Chapter Text
Steve didn’t know what happened after the Russian guard’s fist met his skull—just a burst of white, a ringing like a firecracker shoved into his ear, and then nothing.
But now?
Now he knows one thing with perfect, ice-cold certainty.
They know.
Oh shit—
They know.
His body registered the moment he returned to consciousness before his mind did. Something slammed his shoulder and side into the freezing metal floor, a brutal impact that lit up every nerve ending along his ribs. Pain crackled up his side like electricity, sharp enough to make him curl instinctively into himself.
He didn’t open his eyes at first. Didn’t dare. The world was spinning, nausea tugging at his stomach as he lay there, breathing shallowly through dry lips. The air smelled like metal and bleach and the stale sweat of the room’s previous occupants—like captivity.
After maybe a minute, maybe ten—time didn’t make sense—Steve forced his eyelids open.
The ceiling lights detonated behind his eyes.
“Shit—” He hissed a breath and squeezed them shut again, forehead pressing to the cool metal floor as he waited for the migraine-bright glare to stop stabbing through his skull.
Eventually, he tried again, blinking rapidly until the world steadied. A small concrete room. Bare walls. No furniture. No windows. One steel door with a complicated lock.
And then—
His gaze shot to his left wrist.
The breath ripped out of him.
The makeup was gone. Sweated off. Rubbed away by the restraints.
The 007 inked into his skin stared back at him, stark and black and unmistakable.
Permanent, inescapable proof.
They knew exactly what he was—what he’d escaped from.
And now they had him again.
A cold, sour fear crawled up his spine as he squirmed to sit up, shoulder screaming in protest. He dragged himself across the floor until he could crane his neck toward the door. Too thick to break. Too strong to ram.
Unless—
Steve closed his eyes, sucked in a shaking breath, and focused everything—every spark he had left—on the mechanism inside the lock.
He pictured gravity twisting, crushing inward. He pictured metal bending. He willed it.
For a few seconds, the air around the door wavered, the faintest tremor of pressure shifting—
Then a white-hot spike of agony lanced through his skull.
“Fuck—!” His hands flew to his head as the world tilted violently. He lost the thread, lost the force, lost everything the same way a candle loses its flame in a gust of wind.
He collapsed back to the floor, chest heaving, vision blurry with frustrated tears.
He was too tired. Too hurt. Too out of practice.
He wasn’t eleven anymore—raw, wild power burning in his blood. He’d spent years suppressing those abilities. Hiding them. Trying to be normal.
Now he was paying for that.
—
Steve didn’t know how long he stayed there, curled pathetically on his side with his head pounding. Minutes. Hours. It all blurred together until he heard it:
Sirens.
Alarms blaring through the Russian base, muffled by distance but unmistakable. Then shouting—feet pounding. Gunfire.
And voices.
Very familiar voices.
“Dustin! It’s Steve!” he screamed hoarsely, scrambling up onto his elbows. His throat throbbed from dehydration and disuse, but he didn’t care. “Dustin! I’m here! Robin! Erica! Please! I’m here!”
His voice cracked on the last one, raw and desperate, but the sounds faded, moving farther away, swallowed by the maze of corridors.
“No—no, no—come back—” Steve pressed his forehead to the floor and screamed until his voice shredded itself into broken sobs.
They were gone. They were so close and they were gone.
The next time the Russians came to check on him, he didn’t react. Didn’t look at them. Didn’t move. His mind had checked out—floating somewhere far away where the pain and fear couldn’t touch him.
Eventually they left.
Eventually he passed out again, tears drying sticky on his face.
—
He woke to banging—muffled curses—metal screeching.
Steve didn’t open his eyes until he heard a voice he hadn’t heard in months, frantic and sharp:
“Oh my god—Hopper! Look at him!”
His eyes flew open.
Joyce Byers burst through the door first, face pale and horrified. Hopper stormed in behind her, breathing hard, gun out.
Steve’s chest seized.
They found him.
Hopper dropped to one knee beside him, a heavy hand landing on Steve’s shoulder—warm, solid, grounding.
“Kid? You with us?” Hopper’s gruff voice was weirdly gentle, almost… scared.
Steve swallowed, throat burning. “Yeah,” he rasped. “I’m here.”
Hopper let out a breath, almost a laugh. Relief softened his features before he hardened again, scanning Steve for injuries.
“Are you hurt anywhere? Other than your face?”
“Ribs,” Steve gasped, curling instinctively around his side.
“All right. Okay. Joyce—cut him loose.” Hopper pulled a small knife from his boot and passed it back.
Joyce knelt behind Steve and started working on the restraints.
But as soon as the material fell away from his left wrist—
Joyce froze.
Hopper did too.
“Steve,” Joyce breathed, voice breaking. “What is that?”
Steve yanked his arm to his chest instinctively, curling in, hiding the tattoo he’d hidden for five years. His heart hammered against his ribs, panic trembling through him.
He didn’t answer.
Hopper’s eyes widened, horror flashing across his face. Not disgust. Not fear of Steve.
Fear for Steve.
“You don’t have to talk now,” Hopper said firmly, squeezing his shoulder, “but we’re gonna talk about this when we’re outta here. Got it?”
Steve nodded numbly, staring at the floor, fingers squeezing around his marked wrist.
Then the radio erupted, Murray’s staticky voice ringing:
“Chief? You there? Bald Eagle is ready to land.”
All three jumped.
Hopper grunted, grabbed the walkie. “Yeah, I’m here. We’ve got him and the keys. We’re ready to close that goddamn gate.”
He clipped it back on and stood.
“Ready to go?”
Steve wasn’t, not at all. But he nodded anyway, and Hopper hauled him to his feet before they started moving.
—
The countdown started.
“Three…” Joyce called, her voice trembling as she inserted her key into the console.
Steve stood behind them, swaying slightly, one hand braced on the wall to keep himself upright. His head still pounded—a heavy, throbbing ache that pulsed behind his eyes. But more than that… something prickled at the back of his neck. A wrongness. A shift in the stale, humming air of the machine room.
Quiet.
Too quiet.
Even with the rumbling of the laser, even with Hopper muttering under his breath, there was a pocket of silence—like the air itself was holding its breath.
“Two…”
There it was again. Not just silence. Movement. A whisper of motion. A shift in the atmosphere behind him. A footstep? A breath? A presence?
Steve’s muscles tensed. His heartbeat stuttered.
He turned—
But not fast enough.
“ONE—”
A massive hand clamped around his throat and lifted, slamming him into the wall with such brutal force that his skull cracked against concrete and his vision shattered into bright, scattering stars. The impact knocked air out of him so completely he didn’t even get a chance to inhale.
He heard his pulse. Loud. Panicked. Thready.
The man in front of him didn’t look human—more like he’d been engineered, forged from steel and hatred. Cold eyes. Flat expression. A face carved from stone.
The damn Terminator.
Steve’s fingers scrambled at the man’s wrist, nails scraping against unyielding muscle. His feet kicked uselessly against the air as the world blurred around the edges.
His throat burned. His lungs spasmed.
He managed to choke out a single, broken “h-help—” before darkness tunneled in and swallowed most of his vision.
Somewhere—distant, distorted—he heard Hopper roar.
Then the crushing force vanished.
Steve dropped like a rag doll, sliding down the wall. His knees hit the floor. His chest seized as he gulped in air too fast, coughing violently as oxygen tore back into his lungs like fire.
His vision slowly steadied into shaky focus.
Joyce was struggling to stand, pushing herself up by gripping a table, trembling from where she’d been knocked aside. And farther ahead—
Hopper.
Fighting for his life.
The Terminator-man had him by the throat, shoving his face dangerously close to the spinning blades of the laser.
And Hopper was losing.
Badly.
Steve’s stomach plummeted.
His body moved before his brain did—instinct overriding pain, fear, exhaustion. He shoved off the wall, legs wobbling beneath him. Joyce yelled something—his name, maybe—but it was swallowed by the machine’s roar.
He stumbled down the stairs, grabbing the railing when his legs nearly gave out. His breath trembled, wheezing past his bruised throat.
Hopper was inches—inches—from being decapitated.
Steve had no weapon.
No strength.
No chance physically.
He only had one option left.
He squeezed his eyes shut for one aching heartbeat, reaching deeper than he had in years—deep into the hollow pit in his chest where his powers slept like a coiled animal.
He dragged them out.
And shoved outward.
Gravity snapped.
The man froze, muscles locking unnaturally mid-motion. Confusion flickered across his face as if his own body had betrayed him. His grip around Hopper’s throat stopped tightening.
Steve felt the cost instantly.
Blood dripped from his nose—hot, thick, metallic—running over his lips.
Pain ignited behind his eyes, sharp and blinding.
His skull felt like it was tearing open.
But he held.
God, he held.
“Come on,” he rasped to no one, to himself, to the universe. “Come on, please—”
His breaths turned into ragged gasps. His vision shuddered. His knees folded for a moment before he caught himself on the railing, knuckles white.
The man began to push back against the invisible force, muscles trembling as he broke through inch by terrifying inch.
Steve staggered sideways, circling him, forcing the gravity to bend—shove—pull him toward the laser. His entire body shook violently. Blood slid from his nostrils, then from his ear, warm trails down his jaw.
He flicked his eyes toward Hopper and gave the smallest nod he could manage.
Now.
Hopper surged up with desperate strength, grabbed the man’s jacket—
Steve let go.
Hopper hurled the man backward into the spinning blades.
A splash of blood. A metallic scream. The machine choked on the body as it tore him apart.
Steve stumbled, vision doubling, and clutched the railing. Hopper dove clear of the machine as sparks erupted.
Then the beam surged, exploding outward in a blinding column of blue-white light.
Steve threw out his hands instinctively, shaking violently as he tried—tried—to pull the laser apart. To hold it back. To keep it from consuming them.
But he was done.
His tank was empty. His body was screaming.
Blood streamed from his ears in hot, sticky rivers.
Hopper grabbed him around the torso and yanked him backward.
The explosion tore the air open.
Heat swallowed them.
Pain. Light. Pressure.
And somehow—through luck, or instinct, or pure stubborn refusal to die—they stumbled through a crack in the forming gate.
The world changed.
Instantly.
Cold slammed into Steve’s skin. The air tasted like mold and metal. The ground was wet beneath him. Darkness sprawled out around them like a living thing.
The Upside Down.
They collapsed together, both gasping. Hopper rolled to his back, coughing. Steve curled onto his side, trembling uncontrollably, limbs twitching with leftover static from his powers.
He felt detached—as if his brain were floating just above his body, observing from a distance.
Everything sounded underwater.
He barely noticed when Hopper grabbed his shoulder and shook him gently.
“Kid? Hey—hey. Come on.” Hopper’s voice cut through the fog like a jagged blade. “You’ve gotta talk to me here. We’re in this together.”
Steve blinked up at him, eyes barely focusing. Hopper’s face was darkened by shadows and drifting spores.
“Mhm?” was all Steve managed, a soft, useless sound.
“We need to move,” Hopper said firmly, though his voice gentled on the edges. “Can you stand? Or am I carrying you?”
“’M fine,” Steve slurred, very obviously not fine.
Hopper hauled him upright anyway. Steve immediately sagged backward, knees buckling until Hopper caught him under the arms.
“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” Hopper muttered under his breath, slinging Steve’s arm over his shoulders.
The Upside Down Russian base stretched ahead—vines crawling over metal walls, floating particles drifting like ash in stale air. Everything hummed with a low, sickly vibration.
Steve was barely conscious as they moved, feet dragging. Hopper had to catch him again and again as his knees tried to give out.
After ten minutes, Hopper’s patience snapped.
“Alright, screw this.”
He bent down and lifted Steve in a full bridal carry.
Steve didn’t even react. Just let his head fall limply against Hopper’s shoulder as his body finally sagged into the rest it had been begging for.
Eventually they reached the small room—Steve’s original cell. Hopper lowered him gently, propping him against the wall for a moment while he shrugged off his jacket. He folded it into a makeshift pillow, then eased Steve’s head onto it.
The kid slipped into sleep immediately, face smeared with blood, dust, sweat—looking terrifyingly like Eleven had after closing the gate months ago.
Too young.
Too hurt.
Too much.
Hopper sat down across from him, leaning his back against the opposite wall. He let out a long, shaky exhale as the reality hit him like a punch.
Stuck in the Upside Down.
With a kid who had been tortured. Experimented on. A kid with powers he never should’ve had. A kid who saved Hopper’s life with everything he had left in him.
No exit.
No plan.
Just the two of them.
Steve groaned in his sleep, small and pained, shifting before settling again.
Hopper stared at him a long time, jaw clenching.
The kid had pushed himself until his body bled.
He’d run into danger when he could barely stand.
He’d saved Hopper twice in less than five minutes.
And Hopper wasn’t going to let anything happen to him.
Not now.
Not ever.
Hopper let his head fall back against the wall, exhaustion drawing him under. Finally—only for a few minutes—he let his eyes close.
—
Steve surfaced from unconsciousness slowly, like something was dragging him up through thick, freezing molasses. The first thing he felt was pain—sharp, insistent, blooming behind his eyes and radiating down through his ribs like someone was jabbing heated needles between them. His skull throbbed with each pulse of his heartbeat.
A faint sound met him as he drifted up fully.
tick… tick… tick…
Soft, irregular, like a clock wrapped in cotton. Too faint to be real. Too steady to be random.
He frowned, wincing as it aggravated the pounding in his temples.
When he finally forced his eyes to crack open, the world came to him in slow, flickering pieces—the dim room, the drifting particles floating like sickly snow, the vines that crawled across the walls with restless, twitching life.
And Hopper. Sitting right beside him, watching him.
Steve’s breath hitched, panic flaring in his chest—but then his sluggish mind registered the vines curling around the doorway, not locking them in, just… growing.
Not a cell. Not anymore.
The memory of Dustin’s screams, the tunnels, the choking dark snapped at him like icy teeth. He sucked in three short, unsteady breaths, fighting the rising tremor in his hands. Hopper didn’t speak. Didn’t push. He just sat there, silent and solid, until Steve could breathe without feeling like he was drowning.
Minutes passed. Maybe hours. In the Upside Down, time felt wrong—stretching, squeezing, twisting. Sometimes, between heartbeats, Steve swore he heard that faint ticking again.
Finally, Hopper broke the silence.
“You wanna talk about anything?” he asked quietly. “Wanna try to get some of that gunk off your face?”
Steve shrugged vaguely. “Sure.”
“Sure to what?”
“Both. I dunno.” His voice was rough, scraped raw.
Hopper didn’t press. He just grabbed the jacket Steve had used as a pillow and handed it over. Steve slipped it on, trying not to think about how small he felt inside it.
Then Hopper tore a strip from his sleeve and passed it to him. Steve wiped away the dried blood crusted on his jaw and cheeks until the worst of it was gone. His skin felt tender, bruised beneath every swipe.
Hopper studied him. “You wanna sleep before we start talking?”
Steve shook his head. “Let’s just… get it over with.”
Hopper nodded, waiting. Steve closed his eyes. The memories crackled behind them like unstable electricity.
“My dad and Brenner were… close. In business, I guess.” His voice wavered on the edges. “When my dad found out my mom was pregnant with me, he told Brenner. And Brenner—he wanted another candidate for the trials. So my dad got my mom into the drug tests. Right away. She tried to quit, but he didn’t let her.”
A cold breeze slithered through the room, brushing the vines as if Steve recalling the memories stirred something somewhere in the distance.
tick… tick…
Steve swallowed hard.
“Fast forward nine months, she had me. But they told her it was a miscarriage.” His face tightened. “Brenner kept me for eleven years. Then I escaped. Owens found me, gave me everything—name, house, money, school records. Taught me how to talk like a normal kid. And when I was fourteen, he sent me back here.”
He let out a hollow laugh. “And the rest is history.”
Hopper absorbed the information slowly, jaw clenching.
“What about your mom?” he finally asked.
Steve’s expression crumpled. “I have her name. Address. Phone number.” A shaky breath. “Just never had the guts to call.”
Silence pressed in again… thick, wrong. Steve rubbed his arms as a chill crawled over his skin.
Hopper gently shifted the topic. “So… what exactly can you do?”
Steve shrugged awkwardly. “Gravity manipulation. It’s what Brenner called it. Basically telekinesis. And I can, like… listen. To people. Even when I’m not there. It’s like going into a dark room and tuning a radio.”
Hopper stared at him like he was trying to understand a language he’d never heard before. Before he could respond, a stifled, broken sob escaped Steve.
Steve curled into himself, head on his knees. His shoulders trembled violently.
“I—I’ve never told anyone,” he choked.
Hopper pulled him against his side, stiff at first, then firmer. “It’s alright, kid. I’m glad you told me.”
Steve clung to him, full-bodied hug, breath hitching against Hopper’s shoulder. Hopper hugged him back—surprisingly steady, surprisingly warm.
Eventually Steve’s sobs faded into small tremors. He sagged, nearly asleep.
“Why don’t you get some rest?” Hopper murmured. “I’ll keep watch.”
Steve shot him a tired, unreadable look… then nodded and shut his eyes.
Hopper leaned his head back, mind racing.
They stayed in that room for what felt like days. Hard to tell. The ticking came and went, sometimes faint, sometimes closer, threading through the silence like something counting down.
Steve practiced his powers—only small things, little pushes and pulls of the door. Just enough to feel the energy hum under his skin. Just enough to make his nose almost bleed.
Hopper noticed every wobble. Every wince.
By the third “morning”—if morning existed here—Steve felt a little more mobile. His head still pounded. His ribs still burned with every breath. But he could move, think clearly.
He blinked awake and found Hopper asleep beside him, head tipped back, exhaustion carved into the creases of his face.
Steve stared at him, remembering how Hopper had helped clean him up that night in November.
Then he remembered the demodogs. Dustin screaming as Steve held him to his chest while the dogs ran past them. El closing the gate. The faint ticking grew louder for a second—
tick… tick… tick…
Almost as if it was responding to his memories.
He shook it off.
He scanned the room for something to practice with, needing something to take his attention off the echoing screams in his head. But there was nothing except his watch. He unclipped it, set it on the floor, and inhaled deeply.
“Okay,” he whispered to himself.
He tugged at the gravity around it. The watch lifted, hovering inches off the ground.
Higher.
Higher.
Steve smiled—an actual, real smile—as he spun the watch in lazy arcs, watching it loop around the room like a tiny plane, making it to do loopty-loops. It was stupid. But it made him feel… free, somehow.
Until blood slid from his nose.
The ticking grew louder.
He lowered the watch and clipped it back on, wiping the blood away with Hopper’s jacket sleeve.
That’s when he froze.
The stain was fresh.
And the demogorgon loved blood. He remembers from the Byer’s house. The way it had looked to Johnathan and Nancy with their sliced open hands.
He scrambled to Hopper, shaking his shoulder. “It’s coming.”
Hopper snapped awake instantly. “Steve—what’s coming?”
“The demogorgon,” Steve whispered harshly, holding up the bloodstained sleeve. “It can smell this.”
A soft, distant creak echoed down the hall, followed by something else—barely audible.
tick… tick…
Then a skittering growl.
Hopper didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Steve’s arm and yanked him out of the room.
They ran until they were gasping. Lights flickered overhead—like the Upside Down itself was glitching.
Steve knew exactly where they were. The laser chamber. His blood turned to ice when he heard the demogorgon’s howl echo behind them. It rounded the corner—gray, too long, too tall, bones nearly ripping through its skin. Its faceless head spread open, exposing the infinite amount of teeth ready to tear them apart.
Steve couldn’t move. Terror rooted him to the ground.
Hopper grabbed him by the shoulders. “Kid—can you open the gate?”
Steve didn’t answer.
“Steve!” Hopper shook him. “Can you open it?!”
Steve nodded, trembling violently.
He ran to the platform edge, extended his hand, and pushed. The air vibrated. The universe shuddered like it had been struck. His skull felt like it was splitting open but he still pushed. The ticking in the air grew rapid—ticktickticktick—like a worm in his ear.
Blood surged from his nose, his ears, down his neck.
He screamed, but no sound made it out. Hopper fired at the Demogorgon, slowing it—barely. Steve dragged the rift open, inch by agonizing inch, until a red glow bled through the tear.
Then—people emerged. Hazmat suits. Guns. A reinforced cage.
Steve sagged forward, arms trembling, breath coming out in broken gasps. Heat seared across his skin from the raw energy of the gate.
He barely felt himself falling. Barely saw Hopper screaming, trying to reach him. Barely noticed the Demogorgon being contained.
But he felt the hands catching him.
Cold hands. Very familiar hands.
He forced his blurry eyes open—
Brenner.
Smiling like he’d been waiting.
The ringing in Steve’s ears softened just enough to let the voice in.
“Papa is glad to have you back, Seven,” Brenner murmured. “You are sick, but I will help you. You’ll be alright. It’s okay. Papa will make you better.”
The last thing Steve heard before the dark swallowed him was the faint ticking.