension is hate.
manchild by @miasvelvetvoid (10k, angst, smut, fluff)
“How am I supposed to not settle steve? When-when…” You groaned loudly in frustration, your hands huffing at your sides. “I’m never going to be able to find someone if you don’t just fucking leave me alone.”
mr. and mrs.... rogers?! by @blowingbarnes (10.5k, smut, fluff)
You and Steve are voluntold you're married for an undercover mission. Should be easy, except you hate each other.
and like. girl vampires who are given the same kind of depth as male vampires of reconciling their own monstrous desires with how human they still are or not. and not like. vapid sexy temptresses or whatever. they have their time and place but i want a girl vampire desperately gripping the sink looking into the mirror just to see what isnt there anymore
hello!!!! <3 may i request my favorite angsty trope where stevie, 4 whatever reason, doesnt realize how much reader means to him (like he likes nancy or is just a meanie or something) until reader like…. almost dies
hello lovely!!
thank you so much for this request because apparently you looked at steve harrington and thought "what if we psychologically tortured him until he understood his own feelings" and i respect that enormously 😭
i LOVE this trope, especially with the upside down involved because nothing says emotional clarity quite like watching the person you've spent years pretending not to love nearly die in front of you!!
mwahahah, enjoy <3
what fear makes of us
Steve Harrington x reader
Summary: Steve has spent years convincing himself that keeping you at arm's length is the safest thing he can do. It takes watching the Upside Down nearly kill you for him to understand exactly what he's been trying so hard not to lose.
Warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, minors DNI, no use of y/n, established relationship, angst, enemies-ish to lovers, hurt/comfort, canon-typical violence, horror imagery, blood/injury, arguing, steve being unnecessarily mean, reader calling him on his bullshit, mutual pining, idiots in love, fluff (lmk if i missed anything)
W/C: 4.7k
Read more of my writing here: [masterlist]
If you want to be added to my taglist, leave a comment to lmk!
Steve Harrington has been mean to you for three years.
Not spectacularly mean. That would almost be easier.
There has never been one catastrophic argument you can point towards, no unforgivable sentence that neatly explains why the two of you exist in a permanent state of low-level hostility. He has never told you he hates you, never deliberately embarrassed you in front of everybody, never done anything awful enough that you could comfortably decide he is simply a terrible person and be done with him.
Instead, Steve is mean in increments.
Small enough that everybody else seems to think the two of you simply enjoy winding each other up; small enough that, whenever you try to explain why being around him exhausts you, the evidence sounds petty even to your own ears.
He rolls his eyes when you speak for too long. Complains whenever you're assigned to his car, despite somehow always being the person who drives you home afterwards. He'll spend twenty minutes arguing with you over something completely inconsequential and then remember, without being asked, that you hate the heating turned too high. He calls your ideas stupid before inevitably helping you execute them. If you touch his arm unexpectedly, he recoils as though you've burned him; if somebody else makes you uncomfortable, he appears beside you with such immediate ferocity that you'd think protecting you was the only job he'd ever been given.
It would be considerably easier to hate Steve Harrington if he could commit to being an arsehole.
Unfortunately, you've been in love with him since you were seventeen.
Which is humiliating.
"You know," Robin tells you one evening, watching Steve argue with Dustin across the Family Video counter, "I've developed a theory."
You don't look up from the tapes you're sorting. "That sounds dangerous."
"I think Steve likes you."
Your hand stops against the plastic case in your palm, though only briefly, before you force it back into motion and slide another tape into place.
"I think you've finally inhaled too much carpet cleaner."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
Robin leans against the counter, lowering her voice despite Steve being far too preoccupied with explaining why fourteen-year-olds cannot borrow his car to overhear you. "You guys are weird."
"We don't like each other."
"You don't like him?"
You turn slowly.
Robin grins.
"Shut up."
"Oh my God."
"Robin."
"You totally like him."
"I will kill you."
"You've got that face."
"What face?"
"The face people get when they're hopelessly in love with my extremely annoying best friend."
You shove a VHS tape into her hands. "Alphabetise something."
Robin is still laughing when Steve finally wanders back over, muttering something about Dustin being the reason he'll have a heart attack before thirty. He stops when he notices the two of you looking at him, suspicion immediately narrowing his eyes.
"What?"
"Nothing," you say too quickly.
Robin's grin widens. "Absolutely nothing."
Steve looks between you, then fixes his attention on Robin. “What did you say?”
“Why do you assume I said something?”
“Because you’ve got that look in your eye you get right before you make my life significantly worse.”
You snort before you can stop yourself, and Steve’s gaze shifts towards you at the sound. Something strange happens to his expression then, the familiar annoyance loosening for half a second as though your laughter has caught him unprepared, and for one brief, dangerous moment he looks at you with something so close to fondness that your chest aches.
Then Robin, incapable of leaving anything alone, says, “I was just telling her my theory.”
Steve’s face changes. You feel the shift before he even speaks, the softness retreating so quickly it is almost violent. “What theory?”
“That maybe all this-” Robin gestures vaguely between the two of you. “-isn’t exactly what it looks like.”
“Robin,” you warn.
Steve’s eyes flick towards you again. You can practically see the panic moving behind them, his mind racing towards whatever conclusion he is most desperate to avoid. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” Robin says, apparently delighted by the danger, “that sometimes people are mean to somebody because they don’t know how to act around them.”
The silence that follows is brief, but not brief enough.
Steve laughs. It is not a kind sound.
“Right,” he says, shaking his head as he moves behind the counter. “Or maybe I’m mean to her because she’s annoying.”
Robin’s smile vanishes.
Your fingers tighten around the tape in your hand.
Steve notices. You see the precise moment he does - the tiny falter in his movement, the colour draining from his expression - but whatever instinct might have prompted a normal person to apologise is immediately smothered beneath his embarrassment.
You should leave it there. You know you should.
Instead, because humiliation has already begun burning through your chest and anger has always been easier to carry than hurt, you say, “You know, nobody’s forcing you to be around me.”
“I’m aware.”
“Could’ve fooled me, considering you follow me around correcting everything I do.”
“I don’t follow you around.”
“No, of course not. You just mysteriously happen to be standing over my shoulder every time I breathe incorrectly.”
Steve exhales sharply. “See? This is exactly what I mean.”
“What, that I answer back when you treat me like shit?”
“That you turn everything into a whole fucking thing.”
Robin looks between you. “Okay. Maybe we should all-”
“No,” you interrupt, eyes still fixed on Steve. “Go on. Tell me what else is so unbearable about me. You’ve clearly been keeping a list.”
His jaw tightens. He should stop. Even Steve knows he should stop, but fear has already curled itself around his ribs, vicious and irrational, because Robin’s theory is hanging there between you and the possibility that you might look at him and realise it is true feels more dangerous than any argument.
So he reaches for the cruelest thing available.
“You want the truth?” he asks. “You’re always there.”
The words fall heavily between you.
You stare at him.
Steve hears them properly only after they have left his mouth, and the regret is instant, sharp enough to hollow his expression. He knows what they sound like. He knows exactly which private insecurity he has just found and pressed his thumb into.
But you are already nodding, once, your face settling into an awful, composed blankness. “Right.”
“That’s not-”
“No, I understand.”
“You don’t.”
“I said I understand, Steve.”
You place the tape down with extraordinary care, because if you move too quickly you think your hands might start shaking, then step out from behind the counter.
Robin says your name softly.
“I’m taking my break.”
“You took it twenty minutes ago,” Steve says, because apparently some diseased part of his brain is still committed to making everything worse.
You stop beside him. When you look up, your expression is calm enough to frighten him. “Then take it out of my pay cheque.”
You walk away before either of them can answer, disappearing through the staff door without once looking back.
Silence settles over the shop.
Robin turns towards Steve. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Steve stares at the closed door. Too many answers rise immediately, none of them remotely good enough. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“How exactly did you mean it?”
He opens his mouth, then closes it again.
Robin’s expression hardens. “She looked like she was about to cry.”
The shame in Steve’s stomach turns nauseating. “I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” Robin lowers her voice, though there is nobody nearby to overhear them. “You don’t get to keep acting like she’s some massive inconvenience and then lose your mind every time somebody else upsets her. Pick one.”
Steve drags both hands through his hair, staring at the door as though he might somehow reverse the last thirty seconds by looking hard enough. “I screwed up.”
“Yeah. You did.”
He considers following you.
The urge is immediate, almost painful. He pictures finding you in the back room, sees himself apologising, imagines what might happen if you ask him why he cares enough to be sorry.
Fear closes around his throat.
Steve looks away. “I’ll talk to her later.”
Robin studies him with open disgust. “Sure you will.”
He does not.
Later becomes the following day, and then the day after that, every missed opportunity making the apology feel larger and more impossible until the two of you settle back into the same brittle pattern as before - except now, whenever Steve complains that you are in his car or standing too close or talking too much, he watches the memory of his words shutter behind your eyes.
And every time, he hates himself a little more.
The worst part is that you stop seeking him out.
You no longer sit beside him unless there are no other seats. You stop lingering at Family Video after Robin’s shifts finish. When everybody gathers at somebody’s house, you choose whichever side of the room places the greatest distance between you and him, and if Steve drives you home, you thank him politely before leaving without the old argument about his music or the teasing complaint that he takes corners too fast.
He wanted distance.
Now that you have finally given it to him, he discovers it feels remarkably like grief.
Still, he says nothing.
Because Steve Harrington has spent years convincing himself that wanting you is dangerous, and cowardice, when practised for long enough, can begin to resemble restraint.
The Upside Down does not care about complicated feelings.
It doesn't care that Steve has spent three years pretending your laugh irritates him when he could identify it across a crowded room. It doesn't care that you once cried in your car after he told you to stop following him around, or that Steve spent the entire night afterwards staring at his bedroom ceiling feeling so violently ashamed of himself that he nearly drove to your house at three in the morning.
It doesn't care that every cruel thing Steve has ever said to you has been followed by the same sick feeling in his stomach.
Most importantly, it doesn't care that Steve Harrington has convinced himself distance can keep you safe.
The Upside Down has never been particularly interested in keeping anybody safe.
"Stay close."
Steve's voice cuts through the oppressive silence as the group moves deeper into the woods, torchlight trembling over blackened trunks and creeping vines. The air is thick enough to taste, damp particles floating everywhere like diseased snow, and somewhere beyond the reach of the light comes a distant, wet clicking noise that nobody acknowledges.
You glance at Steve. "Wasn't planning on sightseeing."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
His jaw tightens. "Could you, for once in your life, just listen?"
There it is.
You look away. "Yeah. Sure."
Something in your voice makes Robin glance between you.
Steve hears it too. Of course he does.
His grip tightens around the nail-studded bat.
He should apologise.
Instead, because Steve has apparently never met an opportunity for emotional self-sabotage he couldn't enthusiastically embrace, he mutters, "Jesus Christ."
You stop walking. "What?"
"Nothing."
"No. Go ahead."
"We don't have time for this."
"For what? You treating me like I'm some fucking inconvenience again?"
Nancy turns around several feet ahead. "Guys."
Steve exhales sharply. "Can we not do this here?"
You laugh, but there's absolutely nothing amused about it. "You started it."
"I told you to stay close."
"And I said I would."
"Then why do you have to argue about everything?"
"Because you speak to me like I'm an idiot."
"I didn't say you're an idiot."
"You don't have to."
"Guys," Nancy repeats, firmer this time.
You stare at Steve for another second before shaking your head and walking past him.
His stomach twists.
Robin waits until you've moved ahead before stepping beside him.
"Nice."
"Don't."
"You're an asshole."
"I know."
"No, seriously. What is wrong with you?"
Steve watches you disappear into the darkness beside Nancy.
Too many answers rise immediately. He settles for the easiest one. "Nothing."
Robin looks at him as though she'd quite like to introduce his skull to a tree. "You're gonna figure your shit out eventually, right?"
Steve adjusts his grip on the bat. "There's nothing to figure out."
Even here, surrounded by decay and monsters and the remnants of a world trying to kill them, Robin manages an extraordinary eye roll. "Sure."
Steve ignores her.
He has become exceptionally good at ignoring things.
Unfortunately, the Upside Down is about to make that impossible.
It happens too quickly.
Later, Steve will replay those few seconds so many times that they become something separate from memory, worn smooth around the edges from constant handling.
A sound behind him. Nancy shouting. Robin screaming your name.
Steve turns.
And you're gone.
Not entirely. That's worse.
You're still there, except the ground beneath your feet isn't.
The earth has split open where you'd been standing, a rotten section of root and soil collapsing into a fissure hidden beneath the vines. Your torch hits the ground first, spinning wildly as its beam cuts frantic circles through the darkness, and Steve catches one impossible glimpse of your face before you disappear over the edge.
He doesn't think.
He runs.
Your name tears itself out of him so violently that his throat hurts.
Steve hits the ground on his knees at the edge of the fissure and looks down.
For one terrible second, he can't see you.
Then the torch settles.
Twenty feet below, tangled amongst a writhing mass of vines, is your body.
"Shit. Shit, shit, shit."
You're moving.
Thank God.
Steve is already lowering himself towards the edge when Nancy grabs the back of his jacket.
"Steve."
"Let go."
"We don't know what's down there."
"She's down there."
"I know, but-"
"She's down there."
Something in his voice makes Nancy release him.
Steve climbs.
He barely remembers doing it. Roots tear beneath his hands, dirt crumbles beneath his shoes, somebody is shouting instructions from above, but all he can hear is the blood pounding behind his ears and the horrible, strangled sound of you trying to breathe.
Because the vines are moving.
One is wrapped around your ankle. Another coils across your waist. A third has found your throat.
"No."
Steve drops the final few feet hard enough that pain shoots through his ankle.
He doesn't feel it.
Your fingers are clawing desperately beneath the vine around your neck, eyes wide and terrified as it tightens.
Steve swings the bat. Once. Twice.
The vine recoils with an inhuman shriek, black fluid spraying across his arms.
"Steve-" Your voice is barely sound.
"I've got you." He swings again. "I've got you."
Another vine lashes towards him. He barely ducks before driving the nails through it, wrenching the bat free and turning back towards you.
Your face is changing colour.
"No, no, no." The words tumble out without permission.
Steve drops the bat and grabs the vine with both hands. It's warm. Alive. It pulses beneath his palms.
He pulls. Nothing.
"Come on!"
The vine tightens.
Your eyes find his.
And there it is. The moment that ruins him.
Because you're frightened.
Not monster frightened. Not the familiar terror all of you have learned to carry through impossible places.
You're dying.
Steve sees you understand it.
Your struggling begins to weaken. Your hand slips from the vine.
And something inside Steve Harrington simply ceases to exist.
Every excuse. Every carefully constructed reason. Every stupid, cowardly lie he has spent years telling himself about why keeping you away was better.
Gone.
There is only you.
Your laugh. Your stupid arguments. The way you always steal the cherries from his milkshakes because you know he doesn't like them. The little crease between your eyebrows when you're concentrating. The sound of your voice saying his name.
The possibility that he might never hear it again.
Steve pulls until his palms tear.
"Don't." His voice breaks.
The vine doesn't care.
"Don't you fucking do this."
Your eyes flutter.
Steve feels something close to hysteria claw its way up his throat.
"Look at me."
You barely manage it.
"Look at me. Come on."
He wedges both hands beneath the vine.
"I need you to stay with me."
Your lips move. He can't hear you.
"What?"
Another whisper.
Steve leans closer.
"Steve."
His name. That's all.
It nearly destroys him.
"I'm here." His vision blurs. "I'm right here."
Then Nancy lands beside him. Robin follows.
The next thirty seconds become violence.
Nancy hacks at the vines with an axe while Robin drags at the one around your ankle, and Steve keeps both hands wedged between your throat and the thing trying to crush it. When it finally gives, splitting beneath Nancy's blade with a wet, hideous snap, your entire body collapses forward.
Steve catches you.
You don't breathe.
One second passes. Then another.
"Hey."
Nothing.
"No."
He lowers you onto the ground.
"Hey."
Your head lolls against his arm.
"Come on."
Somebody says his name. He doesn't know who.
Steve presses trembling fingers against your neck.
Nothing.
Or maybe his hands are shaking too badly.
He can't tell.
"No, no, no, no-"
Then you gasp.
The sound is horrible. Wet and ragged and painful.
It is also the most beautiful thing Steve has ever heard.
Your whole body jerks as air finally tears its way back into your lungs, and Steve folds over you so quickly he nearly crushes you himself.
"Oh my God."
His hand cups the back of your head.
"Oh my God."
You're coughing against his chest.
Alive.
Alive.
Alive.
Steve presses his face into your hair.
And for the first time, with your heartbeat fluttering weakly against his palm, he allows himself to understand exactly what losing you would mean.
Everything. It would mean everything.
When you wake properly, the first thing you notice is pain.
Your throat feels scraped raw from the inside. Every breath aches. Your ribs protest when you move, and something beneath your shoulder blade feels as though somebody has driven a railway spike through it.
The second thing you notice is Steve.
He's sitting beside the bed. Of course he is.
You recognise the Wheelers' basement slowly around him, a lamp glowing faintly in the far corner, a glass of water and several bottles of painkillers cluttering the bedside table. Someone has thrown a blanket around Steve's shoulders, though he's barely wearing it properly. His elbows rest on his knees, hands clasped so tightly together that his knuckles have gone white.
There's dried blood beneath his fingernails.
You remember why.
"Hey."
His head snaps up.
The relief that crosses his face is so naked that you almost don't recognise him.
"Hey." His voice cracks.
You swallow painfully. "How long?"
"Few hours."
"Everyone okay?"
"Yeah."
"Robin?"
"Fine."
"Nancy?"
"Fine."
You nod.
Silence.
Steve looks awful.
His hair is filthy, his shirt streaked with black blood and earth, a bruise blooming along his jaw that you don't remember him getting. His eyes are red.
You look away.
"Why are you here?"
The question hits exactly where you intend it to.
Steve's mouth opens. Closes.
"I wanted to make sure you were okay."
"I'm okay."
"I know."
"So you can go."
He flinches.
Good.
You hate yourself immediately for thinking it.
Steve looks down at his hands. "Can we talk?"
A humourless laugh scrapes painfully against your throat. "Now you want to talk?"
"I deserve that."
"You deserve considerably worse."
"I know."
Something about the lack of argument makes your anger sharpen.
For years, you've imagined this conversation. Imagined finally telling Steve exactly what he'd done to you, exactly how many times you'd gone home after one of his comments and wondered what was so fundamentally irritating about your existence that simply being around you seemed to put him in a bad mood.
You'd never imagined having it with bruises around your throat.
"What do you want, Steve?"
He looks at you.
And for once, there is nowhere for him to hide.
"I thought you were dead."
Your anger falters. Only slightly.
"But I'm not."
"I know."
"So?"
His jaw tightens. "So I thought you were dead, and I..." He stops, staring at the floor. "There was this second where you weren't breathing."
You remember his hands.
His voice.
Look at me.
"I know."
"And I knew."
Your brow furrows. "Knew what?"
Steve laughs once, miserably. "Everything."
You stare at him.
He rubs both hands over his face before pushing himself upright, restless energy carrying him halfway across the room before he turns back.
"I love you."
Silence.
The words you've wanted for years enter the room and somehow manage to feel like a slap.
Steve watches your expression change.
His face falls.
You laugh. You can't help it. It hurts your throat, but you laugh anyway.
"You're unbelievable."
"I know."
"No, you don't." You push yourself higher against the pillows despite the pain. "You don't get to do that."
"I know."
"Stop saying you know!"
He goes silent.
"You've treated me like shit for years."
"I know."
"Steve."
"Sorry." His voice breaks. "Sorry."
You stare at him, furious tears burning behind your eyes.
"I loved you."
His face crumples.
You hate that too.
"I loved you when we were seventeen. I loved you when you were still obsessed with Nancy. I loved you when you started driving everybody around and pretending you hated it. I loved you through every stupid haircut and every shitty job and every time you made me feel like the most annoying person you'd ever met."
"I never thought that."
"You made me think it."
Steve closes his eyes.
That lands. Good.
"You were cruel to me."
"I was."
"And now I nearly die and suddenly you love me?"
"No." His answer is immediate.
You stare at him.
"No," he repeats, quieter. "I didn't start loving you down there."
"Then what?"
"I stopped being able to lie about it."
The room stills.
Steve's eyes are wet now. He doesn't wipe them.
"I've loved you for..." He laughs shakily. "Jesus, I don't even know. That's the pathetic part."
"Then why?"
There it is. The question that has lived inside you for years.
"Why were you so horrible to me?"
Steve looks down.
For several seconds, you think he isn't going to answer.
Then, "Because I fuck things up."
Your anger stutters. "What?"
"I fuck things up." His voice is quieter now. "People. Relationships. I say the wrong thing, or I don't say anything, or I try too hard and make everything worse. And you..." He finally looks at you. "You mattered too much."
Your eyes burn. "That's bullshit."
"I know it is."
"Then don't dress it up like you were protecting me."
"I'm not." Steve moves closer, then seems to think better of it. "I thought I was."
You stare at him.
"I thought if I didn't let myself get too close, then I couldn't screw it up. Couldn't hurt you. Couldn't..." He swallows. "Couldn't lose you because of something I did."
A tear slips down your cheek. You wipe it away angrily.
"You still hurt me."
Steve nods. "Yeah."
"You idiot."
"I know."
"Stop-"
"Sorry."
Despite everything, something dangerously close to laughter catches in your chest.
Steve notices. A tiny, devastated smile appears.
You glare at him. "Don't."
"I'm not."
"You're smiling."
"I'm really trying not to."
"You're an arsehole."
"I'm pretty sure that's established."
You look away because, infuriatingly, you almost smile too.
Then Steve speaks again.
"I was scared."
The humour disappears.
"I know that doesn't excuse it. Nothing does. I made you feel unwanted because I was terrified of how badly I wanted you, and that's..." He shakes his head. "That's mine. You didn't deserve any of it."
You look back at him. "I can't just forget it."
"I'm not asking you to."
"You can't say you love me and expect everything to be fixed."
"I don't."
"And if you're only saying this because you watched me nearly die-"
"I'm saying it because watching you nearly die made me realise I could spend the rest of my life being scared, or I could stop making that fear your problem."
Silence.
Steve takes one cautious step closer. "I don't expect you to forgive me today." Another. "I don't expect you to believe me because I finally figured out how to say the right thing." He stops beside the bed. "But I'm done punishing you for something you never did."
Your throat tightens for an entirely different reason.
"And I'm done pretending I don't love you."
You stare at him for a long time.
Then, quietly, "You really are an idiot."
Steve exhales something halfway between a laugh and a sob. "Yeah."
"The biggest idiot I've ever met."
"Probably."
"You have a lot to make up for."
"I know."
This time, you let him say it.
"And you're not allowed to be mean to me anymore."
"Never again."
"That's unrealistic."
"Okay." His mouth twitches. "I'll probably still tell you when you're being annoying."
"Steve."
"But affectionately."
You roll your eyes.
He smiles. And there he is. The Steve you've always known existed somewhere beneath all that armour. The one you caught glimpses of whenever he forgot he was supposed to be pushing you away.
You hold out your hand.
Steve stares at it. Then at you.
"Don't make me regret this."
His fingers close around yours with extraordinary care. "I won't."
"You probably will."
"Okay, I probably will at some point, but I'll apologise immediately."
"I've got twenty years of habit to undo. Give me a minute."
You shake your head. But you don't let go. Neither does he.
For a while, that's enough.
Then Steve's gaze drops briefly towards your mouth before snapping back to your eyes.
You notice. Obviously.
"Are you seriously thinking about kissing me right now?"
His ears turn pink. "No."
"You're a terrible liar."
"I've had a rough night."
"So have I."
"Yeah, yours was probably worse."
"Probably?"
"Definitely. Way worse."
You look at him.
Three years.
Three years of wanting him and resenting him and wondering whether the tenderness you occasionally glimpsed was something you'd invented because you wanted so desperately for it to be there.
Now he's standing beside your bed looking terrified to touch you.
You tug gently on his hand.
Steve steps closer. "Can I?"
You let him wait for half a second.
Perhaps that's cruel. Perhaps he's earned it.
Then you nod. "Yeah."
Steve kisses you like somebody who has finally understood that wanting something and deserving it are not the same thing.
Carefully.
No desperation. No attempt to turn the moment into something it isn't. One hand settles lightly against your cheek, avoiding the bruising around your throat, and his mouth brushes yours with such impossible gentleness that your anger doesn't disappear so much as make room for something else beside it.
When he pulls away, he doesn't go far. His forehead rests carefully against yours.
"Still mad at me?"
"Furious."
"Okay."
"I might be furious for a while."
"That's fair."
"You'll have to work for it."
"I will."
You study his face. "Steve?"
"Yeah?"
"If you ever decide to protect me by making me hate you again, I will personally send you back into the Upside Down."
A breath of laughter escapes him. "Got it."
"Alone."
"Okay."
"Without the bat."
"Jesus."
You smile despite yourself.
And Steve, still holding your hand as though the memory of almost losing it has been carved permanently into him, smiles back.
For years, he'd believed loving you meant staying far enough away that he could never hurt you.
It had taken almost losing you to understand the obvious flaw in that logic.
Distance had never kept either of you safe.
It had only made you lonely.
So when you shift carefully across the mattress and Steve settles into the chair beside you, your fingers remaining intertwined in the narrow space between, neither of you pretends everything has been magically repaired.
Tomorrow, there will be apologies to repeat and wounds that take longer to heal than the bruises around your throat. There will be years of hurt to unpick, habits to relearn, trust to rebuild slowly enough that it actually means something.
But tonight, when sleep finally begins pulling you under and Steve's thumb moves unconsciously across your knuckles, you don't have to wonder whether he'll still be there when you wake.
For once, Steve Harrington isn't running from the thing he's most afraid to lose.
we all watched season 1 of Stranger Things and were like “that was an interesting premise with compelling characters! I wonder what they’ll do with it!” and the Duffer brothers were like “we don’t know either”
