one thing you learn living in new york: you literally never know what's going to happen the next day. it's become a general rule of thumb to expect the unexpected, so to speak.

despite this, when the avengers get reports of iron man flying in circles over queens, growing more frantic by the second, they're confused. mainly because they're currently sat at a table with tony stark himself. and, according to his ai, the suit that's out causing mayhem is still securely stored downstairs.

they all head out to see what the hell is going on. they meet with strange on the way, who mutters something about inter-dimensional disturbances and whatnot.

spider-man gets to the scene just before them. the second iron man visibly freezes when he spots him in his red and blue glory. "mr. stark?" they hear him ask. they see as he turns and spots them, and then does a double take. "what's going on?"

"underoos!" real tony calls, nervous, at the same time as the other one spots them, and then lurches forward to all but manhandle peter behind him.

the avengers all tense, readying for a fight. fake tony raises a repulsor. "i just want the kid. i don't want to fight."

"you don't belong here." strange says, infuriatingly calm. "i don't know how you got here, but you need to go home." fake tony nods. strange adds, "you can't take him with you." which earns him a rather mean blast. luckily, he ducks out of the way.

the poor kid is whipping his head back and forth, clearly confused. tony's stomach twists unhappily. "you don't understand," fake tony hisses, "all the work it took to get here. i'm not going home without him."

"you have to." strange takes a step forward, "you can't transport him between universes. it's not viable." the lenses on peter's suit widen, and he looks at the fake tony.

"he's from another universe?" steve asks, disbelieving. strange nods, and opens his mouth to say something more, but is cut off by the other-universe tony. he removes his faceplate, revealing a tony stark that is far more haggard than anyone had ever seen before. he's thinner, his eyes are darker, pleading. he looks like a man who's lost everything.

tony looks to peter, who's still staring, wide-eyed. he can see the gears in his head moving but can't decipher why.

"you dimension hopped to kidnap the kid?" tony asks, a little unfocused. the kid was in danger, and it was all he could think about. "why?" peter turns to him, then back to tony number two. he gasps as something apparently clicks in his brain.

he steps forwards, rounds the other-universe tony and stands in front of him. he instantly lowers the repulsor. "because i'm dead." peter says, confidently.

everyone pauses. they look at the spider like he's gone insane, because he clearly isn't dead, not anymore, at least. but other-universe tony looks like he's had the wind knocked out of him. "pete-"

peter deactivates his mask. "right?" he asks. other-universe tony frantically looks over his face.

"it's my fault." he says, softly. "i'm so sorry. i'm sorry, pete. i'm-"

"come out of the suit."

other-universe tony pauses. "what?"

"come out here, please." peter asks again. other-universe tony does as he asks, stumbling out and immediately into the open and waiting arms of the baby spider. it seems to break him, the embrace; all at once he loses any trace of intimdation and anger and sobs, curling around the boy as much as he can. peter seems unphased, unlike the other heroes, and shushes him. "it's okay, mr. stark. it's not your fault," he murmurs soothingly, only reaching their ears due to the intercom on his suit. "it was never your fault. i chose this, i chose to come up there. i didn't regret it for a second."

other-universe tony heaves. "i was supposed to protect you. i failed. i failed and you're gone and you were so scared and i couldn't do anything-"

"you're wrong," peter soothes, and it's a weird image. the child comforting the adult. "if he was anything like me, then-" for a second, his eyes cut back to this-universe tony. "then he was glad you were there when he was dying. you made him feel safer. it would've been so much worse without you."

and then it all clicks for tony. this was a version of him from a world post-snap, who'd watched a kid he considered his own fade to dust in his arms. who sat in his own guilt, and shame, and loneliness. he knew the feeling all too well, and this tony had crossed dimensions to try and get his kid back in any way possible.

if it were for anyone but peter parker, this tony would've said it was a little dramatic.

he's sent home eventually, the other tony, after some more comforts and a not so subtle hint as to how they got everyone back after the snap, much to strange's dismay. later, real tony sits in the lab, watching peter from across a table, and he asks, "how'd you figure it out?"

"figure what out, mr. stark?"

"why that other me was here." peters looks up from whatever he's tinkering with. frowns.

"well, you invented time travel to get me back," he says. "why would you stop before dimension travel? it just made the most sense." tony has half a mind to argue, but one look at his lab: a midtown high hoodie draped over the back of a chair, a teenager's backpack in the corner, a seperated table with it's own organisational pattern and piles of blueprints, a report card pinned to a board, and a spiderman charm hanging from dum-e, he figures the kid is right.

"yeah, well, i love you a little too damn much then, don't i?" he doesn't think about the words before he says them. he's felt it for so long it feels like a second instinct.

luckily he gets no time to panic. because peter immediately lights up, says, "i love you too." and gets back to work.

damn kid.

It's a reoccurring pattern with Steve, getting come out to and then instantly shitting on the person's taste in people.

Robin comes out to him and tells him she liked Tammy 'The Muppet' Thompson and Steve immediately jumps onto making fun of her because obviously, he will. She sounds like a goddamn muppet! Robin may deny it, but he knows she knows he's right. And he never lets her forget it.

After the Byers family moves back to Hawkins, Steve gets closer to the Byer-Hopper twins (Not bloody related twins, but with how similar they are they might as well be). He takes note of the way Will carries himself, the way he stares at Micheal Asshole Wheeler of all people when he thinks no one is looking.

The kid doesn't come out that quickly, so with Robin's advice, Steve takes his time, making it known how okay he was with Will's sexuality, even if he did have standards low enough to beat Robin's terrible Tammy Thompson taste (He says this to her and she reacts as predictably as ever- by throwing something at him).

When Will does come out to him, Steve makes sure he only freezes for a literal second, not wanting the kid to panic like he'd seen Robin do back then. Of course, as soon as he's done comforting and reassuring the kid that he's completely fine with him being gay, he immediately jumps onto making fun of his terrible crush on Mike, finding great joy in the bright blush burning the teen's face.

The next time someone comes out to him, he's more caught off guard than he was with Robin.

Not because he was shocked that Eddie liked guys, no. He might be stereotyping a little, but no straight guy goes that close to another man and calls him Big Boy all low and seductively, a teasing grin curling his lips, a glint in his eyes-

You get the point.

The reason why he's shocked is because Eddie comes out to him, and when Steve asks about crushes, Eddie says,

"Oh, I had the worst crush on you in high school."

Steve sits there, his jaw practically on the ground. The way Eddie says it, all casual, not caring about the consequences or the effect it has on Steve.

"Wh- I- Me?" He stammered out, incredulous. "Dude, I was the biggest asshole back then!"

Eddie chuckles at that, a low sound that sends further heat into Steve's already flushed body. "The me back then did not give a shit, let me tell you that man." He turns to Steve then, giving him a slow look, a gaze more like, and smirks. "I certainly understood why the ladies were so desperate for you and your gorgeous locks."

His heart is pounding like crazy, an audible thump in his ears. Thoughts race in his head, one after the other, all jumbled up until what comes out of Steve's mouth next is,

"So what, you've got a thing for douchebags? Seriously?"

Eddie shoots him another look, more confused than ever. "What?"

"You heard me," Steve says, feeling the next words come out of his mouth like a waterfall. "I was a huge asshole in high school dude. How the hell did you have a crush on me back then? Did you seriously have no standards? You'd really stoop that low just because I had nice hair? I have good hair, and I'm nice now! What's stopping you from-"

Steve cuts himself off with an audible clack of his teeth, a sound that most often comes from Robin when she shuts herself up.

Goddamnit Robin.

Eddie is staring at him with wide eyes, the cigarette between his fingers burning away. Steve wants to watch the smoke curl away, but he's too transfixed on Eddie's doe-like gaze.

Then Eddie's features smooth over, a terrible, terrible grin curling its way onto his lips, deepening that dimple on his cheeks. He leans forward eyes lidded just slightly, and says,

"What's stopping me from what, sweetheart?"

part 2 of this post more autistic steve <3 now w autistic mike <3 also on ao3

Not much changes after it all. 

Nobody notices when they’re all together. 

Nobody notices the way Eddie’s eyes seem to get stuck on Steve’s face, on his hair and his neck and his hands, and it kind of makes sense when Eddie remembers that nobody notices the way Steve’s mood shifts when it gets too loud. They also don’t notice the way Eddie’s fingers linger on Steve’s when they greet each other, or the way Steve traces a teasing line over Eddie’s back when no one is looking. 

Eddie doesn’t really know why they haven’t told anyone. He knows they wouldn’t have a problem with it, with SteveandEddie. Hell, he’s pretty sure Robin has a crush on Nancy, and he’s fairly positive Argyle isn’t 100% straight. (And he’s starting to wonder about Mike. He hasn’t said anything, of course, but he’s a little too much like Eddie was when he was his age for him to not think anything of it.) 

needed to project on steve so have this cw: overstimulation; meltdown; self-hitting; referenced child neglect also on ao3

Eddie isn't Steve's friend. Not really. They have something between them, just like Eddie does with Robin, with Nancy, with Erica fucking Sinclair. Trauma bonding and whatever.

But Eddie doesn't really have an excuse for the way he's noticed things about him. The way he holds his own neck when he's listening to people talk, when he's focussing on something. The way he pushes his hair back by running his fingers through it and smoothing it to the side. The way he furrows his brows when he's paying attention to someone, the way his expression relaxes when he zones out, which is often, and also not something Eddie should have noticed. The way he taps his fingers on any given surface, almost the same as the Gareth taps rhythms of songs he's learning on the drums. (Somehow Steve's tapping is less annoying.)

Eddie's noticed the way he bites the skin off his lip, and the way he presses the back of his hand to it when it starts to bleed. He's noticed the way he drifts off during movie nights, his head usually resting on Robin's shoulder as he dozes. (And he falls asleep awfully quickly, even if the movie is loud or suspenseful or if the others are all talking.)

And he's noticed that Steve doesn't like noise. His expression pinches when they have D&D at his house, as he brings in snacks and sodas. His brows furrow a little bit, and he winces, squinting a little bit as he goes around the room, as everyone shouts over each other and laughs and slams on the table. But he never says anything, never tells them to be quiet. He shoots Eddie these... looks, when Eddie tells them to quiet down. Eddie can't quite read these looks, but he doesn't mind.

‘Your Touch’

Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x female solider reader 

- Callsign; Taryn (meaning Thunder)

Summary; Who knew that the soldier with the callsign Taryn was actually afraid of the thunder? Maybe it’s loud claps shook her to her core instead of speaking to her? Ghost notices this, and decides to make a move on it.

Warnings: it’s really short but it’s lovely believe me. I’m terrified of thunderstorms so I thought I’d do something about it as I’m going through one right now! It’s mostly fluffy.. enjoy ;)🌻

Simon Riley >>>>

A FRESH START [22]

[a/n: i was forced to shorten the taglist for the sake of my sanity. tumblr won't let me post with more than certain number. I think that's why I've had the hardest time with this shit. I made it a first come, first served so if your username got dropped I am so so so sorry but that's why.]

#22: LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

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"i find my place in between your arms, in between your tender kisses and soft whispers of 'it will be alright', in between the warmth of your embrace, and the scent of your neck, and the fierceness of your touch, i find my place lost inside your soul." -Hearts and Empires

.

Din was immensely proud of your skills as a physician. However, if you didn’t get your ass out of the damn medic tent he was going to throw you over his shoulder and carry you home forcibly. More than anything, you needed rest. He wasn’t able to convince you to stop working and because the medical aid had yet to arrive no one else sided with him on these matters. Karga had the nerve to tell him to calm down. Din had nearly wrung the High Magistrate’s neck. 

A FRESH START [21]

[a/n: i am so sorry this took so long i know y'all have been waiting all day for it. work was so hectic and i was so frazzled and it's been a long day hah. i know the tags at the bottom aren't all working right and i'm sorry about that but tumblr kept being a bitch and i was gonna lose my mind. speaking of taglists, i am closing AFS's taglist. anyways, hope y'all enjoy!]

#21: MADE OF THE RIGHT STUFF

.

"no one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear." -c.s. lewis

.

The Armorer had been a constant in Din’s life. She was a staple piece of the covert⏤ a figure of mentor ship in his upbringing. He had always greatly admired her, and her opinion meant a lot to him. It was why hearing her call him ‘Apostate’ had stung so badly. Coming from anyone it was a blow, but having the Armorer cast him away had been devastating. Being able to come before her, prove his redemption, and have her reinstate him had been a  sweet moment. If Din were a smart man he would’ve left it at that and been on his way. However, Din was a stubborn man. A stubborn man who would not leave this rock until he got what he wanted come hell or high water.

i need someone to tell me to "c'mere" and pull me into their lap

No Questions Asked

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Enhanced!Reader

Summary: Steve Rogers loved you gently, but Captain America treated you like a soldier. You learned the dangers of that dichotomy when his orders became too hard to follow. 

Word count: 4.8k

Warnings: Canon level violence, descriptions of injury, angst, Steve being a bad listener

a/n: Tiny break from ftlotg oneshots! First time writing for Steve :) 

I discontinued my taglist, but you can follow my library blog @pellucid-library​ for notifications 🤍

Masterlist

Steve Rogers loved you gently. 

He whispered in your ear when the kitchen got crowded, morning sunlight pouring into the Avengers Tower. Short and sweet. Just to tell you he loved you—in case you forgot. His hands would be fleeting on your waist as Tony yelled at you to get a room, and the coffee he made you would taste even sweeter on your lips. 

He let you drag him to that farmers market on the other side of town, carrying the baskets full of produce and armfuls of flowers you fawned over. It would be easy for him to tell you it was unnecessary; Tony had people for grocery shopping. But he loved you, and he loved the way you looked in the Sunday morning breeze. 

Keep reading

Divine Retribution

Pairing: Bucky x reader

Summary: Nobody touches Bucky’s girl. He was going to make that very clear.

Word count: 3.2k

Warnings: Canon level violence, language 

a/n: This is based off this request from @lafleaurie! 

Masterlist

The leaky pipe in the left corner of the room was your only hint as to your whereabouts. It dripped every 47 seconds and it sounded like there was a pretty large puddle amassing. That meant you’d been there… awhile. Normally, you wouldn’t need to resort to counting water droplets to tell the time, but with a scratchy blindfold obscuring your vision and your hands rendered useless by thick metal bars, desperate times called for desperate measures. 

You knew you were somewhere in Italy. At least, that’s where you were supposed to be. You and Bucky had been given a recon mission in Sicily to scout out arms dealers within the mafia. The Avengers tended to stay out of mafia business, but when they began to formulate weapons from old Hydra blueprints, the case quickly landed on Tony’s desk. And then Tony quickly handed it off to you. 

This was meant to be Bucky’s first mission back after a long stint of recovery. There had been far more hostiles on his last solo operation than expected, leaving him outnumbered and under armed. He had walked off the jet upon his return, battered and bruised from head to toe with his left arm hanging from his shoulder at an odd angle. Even with his advanced healing, it took him a month to fully recover. Needless to say, you were a little overprotective after that. 

Keep reading

A Touch of Ink Masterlist

Status: Complete

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Chapters: 10/10

Summary: After a breakup with your ex, you decided to move to the small town where your long-time friend Sam lives, hoping for a change of pace and starting a new chapter in your life. You were prepared for a slower paced lifestyle, quaint diners, and a change of scenery. However, you didn’t expect to be swept off your feet by two stunning pairs of blue-grey eyes.

Warnings: Lots of fluff, tooth-rotting fluff, a bit of angst, and more fluff

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Sequel Series Of Love and Ink

a safe haven | j. miller series

pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

series summary // When Joel and Ellie make their return back to Jackson, Wyoming to begin a new life, the last thing Joel expects is to catch the eye of the community's veterinarian. Young, beautiful, and married, you are exactly the type of woman that he should stay away from, but Joel can't help but be drawn to you like a moth to a flame. As you grow closer to both Joel and Ellie, you begin to learn all about the secrets they both carry—and they find out that you've been hiding a few secrets of your own.

supporting character face claims

** chapters containing smut

chapter one - sun to me

chapter two - dancing in the moonlight

chapter three - can’t help falling in love

drabble - the truth

chapter four - treacherous

chapter five - wildfire**

drabble- jealousy

chapter six - butterflies // part 1** l part 2 (coming soon)

extras

Joel x Peach Moodboard made by the lovely @johnwatsn

pains (drabble request)

Stormy Skies

Pairing: Din Djarin x Reader (no pronouns used I think)

Category: friends to lovers

Summary: Din breaks you out of an Imperial prison (loosely based on chapter 15).

Warnings: angst, fluff, touched-starved Din, helmet is off, prison, nasty guards, restraints, bad men, talks of death, separation, loose implication of what bad men can do, pet names (cyar’ika), canon-divergence (I guess??), when I say loosely based I mean very loosely based

Word count: 5.5k

A/N: Sad, brown-eyed, pathetic love of my life. (He's not pathetic but I’ll make him pathetic.) Din is slightly out of character but only because he's head over heels in love and feeling all soft and squishy inside about it. He's also a little insecure. Poor guy. It's purposefully ambiguous about how long reader has been imprisoned, so guess however long you'd like.

Consider buying me a coffee :)

It took three weeks, four days, sixteen hours and twenty two minutes before you realised that the inside of this Imperial prison would be the only thing you saw for the foreseeable future. The three walls and one row of bars now being your home. After that you resigned yourself to the idea that you'd be there forever so you stopped counting the days, the weeks, the... months? You didn't know how long you'd been there and you didn't want to know how long either.

All you knew is that you wanted to leave. Not because you were scared of death or scared of never seeing the outside world again. But because you missed two very important people in your life. The big, scary Mandalorian who had hired you just under a year ago as his mechanic and his strange green son who had weird superpowers who you sometimes babysat. The both of them meant the world to you and the idea of never seeing them again hurt you. You feared for the child's life as he had also been taken at the same time as you but had been imprisoned elsewhere, probably to be experimented on. And you feared for the state of your Mandalorian who would be lost without his kid.

Back To You (Din x Reader) - Masterlist

Din x Reader

Rating: T (currently, and probably won’t go much past that) Friends to Lovers

Synopsis: You’ve been friends with Mando for years, and he drops by your hole in the wall bar from time to time to catch up. This time, however, he’s carrying an extra little green passenger with him. They are on the run, which is unsettling because Mando doesn’t run from things. Things run from him. A tracking fob, a dead body, and a confession later, all three of you set out to help the child find it’s kind. (Aka: a really typical Din x Force Sensitive reader plot, but instead of the going from stiff scary Mando to friendly Mando it’s gonna kinda go the opposite way. Not in a bad way but she’s gonna finally get to see what exactly he was running from all those times he came back to see her.)

Part 1 

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Part 16

Part 17

Part 18

Part 19

Part 20

TBD….

|||| Drabbles ||||

Dincember 2022 Masterlist

|||| Artwork ||||

Commission by the lovely @aesnawan​​!!!

Back To You Playlist (These Idiots Mix)

Back To You Playlist (Story Mix)

Want to be on my tag list? This post explains how to sign up so I can keep it organized!

Eddie is so hardcore with the pet names and Steve doesn’t know how to handle it.

Becuase no one’s ever called him the sweet names and terms of endearment. Tbh was always his job.

It’s the morning after Steve’s stayed the night the first time, and he’s making breakfast in the tight trailer kitchen one morning and Eddie gently moves him forward with soft hands on his back, with a kiss to his shoulder as he scoots behind him to refill his coffee cup.

“ ‘Scuse me baby love” me mutters, still pretty much asleep and not really aware of the effect he’s having on Steve. (Steve is ready to scream). Steve blushes, a little light headed the rest of the time he’s cooking.

And then there’s that time Eddie offered to just change Steve’s oil for him because ‘it’s really not that hard why pay $20 when I can just do it’ and Steve insisted he’d feel too bad. So eddie countered “fine, then you can help me if that makes it better”.

And while Steve’s sitting on the porch of the trailer being absolutely fucking useless -because of corse Eddie wasn’t gonna actually let him help he wouldn’t know how to be good for shit with cars anyway- Eddie suddenly called out “hey sweetheart? Can you go grab me a glass of water?”

And of corse Steve can do that he can do literally anything eddie asks in that tone. And does sweetheart give him a head rush? Yeah. But it’s what happens after that really gets him fucked up.

“Thank you pretty boy, you’re a life saver” Eddie grins, leaning over- careful to avoid getting any oil on Steve- and pressing a kiss to his cheek. And Steve keeps playing those words in his head for weeks. Pretty boy

And then there’s the honey boy incident. Steve can never get over that one. Fucking hell, honey boy. Where does eddie get these ideas from?

And then there had been that time steve was picking up the kids from hellfire, but apparently they’d decided to go play a game of manhunt in the time since eddie cut them loose from their journey and then Steve arrived.

And fuck, no way in hell was Steve going to rush the kids. Not when they were finally relaxed and safe enough to just be kids for once. So while leaving against the Beamer he was greeted by a grinning eddie.

“Hey baby boy, to what do I owe the pleasure?” He practically fucking purred, coming in close to Steve’s personal space- Eddie’s favorite place to be. And Steve’s favorite place for Eddie to be. Eddie knew damn well Steve was getting the kids today. Like every day he spent chauffeuring the kids or Robin around. And Eddie knew damn well those kids were off in the woods being assholes. And knew damn well he had some free time to flirt with his boyfriend because Steve would never take away these kinds of memories from his kids. So yeah he wanted to lay it on thick.

But baby boy? Steve was going to explode. So simple but so overwhelming.

“You can’t keep doing this to me”. It came out way whinier than Steve had wanted it to.

“Can’t keep doing what?” “Calling me those names! It’s embarassing!”

Eddie just grinned brighter.

“Is it embarrassing? Because it seems like you like it a lot. The way you blush, the way you sit there and babble after trying to get your brain to work again-“

“I do not-“ “oh baby you always do. You love it when I call you pretty names. Just admit it and I’ll never stop”

Eddie is so hardcore with the pet names and Steve doesn’t know how to handle it.

Becuase no one’s ever called him the sweet names and terms of endearment. Tbh was always his job.

It’s the morning after Steve’s stayed the night the first time, and he’s making breakfast in the tight trailer kitchen one morning and Eddie gently moves him forward with soft hands on his back, with a kiss to his shoulder as he scoots behind him to refill his coffee cup.

“ ‘Scuse me baby love” me mutters, still pretty much asleep and not really aware of the effect he’s having on Steve. (Steve is ready to scream). Steve blushes, a little light headed the rest of the time he’s cooking.

And then there’s that time Eddie offered to just change Steve’s oil for him because ‘it’s really not that hard why pay $20 when I can just do it’ and Steve insisted he’d feel too bad. So eddie countered “fine, then you can help me if that makes it better”.

And while Steve’s sitting on the porch of the trailer being absolutely fucking useless -because of corse Eddie wasn’t gonna actually let him help he wouldn’t know how to be good for shit with cars anyway- Eddie suddenly called out “hey sweetheart? Can you go grab me a glass of water?”

And of corse Steve can do that he can do literally anything eddie asks in that tone. And does sweetheart give him a head rush? Yeah. But it’s what happens after that really gets him fucked up.

“Thank you pretty boy, you’re a life saver” Eddie grins, leaning over- careful to avoid getting any oil on Steve- and pressing a kiss to his cheek. And Steve keeps playing those words in his head for weeks. Pretty boy

And then there’s the honey boy incident. Steve can never get over that one. Fucking hell, honey boy. Where does eddie get these ideas from?

And then there had been that time steve was picking up the kids from hellfire, but apparently they’d decided to go play a game of manhunt in the time since eddie cut them loose from their journey and then Steve arrived.

And fuck, no way in hell was Steve going to rush the kids. Not when they were finally relaxed and safe enough to just be kids for once. So while leaving against the Beamer he was greeted by a grinning eddie.

“Hey baby boy, to what do I owe the pleasure?” He practically fucking purred, coming in close to Steve’s personal space- Eddie’s favorite place to be. And Steve’s favorite place for Eddie to be. Eddie knew damn well Steve was getting the kids today. Like every day he spent chauffeuring the kids or Robin around. And Eddie knew damn well those kids were off in the woods being assholes. And knew damn well he had some free time to flirt with his boyfriend because Steve would never take away these kinds of memories from his kids. So yeah he wanted to lay it on thick.

But baby boy? Steve was going to explode. So simple but so overwhelming.

“You can’t keep doing this to me”. It came out way whinier than Steve had wanted it to.

“Can’t keep doing what?” “Calling me those names! It’s embarassing!”

Eddie just grinned brighter.

“Is it embarrassing? Because it seems like you like it a lot. The way you blush, the way you sit there and babble after trying to get your brain to work again-“

“I do not-“ “oh baby you always do. You love it when I call you pretty names. Just admit it and I’ll never stop”

They both have different stories when asked, “When did you first meet?”

Steve says it was in school, along the hallways with freshman Steve Harrington and sophomore Eddie Munson locking eyes for the first time. Eddie says it was in a party, drinking beer and selling drugs, a transaction.

Wayne Munson knows the truth. The truth that way before monsters, way before creatures from games came true, way before the end of the world, way before everything, that Eddie and Steve have already met.

Wayne remembers that day so clearly. A social worker coming to his work in the middle of the day looking for him. Something about Wayne being the closest relative, about his brother going to jail and his mother running away.

Eddie's been living alone for two weeks. Two weeks. Cooking and cleaning for himself, the only reason it got suspicious is because he didn't go to school and one of his teachers called home.

He watches as Eddie swings himself at the empty playground. He brought Eddie here because— where do you bring children? Playgrounds are perfect right? He doesn't have the slightest idea as to what he's doing.