Chapter 15. Superpower Unlocked
"Harrington, you better wake up soon because I am bored as hell, and you know what trouble I get into when I'm bored."
The fact Steve climbed back to consciousness to hear the same voice he had been listening to when he left it, confused his slow thoughts for a while. At least Eddie didn't sound desperate anymore. He hadn't liked the broken edge in Eddie's voice the last time he had heard it.
Then his memory caught up and he remembered he had been the cause of that desperation.
"The kids are all going to descend on this room again any minute, and I can't fend them off by myself," Eddie rambled on. "Robin will be back in an hour or so, but until then I'm the last line of defence and it would be much easier if you'd get off your lazy butt and open your eyes. I'm not going to stand for it much longer."
"Sssh," Steve managed to whisper, "some of us are trying to sleep."
Making his eyes stay open for more than a second at a time was harder, but he was doing his best.
"Steve!"
Eddie's blurred face appeared in his line of vision, so he blinked a few more times to see if he could get it to come into focus.
"Hi," he said, and his throat felt like it had been sandblasted.
"Hi yourself," Eddie replied. "How are you feeling?"
He hadn't got that far in his mental reawakening, so Steve did a quick check, even moving slightly to find out.
"I don't hurt," he said, much to his own shock.
"Yeah, well, another superpower unlocked," Eddie told him. "Apparently, if we're really badly injured, we shut down to heal. The brains think that's what I did after I was attacked by the bats. But just in case you get any stupid ideas in your head, we are never testing that one out again. Got it?"
"Okay," he agreed, even though they both knew if it was ever one of them or the kids, it would definitely be them.
He lifted his hand and patted his face, checking what he already suspected.
"Why is there a tube up my nose and down my throat?" he asked.
"Feeding tube," Eddie said. "The more fuel we have the faster we heal, apparently. They've been pumping you full of everything you need."
At least that made sense.
Looking around the room, the first thing he noticed was there weren't any windows.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"Government lab, they apparently refurbished a lot more of Hawkins Labs then they were letting on to most people," Eddie told him in a surprisingly nonchalant tone, considering the twist it caused in Steve's stomach. "But don't worry, El has been saying jump and they've been asking how high. Love that kid the more I get to know her. Glad she's on our side. Man is she scary when she's annoyed."
"Yeah," Steve agreed, doing his very best to squash the panic rising in his chest.
The memory of metal bonds and electricity flashed into his head, the fear and the pain scorching through him as though they were real.
"Hey, hey, Steve."
Hands gently cupped both sides of his face as Eddie stared into his eyes.
"It's okay, you're safe," Eddie told him, firmly and calmly. "We let them bring you here because a normal hospital wouldn't have known what to do, but we won't leave you alone and we're taking you home as soon as you're strong enough. No one is going to be allowed to hurt you again, are we clear?"
Eddie's eyes flashed red as he said the last part and Steve had no choice but to believe him.
"Steve, talk to me," Eddie said, gaze searching his face. "Do you understand."
He nodded, even as his chest still felt tight.
"Hell, sweetheart," Eddie said, "for once we're going to keep you safe."
Eddie kissed him on the forehead before moving away a little. The moment Eddie wasn't in his personal space anymore, Steve felt bereft.
"Okay," was the best he could do, "sorry."
"No apologising," Eddie told him, taking his hand. "You haven't done anything wrong."
"Sorry," he said automatically.
"If you don't stop saying sorry," Eddie said, giving him a playful smile that almost reached his eyes, "I'm gonna climb up there and hug you so hard you can't say it, and I'll keep doing it and embarrass the hell out of you in front of the kids."
Steve felt tears stinging the back of his eyes as he tried very hard not to completely fall apart. He was used to being the strong one, holding it together in his role as protector, but he felt so broken. The hum of Eddie in the back of his brain wasn't enough as he struggled.
"Sorry," he said in a tiny little voice.
"Oh, Stevie, sweetheart," Eddie said, already moving. "All you had to do was ask."
Shucking off his jacket and shoes, Eddie climbed onto the bed. Steve moved to the side and let Eddie pull him close, wrapping strong arms around him. That's when the tears came. He couldn't stop them as everything came pouring out. The terror, the anger, the shame, they all mixed together in wracking, unstoppable sobs.
"I've got you, Stevie," Eddie whispered into his hair, "I've got you."
It was unpleasant crying with a tube up his nose, but it was cathartic, and Eddie held him tight. In the end he missed most of the consequences because it turned out he was still on the wrong side of exhausted and he slipped back into sleep in Eddie's arms.
~*~
When Steve woke a second time, there were familiar voices talking in excited whispers.
"Henderson, if you wake up Steve, I will personally spank you," Eddie said in a hushed tone.
"That's child abuse," Dustin replied, and Steve could hear the outrage.
He couldn't help smiling into Eddie's neck.
"I'd pay money to see that," he croaked quietly.
"Hey, Stevie," Eddie said, shifting a little, but not letting go, which Steve greatly appreciated, "welcome back. You sound like you could do with some water."
He nodded, his throat still felt like it had been grated and he'd cried, so it was even worse. Leaving the comfort of Eddie's arms was very low on his to-do list, but he was pretty sure drinking would not go well if he didn't. There was the sound of plastic hitting plastic, so he carefully pushed himself away from Eddie's side.
Blinking a couple of times as he sat up, he finally looked around the room.
"Hi," he said, voice almost disappearing entirely as he took in Dustin, El, Mike, and Lucas squashed onto two chairs and Robin standing up pouring him some water.
"Here you go, Dingus," Robin said, giving him a small smile that did nothing to hide her worry. "How are you feeling?"
"Thanks," he replied as he did his best to figure out an answer to her question.
He sipped the water as he thought about it.
"Better than expected," is what he chose to say.
That was when he noticed his pinky finger on his right hand, the one where his tormentors had extracted the claw to add to their specimen pile. It looked whole and undamaged. He flexed his fingers and forced out the claws, astonished when everything seemed perfectly normal. Shocked he ran his tongue carefully against the back of his teeth, lifting his hand to his mouth just to make sure of what he found.
"They grew back," he said in wonder. "They grew back in three days."
"Actually, they grew back in one," Eddie told him.
"Yeah, the rest of the time you were fixing the three really big holes in you," Robin said and gave him a glare, as if she was annoyed with him.
When she reached out and took his hand, he knew she didn't mean it.
"Never do that again," she told him firmly.
"I will do my very best," he promised and tried to ignore the prickling behind his eyes.
He refused to cry again after only waking up less than five minutes before.
"My turn," Robin said, giving Eddie a look.
"As my lady wishes," Eddie replied grandly, even as he went to climb off the bed.
Steve had to bite his lip to prevent himself making an embarrassing noise at the loss of contact. He didn't have to worry for long, however, because Robin insinuated herself into Eddie's previous spot and pulled him close. Eddie was kind enough to take the water from him, so he didn't spill it.
"Relax, Steve," Robin said gently, "we've got you. Dustin even wanted to make a rota."
He managed a small laugh at that, but it sounded kind of watery, even to him.
"At least I didn't want to colour code it," Dustin piped up. "You know if Nancy was here, she would have."
"This isn't the biggest bed," he said, letting himself rest in his best friend's embrace, "but I'm sure there's room for more."
Dustin didn't need telling twice, coming round to his other side. It was a bit of a squeeze, but El and Dustin ended up sitting on his right side with Lucas and Mike taking places on the end of the bed while Eddie watched them smiling fondly. Steve felt safe for the first time since two strangers had walked into Family Video.
"Okay," he said once everyone was comfortable, "tell me everything I missed. I want the whole story."
It was far easier to focus on what his found-family had done to get him back than what he had been going through. Laying there and letting Robin play with his hair, he listened as everyone began to tell their tale.
As it turned out, when it was an extreme situation, Steve was capable of sending actual mental images to Eddie rather than just impressions, which probably explained the dreams he'd been having of Eddie all those months. It seemed given the right impetus it worked outside the Upside Down too.
"Did you... while I..?" Steve had to ask when he heard the details about that.
"I got echoes while they had you," Eddie told him, "but nothing like when they first grabbed you. I got the impression you really wanted me to know that first time."
Relieved Eddie had not had to suffer with him, he nodded, but he couldn't find his voice to speak. He remembered all too clearly the desperation to make sure Eddie was not in danger too.
"And it turns out I do not react well to you being in danger and in pain," was Eddie's next comment on the matter. "Had to read in my guys because I went full vamp right in the middle of rehearsal."
"Gareth took out one of the Russians with drumsticks," Mike added, apparently impressed by that.
"Never knew he could be so aggressive," Eddie agreed. "He mentioned taking some self-defence classes since spring break, but I'm not sure drumsticks were in the curriculum."
"It's always the quiet ones you have to watch," Steve said while valiantly trying to keep his eyes open.
He was warm and safe, so it was hard.
"Owens was doing his best, but the government is full of bureaucrats," Dustin was saying when he zoned back in and realised he had drifted off for a little while. "We took one of his encrypted radios and got on the move before Eddie spontaneously combusted."
"The government can kiss my ass," Eddie said. "There was no time for forms in triplicate."
"We always have to do it ourselves," Mike concluded. "How did they miss another Russian base? Did they not look? Are they mouthbreathing morons?"
The kid's utter disgust made Steve smile.
"At least they showed up to finish everything," Lucas said. "There were more people there than we could have dealt with."
"They have their uses," El said with a nod. "We are much better at this than they are though."
And Steve couldn't disagree. However, that sent the conversation on a tangent that he was too sleepy to follow, and he drifted off again as Dustin and Mike debated which was the biggest disaster the government had managed in Hawkins to date.
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