Pain's An Old Friend
Based on a prompt from @nburkhardt! I hope it met your expectations. Let me know what you guys think in the comments!
Now with a second and third part!
~*~*~*~
Steve was no stranger to hiding his own injuries. Growing up in the home that he did, it was practically second nature to hide unsavory things from people in order to protect the Harrington image. From a young age, he would go to school with his mom’s concealer painted high on his cheekbone to cover the evidence of his father’s anger. He’d hide his pain during practice when he sprained a ligament so his coach wouldn’t pull him from the Friday night game. He was well used to hiding his pain in front of people that could weaponize it.
After joining the Party though, Steve started to lower his guards. He’d speak freely about past injuries and slightly more loosely about his current ailments. He was still the babysitter though, the guy that the kids looked toward to protect them. He couldn’t be fully transparent about his migraines or the constant blurriness in his left eye.
One day though when the kids needed a ride to the arcade on Steve’s day off, he had to be honest with them. His brain felt like it was trying to escape the confines of his skull and his vision pulsated with every heartbeat.
“Hey, I’m sorry guys but I can’t today. My head is killing me so I need to just relax and wait for it to blow over. How about you guys ask Eddie? He got off at 4 today so I’m sure he could give you a ride.”
Dustin, Lucas, and Will were satisfied with his explanation. They wished him well, volunteered their moms to come drop off soup to him later, and got back on their bikes. Mike though was visibly annoyed. He hung back after the others and turned to face Steve with a glare.
“Seriously, Steve. You can’t do one thing to help us? It’s not even that far out of your way!”
“Dude, I already told you I have a headache. I’m not driving anywhere,” Steve tried to explain. He didn't know why Mike was so mad. Yeah, they’d wasted time biking to Steve’s house instead of directly to the arcade but it only added an additional five minutes to their commute. It would only take them about ten minutes to get there on their bikes, a completely reasonable distance.
“A headache? You know how pathetic that is? There’s people that are dying, Steve. And you’re complaining that your head hurts a little bit. You’re just useless!” Mike hissed at him.
And wasn’t that a surprise. He and Mike still weren’t on great terms, obviously, but he liked to think that they were making progress. To find out that they were still in the same position as they had been all those years ago when Steve was Nancy’s asshole boyfriend and Mike was her bratty little brother, was gut wrenching.
“Fine, I’ll give you assholes a ride. Let’s go guys. Leave the bikes, you can pick them up tomorrow. Come on, before I change my mind.”
The drive to the arcade was uneventful. They all made it to the arcade in one piece and no one said thank you aside from Will, as per usual.
The ride home however was a different story. The sun had started to set and Steve’s headache had devolved into a migraine. His vision was tunneling and he could hardly keep his eyes open against the pain in his head. He was taking one of the back roads home and was almost there when a shadow passed in front of his car. Steve’s left fender hit the being before he could turn the wheel and when he did, he steered the Beemer directly into a tree on the side of the road.
Steve’s head slammed into the steering wheel, hard enough to lacerate his temple and spill blood all over the driver’s side dash. Thankfully, he didn’t lose consciousness and his migraine wasn’t significantly worse than before so he was reasonably sure that he didn’t have another concussion, at least not a severe one.
Now, a normal person might walk to the nearest house and call the police or an ambulance. Steve though, was not normal. He picked up his keys, wallet, and sunglasses, and walked all the way home. It wasn’t too far, a mile at most but with his head hurting the way it did, it felt like forever. He would call Thatcher Tire tomorrow morning and get the Beemer towed then he would call his dad to beg him to cover the damages and everything would be fine. But the second Steve got back to his house, he laid on the couch and took a nap. He’d worry about everything else the next day.
~*~*~*~
Steve had forgotten that he made plans with Robin for today. He woke up to manic rambling that he was too tired to follow and his best friend pulling at his arms.
“Go ‘way,” he mumbled when she once again jostled him.
“Steve, wake up! What the hell did you do? You have blood all over your head and you weren’t responsive. You were supposed to come over to my house to pick me up so we could make cupcakes and watch movies! I walked over when you didn’t show and I had to walk in to find you dying on your sofa! What the fuck, Steve?!”
“Not dying and please stop yelling, my head hurts.”
“I’m sure it does, Steve! Your entire forehead is black and blue and there’s blood everywhere. Oh my god, I might actually throw up. Stay alert, I’m going to go throw up then I’m going to call Eddie for a ride since neither one of us has the cash to pay for an ambulance. Stay conscious or I will hurl all over you,” she promised.
True to her word, she went and threw up in the kitchen, grabbed some ice for his head, and then used the living room phone to call Eddie.
“Hey Mr. Munson, is Eddie there? It’s Robin Buckley… I know but I don’t have a license yet, I’m poor… Touché, Mr. Munson… Okay, great! I’ll see him soon then!”
She hung up the phone and returned to Steve's side. “Okay, he’s on his way so we just have to wait. We’re both going to give you a long talk about taking better care of yourself and not damaging any more brain cells, got it?”
He tried to nod at her but the miniscule movement only caused his vision to white-out and his eyes slammed shut. The last thing he heard was Robin screeching at him to wake up before everything went black.
~*~*~*~
When his eyes opened next, Steve was in a bare hospital room with both of his hands restrained. No, people were holding them. Upon further investigation, he noticed that Eddie was sleeping at his right side with his hands wrapped around Steve’s wrist and Robin was at his left with her fingertips pressed over his pulse point.
With both of his friends there, the feeling of security almost willed him back to sleep once again. But then he heard loud yelling coming from outside of his hospital room.
“Where is Steve Harrington?! I got a call about another head injury, is he alright? I will not calm down, that’s my kid and none of you goddamn idiots will tell me anything about him! Where is he?”
The door flung open to reveal Chief Jim Hopper in all of his furious glory. All of his anger melted into worry when his eyes met Steve’s.
“Hey Hop,” Steve told him with a small smile.
“Do not ‘hey Hop’ me. What the hell, kid? First I get a panicked call from Robin that you’re in the hospital again, then I get a call from Callahan that he found your car bent around a tree, and then I find out that I’m your emergency contact.” His eyes still held a hint of panic but now they looked tired too as if the events of today had aged him several years.
“Okay, it’s not bent around the tree. Callahan’s a fucking liar and I keep telling you so! I lightly bumped the tree. Lightly! Everything worked out fine! It’s all good, Hop.”
“Are you not hearing me? Do we have to get your hearing checked too?” Hopper laughed sardonically and threw his hands up exasperatedly. “Steve, you gave all of us heart attacks because you didn’t tell us that you had been in a car accident! And you could’ve died going to sleep like that with a concussion! You know better.”
“Look, in my defense, I didn’t know it was a concussion. And what else was I supposed to do? I couldn’t drive myself to the hospital,” It made sense to Steve but apparently not to Hopper or the now-awake Eddie.
“Steve-” Eddie whispered in confusion but Hopper’s screaming cut him off.
“You should’ve called someone! Me, Munson, Wayne, hell even Joyce! Wha-the-fu-goddam-ahh!” He stammered with feeling. “Why were you even driving in the first place? You were at home!”
“The kids wanted to go to the arcade and when I told them I couldn’t, Mike said that people had bigger problems than headaches. And he was right. I just wanted to do something useful and then it hit me all at once when I was driving home,” Steve shook his head. He should’ve taken a nap or something instead of giving them a ride then they wouldn’t be in this position right now.
“Of course it was Mike. It’s always Mike fucking Wheeler,” Hopper scoffed under his breath. His profound annoyance towards the kid continued. “Steve, you can’t listen to that bitch-ass kid! He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Next time, call me and I’ll handle it.”
“Okay, well I will remember that for next time. Next time I have a migraine, I won’t give the kids a ride and I won’t crash my car lightly into a tree. Alright, when are they releasing me? I just want to go home and go back to normal,” Steve said.
Hopper and Eddie shared a look before Eddie woke Robin and lugged her from the room. Watching that display, he knew he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear and he didn’t.
Hopper chuckled humorlessly, “I’m detaining you. You’re coming home with me when they release you.”
“‘Detaining me’? For what? I didn’t do anything,” Steve asked him in confusion.
“For acting like a dumbass. You’re going to recover back at my place, Harrington. El and I are going to keep an eye on you.”
“I’m not going to-” Hopper cut him off with a yell that made him jump.
“You’re detained, Harrington! No more arguments!”
“Hop, that’s kidnapping!” He proclaimed in outrage.
“You’re not a kid, it’s fine,” Hopper brushed him off.
“What- that’s not even, you can’t just force me to accept your help!”
“Watch me!” Hopper said indignantly. This was ridiculous, despite the evidence, Steve was more than capable of taking care of himself. He was an adult, dammit!
“Hopper, you can’t just hold me against my will. I-I have rights!”
“Yeah? File a complaint. I’m the chief of police and I’m basically your dad so I’m going to take care of you whether you like it or not. Now, are you going to accept this so I can let your friends in and we can all eat Jello or are you going to keep arguing with me?”
Steve looked at him blankly for a moment before he yielded. “Jesus Christ, fine. You win.”
“I know kid, I always do.” He patted Steve’s foot and opened the door for Eddie and Robin to slink back in. “Alright, you better have gotten orange or I’ll kick you both back out.”
Steve had a lot to learn about accepting help and being forthcoming about his injuries. But with his dad, his boyfriend, and his best friend by his side, he had no doubt that he'd get there eventually. He didn't have any other choice.
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just peopling
I don't think Murata knows what he does for me when he draws characters showing their more unguarded, vulnerable moments. And I don't mean when they're undergoing a profound emotional experience. Just the mundane, everyday activities.
It's not easy to depict mundanity in a story: real estate is precious, and Everything Has To Mean Something. So Murata finding space both within and around the chapters to ground the characters as people despite their abilities is precious.
Something that comes to mind is Scott McCloud's comment in his excellent book 'Understanding Comics', where he notes that depicting a superhero going to the bathroom is funny as we don't see these characters as human and it breaks our immersion. In One-Punch Man, the characters may be incredible and in a fantastic setting, but ONE and Murata have pulled off their also being so human there's nothing remarkable about them eating, sleeping, going to the bathroom, or having a recycling schedule on the wall. It's not easy to do.
ONE does get mileage out of making superhumans doing ordinary things hilarious, but he does it by making the context funny. Sure, Sonic on the shitter is funny, but it's not funny because he's an impossible ninja having a shit as if he were human. We accept his humanity. It's why he's crapping his guts out that's hilarious: there's both the schadenfreude of seeing him hoisted by his own petard and the relief that because he's screwed up, he will stay human. Sure, Genos using his arm cannon to dry the dishes is funny, but not because he's a combat cyborg that probably costs the same as a fighter jet. He and Saitama ate. Of course the dishes need doing. It's that he's abusing a million-dollar piece of equipment to do something ordinary that's hilarious -- like an engineer abusing a high-powered laser to heat coffee [1].
Often, the context isn't funny for the sake of being funny. Genos cleaning the house? Not funny. Genos ignoring the sounds of battle outside because he can't bring himself to leave the house until he's cleaned up all traces of the previous night's party? Hilarious. However, it's not just funny: it's the setup for us seeing later the pots and bowls set out as the apartment is destroyed, all ready to start dinner as soon as Saitama comes back. He's prepared for a meal that neither will ever eat. We carry out our routines as if life will never change, even though we're aware it can be cut short at any time and in ways we cannot anticipate, and no amount of power or privilege changes that. In the meantime, we live.
Why do they go so far as to humanize the characters? Other than it being nice to see, it also allows the story to land points that otherwise couldn't work. Points such as everything takes time, effort, and attention and no one can do everything, but must needs choose, and these choices have consequences. That we need others to be human. That even the best relationships take work. That fulfilling yourself as a human being is a work in progress. That the idea of there being a 'thing' or 'state' that will make one happy is nonsense. That we can go too far. That we don't deserve second chances, but no one's counting.
Being human is complicated and frustrating and boring but oh so worth it. That's a big point that ONE wants to get across. And he can't do that if the very idea of a character needing the bathroom is hilarious.
[1] Obligatory health warning: do not fuck with lasers. A laser capable of warming your coffee in a useful time is both invisible and more likely to set you on fire than give you a warm beverage.
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