Series Summary: In the fall of 1984, Dove Jones gets roped into helping babysit a gaggle of thirteen year olds with Steve Harrington after she gave her new friend, Max Mayfield, a ride to the old junkyard. She becomes tied into the hell that lies beneath Hawkins and along the way, finds love with Hawkins former King. Together, they experience love, loss, and learn to navigate young adulthood while fighting monsters and the end of the world. But they might be more intertwined with each other and the monsters than they ever expected.
Series CW/TW: slowish burn (you'll understand why I say ish), mutual pining, found family, death, violence, fluff, Panic Attacks, grief, mature themes, smut, crude language.
Authors note: I love to write for fun and I will be taking season five into my hands because canon is MY BITCH. anyway, I think Steve Harrington did deserve a love story with someone who is just as willing to give up their life for others as he is so I wrote this. There will be spelling and grammar errors but eh, who cares, not like this is gonna blow up lol.
ao3 link!
Chapter 1: Lizard Dogs
Chapter 2: The Snowball Dance
Chapter 3: In-betweens
Chapter 4: The Graduation Party
Chapter 5: American Heroes
Chapter 6: Crack the Code
Chapter 7: The Fall of the Wannabe American Hero's
summary: Trapped below Starcourt mall and no way out, the team of five wannabe's make it out of the elevator and venture into a secret Russian lab. Only to find someone they did not expect.
warnings: VERY ANGSTY/HEAVY CHAPTER. Graphic violence, Character death (parental death), Gun violence / execution-style death, Blood and injury, Grief and traumatic loss, Drugging / forced injection.
authors note: very emotional chapter uh, my friends who have read this told me I was evil for writing it. Whoops.
chapter 7
masterlist
Chapter 8: Veronica Jones
Dove banged the back of her head against the wall as she listens to Dustin try and get a signal on his walkie. Repeating the same message over and over again; “This is a code red, I repeat, a code red. Does anyone copy?”
“Steve make it stop,” Robin groaned as she rubbed her eyes and moved to the button panel.
Steve rolls his eyes before pushing himself up to the top of the elevator warning Dustin, “Hey, you gotta take it easy on that thing. You’re gonna drain the battery.”
“The mall just opened,” Dustin replied.
“So?”
“So,” Dustin rang out. “Someone could be in range.”
“What do you think Petey the Mall Cop is gonna rappel down here and save the day?” Steve asked sarcastically, pushing himself the rest of the way onto the top of the elevator. His body ached from the fall the night before as he did so, arm still tingling from where Dove had dosed off against it.
“Alright, why are you such a cranky pants,” Dustin began before dropping his voice to a whisper. “After getting to spend the night with Dove?”
“Shhhh,” Steve moved his hand down, motioning for Dustin to lower his voice more. “Jesus Christ, can we not talk about that when she can literally hear us?”
“I heard you guys talking all night,” Dustin admitted, looking at Steve with a small smile. He heard the mumbled “I’m sorry’s”, his plan to get them close again being one step closer. Well it wasn’t much of a plan, he was just convinced that if he forced their proximity they’ll finally crack. It seems to be working. Though, he didn’t plan for them to be trapped in a Russian elevator.
“Yeah, we were trying to figure out a way to open up the door while you children were sleeping,” Steve replied. He wasn’t lying, that’s how the conversation started, then it turned into a heartfelt confessional for a bit.
But that didn’t mean they were…together or anything. She didn’t regret it, but he still didn’t know why she pushed him out or if she wanted to do it again. He wants nothing more than to do it again. Kiss her. Be with her. But she pushed him away and that rejection still stung and left Steve wondering what was going to happen next. He was just happy she didn’t regret it.
So Steve sighed heavily as he continued to walk over to the far wall of the elevator shaft, “After eight hours, we’re still nowhere, which is, you know, probably why I’m feeling just…a tad cranky.” Also all the questions he still had for the blonde and his feelings which were beginning to frustrate him.
Dustin watched Steve’s back, hearing the zipper of his pants before frantically asking, “What are you doing?”
Steve looked back at him like it was obvious, “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m taking a leak, look away.”
Dustin stayed turned towards him for a second, shocked a little before slowly turning as Steve repeated, “Look away!”
Down below in the elevator, Dove stands with Robin at the button panel. Dove was really trying to be helpful — she was — but her head was heavy from lack of sleep and her mind filled with Steve. Steve, Steve, Steve. Oh, was he frustrating. Or was it her that was actually the frustrating one? Whatever it was, whatever this feeling blooming and pulling in her chest, she had never felt it before. Of course she didn’t regret that night. How could she? But she couldn’t have him. He didn’t actually want her, right? He was just being nice. He’s her friend.
They inspect the buttons before they hear the sound of liquid hitting the wall behind them.
Robin sighs before yelling, “Can you redirect your stream, please?” Her voice echos and then they see Steve move as the liquid moves with him.
“Gross,” Dove utters before turning back to the panel.
“I can’t believe you have feelings for that,” Robin mutters to Dove.
Dove whips her head to the short haired girl, quickly responding, “Wha- um, who said that?”
Robin smirks knowingly, “Your body language.”
Dove frowns, shaking her head saying “My body language doesn’t-”
She’s cut off by a sharp banging sound. The two girls look behind them quickly to see Erica banging the green goo container against the table corner.
“Hey, hey, Erica, careful,” Dove says, running over to the girl and taking the object away from her. “We don’t know what this is, are you crazy?”
“Exactly, it could be useful,” Erica retorts.
“Useful, how?” Robin asks with furrowed brows.
“We can survive down here a long time without food,” Erica explains, looking up at the two older girls like they’re idiots. “But if the human body doesn’t get water, it will die.”
“Hate to break it to ya, kid, but this-” Dove shakes the green liquid in the girl's face slightly- “is not water.”
“No but it’s a liquid, and if it comes down to me drinking that shit or dying of thirst. I drink,” Erica talks back again.
Dove rolls her eyes muttering, “Oh my God.”
As Robin looks at the liquid in Dove’s hand, the green glow emanates in her hand making both of them shiver with anxiety. What the hell is this stuff?
There's a distant electronic whirring sound heard from the other side of the door making Dove and Robin glance at each other. They walk to the door and press their ears against it, knowing now that the sound was definitely someone on their way to the room.
Dove moves quickly, the liquid still in her hand, to the opening on the ceiling, “We’ve got company.”
“Quick, get up here,” Dustin says, motioning for the girls to join them. Steve moves to the opening to help guide the girls up.
Dove moves to grab Erica first, the need to get the youngest up overriding her own sense of self-preservation. She helps hoist her up, Steve grabbing Erica’s hand and pulling her the rest of the way. She helps Robin up next, locking their fingers together and having her step onto her hands before lifting her high enough for Steve to pull her up.
Then Dove jumps, mustering all the strength and skill she gained from years of volleyball, reaching Steve as he grabs her hand and pulls her up with the rest of them. His hands linger on her longer than they should as they watch Dustin put the grate back on the opening before removing them and leaning over to look through the small holes of the grate. Dove follows and does the same as they hear two people enter the room.
Dove hears one of the two men ask in Russian, “You smell that?”
The other one, who holds a cigarette in his mouth that Dove smells, replies, “What?”
“Piss.”
Shit. Steve’s stupid bladder. She looks at Steve with wide, accusing eyes. He does not understand what the two men below them are saying, so he looks at her mouthing “What?”.
She shakes her head, leaning forward to look into the room below, Steve moving with her. They watch as the two men move boxes around. Steve looks to the other three, slowly lifting a finger to his mouth, signaling them to stay quiet.
As he does, Steve catches sight of the green liquid that sits between Dove and Erica, emanating that same green glow. A light bulb might as well have gone off over his head as an idea forms. He grabs the object from her, his arms grazing her in a way that sends shivers erupting along her skin.
When the men finish moving the boxes and leave the room, Steve moves quickly. He opens the grate and jumps down with the vial, and just as the door is about to close completely, he stops it—jamming the object between the door and the floor, giving them just enough space to squeeze through.
“Let’s go,” he whispers urgently to the others.
Dove tosses Erica’s backpack and helmet to him as he slides under the door. She ushers the youngest out first, whispering along with Steve, “Go, go, go, go.”
“I’m going!” Erica whispers loudly.
“Henderson,” Steve calls for the second youngest next, sending him under the door.
The glass vial begins to crack from the pressure as Dove pushes Robin through. Dove motions for Steve to go, but he quickly pulls her down, not giving her time to argue, forcing her under the door before following close behind—barely missing being cut in half as the door slams shut.
The cylinder shatters, liquid spilling out and sizzling against the floor. Dove and Steve both lie still for a moment, staring in shock, before scrambling up. Steve reaches out, hand holding Dove’s forearm and gripping tightly as she does the same, both pulling the other away from the sickly sizzling sound that melts the floor.
“Jesus Christ,” Steve says as he looks at the green liquid.
“What the fuck,” Dove mutters as well, watching at the green liquid smokes out. She then looks back to Erica with an I told you so look saying, “Wanna drink it?”
Erica rolls her eyes.
“Holy mother of God,” Dustin exclaims, looking behind them into the new corridor they were in.
Stretching out behind them was the longest hallway any of them had seen in their lives. Blue lights lined the walls and Dove’s stomach dropped at the thought of what’s down the hallway now.
“Well,” Steve speaks up first. “Hope you guys are in good shape-” he pushes between Dustin and Robin, patting Dustin's chest- “looking at you, roast beef.”
“Steve,” Dove scolds the insult, falling back into what their relationship was like before.
Steve walks ahead of them, pulling his shirt out his shorts slightly, then looking back at the other four who stood a little frozen, eyes landing on Dove first. “Let’s go, come on.”
Dove gently places her hand on Dustin's back, guiding him forward and Robin does the same with Erica.“Why me?” Dustin asks, looking to Dove for an explanation.
She tries to smile, but it’s awkward as she hisses just shrugging before looking forward and continuing on, leading them behind Steve into the scary Russian lair.
--------
“I mean you have to admit, as a feat of engineering alone, this impressive,” Dustin remarked as he marveled at the hallway they were walking down. The one they had been walking down for 45 minutes at this point.
“So impressive, yeah,” Dove muttered, crankily. Her hips hurt and so did her stomach, she was starving.
“What are you talking about? It’s a total fire hazard,” Steve corrected.
“Can’t disagree that,” Dove agrees, pushing down on each of her fingers as she makes her next points.. “There’s no stairs, no exits, just an elevator that drops you to…hell.” She gestures with her arm almost smacking Robin as she does so while standing in between her and Erica in the middle.
“They’re commies,” Erica reminds her former babysitter. “You don’t pay people, they cut corners.”
Steve looks down at the young girl next to him with furrowed brows. What is it with her and foreign politics? She’s ten.
“To be fair to our Russian comrades, I don’t think this tunnel was designed for walking,” Robin continues. “Think about it, they developed the perfect system for transporting cargo.”
“It all comes through the mail like any old delivery,” Dustin says.
“And then they load it up onto those trucks and nobody’s the wiser,” Robin finishes, marveling at the system.
“You think they built this whole mall so they could transport that green poison?” Steve asks.
Green poison? Dove thinks to herself. No, that doesn’t seem right. Why would they build a whole mall to transport some weird green liquid? No, there's more to it, but what is it?
“Defeinitly not poison, gotta be much more valuable than something that boring. Like promethium or something,” Dustin replies.
Promethium? That word rings a bell in Dove’s brain. She’s heard it somewhere, seen it written down. Chemistry class. But why go nuclear in Hawkins, Indiana?
“What the hell is promethium?” Steve asks almost aggressively. He is still cranky.
“It’s what Victor Stone’s dad used to make Cyborg’s bionic and cybernetic components,” Robin explains plainly.
“You’re all so nerdy, it makes me physically ill,” Erica groans.
“No, no, no,” Steve says quickly. “No, don’t lump me in with them. I’m not a nerd, alright?”
“Ouch Steve, you calling me a nerd?” Dove says, breaking her train of thought for a moment to jab at the brunette. “I am not a nerd.”
“You two afraid of losing cool points to a ten year old?” Robin asks the two oldest teens.
“No, I’m just saying I don’t know jack shit about Prometheus,” Steve retorts.
“Promethium,” Dove quickly corrects. “Prometheus is a Greek mythological figure who taught humanity about arts and science and also stole fire for them.”
Steve looks at Dove with a smirk, “Not a nerd?”
“Whatever.”
“Listin, all I’m saying is, whatever that stuff is being used to make something,” Dustin says, cutting off the flirting before it even begins.
“Or power something, like a nuclear weapon,” Robin adds.
Dove goes back into her thoughts again, trying to piece it all together. Her steps slow as she thinks back to everything she has learned about Hawkins since November 1984. How does this all add up? What pieces of this together? What do the Russians want that Hawkins has? This feels backwards, like they have this all…
Holy Shit.
“Walking towards a nuclear weapon, that’s great,” Steve mutters.
“But why Hawkins?” Robin asks.
Dove’s slowed steps made her fall behind the other by a step or two. She reached out, placing one hand on Steve’s shoulder and the other on Dustin’s, making them stop and look back at her. Robin and Erica continue down the hall.
“They know,” Dove whispers to the two boys. She gives them this look, one Steve knows very well. It’s the same one she has when they talk about that night. “This isn’t- they have to know about it all, like the Upside Down.”
“What? No way,” Steve mutters back, looking between his two curly haired friends. “You think?”
“They could,” Dustin whispers, eyes wide. The three of them knew very well of Jonathan and Nancy’s adventure during the events of the fall of last year. How they were determined to get Barb’s story out there. Sending it out to any news source who would listen with tape recordings from the Lab.
“So it’s connected?” Steve asks quietly, not wanting to let the other two girls in. He’s praying it’s not connected and they can keep the others in the dark. Legally he has to still…right?
“Maybe,” Dove shrugs, crossing her arms. “But how?”
“I don’t know, but it’s…” Dustin trails off before the two oldest teens finish with him.
“Possible.”
Steve had explained the stern talking-to they got from the government scientist to Dove, from when they fought the demogorgons the first time after Will disappeared. They got one similar the day after they torched the tunnels. Dove was unamused by them then, and still baffled by the whole other dimension, which shook her belief system.
“I’m sorry, is there something you'd like to share with the class?” Robins calls back to them.
The three of them look at each other, not knowing what to say. She’d never believe them. Dove barely believed it still, and she fought a demo-dog.
But before they could even think about answering, a static hiss erupts and a Russian voice begins to come out of Erica’s back pack.
“Walkie,” Dustin says, as the three of them run over to Erica’s bag as she takes it off her back.
The man continues in Russian but Dove can barely make out what he’s saying. She grabs the walkie and listens closely, holding her finger to her mouth similarly to how Steve did earlier.
The man speaks again and Dove can hear him clearly now. “A Trip to China sounds nice if you tread lightly.”
She repeats the words back that the man is saying in Russian, recognizing it quickly. “It’s the code,” she says.
“Wherever that broadcast is coming from-” Robin starts but Dove finishes.
“It’s close.”
“And if there’s one thing we know about that signal,” Robin continues, looking at Dove in her eyes.
“It can reach the surface,” Dustin smiles, feeling a beacon of hope.
“Let’s go,” Robin says, leading the other further down the hall.
As they move farther down the hallway, they get a little too close to being caught. Steve ushers everyone behind generators and crates, and just as they peel away from one, Steve whispering that they’re clear, they come face to face with a corridor full of Russians.
Soldiers and men in hazmat suits move through the space. Above them, a second level runs the length of the corridor, people in lab coats walking back and forth.
“Shit,” Dove whispers as the five of them duck behind a cart. Steve’s hand finds hers as they crouch, Robin pressed close against Dove’s back.
“Jesus,” Steve murmurs.
“Red Dawn,” Dustin whispers, staring at the soldiers flooding the area.
“Saw what?” Steve asks, shaking his head in disbelief.
“The comms room,” Erica replies, whispering back aggressively.
“You saw the comms room?” Dove and Steve say at the same time, disbelief mirrored in their voices.
“Are you sure?” Dustin asks.
“Positive. The door was open for just a second, and I saw a bunch of lights and machines and shit in there.”
“That could be a hundred different things,” Dustin argues.
Dove looks at Steve, their bodies pressed close, hands still clasped. Their noses nearly touch when she turns fully toward him. “I don’t hate those odds.”
Steve sighs and shakes his head before peering around the cart again, the others fanning out behind him.
As they look again, Dove catches sight of someone she knows way too well to be down there. She sucks in an audible breath. What the hell? Is that her mom? No way. Nope it definitely is. Veronica Jones is unmistakable, she looks just like Dove.
“What?” Steve whispers, glancing at her.
“My mom,” Dove says, staring past him, her mother’s blonde hair unmistakable, too similar to her own.
“What? Your mom? What do you mean?” Steve asks, pulling her back behind the cart when she leans too far out for his liking.
“She’s here,” Dove says, looking again. Her mother is wearing a white lab coat, speaking with another woman dressed in what looks like a soldier’s uniform. “What the hell is she doing down here?”
“Why is your mom here?” Dustin asks, leaning farther down the line.
“I don’t know!” Dove replies, her voice rising above a whisper.
Steve reacts instantly, clapping a hand over her mouth and pulling her back into him.
“Listen,” he whispers firmly, “we can figure out if Mrs. Jones is an evil Russian later. For now, we move fast. Stay low. Okay?” He leans closer, his voice soft in her ear. “Okay?”
She nods, and he removes his hand.
And they do exactly that.
They move quickly toward the door. Steve watches as someone opens the comms room from the inside, the door staying open just long enough for him to sprint across, grab it, and usher everyone inside.
“Let’s go.”
Dove lingers for half a second, watching her mom disappear through a door on the second level, following a man who had just asked her something she cannot hear from this distance.
Steve reaches back, grabs her hand, and pulls her fully into the room.
Once all five of them are inside, Steve gently shuts the door behind him.
They look around, then freeze.
A guard sits at the communications board. He spins around in his chair, pulling off his headphones.
Wide-eyed, they all stare.
Robin shoves Dove forward without hesitation, knowing she has the best chance of getting them out of this.
The guard watches them for a moment, Steve still gripping the door handle, the other four frozen in place. He reaches for the gun at his hip.
But Dove reacts faster, speaking in Russian.
“I am looking for Veronica Jones?” She speaks clearly, her voice shaking a little.
“Who?” The guard responds, hand still on the gun. “Who are you?”
“I am looking for Veronica Jones. He sent me,” Dove responds, her voice a little steadier this time, hoping that sounding confident will help. “Silver cat.” She adds, then gestures to the group behind her, repeating the words.
Steve’s eyes flick between Dove and the guard, jumpy, a little afraid of what he’ll do next. He watches carefully, waiting for a moment to act, anything to help her.
“I don’t understand,” the guard says to Dove, shaking his head.
“He sent me,” she repeats, hoping it will get them somewhere.
It doesn’t. The guard shakes his head again, unhooking the leather strap from his holster and moving to draw his weapon.
Steve takes this as his moment. He lets out a loud yell, fully from his chest, and tackles the guard into the control board. The guard shoves Steve off him, the two of them moving fast. Steve gets tossed around, dodging punches. When the guard slams him into the board again, Steve grabs a phone, tosses it up, catches it in his dominant hand, and punches the guard with it.
The guard staggers back into a table, smacks his head, and drops to the floor with a heavy thud.
Steve pants, pushes his hair back into place, and looks up at the others.
Dove stares at him with wide eyes, her mouth slightly open.
Steve takes a second to process what just happened, his stomach dropping at the thought that he might have killed the man. His eyes stay locked on Dove. Before she can say anything, Dustin erupts.
“Dude,” he exclaims, pointing at Steve proudly. “You did it! You won a fight!”
Steve’s lip quirks into a small smile, a proud huff slipping out of him.
Dustin rushes forward, grabbing the keycard off the guard. As Dustin and Erica argue about what to do next, Steve stands there panting, staring down at the body. Robin does the same.
Dove moves past them and up a short set of stairs, drawn to a soft blue light.
She walks carefully, then stops when she sees something painfully familiar, something Hopper once described to her and Steve late one night.
“Guys,” Dove calls quickly, her voice tight. “Come here.”
They follow her, using the keycard Dustin grabbed to enter an observation room.
Dove’s breath catches when she sees her mom standing inside with several men in lab coats. She’s arguing with them in a hushed tone, but Dove can tell from her body movements. She’s pointing out the window. Reading her lips, Dove thinks she makes out “You’re going to kill people” but she isn’t quite sure.
“Holy shit,” Dustin says, staring at the massive machine dominating the room. “Is that a giant nuclear weapon?”
Beyond it, a huge wall looms, torn open by a glowing red cut in the center.
Dove grabs Steve’s arm instinctively, her fingers digging into his bicep. She, Dustin, and Steve stare at it with wide eyes, all of them swallowing hard.
“The gate,” they whisper together.
Dove’s gaze drifts back to her mom, who is now arguing heatedly with a man beside the machines, her gestures sharp and frantic.
“What is that?” Robin whispers.
“The gate,” Dustin explains with a small shudder in his voice.
“You’ve seen this before?” Robin asks quietly, confused. “I don’t understand.”
Dove doesn’t answer. Her eyes stay locked on her mom as the argument escalates, her mother pointing aggressively at the machinery.
Something is wrong.
“Not exactly,” Steve replies cause technically they never saw the gate, they were just told about it after the fact.
“Then what, exactly,” Robin asks again, her voice getting a little louder.
Veronica has gotten in this other man's face, pointing a finger. She’s really mad.
“All you need to know is that it's bad, like the end of the human race, bad,” Dustin explains quickly, still in a hushed voice.
“We need to go,” Steve says, trying to pull Dove and Dustin back. Dove stays firmly planted in her spot.
“No, something's wrong,” she says, gesturing to her mom.
“Yeah, something's definitely wrong, your moms working for the evil Russians,” Erica snaps.
“No, no, something’s wrong like out there,” she replies, brushing off the evil Russians comment. “With the machine, she’s trying to tell them but…”
Her mom shoves the man she’s talking to and then she very loudly hears her yell in Russian, “I don’t know anyone that’s looking for me, I told no one I was here!”
Shit. Dove should’ve never brought her name up.
Wait, how did they know someone was looking for her?
“The guard,” she mutters, looking back to Steve. “He woke up.”
Steve looks at her, brows furrowing, confusion flashing across his face. Then his eyes go wide with realization.
Dove looks back to her mom, and time suddenly slows. Her heart is in her chest and it’s like her body knows what’s going to happen before it even does.
Her mom turns her head.
For just a second, Veronica’s face softens with recognition, with relief, but then fills with terror. Her eyes flick back to the man in front of her.
He follows where she just looked.
He sees them. All five of them. Watching through the window. Wide eyes and young face but that doesn’t matter. They are now a problem.
His hand moves to his hip as Veronica yells something out in Russian about the machine, not making a lot of sense to Dove as she says “You’re letting something out that can destroy us all!”
The gun comes up. Metal pressed flat against Veronica’s temple.
The shot is deafening. Making all of them flinch, Robin reaches out and covers Erica’s eyes. Dustin’s hand reaches out and grabs Steve’s forearm with a tight grip.
Dove’s stomach caves in. Her mouth opens but no sound comes out at first. Then she makes one. A small sob chokes out as she clamps a hand over her mouth like she can force it back inside, but it is too late. Her heart is in her throat, she feels like vomiting.
Steve’s mouth opens and closes, eyes panning quickly back and forth between the woman laying on the floor and her daughter, who he is now reaching for as she steps toward the door. Toward the room where her mom just died. Towards danger where she could also be killed.
“Dove,” he says, panic breaking through his voice. “We gotta go. We gotta go.”
He grabs her arm. She rips herself free.
“No,” she sobs. “No, no. I gotta go help her. My mom. She’s okay- I gotta.”
It’s like she can’t even register that she’s dead. A helpless numbness takes over, so heavy it won’t let the truth settle in. She just stares at her mother. The woman who raised her, who gave birth to her. Now lying there lifeless, eyes empty, blood seeping through the strands of her blonde hair.
“Dove, we can’t,” Steve pleads, grabbing her forearm tighter this time.
“No!” she screams, she can;t leave her, she has to fix it. “My mommy, my mommy, I gotta go help her!”
The way her voice breaks on “mommy” guts him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around her shoulder, pulling her back.
Her sobs are violent now, she’s screaming, her body folding in on itself as she fights him. Steve’s chest burns with it, with the horror of it, but he knows. He knows if they do not move right now, she will die too.
They all will.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers again, the words barely making it past his throat as he scoops her up, moving his arms around her middle.
She thrashes in his arms, hands clawing at his arms to release her, legs kicking, trying desperately to break free.
“No, Steve. My mom. I gotta- I gotta,” she gasps, breath coming in sharp, panicked bursts.
He turns, holding her as tight as he can, shouting to the others who are watching with horror.
“Go!”
They’re all running, Steve carrying Dove who cries loudly again. He continues to whisper “I’m sorry” and then sets her down, holding her hand so tightly so she can’t run back.
Dove in this moment sees Dustin look back at her with a teary expression and that snaps something in her. That paternal instinct she gained more of that night in 1984. She doesn’t try to fight against Steve’s grip and runs with them.
They turn every corner, being met with Russians around each one. They turn again, heading down the walkway the weapon is on. How did they get down here?
Wind whips everyone's hair back as they look at the blue beam shooting into the giant wall. It’s fleshy and there’s that red opening, the weird snow flying out of it.
Steve quickly looks to his left and finds stairs, “This way.”
They all move quickly, Dove and Steve pushing guards on the stairs down and out of the way as they lead the way.
Quickly Dove finds a door and points it out to Steve, “There!”
He moves quickly, running forward, pushing some barrels into guards coming from his left and gets them into the room. He shuts the door quickly, back pressed against it. He turns around and faces the others in the room. One, two, three…
Where’s Dove?
He turns back to the window on the door seeing a bright red tank top pressed against the window.
“Dove! You idiot!” He screams, banging on the window. He watches as the guards surround her, and she tries really hard to fight back, fighting them from entering that door. But they stab a needle into her neck, rendering her limp and take her away.
Then they start beating on the door to the room. Robin rushes over, pushing against it with Steve.
“Henderson, go!” He yells to the curly haired boy.
“What about you?” Dustin calls back hesitating before entering the vent.
“Go get some help!” Him and Robin yell together.
Dustin hesitates for a second, the urge to not leave Steve so prevalent but there’s a look in Steve eyes that means there’s no argument.
“I won’t forget you!” Dustin yells, voice cracking a bit, then ducks into the vent.
Once he goes down and closes the vent, Steve and Robin relax against the door, letting the guards push in. Taking them hostage.
summary: Dove gets sucked back into another memory and something starts to change. Steve's trying to figure out what she's not telling him. The Gang investigates the Creels house.
warnings: Sad shit. Mega Angst. Survivors Guilt. Past Trauma. Normal scary Stranger Things shit.
authors note: I am so sorry about the angst that is coming, the smut will pay off later tho (hopefully it's all sad tho lowkey). Also sorry for the long ass chapter (I'm not really sorry)
chapter 21
ao3 link!
Chapter 22: Restless Mind
Steve’s arm flexes around Dove as he adjusts his position behind her. He exhales, lips brushing against the curls on her neck, causing Dove to smile unconsciously. He’s so warm, and nice. Steve is so nice, and she just wants to turn in his arms and kiss all over his face. But the spring of the Wheelers’ basement couch digs into her side, and she’s reminded they are not at home tucked in his bed.
They’re squished together on a couch surrounded by their young teenage friends, their best friend, and Steve’s ex. The reminder is funny enough to almost make Dove forget about everything going on. Almost.
Steve’s words echo in her brain as she stirs from sleep. A fight, something they rarely have (and when they do it never feels that serious). She tries to fight the memory of it pulling at her. The pit in her stomach forming nevertheless as her mind conjures up the image of Steve’s face—pleading and trying to convince her not to do what she deems necessary. His pleads weigh on her chest, and the frustration-turned-desperate desire aches between her legs.
And then there’s static. Not brain static, but actual static sound coming from outside her brain.
It’s on the table, and now the static is forming words about being banished and needing food.
“Earth to Dustin?” Eddie sings through the walkie. Dove registers it as his voice as she sits up, fighting the pull of Steve’s arms. Her eyes squint, trying to adjust to the bright light seeping in through the basement windows. Her head whips around again as Eddie’s voice comes through the speakers, trying to find the walkie. Her eyes land on it, on the other side of the coffee table.
Dove goes to get up, but Steve’s arm is securely wrapped around her, and she doesn’t feel like he’s going to be letting go anytime soon.
She gets just enough leverage, leaning forward as Eddie keeps singing and trying to reach for the device. Almost there, she just needs to lean forward a bit more and—
“Shit,” she groans as she hits the floor, startling Robin and Nancy, who were much closer together than they were when Dove went to sleep.
Dove rubs her hip as she stands, grabbing the walkie and extending its antenna.
“Hey, it’s Dove,” she says quietly. She steps away from the couch, not wanting to wake anyone else in the room.
“Princess,” Eddie beams. She can hear his smile through the walkie. “How are you? Did you sleep well? I bet Harrington keeps that bed nice and warm—”
“Eddie,” Dove cuts him off, not in the mood for the teasing and flirting. “What’s up?”
“Uh, I’m gonna need a food delivery, like, really soon,” Eddie says, not even bothering to address Dove’s tone. “Unless you want me going out into the world, which we all know how that will go, Princess.”
Dove’s tenses in surprise when she hears Steve’s groan behind her. She shoots a glance to him over his shoulder and sees his eyes half-lidded but expression sour. She suspects it’s from the spring also digging into his hip now, but when she can tell he’s looking at her, she knows it’s from hearing Eddie’s lovely voice.
“No, no, don’t do that,” Dove sighs, turning around to Steve. His brow is raises in question. She just shakes her head, watching him close his eyes again, before responding to Eddie. “Just stay there and we’ll try to get there as soon as possible.”
“Yeah, yeah, thank you, and you know, listen… can you pick me up a six-pack?”
Dove’s eyes squeeze shut, feeling an irritation that can only come from a lack of sleep, form from the request. She has half a mind to yell at him and let him know how serious this actually is and how they are dealing with more than just needing to hide him. That thought reminds her of the redhead she is protecting and spins to the spot she fell asleep watching.
“I know, I know, princess, it’s stupid as shit to be drinking right now, but a cold beer would really calm my jangled nerves,” Eddie says, like he can feel Dove’s forming irritation through the radio waves.
“Oh my God,” Dove mutters when she sees Max no longer draped over the armchair. “Hey, uh, Eddie, I’m gonna have to call you back.”
“Dove, hey, Dove, no—”
Dove slams the antenna shut again, startling Nancy.
Nancy’s eyes adjust, scanning the room and noticing exactly what Dove did. Her eyes widened in horror.
“Shit,” she says, scrambling from her spot next to Robin and kneeling in front of Dustin. She shoves his shoulders twice. “Dustin. Dustin, wake up.”
Dustin groans as he wakes up to Nancy in his face.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on Max watch?” she asks.
“Yep, yep, yep,” Dustin replies slowly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“Then where is she?”
“She’s right there—” Dustin points toward the armchair where she had been laying, only to find Lucas alone, no Walkman in hand and fully asleep. “I swear, I woke up when we switched and—”
“Switched? You were supposed to be watching her the whole time!”
“What? No, we said we’d switch!”
“Hey, you two, stop it,” Dove hisses at them as she walks over. “You were all asleep when me and Steve came in, and that was—” she checks Dustin’s watch and tries to remember the last time she saw on the clock before finally dozing off and— “Shit, that was three hours ago.”
The three of them scramble and move up the stairs, Nancy leading the charge through her house and into the kitchen.
There, next to Holly Wheeler with her Lite-Brite, is Max. Her headphones are on, blasting Kate Bush as loud as the Walkman allows as she colors.
Dove lets out a sigh of relief along with Nancy and Dustin as they trudge into the kitchen.
“Morning, guys!” Karen Wheeler chirps from the stove. There’s a pause as the three of them just stare at Max. “Everything okay?”
Max finally turns her head to look at the three of them standing in the kitchen.
“I think it’s so sweet that you guys are sticking together like this,” Karen says as she drops some finished pancakes onto the plate on the island.
“Could try sticking together at a different house for a change,” Ted grumbles as he flips through the paper.
There’s no response from them when he lifts his eyes—or more like cuts them—at Dustin, who spends a lot of time either here or at Steve’s.
Nancy doesn’t even bother to respond, moving past her dad and toward Max at the table. Dove goes to follow but is cut off when Karen turns to both her and Dustin.
“You know you guys are welcome here anytime,” she smiles.
“Totally, you’re like family,” Dustin smiles as well. And while yes, it’s true, his tone is totally meant to piss off Ted.
Karen hands a plate to both Dove and Dustin. The younger boy steps forward first, pointing to the bacon.
“May I?”
“Absolutely,” Karen responds happily.
“Yeah, why not? Take us for all we’re worth,” Ted retorts as he sips his coffee, his eyes never leaving the paper.
“Okay,” Dustin beams, grabbing a hefty portion of bacon, making sure each piece lands loudly on his plate as Ted watches.
Dove snorts, grabbing a pancake. It’s hefty but smells sweet, the warmth of it a welcomed feeling as she places it on the plate. She realizes that she hasn’t had proper food in…she actually doesn’t remember when she ate last. That’s probably bad but eating has felt less like a priority. Still, she feels her mouth water when she glances down as the sweet breakfast food.
Before she can walk away, Karen stops her, a gentle hand on her back.
“How are you doing, Dove?” she asks, a smile on her face that’s both sad and genuine. Like she actually wants to know, even if it’s bad.
Oh, Karen Wheeler. While Dove’s mom didn’t have many friends outside of their family here in Hawkins, Karen had always been kind. She and Veronica were in a book club together (why her mother was in that book club, Dove will never know) and also did some sort of group exercise thing… Dove doesn’t know, she just remembers her mom being gone with a group of women. They’d all walk around Hawkins together in their brightly colored sweatsuits, and Karen was always there.
So she guesses they were friends. Karen was at her dad’s funeral, and then her mom’s. Dove wonders if Karen would be asking if she knew Dove was the reason for her mother’s death.
“I’m good,” Dove answers, hoping her smile passes the lie.
“Is everything good over at your house? Are you doing okay there by yourself?” She continues to pry as Dove’s attention goes back to the table, where Dustin has just sat and joined in on Nancy and Max’s conversation.
“I, oh, well I’m not really staying there. I, uh, I stay with Steve most of the time,” Dove replies as a blush rises on her face.
“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t know. That’s very sweet of the Harrington’s to let you stay,” Karen replies with a smile.
Dove is surprised Karen’s out of the loop on this. She seemed to know all the town gossip, and the orphaned little Russian girl living in sin with Hawkins’ golden boy seemed like something worth gossiping about.
“Yeah, I’m sure Danny is thrilled about it,” Ted scoffs. And as Karen scolds him, whipping a dish towel at him, Dove thanks her for the food and walks over to the table where her friends are.
Scattered across the table are drawings. All red and a little crude, but they depict what Max saw pretty well.
“Maybe you infiltrated his mind,” Dustin says as Dove approaches. “He invaded your mind, right? Is it that big of a leap to suggest you somehow wound up in his? Like Freddy Krueger’s boiler room!”
“Freddy Krueger?” Holly speaks up in disgust.
“He’s a super burned-up dude with razors for fingers, and he kills you in your dre—”
“Okay, Dustin,” Dove says, cutting off the explanation along with Nancy as she says, “Seriously?”
Dustin looks at them confused before it settles that he was, in fact, talking to a fourth grader.
“Sorry, it’s a movie. It’s just a movie.”
The three girls shake their heads before Dustin turns to look at Dove.
“Dove, what did you see?”
Dove suddenly becomes very interested in the pancake on her plate, slicing it into pieces as she pours syrup on it. She stabs the pieces with her fork once they’re dripping with syrup, taking a large bite. She chews slowly, eyes not lifting to the group as she sees Vecna’s burnt face in her mind again, staring deep into her.
“Dove?” Nancy asks, a little more impatiently.
“I don’t think it’s out of the question that Max invaded his mind,” Dove finally answers, taking the roundabout way of avoiding the topic turning completely on her.
“Why do you say that?” Dustin asks.
“Because she was in mine,” Max answers, finally realizing Dove wasn’t some made-up figment of her imagination in her brain. She was actually there. Max hadn’t talked to her since seeing her in the mind world. She barely gave an explanation to everyone about what Vecna looked like and what she saw.
“I’m sorry?” Nancy asks, brows furrowed as she shakes her head.
Dove opens her mouth, then closes it, choosing her next words carefully. “I, uh, well… remember those weird vision things? Well, I guess they are coming from Vecna, or like his world. I’m not sure about all the details, all I know is that… whenever Max went into that weird trance thing, I found a way in.”
Nancy and Dustin blink at her in surprise before Dustin’s brows shoot up. “This is great!”
“Great?” Nancy snaps.
“Yes! Now we have a way to protect Max from the inside!”
“Uh, but then what happens to Dove? What if something happens to her?” Max asks quickly, which makes Nancy give Dustin a pointed look.
“Oh, well, uh,” Dustin stutters.
“That doesn’t matter. Dustin’s kinda right, we have a way to help from the inside if all else fails,” Dove says, turning to Max, who’s giving her a terribly sad look.
“And you know, Max, what if when you went through that red fog, you somehow unlocked a back door into Vecna’s world?” Dustin says, cutting Max off from saying anything to Dove. “Like maybe the answer we’re looking for is somewhere in these incredibly vague drawings.”
Dustin picks up one of Max’s many papers, squinting his eyes at the almost crudeness of it.
“God, we need Will.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Max retorts at the insult. “But I tried them again this morning, and it’s the same busy signal.”
“You guys tried to call them?” Dove asks, trying to catch up on what she missed while being outside with Steve last night.
“Yeah, while you and Steve were, uh, arguing,” Dustin says, saying the word tentatively.
Dove looks up at Dustin then and sees a look cross his face. She can’t decide if its a look of horror of knowing they went and fucked in Steve’s car (god she hopes it isn’t) or one from just her and Steve arguing in general.
Nancy picks up the drawing Dustin had just set down, showing it to Max. “Is this a window?”
“Yeah,” Max responds quickly, a little relieved her drawings aren’t terrible.
“Stained glass with roses?” Nancy says, taking in the design.
“Yeah. See? I’m not so terrible after all,” Max says to Dustin.
His eyes roll in response.
“Yeah, well, it helps that I’ve seen it before,” Nancy says before folding that page along with all the others on the table.
The others watch as she pieces it together like a puzzle, and once it’s all together, Nancy draws a line with a Sharpie to connect it all.
Forming the outline of a house.
Dove recognizes it from the papers in the library, but something else itches at her mind. She squints her eyes, trying to see it from a different angle but she suddenly feels a punch to the gut as she’s sucked into a memory without even hearing her name.
“This will be your home one day,” he says as they stand outside the house.
The blue paint looks nice and new. It’s tall and grand, feeling like something Dove would only see on TV.
“It looks like a castle,” a young Dove remarks with wonder in her eyes.
“Yes, and it will be your castle, and you will rule beside me,” he says, kneeling down beside her. “Because this is what you were made for, Dovey. You were made to help me.”
Dove looks at him, and this is the first time in any of her visions she’s truly seen his face. His hair is so blonde, like hers, and his eyes are a piercing blue. His face is soft in terms of his skin, but the bone structure is sharp.
And that fear settles deep in her gut again as he says, “And you will help me. You will.”
Dove sucks in a breath, gripping the edge of the table as she comes back to herself. Dustin’s hand is already on her shoulder, steadying her even though she’s sitting.
“Dove, Dove, what was that?” Dustin asks, his hand gripping her arm tightly.
“That house, I know that house,” Dove pants, looking back at the image.
“What? What do you mean?” Nancy asks as she stands and walks closer to Dove.
“He showed me.”
“Who? Vecna?”
“No, no, I don’t know who he is, he’s just there, in all these memories,” Dove snaps in frustration, shaking her head frantically. “I don’t know why, or how, or what, it’s just there, and I am still trying to piece it all together.”
“Okay, okay,” Dustin says, trying to calm Dove’s breathing, which has suddenly picked up. “Maybe we go downstairs, yeah? Let’s go find Steve.”
Dove feels her heart racing in her chest like she’s been caught in a lie hearing his name. A strange feeling settling into her gut and feels that panic swirling. It’s fighting against her, telling her no, no, no, no. And she’s not sure exactly where in that dark corner of her mind those thoughts are coming from but they’re loud and persistent and she feels that drop in her stomach at his name still so she tries to redirect.
“No, no, it’s fine,” Dove says, putting her hand out, stopping Dustin from standing. “I just… I just need a second.”
But her breathing doesn’t slow, it doesn't settle back as she tries to ground herself. It’s not terribly overwhelming like some of these attacks are (which makes her wonder if this is that even that. It has the same components it feels different entirely). She feels herself drop into something, a shuddering breath releasing.
Dustin sees it all happen, taking in her face and twisting into something like concern and curiosity. That disappears though when she lets out a choked breath and decides he’s not waiting for a yes, and neither is Nancy.
“Come on,” Dustin says, pulling her up and following Nancy down the stairs.
--------------------
Dove’s breathing never seems to settle completely. Steve hears it hitch every couple minutes, like a hiccup. He’s been trying all his usual tactics to calm her down from one of her panic attacks. He’s rubbed her arms for friction, squeezed her tightly against him, he’s even tried to squeeze her head (which she has only ever asked him to do once or twice) but she pushed his hands away when he tried that time.
Steve felt the hit to his ego when she pushed his touch away. It’s rare she does it, if ever. He doesn’t like the feeling of not being able to fix something, especially with Dove. He understands this is an odd situation though and she is clearly not telling him something. Whether that is something she saw in that vision or something she is feeling, he wants to know. He wants to help. He wants to fix it.
He likes being there for people, likes being able to be relied on. Dependable. And Dove was one of the only people who he relied on (because she showed up and had been there for him more than anyone else in his past) and he needs to be that same thing for her. He had been since the mall. At least he felt like he had been. He had been working hard to try to have that role. Not that he would ever try to make Dove talk about things she doesn’t want to, he never tried to push her but…things were becoming harder to just let her deal with on her own. He feels like he’s missing something. Like he’s not being clued in on a joke, or a story, one he should know but doesn’t. Because he’s been here the whole time.
“She totally blanked out,” Dustin says, sitting across from them in the back of Nancy’s station wagon. “It was like at the graveyard.”
“How long was she out for?” Steve asks, his hand slowly raising to Dove’s leg to rub her calf. Her legs are bent uncomfortably over him, allowing her to fit in the backseat of the Station Wagon.
“Maybe two minutes? It could’ve been longer. I was watching Nancy piece together the drawing.”
“Do you think it was Vecna? Or could she could have slipped into—”
“You guys know I’m sitting right here right?” Dove finally speaks up, making the two boys look at her muttering “sorry”.
She sighs, shaking her head. But finally, her shoulders drop ever so slightly and Steve can see something in her change. Maybe it’s just knowing her so well, but he swears her eyes grow brighter when she suddenly slinks into his touch. He watches Dove take comfort in the feeling of his hand rubbing at her calf. Then he sees her shake off whatever she had been feeling, like she’s shedding off a jacket. Finally, she takes a deep breath.
Steve also feels his own form of relief settle over him at this. When she came down the stairs at the Wheeler’s house, she had been off. Obviously, he’s seen her through panic attacks before to recognize them but he knew somehow this was different. Something about whatever memory she went into in the kitchen had done something to her. Something she couldn’t even hide.
“Are you feeling better?” Dustin asks, leaning a little closer as he rests his elbows on his knees.
“Yeah, yeah I am,” Dove sighs. Steve’s hand stays on her calf though, rubbing up and down is slowly, applying pressure every so often in a squeeze. It’s for her mostly, but also for him.
“Do you want to talk about what you saw?” Steve asks carefully, nudging his shoulder against hers.
He watches Dove face contort slightly. Something shifts across her features he can’t read at all. But it falls away just as fast as it came, her eyes lifting up to meet his gaze.
“It was another vision but, we weren’t at the lab this time, we were at—“
For a second Dove thinks she’s back in the vision when Nancy stops the car in front of the decomposing creel house.
“Here,” Dove finishes looking up at the darkened blue paint.
The walk up the steps from the street feel like Dove is walking towards the end. That’s a feeling she’s decided to ignore in pursuit of what she deems is more important. But there’s someone behind her, in that broken down playground watching. There’s someone in the window staring at her. The breeze carries her name “Dove, Dove, Dove”. It echoes out and the feeling of her throat tightening again comes back, harder to swallow and fight off but she tries.
But only when Steve’s hand comes to her back, a comforting, entirely normal gesture for him, does it all stop. Everything. The feeling on her throat, the feelings of being watched, the whispering of her name all disappear as he says, “Yeah, that’s not creepy.”
A part of her lingers on that. How quickly his touch or presence will snap that darkness back into its corner. It’s always still there, hovering, watching. But when Steve’s around, it hides, like it’s scared of him.
When they reach the porch, Nancy and Steve use the hammers they brought to pry the nails from the piece of plywood covering the front door.
Dove stands at the bottom of the stairs with Robin, both of them watching with a popped hip and turned heads. Dove is staring at Steve’s ass, frankly objectifying him. He’s covered with his grey jacket, but if he wasn’t, she’d get to appreciate the way his biceps flex and shoulder blades as well. She knows it’s not the time but when she glances over to see what Robin is so focused on…well when Dove glances at her she can tell Robin is definitely staring at Nancy’s ass.
“Whatcha lookin’ at Buckley?” Dove teases in a whisper, knocking her hip against hers.
Robin’s cheeks burn but she comes back quickly with, “Oh like you weren’t doing the same thing.”
“Uh huh, sure,” Dove says, her eyebrows wiggling.
“What exactly are we supposed to be looking for in this shithole?” Steve pants, his irritation slipping into his tone as he turns towards Nancy.
“We’re not sure,” Nancy says, lining up the back of the hammer with another nail. “We just know this house is important to Vecna.”
“Right yeah, because Max saw it in Vecna’s red soup mind world and Dove had another vision when you drew it?”
“Basically,” Nancy says with a shrug.
“I don’t really like this idea,” Steve says, yanking another nail out. “But sure yeah, let’s just go into the place where the guy that wants to kill Dove and Max could be. Sounds like a great idea, Nance.”
“Steve—”
“Maybe it holds a clue to where Vecna is. Why is he back? Why he killed the Creels?” Dustin cuts Nancy off, trying to help Steve not spiral out in frustration. “And how to stop him before he comes back for Max.”
“We don’t think he’s in here…do we?” Lucus asks, reiterating the concern Steve had just said.
“Guess we’ll find out,” Max says, looking back to Dove below her from her spot on the porch.
Dove takes a deep breath, her shoulder’s shrugging as she does, nodding her head. She looks back to the door just in time to watch Nancy and Steve release the plywood and let it fall to the ground. It kicks up the dust and grime that had settled on the deck, making everyone shield their eyes as it crashes down.
Max and Dove’s eyes lock on the stained glass once it’s revealed. The symmetrical flower makes them both remember something. Max hear’s Vecna’s voice calling out to her when she was in the mindscape. Dove sees piercing blue eyes looking down at her, sending a shiver down her spine as she sees the flower in his pupil.
Steve rattles the door knob, “It’s locked.” A part of him is relieved by that.
“Maybe you should knock, see if anybody is home,” Dove jokes, trying to lighten her own mood but it doesn’t go over well. Everyone looks at her funny. “Tough crowd.”
“No need to knock," Robin suddenly says, bending down to the grass next to her and picking something up. She returns upright holding a bright orange brick. “I found a key.”
The stained glass is smashed and something in Dove is satisfied seeing it destroyed once the Scooby-Doo gang enters the house. Steve enters first, Dove following close behind because he has decided that just in case Vecna is in this house, he will be close to her.
The floors are covered in a thick layer of dust. It kicks up with every step someone takes into the home, floating in the light stream coming through the broken glass.
“Looks like someone forgot to pay their electricity bill,” Lucas comments after trying to flick a light switch.
Dustin, who is standing in front of Steve, whips a flashlight out and flicks it on. Everyone follows, clicking theirs on. As Steve looks around, he sees everyone, including Dove, has one.
“Where’d everyone get those?”
Dove looks at her boyfriend, shrugging as Dustin turns to him slowly and incredulously saying, “Do you need to be told everything?”
Silence.
“You’re not a child,” Dustin continues, staring at Steve.
“Thank you, Dustin,” Steve deadpans, glancing at Dove who just covers an amused smile with her hand as Dustin pulls another flashlight from his bag.
Lights shine through the house, illuminating the abandoned state with everything left in its place.
“You all see that, right?” Max asks, her flashlight lighting up a grandfather clock.
“Yeah,” Steve says, walking up behind her and shining his light onto the clock as well.
Besides it being in a creepy-ass abandoned house, it’s a beautiful piece.
“Is this what you saw in your visions?” Dove asks as she steps into the spot next to Steve.
Max just nods, staring wide-eyed and terrified at the clock.
“I mean, it’s…just a clock,” Robin comments, peering over Max’s shoulder. “Right?”
In a moment of bravery, maybe from feeling surrounded and protected by her friends (or utter stupidity from just trying to be brave), Dove walks up to the clock. She wipes the dust from the glass, the grime sticking to her hand before she wipes it on her pant leg quickly. “It’s just an old clock but…it must mean something?”
“Yeah but why is he obsessed with clocks? What is he like, a clock maker or something?” Steve asks, genuinely trying to piece together every bit of information he has in his brain.
“Think you’ve cracked the case Steve,” Dustin deadpans with a shake of his head.
Dove smacks his arm, shaking her own head in a scold. While this is not the time nor the place for the lecture, or really even the thought, Dove can’t help but let that defensive side of her come out when it comes to Steve. One of her biggest grievances with Nancy hanging around was her tendency to brush things Steve said off, like they were stupid. And unfortunately, that same thing went for Dustin sometimes.
“All I know is the answers are here,” Nancy states and thus commences the splitting up process.
Robin and Nancy take off up the stairs. Max grabs Lucas and they head towards one of the front rooms, leaving Dustin with Steve and Dove.
“I’m gonna go check the kitchen, why don’t you two go upstairs?” Dove suggests, beginning to move towards the kitchen.
“Uh, no, Nancy’s right, we need to stick together,” Steve says, shaking his head.
“It’s an odd number Steve, we’ll cover more ground and it’s not like I’m gonna be far—”
“Yeah, but—”
“I’ll be fine, Steve, end of discussion.” And then Dove turns, walking towards the kitchen, leaving Steve and Dustin alone in the foyer.
Dustin turns to Steve, a tight lipped smile on his face as he waits for him to turn and look at him. “Yikes.”
Steve’s lips pull into a line before he lets out a heavy sigh. He turns away from where Dove disappeared, fighting every instinct in his body telling him to follow her.
But he doesn't. Because he remembers what they talked about last night. She can make decisions on her own, she isn't a child. He isn't responsible for every choice she makes. So he doesn't argue, just watching her go.
That doesn't stop the knot in his stomach from tightening.
Because something is wrong. Steve knows it because he knows Dove. There's something she isn't telling him, some piece of this he still hasn't figured out, and the more he turns it over in his head, the more certain he becomes that he's missing something important. And all this talk about saving Max and Vecna and what she should do makes him terrified she’s going to do something to get herself hurt. Or worse. And while in the same house, he feels a million miles away from her. Not knowing how to protect her without ignoring what they talked about.
“What was that?” Dustin asks when Steve starts to walk up the stairs.
“An understanding,” Steve grumbles as he trudges up the old wooden stairs.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dustin asks.
“I—nothing, just come on, dude,” Steve sighs again as he looks back at Dustin, motioning him to follow.
“Why are you two fighting?”
“We’re not—it’s not a fight.”
“Sounded like a fight.”
“Okay, well, if you’re such an expert on relationships, then you should know what that was.”
“It looked like a fight and probably was whatever you guys were fighting about last night.”
God, he’s such a know-it-all. If Steve didn’t love him so much, he’d thunk him on the head for the attitude he’s giving him. Actually, maybe he will do that.
Steve turns around when they reach the top of the stairs and lightly whacks Dustin’s arm.
“Ow!”
“That did not hurt, dude.”
“What is it with you and Dove hitting me? You know that’s child abuse!”
“You’re not our child,” Steve scoffs, continuing to walk down the hall upstairs.
They turn a corner, entering a drawing room or a study of some sort. Steve’s question from before entering the house has still gone unanswered. What are they looking for? What is in this house that’s going to show them what Vecna’s plan is?
“Hey, Henderson, could you maybe clarify what sort of clues we’re supposed to be looking for here?” Steve asks, moving his flashlight over different items in the room, motes of dust picking up in the beam of light.
“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes,” Dustin says, a fake, posh British accent taking over as he turns back to Steve with a goofy smile.
Truly, he’s hoping to do it to make Steve smile. The sour tone coming off him since they woke up this morning made Dustin worry.
But there’s no response from Steve, just a confused face and a curled lip.
“Sherlock Holmes,” Dustin supplies after noticing Steve’s expression. Still no response, just a confused face. Dustin scoffs, moving away from Steve to look further into the room.
“That’s great,” Steve mutters before speaking up louder as Dustin moves away. “Thanks, that’s great. Really helpful.”
Dustin continues to walk away, not even bothering to look back. Steve continues to mutter under his breath, annoyed and trying to figure out what to look for. Obvious things which nobody observes? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Shouldn’t what they are looking for be obvious? I mean, this is a freaky flesh-burned wizard from what Max described to them. That should stick out like a sore thumb.
But something not so obvious catches Steve’s attention. Maybe it’s his poor eyesight, but when his flashlight runs over the vent grate, there’s a glimmer.
Well, it shouldn’t hurt to check out.
Peeling open the grate and then shining his light in, he finds jars. Multiple. And when he pulls one out, inside he finds a spider. Dead, obviously, since the jar has no holes in the top, but maybe once alive, as there are some twigs and leaves kept in the jar. There’s a skittering on his arm, the feeling of something he prays is his imagination at first, but then it continues and he knows it’s really there.
He jumps up, dropping the jar and shattering it as he swipes at his arms and head to rid the creature from himself. He passes through webs as he continues his backpedaling, only to stop when he hears...
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Steve, what’s wrong?”
Dove places a hand on his shoulder, keeping him from moving away again.
“There was a spider, a black widow,” Steve pants, running a hand over the back of his head again. He looks at the door of the study, quickly grabbing the handle and shutting it. “Don’t go in there.”
Dove chuckles slightly before nodding. “Got it.”
Steve turns his back to her for a second, and Dove catches sight of the webs still in his hair. “Oh, Pretty Boy, you—”
“What? What is it?”
He rushes over to the mirror on the wall, trying to look at the back of his head before Dove comes up and grabs his shoulder.
“Stop moving, let me just—” she reaches up, beginning to pick the bits of cobweb out of his soft hair.
“Thank you,” Steve sighs in relief. Yuck, spiders.
“If there’s a spider nesting in there, you’re never gonna find it till it lays eggs and all the babies spill out,” Robin says, coming out of nowhere with Nancy trailing close behind.
“What’s wrong with you?” Steve snaps, cutting his eyes at her as she walks past.
Robin chuckles, backpedaling to look at Dove with a mischievous smile, making Dove smirk too.
“Robin, seriously,” Steve calls after her before whispering to Dove, “She’s got problems.”
“Yeah, but they’re your problems,” Dove chuckles again.
“Uh, and yours.”
“Yeah, but she’s your best friend.”
“Uh huh, sure. Remind me who she clings to whenever she makes our bed a dog pile when she sleeps over?”
Dove stifles a laugh as she thinks about the few times Robin decided to squeeze herself between Steve and Dove for a sleepover after a movie night. Robin always ends up snuggling up to Dove, somehow pushing Steve to the edge of his own bed.
“Yeah, okay, that’s fair,” Dove relents, pulling a long cobweb out.
“It’s cool her and Nancy are friends now,” Steve says.
“Yeah, friends.”
“Well, whatever they are, or end up being, it’s cool. Maybe after we find Vecna, kill him, save the world and stuff, maybe we can all go out or something. Maybe even Jonathan when he’s back.”
Dove’s motions falter for a second before continuing to brush the webs out of Steve’s hair.
“Okay, you are web-free,” Dove announces, stepping out from behind Steve.
“Great, yeah, thanks,” Steve says, suddenly awkward as he turns to face his girlfriend. “Did you, uh, find anything? In the kitchen?”
“Just some old canned food and cockroaches,” Dove answers, shivering at the thought of the cockroaches coming out of the pantry when she opened it. That made her decide upstairs was definitely going to be more fruitful in finding clues.
“Right, gross,” Steve says, curling his lip in disgust at the thought as well. “And no bone-snapping visions or finding weird mind gates and jumping into them?”
Dove rolls her eyes, shaking her head. “No, Steve.”
Steve nods. “Okay, good. Just don’t go jumping into those here.”
“Oh my God,” Dove sighs, rolling her eyes again. “I know you don’t like it, Steve, but it might be helpful if one of those showed up and I went in. Vecna might not be on the other side of it, we could find some answers.”
“Or maybe he’s waiting there like it’s a trap.”
“Well, we’re not finding anything here, so…”
“Yeah, well, the obvious things are not what people observe,” Steve poorly quotes before backtracking. “Or ‘don’t observe.’ Or… I don’t know, something Sherlock Holmes said. All I’m saying is, we just need to be careful.”
“Right, got it,” Dove sighs, shaking her head before flicking her flashlight on again and walking away.
A chill runs up Dove’s spine, and the feeling of being followed—her name echoing throughout the house—returns, and she’s looking around quickly before Lucas’s voice from downstairs calls everyone down.
Now they’re all standing around the dining room table, looking up at the chandelier lights flickering in a pulse.
“It’s like the Christmas lights,” Nancy says in awe.
“The Christmas lights?” Robin asks in a whisper to Nancy.
“Yeah, when Will was in the Upside Down, the lights… came to life,” Nancy tries to explain.
“Vecna’s here, in this house, just on the other side,” Lucas says.
The lights stop, and Dove feels the shift. “He left the room.”
“Did he hear us?” Max asks, looking around.
“Can he see us?” Steve asks, looking directly at Dove.
“Headphones,” Lucas says, pointing at Max, who lifts them to her ears quickly and rewinds her tape.
Steve’s hand reaches out and grabs Dove’s, lacing their fingers together and squeezing tightly for a second. Dove looks behind her, trying to find where the shift went, looking for that same tear in reality for a second, but finds nothing.
“Everyone, turn off your flashlight and spread out,” Nancy says as an idea pops into her head.
Lights shut off and movement begins as the room starts to envelop in darkness.
“We’re not gonna be able to see if we turn off our flash…lights,” Steve trails off as the only light left on is his.
Dove slips her hand from his, beginning to spread out, but he quickly follows behind.
“Steve, we gotta spread out,” Dove says, catching a glimpse of him in the low light.
“We are, I’m just… staying close,” Steve says, coming right up to her side.
A little bit of wandering later, Robin’s voice calls out when she finds him, her flashlight illuminating in a pulse before dying. The light bounces to Steve’s, and they follow it up the stairs before it cuts out.
“We lost him,” Steve grumbles, looking at the dull light.
Dove turns her head, barely catching the glimmer of golden light. “No, we didn’t.”
She pulls open the door, revealing the most ominous-looking attic staircase any of them have ever seen.
Steve leads the charge as they go up, the stairs creaking under the weight of each of their steps.
“Guys,” Dustin hisses, but no one turns back. “Guys, what if he’s leading us into a trap?”
But Steve, Dove, and Max have already reached the attic, staring at the singular light bulb illuminating the space in the middle. As they all come under the bulb, the buzzing sound grows louder as all their flashlights illuminate.
They circle around the bulb, looking up at it as it pulses and buzzes.
“Okay, what’s happening?” Steve asks with a wavering voice.
The lights shine brighter and brighter, and Dove doesn’t know how she sees it, but right next to Steve is that same tear. It’s small, but it’s there.
“Steve,” Dove says, looking right past him at the tear.
And when Steve follows her gaze and sees nothing, he turns back to her with wide eyes. “Dove, no, don’t—”
“But what if—”
“If he’s right there, he could kill you—”
“We don’t know that—”
“Yes, we do—”
“Uh, what is she talking about?” Robin asks, making both Steve and Dove cut their eyes to her.
But before they can answer, before Dove can even think about going into the tear, the flashlights explode. Starting with hers, and then Steve’s, and then Max’s, and then everyone else’s in the circle.
They shield their eyes from the glass, and just before the bulb above them shatters, Dove sees it—or him, rather.
“Dovey,” he says, his voice low and menacing. “Your time is coming.”
In a blink, he’s in front of her, hand coming up to her face and then placing itself on her throat. “But not now.”
He squeezes slightly, and that’s the last thing Dove sees before she blacks out for a second and the last bulb explodes, plunging them into darkness.
Steve catches her falling form, steadying her against him before she snaps right back into herself with a gasp.
“What? What was it?” Steve says, frantically grabbing her face and pulling her gaze toward him.
“He was—I was—he was right there, I saw him—but I didn’t go in—”
“Hey, hey, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Steve says, pulling her into a hug against his chest. He smooths her hair down, flattening her curls as he looks at the concerned eyes around him.
Everyone begins to realize Dove might be in just as much danger as Max.
--------------
Max enters the Harrington house first, slinging her backpack full of clothes over her shoulder and heading straight up the stairs for the guest room. Dove had convinced everyone they needed a good night's sleep tonight, in real beds, not on couches or on the floor of the Wheeler basement. Leaving Max to join Steve and Dove at their house, Robin and Nancy staying in Nancy’s room, and Dustin and Lucas crashing in Mike’s room there as well.
Tensions were high leaving the Creel house. No one really knew what it meant when the flashlights shattered or why Dove was seeing a tear in reality. There were so, so many questions about everything that no one had answers to.
Dove was fine. Or at least she was trying very hard to be. Sure, a flesh-burned monster from another dimension had looked her dead in the face and told her that her time was coming, but besides that? Totally fine.
Except she’s not. Not really. Because a few months ago, maybe even a year ago, she would’ve swallowed this fear whole and carried it alone without letting anyone see what it was doing to her. That version of Dove would’ve made this her issue, and hers alone.
But this version of her is different now. This version lets herself feel things. This version has people who love her (she realizes she always had that with her mother but something about it was never the same as this love she experiences with these people, with Steve), people she leans on without even realizing it sometimes. And because of that, she’s terrified in a way she’s never been before. Because that means there might be something more to lose than just herself.
“I’m going to bed,” Max projects to them from the top of the stairs, down to where Steve and Dove were taking off their shoes in the foyer.
“Leave the door to your room open, please,” Steve says and it’s not a question. “There should be a cassette player in there, you can play your music out loud. You know, just in case.”
Max nods, the corner of her mouth twitching into a smile before she crunches her face to make it go away. “Thanks, I’ll uh, yell if I see any clocks.”
Steve nods and then turns his attention back to Dove, who is looking at herself in the mirror by the front door. He’s not sure what she’s looking at, but he watches her grab her hair and pull it to one side, messing with the ends.
“I need a hair cut,” Dove states suddenly, looking at Steve in the reflection.
He just stares at her, mouth slightly parted and expression impossible to read. His eyes track the absent way she twists the ends of her hair through her fingertips, inspecting the split ends like this unspoken conversation isn’t sitting heavy between them.
Suddenly, Steve is hit with it all. The graveyard, the sleepless night, the argument. The desperate sex in his car where they clung to each other like it would somehow prove it, even though neither of them knew what they were trying to prove. Forty-eight hours of terror and tension crashing down on him all over.
Because now there’s this looming truth hanging over him: the girl he loves—so deeply, so painfully, so completely—could die if he doesn’t figure out how to protect her. And the worst part is that it might not even be Vecna who takes her from him. It might be Dove herself. Throwing herself into danger trying to save Max from him first.
“What’s your favorite song?” He finally asks.
Dove furrows her brows together, shaking her head before turning to him. She leans against the buffet that’s under the mirror, the edge of it digging into her lower back.
“Steve, I’m not cursed.”
“Is it still Abba? The Winner Takes It All?”
“Steve—”
“He told you your time was coming.”
Dove sighs, “He—he’s probably just trying to scare me. Let’s not go crazy, okay?”
Steve’s face twists with confusion before hardening into anger. “Can you please just stop and consider for a second that you might also be in danger?”
Dove sighs, shaking her head. “I’m not worried about that right now, okay?”
“Well, you should be.”
Dove’s jaw parts to speak, but the words stall in her throat. She can’t think of a response good enough to make Steve drop it.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she finally admits.
“I want you to tell me you’ll stop trying to do this alone.”
“I can’t do that,” Dove shakes her head. “You know I can’t do that. This is my problem, I have—”
“No,” Steve says flatly.
“No? What do you mean no—”
“I mean no, you don’t get to tell me that this isn’t my problem too. No matter how many times I tell you I am here to help you, that we can get through this together, you just won’t listen. Why? Why can’t you just let me help you?”
Dove chews on her bottom lip, avoiding his gaze as she crosses her arms.
“You said you understood—”
“I didn’t say shit about understanding, I let you distract me but this is not something we’re avoiding anymore,” Steve says sternly, taking a step closer to her.
She’s silent again, staring down to her left, looking at her pair of converse she discarded by the door, a layer of dust at the bottom of them. She’ll have to clean them, that is if she ever gets a chance to. Maybe Max will want them.
Steve takes his pointer finger and hooks it under her chin, pulling her gaze towards him. “Why are you trying to handle this by yourself?”
“Because it’s my fault.”
Steve’s eyebrows furrow together in confusion. “How is any of this your fault?”
“No…not this, well maybe this too, I don’t…I just feel like because…” She takes a deep breath, shuddering and shaky.
“Hey, hey, baby breathe, breathe,” Steve says, taking her face in both his hands, stroking her cheek bones. “If this is about your mom, you’ve gotta remember that’s not your fault. We talked about this, you didn’t know what was going to happen—”
“But I should’ve—”
“There was no way for you to know,” Steve interrupts, tucking some hair behind her ear. “You can’t blame yourself for that.”
“But I do.”
It strikes Steve then that this is something he’s seen Dove do more than just now. Granted, it’s been at a lesser scale but he’s watched her consistently take the blame for things. Maybe that's it, the thing weighing on her is her belief that everything that’s gone wrong in her life is her fault.
Steve shakes his head quickly. “But what does your moms death have to do with this?”
Silence stretches between them after the question. The ticking of the clock, the muffled sound of Kate Bush, Dove’s ragged breaths—they all echo louder in the stillness while Steve waits for her response.
Dove pushes herself away from him, standing in front of the front door.
“I have to fix it. This is my problem. He keeps telling me I was made for this—that’s what I keep hearing—so I have to deal with it. Me. I can’t make you or anyone—”
“I love you!” Steve finally yells cutting her off.
She stops, not expecting that to be what he says at all.
“I know you do, I love you too—”
“No, I love you, Dove. I love you so much, and because I love you, I can’t just stand by and let you try to deal with it alone. I can’t watch you try to kill yourself trying to save Max, or everyone else, trying to fix something that wasn’t your fault, because none of this is your fault. That’s not how this works. We are together. We are in this together.” Steve is breathing hard now too, tears glassing over his eyes as he stares at her.
Dove shakes her head, “Steve, I can’t ask you to do that—”
“You’re not asking. I told you, I want you to need me. I need you to need me. I need you to let me be there for you because I don’t know how to do this without you. I am telling you, I am here to help you, so let me.”
“You could die.”
“I would die a thousand times if it meant you were okay,” Steve says, bringing her face into his hands again as he crowds her again.
Dove shakes her head, shaking his hands from her and stepping around him. Away from him. “No, no Steve don’t say that, you can’t—”
“I would Dove, because I love you—”
“You don’t get to die because of me. I won’t allow it, so you have to—you have to let me do this.”
Steve shakes his head. “I won't, I can't.”
“Yes, Steve.”
And now it’s his turn to distract her, grabbing her face again and kissing her. It’s less frantic than hers was, less of him trying to distract her and more like him pouring all his love and devotion into it.
His head turns, deepening it as one of his hands drifts to her waist, pulling her against him. Her hands reach up, tangling in his hair for a second before using the leverage to pull him off of her.
“Don’t, don’t do that,” Dove pants.
“You did it to me,” Steve states matter-of-factly. “I love you, Dove, so I am telling you I am going to help you.”
Dove shakes her head, “I love you, Steve, and that’s why I can’t let you do that.”
Steve separates from her then, pacing a circle and rubbing his hands down his face in frustration. “Why? Why are you being so stubborn about this? What could—”
“I will not be the reason for you getting yourself killed!” Dove says, anger rising in her voice.
Steve feels that, he feels the weight behind it. But there’s more, more she’s not saying, not telling him. He can see it in her face, the way her eyes start to fill up with tears before sucking them back in. Trying to fight the feeling, whatever it is.
“But you can’t hurt yourself or—or let yourself get hurt because that’s only going to hurt others. Everyone around you cares about you and if you want to protect us, you gotta protect yourself. So no, I’m not gonna let you get yourself killed because you’ve decided you're expendable! You’re not. You of all people aren’t. Not to me.”
The silence settles. A standstill between them, both panting as they stare each other down in the foyer. The tension is thick enough to choke on. And he watches the flicker of something go across her face, an emotion he saw once before. But it can’t be that. He doesn’t let that cross his mind again.
“Look, it’s late, let’s just go to sleep, Nancy’s going to get here pretty early so we can go on that supply run for Eddie so—”
“We’re not going to bed without finishing this conversation, Dove,” Steve says, turning around as she walks past him and begins to head up the stairs.
Dove stops, hand gripping the railing tightly before looking back at him “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
Silence settles again as they look at each other before Steve relents, exhaustion creeping its way up both from this conversation and the lack of sleep. It’s not how he wants to end it. He wants it to end with her saying she’s not going to jump in front of a bullet for anyone. He wants her to talk about why she feels like her mom dying is her fault. He wants to know why she’s feeling like this and how to fix it. And he can’t help but to just sigh…because he just wants to go to bed.
“I love you, just please, remember that and please, and please don’t do anything stupid,” Steve finally says, stepping up the stairs with her, making them eye level.
Steve watches something in Dove melt at that. Her eyes soften as her face relaxes. And maybe she also just wants to go to bed too.
“I love you too,” she responds, but that’s all she says before leaning forward for a quick kiss.
Their lips lock, for just a second, not truly a peck but it doesn’t go any further before she turns and leads him up the stairs towards his room.
The pad into the space quietly, methodically going through the routine they’ve developed in living together. Opening drawers, taking off jewelry, brushing their teeth. And the routine stays silent while Steve keeps catching himself gazing over at Dove, who is kneeling in front of the dresser, staring at his T-shirts in contemplation.
Her chest rises and falls a little faster then normal and he sees her open her mouth to speak a few times but then shuts it. Like she can’t decide if she should say what she’s thinking. Until finally, she does.
“Steve?”
His gaze is already on her when she turns her head to look at him.
“Yeah?”
She bites her lip for a second, her face pulling into something he can’t really read. Like she’s fighting her own voice to come out of her throat.
“Um, when I was in New York last summer my aunt bought me a Stevie Nicks vinyl and uh…”
She stops herself again and Steve sees her face contort again before she takes a deep breath and shakes the feeling again. Like she did in the car.
“The Winner Takes It All is still up there but I heard Edge of Seventeen for the first time and, uh, yeah, that’s probably my favorite now, I guess.”
Steve just stares, something churning in his stomach. Something akin to hope but it doesn’t last long when she averts her gaze. But it’s enough, enough of a thought of wanting to be saved.
summary: Absence makes the heart grow fonder, or whatever that bullshit saying is cause Steve is going crazy without Dove and needs to tell her how he feels but he can't find her. Until Lucas Sinclair does.
warnings: SMUT, grief & bereavement (parent death), trauma & PTSD symptoms, references to torture and past violence, emotional withdrawal, relationship conflict & yelling, fear of abandonment.
authors note: WOOOOOOOO SMUT WOOOO FOR ADMITTING FEELINGS WOOO FOR ME NOT BEING SICK (I still am) also yeah, the title of this chapter is after the John Mayer song Edge of Desire cause that song is perfect and if you haven't heard it then you're missing out.
chapter 12
Chapter 13: Edge of Desire
August 29th is the first day anyone from the Party sees Dove.
Lucas is at Bradley’s Big Buys, looking for new notebooks for school, when he spots the blonde in the cosmetics section.
At first, he just stands there, watching her, not really knowing what to do. No one had seen her or heard from her in almost two weeks, but he knows Steve has been really, really concerned.
Steve had gathered all the kids one night and put them on Dove watch. Robin sat there the entire time telling them this was not necessary and she was "seriously considering entering Steve into a home" because she was "convinced he was becoming a paranoid schizophrenic".
And while she was being a tad bit dramatic, Steve was extremely worried and was acting a bit crazy. These nightmares he’s been having about her being taken are getting more and more vivid. Almost becoming memory like. He needed to find her and make sure she was okay. He needed to make sure no Russians came back to finish the job and take her.
It might be irrational.
It also might not be.
Dustin seemed to be the only one taking Steve’s fear seriously.
But Lucas has entirely forgotten all the rules of Dove watch as he stands stunned in Bradly's. Get on the radio with code “Purple Rain, Track 6” (Dustin’s idea, Steve tried to argue it), keep her in the location until Steve gets there. Make sure there's no Russians.
Lucas just stands staring at her looking at different lipsticks like he’s scared of her. Which he shouldn’t be, it’s only Dove. Dove used to babysit him and sneak him and Erica extra ice cream. She bought him DnD dice. Dove is nice, Dove is his friend.
But Dove had become someone recently he didn’t know. He’s unsure how she’ll react if he approaches her and says Steve is worried about her.
So… he keeps his distance. Watching her until she leaves the store and gets in her car. Then he hops on his bike, following her as fast as he can.
Stalking your friends is what you do when you’re concerned, right?
He gives himself a little grace on the matter as he watches Dove get out of her car and walk into the old WSQK building. Not where he thought she’d been hiding but he guesses she really didn’t want to be found then.
He’s back at the Harrington house by nightfall, the sun setting over the trees and gray clouds rolling in with the promise of rain. Lucas barely even stops his bike before he tosses it onto the ground and stumbles into Steve’s house, not even bothering to knock.
Robin and Steve are sitting in the living room. Robin lies on her back on the longest couch while Steve paces, voicing his problems to her like she’s his therapist. They were supposed to be filling out job applications, but that got sidetracked very quickly.
“And I don’t know, I mean I said 'I want you' and maybe that was too forward,” Steve complains, gesturing as he walks. “But she can't think I only want her for sex, right? Like we never even did it—well okay, we did do something but it didn't get very far because she pushed me away after I went do—”
"Too much information!" Robin covers her ears.
"Oh grow up, you asked what was wrong," Steve grumbles. "Anyway, I know she had a lot of issues with guys before but...I don't know I guess I thought I was better, I guess. Like I tried really hard not to push anything, I tried really hard not to have feelings for her in general but that failed, terribly. But besides all of that, she means more to me than just someone to have sex with. Dove is...she's been there for me more than anyone else ever has before. I just want to fix this, you know? I want to fix this for her."
“Well, maybe she doesn't need it fixed,” Robin replies, tossing the baseball she’d been holding into the air. “Maybe you should stop trying to be her white knight and just be her friend. You know, be yourself.”
“I'm not trying o be her white knight.”
“Uh, you do, with your whole ‘I’m Steve and I’m here to save you Dove’. You literally just said 'I just want to fix this'. I mean seriously Steve, not all women need saving.”
“I know that!”
“Then why can't you just tell her how you actually feel?”
Steve sighs and drops onto the opposite couch, burying his face in his hands.
“I just don’t know, Robin. It's like the words get stuck in my throat, you know? And I know I don't need to save her, I want to. I want her to trust me and know how much I care. And this is something I really feel, like deeply, and it's scary because the last girl I said I loved looked me in the eyes and told me I was bullshit. Which...which absolutely destroyed me to be honest.”
He sighs, looking over to the lamp on the side table.
"I just want her to be okay. I really like her, no I love her, in more ways than one. And it wasn't like this with Nance, this is different."
It's so much different because this goes way past a physical attraction for her. It's deeply seated in his soul, like it was always there and he's just not discovered it.
Robin smiles softly. A little sad, but genuine. "I think she just needs time, Steve. This is hard for her, it would be for anyone and yeah she's handling it a little differently then other's would but maybe that's just how she deals with things. But—”
The front door flying open cuts their conversation short.
“I… found…” Lucas says, leaning forward with his hands on his knees, completely gassed from the miles he biked and the adrenaline finally wearing off.
“Sinclair?” Steve asks, jumping up from the couch. “Found what?”
“Dove,” Lucas pants, straightening after a deep breath. “She’s at the radio station. WSQK.”
Robin stands immediately, grabbing Steve’s shoulder and forcing him to look at her before he can move. “Steve, see? She’s safe. No Russians.”
Steve’s jaw tightens, his bottom lip tingling as his teeth dig into it. “Right. Right, yeah. Good. Okay. We know where she is. That’s good. Maybe I can—”
“Steve—”
“I’ll just call and make sure—”
“Steve, let her grieve how she needs to,” Robin says gently, pressing him back down onto the couch. “She needs time. She needs space to figure it out.”
Steve can practically taste blood from chewing his lip, but he nods, leaning forward and grabbing the job application he’d abandoned to talk about his feelings.
Lucas stares at his back in shock.
“What are you doing?”
Steve looks back at him, confused. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, why are you not going after her?” Lucas asks, disbelief creeping into his voice. “You gathered us together for ‘Dove patrol’, and now we’ve found her and you’re just going to sit here? Steve, seriously, man.”
“Lucas, maybe Dove wants to be alone,” Robin snaps, frustration creeping in. “She hasn’t reached out for a reason obviously. Why can’t you guys see that?”
“Because she literally never wants to be alone!” Lucas yells, his voice cracking on the word literally. “After everything that happened last year, she always had people around. She was there for all of us. You guys made us feel normal after everything! She's always there for us. She needs her friends!”
Lucas pants at the end of his rant, his eyes locking with Steve’s as he says the next words.
“She needs you.”
Steve’s keys are in his hand before he even realizes it. He’s out the front door and nearly trips over himself as he races to his car, Robin yelling, “Just be yourself!” as she watches him tear out of the driveway.
--------------------
Dove is cleaning the kitchen of the WSQK building, the sounds of “Every Breath You Take” fills the air nicely. The past week has given her enough mundane tasks, along with new and exciting ones, to quiet her brain of all the depressing thoughts. Clean, organize, make sure the queue is set until 1 a.m., before there’s a lull before the early morning show at five.
The late nights are good. She hasn’t been sleeping much anyway since she stopped staying at Steve’s.
Jimmy Fast Hands gave her full reign pretty quickly after she came in a week ago to see if Eddie’s suggestion had been true. She’s enjoying helping out at the radio station a lot more than she thought she would. The routine allowing her to not dwell on things to hard.
Tonight is a good night. The rain starting outside makes the warm lighting of the station feel cozy, and Dove thinks she might actually sleep.
But the thoughts consuming her now are about Steve.
This insane voice, the one that kept pushing her to a dark place keeps telling her she can’t expect him to be there for her. That he wouldn’t even want to be there. Even after he’s shown up for her so many times. It tells her she'll only hurt him with how she feels. That she takes up too much space and what she did...
He’s safer at this distance. She can’t make him carry her burdens. She can’t make him miserable if she stays away. She can't hurt him or herself anymore.
Her father would have had a cow if he saw her behavior since July 4th.
And that’s something she’s never really thought about until Steve came into her life. How Steve has made her feel more things than she can ever remember feeling. Even when her dad died and told her to be brave, she didn’t even feel the need to cry. She can never remember a time where she felt things normally. That makes her her think she's a little broken, when she knows she's not. But that voice, it's gotten to her more and more. It's never been there before but it's winning.
And as awful as it is to say, she was shocked by how torn up she was about her mother’s death. Dove Jones had never experienced strong emotions, but when Steve Harrington came into her life… all she could do was feel things. Something changed that night last fall. Dove always just chalked it up to the trauma from the events, but the more she’s thought about it recently, Steve was the thing that made her change.
In more ways than she actually knew.
The queue is coming to an end, and Dove moves back to the wall of records to begin picking out music for the next hour after the run of ads. Her hands hover over the vinyl shelves, fingers brushing along the spines until they stop on the newer Tears for Fears record. Everybody Wants to Rule the World stares back at her.
Her mind drifts to Steve blasting this song at full volume every time it comes on the radio. He likes this one.
Maybe she’ll play it just for him.
God, what is wrong with her?
“Just talk to him,” Dove mutters to herself, pulling out the record and walking back to the booth. “I mean, he’ll understand it’s Steve, and maybe then you can finally just tell him how you feel, like actually tell him. But that’s only if he doesn’t hate you now for saying those things to him and then running away. God, Jones you really need to st-
Tires crunch against gravel and headlights shine through the station’s front windows, making Dove’s rant come to an abrupt stop. She runs to the front door and peers outside, shocked when she sees the familiar burgundy Beamer parked out front.
She pushes the door open and steps under the awning just as Steve gets out of the car.
“Steve? What are you doing here?” she yells over the rain that has begun pounding down on him, soaking his hair and shirt.
“Lucas saw you today and followed you here,” Steve confesses, closing the driver’s door and stepping into the headlights still cutting through the rain. “Listen, I can’t keep doing this.”
There are about five yards between them. Dove stays sheltered from the rain while Steve stands fully exposed, accepting it without hesitation.
“Doing what?” Dove asks.
“This—This not talking thing,” Steve says, throwing his hands up in frustration. “I can’t keep letting you push me away when I need you.”
Dove blinks, tears forming as she fights to keep them from falling. “Steve, I—I don’t know what—”
“Dove, just talk to me, please,” Steve begs, taking half a step closer but staying in the rain.
“I can’t,” Dove breathes, holding herself back from running to him and clinging on. There’s that one part of her holding her back from going to him, like she’s being held by a string.
“Why?”
Silence stretches between them, the rain pelting down the only sound.
“Dove,” Steve says, drawing her eyes back to him. “I need you to need me, because I can’t breathe without you. You’ve infected my mind. You’re all I’ve been thinking about. You took over my brain that night at the Snowball Dance—”
“The Snowball Dance? But, you were still in love with Nancy then,” Dove cuts in.
“Nancy?”
“You looked for her in every room and got upset every time you saw her with Jonathan. You complained about her to me for weeks. You told me how heartbroken you were and I—” Dove stops herself, remembering the words Steve spoke to Robin in the mall bathroom. He was over Nancy, he didn’t love her anymore. She knows that. She’s known that.
“I don’t know how much more obvious I need to be that I’m over Nancy,” Steve laughs, shaking his head. “Dove, you are literally all I think about. I never understood how strong this feeling could be. Yeah, Nancy was the first girl I ever loved, but that’s not the same as how I feel about you.”
“And how do you feel about me?” Dove asks, his words making her heart flutter as they slowly drown out the voice in her head telling her to stay put.
Another beat of silence passes as Steve looks at her, fists clenched at his sides before he releases them, letting out a breath at the same time.
“I love you, Dove Jones,” he says. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything in my life, because you make me feel like the best version of myself. I can’t imagine a life without you because you’re already in me. Watching you while the Russians tortured me or when you tried to risk your life to help El, I have never been more sick or scared of losing someone. You’re just…everywhere. In my head. All the time and I can’t sleep without you beside me or knowing that you’re safe. Every time you’ve pushed me away since we made it out broke my heart more and more everyday because I want—no, I need you. I love you.”
He takes one step closer.
"And I don't just want you for sex. I don't know where you got that idea from but I...I could never just want you for that. You're not a prize to me. You're Dove. My Dove. Who builds snowmen with me when my dad and I fight and plays with my hair when I never let anyone touch my hair. You have given me so much peace since you came into my life. I've gone back on everything I believe since I've gotten close with you and...I can't keep living without you. So yeah, I love you Dove, I love you so goddamn much it makes me crazy."
Steve wants her closer, but he respects the distance, nails digging into his palms as he waits. The silence is unbearable.
“Say something,” he pleads. “Please. I can’t keep going without you. Let me in. I need—”
Dove doesn’t let him finish, the string holding her back snaps. She launches herself into the rain, into his arms, finally crushing the voice telling her she can’t have this, and presses her lips to his.
His hands hold her sides, fingers digging in and pulling her flush against him. Dove melts into it like muscle memory finally given permission to exist.
The kiss is deeper than the last ones they shared. Less frantic, more intentional. Steve makes a low sound in his chest when her hands slide into his hair, and he kisses her like it’s the only way to keep breathing. Like he’s been starving for this and only just found food.
Dove exhales into him, a shaky breath she feels like she’s been holding for weeks. Her hands slide to his chest, gripping his shirt and pulling him closer, needing him closer. No more pushing down her emotions and praying they go away. Because fuck it, she doesn’t need to know what comes next. Steve loves her and he’s saying it whole heartedly and unashamed. She needs him.
The kiss slows, growing heavy with meaning instead of urgency. Steve’s grip tightens before he deepens it again, turning Dove and pressing her against the hood of his car. He leans into her, hands moving up her back, savoring every sound she makes until she pulls away, gasping for air.
His lips chase hers, landing one last soft kiss before he rests his forehead against hers, nudging his nose along the side of hers. The rain weighs her hair down, clinging to her cheeks, and Steve pushes it back, wiping away the droplets scattered across her skin.
“I’m sorry I pushed you away again,” Dove breathes, her voice catching. “I just… I think I’ve been confused. I didn’t know who I was after everything.”
Steve’s heart breaks at her honesty.
“But I think I know one thing for sure,” Dove continues, her hands sliding from his sides to cradle his face. She’s not afraid to name it anymore. “I love you too, Steve. And I think, deep down, I know I've been for a long time. And I love you so much that I’m scared of it. I didn’t know what to do with that, so I ran. You’ve been nothing but kind and patient with me, and I’ve been confusing and unfair, and just a bitch, and I’m sorry—”
Steve holds her face again, interrupting her this time with a soft kiss. She melts, the tension leaving her shoulders as their lips part and she looks at him. His eyes are molten as they look at her, full of adoration and longing. Dove has never received such a loving look before.
She’s crying now, her voice trembling. “I don’t—Steve—I’ve never felt like this before ever, and that’s terrifying to me. But I...I think I want all of it, with you. Because you’re the reason I am finally feeling something. And I want to be there for you and give myself to you, but I’m so scared of myself and that I’ll hurt you when I don’t mean to. I just don’t know what’s next or what to do, and…”
“I’m here, right now. I’m here for you,” Steve says without hesitation. “You don’t have to be scared. I love you, and I always will. Let me in. Let me be there for you. Let me love you, because I really don’t know how to do this without you.”
There’s a pause, Dove’s breath trapped in her chest as she white-knuckles his shirt. Her gaze drops, and for a second — just a second — that part of her that doesn’t want her to have anything good tries to win. That voice telling her something different, trying to corrupt everything good she has ever had.
But Steve looks at her, and there’s something in his eyes that pushes that voice away.
He’s here.
He wants her.
Her lips crash into his again, pouring everything she has into the kiss.
He pulls back abruptly, "This...this isn't some plow just to have sex, you that right?"
Dove stares at him, rain pouring down both of them, soaking their hair and clothes, and laughs.
"God, I would hope not," she says, the bright smile that Steve loves on her consuming her features.
"Okay, okay good because if this...if this did lead to that tonight I wouldn't want you to think that—"
"Steve."
"Yeah?"
"I want that."
Steve smiles, a little boyish and happy because the girl he's in love with just says she wants that with him. Can you blame him? His hands slide back to her waist, lifting her from the car as he spins her around, holding her tight as the rain keeps falling, kissing her with that smile still on his face.
“Then come home,” Steve says once he’s set her down. “Come home and let me love you, please.”
“I’ve gotta stay here and close up,” Dove replies, her hands framing his face and brushing the water that ran down his cheeks.
He groans, head falling into the croak of her neck, hands gripping her hips tightly. “Fine, but come home. Sleep with me, I haven’t slept since you left.”
So, four hours later, when the stars filled the sky and the rain had passed by the turn of the day, Dove’s car sat in its rightful place in the Harrington driveway. Her presence now needed with Steve, where she lays now under him, his lips painting her neck with kisses and loving bruises.
His hands roam her body, feeling her up and she loves every touch he gives her.
Steve was afraid he’d never get to have her like this. But now as he lays slotted between her thighs, kissing down her body, he finds himself in heaven.
“Steve,” she gasps, fingers tangling in his hair as his lips kiss her breasts. Clothes had been discarded long ago, both of them left in their undergarments.
It's different than every other time she's had sex. Of course, those times weren't fueled with love like this is. Those were fueled by lust and a need to prove something.
Dove’s bra is unclasped without her even expecting it and Steve’s lips clasp around her nipple, causing her to let out a moan that Steve desperately wants to hear more and more of.
“We can stop, if you’re not ready,” Steve whispers, despite himself. His hand is clutching the side of her thigh, his lips ghosting over the skin of her neck, breathing in her scent. “Just tell me what you want, baby.”
The pet name has her keening, pulling at his locks and encouraging him back to her lips.
She whispers against his lips, “Please, please don’t stop.” Kissing him again and running her hands down his body, trying to pull him closer when he then pulls away. “I’m ready. I want this, I want you. So please, don't stop.”
Steve’s lips lay to Dove’s forehead, his hand traveling across her stomach, the muscles twitching at the warmth that radiates from it. He’s slow in his movements, making her impatiently wiggle beneath his touch.
“Stop teasing,” she says, her voice stern but no seriousness behind it as she stares fondly into her favorite honey-brown eyes.
“Patience, Wonder Women,” he replies, kissing her neck and leaving another mark as he encourages her legs to part with his hand traveling between them. He stops again, hand on her pussy, barely a touch. “Are you sure? I mean, I want this, I really, really want this but if—if you need time we can wait. I don't want you to think—I don’t want to rush this.”
His words are full of concern even with the heel of his palm pressed against her and her heart flutters.
“Pretty boy,” she says, placing her hands on his face and making their noses bump as she brings his face square to hers. “I am so sure. Please, please touch me.”
Steve is good at following directions. And coming out of her mouth, so sure and wanting, he wastes no time in dipping his finger into her. She’s gasping at the intrusion, her mouth letting out the most amazing sounds as he adds a second finger, curling them inside her. He’s finding all the places that have her eyes fluttering shut and lips parting. When she’s moaning his name loudly as she comes undone, Steve can’t help himself from grinding against her leg to relieve some tension.
He sheds his boxers once her orgasm has fully ridden out, letting his dick spring free.
“Dove,” he whispers, hovering over her fully, one hand caressing her thigh pulling her open, looking into her green eyes.
She pulls him back to her lips, kissing him deeply and grabbing him herself. Pumping him a few times before lining him up and then pulling her mouth off of his.
“I need you, Steve.”
The words have him sinking into her now, his chest full and head hazy as she envelopes him. This is heaven. It’s perfect. She’s perfect. If he died now, he’d be set. But he doesn’t want to die now, because he wants to do this over and over until her legs are wobbly and he has to carry her tomorrow. And the next day because he'll do this again and again.
Which he would do without a single complaint.
Steve moves; slow, deep, filling every space she didn’t know was empty. His hand slides up her thigh, holding her leg open more, his other clutching hers so tightly she knows he’ll never let go. She doesn’t want him to. She never wants to. She’s pushed that part that won’t let her feel love, be loved, so far away in this moment it’s not even a voice that echoes in her mind. Because he has been showing her love and care. Not faltering once in her time being distant. He stayed by her side and tried to be there for her even while she tried to push him away.
Dove smiles, full and joyful as the pleasure courses through her whole body. She feels it, the love, the meaning of it as he thrusts into her. How he loves her.
Steve whispers her name like worship, a prayer, over and over as he moves inside her. Dove kisses his jaw, his cheek, his lips, any part of him she can reach, because this has cleared all the fog. She is in love with Steve Harrington. So deeply and utterly in love with him.
He feels so good moving inside her, his pace slow but not agonizingly so, just loving. Making her moan and beg for more and—
"Yes, yes, oh right there, don't stop." Steve’s hand sneaks between them, finding her clit and rubbing it at an expert pace to make her arch into him.
“Oh, God, Steve,” she moans in his ear, chasing the feeling of her release.
“You’re so beautiful, Dove,” Steve groans in her ear, his pace picking up when her walls clench around him. "You're taking me so well, like you were made for me. So beautifully made for me, I love you."
The praise is the tipping point.
“Oh, Steve,” she moans loudly, hands racking down his back. He keeps thrusting into her to prolong her pleasure as long as possible, not able to stop himself because he means it, she feels like she was made for him.
He cums deep in her with a groan muffled into her shoulder, her name leaving his lips whiney and “I love you” slipping out as well. His whole body shudders as he holds her like she’s his whole world. Because she is.
“I love you too,” she whispers back into his hair.
After, Steve cleans her up, a warm rag between he legs and she knows he's nothing like every guy she's slept with before for sure now (not that she needed much more then the two orgasm she just had).
They lay with legs tangled, sheets ruffled and only covering the parts of them that felt necessary, Dove’s head lies on Steve’s chest. Her fingers draw mindless shapes over his pec, the hair growing there tickling her skin as his hand twists one of her curls around his finger.
“I’m sorry, again, for being so distant the past month and being a bitch. I shouldn't have said what I said that night,” Dove says, the guilt of her behavior still heavy in her chest. “ And I shouldn’t have ran away, I should’ve stayed and talk but I didn’t know what to do and I—”
“Hey, don’t,” Steve says, placing a kiss on her forehead. “It’s been a hard time for all of us. We literally were tortured. I never expected you to be fine after that, no one did. Especially after watching—”
He trails off, unable to say it, afraid the wound is still too fresh.
“I know,” Dove says softly. “It’s just… I should’ve talked to you. I should’ve let you talk. You went through that too and it wasn’t fair that I was being so selfish…” She pushes herself up slightly so she can look him in the eyes. “When my dad died, I promised him I’d never be weak. Because he never showed his weaknesses, even while lying in that hospital bed.”
Steve’s hand slides over her bicep, grounding and gentle, as she takes a shaky breath and keeps going. This is the most she’s ever said about her dad to him. To anyone.
“But even before that, I just never really felt anything strongly before, I dunno, I can’t explain it,” Dove continues, a tear slipping free that she’s exhausted from fighting. “When we met last fall and everything happened with this supernatural bullshit and getting beat up way too often, I actually started to feel something. I thought it was just trauma but I’ve had trauma before. You were the only difference and the more we hung out, the more I started to feel, which is why I think I kicked you out that night from my room.”
She swallows.
“And I knew I was falling in love with you because I started needing you more and more, and that scared me. I’d never needed anyone like that before. So I pushed you away, hoping it would go away. But it didn’t. It just left me worse off than before.”
Steve brushes her hair back from her face, his hand cradling her cheek. “Dove… I need you too, you know.”
“I know,” she says quickly. “And I love being there for you. Through everything. Everything about your parents, how you were coping with change, about Nancy, I loved being there for you. And after the mall…I guess I was selfish, because at least I knew you were okay. Alive. But…” She exhales, frustrated with her own thoughts. “I don’t know, Steve. I wanted you so badly I convinced myself you could never want me. Because you never acted like every other guy and that...I don't know I felt like I didn't deserve it. I still kinda do, but I'm not going to keep lying to myself about it.”
Steve smiles at her, something warm and proud in his expression, though there’s an ache underneath it. No one had ever been good enough to her.
“You, my dear Dove, are too good for me,” he says, leaning up to press a slow kiss to her lips. “I don’t think I’d be who I am now if you hadn’t come along and helped whip me into shape. I don’t know where I’d be.”
“Probably still hanging out with Tommy Hagan,” Dove laughs, pushing a rogue strand of hair off his forehead.
“And what an asshole I’d still be,” Steve laughs with her, kissing her again because he can now. “You don’t need to apologize. Just let me be there, don’t push me away. Let me love you and take care of you. Even when you don’t want it. Let me help you feel strong when you feel weak. Let me help you figure out what comes next. Because I love you, Dove.”
Her lips curve into an involuntary smile, warmth blooming in her chest as she kisses him again, deeper this time. She cradles his face, pulling him closer as she leans back, only to pull away moments later, amused by the dazed look in his eyes.
“I love you, Steve Harrington,” she says, proud and sure. “And I think wherever I’m meant to be next will come to me when it’s time. But right now—” she settles back against his chest, fitting there easily— “right now, I want to be right here with you.”
summary: The gangs all here to defeat the Mind Flayer and rid Hawkins of the other dimension once and for all. But situations like this leave scars and for Dove and Steve, those scars run deep.
authors note: hey, this is a lot. sorry not sorry. I love Dove Jones and her savior complex (get it cause it's the title? ok anyways)
chapter 10
Chapter 11: The Battle of Starcourt Mall
At a young age, fourteen, maybe fifteen, Steve decided he wanted boys. He always thought he’d want sons because he wanted to be better than his dad had been. Better in every way that mattered. He wanted to teach them how to hit a baseball, how to swim, how to ride a bike. He wanted to be there for all of it, no nannies. That part was non-negotiable.
He wanted to teach his boys how to ask girls out, how to take rejection on the chin and keep going. He wanted to cheer from the stands at every game, no matter how bad they played.
In a strange way, he’d recently gotten to practice that.
He liked being an older brother figure to Dustin. Being only children, they understood each other in a quiet, lonely way, only really ever having themselves. Well, except Dustin had an ever present mother, but they both lacked that father presence. Something solid had formed between them walking those railroad tracks that brisk Saturday in early November.
But as the months passed, and the kids spent more and more time filling his empty house, something shifted.
He started wanting girls, too.
It crept in slowly. In the way Max sprawled across his couch like she belonged there. In the way Eleven giggled and teased him mercilessly with Mike. In the way both of them fell asleep wherever they landed, subconsciously trusting he’d keep them safe.
It started the night he couldn’t bring himself to wake Eleven up to take her home.
It grew when he knelt in his driveway, cleaning gravel out of Max’s scraped elbows after she wiped out skateboarding. She brushed it off like it didn’t hurt, but her eyes were glossy and her bottom lip jutted out ever so slightly and it made Steve’s heart melt.
It grew more one late night after a movie, when Max came to Dove frustrated and almost in tears. She sat stiff and spoke aggressively about the fight her and her step dad had. Steve had found himself at Dove’s house when Max had arrived, walking the mile distance in misty rain. She was wrapped in a blanket on Dove’s couch. Steve’s fist clenching at the story of Max’s stepdad and Billy yelling at her for dropping a dish and breaking it. That’s how he knew he was a far different person from who his dad was.
Now Eleven’s head is laying in his lap.
One of her hands is clenched painfully tight in his shirt, knuckles white, the other gripping Mike’s as she writhes and cries. Steve barely feels anything at all except the way his nose burns, the way his chest caves in on itself. It’s the same feeling he had that night on the couch. That awful, tender realization. Eleven isn’t just a superhero.
She’s a little girl.
“Steve,” Dove says, pulling him out of his thoughts as she looks down at Eleven. “Help keep her talking. Keep her awake, okay?”
Steve nods, his mouth suddenly dry.
Dove scrambles to her feet and grabs Jonathan, who is closest, yanking him along with her. The two of them sprint toward the food kiosks, vaulting over the counters.
“What are we looking for?” Jonathan asks, rifling through drawers without really knowing what he’s searching for.
“Something sharp,” Dove snaps, yanking open drawer after drawer, eyes scanning fast. “A knife. Nothing serrated. I need a clean cut.”
“You’re gonna cut into her?” Jonathan asks sharply.
“Do you have a better idea to get whatever’s in her leg out?” Dove seethes. She opens another drawer and finds a large knife. She lifts it, inspects the blade, then looks back at him. “Get me gloves. And something for her to bite down on.”
Jonathan nods and moves to another counter, grabbing disposable food gloves. As he does, Dove strides to the gas stove, cranks it on, and holds the blade over the flame, watching it heat, hoping to disinfect it.
She’s purely methodical now. Clinical. She cannot afford to think.
Her hands shake slightly as the blade warms. She sniffles hard, forcing the tears back, then pulls the knife away and nods for Jonathan to follow her.
Mike hovers over Eleven, murmuring, “Stay awake, stay awake,” as he and Steve help shift her just a little. Eleven groans, curling instinctively away from Steve and closer to Mike.
“You know, it’s not actually that bad,” Robin starts, voice rushed and panicked. “There was this goalie on my soccer team, Beth Wildfire, and this girl slid into her leg and the bone came out of her knee. Like six inches. It was insane—”
“Robin,” Steve cuts in sharply.
“Yeah?”
“You’re not helping.”
She swallows. “I’m sorry.”
Dove rushes back, Jonathan right behind her, and kneels carefully at Eleven’s feet.
“Okay, El,” Dove says gently, forcing a steady voice. “Hey, listen. You’re gonna be okay.” She offers her a tight, apologetic smile as she lifts the knife. “This is gonna hurt like hell, but you’re gonna be okay.”
“Okay,” Eleven sobs, nodding.
Steve’s heart cracks at the sound. Even more at the sight of Dove’s eyes shining with tears. He knows she does not want to do this.
“I need you to be really still, okay?” Dove says, pulling on the gloves Jonathan hands her.
Jonathan presses a wooden spoon into Mike’s hand. “She needs to bite down on this.”
“Jesus Christ,” Dustin mutters as Eleven clamps down on the spoon.
Eleven whimpers as Dove lifts the knife, hovering over the wound, which is still pulsing, shifting beneath the skin.
“Holy shit, holy shit,” Dustin says.
“Dustin, shut up,” Dove snaps, and then she commits.
The blade comes, slicing into her skin on the wound, making Eleven scream. Everyone recoils.
Dove drops the knife once the cut is deep enough and immediately plunges her fingers into the wound. Bile burns her throat as she feels around blindly, skin slick with blood. Eleven screams louder.
“I’m sorry,” Dove whispers over and over. “I’m so sorry.”
The group groans, begs her to stop, some turning away as Eleven writhes in agony.
“Dove,” Steve protests, Eleven’s grip on his hand so tight he knows it’ll bruise.
“Shut up!” Dove yells as whatever is inside the wound slips away from her fingers again. She jerks her hand, trying to grab it. “Goddamn it!”
Eleven spits the spoon out, screaming, “No! Stop it!”
Dove immediately pulls her hand back, relieved to.
“I can do it,” Eleven gasps. She forces herself more upright and extends her arm. “I can do it.”
Something invisible takes hold.
Eleven strains, groaning in pain every time the thing inside her leg resists. She screams again, louder, harder, and then the glass storefront behind them explodes outward as she wrenches the fleshy creature free and flings it across the room.
At the feet of Chief Hopper, Joyce Byers, and a balding man.
After the long explanation from everyone about what had happened over the past day and a half, Dove finally starts to piece it together. How the Mind Flayer built a monster in Hawkins to stop Eleven and kill her, to pave a way into the real world. What was in Eleven’s leg was a piece of that monster, or weapon, that had almost killed her. And the monster was big. It destroyed Hopper’s cabin.
A plan was devised.
Close the gate, cut the brain from the body, and kill it. In theory.
Dove is pinching the spot between her brows again. Luckily, her head isn’t throbbing from all the information this time. Still, it’s nauseating.
Steve’s shoulder is pressed against hers as they’re grouped with everyone else. He keeps glancing down at her, noticing the small bruise forming on her cheek. He fights the twitch of his fingers, wanting to brush her hair behind her ear so he can look at her face more closely.
All thoughts and further conversation are halted as the bald man, Murray, speed-walks back in, waving papers and calling, “Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo!”
That’s where they stand now, grouped around a food court table as Murray explains what the Russian scientist, Alexei, told him. He points to the drawn-out map areas Dove, Steve, Robin, Dustin, and Erica had been trapped in all day.
“Now, the hub takes us to the vault room,” Murray says, continuing to gesture at the drawings on the map.
“Okay, where’s the gate?” Hopper asks.
Murray points to another room. “Right here. I don’t know the scale on this, but I think it’s fairly close to the vault room. Maybe fifty feet or so.”
“More like five hundred,” Erica speaks up, walking closer to the table.
Murray stares at her, jaw slack.
“What, you’re just gonna waltz in there like it’s commie Disneyland or something?” she continues, making all the adults raise their eyebrows.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” Murray asks, incredulous.
“Erica Sinclair. Who are you?”
“Murray… Bauman,” he replies, clearly shocked to have even been asked, especially by a young girl.
“Listen, Mr. Bunman, I’m not trying to tell you how to do things, but I’ve been down in that shithole for twenty-four hours. And with all due respect, if you do what this man tells you, you’re all gonna die.”
Hopper stares at her, brows furrowed.
“I’m sorry, why is this four-year-old speaking to me?” Murray asks, looking at Joyce and Hopper.
“She’s ten, asshole,” Dove cuts in, stepping slightly away from Steve’s side.
“Yeah, you bald bastard,” Erica adds, pleased to have the support of her former babysitter.
“Erica!” Lucas protests.
“Just the facts,” Erica shoots back.
“She’s right,” Dove says, pulling the focus back to herself. “You’ll die. We almost did.” Her voice catches. “My mom died down there.” A pause, she looks at them all, expression hardening as she swallows her emotions. “They won’t hesitate to kill you.”
There’s a pause as the three adults look at her, sorrow written plainly across their faces. Hopper’s is the most pronounced. He had watched the youngest Jones girl lose her father at fifteen, and now, at eighteen, she had lost her mother.
“But you don’t have to die,” Dustin speaks up, moving past Dove to the table, looking at Murray as he goes to the maps. “Excuse me, sorry, may I?”
“Please,” Murray says with a sarcastic smile.
Dustin sits down, Erica and Dove flanking to his sides. Dustin then explains the layout of the underground layer, explaining the ventilation system that he and Erica snuck through to get to the weapons base to save Steve, Robin, and Dove.
“It’s a bit of a maze down there, but between me and Erica, we can show you the way,” Dustin says confidently.
“You can show us the way?” Hopper asks slowly.
“Don’t worry you can do all the fighting and dangerous hero shit, and we’ll just be your…navigators,” Dustin clarifies, still beaming with confidence.
“No,” Hopper responds quickly.
Dustin's face drops.
“Hopper,” Dove says, making him look at her.
“Nope,” Hopper says again with a head shake.
While the adults gathered supplies from the guards lying on the ground, Dove snuck an extra clip of bullets for the gun she still carried, hoping no one (especially Hopper) would notice. Steve did, though.
He walked over to where she sat with the bag of chips she grabbed from Robin on the counter. Her legs tucked underneath her as she sat criss cross applesauce.
“Hey,” he says, hopping up onto the counter beside her.
“Hey,” she replies, popping a chip into her mouth.
Steve rubs his palms on the tops of his thighs nervously. “Um… so.”
She glances at him, waits.
“When we were hiding back there,” he starts, eyes fixed on her, though it’s almost like he’s looking through her. “From, like, the Russians. And you were about to use yourself as… bait.”
Dove stares at him, blank but attentive.
“I don’t want to tell you how to live your life,” he rushes on, words tripping over each other, “or be that guy or whatever, but I’d really love it if you didn’t, like—die. Or get yourself killed trying to be some hero or something.”
She swallows, eyes watering a little, still trying to keep her emotions at bay.
“And I don’t know if it’s because your mom died—” he winces at how blunt his words are, “and I’m so sorry that happened, and I’m sorry I dragged you away from that, but I really thought they were going to kill us, and then you just, used yourself as a distraction, and then we got caught and tortured or whatever, and they tried to use you against me and—”
“Steve.”
He barrels right past it.
“And I couldn’t stand seeing you like that, I really thought they killed you because they said they would, and I didn’t—” His voice cracks ever so slightly. “I didn’t want you to die when we haven’t even really talked about that night and I couldn’t stand the thought of losing my friend or—”
“Steve.”
He keeps going.“And I just—”
“Steve!”
Dove reaches up, her hand warm against his cheek.
His mouth closes.
She looks at him, eyes steady, soft but serious. “I couldn’t watch you die either.”
Steve doesn’t pull away from her hand. If anything, he leans into her touch instinctively.
“Oh,” he breathes, the sound quiet and helpless, not knowing what to do with the weight of her words.
Dove drops her hand from his cheek, fingers digging into the denim stretched tight over her thighs. “I know,” she says quickly, almost rushing herself. “I know it was stupid of me to throw myself in front of those soldiers and not follow you guys into the room, but I thought it would buy you time and I thought you’d be free and—” She swallows thickly, forcing the words past the knot in her throat. “Then the man who killed my mother made me watch while they tortured you. Beating you over and over asking us the same questions and I…”
Her voice wavers, but she doesn’t look away.
“I had already watched them take someone I love,” she continues, quieter now. “I couldn’t—” Her breath stutters. “I couldn’t let them take you too.”
The words land heavy in Steve’s chest, knocking the air from him. His jaw tightens as he holds her gaze, those green eyes glossy, rimmed red, wrecked with unshed tears.
“And I tried to be brave,” she goes on, a sad little laugh threading through her words. “And I was, I stayed brave cause it felt like it was buying you more time. Until they injected you with that truth serum bullshit.” She shakes her head faintly. “I couldn’t let you go like that. Or Robin. Especially not Robin, when she just… wandered into all of this because she was bored and wanted to play spy.”
That gets a small, breathy chuckle out of him. She smiles faintly too, just for a second.
“I couldn’t sit there and watch,” she says. “Something just… took over me, and I—”
She can’t finish. The memory of pulling the trigger, the gunshot echoing, fills her head.
“I’m sorry,” Steve says softly.
“No,” she says immediately, shaking her head. “No, you have nothing to be sorry for.” She inhales, steadying herself. “I, um… I heard what you said to Robin. When you were tied up.”
She says his name carefully, like she needs him to look at her again.
“Steve?”
“Yeah?” His eyes lift back to hers.
“You didn’t mess anything up,” she tells him, a small, sincere smile breaking through.
He smiles back, something warm and fragile passing between them.
“I still don’t think it’s hit me yet,” Dove admits, tears finally spilling over. “That my mom is really dead. I don’t know if it ever will.”
Steve’s chest tightens painfully at the sight of a tear slipping down her cheek. He moves, pulling her into him, arms wrapping around her tightly, cradling the back of her head with one hand. She fits there easily. He breathes in the faint scent of her shampoo, grounding himself in it. He feels her body soften, just a fraction, like she’s letting herself rest for the first time all night.
“Hey, lovebirds!” Hopper’s voice cuts through the moment.
They break apart instantly.
“I need you to drive the egotistical assholes to his radio tower.”
Steve pushes open the door to the mall happily, breathing in the outside air soberly for the first time and seeing the car Hopper handed him the keys to.
“Oh, man, now this…” Steve exclaims, tossing the keys up excitedly and catching them. “This is what I’m talkin’ about!”
Dove inspects the license plate of the front of the car reading it out loud, “Todd Father?”
“Oh screw Todd! Steve’s her daddy now,” Steve says excitedly.
“Oh gross,” Robin gags at his words.
“Don’t refer to yourself in the third person, please,” Dove begs as she and Steve hop over the doors of the car into the driver and passenger seat.
“Did he just call himself daddy?” Erica asks as she squishes in the back between Dustin and Robin.
“All right, where are we going?” Steve asks Dustin, ignoring the insults of the girls.
“Weathertop,” Dustin replies, leaning forward.
“Weather-what?”
“Just drive!”
“Okay, Jesus," Steve gripes, starting the car's engine. He places his hand on the back of Dove’s seat, looking at her with raised brows before turning around and backing from where Hopper had parked the car in front of the Mall.
They speed down the road. Steve was already a fast driver, but now with the Chief of Police on his side at this moment, he was flying, taking precautions for this in the car with him. Dove's hand was clutching the center console, a white knuckle grip as Steve flew around every curve Dustin directed him down. She could feel Robin’s hands clutching the headrest of her seat.
Over the radio, the tune of “Higher and Higher” by Jackie Wilson cuts through the sound of whipping air around the convertible, almost making the night feel normal for a second.
“Jesus, how far is this place, man?” Steve exclaims, looking at Dustin in the rearview after Dustin tells him to keep going straight. They’re been driving for long but it feels like an eternity when the end of the world is on the line.
“Relax, we’re almost there,” Dustin replies sternly, hoping to ease his friend.
“Suzie must be pretty special, huh?” Robin asks, looking past Erica to Dustin in the back seat.
“Yeah, Dustin, if you built this thing and brought it to the middle of nowhere to just talk to her?” Dove asks as well, her voice a little shaky from adrenaline.
“I mean, nobody’s scientifically perfect, but Suzie’s about as close to being perfect as any human could possibly be,” Dustin beams proudly, giving the two older girls a proud grin.
“She sound made-up to me,” Erica interjects, directing her words to Steve in the driver's seat. “She sound made-up to you?”
Steve’s eyes shift between Erica and Dustin in the rearview, hesitating to answer. Dove gawks at the brunette in the driver's seat as his silence is only filled with the sound of Jackie Wilson singing.
“Why are you hesitating, Steve?” Dustin asks, grabbing the back of Steve’s seat and pulling his face closer to his.
“I’m-I’m…I’m not! I’m not!” Steve tries to recover. “I think she sounds real. You know, totally…absolutely real.”
There’s another stretch of silence as Dove snorts at the response, making Steve cut his eyes to her.
“Left, turn left,” Dustin commands.
“There’s not a road here,” Steve says, not turning at the crazy direction.
“Turn left now!” Dustin yells.
Steve looks to Dove hearing Dustin’s urgency, putting an arm out saying, “Jesus, hold on!”
He whips the car off road, making everyone in the car yelp as it moves over sticks and uneven ground.
“Whoa! Dustin, where are we going!” Dove yells, her fingers digging into Steve’s bicep now as she holds on.
“Up!” Dustin replies.
The car rattles and shakes as it trudges up the incline to Weathertop. The engine sounds strained and Dove’s finger nails dig into Steve’s bicep, his arms out straight to have more leverage to push on the gas pedal.
“We’re not gonna make it!” Dove yells out, looking at Steve with a slight panic in her eyes.
“Yes, we are, come on, baby,” Steve says, encouraging the car as he presses the pedal harder. “Come on, baby!”
The car makes it almost all the way up the hill, before the wheels get stuck, spinning out from the ground still being damp from the storm.
“Come on, come on,” Steve mutters as he continues to press down.
“Guess the Toddfather has its limitations,” Dove says, looking at Steve as he pants, smacking his hands on the wheel in defeat.
He throws the car in park, cutting the engine and killing the last bit of “Higher and Higher” as the five of them hop out and begin running the rest of the way to Dustin’s radio.
As they get closer, Mike’s voice echoes out saying “Scoops Troop, do you copy?” repeatedly with a static hiss to it as he explains. “We’re trapped in the mall and in need of emergency transportation. Scoops Tropp, do you copy? Billy has found us.”
Dove’s stomach drops at the mention of Billy’s name, her steps faltering. She had avoided him and his name altogether since that night in November. She really had tried to push all nightmares of him away and hearing the words that the kids had been found by him in his possessed state, making her flash back to that night. Where he wreaked havoc and he wasn’t possessed by an interdimensional monster.
“Steve, do you copy?” Mike’s voice rings out one more time before Dustin kneels to the radio, changing the channel before Dove can protest.
“Bald eagle, do you copy?” Dustin asks into the radio.
“Dustin, what about what Mike was saying? Maybe we should-”
“Bald eagle, I repeat, this is Scoops Troop, do you copy?” He repeats again, cutting off Dove’s protests to reach Murray, Joyce, and Hopper.
Steve and Dove pace in opposite directions, Dove chewing on her thumbnail and Steve continuously running a hand through his hair.
“Yes, I copy,” Murray's voice rings out unenthusiastically.
There’s a chuckle of relief that rings out from being able to reach the adults in the Russian base underground.
“Call sign?” Dustin asks.
“Bald Eagle,” Murray’s voice sighs over the radio.
“Please repeat,” Dustin says, getting a little joy out of the call sign he gave the ornery man.
“Bald Eagle, this is Bald Eagle!” Murray’s voice rings back begrudgingly.
“Copy that, good to hear your voice, Bald eagle, what’s your 20?” Dustin continues with a proud grin at the technical work of his radio.
Murray explains where he is and asks for radio silence from them until they are needed. Dustin responds with a correct call of signing off the frequency as Steve pats him proudly on the shoulder.
Now they stand there in silence again, Dove pacing back and forth as they wait for a response. Murray pops in every once in a while, asking for directions from Erica and Dustin, who cycle through their memories of crawling through the vents.
Steve walks over to where Dove is standing, staring off into the distance. Her back is turned toward the mall and the rest of the city, facing instead the dark stretch of neighborhoods beyond, streetlights glowing faintly. The summer night air is warm, brushing against her skin as she chews on her thumbnail, her mind racing through the events of the day now that there’s a lull in her adrenaline.
She almost wishes something crazy would happen. Anything to pull her away from the constant, crushing loop of what has already happened. She hates that she can’t stuff it down and swallow it like she normally would. She always had been able to before.
But since that night last fall, it feels like she lost that part of herself.
Even when her dad died, she had been able to push her emotions down and file them away, refusing to be weak. Just like she promised him she would never be, as he lay in his hospital bed, the sickest he had ever been, knowing it would be the last time she saw him. She wishes she never made that promise now that she’s breaking it.
Weirdly, she blames Steve for breaking it. She knows it’s unfair, and truly doesn’t hold it against him, but no one has ever given her permission to be… weak. It’s strange, and she almost hates the feeling her mind allows to seep in since he came into her life. She never wants to push her fears or burdens onto him, but they slip out anyway when he looks at her, offering a sense of safety and assurance she doesn’t always have. Like she doesn’t always have to be the strongest person in the room.
“Hey,” Steve says, drawing Dove’s attention away from the distance. “It’s all gonna be okay.”
She almost wants to scoff at his reassurance, turning toward him and fighting the urge to fall into his chest for a sense of security. Damn this feeling. Damn the way he makes her feel, even through the haze of her mixed emotions. She hates it, but she can’t stop herself as she wraps her arms around his middle, laying her head against his sternum.
Steve lets out a surprised breath at the sudden touch, but falls quickly into it as he wraps his arms around her. There’s no words spoken as she sniffles slightly and allows her senses to be overwhelmed by his smell which frankly wreaks.
“You smell bad,” she sniffled, pulling herself off of him.
Steve laughs, “Yeah, well, you’re not too great either, Wonder Woman.”
They pull apart as Dustin and Erica recall the “My Little Pony Thesis” and how that explained where Murray needed to go next. Their attention moves past the three sitting on the ground towards the mall.
“What’s the My Little Pony Thesis?” Robin asks, as Steve and Dove look out into the opposite distance.
“Don’t get him started,” Erica says as Steve and Dove move closer to the edge of the hill, eyes widening as the look at the Starcourts Malls lights flicker in an all too familiar way.
“Guys,” Dove’s voice cracks out, not nearly as strong as it should be.
“Hey, guys?” Steve calls out louder, drawing the three to stand and look to the mall.
Once the shock of what they’re seeing wears off, the five scramble back to the radio. Dustin quickly changes the channel, frantically calling to his friends, “Griswold Family, this is Scoops Troop. Do you copy? Over.”
Silence.
He repeats the message, “Griswold Family, this is Scoops Troop. Do you copy? Over.”
Silence again.
He repeats the message a third time, “Griswold Family, this is Scoops Troop, I repeat, do you copy? Over.”
There’s a crunchy shrieking sound heard over the radio, making Dove’s stomach churn and hand fly to Steve’s shoulder.
“Griswold Family, do you copy?” Dustin asks again before screaming into the radio. “Do you copy?!”
A loud roaring sound responds, bone chilling and scary in a way that makes everyone lose color in their face.
Dove shakes slightly as Dustin pleads in the radio for them to say they're safe and on the way to Murray’s house but there’s no answer.
The snarling continues and Dove grabs Steve’s arm, pulling him with her back to the car sitting on the hill.
“Come on,” she says, pulling him as he stumbles slightly.
“Where are you going?” Erica yells to the two of them.
“To get them the hell out of there!” Dove responds back, running to the car as Steve trails behind her.
Steve as he runs turns back, side stepping as he says, “Stay here, Robin watch them, contact the others!”
“Wait, Steve!” Dustin yells, stopping him as he stands and tosses a walkie to him. “Stay in touch.”
He nods once and takes off after Dove who is in the car waiting impatiently for him as Dustin begins contacting the three adults underground.
“Let’s go!” She yells to Steve who jumps in the driver's seat starting the engine and backing up down the hill. Luckily, the car wants to move that way, easily moving out of the spot it was stuck in and allowing Steve to tear off down the hill.
The radio kicks on, the chorus “Power of Love” fills the air as the two tear off down to the road and Steve floors it back to the mall. Their breathing is heavy with adrenaline and the air feels thick as Steve and Dove both silently pray the others are safe at the mall.
“When this is all over,” Steve speaks suddenly, making Dove look at him. “I want us to go out. Like I want to take you out. Enzo’s, you and me.”
Dove looks at him with wide eyes, “Are you asking me out while there’s a monster about to tear our friends apart?”
“Yes,” Steve answers plainly, eyes taking off the road for a second to look at her.
There’s a silence that stretches as Dove opens and closes her mouth in shock. “I hate Enzo’s.”
Steve’s face falls, eyes going back to the road as he mutters, “Yeah, yeah, sorry, that was dumb I don’t know why I said that…” And kicks himself internally for not just keeping his damn mouth shut.
“Let’s go to Indianapolis and go out,” she replies, her heart soaring. “No Hawkins. Let’s get away for a weekend.”
He looks at her again and sees her face is dead serious and he nods quickly, smiling slightly and says, “Okay, a weekend away, yeah, that sounds- that sounds great, we can-”
“Steve.”
“Yeah?”
“Focus on driving and getting our friends out alive first.”
“Good idea, yeah,” and Steve presses his foot on the gas pedal harder as they whip into the mall parking lot.
There’s a loud engine revving and Dove lifts up from her seat to see Billy's pontiac facing towards the Wheeler’s station wagon. In front of it stands Nancy, gun raised as she prepares to shoot Billy when he inevitably puts the car in drive and tries to hit them.
Dove grabs the gun from her back waist band and takes off the safety while raising to sit on top of her seat. Steve reaches out and hooking his fingers in the belt loops of her jeans, pulling her to sit down as he speeds up.
“Hold on!” He yells as he presses his foot on the pedal harder as Billy begins to speed towards their friends.
“Steve, Steve what are you doing!?” Dove yells, arms reaching out to brace herself.
“Stopping him,” Steve mutters and prays his plan works.
“Steve!”
And just as Nancy folds to protect herself from getting hit by Billy’s car, Steve rams into the side of the pontiac. Sending it spinning sideways as it shatters its windows and dents the passenger door. The Todd Father spins out as well, Steve’s arm reaching out to hold Dove into her seat as they spin to a stop.
The two of them pant as they look up to see Nancy unharmed and staring at Billy’s car in shock as it catches fire.
“Are you okay?” Steve asks Dove, hand moving to the back of her head from where it was previously reached out in front of her.
She stares at him for a moment in shock and awe before leaping on him practically. Both her hands hold his cheeks as she plants her lips on his in a chaste kiss before pulling back and staring at him.
“Never do that again, please,” she says in a sigh of relief of them both being okay.
Steve fights the urge to kiss her again as a loud snarling sound pulls them apart. They rise out of their seats, holding the front windshield to help them up and look up to the mall roof.
The monster is huge, stretching the size of the entire mall as it stands on top of it.
“Holy shit,” Dove gasps as she takes in the monster. Suddenly everything she dealt with that day feels so miniscule as she stares in shock at the fleshy monster.
Steve’s hand instinctively reaches out and holds Dove’s bicep, like he’s making sure she stays there. He has a thousand thoughts running through his mind as he stares at the creature. How did the kids fight this before? How is El going to fight this now? How did it get bigger since they last described it?
How are they going to survive this?
The two of them start to shrink back into their seats as they gawk at the monster. The two teens who are always first to jump into action and protect those around them suddenly have met their match. For the first time, both of them do not suddenly feel the need to jump in and help without thinking.
Because how the hell do you fight that?
The sound of the Wheeler’s station wagon hord beeping draws their attention away from the monster as Nancy yells “Get in!” as they pull up beside them.
They’re quick to jump out of the car as the monster starts moving. Dove opens the trunk and jumps in, Steve’s hands pushing her the rest of the way as he grabs the door and slams it shut. Jonathan tears off before his right foot is even all the way inside.
As the monster screeches, Steve and Dove are pressed shoulder to shoulder looking out the back window of the car. Dove’s hand goes out to find his as they stare and lace their fingers together before falling away from the window.
“Dusty-bun, you copy?” A young female voice calls from the radio Steve still held that Dustin had given him.
The two older teens look at each and whisper, “Suzie” in shock. They share that same shock as Dustin asks her for Planck’s Constant and Suzie threatens to not give it until she hears something from Dustin.
Dove half expects it to be him to say “I love you” but surely it’s not.
It’s even crazier than two fourteen year olds who met at camp to say I love you after only a month of knowing each other.
“Turn around,” Dustin begins to sing, making Dove’s eyes snap to Steve’s in bewilderment. “Look at what you see.”
The monster still chases behind them as the two teens along with the rest of the car listen to the voices harmonize surprisingly well to the Limahl song. The looks exchanged between those in the car is so funny and Dove would be laughing if it wasn’t for the severity of the situation at hand.
“Planck’s constant is 6.62607004,” Suzie says when they finish the chorus.
There’s a breath of relief that comes from Dove as the numbers that Hopper and Joyce need are finally given. Then she cringes as Dustin and Suzie begin expressing how much they miss each other before it’s abruptly cut off.
“Well, at least we know she’s real now,” Dove jokes, a small, hollow chuckle coming out with it as she looks at Steve.
He smiles back awkwardly before looking back out the window to the monster, who turns around, back towards the mall.
“It’s turning around,” Steve yells to Nancy and Jonathan.
“What?” Nancy asks, shocked by the news.
“It’s turning around,” Steve and Dove say at the same time louder.
“Maybe we wore it out,” Lucas states hopefully.
“I don’t think so, hold on,” Jonathan says before flipping a U-turn, sending Dove straight into Steve’s lap.
His hands fall to her waist as she sits sideways on his thighs now. Her hair whips out of her face when they straighten and Steve tightens his grip as Jonathan speeds forward again.
Once again, under any other circumstances, Steve would be so happy to have Dove where she currently is.
“I hate this,” Dove mutters as she lights the fire work Steve is holding, ready to throw it at the Mind Flayer which is hover menacingly over Eleven who lays on the ground at Billy’s feet who had just laid her there.
“Flay this, you ugly piece of shit,” Lucas yells as he throws a second firework that Will handed him.
Colors explode around the room as everyone throws the patriotic bombs at the creature which shrieks at the heat and hits the pillars below. Dove feels the need to duck from getting hit with shrapnel from the explosions, before moving to throw one herself.
“Hey, asshole! Over here!” Steve yells, drawing the attention towards him and Dove as they both throw fireworks together.
They work well in tandem, becoming a well oiled machine of lighting and throwing of fireworks. Colors continue to light up the room, hurting not only the Mind Flayer but also Billy, giving El time to crawl away.
But she doesn’t make it far before Billy stands up and grabs her leg, dragging her back to the Mind Flayers feet. He gets over her, hands wrapping around her neck and slamming her to the ground.
Dove sees it through the smoke and stares in shock and fear as Steve yells into the radio saying, “Dustin, we’re out of time!” Trying to help signal Joyce and Hop to finally close the gate.
Dove’s feet move on their own. She moves past Steve and begins to run to the escalator and to help El. She’s barely fourteen, she does not need to experience the same nightmares she’s been having.
“Dove! Dove! Where are you going?” Steve yells to her as he watches her run past him.
“To help El!” She yells as she continues to watch Billy’s hands wrap around her throat.
“No, you can’t go down there!” Steve pleads as he chases after her.
“I have to help her!” Dove replies, not looking back.
“No, you stay I’ll go,” Steve tries to reason as he looks down and sees the severity of the scene unfolding below them. His nose tingles as he watches but his heart begs him to stop the girl in front of him.
“No, Steve stay here and keep hurting it, I got to help-”
Steve catches up to her, his hands grabbing her waist and holding her back as he pleads, “Help her by defeating this thing! You will die if you go down there!”
Dove looks in his eyes that are almost welled full with tears and stops fighting his restraints only when she looks back down to El and sees Billy’s hands are no longer around her throat. They’re talking, El’s forehead bleeding and she’s crying from what they both can see.
“Hey!” Nancy yells to them from across the opening. “Keep throwing the damn fireworks!”
Steve’s eyes look back to Dove pleading her to stay with him, before he returns to their station and lights another firework and throws it at the monster.
Dove stares down to where Eleven is again, watching as her hand raises and touches Billy’s cheek. There’s a sense of calm to him now and only then does Dove move back to Steve’s side, lighting another firework and throwing it.
When she reaches back for another, Steve’s already there, staring at an empty basket.
Fire lights up the feet of the Mind Flayer as it snarls at Billy, who steps in front of Eleven and turns to face it. The creature roars, a tentacle unfurling from inside its mouth and reaching for El, but it never makes it to her.
Max and Mike round the corner just as Billy pushes the tentacle back with his own strength, yelling in pain as more of them sprout and plunge into his sides.
Dove gasps as she and Steve watch from the balcony, blood already staining Billy’s white tank top. Her eyes flick to Max, standing frozen behind Eleven, her mouth agape. Dove feels her chest cave in. She wants to cry all over again as the young girl is forced to watch what Dove had just witnessed that morning.
Family being murdered right in front of you.
“Close it now!” Dustin’s voice shrieks from the radio laying on the floor behind Steve.
The Mind Flayer roars as Billy screams at it, rebelling against the possession it once held on him. The blood pouring from his mouth is practically black and then it deals its final blow. The tentacle from its mouth plunges straight into Billy’s chest.
“Billy!” Max shrieks painfully and when it falls on Dove’s ear she doesn’t falter as she begins to move to the girl.
Steve stumbles after her, but he doesn’t know if it’s to stop her or move towards Max with her. A bit of both he guesses as they move down the escalators.
The Mind Flayer shrills painfully and begins to shrink crashing to the ground like an AT-AT in Star Wars. Fire on the ground burning the already rotting flesh and emitting a horrid stench in the air.
“Billy,” Max chokes, falling to her knees next to her step brother.
Steve moves to Eleven’s side first, helping her up and away to Mike.
“Billy, Billy, get up, please, Billy get up, please, please,” Max pleads to her brother as he chokes on the blood in his mouth and fills his throat.
“I’m sorry,” Billy chokes.
“Billy,” Max cries his name again, breaking Dove’s heart as she sees him take his last breath. Max’s sobs fill the room as she shakes Billy's shoulders, pleading for him to wake.
“Max,” Dove says carefully, her hand landing on the red head's shoulder who then falls into her lap, sobbing. “Hey, hey, shhh, it’s okay, it's okay…”
Eleven moves away from Steve and Mike, falling next to Dove and laying on top of Max practically, both of them sobbing on Dove’s lap, who begins to weep with them.
Her eyes flicker up to Steve who is standing stunned over them, his own eyes watering as he looks down at the three girls. All of them having lost someone dear to them that day, one not even knowing she had yet.
The sound of helicopter blades whirring isn’t as jarring as it should be as the U.S. military floods the mall. Guns are raised, orders are shouted, and the food court fills with noise as the fire continues to grow and everyone is ushered out of the burning mall.
The flames have spread far more than anyone realized while the three girls sat on the ground. Smoke thickens the air, creeping into their lungs, and they are moved out quickly before it can get any worse.
Dove sits in the back of an ambulance with Max and Steve sometime later. All their injuries had been attended to, Max holding an ice pack to her cheek from where Billy had slapped her while possessed. Dove’s and Steve’s cuts from their time in the Russian lair now were bandaged and ice was given to Steve for his eyes as well.
Eleven walks over to the three of them, eyes flickering between Dove and Max before dove scoots closer to Steve, pressing herself against his side fully to allow space for her to sit between them.
Max and Eleven lean on each other for a bit as Dove’s eyes flicker around the crowd around them. Her head lulls to the side and falls to Steve's shoulder, finally relaxing a bit after almost 48 hours of being on edge.
“Indianapolis has a really cool music venue,” Dove says quietly, eyes fluttering shut. “I have no idea who plays there, but we should go.”
Steve lays his head on top of hers, relaxing as well finally, “Sounds like a date.”
Dove never even feels Eleven move from her side as when she spots Joyce staggering onto the scene. Helicopters continue to whir above them but it doesn’t stop the heartbreaking “No” that Eleven lets out as she begins to sob.
Dove jerks awake when the movement that had lulled her to sleep in the passenger seat of Steve’s Beamer comes to a halt. By some grace, one of the firefighters knew how to hotwire it, and Steve got him to do it so he could take Dove home. Though when they got in the car, she admitted she didn’t think she could go to her own house. The memory of her mother was too overwhelming there. And the paramedics, while strictly advising against Steve driving, also did not think he should be alone.
So they found themselves at Steve’s empty house once again.
“Dove,” Steve says, rubbing his hand over her shoulder. “We’re here.”
She sits up and opens the passenger door. She slept through the entire drive, completely missing them dropping off Dustin, Erica, and Robin after they went and rescued them from Weathertop. It was easier that time, though, since Steve radioed for them to meet him down by the road.
Dove’s steps drag as she walks into Steve’s house behind him, the familiar fake-homely scent filling her nose.
“I’ll get you some clothes. You can shower in my parents’ bathroom,” Steve says, directing her toward the room across the upstairs hall.
She doesn’t even remember climbing the stairs.
She doesn’t protest, just moves slowly into his parents’ room, observing nothing as she toes off her sneakers somewhere along the way. There’s a glass standing shower in there, and Dove is sure it’s the nicest shower she’s ever seen as she turns the hot water on.
Gunshot. A body falling. The shrieking roar of the Mind Flayer. Max’s sobs. Her mom’s lifeless eyes.
Dove chokes out a sob as she staggers into the shower, her clothes never leaving her body as she slides down the wall, water cascading over her. She pulls her knees to her chest and cries fully, unashamed, for the first time, finally letting everything hit her.
She barely even saw her mom after she got back from New York.
What is she going to do? How does she tell her siblings? How does she explain why she was down in that underground facility? How does she tell them her mother was working for them? How does she explain that she helped her friends fight a literal monster like from the stories their grandma used to tell them about? How does—
“Dove,” Steve’s voice echoes as he steps into the bathroom.
The door was never closed. He heard the water running and saw steam spilling into the hall. Afraid she’d passed out, he walked in.
Now he stands there, the air leaving his lungs as he looks at the girl sobbing on the shower floor. Her blonde hair darker, weighed down by water, her red tank top clinging to her even more than before.
“I don’t—I don’t, I can’t… Steve, I can’t…” Dove pants breathlessly, her chest heaving as she looks up at him.
She’s hyperventilating. Panicking.
“Hey, hey,” he says, moving quickly. He kicks off his shoes, not even bothering with his socks, and steps into the shower with her. He slides down the wall beside her and wraps his arms around her. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Shh…”
She curls into his side, clutching that god-awful uniform as her sobs rack her body. Steve lets silent tears slide down his cheeks as he holds her.
This is a vulnerability Dove never felt she was allowed to show, now laid fully bare. The weakness she promised her father on his deathbed she would never reveal, the same weakness her older siblings never allowed her to have. She always had to be fearless, had to swallow this emotion whole and never let anyone see it. That’s what she was taught, and now she realizes just how much she hates it.
She hates that she never let herself cry and properly mourn her father in the three years since he died. She hates that she was never allowed to say how sad it made her, even though she always knew he would die while she was still young. She hates that her siblings never made space for her vulnerability, stuffing it down with horror stories from college or trips to the gun range, teaching her how to protect herself physically but never giving her the chance to actually heal. She hates that she truly never even felt these emotions before.
So as she weeps into Steve’s chest, water cascading around them, she cries for the loss of her father, the childhood she never really had, and for her mother, who she lost less than twenty-four hours ago.
Steve shushes her softly, placing gentle kisses on the top of her head. When her breathing finally evens out, he asks quietly, “Do you want to shower?”
Dove looks up slowly and nods. He places a hand on her cheek, and she sees his eyes are red from tears. She gives him a watery smile. His lips press to her forehead, lingering there before he helps her to her feet.
After her shower, she dresses in the clothes Steve laid out for her. She towels off her hair, not caring how her curls will look when she wakes, and moves into Steve’s room.
Steve sits on the edge of his bed, finally out of the uniform and dressed in navy pajama pants and a white shirt, hair damp and face free of dried blood. Dove almost matches him in what he gave her, except she’s wearing a navy shirt that’s incredibly soft.
She tucks herself into his bed, wrapping the covers around her and staring at the wall. As much as exhaustion wants to consume her, she can’t close her eyes. Not while Steve is still sitting at the end of the bed, staring down at his hands. His breathing shaky and he’s muttering something under his breath she can’t really make out.
“Steve,” she says, sitting up and moving closer until she’s kneeling beside him.
His gaze stays fixed on his hands as he flips them back and forth, like he’s inspecting them. He’s muttering, “It’s okay, their okay, it’s okay, their okay…”
“Steve, what’s wrong?” she asks, trying to pull his attention to her. The question is dumb, she obviously knows what's wrong but she doesn't know what else to ask. Saying 'it's gonna be okay' feels like lying.
It only works when she reaches out and gently turns his face, her hand staying on his cheek as his honey-brown eyes finally meet hers.
“We actually survived,” he says softly, like he doesn’t fully believe it himself. “I got tortured by Russians and lived.”
Dove lets out a breathy laugh at the statement.
“And I, we just…it’s like…” Steve stammers, trying to find the words, his eyes flickering between Dove’s eyes and her lips before moving in, cradling the back of her head with his hand, and softly placing his lips on hers.
It’s tentative at first, like he’s not entirely sure this is real. Like he might be dreaming. Or in some sick twisted after-life that he can't discern whether it's heaven or hell. But he's overwhelmed with exhaustion, he can’t stop himself from kissing her anyway. Dove freezes for half a second, breath caught in her chest, then melts into it with a quiet sound. Her hand comes up to cup the side of his neck, pulling him closer as their lips meet again.
The kiss deepens without urgency. There’s only relief. It’s slow, aching, saying everything they haven’t since the night before Dove left, and even more since everything that followed upon her return.
You’re alive. I’m alive. Holy shit.
Steve’s hand slides to her waist, pulling her closer into his lap, steadying her. He needs to feel her there to know she’s real and not some leftover trick from the drugs still leaving his system. Dove leans into him, their foreheads brushing as they breathe the same air between soft, lingering kisses.
Steve rests his forehead against hers, eyes closed, a shaky exhale leaving him. “Please don’t try to sacrifice yourself to save others anymore,” he murmurs, his voice barely there.
Dove swallows, her thumb brushing gently along his jaw.
Another kiss follows, a little more heated than the last. Steve’s hands grip Dove’s sides beneath the shirt she’s wearing, his thumbs brushing slowly over her skin. Her fingers tangle in his hair as she shifts higher onto his lap, his head tipping back so they can stay connected.
Steve bites her bottom lip gently, wanting to stay like this forever. He’s drunk on the way she tastes, and the quiet sighs that slip from her leave him weak as he chases them, memorizing every sound. It’s intoxicating, and Dove truly doesn’t want to stop, but sleep is starting to pull at her, heavy and unavoidable, and she can feel the break of dawn creeping in.
When they finally pull apart, Steve’s arms wrap around her and his head drops to the crook of her neck, placing gentle kisses there before they fall back onto the bed together. Shuffling under the covers, and Dove settles against his side.
summary: Captured deep beneath Starcourt and running out of time, Dove, Steve, and Robin must stay strong against the Russians. Things are said and feelings grow as they are forced to watch each other be interrogated.
warnings: VERY ANGSTY/HEAVY CHAPTER. Kidnapping, Graphic violence and gun use (shooting, death), Torture/interrogation and physical assault , Drugging, Sexual harassment/assault-adjacent behavior (not very graphic but still there) PTSD/panic response, trauma flashbacks (mother’s murder, choking trigger), Blood/injury detail and emotional distress
authors note: LOTS GOING ON THIS CHAPTER. sorry please read the warnings!!!
Chapter 9: Wonder Woman
A high pitched whine rings in Dove’s ear and her head is pounding. Her body is sore and when she tries to rub her eyes, her arms can’t move. Panic rises in her chest as she blinks her eyes and starts moving violently.
The chair she is in is bolted, wrists bound behind her back with something rough. She looks around panicky, her hair damp against her neck and temple from sweat. The room smells funny. Sterile but not in the same way a hospital is. She knew that smell well. Her stomach flips violently.
She jerks forward, sucking in a breath that turns into a broken sound halfway between a gasp and a sob. Her head drops, hair falling into her face. She squeezes her eyes shut.
A gunshot.
The memory slams into her full force. Her mother’s face, the last look she gave her before she was killed.
Her breath comes apart. She tries to swallow it down, tries to be quiet, but it crawls out of her anyway, a thin, ugly sound she hates herself for making. It’s the same feeling turning in her chest she had the night she kicked Steve out of her room. Panic and something else clawing at the inside of her. Her eyes prick with tears before she even has time to fight it.
A door opens and slow footsteps approach.
“Ah, she’s awake,” A male voice speaks in Russian.
Dove whips her head around and sees an older man in a uniform move into her line of sight. She recognizes him immediately, he’s the man that shot her mom.
“Go fuck yourself,” she speaks in his native tongue.
Then, in accented English, slow and deliberate, “You understand me.”
She stares at him, hard. Her head turns slightly as she inspects his face. A single tear betrays her and rolls out of the corner of her eye. She can’t tell if it's from sadness or frustration, probably both.
“I do,” she says hoarsely but voice is more stern. There’s anger behind it.
A flicker of something passes across his face. Interest. “So, you are Russian.”
“Yes, like my mother, the one you murdered,” she responds, slurring out the word murdered. The panicky feeling is still rising in her chest, but she’s fighting it tooth and nail with the adrenaline she has. She feels like she’s shivering, vibrating even.
His head turns, face contorting into annoyance.
“She should not have told you where she was working,” he retorts flatly.
“She didn’t.”
“Then how did you find us?”
She keeps quiet, staring him down. Her bottom lip quivers as the memory of Steve pulling her away floods back as well now.
“She was a person,” Dove chokes. “She was my mom.”
He leans forward close enough now that she can smell him. Tobacco and metal, and that same weird sterile smell of the room.
“You should listen carefully,” he says in Russian, voice low. “Because what happens next depends entirely on you.”
Her attention is then turned to the black screen in front of her, which flickers and then quickly turns to a window.
Steve sits on a bench, hands tied behind his back. Hair weighed down by sweat and his mouth full of blood. His left eye is swollen, there’s a cut below his lip. His head rests against the wall behind him, panting heavily.
Dove moves forward, pulling against the restraints.
“Ah,” the man speaks. “Just as I thought, you’re boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Dove argues, which truly is pointless. She understands what Robin meant by her body language giving her away.
“He will not tell us anything,” the man says. “Says he works for ‘Scoops Ahoy’, but how did you know your mother was down here, hm?”
“It was a total accident,” Dove responds, honestly. “We were trying to find the shop's delivery since we didn’t get it and when we went to the loading dock, the room turned into the elevator and that’s how we ended up in this hellscape.”
The man slaps her hard. Dove lets out a breath, the metallic taste of blood filling her mouth as her ears ring from the force. Fuck that hurt.
“Who do you work for?”
Dove looks back up at him, teeth gritting as she speaks again in Russian, “Go fuck yourself.”
The man then grabs Dove’s face, pinching her lips into a pout and holding her to look at Steve. Two men enter the room, not looking like they’re going to let him go as much as Dove wishes they would and just take her. Please just take her and leave robin alone. That’s all she wants, she can handle this. She can fight this, she knows she can. She doesn’t need them to be tortured.
They start him off with a punch to the face. He spits blood as his head is jerked to the side, “That one stung.”
“Who do you work for?”
Steve groans, head hitting the back wall. “I told you a thousand times, Scoops Ahoy!”
Another punch, this time to his stomach. He wretches forward, gagging. Luckily there’s no food in his system for him to vomit. Just an acid taste burning the back of his throat.
Dove tries to turn away, squeezing her eyes shut and not watching but the general holds her gaze there, his other hand going on top of her head to hold her eyes open.
“No, no, you’ll miss all the fun!” He says, whispering into her ear and making her flinch away.
“Don’t hurt him,” Dove practically whimpers as she watches Steve take another blow to the stomach. “Please, please.”
“Then tell me who you work for!”
“We’re kids!” She practically cries.
“How do you know Dr. Jones?”
“She’s my mom, she’s my mom,” Dove cries, his hand has moved to the back of her neck, squeezing it so tightly it reminds her of how Billy had that night. She’s trying to pull away.
“Did she betray us? She sent you down here with your American scum friends for information,” he sneers into her hair. His breath is heavy against her face, his one hand staying on the back of her neck while his other begins rubbing up her bicep. It's disgusting.
“No, no, no, please,” she shudders as his nose rubs along the side of her face. “It was an accident we didn’t know, we didn’t. I didn’t know.”
“She held top secret information,” he sneers again, shoving her as he pushes away. “How do I know you’re not lying?”
“Because I’m not! We are kids!”
Another blow is given to Steve and Dove squeezes her eyes shut this time as he begins to cry, “Look at my outfit! Look at my outfit! You think I just wear this?! Think I’m a spy in a sailor’s uniform?”
Another punch to his gut, Steve tenses and groans.
“How did you get in?”
Steve pants, trying to gain his breath before he answers. “I already told you. My delivery didn’t come, and my friends and I, we thought that it was left at the loading dock, so we went into the room and then it turned into an elevator. And then…and then we dropped and then, next thing I opened my eyes and we’re in this…wonderful facility.”
The man paces as he listens to Steve’s exasperated story. Luckily for him, it almost matches perfectly with Dove’s. Buying them, and Dove especially, the time they need. Of course he wouldn’t know that, and Dove didn’t know what Steve would say.
“But I swear to God,” Steve continued, not knowing when to shut his mouth now. “Nobody knows about us, nobody saw us-”
“Not true,” the man interrupts and gets in Steve’s face. He can smell his breath, heavy with tobacco and something chemically. “She knew someone down here.”
Steve knows he’s referring to Dove. He says a silent prayer to whatever is out there that she’s okay.
Steve shakes his head, “That was a total coincidence."
“Bullshit,” the man curses in Russian. “Who do you work for?”
“We’re not going to tell anybody, I swear,” Steve pleaded, ignoring the man's question, just hoping he would believe him. “You can let us go and we won’t say a word to anybody, okay? Shit happens, life goes on. And uh…”
The man looks at Steve with a raised brow waiting for him to continue.
“Ice-ice cream,” Steve says quickly, wishing that wasn’t the thing on his mind right now. “Ice cream, okay? You guys know what ice cream is. Everybody loves ice cream. I don’t know if you have Russian ice cream or if that’s considered gelato. I don’t know what’s what, but whatever you guys want, seriously. USS Butterscotch? I mean you gotta try it, it is out of this world I’m telling ya!”
Steve wishes he can stop speaking but the words are just tumbling out. He’s hoping he’s buying enough time for Dove to find a way out. She always does. She’s the smart one. He needs her to get out.
“You are useless and a disgrace to the Russian name,” the general sneers at Dove, grabbing a needle from a tray and walking over to her. “When you wake up next, be ready to tell the truth…”
Before he plunges the needle into her neck, the screen flickers and reveals Dove and the general to Steve.
“Dove! Dove!” Steve cries as he watches the general plunge the needle into her neck. She barely even winces, eyes locked on Steve’s as they begin to flutter shut and she slumps forward. “Hey! Hey! What did you do to her? Dove!”
The men in the room begin to laugh hysterically.
Steve begins to laugh nervously along with them.
“I like this guy,” the one interrogating him laughs with the other soldier. “USS Butterscotch. She cannot hear you."
Steve swallows thickly as he looks at the man as he continues to chuckle, placing his hands on his knees to be level with his eyes. All nervous laughter from Steve dies out and his eyes feel like they are filling with tears. He then looks to Dove through the glass. Her red tank top is a little darker from sweat, a spot of blood blending with it. Her hair is messed up, like someone had been running their hands through it. That thought makes him want to wretch on the man's shoes in front of him.
“Don’t touch her,” Steve says as sternly as he can, though it’s practically a plea.
“Then tell us who you work for,” he repeats and Steve really tries not to roll his eyes.
“I told you-”
He’s cut off by a man walking up behind Dove, hands grazing over her shoulders and lulling her head to the other side. His hands wander, moving from her shoulders towards her chest. The touch is disgusting and wanting and Steve jerks up yelling, “Hey, jackass! Don’t touch her like that!”
He’s quickly pushed back onto the bench, head smacking the wall and he winces.
“Tell me who you work for, or the girls die.”
Girls, plural. Robin. Fuck. Shit.
He hesitates still though. Watching the men look at him and the general in the room with Dove, whose hand is now pushing Dove’s head to the other side, placing his face closer to her neck making Steve want to jerk up again but stops when one his abuser steps in front of him again, hand on his shoulder.
“Just don’t touch her, please,” Steve pleads, shaking his head.
“Then who do you work for!”
“Scoops Ahoy!”
It’s funny how many times he’s said the name. His throat is raw from yelling and he’s in so much pain and he’s not even ready for the next blow. The soldier lifts his fist, connecting it to Steve’s head, rendering him completely unconscious.
“I can’t believe I’m going to die in a secret Russian base with Steve “The Hair” Harrington,” Dove hears Robin’s voice laugh. “It’s just too trippy, man.”
Her eyes blinked slowly again. Her head hurts more than when she woke last time. She’s still tied to a chair, still facing the same window as before. At least she thinks it’s the same room. Because through the window in front of her, she sees Steve isn’t alone. Him and Robin are bound together, back to back in chairs, laying on the ground. That room is different.
“We’re not gonna die,” Steve reassures her, almost too quietly for Dove to hear. “We’re gonna get out of here, okay?”
How is she hearing them?
Dove looks up and around, seeing speakers in the corners. The room is mic’d, this is one way glass she’s looking through. They're torturing her by making her watch her friends.
Can they hear her?
“Steve! Robin!” She yells as best as she can to no avail, Steve’s next words practically cut her off. “Hey! Can you guys-”
“Dove’s so smart, she’s going to get out of whatever situations she’s in. Just- you gotta let me think for a second,” Steve says with a confidence that sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. He’s hoping she can get herself out, praying she can. Praying she’s alive cause last he saw of her she was stabbed with a needle and being groped by a man. He’s really just trying to convince himself she’s alive cause he can;t stomach the thought of her not being.
Dove shakes her head, a shaky laugh leaving her mouth. She has no idea how she’s going to get out of this situation.
Robin laughs again, “Do you remember Mrs. Click’s sophomore history class?”
“What?” Steve asks.
“Mrs. Clickity-clackity,” Robin responds, giggly. “That’s what us band dweebs called her.”
Steve sighs, forehead resting on the floor.
“It was first period Tuesdays and Thursdays, so you were always late,” Robin reminded him.
Dove remembers that, though her focus was never on Steve during that class, she focused on what her assignment was for that day since it was her favorite class. And the head of black hair, Eddie Munson, next to her; who continuously flirted with her during his first senior year. Eddie was nice. So nice that she decided that she would make out with him after school a lot.
“And you always had the same breakfast,” Robin continued. “Bacon, egg, and cheese on a sesame bagel.”
That Dove is very familiar with that. That breakfast order is the same one he gets when they go to the deli on the corner of Friendship and Main. Dove thinks back fondly on the mornings there. She orders a biscuit with strawberry jam, a coffee with extra cream and sugar that Steve laughed at her for.
They’d eat them in his car. He picked her up so they could take the kids to the arcade after school. Friday ritual.
“Do you even remember me from that class?” Robin spoke to Steve softly and almost brokenly.
No response.
“I sat behind you two days a week for a year. You were a real asshole, you know that?”
“Yeah, I know,” Steve replied softly.
“But it didn’t matter that you were an asshole, I was still obsessed with you…even us losers, we just want to be like you guys, popular.”
Dove’s heart aching at the response. Asshole Steve was long gone, she knew that. Second semester senior year was a very different Steve from his past high school self.
She thinks back to those Friday mornings in particular that showed that.
She loved the way everything those mornings felt slower, nothing felt pressured. No college essays, parents asking about their futures, just two kids getting to enjoy Friday mornings. The smell of the coffee filling her senses and mixing with the smell of Steve’s freshly sprayed cologne.
Those are the mornings Dove realized she had developed feelings for Steve that stretched leaps and bounds past friendship. The way he started to order for her while she went to the bathroom, or even if she was standing right there. The way he held the door open for her. How he lingered closer to her and she could feel his heat. He was always so warm. He’s bought an ABBA tape just for when she rode with him those Fridays, loving the way she’d belt “The Winner Takes It All”.
Those are the mornings she decided that she could not have feelings for Steve Harrington and he definitely did not have feelings for her. He’d rant about seeing Nancy to her, talk about other girls he saw, and Dove felt like if Steve was going to ask her out, it was only because the kids pushed him to. He’d feel obligated to. Like it was what was expected.
Dove didn’t want that. She wanted Steve to like her for who she is. Not because of the proximity they found themselves having.
What Dove fails to realize though, is that Steve Harrington doesn’t just pick anyone up early on Friday mornings to get breakfast. He doesn’t just sit with her during study hall because of that night back in the fall. And he certainly doesn’t just hang out with her cause some kids force them to.
Steve does that because he has been falling in love with her since the night of the SnowBall dance. Since they went to the diner and talked for hours. Since he watched her ruffles Max’s hair when she picked her up and giggled with her as they walked to her car.
Steve's heart has been yearning for her since that night, without even realizing it. Every girl he talked to, every complaint he had about Nancy and Jonathan, all of it just a distraction for his growing feelings for Dove Jones.
Friday’s were their favorite days before graduation, and they both hoped they could have them again.
Dove snapped out of her memory when she heard Steve respond to whatever Robin had just said.
“If it makes you feel any better, popularity and all that isn’t that great,” Steve says, a bit of strain in his voice. “Seriously, it baffles me that everything people tell you is important. Everything that people say you should care about, it’s all just…”
“Bullshit,” Dove speaks to Steve as she takes a bite of her biscuit. She had been ranting about Tommy’s latest jabs at Steve. “I mean seriously, no one past high school cares about how you are ‘The King’ right now. ”
“Well, I don’t think I’m the ‘King’ anymore,” Steve says around the bite of bagel in his mouth.
“Oh, whatever,” Dove laughs, not believing him. “You don’t just lose your title like that because you started hanging out with different people. No matter what Tommy says. You still are one of the best players on that basketball team and are swim team captain.”
“I’m not swimming this year,” Steve admits, taking another bite.
Dove blinks at him, “Why?”
“Don’t wanna,” Steve answers honestly. “I just wanna…I don’t know, I just don’t want to be that guy anymore.”
Robin lets out a chuckle at Steve before he continues. “But I guess you gotta mess up to figure things out, right? If I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have become friends with Dove or Dustin…Dove, she really made me realize that being popular isn’t what’s that important in the end, you know?”
“I hope so,” Robin responds honestly. “I feel like my whole life has been… one big error.”
“I wish I knew you in Clicks class,” Steve admits softly. “You and Dove…you guys probably would’ve helped me pass if I had stopped wasting my time being miserable with Tommy and Carol.”
“You’d probably be on your way to college right now,” Robin adds to the scenario. “And I’d be happily slinging some ice cream with some other schmuck and not watch you pine after dick biting Dove and I’d be absolutely clueless to the idea of evil Russians beneath our feet.”
“I have not been pinning,” Steve argues back half-heartedly.
“You practically have heart eyes for her since she walked into the shop a couple days ago,” Robin laughs again.
“Yeah well, I think I messed that up too.”
“Don’t count yourself out yet,” Robin assures him.
“Yeah, well it was all fun while it lasted,” Steve sighed, allowing himself to be okay with the idea this could be the end.
“It was,” Robin says with a smile.
The two start laughing and Dove chokes up at their words. They don’t deserve this. This isn’t how they die. This isn’t how she dies. She will not go out being killed by some evil Russians. And she definitely will not let the man who killed her mother get away with it.
She shifts her wrists against the bounds and she notices how much looser the bound is on her right wrist.
The door to her prison opens, the same man from before walking in. Her head snaps and she stops moving her wrists, scowling at the man as he walks in.
“Let us go,” Dove practically growls in Russian.
The man laughs, “We’re just getting to the fun part.”
Dove snaps back to the glass, watching as some other men start picking up Steve and Robin.
Dove breathes quickly as she sees a man in a white coat, looking to be a doctor, walk over and shake a blue vial, smaller than the one they had in the elevator.
“Leave them alone,” Dove pleads, eyes shifting between the glass and the man. “We won’t tell anyone we were here, please, please just don’t hurt them, we’re just kids, please.”
The man tuts, grabbing her chin and turning her to stay watching the glass like before. She fights against his hand that just squeezes her chin harder, his other reaching to the front of her throat this time. His breath is against the side of her face, his nose brushing her cheek. His hand squeezes her throat slightly, beginning to apply pressure. It triggers something in her and she retracts her head back trying to get his hand off her neck.
“Get off me,” she seethes, trying to wriggle out of his grasp.
“Wait a second, what is that thing?” Steve asks quickly as the doctor walks over with a larger needle.
“It will help you talk,” he responds and Dove’s eyes well with tears as Steve screams loudly when the needle enters his neck.
Dove Jones has gone red with anger before. But this is a new kind of rage she’s feeling. It overtakes her quicker than she can even process it. A feeling of pure rage and fear. Robin screams now as the needle enters her neck and Dove practically blacks out from rage.
She moves quickly, her right hand slipping out of the bound and she turns into a version of herself she’s never met before. She yells, reaching around and pulling the gun from the man's hip besides her and without thinking, she turns the gun towards him, shooting his leg.
The man yells and stumbles back, groaning in pain.
Dove stands, pointing the gun at the man. The same gun that killed her mother.
“Guards-” He begins to yell in Russian, but Dove doesn’t even give him a chance to finish, and pulls the trigger.
The man goes limp once the bullet pierces through his neck.
Dove’s breath quickened, blinking back tears.
She just killed a man. The rage settles and reality tries to set in but there’s still too much relying on her right now. She hears a commotion from outside the door, they must have heard the gun shot.
The door to the room opens and Dove stares at the guards staring at her. There’s a second to think as they look at the man on the floor, dead. She moves quickly again, shooting at the two guards who came in first. Sending their bodies flying back and stopping the two behind them from entering. She grabs the handle to the door on the opposite side of the room and takes off through the corridor.
Dove rounds a corner, sprinting faster than she had ever in her life. She’s looking behind her, praying she’s lost the guards tailing her by now in the maze she ran through. Her legs are tired and she really wishes she kept running after volleyball season ended.
And as she turns a corner again she runs straight into a body.
A shrill scream comes out of the body and before Dove can even raise the gun she recognizes that scream.
“Dustin,” she breathes, tucking the gun into her waist band and bringing the curly haired boy into a hug. “Oh, thank God.” She doesn’t care how much he hates it, she pulls back and kisses his cheeks like she’s his mother, just so happy to see him.
“Dove, you’re alive, holy shit,” he breathes back, smaller frame clinging to her once she brings him back in, not caring at all about the kisses she just placed on his face. “God, you smell.”
“You don’t smell great either,” she laughs and then looks to his left and sees Erica, holding a metal poker. “What the hell is that?”
“A weapon,” Erica retorts with a sass Dove is so grateful to hear.
“Where’s Steve and Robin?” Dustin asks, turning the attention back to the mission.
“Being tortured in some room,” Dove responds, looking behind her quickly to make sure no one was coming.
“Do you know where?” Dustin asks, grabbing her hand and starting to lead her towards the cart they had commandeered.
“Kinda, I don’t know they drugged me and I think I’m still a little loopy,” Dove admits, trying to think of the path she took to get where she is now.
“The main tunnels this way, you guys were probably being kept near the comms room,” Dustin says hopping into the driver's seat of the golf cart.
“Dustin you are not driving,” Dove says, trying to move him out of the seat.
“Do you want me to drive or shoot that gun?” Dustin asks seriously, looking at the gun Dove pulled out of her waist band.
Her eyes shift down to the gun and her hand shakes slightly. “No, probably not.”
“Then get in.”
They begin driving down the long hallway, a little faster then Dove would like as she grips the side of the cart. Dustin drives carefully as Erica sits in the back. They arrive at the opening of the corridor and Erica hops out, pulling out the green liquid they had found from before.
“Woah, what do you guys plan on doing with that?” Dove asks, grabbing one of the vials from Erica.
“Create a distraction,” she answers, grabbing the final two out of her back pack and handing them to Dustin.
They begin pouring them out on the floor, causing it to melt.
“Holy fuck,” Dove says, watching as the liquid begins passing through levels.
“Come on,” Dustin says, grabbing Dove’s elbow and pulling her towards a door.
A rush of guards had come out and revealed the entrance that held Steve and Robin. It closes as the guards in that room run out to investigate what had caused the alarms to start blaring. The three hide behind a wall before rushing into the room to save their friends.
“You think you can shoot that thing?” Dustin asks.
Dove nods and they move quickly to the door. Dustin screams as he opens it, rushing forward to the doctor who was holding Steve’s finger.
“Get on the ground!” Dove yells in Russian as she enters, the gun raised.
This stuns the doctor enough to give Dustin time to stab the elongated taser to his chest. He convulses, his whole body shaking from the shocks and drops to the ground.
“Hey! Henderson!” Steve exclaims with a drugged out smile. “That’s crazy, I was just talking about you.”
Dove moves over to Steve, tucking the gun into the back waist band of her jeans, undoing his binds with Dustin.
“Oh my God, Wonder Woman,” Steve says, beaming brightly at the blonde’s frizzed out curls. “I thought they killed you oh my God this is the best day of my life, I get another chance.”
Dove looks at him with wide eyes, his eyes blinking slowly and he almost looks like he’s going to cry.
“I’m so happy you’re alive,” he says a little quieter this time, like it’s a secret.
Dove doesn’t have time for the pang in her chest as she looks at his wounds, pushing them down and saying, “Get ready to run.”
Dove grabs Steve’s hand this time, leading him towards the cart with Dustin holding Robin closely behind. They rush out of the room, running down the corridor. They round a corner, a guard pops out, beginning to yell.
Dove drops Steve’s hand quickly, pulling the gun out of her waist band and shooting the guard in the leg. She is so thankful her brother had taken her to the shooting range when he came to visit.
“Holy shit,” Dustin mutters before smiling at Dove who turns to look at him with worry. “You’re like a total badass.”
Dove smiles awkwardly before grabbing Steve's hand and leading them down the corridor.
The three oldest teens pile into the bed of the cart this time, the box keeping them hidden as Dove closes the back door. Dustin jumps into the driver seat with Erica in the passenger one.
As they round corners the three of them slam into the sides of the cart from the speed Dustin is driving. Steve and Robin more so than Dove, since it seems like they have no control over themselves.
“Jesus slow down,” Steve slurs to Dustin.
“Yeah, what is this, like the Indy 500?” Robin slurs as well.
“It’s the Indy 300,” Steve retorts back, bracing himself in a corner.
“No dingus, it’s 500!”
“It’s 300!”
“Let’s say a million,” Robin slurs before breaking into a fit of laughter along with Steve.
Dove’s eyes move back and forth quickly between the two of them. Her eyes are wide as she tries to determine what is wrong and how long they will be like this.
“What is wrong with them?” Erica yells back to Dove.
“I have no idea,” Dove replies, then scooting forward and grabbing Steve’s face.
“Steve. Steve, look at me,” Dove says, holding his face gently, inspecting his cuts.
He smiles up at her, lazily reaching his hand out and resting it on the back of her neck. “You’re so pretty,” he slurs fondly with a smile.
Dove’s heart flutters, but she rolls her eyes and ignores the compliment, trying to get a look at his unswollen eye.
“I want to kiss you so bad,” Steve mutters, enjoying how close she is to him. She’s so pretty. Her lips look so nice and her eyes sparkle.
Dove shakes her head as she tries to get a closer look at his pupil. “Steve, now is really not a good time.”
He doesn’t listen, breath fanning over her cheeks being this close. Steve takes this opportunity to lean in and try to kiss her.
That fails miserably as Erica yells, “Dustin watch out!”
The cart slams into barrels, sending the three teens in the back forward. Steve’s arms wrap around Dove, holding her against him, loving the smell of her hair and the weight she is against his chest. They all groan at the force and try to gain their composure as Dustin opens the back of the cart.
“Come on, we gotta go. Now,” he orders, not even caring about the position he catches Dove and Steve in.
Dove quickly pushes herself off Steve, grabbing his and Robin’s hands, dragging them with her. Dustin heads straight for the elevator, swiping the keycard he took earlier and pressing the open door button.
Once the five of them are inside, and moving upwards quickly, Robin and Steve take the opportunity to fuck around. Much to Dove’s dismay.
They whoop happily as Steve pretends to surf on a flatbed cart, Robin pushing it in different directions.
“Hey! You look like you’re surfing!” Robin yells with a laugh.
“Dove, look I’m surfing,” Steve yells happily.
The three undrugged individuals stare at the two in awe.
“They seem drunk,” Erica remarks at their behavior.
“Why would they be drunk?” Dustin asks, looking at Dove.
“They aren’t drunk. They’ve been drugged,” Dove tells them, remembering the liquid that had been stabbed into their necks. It probably would’ve been at the front of her mind if she wasn’t still trying to process the fact that she watched her mom get murdered right in front of her, and then shot a man who was trying to torture her.
Robin pushes the cart forward sending Steve flying off and to the ground with a groan.
“Wipe out!” She yells.
Dustin rushes over to Steve who is laid with his head propped against a box. He lifts the hair that has fallen on his forehead. “He’s burning up.”
“You’re burning up,” Steve retorts mockingly.
Dove moves down next to Steve with Dustin, watching as the young boy inspects his older friend. Dustin moves forward, prying Steve's unswollen eyes open more, much more successfully then Dove in the cart since Steve does not want to kiss him.
“Ow!” Steve complains at the feeling, grabbing Dustin's shirt and trying to push him away.
“His pupils are super dilated,” Dustin says to Dove next to him.
“Boop!” Steve reaches out, pressing his finger to Dove’s nose gently with a giggle.
“Steve, are you drugged?” Dustin asks, gently slapping his face to make him pay attention to him.
“How many times, dad?” Steve slurs in a mocking tone. “I don’t do drugs, it’s only marijuna.”
Steve tries to boop Dustin's nose this time, making Dustin shy away and look to Dove. “What did they do to him?”
“I don’t know. I just watched them inject him with some blue liquid and he screamed, and then I broke out of the ties they had me in and I shot a man,” Dove admits frantically, her breath quickening as she stares at Dustin.
Her eye twitches as the pressure of a headache starts to build.
Dustin understands this is a stressful situation and that she only did what she needed to. He also thinks it makes her even more badass, but he can tell she isn’t handling it very well.
The silence is broken by Robin giggling.
“Is he gonna die on us?” Dustin asks after a moment.
“I don’t think so,” Dove replies with a head shake, eyes wide.
“Henderson, she’s so pretty isn’t she,” Steve asks Dustin, still slurring. “Dove is the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen and she let me kiss her. Oh my god we actually did more then that, I-”
Dove launches herself forward, covering Steve’s mouth before he can embarrass himself and her anymore.
“We all die, my strange little child friend,” Robin remarks, two sentences behind from what was happening. “It’s just a matter of how…and…oh my god, Harrington, you kissed dick-biting Dove?”
Dustin and Dove stare at Robin blankly before they turn their attention back to Steve on the ground. He was in much worse shape than her with blood slightly dripping from a cut below his mouth.
“They’re still looking for us up there,” Dustin begins to explain to Steve and Dove. “So I need to know where one of your cars is.”
“Oh my god can we make a pit stop at the food court?” Steve asks, looking over to Robin and then to Dove with pleading eyes.
“I would kill for a hot dog on a stick,” Robin exclaims, laying on her thighs and folding forward.
“Steve, pay attention where is your car?” Dustin asks, drawing his attention back to him.
“Uh oh.”
“Uh oh?”
“Car’s off the table,” Steve says, reaching into his pockets. “The Russians took the keys like forever ago.”
Dove pats her own pockets now, keys long gone, back up magazine being the only thing in her back pocket.
“Shit,” Dove says, looking at Dustin with sorry eyes.
“That’s a bummer right?” Steve laughs along with Robin who is clapping her hands like a small child.
Dove pinches the skin between her brows.
When they surface, the two youngest push open the doors. The three oldest teens breathe in the fresh air.
“Oh my God, that tastes so good,” Robin exclaims as they walk onto the loading dock. “Steve, can you taste the air?”
Dove giggles as they stick out their tongues, both of them exclaiming, “I taste it!”
Steve looks up at the sky, then lets his gaze drop to Dove walking two steps ahead of him. With no control left over the boundary filter he’d put in place while sober, his hands reach out and grab her hips, pulling her back against him and hugging her from behind. It’s nice. The soft brush of her arms against him, the solid warmth of her body.
She lets him have the moment, just grateful that he’s alive. He’s been beaten badly, and she wants nothing more than to tend to his wounds and make them better, but they aren’t out of the woods yet.
Dustin and Erica walk ahead of them quickly but stop abruptly as the gate in front of them opens, two burly men dressed in black step forward.
“Stop!” One of them yells.
“Shit! Come on!” Dustin yells, moving back to the three older teens and pushing them into a set of double doors.
“Why are we running?” Steve slurs as Dove moves him forward with both hands on his back. Dustin and Erica hold one of Robin's hands each, pulling her as she tries to go back out to the outside air.
“Where are we going?” Dove yells to Dustin who is now leading them running down the halls.
“Just trust me!”
They round another corner, exiting the back hallways and find themselves in the movie theater. Dustin peers his head out of some double doors before calling back to them that it’s all clear.
They all move quickly but quietly, Dustin leading them into the movie theater with the “Back to The Future” poster outside of it. As they run past the trash can, Steve pulls Dove back as he grabs a bag of popcorn from the trashcan that’s sticking out.
“Leave it,” Dove hisses back to Steve, trying to pull him forward. He doesn’t listen, taking the popcorn with him with a smile as they rush into the theater.
“What did I tell you!” Doc exclaims on the screen as they open the door to the theater.
Dustin scans the room and spots three seats in the very front. He leads them down, motioning for Robin and Steve to sit, then turns to Dove.
“Watch them. I do not want Steve dying,” Dustin orders—well, more like begs—Dove. “I’m going to try to find us a ride out of here.”
“These seats blow,” Steve says, stuffing popcorn into his mouth.
“Then don’t watch the movie,” Dustin seethes, annoyed out of his mind by their drugged out behavior.
“We wanna watch the movie,” Robin slurs.
“Then watch it,” Dustin replies loudly, getting shushed by some others close to them.
“Go, Dustin, I will make sure they don’t die,” Dove says, pushing the boy and Erica out of the room.
Dustin nods, looking at the two drugged teens saying, “Don’t go anywhere, listen to Dove.”
“Fine, Dad,” Steve mocks, stuffing more popcorn into his mouth, the salt stinging his cut lip.
Robin giggles as Dustin rolls his eyes walking away with Erica in tow, leaving the three of them in the theater.
“What is happening?” Robin asks, reaching for more of the popcorn in Steve’s hand.
“I have no idea,” Steve whispers back, eyes glued on the screen.
summary: Dove's seeing things. Actually seeing things. It's freaky and Steve's worried. But there's something protecting her from it getting worse, something neither of them realize.
warnings: normal stranger things horror, mild sexual content, language.
authors note: shorter chapter whoops. y'all I love this story and I hope those of you reading it do as well. can't wait for y'all to see what's to come cause buckle tf up.
Chapter 16
Chapter 17: Moon Song
After leaving Eddie with the promise to come back tomorrow to game plan, everyone can feel the tension in the car. Some of it is from the story they were left with, the horror of Chrissy being lifted in the air and her bones snapping. The rest of it is purely comes from Steve, whose jaw set and eye twitched every time Eddie called Dove princess before they left the boat house. Which he made sure to do multiple times and Steve was sure it was just to piss him off.
“Princess? Who does he think he is? Babe, seriously, why does Eddie Munson have a nickname for you?” Steve questions, finally breaking the silence. His tone isn’t harsh but everyone can hear the bite of what could be considered jealousy behind it.
“It’s not that big of a deal, Steve. Really. We hung out a lot when I was a junior and he was in his first senior year, and he started calling me that,” Dove shrugs, hoping he doesn’t dig further. But judging by the rising jealousy in his tone, she’s almost certain he will.
“Yeah, but I don’t think friends are calling their friends ‘princess’ like that,” Max snorts from the backseat.
Dove’s head turns around and she glares at Max, who only smirks back at her.
“Yeah, I agree with Max, Dove, so come on, tell me. I can handle it,” Steve says, taking his eyes off the road for a second to look at her.
Her head is resting on her hand, propped up against the passenger door as she stares out the windshield.
“Okay, fine. Eddie and I were kinda a thing during that time, but it wasn't anything that serious. He started calling me princess then, but like I said, not serious. Really.” Dove finally blurts, looking over to Steve and waiting for him to be upset.
There’s a pause and Steve’s jaw tightens ever so slightly before it relaxes.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Steve asks, glancing over at her again.
In the backseat, Dustin, Robin, and Max’s eyes bounce between the couple like they’re watching a ping-pong match. Their bodies stay still as they wait with baited breath for the next response.
“Because you’ve already been so jealous of Eddie and Dustin hanging out together, I didn’t want to rub salt in the wound and—”
“Whoa! I am not jealous of Eddie hanging out with Dustin—”
“Oh my god, Steve, you totally are!”
“I am not!”
“Yeah, you kinda are. You’ve been pouting recently.”
“Robin, can you not right now?” Steve retorts, holding his hand up.
Max snorts again, trying to stifle her laughter, and Dustin holds a hand over his mouth to do the same.
“Steve, I would’ve told you, but it didn’t feel incredibly important. I mean, we don’t talk about all the girls you used to be a ‘thing’ with. Like with Brenda last night! We never talked about that before,” Dove reasons, turning completely in her seat to face him.
“Okay, but that’s different and you know that, we hung out once, at a party. That was it. You and Munson probably went out, what like, at least three times?” Steve replies, making the turn toward Robin’s neighborhood.
“Well, technically we never really went out. We just hook—”
“Okay! Nope. I actually don’t want to know!”
Max, Dustin, and Robin can’t hold in their laughter anymore, falling over each other in the backseat in a fit of giggles at Steve’s obvious jealousy.
After dropping Robin off at the Buckley residence, Steve drives past Forest Hills entirely to drop Dustin off. There was no way in hell Max was staying at her trailer tonight— especially since her mom works Saturday nights and she'd be staying there alone.
At the Harrington residence, the three of them exit Steve’s Beemer and make their way to the front door. Crickets echo through the night and leaves rustle in the trees when a breeze passes through.
Steve walks ahead of the two girls, unlocking the door and pushing it open, letting Max enter first.
“Do you have any Advil? My head is killing me,” Max asks as she steps inside.
“Yeah, it’s in the medicine cabinet in the kitchen. I’ll get you some,” Steve replies, following behind her.
Dove is the last to enter, but a whisper makes her pause and glance behind her.
“Doooovey,” it sings out through the night again, just like how her father used to call for her when she was little.
Dove spins around, turning to her right, trying to find the voice — but she’s only met with the long driveway leading away from the Harrington house.
“Dovey,” the voice whispers again, more insistently this time.
She turns to her left —
—and she’s no longer on the front porch.
Her feet are bare, cold against linoleum. Her jeans suddenly hang longer than they did before, dragging against the floor. The air is cold and the hallway she’s standing in is dark.
The walls are wood-paneled, stained a deep brown, and the dim bulbs above her barely cast any light. She knows where she is. This is where she spent all that time with her father. She walked down these halls every day.
But this isn’t Hawkins General.
She’s been to Hawkins General many times since her dad passed, and she’s certain that’s where he was actually pronounced dead. She remembers that vividly — sitting next to him while he lay in the hospital bed, machines beeping softly beside him, the IV in his arm.
Right?
But at some point, he wasn’t at Hawkins General.
He was here.
In this building. What is this building? Why can’t she remember this place?
Dove slowly moves from the spot where she had frozen.
She walks down the hallway, turning right at the first split. The hall stretches so far she can’t see where it ends. It almost seems to bend as she moves down it, and the rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor grows louder the closer she gets to the first door on her left.
Her bare feet pad softly against the floor as she slows in front of it.
Her hand reaches out and she pushes the door open. It creaks as it slowly swings inward.
Curled into a tight ball in the corner of the room is a boy with brown hair. Soft sobs escape him as he rocks himself back and forth. He wears a long sleeve polo with red and blue stripes. He looks so small, scared even.
The monitor beeps steadily still, the cords running from it connected to the boy. There’s a chair turned on its side across the room like it had been thrown.
“Hello?” Dove calls softly, careful not to startle him.
He doesn’t move, too lost in his own tears.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Dove says gently, unsure if she should approach him. “Why are you crying?”
His crying softens slightly, but he doesn’t turn to look at her. He sniffles and wipes his face in a way that tells Dove he’s very young. Seven, maybe eight.
“I’m a disappointment,” the boy sniffles. “My dad keeps yelling at me about it be-because I’m not good enough. Mr. H doesn’t like me like he likes her and I don’t do well on the tests and—and—”
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Dove says softly.
"I just wanted to help, he was being mean," he cries again. "He was hurting her."
She takes one step into the room but freezes when a scream echoes down the hallway.
“What do you want from me?!” a male voice shouts.
A chill runs up Dove’s spine as her head snaps toward the hall. The lights begin flickering violently.
“Stay here, alright? Don’t move. I’m going to go see if he needs help.”
She steps back into the hallway and starts running toward the sound of the screaming.
Where is it coming from?
How long is this hallway?
How did she even get here?
“Dove! Dove, hey! Dove!”
She’s not running anymore. She’s back on the front porch of the Harrington house.
Steve is gripping her shoulders, gently shaking her and staring at her face — specifically her eyes.
“Dove, babe, what’s going on? Are you okay?” Steve asks, one of his hands moving to her cheek. His thumb rubs the space under her eye.
“Yeah… yeah, I think so. I, um… sorry. I thought I heard something and I…” Dove trails off, glancing to her left again.
But there’s nothing there. No wood-paneled walls, no hallway and no crying boy.
“Okay, let’s go inside. You’re freaking me out,” Steve says, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and guiding her into the kitchen where Max is waiting.
The cries for help Dove heard weren’t just in her head though. Across town, on the highway not far from Forest Hills, Fred Benson stands face-to-face with the monster that took Chrissy’s life the night before.
But that’s not what the world around him sees.
In his mind, he’s trapped in a hole in the ground, backed into a corner by the creature — its skin burned and peeling, flesh seared black and red, veins and muscle exposed.
In reality, Fred Benson stands alone in the middle of the highway.
There is no monster.
He slowly lifts into the air, head tilting back, eyes glazing over white. His bones snap and his eyes sink into his skull. Just like Eddie described.
And Nancy Wheeler, who had been with Fred all day, is now running through Forest Hills Trailer Park asking anyone if they’ve seen her friend and fellow journalist.
-----------------
Steve wouldn’t say he has ever been overtly anxious. He was always a leader by nature. He was the “King,” after all, for a very long time. He could charm his way through every class, he could talk the cops out of getting the paddy wagon at any party, and he could handle anything.
But since he jumped into the Byers’ living room to fight an interdimensional being, he learned he couldn’t handle everything. Yet he always put on a brave face like he could. He did it when he fought Jonathan, then when he walked into the junkyard as bait, and then again when he fought Billy. He even did it while being tortured, while he watched the girl he loved be tortured.
And he was learning he was putting on a brave face so that she never had to, because he also learned that was what she always did. She didn’t need to do that ever as long as he was around, because he felt the need to protect her. So right now, he needs to put on his bravest face, even though he is scared shitless.
Eddie freaking Munson just told them about Chrissy Cunningham being murdered by levitating and then her bones snapping. Before that happened, her eyes had been glazed over, and by description—it sounded just like how Dove’s eyes have looked multiple times now.
So, Steve’s digging his nail into the skin around his thumb, very, very anxious.
He sits on his bed, back leaned against the headboard, as he watches Dove walk around the room, getting ready for bed herself after giving Max some clothes to sleep in. Her hair is pulled up into a loose ponytail, sleep shorts hanging loose on her hips and his shirt hanging off her frame.
Something is going on with her, and he’ll be damned if something happens to her with this dark wizard.
“Honey,” Steve speaks up, drawing her attention away from the dresser where she was taking off all her jewelry.
“Mhm,” she hums absently, unclasping the pendant necklace he gave her for Christmas.
“Are you feeling okay? This morning when you woke up, you sorta blanked out on me, and then on the porch earlier, your eyes were… they were glazed over like Eddie said Chrissy’s were.”
Dove turns quickly to look at him. He’s picking at the slightly frayed edge of the comforter in his lap now. “My eyes?”
“Yeah, your eyes, and please don’t try to play it off as nothing—”
“I wasn’t going to—”
“Yeah, you were, because you know I’m worried and you hate when I worry, but this is serious stuff, babe. Like, if it’s all starting again, I—”
Steve cuts himself short as he feels a tight pull in his chest. He can’t even live with the thought of something happening to her, to any of them. He loses sleep at night with nightmares of the mall ending differently—nightmares where he finds her on a table, eyes open but vacant, terrible, terrible things having happened to her. Or her being in Billy’s place, with the Mind Flayer’s arms plunging into her, or finding her going after her mom and—
“Steve, hey, listen—” Dove walks over to the bed, crawling up the mattress once she reaches it and sitting right next to his hip, curling her legs to her side. “There’s just—I hate that you feel like you always have to take care of me.”
“Dove—”
“But—” she holds up her hand to stop him— “But what we’ve been through is…a lot and, if it helps ease your mind, we can talk about it?”
“That would help. Please, honey.”
Steve’s hand moves from playing with the comforter’s edge and takes hers, distracting himself by rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. His heart fills with warmth like it always does when he holds her, in any way. He waits patiently for her to begin, listening to the sound of her breathing and catching the way she's watching his thumb run over her knuckles.
“Last night I had this dream about when I was a little girl and would visit my dad in the hospital, except it wasn’t like how I had always remembered it,” Dove explains, recalling the dream from that morning as she watches Steve’s finger move across her hand.
“What do you mean, not how you remembered it?” he asks, prompting her to continue.
“Like, I recognized where I was at the hospital, but in my head we were always at Hawkins General. Except in this dream I knew that this place wasn't actually Hawkins General. And my mom was there, and she told me they were going to run some tests on me, but…”
Steve tries to catch her gaze that’s falling away from him. “But what?”
“But I was scared, like really scared. Which is weird for me cause as a child I was never scared, but I was remembering how I felt and I had no memory of it.” Dove tries to think back for more of that memory but comes up short. No file is found in her brain of that memory and who was calling her Dovey. But it’s right there, on the tip of her tongue.
“And what about on the porch tonight? What happened there?”
Dove looks up, meeting Steve’s eyes. Then she leans forward towards him, like she's about to share a secret, so he leans in as well, ready to listen.
“Someone keeps whispering my name,” Dove whispers with a shudder. He watches as her head keeps turning back slightly, like she's wanting for something to appear behind her. Like she's hearing her name being called behind her right now.
He feels his stomach drop. The feeling of someone telling you something so unnerving and you can't see it. He doesn't know where it is or what it wants but it's calling to her. His girlfriend. He watches as something begins to pour into her features. Fear, but she's trying to mask it. Keep that brave face.
“Who? Who keeps whispering your name?”
“I don’t know.”
He doesn't miss the way her bottom lip trembles, her voice shaking over the words. He doesn't need her to say, he doesn't expect her to because he knows she won't. So Steve reaches his hand up, placing it on the back of her neck, pulling her down to his chest. Her body curls into him as they both settle into the bed.
“What happened when you heard your name on the porch?” Steve asks after a breath. He's not sure he really wants to know but for the sake of this—whatever this is— that may be happening be feels like he needs to know.
“I turned one way to see if anyone was there and saw no one, and then when I turned the other way… I was in the hospital from my dreams, and I saw a little boy crying,” Dove says softly, her finger tracing an absentminded pattern onto his T-shirt-covered side.
Steve lets out a breath, a little surprised by what she said. It's not the worse thing, but he knows she might be down playing what she saw. He moves down so he is laying on his side, moving her from his chest so they are face to face. Their noses brush as his hand comes up to cup her cheek. Her skin is soft under his touch, warmed by the faint blush from how close they are. Their breaths mingle as he leans closer, lips barely touching before he closes the rest of the distance, placing his lips softly on hers.
He doesn't know why he does it, but kissing her is a knee jerk reaction to most things for him. The feel of her lips on his, even just a peck is enough to calm his brain. And when she's panicking, feeling like a room is closing in on her, Steve holds her close like this, letting their breaths intertwine before he hears her breathing slow, matching his before gently kissing her. She's not panicking now but the moment staying the same.
There’s no real movement to the kiss, just his lips on hers. It isn’t until Dove moves, turning her head and shifting to be more over him, that the kiss picks up. Her hand moves up his chest, cradling the side of his neck as her upper half lays on top of him. His hands wander, finding purchase on the small of her back to hold her closer while their lips move together slowly.
When they pull back, Steve’s eyes open first to find her smiling at him.
“Whatever is going on, we’ll figure it out, but please do not start floating and having bones start snapping on me,” Steve pleads, pushing a shorter curl by her face behind her ear.
Dove chuckles. “I promise, but only if you promise to do the same. We have no idea what this dark wizard, Vecna dick, wants.”
Steve chuckles as well before nodding and pulling her back down to him, his lips capturing hers again slowly. The kiss doesn’t last long; they separate after a second or two, Dove tucking herself back into Steve’s side. One of his arms curls around her while his other reaches over and flicks off the bedside lamp.
There’s a scratching at the end of Dove's mind where she can feel whatever has been trying to creep in, dying to haunt her dreams that night. Somehow though, there’s a force that pushes against it. She isn’t sure how, but she’s grateful for the peaceful nights rest she receives laying on Steve’s chest.
-----------
The old Creel house creaks as swarms of creatures fly around it. Their squawks and squeals mix with the rush of air that pulls through the Upside Down. Through the house — a reflection of a place that used to be filled with song and love — is now filled with black vines that ooze something awful.
Henry rests in the attic of the house, veins of flesh stretching out from his back as he hovers above the ground. His eyes are closed as he moves through the minds of those in Hawkins. Voices flood his thoughts, overlapping, constant — but he’s searching for one.
“Dovey,” he calls, the name curling into the stale air.
He’s almost had it so many times since finding it again — her mind — but it slips away from his grasp each time. She doesn’t remember him. Of course she doesn’t. She was merely a child then. Forced to forget him by the imbeciles that brought him into that place.
But she was his. He loved her mind, it was perfect. The perfect place to escape and begin his plan. She was the perfect to execute that plan.
He needs that again. Because he knows the truth.
He almost achieved something similar with William. He was close, and he was useful for a time— pliable, easy to bend.
Dove had been something else entirely.
He moves faster through the minds around him, pushing past noise and memory alike. Faces blur, thoughts tear open and collapse as he searches.
Two down.
Only two more to go.
He needs to stalk. To understand. To find what festers in the minds of his prey before he strikes. The grief. The guilt. The anxiety.
Those are what open them.
Those are what make them weak.
He knows what humanity is. It showed him, over and over again. It festers. It rots. And he will show them all what they truly are.
And he will have his bird, his peace offering to the world. Dove will bring him what he needs, just like he had planned. He just needs her to remember first.
He finds her. At last.
Her sleeping form settles into his mindscape, quiet and still. He reaches for it and is stopped. His force meets something surrounding her and is pushed back. He stills. Then pushes again, harder.
The resistance holds.
He’s thrown back just slightly, enough to feel it.
That shouldn’t happen.
What is this?
He tries to enter again, but is only pushed back further, into another mind completely. A young boy, loud thoughts, flickering images— before discarding it immediately and returning.
He looks at her again. He hasn’t looked at her really since he heard her last summer. A cry through that barely opened gate but just enough to let him know she was there.
She’s grown. Changed. Not the child he once studied.
His hand reaches out, fingers long, nails sharp — more of that other place than human now, thanks to that other girl. The one like him. He presses his palm against the barrier surrounding her.
It hums beneath his touch. Not breaking or yielding. Familiar. His head tilts slightly.
No.
It couldn’t be.
He presses harder, testing it, searching for a way through—
—and then he feels it.
Not her, but something else. Close to her. Wrapped around her.
His expression shifts.
Recognition settles in.
Then anger. It’s sharp and immediate. The vines along the walls twitch as the feeling spreads through him. That presence, he knows it.
He remembers it.
It’s here, with her. Again.
His hand flattens against the barrier, unmoving now, as if studying it. Confirming it.
