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Steve awkwardly stood off to the side while El reunited with everyone else. He didn’t get to meet the girl the last time things went to shit so he subtly glanced at her every so often. Apparently this kid could flip vans with her mind, so sue him for being a little apprehensive.
He wasn’t actually scared of her.
He thought it was super badass.
There was plenty to look at in the room, regardless. With a reunion like this, relief, anger, happiness, confusion, and other emotions were swirling within the confines of the Byers’ living room. Steve almost felt suffocated with the sheer strength of them.
He never understood how other people just ignored it. He tried his best but sometimes it was so oppressive that it seemed impossible to push through. Steve must just be bad at it. Everyone else seemed to be unaffected by the storm of feelings in the room.
His eyes fell back on El, the mage of the group. At least, that’s what Dustin liked to call her. As he looked at her, an odd familiarity reared its head from the back of his mind. A distant memory. He felt like he had seen her face somewhere before. He was certain of it.
The scar on his wrist twinged with the thought. Maybe she just had one of those faces. Maybe she just looked like an actor from a movie he watched as a kid.
Yeah. That must be it.
After she had been caught up on the current situation, her eyes slid over to Steve. The familiarity tugged fiercely. It was frustrating. Where had he seen her before?
He saw the same recognition in her face as she stared at him. She frowned slightly before quickly approaching him. Nobody noticed as they were far too caught up in their plan to save the world.
“I know your face. Have I met you before?” she stated in her stilted way of speaking.
He stammered a bit, caught off guard by her directness, “Not that I know of. But I feel it too. You look familiar but I don’t think that we met last time this whole thing happened.”
Her frown deepened before she reached forward and grabbed his left wrist, pushing up the sleeve. She stared intently at the raised scar.
“What happened to your tattoo?”
He balked, “My what?”
“Your number. It is gone,” she pushed up her own left sleeve to reveal 011 etched into her skin.
“I never had a number.”
“Then what happened to your wrist?”
He opened his mouth to explain the story his parents had told him over and over again before hesitantly saying, “I don’t actually know. My parents told me it was some accident with a knife when I was a kid but I don’t remember it.”
She pulled his wrist closer, intently examining it.
“I think that you were 007. He went missing.”
His eyes widened, “What? You think that I’m like you?”
“Yes. Look.” She traced out the numbers on the raised scar. It was faint, but if he looked close enough, he could make out the removed tattoo.
“But I can’t move things with my mind or anything cool like that.”
“I remember 007. He was not very good at stuff like that but he could feel what other people felt. And he could change what people felt too. I think that he could also change what people thought. He could make them forget things. Or remember things that didn’t happen.”
Suddenly the room felt much smaller.
“Can’t everyone do that? Feel what others feel? See the emotions in the air?”
She shook her head, her sympathy curling in the space between them.
“How on Earth do people know how to communicate then? How can you tell what to say to make someone feel better?”
She shrugged, “I do not get it either.”
He internally began to spiral. Were his parents even his real parents? Is that why they didn’t love him? God, how much of his life was fake? No wonder he couldn’t remember anything before the age of 8.
“I don’t know how to use my powers. Not in a ‘change people’s minds’ kind of way,” Steve said, confusion and frustration tinging the air around him.
“I think that you already do. I can feel it. Does your nose bleed when you focus on the emotions?”
“My nose bleeds all the time,” he shook his head in disbelief.
She hugged him tightly, “I am sorry that you had to remember. But I have missed you. Can I tell you a secret?”
He exhaled shakily before wrapping his arms around her, “Shoot.”
“I am glad that there is someone else like me. I feel so alone. No one understands,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry,” he held her tighter.
In his peripheral vision, he spotted Hopper beginning to make his way over to them. His confusion and concern radiated off of him, the cloud of it hanging in the air. Well, apparently Steve was the only one who could see it.
“Hey guys, we’re starting to get the plan in motion so I need you back over with the rest of the group so we can explain. But uh, El? What’s going on here? Last I checked, you didn’t even know Harrington’s name.”
Before Steve could stop her, she eagerly explained, “He is like me!”
Dread settled in on Hopper’s face before he carefully asked, “What do you mean he’s ‘like you’? Steve?” Hopper glanced at him.
“Look!” She grabbed his wrist, showing Hop the scar, tracing out the numbers, “He is 007. He does not remember but he remembered my face. And I remembered him.”
Steve looked at him helplessly.
“This true kid?” He looked like he desperately wanted Steve to say no.
“I don’t know. I can’t remember anything about my childhood. My parents told me I was sick and in the hospital for a while. But they were probably lying.”
He blew out a breath, “Well. We don’t have time to unpack all of this right now but uh, do you wanna tell the rest of the group?”
“Not really,” he winced, “I just found out that my whole life is basically a lie, so I’d rather have some time to think about that, y’know?”
Hopper gave a sharp nod.
El frowned up at him, “Friends don’t lie.”
“It’s not lying. It’s…privacy. Friends don’t need to know everything. I’ll tell them eventually but for now I’d like to keep it to myself.”
“Privacy…” she tested before nodding, “Okay. Privacy.”
He smiled at her before patting her head, “You got it. Thanks, kid.”
She beamed up at him.
Well.
He guessed that Nancy hadn’t been totally off the mark. He WAS bullshit.
At least everything that he had previously known about his childhood was.
As much as Steve was reeling, he knew he had to put it out of his mind for now. There were more important things at hand, such as getting that thing out of Will and closing the gate. For good this time, he hoped.
Maybe after this, El could help him practice. Dustin was gonna freak out when he learned about Steve's powers. A smile tugged at his lips at the thought.
He shook his head, bringing himself back to the current situation. He’ll just have to figure out this whole 007 business later.