Work Text:
Vecna is dead. They’re sure of it this time. Steve knows it as the last particles of the Upside Down float away up into the air, soon to be forgotten except for the people touched by it. The only problem is that when all of his friends start cheering and hugging him, it sounds a little like he’s underwater. He’s just too happy to do anything about it. He’s too busy focusing on the fact that Dustin and Robin are alive and warm and hugging him. Then Nancy and Jonathan are. And Lucas is either cheering or crying as he clutches Dustin’s arms and they jump up and down like the kids they are. He sees Mike hugging Will and El like his life depends on it.
He doesn’t mention it when they go to the hospital and all of a sudden Max is awake. Her eyes are cloudy and her voice is groggy but she’s mouthing off to a nurse when they walk in and his knees almost give out. Someone shouts loud enough to cut through the fog and he knows it’s Lucas because he almost bulldozes everyone out of the way to throw himself at Max. The nurse is about to have an aneurysm when all the kids start piling onto Max’s bed; hugging her and kissing her on the forehead and sobbing things that Steve can’t hear too clearly. Even as he opens his mouth to try and see if it’s just the pressure of the environment changing around him. Only one ear clears up just in time for Dustin to let out an excited scream and suddenly he’s sandwiched in a hug and he’s crying too.
Robin lets out a strangled-sounding cry as Eddie pulls her into the hug too and they all just hold each other for a while.
~
When Steve wakes up the next morning, he spends longer than he’d like to admit in the bathroom. Mostly he’s trying to get his damn left ear to pop already because he can’t hear for shit. Robin is talking to him and he barely notices until he sees her looking worried as hell in the reflection. “Sorry. I was totally zoned out.”
“Sure, dingus.” Robin steps forward into the bathroom, into his space which might as well be hers. They’re like one person split into two anyway. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah I’m totally fine,” he flashes her a bright smile. “I’m just…trying to really make sure it’s real, you know?” Robin pinches him and he shouts. “What the fuck!”
“Just so you know you’re not dreaming. Now get downstairs, doofus. Some of your children are waiting.”
By some she meant basically everyone. Dustin and Lucas are half asleep at the kitchen table. El is sitting beside Erica and they’re talking excitedly about something. A present for Max, he thinks he hears. Mike and Will are whispering to each other. There’s no time to talk to Robin about what’s going on. He wouldn’t want to worry her anyway.
It’s another 2 days before Robin approaches the issue. “Something’s up with you.”
“Nothing’s up with me except for the fact that I’ve had gremlins and military men in and out of my house for the past 2 days.”
“Our house, first of all. Second of all, something is totally up.”
Steve deflates and he tells her everything. At first, he thought it was something dumb but it hasn’t gotten her in the last few days. He’s been sleeping on his left side and the one time he woke up on his right side, he almost stopped breathing because he couldn’t hear anything. Robin says it sounds like a panic attack. Robin gives him 3 more days before she’ll drag him to the hospital by his ankles if she has to.
~
On Tuesday morning, Eddie knocks on their door. Steve realizes that Robin is a woman of her word like it’s something he hasn’t realized before. At least she didn’t worry Dustin with it. Eddie’s been spending the last few months in physical therapy in some top-secret military hospital far from Hawkins while they cleared his name, he tells them. He’s used to hospitals by now even if he hates them.
“And they gave me this sick ass cane,” Eddie holds the thing up and spins it around before he kisses the top of it. Robin snorts. Steve laughs. “So I guess physical therapy ain’t all that bad. Plus all the old ladies there think I’m a nice little gentleman.”
“They must have hit their heads too.”
Eddie flashes him a bright smile and Steve is just glad they’re both alive.
The car ride to the hospital is quiet except for the music playing on the radio. He thinks Robin might actually be too nervous to talk. Or else she doesn’t know what to say.
Eddie sits in the back seat humming to himself and drumming on the back of the passenger seat where Steve sits. When they turn the corner into the hospital, Steve lets out a nervous breath and he looks up. He catches Eddie’s eye in the rearview mirror and he shoots him a small smile. It’s reassuring.
They’re both with him in the waiting room on either side and they’re waiting for him when he comes out of the back with his hands shaking so bad he can barely stand still. They don’t talk about it, they both just walk up and hug him as he tries not to cry in the waiting room. Eddie’s arm in around him trying to support him as they follow Robin to the car.
“They said it won’t get better.” Steve says and Eddie just looks at him. He’s on his left side. They stop walking and Eddie walks around to his other side. His good side, Steve thinks as he tries not to let his eyes water again. “Eventually I won’t be able to hear out of that side at all. At least they think so.”
Eddie squeezes his elbow as they start walking again. “They said I wouldn’t walk the same again and I don’t know about you, but I feel like I could start dancing.
Steve rolls his eyes but the corners of his mouth twitch up into a smile as they exit just as Robin pulls up to the curb. She reaches across the passenger seat and grins as she rolls down the window. “Taxi for 2 dinguses?”
Eddie puts a hand over his heart. “Well I do believe this is our ride!”
Steve hears half of the conversation on the way home; a very passionate debate about whether the plural of “dingus” is dinguses or dingi. Then they’re singing along to the radio. Steve feels all the stress bubble out in a loud laugh as Eddie joins in singing Manic Monday and Robin is laughing just as loud as she teases him for knowing all the words. They sing along to every song on the way home and Steve knows he probably sounds out of tune but he couldn’t give a fuck anyway.
They stop at a payphone on the way home and Eddie limps out to order Chinese from the next town over that they can pick up on the way home. Robin hugs him until Eddie gets back in the car.
They watch a movie while they eat the Chinese. It’s Risky Buisness and Steve knows that Robin picked it so he would feel better about not being able to hear it. He can recite the script from memory now anyway. Eddie plans to stay the night so he calls Wayne to tell him not to worry.
That night, Steve falls asleep on the couch half laying across Robin’s chest. His right ear is pressed against her shoulder, but when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he doesn’t panic as much. Eddie is slumped against him, snoring lightly. Robin seems to have given in to her fate of being the pillow for the night and she’s asleep too. The static from the television lights up the room and all Steve does is pull the blanket off the back of the couch to throw over their laps. He falls back asleep feeling safe. Protected. He knows that he has friends that would do anything for him and that helps him sleep more peacefully than he has in a while.