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Mike's been called a troubled kid before. Especially during the first 1-54 Days Without El back last year when he wouldn't answer questions in class or graffitied the bathroom stall or talk back to everyone within a ten foot radius. The sympathy had dried up pretty fast after that. The next 300 days he was called moody, bratty, rude, distant, full of bad attitude.
He's never been the angry kid. Sure he'd yell when he needed to but he never felt the draw to aggression the way other ‘troubled kids’ did. He hated violence, the idea of purposefully hurting someone - it went against something rooted deep in his core.
But that Mike had been naive.
He'd never felt rage like at this moment. His feet hit the Nevada dust and a shockwave reaches all the way up through him, heat burning his throat and his eyes that had nothing to do with the burning sun.
They shaved her head, he noticed that first. And he knew it was them and not her, not when she'd write in her letters how every time Joyce gave her a trim she wanted to cry. Mike loved her hair, loved the way she'd twist the ends around her fingers, or the way his own felt buried behind her ear but the point was El loved her hair. And they took it away from her, again.
Then he saw the shock collar, heavy and thick around her panting throat and the explosion behind her felt like nothing compared to what was bubbling up inside of him.
Mike's hands balled into fists.
He was never a good fighter, in the few meagre fights he'd had. Honestly the one with Hopper was the only one he'd ever gotten a single hit in and the man had taken it like a handshake but he could hit God right now for doing this to her. Not that he believed in one, because any god that made El suffer this much, this often - any god that had made her life into years of pain and isolation would never be worshipped. Mike could write a better story for her, one filled with years of being free and happy, whatever she wanted that to look like.
And he saw the Bad Man sprawled out on the ground behind her, the one El had called Papa, fighting in his arms to get back to Mike on the worst day of his life. Mike had thought he'd died on that day, gurgling underneath the demogorgon and he had been happy about it. He can rectify the mistake now. There was already a red stain blooming through his stomach, like poppies behind the cabin in spring. It wouldn't take much to make sure he was dead this time. It wouldn't take much to speed him along.
It thrummed beneath his skin, the rage, his ears ringing and filled with pressure like his whole body was about to burst from it.
The government had manipulated her, stolen her, shaved her head and collared her like a dog. And she was still standing there, in the wreckage she'd caused, like a superhero. El was beautiful like this too, determined and angry and tired - but she was more beautiful when she smiled - and she did that so often now, those kinds of smiles that take over her whole face and draw his eyes to hers like there's nothing else in the world but the sound of her laugh. If he had to kill Brenner to make sure she never went back to those small timid smiles from when they first met, the ones where she was unsure if she was meant to be expressing any kind of joy at all - then Mike would do it in a heartbeat.
He knew that's not what El needed though.
With only a lingering glance at the monster laying in the sand, Mike ran to El. It felt like two super magnets pulling at each other, like he was the compass needle to her True North. Or like she was so important to him that space-time folded underneath the weight of it, and he was so beyond willing to be dragged into her orbit. Every piece of rage melted out of him, replaced with pure relief.
“Eleven!”
Every metaphor and physics theory flew out of his head the second she smiled at him. She gasped a little, from being worn out or relieved but he reveled in it anyway. Mike wrapped his arms around her, collapsing in on her to bury his face in her shoulder. She smelled like dust and blood and sweat. He buried his nose deeper.
El's hands came to his hair, his cheeks before she pulled them apart, a few inches was as far as they could spare, and settled her fingers under his jaw, her thumbs running up and down his throat.
Mike wanted to kiss her so badly it hurt but didn't know if that's what she'd want right now. He didn't know where they were after that fight and he didn't give a damn because she'd pulled him right back down and pushed her forehead against his. Careful not to touch the collar lest it set it (or him) off, his hands found a home at her waist.
“Is it really you?” she panted, her nose brushing his. He could feel the ring on her finger, hot metal like a brand on his skin.
“It's me,” he said softly. “I'm here.” I'm not going to let you go alone again, he didn't say. I'd follow you anywhere. Words overflowed in him but he didn't need any of them right now. She needed reassurance, needed him to be there and he was. That was all that was important.
“Everyone's here,” he pulled away, looking over his shoulder to Jonathon and Will standing nearby. Her family who followed him following her, through bullets and days on the road.
They stood up together. He didn't tear his eyes away from her even as she hugged her brothers. Even as Argyle freaked at the dozen bodies littered about them or the fires burning despite the sand, the creaking wreckage of the helicopter - it was all background noise. She was alive and she was loved.
Then the collar emitted a small hiss and with a thud landed at her feet. Her hands flew to her thankfully unblemished throat and Mike saw the remote tumble out of the Bad Man's hand.
At least that made Mike feel better that he hadn't - now that the rage had melted he wasn't sure what he would have done. Steal a gun from one of the dead soldiers? Run him over with the Surfer Boy Pizza van?
It wasn't him, but he could have for El.
It wasn't her either. He watched their conversation from afar. Whatever they had to say to each other was private but he could hope that she was giving him hell.
Dr Brenner died on that spot without their interference.
And if Mike made sure to keep his eyes on the still chest of the monster until they were out of sight - that was just due diligence. Every story writer knows that you need to see the body.