Summary: Steve Harrington x fe!Reader -> Verbal declarations of love aren't exactly your forte, until Steve Harrington.
Disclaimer: Spoilers for S5, Steve and Reader take Nancy and Jonathan's place in the goo, friends to lovers, hints of mutual pining, fluff, little hint of flangst, reader helps Steve with a brief panic attack, happy ending.
The first time you told Steve that you loved him, it meant more to him than he would say.
Aside from the fact that he didn’t hear it a lot growing up- well, he heard it. It was more in passing. His parents on their way out to work, his dad leaving for a conference as he picked his mail up on the way out.
But when you had said it to him, you’d fully meant it. Looking him in the eyes, holding his hand, trying to keep him calm which, in its own way, helped calm you down.
Even more than all of that, he knew you didn’t say it all that often.
You felt it, sure. He knew you loved him long before you’d actually told him. He knew you loved the kids and, even in all the danger, the happier memories you’d made with them all. But, getting you to say it?
Well, it didn’t exactly pass your lips with ease.
“Just try,” Dustin had asked you for the millionth time, revelling in your discomfort and struggling to say it without sounding pained.
“I…love…you.”
Dustin laughed, and so did you. At least a little. “See? Why the hell can’t you say it?”
You shrugged, clearing the table. “I just…don’t say it all that often.”
“It’s her love language,” Max cut in. “She doesn’t say it, she shows it.”
“See?” You pointed out. “Thank you, Max.”
But, stuck in the upside down, surrounded by locked doors and melting goo that had finally hardened, you’d told him.
“Henderson- Dustin,” Steve’s voice broke. “He’s…he’s gonna think something’s happened to us. He can’t-”
“Steve?” You reached for him, pulling him to face you. “Steve? Look at me. Deep breaths. Dustin will be okay. We’ll be okay. They’ll find us.”
Steve shook his head, slowly slipping into a panic attack. This hadn’t been the first you’d calmed him down from over the last couple of years. The first one had been at the start of your friendship just as he started working at the video store with Robin.
“N-no, he’s gonna think-” Steve’s hands were shaking as he pinched the bridge of his nose to try and stop the tears. His breathing sounded wheezy. “He’s gonna think-”
“That we’re lying somewhere, okay?” You held his hands in yours before reaching up and pulling him down to your level until his forehead was against your own. “Close your eyes and try to follow my breathing. You need to calm down, Steve. Just breathe with me?”
“O-okay. Okay.”
Steve tried, and for a moment he calmed, but you could still feel the tension in his shoulders and the fear in his heart. “Dustin,” you said. “Will come and find us. The others that got caught in it, it stopped half way up their bodies. Which isn’t really the image I want to give you right now but my point is that Dustin is a smart kid and he’ll know we’re probably just stuck somewhere.”
“I should have seen what he was going through. I should have-”
You shook your head, standing on your toes to reach further up. “No, Steve. What’s in the past is in the past. And, he probably wouldn’t have listened anyway. He’s grieving, and so is everyone else. But, when he finds us, no doubt he’ll hug you as tight as he can and you two will be right back to normal, okay?”
You tried to smile through the pain. “I just know it.”
Steve took a couple of deep breaths. “You’re shaking, too.”
You nodded. “I’ll be okay.”
Steve didn’t say anything. Simply, he held onto your waist a little tighter. If you could be his anchor to reality, he could be yours. You were both alive and you’d find your way out of it all together.
“Steve?”
“Yeah.”
In the quiet, you moved your head back a little to look at him. His gaze met yours.
“I love you.”
Steve felt a breath of fresh air hit his lungs and he didn’t know whether to try and catch it in his throat or breathe it right back to you. His eyes scanned your face a couple of times in shock, hoping he hadn’t just imagined what you’d said.
“I love you,” you told him again, reassuring his silent fear.
Then he smiled.
Lifting a hand to your cheek, he held your face in his hand as if it was the most precious thing in his whole world. “You love me?”
You nodded. “Figured I might as well say something now before-”
Steve smiled. “I love you, too.”
Quickly, he pulled you in for a long kiss which, more than likely, would have continued if it hadn’t been for the crashing sounds coming against the wooden door.
“Sorry we’re late,” Jonathan apologised before both you and Steve headed for the exit together.
Steve hopped out first, quickly turning around to help you out of the jagged hole Jonathan had managed to break into the door.
“Watch your head.”
“I’ve got it.”
The minute Steve let you go and turned around to face the others, Dustin knocked the wind out of him by practically rugby tackling him into a hug.
“Buddy?”
“I thought you were gone for…”
“I know,” Steve nodded. “We did, too. But we’re safe.”
As Steve laid a hand on the back of Dustin’s head, holding him in a comforting hug, you smiled.
Steve could already hear your I told you so.
Thankfully, facing your doom in the Upside Down wasn’t the only time you would tell Steve that you loved him.
And for a girl that found it difficult to say those three little words outloud, they came pretty easy when Steve was the one on the receiving end of them.
There was the Upside Down, then back at the radio station where there was a small make-out session that followed whilst being surrounded by the record wall. There was when you were zipping up his jacket before Dustin pulled him away to find him a weapon, after he was pulled back onto the tower, when you all made it back home after the military had finally let you go.
You’d been let go at different times, but the minute you walked up the path to Robin’s house, Steve was already running out of the front door and engulfing you in a tight hug.
At any opportunity, you told Steve you loved him. And he did the same with you.
In the quiet moments, in the loud ones. No matter the occasion, you both found a way to say it, even if it couldn’t be heard of the decibel of the room.
Nothing like being held hostage at gunpoint between old friends. Daredevil vol. 5 #608, art by Phil Noto. Shout out to the cover as well, handsome with the nosebleed and shiner.
Are there any other TMC fictionkins up for dming on here or smth?
Hiya, Adam here, I've already met my canonmate Jonah, but I do want to meet others from my source again. I don't really care who you kin lmao but uh Adam doubles dni preferably, it makes me really uncomfortable. Putting that aside, I do genuinely want to see sourcemates
