It had been nearly an hour and a half since they had last heard from those surrounding the house. Nothing had moved since. Other than making sure Will didn't do himself an injury, Steve was keeping himself busy keeping an eye on everyone else. They had shifted everyone and everything they might need to the living room and it was tense to say the least. 

Dustin, Mike, Lucas, Erica and to Steve's surprise, Gareth were the only ones really doing anything as they worked on the electronics they had spread out on the dining room table. DnD had had to take a back seat when everyone had moved to the same room.

"Your guys doing okay?" he asked Eddie quietly, walking up beside his boyfriend.

"Well as can be expected," Eddie replied, glancing over at where Jeff and Frank were sitting. "Gareth seemed to be in his element. Knew he was a bit of an AV nerd, but thought it was mostly to do with music stuff."

"Hidden talents come in really useful with this crowd," he replied with a small smile. "Did you know Erica can do complex math in her head?"

"In her head?" Eddie replied. "I knew she was quick with numbers, but that sounds way too advanced for me. Math is probably my least favourite subject next to High School English. If they'd only let us get away with addition and subtraction, maybe a bit of multiplication."

"Tell me about it," he agreed, "and I wasn't even very good at the simple stuff. Still have no idea how I graduated math class."

"Harrington charm?" Eddie asked with a small grin.

"On this one, I might have to agree with you," he replied. "How are you doing?"

"Would it be weird to say I feel kind of itchy?" Eddie replied, grin disappearing.

"Itchy how?" Steve asked.

"Like there's something under my skin," was the quiet answer. "All I can think is I'm remembering the bats."

"Yeah, this business has a way of messing with all of us," Steve agreed. "Robin called it PTSD, which stands for something, but she was rambling when she was telling me, and I didn't quite get it."

"Our Robs is a fountain of knowledge, but sometimes it does take her a while to get to the point," Eddie agreed, the grin coming back for a little bit. "How about you?"

"If I see another candy bar, I might hurl, but other than that, I'm doing fine," he replied.

"Fine as in really fine, or fine as in how you make your mom nervous?" Eddie checked.

"Really fine," Steve assured him. "I know the nosebleeds look gruesome, but mine are only little ones and I promise I am not pushing it too hard."

"Just remember, you aren't any more disposable than El and Will, okay?" Eddie said, leaning in close for a moment.

"Okay," he promised.

It was hard to explain how natural what he was doing felt. Throwing things around, going into the Void, that was difficult and not always pleasant, healing wasn't like that at all for him, even if his nose seemed to be making everyone else think otherwise.

"I think we've got it."

Dustin's voice dragged his attention away from Eddie.

"You've done it?" Hopper asked, walking over to the dining room table.

Steve hurried over so he could take a look at the mess of wires and bits of walkie and phone that were spread around. It was all Greek to him, but it did seem impressive.

"Yes," Mike said.

"We patched the walkie in to the cellular phone and then used..." Dustin began to say.

"Kid, I already know you lot are geniuses," Hopper interrupted. "All I need to know is, will it get through the jammer the insane colonel has set up."

"Yes," Dustin said.

"Great," Hopper replied.

"But," Dustin added.

Steve didn't like the sound of that.

"But what?" Hopper asked.

"But it's likely as soon as we put out the call, those outside will know," Gareth filled in quickly.

"Fu...dammit," Hopper said, summing up what Steve was thinking too.

"They will attack," El said without any doubt in her voice whatsoever.

"I know Owens has people on standby," Hopper revealed, much to Steve's surprise.

"About damn time," he heard Lucas mutter.

"But no matter how quickly they get the message, it will take them time to mobilise and get here," Hopper went on.

"We need to fortify our position and keep everyone safe," Wayne said in a very matter-of-fact tone.

From the expression on Hopper's face, Steve was pretty sure the two older men were on the same page.

"How can we fortify a living room?" Jeff asked, clearly incredulous.

"We're not trying to fight them off," Nancy spoke up. "We're just trying to hold out for a little while. El and Will, with Steve's help, can do a lot, and the rest of us can be ready if they get through."

"Could we take the fight to them?" Joyce asked.

"They'd pick us off," Hopper said with a shake of his head. "It's the armoured car that has me worried, they could drive it right through the front door."

"Then we take that out as soon as we send the call," Steve put his own thoughts in. "If we all move upstairs onto the landing, we have line of sight around the whole downstairs. We can find things to throw like with the Mind Flayer."

"What the hell is a Mind Flayer?"

Apparently, that was the limit for Frank.

"Upside Down monster we fought at Starcourt," Mike supplied without preamble. "We used fireworks. We don't have any fireworks."

"And fireworks would be a really bad idea," Dustin added as if it was an afterthought.

"Yeah, let's not burn the house down," Robin commented.

"I was more thinking of the nail gun in the garage, the weights I have out there too and things like that," Steve pointed out, trying not to roll his eyes.

Sometimes even geniuses could miss the point it seemed.

"They'll likely use gas grenades," Wayne said in a way that made Steve wonder what military experience the man had again.

"We can deal with those," El said simply.

"It's their guns I'm more worried about," Joyce said.

"We can deal with those too," Will replied. "They won't be expecting me at all, and they'll expect El to be cautious because of what happened to her at Starcourt and against Vecna, but she won't have to be thanks to Steve."

"Sorry I can't, well y'know, help with the defence," Steve said as a feeling of inadequacy bloomed in his chest.

"Steve," Joyce said, looking him square in the eye, "you keep El and Will from hurting themselves when the shit hits the fan, and you are helping more than I could ever ask."

He wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"Right," Hopper said, dragging everyone's attention back to him. "Everyone upstairs onto the landing. Find something solid to block the bars and hide behind. Is there any way out from up there?"

"We can get onto the roof from my bedroom window if we have to," Steve replied.

"Once we've fortified, we grab anything that might make a weapon," Hopper went on. "But I want to make this clear, we are holding out, not going on the offensive. Everyone's main job will be to stay down. Clear?"

Everyone nodded as Hopper met every single pair of eyes in the room.

"Okay, go," Hopper said, and they all went into action.

Steve ended up on the balcony to the side of the main stairs, with El and Will, and an old metal table between them and the wooden railing. He had one of the baseball bats, just in case, but he doubted he was going to be in a fit state to use it given his main task. Everyone else had their own positions and piles of things to use as projectiles. Eddie had placed himself a little further along the landing from Steve. Eddie had a pile of rocks from the ornamental plant in the hallway, and one of two slingshots Steve had completely forgotten he owned.

He vaguely remembered being obsessed with the things once many years ago, and he had had two because Tommy's mom wouldn't buy him one of his own. He was pretty sure his dad had confiscated them after an incident with a ball bearing and a car window. That they had been left lying around in a box in one of the garages was news to Steve.

Lucas had the other one since Lucas was a dab hand with the weapon.

Robin was with Nancy, who had been allocated the rifle and the small amount of ammunition to go with it. Robin had one of the other bats and had used the nail gun to augment it. She also had various tins from the kitchen cupboards.

Joyce had the actual nail gun as a weapon. The kids had various projectiles. Hopper had his gun. The Corroded Coffin guys had an assortment of things to throw and had divided themselves among the younger kids in a way that made Steve warm to them even more. Wayne was staying close to Eddie and had the third bat, as well as a host of heavy things to drop on people if necessary. Which just left Steve's mom, who had taken up a position on the balcony over the dining table with what looked like several of the good, heavy base pans from the kitchen and a few other less deadly items.

They were about as ready as they ever would be.

"Everyone know what to do?" Hopper asked.

"Stay out of sight, throw things if necessary," Erica spoke up for everyone.

"No heroics," Hopper said, meeting everyone's eyes again.

He clearly knew them all well.

"Good. El, get ready to take out the armoured car," Hopper said, "and Will, we'll need a scan."

Will nodded, heading into the nearest room with a view over the drive, sitting on the carpet and closing his eyes. El took up a position at the side of the window, out of sight of those outside. Steve stood behind them, a hand in each of theirs.

"Make the call," he heard Hopper say from the landing.

He was too focused on Will to take much else in once Will began to use his power in earnest, so he had to trust everyone else to keep things going. Time was very amorphous when he was healing, it was more about what he was doing than any standard measurement, so he had no idea how long it was before Will spoke.

"They know. El, now," Will said, voice reverberating through the connection Steve had with him, and El's power spiked down his spine, joining Will's.

His own answered it. He had no idea what El had chosen to do, but, even in his completely focussed state, but he still heard the resulting explosion.

"They're coming," Will said, only moments later.