When it finally started to get dark, Hopper made noises about heading home with El. He offered to stay, but Steve could see El was tired and he knew she slept better when she was home. However, before the pair left, Steve did catch El to talk to her about Eddie.

"Do you need to, y'know, do your thing with Eddie like you did with me?" he asked quietly.

To his surprised El smiled and shook her head.

"Only you looked really unsure earlier," he pointed out.

"But then I saw how you were with Eddie," she said winding her arms around him for a surprise hug. "You would know," she whispered in his ear.

And with that she was off to Hopper's side, and they were leaving. Steve closed the door after them and did his best to believe what El had told him. He wasn't used to being the one with any of the superpowers.

"So, bed?" he asked, walking back to where Eddie seemed partially awake on the couch and Robin was pushing around a couple of stray M&Ms on the coffee table.

"I get the wall," Robin said, standing up. "I am not falling out in the middle of the night."

"Then Eddie can have the middle and I'll take the oh so dangerous outside," Steve agreed and offered his hand to Eddie.

"So, we're like..?" Eddie kind of asked.

"All sharing Steve's bed," Robin said with her usual complete lack of tact. "Sleeping alone sucks after trauma, and today had trauma with a capital T. Well unless you really hate the idea," she added as she thought about it.

Eddie shook his head.

"No," he said looking between them both, "I don't hate it."

"Great," Steve said, giving Eddie a smile and pulling him upright as his offered hand was accepted. "Now how are you feeling about the stairs?"

"I can manage oh gallant knight," Eddie replied, "but thanks."

"I'll take that piggyback ride then," Robin decided and launched herself at Steve without any other warning.

"You're lucky I have the reflexes of a cat," he said, laughing as he caught her under the legs before she could slip right off again.

"Shouldn't that be bat?" she asked, clinging on around his neck.

"I will drop you," he warned.

"Yeah, Buckley," Eddie joined in, "we don't mention bats in this house, well unless they have nails in them."

It amazed Steve any of them could joke about it, but especially Eddie, who had literally only been out of the Upside Down for half a day. He followed Eddie up the stairs with Robin's chin digging into his shoulder and couldn't help wondering what was going through Eddie's head. What could it be like to know you were missing months of time, but still feel the terror of it anyway. And he knew there was terror, he'd felt it when dreaming of Eddie too many times.

He made a decision then. Eddie was never going to have to deal with anything like that again, not on his watch. Eddie was his to protect now, like Robin, like the kids, like Nancy. They might not have known each other well yet, but they had been into battle together. Steve would learn about his new friend as he had done with everyone else and there was nothing Eddie was going to be able to do about it. And if he was quickly developing a special place in his heart for Eddie, right next to Robin and Dustin, no one had to know but him.

"I know that look," Robin said after she'd used the bathroom and let Eddie go in next. "You've adopted another one, haven't you. No getting away now."

"Don't worry, Robs," he said, giving her a nudge with his arm, "no one's gonna replace you."

"I know," she replied with a grin, "that would be impossible."

Steve laughed and felt a little more of the tension of the day fall away. Nothing had quite gone how he expected, but in some ways it was better.

After he'd cleaned his teeth and used the bathroom it was time to settle down to get some sleep. Robin was scooched up against the wall, looking perfectly comfortable, and Eddie's eyelids were already drooping again, but the tension in his shoulders telegraphed quite how out of place he was feeling. It couldn't have been too bad, because Steve wasn't picking up anything before climbing in, but he could still tell.

"Just think of it as a sleepover," Robin said, thumping the pillow to get it just the way she wanted it.

"I've never been to a sleepover," Eddie protested. "And since when did you ever have a sleepover with two guys who could eat you without a second thought."

"I'm sure you're a gentleman," Robin replied, apparently completely unbothered. "And if you get peckish, just nibble on Steve, I'm sure he won't mind."

"Thanks, Robs," Steve said, making himself comfortable in the space left, "always knew I could count on you. Just so you know, Eddie, if Robin has a bad dream she flails, so beware of the elbows."

"Deadly weapons," Robin admitted, even as she turned over and snuggled down. "And Steve snores," she added for good measure.

"Shut up, Buckley," was Steve's response to that.

"You two are weird," Eddie said in a vaguely exasperated tone.

"We know," they replied as one, before both giggling like they were six.

It had been a very long mentally and physically exhausting day, but Steve refused to dwell on it. He needed to look after Eddie, so he locked all that shit away in another part of his brain, focusing on the good instead. Shifting slightly, he nudged his lower leg against Eddie's and let the other's presence settle in the back of his mind like he hoped his was doing for Eddie.

"That's cheating, Harrington," Eddie said, voice going heavy with sleep straight away.

"Sue me," was all he replied.

~*~

All those in the know had been told of Eddie's survival via Murray who had means of communication the government did not know about and could not monitor. Which neatly left out the suits for now. Even Hopper had agreed that they could wait. However, that left one very important person in Eddie's life who was still out of the loop. The government had set Wayne up in a small apartment, since the trailer park was half destroyed, and he'd been fobbed off with the same story as the rest of the town.

Hopper had taken it upon himself to make friends with Eddie's uncle, and Steve had tried a couple of times, but he'd been politely rejected. Wayne had let them help him move, including all of Eddie's stuff that had survived, but that was it.

Hence Steve was watching Eddie pace up and down his living room as they waited for Hopper to collect Wayne and bring him over. It had been anything but a settled night, although they had all managed some sleep at least. It had been unanimously decided that Wayne needed to know the truth, all of it. With everything that had happened, there was no way Eddie could maintain a close relationship with his uncle and Wayne not know what had been going on. Nancy was sitting on one of the couches with notes, since everyone also agreed that she was the most likely to tell it in a manner Wayne would understand.

Summer break was just around the corner, but it wasn't quite with them yet, so the kids and Robin were all at school, what with it being a Monday. The only reason Nancy wasn't was because she had insisted and it wasn't like her grades would suffer for missing one day.

When the sound of a car coming up the drive made it into the house, Eddie kind of froze. What Steve really wanted to do was hug his friend, but he was well aware that probably wouldn't help at this moment in time. They were standing just round the corner, so when Hopper opened the door that Steve had left on the latch, they were still hidden.

"What's this all about, Jim?" Wayne asked as he and Hopper walked in. "Why you brought me to the Harrington house?"

Eddie looked like he might bolt at any second, so Steve stepped around the corner.

"Hi, Mr Munson," he said, "please come in."

"It's like I said, Wayne," Hopper added, "there are some things you need to know."

Wayne stepped forward into the living room. He noticed Nancy first, but Steve saw him scan the room, before his eyes alighted on Eddie.

"Oh my lord," Wayne said. "Eddie? Oh ... Eddie."

There was no gap between Wayne's recognition and his reaction as he walked straight up to his nephew and dragged him into a rib creaking hug.

"My boy, my boy's alive," Wayne said, tears in his voice.

Tears prickled the back of Steve's eyes as he watched Eddie melt into the embrace. None of the rest of them moved, letting the two have their moment.

"Uncle Wayne," Eddie said, crying into Wayne's shoulder.

When Wayne finally pulled back, he took Eddie's face in his hands and Steve could only guess at the look that passed between the two.

"What happened, Kid?" Wayne asked, gently touching the scar on Eddie's cheek.

"That's what we're here to explain, Mr Munson," Nancy said. "It might take a while and involves a place called the Upside Down."

Wayne ended up on the couch next to Nancy, with Eddie beside him, while Steve and Hopper hovered close, backing up everything that Nancy was saying.

"So, these bat things, they attacked Eddie, and you just left him there?" Wayne said, glaring at Steve when they reached that part of the explanation.

"They thought I was dead, Wayne," Eddie tried to placate him.

"But you weren't, Kid, and they abandoned you," Wayne countered.

"I kind of was for a while," Eddie said in little more than a whisper.

Wayne turned to his nephew and Steve could see how frightened Eddie was, he could feel it.

"Mr Munson," he said, drawing Wayne's attention away from Eddie, "there was something different about the demobats, something none of us knew, that we'd never seen before. Their blood isn't like the other creatures we've encountered. When it gets into someone's system either through wounds or another way, it changes them."

When Wayne turned angry eyes on him, Steve let the otherness out.

"By all that is holy," Wayne said, shying away as his eyes went big and round.

Hopper walked over and placed his hand on Steve's shoulder.

"When Steve changed, he came to me," Hopper said. "That was two days ago. It was because of Steve we realised Eddie was still alive."

Wayne turned back to Eddie.

"I'm like Steve," Eddie said in barely a whisper, letting his eyes change colour, even though everything else remained human. "I died, but we think I was already changing so I came back. They came to get me, Uncle Wayne, even though the Upside Down is still crazy dangerous. Steve carried me home."

Steve let Wayne look for a while longer as the man stared at him, before allowing the differences to fade.

"You carried my boy out of that hell hole?" Wayne asked, looking him in the eye.

"Yes, Sir," Steve replied, "like I couldn't before. I'm so sorry it..."

Wayne held up his hand, so Steve shut his mouth. For what seemed like forever in the silence, Wayne sat there, hand finding Eddie's but not looking at Steve or his nephew.

"What I'm hearing," Wayne said eventually, looking back at Steve, "is you did what you could as soon as you knew. Can't ask for more than that."

That said, Wayne turned back to Eddie and dragged him into another hug.

"You'll always be my boy," Wayne said, which made Eddie cry all over again.

"So, about this Vecna character?" Wayne eventually asked, so Nancy continued the explanation to bring Wayne up to date on how dead Vecna was and how that had come about.

While they were discussing the final battle, Steve slipped into the kitchen, grabbed five beers that he wasn't supposed to have, and came back. Hopper didn't even bat an eye as Steve handed them round.