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Lucy Andrews

Steve Harrington

Leo Andrews

౨ৎ later in life!

— Steve Harrington proposed to Lucy Andrews in the most elaborate way possible... because of course he did.......

— he plotted it for three months and somehow roped everyone into it. Hopper's cabin became ground zero. There was a bulletin board with red string. There was a hand-drawn map of Hawkins. At one point Robin said it felt like they were planning to kill Vecna again, and Steve told her to stop being dramatic because this was more important. Everyone sat there watching him pace, pointing, explaining timing and cues, insisting it all had to go exactly right. Nobody argued because all knew better — and if it had been anyone else, they would have lost their patience like immediately, but since they all love Lucy they complied

— it was a Friday night after they came home from school together. Steve told Lucy that he'd gotten them a reservation for dinner that night and Lucy was immediately suspicious because Steve literally never made reservations for anything. His instructions were to "dress nice but not too nice" and Lucy was so freaked out over this that she nearly made them late because she DID NOT KNOW WHAT THAT MEANT and kept trying on different outfits until she settled on her striped dress and sandals

          — instead of the restaurant he drove her to the woods and she was like what

          — they pulled up outside of Hop's cabin and Lucy started freaking out but not because she realized he was proposing. She was like "STEVE you can't take me in there I'm so scared of him Steve Steve Steve don't do this Steve" and he coaxed her down by telling her that they were just meeting up with Joyce and Jonathan for dinner like calm down lil bro

         — he led her inside and the cabin was lit with so many candles and it was actually really beautiful and ALL of their friends were there waiting dressed in their Sunday best :). Lucy was lowkey like is this an intervention or something? And Robin laughed but then ruined the surprise by bursting into tears

          — Steve's speech was like really heartfelt and beautiful but he forgot part of it and also dropped the ring when he pulled it out of his pocket. He told her he never wanted to live without her, that she was his home, and that he didn't want to do this with anybody else but her

         — Lucy was obviously sobbing but she said yes before he even finished the question

         — Joyce was crying like really hard and so was Will lowkey. Jonathan filmed the whole thing. Nancy spent the whole time hugging Mike like she was afraid he was gonna get engaged next for some reason. Lucas and Max were lowkey sobbing like babies. Dustin too oh don't even get me started on Dustin's reaction, you would have thought Eddie died again with how hard he was crying (sorry for the Eddie stray). Hop even smiled at Lucy and lowkey she was more excited about that than about getting engaged /j

— during the engagement period Steve exclusively referred to her as My Fiancée. Even to students. They would be like I don't know who your fiancée is Mr. Harrington and he would be like SHES THE BEAUTIFUL WOMAN THAT TEACHES YOU ENGLISH

— they got married four months later because honestly planning weddings are really easy when you like lowkey dgaf about a big venue or catering or spending $287493742 on a dress. Lucy found one at Dillard's and they got married in the backyard of the Byers' house. Surprisingly both Steve's and Lucy's parents showed up to the reception (having not been invited to the ceremony); the Harringtons dropped off a large chunk of cash as their wedding gifts, Rich and Jessy (back from a trip to Jamaica) offered a Jamaican beaded bag (and a couple hundred bucks), and Deb gave Lucy her grandmother's diamond earrings which made Lucy cry.

— the ceremony was short and officiated by Mr. Clarke cause apparently he had registered as a minister at some point in his life. Jonathan walked Lucy down the aisle. He, Robin, Dustin, and Nancy were the only people in the wedding party, but Robin and Dustin were Steve's groomsmen and Nancy and Jonathan were Lucy's bridesmaids. They made Mike ring bearer as a joke but he took that shit serious

          — the reception was lit as helllll. Hop got drunk tbh. Max and Mike almost got into a fistfight because she was playing the Pixies and he wanted to listen to some bullshit like the Butthole Surfers and Max was like this is literally a wedding. Holly and Derek lowkey tore the place uppp and then bragged about it to their friends at school the next Monday: "I saw Mr Harrington DRUNK this weekend" or "I watched Miss Andrews and Mr Harrington KISS"

         — they honeymooned in Chicago

         — Steve: and when I'm back in Chicago

— ok sorry to add context to this Harringdrews ideal vacation spot WAS the beach once upon a time but that changed after they fought the Mind Flayer in the Abyss/desert and both decided they never want to go anywhere that reminded them of this. Now they prefer going to big cities for trips and the only beach they tolerate is Montauk when visiting Joyce and Hop

— Lucy got pregnant like really quickly LMFOSFIOA like incredibly fast but they were ready and Steve took out a loan to buy that house in Loch Nora they'd been talking about

— the first decorations they put up are a bunch of photos Jonathan had taken of them and the kids, and really just a bunch of pictures of the kids altogether. In one of the elementary school yearbooks Joyce found a picture from second grade of Jonathan, Lucy, Steve, and this other girl that none of them are friends with anymore so they cut the girl out of it and added it to the wall of course

          — soon enough they had an entire wall-to-wall collage of all the people they loved and memories they had made together, and that was before they'd even unpacked the first box

— nights in their house are peaceful and quiet, typically the two of them watching a movie together on the couch to wind down from the school day. Never anything supernatural or inter-dimensional of course. And never Back to the Future.

— Robin constantly buys Steve mugs that say World's Best Coach or World's Best Dad on them ironically, so eventually the only mugs Lucy and Steve have in their house are random World's Bests. Lucy's favorite is the one that says World's Best Kisser, which Robin had actually bestowed to Lucy rather than Steve

— Steve Harrington was born to experience the 90's. When Friends started coming out he told everyone that he identified with Joey but he's actually Chandler at his deepest core. He watched Seinfeld with Lucy and didn't really like it that much but quotes it all the time for some reason. Oasis was his favorite band for the entire decade. Went crazy for Michael Jordan during his generational run and flew out to LA to watch a Lakers game but got the date wrong and ended up just kind of wandering around... at some point he ran into Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and befriended them (they email now) (which could mean nothing)

— Steve gets chronic migraines from all the beatings he has taken, which is why Lucy attends all of his baseball practices and games; so she can step in when he needs to go sit somewhere dark and let his mind feel better

— their first child is a girl. Her name is Elizabeth Louise Harrington. She is blonde and has Lucy's smile and eyes, but her personality is entirely Steve Steve Steve Steve Steve. She's such a daddy's girl. At some point in her life she wins the Hawkins spelling bee with the word Autochthonous and her parents are there filming her on their home video camera

           — Joyce is the first person they ask for baby help because she's basically their mother now

          — Lucy also runs into Mrs. Wheeler in the grocery store with four-month-old Elizabeth on her hip, and Mrs. Wheeler offers to take her off her hands for an afternoon or two. Lucy immediately takes her up on this so she can go get her hair done

          — at some point in her life, Elizabeth decides she wants to go by "Elle." That night Steve will break down entirely in Lucy's arms because obviously they can't explain the significance that name already holds to them. After a few weeks, Elizabeth notices that her parents flinch every time they hear someone call her that name and how they can't look her in the eyes when they say it, and she decides to go by Lizzie instead

— their second nugget is a little boy, and his name is Taylor Leo Andrews. He has brown hair like Steve, brown eyes like both of them, and a birthmark in the shape of a clover on his shoulder. He is a solid mix between Lucy and Steve's personalities, including their athleticism. He goes on to play every single sport he can in middle school. In high school he settles on football; he goes on to play at Ball State, then transfers to play at the University of Oklahoma during the Sooners' generational run

— they briefly discuss straight-up naming him Leopold and he'd go by Leo, but Lucy decided she didn't want to associate that name with anyone other than her little guy

— Lucy (aka Mrs. Harrington) teaches English Language Arts and Reading to eighth graders at Hawkins Middle. She is required by standards to teach To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, and Flowers for Algernon. She adds A Wrinkle in Time to the curriculum herself when Holly makes it to 8th grade.

         — Lucy and Steve are deadass THE teacher couple of all time. Before they get married the students speculate whether or not they're together, but of course it's a small town and one student's parents has seen Harringdrews out on many, many dates before, and this student spreads to the rest of the middle school that Miss Andrews and Coach Steve are literally together you guys!!!!

          — Lucy and Steve do not address these rumors directly until they get engaged and Steve is of course constantly referring to her as his fiancée so the kids kind of put it together... and they're obsessed

         — the girls ask Lucy if Coach Steve is a good kisser because he looks like he would be. The boys ask Steve how he managed to get Miss Andrews to fall in love with him. He laughs and very selflessly gives them love advice (the cheap, watered-down kind that middle school teachers are so good at giving). Then he gets distracted and starts telling them the whole story of their relationship. When he finishes, legs crossed and propped up on his desk, a look of self satisfaction on his face, the boys are staring at him in complete disbelief. "So she broke up with you how many times????"

          — unfortunately the middle schoolers all have a crush on Lucy and Steve. It's a rite of passage.

          — When Holly's grade reaches Hawkins Middle, Derek is HONORED to call himself Coach Steve's best friend. Coach Steve does not deny it.

— when Lizzie is four and Taylor is three, Lucy and Steve have their third child, a boy they name Wyatt Edward Harrington. He surprises his parents by looking almost identical to Leo Andrews when he is a toddler. Out of all three kids, Wyatt is THE mama's boy. He sheds tears every time she leaves him... even if it's just to go into the kitchen to start making dinner.

         — Wyatt is undoubtedly the nerdiest of the three, too. Lucy and Steve (and even Dustin) agree that he would have gotten along well with the prime-era party if the ages would have been right.

— in '93 Lucy, Robin, and Nancy reunited for an evening to go see Janet Jackson on tour. They got incredibly drunk and had probably the most fun of their lives. Somehow they ended up backstage? It's all kind of a blur tbh. Later Robin claims she made out with Janet Jackson's publicist, but Steve calls bullshit on that since she can't remember the girl's name.

— every once in a while, the phone will ring in the middle of the night. It's always Dustin calling after having a nightmare that he lost Steve — he fell off the radio tower, the Russians killed him and Lucy, Billy beat him to death, etc. Steve always sits with him and talks him down, no matter how late it is

— most of their bank account goes to the electricity bill just to be ENTIRELY sure that the lights in their house will NEVER start flickering EVER

— in '95 there's a girl in the eighth grade who has brown hair and messy bangs and these huge brown eyes and a mouth that is quick to smile at everyone. Lucy and Steve agree that she is the spitting image of Jane.

         — the entire crew stopped calling her El after Hop's speech at her funeral, where he said "El was the girl who was abused, experimented on, and used as a weapon. Jane was the girl who lived and laughed with us."

— when Jurassic Park came out, Lucy and Steve went to see it together but walked out after 20 minutes

— however they thoroughly enjoyed Toy Story after taking the nuggets to go see it

— when everyone moves away, Lucy has a solid week where she cries over everything. That photo wall in their house is her kryptonite. She can't even face it without bawling. She just misses her friends

— Steve reminds her that they're not stuck in the '70s and that they can keep in touch with people over state lines. She knows this of course, but she realizes that nothing will be the same ever again.

— in the late 90s, Lucy and Steve have their fourth (final) child, an absolute firecracker of a boy they name Matthew Dustin Harrington. The reason he is their final child is because he was an absolute menace to everyone around him. Steve says he's a lot like Steve was when he was a kid. Lucy says it's no wonder his mom was a drunk. Matt is all chaos and so cheeky and just kind of a literal blur sometimes. Once he streaked the field at one of Taylor's football games

— however he goes on to be an absolute genius (because of course he does). He takes a liking to physics and studies theoretical physics at MIT, going on to be one of the best physicists in the nation (after working under his uncle Dustin for a while at NASA)

— his family never lets him forget the time he ran a touchdown naked though

— Robin and Will claim Wyatt

— Lucas and Max are very close with Lizzie, but they also have a soft spot for Matt because Lucas always thought he was a hilarious kid. Like busted his gut laughing at the boy

— Max influences Lizzie into hating Mike Wheeler with her so they bully him together

— Dustin mentors Matt... full circle to himself and Steve

— Mike is left with Taylor for some reason. Once he's kind of just like "well I guess you and I are the only ones not paired up already" and Taylor's like "yeah whatever man"

— obviously they become best friends

— Lizzie worked at a summer camp as a counselor once when she was in high school. She came back with the decision that she was never going to have kids .

— in the early 2000s, Lizzie and Lucy went on a trip to Los Angeles with Max and her daughter. While they were gone Steve decided to give himself and all of his sons frosted tips. When the girls came home Lizzie cried at the sight

— I know this is random and not all of them went to university (and obviously none of them rushed Greek life) but Lucy would be a Pi Beta Phi, Steve would be SAE, Max would be a Kappa Delta, Lucas would be a Phi Delta Theta, Robin would be a Kappa Alpha Theta, Nancy would be an Alpha Chi Omega, Jonathan would be a Phi Tau, Dustin would be an Alpha Sig, and Mike and Will would both be in Theta Chi #dateaguy

౨ৎ even LATER in life!

— nobody knows where Michael Wheeler was on 9/11/01

— iPhones introduce the ability of group texting in 2008. It's very likely that the first ever group chat made on an iPhone is done by Robin Buckley, who immediately added Lucy, Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan to one as SOON as the update dropped.

— as technology advances, so does their group chat. It lasts from 2008 until present day, but nobody ever gives it a name, so it is just called "Nancy, Jonathan, Lucy, Steve, & Robin" with the chat icon being this picture of Steve that Lucy took in 2009:

— Jonathan switches to Samsung eventually and Steve NEVER SHUTS UP about him making the messages green. When I tell you their beef never ends

— group chat dynamic: Lucy & Robin do most of the talking or making plans to get everyone together. Nancy sends a singular emoji every once in a while (typically 😂, 🥰, 🥳, or 😢). Jonathan doesn't speak in it very often, but when he does he sends longgggg paragraphs that Steve reacts to with the "😒" emoji. Steve really only ever shares Facebook memes with them

— there's also a group chat created later (early 2010s) with everyone in it: Mike trying to get ahold of everyone to get together and have a beer or something back in Hawkins. He names the group chat "Everyone". Joyce, Dustin, Lucas, Lucy, and Jonathan are the only ones who reply. The reunion never happens.

— however: a year or so after Mike's initial invitation, Holly sends out an email telling everyone to come meet her new baby! Everyone shows up. Everyone. Michael pouts in the corner

— I know Lucy would be absolutely tickled by the minion memes

— Steve is still very much an analogue guy despite how far technology has come. He uses film cameras and emails rather than texts, and most of the music he listens to is still CDs and mixtapes from high school or the 90s.

— when the kids are misbehaving he plays the mixtape he made Lucy in high school with all the old 80s love songs on it

— when Lucy is misbehaving he plays his Springsteen CD

— Steve would have a phase where he's really into crypto and bitcoin. He never invests in anything but tweets about it all the time like it's a tv show he's really involved in. Soon enough he ends up on crypto-Marxist stock market goon Twitter and gets a lot of hate for his slightly-socialist views (that he of course doesn't realize are socialist). He gets in fights with 23-year-old incels and Lucy deletes Twitter from his phone

— Lucy and Steve go see Hamilton together and Steve's whole world is changed

— Steve is introduced to brainrot in his late fifties. He is a chronic user of unc, chopped, skibidi, and rizz, and his very-much-grown children all cringe. When he uses them around Lucy she pretends he's speaking a different language and she replies in Pig Latin which pisses him off

— the Harrington nuggets don't stay in Hawkins past graduation, like their parents have all these years. Lizzie goes to UC Berkeley to study psychology, then stays in California (Sacramento, to be exact) to be a child psychologist at a local elementary school; she lives a few blocks over from her aunt Max and uncle Lucas and visits them for dinner often. Taylor is drafted from SEC football to the NFL (plays CB2 for the KC Chiefs), but retires early after he wrecks his knee; he isn't bothered too much by this due to the fact that he had been itching to settle down with his girlfriend like his dad did. Wyatt stays the closest to home, studying chemical engineering at Notre Dame; he never marries but brings his good friend Hudson to family gatherings and holidays. Matt works at NASA with Dustin for a while and the two of them grow very close; after a decade or so Matt leaves to return to school and get his PhD in theoretical physics, then teaches at MIT, his alma mater.

— Lucy swiftie truther

— Steve even bigger swiftie truther

         — Lucy's favorite album is Lover, but she also has a soft spot for Evermore. Steve loves Debut and TLOASG for some reason

        — Dustin shits on his music taste and Steve flips him off

— in like the late 2010s Lucy runs into Mike at a literary convention in Phoenix. He asks why she hasn't been answering his emails. She says she hasn't received any emails from him. Together they realize he's been emailing a random woman with the handle Lucieandrews48@gmail.com. Lucy has to tell him that she does not spell her name like that and never has. Mike makes that face :<

— Lucy a Klarna warrior

— she has a shopping problem but Steve never complains about how much money she spends bc he invested in real estate in a small town in the 80s and that paid off reallyyyy well for them iykwim

— honestly. They're just a perfect happy family. They got their four nuggets (couldn't bear to handle six of them after they realized how hard just four was) and lived out the rest of their happy lives together in Hawkins. They never once fell out of love with each other.

Righttttt. Hey guys.

I think I've said it enough for yall to be sick of me so I'll keep this short but I genuinely am so grateful for the love you've given me on this fic. Like thank you thank you thank you forever and always. You've all made this journey so so worth it.

Anyway, this is officially our final goodbye to Steve and Lucy! They had their ups and downs, they went through hell and back, but they finally got their happy ending :') I cry like Lucy. Thank you all for giving me the opportunity to share her story. I will miss both her and yall so very much, but I hope to see you around! I have many other fics up on my account if any of them interest you, and this is by no means my last fic ever ;). I love writing too much for that.

Okay. I've never been good at goodbyes #samsmith so here goes nothing. 321 love you boys 🫡