Eddie: *sneaking In Through Steve’s Window*

isn’t he a dream?

Every Step of the Way

Steve Rogers x Fem!Reader

Summary: After struggling through the entire week, Steve’s there to comfort you when you need him the most.

Warnings: TRIGGER WARNING: severe depression is depicted, Steve and reader being naked in a shower together but nothing sexual, major hurt comfort vibes

Word count: 1.8k

A/N: this is 1000% self indulgent, I wrote this when I was in a really dark place, struggling to even just get out of bed every day and I needed Stevie there to comfort me. Banners by @vase-of-lilies

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Opening your eyes seems like an effort too great for the amount of energy in your reserves.

Every breath is a heave, as if trying to gasp for air with an anvil sitting on your chest.

The backs of your eyes sting with tears at the thought of needing to get out of bed. You don’t want to face the day, don’t want to be the early bird catching the worm. You want to stay under the covers and sleep, that’s all you have the motivation to do.

Dirty dishes are stacked next to your sink, they’ve been accumulating since early in the week and you’ve just not had the energy after working and making dinner each night to actually wash them yet.

Clothes litter the floor of your bedroom, but you’ve put off going down to the laundry room for the past few days, with each new sunrise promising it’ll be tomorrow you’ll find time to do it, but that tomorrow never comes.

The bathrooms need cleaning, the floor needs vacuuming, surfaces need dusting - you put off doing them last weekend to focus on other household chores, but this weekend has come around and you’re not any more inspired to complete them.

You hear keys rattle in your front door, the sound startling you enough to finally open your eyes, but not sufficiently concerning to warrant leaving your bed. The only person who owned keys to your place was your boyfriend and though you didn’t want him to see the mess you were living in, there wasn’t anything you could do in the two seconds it would take for him to open your door.

As if instinctually he knows you’re still snuggled up in bed, you hear his heavy footsteps striding steadily towards your door.

Bracing for the furious displeasure you have been conditioned to receive from ex partners when they discovered you in a relapse, you pull the covers tighter around yourself as if to shield you from what was about to happen.

“Stevie…” Your voice is soft, vulnerable as he enters the room, but it’s not pity nor annoyance you see in his eyes, which you had been expecting, but instead they are brimming with concern.

“Hey darling.” His honey voice is slow and smooth, soothing the jittery anxiety ricocheting through your mind and chest. “Not feeling too good?” It’s a rhetorical question, but you shake your head anyway, clutching the duvet closer to your chin. Steve pulls his shirt over his head, rounds the bed and climbs in next to you.

“C’mere.” His strong arms envelop you and pull you into his strong chest, the weight of them on your back and his musky scent, which now consumes your senses, is the secure reassurance you’ve been needing all week that you’re not completely alone in this brutal world.

He doesn’t ask what’s the matter with you, doesn’t ask why you’ve barely answered his messages all week, why your home is a complete mess or why you’re laying in the dark at noon on a weekend. He doesn’t make you justify your change in behaviour, why you kept him at arm's length, doesn’t scold you for your absence as other people have done in the past. Instead, he kisses your forehead, whispers that you’re safe with him as he gently rubs his hand up and down your back.

He could have easily chastised you for withdrawing into yourself and not seeking help, could have pointed out the state your home was in, or mentioned that you smelled in need of a shower, but he does none of that. Rather, he tells you over and over again that you’re loved, ingraining the notion in your mind so that you won’t ever forget, placing kisses over every inch of your face he can reach while still holding your body close.

The sound of his beating heart lulls you to a peaceful sleep, feeling safe and treasured, and for the first time this week like you don’t have to carry the weight of expectation and hollow desolation all on your own.

* * *

When you wake, the warmth provided by your sturdy boyfriend is missing. Distress fills your chest for a moment, thinking perhaps Steve coming to soothe you to sleep was a figment of your imagination, until you hear the faint sound of movement from the main living area.

With an effort you believe rivals running an entire marathon, you push the sheets off yourself, heave yourself out of bed and trudge into your kitchen, but not before noticing that the clothes that were strewn over your bedroom floor this morning were no longer there.

Once your eyes adjust to the light you notice Steve hunched over your sink, elbows deep in soapy water doing your dishes. Part of you is thankful, you’ve been needing to do them all week and just hadn’t found the energy or motivation. But another part of you, deep in your chest, feels ashamed - you have to rely on your boyfriend, who has a hectic enough life of his own, to do something as simple as washing your dishes. How pathetic.

“Steve, I can do them.” You declare, lumbering over to the counter, feeling somewhat relieved to see there’s only half the number of dirty pots and pans as was there when you left them last night.

“It’s okay darling, I’ve already got my hands wet…”

“I don’t want you doing my dishes for me, Steven.” You don’t know why those particular words leave your mouth, because seeing the dishes you had failed to clean the last few days finally have the grime scrubbed off them alleviates some of the hefty gravity pushing you chest so tight you almost can’t breathe. But it also makes you feel incapable, worthless and weak.

You’re not sure what quality it is in your voice that indicates it, but Steve immediately removes his hands from the bubbly water, dries them quickly on the back of his pants and pulls you into his chest just as tears you didn’t realise were coming start silently streaming down your cheeks.

“Shhh, it’s okay, deep breaths for me baby.” His large hands rub soothing circles around your back as your tears dampen his shirt. You try your best to follow his instruction, slowly take deep breaths and calm the flow of untameable misery pouring out the corners of your eyes, but your throat starts constricting and each new tear running down your cheeks evokes two more.

You just want it to end. You want to be able to function like a regular human being without exhausting all of your energy reserves by simply getting out of bed.

You just want to be normal. Be someone Steve can be proud to call his girl. Not someone who struggles to do the simplest of tasks.

When Steve senses that your flood of emotions isn’t subsiding, he shuffles with you in his arms towards your bathroom, whispering that the warm water of your shower will help refresh you.

He helps lift you onto your bathroom countertop, kissing away the stray tears on your cheeks before turning on the shower. While he tests the temperature of the water with one hand, his other maintains hold on yours - even just the connection to him helps in your attempts to calm yourself down. He’s here for you, and he isn’t going anywhere.

When the temperature is just how you like it, Steve helps you strip off your clothes and directs you under the stream. You let the water wash over your face, taking some of your worries with them, as Steve steps in behind you.

You can’t tell the difference between your own teardrops and drizzle of the shower as you look up at your boyfriend, grateful for the care and tenderness he’s shown you while you’re at your lowest. No one else has stuck around when they’ve seen you like this, but in this moment you feel nothing but pure love.

You place a gentle kiss to a scar on his bare chest and Steve kisses your forehead in return - a silent message to thank him for being there for you, and him to acknowledge that though you’re unable to voice your gratitude at the present moment, he understands it’s there.

Once Steve washes your hair, knowing the steps of your routine perfectly, and the rest of your body, you step out of the shower feeling like the load you’ve been carrying for the past few weeks has been washed off your back.

Steve smiles as he pulls his own shirt over your head, kissing your nose once your head pops through the hole. Now your tears have settled, you can appreciate the affection overflowing in his baby blues, fondness you don’t believe you deserve, but cherish nonetheless.

Forgetting all about the dirty dishes in the cold, soapy sink, Steve directs you back to your bedroom, climbing in after you and pulling you once again into his strapping chest.

“Darling, you don’t have to carry this burden alone. I’m here for you, and I love you, you don’t ever have to face this by yourself again.” Steve speaks softly into your hairline, the intent and conviction in his voice enough to drive you to tears again.

“But it’s not like I have that much on my plate, I should be able to do simple things like housework. I just… I just can’t. I can’t explain it, my brain just doesn’t allow me to.”

Steve pulls away from you slightly so he has an angle to look at you directly in the eye. It looks like it physically pains him to see you struggling so much.

“My love, you are the strongest person I have ever met. I am so proud of you everyday that you are here with me, that you keep battling your own mind. You’re my fighter, my best girl, and I’m here to help you through this difficult patch. For better or worse. In sickness and in health, I love you.” He punctuates his declaration with a sweet kiss, reinforcing his words.

“We’re not married Stevie.” You point out, but he simply smirks at you.

“Not yet.”

Before Steve Rogers you believed love was tumultuous and torture, that it was meant to tear you in half, because you cared about the other person so ardently it left you bloodied and bruised. But Steve proved to you that wasn’t love - love isn’t supposed to feel like you’re going to war, instead it’s comfort, it’s a reassuring embrace of someone who has seen your battle scars and tells you it’s time to rest.

Love is solace.

And Steve Rogers is certainly your solace.

Steve Rogers + side profile 

↳ for @captainevans

Imagine Eddie catching you with your glasses on!!!

Why I am thinking about this? Because I wear glasses myself but I hate them sometimes. I don’t want to wear them outside but I have to because if I don’t I literally don’t see anything that far away. Funfact: when I‘ve met Grace, Joe, Gaten and Jamie at the GCC in December they said the loved my hair and glasses and that‘s the only reason I‘m ok with wearing them outside🥹🥹 Grace even took a picture of me because she said I looked cute and one day later we had the same hair cut💔

ANYWAY I imagining it like this:

You‘re never wearing your glasses outside. Never. If someone would see you with them you‘d dig your own grave because it would be so embarrassing for you. It just doesn’t fit into the whole "you“ concept. Always wearing black, looking like a Rockerchick, just matching with your boyfriend Eddie all the time. If you’d wear your glasses which have a slight golden frame, just to see what‘s written on the board, everyone would probably laugh at you. Not like you care what others think but you‘re afraid that your friends will laugh about it too. They love to tease you, so they‘d definitely tease you about you wearing glasses too.

The "Rockerchick" has to wear glasses, how funny.

And your biggest fear? Eddie finding out that you literally can’t see shit and he starts to make fun of you. Or even worse, what if he thinks you look stupid?

Eddie‘s probably the last person to judge someone because of their look. Especially if the other person is someone who’s important to him, and you definitely are. You know that but the fear of not being perfect for him is too big. So you just keep it your little secret.

One day you‘re lying in your bed, wearing nothing but one of Eddie’s tees and your panties since you’re home alone. A book lingers between your hands, you’re adjusting your glasses on top of you’re nose and you‘re about to turn to the next page when you hear a knock on your window. Mindlessly you turn your head to look at whoever decided to visit you in the middle of the night, completely forgetting that you had your glasses on. That’s until you see your boyfriend’s surprised face on the other side of the glass. Fuck.

It doesn’t take you a second to pull them off your face, throwing them somewhere into the bed before jumping out of it. You walk over to the window, letting your boyfriend climb inside before closing the curtains. "Eddie it’s literally 2am! Why are you here?" You look at him but he doesn’t respond. Instead he walks to your bed and picks up the "Accessoire" that was lingering on your nose just a few seconds ago.

You freeze. He definitely saw you wearing them, there‘s no way he didn’t. You were directly looking at him. Fuck fuck fuck.

"Are these…are these yours?" He looks up at you, still holding your glasses between his fingers,making eye contact which causes you to feel your cheeks burn like fire. His voice is calm, there‘s no judgement in it all only curiosity. A soft sigh escapes your lips and you slowly nod. "Why did you never tell me that you wear glasses Sweetheart?" He laughs softly and you can see how he lifts his hands up to his face, before putting your visual aid on his own nose, testing if he‘s able to see through them like a curious child. Now you‘re the one who‘s laughing softly, answering with a soft nod only.

He puts them down again as he walks over to you before he puts your glasses back on your face, a soft smile forms on his lips while doing so. "You look adorable with them y/n" his voice is barely above a whisper. "You think so?" You whisper back at him, your eyes closed because of how embarrassed you feel. He nods yes "Hell yeah. Even though they also look badass on you" he grins as he places a soft kiss on top of your nose, causing another chuckle to escapes your lips.

Turns out Eddie loves your glasses. He thinks they fit you so goddamn good and they make you look even smarter than you already are. He steals them every now and then to wear them, just to see your precious reaction. Every time he comes over he makes you wear them so your poor eyes can relax a bit.

Yeah, Eddie just loves you so much it‘s unbelievable.

Masterlist

Just in case the world needed any more prove that Joseph Quinn is a golden retriever in human form

robin: you need a hobby.

eddie: i have a hobby.

dustin: staring at steve’s face isn’t a hobby.

eddie: you’re right. it’s a profession and i excel at my job.

Other bloggers: man I need to clean out my askbox

Me:

Just a little thought for your sweet Sunday prompt, don’t worry if it’s not the sort of thing you want. Kind, soft old fashioned gentleman Steve looking after the reader when she’s having a particularly bad time of the month. I love that man so much and I adore how you write him.😍

Fair warning: this gets sweet but sooooooooo deep after the feels. I went overboard on the semi-angst because periods and (my) life sucks. Steve's just so magical, that bastard....

Hour seven of cramping and you contemplate just giving up and heading to bed. You look over to the clock.

20:23

No way. Too early. You can wait one hour more until another dose of painkiller.

Except now you're out of snacks and either have to watch only half a movie or search for a TV show.

There's a knock at the door, and why someone checking on you makes you want to cry is beyond you. You just do want to cry. You don't want to explain WWIII in your uterus; you want ice cream, dammit.

"I bought three kinds," Steve announces, using his foot to close up behind him, arms covered in grocery bags like a pack mule. "Four if you count the sandwiches."

When he finally looks up, he stalls seeing you curled into the couch, covered in thick blankets, a pillow squished harshly to your chest, and tears brimming in your eyes.

His eyes soften. "Hun," he whines, dropping his arms, "you could have texted me."

You shake your head before tucking it into the pillow. "Not gonna bother you," you mumble through fabric.

"That bad, huh?"

Steve doesn't need an answer though. He's speedy in the kitchen while you scroll absently through Netflix. You still have no clue what to watch.

He returns to your side with a bowl: one scoop of every flavor capped with an entire ice cream sandwich...minus one bite.

"Sorry," he winks, "boyfriend tax."

Steve's cute when he's cheeky, and he knows it.

"That's a big bite, mister."

He shrugs, simply adding, "inflation."

Another sharp pang hits you above the hip, one so brutal and deep you hiss. He asks about medicine, if you'd like hot tea or chocolate, and what else he can do. There's nothing. Just another pang before the other even recedes.

Concern falls off his face suddenly, and Steve holds up a finger before hurtling over the back of the couch.

He comes back but sits on the floor with his hand out. "Foot, please," he adds, brandishing a pair of your fuzziest socks.

"One sec," you groan and clutch the bowl tighter. You can't lift your leg until the cramp stops. You watch Steve school his face with patience instead of sadness.

Some months are worse than others, and Steve doesn't like unpredictable things. Even though he's patient. Even though he rolls with the punches. He will never get used to seeing his best girl in pain, and so most of the time, you hide it from him. You've trained yourself to play it off like it's nothing more than a temporary stomach ache, but this one is bad. You cannot play off this month.

You drank as much water as you could handle. You peed every twenty minutes and cleaned up every time as if it would matter. You want to shower every hour, but that would be just as useless. You'll feel gross and bloated no matter what.

You should feel so pampered and loved when Steve gently slips the soft sock over your heel. You should be happy beneath his gorgeous, blue, adoring gaze. You should not start crying into your confection. It's not salted caramel, for christ's sake. Get it together.

Which, of course, you can't do.

You can't stop any of it, and then you're happy you can't stop it because then he might stop. Somehow Steve only becomes more doting as you shovel ice cream in like air. He sneaks another bite of sandwich to make you smile. Somehow smiling makes the tears come faster. He peels away some blankets and the pillow, politely waiting until the spoon clinks against empty china. Somehow he wrestles you into his lap and hugs.

The firm grip he puts you in is soothing like a weighted blanket, tighter than you can wrap against your own gut, and it feels so good. He curls around you as you were curled in the cushions, a universal pressure, a universal peace.

"You want to watch a comedy or a nature documentary?" His voice rumbles against your back.

"Neither."

His chin pokes your cheek with a questioning hum.

"Tell me about your day," you reply, sighing, letting your whole self lean into Steve even though you feel swollen and grumpy.

He squeezes a little firmer around you, waiting to feel more tension drain from you. "Well, Sam complained that I was heavy again."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, he had to lift me ten stories higher between buildings."

You scoff. "My god, how hard can it be?"

"I know, I know," he mutters, "I'm light as a feather. Practically lean."

"Yeah," you finally smile. "Go on. Have another ice cream sandwich, you skinny boy."

His chuckle rattles behind you. "Only if we can share...then I'm thinking a hot bath and more of this--" he cuddles up closer "--if you're game."

"Just a minute longer," you beg in a whisper before adding with more strength, "you still haven't told me about Sam and Bucky's latest tiff."

I'm just gonna go cry in the corner now...

Steve carries Eddie’s body through the gate, blood soaking his clothes where silent tears fail to wash it away. It feels like Eddie’s blood is going to seep into is body and stay there under his skin like a tattoo. A reminder for all eternity that happy endings were only ever an invention by people who didn’t know anything about life.

“He’s losing so much blood,” Robin keeps wheezing behind him, breathless with the weight of it all, and Steve wants to say something, wants to comfort her that it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t hurt him, he won’t need the blood anymore. But the words get stuck in his throat as more tears fall.

Eddie’s hand is cold in his, and it will forever haunt him. Still, he’s not ready to let go when they reach the remnants of the trailer, when his knees give out and he collapses onto the soiled mattress. But whatever stains they were, they’re history now underneath all that blood.

History is the thing with the bloodstained beds and lost, abandoned homes, is it not? History is the part where everything gets ripped from you and you’re meant to keep standing. Keep fighting.

History, right now, looks a lot like a future unwritten, with Eddie’s hand in his, cold and unfeeling.

Steve still doesn’t say a word.

The world has larger problems than his failed attempts at grief. Ripped apart at its seams, wilting and rotting and overcome with death and decay, Hawkins needs Steve Harrington to once again show a strength he shouldn’t have to possess.

He helps. Donates clothes, offers his home, his kitchen, his bedrooms to everyone in need. Donates his time, his smile, his thoughts to the people who have the fortune and the privilege to think nothing of him.

Funerals are a daily occasion — with or without the bodies — and so Steve doesn’t even think about it when Dustin approaches him about Eddie.

“He shouldn’t be put on public display like that,” Dustin says and Steve marvels, for a second, that he still has his voice. “He deserves more than a freakshow, and they’re so busy, but they said they could… They could come and—and prepare him. The body. Bring him over. Have a proper service for him, those who knew, those who cared about. Could we do it at your place? Please?”

His eyes sting as he nods and pulls Dustin into a hug that leaves his shirt wet. It’s fine. All his clothes have the memory of tear stains on them, and tear stains are better than blood; a kinder version of history.

It’s a week after… a week since… It’s been a week, when they finally have the funeral for Eddie. Steve doesn’t mean to be there, he shouldn’t be, he can’t be, not when he still scrubs at his skin where Eddie’s blood used to be and he wants to get it out of there because he knows it’s inside him, he knows it’s in there; he knows because he’s hurting all over. Everything, everything hurts. And he can’t wash it away, the memory, the stains, the part where past and future became history and present became nothing but pain. He can’t—

He can’t.

Eddie refused to run and it’s all Steve wants to do anymore. It’s not fair. It’s not.

He shuts himself away from the world in his room and tries to scratch it away, the memory of the blood. He wants to scream and to shout and to talk and to apologise, but he can’t, because there are no words.

And then Dustin is talking, and Steve stops tearing at his skin to listen. He can’t hear the words but he can hear the pain, he can hear the way Dustin is stronger than him, always has been, and he opens the door. Slips down the stairs slowly until he sees it. The open coffin with Eddie’s body, his hair glowing in the light of the afternoon sun.

“He was the coolest, kindest, bravest guy I know,” Dustin says, but Steve doesn’t want to hear it, so he stops listening as he reaches the foot of the stairs and keeps walking, closer to Eddie, always closer, always so, so close.

And he misses the touch, misses those dark brown eyes that were so kind, and he wants to see them again. They’re closed. They shouldn’t be closed; the world has to see. Has to see the kindness in those eyes, the beauty, the wonderful things they’d think of.

Silence falls around him but Steve doesn’t care, doesn’t really notice; not when those eyes are closed, not when he reaches out to open them as a way to right all the wrongs in the world now.

But then his eyes fall to Eddie’s bare throat, and everything is wrong once more, no chance to right it, because—

“Where’s his pick? He needs-Eddie needs his plectrum to play. He can’t play without his pick, he can’t— The bats will get him, please, you have to… He needs his pick.”

And Steve falls apart as he finds his words again, words that rip into his very soul, tearing at the fabric of the world itself and turning it upside down. There are hands on his shoulders, trying to pull him away from the coffin, but he clings to it even as his knees start to give out while sobs wreck through his body.

“It’s okay, boy,” someone tells him, and Steve falls back into Hoppers chest, strong arms holding him up instead of pulling him away from Eddie. “It’s okay.”

He’s shaking his head, vision blurry now, and maybe there’s a bit of irony in the way that Steve and Eddie will both have had their last visions of each other be blurred with tears.

“It’s not, it’s not okay,” he insists, trying to shake off the hands holding him up. He wants to fall apart; wants to break; wants to be gone. Don’t hold me together, let me shatter. “You— You all wanted me to talk. You wanted me to!”

He’s gasping for breath again, hiccuping through the tears and the words and the weakness.

“I’m talking. Eddie, I love you. I wanna love you, and now I’m gonna, forever, but I don’t want the sad kind of forever. I want… Please, please he needs his pick, he can’t play without it.”

And then he’s on the floor, sobbing, and the words are gone again. Robin, Dustin and Hopper go down with him, but even they can’t put him together now.

“Steve,” Dustin says, voice hoarse with the weight of his own tears. “It’s here, see? I’ve got his pick, it’s safe. Do you wanna give it to him? Make sure he has it forever?”

He does. But he can’t bring himself to let go. Wayne comes up and places a scratched up piece of plastic on Eddie’s chest.

“He used to leave ‘em all ‘round the trailer. I always keep ‘em with me the days. Found this one under the couch before we… He’ll have it now, see? He can play again, our boy can play again.”

Steve falls apart until he doesn’t remember what piece of himself goes where. But it’s fine. Eddie will play again.

@thefreakandthehair technically you didn’t do this, but you sure didn’t discourage me from writing this (inspired by the My Girl funeral scene)

I Love…

Summary: A request from @rororo06: “Chris Evans x reader where something is really bothering her and she says she’s fine but Chris doesn’t buy it.“

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader

Warnings: None

Word Count: ~900

a/n: As always, let me know what you think, and feel free to send me requests :)

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You thought you were concealing it well, but he noticed.

He noticed when you went to sleep three hours earlier than normal.

He noticed when you didn’t sing along to your favorite song in the car.

He noticed when you stared off into space during breakfast and barely ate before leaving for work.

Now you’re sitting together watching a movie like you do most Friday nights when you’re both home. Admittedly, you’re having a hard time focusing. You can feel Chris stare in your direction all of a sudden, though.

“I can feel that,” you mumble.

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