Work Text:
Robin stumbles out of her parents' hold, head whipping around frantically to try and find Steve. She’s not sure what brought her attention to the fact that he wasn’t where she’d last seen him anymore, but her gut had started to twist with a feeling of wrongness so suddenly that she’s brushing off her parents calls for her to come back, as she stumbles around the area on the curb she’d last seen him. He was just here, and now he’s not and her gut is clenching with such a deep feeling of unease it has her making her way over to the open ambulance where Nancy and Jonathan are huddled close together.
“Have you guys seen Steve?” She’s sure her face looks manic and a little crazy, but the absolute fear that’s coursing through her entire body has her not giving a shit.
“What? We thought he was with you?” Nancy looks back and forth from Jonathan to Robin as she speaks, sliding the blanket off her shoulders and clambering out of the back of the vehicle. Her eyes begin searching the faces of everyone there as soon as she's out in the open.
“He was, but he’s gone and I can’t find him. Oh my god what if the Russians aren’t all dead and came back for him? I don’t, I’m not, I need to find him Nancy, that’s my best friend.” She hadn’t even realized the words were true until she was speaking them. But how could they not be? He’s the only one who knows her secret and he still decided he loved her even after finding out. Robin knows she’s spiraling a bit, but she's so far past giving a shit about that as Jonathan climbs out of the ambulance as well, grabbing her hand and leading her behind Nancy as they make their way over to Joyce, who’s got her son and El wrapped up in a tight embrace.
“Jon? Nancy? What’s going on?”
“Mom, Steve’s missing.” Jonathan hunkers in close to his mom as he speaks, eyes watching where El and Will have moved off to the side to talk to a crying Max.
“Are you sure?” Joyce’s eyes scan over each of them, landing on Robin in her Scoops uniform.
“He was right near me one second, and the next he was gone. What if-” Joyce stands up and wraps her arms around Robin. Pulling her in for a bruising hug, Robin can feel her shoulders relaxing slightly at the embrace as she returns it, but her brain’s screaming, yelling at her that Steve is in danger and they need to find him now.
“He probably already left.” Nancy offers up suddenly, indifference lacing her words, which has Robin ripping out of the hug and turning a glare on the other girl.
“Excuse me?” Robin can feel the venom in her own words as she squints at Nancy, sizing her up briefly before continuing on. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but Steve’s kids are still here and so am I. He wouldn’t just leave and not say anything.” Nancy scoffs at her words.
“Steve doesn’t stick around after these events, trust me.”
“Steve’s missing?” It’s Dusins voice that joins them now, coming up to stand next to Robin and grab her hand with the one he’s not using to hold Erica's. He’s clutching her so tightly she can feel the bones grinding together, but she ignores the sensation to pull him in closer, freeing herself from the hold and wrapping her arm around his shoulder, pulling Erica closer with the motion and resting her hand on her arm.
“ I was just telling Robin that he probably went home.”
“That’s bullshit.” Dustin hurries to interrupt her. “Steve always makes sure we make it home safe before he gets home. He’d never leave before we did.” He’s whipping his head around now, frantically cataloging all the faces in the crowd around him. “Where was the last place you saw him, Robin?”
“Over there, on the curb near where my parents are. He said he had just needed a minute.” Dustin nods. Eyes scanning some more before coming back to land on Robin, shooting Nancy a quick glare first.
He squares his shoulders suddenly, turning in Robin's hold to lock his eyes on Joyce.
“How sure are we that Hopper’s really dead?”
~~~
It’s been a little over two months since Steve seemed to have just vanished into thin air, and Robin feels like a part of her has been ripped away so thoroughly, that some mornings she wakes up and can’t seem to catch her breath for hours. She catches herself throughout the day with strange tingling sensations ghosting over her arm and chest, they itch a lot like healing wounds and some days the strange sensations are almost painful, pulling a gasp from her when they start up. Even with the nightmares that haunt her when shes asleep she’d managed to snag a job at Family Video in the last weeks before summer ended, and every time she clocks in for the day, it’s like she can feel the ghost of him making fun of the shirt she’d chosen for her shift. And don’t even get her started on how hard it is to focus on school when she wants nothing more than to be with Dustin chasing down leads they don’t even have, a hard brick of ungodly dread sitting low in her stomach day in and day out, causing all her focus to go completely out the window.
Today’s one of those bad days.
Robin finds herself zoning out so much in school, that she doesn't really clock back into what's going on around her till she’s sat at the end of the Hellfire club lunch table, Dustin throwing himself down next to her, and Will landing softer on her other side. Mike and Lucas taking the seats across from her. She lets her eyes wander over them, noticing the bags under their eyes and the sadness that seems so permanent on their little groups faces these days. She’s spent more nights then not with the four of them locked up in Steve’s big empty house sitting by the phone and waiting for it to ring, or in front of the computer in Steve’s dad's office researching bodies found, or John Doe’s showing up in other counties, hoping for anything, anything that could give them a clue into what happened to Steve.
She’d even taken up pouring over the Russian dictionary anytime she had a moment to herself. The unwavering need to make sure she knows the language in and out never leaving her. She refuses to not be prepared again, refuses to miss a message or not be able to understand if someone calls Steve’s house and only speaks Russian. Knowing the language, being prepared with it, helps her feel safer, helps her feel like she’ll have some sort of upper hand if the Russians come back. She needs to know this language like she needs Steve to come home, to the point she’s worried about how much it's consuming her.
The thing is, Robin and Dustin and Erica are convinced it was somehow the Russians, but everyone else seems skeptical about that. Not wanting to believe any of those terrible people had made it out of the fires. Dustin even went so far as to say he thinks Hopper might be wherever Steve is, because if the Russians survived there's a large chance Hopper did too, but Joyce always shuts down that train of thought really fast when he mentions it around her.
“Joyce got a weird message in the mail today.” Is how Dustin decides to break the silence they usually sit in at lunch. Will pulls out a folded paper, unfolding it to reveal a message made in magazine cut outs.
“I got the mail this morning, and saw the Russian words stamped all over the envelope and grabbed it.” Will was always so soft spoken, when this all began for Robin, but he seems to have come out of his shell a bit more, after joining Hellfire and finding his footing at Hawkins high, Robin feels a pang of longing for Steve that she’s not unfamiliar with. He would have loved to watch this kid blossom the way he seems to be.
Fuck, Robin misses Steve so much.
She reaches over and pulls the paper closer to her, examining the words glued there.
Hop is alive. He looks ford too date. Pleeze to make resarvazion, call
It looks like there was more on the paper, but the rest is missing.
“Where’s the rest of it?” Robin looks up, eyes scanning the faces around her, just as Eddie slides into the seat to her left.
“You guys writing a ransom letter?” He jokes, reaching out to grab the paper. He aborts the motion as soon as Robin slips it back to Will, folding it up swiftly and placing it into his backpack.
“Okay then.” He looks curiously at all their faces, and Robin can tell he's trying to gauge the mood at the table, when Dustin groans.
“Eddie’s smart, maybe we should just tell him.” Four heads whip to stare at him in unison, mouths slightly parted in shock.
Robin is only a little surprised, if she’s being totally honest, Dustin seems to idolize Eddie in a similar way to how he idolized Steve, so she’s not really surprised that he wants to fill Eddie in and bring him into the fold. Eddie’s friends however, who are all also placed at the table now, Robin is wholly against bringing into the loop. She locks eyes with Dustin, trying to get him to understand what she’s thinking, when he nods at her, before turning to Eddie.
“Take us to Mike's house after school. We can fill you in there if you really want to know what's been going on with us.” Mike makes an aborted gurgling noise in the back of his throat before throwing his hands up in the air and letting his head fall to the table. Eddie’s still kinda just staring at them, before shooting Jeff a ‘ can you believe these guys’ look.
Robin’s more than a little bit freaking out about the decision Dustin just made for them all. She gets why he wants to do this, but bringing someone into this, showing them this part of the world isn’t something you can come back from. She knows Steve regrets her getting dragged into this whole thing, even if they never got to talk about it before he disappeared. She knows to her core that Steve would regret it, and she’s worried about how this will affect Eddie. Because even though she wouldn’t give up getting to know Steve the way she does, she also knows that being a part of this alters your entire world view, changes everything you thought you knew, and that can be terrifying.
Bringing in the wrong kind of person can also have terrible side effects, and she's wondering if she shouldn’t have just stopped Dustin before he’d invited Eddie over when Will’s standing up, hand wrapping around Robin's arm to indicate she should follow. She nods once at Eddie and the Hellfire guys before allowing herself to be dragged out of the cafeteria behind the freshmen.
“There were a bunch of numbers in the envelope, so we are thinking they came unstuck in transit, so we don’t really have a way to call. But this does add fuel to the theory of it being the Russians that took Steve and Hopper.” Will whispers, eyes looking around the halls to make sure no ones overhearing anything he says. He pulls Robin into an empty classroom and she watches as Lucas closes the door with one last look out into the hallway like someone would have followed them.
“How does this help us?” She asks the question she knows they all must be thinking, because the letter really only confirms Hoppers alive and not Steve, and there's no way to follow up with whoever sent the damn thing since the numbers fell off.
She’s trying not to spiral. Trying not to think that its just one step forward two steps back. Because if Steve was alive wouldn’t the letter have said that too? Was Steve dead? Had they just killed him and kept Hopper? God Steve must be so fucking scared if he isn’t dead, must be terrified and hurt and so fucking lonely.
“Rob, hey Robin, can you breathe for me?” Mike Wheeler's voice cuts through her panicked thoughts and pulls her back into the room with them, matching her breaths to his as he takes them. “Good yeah, that’s perfect.”
Mike fucking Wheeler was such a surprise to Robin in a lot of ways. Mostly in the way he reminds her of a younger Steve. The one he was when he was still full of so much anger he leaned into his King Steve days harshly with it. She wonders if that’s why Mike and him seem to butt heads so much, too similar in so many ways. Even in the soft corners they seem to only show their friends, the smooth edges that care and want to protect.
Tears spring to her eyes at the thought and she just wants to curl up into a ball and never come back out, the embarrassment of being comforted by a group of 15 year old's leaving a bad taste in her mouth.
She should be comforting them, and taking care of them. She was the oldest of their little group, and that's what Steve would do. Push all his own shit aside to be strong for the four kids sitting in front of her. But she was so tired, and always on edge, afraid the Russians would come back and grab her, afraid that around every corner there held the possibility that she’d just stumble upon Steve’s cold dead body, just laying out for anyone to see.
She didn’t know how much longer she could take this uncertainty, this constant wondering limbo on if Steve was alive or dead.
She just wanted her best friend back.
“We are gonna get him back, Robin.” It’s Lucas who speaks up now, pulling her from her spiral as he sits in the chair next to her, placing an arm on her shoulder.
“He’s right, Steve would never stop looking for us, and we won't stop looking for him. We’ll get him back.” Dustin tacks on, reaching for her hand and giving it a soft squeeze. Mike who’s still crouched in front of her offers a soft smile.
“El looked for him a bit today, in the mind place. She said she can’t make a direct connection but she can feel him. He’s still alive. We’re going to figure this out.”
“El got her powers to work again?” Robin whispers, eyes searching Mike's face for a lie. She can feel the relief wash over her when she realizes there isn’t one to be found. Steve was alive and she- she knew he was, she’d felt it in the very core of her soul, but having the confirmation, having the undeniable truth that El had felt that he was still alive, she’s almost drowning in the relief it brings.
“Sort of, she can get into the mind place again, but she can’t stay long and she can’t see people but she can get a feel of them, if that makes any sense. She told me she’s been practicing everyday so she can get them to work again and find Hopper and Steve.”
Robin takes that hope and folds it up softly, tucking it away in her ribcage behind her heart. Steve is alive. Steve is alive.
Steve is alive and none of them have given up on him.
~~
Dustins more than a little nervous after school.
He knows he’s the one who made the executive decision to bring Eddie into the loop, but really, Robin’s fraying at the edges and they need another adult on their side for this. Joyce is too understandably wrapped in her grief to hear them out whenever they bring it up, and Hopper was the only other adult, adult in the know.
And it’s hard with Robin, because she’s so new to the group, it took them a while to really warm up to her, but then Will had mentioned how she was Steve’s and it really hit them how much they had been neglecting the newest member of the party. So they’d settled on bringing her into the fray and keeping her as safe as they could, protecting her where they knew how, so she’d be in one piece when Steve came home.
Dustin misses Steve, so fucking much.
Steve would have groaned and complained every time Dustin showed up at his door with a new theory, but he would have helped and believed Dustin. He always had so much faith in Dustin.
The last few months has Dustin believing he never really deserved it. He hadn’t really found any leads on Steve’s whereabouts and he’d driven Steve’s not girlfriend-girlfriend to the brink of a breakdown every day. There’s been a few times where he wondered if he should just stop, move forward, move on, but every single time he wondered that he felt his heart start to shatter in his chest and he just knew that even if it took him the rest of his life, he’d find Steve.
It was the least he could do, to repay Steve for everything he’s done for Dustin over the last few years. And Steve was his brother, the person he looked up to most in the world, the first person to ever really take Dustin seriously, and he owed him all that he had, all that he was.
Steve was everything to Dustin.
And Dustin loved Robin, but she just wasn’t the kind of adult presence they needed, and he’s worried about her. So fucking worried about her, because she’s sinking into herself, drifting through her days, and Eddie’s a great presence to ground you back down to earth. He’s hoping that on top of the fact that it takes the pressure of being ‘the oldest’ off Robin's shoulders so she can breathe a little easier, Eddie’s presence also helps the group feel less like they are spiraling out of control. A lot like Steve always did.
It makes him wonder what Steve would think of Eddie. If the social stigmas of the jock and nerd would still stand even now and keep them at each other's necks, or if the fact that they both care so quickly and love so deeply would pull them together in the best kind of way. Where Eddie would be loud and out there, Steve would be a calmer presence, and bring Eddie a sense of comfort when he got a little too lost in his own head. They’re so different and yet so similar, Dustin thinks that given the chance, they’d fill in gaps for each other they didn’t even know they needed filled. And sometimes, when Dustin’s having one of his really bad days, Eddie reminds him so much of Steve when he’s trying to help, Dustin can’t help but wonder if someone out there in the world knew what they were doing when they gave them to Dustin.
So he made the decision that they needed to bring another adult in to help them. Eddie was smart, and creative, and really the only older kid he knew that wouldn’t run for the hills the moment they tried to explain everything to him. Eddie seemed to have a soft spot for their little group and Dustin was hoping he could use that to their advantage in getting him on board.
And he knows everyone is going to think he wants to bring Eddie into the fray because he idolizes him, but that’s not even close to the case. They need someone that's not as closely affected by everything going on. Someone to pull them from the edge of killing themselves over finding Steve. Someone who cares about them, but has no real attachment to Steve, and can decide when enough is enough for the day.
As Eddie pulls them up to Mike's house, Dustin looks back at his family in the back seat, and notices Robin whipping hurriedly at her eyes. His heart breaks just a little bit more.
“Alright, let’s get this show on the road I guess?” Eddie muses, shooting Dustin a 5th questioning look in as many minutes.
“Yep, basement info session lets go.”
Karen doesn’t even look up from where she’s cooking dinner when they walk in, just offering a soft ‘ hey kids have fun’ as they meander down towards the basement, and settle in. Dustin startles a little when they find El and Max already seated on the couch. He watches as Eddie takes in the two girls, nodding slightly in their direction before throwing himself down in the arm chair and motioning for everyone else to join the girls on the couch.
“Alright kiddos and Robin. Why the secrecy? What exactly is going on?” Eddie flares his arms out like he does in DnD sessions sometimes and Dustin has to hold in his snort, because he knows for all the bravado Eddie has behind the DM screen, this right here he’s doing out of nerves. Dustin looks around the room at everyone, who are all pointedly looking at him.
Right, his idea, he talks.
“So, Eddie, what all do you know about Steve Harrington?” Mike groans quietly at the question and Will softly laughs out an ‘ of course that’s where you start’ Eddie turns in his chair to focus all his attention on Dustin as he speaks. “Besides like, high school stuff. Actually, okay let me start over.”
Eddie’s watching Dustin with a fond amusement, and it spurs the confidence in Dustin, because he trusts Eddie, and they need him so much right now.
“The Starcourt mall fire a few months ago wasn't caused by faulty wiring.” He can hear the collective small inhales around the room at how bluntly he brings it up. None of them have really been able to talk about it since Steve went missing and they thought Hopper died, but now isn’t the time to beat around the bush. “Under the mall, Russians had built a secret bunker, where they were using tech from Hawkins lab, to open a portal to an alternate dimension.” He watches as a laugh bubbles out of Eddie.
“Alright, sure yeah, is this some sort of campaign you’re trying to get me to run in Hellfire or something?” He’s looking around at all the faces in the room, and Dustin can catch the exact moment he realizes no one here is joking.
“That’s what really happened Eddie.”
“Come on man, that's bullshit. You’re telling me the commies got into America and stationed themselves under a stupid mall in bum fuck Indiana? And that alternate dimensions aren’t just in comic books? Dustin, seriously.”
Dustin sighs, because yeah that reaction is totally fair, and he knew it would be hard to bring someone into the loop that hadn’t experienced it before, but then Max is piping up.
“I wasn’t convinced either when they first told me about all of this, but it's very real Eddie.” Eddie turns his head to lock eyes with Max, and Dustin crossing his fingers that the fact that they are neighbors will hold any weight to him.
“Steve and Chief Hopper were taken by Russians after the mall burned down, and that’s what we are always running off to research, and why we missed Hellfire yesterday.” It’s Will that speaks up this time, hand coming out to grip Robins as he speaks. Robins nodding along to his words and Dustin can make out the glassy sheen to her eyes and he feels his heart squeeze in his chest. Every one of them loves Steve so much.
“You guys know how insane you sound right?” Eddie’s got his feet tucked under him now on the arm chair, leaning forward in the seat, head whipping from face to face.
“I have superpowers.” El offers out, and then cringes slightly. “They are acting up at the moment, but I can move things with my mind.”
“Acting up so you can’t prove it right now you mean? Look man if this is some kind of prank you wanna play on me, it's whatever, but you have to get more creative to out master the Dungeon Master.” El’s glaring at Eddie as he speaks, before stretching out her arm and focusing her gaze on a small Lego sitting on the coffee table, it wiggles around a bit, before lifting slightly and falling back to the table. El groans, whipping at her nose and crossing her arms.
“Acting up, not gone.” She snaps, leaning her weight into Max’s shoulder. Eddie sits frozen, still staring at the Lego piece before his eyes slowly slide back up to Dustin.
“You’re serious?”
“As a heart attack man. And we need your help.”
~~~
The thing is Eddie didn’t expect to like the shithead freshman he adopted into Hellfire as much as he does. He’d been prepared to grab those little sheep and pull them into the mold, and keep them safe, but that was about all he expected from that relationship.
But those little fuckers had weaseled their way so deeply into Eddie’s ribs, that he spent most of his days worrying about why the hell they were always so sad . And when Robin had started sitting with them too, he figured they’d get along well enough, but he hadn’t expected the deep seated friendship that they’d formed, one so strong it almost rivaled what he had with the Corroded Coffin boys.
And they are all always together, not a single one of them ever found without at least one other person of their little group, and Eddie knew you couldn’t really even buy that kind of loyalty, so it always got him wondering what exactly stemmed their friendship into such a powerful bond. And they are always so secretive too, hushed conversations and quick looks to see if anyone's trying to listen in.
Eddie has no idea what a bunch of freshmen and a senior could know that they hold so close to the chest, but he’s always tried to give them the privacy they so obviously wanted to hold onto. What he isn’t expecting though is the hostility over a weird ransom note looking paper when he gets to the lunch table that day. The death glare Mike shoots him actually makes his skin crawl a bit, and really who gave a 15 year old the right to look that fucking terrifying.
Although he can't help but feel a bit of pride well up in his chest when Dustin calls him smart, wanting to finally, finally bring Eddie into whatever little secret they seem to be sharing between themselves. To his surprise, Will’s the one who looks him up and down, like he's sizing up Eddie’s worth in the whole thing before nodding.
The entire interaction has Eddie’s hackles raised and he really can’t stand being belittled in the way he feels these literal children are doing in the moment, but the glassy look that’s been in Robin’s eye’s all day seems to settle slightly as she comes to a decision in a silent conversation she’s having with Dustin.
What really gets him though, is the conversation in Mike Wheeler's basement later that day. Because really, any fucking secret he thought they’d had between the five of them, is nothing compared to what they tell and show him. He hadn’t even known that Max and Jane Hopper had been a part of their group, but he supposes these kids have to be good at keeping things to themselves if they’re dealing with alternate dimensions and fucking government cover ups.
“How do you even know Steve’s in Russia? All the evidence seems circumstantial at this point, is it possible he’s, uh, you know, one of the unidentified bodies in the fire?” He really should have kept his mouth shut because the seven fucking murderous glares he receives in response to his question is honest to God the most terrifying thing he’s ever experienced in his 19 short years of life.
“He got out, he was with me and then he was just gone.” Robin’s voice comes out barely a whisper, and Eddie has to lean towards the couch to catch what she’s saying.
That’s another relationship he can’t seem to put his finger on. The Robin and Steve of it all, because last he knew before summer, Robin hated Steve as much as the next geek or nerd, and here she was seemingly fucking torn apart by the lose of Steve Harrington.
He shouldn’t judge though. He knows people can change and grow, and that Steve is probably nothing like who he was in high school, especially if all these kids sitting here can vouch for him so fiercely. So he nod’s and asks Dustin to tell him everything from the beginning, and settles into his seat on the armchair while all the kids dive into a story straight out of a DnD campaign.
And he starts to get it. Starts to see the big picture of who exactly Steve is to everyone here and why they seem to worship the ground he walks on, because honestly, Steve Harrington of their world sounds like a fucking warrior god sent down to earth to keep them safe. Eddie even finds himself with a strange deep seated need to get to know their version of Steve. Because that Steve sounds like someone Eddie could be friends with, the guy who seems to only really care about keeping the people he loves safe.
Eddie looks around at all the young faces talking animatedly to him and he feels himself settling into the role he's almost positive Dustin was hoping he would. He decides right then and there that he wants to help and protect these kids. Which was why he befriended them in the first place, but now there's so much more to it. And as they seem to be reaching the end of their tale, Eddie sends up a silent message to Steve, wherever he is, that he promises when he comes home, Eddie will have kept his little flock safe for him.
“So, any question?” Lucas asks, when Dustin’s done with the last of what happened at Starcourt and throws himself down on the couch next to Erica, who’d shown up about halfway through the story time they were having.
“So many honestly.” He laughs out hollowly, pulling his knees up to his chest on the chair. “I still don’t understand how exactly we are going to get Steve back though.” And it’s another time he knows he shouldn’t have said what he was thinking by the way everyone in the room deflates, everyone except Dustin.
“Well someone tried to get in touch with Joyce right? So maybe they’ll try one of us next, or Joyce again, since we can’t respond to the message we were sent because of the fucking letters falling off the paper.” Dustin leans over and pulls the message out from Will’s backpack, handing the paper to Eddie.
“This looks like a five year old made it.”
“I think maybe it's like a language thing right? Like maybe Hop’s befriended someone who only speaks Russian and maybe they know English but don’t really know how to write in it.” Mikes the one who speaks up now, looking to Dustin for confirmation.
“Okay, but this only mentions Hopper. So, and I hate to say this, how do we even know Steve’s still.. Alive?” To Eddie’s surprise, Robin and El are the ones who perk up at this question, both leaning forward in their seats.
“He’s alive.” Robin's words are clipped, almost daring Eddie to argue with the hard resolve she sets in them, but El speaks before he can respond.
“I can feel him when I go into the Mind Place. My powers usually can show me people there, but as I stated before, they are acting up.” Eddie nods, letting her words sink in and trying really hard to push down all the panic he can feel slowly building below the surface. Because this is all so much information to take in, and the fact that monsters are real and he’s been living just above them in sweet ignorance all this time is really starting to catch up to him. He can feel Robin's eyes on the side of his head as he counts to ten internally and takes a deep breath.
“Let’s go smoke Eddie.” She states suddenly, standing up and shooting some unspoken command at the kids because they don’t even protest as she makes her way over to him and pulls him out of the chair, and towards the back door. Once outside, Eddie leans heavily against the bricks of the house, his hands shaking as he pulls a cigarette out and offers it to Robin.
“Oh no I don’t smoke, but I figured you probably needed one, and a bit of a breather.” She throws him a soft smile, wincing slightly and rubbing at her arm as he lights up the cigarette.
“You hurt yourself?”
“Huh? Oh no, uh I’ve been getting these like phantom pains or something the last few months, and I know this is gonna sound crazy, but I think it has to do with Steve in some way.” She shrugs, leaning against the wall next to Eddie and nudging his shoulder gently with hers.
“How are you holding up with all of this?”
“Honestly, Robin? I’m kinda freaking out, man.” He tries to laugh to cover up the tremor in the words, taking a long drag of his cigarette while Robin thinks of how to respond.
“Yeah, that’s pretty valid honestly, it’s a lot to take in. But, Eddie, I’ve got to know right now. You’re not gonna let these kids down are you? Because, you being here and believing them is one thing, but if you decide that you want nothing to do with them after this, you’re going to break more than a few hearts. And I will kick your ass if you hurt them.” She’s not looking at him as she says it, but it feels almost like she’s still peering into his soul as she speaks.
Is he going to turn tail and run? The whole thing is absolutely insane, and he's basically signing his name on the draft list for if this Upside Down stuff ever comes back, and Eddie’s not really a fighter, not really much more than a guy who knows how to weave words. So he turns to look at her, thinking about it, really weighing out the pros and cons of it all, before thinking about those kids on the other side of the door, and Steve, somewhere, probably scared and hurt, who gave everything for them, and his decision really isn’t that hard to make.
He sends that silent message to Steve again, reinforcing that he’ll do his best to protect Steve’s kids for him till he gets home and nods at Robin.
“I’m all in. I don’t know why, or what’s making me feel responsible for those kids, and for you, but I’m in it now and I’m not going anywhere. You aren’t alone in this anymore.” He says the last part softly, hoping he's reading the relief correctly on her face as he says it, and suddenly he’s got his arms full of Robin Buckley. Dropping his cigarette and returning the hug, he can feel where his shirt is soaking up her tears and he decides yeah, he made the right choice with this one.
~~~
The frustration wasn’t a new feeling to El, but the helplessness was, which was leading to more frustration and she was starting to take it out on Joyce. And she felt bad about that, she really did, but if she could just see Hopper or Steve in the Mind Place, she’d be able to convince Joyce to finally listen to them when they were talking about everything, and maybe they’d be able to get somewhere.
It had been a little over two months since they’d brought Eddie into the group, and El had really only been able to improve on her object movement, but she’d made barely any progress with the Mind Place, and it was eating her alive, because she just wanted to see her dad and Steve, just wanted a glimpse of their faces, and maybe an indication on where they were, so they could just bring them home.
Not that Eddie hadn’t been a big help in the group, but El was still a little skeptical about why he needed to join in the first place. She liked him, she did, but he was no Steve and all his weird methods he was trying to show her were just confusing and more frustrating than helpful.
She missed the soft way Steve would explain things to her so she’d understand them. The way he’d sit with her for hours until she understood it and never took her anger as anything bad or wrong. He’d always just smile softly at her, pull her back down to the chair she’d stormed out of, and walk her through it again, never once making her feel like some toy, or annoyance to work with.
She missed Hoppers hugs, and the way he would make her Eggos in the only way she’d eat them. The way he’d read her books before bed, and tried to teach her the football, when it was on TV. She missed his grumpy personality and the way it would soften when he realized that El was just trying to get clarification on something and not trying to start one of the many fights she sometimes liked to pick.
She’s sitting in her room, thinking about all the things she misses about two of her favorite people when she finally makes contact.
She gasps a bit in surprise, when she can clearly see Hopper pacing in front of her in the blackness. He’s skinnier than she remembers him and his hair is short, but it's her Hopper alright, and she can feel the tears streaming down her face under the bandana.
“Dad.” The word leaves her lips quietly, and she can feel Max gripping her hand tightly next to her.
“Can you see him?”
“Yes, I see him, Max. He is okay. Oh he’s okay.” She can feel a heavy weight lift off her chest then, some of the fear at being able to feel but not see to know for sure lifting away. He was there, in front of her, and she could see him, and she was crying with how happy she was.
He seemed to be talking to someone that El couldn’t pick up, but she could hear their conversation very clearly.
“Dimitri I don’t know how much more he can take, if this message doesn’t work out, we’re going to have to try something else.” He’s pacing still, running a hand over and over his short hair as he looks off in the direction El hears another voice.
“I’ll think of something. I know you’re worried about Steve, Jim, I wish there was more I could do to help.” When El latches onto the name Steve, suddenly the scene she’s seeing in front of her changes, and she kind of wishes she’d still hadn’t gotten the ability back to see.
Steve is screaming , curled in a ball on the ground as a pale Demogorgon slices through his back, and she can tell Steve is trying to get back up and fight back, can see the resolve in his eyes, but he stumbles when he stands and that's all the Demogorgon needs to latch its mouth onto his side, but Steve twists, wrapping his hands around the creatures mouth and prying it open, just as two more people walk in and grab steve, tasing the pal Demogorgon and pulling him out. She can faintly make out a blurry imagine of some other monster in the distance, thrashing around, and sending out- was that calmness it was trying to send to Steve?
She’s pulled away from the other creature when Steve screams again, The two men who had pulled him out of the cage with the pale Demogorgon are grabbing onto his hair and pulling his head back where he kneels, another person coming up to him with what looks like a blow torch, and she watches as Steve smirks, spitting in the mans face, before the blowtorch is brought down to the exposed skin on Steve’s stomach
El’s screaming now, yelling for Steve, hoping he can hear her, and she's almost certain he does because his head whips around from where it's lulled to the side after the burning had stopped his eyes searching around his trying to pick up on something or someone and she can hear his soft ‘ El?’ before she’s being pulled back out of the mind place. Max rips the blind fold off her eyes and shutting the TV off.
“El, oh my god, El are you okay? What happened? What did you see?” Max is frantic, eyes wide as she dabs at the blood streaming from Els nose, El’s vaguely aware of Joyce running into the room and throwing herself on the ground in front of the two girls.
El wants to answer them, wants to tell them she saw them, that their boys are alive. But Steve’s scared body keeps flashing behind her eyelids. The open and healed wounds scattered across the skin she was able to see, the way he screamed when the Demogorgon sliced his back the way fire looks as it sears through flesh.
She’s heaving into a trash can that Max shoves under her face suddenly. Her entire body shivering and shaking, and she feels like she’s going to shake apart, because Steve looked bad. He looked so bad, and he’s alive but at what cost and El wishes again that she hadn’t gotten the ability of sight back in the Mind Place.
“El, sweetie, what happened? What’s going on?” El wipes the snot running down her nose with blood on the sleeve of her sweater, looking up into Joyce's scared soft and very loving eyes.
“I saw them. Hopper and Steve. They are alive, but Steve-” She chokes on his name, fighting the bile that’s built back up in her throat to get the words out. “Steve is not good.” The words taste flat on her tongue, not nearly doing enough justice for what she now knows Steve is like, what he’s going through, but she doesn't have the vocabulary or the stomach to go into any more detail than that. Max is holding her close and trying to help stop the full body shaking, and she can feel the tears Max is crying falling into her hair and she turns into her body, burying her face in her best friend's neck and wrapping her up in return, sobbing out everything she just saw.
She can hear Joyce’s sharp inhale and a rustling of paper that pulls her out of her safe haven in Max’s neck.
“So this is real?” Joyce whispers, her free hand still rubbing soothing circles onto El’s back.
In her hand is another note that looks nearly identical to the one Will had shown them all two months ago, but this time the numbers were still attached and the message was slightly changed.
Hop and Steve alive. They look ford to family diner. Pleeze to make resarvazion, call 7-415-218-4642 … Open twelve day P.E.T.T. No govt, pls. Kind regards, Enzo.
Max still has her head buried in El’s hair, so El only reaches out and touches Joyces hand, not wanting to jostle her friend.
“It is real, Joyce, and we need to save them.”
~~~
It’s been hard, in the morning, for Joyce to get out of bed and get her days going. She’d tried to get the kids to leave Hawkins, maybe move to California and get away from the trauma and horrors here, but they’d all refused fiercely. Telling Joyce that there was no way they were leaving with Steve missing.
She admired the loyalty of it. She really did, and she was heartbroken about Steve’s disappearance too, but every corner of Hawkins seemed to remind her of when Will went missing, or Bob, or god Hopper.
She’d loved Hopper since High School. Not that she’d ever told anyone that. They ran in different circles and didn’t really interact much, but there was one time in senior year, where they’d ended up hanging out and smoking under the bleachers during the homecoming dance, that had just solidified a soft spot for him in her heart.
She’d tried to move past the teenage infatuation, finding Lonnie and having her boys, but Lonnie was a trash person with a mean right hook, and she had to get her kids away from that as soon as possible. And then there’d been Bob. Sweet, soft, normal Bob, who made her laugh and smile for the first time in a long time, and she’d lost him to the demodogs, that hadn’t been an easy one to recover from.
But Hopper had always been there, arresting Lonnie, helping with Will, just around town, a part of her world if not a part of her life, and then after everything, they’d gotten closer, and Joyce had started to feel that warm bloom in her chest that had started under those bleachers all those years ago.
And now he’s gone too.
Joyce feels a little lost in the world. She loves her boys, and El, they’re the light in her dark, dark world, but she’s not sure how to keep holding on for them, how to stay strong. Especially with Will and El and the other kids constantly reopening the loss of Hopper with their theories.
It’s not that she didn’t want them to keep positive and keep hoping, but in her experience she knew that would only end in more heartbreak, and she didn’t want to add fuel to that fire.
So when she got up that morning and found a letter in the mail, with Russian words stamped all over it, she’d almost been angry, part of her thinking this was another ploy the kids had concocted to get her on their side, but another part of her hoped, grasped onto the fact that it could be real .
That’s the part that convinced her to call Murray.
“It could be a trap.” Murray’s staticky voice echoed through the phone line. Joyce was seated at the kitchen table, the note laying out in front of her as her eyes ran over it again and again.
“I had that thought too, but they signed Enzo.”
“Come on Joyce, don’t tell me you’re that naive, they could have easily tortured that information out of him. And no government, although fuck those guys, is really suspect.” She can hear the ice rattling around in Murrays glass through the phone and she glances at the clock. 11am and Murray was already drinking his afternoon vodka.
“Don’t be an ass Murray, I know that. But the kids-” Murray groans through the phone, no doubt gearing up for the same argument they’ve had many times over the last four months. “Shut up stop groaning at me. The kids make good points and you know it.”
“The kids are also kids Joyce, they don’t know everything no matter how much they like to think they do.” It’s Joyces turn to groan, laying her forehead on the table next to the note. She can faintly hear Max and El turning the Tv in her room to a static station and her heart squeezes in her chest.
“Don’t we owe it to El, to try?” she breathes, sitting back up and reading over the note again. “If they are alive, and we do nothing, we’re practically signing their death certificate.”
“And if it’s a trap Joyce, you’re signing ours.” Joyces nods, though she knows he can’t see her through the phone.
“Will you come into Hawkin’s tomorrow? Just to look?” Murrays answering sigh is exasperated.
“I’ll do you one better, I’ll see you in a few hours. Head that way after my afternoon nap.”
And that’s why she and Murray are friends, because no matter how much they fight or disagree on things, both of them would come to help if the other needed it. Although Murray was gonna complain the whole time.
“Thank’s Mur.”
“Yeah, yeah, see you later.” It’s just as the line goes dead that she starts hearing El scream from her room and her blood runs cold, her feet moving before her head can really catch up and she's storming into the bedroom to find El throwing up into a trash bin. A million things shoot through her head at the scene, worrying for El the most pronounced feeling. She’s on her knees in front of the girl in an instant, hand going to her back to rub soothing circles there as she asks what’s happening. There's a haunted look in El’s eyes, her body shaking violently as she clings to Max. Joyce can feel her heart breaking a bit at the scene.
“I saw them. Hopper and Steve. They are alive, but Steve-” She seems to struggle on Steve’s name, shrinking in on herself more and Max pulls her tighter, Joyce can see tears streaming down Max’s face and she reaches up to gently caress the young girl's cheek before focusing her attention back on El when she speaks again. “Steve is not good.” It sounds like the words hurt coming out, and Els turning to bury her face back into Max’s neck, but Joyce can barely process what’s happening in front of her now, a tremble working its way into her hands as she reaches to grab the letter out of her back pocket where she’d shoved it in her haste to get to the girls.
“So this is real?” She barely hears herself say it, her eyes locked on the small girl in front of her as El’s eyes skim the paper she’s holding out. There seems to be a flash of recognition that crosses her face before she’s nodding.
“It is real, Joyce, and we need to save them.” Joyce is up in an instant, startling the two girls who stumble to stand up and follow her into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Max’s voice cuts through her frenzy of trying to remember where the fuck she’d set the phone down after she’d hung up with Murray, letting out a soft ‘ ah-ha’ when she finds it on the table, she dials the number and has the phone up to hear ear before answering.
“Calling Murray.”
“Joyce this better be good, I was just about to fall asl-”
“Murray the note is real.” She doesn't even let him finish speaking before she's barreling over him, “El saw them Murray, Hopper and Steve, they’re alive and they need us.”
“I’ll be there in an hour.” Is all he offers before hanging up the phone and Joyce is frozen there for a second listening to the dial tone before Max’s determined voice pulls her out of it.
“I’ll walkie The Party.” And she's taking off, towards Will’s room and pounding on the door trying to be heard over the music. Mike and Will come stumbling out a second later, looking like Max had woken them up but she whispers something to them hurriedly before Will’s taking off towards Jonathan's room and Mike disappears back into the room, only to reappear with a walkie talkie in hand.
“Party come in, this is Mike do you read me?”
Joyce is still frozen, watching this all unfold in front of her, until El’s small cool hand is landing softly on her forearm and it draws her attention down to her.
“We should make some tea, for when everyone gets here.”
And Joyce has no idea how this girl knows exactly what to say to pull Joyce out of whatever frozen spiral she was in, but it's exactly what she needed to hear to get her body back in motion again. Hurrying into the kitchen to fill up a tea kettle as her kids and Max set up the living room to house the entire Party.
It takes hours for them to come up with a plan once everyone arrives at their house. Lot’s of angry shouting and tears from nearly everyone before Murray finally screams at everyone to shut up.
“Me and Joyce are the only ones going on this rescue mission.” Joyce watches as every single person in the room gears up to protest, even the newest addition Eddie Munson is looking like he wants to fight Murray on it, when Murray holds up his hand to silence them.
“We need to sneak into Russian territory, and break them out of wherever they are being held, that’s not a full frontal attack mission, that's a stealth mission, which means the least amount of people possible. And we need you guys here, in case something goes wrong, and to set up everything for when we get back. We have no idea the condition they will be in when we bring them home, and we need to be prepared for anything.” El seems to perk up on the couch where she’s sitting, before saying the weirdest thing Joyce has ever heard come out of her mouth.
“Make sure we have a lot of raw meat on hand.” Every head in the room whips over to look at her and Joyce can see her shy away from the attention slightly. “Just trust me.”
It takes them two and a half weeks to get everything situated after calling the number that was on the note. The man on the other end informs them that his usual pilot is away on a run, but that his wife’s best friend's husband knows how to fly and is willing to smuggle them into the country.
Joyce doesn't particularly know why he’s sharing all that extra information with them, but they prepare themselves for a long drive to Chicago to meet the pilot on the air strip the next day.
Murray offers to drive a few times, stating that Joyce needs her rest, but he doesn't put up a huge protest when she tells him she needs to be doing something right now.
It’s a weird sort of feeling, getting ready to reunite with someone you mourned the death of.
Her brain can’t seem to fully wrap around the idea that he’s really alive, while her heart is beating so fast she feels like she’s going to burst out crying at any second.
And her fear for Steve is a whole other ball game, wrapping around her throat and cutting off her airways, because she heard El, a few days after she’d seen their boys, talking to Will in hushed voices about what she saw, stopping when the crying got to hard to talk around, and Joyce is more then a little worried what exactly of Steve they’ll get to bring home to his little misfit family.
All the scenarios of what could go wrong, and what could go right are what carry her through to Chicago, and then all the way to Russia, where the pilot, Dominik informs them this is where they go on ahead without him, but he’ll be waiting to take them back as soon as they have their cargo.
He also slides over to Murray at one point, telling him that their contact on the inside needs to get his family and come with them when they leave, and Joyce is too busy wrapped up in her thoughts to pay that much mind.
It’s fucking Freezing in Russia right now, thick blankets of snow coating the ground and she wishes she’d brought a second winter coat to throw on over the one she’s already wearing.
Oh God, what if Steve and Hopper freeze to death before they get to them?
“Dominik says they’re being held in a Russian prison about 5 miles that way.” Murray grumbles, pulling the collar of his coat tighter. “We’re going to have to walk it.”
“What if one or both of them is injured? We can’t carry them back that far, Murray.”
He smiles sardonically at her before gesturing to the two flat makeshift sleighs he’d got dragging on strings behind him.
“Slow and steady I guess.” And that’s kind of that, because they can’t afford to waste anymore time standing around, they have people to save.
Joyce fucking hates the cold, especially the kind of cold that seams to seep through your pants and and take root in the skin and muscle there, making every step a little more painful, but they manage it, pushing through the wind and mounds of soft fluffy snow as they walk, Murray complains more then Joyce really wants to hear, but she lets him have it, because really it is too fucking cold.
It all seems to hit her though, when they crest a hill and there's the Prison in front of them, standing tall and ominous.
“Murray what the fuck are we doing? That’s a prison and I’m a general store clerk from nowhere Indiana. Why the fuck did I think we would be able to do this, Jesus Christ I’m an idiot.” Murrays hand comes up to rest on her shoulder.
“We’ve got a man on the inside, and an unlocked side door, so really, we just need to keep pushing forward here Joyce or we are gonna end up as American popsicles on Russian soil. And I, for one, don’t want to give Russia any part of me.” He nudges her forward gently, making his way down the hill and only glancing back at her once to make sure she’s following.
This is honestly insane . Her and Murray are clearly certifiable if they think they can pull this off without some kind of miracle.
They make it slowly towards the door that they were instructed by their phone caller would be unlocked. And strangely enough the hallway is completely empty when they sneak inside.
It all just feels a little too easy, as they make their way down the halls through what seems to be strange incubator tubes lining the walls, under developed Demogorgons floating in the green liquid that's inside them.
How the hell had they gotten all this here? Was this what El saw attacking Steve? How the hell is Steve still alive?
“Murray.”
“I see them Joyce, keep moving.”
Their miracle comes in a small room overlooking the entire prison, where they run into someone wearing a lab coat that's spewing Russian back and forth with Murray, until he’s reaching for a panic button, which had Joyce panicking and tackling the guy.
And someone must be watching out for them because when they go down, the guy hits his head hard enough on the control panel it knocks him out, leaving them in a few seconds of blissful silence, before a loud alarm starts blaring.
Murray keeps screaming about how bad this is, but Joyce looks out the windows in front of them and spots their miracle. A large White Demogorgon bursting out of the doors they seemed to have opened with that guy's head.
“That’s even worse.”
“No Murray come on, this is perfect, the Demogorgon will distract the guards and keep them from seeing us, It’s the perfect way to run about unnoticed.”
“Unless we get eaten first.” Joyce groans at Murrays pessimism, before grabbing his arm and pulling him along, following the directions ‘Enzo’ had given them over the phone to head towards Hopper's cell. At least she hopes it's the way to Hopper’s cell, this place is massive. What if they took a wrong turn?
She sees him before he sees her, and her entire world seems to tunnel into just him. He’s lost weight but seems to have bulked up some over the last 5 months, and the entirety of him seems to pull her world from the dull gray it’s been stuck in, to a bright array of technicolor.
She can barely contain her excitement when she’s screaming out his name, drawing his eyes from whatever he was looking at to lock onto her.
Time seems to freeze and speed up all at once and she’s suddenly in his arms, and the wrong way the worlds been feeling seems to right itself again.
But then Murray’s opening his big mouth and Jim’s pulling away demanding to be taken to his kid , which brings a warm questioning feeling to her heart at the conviction behind his words as he says it.
It’s just like Hopper to latch onto Steve, especially if he’s been in danger all this time, and she's reminded again just how much she’s missed the man walking next to her. How bad was it for Steve though, if Hoppers radiating hate around him like an aura?
She’s brought out of her thoughts when the smell of Steve’s cell hits her nose, and her eyes land on the limp bleeding form in the corner.
Jesus Christ is that Steve?
He looks bulkier than she remembers, and there’s fresh and old wounds littering almost every part of skin she can see.
She bites back the bile in her throat when a hulking monster suddenly appears, shoving its way into the room and rubbing against Hopper before gently, oh so gently picking Steve up and cradling him to its chest.
And Honeslty what the fuck is that thing? Because it sure as hell looks like it could eat them all in two bites, and Hopper said it was connected to Steve, but what does that even mean, because it certainly looks like some kind of evolved Demogorgon, and that’s not something they should be trusting.
But she does trust Hopper, so she lets it pass her, carrying Steve’s limp body in its arms.
El’s raw meat comment makes a lot more sense now, and everything else seems to pass in a blur in her memories, no one thing sticking out to her much as they escape and make their way back to the air strip. The guy who was with Hopper, Dimitri, she’s learned is the one they were communicating with on the phone and he breaks off about halfway to the air strip with a hushed,
“Give me two days and I’ll be there, I need to get my family.” Before disappearing into the woods. Joyce looks to Hopper, but his eyes are glued onto where Steve is passed out in - whatever the fuck that thing is that’s carrying him- arms. He’s so quiet that it should unnerve her, but Murray is talking enough for the four of them combined, and she has no idea what Steve and Hopper have been through so she leaves him be, until they’ve made it back to the plane.
Dominik is there waiting for them like he said he would be and Murray fills him in on how long they are waiting for Dimitri to come back, while the monster carrying Steve places him down gently on a cot in the warm office of the air strip.
“I need to stitch up his back, and anywhere else he’s got open wounds.” Hopper’s voice is hard, coated with anger as he looks around the office till he pulls out some sutures from the first aid kit he finds. Joyce goes to take a step towards Steve, only to be met with a low clicking growl.
“Dart, she’s safe.” Hopper looks over at the monster, Dart, before hesitantly placing his hand on it, and Dart settles, head following Joyce as she makes her way over to Steve.
She isn’t able to bite back the bile this time when she takes in the sight of him, and finds herself hurrying over to the trash can in the office to offload her stomach.
“You don’t have to help Joyce, I know it’s a lot.” This time when Hopper speaks his voice is soft and sad, and so, so broken that it pulls Joyces resolve into a hardening determination to help. She’s whipping her mouth and shaking her head as she makes her way over to the first aid kit on the floor next to where Hoppers knelt down in front of Steve’s back, her hands finding a large towel. Getting back up, she makes her way into the bathroom connected to the office, filling up the decorative bowl that’s sitting on the shelves in there with warm water and bringing it back over to Steve, kneeling on the side his body is facing, so Hopper has access to the wounds on his back. She gently cards her hands through his overgrown matted hair and pushes it back from his face, holding in the gasp she wants to release. She glances over at where Hopper is using his own warm water and towel to gently card over Steve’s back and she has to shake herself a bit to be able to look back down at the boy below her.
Steve has scars littering across his cheeks and near his eyes, her heart fucking hurts.
She starts there, taking the towel and dipping it into the warm water softly gliding it over the dried blood and scars on his face. She pauses often, to wring out the towel on the ground behind her, before dipping it back into the water and starting to work her way down his neck where there's a few burn scars , her eyes lock onto the top of a scar that starts on his collarbone and follows it down, down, down his chest to his torso, disappearing below the dirty pants he has on. His chest, arms and back seem to be where he has the most damage old and new, and she almost forgets for a second she’s looking at the body of an 18 year old boy, and not a war torn veteran coming into the VFW clinic she used to volunteer at in her twenties.
She wrings out the towel again before bringing it up to his chest to start to wash away the gunk sticking to the skin there, wanting to make sure that all the healing injuries are clean enough to get them home and to the hospital.
“Hop.” It’s barely a whisper when she breathes it out, but she knows he heard her by the way his hands falter slightly where he’s now disinfecting the cuts on Steve’s back.
“I know.” His answer is just as soft and just as quiet, and a light whimper comes from Dart to their right, its head coming to lay on top of Steve’s feet. She's not sure if it has eyes, but it seems to be watching them work.
“That’s Dart. You remember the Demodog Dustin had a while back? That ate his cat?” Hopper speaks suddenly, never losing that soft quiet tone, catching her staring at the monster beside them.
“Why- I mean, I don’t get it Hop . ”
“I’m not sure about its appearance, but he and Steve are connected now. Like mind melded I think is what Dimitri called it. They’ve been running tests on Steve for months to create some kind of super soldier that can control a Demogorgon, and well- He’s Steve's now, or Steve is his. I haven’t really gotten to talk to Steve much about how it all works.” She finds herself nodding, taking in the information as her hand continues to run through Steve’s hair, working out the knots she finds as best she can. She leans back on her heels slightly, placing the ruined towel into the now dirty bowl of water and pulling a sweater out of the back pack she had brought with her. Watching as Hopper stitches the wounds on his back quietly, with the methodical motions only a retired army medic could have.
When Hopper finishes, he mimics Joyces position, leaning back to sit on his heels as his eyes trail over the boy below them. He seems to be drinking in the fact that he’s alive. She places the sweater over Steve’s exposed torso gently.
“I haven’t seen him in a few weeks, when Dimitri came running up to my cell earlier I thought he was going to tell me that Steve was dead.” She watches as he seems to sink in on himself, and she carefully crawls over to him, mindful of Dart’s long legs, and to not jostle Steve. Hopper instantly leans into her side, bringing his arm up to wrap around her shoulder as he falls back slightly, sitting down and crossing his legs. She follows his movements, resting her head against him as they both watch the rise and fall of Steve's chest. She can feel Hopper's muscles relaxing as they lean into each other and he takes a deep steadying breath.
“Thank you for coming to save us. I don’t know what I would have done, if- if I wasn’t able to bring him home too.” She feels more then hears the hitch in his breath as he’s speaking, and she knows her heart can't possibly break anymore then it already has, but it feels like it's shattering in her chest.
“I’ll always come find you. You and him. Steve’s one of ours.” Hopper hums softly back to her, leaning down and placing a kiss to the top of her hair.
“I’m so glad you’re here, I missed you.”
“I missed you too Jim, more than you’ll ever probably know.”