Chapter Text
Steve is not in a hurry, per se, but there is something mildly annoying in the way the shop owner makes him wait in the tiny reception area, like there’s all the time in the world to hand over the keys to his car. The only thing that is keeping him placated is the fact that the mechanic apparently did a wonderful job, not as pricey as Steve anticipated, and managed to pull it off in only two days. Which is a lifesaver, considering that driving a replacement is a whole new level of atrocious, especially with the December slush getting in the way of smooth driving. Steve has neither the time nor patience to learn the quirks of a car that will not be his for longer than it takes to change the transmission in his own comfortable, broken-in Mercedes. He misses his baby. He splurged on it, bought it with his own hard-earned money, he wants to drive it , dammit.
The owner of the shop, one Andy Summers, was even nice enough to offer Steve coffee while he waited. Last minute touchups , he’d said before he disappeared in the mysterious bowels of the technical areas. That was twenty minutes ago.
Steve occupies himself by reading through a client proposal, trying to figure out if they’ll be able to deliver in the suggested timeframe. He’ll definitely have to ask Dustin. Even after years of working together, Steve still has trouble estimating timeframes for software delivery, which Henderson can guess on the spot, usually with surprising accuracy.
There are voices from somewhere behind the shop door, and Steve tucks the fax printout in his messenger bag, hoping that they mean the end of his wait.
“... said no, it needs to be ready by four, there’s a next client coming in to get it.”
That’s Andy. He sounds irritated.
“C’mon, I’ll probably make it back by then. I need it for like an hour tops, the pick up time is in twenty minutes!”
The voice sounds vaguely familiar, but Steve decides that it must be because he’s a regular here, probably heard one of the mechanics before. The important thing is that the voices are getting closer, and soon the door opens, revealing a mildly irritated Andy.
“You better get to grabbing a cab then,” he says to whoever is following him.
“I would most definitely do that, if I got the raise I was promised, that shit’s expensive. But see, Mr. Boss Man –”
Eddie Munson stops in his tracks, as he stares at Steve.
Steve stares back. He feels his jaw going slack.
His first thought is: ‘he looks really tired’. Only then comes the afterthought of ‘holy shit, Eddie Munson is in Chicago and works in a repair shop’. Steve was pretty certain that he’d never see the man again, not after the government swept him away under a false surname they would not give any of his friends, virtually drowning in NDA agreements and witness protection protocols. And yet here he is, sixteen years later, looking like nothing Steve expected.
Eddie is thin, almost wiry, and the loose, gray coveralls make him look even smaller, as they hang off his shoulders. There’s a patch on his chest that reads “Summers Tow & Repair” with a bigger “Ed Tanner” embroidered in the middle and colorful ink covering his bare forearms.
Eddie gapes at him from above square glasses and a scruffy, short beard. His hair is still long, but he lost the atrocious bangs, and now sports a loose bun hanging low on the nape of his neck, wavy strands escaping its hold around his face.
Andy looks between them, puzzled at the abrupt end to whatever argument they were having, but Steve pays him no mind, because he is already making his way towards Eddie and sweeps him into an impulsive hug, uncaring for the inevitable staining the grease-covered coveralls will transfer to his own neat sweater.
“Jesus Christ,” Steve mutters, as he feels the other man’s arms hesitantly coming around him.
Steve is not spontaneous like that, usually. He’s a surprisingly well put-together software company co-owner with many years of therapy behind him and a good idea what decorum means. But there’s always been something deep inside of him, a feral need to be as close as possible to the people that shared his Upside Down trauma, that switches gears in his brain as soon as any of them are near. And even though he didn’t know Eddie all that well back in the eighties, just a few weeks of life and death situations followed by grueling hospital recovery, this hind part of his mind roars with the sudden need to make sure that the man is alright, that he is really here, that he’s protected.
Always the babysitter, Steve.
Eddie’s arms tighten around him, and a tremor goes through his much too thin frame. The side of his glasses catches on Steve’s hair when a face presses into the crook of his neck.
“I’m guessing you two know each other then,” Steve hears Andy somewhere behind him.
Eddie raises his head and lets his arms slacken, moves away to a respectable distance.
“Oh, no,” Eddie says with a suspiciously shaky voice, but with a wide grin that Steve knows so well. “The client here is just super glad for my mechanic services.”
Steve snorts, he can’t help himself. The situation feels surreal.
“We went to the same high school,” he supplies.
“Oh yeah, we had so much fun together, didn’t we,” Eddie adds, his grin strained but wolfish. It somehow feels like he’s acting out a role.
“Lovely,” Summers says with a tired sigh. “Ed, weren’t you in a hurry?”
“Oh, shit!” Eddie says, taking a step away from Steve. “So how ‘bout that car, hm, Andy?”
“No can do. I’m sorry Ed. I know it sucks, but I can’t just not give a client a replacement car because my mechanic can’t take care of his own ride. Get going, unless you want Em to freeze to death on the curb, waiting for you.”
“You’re such an asshole,” Eddie grumbles without any real heat in his voice and turns to Steve.
“It’s been great seeing you,” he says. “But I’m in a real hurry. We can catch up some other time, yeah?”
Steve’s brain goes offline for a moment, it’s the only explanation, because suddenly his afternoon meeting is all but forgotten when he blurts:
“I can drive you.”
Eddie looks at him with those tired, dark eyes, and there’s a spark of relief there, but it fades as quickly as it comes.
“Nah, man,” he says. “You look like someone that has places to be. I’ll manage.”
Steve does have places to be. He doesn’t really care.
“It’s cool, I have time. I need to test the transmission anyway.”
Eddie seems torn. He looks supremely uncomfortable, like he wants to keep refusing, but as Andy hands Steve the car keys (finally!), his eyes catch on the wall clock.
“If it’s not too much trouble,” he says finally. “I can pay you back for the gas.”
“Bullshit,” Steve shoots back easily. “Like any of you shitheads bothered with gas money ever. C’mon. I heard something about twenty minutes. We’re on a time crunch. Chop chop.”
While Eddie is grabbing his stuff, Steve says his goodbyes to Andy. He likes the man, always has. The fact that Eddie seems comfortable around him is a much greater endorsement than the few years of friendly banter and good discounts that the older man always provides. So it’s a surprise for him when Summers looks at him suspiciously, like Steve is up to something. Only later does he realize that Andy must have been reading Eddie’s discomfort and reluctance as a red flag. Which is honestly heart-warming, for an employer to be protective of their worker like that.
Eddie meets him by the car, and slides into the passenger seat with a heavy sigh. He gives Steve the address, tells him he can navigate. It feels like no time passed between now and the last time they drove somewhere together, but at the same time Eddie looks like millenia had passed. Like he’s light years away, even huddled right next to Steve.
“Thanks for this, man,” he says as they’re making their way through traffic. “My car’s out of commission. And the commute is really shit.”
“It’s really fine. You honestly underestimate how happy I am that we ran into each other,” Steve responds. “The coincidence is crazy. We all thought we’d never see you again.”
Eddie gives him a vague grunt in response. There is a stretch of awkward silence between them, one filled with a myriad of questions and things unsaid, too much to choose from in the span of one short ride. Steve fears that if he starts talking, he might not want to stop.
“So… How is everyone? You guys keep in touch?” Eddie asks finally, keeps his tone of voice carefully casual, visibly trying to make it seem like it’s really just polite small talk. Steve can feel his eyes on his face though, can sense the underlying urge to know.
“Yeah,” he answers with a small huff. “We do. Everyone’s… good. Really good. It’s a bit crazy how well everyone turned out, after everything. I can, uh, I can tell you over a beer, if you’d like?”
From the corner of his eye, Steve can see a grin forming, but it drops as soon as it starts stretching the bearded cheeks into something wild and familiar.
“I’m… not much of a beer type these days,” he says carefully. “More of a meatballs for dinner and early bedtime guy.”
“Busy life, huh?”
“You have noooo idea.”
“Hey, I can do meatballs dinner sometime. As long as you cook because I continue to be shit at it.”
“You? King Steve? Shit at anything? I call slander!”
Steve chuckles.
“Yeah, well, Dustin keeps reminding me that days of my reign were short and pathetic so we definitely need to update you on the status quo.”
“Dustin…” Eddie says softly, and yeah, Steve is reminded that Eddie doesn’t know what’s been going on with the kids. Well, not kids anymore, nearly all of them are in their thirties now, with the few years between them long unimportant.
“Yeah, we work together. Own a small IT business. We make software for the visually impaired. The boys got the idea after it was made clear that Max won’t regain her sight.”
Eddie exhales forcefully, like the air’s been punched out of him, so Steve barrels on, words predictably pouring out of him.
“She, uh, she woke up about a week after they, uh, took you away. She’s fine. Regained almost full mobility, just… Her eyes never went back to normal. So Dustin got that idea, because she wanted to start writing, and you know how he is, he’s a force of nature, so obviously he roped me into it, and suddenly we’re opening a company together, it was such a shitshow for a few years. But hey, TrueSight is going strong, we’re actually–”
There’s a snort next to him.
“You named the software for blind people TrueSight?”
Steve tsks.
“For the visually impaired, Eddie. It’s a big range. And I swear to god, Dustin’s unfortunate penchant for naming things did not get better with time. I still blame you. I didn’t even know what it was about until we registered the name and Will fell off the chair laughing when we told him.”
They don’t have time to expand on the topic, because Eddie is pointing at a parking lot. Steve pulls into the nearly empty space and kills the engine. Eddie looks out the window, distaste written all over his face as his gaze follows the loose snow being swept over the tarmac with gusts of forceful wind. Steve looks around, too. The parking lot is positioned snugly against a large, red brick building with a cross on its side, but otherwise it looks like any other suburban neighborhood Steve’s seen before.
“You live somewhere around here?” he asks, trying to postpone the moment Eddie disappears again. It didn’t escape his attention that the other man didn’t offer exchanging contact info. But Steve is not having it.
“No, god no, I live in the Rosemont area. I’m picking up my kids. From school.”
Oh.
This is definitely not what Steve expected. His brain short circuits at the thought of Eddie ‘the Freak’ Munson having children of his own. A family and a boring job. He always imagined the man would become a rock star, remaining the free, rebellious, anti-establishment type. In hindsight, considering that he’s been tucked away by a governmental protective program, it’s somewhat of a ludicrous notion, now that Steve thinks about it.
“Wait,” he says abruptly, when two of his brain cells connect in the fog of confused bewilderment. “How are you gonna get them home from here without a car?”
Eddie, the thirty-something grown ass man, fidgets in his spot like a chastised kid.
“If I hurry we might hitch a ride with one of the other parents,” he says. “A bunch of us live in the same area.”
“Are you out of your mind,” Steve deadpans. “We’re late already. There’s almost no cars here. Getting children to Rosemont in this weather?”
Eddie’s hackles visibly raise, and Steve has to stop himself from wincing.
“I can manage my own shit, Harrington,” he says sharply. “Thanks for the ride. I really need to get going.”
He reaches for the door handle but turns back around when Steve grabs his other wrist. Steve can see the jerky motion of stopping himself from tearing his hand away. Steve tries to not be affronted by that, tries to reason that after all this time Eddie might be a completely different person. One who left Hawking and their secret battle camaraderie behind, buried under half a lifetime of new experiences. Who knows, maybe he grew some personal space and boundaries in the meantime.
“There was a blizzard warning on the radio this morning,” Steve says, doing his best not to sound irritated. “Just let me drive you home.”
Eddie’s face twists into something unpleasant.
“Eddie,” Steve pushes, “don’t be an idiot. You know it’s a reasonable solution.”
Their gazes clash for a long few seconds, before Eddie’s eyes flit to the stormy weather outside.
“One of them is tiny. You don’t have a car seat,” he says weakly.
“Funny story, actually I do.”
Eddie looks at him like he’s sprouted an extra head, and glances at the back seat reflexively. Steve smirks.
“I keep it in my trunk. Well, Nancy keeps it in my truck, really. For whenever she, or El, or Lucas bring their hellspawn along. I’m the designated driver when Dustin is not around.”
Eddie keeps staring at him, visibly turning the phrase over in his head. Steve can’t believe it either, how the kids suddenly are all in relationships, popping out babies, having careers of their own. And he’s been watching it happen. He can only imagine how it feels when the info is dropped so suddenly. Probably feels the same as learning that Eddie, of all people, works in Steve’s favorite repair shop and has kids of his own.
Steve smiles in what he hopes is a soothing manner.
“I’ll tell you all about that later. Go get your kids, man. I’ll install the seat.”
Eddie looks at him some more, unnervingly still and silent, and it’s such a contrast to the way Steve remembers him. Ultimately he nods and slips out of the car, leaving rogue snowflakes blown in by the wind in his wake.
Steve briefly regrets the offer when he, too, has to get out into the wind and fiddle with the old, battered car seat. He thought he won’t need it anymore, Nancy’s boy turning nine this year, and Lucas’ daughter unlikely to come visit before her eight birthday. Now that he knows that there’s a new kiddo in the bunch, he starts thinking about buying a newer one instead. Awfully presumptuous of him, really, but that’s what Steve’s been doing most of his life - planning around his friends.
Eddie is a friend. At least Steve hopes he is. True, the reunion isn’t the warmest one, and he can’t really blame Munson for that, it’s a bit of a chaotic affair. It’s not like they were insanely close, back then, and Eddie really does seem to be doing everything to keep his distance. The reluctance with which he shared the shreds of information about his life is a discouraging sign, but Steve is nothing if not persistent. He at least needs to quench his need to know if the other man is doing alright, if he’s happy. That’s all he needs. Call it a caretaker complex, or want for closure, or just some wish to forward good news to their other friends.
He can back away if Eddie doesn’t want him to stick around after that. Not that he wants to. But he can.
Just as he’s about to go back to his seat, Steve hears the crunching of snow behind him. He turns around, and there’s Eddie, carefully making his way back to the car, mindful to not slip on the icy tarmac. He is carrying a kid on his hip, it’s hard to really say anything more about it aside from the fact that they look about preschool-ish and are bundled in what seems to be all the winter clothes. Eddie has a tiny green backpack slung over his other shoulder. Right behind him trots another child, dressed in a burgundy coat flaring into something distinctly skirt-like and heavy pink snow shoes, her head swallowed by what looks like a much too big beret.
“That’s our ride,” Eddie is saying to the girl. “Hop right in, before your nose falls off from the cold.”
The child seems to be ignoring him, instead staring at Steve.
“That’s Steve,” Eddie supplies when the silence stretches. “He’s my, uh, highschool buddy. He’s giving us a ride today.”
The girl looks Steve up and down, then looks over at the car. Steve opens the door a bit wider to encourage her, trying not to show how much of a stupid idea it was to get out into the cold without his hat and scarf. The kid doesn’t take the bait.
“Em, please get in the car. Steve’s cool, I promise,” Eddie says in a strained voice. He then moves closer to Steve, as if to show his own trust in him by narrowing the gap between them, but really he just leans over and mutters:
“They had the whole ‘stranger danger’ talk at school recently, she’s taking it absolutely seriously.”
Steve chuckles, and watches the girl climb into the back seat, clambering over the car seat he’s been forcing into position. She trails ridiculous amounts of snow in, but Steve doesn’t really care.
“Need help with the car seat?” he asks Eddie, but the man shakes his head, saying something about them all being the same, and leans inside the car. So instead of looming over him like an asshole, Steve makes his way to the driver’s side to start the car.
By the time Eddie falls into the passenger seat Steve manages to send a quick text message to Jenna, his secretary, to please cancel his meeting and receive a scathingly short answer that she did, when he didn’t show up to it sixteen minutes ago and neglected to answer his damn phone. It’s followed by another ping, but Steve is already sliding the phone into his pocket.
Eddie’s face is red from the cold. Steve’s gaze lands on his jaw and neck, distinctly lacking a scarf by the way. He suddenly can’t look away from the pale scars cutting into the skin, now in stark contrast with the pink-tinged skin around it. It extends farther up Eddie’s jaw than he remembered, creating a crevice in his beard, only partially hidden by the dark hair.
When he looks up, he meets Eddie’s hard gaze.
They both look away.
Eddie gives him the address, and this time Steve punches it into his navigation system. In that time the other man turns around, looking behind him.
“Steve was kind enough to drive us home today,” he says. His speech pattern is odd, he’s speaking slowly and overly clearly, like he’s talking to infants. Which Steve finds really odd, because he doesn’t remember Eddie to be the patronizing type. If anything, he tended to overestimate the maturity of some people. When he addresses Steve, his eyes are sparkling, as continues in the same manner.
“Steve, these are Marta and Tom. Marta is ten, and Tom is three.”
The little kid, Tom, wiggles in his seat.
“I am fowr!” he squeaks, the r getting a tiny bit tangled on his tongue, and holy shit, is that adorable or what.
“Yea you are, buddy, good job,” Eddie says with his usual rushed cadence. He then adds in a stage whisper: “He’s been practicing his ‘r’ sounds.”
The pride with which he says it is adorable, too.
“It’s, uh, nice to meet you,” Steve tells the kids, glancing at them in the rear-view mirror. He gets a wave of a tiny, mitten-clad hand in return and he smiles warmly. The chubby face peeking from under an oversized winter hat returns a toothy smile. The kid leans towards his sister and says something Steve doesn’t really catch.
“He says he likes your car,” the girl, Marta, informs him.
“Thanks, Tom,” Steve says.
“He has a toy car like this one,” the girl adds.
“That’s cool! Do you like cars?”
A small “yes” answers him, and Eddie chuckles.
“He's been a huge fan ever since I took him to the shop once. Soon he’ll know more about cars than I do.”
“I’m sure he already does, he seems like such a smart boy,” Steve says, winking into the mirror. Tommy giggles. “And you Marta, what are you interested in?”
The girl doesn’t answer immediately. She seems much more reserved, even though the ‘stranger danger’ moment seems to be behind them. When she does, she doesn’t look at Steve in the mirror, instead mumbling into her lap:
“I like history.”
“Oh, wow, that’s a big interest. I was really bad at history. I think even your dad was better at it.”
“He’s not my dad,” Marta answers sharply.
Deathly silence falls over the car.
Steve’s first, completely irrational thought is: ‘ holy shit, I helped Eddie kidnap two kids’. But then he glances over at the man, and regrets it immediately. His face is pulled into a strained sort of neutrality, tugging at the corners of his eyes and the crease on his forehead with a sort of settled tension, one that has found its groves in his thin face a long time ago. He is studiously looking out the window, doing everything to hide the hurt in his dark gaze.
“I adopted them when I married their mom,” he informs Steve with palpable discomfort.
Touchy subject. Noted very loud and clear. Steve clears his throat, taps his fingers on the steering wheel.
“Still, history is really cool,” he says with as much cheer as he can muster. “What period are you most interested in?”
Steve chats with the kids for the rest of the way. Tom mostly relays whatever he wants to say through his sister, who is extremely patient about it. Eddie doesn’t talk much, but by the time they reach the address Steve has in his navi computer, he seems much more relaxed.
The neighborhood looks. Hm. There are rows of two-story apartment buildings on the street, all looking identically bleak. Snow covers most of it, but Steve imagines there’s not much greenery around. Muffled sounds of the highways reach Steve’s ears as they all clamber out of the car, and there’s a roar of a landing plane from the direction of the O’Hare airport.
Eddie frees Tom from the car seat, and turns to Steve with a sheepish smile.
“Thank you for this, Harrington, really,” he says. “You were right, the weather is fu-uuuunky snowy. You sure I can’t give you some gas money?”
Steve grins at the near-slip and shakes his head.
“Positive. But here, take my card, it has both my private and work numbers. You can pay me back with those meatballs sometime.”
Eddie takes the offered piece of cardboard with the hand that is not holding Tom’s hood for the kid’s stability. He looks down at it and his eyebrows raise.
“Shit, Steve, you really are a whole ass businessman.”
Marta, who joined them with Tom’s green backpack held in her arms, looks up at him.
“Two bad words, Ed, that’s two cents in the jar,” she informs him solemnly.
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” the older man says, just as seriously as her. When the girl turns away, he winks at Steve.
He looks like he’s about to say his goodbyes, but Steve cuts in before he has a chance to.
“Eddie,” he says, pushing his hands deeper into his jacket pockets, “is it okay if I tell the rest about this? That you’re here?”
Eddie looks at him from above his glasses with sad, tired gaze.
“I… I don’t think that’s a great idea. I’m, uh, there’s a lot going on right now. I’m not… Not yet, okay?”
Steve looks down. Somehow, he expected it. The fact that Eddie doesn’t even try to give his contact info in exchange for the business card is a big tell for him. He nods, mutters a “yeah, sure”.
He watches Eddie disappear in the doorway of the apartment building, wondering if he’ll ever see him again.