Chapter Text
The first thing Willow Byers learned about grief was that it had a sound.
For Max, it was the ventilator.
A low, mechanical hiss. A sharp click. A hollow pause.
It did not just breathe; it struck.
Hiss. Click. Pause. The rhythm reverberated through the plastic tubing, climbing through the suffocating air to hammer against Will’s sternum like a heavy iron mallet. Too steady. Too much like a manufactured pulse for a girl who could no longer make her own.
Will sat in the rigid chair beside the bed, her knees pulled tightly to her chest, watching fractured shadows play over the pale sheets. She watched the machine heave for a girl who had once been a hurricane, louder and more alive than anyone else in the room. Max Mayfield had always been a bruised melody of sharp elbows and sharper words, her red hair swinging behind her like a warning flag. It was a brilliant, violent slash of color daring the world to get close enough to bleed.
Now she looked small.
Not peaceful. Will hated when people said that.
Max did not look peaceful. She looked stolen.
Her freckles stood out stark against her pale skin. Her hair had gone dull against the white pillowcase. Tubes disappeared beneath the blanket, and every few seconds the heart monitor blinked green in the dark, proving she was still there in the most technical, unforgiving sense.
Alive.
Stable.
Neither word meant awake.
Will reached out and rested two fingers lightly against the blanket near Max’s wrist. She did not touch her hand. Lucas was holding it on the other side of the bed, his thumb moving in slow, careful strokes over Max’s knuckles. He had fallen asleep sitting up, his chin dipped toward his chest, still holding on like Max might drift away if he loosened his grip.
The room smelled like bleach and plastic and the faint, sour remains of cafeteria coffee. Outside the closed blinds, hawkins was burning quietly under the sun. Military trucks rolled through broken streets. Ash gathered in gutters.
Will looked at Max and felt something inside her fold in on itself.
She had loved her.
Not in the ancient, embarrassing way she loved Mike Wheeler. Not the kind of love that had roots in childhood and sleepovers and dnd campaigns, the kind that made her stupid with wanting and furious with herself for wanting.
Max had been different.
A quiet spark. A thought she never let herself finish.
A girl on the other end of the phone, telling her the truth in a voice that pretended not to shake. A letter folded into the back pocket of her jeans. A laugh that made Will feel chosen for half a second at a time.
And then Vecna had taken even the possibility of it.
Will swallowed hard, staring at the rise and fall of Max’s chest.
"I’m sorry," she whispered.
Lucas stirred but did not wake.
She did not know what she was apologizing for exactly. For not knowing. For not being there. For loving too many people in ways that had nowhere safe to go.
For sitting in this room and still thinking about Mike.
Because that was the worst part.
Even here, in the dark with Max’s life hanging by wires, she could feel Mike waiting somewhere at the edges of her mind. Mike with his soft voice and careful hands. Mike opening doors and buying her food and asking if she was cold. Mike calling El every night from the room above the basement while Will lay awake below him, listening to another girl get the version of him she had spent years aching for.
She hated herself for it.
Hiss. Click. Pause.
The monitor beeped in time with the mechanical lung.
Lucas tightened his hand around Max’s in his sleep.
Will sat there until the sun shifted behind the blinds and the room went gold at the edges. For one brief second, Max almost looked like herself again. Like she might open her eyes and make some dry, cutting comment about everyone being dramatic.
But the machines kept breathing.
And Will, who had spent her whole life waiting for something terrible to end, understood suddenly that some things did not end.
They just became a room to live in.
Hiss. Click. Pause.
The rhythm reverberated through the plastic tubing again, climbing through the suffocating air. The mechanical chime seemed to echo in the dark behind her eyelids, growing louder. Harsher. The clean, sharp sound stretched and flattened, morphing into a dull, metallic rattle.
Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.
Will’s eyes snapped open.
The hospital vanished. The air hitting her lungs was not sterile anymore. It was thick, wet, and reeking of stale laundry powder. The rattle was not a ventilator. It was the small oscillating fan in the corner, churning the heavy heat around the cramped room of the Wheeler family basement.
Will lay flat on the floor mattress, tracing the grooves in the wooden floorboards above her, listening to the heavy, measured footsteps of Karen Wheeler pacing the kitchen.
Beside her, the ancient springs of the plaid sofa groaned. Jonathan shifted in his sleep, one arm thrown over his eyes to block the sliver of morning sunlight creeping through the tiny rectangular window near the ceiling.
Karen had insisted they stay with the Wheelers while they figured things out. And logically, it made sense. But practically, living directly beneath Mike Wheeler was its own specific kind of nightmare.
The door at the top of the stairs creaked open, followed by the heavy thud of footsteps. Will turned her head, watching Mike descend into the gloom. He was already dressed, his dark curls damp at the edges from a morning shower, somehow looking more perfect than he’d ever been before.
He paused when he saw her awake, his posture softening instantly.
"Hey," Mike murmured. His voice was pitched in that low, careful register he’d adopted ever since they came back from Lenora.
"It’s too hot to sleep," Will said, keeping her voice perfectly neutral.
Mike frowned. He crossed the floor and crouched beside her mattress. Before she could sit up, he reached out, pressing his palm flat against her forehead. His skin was warm as his thumb brushed lightly against her hairline.
Will stopped breathing. She kept her face completely blank, ignoring the violent, traitorous kick of her pulse.
"You don't have a fever," Mike decided. His hand lingered for a second too long before he pulled back. "You're just flushed. I can ask my dad to turn the acdown."
"Don't. He'll just complain about the electric bill."
"I don't care if he complains," Mike said defensively, standing up. "You shouldn't have to sleep down here if you're miserable. I just want you to be comfortable."
He meant well. He always meant well, but it somehow just made it worse. It hung in the air every time he offered her his jacket, or paid for her at the arcade, or made sure she walked on the inside of the sidewalk. He seemed to be playing the part of the devoted boyfriend while reserving his actual romantic loyalty for a girl who lived thirty minutes away.
"I'm fine, Mike," Will said. She threw the thin sheet off her legs and stood, smoothing down her oversized sleep shirt. "I'm gonna go help my mom with breakfast."
She didn't wait for him to argue, brushing past him and taking the wooden stairs two at a time.
The Wheeler kitchen was bright and suffocatingly normal, smelling of burnt toast and percolating coffee. Joyce stood by the counter, gripping a mug with both hands and staring blankly out the window. The deep, bruised circles under her eyes were a permanent fixture these days.
"Morning," Will said softly.
Joyce blinked, snapping out of her trance. She offered a brittle smile. "Morning, sweetie. Did you sleep okay?"
"It was fine," Will lied, opening the fridge to grab the orange juice.
"Karen went to the store," Joyce said, waving a hand vaguely toward the garage. "She said they were out of eggs. I told her not to bother, but you know her."
It was a bizarre domestic routine. Two families crammed under one roof, pretending the world outside hadn’t literally been coated in ash.
A moment later, the basement door opened and Jonathan emerged rubbing his neck. He sat down at the circular dining table, pulling a folded newspaper toward him. The headline screamed about the lingering effects of the hawkins earthquake, a convenient, sanitized cover story for the very real fissure currently rotting their town from the inside out.
Jonathan looked up as Will sat across from him. He studied her face, not saying a word, but the quiet understanding in his eyes made her want to crawl out of her skin. Jonathan knew. He had seen the devastatingly quiet heartbreak that followed every time Mike mentioned El. Now, watching them navigate this forced proximity, his silent sympathy was almost too heavy to bear.
"Dustin called earlier," Jonathan said, tapping the newspaper. "Steve is taking everyone to the hospital around noon if you want a ride."
Will nodded, tracing the condensation around on her glass. "Yeah. I'll go with them."
She needed to see Max. The hospital was agonizing, but the grief there was straightforward. Max was broken, and Will was sad. There were no confusing signals. Just the rhythmic hum of a heart monitor and Lucas's quiet solidarity.
The front door rattled loudly, shattering the quiet. Karen bustled into the kitchen with three plastic grocery bags hooked over her arms, Ted trailing behind her looking thoroughly depleted.
"They were completely out of regular butter," Karen announced to the room, dropping the bags onto the counter. "I had to get margarine. I hope that works for the muffins, Will."
Will forced a polite smile. "Margarine is perfect, Mrs. Wheeler. Thank you."
Karen beamed. It was a genuine look of affection. Karen had taken an intense liking to Will the moment she returned from lenora looking older and softer. She was exactly the kind of girl she had always wanted Mike to bring home. The irony was suffocating.
Before the conversation could continue, Holly bounded into the kitchen. The nine year old was wearing mismatched pajamas, clutching a battered coloring book. She bypassed her mother entirely and ran straight to Will, throwing her small arms around her waist.
"Will!" Holly squeaked.
Will smiled, a real one this time, and smoothed a hand over Holly's messy blonde hair. "Morning, Holls."
"Are we going to paint today? You said we could paint the birdhouse."
"Maybe tomorrow," Will said gently. "I have to visit my friend at the hospital today."
Holly pouted, burying her face in Will's side. Mike, who had just came into the kitchen, watched the interaction with a soft, lopsided smile. He reached over and tugged lightly on one of Holly's pigtails.
"Leave her alone, Holls," Mike teased. "She needs to eat breakfast."
He said it like they were a unit. Like parents wrangling a clingy kid. Will’s stomach twisted into a tight knot, gently peeling Holly off her waist to stand up.
"I'm actually not that hungry," Will said to the room at large. "I think I'm gonna go ahead and get ready."
She slipped out of the kitchen, taking the carpeted stairs to the second floor, desperate for five minutes of absolute silence before she had to squeeze into a car with Mike.
The upstairs hallway was quiet but the door to Nancy's room was cracked open, revealing Nancy sitting cross legged on her bed, surrounded by loose notebook paper. She wore an oversized sweater pushed up to her elbows, chewing thoughtfully on the cap of a blue pen.
Nancy looked up as Will walked past. "Hey. Come here for a second."
Will pushed the door open. Nancy's room smelled like vanilla perfume and old paper, a bright contrast to the damp earthiness of the basement.
"You look like you're about to jump out of a window," Nancy stated, setting her pen down.
Will sat on the edge of the mattress, pulling her knees to her chest. "It's just loud down there."
Nancy let out a short, knowing laugh. "You don't have to explain my family to me. My dad is probably complaining about the butter right now."
"Eggs, actually."
Nancy smiled, but it faded quickly as she studied Will's face. Nancy was sharp. She noticed things other people missed, especially when it came to her brother.
"You can borrow that blue sundress today," Nancy offered abruptly. "The one you liked last week. It's hanging in the closet. It's too hot for jeans anyway."
It was Nancy's way of taking care of her. An armor of confidence. Will nodded, her throat feeling a little tight. "Thanks, Nance."
By eleven forty five, the July sun was beating down mercilessly on the Wheelers' front lawn. Will sat on the concrete porch steps in Nancy's blue sundress, her wet hair drying in the heavy heat, ignoring the sound of the front door opening behind her.
Mike walked out and sat down next to her. The porch was wide enough for three people, but he sat so close his shoulder brushed against hers.
Mike leaned down, his elbows on his knees. "Steve should be five minutes away."
"Okay."
"Are you doing okay?" Mike asked, his voice dropping again. "You were pretty quiet this morning."
Will closed her eyes. She wished he would stop asking. She wished he could just manage to be completely indifferent to her. It would make it so much easier to kill the hope that kept blooming in her chest every time he looked at her like that.
"I'm just tired, Mike. I didn't sleep well."
"I know," he said softly. "The basement sucks. Maybe Jonathan and I can switch tonight."
A loud honk interrupted whatever excuse she was about to invent. Steve's BMW idled at the curb, the paint dull under a fine layer of summer dust. Dustin was hanging halfway out the back window, waving frantically.
"Let's go!" Dustin yelled. "We're losing daylight!"
Will stood up quickly, grateful for the escape. She walked down the gravel driveway. Steve leaned over the center console, pushing the passenger door open for her. He wore a faded grey t shirt and dark sunglasses, looking completely unfazed by the apparent apocalypse.
"Morning, Byers," Steve said. He didn't use a soft, gentle voice. He sounded blissfully normal.
"Hi, Steve."
She climbed into the passenger seat before Mike could reach the door, forcing him to settle for the back next to Dustin. Steve threw the car into drive and pulled away from the curb. The radio playing softly, drowning out the suffocating silence Will had been carrying all morning. For the first time that day, she took a full breath.
The air conditioning in the car was a sharp, icy shock against the horrendous heat. Will leaned her head back against the leather headrest, keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead.
Behind her, Dustin was already rambling about some sort of frequency model he was trying to salvage from the middle school AV club. Mike was quiet, offering only monosyllabic responses. Will could feel the weight of his gaze boring into the back of her head and every few seconds, Mike shifted his weight, his knees bumping against the back of her seat with a dull, rhythmic thud.
"If the military guys keep locking down the perimeter by the library," Dustin complained loudly, "I'm never going to get the copper wiring I need. The interference from the fault lines is completely messing with the wavelengths."
"Just tell them you left a textbook in there," Steve suggested, one hand draped lazily over the steering wheel. He drove with the casual confidence of someone who had survived the end of the world three times and no longer cared about traffic laws.
"They have guns, Steve," Dustin deadpanned.
Mike shifted again. His knee hit the back of Will's seat, harder this time.
He leaned forward, so close his breath stirred the loose hair at the nape of her neck. "Are you cold? Steve has the acblasting. We can roll the windows down."
Will squeezed her eyes shut. She didnt want to be warm she wanted the cold air to numb the agonizing awareness of how close he was to her.
"I'm fine, Mike," Will said, her voice flat and devoid of its usual warmth.
"You're shivring," Mike insisted. His fingers brushed against her bare shoulder.
The contact made Will stiffen instantly. She pulled her shoulder forward, breaking the touch as quickly as she could. He touched her with this careful, proprietary reverence, oblivious to the fact that it was breaking her heart.
Steve caught the rigid line of her shoulders in his periphery. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask if she was okay. He just reached out and cranked the radio volume dial up three notches and the heavy bass of a rock song flooded the car, drowning Mike out entirely.
Will let her shoulders drop an inch, offering Steve a tiny, grateful nod. Steve just kept his eyes on the road.
The drive through hawkins was a grim tour of a dying town. They passed the downtown square, now cornered off by miles of yellow caution tape and military blockades. Massive, metal plates bolted through the asphalt, where fissures had once swallowed entire cars and split storefronts down the middle. The air outside smelled faintly of sulfur and rot, a lingering reminder that the upside down was still bleeding through the cracks.
Everything Will had known, everything she had relied on, was fractured. Her home was destroyed, max was trapped in a dark, endless sleep, and the boy she had loved since she was five years old was sitting two feet behind her, treating her like a china doll.
Steve flicked his turn signal on and pulled into the sprawling visitor lot of the hospital. The asphalt baked under the midday sun, heat waves distorting the metal of the parked cars.
He killed the engine but didn't rush to get out, letting Mike and Dustin scramble from the back doors first.
Will unbuckled her seatbelt, but before her fingers could graze the handle, the door was pulled open from the outside. Mike stood there in the blistering heat, holding the door wide like she was stepping out of a royal carriage.
"I've got it," Will murmured, ignoring his outstretched hand entirely and stepping out onto the hot pavement.
A brief flash of rejection crossed Mike's face, but he recovered instantly. He stepped closer, placing a hand lightly on the small of her back to guide her toward the entrance. The heat of his palm burned right through the thin cotton of the sundress. Will locked her jaw, sttaring straight ahead, silently counting the seconds until she could pull away.
The hospital was freezing, heavy with the sharp scent of rubbing alcohol and bleached floors.
"I'm going to check the cafeteria," Steve announced in the lobby. "Anyone want a soda?"
"Yeah, I’ll take a coke," Dustin said, heading toward the elevators.
Will followed Dustin into the car. Mike stepped in right behind her, standing so close their shoulders brushed when the doors slid shut. The ride to the third floor was agonizingly slow.
The intensive care unit was quiet, the kind of silence that demanded respect. It follows them as they roamed the hall towards room 409 that was at the very end of the corridor.
Will pushed the heavy wooden door open. The blinds were pulled tight against the glaring sun, casting the room in shadows. Max still looked incredibly small in the hospital bed, her hair a dull tangled mess against the pillowcase. The ventilator hissed and clicked in a steady, relentless rhythm.
Lucas sat in a plastic chair beside the bed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, holding one of Max's hands in both of his. He looked up, his eyes bloodshot. He wiped his face quickly with the back of his sleeve.
"Hey," Lucas whispered.
"Hey, man," Dustin said softly, his usual bright energy entirly stripped away.
Mike stayed near the door, shoving his hands into his pockets and staring at the floor tiles. Will knew he couldn't look at Max for too long. He liked problems he could solve. There was no strategy for this.
Will bypassed Mike entirely and took the empty chair on the other side of the bed. She looked at Max's pale, freckled face, the ache in her chest expanding, heavy and dark. Max was the bravest person she knew. Max had stood in front of a monster and fought for her life, and now she was trapped here.
Will carefully opened up the drawer of the nightstand before her bed, taking out a brush to run through Max’s hair.
"How was her night?" Will asked softly, easing out a knot from Max’s hair.
"Quiet," Lucas answered, his voice hoarse. "Doctor said her vitals are stable. Nothing's changed."
Stable just meant she wasn't dying today. It didn't mean she was waking up.
"I brought you some comics," Dustin offered, setting crumpled issues of X men on the side table. "In case you want to read to her."
"Thanks, Dustin."
Mike shifted his weight near the door, his sneakers squeaking loudly against the linoleum. "Do you guys want us to give you some space? Will and I can wait in the hall."
Will whipped her head around. Will and I. Like they were a matching set. Like her grief was somehow tied to his convenience.
"I'm staying," Will said, leaving no room for argument.
Mike blinked, caught off guard. "Right. Okay. I'll just go find Steve in the cafeteria then."
The heavy wooden door clicked shut and Will let out a shaky breath, slumping back into the hard plastic chair.
Across the bed, Lucas didn't look up from Max's hand. He didn’t ask Will if she was okay.
"He's driving you crazy," Lucas said quietly.
Will squeezed her eyes shut. "You have no idea."
Lucas let out a dry, sandpapered laugh. "I have some idea. I watched him try to open the car door for you from the window. He's hovering over you like a lost puppy."
"He looks like an idiot," Will whispered to the ceiling.
"He doesn't know how to handle you," Lucas said gently, finally lifting his head to meet her eyes. "He's terrified of everything that happened. He thinks if he treats you like porcelain, you won't break."
Will swallowed the jagged lump in her throat. "I'm already broken, Lucas. We all are. He just refuses to see it."
Lucas nodded slowly. He was the only person in the world who knew the unedited truth. He had figured it out during the second week of the hospital vigil, when Will had broken down in the waiting room. He’d just held her, accepting that she was mourning the loss of her best friend, and the loss of a quiet, private possibility she never got to explore.
"He grabbed my shoulder in the car," Will confessed into the quiet room. "He keeps fixing my blanket, or making sure I'm at the right temperature. It's killing me."
"Because he's doing it for the wrong reasons."
"Because he's doing it because I'm a girl," Will corrected bitterly, hugging herself. "He thinks he has to be chivalrous. I know it makes him feel like he’s in control. He gets to play hero, but then he's saving his actual charm for El. He calls her every single night and I just have to lie in the dark and listen to him talk to her."
"You need to get out of that basement," Lucas told her firmly. "You cannot keep living two feet away from him."
"My house is gone. El is living with Hop in a shoebox cabin. I'm stuck."
"Then you find a distraction," Lucas insisted. "Because if you keep letting him touch your arm and cuddling up to you while he calls his girlfriend every night, you're going to snap. You'll say something you’ll regret."
Will knew he was right. The constant push and pull of Mike Wheeler was a slow, lethal poison. She needed an antidote. Something loud, and completely disconnected from the messy web of her childhood.
Her mind wandered back to the parking lot. To Steve Harrington, turning the radio up just to drown Mike out.
"I'll find a distraction," Will promised softly.
They sat in comfortable silence for another hour, letting the steady hiss of the ventilator lull them into temporary numbness. Eventually, Dustin poked his head inside, holding a crushed bag of chips.
"Steve says we need to head back," Dustin announced quietly. "Robin's going to kill him if he’s late for his shift."
Will stood, pressing two fingers gently against Max's covered ankle in a silent goodbye. "Are you staying tonight?"
"My mom’s bringing dinner later," Lucas replied. "I'll be here until morning."
"I’ll come back tomorrow."
Will walked out into the fluorescent hallway. Dustin followed, already launching into a new complaint about his radio tower. When the elevator doors slid open to the ground floor, Mike was waiting near the front desk, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
He straightened up immediately, holding out a plastic bottle of water and a small package of peanut butter crackers. "Here. You didt eat anything this morning."
Will stared at the food. When she was in Lenora, she had navigated a massive new high school and even helped Joyce pay the bills. Here, Mike treated her like she lacked the basic hand strength to survive.
She took the crackers but before she could take the water, Mike twisted his wrist, cracking the plastic seal on the cap to loosen it for her, handing it over with a satisfied expression.
"Thanks," Will muttered. She took a sip and screwed the cap back on as tightly as physically possible.
Outside, Steve was leaning against the front fender of his bmw. He simply unlocked the doors and slid into the driver's seat. Will claimed the passenger side before Mike could attempt his chivalrous routine with the door handle.
The ride was peaceful enough but after dropping Dustin off, the sudden absence of his voice left a suffocating silence in the car. Mike leaned forward almost immediately, resting his arms on the back of Will's seat.
"My mom's making sandwiches for lunch. We can take them down to the basement. Dad cranked the ac down there so it should actually be cool now."
Will looked at the dashboard clock. Barely one in the afternoon. If she went back now, she'd be trapped on that mattress, watching him pace, enduring his constant concern.
She thought back to what Lucas had said. Find a distraction.
Will turned to look at Steve, who was driving with one hand, looking like the somewhat shady lead of a romcom. “Steve. Do you care if I tag along to your shift?"
Steve glanced over, mildly surprised. "I don’t care. Robin's at the station. You can hang out in the back. Free ac, nobody uses the production room."
Mike pulled back, his brow furrowing. "Wait, what? You're going to the station?"
"Yes," Will answered without turning around. "I want to get out of the house."
"But you look exhausted," Mike argued, slipping back into his protective register. "You said you didn't sleep well. The basement is quiet, you can just lay down."
"I don't want to lay down. I want to do something else."
"It's boring at the station," Mike pushed, a new edge of frustration bleeding into his voice. "Just come home. We can watch a movie or something chill."
"I said I want to go with Steve, Mike." Will turned around, meeting his gaze over the headrest. Her expression was hard. "I am not going back to the basement right now."
Mike stared at her, entirely caught off guard. He opened his mouth to argue, but Steve smoothly interrupted.
"She can just sit in the production room, Wheeler. Not a big deal. I’ll drop her off before dinner."
Mike looked from Steve to Will, his jaw tightening. He was completely powerless in this scenario, and he hated it. He slumped back against his seat and crossed his arms, staying silently furious for the rest of the drive home.
When Steve parked at the Wheelers' mailbox, Mike waited a long moment, clearly expecting Will to change her mind. And when she remained firmly buckled in, he let out a short, angry breath, pushed his door open, and slammed it behind him with an entirely unnecessary force.
Will watched him march up the driveway. Steve simply reached down, turned the volume up, and pulled away from the curb.
The silence that settled between them now was golden and pressure free. Will let her head fall back against the leather seat, finally taking a deep, unobstructed breath.
The WSQK station was a squat brick building that smelled faintly of dust, old coffee, and warm electronics. It was the most normal place Will had been in weeks.
As they walked inside, Robin looked up from a stack of handwritten request sheets, blowing a stray piece of blonde hair out of her eyes. "You're fifteen minutes late."
"Doing a good deed," Steve replied. "Had to drop Henderson off."
Robin noticed Will and her expression softened into mild surprise. "Oh. Hey, Will. Did you finally ditch the nerd brigade?"
Will offered a genuine smile. "Just needed a change of scenery."
Steve directed her to the production room that was a dimly lit space with a battered couch and shelves of old records. He tossed her a cold can of Coke underhand from a mini fridge. She caught it easily.
Mike would have opened it for her. Steve just threw it across the room.
"Make yourself at home," Steve said. "If you get bored, you can mess with the radio and accidentally broadcast something to all of hawkins."”
Will stayed in the production room for an hour, letting the freezing carbonation burn the back of her throat. Through the wall, she could hear Steve and Robin arguing about David Bowie. It was low stakes. Nobody was talking about military blockades or rifts in the earth. Nobody was talking about Mike and El.
But eventually, the isolation made her restless. She stepped out into the main room watching for a sec before Robin patted the empty stool next to her.
"Wheeler being weird?" Robin guessed quietly.
Will blinked, caught off guard. "He's just hovering. He treats me like I'm going to shatter or something."
Robin grimaced. "Boys are stupid. They think they have to be the hero all the time but they don't realize sometimes you just want them to leave you alone."
Robin understood it perfectly.
"He thinks if he opens doors for me and pays for my food, it makes up for the fact that everything else is falling apart," Will said softly.
"You can't fix a broken world by opening a car door," Robin said gently. "He's just trying to control the one thing he thinks he can control."
Will looked away. The truth ached. She was his project, a delicate girl to protect, to entirely masking the fact that he didn't actually want her in the way she wanted him.
"You can hide out here whenever you want," Robin offered. "Steve likes playing chauffeur. Gives him an excuse to subject people to his terrible music."
For the rest of the afternoon, Will sat near the control board, listening to mundane callers request songs. It was a perfect, mindless distraction. For hours, she didn't think about the basement once.
By the time Steve dropped her back at the Wheelers', the harsh glare of the afternoon had softened into into a deep plum color.
The house was loud with the evening news and Karen directing Ted to set the table. Will walked slowly toward the kitchen, hoping to slip past, but Mike was waiting by the refrigerator. He had changed into sweatpants and an old hawkins middle school tee. He stopped moving the second he saw her.
"You're back," Mike said, his voice level but his posture rigid.
"Just got back."
She retreated to the bathroom to wash her hands, taking a moment to stare at her reflection. The few hours of normalcy had given her a piece of her sanity back.
When she walked out into the narrow hallway, Mike was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed.
"You were gone all day," Mike said quietly.
"I was at the station. I told you I was going."
"You missed lunch." Mike stepped a fraction closer, the faint smell of his laundry detergent filling her space. "I waited for you. I don't like it when you just disappear like that. Not with everything going on. It isn't safe."
Will felt the familiar, jagged ache flare up. He was making her responsible for his feelings again.
He is just trying to control the one thing he thinks he can control.
Will took a deliberate step backward. "I was with Steve and Robin. I was perfectly safe. I just needed to be out of the house. I needed to breathe."
Mike blinked, stung by the rejection. His hand, which had half reached for her sleeve, hovered in the empty space before he shoved it deep into his pocket. His jaw tightened. He was used to her being the quiet, reliable constant in his life.
"Fine," Mike muttered, staring at the floor. "I'll let you breathe."
He turned and walked back to the kitchen. Will watched him go, her heart hammering. She had won the battle, but standing alone in the hallway, it felt entirely like a loss.
Dinner was suffocating. Ted kept complaining about military checkpoints treating hawkins like a war zone, and Will was sat between Mike and Jonathan, the space between her and Mike feeling like a vacuum. He didn't pass her the rolls. He just radiated a cold, bruised silence.
Suddenly, Mike pushed his chair back, the wood scraping loudly against the floor. "I'm going to call El."
He grabbed his half empty plate and took it to the kitchen sink before he disappeared upstairs. Will kept her eyes on her food, feeling like a stray dog the Wheelers had taken in out of pity.
Later that nigtt, in the dim glow of the basement, Jonathan sat on his mattress cleaning his camera lens.
"He's sulking," Jonathan said.
Will closed her eyes. "He's mad at me."
"He isn't mad at you," Jonathan corrected gently. "He's confused because you finally stopped letting him dictate your mood. Mike wants to keep his relationship with El, but he also wants to keep the version of you that depends on him. When you handle things on your own, it threatens his position."
Jonathan tossed an unlit cigarette onto the table. "Keep going to the station. You survived living thousands of miles away without him, Will. You survived the upside down. You don't need his permission to exist outside of this basement."
The next morning, the pale light filtering through the tiny window was completely useless. Will rolled over. The plaid sofa was empty and Mike hadn't come down in the middle of the night. The boundary had held.
She changed quickly and went upstairs to the empty kitchen. Remembering Jonathan's words, she picked up the yellow rotary phone and dialed the station.
"Robin speaking. If you're calling to request Madonna, the answer is still no."
Will smiled. "Hey, Robin. It's Will. You think Steve could come rescue me?"
"I'll send him right now. Wait on the porch so you don't get trapped inside."
Will grabbed her backpack, throwing in a notebook and some colored pencils before going outside to wait on the front porch steps, enjoying the absolute quiet of the street.
Ten minutes later, the front door opened. Mike stepped out, wearing rumpled clothes, his hair sticking up at awkward angles. He shoved his hands into his pockets.
"I thought we could go to the hospital around noon," Mike offered cautiously. "My mom's making lunch. And then maybe we can even stop by the arcade later."
It was a peace offering. A reset button.
But before she had to form an excuse, the low rumble of Steve’s car drifted down the street. Mike’s jaw clenched. His eyes darkened. "Are you kidding me? You're leaving again?"
Will stood up, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. "Yeah. I'm going to the station."
"Why? You don't even like radio equipment. We're supposed to go to the hospital."
"I'll see Max later tonight. I don't have to go at exactly noon just because you want to."
Mike stared at her, completely thrown. "I just don't get why you'd rather sit in a cramped booth with Steve Harrington all day instead of hanging out with me."
"Because Steve doesn't treat me like I'm about to fall apart," Will said.
The words slipped out before she could stop them, but hovering in the humid air, she didn't regret them. She turned her back on him and walked straight down the driveway.
She climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut, the acwashing over her.
"Everything good?" Steve asked casually.
Will looked in the side mirror. Mike was still standing on the porch, watching them pull away, looking entirely lost.
"Yeah," Will said, settling into the worn leather seat. "Everything's fine."
Steve turned the music up, the heavy bass filling the car and drowning out the lingering tension. Will let her eyes drift shut. She wasn't waiting anymore.