pouringmyheartoutforpaper

[pouringmyheartoutforpaper]

steve ‘leaves a dozen little hickies and gentle kisses on the soft part of your inner thighs when he eats you out’ harrington

[pouringmyheartoutforpaper]

i just barked im so serious

if you called steve 'harrington' he would press his tongue against his cheek, stand with his hands on his hips, trying to hide his smile and say, oh its harrington now huh, he kinda loves it, it makes his head all fuzzy <3

[pouringmyheartoutforpaper]

thinking ab this series nonstop lately

single thread

part 1, part 2, part 3

pairing: spider-man!steve harrington x fem!reader

summary: steve has a big secret and convinces himself he needs to stay away from you to keep you safe. that’s tough to do when you’re his neighbour.

word count: 8.2k

warnings: spider-man!steve au, some violence (r is attacked and a pocket knife is mentioned but nothing major happens), blood/injuries, strangers/sort of friends to lovers (ish?)

a/n: i really liked writing this one and i hope u guys like it too!!! spidey!steve is something i’ve wanted to try for a while and here it is!!!! he’s my baby <3

/ᐠ(๏‸๏)ᐟ\

When Steve moved to Indianapolis, not once did he think he’d get bit by some radioactive spider and gain super powers. Yet, here he is, swinging through the city like something out of some comic book. Sometimes he doesn’t even believe it’s real, and it’s his life.

On his way home, he spots his building easily, the route embedded in his head. The corners to turn, the spots to shoot his webs.

Stuck to the wall beside his window, he tries to open it and realizes he left it locked. “Idiot,” he grumbles to himself.

With a groan he jumps down, landing in the alley. He throws his clothes over his suit and makes sure nobody’s around before slipping the mask off and into his bag. For once, he uses the actual door to enter the building.

He opts for the stairs and when he makes it to his floor he sees you in the hallway. He resists the urge to go back down and wait a couple of minutes.

His door is across from yours, and when he walks over, you’re quick to send him a smile and a ‘hello.’ He nods at you and faces his door, unlocking it quickly and going inside.

It’s not that he doesn’t like you, it’s that he doesn’t want to involve people in his life when it’s gotten so complicated. He has Robin in the city and that’s about it. And he already worries enough about her. If he’d met you pre-bite, things would be much different.

He’d return your kind smiles and greetings, he’d tell you when he likes your outfit or thinks your hair looks really nice (which is pretty much every time he sees you, even when you think it’s awful).

He’d rather not put you in any danger, though, so he doesn’t. He just thinks you’re pretty and keeps it to himself.

You don’t know any of that, however, so you’re convinced that Steve doesn’t like you and you have no idea why. Every time his only response is a nod or a limp wave, you wait until he’s out of sight to frown, to scrunch your eyebrows.

You try to think about what you might’ve done.

You first met Steve when you moved into the building, your hair held away from your face with a clip, baby hairs sticking to your damp forehead, and your sweatshirt hanging off your shoulder. Not your best look.

He must’ve heard the thump of boxes hitting the ground, the mumbled curses you kept uttering. Knuckling at his tired eyes, he opened his door and peeked his head into the hallway.

“What the-”

He shut right up when you turned around, smiling (almost wincing) at him.

“Hi,” you introduced yourself, and he repeated your name so quietly you didn’t even hear it. “Sorry about the noise. I have a lot of stuff.”

He nodded, looking at the few boxes in the hall, “you’re moving in?”

“Yeah.”

“You need some help?”

“Seriously?” He half nodded, half shrugged. “That would be great. Thank you so much.”

“Sure. ‘M Steve, by the way.”

Steve. He’s pretty, you thought. Brown, fluffy hair and soft eyes, a mouth you think must look even better when he smiles.

He carried the heavier boxes without complaint or breaking a sweat. His arms flexed with the actions, but his face was completely unaffected. You were amazed. And probably stared at him too much.

When every box was inside your apartment, you’d thanked him, and he’d brushed it off saying it was no problem and went back inside his own place.

No problem, like he didn’t carry box after box for you because you couldn’t afford movers.

Now, with your back against the inside of your door after seeing him in the hallway, you replay that meeting once again. You can’t figure out what you did. Worse, you think, maybe you didn’t do anything at all and you’re just someone who’s easy to dislike.

Maybe it wouldn’t matter so much if he wasn’t so good looking. If he didn’t make you nervous whenever his eyes glanced over you, if you had actual friends to occupy your time, if you didn’t want him to like you so bad.

If, if, if.

You try to stop thinking about it and pick up the book you’d left on your coffee table. You have to reread passages, distracted and unfocused.

-

The bookstore’s been slow today.

You’ve been keeping yourself as busy as possible, even with an empty store. Dusting shelves, re-organizing sections that looked fine before, switching displays around. Eventually you gave in and sat behind the counter with a book, watching people pass by the front windows.

The sun set at some point, sinking behind buildings and leaving the city lit by streetlights and warm glows seeping through windows.

As boring as it can be, you wouldn’t be doing much different if you were at home. Finding things to do to pass time, sitting around aimlessly. At least here, you get paid for doing it.

When it’s time to close up you’re not sure if your sigh is from relief or disappointment. You’re lonely often, but it’s harder to ignore it when you’re all alone at home, no people around at all, even if they’re mostly just passing by on the sidewalk.

You go through the list, sweeping, setting the alarm, shutting off the lights, and locking the door.

The night air is cool, light wind blowing at your cheeks, ruffling your hair. The usual sounds surround you. Honking horns and tires rolling against pavement, indistinguishable voices and the click of the bookstore door locking.

You keep your keys in your hand while you walk home, one of them sticking up between your knuckles. Just in case.

One foot in front of the other, again and again, you walk along the sidewalk. Your footsteps a steady rhythm, hands tucked in your pockets to keep them warm, head bent to avoid making eye contact with any other pedestrians.

Only a couple of minutes from your place, you can hear someone walking along behind you. You shake your head, telling yourself they’re probably just headed in the same direction.

That reassurance disappears when the stranger whistles at you.

You don’t look up, you don’t turn around, you just keep your head down and walk faster, your heartbeat speeding in your chest. You’ve seen stories of what can happen to someone walking home alone. You never thought you’d have one of your own.

“Hey, cupcake! Where you going?” His voice is scratchy and scary. You pick up your pace even more.

At your ignorance, the man speaks again, “I’m talking to you.” His hand grabs your sleeve when he says it.

More afraid than you’ve ever been, you jerk your arm from his grasp and stupidly turn down an alleyway as a shortcut. It’s a horrible decision, but when you’re scared like that, it’s really hard to think straight.

You feel bad for being annoyed with people in horror movies. You get it now.

You’re almost jogging now, but it doesn’t deter the man. No, he catches up and grabs your wrist, twisting you around and pushing your back roughly into the brick wall of the building behind you.

Your wrist is slammed against it where he grabbed you, no doubt scratching your skin and making you flinch, your keys falling from your grasp.

This is it, you think. I’m gonna die here. Alone.

Your eyes water, a tear drips down your cheek and the man laughs in your face. You try to break away from his hold but he doesn’t let up. The only thing you manage is to knee him in the thigh, but it doesn’t do much.

“Nice try, cupcake. I’ve got you now.” he says. That’s when you notice the glint of a pocket knife in his hand.

“Please. Don’t,” is all you can say, trying and trying to get your arms out of the man’s tight hold. Tight enough to bruise.

Steve’s hair stands at the back of his neck, on his arms. Until now, his patrolling had been quiet. Easy fixes like an elderly woman not crossing the street quick enough or a man who’d locked his keys in his car.

Now, his instincts tell him this thing isn’t so small.

Without a second thought, he jumps from where he’d been perched at the ledge of a building and swings in the direction his senses take him. In your direction.

One second, you’re squeezing your eyes shut, thinking it’s the end, and the next, there’s the sound of someone landing in the alley and the thwip of a web.

The man is pulled off of you so fast you can barely keep up. There’s a flash of blue and red, hints of webbing being shot, and just like that, your attacker is knocked out and stuck to the opposite wall.

Your chest heaves and your back slides down the wall, landing on your bum on the pavement.

Steve turns around now that the man’s been dealt with and he thinks his heart stops for a second. He hadn’t realized it’d been you. You and your sweet smile, now turned to tears streaking your cheeks.

He thought, without him, you’d be better off. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he should’ve been keeping an eye on you. For now, he’s sort of glad he hasn’t spoken to you much, only because there’s a better chance you won’t recognize his voice.

Steve moves to crouch in front of you, “are you okay? Did he hurt you?” His hands hover by the sides of your face, like he’s holding himself back from touching you. Restraining himself.

Spider-man is in front of you. Spider-man with his suit and white-eyed mask who just saved your life is right there in front of you. So much for a slow day.

You shake your head and wipe your cheeks with your palms, “no. No, just- um, just my wrist, I think.”

“Can I look?”

You hold out your arm for him to see, and he moves his hands down, one tugging back your sleeve and the other holding your wrist gently. The fabric of his gloves brushes against your skin lightly, careful not to touch you where you’re hurt.

“Doesn’t look sprained. Just scraped,” he says. He looks up from your arm to your face, the eyes on his mask narrowing ever so slightly. “You’re sure you aren’t hurt anywhere else?”

He sounds genuinely worried. Like, you can hear it in his voice. It makes you want to cry all over again. You’d always thought that when Spider-man dealt with the bad guys, he’d just move on. Now, you can see that he cares a lot more than that.

You shake your head, “I’m fine.”

As fine as you can be after what just happened.

He nods and stands, offering you his hands to help you up. You pick up your keys and accept, slipping your hands into his. He pulls you up and squeezes your fingers before letting go.

“Will you let me take you home?” He asks.

You’re sort of in shock, and you’d rather not walk anymore. So, you agree.

He opens his arms for you, picking you up easily with a single arm wrapped around your waist. Your own arms go around his neck, legs tentatively wrapping around his waist.

“Ready?”

“Yeah,” you almost whisper.

He hears you loud and clear, your mouth close to his ear, his senses seemingly even more heightened than usual with you around.

“Hold on,” he says.

Then, you hear the whip of his webs and you’re in the air. Your limbs tighten around him.

“Oh my god. Oh my god.”

The wind rushes all around you. In your ears, your hair, your jacket. The city does, too, lights flickering by and buildings growing distant over his shoulder. You squeeze your eyes shut.

“You okay?” He asks over the wind.

“Maybe!”

You can feel his chest rumble with a chuckle. You wish you could’ve heard it, too.

He swings you towards your building when he remembers he’s not supposed to know where you live, “where to?”

You tell him, yelling over the noise not realizing he can hear you just fine normally. You don’t know about those superpowers, focused on the ones that have him transporting you home.

He gets you there quickly, landing just outside the front entrance. You stay wrapped around him for a second before you realize you’ve stopped moving. You remove yourself from him so quickly he has to steady you with hands on your upper arms so you don’t fall.

“You okay from here?” He checks, his head lowering to catch your gaze.

“Yeah. Thank you for…” Saving my life, making sure I’m okay, taking me home. Everything since you landed in the alley.

“Just doing my job.”

“Right. Thanks again,” you turn to head inside.

“Goodnight. And take care of your wrist!”

“Goodnight, Spider-man.”

-

Steve sees you more often after that night. He thinks the universe might be punishing him. Making him see you more, making him work harder to keep his distance.

He tossed and turned the entire night after bringing you home. He wondered if you were actually okay, trying to listen in case you were crying or having a nightmare. He worried so much more than he would have if it had been any other person and he hated it.

He saw you the next morning. You were checking your mail at the same time as him. Your sleeve had ridden up, exposing the scratches on your wrist from the brick wall, the faint bruises of fingerprints, your eyes tired.

“Are you okay?” He couldn’t help but ask, gesturing limply at your hand. Maybe if you give him a convincing yes, he can finally stop thinking about you so much.

You look down at your arm when he asks, quickly tugging your sleeve back down to cover it up. “Oh. It’s nothing.”

It’s not nothing. He knows it isn’t because he was there and he saw at least a part of what happened to you. He can’t let you know that, so he just nods and turns to his mailbox, listening to your footsteps as you walk out of the mailroom and back up to your apartment. His fingers twitch by his side.

Steve’s used to feeling protective over people, that’s not new, but to feel so protective over someone he barely knows hasn’t happened before. That night haunts him. Your tear-streaked face, the blooming bruises on your arm. He never wants to see you hurting again.

Maybe that’s why he starts returning your greetings in the halls, actually pausing to ask how you are, to smile back at you (they’re tight-lipped smiles, but it’s something).

He’s trying to be kind without getting any closer. No matter how much he wants to know you.

One day, as Steve’s heading out for the late shift, you’re just getting home from your own job, it seems. The clip in your hair has loosened since you put it in, strands falling freely around your face. For a second, Steve has the urge to tuck them behind your ears.

He pushes that down.

“Hi,” he says, his door shut behind him.

“Hi, Steve.”

“How are you?”

“Okay, thanks. Tired,” you fiddle with the frayed hem of your knitted sweater. “Had the opening shift today.”

“Ah. Any plans?”

“Probably just gonna take a nap.”

He nods. For a second you think he might’ve asked because he wanted to do something with you. It’s a stupid thought and you push it away.

“Have a good nap, then,” he gives you the close-mouthed smile that’s become more common between you, and heads towards the stairs.

The shift in his behavior towards you hasn’t been huge, but it’s been enough for you to notice it. He talks to you sometimes—always briefly, but still—he doesn’t turn away from you as soon as he gets the chance like he used to.

It’s confusing, but you’re happy about it anyway. Maybe he just needed some time to warm up to you a bit. Maybe he doesn’t hate you after all.

Inside your apartment, you change into sweats and practically collapse onto your couch, playing something mindless on the TV and pulling a blanket over yourself.

You really are tired, but it’s not only from working early. Lately, your dreams have been haunted by rough hands, dark alleys, and flashes of blue and red. You constantly feel like there are eyes on you, and when you walk home from closing shifts, you always search for a certain superhero at the tops of buildings.

You fall asleep at some point, and by the time you wake up, it’s dark outside.

-

Days seem to blur together. Repetitive and tiring all the same. The only thing you have to look forward to lately is your short conversations with Steve in the halls.

You’re not sure how many days later it is when you fall asleep on your couch again. This time, you’re woken up by noises coming from the hallway, right by your door. You get up slowly, feet hitting the cool floors as you walk over to your door.

You don’t know what time it is, but from the darkness of your apartment and the random game show that plays on your TV, you know it’s late.

Peeking through your peephole, you see Steve, fumbling with his keys and almost limping. You open the door.

“Steve?”

He shuts his eyes when he hears your voice, all sleepy and worried.

Like an idiot, he’d left his window locked again and had to use the door after a night of patrolling. A worse night than usual.

You gasp when he spins to face you, one of his eyes swollen shut, a cut on his eyebrow, his nose bleeding, and another cut on his lip.

“Oh my god,” you step forward a little, leaving your door open. “What happened?”

“I’m fine. Sorry for waking you.”

“You’re bleeding,” you say. “Come on. Let me help you.”

You grasp his arm lightly in both of your hands, and when he doesn’t protest, lead him into your apartment.

Steve’s suit feels tighter now, scratching his skin where it sits because he worries you’ll see it despite his layers on top of it. Still, he could use some help. And he can’t bring himself to be upset that you’re the one helping him.

“You don’t have to,” his voice is scratchy.

“I want to help you, okay?”

You bring him into your bathroom, making him sit on the toilet lid. You leave him there for a bit, coming back with some ice in a dish cloth.

“Here, for your eye.” He takes it from you and sucks in a breath when he presses it against his swollen skin.

“Thank you for doing this.”

“‘Course.”

You pull out your first-aid kit from under your sink, setting it on the counter and taking out what you need. You grab another cloth, wetting it in the sink.

“Here,” you stand between his legs, using a bent finger to tilt his chin up towards you. You wipe the dried blood from his skin in silence, Steve’s eyes shut, yours running all over his face.

You’re surprised he trusts you enough to let you do this. You wonder if this is why he’s so closed-off. If maybe he’s involved in something that gets him hurt. Often.

An underground boxing ring, debt with bad people, so many possibilities cross your mind, not a single one being the truth.

Once his face is as clean as it can be, you move on to disinfecting the cuts by his eyebrow and lip. “This might sting a little.”

“S’okay.”

His face pinches a little bit when you dab away at his cuts, but he doesn’t make any noise. All you can hear is his deep breaths and the small sound of his leg bouncing.

His nose hasn’t bled anymore since you cleaned it, and he keeps the ice over his eye the entire time. The cut by his lip looks much smaller when there’s no blood surrounding it.

Only his eyebrow needs a small bandage, which you grab and unwrap. “Last step.”

He feels you press the bandage on, your fingers lightly pushing the sides onto his skin to make sure it’s stuck. The process, he finds, hurts much less when you do it.

He misses your warmth when you step away from him. “Thank you.”

“Are you in trouble, or something? What happened to you?”

“It’s not a big deal. I swear.”

He hates lying to you, but he convinces himself it’s better this way. For your own good.

You don’t look convinced but you drop it. “Okay.”

“I should go,” he stands from where he’d been sitting and waivers a little, leaning on the counter.

“You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

“I’m fine, just got dizzy.”

“You can take the couch, if you want. It’s not a problem, really.”

“I live across the hall, I’m sure I’ll be fine.” He steps towards the doorway and has to pause again. “Or maybe I’ll stay. If you’re sure.”

“I wouldn't have offered if I wasn’t.”

You walk him to the couch, letting him lean on you whenever he needs to along the way. He sits down, and you go to get him a pillow and blankets.

This is the longest amount of time you’ve ever spent with Steve, and it pinches at your heart that he’s hurt during it. That he only needed help, not company. Even so, you fight a smile when you come back to the living room and find him laying down, already half asleep.

You spread the blankets over him. You take the pillow you’d brought him and guide him to lift his head. You’re convinced he’s asleep, so you let yourself push the hair off his forehead just once.

When you turn to go to your room, he catches your hand in his.

“Thank you, honey.”

Honey. That’s new.

-

Steve was already gone when you got up the next day. The only evidence of his visit the blankets he’d left folded up on your couch and the washcloth stained with his blood you used to clean him up.

Every time you pass his door you think about knocking and checking on him. About making sure he’s okay.

You’ve been worrying a lot more ever since the night you were attacked and saved by Spider-man, and that goes for more than just yourself. You worry about every person you see walking alone, about Steve being hurt again, about noises you might be imagining at night.

You probably look over your shoulder fifty times on your way home from the grocery store, your hands too full with your bags to be able to defend yourself if anything happens.

You breathe out when you make it in front of your door. You’re safe, you’re fine, you have to tell yourself.

In your rush to get your keys from your pocket, you drop two of your bags. “Shit.” Boxes and cans thump against the floor.

Steve hears everything, all of the time. He hears you curse and the sound of your stuff hitting the ground. He blames the fact that he heads to the door on boredom and nothing more.

“Need some help?” His voice startles you.

“Oh! Hey, Steve. It’s fine, just dropped some stuff.”

You set the rest of your bags down, kneeling to pick up things that fell out of the ones you dropped. Embarrassed, you keep your head ducked.

Steve can sense it, the way your pulse jumps a little around him. He doesn’t know whether to be glad or worried that he makes you nervous. Either way, he bends down beside you, helping you pick things up.

A bag of apples, a can of soup.

You both reach for the bags at the same time, fingers brushing before pulling away. Like there was a shock, a little spark where your skin met for the briefest second.

Before you can, Steve picks up the bags. “I got ‘em. You get the door.”

“I- Okay.”

You turn around and fumble with the lock, opening your door and walking inside. Steve follows you and puts your bags on your kitchen counter.

“Good?” He checks.

“Yeah. Thank you, Steve.”

“No problem, honey. Think of it as payback for you patching me up.”

Honey. Last time he said it, you chalked it up to his tired state. That excuse can’t be used this time, and the term warms you.

“Right,” you look him over. His injuries are almost gone and it’s only been a couple of days. At least, you think it has. “You’re feeling better?”

“You did a good job,” he says.

“I’m glad.”

He nods, rocks back onto his heels once, “so, um, I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah. Thanks again.”

He nods again and heads out, shutting your door behind him. With every conversation you have, Steve seems to warm up around you just a bit more. You don’t want to hope too much, so you push your hair from your face and turn to put your groceries away.

That evening, when you’re getting ready to cook dinner—a simple spaghetti and meatballs—you realize you’ve never seen Steve bring groceries into his apartment. Not once.

He must eat, you know that, but you wonder if he eats well, or enough. You cook for two without realizing until it’s finished. There’s extra of everything.

It’s probably stupid, maybe weird, but you make a bowl and head out into the hall. You knock on Steve’s door, three little taps of your knuckles against the wood.

He hears the knocks right away, listens closer to hear your voice mumbling to yourself. He knows your voice well. Sometimes, he can hear you humming to yourself in your apartment. He doesn’t try to listen in on you, but it’s like his ears subconsciously seek you out.

Steve opens the door and sees you in the same clothes as earlier, a shy smile on your face, and a bowl of spaghetti in your hands.

“Hey. What are you…?”

“I accidentally made too much food, and I thought maybe you’d want some?”

Actually, you made too much food for him, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“Oh,” his heart does a stupid jump in his chest. You’re so kind and you don’t even seem to be trying. If anything, you seem to be embarrassed about it, like it’s a fault. “That’s really nice.”

“It’s just pasta. You want it?”

“Sure,” he takes the bowl from you. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. And I promise it’s not, like, poisoned or anything.” You wince at yourself, “I don’t know why I said that.”

“Well, I’m glad it’s not poisoned.”

You laugh awkwardly. “Okay. Um, enjoy.”

He stands in his doorway while you go back inside, his smile spreading as soon as your back is turned to him. He heads inside after you do, kicking his door shut.

He’s never smiled at a fucking bowl of pasta the way he does. It’s getting harder and harder to make himself avoid you, avoid that light in his chest that seems to brighten when he sees you.

He’s in trouble.

-

You bring him dinner often. At least twice a week, on days you don’t work or when you’re pretty sure he’s home.

He thanks you every time with a close-mouthed smile and brings back your dishes the next day, perfectly clean.

It feels like, over time, with every dish you bring him, a chip falls away from the walls he’s built up around himself. You can tell there’s a lot of them, and that they’re tall, but you don’t mind waiting for them to lower piece by piece. He’s worth that wait, you think.

You’re happy to cook for him—you’re cooking for yourself already anyway—and you’ve grown closer because of it. Something like friends, almost. The conversations seem to grow longer each time you see him.

Sometimes, on good days, he even invites you inside to eat with him.

You aren’t very close, but right now, he’s the only friend you have (besides your coworkers, who really only hang out with you because they have to). You’d think the way you get excited to see him would be sad if it weren’t for how nice he is, for how he makes you feel.

He listens to you when you speak, his eyes don’t stray, either. He always tells you he likes your cooking when you know it isn’t all that great. He even hugged you before you left his place once, his arms around your waist, hands running over your skin delicately before he pulled away.

“Thank you for dinner,” he’d said. “Again.”

“I like making it for you. Makes me feel useful.”

“Still. Thank you, honey,” he’d surprised you with it, moving close before you could really process it.

“Oh,” you’d stupidly let your arms hang limp for a second before wrapping them shyly around his neck. “I don’t think my cooking is this good.”

“It’s not just your cooking,” he’d told you.

He pulled away after that, leaving your body warm and your smile difficult to suppress.

You’re well aware you have a crush on him, but you don’t want to let it ruin the beginnings of the friendship you’ve built.

Steve’s not sure what the pull he feels towards you is, like one of his webs is tethered to you even though he can’t see it. It’s something his senses can’t tell him, no matter how much he focuses on them.

He thinks you’re the sweetest person and you don’t even try, all shy smiles and soft gestures. He likes how when you talk, he can really hear how you feel about something in your voice. He trusts you, despite not knowing you too well.

He also thinks you’re really pretty, but that’s not important.

Steve had another rough night patrolling. Some guy decided to play Wolverine—he’d made gloves with blades and everything—and scratched Steve pretty good on his upper arm. It hurts like a bitch, even though it’ll heal quickly. And he’ll have to sew up his suit.

He got the guy, which is something, at least.

Luckily, he actually remembered to unlock the window this time, so he’s able to sneak into his place with ease. He stripped out of his suit and took a shower before anything. Maybe not the smartest decision while actively bleeding, but he felt gross.

Afterwards, clad in plaid pajama pants and a plain cotton t-shirt, he searches his bathroom for his first-aid kit while keeping a towel pressed to his arm. A dark stain blooms on the fabric the longer he keeps it against his wound.

“Yes,” he cheers to himself when he finds the small white box.

He sits on the tile floors, back against his sink cabinets, and the kit in his lap. He opens it with one hand, the other too busy trying to slow the bleeding. When he gets it open, he’s disappointed with what he finds.

“Fuck,” he says. There’s barely anything left. A roll of gauze, a box of bandaids, and one tiny alcohol wipe. That’s it. He really needs to remember to refill this stuff.

He pushes himself to stand, winces when he has to use his injured arm.

There’s only one person close by that he knows for sure has a first-aid kit that has what he needs, because he’s seen it pretty recently. That person is you.

He hates that he’s dragging you into this again, that he’s gonna ask a favor of you that he really shouldn’t. One he doesn’t even think he deserves. He needs the help, though, so he walks to his door, into the hallway, and a few steps to your place across from his.

He knocks, his towel more red than its original color by now.

The sound doesn’t exactly wake you up. It’s late, and you’d been in bed, but you’d been having a hard time falling asleep. You were tossing and turning, staring at the ceiling.

You sit up, push your hair out of your face, and head to the door. You should, but you don’t even look to see who it is before opening it, keeping your body behind the door and peeking your head around. You certainly weren’t expecting this.

Steve stands in front of you, his hair damp and a mess, falling over his forehead. His face is pale and, when your eyes flicker down, you find that his arm is bleeding. A lot.

“Holy shit. What happened to you?”

He ignores your question. “Can you help me?”

You move away from the door. The cold air from the hallway combined with the way Steve’s eyes look down before quickly looking back at your face remind you of your attire. A sleep shirt and underwear.

“Fuck! Sorry,” you go to shut the door but remember that he’s literally bleeding. “Come in, you know where the bathroom is. I’ll just- um. Let me put some pants on.”

He’d laugh at the way you pretty much sprint into your room if he wasn’t so focused on the pain of his arm. He’d also be thinking a lot about the way your legs looked just then.

You meet him in the bathroom, legs now covered in a baggy pair of sweatpants. Steve’s sitting on the shut toilet just like he did the first time you helped him. You haven’t touched your first-aid kit since then, finding it exactly where you left it then.

“Sorry about that,” you tuck your hair behind your ears quickly before opening up the box, turning to him afterward. “Can I see?”

“Yeah.”

You take the towel from Steve’s hand, slowly moving it away from his wound to see how bad it is. Steve’s hands twitch where they sit atop his thighs. He’s holding himself back from touching you.

Three gashes break his skin. The outside of his arm, just below his shoulder.

“Do these need stitches?” You ask, the concern is clear in your voice, in how it shakes a bit. “Maybe you should go to the hospital-”

“No. Please. No hospital.”

“I don’t know how to do stitches, Steve. I don’t know if I can help you.”

“I don’t need stitches, I swear,” the look on your face makes him feel awful. The sadness in your eyes, the small frown you try to hide. “I ran out of bandages. That’s all I need.”

“Are you sure?”

He can’t tell you that his skin will mend on its own, that he’ll be fine in just a couple of days. “Positive.”

You nod and grab a different towel than the one he’d been using, pressing it against his arm to make sure the bleeding stops. He groans quietly when you do. “Sorry,” you whisper.

“I’m alright.”

When you’re almost 100% sure that the bleeding is done, you pull the towel away. You hold it under the sink, wetting a part of it that didn’t soak up his blood. You use it to clean away the dried blood on his arm, apologizing every time he sucks in a breath through his teeth, hissing at the pull on his cuts.

One of your hands holds his arm up, the other occupied with the towel. You’re bent close, stood between his legs, your loose hair tickling his skin.

“Steve?” You whisper, still focused on his gashed arm.

“Mm?” He hums, watching you help him with the most careful touch he’s ever felt.

“Who’s hurting you?”

“It’s nothing.” He says it in a way that tells you it really isn’t nothing. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

Maybe you don’t need to worry about him, but you do. You worry constantly. Anytime there’s a bandaid or scrape on his skin you wonder if it’s the same people that gave him that black eye and split lip weeks ago.

You worry because he’s so good. He’s a soft person under the invisible armor he protects himself with and he doesn’t deserve to be hurt. His skin is too delicate for it, his face too pretty.

You pull away and grab the roll of bandages you have in your kit. When you look at him again, his eyes are set on you, scanning your face.

“Please don’t worry about me,” his voice is quiet, and you hate the way it breaks on the first word.

He hates it, too.

“I’ll try my best,” you force a small smile at him, trying to lighten things as much as you can given the situation. You look back at his arm, wrapping it slowly. “Is that good?”

He looks at his arm, his wounds now covered with white wrappings. He looks back at you, “thank you, honey.”

“It’s not too tight?”

He shakes his head, standing when you step back to give him the space. You stand toe-to-toe, his head bent down to look at you, yours titled up.

“It’s perfect.”

Your breaths mingle in the air between you, growing thicker. Before you let yourself hope for something you shouldn’t, you move to the counter and grab the rest of the bandages you have.

“Here,” you hold them out to him, “for when you need to switch it.”

“You won’t need it?” He asks instead of telling you that by the time it needs switching, it won't be an open wound anymore.

“The most I use from that kit is the regular bandaids. I’ll survive without it.”

He takes the bandages from you, his hand brushing yours.

“I’m sorry for showing up the way I did.”

“I’d rather that than have you bleeding out in your apartment,” your eyes flick over to the bloody towels on your floor, your heart pinching in your chest. “If you need to talk to someone, or anything, I’m here.”

He leans closer, pushes a gentle peck into your cheek, and speaks with his lips still brushing your skin. “I don’t deserve your sweetness.”

He drops his head into your shoulder, just for a second, before moving away from you.

“Wha-”

“Bye, honey. Thank you,” he says, walking out of your bathroom.

You stand there, a hand lifting to press against your cheek in the spot his lips did. You pull it away and look at your fingertips, like you’d been expecting to see a physical residue of the kiss. Flecks of glitter, or the soft pink of the sky at sunrise.

You just see your skin, painfully normal.

-

After thinking and thinking and thinking, you determine that maybe Steve likes you more than you thought he did.

The way he calls you ‘honey’ in that voice of his, the softness of his eyes that he can’t hide no matter how cold he tries to keep his exterior, the way he kissed your cheek and let his lips linger when he spoke.

All of those things make you hope that maybe he likes you at least a little bit in the way that you like him, but if not, at the very least, he likes you more than you thought.

You think he tries to hold himself back from getting close to you at all, and you really don’t know why. All you know is that his shoulders were slightly slumped when he forced himself to leave after you'd bandaged his arm, after he told you he doesn’t deserve you.

There’s something in his life that makes him think that way and as much as you wanna know what it is, you hope that the best you can do is prove him wrong.

That’s one of the reasons you’re cooking dinner for two once again tonight. You also feel like, since this is sort of what brought you closer, the dinners are a tradition for you and Steve. Something completely yours.

It’s nice to have something like that with another person. You knew you were lonely, but you never noticed how much until you started talking to him more. With each meeting, the string between you both shortens.

You’ve never cooked this meal before. You’re extra attentive with it, tasting it to make sure it’s right, keeping your eyes on things closely to avoid burning it at all.

When everything’s done, Steve’s meal packed up nicely and your ponytail now a loose mess, you head to the bathroom to look at yourself in the mirror. The most you do is fix your hair before feeling silly for caring so much about your appearance.

He’s seen you tired-eyed and pantless. This is better than that, at least.

You haven’t brought Steve a meal since you patched him up and he thanked you with a kiss on the cheek and possibly, maybe, loaded words. You’ve seen him, yes, but this is different than a two minute conversation in a hallway or the mailroom.

It’s your way of checking on him.

Your door shuts with a click behind you, his meal in your hand as you step into the hall. You knock on Steve’s door in quick, small taps. You’re not sure why you’re nervous to be doing it this time.

The doorknob twists and you’re met with Steve’s smiling face. Like actually, fully smiling. You don’t think you’ve ever seen that from him before. Not like this. It’s like a beaming ray of sunshine, warm and beautiful.

You’d like to be the one to make him smile like that.

“Hi, honey,” he says. It’s then you notice his cheeks are slightly flushed, little pink blooms on his skin.

“Hey. I made you dinner again,” you hold the container up awkwardly to show him.

“You don’t have to keep making me dinner.”

“I like doing it.”

He nods. Steve knows that you do it as an excuse to see him, and if he were braver, or less concerned about involving you in his impossible life, he’d tell you that you don’t need to have food to knock on his door.

He’d tell you that you could knock whenever you wanted, that he’d happily open the door for you.

“Steve!” A voice—a female voice—calls from inside the apartment. “Who’s at the door?”

Fuck. Okay, he has a girlfriend. You probably interrupted something, you think, looking at his flushed cheeks, thinking about the smile he wore that most definitely was not for you.

You’re embarrassed for even thinking that he could like you, embarrassed for having read everything wrong, for hoping too much.

“Oh. You have company. I’ll just-” you pivot on your heel to leave and realize you’re still holding his dinner. You turn back around and hand it to him, awkwardly turning towards your door again and heading inside.

Steve stares at your door for a couple of seconds before going back inside. He sets his food on the counter and sits back on the couch.

“So, who was that?” Robin asks.

Robin, his best friend and the only person in the world who knows pretty much everything about him. Spider-man and all.

“My neighbor. She was bringing me dinner.”

“It was her? And you didn’t let me say hi!”

Yeah, Robin knows all about you. She knows that you make Steve dinner, that you’ve taken care of him without digging too deep for answers, that Steve thinks you’re the ‘prettiest girl ever.’ His words.

“She left pretty fast after you yelled.”

“Oh no.”

“What?”

“Nooo. I scared her off!” Steve is clearly very confused, so Robin huffs and continues, “she heard a girl’s voice in your apartment.”

“And?”

“God, you’re such a boy sometimes, it’s insane. She thought I was your girlfriend!”

“Why would that scare her off?”

“I know you don’t get out much, dingus, but seriously?” She literally facepalms. “She likes you! Why else would she be making you dinner and shit? She likes you and thinks you’re dating someone.”

“Oh. Oh. No, she doesn’t like me. Not like that.”

“You’re an actual dingus.”

Steve doesn’t want to think about that possibility because it’ll make it much, much harder to keep you at arms length. Though, even now, that arm is mostly bent, losing resistance.

“So what if she does like me? I can’t do anything with her.”

“Why not.”

“Because I’m Spider-”

“Spider-man, yes, I know. Who cares? You can't live your whole life ignoring every single romantic feeling you have because of that.”

“I don’t wanna drag her into this.”

“Did you ever consider that maybe she would want to be dragged into this?”

“I guess not.”

He goes quiet after that, and Robin, knowing him so well, drops the subject.

-

Steve thinks about what Robin said even after she leaves.

It’s hard for him to believe that you’d like him enough to worry that Robin was his girlfriend. You, a dream girl, liking him, with his unexplained injuries and past grumpiness towards you. There was no way.

But, on the slightest chance that it did matter to you, Steve decided he wanted to explain.

His crush on you isn’t something he should explore, isn’t something he wants to let grow because, despite what Robin says, his life is dangerous and you already worry about him enough without knowing that.

Still, the thought of you being upset because you think he isn’t single is enough to make him head across the hall.

While Steve wondered what he’d say, you stewed in your embarrassment. You’d sat on your couch in your sweats and tried to forget the girl's voice or the smile on Steve’s face. You were unsuccessful.

The knocks on your door have become a familiar sound—there’s only one person who actually comes to your apartment.

You walk over and muster up a smile that you hope looks genuine, “Steve, hey.”

He scratches the back of his neck and looks at you, “can I come in?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.”

You move aside as he walks in, shutting the door behind him. The apartment feels smaller with him in it, you think. His presence takes up space for you, it draws your focus.

“Thanks again for dinner,” he says.

“You’re welcome-”

“That wasn’t my girlfriend, by the way. The voice you heard,” he cuts you off because he worries that if he doesn’t say it now, he never will. “I mean, she’s my friend, and a girl, but we’re not dating. Her name’s Robin, she’s my best friend, that’s it. Promise.”

You’re not sure whether to be even more embarrassed at how obvious you were with your concern, or to be relieved that he’s not taken like you thought. You settle for a bit of both.

“You don’t have to- I know I was weird earlier but you don’t have to explain yourself to me,” you tell him, tugging at the ends of your sleeves with your fingers.

“I wanted to make sure you knew.”

There could be a lot of weight in that sentence, if you let yourself look hard enough.

Rather than reply you confess, “you know, I used to think you hated me. Or, didn’t like me. Before we talked and stuff.”

Steve’s standing really close to you. Has he always been this close? You can smell his soap and feel the light puffs of air leaving his lips. It’s almost dizzying—like, if someone poked your shoulder, you might fall over.

You notice a lot about him from this close, especially when there’s no blood on his face. He has the lightest dusting of freckles over his nose, his eyelashes are dark, framing his brown eyes.

Steve reaches out with a hand to link his fingers with yours, loosely and slowly, like he doesn’t want to startle you. They fit together easily. His other hand brushes his knuckles against your cheek before cupping it gently in his palm.

His touch is so gentle, so much less guarded than his usual actions. You blink up at him and without even thinking, you push yourself into his touch, just a little.

“I never hated you,” he says. A murmur between your mouths.

“Oh,” is all you can say.

Steve’s strong, inhumanely so, but he isn’t strong enough to stop himself from kissing you.

The first brush of his lips on yours is so light that you think you might be dreaming. When you don’t pull away, he kisses you more firmly, his lips a little bit chapped but still soft as they land on yours.

You haven’t kissed a lot of people but you’ve never felt one like this. One that you’ve been dancing around for longer than you ever realized.

Steve’s hand squeezes yours, his thumb running back and forth against your cheek, his mouth moving with yours like a dance. He probably shouldn’t have let himself kiss you, because there’s no way he can fight whatever this is after feeling your lips on his.

He pecks you once, and twice, before pulling away. If he kept kissing you, the single thread left holding him back from you would’ve snapped. A clean break.

He leans his forehead against yours, and whispers so quietly you would’ve missed it had he not been so close to you. You could almost feel the words being spoken, lips still a breath apart.

“Never hated you.”

/ᐠ(๏‸๏)ᐟ\

if you enjoyed, please reblog and/or let me know what you thought!!! it would mean a whole bunch <3

[pouringmyheartoutforpaper]

omg i <3 steve and doves relationship sm, it’s so comforting to me.

could you please maybe do something about where they’re at a party somewhere and dove gets roofied by someone. Maybe when Steve or her isn’t looking somebody slips something into her drink. I just know Steve would instantly flip into panicked but caring mode. Maybe she’s struggling to talk and can’t really walk very well or even at all. If you want to pls include robin and eddie as i love how much they ship dove and steve🥺

if this makes you uncomfortable pls ignore!!🩷🩷

this is a lil drabble cause im out of my essence. but anyways! i skipped straight to the comfort part just to make it more palatable.

“woah woah hey you-“ robin stammered, “easy, easy, we have to get you to the car and god knows what steve and eds are doing so you have to work with me”

“feel…” dove whimpered, and trailed off.

“feel what? what do you feel like?” she encouraged, becoming more and more frantic.

“bad” dove finally answered.

steve finally made his way back to them, his face red and trembling with rage.

“we cant find him,” he said. “ed’s is still looking.”

the man that slipped the pill into her drink had been watching her very closely, which steve had noticed as she started to falter. eddie went to question the man and he fled. steve only just now came back, knowing dove would need him with her more than he would need him fighting. eddie, however, had no such obligation, and was on autopilot angrily searching through the bar.

“steve.” she whispered.

he approached her at last and held her up to his chest, “im here, im here baby. youre good, youre okay. we are going to get you home.”

dove clung onto him and robin, and they escorted her to the car, and steve went to find eddie to bring him back from his one-man search party.

steve hadnt drank that night, so he was driving while the others sat with dove in the back seat.

his jaw was clenched the whole time, and tears welled in his eyes, but he wiped them away.

he pulled into the house and escorted his dove into the living room. robin went to the kitchen to call an emergency number, but they just told her that they would have to wait it out if there were no other severe symptoms.

steve brought dove into the bathroom, where he got her dressed in a nightgown and removed her makeup softly.

she stirred slightly.

“y’there honey? it’s jus’ me, you’re okay.” his voice wavered, a sob threatening to escape his throat, “y’need to sleep baby.”

"can you carry me?" she asked him, already leaning her head upon his shoulder.

"always" he assured.

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington fluff #steve x you #steve x reader #steve stranger things #steve harrington blurb #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington one shot #steve

[pouringmyheartoutforpaper]

screaming and gnawing on the bars of my enclosure

slutty saturday: tongue kissing with gator/season 4 steve/baron?

oooh okay nonnie, how about all three? 🤭

content warnings: penetration (yum) 😌✨

Gator:

you’re in the backseat of his SUV. parked a little ways away from the gas station and it’s late at night. you’re almost folded up against the window, gator is pressed on top of you, one hand behind your head and the other gripping your outer thigh tightly. the kisses were needy, his phone ringing with questions and insults from his father, he was needed somewhere in 10 minutes. but not as much as he was needed right now. your tongue rode along his bottom lip with a kiss, as he pulled back with a smirk. ‘yeah?’ he’d mumble lowly as you nod, his mouth capturing yours again as his tongue slid against your lip too. the next kiss was messier, tongues rolling over each other ruthlessly, met with moans from the both of you as your hands gripped at his shoulders tightly. his hips grind down against yours, the camouflage pants straining with his need. “please, need you Gator, fuck the fucking job.” contemplation crossed his face as he thought about taking you on the backseat of his car. but all the blood was rushing through his cock and his mind was only focused on your breathy gasps at each roll of his hips against yours. ‘fuck it.’ he groaned, unbuckling his pants. as he reached in to palm at himself, his phone buzzed. his dad yelled at him to get a move on and he’d sit up in defeat, shuffling his hips slightly to try and tame the hardness that had grown. “this doesn’t end here, sweetheart.”

(i’m ovulating at this already but onwards we go)

Season 4! Steve:

I’m imagining lunch break. You’d taken him some sandwiches and sodas, smiling at him as you walked through the door of Family Video. As the bell rung, he slid round the side of the checkout, calling out to Robin that he was going on lunch as his arm came round your waist and his lips pressed to your temple. But as per usual, food barely got touched as he pressed your back against the door to the break room. Reaching down behind your hips, he’d lock the door before gripping your ass and pulling your lower half against his. Your mouths couldn’t get enough of each other. Desperate hands trailing along the inside of his work vest, underneath his stripy polo shirt and gripping at the skin of his waist as you pull him closer. Steve’s needy fingertips trail through the back of your hair, tugging lightly as the other works at unbuttoning your pants. It’s not long before he’s laid you out on the break room desk, deep inside you with his jeans around his ankles. You sit up as best you can, arms around his shoulders for stability as he fucks the both of you to oblivion. Dipping his head down to meet your mouth again, he mumbles an ‘open up’ to which you let your tongue hang out over your bottom lip. Steve lets his tongue roll over yours, as both tips flick against each other hungrily. It stays that way, until the pulsation of each other’s highs brings your mouths together to silence each other, aware of customers outside the break room. Even once you were dressed, couple of sips of soda and a satisfied kiss goodbye to Steve, he let his tongue slip in your mouth at the door of Family Video, as a reminder that once his shift was up, you’d get it again.

(i’m fucking squealing by the way, if you see my thighs clenching no you don’t)

Baron:

“Now what’re you doin’?” Baron says softly as you climb onto his lap. Y’all would be sat on his bedroom floor eating some spare Moon Pies but his silly doe eyes kept distracting you. They’d stay staring up at you as you sat down against his hips, blinking a couple times as he felt the weight and warmth of you against him. “Just wanna kiss you, Baron.” You’d whisper, stroking his hair behind his freshly-tinged pink ears. “Oh yeah? I just wanna kiss you too. All the time actually, in the morning, in the afternoon -“ His sweet rambling would be cut short as you pressed your lips to his softly, cupping either side of his face as you felt him melt into you. After a few minutes of sweet nose nudges and gentle kisses, his hands would grip your hips a little tighter and you’d feel why right underneath your lap. “What do you need, angel?” You’d whisper against his lips, smiling as his breath hitches. “Use your words for me.” You’d whisper again, kissing his bottom lip and biting down on it carefully. “Need you, want you.” He’d eventually reply, his hips bucking only slightly up into yours. After some awkward shuffling and positioning, you’d eventually be sat right on his cock, feeling it bottom out inside you as you stilled and adjusted to him. His pretty eyes would be wide as they looked up at you, his mouth open and drying out as he too, let himself adapt to the feeling of you around him. As if by instinct, your tongue darted out against his lips, wetting them for him before kissing him deeply. Fingers winding in his hair as you tugged it, moans spilling from his mouth into yours. “Give me your tongue, honey and I’ll move.” You bargained as he more than willingly massaged your tongue with his, eyes threatening to open only for a moment just so he could see your furrowed brows as you both kissed heavily. Complying with your bargain, you’d grind your hips on top of his, pulling his hands to your waist as he got the hint and pulled you down on him deeper. He’d use that as a signal from then on, squeezing your waist and sliding his tongue along your lip just to let you know what he, Baron, needs.

(thank you for the ask, i appreciate you 😮‍💨)

[pouringmyheartoutforpaper]

“english isn’t my first langua—“ say no more.

[pouringmyheartoutforpaper]

just saw a post that was like “it’s women’s day!! eat pussy right now!!” and that is SO steve. he finds out it’s international women’s day, and when he gets home, he drops to his knees in front of you where you’re sitting on the couch, slides his hands up your thighs. he mumbles something about how much he loves you, how thankful he is for you, how much he wants to show you how much he appreciates you…

[pouringmyheartoutforpaper]

No thoughts, just Steve saying “you hear how wet this pussy is for me?” while he’s pumping his fingers deeper and deeper inside you as you get tighter and wetter and gush all over his hand.

[pouringmyheartoutforpaper]

could i request steve with a confident reader? just anything other than shy reader 😭

WHAT'S WRONG WITH BEING CONFIDENT?

a/n: shy reader is the it girl rn, huh. thank u for ur request! hope u like it! this was very much inspired by the club scene from '10 things I hate about you,' aka my fav movie of all time. it felt appropriate for this request.

synopsis: king!steve harrington x confident!reader. after setting his eyes on you in the cafeteria, steve, and all of his ego, pursues you; though you don't fall to your knees quite as easy as the other hawkins high girls. word count - 3.5k warnings: some swearing, mostly just fluff. not spell checked, I'm tired I'll do it another day haha.

For the first time in a while, Steve wishes that he could tell Carol and Tommy to shut the fuck up. Carol, and Tommy, were on about something, Steve hadn’t paid enough attention to know exactly what, but all he knew is that he needed peace and quiet to be able to concentrate, to be able to watch you. 

You sit across the cafeteria, oblivious of Steve watching you closely. He watches as you laugh with your table full of friends, head thrown back, soft, round cheeks tinting pink, bright white teeth gleaming against the cafeteria lights. He has to have you. 

Steve leans over to Tommy, nudging his shoulder with his fist. “Who’s that?” Steve asks, bending low to point towards where you sit several tables away. “Who’s who?” Tommy asks, biting into his sandwich, looking towards where Steve points. Carol rolls her eyes, leaning forward to look in the direction that Steve’s pointer finger is angled at. 

“The blonde?” Tommy asks, turning his neck to get a better look. Steve is instantly frustrated, now making himself a spectacle as Tommy twists and turns to get a better look at where you sit. Steve shakes his head. “No, the girl sitting next to the blonde.” 

“Oh, she’s pretty.” Tommy says, sitting back into his chair. Underneath the table, Carol kicks Tommy’s chin with the toe of her shoe. Tommy yelps, shooting his girlfriend a scowl. “But I don’t know who that is.” 

Carol crosses her arms, chewing her gum more intensely. “That’s y/n. We’re in the same economic class.” 

Steve glances at Carol, waiting for her to say more. When she stares back, offering no other information about you, Steve moves his arms as if to say, ‘tell me more.’ Carol shrugs, picking her wad of gum out of mouth with her pointer and thumb fingers, placing it on a napkin that rests on the table. “She’s nice, totally out of your league though.” 

Steve scoffs leaning back in his seat, arms crossing against his chest. “Nobody is out of my league, Carol, girls love me.” 

Beside Steve, Tommy chuckles, shaking his head. “King Steve is back at it. Sayonara, Nancy.” 

Steve shakes his head, shooting Tommy a daring look. Though he was over Nancy, breaking up with her several months ago, Steve didn’t like hearing her name, and Tommy knew that. 

“I’m going to go talk to her,” Steve says, swinging his legs over the bench seat. He runs a hand through his thick hair, his confidence at its peak. For Steve, his good looks, decent sense of humor, had the girls of Hawkins High hooked, weak in the knees for him, all honored to have a little piece of his attention. Carol hums, shaking her head. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” 

Steve shrugs off Carol, making his way across the cafeteria to your table. Weaving through crowded tables all clustered together, offering small ‘excuses me’ as he squeezes himself behind tables. 

You are trapped in your own world, enamored by all your friends who giggle around you, sharing funny stories from class. You hardly notice ‘King Steve’ making his way over to you, confidence coursing through him as he strides over. You wouldn’t consider yourself popular, per se, but you had a solid group of friends, people waved hello to you in the hallway. What set you apart from the popular girls in Hawkins is that you stood on your own two feet, had good wit, funny sense of humor, and you were genuinely nice. 

“Oh my god, Steve Harrington alert,” Your friend, Heather mumbled, her eyes shooting down to the tabletop. You shrugged, assuming Steve was just passing by your table. You weren’t wrapped up in the typical high school antics, certainly never pining over Steve Harrington. You were consumed with school and your friends; you were fine with it that way. Though your body tenses, when a hand places itself on your back. Looking across the table you see Heather’s eyes are as wide as saucers, her small mouth agape. 

“Y/n, right?” A voice you recognize as Steve’s says behind you. Stiffly, you turn in your seat, glancing over your shoulder. “Yes?” 

The commotion at your table abruptly comes to a halt, all eyes placed on you and Steve. Steve crouches down beside your chair, holding on to the empty space between you and your friend. Now that Steve is at your height, you’re forced to look his face. It’s a handsome face, all his features coming together perfectly, his fluffy hair adding a playful, boyish look. 

“I’m Steve, Steve Harrington.” Steve says, his hand out stretch to you. How odd you think, a teenage boy offering to shake your hand. You’ve never interacted with Steve before, though from all the discussion about Steve, you can’t imagine girls fawning over them if he offered to shake their hands. He always seems so confident, so arrogant, yet you almost think you sense nervousness radiating off Steve. You stare at his hand, then back at him. “Yes, I know.” You say, your hands folded in your lap unmoving. 

Steve drops his hand, using his free hand to brush his hand through his fluffy, brown hair. “Well, I just saw you from across the cafeteria and I couldn’t understand why we hadn’t met yet.” You glance at your friends, an eyebrow raised. They all watch intrigued. “So, you were watching me?” You say, tossing a glance at Steve. 

His eyes grow wide, his mouth opening and closing with no words coming out. “No- yes- I-“ You giggle as Steve stammers, glancing at your friends again as you hear them giggle. Steve frowns, not understanding where his confidence is lacking. He was normally so good at this. “What I mean is, I thought you were really pretty, I wanted to ask if you wanted to go out sometime? Jason Carver is having a party Saturday night, maybe we could go together.”

Before you could reply, the bell rang, students scrambling from all corners of the cafeteria to flee to their next class. All your friends sit motionless, unphased by the bell ringing, waiting to hear if you’ll go with Steve to the party. You fold your trash neatly, taking your time. Steve stands up as you swing your legs over the bench seat. “I should be going; I don’t want to be late for class,” you say innocently, shooting Steve a small smile. 

Steve frowns as you slide past him, your back turning as you walk away. Steve crosses his arms across his chest, his ego slightly bruised, as you become the first girl to reject his advances. Well, that won’t do, not for Steve at least. He doesn’t give up easily. Across the cafeteria, he sees Carol and Tommy laughing, shaking their heads at him, their eyes flickering to you as you saunter casually out of the cafeteria, your friends close behind. 

For the next half of school, Steve’s mind is preoccupied on how you escaped him, his usual charm and good looks not working on you. Steve had asked around about you, questioning various friends if they knew you. Some shook their head, others nodded, offering kind words about you: ‘She’s cool,’ ‘She’s got a good sense of humor,’ ‘She normally doesn’t date; she says she wants to focus on getting into a good college.’ It was apparent that you were going to be a tough one to crack, and normally Steve would have given up, but you intrigued him. 

The final bell hand rung, to Steve’s delight, and while he walked out of the hall towards the parking lot, relief that he was one day closer to the weekend. Steve liked the social aspect of school though he could do without the academic learning. 

As Steve walked towards the doors that leads to the parking lot, he swings his car keys around on his pointer finger, his mind wandering to you. Were you charmed by him and trying not to show it or was it hopeless to try and ask you out until you said yes? Wouldn’t hurt to try is what Steve settled on. 

Pushing the doors open and joining the rest of the school population that flees to catch a bus or a ride with their friends, he saunters across the parking lot, his freshly washed BMW sparkling against the sunlight. Just then, you walk passed him, your backpack slung over your shoulder. Before Steve can have a second thought, he picks up his pace, sliding up next to you. “Hello, y/n. Need a ride home?” Steve asks, tossing a pleasant smile towards you. 

You roll your eyes towards Steve. “No, I’m all set. Do you need something?” 

Steve raises her eyebrows, his eyes shifting from you to the parking lot that’s stretched out in front of him. “Just finishing our conversation that was interrupted by the bell earlier.” 

You laugh softly, shaking your head. You're amused that Steve conveniently neglects to remember that you were utterly uninterested in his offer and it was that fact, not the bell, that you left him in the cafeteria. “Yeah, it was totally interrupted by the bell.”   

Steve laughs too, missing the sarcasm that laces your tone. “Yeah, so what do you think?” 

“What do I think about what?” you ask simply, knowing that Steve is referring to Jason Carver’s party. 

“The party. Going with me.” Steve says, slowing down as you reach your own car. “It would be a lot of fun, casual if you want.” 

You shove your key into the door, unlocking it with a single twist. You lean down, tossing your backpack into the passenger seat, crouching down to sit in your car. “Jason Carver’s parties aren’t really my thing; parties in general aren’t really my thing.” 

A slight panic settles in Steve’s chest. “W-We can go out to eat instead.” 

You offer a sickly-sweet smile, your eyes squinting against the bright sunlight. You wave your manicured hand, offering a small wave. “Bye, Steve.” You slam your driver’s door shut, turning your car on swiftly.. 

Feeling defeated, Steve slinks away back towards his car, formulating a new plan in his mind. 

The following day, Steve brought a new sense confidence to school. He was going to ask you, again, to go out and hopefully you would be enticed to give him a chance - you had to give him a chance, right?

It was then, as he was walking out of chemistry, his head aching from the sound of Mr. Erickson droning on and on about isotopes and ions, that he spots you exchanging your textbooks in your locker, your pink frilly dress catching his attention. Before he can change his mind, he turns in your direction, striding over to you. “The offer is still open.” Steve says, leaning his body against the locker next to yours. 

You glance at him, the corner of your mouth upturning into a smile. “Hello, Steve. Stalking me again, I see.” 

Steve lets out a nervous laugh, leaning towards you. You smell his heavy cologne, the faint smell of hair gel. “I just saw you when I came out of Erickson’s class, it was pure coincidence.” You roll your eyes, batting your thick, mascara covered eyelashes at Steve. “Well, then.” 

Steve waits a beat, his eyes taking you in. He watches as you lift your thick U.S History book into the top shelf of your locker, exchanging it for an AP Spanish textbook, locks of your hair shading your face from his glance. “So, what do you say?"

You laugh softly, shaking your head. “You never give up, do you?” You were amused, to say the least; boys have pursued you before, but seldom avidly enough to show up in the middle of the hallways, pestering your further. 

Steve shakes his head, “I don’t, and I won’t. I want to get to know you.” You suck your cheeks in, your lips puckering. You squint, making eye contact with Steve. “Why me?” 

Steve shrugs. “I’ve asked around about you, everyone has only good things to say. You’re pretty too, taking AP Spanish so you must be smart. I barely passed Spanish one.” You laugh again, holding your text books against your chest. “So, you’ve asked around about me, too. You aren’t very coy, Steve Harrington.”

Steve sighs in his head, wondering why he’s so loose lipped all of a sudden. His skin heats up, nervous sweat gathering at his hairline. “So, is that a yes?” 

“No,” you say, turning on your heel towards your Spanish classroom that is a few doors down from your locker. You glance over to your left as you realize Steve has joined you for the short walk. 

“Well, is that a no?” Steve asks glancing back at you. He realizes your classroom is close by as you begin to turn into the doorway. 

“No,” You say simply, standing in the doorway. He notices your playful smile, the way two dimples appear at the corner of your mouth, adorning your plush lips. You linger for a second, then move into your classroom. 

“I’ll pick you up at 9:30, then.” Steve calls after you, noticing students who walk past in the hallway giving him an odd look. He watches as you lift your hand, offering a wave, without turning around. Steve leaves the door, satisfied, though he knows he shouldn’t expect you to ease up on him in the near future. He’s got his work cut out for him. 

As you sit in your Spanish class, ignoring the lesson that’s happening around you, your mind swirls around Steve. You were breaking your own rules by entertaining Steve; you had made a vow that you’d ignore boys in high school, they were useless anyway, and focus on your school work, making sure you got high grades to get into a great college. It’s only for one night though, going to Jason Carver’s party wouldn’t ruin your potential of getting into Harvard. 

Saturday comes quickly, in the shape of a whirlwind in fact, and you stand in front of your closet, hands on your hips, as you survey your outfit options for the party that starts shortly. Steve would be around any minute. You decide to settle on a simple purple dress, tight around your waist, cut off at your mid-thigh. It was pretty, yet casual and effortless at the same time. 

While you waited for Steve to show up, your door wide open to ensure you wouldn’t miss the doorbell ring, you sit at the edge of your bed, English textbook resting in your lap. Studying before you left is the only way you wouldn’t feel guilty for leaving your pile of homework to go to Jason Carver’s party. 

After only a few minutes, the doorbell rings, echoing throughout your home. You grab your purse, slipping on short heels on the way out of your room. With small ‘clack’ noises, you make your way down the stairs, opening the door to meet Steve. 

"Well, don’t you clean up nice,” you coo, noticing the effort Steve put into his appearance. Nothing knew, you supposed, he was well known for being full of himself, standing in the mirrors staring at himself in the boys bathroom. 

Steve shrugs, his eyes unable to pull away for the way your dress hugs your body tightly. “You t-too,” he stammers, tucking his hands into his pockets. You roll your eyes, stepping out of your house, closing the door gently behind you. Steve follows you to his car, unbeknownst to you, getting a good look at your backside. 

Since he asked you to the party, you're all Steve can think about. Though he doesn't know you well, you fascinate him, drawing him in to learn more about you.

When Steve pulls up to Jason Carver’s house, the party is already in full swing. Cars clutter the halfmoon shaped driveway, people lingering all about the yard. Inside, grey smoke lingers in the hair, congesting your nose and throat. Loud music blares throughout the house, echoing onto the front lawn. It’s almost impossible to get inside the front door, too many scantily clad bodies filling the narrow hallways. 

Steve leads, grasping at your hand to bring you along with him. Under his touch, you shiver, feeling uneasy as being seen as Steve’s newest conquest. Whatever, you think, I’ll act as if I don’t know him tomorrow, it’s not a big deal.

As you weave through the thick crowd, people clap Steve’s back, mumbling ‘what’s up’ to him happily. Out of the corner of your eye, you see your friend Heather standing in the corner, surrounded by a few of your other friends. You feel a sense of relief, feeling annoyed with being associated with Steve. You wriggle out of his grasp, his head turning to glance at you. 

“I’ll catch up with you later,” you say, turning right into the living room. The kitchen, where Steve is headed, is to the left, in the opposite direction you’re headed in. Steve stands awkwardly, frowning at your decision to abandon him. “O-Okay.” He watches as you weave through the small crowd that’s gathered in the living room, slinging your arms over your friends, all of them welcoming you happily. 

When Steve has brough other girls to parties, they always opted to stay close by him, never leaving his side. Steve shrugs it off, weaving his way through the crowd that’s gathered in the kitchen. He makes it to the table, an array of alcoholic beverages strewn about. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Tommy lingering off to the side, a cigarette pinched between his fingers. They make eye contact, Tommy pushing himself off the wall to make his way towards Steve. 

“Where’s your girlfriend, Harrington?” Tommy says, watching at Steve carefully selects his drink of choice. 

“With her friends.” Steve says simply, his pride dripping away by the second. 

Tommy sighs loudly, shaking his head. “She’s not too impressed with King Steve, huh. That’s a first.” He claps Steve’s back, his fingers digging into his shoulder.

“I wish you’d stop calling me that.” Steve mumbles, popping the tab of his beer can open.  Tommy laughs loudly, shaking his head. He offers Steve a pitiful look, squeezing back through the crowd to find Carol. 

Steve takes a swig of his beer, the cold liquid flowing down his throat. He suddenly has the urge to get wasted to attempt to heal his deeply bruised ego. Annoyed with the reality that you aren’t impressed with him as much as everyone else, he flees the kitchen, beer in hand, as his eyes scan the rooms of the Carver household to find you. Steve finds you sitting on the arm of a sofa chair, legs neatly crossed, beer in your hand, as you laugh with your friends who are strewn about the sofa. 

Noticing Steve standing off to the side, you turn your head, a smile already plaster on your face. "Steve."

"Enjoying the party?" Steve asks, his voice wavering. You shrug, taking a sip of your beer. "It's nice enough."

Steve stands awkwardly, your friends eyes lingering on him. Steve clears his throat, unsure of what to say. "Feel like dancing?"

Your friends giggle; Steve's awkwardness is so unfamiliar to them all, his confidence is well known across Hawkins High population. It was clear that you are what makes Steve nervous. "I'm good, I'm sure there's someone else that want's to dance though." You say, gesturing towards the crowd of teens that linger around the Carver household.

Steve frowns. He came to the party with you and you're telling him to find someone to bump and grind with? "I want to dance with you, not some other girl."

You raise your eyebrows, impressed by Steve talking back to you for the first time. You were getting a little bored with passing Steve off, his inability to function around you, seemingly nervous, was charming.

You look towards your friends; they shrug, mouthing "be nice," and "go dance." You sigh, kicking yourself off the arm of the sofa chair. "Fine, let's dance."

Weaving through the thickening crowd, Steve grasps your hand tightly, bringing you to the back porch where people have clustered together to dance. A boombox is set to the side on the ground, music blasting loudly with music from the radio. Groups of couples and friend groups gather together, their bodies moving rhythmically to the music.

Pulling you into the crowd, Steve places his hands on your waist, his fingers tightening on your hips. Feeling a little bold, maybe even flirty, you push your front against Steve, wrapping your arms around his shoulders.

Similar to wilting flowers, both you and Steve bend forward, your foreheads pressing together, as you sway energetically, your bodies bobbing up and down, side to side. You can't help but smile, your tough exterior slipping away. Steve was just a simple guy, his title of 'king Steve' was obviously just a persona he felt the need to act like. He seems innocent, caring. You were starting to like this version of Steve you have in front of you.

"You're beautiful, you know." Steve says, his arms tightening around you. "I don't think you're as tough as you like to seem."

You laugh, shaking your head. "You aren't what I thought you'd be, Steve Harrington."

Steve laughs, his eyes twinkling against the back porch lights the gleam against the dark night. "No? How am I different?"

You shrug. "I don't think you're as much of an asshole as you like to seem. I bet you're sickeningly sweet under all that."

Steve's nose wrinkles, his cheeks flushing pink. "I guess you'll have to find out then, get to know me more." Steve dips his face lower to yours, his lips hovering over your lips. You can smell the light scent of sweet beer and the smell of his cologne distorting your senses. You bite your lip, leaning in a centimeter further. "I guess so."

Eventually you and Steve get bored of the Carver party, the excitement coming to a slowing halt. You're exhausted, your body losing all of your energy on the dance floor with Steve; your feet hurt and you curse yourself for wearing kitten heels to a party.

Steve drives you home; the windows rolled down allowing the warm air to seep into the car, the soft wind blowing your hair around. You lean against the car window, feeling the air blow across your face. You smile, feeling content with the way your night has gone with Steve.

Steve pulls his car gently up to the front of your house, the outside lights flicked on, waiting for your arrival. You unbuckle your seatbelt, turning in your seat to glance at Steve. "Thank you for tonight," you say, folding your hands into your lap. "I, surprisingly, had a lot of fun."

Steve laughs softly, nodding. His hands tighten on the wheel. "My pleasure, I also had a lot of fun."

You smile, silence rolling over you and Steve. You sit back in your seat, biting your lip. Before you can speak, Steve fills in the silence. "Would you want to go out sometime, on a proper date I mean?"

You nod. "I'd love to."

[pouringmyheartoutforpaper]

Steve who is looking at you in your pretty dress and imagining what you’re wearing underneath. He’s antsy about it all night. Can’t keep his hands off you because he can’t help but picture you in every sexy set of lingerie you own. Has to cut the night short because of it.

Second he gets you through the door, his fingers quick to unzip your tight dress and find out for himself what you’ve got on underneath. The red set. Satin bralette that hold your tits so perfectly his mouth waters, hands fondling the fatty flesh before he pushes your dress over your hips and sees the lacy red thong clinging to your hips. Gets a little overwhelmed at the side, pressing you against the door as his lips find your neck and suck claiming bruises into the sensitive skin. Mumbling words of appreciation.

“God, you look fucking perfect.”

Hands greedy and desperate, scanning all over your body like he can’t get enough.

[pouringmyheartoutforpaper]

heyy i have a request for the steve x dove universe bcos it’s literally my favourite thing atm

could u possibly do something like where their at a party and someone tries something on reader and they’re really pushy about it even though she keeps saying no. obvs steve cannot have anyone touching or upsetting his sweetest girl so gets the guy to go away. while steve is dealing with the guy maybe reader starts having a panic attack because that guy had really scared her and robin tries to comfort her but obvs the only person capable of that is steve. when steve’s done w the guy he notices how distressed reader is and just comforts her, holds her and just FLUFF.

i got this idea because i noticed how protective of r steve is and i thought this would be a good example of it😍😍🩷🩷🩷🩷

sorry it took a few days ! also this is not proofread because it is three am so my apologies.

warning! this contains depictions of harassment and a panic attack. if this is not something you feel like you can read right now, please please click away. there is no shame in setting boundaries with yourself. there are lots of other stories. please be safe <3

the lights in the house were an array of purples and blues. robin’s friend threw a party, and robin insisted that dove and steve both come so she wouldnt be alone. dove dances as much as she can, but after about an hour she ends up crashing into steves chest. theyre leaned against the wall, and steves hands are covering her ears from the loud music.

“stevie, gonna go get some water. ill be right back.”

he expected her to stay in his line of vision, and by the time she disappeared around the corner into the kitchen, he was in panic mode. the party housed a few unsavory characters, and his dove’s shyness could lead to disaster.

in the kitchen dove had asked the hostess where the water resided, and she had kindly gotten her a glass of water, making sure to fill it in front of her so she knew it wasnt tampered with.

unfortunately, the hostess was called away, and a man around five to ten years older than dove entered the kitchen. she offered a small smile, and he took that as an invitation in his drunken state.

“hey pretty thing” he slurred.

she ignored him, and tried to exit the room, only for him to grab her hand.

“where y’ goin? you don’t want to hang out with me, baby? if you didn’t want the attention you shouldve picked a different dress.”

she ripped her hand away, and she knew the only way to get him to back off would be to mention steve. men like this respect women not as people, but as property.

“i have a boyfriend. hes looking for me.”

“not very hard, he left you here with me.”

in the distance she see steves head of hair frantically searching the house for the kitchen, and as the man kept babbling about nonsense and trying to grab her waist, she yelled his name.

his head shot to where he heard her voice, catching her eye instantly.

“help,” she mouthed.

dove had never seen a man move so quickly in her life. it seemed a second before steve stood tall between them. he held her behind him, and dove knew that he would have to be scary. she closed her eyes and gripped onto his arm.

after many words were spoken, mostly from steve, the other man merely slurred nonsense. he pushed the stranger into the shelves behind him before escorting dove out of the room.

“it’s okay, it’s okay, i’m here, i’ve got you, we’re gonna go home,” he whispered assuringly as he guided her out of the crowded room, trying to ignore the urge to go back and hurt the stranger, knowing it would scare her more. he was plagued with guilt and fear. guilt that he had let her out of his sight. the sobs come from his dove quickly. he helps her into the back seat of his car and locks the doors.

“hey, hey, look at me, youre okay, tell me what happened” he said, his voice shaking.

“nothing,” she says breathlessly, “nothing bad- just-“ her breathing becomes panicked, and the words arent forming. she had told him about her panic attacks before, but he had never seen her experience one. luckily he had done research.

“panic attack” she forced out between short breaths. the air couldnt reach her lungs, at least it felt like it couldnt. steve was panicking, trying to regulate her breathing. trying to soothe while also digging through his center console for an inhaler.

“hey, look at me, try to take a deep breath with me. i know, i know its hard, i just need you to try.” he said, taking her hand and placing it on his chest, breathing in a long breath and watching her struggle to do the same. but after three breaths she was calm enough that steve could help her with the inhaler.

once her breath returned to her, she buried her face into his chest, apologizing profusely.

“you dont need to be sorry. you did nothing wrong.” he repeated the phrase like a mantra while he rocked her back and forth.

she looked up at him. “i love you”

“i love you too. so much. you feel better?”

“yeah i- he was just being scary and he kept- grabbing me and he wouldn’t let me pass. i- it just- it freaked me out.”

“im so sorry honey. are you hurt? i shouldve went after you.” he whispered.

“no! you didnt do anything wrong. im not hurt, just got scared.”

“yeah? how about i take us home and we can order food, maybe watch a movie or something? and then we can talk about it tomorrow morning if you want to.”

“yes please”

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington smut #steve stranger things #stranger things #steve harrington fluff #steve x you #steve x reader #steve harrington blurb #steve harrington one shot #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington x fem reader

[pouringmyheartoutforpaper]

it's no big surprise you turned out this way

steve harrington x fem mayfield!reader

[3.7k] steve comes over for family dinner. it is absolutely not your idea.

disclaimer- no mention of blood relation to max, no physical descriptors of reader, they are sisters in any way you want them to be. trigger warning for shitty parents and billy h*rgrove. this is not a billy safe space.

dividers by @saradika-graphics and @cafekitsune

thanks for reading if you do <3 enjoy teehee

You drop a kiss on Steve’s head in greeting, which he accepts with a thrilled, in-a-new-relationship, glowing smile, before dropping down beside him and subsequently dropping your news, or rather, your request that’s not really your request, on him. “Neil wants you to come over for dinner.” You tense at the utterance of your stepfather’s name, even if it’s your own mouth doing the uttering.

   His smile dissipates. Only a little, but enough for you to wring your hands together. You want to scoop all the words you’d just said back out from his ears and spoon them into your mouth again. Make him forget it’d ever happened. “Like, like family dinner?” He asks. He can’t fathom a world where he sits placid across the table from Billy Hargrove and passes him the salt respectably and doesn’t end the night with his fist colliding with his face (regardless of the outcome).

   “No, it’d just be you and him, he’s dying to take you out on a date,” you deadpan in response, shaking your head. Steve rolls his eyes, no malice intended. “Obviously family dinner, Steve. You, me, Max, my mom, Neil… Billy.” You force out the final name. He swears he hears your teeth grinding as you say it.

   “Don’t get grouchy on me.” He reaches over and smooths out the upset crease between your brows. Your shoulders relax in response. You’re always so wound up he’s made it his mission to give you that ease he knows you crave. He’s quite good at it, on days where he can steal you away and keep your mind occupied with the lovelier things in life. But there are some things he can’t spare you from, as much as he tries.

   Really, he can only keep you out of that house for so long before your family starts demanding their 17-year-old back.

   For the most part you keep away. Max roams the new mall all day with her friends now that June’s here and summer’s entered Hawkins in full swing, and you drive them there with your mom’s car if she doesn’t need it for the day, or Steve drives you all there and then home again if he’s not at work already that morning. If he has work you loiter in Scoops the entire day, lugging a stack of books acquired from the library and settling in a corner booth, popping your head up once in awhile to check on him and his misery in his new position in that ridiculous uniform. You brighten his days just as much as he brightens yours. And he really, really does. (And you like the uniform, as silly as it is, for the record).

   “’M not grumpy,” you deflate, pressing your forehead into his shoulder. He rubs your back in a nice, soothing way when you lean into him. Ever since he asked you out he’s been taking every excuse to touch you and you’re not complaining in the slightest. He has the softest hands you’ve ever held and they’re perpetually gentle and kind. All the love in the world encased in the hands of some boy from Hawkins, Indiana, a place you never expected to find a home in, let alone find a boy. The boy, if you thought about it long enough. Early days to be thinking about it but you did think about it. Often. For hours. You sigh quietly. “I can tell ‘em you’re busy, you don’t have to come.”  

   “Max knows I’m not busy,” he points out.

   “She doesn’t wanna be there, either. Look, I’ll just say you can’t come-“

   “But I can.”

    You lift back up, wary, but hopeful. A new flower poking its petals up from the earth, tilting right toward the sun.  “I don’t wanna make you miserable.”

   “That’s stupid,” he scoffs. He kisses your head this time, the perfumy scent of your shampoo fogging his brain up in a nice, lovey haze. “How could you make me miserable? You’re like, the best thing I’ve ever had, by a mile.”

   You smile in spite of your gloomy mood. “The fuckin’ Hargroves have an innate knack for misery.”

    “It’s a good thing you’re not a Hargrove then, hm, Mayfield?” He brushes your hair away from your face and  takes your chin in his hand, angling your face up properly to meet his, and he kisses you like he well and truly means it, firm and adoring. You can feel his grin seared into your mouth when you pull away, in spite of your reluctance and Steve’s attempts to pull you back in.

   . “You really wanna come? It won’t be fun. It’ll probably be shitty, actually.” You ask him in a tiny, hesitant voice, too overcompensating to someone who do anything you asked of him. Having Steve there sounds better than not having him there, and better than having to explain why he’s chosen not to come, but you know it’ll be weird. Worse than weird. After what happened back in November, him and Billy go out of their way to ignore one another, and it’s so deliberate it sucks the air out of a room. And even with that, Billy still makes it a point to direct snide remarks to you about Steve every chance he gets: alone, in front of Max, in front of your parents, in front of Steve himself while pretending he’s not there. And it’s gotten worse since you admitted to your mother in confidence that you and Steve were together now, and she told Neil, and Neil told Billy. But there’s no running from being at the same dinner table as him. You know you’re asking a lot. You wouldn’t be asking if Neil hadn’t insisted. In a loud, pointed voice, with a stare that unnerved you. You’d agreed to it hurriedly after that.

   “Well,” Steve leans back, playful, “want to is a bit of a stretch but I can make an exception for ya-“

   “Steve-“ you groan, pushing his chest, but he laughs, pushing himself back forward, smacking another loud kiss on your mouth.

   “Kidding, I’m kidding, c’mere,” his fingers grip your waist feather-light, tickling, as he laughs, and you can’t help but laugh too through your head shakes and faux-exasperated sighs.

  “I’m really asking you if you want to, I know it’s a lot asking you to make nice with Billy.” You interlace your fingers with his and he places them on your lap, all big brown eyes blinking up at you affectionately. You’re a sucker for his eyes. You can tell what he’s going to say before he says it.

   “Nothin’s too much for you,” he says in his sweet, low voice, another kiss pressed to your cheek, his stamp of agreeance left blazing there on your cheek.

   Late into the next day he arrives on 4819 Cherry Lane, as he has so many times before, but he parks right in front and gets out this time. He doesn’t sit by the wheel waiting for you to come running out, sometimes with Max in toe, usually by yourself, breathless and beaming, ready for him to whisk you away as fast as he can without breaking a million laws. He knows it’s not the gentlemanly thing to do, having a girl come to the car by herself instead of going up and ringing her bell, and normally he would, but you insisted he didn’t, not wanting to draw attention to yourself or him, and you were already waiting outside on the front steps when he got there most of the time, anyway.

   And this time, too, you get the door before he can ring the bell, almost ripping it off the hinges when you throw it open to greet him.

   “Thank God,” you mutter. You go to take his hand but remembers yours is sweaty and pull back. The sweater you’re wearing is pretty, complements your eyes and complexion and your everything, and your hair is down and soft-looking. He’d run his hands through it in other circumstances. “It’s not too late to make a break for it,” you lead him into the house quietly, throwing your head back and casting a dark look down the hallway. “Just say the words and we can flee, I won’t blame you.” He’s dressed so nicely, and you don’t even have the time to properly admire him. He did his hair all perfect (he always does but you can tell he put a little extra sparkle into it tonight), he’s in his nicest jeans that mold against his legs slim and fit, his sweater is a navy blue and it’s such a good color on him you might cry. You can see effort written in everything he does, tonight especially. His desire to make a good impression rings in your heart. You want to regard him warmly and turn your gaze on him with the utmost veneration but your skin buzzes with anxiety and it feels like one large, domineering fist is clamped around your intestines. 

   “It’ll be fine,” he says, squeezing your hand. He doesn’t even notice that it’s sweaty, though your anxiety is palpable and he amps up his happy exterior to balance you out. He’s probably just as nervous as you are, deep down. “Parents love me.” It’s an insistent sentence. “And I’m gonna turn on my charm.” He makes a clicking sound with his mouth and snaps his fingers around a little. You stare at him, blank. Neil is rumbling around somewhere in the distance and for the time being you are utterly immune to Steve’s banter.

   Not completely, but enough. “I don’t know if that’s the kinda charm we need here,” you pat his shoulder.

   “But it can’t hurt,” he points out with a raised eyebrow, pointing a finger gun at you.

   “Oh, it can hurt alright.” You steer him into the living room anyway. “Steve is here.”

   You announce it to the open air, waiting to see who comes when you call. Your mom, immediately, rushes out of the kitchen to greet him. She’s never met one of your boyfriends before. Her greeting is enthusiastic, to say the least. And she’s a hugger. It’s nice, actually, Steve thinks, no matter how embarrassed and nervous you are, to be embraced kindly by a mother. It’s familiar, like some distant dream from a faraway past. You have your qualms with Susan, he knows that, but he knows you love her hard, and that’s why you take so much issue with the way she lets herself be treated. It’s difficult to watch you grapple with all of this, all of the time.

  “It’s so nice to meet you, Steve, or Steven? Whatever you want,” she rubs his back as she takes him into the kitchen alongside you.

   “Steve is great, thank you, Mrs. May-“ he clears his throat, “Mrs. Hargrove, I mean.“ It’s hard to reconcile this woman in front of him with the domineering men bearing that same last name. It’s hard to distinguish her as anything but another piece of you and Max. A good piece.

   “The girls talk about you all the time,” Susan says, still smiling.

   “I do not,” Max huffs as she comes out of her room, abashed. She’s in a nice outfit, too. Not as dressed down as she usually is. She tugs at her tied back hair like it hurts.

   “Ma, how tight did you do her hair?” You ask, beckoning Max over.

   “It pops out of every scrunchie!” Susan says, patting her on the head with such clear affection it makes Steve ache a little.

   “Maxie.” You open your arms for her. She stands in front of you obediently as you loosen the hold her hair ties have on her unruly locks, smoothing them out nicely as you tie it back up again, looser.

    Everything’s so nice and homey that the shift in the atmosphere is almost imperceptible when a door creaks open a bit away from you four. But it’s there. He sees you draw back into yourself, your smile, at him talking to your mom and being so sweet, at Max, at the normalcy of this moment, sliding right off your face as Neil walks into the room. You’d almost forgotten him. You could’ve stayed in a bubble with your mom and sister and beautiful boyfriend forever. But Neil comes out from the hallway, from Billy’s bedroom, and Billy follows behind, fully clothed for once, his shirt buttoned all the way up his chest, his expression dark and cloudy. His jaw is tight as his gaze fixes on Steve.

   But Steve, so gracious, sticks his hand out to shake Neil’s, smiling like Neil’s spawn isn’t the worst person Steve’s ever encountered as he introduces himself. “Nice to meet you, sir. Steve Harrington.” He keeps his mouth upturned sweet and polite even when Billy snorts in the background. He doesn’t even look in his direction.

    “Nice to meet you, too, Steven.” Neil’s handshake is more like a clenched fist. You stare at their clasped hands like you want to commit murder. Steven.

   “Steve, not Steven,” you mutter. Max touches your arm in warning before Steve can. You can’t help it. If there’s anyone you’re defensive over besides her, it’s him.

   “Steven’s fine,” he chimes in, keeping that same old good-natured Steve smile on his face. He’s too appeasing and Neil has never deserved it. He rolls his shoulders back and talks to himself in his head. Just one night. For her, for her, for her.

  “It’s the name your parents gave you, of course it’s fine,” Neil claps him on the back, and you know he doesn’t mean anything by it but you and Steve both flinch. From the words and the tap alike. Neil ignores your remark completely as he continues to talk to Steve in a way that makes your skin crawl. He brings Steve over to the dining room table and the rest of you follow suit, settling in around each other. You make sure you sit next to Steve, but you second-guess it when Billy takes the straight across from him. Neil drones on. “Y’know, it’s interesting how all this time, you’ve been driving the girls around for months now, but this is the first time we’re meeting.”

    Steve checks on you out of the corner of his eye. Your jaw ticks. He squeezes your knee but before he can answer, you do it for him. “He’s been busy, that’s all.”

Neil looks toward you. For once. It is not a pleasant look. “For months?” He tucks his hands under his chin.

   “I know you don’t like having strangers in the house after you work,” you say, placating in a way that turns your stomach.

   “That’s true,” Neil says. “Billy doesn’t seem to get the memo on that, so I’m glad someone in this house is paying attention.” The degradation of Billy at the dinner table is nothing new. And you feel bad about it. You’d feel worse if he wasn’t so nasty and hateful to everyone because of it. Neil had run into Billy’s latest flavor, Miranda Brady from your Calculus class, while she was rummaging through the fridge the other night, and he hadn’t been happy. He was polite to her until she’d been hurried out the door by Billy, and then he’d reamed into him in colorful, awful ways. Max and Susan both hadn’t been home, but it was one of those nights where you had been, and you’d lingered by your bedroom door awkwardly, making sure it didn’t get too out of hand. You weren’t sure either of them even knew you were there. Accepting the praise seems wrong. You nod stiffly.

  Billy, however, turns his gaze on Steve, the first acknowledgement he’s gotten in months. “Say, Harrington, you used to be quite the ladies’ man yourself, yeah?” A sick grin creeps up on his face. Steve sees your hand tighten around your fork. You’ve barely shoveled your pasta into your mouth. Max gapes at her stepbrother, her mouth still full of food.

   Steve clears his throat. “I had a steady girlfriend for about a year, actually. I’m sure you remember that.”

   “Yeah, but I mean,” Billy rocks his chair back. “That’s not what they were calling you King Steve for, is it?”

   You lurch forward. Steve drops his hand over your knee again. “I think it was because of the whole captain of the basketball team thing. Or the captain of the swim team thing, I can’t remember when it started. Youngest captain the Tigers had seen in a decade, actually, when I got it sophomore year.” Steve grins again and the cocky charm he possesses but hardly uses much anymore comes out to play, just for a bit. You settle down again. You eat what’s in front of you, calmly. You hear Max gulp down her own food across the table. It’s almost cartoonish.

  “Max, chew first,” Susan admonishes gently.

   “I am,” she retorts, but she’s inhaling everything in front of her.

    Billy  cuts in. “See, that’s interesting, I thought it was because you hooked up with a lot of girls. Like half the class.”

   Steve doesn’t even blink. He takes a sip of his water. “I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

  “Are you trying to upset your sister?” Neil asks him with raised eyebrows.

  He goes quiet again, hardened. “No.”

  “It seems like you’re trying to.”

   His jaw ticks this time. “I’m not.”

   “Do you remember what I said to you? About a half hour ago?”

   His jaw ticks again. His eyes meet Steve’s over the table. Steve feels the merest twitch of embarrassment for him. He knows all too well what it’s like to have a dad who takes a weird sort of pleasure in berating his son. “Yes, I remember.”

   You stare down at your plate, pinching the skin of your palm.

   “If you remember so well, then you should stop talking.”

   Billy stops talking. Neil turns to Steve again. “So, captain of two athletic teams, that’s impressive. I’m sure your college plans are impressive as well.”

   Steve stutters in his answer and you hold your head aloft in your hands, suppressing a groan. Max finishes her food so fast, she’s excused from the table and gone within minutes of that conversation starting. You nearly fall out of your chair in your attempt to kick her shin under the table. She holds her hands up in her retreat while nobody’s looking, mouthing that she’s sorry at you and running away into your shared bedroom. You suppress a groan again.

   Outside, after another grueling hour of Neil dominating the conversation and making dinner unenjoyable for everyone, you walk Steve to his car, fiddling with your hands again. He props himself up against his window and wrestles you out of the knot you’re in.

  “That sucked, I’m sorry,” you say, knocking your foreheads together, your mouth drawn in a thin, perturbed line.

  “It was fine, you’re fine,” he whispers the last bit. That’s what you’re more worried about, after all. You’re worried he’s mad, planning to leave you for someone with a more normal family, people who are warmer, someone capable of being warmer. You’re plenty warm around him, but you suppose you could be better. You start running over all the things you could do better and all the ways he could do better in your head. “Stop thinkin’ so much. Everything’s okay.” He nudges your foot with his.

   “No, I know, it’s just, it’s awkward, it’s not fun, shitty way to spend your night, shitty way for anyone to spend a night.”

   “It’s okay. It was good. I was good, wasn’t I?” He kisses your palm where you’d pinched it earlier.

   “You were great, you’re always great.” You stroke his cheek, lingering on his lips for a second. “You look really nice, by the way.” You’d almost forgotten to tell him. “I like this color on you.” You smooth over and down his arms.

   “Yeah?” He grins, lopsided, tilting his head.

   “Looks good with your hair.” You reach up to tug on the strand that hangs down like an art form over his forehead. You’re the only one he lets play around about his hair.

   “You look beautiful, too, for the record.”

   “I was trying to make this about you.” You poke him.

   “I like when things are about you.” He pokes you back.

   “I hate when things are about me.”

   “Yeah, I’m trying to fix that.”

   You chuckle. “Good luck.”

   He gestures back to your house. “I’m makin’ progress here. I think I get you a little bit better now, after all that.”

  “And what exactly do you get?” You wrap your arms around his waist.

  “Why you’re always so tense and grumpy.” He cups your cheeks like he’s holding the most delicate thing ever to be held.

   “I’m not grumpy-“

   “Just tense, then.”

   You accept that, begrudgingly. “I’m pretty on edge most of the time, I guess.”

   “I try to talk you out of it,” he says softly, stroking your face.

   “You’re the best, I hope you know that.”

   “I try,” he says again, and you nod. “It’s not easy. Night after night.”

   “It’s not.” You bunch up his sweater.

   “I get it, you know? They’re not here as often as yours, but I get it.”

   “Dinner with yours next time?”  

   “Yeah fucking right.” He kisses you for it, though, because you mean it, you’d have dinner with them if he asked just like he did because you asked, a long and languid kiss that he hopes no one’s shifting around the curtains to be privy to. He withdraws first and says, “Your mom is sweet, I’d have dinner with her again.”

  “I’ll let you know when she’s free, take her out, show her a good time,” you tease.

    “If she’s anything like you I’m a goner,” he laments.

    “You’re a flirt, is what you are.”

     You kiss him again, beaming, heart swollen with affection.

    When you go back inside and Susan tells you how wonderful and handsome she thought Steve was, how good he seemed for you, that rush flows through you all over again. You even bring her in for a hug.

thank u for reading ur super hot n sexy n we're kissing rn

[pouringmyheartoutforpaper]

uhm shyly comes into your inbox to give a steve idea :’)

finding him so so so pretty in that stupid dark blue polo, not being able to really look at him properly. it’s tight against his chest and stomach which makes him look delicious, wanting to be devoured really. he’s simply so pretty. worst thing is: he fucking knows it. so he’s cocky about it and teasing, it’s never relenting. he loves it and honestly so do you.

(feel free to ignore!)

trying to get my steve groove back on!!! thank u for sending something nonnie!! a lil bit of shy!reader <3 just a blurb too

Steve doesn’t know it’s a favourite of yours.

One of his polos fits his chest pretty perfectly if anyone asks your opinion. It’s that nice navy colour that looks good against his tan skin, with a bold stripe of white through the middle. A little plain but classic.

It hugs his biceps snugly and stretches ever so slightly over his chest. At the right angle, you can see the definition of his pecs and it’s awfully good at reminding you of what they look like with no shirt on at all.

The thought makes you fluster a bit.

He’s got plenty of polos but this one— this is your favourite. And he’s wearing it tonight, on Valentine’s day, and now you’re not quite sure you’ve been as slick with your wandering eyes as you hoped.

Across the booth, Steve smiles at you, his lashes kissing in the corner. He reaches up to scratch at the back of his neck and your eyes zero in on the bulge of his bicep instantly.

Steve’s smiles melts into a grin, a tad wicked.

Yeah, okay, maybe he does know it’s your favourite.

You fluster again. Something nudges at your foot under the table, right as Steve says, “What?”

He’s teasing. He definitely knows what.

“Stop,” you murmur, on the side of embarrassed. “You know what.”

Steve smiles again and drops his arm, thankfully, only to fold them and lean forward on the table. It does wonders for his arms, especially in that shirt. Damn that shirt. Damn him. He’s evil.

“Do I know what?” He pretends to muse thoughtfully.

He tilts his pretty head to the side just an inch. His eyes stay locked on you, drinking up every second your flustered reaction. You’re beautiful, even more so when you get all embarrassed about liking him.

“Steve.”

“What?”

“I will not be responsible for any further inflation of your ego, thank you very much.” You mumble it as you take a sip of your soda, eyes on the table. Why is it so terrible to have him know you were leering at him?

Steve laughs loudly. He finally slides his arms back and off the table, giving you a temporary relief.

“You’re the only one who can inflate my ego, actually.” Steve counters, his brows raising. He steals a fry off your plate and chews it slowly.

You eye him over your cup, skeptical.

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” He shrugs, swallowing his food. He takes a sip of his own milkshake, oh-so casual when he says, “Your opinion is the only one that really matters to me anyways.”

He grins across the table at you, a more mischievous shine in his eyes.

“Why do you think I picked this shirt?”

You’re equal parts mortified and enthralled at what he’s said. In your surprise, you accidentally inhale a bit of your soda and it burns as it goes down the wrong way— you cough awkwardly to clear it. Okay, less equal, more mortified now.

It’s your turn to ask. “What?”

Steve nudges your foot under the table again, teasing and flirting all in one. His pink lips curve into that grin that makes your heart flip flop— and there’s even a slight pink tinge to his cheeks. As though he’s also endeared but embarrassed by your attention.

“It’s your favourite.”

“It’s—” You splutter and for some reason, decide to lie. “No, it’s not!”

“Yes, it is!”

“No, it’s—” You pivot mid-sentence. “Who told you?”

Steve laughs again, that big loud belly-laugh where his cheeks get all chipmunk-y cos he’s grinning so hard. When he stops laughing enough to talk, he’s reaching across the table. You’re not quick enough to pretend to avoid his hand as he snags it with his own.

“Baby,” he says. “Nobody had to tell me. I could just tell.”

Somehow when he says it like that, when he calls you baby in a voice all sticky with fondness, it doesn’t seem like such a bad thing at all.

You nudge him back under the table and sip your sofa again to try think of something to say. He knows what you look like when you love something. How terrifying. How intimate.

Another sip of soda. Steve rubs his thumb over the back of your hand, content to gaze you. His view is sweet enough he must have cartoon hearts circling above his head.

You can’t think of anything to say in the end, so you just squeeze his hand and nudge his foot again — and trust that he’ll just be able to tell what you mean.

[pouringmyheartoutforpaper]

ur steve x dove fics are the CUTEST SWEETEST THING. i literally reread constantly! he’s just so gentle it actually makes me melt🥺🥺

oh thank you so much love!!! i would really like to write more about them <3

#i just dont really get asks anymore so i dont write as much !

[pouringmyheartoutforpaper]

Being a content creator and watching your stuff get nothing but likes these days

[pouringmyheartoutforpaper]

AHHHH THANK YOU

stevie loves mocking you <3 doesn’t even do it on purpose. he’ll just repeat the answers to your questions with a sweet little chuckle. when he does it in bed😮‍💨

heheh

he lovveeeesss it. he never felt like anyone wanted to ask him questions because he never felt smart enough. the fact that you trust him enough to rely on him makes his heart flutter. so sometimes he giggles a little bit when you ask him something like he knows the answer to everything.

“stevieee where does cinnamon come from???”

and he laughs a little and says “well i dont know that babylove, where do you think it comes from?”

and in bed its a completely different animal. he will give you anything you want, you just have to ask for it. he loves making you tell him what you want him to do. loves making you a little embarrassed and shy and most of all blush. watching you struggle to look him in the eyes and twiddle your thumbs while you’re soaking through your panties is so fun for him. of course, youll never feel unsafe or uncomfortable with him, he just wants you to be able to ask him these things. he likes training you to be open and honest with him, even when its about how much you need him inside you.

“what do you need babygirl? tell me whats wrong love.”

“steve…” and youll bury your burning face in his neck. whining and trying to buck your hips against him, but he just takes your jaw in his hand and makes you look at him.

“you know i’ll do anything you want me to, you just have to ask me,” and he can see youre already a little fucked out from how much hes been touching you and teasing you, “can you be good for me hon? can you use your words for me?”

and at this point your shyness has worn off because he makes you feel so safe and secure and needy. and so you just tell him you need him inside you now and he just smiles at you.

“yeah baby? that what you want? that make you feel better baby? you want me to fuck you honey? yeah? thats a good girl baby. thats my good girl. c’mon, spread those pretty legs baby, let me see. awh you poor thing. dont worry baby, ive got you. daddy’s gonna take care of you. shhh.”

and once hes got you fucked so dumb and kissed senseless and all you can get out is moans and his name, he cant help but mock you a little.

“awh, yeah baby? that feel good? you like it when i make love to my pretty girl, huh? oh i know baby, can feel you clenching ‘round my cock, baby. love taking care of my sweet girl. you feel what you do to me? you feel how hard you’ve got me? fucking beautiful. hottest thing ive ever seen. god baby. shhhh, ive got you. i know. i know.”

fucks you dumb on his cock till youre screaming and hes straining and moaning into your mouth “i know baby, -god- fuck- good girl, holding me so tight.”

hes just so sweet but so condescending.

[pouringmyheartoutforpaper]

little thoughts with dad!steve harrington

content: fem/gn reader! pure fluff 𓂃⊹

warnings: none 𓂃⊹

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

⊹˚.⋆ trying to take your daughter to kindergarten and you were slouched forward on the kitchen counter with your elbows resting on the smooth marble, waiting to load her into the car. Of course, before she could ever step foot out of the house, Steve had to give her a “proper goodbye,” as he called it. 

“You’re gonna have a great day, yeah? Love you, bug.” He said, his eyes full of love as he held out his hand for a high-five.

“Yeah!” She said, her dimples obvious on her face when she smiled up at her daddy, high-fiving him back. “Love you daddy.” She repeated, hugging his leg.

He picked her up, spinning her around before kissing her cheek and smoothing out her small sun dress when he inevitably had to put her down. He gave her a small pout when she asked to be picked up again and he bent down to kiss her forehead.

“Done?” You asked with a giggle before he stood back up and walked over to you, grabbing your waist and pulling you into him with a playfully annoyed smile.

“I guess..” He said with a sarcastic sigh, smiling and kissing your cheek when you reach for your keys, your daughter already running off to try and open the front door.

⊹˚.⋆ going on a peaceful beach vacation after an especially hard week, watching him lay on the sand next to your daughter. He smiles and watches her build a sand castle, looking at her with pure adoration. 

“C’mon bug, let’s get more water, yeah?” And he picks her up, going to the smaller waves and letting her fill the bucket the best she could. Hauling the water bucket back with one hand and his little girl holding the other.

“Let’s show mommy, hm?” After they finished their collection of sandy towers and decorated it with sticks and shells. He kisses the side of your sandy hair as you talk to your baby girl, letting her show you around the castle. He makes little comments like, “Where’s mommy and daddy’s room, baby?” And she eagerly points out a tower near the center.

You’re sitting together after your daughter ran around and tired herself out, all three of you on your baby blue beach blanket. His arm is wrapped around your waist as you rest your head on his shoulder, your daughter sleeping on the side of his leg with a towel wrapped around her as he uses his other hand to rub her back. You capture his lips in a kiss and can feel the smile on his face.

“One more..” He mutters when you pull away, and he pulls you closer to him.

⊹˚.⋆ finally putting your daughter down for bed and walking to the living room where Steve was waiting impatiently for you. 

“Look, love, it’s this one!” He says excitedly, talking about a movie that he’s been wanting to watch forever. You sit next to him on the couch, eventually laying on his chest and sharing the plush white blanket with him. You smile as he tells you about the plot, which was… inappropriate to say the least. But of course, you agreed and he thanked you with a soft kiss to your lips. You relaxed into him as he absentmindedly played with your hair when the movie started. 

Twenty minutes in, there were already incredibly R rated scenes. You watched them intently, not hearing your daughter’s footsteps. She stumbled sleepily into the living room right as the scene ended and Steve shot up, looking at her as she sleepily rubbed her eyes.

“Daddy?” She asked and he walked quickly over to her as you paused the tv.

“Bug.. what’re you doing awake?” And he sweeps her up, kissing her cheek and walking her away from the tv as she asks him for a sip of water.

“Of course baby..” He says gently, walking to the kitchen with her in his arms, taking a look back at you with a relieved smile.