Chapter Text
Steve knew he wasn’t exactly the most perceptive person in the world.
He overlooked important details in college essays, things that made his teachers sigh and his parents shake their heads in disappointment. He took shots in basketball that almost always missed these days. Steve even sometimes walked right into walls these days, because his spacial awareness had kind of been shot ever since Billy smashed a plate over his head fifteen days ago.
He had missed all of the signals that Nancy had given him.
Every hint that had pointed to their failing relationship, every moment where she had needed Steve to be more than he could be for her. Every chance he could have had to fix things before they had become irreparably broken. Steve had breezed past every warning with the ease that only a true fool could have.
But thinking about that made his heart hurt too badly to breathe, so he kept his mind to the easy things. Simple issues of missed deadlines and confused directions were easier to swallow than the bitter pill of his one sided love.
Steve was okay with not being particularly perceptive. He was fine with it.
But this was a little bit obtuse. Even for him.
“You know you’re sitting at our table, right, King Steve?”
Steve looked up from his Tuna Surprise, resisting the urge to flinch. He wasn’t sure if he was cringing because of the blinding light from the windows in the cafeteria or the nickname he hated so much, but both made him want to crawl in a hole and die. He squinted, staring at the person standing over him.
Eddie Munson stared back, carrying a lunch tray in one hand and his signature metal lunch box full of drugs in the other.
“Your humble court is awaiting you on the ‘haves’ side of this blessed cookery. This side is where the dweebs and the nerds parlay. A single place we get a reprieve from the endless bombardment of the average,” Munson continued, flinging his arms to and fro as he did, gesturing to the group of teens behind him who were staring at Steve like he was dirt under the bottom of their shoes.
Most of what Eddie had just said flew over his head, but those looks were enough to give Steve the gist of the message. He was not welcome here.
He had just taken the first seat he could find at an empty table, a place that was quiet and far enough away that his former friends wouldn’t heckle him for sitting alone. School was already rough enough as it was.
“Sorry,” Steve muttered, grabbing his tray and sliding it to the other end of the table.
Steve was closer to the rest of the cafeteria now instead of blissfully far away near the windows, and the light was shining in his eyes and making his head pound, but at least no one was staring at him. He took a deep breath the second he was alone again, letting the tension melt away from his body as he collapsed in his new seat.
If he was being fully honest with himself Steve probably could have gone and eaten in the library with Nancy and Jonathan. He wasn’t welcome at his old table anymore, not since he had been dethroned by Billy, but he didn’t have to be sitting here by himself.
The two of them had awkwardly invited him to join them more than a few times since everything had gone down, but he always said no.
It was better this way. Better to be alone. Better to not have to watch the two of them try and hide how much happier they were now that they could be together.
Better to not have his heart break every time Nancy tried and failed to smother a genuine smile, the kind she never had when they were together. Better to not have to see Jonathan give her the same silly love filled looks Steve used to give her.
He wasn’t angry. That wasn’t even a lie. He genuinely wasn’t angry. They deserved that happiness, Nancy deserved that happiness. She had spent an entire year trapped in a relationship with the wrong person. She had been miserable, and Steve hadn’t seen that.
He refused to continue to be the reason she was unhappy. He had hurt her enough already.
“What happened to your face?”
Once again Munson dragged him out of his thoughts. He was looming over Steve’s head, nearly hovering on top of him, watching Steve like he was trying to work him out. Like Steve was a particularly complex puzzle that he could solve just with his eyes.
Nancy had always looked at him that way. Steve hadn’t enjoyed it when it was her, and he hated it even more coming from Eddie Munson of all people.
“Got into a fight,” Steve grunted, stabbing at his shitty cafeteria food and hoping that his abrasiveness would be enough to get Munson to leave him alone.
Steve wasn’t exactly sure what he could say now that they had all signed another round of NDAs, but he was pretty sure even talking this much was toeing the line.
It was safer all around to get Eddie to go away as quickly as possible.
It wouldn’t be all that hard. Usually all it took were a few well placed bitchy comments to get people to see the picture and give up on him.
The only group of people who hadn’t been perturbed by Steve’s spikiness was the kids. He had tried his usual routine of aloof coolness when they showed up at his house but it hadn’t done much. They continued to come back day after day, they had even started begging him for rides to just about everywhere.
Dustin in particular seemed determined to stay latched onto him like a barnacle, but Steve found that he didn’t really mind their clinginess.
It was nice to be needed, even if it was only being needed by a group of pre-teen smartasses.
“With who?” Eddie asked, not at all perturbed by Steve’s brush off. He leaned his hip on the table next to Steve, crossing his arms over his chest, “Cause Billy Hargrove is telling everyone he can that he beat your ass for messing with his sister,”
“I would never do something like that,” Steve shot back instantly, feeling the fading bruises on his face twinge as his jaw clenched in fury. His head pounded as his heart began to reach a jackrabbit pace. He couldn’t help the words spilling out of his mouth, unable to stop the rage from making his voice shake, “Billy’s a racist jackass who tried to put his hands on one of my fucking kids,”
Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“There are…so many confusing parts of that sentence,” Eddie stated, blinking wide eyed at Steve with his jaw practically on the floor. He was staring at Steve like he had just beamed down from another planet, and a prickle of discomfort ran up his spine.
“Whatever,” Steve murmured, biting his cheek to stop himself from saying anything more and hunching his shoulders up around his ears.
They weren’t exactly his kids, per say, but Steve was invested in keeping them safe now. Most of his day sucked usually, but the times where he had them hanging off of him like little leeches were the times that sucked the least.
Sure they could be little brats, but the idea of doing anything to hurt any of them was actually painful, and the thought of Billy spreading that kind of rumor made bile rise up in his throat.
Fuck Billy.
Fuck this.
Fuck his life, honestly.
“Look, Munson, I’m really not in the mood right now,” Steve sighed, hating how weary he sounded. He already sounded beat, a dog cowering at the feet of someone who had kicked it. It would have been better to fight his way out of this, to come at Eddie with something pointed and poisonous that would make him run for the hills.
But Steve was crappy at fighting, and there wasn’t much spirit left in him. Not after one long traumatic day, and two following weeks of perpetual stress and tension.
“Harrington-”
“I moved down, I’m not in your way, isn’t that good enough?” Steve bit out, halfway to just grabbing his tray and throwing it in the trash. He was barely eating anyway, might as well go to the gym to shoot some hoops instead of sitting here being interrogated by drug dealing extraordinaire, Eddie goddamn Munson.
Couldn’t he just let Steve eat in peace? Everything else was already so goddamn difficult these days. Couldn’t Steve at least manage to eat a mediocre meal without the entire world demanding something from him?
By the grace of whatever god was potentially out there, Eddie finally took the hint, pushing off of his resting place and stalking back over to his group of weirdos on the other side. Probably going to gossip about Steve or come up with some new clever insult to throw his way.
Steve let his eyes slip shut and dragged in a heavy breath, utterly exhausted. He was so tired his entire body physically hurt. He hadn’t gotten more than three hours of sleep at a time since the gate had closed.
He was contemplating skipping the rest of the day and going home to nap, when a blue plastic tray identical to the one in front of him bumped his right hand.
“What are you doing?” Steve wondered aloud, raising his eyebrows and fixing Eddie with a confused look. The other boy sat down right next to Steve and began to dig into his meal with an absolutely bizarre gusto.
“Eating lunch alone sucks?” Eddie offered, shoveling an extremely large spoonful Tuna Surprise into his mouth and immediately shuddering. He pushed the rest of the concoction to the side of his plate with a quiet groan of disgust, “Plus I’m hoping that if I get in your good graces, you’ll give me your pudding cup to help me get the taste of whatever that was out of my mouth,”
Steve stared at him for a few more moments, waiting for whatever prank was about to be pulled. But Eddie didn’t budge, continuing to eat around his main dish with strange efficiency and ignoring Steve’s gaze.
“Go nuts,” He finally said, offering the plastic container of chocolate pudding over to Eddie who grabbed it and gave Steve a big smile.
“Mazel Tov,” Eddie said, hoisting the pudding aloft and tearing into it. Steve wasn’t sure what that meant, but it seemed to be something good?
“So, you have children?” Eddie prompted after barely ten seconds of awkward silence.
“I-uh- I babysit,” Steve stammered out, completely perplexed by the incomprehensible set of circumstances that was playing out in front of him. Eddie paused with his spoon midair in front of him.
“You babysit,” He repeated, turning his head towards Steve. His spoon was still hanging out in front of him, a glob of pudding about to fall off of it. The younger teen nodded and Eddie gave a surprised hum. He put the cup down and licked his spoon clean before it made a mess.
When it was pudding-free, he hefted the spoon aloft, bringing it down on the back of his right hand sharply with a SMACK that echoed all around the cafeteria.
“Ouch!” Eddie yelped, flapping his hand around in the air to try and get rid of the sting. Steve looked frantically around as the rest of the room looked, whispering behind their hands.
“Why would you-”
“Had to make sure I wasn’t dreaming,” Eddie explained, interrupting Steve’s furious whisper with a breathless little laugh, “Because I just heard the words ‘I babysit’ come out of King Steve’s mouth,”
“Would you cut it out with the King stuff?” Steve snapped, beginning to lose his appetite. They were all still whispering, “It’s been a while since I was ‘King’ of anything, and it was a stupid fucking nickname to begin with,”
There was an uncomfortable long beat as Eddie gave him another one of those soul searching looks.
“What are you doing Thursday afternoon?” He finally asked when he found whatever he was looking to find. Steve startled, dropping his fork.
What kind of question was that?
Was Munson asking him on some sort of date?!
“I’m…benched from basketball ‘cause of my concussion. So nothing, I guess,” Steve said cautiously, carefully picking his words and trying to avoid the spike of hurt that shot along his chest as he said them.
It wasn’t much, but basketball was one of the only things Steve really thought he was genuinely good at. Not having it was kind of pure torture.
Almost as bad as not having Nancy in his life anymore.
“In that case, come to Hellfire,” Eddie offered, glancing at the clock on the wall and grabbing both of their trays. Steve scrambled to grab his backpack, hefting it onto one shoulder and jogging to keep up with Eddie.
“Come to what?”
“Hellfire?” Eddie repeated, dumping their trash into the bin and stacking the trays next to it, “It’s the club I run,”
“What is it?” Steve asked, curious, but unwilling to commit just yet. There was still a part of him that was kind of convinced all of this was some elaborate ruse to mess with him.
Before Eddie could say anything, the bell droned from above. The rest of the student population moved as one, and the sound in the lunchroom immediately went from dull roar to cacophonous mess. Steve’s left ear started to ring again, and he winced, shying away from the sudden noise.
“You’ll have to come and see,” Eddie said, waggling his eyebrows, completely ignorant to Steve’s pain. He turned on his heel, raising a hand in a wave behind him as he loped towards the rest of his friend group.
“Thursday after school! In the drama room, don’t be late!”