Wait For Me ~Stranger Things Fanfiction~

Chapter forty-one:

3rd Person POV:

Wendy wandered down the stairs of Hawkins Lab, trying to catch up to Steve and Dustin. She almost wished she had the radio to contact Dustin on his location but she knew the logical thing was that Nancy had her radio to keep contact.

Out of boredom, she swung around the corner to go down another flight of stairs, but yelped in surprise when she literally bumped into Steve.

"What–what the hell are you doing by yourself?" Steve asked once he noticed Nancy and Jonathan weren't with her.

"So I could find you and Dustin," Wendy answered as she looked over Steve's shoulder. "Speaking of, where is he?"

"Being his usual asshole self," Steve scoffed as he brushed past her. "Go on, go to him. Like you always do."

Wendy narrowed her eyes at his back as he was about to go up the stairs.

"What did you do?" She asked.

"Oh, of course, I'm the one that did something," Steve said. "Steve, the bad guy, like always!"

"Well, did you?" Wendy asked. "What did you say to him?"

"The truth," Steve said as he faced her. "Because the two of you went MIA, you weren't there at the crawl and we lost contact with Hopper, which is why we're in this mess in the first place."

"You're blaming Dustin and I because we got attacked?" Wendy asked in offence.

"Yes! Because you two always go and look for a fight!" Steve said loudly, stepping down from the stairs so they were on the same level.

"We didn't look for a fight!" Wendy matched his tone. "Dustin just wanted to visit Eddie's grave and clean the graffiti off of it and I wasn't gonna let him do it alone! Those mouthbreathers just beat us to it and beat us up! There was no way around it!"

"Yeah, after you two poked at them too far!" Steve said.

"I didn't want to get beat up, you asshole, and if you bothered to use your dumb, stupid head, you'd know that I wouldn't allow Dustin to go through that alone!" Wendy said. "I try to make sure Dustin doesn't get cornered, which he would've been if I wasn't there!"

"Yeah, and look at the 'thanks' you got," Steve motioned to her face.

"You know damn well those other guys look hell of a lot worse," Wendy spat. "Hell, I almost killed one of them for him! And I'd do it again!"

"Why?!" Steve asked.

"Because he may be dumb right now but he's been like a brother to me!" Wendy said.

"No, I am!" Steve shouted, pointing at his chest. "Me! Steve! I am your brother!"

Wendy looked at him stunned.

"I am the one who stayed with you when you woke up screaming in the night! I am the one who had to convince mom and dad not to get you psychiatric help because I knew if I told them the truth, they'd send us both off so I had to tell them you were just traumatized by the 'earthquake'!" Steve continued to shout. "I am the one who taught you to drive the Beamer and I was there when you got too frustrated with the gear shift because you kept accidentally stalling out and I had to drive us home!"

Wendy remembers that day. It was very frustrating to drive stick shift and she vowed never to do it again.

"I have been there for you. I've tried to be there for you, Wendy, I really did. And what did I get?" Steve asked harshly. "Nothing. But I didn't hold it against you. I knew, or thought I knew, that you'd come to me when you were ready. Like you always did. And what did I get instead? Again, nothing. You've turned to Dustin and you encouraged his Hellfire bullshit."