A/N - Hi Team! Happy New Year! This first chapter of 2026 was based on the song Where Is My Husband? By Raye. It's set between Seasons 4 and 5, and the reader is the same age as Steve (approximately 21 at this point), and they were in the same grade at school, but weren't really friends. I hope you all enjoy it.
"I swear, this man is testing my patience," you grumbled, forehead resting against the wall, and the phone tucked between your head and your shoulder. It truly was the picture of frustration, and you were making your opinions pretty clear to Lucy on the other end of the line. "I mean, I don't want to rush the guy, but Christ, Luce, what's taking him so long-"
Your words trailed off when you heard a floorboard creak behind you, your head lifting off the wall to find Steve frozen midstep behind you.
"Sorry," he whispered, teeth clenched, and still stood stock still in the middle of the room. "Sorry," he repeated, a little louder this time as he straightened up. "I wasn't trying to listen or anything, but Dustin told me to help myself to the fridge," he pressed on, nodding past you to the kitchen. "And I didn't want to interrupt your call-"
"Y/N?" Lucy called out on the other end of the line. "What's happening?"
You let out a soft breath, collecting the phone from your shoulder. "Sorry. I'll call you back later, Luce," you hummed before hanging up, fixing Steve with a tight-lipped smile. "Kitchen is all yours," you murmured, moving back into the lounge and dropping down onto the couch with a heavy sigh.
Steve busied himself in the fridge for a minute, acting as though he was trying to decide between sodas whilst carefully watching you from the corner of his eye. You had sounded so upset on the phone, and you still looked pretty worried now, your brow furrowed tightly as you picked at your nails.
"All good with you?" he started, hesitating on his journey back through the lounge.
"Yep," you breathed softly. "Just peachy."
"Boy troubles?" he hummed, immediately regretting it when your worried gaze turned on him.
There was a single beat of silence, and just as Steve opened his mouth to apologise, you finally spoke. "You were listening to me," you yelped.
"I wasn't listening. I just-" he hesitated, his words faltering on his tongue. "You sounded so upset," he pressed. "I didn't mean to hear it."
Just as you were about to chastise him for eavesdropping, Dustin had come bounding into the room. "What's taking you so long?" he grumbled, snatching one of the drinks from Steve's hand before glancing over at you. "Stop bothering Steve. We've got stuff to do-"
"I wasn't bothering him."
"I walked in on Y/N's on the phone. I was just saying sorry for-"
"Steve was being nosey," you interjected. "And started prying into my love life."
Dustin snorted with laughter at your comment, earning himself a glare. "What love life?"
"Dustin," you yelped out, watching as Steve swatted the back of his head.
"Don't talk to her like that," he uttered, his voice far firmer than you would have expected.
"What?" Dustin yelped back, looking frantically between the two of you. "It's not my fault that she spends all her time complaining that no guys want to ask her out when she doesn't even leave the house," he started again. "It's like she thinks she's going to turn around and find her future husband standing in our damn kitchen."
"God, you're such a jerk," you bit at him, pushing yourself off the sofa and marching out of the room.
Steve let out a soft sigh. "Well, that went well," he breathed softly. "You could be nicer to her, you know that?"
"I'm right-"
"You were an asshole," Steve interrupted. "She was already upset; you didn't have to make it worse."
The knock on your door a couple of minutes later had been both unexpected and unwanted, and you'd made that as clear as physically possible when you pulled it open with a face like thunder, staring down Steve like he was your sworn enemy.
"What?" you bit, watching as he swallowed down the lump in his throat.
"I, uh-" he cleared his throat slightly. "Dustin told me what you're upset about," he confessed.
Your glare faltered, replaced by something that bordered on pure embarrassment for just a second, before returning to its previous pissed-off mode. "He needs to learn to mind his own business-"
"You aren't going to end up alone, Y/N," he pressed. "I know it doesn't mean much coming from me, because, shit, I'm probably the most single person in Hawkins, but I think you're worrying about something that has literally zero chance of actually happening."
Your expression softened slightly. "I've never even had a boyfriend," you confessed quietly. "And Mom keeps talking about how her friends' daughters are all engaged, or married, or pregnant, and-" your words trailed off into a small shrug.
"And she got in your head, huh?" he hummed softly. "My Dad does that all the time, although he's usually more focused on my career being an absolute trash heap, you know?" he started again, letting out a half-assed chuckle. "Parents are the worst," he added softly.
"What if-" your words trailed off slightly. "What if I never meet someone, and then I die alone in a shitty little apartment with 10 cats?"
A proper snort of laughter slipped out of Steve at that, only catching himself when he noticed you weren't laughing with him. "You're not going to die alone-"
"But, what if, Steve?"
"Tell you what," he hummed, leaning against the frame of the door, his eyebrows all scrunched up as he considered his next words carefully. "What if, in a few years, when we're old and gross and in our 30s, if we're both still hopelessly single, you and I give it a shot?"
"Give it a shot?"
"I'll take you on a couple of dates, and if you decide you don't completely detest me, we'll do the whole marriage and kids thing. I'll even buy us a little house on the nice side of town, and we'll have a little annexe above the garage for Dustin to live out his days."
A soft chuckle bubbled out of you at his comment. "That's really sweet-"
"Just think about it," he hummed softly, leaning a little further forward, smiling down at you. "We could even get a dog."
"Cute," you murmured, biting down on the inside of your lip to stop the grin that was threatening to take its place there. "It'll have to be a pretty substantial diamond for me to say yes, you know that, right?"
"Obviously," Steve teased. "Only the best for my future wife." Suddenly, Steve let out another snort of laughter. "Hey, look at that," he started, a bright smile on his lips. "Maybe your future husband did just show up in your kitchen out of nowhere, one day."
"God, I can't wait to prove Dustin wrong."
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