Chapter Text
It happened a couple of months after they got back together, on a night when Steve snuck into Nancy’s room to hold her close when they both needed a way to hold the nightmares away. Nancy was in tears as he held her, and at length, she pulled away from him, looking at him with teary eyes when he asked what was wrong. Wordlessly, she answered, pulling her shirt off to reveal scabbed-over lines along her stomach. Her eyes were pleading for Steve not to ask questions, to understand without the pity she feared.
And Steve did. He took in her scars with a brief look of horror followed by sympathy and stood to shed his jeans, meeting her confused gaze with a grim look as he showed her the same angry red lines over his inner thighs. Her eyes had widened at the sight as Nancy slowly stood up to stand in front of him. As their gazes met once more, they fell into each other’s arms, each holding the other together as they broke down together.
Their scars were the same but different, brought on by separate things but for the same reason. Nancy’s scars were carved by guilt, and Steve’s engraved by shame, but they both served to help them numb the feelings, to let them escape. But they weren’t dumb. They both knew that they couldn’t keep hurting themselves like they were. So they went to each other when they felt the urge to cut, relying on each other to stop the pain, to call their thoughts back to better things when they spiraled.
One day, as Nancy lay in tears on Steve’s bed, his hands brushing over her stomach protectively, Steve had an idea. He grabbed some Sharpies from his desk, and as Nancy glanced at him questioningly, he just smiled as he settled back on the bed. She turned her head away, her brow furrowed as Steve brought the markers to her skin. He doodled around her scars, decorating the marred skin, and when Nancy finally looked back, butterflies were fluttering around her scars. Their colors popped against her pale skin and the pink lines, nearly hiding the scars. Steve brushed a hand over the butterflies and warned her that she would mess up his hard work if she cut again, his voice hesitant and soft, wondering if he’d gone too far.
But Nancy didn’t think so in the slightest as real butterflies rioted in her stomach, and she lurched forward to hug him, pulling him into a kiss. Her lips tasted like salt, but Steve didn’t care because he was crying, too.
The next time, roles were reversed, as Steve had called her. She found him with sobs wracking his shoulders as he sat on his bed, new and angry lines on his thighs as he apologized through the tears for being weak. But Nancy had simply shushed him gently as she stood between his legs and hugged him close, letting his tears soak into her shirt as he hid against her stomach. She ran a hand through his hair, the other brushing along his back. Her eyes caught on the markers then, and with a smile, she bent over to kiss his head before pulling back, saying that she would make it better. He covered his face as she did, trying to compose himself, and Nancy quickly retrieved the Sharpies before kneeling in front of him.
She gently ran a hand over the upraised scars, looking up at Steve with nothing but understanding as he finally pulled his hands away and looked down at her. Tears hung onto his lashes, and Nancy patted his leg soothingly as he wiped them away. She leaned forward to kiss over his scars gently before taking a marker and drawing a star next to the new lines. As he watched, Nancy drew more and more stars until his legs looked like the night sky. She finished with the same warning he had told her, and Steve couldn’t hold back the tears as they sprung forth again, the boy dropping to his knees off the bed as he wrapped her in a tight hug.
Back and forth, they went like this. Nancy’s stomach gained new butterflies whenever the old ones faded, sometimes interspersed among grass and flowers as Steve grinned and told her the butterflies would be happiest in a meadow. Steve’s thighs gained more stars as the old ones eventually got washed away, and soon, Nancy was drawing planets, moons, and suns, creating constellations and galaxies along his skin.
Things improved at length, and their scars faded alongside the old drawings. But dependence doesn’t equal love, and soon, the young lovers drifted apart.
When Vecna’s curse fell over their town, Nancy saw Steve shirtless for the first time since he’d graduated, and she gasped at the new scars along his stomach. She tried to say something, but Steve was in the water before she could, leaving her behind with a confused Eddie and a tight-lipped Robin.
She didn’t have time to think about it, though, too busy following Steve through the gate and trying to fight off the bats they found on the other side. Then they were sheltered under the rock, and Steve was bleeding, new wounds bleeding over the scars she’d seen, and Nancy didn’t know what to say, wasn’t sure if she should say anything. So she patched him up, feeling like it was just the day before that she’d been disinfecting his newest cuts.
At length, Vecna was defeated. They reunited with the group from Cali, but as Nancy pulled away from her hug with Jonathan, she couldn’t help but glance back at Steve across the driveway.
That night, as Nancy’s thoughts spiraled, she couldn’t help but wish Steve was in the next room instead of Jonathan. But he wasn’t, and she had no right to call him for this. Not anymore. Her thoughts swirled, and her mind clamored, loud and shrill, and then it all faded away. Blood trickled down her skin in small, red rivers as she stood in the shower, her thoughts finally quiet as she grew numb from the pain.