Chapter Text
Mutants existed. There was evil in the world. There was also good. And some mutants didn’t want to grow up to be an X-Man. X-Woman? X-Person. Some just wanted to live their lives, go about their days, and enjoy the last hours of summer before school started back up again without the looming concept over them - and the jet plane under the basketball court.
If one didn’t want to go to the Xavier School for the Gifted, there were other options. Mutants weren’t actually forced to go to the school, as some parents would have their children believe. It was just the most known option because of its more famous alumni. A vast majority of mutant children actually attended various public schools, and many had the appearance of tolerance. It was public school. If you weren’t bullied for having a lisp or not having great lung capacity so you couldn’t run the mile in the gym, you were bullied for having a forked tongue. It’s just how life worked.
One of said alumni from the Xavier School actually managed to start a community of sorts after he graduated and came back from the war. He wanted something simple, quiet, and somewhere where he could grow a family. It wasn’t a private school, nor was it a mandatory living situation. It was simply a small community on the far outskirts of a small town in Indiana that had a few mutant families living in peace and harmony with the humans around them. They attended the public schools, they worked in the town, but they were able to come home to people who were like them and they didn’t have to rein in their powers.
The Compound - or Camp Mutant as the kids called it since it was very much in the woods - was a series of cabins that a mutant, Jim Hopper, created with his wife, Joyce. She was also a mutant, but she didn’t go to the Xavier school like Hopper did. They found one another after Hopper got back from Vietnam, having grown up in the same area and reconnected. Joyce’s mutant sons joined them, as well as Hopper’s adopted daughter. Slowly but surely, word spread of their little haven and they added more families, or people who left their families in search of acceptance. There were some humans among them, family members who didn’t want to quite let their children go without them because love was a factor involved. And as long as they pitched in around the land, it was alright with the rest of them.
When the kids weren’t in school, they were expected to help out with chores. Being on the outskirts, Hopper encouraged an almost self-sustaining lifestyle for the community. They weren’t hiding from anyone, nor were they not allowed to go into town, but sometimes it was just easier growing your own vegetables than going to the grocery store every week. Unfortunately, no one had mutant powers to control plants. So it was good old fashioned tilling of the soil.
Eddie Munson had been 13 when his powers started making their appearance. Eddie hadn’t known either of his parents to have powers, and he lived with his Uncle Wayne, who was definitely not a mutant, so with puberty came an extra special surprise. He had been singing along to a Judas Priest record when he sang a little too loud and blew out all the windows in their trailer. Wayne had walked in, surveyed the mess, and just called Eddie his ‘Little Banshee.’ He called up his old army buddy and soon packed up him and Eddie and moved them to the Compound. Eddie got a little different family history in that car ride than he was used to.
So, Eddie got to grow up around other mutants just like him. They had their own cliques at the school and their own interests, but they always came home together. Eddie had to try to remember to control his volume, Jonathan had to remember not to look through the walls of the locker room, and Nancy had to remember to look where she was going - or else there’d be a girl-shaped hole in the wall. That was just high school.
“Eddie. I had that dream again.”
Eddie placed the book he was reading on his chest. Standing in the doorway of his room was El. She was Hopper’s daughter and a telepath. Before she came into Hopper’s care, she had been experimented on and used as a weapon since she had the ability to project images into people’s minds. Hopper’s gift had enabled him to get her out of that situation and safe. She couldn’t touch his mind, so she stuck to his side like glue after that.
“What dream was that, sweet pea?” Eddie asked, sitting up slightly and gesturing for her to come sit on his bed with him. She crossed the room and gingerly sat on the edge of his bed.
“The one about the sad boy. The one like us,” She explained. She was never one for many words, and Eddie liked that about her. She was to the point and would never lie.
“You know we don’t actually go out and Find mutants, right? That’s Xavier’s whole schtick. Are you sure they’re not on the way to him now?” He asked. El tilted her head to the side, either considering Eddie’s question or hearing something that Eddie would never hear in his lifetime. He didn’t know the extent of her powers and sometimes he was afraid to ask. They never talked about her time before besides just ‘bad.’
“They have not found him. Noticed him. Not like I have. You have to go and get him. I can feel his pain. He..he has these scars on his back. Like I have scars.” Eddie sat up a little straighter, his ears ringing.
“Are you sure? Scars?” El nodded. “Did you see anything about where he might be?” She shook her head. “Any clues?”
“I can…see if I can find him now that I am awake. Do you think that could help?” She whispered, her eyes watering slightly after Eddie’s line of questioning. He felt guilty, suddenly springing all these questions on her after she only had a dream about the man, not knowing what to do besides follow the dream.
“I’ll help, Supergirl. Here, hold my hands. Let’s find this kid together,” Eddie said, lowering his voice to sound commanding and - if he was being honest - a poor imitation of Hopper. It got El to laugh though, so he counted it as a win.
El moved up onto the bed, crossing her legs and mirroring Eddie’s position. She took his hands in hers and closed her eyes. Eddie followed suit. He actually had no idea how he was supposed to help, but he figured that keeping El company would maybe help keep her calm and focused. Not that Eddie was a calming presence to be around naturally, but he had his moments.
“Are you sure this is going to work? What if I can’t find him now that I’m awake?” He heard El whisper to him. He cracked an eye open to see her scrunching her face in concentration.
“Then you try when you’re asleep. No harm no foul. The weight of the world does not rest on you finding this kid right this second,” Eddie answered. He tried to keep El calm, reaching out with his own mind to dull the sounds that were coming into the room. Soon, it was just the two of them and their breathing.
“Thank you,” she whispered. Eddie smiled before closing his eyes again.
It took a few moments. Eddie just concentrated on his breathing and making sure his palms weren’t too sweaty. But soon, the darkness behind his eyes gave way to light.
He was in a dining room, that he was sure of. But the tables and chairs and walls were all a stark grey. It felt cold and antiseptic, like a hospital or a morgue. Eddie looked around as best as he could, trying to reach out to touch, but he could still only feel El’s hands in his. He forgot how realistic her visions could be. Eddie was about to open his mouth to ask where they were, but someone came into the room.
A boy. About Eddie’s age. Definitely Eddie’s type. His brown fluffy hair fell over his eyes as he walked through the dining room. His eyes were…red. He had been crying. He went out of the room behind Eddie.
They were in a bedroom. Plaid monstrosity that it was. The boy was standing in front of a mirror but. He was gone. He was the mirror. Or the mirror was him. Eddie was confused because vampires weren’t a thing but here was what felt like proof.
Proof. That’s what he needed. He needed proof of where the boy was.
He quickly scanned the room. There were textbooks on his desk. Homework. Still in school then. So actually around the age that Eddie was, he surmised. Tacked above his desk was a basketball team schedule. Eddie tried peering closer, but all he could make out was the team name, Vikings maybe? The jacket on his chair was red. He didn’t know where else to look to find a location.
The boy turned on his radio, breaking the overbearing silence with the end notes of some pop number. Indiana. The host said Indiana. Hell they were in the same state.
Eddie’s eyes started to fade to black.
“I’m sorry Eddie, I tried to hold on for longer but I couldn’t!” El wheezed out. He blinked his eyes open, shaking his head as if to clear the fog out of it. But he couldn’t forget the look in the boy's eyes. He leaned forward, pulling El into a hug.
“You did perfect, El. You did so good.”
“So you’ll go get him?”
“Yeah I’ll go get him.”
The week passed with little fanfare. He drove the girls to the middle school - Jonathan took the boys, they alternated weeks for sanity's sake - drove them home, half paid attention in class, played Dungeons and Dragons with the non-mutant friends he made when he moved here, and did his chores and maybe homework when he got home. In between those moments, he was thinking of the boy. It wasn’t every day that El dreamed about people, and less often that other interested parties didn’t pick out on them first. Will thought it was a sudden proximity thing, like since they all lived in Indiana, something clicked in El’s brain to make her pick up on his wavelength. Lucas thought that that was weird, since wouldn’t she dream about every mutant in Indiana all the time? That opened up a can of worms of an argument about how many mutants there were per state if there’s a certain percentage of mutants per population. Eddie left the room when they all started doing math.
He thought it would be harder to find him, which was the crux of the issue. He was expecting to put a lot of effort into finding a dream person. At least some days spent at the library trying to find the school just based on the colors of the letterman jacket he saw and the word ‘Vikings.’ Maybe even ask her again if they can try and spot some outside details. Why she came to him with this dream issue, he didn’t exactly know. She normally told Hopper or Will about these sorts of things; Will because he was also a mind wizard (Lucas’ words not his) and Hopper because…dad?
But finding him doesn’t take any effort at all. In fact it took so little effort that for a second Eddie would’ve completely passed by the kid if it wasn’t for the ill-placed crack in the flooring that caused him to trip into Eddie.
“Oh my god I’m so sorry are you okay?” He asked, picking up Eddie’s books off the floor where they had fallen.
He couldn’t speak. His mouth was open, sure when isn’t it. But the hazel eyes he Literally (requested) dreamed about were staring into his own. The hair, the slightly crooked nose, the moles that dotted his face and neck. Here he was. In the flesh in front of Eddie.
His eyebrows furrowed. “I didn’t hit You too hard, did I?” Eddie shook his head, trying to choke out something of a response, when the boy's attention was drawn elsewhere.
“STEVE C’MON. COACH IS WAITING. LEAVE THE FREAK.”
Eddie rolled his eyes at the very original insult. He couldn’t help but notice the way Steve’s eyes flashed. Not in anger or another emotion, but a completely different color. Well, that’s new.
“I’m sorry about them. And the trip. I didn’t mean to,” the boy, Steve - Eddie mentally corrects, looks back to Eddie with his hazel eyes. Eddie finally found his words.
“No problem, man. I’ve had worse. In both insults and accidental injury,” he teased. He got Steve to raise an eyebrow and smirk at him. Win.
“STEVE”
“I gotta-”
“Yeah you gotta-”
Steve gave an awkward thumbs up to Eddie before dashing off to join the rest of the guys at the end of the hall. They were all wearing red letterman jackets. With a viking patch on the left arm. He felt Nancy sidle up next to him.
“They’re here for the basketball game. I gotta cover it for the paper. You want to come or do you want to stand here and drool from afar?” She asked, flicking his curls with a pen. He waved the pen away from his face.
“I’ll drool up close thank you very much. Lead the way, She-Ra.” She rolled her eyes and started making her way down the hall, following the direction Steve and the rest of the team just left.
“I told you not to call me that, Eddie.”
“Yeah well, don’t win a fight against a semi truck and then maybe I’ll think of a new nickname,” he shrugged, catching up with her and slinging an arm around her shoulders. He Felt how she rolled her eyes at him.
“I don’t have super strength. How could I win a fight against a semi?”
Eddie snorted. “You just have to stand there. It comes at you. You’re left standing, it’s not. You win. Simple math!”
“Alright Banshee.”
“HEY NO!”
As expected, the game was boring and very loud; enough that Eddie could feel a headache coming on. What was not boring, however, was watching Steve. While he had only gotten to see a dreamlike fragment of the boy from El, watching him in person was simply magical. The whole game, he sat on the sidelines with Nancy and tried to figure out what the boy's abilities were and why El felt called to him in particular. Nothing physical, as much as Eddie could see. Maybe if he got Steve’s clothes off - nope. Not the time for that train of thought.
There was something off about the way he sounded which was the only thing that Eddie could tell. An aspect of Eddie’s gifts was that, when he tuned out everything else and focused, he could hear everyone’s heartbeats. It took some getting used to and many many headaches, but he could focus and only hear one at a time. And Steve’s didn’t sound human. Or at least regular human. There were too many things going on that Eddie couldn’t exactly get it down pat, but the different sound of it was sticking with him.
A few other things he learned at the game. The team - and subsequently Steve - were from just a couple towns over. And from what Eddie could see, and ask Nancy about since she was the one with all the notes, no mutants whatsoever on the team or practically even at the school. Her notes weren’t that extensive, but the lack of mutant abilities was underlined with ‘on purpose??’ in big letters. Which made Steve all the more interesting. An anomaly.
It also meant that Eddie couldn’t just go up to him and say, ‘hey I know you got some funky genes like I do and maybe we should talk about that? Over coffee sometime?’
So he resorted to being creepy and deciding to just follow the guy.
It wasn’t that hard, really. Which was probably more concerning than anything. After the basketball game, Eddie stayed behind to smoke out by his van while he waited for the other team to come out. They did and, to Eddie’s delight, Steve didn’t get on the smelly bus with the other guys. Oh no. He waved goodbye to his neanderthal basketball buddies before getting into his own car. A beautiful burgundy BMW that luckily had a visible license plate for Eddie to memorize and write down when he grabbed a pen out of his backpack.
The next part was more embarrassing for Eddie if it ever came out. That Saturday, after finishing the house chores with Wayne, Eddie drove over from Hawkins. He had no plan besides hope for the best. He wasn’t about to rope any of the kids into helping him, especially Max. Even if her speed would’ve made this go faster, the bullying and teasing from her would’ve been relentless. So he did the stupidest thing ever and just…drove around. He found where the high school was, no cars in the lot. No burgundy BMWs on Main Street. Nothing at the local theater. He was really and truly feeling like a complete stalker at this point.
He was about to give up the rest of his dignity and start driving into the residential neighborhoods when he spotted a potential car in a parking lot. Burgundy BMW and…“Thank god,” Eddie whispered, checking the plate numbers against his scrawled note. He pulled into a spot far away from the car and sat for a minute. Looking around the lot, he saw a video rental place, an arcade, a dry cleaners, and a couple places he couldn’t see the names or themes of. With no movement towards the BMW, Eddie hopped out of his van and moved towards the video rental place. A grumpy brunette man was working behind the counter, and he and Eddie talked about horror movies for a minute before Eddie deduced no one else was in the store and this was definitely not His grumpy brunette, and so he left.
Opening the door to the arcade, Eddie immediately had to close it again. There was a reason he didn’t go to the arcade back home. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and tried to focus through all of the screeching noise that was coming back to him. The kids yelling, the machines making all their winning and losing noises, let alone all of the mechanics he could hear coming out of them. The feet, the eating, the heartbeats, the coins running through the machines. Eddie backed up against the wall and breathed deep, thinking on the heartbeats. Closing his eyes, he remembered the sound of Steve, his vibrations. Eddie focused on what he remembered and, thankfully, he heard the same noise here. He walked through the crowds, doing his best to keep that heartbeat at the forefront of his mind before he could lay eyes on the person themselves.
Luckily it didn’t take long. The arcade was only so big. But there he was, leaning against a pinball machine and talking with another kid. Eddie focused through the crowd noises and started to hear snippets of their conversation.
“Dustin, c’mon. I told your mom I’d get you home for dinner,” he heard Steve sigh, running a hand through his truly impressive hair. Eddie wanted to get his hands in it. The boy playing the machine sighed.
“Dude, just one more quarter I’ve almost beat my high score!” the kid, Dustin, pleaded. It was endearing to watch Steve just roll his eyes and hand Dustin a quarter. No fight in the boy, just fond exasperation.
“I’m going to go and exchange my tickets for one of those kazoos so I can play it to tune out your talking,” Steve said, pushing himself up and off the machine. Dustin just waved him away.
It wasn’t five steps before Steve bumped into Eddie again. This time also accidentally because Eddie was concentrating so hard on not hearing everything else that his actual visual reaction time was a bit slow.
“Oh my god I - hey! You’re that kid…” Steve’s eyes widened as he took in Eddie and realized the similarities of their last meeting.
“Eddie. Hi. Yes. We’ve done this before,” Eddie tried to smile, but it came out more like a grimace. The sounds snuck up on him, and as much control as he managed to have, he could feel a headache coming on.
“What..what are you doing here? You must live in Hawkins and..that’s an hour away so…” Steve’s eyes narrowed, backing up slightly. Eddie gulped.
“I just..I needed to talk to you? If you’ll let me?” Eddie just outright begged. He had no idea what he was supposed to do in this situation. Just coming out and saying ‘yes hi our telepath has had dreams about you and you’re the prettiest person I’ve seen, please come live with me in our little compound mutant community?’ would sound absolutely bonkers.
Steve’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly more, but he nodded. “But we stay here. I’m not going anywhere with you.” Unfortunate for Eddie’s hearing, but it would have to do to get him to listen to him.
“Fine. Okay. So…” He started. Bit the inside of his cheek. Steve just stared at him with a raised eyebrow. He had looked so much nicer the other day when he wasn’t outwardly glaring at Eddie like he was now. “Okay..”
“Eddie.” He grunted. Eddie breathed out once quickly through his nose.
“Okay so. My friend, more like a little sister, has been having dreams about you. Nothing weird. She’s a telepath, you see. A mutant. And she’s been having these dreams about you and she saw that you were sad and alone and she asked me to come find you and. Honestly at the school that was just an accident I really had no idea how I was going to Start to find you and Poof there you were in all your…well you. So. Here you are. Here I am. Sent on a quest by a literal child.” Eddie finished his certifiably insane explanation to see Steve’s expression having changed from one of annoyance to one of blankness. That was it. His expression was completely blank, as though what Eddie had said not only hadn’t shocked him, but also didn’t phase him in the slightest. Eddie had no clue how to interpret that.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not a mutant.” Those were Steve’s only words before he started to turn back to the kid, to Dustin.
Eddie swore under his breath, definitely not liking where this had headed. El’s voice rang out through his head. Scars. Scars on his back.
He reached out, both with his powers and with his arm. As his hand connected with Steve’s bicep, the world around them fell silent. Steve gasped, turning back to face Eddie.
“What did you do?” He asked, his eyes wide and his voice having taken on a tremble that Eddie recognized from when Mike was about to have a panic attack.
“No one can hear us, Steve. I’m sorry. I know this is weird. I really do. But I just had to come and find you.”
“But why? I’m noth- no one. I’m no one. I can’t help you with whatever it is you want.” Eddie dropped his grip from Steve’s arm, but the silence outside of their own little bubble remained. It felt like it was just the two of them in the world.
“I don’t need your help. I’m here to help you, sweetheart. I came here for you.” Steve shook his head, but Eddie could only stare. He had no idea why, other than that El could feel his pain. That’s all. But he wasn’t about to divulge that information to this stranger that he was very obviously freaking out.
“You can’t…shit, Dustin,” Steve gasped and turned around. Eddie’s concentration broke as they both turned to look at the boy still standing at the pinball machine. Except this time he wasn’t alone.
“Guys seriously, I don’t want any trouble. Steve! I can leave if you want the machine. Look, my quarter is still good. STEVE!” Dustin was cornered by three older boys with his hands raised in defense. Eddie didn’t know how long he had been yelling for Steve for, but by the look on the kids face, he was getting annoyed with how long it was taking Steve to acknowledge him.
Steve stormed over there, shoving his way through the cronies and wrenching the ringleader away from Dustin. Eddie tried to follow, but the noises were getting to him after he had silenced them for so long. The headache was getting stronger and he stumbled towards the growing crowd.
Punches were thrown as the ringleader clearly didn’t like being touched as he tried bullying a child, and a crowd had formed as Steve fought off the three grown ass children. They were probably a year or so younger than Steve and had been bullying a middle schooler for quarters. The wonders of humanity.
An adult broke through the crowd just as the ringleader landed a punch to Steve’s jaw. Yelling ensued, and the crowd dispersed as the adult grabbed onto the ringleader and his little cronies. Steve started to walk away with Dustin holding onto him, but he made eye contact with Eddie through the crowd of people. Eddie tried pushing through, but the steadily growing group of onlookers wouldn’t move fast enough.
It felt like an eternity being pinned in Steve’s gaze. So Eddie got to watch in slow motion as Steve leaned down to whisper in Dustin’s ear. Just as he tried to hear what they were saying, every machine in the building started going off. Eddie screamed and dropped to the ground, covering his ears as the noises overwhelmed him. Everything was happening at once and he couldn’t filter it out quick enough.
People rushed over to Eddie as he lay curled on the ground with his hands covering his ears. He rolled over just in time to see Dustin pushing the glass door open and a girl with a strawberry blonde high ponytail and a yellow pleated miniskirt rushing him through. She placed a hand on his shoulder as they ran out of the building together.
Through the screaming noises pounding through his head, he heard it. Her heart sounded like Steve’s.