American Heroes: A Stranger Things 3 Fic

The Hospital

As they walk up to the hospital, Will gets an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. They go inside and start following Nancy to Mrs. Driscoll's room, but the woman at the reception desk yells at them swiftly. "Excuse me, where do you think you're going?"

They halt, and Nancy turns to her. "Oh, um... I was just going to visit my grandma again."

The woman puts her hand on her hip.

"And – and this..." Nancy motions to Jonathan, Will, and Max. "This is my family."

The woman gives her a look. "I don't care who they are. You know the rules. Two visitors at a time."

"Yeah, but-"

"Two!"

Nancy and Jonathan look to Will and Max. "Wait here. We'll be back soon with a plan," Jonathan says before he and Nancy rush off down the hallway.

Will and Max go to the waiting area. There's a vending machine in one corner, some chairs against the wall, and a table with a few magazines on it in another corner. While Max goes to look at the magazines, Will ducks over to the vending machine to check out what's inside. He puts in a couple quarters for a packet of Reese's pieces, and he watches the packet slowly move forward. Then it stops, stuck.

Making a face, Will rattles the machine. "Seriously?" he mutters.

Max trots up beside him. "What are you getting?" She looks to the machine and, seeing the packet of Reese's pieces wavering on the edge of the line, smacks her hand against the glass. The packet doesn't budge.

Will and Max knock on it a couple more times before Max takes out some quarters from her pocket and hands them to Will. "Here, try it again."

Will frowns at the coins in his hand. "No, it's okay." He tries handing them back to Max, but she moves her hands away. "Max, it's fine. I've got more of my own. You can get something yourself."

"Then use those to get me something, and you can use your quarters to get yours."

Will eyes her before shrugging and sticking the quarters in the machine. He gets Max a packet of Skittles, then puts his quarters in and gets himself the packet of Reese's pieces.

They take a seat in the chairs, eating their candy slowly. Will sits up straight when he feels a tingle in the back of his neck, but it vanishes as quick as it came.

Max scrunches her nose at him. "Are you okay?"

Will turns to look at her, shaking off the feeling. "Yeah, fine. The hospital just creeps me out a bit."

Nodding, Max goes back to eating her Skittles. "If we find the source, what do we do then? How does that get the Mind Flayer out of the Flayed?"

"Billy might be there. We get him, burn it out of him, and hopefully, that'll burn it out of all of the Flayed."

"I hope so." She looks to him. "You really think we'll be able to get it out of him?"

"I think we can try." He leans back in the chair. "I'm just worried about the others. What if something goes wrong, and the Russians capture them as well?"

"That won't happen. El can take them."

"I know she can take them, but they're basically going in there defenseless with no idea where Steve and Robin are. I just hope nothing happens."

Max finishes her Skittles and crunches the empty packet in her hand. "Nothing will. Don't worry. The only thing I'm worried about is how we're going to get the Mind Flayer out of Billy soon enough for El to close the gate."