THE CLOSEST THEATER JUST SO HAPPENED to be a showing of Back to the Future, the movie Amara had patiently waited to see for months, and it was under the direst of affairs. The cinema was so packed that Dustin could only locate a few empty seats on opposite ends of the front row. They hurried down the aisle as what looked like a scientist explained to another guy how something had occurred at 88 miles per hour, careful not to disturb the moviegoers who had the luxury of simply being there to watch a movie.

        "Okay, okay, okay," Dustin muttered to himself and the others upon reaching the front row. "Amara, you watch Steve; we'll keep an eye on Robin," he decided, determining that the best way to keep them out of more trouble than they'd already been through was to ensure that they looked out for both of their drugged friends. "I'll try and contact the others, and we'll leave once the movie's over. Got it?"

        "Got it," Amara nodded, pulling Steve down to sit despite his protests that the seats 'blew,' while Dustin and Erica ushered a giggling Robin across the row until they reached the other three seats. Amara would have preferred for them to all remain together even if some of them had to sit on the floor, but this was the best method for them to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

        "Popcorn?" Steve offered, his voice slightly muffled. His face was still battered and Amara had the urge to bandage him up even if he was still drugged. Taking care of Steve was something she'd grown accustomed to; nursing his wounds from his scuffle against Billy, consoling him when his dad refused to see the good in him, organizing a surprise graduation party with the kids to make up for his dismay at not getting into college. It was second nature to her by now – Amara wanted to continue taking care of him.

        She supposed that was how her feelings for him manifested themselves; not through intense longing or desire, but a natural instinct to look out for him just as he did for her.

        "Where'd you get that?" Amara inquired, eyeing the bag of popcorn warily. By now in the movie, the Libyan terrorists had unexpectedly shown up and were chasing after the main character (what was his name again? Mark?), who was trying to flee from them in the DeLorean.

        "The garbage. Duh," Steve chortled with a lopsided grin, scooping more popcorn into his mouth with little consideration for how contaminated it could be. "Want some?"

        Amara hesitated before reaching into the bag and taking a small handful. Sure, it had been in the garbage for who knew how long, but she had also gotten within five feet of an energy ray and handled a radioactive substance, and was still alive by some miracle. Plus she was starving, having not eaten anything in days, so she went with it. When it didn't taste half bad she had more, keen to satiate her hunger.

        Somewhere within his muddled brain, Steve recalled that this was the movie Amara had been so excited to see. He could barely keep up with the plot but took note of her evolving facial expression, from her laughter to her disappointment to her confusion. She looked so pretty, technicolor catching on the tips of her eyelashes and bathing her in an ethereal glow, but she'd turned away when he'd called her that earlier, hadn't she? With a heavy sigh, he refocused on the movie, consuming enough popcorn to work up a thirst.

        The minutes trickled by and Amara found herself enjoying Back to the Future as much as she could, reminded for the millionth time of why she was so enamored by science fiction. George McFly was wrong for spying on Lorraine in her opinion, but she couldn't help but root for him to win her over after Marty (not Mark) had inadvertently taken his place by saving him from an oncoming car. She especially loved the scene where Marty fashioned a skateboard out of a kid's toy cart resulting in a chase sequence that concluded with Biff Tannen and his cronies crashing into a manure truck, but not that it only caused Lorraine to fall harder for him and languish his chances of survival. It was the perfect blend of fantastical and realistic, very much akin to Amara's own life.

        It was only when Marty and Doc were going over a simulation of their plan to channel the energy from the upcoming lightning strike to send the former back to his time that Amara reached for more popcorn... only to find that the seat to her left was vacant.

        "Oh, you've gotta be kidding me," she muttered. Glancing to the far right of the front row, she saw that Dustin had returned, he and Erica conversing quietly amongst themselves while Robin gazed disinterestedly at the screen. A quick scan of the theater informed her that Steve was nowhere in sight, and she reprimanded herself for her foolishness. How could she have let herself believe that they were normal kids watching a movie when their lives were still at stake? Questioning just how much her love of sci-fi would cost her, Amara hastened out of the cinema to track down Steve before the Russians could.

        Finding him turned out to be far less difficult than she expected. He was hunkered over the communal water fountain outside the theater entrance, quenching the thirst he'd built up. Amara was tempted to gauge his attention and guide him back to the cinema, but she couldn't blame him for wanting to hydrate when she was very parched herself. And while Dustin had implied that none of them should leave the theater until the movie finished, he hadn't mentioned it out loud.

        "Steve."

        The boy in question jolted upon Amara's usage of his name but persisted in guzzling from the tap. His skin was flushed by now; she was aware that the effects of alcohol and drugs took hours to wear off but the Russians had ostensibly designed their narcotics with no regard for the well-being of their recipients. He clearly had a fever as a result and Amara wanted nothing more than to hold him and nurse him back to health... what was it about nearly losing Steve that made her more inclined than usual to look after him?

        She didn't have a definitive answer, but she supposed it had to do with the fact that she had been miraculous enough to avoid being anesthetized while he (and Robin) hadn't. And even then she understood that it was merely a symptom of a larger conundrum.

        "That's amazing," Steve gasped at no one in particular in the midst of his drinking, drops of water spilling onto his chin. He didn't seem likely to leave the water fountain anytime soon.

        "So... " Amara spoke, propping herself against the poster for Back to the Future. It was her first attempt at initiating conversation with Steve since their separation, and she didn't know what she could say that would get through to him in his current state. "What do you think of the movie?" she went with, a question not of the utmost importance.

        "It's alright," Steve mumbled, his voice still partially slurred. Amara counted herself lucky that she was able to obtain a response from him. "I didn't really understand it, though."

        "Well, from what I know, that guy Marty went back in time to when his parents were teenagers," Amara explained, hoping for the umpteenth time that she wasn't monologuing when Steve was probably more concerned with hydrating himself than her spiel. In reality, he thought she was very cute when she got passionate about something, not that he ever had the courage to mention it out loud. "But he saved his dad from the car crash that caused his parents to meet in the first place, so his mother fell for him instead and he has to find a way back to his time while also getting his parents to fall in love, and he also has to deal with Biff, who's a total Donald Trump knockoff – I'm rambling again, aren't I?"

        "Wait, wait," Steve disregarded Amara's comment at the end, momentarily ceasing drinking water. "You mean the real estate dude? From New York?"

        "Yeah," Amara shrugged. How Steve could ever tolerate the flaws that turned most people away was beyond her, and she regularly had to convince herself that he genuinely enjoyed her company, that he didn't just pity her. It was easier said than done, especially when she was often her worst critic. "It's kinda obvious."

        "And that chick was Alex P. Keaton's mom?" Steve queried, his hands clamped around the rim of the fountain.

        "It's Marty McFly, and yeah," Amara couldn't help but correct, mentally chiding herself for doing so not a second later. How was Steve supposed to know the difference between two movie characters when he could barely put one foot in front of the other at this point?

        "And she's interested in him... because he took the other guy's place?"

        "Not intentionally, but it seems so," Amara responded, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She caught sight of the big clock that had enabled her and Robin to crack the code to land them in so much peril. The hands happened to be facing west, but Amara was sure that the Russians were too preoccupied with hunting them down to execute any deliveries. Right, they still needed to hide before any of the guards encountered them. "Hey, we should probably head back soon."

        Steve finally resurfaced from the water fountain, his face speckled with water droplets. "Here, your turn," he offered, gesturing sluggishly at the tap.

        "Oh, thanks," Amara murmured, using the wall behind her as leverage to push herself to the fountain. As much as she wished to return to the theater before the others freaked out or they were caught, she acknowledged that she needed to hydrate just as much as Steve. Clear, cool water rushed down her throat and she became more awake with each gulp, tucking her hair behind her ears to prevent it from getting in contact with the water.

        "Hey, Amara," Steve mumbled from a few feet away. Casting a glance in his direction, she found that he was entranced by the fluorescent beams of light illuminating the mall. "You gotta check this out."

        "Huh?" Amara queried, following Steve's line of sight. Starcourt itself was a sensory overload of artificial lighting, but she couldn't comprehend what it was that made the ceiling so captivating to Steve when all she saw were the same blue overhead lights that permeated her vision at the end of every workday. Nevertheless, she vacated the fountain and made her way over to him.

        "Check this... " Steve motioned at the transparent roof with one quivering finger, his skin noticeably red and emanating heat. "This... The ceiling, it's beautiful."

        "Yeah, I guess," Amara replied. Steve couldn't peel his eyes away from the ceiling while she couldn't peel hers away from him, her worry for his health increasing every second that he swayed in place. She questioned what she'd be seeing if she was under the influence of the anesthetics still in Steve's system, if she would find the awning as enticing. But she wasn't drugged and therefore committed to watching over him as long as he needed her to, just as she knew he would with her if the roles were reversed.

        Steve suddenly froze in place, swallowing dryly (which Amara was only able to catch from how intently she'd been observing him). She remained a close distance from him, not wanting to touch him and cause him any additional discomfort. Because he definitely appeared irritated; on top of the discolorations the Russians had inflicted upon him, the side effects of the drugs were hitting him in full force. Dizzyness – that's what it was, why Steve had found the ceiling lights so alluring. They had only amplified his nausea and were culminating in the form of his body poised to reject them.

        "Steve? Steve, are you okay?" Amara panicked. It was a foolish question on all accounts when he was clearly not okay, but he still answered her by clutching his stomach and making a dash for the bathroom by the water fountain. Praying that the others were still clueless of their absence, Amara was quick to follow and at the very least provide Steve with a familiar face when the narcotics left his bloodstream.

AMARA WINCED AS STEVE emptied the contents of his stomach, fingers clenched around the rim of the toilet he was crouched over. She had taken care to close the door to the stall he was occupying to grant him privacy, not wanting to encroach upon his personal space when she had no indication of how he'd react. It gave her the chance to look in the mirror and finally see herself in the absence of the dim lighting of underground tunnels or technicolor projected across a silver screen.

        She looked like nothing less than a ghost. Her skin was pallid from a lack of sunlight, paired with bruised nebulae underneath sunken hazel irises that had lost their natural glow in light of the resurgence of the supernatural forces that had twice plagued her town. Her cheekbones were gaunt and more prominent than usual, her hair framing her face in an unruly tangle of honeyed waves. The sockets of her eyes were inflamed from sleep deprivation, and perhaps it was a trick of the light, but the scars from the Demogorgon two years previous were more prominent than ever on her clavicle.

        Just as the unabridged light of the bathroom exposed the blemishes on Amara's face, she felt as though they exposed her. Everything she'd momentarily buried away for the sake of protecting her friends came flooding back and she gripped the sink in hopes of grounding herself. Endangering a ten-year-old who was now acquainted with an evil no one her age should have to confront, leaving Steve and Robin behind to bear the wrath of the Russians, killing someone – it was all too much for her to handle, and to make matters worse she had no one to lean on for support in the process. As reluctant as she was to acknowledge it, she needed her friends more than she cared to admit, just as they had needed her at their most vulnerable.

        On top of that, they still had a gate to an alternate dimension they needed to close, again. The Russians were on high alert and Amara and her friends would be lucky enough just to flee the mall, let alone break back into the bunker. She had no insight as to whether Dustin had succeeded in reaching their other companions. And fuck, her parents could be back in town by now –

        An abrupt shattering of enamel beneath her fingertips snapped Amara out of what was probably festering into another emotional spiral. "Shit," she breathed, taking in the sight of the sink that was now partially detached from the wall. As if Amara didn't already have to contend with vicious Russians, drugged best friends, and the ongoing threat of a parallel dimension, she now had to deal with a broken sink...

        "You okay?" Steve inquired from the other side of the stall; Amara had been too wrapped up in her own mind to notice that he'd long stopped throwing up. He already sounded more like himself.

        Amara didn't understand Steve Harrington at times. Only he could hold off a horde of Russian guards, endure hours of torture, end up anesthetized, practically puke his guts out, and first ask how she was faring. He could nearly die as he did and still put her needs above his own. It made her feel so goddamn stupid – not because she had nearly lost Steve before she could tell him she liked him, but that she'd nearly lost him and was still questioning whether she was ready for a relationship. And that in turn made her feel even more stupid for thinking about that of all things when the world was ending once again.

        Maybe she was the problem. And not in the sense that she didn't see herself as a person of worth, which she finally did after years of absorbing everyone's preconceived opinions of her, but that no amount of newfound confidence could take away the fact that she was her greatest obstacle in trusting her judgment.

        "I'm as... okay as I can be right now," Amara went with. It wasn't exactly a lie, but she didn't want to cause Steve any excess worry when he was the one recovering from being drugged. She slumped to the floor and perched her chin atop her knees – the uncleanliness of the ground was the least of her concerns when she'd been encased in a Russian fortress for days. "Are you okay?"

        "My head's still foggy, my ribs are probably broken, and I can barely see out my left eye, but definitely better than before," came the reply. For Steve, the throbbing of his cranium was akin to a hangover, only it was dialed up to a thousand. Everything from when the Russians had injected the serum into his jugular to now was a hazy blur, but none of it brought him any solace. "Thanks for saving me, by the way."

        "Anytime. I wasn't just going to leave you behind," Amara stated, not wanting to envision what could have become of Steve and Robin had she and the others located them any later. But with the recollection of their bound forms came the doctor she had slain without a second thought. She'd killed indirectly before, but she had felt no guilt not only because the monsters she'd confronted weren't human, but because she hadn't been the one to deal the final blow. All it had taken her to plunge the cattle prod into the doctor's arm was the notion of Steve being injured more than he already was, and it terrified her.

        "Hey, we don't have to head back right away," she said instead, reflexively pushing her emotions aside for the sake of looking after Steve. She hated that after months of endeavoring to open up to others, it had taken a matter of hours for her to recede into her old habits. "If you threw up Robin's bound to as well."

        "I'd rather stay for a bit if that's okay," Steve professed. As intriguing as he had found Back to the Future he wasn't ready to re-enter a room bustling with noise and visual effects that would only exacerbate his migraine. Plus, he had a hunch that Amara had been through more than she was letting on. "Are you sure you're not alright?"

        "Steve, you've been tortured, drugged, and threw up only minutes ago and you're asking how I'm doing?" Amara questioned. She didn't want to lie to him but in her view, she hadn't been through half of what Steve had endured. How could she even think about her own emotions when he had nearly perished? They had both encountered numerous near-misses in their past escapades of monster fighting, but they had been together and relied upon each other to have the other's back. This time Steve had almost died, and she hadn't. Because she wasn't there with him.

        "Well you had to deal with me drugged, and from what I recall I didn't make things easy for you," Steve countered. Maybe it was his damn savior complex – he constantly felt like he needed to protect the people he cared about, and yet Amara was always the one to save him; from the Demodogs at the junkyard, from Billy, and now from the Russian bunker. Somebody had to step up to ensure he didn't lose himself to his own bravado, but Amara didn't need to be saved. She needed to be loved, and Steve comprehended that. "Please, Amara. Talk to me."

        "What do you want me to say, Steve?" Amara's voice broke mid-sentence, sick of the hold he had over her. Sick of how quickly she gave in to him when he wasn't the one who had the luxury to escape. Robin would've asked the same of her, but she was nowhere near as persistent. "That I thought I'd lost you? That I still don't know if we can make it out of here? That I can't even close my eyes without seeing that doctor I killed?"

        "Yeah, all of that," Steve affirmed, understanding her reasoning for not wanting to say anything. He too had a habit of running away from his problems and one such method was convincing himself that others had it worse than him. But if there was anything he'd learned in the last few years, it was that trauma was valid no matter the depth, and not worth comparing. "I'm sure you haven't had the chance to tell either of the gremlins that."

        "You're right, they've been too busy squabbling about My Little Pony," Amara remarked. Watching over the kids meant looking out for them first and dealing with their shenanigans; unlike her dynamics with people like Robin and Steve, babysitting wasn't a reciprocal business. "It just... it doesn't seem fair for you to have to worry about me when you were captured and I wasn't."

        "Who said we can't both worry about each other?" Steve reasoned, propping himself against the toilet. "How about this; you tell me what happened with you, and I'll tell you what happened with me, okay?"

        "That sounds fair," Amara mused, smoothing the knots out of her awry hair. "So... after we got separated, we had to crawl through the vents for about twelve hours, but there were these fans we had to power down. And of course Dustin and Erica were absolute menaces – don't tell them I said that, though," there was still a barrier between the two of them but Steve could visualize a hint of a smile on Amara's face. "After we got out we disagreed about whether to get help or not but Erica and I convinced Dustin we didn't have enough time. We caused a diversion by breaking a bunch of those vials, and then we found you guys and... " I killed someone.

        "You saved my life. You know that, right?" Steve broke the silence with a quiet whisper. "I thought I was gonna die down there, but you saved me."

        "That doesn't mean I should've killed that doctor," Amara disputed, screwing her eyes shut. "Just... tell me what happened on your end, please."

        "Okay," Steve murmured. He almost didn't want to divulge his account, fretting that Amara would discount her experience, but it was the least he owed to her. "They beat me up, which sucks because I actually won a fight this time, but it was because I told them not to do anything to Robin. Then they tied us up and we tried to escape but failed. Then they drugged us... and here I am," he was leaving out an important detail from before he and Robin were anesthetized, of the heart-to-heart that solidified their newfound friendship. "There's another thing, though," he said tentatively, wondering if it was within his right to mention.

        "What is it?" Amara inquired, automatically fearing the worst. That the Russians had done worse to Robin and Steve than physical blows and narcotics.

        "It's nothing bad, don't worry," Steve reassured her, sensing her fear. "It's, umm, Robin. She... uhh... she told me that she liked girls."

        Amara was taken aback. It was just a week ago that Robin would go out of her way to mock Steve for failing to score a date, fueled by her grudge against him for being the object of Tammy Thompson's affections, a week ago that she was still reluctant to make friends with him despite her insistence that he and Amara get together. But being on the brink of death in a Russian bunker had driven Robin to entrust Steve with her deepest secret, and Amara was grateful she had told her about him accepting her beforehand. If anyone was proof that people could learn the errors of their ways and evolve into a better version of themselves, it was Steve.

        "And... you accepted her, right?" Amara asked, cognizant that he likely had when taking into account Robin's garble in the elevator about opening up to Steve. Even so, she still wanted to be sure.

        "Yeah, I did," Steve confirmed. "I just can't believe she liked Tammy Thompson of all people."

        He was well aware of the other poignant segment of information Robin had mentioned minutes before they'd been drugged, of her insistence that he tell Amara he liked her if they were fortunate enough to break out of the fortress, which they had been. He had a golden opportunity to tell her now, but what if it wasn't the right time? After all, she was overwhelmed by everything they'd overcome, everything they still needed to go through to save the world. He could wait until after they'd closed the gate again, right?

        "I wondered that myself," Amara quipped, a smile finally gracing her features at who Steve had become. "During Mrs. Click's class she'd pass me notes ranting about you, which was kind of annoying since I was trying to pay attention. And don't even get me started on how much she would complain about your hair, even after I told her about how you saved us from the Demogorgon. After we became friends I tried convincing her that it wasn't your fault that Tammy didn't notice her, but she doesn't bend easily – I swear, she can be more stubborn than me sometimes. But it's nice to know you two are friends now."

        If Amara had at any point harbored any resentment for Steve inadvertently hurting her best friend he didn't care, not when his priority was maintaining the fleeting delight he evoked from her through his tolerance of an important fixture in their lives. As for Amara, she was half inclined to extinguish the metaphorical barricade between her and Steve and hold him and never let him go, but like clockwork, she got in the way again. Because she always did.

        "But yeah, that's actually how she and I became friends in the first place," she sighed, wondering if Robin had mentioned that to Steve, and if she had would he be irritated from hearing it again. "Neither of us had friends, both of us were labeled outcasts by society... we figured we should stick together. For a while we were both all the other had, because who else would want to be friends with people like us?"

        And just like that, any self-restraint Steve had for concealing his feelings for Amara for a few more hours vanished. "Why do you do that?" he couldn't help but query.

        Amara furrowed her eyebrows, bemused at Steve's abrupt shift in tone. "Do what?"

        "Always find a way to think badly of yourself," he elaborated, his voice a fraction quieter and, if Amara was guessing correctly, pained. How her nonchalant remark about how Steve already knew she had once viewed herself could have such an effect on him was beyond her. "Let how the world sees you affect you so much."

        "You know I was referring to a few years ago, right?" Amara rushed to explain, berating herself for making Steve think her outlook hadn't improved significantly since befriending him and Robin. "I don't think of myself that way anymore – not all the time, at least. I've been trying to get better, okay? I've been trying."

        "That's not what I meant – and I'm sorry for making it sound like I haven't noticed, because I have," Steve attempted to reassure her, his stomach knotting up at how much he was blowing this. The old Steve had no trouble wooing any girl he desired, but Amara wasn't just anyone, which he supposed made things more difficult because the last thing he wanted was for her to assume he didn't care about her. "But you still apologize for rambling or act like what you go through doesn't matter if others are suffering too – you still apologize for being you when you have people who admire you, people who'd be lost without you."

        Again, Amara already knew that. She knew that against all odds, she had a circle of individuals who treasured her even if most of them were unaware of her autism. The issue wasn't that she let society dictate her opinion of herself – which she still did to a lesser degree, but that the world was designed in such a way that it didn't meet the needs of individuals with neurological disorders, which in turn made it easier for non-disordered people to blame those different from them for being unable to fit in. And yet, hearing that affirmation from Steve made her heartbeat quicken spontaneously every time.

        "I mean, you're so smart," Steve continued, feeling somewhat more confident the more he spoke. "You helped crack that Russian code, and you remember where my car keys are more than I do, and I don't think I would've passed O'Donnell's class if it wasn't for you. And I don't know if Dustin's girlfriend's even real, but he told me it was your advice that helped him win her over. The kids adore you – I'm sure they're all worried about you right now. And you've been there for me so much these past few months, even when my parents haven't. I think what I really don't get is how everyone doesn't see that."

        It was everything Steve had asserted to Amara in various forms in the months that they'd been friends, everything he'd wished to remind her if he had one final chance to do so. But there was a desperation in his voice that Amara had never picked up on before, as if he was pleading for her to see herself the way he did. On occasion she suspected that he had constructed an idealized version of her in his mind, an Amara who could do no wrong, but that was just her black-and-white mind at it again. He cherished her wholly, flaws and all – he made her feel human, which could only indicate that he saw her as such.

        "I guess, what I'm trying to say in a very roundabout way is... " Steve drew in a breath, fingernails pressing indents into his palms. "I really like you, Amara. It's insane how much Dustin's been teasing me lately." Amara's heart rate practically flatlined and she bit down on her bottom lip before she could cut him off with haphazard ramblings about how foreign romantic relationships were to her. "But it's not like it matters, because I was once that douchebag you avoided and I can't blame you for remembering that. I don't even expect you to feel the same, but I just wanted you to know that I like you... because you're you."

        Amara felt like screaming – not at Steve, who had allowed himself to be more vulnerable than he ever had with her, but at herself for being so convinced that a relationship with him would be so different from what they already had when he clearly liked her for who she was. It was natural for her to be wary of dating someone when she had a difficult enough time trusting that her friends wouldn't abandon her, but she'd been friends with Steve for months and he'd never expressed any sign that he found her aggravating or a burden. She'd wasted so much time second-guessing things when perhaps being with him wasn't such a huge leap.

        "You good, 'Mara?" Steve had read Amara's silence as an indication that he shouldn't have said anything. "I didn't say too much, did I?"

        "No, you didn't," Amara mustered the courage to speak. "It was just... a lot to take in, y'know?"

        She knocked on the stall door and Steve pried it open, the two of them seeing each other for the first time since he was drugged. He moved aside so Amara could join him inside the cubicle; she scooted forward to sit across from him, finding great interest in her shoelaces. She noted, not for the first time, that her and Steve's shoes were the same shade of navy blue despite being different brands. For a beat, neither of them spoke.

        "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything," Steve was the first to articulate, also unable to look Amara in the eye. "I just – "

        "I like you too," Amara cut across him, and this time she didn't chastise herself for doing so. She outstretched her hand and interlocked their fingers, prompting Steve to make eye contact with her despite his shock at her confession. "I have for a while, I just didn't say anything because... I didn't know if I was ready."

        "Ready for what?" Steve queried, though he appeared visibly relaxed at the notion that Amara hadn't outright rejected him.

        "For a relationship," Amara elaborated, and Steve nodded in understanding. "It's all very new to me, but a lot of it was just me overthinking things like usual." She cracked a smile, but it quickly faded as she let her nerves get in the way again. "But you should know that I'm not like anyone you've been with before. I'm not great with silent communication, and I don't know what turns me on or if I'm even ready for that – "

        "You don't have to be," Steve reassured her, squeezing her hand and in turn quelling most of her anxiety. With his face marred with bruises from resisting the Russians, encased in a vulnerability she brought out of him, Amara didn't think he'd ever looked more beautiful. "I'm not in a hurry for anything, really."

        Maybe a relationship wouldn't change as much as Amara had thought it would. Maybe she and Steve could still watch their favorite movies and go on drives through town and be honest and open with one another. Maybe they weren't required to meet the textbook definition of lovers who looked the epitome of an ideal couple but lacked authenticity. Maybe they could just be Steve and Amara, and that was all there was to it.

        "I think I'm ready," Amara resolved, her voice taking on a more confident tone as she willed herself not to be in the way anymore. "Not for everything, but I'm ready to give it a go."

        "That's, uhh... that's good," Steve breathed, and the grin that extended across his face outshone the injuries there. He was so adorable, it made her melt. "That's really good."

        Amara giggled for the first time since their endeavor into the Russian bunker. The trauma was still there, but she could momentarily overlook it if it meant she could indulge in finally admitting her feelings to Steve, even if it had taken him divulging his first for her to come clean. A content realization rose to the forefront of her mind as she recalled one of their earlier conversations.

        "Whatever happened to 'show her you don't care?'"

        "Well if I remember correctly, pretending not to care isn't good for staying in relationships," Steve recited. He looked so proud of himself, but he had every right to be when he had come so far as a person. "So, uhh, what do you think?"

        "I think... " Amara murmured, absentmindedly toying with their twined fingers, "that Robin's gonna need to update her scoreboard."

        "Damn, I forgot about that thing," Steve chuckled, earning another ripple of laughter from Amara. The sound was so beautiful to him after days of being on the lookout for their survival that he joined in. Because God, they deserved to laugh after everything the Upside Down had thrown at them. They deserved to hold on to the last sliver of teenhood the supernatural realm hadn't stolen from them.

        Amara's laughter died down upon catching sight of a fleeting motion – the momentary yet unmistakable downward glance of Steve's eyes. He in turn fell silent, prepared to apologize when she had expressed to him that she wasn't ready for everything a relationship entailed. But he'd underestimated her, for her own optics were now fixed in a similar position to how his had been. Feeling like her heart would beat out of her chest but in the best possible way, Amara shuffled forward and connected their lips.

        It was awkward, there was no denying that. Steve still reeked of blood and the contents of his stomach – not that Amara smelled much better, they were cramped inside a bathroom stall with little room for movement, and they were both breathless with nerves, a mess of erratic heartbeats and fumbling hands. No first kiss in a mall bathroom after fleeing a Russian bunker would ever be magical or time-stopping, but there was no rule that it needed to be. To them, it was perfect and that was what mattered.

        Amara pulled away after a few seconds, her fingers lingering on the edge of Steve's jaw and a tentative smile adorning her features. He also made no move to remove his from her back, both perfectly content as they were. Oddly enough, it was Steve who shattered the moment.

        "God, I must stink," he muttered, shaking his head in disbelief that he hadn't thought to get another drink of water beforehand.

        "I mean, it's not like I've been able to brush my teeth these last few days," Amara reasoned, collecting a smear of blood from Steve's chin with her thumb. "Hell, I can't even remember the last time I showered."

        Before either of them could say anything else or better yet kiss again, the bathroom door burst open with such force it was nearly knocked off its hinges. Robin dove into the stall adjacent to them, too heaving the drugs out of her body. Amara rose to her feet and joined her best friend, bunching her sandy hair into a makeshift ponytail and tracing circles along her back. She had a sneaking suspicion that if it had taken Robin this long to leave the cinema Dustin and Erica had likely caught wind of their disappearance, but taking care of Robin was far more important to her than facing an irritated Dustin.

        Robin ceased throwing up and collapsed against the checkered wall, catching her breath as the effects of the drugs subsided. She cast a glance at the ceiling and Amara wondered if her queasiness had too been exacerbated by the ceiling lights. Either way, she was grateful that both Robin and Steve were back in their right minds.

        "If that's what being high is like," Robin gasped, swiping a hand across her mouth, "I'm never doing weed."

        Amara chuckled at the remark only her best friend could utter. "It's good to have you back, Robin," she smiled sincerely.

        "You can't be any happier than I am, those drugs were hellish," Robin bemoaned, stretching out her aching limbs. It was only then that she caught sight of Steve's outline in the next stall over, and she came to the conclusion that he had thrown up long before her. "Steve, you alright over there?" she queried, tapping one shoe against the wall.

        "Yeah, I'm good," came the reply. "Just figured I'd let you two... catch up or whatever."

        "Well, thanks for that," Robin snarked. She was smiling in such a manner that informed Amara that not only did she suspect that something had transpired between her and Steve, but that she was reaping the outcome of whatever role she had undoubtedly played. It made Amara simultaneously wish to strangle her and embrace her out of happiness; perhaps she was leaning more into the latter emotion, for Robin stated matter-of-factly, "You're glowing."

        Amara scrunched up her face in confusion. "I'm what?"

        "Glowing!" Robin repeated, half-laughing at her own phrasing and leading Amara to ponder if she was still the slightest bit high. "Something happened, didn't it? I'm the best matchmaker in the world!"

        "You sure it's not still in your system, Robin?" Steve called from where he was still sat, echoing Amara's introspections. "It'd have to be if you think Amara's glowing."

        "It's a metaphor, dingus," Robin droned, rolling her eyes. "Oh for heaven's sake, just get over here already!"

        "Okay, okay, jeez," Steve sighed. He slid beneath the stall, nearly knocking into Robin with his feet had she not moved aside in time. The boy raised himself so he was sitting across from her and Amara, the trio so closely packed together that none of them could move without bumping into the others, not that any of them cared in the slightest. "Happy now?"

        "Oh, I'm so happy," Robin gushed. That smirk just wouldn't wipe itself from her face, but she had been the one to give Steve the nudge he needed, after all. "It only took almost getting killed for you two to come to your senses. Unless I'm reading this whole situation wrong, and you utter morons still haven't admitted you're crazy about each other."

        "Don't worry, we have," Steve grinned, lacing his and Amara's fingers once again. "Not those exact words, but you get the point."

        "About damn time. I'm happy for you two," Robin beamed. She really looked happy, and not just because she'd succeeded in bringing her two friends together after months of unspoken tension. Like Amara, she had revealed a central part of her identity to Steve with the risk that he would reject her, but he hadn't. Both Robin and Amara, despite having different relationships with him, had proof in the form of Steve Harrington that the world wasn't completely against them. "Just... promise you won't third-wheel me, okay?"

        "Didn't even think about it," Amara pledged, clasping Robin's hand with her free one. She owed it not only to her but also Will, whose friends had abandoned him in favor of picnics under the sun and the taste of each other with little regard for his emotions. She wasn't about to let any honeymoon phase with Steve take precedence over her companions, not when they meant the world to her. "You're stuck with us."

        The door slammed open for the second time, causing the three of them to instinctively spring apart. As Amara had anticipated, Dustin was far from pleased, trailed by Erica who was sporting an expression more of confusion than vexation. Amara had never been intimidated by Dustin, but the scowl across his lips as he loomed over them had her shrinking against the wall.

        "Okay. What the hell?" Dustin snapped, directing his gaze to Amara, who he had entrusted to maintain a watchful eye on Steve. "Come on, Amara, how hard is it to watch Steve?"

        "That's exactly what I've been doing!" Amara retorted, her cheeks flushing amid her embarrassment. I've been watching over all of you for the past twenty-four hours, could I at least get a thank you? she wanted to add, but she refrained from doing so. Perhaps Dustin would be more empathetic if Robin or Steve relayed that message instead. "Why do you think I followed him when he left the theater?"

        "Yeah, but you weren't supposed to leave at all, it's not rocket science!" Dustin exclaimed hotly, apparently not comprehending that Steve and Robin would've thrown up in public had they not vacated the theater upon developing nausea from the drugs. "We could've been caught, again."

        "I'm sorry, man, I was busy!" Steve cut in before Dustin could overwhelm Amara any further, to which she smiled gratefully. He hesitated for a split-second too long before adding, " ...puking my guts out."

        "Among other things," Robin piped up with a smirk, only to flinch when Amara swatted her shoulder. "Ow! What was that for?"

        "You know!" Amara hissed.

        "'Among other things?' What... " Dustin furrowed his eyebrows, taking in the ever-so-visible tint of Steve's skin, Robin's triumphant grin, and Amara's inability to look anywhere other than the ground. He connected the dots in a way that Amara could never, and just like that all traces of anger vanished from his body, a smile similar to Robin's in its place. "Holy shit."

        "I'm sorry, what?" Erica interrogated, puzzled at Dustin's sudden change in emotion.

        "Holy shit!" Dustin cried once again, bouncing on the balls of his feet and waggling a finger in their direction. Amara couldn't help but chuckle at his reaction, wondering how he could possibly be more enthusiastic about her and Steve acting on their feelings than they themselves were. "I called it! I fucking called it! Literally all the way back on the train tracks – "

        "The train tracks?" Amara echoed, beyond surprised. She and Steve were barely even friends at that point in time – either she'd been blatantly oblivious to their chemistry or Dustin was exaggerating things, but she nevertheless felt the tension leave her body as Dustin relished in their union.

        "Are any of you nerds going to tell me what the hell you're talking about?" Erica probed, glancing inquisitively at Dustin. And like the obnoxious shithead he was, instead of stating the simple fact that Steve and Amara were now together, he ruffled her head and earned himself a grimace.

        "I'll tell you when you're older, nerd."

published to quotev: 2/17/23
published to wattpad: 11/23/24

AUTHOR'S NOTE

*screams*

the chapter title was a total giveaway and i have no regrets,,, at least until all the new readers skip the whole book just to read this

seriously though, this has been a long time coming! i get that the bathroom confession/first kiss is a very common trope in stranger things fanfics, but i always envisioned steve and amara's first kiss to be somewhat awkward and having it take place in the bathroom was the perfect setting to me! thanks to everyone who waited months for this scene, i hope i was able to deliver!

also, my political junkie self couldn't resist adding in that trump easter egg,,, these poor kids have no idea what they'll be dealing with in 30 years lol

lots of love,

lydia