Chapter Text
Steve starting working for Reginald Hargreeves as a driver.
It was just after the whole gang finally gave up on Hawkins, letting the town sink into the Upside Down forever and be rebuilt from the ground of the crater Henry Creel turned it into. The new town was called Creek Canyon, which only got 30% of the vote, but that was still more than any other option.
Steve didn’t know anyone who lived in Creek Canyon.
The Wheelers and Sinclairs and Hendersons and Mayfields moved to surrounding towns around Hawkins/Creek Canyon, no longer biking distance from each other but at least not a terrible car ride (and most of the kids could drive now, the only exception being Mike and Dustin who were genuinely terrible at it but at least Dustin had a license, even if his mom didn’t trust him to drive her car when she wasn’t in it with him).
The Byers (and Hoppers) went back to California, Nancy went to Emerson in Boston, and Steve followed Robin to New York. While she was in school, Steve got to work as just an ordinary driver for an eccentric billionaire.
The guy was a weirdo to be sure, and in a lot of different ways, but they were ways Steve was familiar with, at least. He was rich, which Steve was used to, and liked the finer things in life. Steve was first trusted with more than just driving from point A to point B (with no words spoken in between, because Sir Reginald Hargreeves did not appreciate the Harrington charm, and Steve could keep his mouth shut if it meant paying rent), because he was also a rich kid at heart who liked the finer things in life.
It started with Steve going to pick up dry cleaning or packages after he’d drop Hargreeves somewhere, rather than simply waiting outside for his business to be done. Other errands starting leaking in, like picking up gifts for guests and hosts that Reginald wasn’t expecting, especially once he learned that Steve had a pretty developed palate for fancy alcohol (thanks, Dad!). Eventually he was invited into stores or parties to be a kind of bodyguard/sounding board, maybe just to make Reginald look smarter and more powerful, or maybe just to back him up when he said the cheese was uncharacteristically mild (Steve did usually agree, but even when he didn't he wasn't going to say anything are you kidding).
Reginald might not have appreciated the Steve Harrington charm at first, but his associates did, and clearly Steve won him over eventually because he would often be loaned out to take them to and from meetings with his boss. Once he was loaned out for a week without seeing Reginald at all, and then asked his opinion on the guy when it was over.
That debrief was when he met Dr. Phinneus Pogo for the first time, Reginald’s…pet?…son?…assistant? He was chimpanzee, at any rate, and smarter than Steve still. So, you know, Steve could roll with it.
Reginald Hargreeves had made Steve sign about as many NDAs as Hawkins Lab had, so by the time he met the talking chimpanzee, all Steve had ever told anyone about his boss, even Robin, was that he was British and maybe the rudest person Steve had ever met in his life, and Steve didn’t know how related those two facts were. Everyone knew he owned an umbrella manufacturing company and traveled a lot, but Steve had obediently never mentioned his many other investments and academic ventures, vague as Steve’s knowledge of any of them were.
For two years, every time Reginald would travel Steve would either get an unexpected vacation, or (as was happening more frequently the longer he worked there) was sent to spy on one of his associates. For two years, even without being able to tell Dustin or Robin that he was kind of a corporate spy, the worst and most complicated part of his job was not getting lost in his boss' house (it was huge, alright, and had like a dozen different staircases).
Then, in late September 1989, Sir Reginald spent a weekend in some kind of research bender, or science bender, or something bender. Steve didn’t know. Reginald stayed in his private office, but still called Steve in to help Pogo build some new rooms in one of the upstairs hallways of Reginald’s house. Big closets, really. And then in early October Reginald took Steve with him on a trip for the first time, and it was a doozy of a trip.
They went to an Amish community in Pennsylvania first, and Reginald Hargreeves purchased a newborn baby from a teenage girl who sobbed the entire time from a wheelchair, hips recently broken from the birth of her "demon child," according to her father. And then they went to Mexico and did it again. They went to Chile, Morocco, South Africa, Egypt, Iran, Greece, England, Ireland, Sweden, and Russia. Russia! Steve went to Russia, and helped his boss buy a baby, and then got on a plane and kept going to China, and then South Korea.
Not every country ended with a new baby and nanny on their private jet (Steve had been so excited to learn how to fly before their trip, had eagerly listened to the pilot Reginald brought in to teach him his responsibilities as a copilot. He had to fight through the heavy pit in his stomach and the new tenor of a crying baby as he sat following the lead pilot’s instructions once they left for Mexico), but when Reginald finally said they could return to New York he did so as a new father of seven.
Steve didn’t know a lot about Sir Reginald Hargreeves, but even if he thought he’d be a good dad (he didn’t; Reginald was kind of an amusing boss to have for Steve but that was because Steve had been to hell before and one super mean English guy wasn’t that scary; if he were his father, Steve would be terrified of him), he didn’t think buying seven random children from traumatized teenagers (or their mourning families) was a sign of anything good.
So he, you know, maybe, kind of, a little bit…kidnapped them.
The nannies helped! And Pogo!
Like, honestly, what else was Steve supposed to do? Just sit and watch Reginald put electrodes all over their tiny little bodies and document their brainwaves? He didn’t even give them names! That was like…the biggest red flag for fucked up evil scientist shit!
That was how Steve wound up at the apartment that he and Robin shared, with seven babies screaming at the both of them.
"How could you do this to us?" Robin hissed, rocking the quietest and most sweetest of the lot, darling little Diego, so calm and perfect.
Steve had to shout his answer, because he was holding Klaus, the monster from hell who never shut up once in his goddamn life and was going to drive Steve crazy.
"Oh! Oh, right, I forgot how cool our whole friend group is with turning kids into science experiments!"
"You couldn’t have found a way to steal his house, too?! This is a two bedroom walk-up, Steven."
"He can call the cops on an employee kicking him out of his own house a lot easier than he can an employee stealing the kids he purchased from enemy states!"
"Our neighbors will call the cops soon, if you don’t get Four to shut up!"
"They have names! We gave them names 20 minutes ago, you should damn well use them!"
"I couldn’t hear what we decided!" By that time Allison and Vanya were screaming, too, and poor Ben was starting to hit his head trying to block out his siblings’ noise.
"He’s Klaus! You picked it out!"
"Can I change it to Banshee?"
"No you can’t change it to Banshee! If he wants to change his name, he can when he can tell us himself."
"This is him telling us. This is him telling us he hates us and he wants to go back to Pennsylvania and be an Amish dude. Let the cows deal with him."
"I would fucking love," Steve almost collapsed with the word; he was so tired; please Klaus, please let him sleep, "to let the cows deal with him once I know cows can actually deal with him. Find a cow that can change a diaper and keep Sir Reginald away and that cow gets to be a proud new parent."
"Benny, Ben baby stop hitting yourself. Ben!" Robin set Diego down to pull Ben’s little fists away from his soft head, of course Diego started crying then, too.
"We need to go to Lenora," Steve said desperately. "Hopper can help. Joyce can help. We need an adult."
"We are adults; we need a priest."
Fievel appeared in a blue flash in front of Steve, gripping his pacifier in one hand. He threw it weakly at Steve. It would have landed on his knee at best, but Diego lifted his hand and it changed trajectory to hit Klaus square on the forehead.
Steve and Robin stared at each other in wishful, if not literal, silence.
"What the hell did you get us into?" Robin said.