Twisted Happiness (Stranger Things Steve x OC)

Chapter 1 - Moving On

 I started this series at Season 2. My OC was part of the event of Season 1 but I was struggling with getting a good flow, so i decided to start in season 2 and do flashbacks to season 1. I have plans for this fic to go through season 4 and 5 once its released.

What you need to know is my OC (Veronica) escaped from Hawkins lab five years prior. She has the same abilities as El, however she was trained more aggressively as a "security" measure for subjects like El. Specifically, she was placed with El as her "guardian". When she escaped El was supposed to go with her, but something happened (the reason will become clear in season 4). In season 1, Veronica got stuck in the Upside down when trying to help Nancy when she went through.

This is unbeta'd and all errors are mine.

Will's disappearance and then reappearance shocked Hawkins. For a month after the destruction and mystery at the middle school and Wills sudden resurfacing, news outlets, papers, reports everyone wanted to know what happened. Then just like that, it became nothing more than the past and people moved on. Winter moved to spring and then summer. It was as if nothing happened, and only for a select few did the memories still linger.

The events had transformed everyone that was there that night and a secret bond was created, one that I wasn't sure any of us realize was there. Unfortunately that meant my once quiet, invisible life on the sidelines was turned on its head. Jim Hopper had made a promise to me after that night. He had let me remain in my small studio apartment behind the arcade with the understanding that he would be checking in regularly. Regularly being at the very least twice a week, but it always turned out to be three to four times. It was guilt driven, I was confident of that. He had let the lab remain open, despite my protest.

Joyce came around bringing food, and always had on a warm smile. It was easy to forget that she wasn't my family, she treated me like her own and it felt good, until I was reminded my own mother had given me to the lab just to be experimented on. I tried my best to not be bitter or resentful but it was hard, they weren't doing this for me, they were just doing it because they felt bad for me, and I hated the pity.

Steven had made dramatic changes. He and Nancy had gotten back together before Christmas, but he had dropped Tommy and his clingy gossiping girlfriend. They seemed happy, but even I could see a shadow over Nancy and the falter in her smile. I had recounted to her what I had seen in the Upside Down and although she nodded in understanding, having been there herself, I could see her anger with Barb's death. Will had come back, and we were all happy, but there was a survivor's guilt that hung between us. Steve turned out to be a genuinely nice guy, and eventually I found myself becoming friend with him.

It was a new experience, I was used to being alone, hidden, but now after everything all my secrets were out in the open, people knew who I was. Be it only a handful, but trust was hard for me, and I was now trusting a group of people with my secret about who I was and the lab. Where I thought I would be treated like another experiment, I was instead going to parties (even if I didn't want to go). Steve always seemed to stay within arm's length of me and was happy to drive me hope if it got to be too much. He had watched me jump through a hole in the Byers ceiling and take down a Demogorgon and then watched me go against the same Demogorgon in the middle school, and then watch as I broke down at the loss of El.

I was unsure how I felt about all of it, but I knew I had to keep my distance to a point. This war was far from over and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt the people that actually started to mean something to me. This was the reason I kept my distance, I didn't want to care, I didn't want to lose anyone else, and I didn't want to be the reason anyone got hurt, but whether I liked it or not our lives were all connected now.