Flipped: A Steve Harrington Enemies to Lovers

The Dive

Crammed uncomfortably into the back of Nancy's car, with her gangly legs tangled into Steve's even longer ones, Robin pulls her knees up to her chin and huffs.

"Not to be a wimp, but can I sit in the car? 'Cause this is gonna totally and royally suck." She pouts.

"It'll be fine." Nancy assures.

It will absolutely not be fine.

Not after what they discovered yesterday, at the Creel's. Vecna's hub. Sequestered away in a parallel world. Out of reach.

She shakes her head, her eyes glazed over in thought. "I can't stand to see those doe-eyes of Eddie's break again."

Steve, hearing this, presses his lips together and fails to stifle an annoyed, spluttered laugh.

"Doe-eyes? Geesh, you sound like Y/N." He remarks.

Robin scowls, deftly landing the toe of her sneaker to his shin and he winces in response.

"Shut up," Robin tells him and stresses, "I just, I really, really can't."

"At least he can drink himself into feeling better." Steve jokes, dangling the carrier bag of beers by his fingers. Beers he bought Eddie as a token of moral support, perhaps even an extension of being civil for your sake.

Eyeballing the beers in the bag, Max mutters grimly, "That's what my mom does..."

At this, Steve casts the girl a look of concern, his eyes travelling over her slowly then gravitating towards Lucas - meeting his gaze. They enchange a silent nod of understanding before Lucas reaches out to Max and tenderly takes her hand. The girl offers him an uncertain smile, imperceptible, playing on the corner of her mouth. Then, she shuffles in her seat to stare out the window.

Steve drags his eyes away, back to Robin whose bonkers brain still whirs with worry over how to tell Eddie that he is well and truly fucked.

"Why don't we give it a trial?" She babbles in a panic. "Hey, Eddie. Uh, good news first this time. We found Vecna. Bad news is that he's in that other, darker, much scarier dimension, and The Gate's closed, so we have no way of getting to him. He's entirely shut off to us, so basically you're screwed. And, no, I know you were already screwed, but now you're doubly, triply screwed."

Nancy sucks in her teeth, pained to here the news herself despite discovering it yesterday.

"Wait. Maybe we don't put it like that," She suggests. "We're one step closer to finding Vecna. That's what we say. That's what's important."

Smiling, Steve smacks Robin on the knee, saying, "See, Robin? Positive spin can make all the difference."

"Uh-huh." She mumbles, unconvinced.

Catching a frightening glimpse of a large mass of bodies, jostling together in a crowd, Nancy slows the car just a stone's throw away from Reefer Rick's.

"Oh shit." Dustin swallows, scanning the huge, heaving throngs of people craning their necks. News crews pushing their microphones into police faces, pedestrians frowning and chattering in morbid excitement.

Swinging their legs, everyone clambers from the car, and scurries to get a closer look without inviting any unwanted notice.

Steve whispers to Robin with a tightly knitted brow, "Where are they?"

"Not here." Robin answers, worriedly chewing her bottom lip.

Nancy beckons. She keeps her head bobbed down and nods in the direction of the chief of police, stood up front and carrying a weighty, official air on his shoulders. Before him, stands two other officers, warding off news reporters from getting too close.