Flipped: A Steve Harrington Enemies to Lovers

E Pluribus Unum - Y/N's POV

In your life, you've broken your arm twice. Which considering the type of person you are, is pretty fucking good going.

The last time was this year in the spring, on Max's skateboard when she dared you to try a kick-flip. In a matter of seconds, you'd slipped off the thing and ate shit on the ground. Your elbow was grazed, your ego bruised, but most notably, your radius was snapped in two.

Hopper drove you to the hospital and waited with you for hours on end in the emergency room. He even held your hand during the worst of it, reserving any sly digs until after the tears had subsided.

The first time was when you were 11. It was at one of the military bases where you used to live with your dad, your real dad. The one you ran away from. The one that doesn't even come close to Popper.

Every day was the same. Wake up at the crack of dawn and you were made to pledge allegiance to the flag, even though you hated doing it. Then, drills, beastings, target practice. Life was an endless cycle of fresh bruises and skinned knees and constant fear of daddy dearest. The only respite was hidden beneath bedsheets turned den, illuminated by torchlight and filled vinyls and books - your not-so-secret hiding place.

The day you first broke your arm, was the day you fell off the assault course.

It was the same shit, different day. Same waking up. Same pledge to the flag. Same wishing you were tucked safely underneath those blankets at night.

You remember shifting your weight in new combat boots, the laces pulled unbearably tight and the unbroken leather bit at your heels and nipped at your ankles, the start of a blister already stinging the flesh.

For a child, you wore an unbecoming severity across your face - the scar that runs through your eyebrow bright pink, having been healed for only a year.

Even nowadays, aged 18, you remember how stern you looked. In fact, you're fairly certain there's some old photograph stuffed away somewhere with the image of you and your brother stood together with gelled hair and hands rigid by your sides, your mouths twisted.

Your face was stern then, when you looked across the pit you needed to swing over. Below, your father glaring up at you, just a mere dot on the ground.

"I can't do it!" Your tiny voice desperately pleaded.

Your father just hardened his gaze, his face barely moving a muscle.

"You're gonna do it," He shouted up. "Or you won't eat tonight!"

You remember thinking: that's fine.

When you didn't respond, your father changed his mind.

"You're gonna do it. Or he won't eat tonight," And he pointed at your brother stood sheepishly behind you, waiting to take his turn. "Do you understand me?!"

"Yes."

"Yes. What?"

"Yes, sir."

Peeling your attention back across the pit, it appeared to stretch far away out of reach; if it wasn't impossible for your little child's body before, it definitely was in that instance.

You heard your brother's calming presence behind you, his voice as soothing as it always was.

"It's okay. You don't have to."

"Yeah, I do."

You took a big deep breath, and leapt out into the open. But you didn't catch the rope and plummeted the entire way down, landing with a dense thud in the dirt, painfully on your arm.