𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 (𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐲 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬)
pairing: steve harrington x reader word count: 3.7k warnings: dad!steve, kid!fic, modern au, domestic fluff, angst, toddler tantrums, terrible twos, emotional hurt/comfort, insecurity around parenting, implied childhood neglect, reader referred to as ‘mommy,’ implied smut, girl dad steve summary: your daughter's terrible twos have been… difficult. but for steve, it’s not the tantrums that hurt. it's the way they scrape against old bruises. it's the weight of hearing I don’t want you from the one person he swore he wouldn't fail. a/n: shoutout to @rebelfell for being abnormal w me abt dad steve!
“No! No! I hate you! NOOO!”
A bubblegum-pink unicorn goes sailing across the Harrington living room.
Hazel’s screams chase after it, shrill and relentless. Steve flinches at the pitch, a half-second wince he manages to smother almost instantly. Just like the parenting book told him to do.
De-escalate by modeling calm behavior.
Sure. Easy enough on paper.
He swallows the sigh clawing up his throat. God knows he’s swallowed about fifty today. At this point his ribs feel bruised from all the breaths he’s refused to let out.
It’s been like this since breakfast.
Hazel hiccups on another sob. Her face glows blotchy red, curls plastered to her cheeks in sticky loops. She glares at Sparkles—her once-beloved unicorn plushie, now lying face-down on the rug like a murder victim—and grabs it again only to hurl it overhead with all the rage her tiny body can muster.
Sparkles hits the arm of the couch with a sad thwump before slinking to the floor.
“Hey, hey,” Steve murmurs gently, sitting cross-legged on the floor because the book also told him that being at eye level helps.
It does not appear to be helping.
“Careful, Hazey. Sparkles didn’t do anything wrong.”
Mistake. Big mistake.
Hazel whirls toward him, face crumpling in righteous fury: how dare he speak? Steve can see the meltdown gathering like a storm front; it's a Big One.
He knows all the signs by heart: trembling lip, puffed cheeks, tiny fists curling tight-tight-tight like popcorn kernels ready to pop.
Then the shriek hits.
A full-body, glass-rattling howl. She grabs the nearest toy, a plastic block this time, and flings it blindly. It ricochets off the coffee table and clatters across the hardwood.
Steve winces. “Hazey, sweetheart…” He reaches out with a cautious hand, inching closer on his knees, joints creaking in protest. “Mommy’s gonna be home soon, okay? Maybe we can—”
“NO!” She shrieks in despair, dropping to her butt. When he tries to reach for her, she scrambles backward on her hands, feet kicking wildly.
“No! Don’t wan’ you! Wan’ Mommy! MOMMY!”
Steve goes utterly still.
And it isn’t the volume that stops him. It isn’t the block still spinning on the floor, or the cracked plea for Mommy.
It’s the plain, simple truth from the mouth of a two-year-old who doesn’t have the language to soften it:
I don’t want you.
Something inside his chest goes strangely quiet.
His outstretched hand hovers there for a moment longer, before he lets it fall to his side. He doesn’t reach for her again.
He reaches for his phone instead, thumbs stiff as he types out a message he hates needing to send.
Your reply pops up within seconds: omw!! 5 mins
He closes his eyes, lets his head fall back.
The relief hits him so hard it stings.
He despises himself for feeling it. ✿ By the time he hears your car in the driveway, the living room looks like a fairytale war zone.
Marker caps scattered like plastic shrapnel. Sparkles’ felt tail, ripped clean off its glittery rump. Three abandoned juice cups and a Hansel-and-Gretel trail of apple slices leading from the couch all the way to the hallway.
Hazel goes stock-still the moment she hears the jingle of keys.
“Mommy?”
Then she bolts.
Tiny feet slap across the hardwood: fast, faster, too fast. Steve’s heart squeezes in panic; she just learned to run without falling every five steps. He opens his mouth to warn her—careful, baby, slow down—but she’s already launching herself at you the second you step inside.
She slams into your thigh so hard you stumble.
You laugh in surprise, until you hear the shaky hiccups she’s burying in your jeans.
“Oh, Hazey,” you coo, voice soft, already kneeling. You smooth her sweaty curls back, wiping tears and toddler-snot with gentle, practiced hands. Hazel clings like a barnacle, fists curled tight in your coat.
Steve stands a few feet away, silent.
Hands braced on his hips. Shoulders caved inward.
He watches you sway Hazel in your arms, rubbing her back and murmuring softly into her hair. Watches the way she calms almost instantly, her breaths leveling out like someone turned off an alarm inside her. She even lets out a soft giggle when your fingers skitter across her tummy.
When you look up, he manages something close to a smile.
“See?” he shrugs. “What’d I tell ya? Mom’s home.” ✿ Hazel’s terrible twos have been... difficult.
Big feelings with no brakes. Velcro attachment one second, volcanic eruptions the next. A tiny body playing host to emotions too large for its frame.
You expected the chaos. You expected the meltdowns.
You knew this stage to be rough.
You didn’t realize how much rougher it’d be on him.
Because for Steve, it’s not the tantrums themselves.
It’s the echoes.
It’s the way they scrape against old bruises. Ones he never puts words to.
The way “I don’t want you” lands in a place no parenting book could’ve ever warned him about. ✿ Later—after dinner (which Hazel ate glued to your side), after bath time (which Steve handled despite her screaming bloody murder), after she finally starfished across her bed and conked out in five seconds flat—
Steve all but collapses onto the couch.
Or rather, onto you.
He melts into your side like he’s trying to hide inside you. Face pressed into your shirt, arms tight around your back.
He hasn’t said a word in ten minutes.
You run your fingers through his hair, slow and soothing, hoping he’ll drift a little.
Until you hear it.
A tiny, wet sniff.
“Baby?” you whisper.
He doesn’t lift his head. Instead, his shoulders tremble—a small, shuddering exhale that rattles right through both of you.
“Oh, honey…” You shift under him so you can cup his jaw. He dips away, resisting, but you follow gently until he lets you tilt his face up.
When he does, it just about breaks you.
It almost hurts to look at him. Red-rimmed eyes, lashes clumped from unshed tears. Lips pinched like he’s holding everything in by sheer force of will.
For a moment, you’re unsure of what to say.
Steve doesn’t cry often. You’ve seen him tear up at the big moments: Hazel’s birth, her first steps, the first time you dropped her off at daycare and had to switch seats with him in the parking lot because his hands were shaking over the wheel.
But never like this.
Never this quietly broken.
The second he realizes you’ve seen the tears, he flinches. Tries to pull away.
“Steve,” you murmur, keeping him close with a steady hand under his chin. “Talk to me.”
He snorts faintly. “’S nothing.”
“Is it?”
“I’m just tired.”
“Steve...”
“Really, I’m fine.”
“Is this about Hazel?”
His eyes flick away.
You cradle his face with both hands, thumbs brushing the dampness under his eyes. “Baby. Look at me.”
Slowly, reluctantly, he does.
“She screamed when I picked her up,” he whispers after a while, voice thick. “Like I was hurting her.”
“Oh, Steve…” You frown, stroking his cheek.
“I know she didn’t mean it. But she—god, she looked at me like I was… like she didn’t want me anywhere near her.”
Your heart squeezes tight. “Sweetheart, she was just overwhelmed. Big feelings in a tiny body, remember?”
“No, I get that. I do. She just... she only wanted you. All day. Every time I tried to help, she wanted to get away from me.”
“She’s two,” you remind him softly. “Kids latch onto one parent sometimes. It doesn’t mean she loves you any less.”
But he shakes his head, jaw clenching. His breath stutters on his next inhale. “But what if it’s always like that? What if she always—”
He cuts himself off.
But you know the ending.
The thought he keeps locked inside.
Because you know him.
You know this man.
You know his boundless heart, his unshakeable loyalty. The way he loves with every part of himself because he never learned how to love halfway.
You know the way he pours himself into parenthood, trying to fill the gaps; warm where they were cold, present where they were absent.
This man who tries so hard. Who loves so big.
Who still keeps a small child inside him waiting for a different father than the one he got.
You know the shadowed places he tries to ignore. The lingering belief that love is conditional, that affection can be revoked. That a single mistake can make you unwanted.
And you know what’s sitting there, right now, under the exhaustion, the shame, the guilt, the sting of suddenly being the “least favorite” parent after two years of nothing but quiet, precious routines that built their little world together.
Two years of pillow forts in the living room, of bath-time bubbles and silly, made-up songs. Of YouTube tutorials watched at midnight so he could master pigtails soft enough not to tug. Of butterfly clips lined up on the kitchen table because he couldn’t wait to put them in her hair. Two years of her always reaching for him first—asking daddy for juice, showing daddy her latest scribbles, insisting daddy be the one to zip her coat, babbling “dad-ee” and crawling into his lap before she could even stand.
Two years of Hazel calling for him, wanting him, choosing him.
And you know there's a certain ache stitched through every moment of that. A voice that whispers to him, even on his best days.
It’s fear.
Fear that he’ll fail her the same way he was failed.
Fear that these first few moments of rejection are an omen.
Fear that he’ll always be his father’s son.
You cup his face with both hands, brushing your thumbs along his cheekbones.
“Steve. You are the safest person in that little girl’s world.”
He shakes his head weakly. “She was terrified without you.”
“She wasn’t scared of you, baby. She was overwhelmed. And kids save their biggest feelings for the parent they feel safest with, remember?”
He lets out a hollow huff. “Yeah. I remember.”
“Mm, and what else did the book say?”
“That... phases end.”
“And?”
“That tantrums aren’t personal,” he sighs. “Even when they feel really damn personal.”
You smile. “There it is.”
He leans into your touch, letting his eyes slip shut.
“Steve,” you whisper, brushing his hair back, “Hazel adores you.”
He remains quiet. So you keep going.
“She asks about you all day. Every time you leave for work, she walks around the house going, ‘Where’d Daddy go?’ And when I try to do her hair? She hates it. Says I’m not ‘gentle-gentle’ like you.”
The corners of his mouth twitch, just slightly.
“And she refuses to eat the pancakes I make because—”
“—because you forget the heart,” he nods, a tiny laugh in his breath. “Blueberries go in a heart.”
“Exactly.” You press a kiss to his cheek. “See? You’re her person. Today was just a storm. Storms pass.”
He exhales, some of the heaviness draining from his shoulders.
Not all of it. Not the oldest parts. But enough.
You hold his gaze as you whisper this next part, hoping it settles deep, sink into the cracks where it’s needed most.
“Steve Harrington. You are an incredible dad. Hazel is so lucky to have you.”
This time, his eyes soften fully. A real smile breaks through.
You know he hears you.
You also know he doesn’t fully believe it. Not yet.
Not after a lifetime of doubt. After years of fearing he might turn into the people who raised him.
But he’s trying. God, he’s trying.
And it’s exactly why today cut him so deeply.
“Thanks, baby,” he murmurs, arms winding around you as he pulls you close. “I love you.”
“Love you too,” you whisper.
The two of you sit like that for a long moment. Breathing together, wrapped up in the quiet hum of the house.
Eventually, Steve shifts.
Just a tilt of his head at first.
Then slow, lingering kisses along your throat.
His wordless way of asking for comfort. Of seeking reassurance the only way he knows how when his heart is this bruised.
“Missed you,” he breathes, lips brushing your jaw. “All day.”
“I was gone for five hours,” you whisper, smiling.
“Felt longer.” His palms are warm as they trail over your shoulders, your arms, lingering at your wrists before sliding to your sides. One hand settles on your hip, the other slips between your knees to nudge them apart.
“Baby,” you whisper, brow furrowing as he starts to lower himself off the couch, trailing kisses down your stomach. “You need sleep.”
“Later,” he mumbles, lips brushing your navel, the soft inside of your thigh. “Just let me do this first.”
“Steve…”
He looks up at you, eyes liquid-soft, vulnerability still lingering like a bruise.
“I don’t wanna think for a minute,” he whispers. “Just want to take care of you.” His hands slip under your shirt, tender and quietly desperate. “Need to take care of my girl.”
You feel it all in his touch. The guilt. The doubt. The need to feel capable. Wanted.
“Honey....” you breathe, chest aching for him. “I... okay. But only for a bit.”
He grins into your thigh, pressing another kiss there.
“I’ll be quick,” he promises.
You don’t bother answering, because you know damn well he won’t be rushing anything. ✿ “Daddy? Daddy, wake up.”
A tiny voice cuts through the warm fog of sleep. It seems your early riser is up before the rest of the world, again.
Beside you, Steve stirs, voice sleep-rough and panicked. “Mm—wha? Hazel? You okay?”
You keep your eyes closed, smiling into the pillow. Hazel doesn’t sound distressed. She sounds… determined.
Dangerously determined.
“Come wif’ me,” she demands, voice muffled by the blankets as she tries to drag them off Steve.
“Okay, honey, hang on...”
“Why you whisper?” she asks loudly.
“’Cause Mommy’s sleeping, baby.”
Hazel gasps. “Oh! ‘Kay. I do whisper,” she announces proudly. Then, whisper-yelling at a volume that could wake the dead: “LOOK! HAZEL DO WHISPER!”
You bite back a laugh into the pillow.
Steve’s laugh is muffled as he pulls a shirt over his head.
“Daddy! Come!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming… gentle with the door, please. Good girl.”
The door closes softly. Then, two seconds later:
Pitter-patter-pitter-patter—
A pair of tiny feet slaps down the hall at full velocity; the unmistakable zoomies of a toddler on a mission.
A chair scrapes downstairs. Something metallic clatters. Then Steve’s frantic, “No, no, Hazel—gentle, gentle—can Daddy—oh my god—”
You crack one eye open.
This should be good. ✿ It’s worse.
It’s so much worse.
The kitchen looks like it’s been hit by a blizzard. White powder covers the counters, the stools, the floor, the ceiling. It floats in the air, too, drifting downward in a foggy haze.
And in the eye of the storm stands your daughter.
She’s coated head to toe like a powdered donut. Your husband is… only marginally better.
Both heads snap toward you when you enter.
“Mommy! No! No look!” Hazel squeaks, throwing her arms out protectively over the mess.
You slap a hand over your eyes. “Ah! Okay! I didn’t see anything!”
A beat.
“’Kay, Mommy! You look now!”
You peek.
Hazel bounces proudly next to… something. A soggy, brownish mound you suspect was meant to be a banana muffin, along with mangled fruit slices (hearts?) and a mountain of sprinkles.
“Make you cake!” she beams. “’Nana cake. I make it. Daddy help.”
“For me?” you gasp dramatically, clutching your chest.
Hazel nods so hard she sends a fresh puff of flour into the air, which sparkles as it catches the early-morning light.
You scoop her up, peppering her face with loud kisses. “I love it! Thank you, baby.”
Across the counter, Steve leans against the cabinets with his arms crossed, watching the two of you with a quiet smile.
That smile. The slow, tender one that creases the corners of his eyes and softens everything inside you.
Your gaze lingers on him. Tracing the warm honey-brown of his eyes, the faint stubble on his jaw, the love etched into every line of his expression, every inch of his posture. It’s all so easy to read with him.
There’s nothing more profound than being loved by this man.
The man whose love is easy where his childhood wasn’t. Who fears he’ll never be enough, yet pours himself into fatherhood like it’s the only thing he was built for. The man who chose a lifetime with you, of shared mornings like this, of messes he never got to make as a kid.
You’re still watching him when Hazel starts wriggling impatiently in your arms. Her hands shoot out toward Steve, fingers grabbing at the air.
As soon as you set her down, she toddles straight to his leg, climbing it with the ferocity of a tiny koala.
He huffs a laugh and lifts her onto his hip.
The second she’s at eye-level, Hazel grabs his cheeks with both hands and squishes them together. Then plants the wettest, loudest kiss imaginable, right on his nose.
A big, sloppy “MUAH!”
Steve sputters dramatically, playing it up for Hazel as she bursts into a fit of giggles.
With a delighted, high-pitched squeal, she flings her whole body around him, soft, squishy arms wrapping around his neck, burying her face in the warm hollow beneath his jaw.
Then, with her cheek smushed against his shoulder, voice soft and muffled and completely unprompted, she murmurs:
“Love you, Daddy.”
Steve goes utterly still.
You see it happen in real time, the way those three words slip under his ribs. His whole body freezes, one hand suspended mid–pat on her back. His breath stops halfway, caught in his chest.
He blinks once, then again, a faint, stunned frown pulling at his brows like he’s trying to replay the sound in his head.
Hazel doesn’t notice; she just curls in tighter, tiny fingers hooked in his shirt.
Steve’s throat works around a swallow.
Then he dips down, pressing a soft, careful kiss on the crown of her head.
“I love you too, angel,” he whispers. “So, so much.”
Your chest feels too small for the feeling that rises there.
At the sight of your husband standing in your flour-dusted kitchen, swaying your daughter in his arms, her tiny fingers fisted in the collar of his shirt. He’s rubbing slow circles on her back, the same way he’s been doing since she was the size of a football. You watch as his lashes flutter in rapid, uneven blinks, his head tipping toward the ceiling as the corners of his eyes start to shine.
Hazel makes a content little hum, patting his cheek with her flour-coated hand. Then, completely unaware of the emotional bomb she just dropped, spots a whisk behind him and chirps that she wants down.
Steve lets out a watery laugh, shaking his head, and gently sets her on her feet. She immediately toddles off toward her step stool, babbling to herself about “boo-bay pamcakes” and "Hazey mix now!" and “Sparkles? Where Sparkles?”
Steve stands perfectly still, watching her go.
Lips quivering. Eyes soft. Still tired, but brighter now. Clearer.
Like hearing those three tiny words rinsed out a lifetime of doubt.
You step beside him and wipe a patch of flour off his cheek. It’s in the shape of Hazel’s handprint.
Steve doesn’t move.
“She sneezed while holding the flour bag,” he murmurs, voice distant and stunned.
You smile. “I can see that.”
Before you can say more, he pivots, suddenly drawing you into him. He pulls you right into his chest, hand cupping the back of your head, face tucked into your hair.
Behind you, Hazel is singing to Sparkles. It’s the silly feel-better song Steve made up weeks ago when she was sick. She chirps the garbled toddler version, every syllable out of tune and perfect.
Steve’s voice is shaky when he whispers next to your ear:
“That's the first time she’s ever said that.”
“Yeah,” you smile into his shirt. “It was.”
“She…” his voice cracks softly. “She said I love you.”
You pull back just enough to see his face.
“She said, ‘I love you, daddy,’” you clarify gently.
His brows knit and then lift, relief and joy and disbelief poured into a breathless laugh as he leans in. His kiss is a quiet thank-you pressed to your lips, full of everything he can’t put into words.
When he pulls back, he clears his throat, swiping a finger under one eye. “Guess I was being a little dramatic last night, huh?”
You shake your head, thumb brushing over his cheek. “There’s nothing dramatic about wanting to be a good dad, Steve. But you don’t have to second-guess yourself. You’re her favorite person. Her safe place. Nothing about one bad day could ever undo that.”
He huffs a laugh, still shaken as he pulls you in for another kiss. You sink into him, hands slipping into his hair, feeling the soft curve of his smile against your lips—
“MIX! MIX! MIIIX!!” Hazel’s triumphant shriek cuts right through the moment.
Steve lowers his forehead to yours, sighing defeatedly. “We should... probably save the kitchen.”
“Yep.”
“Before she—”
A wet splat answers for him.
“OOPS!”
Steve’s sigh cracks into a laugh. You laugh with him, pressing one last lingering kiss to his lips. “Go. Before she figures out how to turn on the stove.”
Still smiling, he jogs back into the chaos.
Hazel lights up the second she sees him, bouncing on her stool. “Daddy, LOOK! I MIX!”
Steve beams, wide enough to crinkle his whole face. “Yeah, baby. I see you. Daddy’s here.”
And he means it. Down to the very bone.
You turn back to the counter, wiping down the worst of the mess as you listen to Hazel babble away.
“Do boo-bays!”
“You want Daddy to do the blueberries?”
“Mhm!”
“Hmmm… what shape should I make them? Squares?”
“No!”
“Mmm... circles?”
“Noo!”
“Stars?”
“Nooo, Daddy!”
“Okay, okay, honey. Hearts, yeah?”
“Yeah! Hahts!”
You don’t need to turn around to picture it.
Hazel beaming her toothy, blueberry-stained smile. Steve watching her with that soft, honey-warm gaze, the one he keeps just for his girls.
Drifting through the kitchen, warm as sunlight suspended in flour dust, is love.
One that asks for nothing, keeps no count; just simply is.
“Alright, Hazey-bean. Hearts it is.”
a/n: this one came out a little rushed - dad!steve has been taking over my brain!! would love to hear more thoughts abt him :) love u guys 💛
