"The way he looks at her. Like she's the most important thing in the world to him." "I think she is."
Experiment X - that's was she was known as. A dangerous weapon that belonged to a lab in the Soviet Union. An assassin. A spy.
A seventeen year old...
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— ADVERSITY —
TWO DAYS LATER... Steve sat on a chair pulled up right besides a hospital bed, holding a piece of paper in one hand and Irina's hand in his other. She was stable for now. Her arms and legs were in casts and her neck was being held in a brace. She had tubes in her nose and various needles in her arms and hands to keep her nourished.
But Steve was in shock.
On the slip of paper he was holding were some results of tests Irina had done to be sure she was at the right levels of everything in her body and to be sure she was stable. One of the results included a blood test. Everything seemed as fine as they could be in this situation, apart from one thing. One life-changing thing.
Irina was pregnant.
Steve had questioned the hell out of the nurse, but the tests they had done were accurate. Irina was 100% pregnant. Steve was gonna be a dad. Usually, he would've been the happiest man alive, but the his girlfriend was in a coma, which worried him enough, never mind the fact that he now knew she was having his baby. The nurse told him that so long as she stayed stable and healed well, then things should run smoothly, since she was so early in her pregnancy - around two weeks.
But how the hell was he gonna tell people. He considered keeping it to himself, but knew that it would eat him up if he did. He was already in such a state. He had barely left her side. Barely slept or eaten. The group were coming today to see Irina. They were worried sick. Especially El. She was desperate to see her sister.
She was the first one into the hospital room. She rushed in and let out a slight sob when she saw the state of Irina. Steve stood up out of his chair when he saw the group walk in. El looked at him and immediately embraced him into a hug when he saw the broken expression on his face. Steve hugged her back and couldn't stop a tear from falling from his eye. He'd cried more in the last three days than he ever had in his life. She looked up at him, giving him a sorrowful smile before pulling away and sitting on the bed besides Irina. The rest of the group watched sadly as El took ahold of her hand.
"Her heart stopped." Steve whispered, but everyone heard. "For over a minute." He added. "She died. I.. I mean, clinically. But she came back. The doctors don't know how. They say she's a miracle."
"I'm here, Irina." El whispered and closed her eyes. A flash of something crossed through her mind at the contact with Irina, but she couldn't quite tell what it was. She just knew Irina was going to wake up.
The group stayed for a while but eventually had to leave to unpack and clean up Hopper's cabin. Robin was the only one that stayed behind. She could tell something other than Irina's current visual state was bothering him.
"What is it?" She asked, knowingly. Steve barely looked her in the eye as he handed her that slip of paper. Robin read over it and was scared with what she read, but not surprised. Not after Irina's symptoms. "Sh-she is pregnant."
"What?" Steve questioned her knowing tone. "Did she know?"
"N-no, no. At least, she said she wasn't." Robin said and sighed at Steve's even more so confused face. "She, uh... in Max's trailer after the first Upside Down fiasco, she was puking in the bathroom and me and Max asked her if, you know, she was... pregnant. She was adamant that she wasn't. Said it was just nerves." She explained.
"Why didn't she tell me?" Steve murmured.
"She didn't think she was. She thought the idea was... absurd." Robin told him. "Besides, you know what she's like. She saw how worried you already were and didn't wanna add to that." She said. "Always thinking of other people and never about herself."
"Yeah. Sometimes I wish she'd just... be selfish for once." Steve sighed, sitting back down and pressing a kiss on the back of Irina's hand.
***
Hopper was back in Hawkins. Finally. After eight agonising months. He was back. It was only when he got to see Eleven they he properly heard about what happened to Irina. He'd heard she'd been hurt, but he wasn't aware of the extent until Eleven told him. As soon as he heard, he was straight there. Him and Joyce.
He hurried through the hospital hallways, closely followed by Joyce until he stopped outside one of the rooms. He saw Steve in a chair and his face softened at the sight. Steve looked... crushed. Exhausted. Broken. Hopper slowly walked into the room, only to catch the attention of Steve when he was a few feet away from him. Steve's tear stained face met Hopper's and he immediately looked up from his chair. Hopper pulled Steve into his arms and held him firmly in a fatherly embrace, feeling Steve's body begin to wrack with sobs.
"I-I'm sorry. I... I tried t-to save her." He cried into Hopper's shoulder.
"Hey, listen to me." Hopper said, placing his hands firmly on Steve's shoulders. "She's alive. She'll recover. I know she will."
"B-but she's... she's..." Steve kept trailing off, not being able to get the words out of his mouth.
"Pregnant. She's pregnant." Joyce gasped, holding the paper with all her test results on, seeing the blood test. Hopper let out a breath in shock for a moment, processing the information and was only brought back to reality by Steve letting out another sob.
"H-hey, hey, it's okay. We'll work through this. We will. She's gonna be okay." Hopper said, looking down at Steve and firmly patting his shoulder. But he was still in shock. Irina was pregnant. "You guys are gonna be just fine. She'll recover, and you can get outta Hawkins, and have your baby. They are both going to be just fine." He said and Steve nodded with a quivering lip. Hopper gave his shoulder another pat before slowly making his way over to Irina.
Joyce was quick to comfort Steve too while Hopper looked down at his daughter. He pulled an envelope out of his pocket with the word 'Ирина' (Irina) written on the front. It was a note from her uncle Enzo. He couldn't come to America. Not yet anyway. It was way too dangerous.
"Th-the last thing she said to me was 'I'm not ready to die. She... sh-she died in my arms. Her heart stopped. For a minute. The doctors said she's a miracle." Steve snivelled.
"She is a miracle. She's our miracle." Joyce said, giving Steve's shoulder a comforting squeeze.
Above Irina's bed was a drawing of eight stick men and a dog - Hopper could tell it was drawn by Irina. She wasn't much of an artist, but her drawing had meaning. He stroked the top of her head before leaning down and pressing a kiss onto her forehead.
She was going to be okay.
***
ahhhhhh, i hope you enjoyed this! it's painful knowing imma have to wait like two years to carry on writing this story! i mean, over that time i'll probably go through this book and edit it - like maybe adding a few things. just little tweaks, nothing major. but that's a wrap of season 4! i hope you enjoyed it and i hope we can see more enzo and irina in season 5 bc i kind of struggled incorporating it into vol 2. i'm probably gonna publish so many more steve books haha, i have so many in my drafts. ily all and if u made it this far i adore the absolute shit out of u <33
