Chapter Text
Steve doesn’t remember letting go of the rope.
One second he’s braced against the edge of the gate, boots slipping on blackened earth, Eddie’s weight dragging him forward, fingers screaming as they burn around fabric and the next, gravity shifts. Hawkins slams back into place. The sky is wrong again. Blue. Empty.
Eddie collapses.
Steve goes down with him, knees hitting asphalt hard enough to jar his teeth. He catches Eddie before his head cracks against the ground, arms locking around him like instinct has taken the wheel.
“Hey-hey-no-no, look at me,” Steve gasps, hands slipping on blood, on dirt, on something dark and viscous that flakes off Eddie’s jacket. “Eddie. Eddie, stay with me.”
Eddie doesn’t answer.
His chest stutters under Steve’s palms, shallow, wet, wrong.
“Shit,” Steve breathes, panic clawing up his spine. “No, no, no, no-”
“Steve!” Robin is there, suddenly, crouching beside him. “We need to move him.”
“I’ve got him,” Steve snaps, hauling Eddie closer, cradling his head against his shoulder. Eddie’s curls are matted with blood, sticky and warm against Steve’s neck.
Dustin is crying somewhere behind them. Lucas is yelling into the walkie. Nancy’s voice is sharp and frantic, ordering them into motion.
Steve hears none of it clearly.
Eddie wheezes - a thin, horrible sound—and Steve’s whole body tightens around it.
“I’m here,” Steve murmurs, forehead pressed into Eddie’s hair. “You’re not dying. You don’t get to. Not now. Not like this.”
He looks up finally. “We’re driving him.”
“What?” Robin blinks. “Steve, he needs-”
“I said we’re driving him.” Steve doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t have to. “The hospital’s ten minutes away. An ambulance will take longer. Get the car.”
Something in his tone flat, immovable, cuts through the chaos.
They move.
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
The walkie crackles.
Steve snatches it up without looking away from Eddie. “Lucas,” he says sharply. “Talk to me.”
Static explodes, then Lucas’s voice crashes through it all at once too loud, too fast, breaking over itself.
“STEVE-STEVE SHE’S NOT OKAY-SHE’S NOT OKAY-”
Steve’s heart slams into his ribs. “Lucas, where are you?”
“I DON’T KNOW-THE HOUSE-THE CREEL HOUSE-SHE FELL-SHE FELL AND SHE’S NOT WAKING UP AND HER EYES-STEVE HER EYES-”
Robin jerks the wheel so hard Steve has to brace Eddie tighter against him.
“Lucas,” Steve says, forcing his voice steady even as his hands shake. “Listen to me. Is she breathing?”
“Yes-no-yes-I THINK-SHE’S BREATHING BUT SHE WON’T MOVE AND SHE SAYS SHE CAN’T SEE AND THEN SHE STOPPED TALKING AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO-”
Dustin grabs the walkie from Steve, voice cracking. “Lucas, it’s Dustin, okay? You’re not alone. We’re coming. We’re coming right now.”
“She’s cold,” Lucas blurts. “Dustin, she’s cold… She’s not supposed to be cold, right?”
Steve’s stomach drops straight through the floor.
“Robin,” he says.
Already, she’s flooring it.
The car surges forward, engine screaming in protest as Robin blows through the next intersection without slowing. Headlights flash. A horn blares. Robin doesn’t even flinch.
“Lucas,” Steve says, gripping the walkie so hard his knuckles burn. “Put your jacket on her. Keep talking to her. Don’t let her fall asleep.”
“I AM,” Lucas shouts. “I AM TALKING-SHE’S NOT ANSWERING-STEVE PLEASE-”
“We’re almost there,” Steve lies.
They’re not.
Eddie groans softly, body jerking against Steve’s hold, and Steve’s attention fractures painfully in two directions.
“I’ve got you,” Steve murmurs to Eddie, pressing his forehead briefly against his hair before lifting the walkie again. “Lucas, I need you to listen to me.”
“I AM LISTENING-I’M LISTENING-”
“We’re coming,” Steve says. “I promise.”
The word promise tastes like blood in his mouth.
The Creel House appears out of the dark like a nightmare made solid.
Robin slams the brakes.
Steve is already moving. Lying Eddie’s head down and kicking open the door, throwing himself from his seat.
Nancy steps behind him, saying something, but Steve isn’t listening, not when he can hear Lucas’s cries.
“Lucas!” Steve shouts, sprinting across the yard, boots crunching over dead leaves and broken glass. “Lucas, we’re here!”
The front door hangs open, splintered and crooked on its hinges.
Steve barrels inside.
The house smells wrong, dust and rot and something sharp that crawls up the back of his throat. The walls seem to close in as he follows the sound of Lucas’s voice, frantic and breaking, echoing from somewhere deeper inside.
“Max-Max, please-please…”
Steve rounds the corner and sees them.
Lucas is on his knees in the living room, hunched over Max’s body like he’s trying to shield her from the world. His hands shake as he presses his jacket around her shoulders, face streaked with tears and dirt.
Max lies still.
Too still.
Her eyes are open but unfocused, staring through the ceiling like she’s already somewhere else.
“Oh my God,” Nancy breathes behind him.
Steve drops to his knees without thinking, sliding in beside Lucas. “Hey,” he says, low and steady despite the way his chest is caving in. “Hey, I’ve got her. You’re not alone.”
“She won’t wake up,” Lucas sobs. “She said she couldn’t see and then she just-she just-”
“I know,” Steve says, hands gentle as he checks Max’s pulse, fingers pressing lightly at her neck. It’s there. Weak. Fast. “She’s breathing. Okay? She’s still here.”
Lucas clutches at Steve’s sleeve like it’s the only solid thing left in the world. “She’s cold,” he whispers. “Steve, she’s so cold.”
Steve shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it over Max without hesitation, tucking it around her like he’s done this a hundred times before with nightmares, with scraped knees, with kids who shouldn’t have had to be this brave.
“Nancy,” he says, not looking up. “We need to move her. Carefully.”
Nancy is already there, hands shaking but determined. “Okay. Okay. I’ve got her legs.”
Steve slides one arm under Max’s shoulders, careful of her head, heart pounding so loud he’s sure they can hear it. Lucas won’t let go at first, fingers tangled in Max’s sleeve, face twisted in terror.
“Lucas,” Steve says softly. “I need you to help me, alright?”
Lucas nods frantically, wiping his face with the back of his hand. “I-I can help.”
“Good,” Steve says. “You’re doing great.”
They lift her together.
Max doesn’t stir.
Steve swallows hard and tightens his grip, forcing himself not to think about what that might mean. “We’re taking her to the hospital,” he says. “Right now.”
Lucas nods again, breath hitching. “Okay. Okay.”
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Robin doesn’t stop the car so much as abandon it.
She yanks into the emergency drop-off lane, tires shrieking, engine coughing once before dying. Steve is already out, Eddie’s full weight dragging him sideways as he stumbles, boots skidding on concrete.
“HELP!” Steve shouts, voice cracking wide open. “We need help-NOW!”
The doors burst open and the response is immediate, trained, automatic.
A nurse rushes forward, eyes locking on Max as Lucas half-carries her toward them. “Unresponsive teenage female,” she calls out sharply. “Possible neurological trauma. Pupils?”
“Nonreactive,” another voice answers, already reaching for a gurney. “Get a blood pressure, now.”
“Heart rate’s elevated-tachycardic,” someone says as Max is laid down. “Oxygen. Let’s move.”
Lucas tries to follow and is stopped gently but firmly. “Kid, you can’t come with us.”
“She’s not waking up,” he says, voice breaking. “She said she couldn’t see-”
“We’ve got her,” the nurse says, already pushing the gurney away. “CT, now. Call neuro.”
They disappear through the doors in a rush of motion and shouted orders.
Steve turns, breath heaving, Eddie sagging heavier in his arms with every second.
“Okay,” Steve says hoarsely. “Okay-he needs help. He’s bleeding out.”
The nurse who had rushed Max stops short when she really looks at Eddie.
Her expression changes.
Not fear. Not urgency.
Recognition.
She straightens slowly. “Sir,” she says, carefully, “we need you to set him down.”
Another nurse steps closer, eyes narrowing as she takes in Eddie’s face, the jacket, the blood. She doesn’t reach for him.
Instead, she hesitates.
“That’s-” she starts, then stops herself.
A doctor appears, drawn by the pause. His gaze flicks to Eddie and hardens. “Is that Eddie Munson?”
Steve feels something cold and sharp settle in his chest.
“He needs a gurney,” Steve says. “Now.”
The doctor doesn’t move. “Sir, he’s a person of interest in an ongoing investigation.”
“He’s bleeding,” Steve snaps. “He can’t breathe.”
“We can’t just-”
“No,” Steve says, voice going flat. “You can.”
The space around them goes strangely quiet.
A nurse shifts uncomfortably. “Doctor-”
“We have to be careful,” the doctor insists. “There are protocols-”
Steve steps forward.
Eddie’s blood drips onto the floor between them.
“You will help him,” Steve says, every word measured, shaking only because he’s holding Eddie up by sheer force of will. “Or this hospital will never see another dollar from the Harrington name again.”
That does it.
The administrator appears like he’s been summoned, face draining the second he clocks Steve.
“Mr Harrington,” he breathes. “What’s the issue?”
“This patient requires immediate trauma care,” Steve says. “Now.”
The administrator looks at Eddie. Hesitates. Then turns sharply to the doctor. “Get a gurney.”
“But-”
“Now.”
Everything snaps back into motion.
A gurney is shoved forward at last, nurses moving fast, eyes down, no one meeting Steve’s gaze as Eddie is lifted from his arms.
For one horrifying second, Steve’s hands are empty.
He sways.
“I’ve got him,” a nurse says quietly, almost apologetic. “We’ve got him.”
Eddie is laid down, oxygen mask fitted, hands working fast now, because they have to.
Because Steve Harrington is standing right there.
“Prep trauma,” Steve says, not looking away. “Possible punctured lung, internal bleeding.”
“Yes,” the administrator says quickly. “Of course.”
The doors swing shut.
Steve stares at the glass long after Eddie disappears behind it.
Robin steps up beside him. “Steve?..” she whispers.
Steve presses his palms together, sticky with blood, chest aching like something inside it is tearing loose.
Eddie needs to survive.
Because Max might not be.
And because Hawkins just learned exactly how much Steve Harrington is willing to burn down to protect the people he loves.