Chapter Text
November 1986
King Steve was dead long ago, but King Steve’s tendencies still made an appearance every once in a while.
Steve didn’t have the best track record for successful dates, as Robin so kindly pointed out as frequently as possible. He’d been on maybe two semi-passable dates since they defeated Vecna, both of which had ended early. Of course, he blamed it on being busy; what little time he wasn’t working or volunteering at the crisis center was spent chauffeuring everyone to their hangouts, appointments, and jobs.
The real reason was more the fact that he just didn’t feel like going through the motions of small talk, paying for a date with his measly income from Family Video, and ending the night with a kiss on the cheek because there was no real connection.
And a real connection would probably never happen since half of his life for the last few years had directly involved an alternate universe and government secrets.
It didn’t bother him most of the time. In fact, he had come to enjoy not putting pressure on himself to pick up every woman that walks through the door.
Which was apparently exactly what he needed to pick up Angela. Angela had come in one Friday afternoon while Steve was stocking the candy shelf, asked him for a recommendation, and left. Then again on Saturday. She gave him a small smile on Sunday.
On the following Thursday when she came in, he started a real conversation beyond movie recommendations and rental due dates and fees.
By Saturday, she’d agreed to go out with him.
By Monday, they had been on two dates and he was pretty sure he hadn’t felt so excited about a future with someone as he did then.
Naturally, things fell apart the moment he was actually vulnerable.
Angela had spent a week with her grandparents in Chicago shortly after their third date. It gave him time to really think about what he wanted, even getting advice from Robin (unhelpful), Dustin (useless), and Eddie (entertaining if nothing else). He didn’t want to rush into anything, but he knew he needed to let her know she was special to him.
When she got back in town, she agreed to another date. Steve went all out; flowers, nice dinner at Enzo’s, romantic walk through the only part of Hawkins left that didn’t show some sign of Vecna, and finally, a movie at his place.
Of course, the rumors of Steve Harrington’s charm weren’t just rumors. King Steve knew what he was doing when it came to treating women right.
Angela had been quick to cuddle up to him on his couch, and he was quick to get her off the couch and into his bed.
He was always respectful of course, he didn’t want to pressure someone who wasn’t interested. But, he’d never had anyone NOT be interested.
The next morning, Angela smiled, kissed his cheek, and told him she would call him later.
But she didn’t.
Steve tried to call her, but never got through. Her mom said she was busy applying for college, her dad said she was planning another trip to her grandparent’s home, and sometimes, the phone just rang for a few minutes before he gave up.
By the next weekend, he decided to let it go. Robin was sympathetic, but couldn’t help herself from laughing at the fact that Angela had been totally charmed until she saw his dick.
Steve didn’t find that particularly funny, but he let it go. Maybe a small part of him thought Robin was right.
On Hellfire night, Eddie gave him a pat on the shoulder and an apologetic smile. “Maybe she was just overwhelmed with feelings and ran for the hills, dude.”
“Maybe,” Steve snorted. Leave it to Eddie to make him laugh about something that genuinely sucked.
Steve didn’t usually stay for Hellfire, but he was feeling a little lonely and ended up sticking around. Dustin and Lucas needed rides home after anyways, and he didn’t have any other plans since Robin was stuck having dinner with her parents.
While he watched, he thought about how quickly Eddie tried to get everything and everyone back to normal despite being practically dead for weeks. Within a week of waking up from his coma, he had the kids pile into his hospital room to run a one shot that he’d had lying around from before. Will helped him DM as his movement was still pretty limited and due to some trauma to his chest and throat, he couldn’t speak above a loud whisper.
He thought about how he always made the kids a priority, even when he was going through endless physical therapy appointments and check ups to get stitches removed.
He thought about how he stopped by to bring lunch to Steve on days he was working alone because he knew Steve would forget to take care of himself in the hustle of taking care of everyone else.
He thought about how he made sure to invite Robin and Steve over to movie nights for “just us adults” at least once a month and always had Steve’s favorite beer, even though it was probably more expensive than he could afford.
He thought about how lucky he was to have gotten Eddie out of all this chaos.
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August 1987
Steve Harrington was so fucking lonely.
Back in May, when Robin had explained that she was going away for college, he’d thought, ‘it’s fine, there’s still plenty of people here to keep me company.’
But it’s been one month since Robin left and he realized that the company he thought he would have was getting to a point where hanging out with their “babysitter” wasn’t always what they wanted.
They talked on the phone every few days, but it wasn’t the same.
The kids had spent most of their summer working small jobs around town to make enough money to go to this huge D&D convention in Indianapolis with Eddie so he rarely saw them other than their movie nights.
And they hadn’t thought to ask him if he wanted to go with them to the convention, so he was currently moping in his bedroom.
Alone.
Before he was able to completely zone out to the soft sounds of Duran Duran playing, he heard a loud knock on his door.
None of the kids were around, so he assumed it must have been one of the few remaining neighbors complaining about his lawn maintenance.
He got up and made his way downstairs, quickly brushing his hand through his hair to make it look like he wasn’t spending his afternoon laying down in bed alone.
He opened the door without checking who it was, something he’d only recently been comfortable doing again.
“Steve,” Jim Hopper’s voice said around a relieved sigh.
“Hop? What’s wrong? Everyone okay?” Steve took a quick mental inventory of where his nail bat was, his backup nail bat, and the gun Nancy insisted he keep in the house.
Hopper gestured for him to come outside. “I need you to come down to the station with me.”
Steve’s stomach dropped. “Is something wrong?”
“Not particularly. You’re not in trouble. No one is hurt. But I can’t really explain until you’re there, okay?”
Steve felt like his chest was caving in, his breathing became labored, his head spinning. Despite Hopper saying specifically everyone was fine, it was hard to discern the look on his face and believe that everything was okay.
He felt a large hand on his shoulder. “Steve, look at me. Take a deep breath in, kid.” Steve did, though it was shaky. “Okay, keep doing that.”
It took a few minutes, but Steve finally calmed down enough to speak. “What’s going on?”
Hopper just silently guided him to the passenger side of his patrol car.
Steve spent the entire ride thinking about every possible thing that could be wrong. He wasn’t in trouble, but what if his parents had said something about him living in their house after they moved away? Everyone was okay, but what if Hopper’s definition of okay was different from Steve’s?
When they finally arrived at the station, Steve noticed Joyce standing outside, pacing in front of the door and smoking a cigarette. She had promised she’d quit, but every once in a while Steve could smell it on her clothes when he gave her a hug after dropping Will off at home.
As soon as she noticed them getting out of the car, she ran to Steve and gave him a huge hug.
“God, Steve, I can’t believe this is happening, but I think it will kind of be great. I mean it will be so hard, but you won’t ever be alone, you can always come to me or Hop, or Claudia, even. We love you like our own children, and this is something you didn’t plan for, obviously, so we want to make sure you are taken care of,” Joyce rambled.
Hopper cleared his throat from behind them. “Joyce? I didn’t tell him yet. Could you give us some space please?”
Joyce pulled away to scowl at Hopper. “You didn’t tell him? You show up at his house in your uniform and patrol car, ride the whole way here, and don't tell him?” She turned back to Steve. “Honey, no wonder you look like you’re ready to throw up.”
She glared at Hopper as she guided Steve into the station, ignoring Hopper’s protests and grumbling about letting him do his job.
When he walked inside, he was shocked to see a mostly empty office. Only one officer was sitting at the desk and the receptionist was pacing the floor.
Hopper kept walking to his office down the hall, letting Joyce continue to guide Steve after him.
When they got into his office, El and Claudia were sitting on the couch, smiling down at something in El’s arms.
They looked up with big smiles that quickly turned to concern when they saw the state Steve was in. He’d forgotten that El hadn’t gone with the rest of the kids to the convention. She had never been into playing D&D, something about the connection between the Upside Down and the game being too close for comfort. She liked to watch sometimes, but usually she preferred keeping Max company instead.
His frown deepened when he realized El was holding a baby. A baby that had started crying almost as soon as they looked up at him.
Hopper cleared his throat to get Steve’s attention.
“Steve, do you know an Angela Hartman?”
Steve gulped and nodded.
“Did you know she was pregnant?”
Steve shook his head.
Hopper’s sigh was drowned out entirely by the gasps of Joyce and Claudia Henderson.
“Ladies, please.” Hopper pulled a piece of paper off his desk and handed it to Steve. “Angela had a baby about four days ago according to this birth certificate. Also according to this birth certificate, you are the baby’s father.”
Steve felt the room spinning and his vision going black before he felt cold hands on his face.
Joyce was yelling at Hopper, but her hands were cupping Steve’s cheeks and she was looking at him with an anxious frown.
“Jim, you are so bad at this. Honestly, how did you get this job?”
“We talked about this. You sit him down, you ask some questions, you ask if he is okay, if he needs a drink, THEN you bring up that he has a baby,” Claudia said from the couch, now holding the, no, his, baby.
And suddenly, Steve pulled away from Joyce and walked silently over to Claudia. To his baby.
Holy shit.
He stared down at this tiny thing, bundled up in a yellow blanket, face red from crying for the last minute.
“Angela hid it from her parents. She went to stay with her grandparents again shortly after, well, after you were together. She didn’t know then, obviously.” Hopper spoke surprisingly softly. “But during a tour of a college campus, she started feeling really tired and sick. It didn’t go away, she went to the doctor, found out she was pregnant, and ran for the hills.”
Steve reached out to gently brush his finger over the baby’s cheek. The baby went almost silent.
“Her parents finally got in touch with her a few months ago and told her she had to give it up for adoption or she was not allowed back home. She agreed at first so she could get better care.”
Hopper reached to his desk and held out another piece of paper.
“She wrote a letter explaining everything. I only read the first page before I decided to go get you.”
Steve reached out to Claudia. “Can I hold…”
“Her. It’s a girl,” Claudia said with a caring smile. She gently placed his daughter into his arms and leaned back on the couch.
Steve looked down at her. She was looking up at him, eyes more alert than he thought possible for any newborn.
“Does she have a name on the birth certificate?” Steve whispered. He reached his finger up again and touched where super fine and soft brown hair was peeking through the hat on her head.
“Samantha Jean Harrington.”
Steve bit back a sob.
“I’m sorry to ask this Steve, but is there a chance she only put your name down because she thinks you have money?” Hopper said from right next to him, hand back on his shoulder in the only way he knew how to comfort.
He took a moment to answer, taking in all the features on Samantha. She was a newborn, so it was hard to tell, but he already knew she had his eyes. She had more of a button nose, but somehow had the same freckle on it that he had on his. Her hair color was the same shade of brown as his, and he knew Angela had been blond.
“Hop, look at her. She’s mine,” Steve finally spoke out loud, voice breaking around the words.
Joyce was next to him in a second, arm wrapping back around his shoulders. “Oh, honey. You know we will help you in any way we can, okay? You didn’t know.”
Steve let the thought run through his mind that he should probably call his parents and let them know they’re grandparents, but quickly shook it out of his head when he remembered they were in Europe for the next three months and wouldn’t care.
“Let’s give him some space for a few minutes, okay?” Joyce said to everyone else in the room.
As they cleared out, Steve sat down on the couch, placing Samantha down on his lap and letting her suck on his finger. He smiled down at her, tears slowly falling down his cheeks.
“Hey, Sam. I’m your dad,” his voice was shaking more than it ever had before, but he had to get through this. “I had no idea you were coming, but I’m gonna do my best for you, okay?”
He leaned down to give a kiss to her forehead.
“Sorry you’re stuck with me,” he said against the top of her head, so softly even he barely heard it.
He wouldn’t be lonely anymore, at least.