Chapter Text
After everything these people have been through, they deserve a big, fat, break.
Sadly, or as Eddie put it, “expectedly”, Eddie did not graduate, which he was more than fine with.
“Just means I get to relive senior year, the whole thing with you, doesn’t seem too bad to me.” Eddie said to Steve one late night.
Steve gives Nancy a talk . Which was… strange for both parties.
“Listen, Nance, I know Rob can take care of herself, well aware of that. But there’s things you need to know, things not even her parents care to know.” Steve sighs, “Robin has… certain tendencies. If she’s not looking at you when you're talking, she’s not ignoring you, she’s actually really listening, but she needs to be doing at least two things at once, or she can’t focus.” Steve pulls out a list. “Here’s a list of foods she would rather eat a pebble and shit a brick than eat.”
“Steve.”
“Yeah?”
Nancy laughs, “when did you make this?”
“Uh, September 1985 was when I started it.” Steve starts to wring his hands. “The Mall was Robin's first supernatural rodeo. She was… bad off, I had her stay over after a few bad episodes.” Steve shrugs, “you learn some things. She’s my best friend , Nance.” Nancy notices Steve eyes well up. “Literally my platonic soulmate. And as much as I care for you… Robin is going to come first every. time. ” The prolonged eye contact was making Steve uncomfortable, but he needed to make sure she understood. “Take care of her, Nance, and she’ll take care of you. Also, my nailbat is rated E for everyone but Robin Buckley. That was a threat.” Nancy laughs, fully aware Steve was as serious as he could possibly be.
“You’d hit Eddie with Gladys?”
“If he hurt Robin? No question.”
Nancy smiles softly, “Give me the list, Steven.”
------
Summer was better, with sleepovers and small parties, and ‘family dinners’ at Steve’s on Wednesdays. Barb and Chrissy see Steve, Eddie, Robin and Nancy plan for things she doesn’t know if she wants to know about.
At least, Barb doesn’t. Chrissy is a tactical genius. She comes up with ideas no one has even thought of, Chrissy uses Nancy’s observant future knowledge and Robin’s photographic memory to not only help everyone survive but to make the world a better place. She places people ‘in the know’ in strategic places, Eddie joins the drama club and Barb joins student council.
They make friends in every single social group. They turn the empty lot that was going to house the mall into a park, while they’re sure the Mall will still get built, it will be further away, with harder to mine through materials.
Chrissy might have saved so many people's jobs.
Chrissy lives with Steve now, Steve convinces his absentee parents (more like their assistant ) to legally adopt Chrissy, so she can’t be connived into living with her father in New Washington (NOT. A good person whatsoever). Chrissy tells Barb about the days when all Eddie does is ask if Chrissy is ‘in one piece.’ Which, seems like a normal question at first, until Chrissy remembers the conversation they had that cold November evening once she’d healed a bit.
Chrissy tells Barb about the days Steve never has his bat more than ten feet away, the days Steve invites over Dustin (who knows about the time thing, for some odd reason.) and doesn’t let go of him for hours.
“I’m fine, Steve. I’m okay.” Dustin doesn’t know much about what happened (happens?), all he knows is; Steve and him are close, a domestic, familial close that even in the past where Dustin doesn’t remember, he can feel it. Dustin also knows that something bad happened… or almost happened.
It scares him, if he’s honest. Scares him how tight Steve would hug him. How he effortlessly slides into Dustin’s paternal role. Dustin never had a dad, his dad died when he was young. It’s nice to have someone to look after him.
The quiet days, when the four would lay around in comfortable camaraderie, reminding each other of good things that happen in the future.
“Dustin gets a girlfriend .” Robin mentions from her chair (She called it, it’s hers now.) during one of the days Dustin wasn’t over.
“The Snow Ball with the kids again, Evvie is going to love it.” Nancy grins, idly folding laundry with Eddie.
“Max will be here by October. She told me her mom gave her a couple weeks to get adjusted before going to school.” Steve adds from the kitchen. Barb and Chrissy glance at each other.
“ Yes ! I miss Max.” Robin cheers,
“Who’s Max?” Chrissy asks and Steve chuckles,
“Robin's hero, she wishes she had half the audacity Max has.”
“Ugh, I do. Love that kid, she tames Lucas.”
There are days when Hopper comes over and Nancy doesn’t take her eyes off him. The Chief has been a big help, finding El’s ‘Mama’ —someone she visits often— and, through maybe not so legal ways, he got El a birth certificate and a social security card.
Jane Evelyn Ives' birthday is now November Seventh, the day they found her. Evvie has also realized; One, that Eddie, Steve, Robin, and Nancy are from the future, and Two, that it’s not normal and a very big secret that not even Hopper can know.
El has flourished . With the best books for late learning Steve could get his hands on, and a lot of tutoring by Nancy and Lucas, she is becoming a little more accustomed to society.
Evvie likes to sit backward on Mike's bike, facing behind it so she can talk to the other boys riding behind them. Plus, Mike's hair smells weird.
She was outside so much, she had finally gotten some color and she looked so alive . She forgot sunscreen and ran around with her friends like a normal kid . She got freckles on her shoulders and nose, she learned how to swim from Steve, who was gentle and understanding through the whole experience.
She learned how to swim fast from Eddie racing with her, plainly cheating. She also learned how to survive in water from him chucking her into the deep end. Steve ended up squawking at him from the edge of the pool on his Lifeguard post.
“She just learned how to swim last week, Eds!” He shouted down at a laughing Eddie and a sputtering (But smiling) Evvie.
“She’s fine Steve, see? That was fun, right, Ev?”
“Fun!” El yells, “water is in my nose! It kinda hurts!” She smiles at Steve.
El ended up curled up in a towel on Steve’s lap up on his lifeguard post by the end of the day.
There are many good days. Evvie has learned so much. The boys teach her plenty of things, and the girls decide to pick up the lessons on hygiene and ‘ girl things’.
Life is good .
“Ellie! Come eat breakfast!” Steve shouts up the stairs, Chrissy giggles from the couch.
“You tell her, Mama Steve.” Steve scoffs at her.
“Yeah yeah, laugh it up. Come and eat too, Cece.” Chrissy makes a quite undignified grunting sound as she gets off the couch and goes into the kitchen. “There she is!” El is running down the stairs in one of Eddie's band t-shirts (one Steve stole from him originally,) and some jeans. Her curly hair had grown out quite a bit, and Nancy brought over lots of headbands (“every girl has a headband phase, Steve.”) that she seems to love.
“Ready. What is for breakfast?” Evvie asks, Steve ruffles her hair, earning him a hard look as she straightens her headband.
“Waffles, because I'm so nice.” El cheered, running into the kitchen in her socks, sliding right up to the kitchen island, just like Lucas taught her one day.
“Cool moves, princess!” El grins as she climbs on to her stool.
“Hey nugget, what day of the week is it?” Steve asks, as he does every day
“Wednesday.”
“Good job, and what is our routine this Wednesday?” El grins.
“Arcade, learning the bike, dinner with everyone. Is Dustin’s mama making brownies?”
“I think so. Make sure to be careful today, Eddie will be over at four-thirty to teach you how to ride your bike.” El’s smile is downright giddy.
“Four-three-zero.”
Steve bought El a bike around a week ago, a baby blue one with a big basket on the front. Steve may spoil El a bit too much, but she spent her first twelve years of her life in a lab. She deserves to be spoiled, or at least, that's the excuse Steve keeps using every time he gets her something new. Eddie did offer to teach her to ride a bike, so the natural thing was to buy her one, right?
A knock at the door snaps Steve out of his musings, El still freezes up when someone is at the door. Steve looks through the doors window to see Eddie fidgeting outside.
Steve opens the door and was about to talk, but Eddie beat him to it.
“Wayne knows.” Steve's eyes widened.
“How much?” Eddie is freaking out by now.
“You, me, you and me, you and me together. ” Eddie groaned, “now he wants to properly meet you, so… I may have told him about family dinner tonight?”
“Okay. Yeah, he didn’t seem like, angry… right?” Eddie shakes his head, “Good. That’s good. Yeah! He can come, Claudia is making her brownies and sending them with Dust, All the Wheeler kids are coming, the Sinclairs are driving Lucas over, too. So you, me, Chrissy, Barb, Nance, Holly, Rob, Dust, Lucas, El, Mike, Will and… Wayne.” Steve ticks off each person with his fingers, “Damn, full house then.” Steve smiles. “Nothing to be worried about, Winnie.”
Eddie sighs and walks into the kitchen, heaving as he sits on one of the stools.
“Hey, girls!” Eddie glances over at Steve. “Chrissy, why does he do this to me?” Eddie groans as he watches his boyfriend busy himself with the dishes, Chrissy giggles as she remembers her Christmas gift to Steve, he did say he wanted a ‘kiss the cook’ apron.
“Because he knows you like it.” Chrissy says and Evvie giggles.
“Disaster Gays.” Chrissy snorts as both Eddie and Steve whip around to El, in disbelief of what has just come out of their sweet innocent Ellie’s mouth.
“Who taught her what that means?!” Eddie cries, banging his head against the counter. El shrugged.
“Nancy and Robin say it, I used con… conteh…” El attempts to say the word Nancy uses a lot before Chrissy takes pity on the poor girl.
“Context clues, Princess.”
“Con-text clues. Not super hard, just have to work at it.” Of course, that little shit is throwing Steve words back at him. He’s half horrified, half proud if he’s honest.
“Finish your waffle, we might need to reschedule bike day. You are finally going to meet Eddie’s Uncle Wayne tonight, apparently.” Eddie makes a sound of protest.
“He’s your uncle too now, Ev. Your Uncle Wayne.”
A honk sounds from outside. “Joyce is here, where are your shoes?” El shrugs, Steve sighs and walks toward the living room to look for them. Eventually he finds her shoes, one was by the door and the other somehow made it to the bathroom doorway.
Evvie heads out to Joyces car, getting in the back beside Will. Steve waves to Joyce with the hand holding a kitchen towel, the other hand on his hip.
As Joyce drives off, Steve sighs.
“Well, time to start cooking.”
“Aww, Steve, are you trying to impress your boyfriend's uncle?” Chrissy croons.
“Yes.” Steve replies, not a hint of shame in his voice, tonight is going to be perfect .
Steve snorts.
Now that’s a nice thought, not gonna happen , but a nice thought nonetheless.
---------
“Hey, El!” Will greets as she climbs in the car with her bag, holding her radio and her emergency stash of snacks.
“Will! How are you?” El asks, while her English is doing much better, everything still sounds rehearsed. Wil shrugs, his knee bouncing as he stares down into his lap.
“I’m… fine.” El tilts her head to the side, Joyce is busy talking to Jonathan.
“Lies.” Will huffs, tipping his head back.
“God, I’m fine. You are just like Mike.” El shakes her head.
“We are not the same. Not to you,” Will playfully glares at his friends.
“For a girl who lived in a lab you're awfully wise.” El grins,
“For a boy who almost died you’re pretty hes-i-tant.” She starts to dig in her bag, handing Will a Twinkie. “Word of the day Monday. Hes-i-tant, unsure or slow in act-ing.” He stares at the girl who has quickly become one of his best friends.
Will takes the Twinkie.
“I’m hesitant because Mike’s my best friend, and he’s probably not a freak like me.”
“Steve says that who you like does not make you a freak.” Will scoffs.
“What does he know?” Will mutters, messing with the hem of his shorts. “Him and Robin are perfect.” El makes a small disgusted squeak.
“Ew, no. Steve and Robin are friends , like you and me. Robin says ‘Pat-on-ick with a capital ‘P’”
“Platonic.”
“Whatever. Robin is with Nancy .” Will looks up at El with wide eyes, they’ve been… like him this whole time? MIKE’S OLDER SISTER HAS BEEN LIKE HIM THIS WHOLE TIME?! “I thought we all knew.”
“I didn’t!” Will’s whispers sound so hysterical El can’t help but laugh.
“Will, Steve is with Eddie. They’re together. ” Will is flabbergasted once again, El sighs “It is obvious! They flirt all the time!” Flirt; Behaving as though trying to attract someone.
“I thought they were just jokes!”
“They hold hands right in front of you!”
“I do that with Mike!”
“Exactly.”
“Wait, Steve and Eddie are together?” Both El and Will jump as they remember Jonathan and Joyce in the front seat.
“Uh, well…” Will starts, only to be cut off by El.
“Yes, they say other people think they can not be together because Eddie and Steve are both boys, I don’t understand.” Joyce glances at El through her rearview mirror.
“Some people just don’t think it’s normal. But if Steve and Eddie really want to be together, neither of us are going to judge them or tell them it’s wrong. In this family, you like who you like.”
Will looks like he’s about to cry. El shoots him a smile.
“Good. I love Steve and Eddie, I will protect them.” El pats Will’s shoulder discreetly, “and people like them.”
The rest of the ride was full of small talk, Joyce asks how Evvie’s mama has been, which El likes, she loves talking about her mama.
“Aunt Becky said Mama is happier.”
“Well that’s good.” Joyce parks the car, “be careful, kids! Steve will be here at four to pick you up! Will, are you sure you're okay with staying at Steve’s?”
“Yeah, thanks mom!”
Will has a lot to thank her for.
“Evvie!!” Both Dustin and Lucas come barreling toward their newly arrived friends.
“Holy shit, Will. Did you hear?” Dustin doesn’t wait for a reply, “We get Mr. Clark again! He’s teaching 8th grade science too!” While the boys geek out, Evvie digs her radio out of her pocket.
“Whatcha doing, El?” Lucas asks as El closes her eyes.
“Calling Steve.”
“You won’t be able to reach him this far-“
“ You alright, sweetheart?” A voice sounds through the wallow talkie speaker.
“Nevermind then.” Lucas says, wondering why he still tries to tell the girl something is impossible.
“All ok, safe.” El replies, her nose starting to drip.
“Okay, thank you. Now stop, don’t wear yourself out.”
“ Okay, love you Steve.”
“I love you too, nugget.”
“Evvie, can you amplify radio signals?” Dustin asks and Evvie nods.
“Oh my god, Mr Clark got that nice radio, we could pick up signals all the way from Russia on that thing!” Lucas says. A sharp inhale from both Dustin and El sets both the others on edge.
“Not Russia. Don’t mention people from Russia to Steve or Robin.” Dustin says firmly, El agrees, remembering Robin and Steve’s haunted looks at the mention of that word.
“Bad memories. It gives them nightmares.” Will glances at Dustin and El. Why in the world would two teenagers have trauma connecting to Russians ?
Dustin changes the subject. “Hey, where's Mike?” Everyone shrugs before Lucas suggests they wait inside .
“It’s hot as hell out here.”
Walking into the arcade is like walking straight into heaven, the AC is on full blast, kids are running around with armfulls of tickets.
“There you guys are!” Mike says from his place at one of the stray chairs.
“When did you get here?!”
“Like ten minutes ago? Nancy got her license, she can drive… legally now.” El jumps, letting out a little excited squeal.
“She passed the test?” Mike gives her a fist bump.
“Yeah, which means no more having to deal with her attempts to convince Mom she ‘doesn’t have a boyfriend’ and ‘really mom it’s just me and Robin, Steve’s only dropping us off’” Mike mimics his sister's voice in the highest, squeakiest register he can manage. “Which, I mean… she’s not lying…” Will, Evvie and Mike break out into giggles.
“What’s so funny?” Mike waves Lucas off, saying that it’s nothing. “Alright then… anyway Evvie, how much did you get this time?”
“Eight quarters from Hop, sixteen from Steve, seven from Eddie.” The boys cheer, pooling all their quarters together and divvying up them evenly.
“El always gets the extra if it’s odd, Mike. That's like, a rule.”
“Why does she always get the extra?” El sat back as the boys were arguing, Steve said that to help with her counting, whenever they argue she should see how long they do it for.
“Because she can win anything from any prize machine ever!”
Twelve, thirteen, fourteen…
“Alright, fair.” Woah, Mike giving in so quick? El is stunned, until she glances at Will and sees his panicked look at the excessive amount of yelling.
Evvie has spent way too much time reading only body language in the lab. She also lives with the two most obviously in love boys she knows, and they attempt to hide it just like these two.
This is exhausting. (Exhausting: very tiring; to tire out. She learned that one yesterday.)
“Your little protectors aren’t around today, huh?” El smiles up at Troy Walsh, the smile is giddy, as if she’s been waiting for this exact minute.
Almost all the talking stops as everyone turns to see the audacity of Troy, to bully the kids very fiercely protected by King Steve? That’s brave. Stupid, but brave. Dustin makes a big show of looking around.
“It appears they aren’t. But if you want me to go call him…” Troy seethes.
“You losers think he actually cares about a bunch of little fairy’s-” Mike closes his eyes and clenches his fists.
“Don’t. Don’t finish that sentence.” Troy smirks, thankful to finally get a reaction.
“Why? Because it’s true?” El rolls her eyes making her disgusted squeak for the second time today.
“Mouth Breather.” she comments, not even giving Troy the satisfaction of her looking him in the eye. She looks bored, her eyes trained on the quarters, counting them.
“Who even are you!?” Evvie remembers what Steve says when he’s trying to keep a secret from Robin.
“Noneya.” El pauses, before deciding to add on, “bitch.” Troy starts to walk toward her, what he was going to do, no one will ever know because Troy stops in his tracks.
A wet spot appears on Troy's pants. Evvie smirks, returning to her quarter counting, glad for ‘future storytime with Eddie and Nancy.’ She’s been wanting to do that for weeks.
“Dude, Troy just pissed himself!” Someone yells, everyone dissolves into laughter. Dustin hands her a napkin.
“You’ve been wanting to do that since Nancy told that story, huh?” El nods, wiping off her nose with the offered napkin.
“El, that was hilarious!” Lucas wipes tears of laughter from his eyes.
“Are you okay, El?” Will asks, El sticks her tongue out at him.
“I’m fine .” Mike comes up behind Will, snorting.
“Does he say that to you too?” Mike sighs.
“What am I supposed to say?” Will asks, Mike immediately turns to Evvie.
“Hey El, how are you?”
“Tired, powers are a lot of… of…”
“Effort?” Dustin chimes in, El hums a short ‘mhm’
“See, William? That's how you answer people. Truthfully.” Will groans.
“Fine, nightmares suck, okay? I’m a wimp and they have me waking up screaming almost every night, but mom is so tired from work and Jonathan works late so no one notices.” El pinches the boy. “Hey!”
“Not weak. I have nightmares, Steve has nightmares, Cece has nightmares. Normal, Not weak.” Evvie pats his hand, “very brave.” El walks away with her quarters in an old Crown Royal bag.
“She’s right, you know. You’re really brave, Will.”
“I don’t feel brave.” Mike smiles, patting his shoulder.
“You don’t have to, just know that you are.” Mike and Will sit in a comfortable silence for a while before Dustin comes sprinting up to them.
“Guys! Come see, Evvie is making Centipede her bitch over here!”
Evvie was, in fact, beating the shit out of Centipede. Her eyes flicked from one part of the screen to the other. People have started to gather around her.
“She lost like twice before this, then started going crazy. ” Dustin informs The other two. People start clamoring around Evvie.
“Woah, are you seeing this?”
“Hey isn’t that Steve Harrington’s cousin?”
At first, Will thought El was using her powers, but when a few minutes passed and Evvie showed no signs of a bloody nose, he just had to ask.
“El, how did you get so good at this?” A bit of Evvies tongue peeks out the side of her mouth as she focuses.
“Dustin gave me… basics. There is… a pattern. The worm moves in a pattern.” Evvie finally blinks when she gets another extra life. “I like patterns. They make sense.” Will nods, that’s fair.
If he was born in a lab where everything was kept from him, he’d like things to make sense too.
“This kid is a badass .” El decimates another centipede, taking out a few spiders in the process.
Eventually, a fast-moving head got her when she wasn’t paying attention, but that one quarter just lasted her twenty minutes. Now that she’s no longer focused on the game, she rushes to Dustin.
“Show me more.”
That day El learned she could pick a pattern out of anything, Papa made her find men who said patterns, but those were easy, ‘ red white blue blue red. red white blue blue red.’ These new patterns involved movement and thinking .
She loved it.
However, Dustin is very proud of his Dig Dug score, so she made sure to lose before she could hit that number.
She did play her usual crane games, though. She has made quite a collection of stuffed toys and she doesn’t plan on stopping the growth of the pile of plushies on her bed.
The boys are good at video games too, they can make their quarters last just as she can. But eventually, 3:30 rolled around and they were out.
“Damn, we still have half an hour. ” Dustin whines, and Mike perks up.
“Hey, mom gave me money for food, we could go next door and grab ice cream?” Everyone cheered at the thought of the sweet treat.