Chapter Text
It's been a long time since Steve Harrington woke up in a hospital room.
Oh, sure. He's seen the inside of Hawkins Memorial ER more times than he cares to count these past few years. In '83, when Jonathan Byers had given him the beating that finally knocked some sense into him and he was still young enough for his mother to put up a facade of caring, she'd dragged him there when he returned home swollen and bloodied to ensure that he didn't have a concussion. And then in '84, when he'd been beaten half to death by Billy Hargrove in the name of protecting Lucas, he'd dragged himself to the hospital because the kids' noble effort at a patch job left a little to be desired and he was concerned about open wounds getting infected, particularly given their exposure to that rancid Upside Down air. In '85 he and Robin had both been swept along there in the aftermath of the 'fire' at Starcourt, then separately sequestered into private rooms and interrogated into the wee hours of the morning by government officials when Steve accidentally let something slip about Russians.
But that was Hawkins Memorial, and he was awake on arrival for each of them. This time? It's different, and he knows it as soon as his eyes open.
All at once, he's hit with the sickening memory of what happened before. He'd been elated, leaving the Creel house, ecstatic. They'd won. They'd actually won. A well-aimed Molotov from Robin and a bullet directly between the eyes from Nancy's sawn off, and they'd watched the bastard crash through the wall, crumble against the ground below and burn away like sticks on a campfire. In the excitement of it all Nancy had kissed him, the way she did before they knew about demons and Demogorgons and little girls with superpowers and then, adrenaline-fuelled, she'd kissed Robin as well in the same way and Robin had looked shocked only for a second before she whirled around and also planted one on Steve and he'd picked up both of the women he loved, swung them around and the three of them had screamed with joy because they'd won. They'd run and skipped back through the woods, laughing and whooping and hollering like children, no longer concerned about vines or bats or disfigured superpowered child killers.
It had shattered in an instant as soon as they arrived at the trailer park.
Because Dustin had been there, sitting and sobbing, loud and hysterical, while he clung like his life depended on it to the bloody, unconscious body of Eddie Munson. Steve had kept running, crashed to his knees beside Henderson and pulled him in close like he could make it all change if he could only hug the child hard enough. Dustin had cried so hard that it made both of them shake, choking out words like bats and brave and didn't run while Steve shushed him, forced back his own tears, and pressed soothing kisses into sweat-soaked curls. Nancy had been the one to scrabble through torn flesh and thick, congealing blood to find a whisper of a pulse at Eddie's neck. He was barely alive, but alive all the same, and that was all Steve needed to know. The kids' MO may be that friends don't lie, but Steve's - after 'protect the kids' - is 'no man left behind'. He'd scooped Munson into a bridal lift and, after hearing that the dumb dying bastard had cut the rope and rendered the trailer gate more or less useless, had marched resolutely back through the woods, to the road where poor Fred had died, and made damn sure all of his family got back Topside before the hideous crack sealed for good.
To his credit, he'd stayed conscious long enough to haul Eddie to the stolen RV and set him down on the bench. After that, it had taken only a couple of seconds for the adrenaline to wear off and for his body to catch up with the fact that, actually, he'd lost a hell of a lot of blood and hadn't slept in days and had been strangled by hell vines for a solid fifteen minutes. He'd crumpled then, his legs simply giving up and his knees buckling beneath him while his vision when blurry and someone - maybe Robin - yelled his name and everything faded to black.
Next thing he knows, he's waking up.
It's not Hawkins Memorial ER. It smells similarly of disinfectant and chemicals, but he's in a small, private room that looks more like a holding cell than a hospital, save for the beeping monitors and glistening drips he's hooked up to. As soon as his eyes flutter open, somebody cries out that he's awake and he's descended upon by Robin and Nancy, both of them hugging him hard.
"Hey, hey, ease off, I'm an invalid here," he mumbles, but he hooks an arm around each of them and squeezes as tight as he can muster.
"Don't you ever fucking scare me like that again, Steve," Robin scolds, straight into his ear. "I mean it. I thought you were dead."
"So did I," he admits, as the girls peel away from him. "What happened?"
"You passed out," Robin explains like that wasn't already obvious. "Right on the floor of the RV. Puked as you went down too. Totally one of your sexiest moments."
"The doctors think you had a delayed reaction to the physical trauma," Nancy provides, more helpfully. "The adrenaline kept you going for a while and then when it wore off you just kinda hit the deck."
"Doctors?" he repeats. "So I...am in the hospital?"
"Hawkins Lab," Nancy says, with a wince. "Owens insisted you and Eddie both be brought here to monitor any potential side effects from the bat bites."
"They literally reopened it just for this," Robin tacks on.
Gee. Doesn't that just make a guy feel special?
"Eddie's okay then?" he asks, and the girls exchange a look.
"I don't know if 'okay' is the word I'd use," Robin says uneasily. "He got chewed up pretty bad. Lost a lot of blood. He's alive and they say he's gonna pull through, but they're keeping him in a coma for now."
"What about everyone else?" Steve asks. "Max? Dustin? Lucas? Erica? Tell me they're okay."
It sounds pathetic and desperate, but Steve simply can't care. He feels pathetic and desperate. Nancy and Robin share another one of those looks.
"Erica is okay," Nancy says, slowly, like she's choosing her words very carefully. "Physically, at least. Lucas is too, mostly. He...I guess Jason showed up at the Creel house and the two of them got into a fistfight. He's a little dinged up, but he'll be alright. Dustin hurt his leg and his shoulder coming through the gate after Eddie but he'll mend."
"And Max?" it's barely more than a breath.
"She's alive," Nancy says, nervous in a way that Nancy Wheeler simply isn't. "But...well, they're not sure if or when she'll wake up. And if she does, the chances of her ever seeing or walking again are...not zero, but close to it."
And in that moment, Steve's shocked that the heart monitor keeps beeping because he swears he feels it break right down the middle.
"Hawkins is kinda crazy right now," Robin says, probably in an attempt to change the subject. "I guess the earthquakes came through Topside as well. There's a lot of buildings destroyed, a lot of people hurt and homeless."
"It's a disaster, but at least it gives the powers that be a premade story that the kids can tell their parents," Nancy adds.
"Are my parents okay?" Steve asks, sitting up straighter in bed in panic before he can stop himself. The last time he was home, his mother had been drinking whisky in the kitchen, despite it being noon on a Wednesday, and his father had been locked away in his office insistent on not being disturbed. He feels like there's ice in his stomach and the thought of his last words to them being maybe see you later. The girls look at each other like that for the third time.
"They're fine, Steve. Your side of town held up pretty well," Nancy says, and Steve sags back with a sigh of relief.
"Do... do they know I'm hurt? Has anybody called them?" he asks, that stupid childlike hope that he can never seem to shake starting to well up inside him again. Nancy's biting her lip again and Robin is fidgeting like she's trying to physically hold herself back from saying something she shouldn't.
"They know, yeah," Nance says, delicately, like she's holding something back. "Robin and I went out there to tell them."
"Are they here?" he asks, and Nancy shakes her head. "Is...is my mom coming? Is she allowed?"
"She's allowed, yeah," Nancy tells him softly. "But uh...no. She's-she's not coming."
"Wha-" is all Steve manages to get out before Robin loses her composure.
"They left, Steve," she blurts out, and the three of them are silent for a minute. They left. Went out of town when they know Steve is hurt and (kind of) in the hospital. Of course they did, he chastises himself for being stupid enough to think otherwise. He takes a deep, shaky breath to swallow the tears, then forces a smile.
"Well, that's understandable," he lies. "Business trips don't stop for earthquakes or injured sons, right?"
"They're not on a business trip, babe," Robin says, her expression dark in a way that Steve has never seen it be before. "They left. Moved away from Hawkins. They're gone."
Oh.
"Oh," it comes out wobbly, halfway to a sob.
"They left this," Nancy says, softly, pressing a folded piece of paper into his hand. "Your mom said you should call when you're awake."
Steve just stares down at the phone number in his mother's handwriting and tries his damnedest not to cry.
*
He waits until the girls have been ushered out by a stern-sounding nurse before he asks to use the phone. He weakly protests the call being monitored, but doesn't press too hard because he doesn't want the privilege taken away. So he allows an orderly to sit in the dank little room with him while he dials the number and faces the other way, lips pressed together in a tight line.
The phone picks up after three rings.
"Katherine Harrington," she sounds...happy. Chipper, almost. Not at all like someone whose only son is injured, in a town that just experienced several earthquakes.
"Hey, Momma. It's me," he says, his voice soft and hoarse.
"Steve. You're awake. Good," she says and really, she could try harder to sound like she means it.
"Yeah," he says. "I'm awake. A little bruised up but I'll live. Nance said you and Dad are gonna be out of town for a little bit?"
Because there's still some tiny, stupid, juvenile part of him that is hoping against hope that the girls had simply gotten their wires crossed, that his parents don't really care so little that they'd simply up and leave him behind without even waiting for confirmation that he's gonna be okay.
"Your father and I have made the decision to move elsewhere," she says, as simply as if she was telling him the weather. "Hawkins is too much trouble, it's not safe there anymore."
"Right," Steve licks his lips nervously and swallows. "So um... the house..."
"We'll be selling it," she informs him. "You're welcome to stay there until we find a buyer, and you'll be given access to your trust fund which should be plenty to find a place of your own."
"Where...where are you guys? I could go right now and buy a plane ticket and-" he begins, but she cuts him off with an exasperated sigh.
"Steve. You aren't a child anymore," she says.
And she's right - of course she is, he's damn near twenty for God's sake - but it stings anyway. Because when he was a child, she at least pretended that she cared, had dutifully feigned believable interest in his life and hobbies, had kissed scraped knees and hugged away bad dreams and driven him to the ER after beatings that he definitely deserved. Then he turned 18 - literally his eighteenth birthday - and she'd told him he was a man now and it was time to stand on his own feet and she'd pulled as far away as his father, no longer interested in acting like she ever wanted to be a mother in the first place.
"You really left me," he whispers it, doesn't really mean to do it out loud.
"For heaven's sake, don't be melodramatic," she snaps, offers no words of comfort or reassurance. Steve sighs heavily, rubs a hand over his face, which is now wet with tears.
"I'm sorry, Momma," he says, shakily, not really sure what he's apologising for. Maybe it's for pissing her off with the melodramatics. Maybe it's for calling and disturbing what is clearly a shiny new life she and his father have decided to build. Maybe it's for ever being born and burdening her with his existence in the first place.
"Don't call me that, Steve," she says and then the line clicks and beeps and she's gone.
Just like that, Steve Harrington is alone.