Chapter Text
The concrete stair groans under Steve’s boot– a sickly, grinding screech that vibrates all the way up his shin as he shoves the ladder further against the landing. It is unstable. He knows it is unstable. The entire building feels like it’s rotting alive; the walls aren’t solid anymore, they are softening, dripping down in thick, white sluggish rivulets like melted wax.
He doesn’t need a play-by-play commentary from behind him. Especially not when they’ve spent the last forty-eight hours snapping at each other like rabid dogs.
"No, don’t! Stop being an asshole!" Dustin shrieks.
Before Steve can even draw a breath to snap back, he feels a frantic, hard tug on the back of his jacket. Dustin isn’t just yelling at him; he’s hauling him back, his small frame straining with surprising strength to pull Steve’s weight away from the edge. Steve stumbles back a few steps, his boots squelching loudly against the floor that is rapidly turning into sludge as he is forced away from the climb.
He grits his teeth, adrenaline spiking into anger. Asshole?
Steve nearly laughs, a bitter, jagged thing in his throat. He is the one risking a forty-foot plunge into the gut of a melting building just so Dustin’s feet can stay on solid ground, and he is the asshole?
"I’m not being an asshole," he shouts back, spinning around to face the kid, his eyes still darting anxiously toward the gap above. "I’m trying to get to them!"
He is braced for the clapback. He is ready for Dustin to call him an idiot, to cite structural integrity statistics, to be the smartest guy in the room even while the world is literally turning into liquid around them.
What he isn't prepared for is the desperate, wet hitch in the kid's breathing.
"You always try to get yourself killed..."
Steve freezes. His hand presses onto the melting wall next to him, but his fingers sink into the surface like it’s wet clay. The air has suddenly vanished from the room. Dustin is standing there, chest heaving, his hands trembling where they are still balled into fists at his sides.
“And I can’t let it happen again!” Dustin’s voice cracks, sounding smaller than Steve has ever heard it in the past year. “Stop being so selfish, please!”
Selfish.
The word hits Steve harder than a physical blow. Everything he’s done– every time he’s taken the lead, every time he’s grabbed the bat, every time he’s thrown himself between a monster and these kids– it’s always been for them. It is the least selfish thing he has in him.
But as he looks at Dustin– shoulders shaking, hat crooked, eyes frantic and rimmed with red– Steve realises he’s been reading the script all wrong.
To Dustin, Steve’s ‘heroism’ isn’t a sacrifice. It is a threat. It’s an abandonment.
“If you go there, you’re gonna die!” Dustin sobs, the sound raw and echoing off the walls that are slowly dissolving into white goo. “And I can’t deal with it again! You can’t die cause I can’t deal with it again!”
Steve’s heart performs a slow, painful roll in his chest. Again.
Dustin isn’t seeing Steve on that staircase. He is seeing a trailer in the woods. He is seeing the light go out of Eddie’s eyes. He is seeing every person who had ever promised to stay and then leave him behind in the dark.
“Please,” Dustin chokes out, his voice dropping to a broken whisper. He takes a staggering step forward through the muck and collapses into Steve, his hands fisting into the back of Steve’s jacket, clinging so hard it actually hurts. “Please don’t let it happen again. Not you.”
The sob that follows breaks Steve’s composure entirely.
He doesn’t care about the mission. He doesn’t care about the stairs. All he cares about right now is the kid clinging to him– the kid he failed to protect from this grief, the kid he didn’t realise was drowning in it. Steve wraps his arms around him, pulling him in tight, one hand coming up to cradle the back of Dustin’s cap.
“I’m sorry.” Dustin sobs into Steve’s chest, his voice slightly muffled by the fabric.
“No. No, no,” Steve breathes out, shaking his head. “Don’t you dare apolo–”
Squelch. CRACK.
The sound is sickeningly wet, followed by the screech of tearing metal.
Steve flinches, his grip on Dustin tightening instinctively as the metal ladder in front of them gives a mournful groan. They both freeze, watching as the edge of the landing simply dissolves. The concrete turns to liquid and the ladder, losing its purchase, tips backward.
It falls silently at first, then clatters violently as it tumbles down, down, down into the darkness below, swallowed by the void where the floor used to be.
The silence that follows is deafening.
Steve stares at the empty space where he would have been standing. If Dustin hadn’t pulled him back… he’d be gone. He would have fallen through that hole. He would be dead.
He would have failed Dustin once again. He would have left this kid all alone in the dark.
Dustin tightens his hold, burying his face deeper into Steve’s chest, and Steve knows they’re thinking the exact same thing.
Steve swallows hard, the reality of it making his knees weak. He drops his chin to rest on top of Dustin’s hat, closing his eyes against the sting of tears.
“I’ve got you,” Steve whispers, the promise fierce and trembling. “I’m right here. I’m not leaving you, Henderson. I promise.”