Chapter Text
JUNE 28th, 1985
Dariya thinks she’s accidentally spying on the Russian government.
Which is a weird thought to have while applying eyeliner in the staff bathroom of Hawkins’ newest mall, but here she is. Holding a smudgy Revlon pencil in one hand, thinking about international espionage, death dimensions, and whether or not she left her lace bra on Steve Harrington’s nightstand again.
It’s already a weird summer.
The kind of summer where Hawkins builds an entire mall out of nowhere, and nobody asks where the money came from. The kind of summer where Dariya Ovechkina works at a lingere store and shows up exactly long enough to not get fired, and leaves just in time to flirt with Steve Harrington at Scoops Ahoy for three hours straight. The kind of summer where she keeps getting little notes from her dad in scientific cipher, asking strange questions about magnetic fields and “energy readings” and have you noticed any patterns in the lights at Starcourt?
Steve and Dariya haven’t said I love you yet. But they have had sex on a storage shelf at Scoops, so.
It’s basically the same thing.
And yet somehow, even after all that—after shared trauma and makeshift parental rights over Dustin Henderson, after the hospital stays and whispered almosts in the dark—Steve still blushes when she bites his jaw. Still stammers when she leans too close behind the Scoops counter and asks him if his sailor uniform came with handcuffs.
(It didn’t. She bought those separately.)
She’s never been in a relationship like this before. Never had someone call her three times in a row because she didn’t answer the first two. Never had someone send her polaroids of themselves trying on shirts they didn’t buy. Never had someone leave her notes in her glove compartment that just say things like “Your hair looked insane today (in a good way). Also I miss your face.”
They hang out every day. It’s Hawkins. There’s nothing else to do. It’s hot and sticky and stupid and the mall’s become the sun they orbit. Dariya works mornings at Lovelace Lingerie; some over-perfumed, over-sexualised lingerie shop owned by a woman named Candy who legally changed her name from Maureen. She spends the rest of the day at Scoops, sitting on the counter like a health code violation, stealing bites of Steve’s milkshake and giving Robin pointed looks whenever she laughs too hard at his jokes.
(Robin’s cool. Kind of. Smart. Funny. Dangerous with a whiteboard. Dariya wants to hate her. She’s working on it.)
Most of their nights end in Steve’s car. Sometimes they drive out to Lover’s Lake, windows down, her bare legs on the dashboard. Sometimes it’s just the back of the parking lot, making out under fluorescents and pretending they’re not slowly melting in Indiana humidity. Sometimes they just talk. Or sit. Or do nothing. And that might be the weirdest part of all.
Steve’s not… what she expected. At first he was just hot and concussed and stupidly loyal. Now he’s all of that and weirdly domestic. He cooks. He drives her to work. He checks in when her dad sends another strange postcard. He once brought her a sweater at 9pm because the mall’s air con broke and he “didn’t want her nipples to freeze off in front of the Calvin Klein mannequins.”
It’s been almost eight months since the tunnels. Since Billy. Since the dogs. Since the fire. Eight months since she thought they might all die in some damp dimension beneath a field in Hawkins.
She thought everything would settle down.
But lately? Lately it feels like the beginning of something. Again.
Her dad’s notes are getting weirder. Less about science, more about... systems. Power surges. “Underground installations.” He’s using ciphers they haven’t used since she was twelve, bored in a science museum in Moscow. She hasn’t told Steve the full story. Yet. Mostly because she doesn’t have it.
She just knows this: her father helped build something he shouldn’t have. Something that was supposed to be theoretical. Cold War science. Particle manipulation and controlled wormholes and “the edge of the possible.” He told her once, over a chessboard and vodka, that if the wrong people ever revisited those blueprints, things could go very badly.
And now there’s a giant, brand-new mall built in a town with three stop signs and a population under eight thousand. A mall with “energy patterns” and weird underground noise complaints. A mall where her father told her to watch the lights.
Something’s coming. Again.
She just doesn’t know what.
Dariya’s supposed to leave for New York in the autumn. Columbia University, class of ‘89. Psychology major.
She got in early with her essay on trauma pattern recognition and interpersonal trust breakdowns in adolescents exposed to extreme stressors. She didn’t mention the Upside Down part. Or the monsters. Just the grief. That was enough.
She hasn’t told Steve yet. Not officially. She means to. Every time they’re lying in the backseat of his car, or half-asleep on his bed with MTV playing in the background, she almost says it. But then he kisses her or says something stupid and sweet, and the words catch in her throat.
He’ll be fine. Probably. He still doesn’t know what he’s doing next. He says it like that, too: “doing,” like life is a thing you just do if you squint hard enough. He didn’t get into any colleges. Not even the backup ones. But he doesn’t talk about it much. Not unless he’s high. Then he’ll say things like, “Maybe I’ll just move to Italy,” and “I could be one of those guys who paints houses and wears linen shirts and has mysterious secrets.”
Dariya’s future feels fake, sometimes. Like someone else’s future. A version of her life that might’ve happened if Hawkins stayed normal. If the gates never opened. If she didn’t spend the last year falling in love with a boy who once shoved a Demodog off her while bleeding himself.
Still, she’s going.
That’s the plan. That’s the safe version of things.
She’s just… delaying the countdown.
Right now, it’s almost the first week of July, and the air is so hot it feels like it’s boiling in her lungs. She leaves the bathroom and cuts through the mall crowd like a shark in heels. Starcourt is its own kind of chaos—mothers dragging screaming toddlers, teenage couples pretending not to stare at each other’s mouths, bored retail workers trying to look alive under fluorescent lights.
Scoops Ahoy is already busy. The line’s half a dozen deep. Someone’s crying over a fallen cone. A kid’s sticky hand is on the glass.
Behind the counter stands Robin.
Dariya’s not proud of the way her stomach flips. Robin Buckley is tall and blonde and funny in that sort of offbeat intellectual but actually cool way that makes Dariya immediately suspicious. She wears the uniform like she doesn’t care, leans on the counter like she owns the place. She’s probably smarter than everyone in Hawkins. She’s definitely better at cryptic crossword puzzles. And she laughs at Steve’s jokes like he’s some kind of goddamn comedy savant.
Dariya has never wanted to punch a girl more respectfully in her life.
Robin clocks her immediately and perks up, all customer service voice. “Hi! Welcome to Scoops, what can I get you?”
Dariya doesn’t break stride. Slides right up to the counter.
“I’ll have the Harrington, please,” she says.
And right on cue, Steve appears from the back, sailor uniform askew, hair perfectly tousled like he just lost a fight with a wind tunnel.
“You called?” he grins, stepping beside Robin.
Dariya doesn’t answer. Just looks at him, slow and obvious, head tilted like she’s debating whether or not to kiss him in front of God and Robin Buckley.
Steve gestures at the back. “Come hang out. Robin won’t tell on us.”
“Depends what you’re doing,” Robin mutters.
“Not that.”
Dariya slips behind the counter without asking, sliding her arm around Steve’s waist and letting him pull her in. She ignores Robin’s eye-roll and pretends this whole thing is casual.
Like she’s not still spying. Like she’s not still scared.
Like things are actually normal.
Steve pushes open the door to the back with his shoulder and holds it for her. The second it swings shut behind them, the air changes—less sugary, more freezer burn and faint sweat. There’s a faint hum from the industrial fridge and the hum of the cheap fluorescent lights overhead. It’s not romantic. It’s not private. But it’s theirs.
He turns to face her. And for a second, he just stares.
“Hi,” he says, like she just came back from war instead of the mall stairs.
Dariya crosses her arms, lifting an eyebrow. “You saw me five hours ago.”
“Yeah, but it felt like six.”
She smirks. “Tragic.”
He steps forward, close enough that his shoes bump hers. His voice drops. “Missed you.”
“Oh, my God,” she says, rolling her eyes—but it’s too soft to have any bite.
Steve dips his head like he’s gonna kiss her cheek again, but then changes course at the last second and kisses the side of her neck instead. Slow. Like he’s feeling out the exact second her breath hitches.
She doesn’t give him the satisfaction of reacting. At first.
But then his hands are on her hips, thumbs slipping under the hem of her shirt just barely, and she presses back against the wall with a quiet exhale.
He kisses her properly then.
No sailor act. No dumb grins. Just mouth on hers, insistent and warm and a little messy. He always starts soft; like he’s worried he’ll break her. She’s the one who deepens it. Always is. Fingers fisting in the collar of his Scoops shirt, pulling him in, teeth dragging across his bottom lip until he makes that stupid noise in the back of his throat that turns her knees to static.
“Careful,” she says. “Robin might get jealous.”
Steve pulls back just enough to give her a look. “Seriously?”
Dariya shrugs. “You laugh at her jokes.”
“She’s funny.”
“She draws dicks on your work schedule.”
He grins. “Still funny.”
“You defend her a lot.”
“I also have my tongue in your mouth right now, babe.”
His hands find her thighs, lifting her up like they’ve done this a hundred times—which they have. She wraps her legs around his waist, back hitting the freezer door, cold against her spine, hot everywhere else.
“You’re gonna get me fired,” he breathes, kissing down her neck, voice low and rough.
“You’d get fired for bad customer service. I’m a very loyal patron.”
Steve laughs against her throat, breath shaky. He kisses that spot behind her jaw she hates how much she likes, then looks up, pupils blown wide, lips kiss-swollen.
“Hi,” he says.
Dariya rolls her eyes. “Hi?”
Steve grins. “Just wanted to see your face.”
She tries not to melt. Fails.
He kisses her again. Slower, this time. Softer. Less frantic. She shifts against him, lets her forehead rest against his, and breathes in the familiar smell of vanilla, detergent, and Farrah Fawcett hairspray.
They stay like that for a long moment.
Then—quietly, like a secret—Dariya says, “I’m gonna tell you something soon.”
Steve blinks. “Okay?…”
“Just… not yet.”
He studies her for a second. Doesn’t press. Just nods, thumb brushing her cheekbone.
“Whenever you’re ready,” he says.
There’s something in his voice. Something too soft. Too serious.
She kisses him before he can say anything else.
And for a second, nothing exists but this. Not the mall. Not the notes. Not the strange shifts in the air or the lights that flicker when no one’s looking. Just Steve. Her hands in his hair. His stupid uniform digging into her stomach. His mouth chasing hers like she’s oxygen and he forgot how to breathe.
Just outside the door, a loud ding goes off from the register. Then Robin’s voice: “IF YOU TWO ARE DONE STICKY-NOTING YOUR FEELINGS ON EACH OTHER’S FACES, YOUR CHILDREN ARE HERE.”
Steve groans against Dariya’s mouth like it physically pains him to stop. Which, to be fair, it kind of does. She feels it when he adjusts his pants—not subtle, but not new either—and sighs so hard it might’ve rattled the freezer door behind her.
“Unbelievable,” he mutters. “I swear to God, if it’s those little shits again—”
She smirks. “You love those little shits.”
He doesn’t answer. Just drops his forehead against her collarbone like he might cry.
By the time they push through the swinging door into the front of Scoops, Robin’s leaning against the counter with a hand dramatically over her heart and a long-suffering expression on her face. “Oh, thank God,” she says. “The back wall of the store was about to start steaming.”
Standing in front of the counter are four very familiar gremlins: Max, Lucas, Will, and Mike. Max is the only one who looks vaguely apologetic. Lucas is whisper-laughing into her shoulder. Will’s trying not to make eye contact with anyone. Mike’s just scowling like he’s the one who’s had his make-out session interrupted.
“Again?” Steve huffs. “Seriously?”
Max just shrugs, already halfway over the counter. “You said we could do it again!”
Lucas grins behind her. Will is trailing after them looking vaguely guilty, while Mike has the face of a boy who’s never been told no in his entire life.
“I changed my mind,” Steve says, pointing at them like a fed-up dad. “You dickheads need to go home.”
Dariya appears behind him a second later, folding her arms and leaning against the doorway with the full force of her judgmental Eastern European heritage.
Max blinks. “Hi, Dasha.”
“Hi, Max.”
Lucas waves. “Hi, Dariya.”
“Hi, Lucas.”
Will gives a polite little smile. “Hi, Dariya.”
“Hi, Will.”
Mike says nothing. Dariya narrows her eyes at him. “Not you,” she says flatly.
Mike throws his hands up. “I didn’t say anything!”
“Exactly.”
Steve runs a hand down his face like this happens every day, which it kind of does. “Why are you guys even here? Don’t you have like… summer or something?”
“Preview night,” Max says, clearly thrilled. “George Romero. Day of the Dead.”
“Your parents know you’re watching zombies eat people?”
Lucas grins. “We told them it was a documentary.”
“Please,” Max says, “we’ll be quiet.”
“We’ll leave right after,” Lucas adds.
“We’ll owe you,” Will promises.
Steve groans again but tosses Lucas the key like he can’t help himself. “Twenty minutes,” he warns. “If I lose my job because you’re running from fake intestines in the women’s bathroom again, I’m blaming all of you.”
The kids crowd around the back door like they haven’t done this ten times already. Dariya watches Mike shove his way to the front like he’s the main character, and seriously considers tripping him.
Steve catches the look on her face and sighs. “Don’t.”
“I wasn’t gonna—”
“You were.”
“…He deserves it.”
He grabs her hand as the last of the kids disappears down the hallway. “Just think. Dustin comes back tomorrow.”
Dariya grins, head tilting toward his shoulder. “Our actual child.”
“Thank God.”
They lock up behind them, Scoops suddenly quiet again. Steve lets out a breath, dropping the keys back on the counter.
Dariya glances over, watches him tug at the collar of his uniform again. Watches the way he watches the now-empty hallway.
They’ve had eight months of almost-normal.
It can’t last forever.
Steve turns, eyes still on the hallway like he’s half expecting the kids to come back and ask for popcorn. Or maybe he’s just waiting for the next shoe to drop.
Dariya nudges his elbow. “You wanna make out in the freezer again?”
He smirks, hands still braced against the counter. “Tempting.”
“You’re in a sailor costume. I feel like I’m legally required.”
“Uniform,” he corrects.
She rolls her eyes and steps between his legs. “Uniform,” she echoes, mocking his tone.
Steve kisses her again, soft at first, but it builds like it always does—slow and steady until her hands are in his hair and he’s pulling her closer by the back of her thighs. One of the napkin dispensers clatters to the floor. Neither of them notices.
Then, without warning, the lights cut.
Everything goes black.
A heavy, total darkness that sinks into every corner of Scoops like a power outage in a horror movie. The humming of the freezers dies. The air-con cuts out. Even the neon sign in the front window blinks dead.
Dariya freezes.
Steve pulls back just enough to mutter, “Okay, what the hell—”
The backup lights don’t kick in.
Everything stays off.
“Okay,” Steve says again, turning like he’s going to do something about it. “Hold on.”
He walks straight over to the nearest light switch and starts flipping it. Once. Twice. Three times.
Nothing.
Robin leans out from the back, squinting into the darkness. “That’s not going to work, Dingus.”
Steve glares over his shoulder. “Oh, yeah?”
He flips it five more times in quick succession. Rapid. Desperate.
And then—miraculously—the lights flicker back on.
The machines groan back to life. Fluorescents buzz overhead. The neon sign outside sputters once, twice, then steadies. Freezers hum like nothing happened.
Robin blinks. “…Okay. That shouldn’t have worked.”
Steve turns around, grinning smugly. “Fixed it.”
“By assaulting a switch?”
“Yeah.”
Dariya doesn’t laugh.
She’s still staring up at the overhead lights, brows drawn. The sudden return of power feels wrong. Like it wasn’t supposed to come back. Like something changed while they weren’t looking.
Robin frowns. “You good?”
“Yeah,” Dariya says, but it comes out automatic. Her gaze tracks the light fixture closest to the counter, the one that flickered an extra second longer than the rest.
Steve nudges her arm. “Hey. It’s fine. Probably just the grid. Hopper said they’ve been doing test stuff around the old plant, remember?”
She nods. Slowly.
But she doesn’t believe it.
She just kisses Steve once more, softer this time. Presses her mouth to his like she’s trying to remember it. Like something in her is whispering: Soon, it won’t be quiet like this much longer.