Chapter Text
The wheeler house was filled to the brim with people, or at least it seemed like that. Will and Jonathan were passed out on the couches in the basement, the few items they had were strewn across the floor. At the top floor, Mike Wheeler was standing outside the bathroom door pounding on it incessantly, “Come on Nancy! If you don’t hurry up I’m gonna whiz right here!” To his horror Nancy walked out of her bedroom, he had no time to wonder who was in the bathroom before Joyce stepped out of the bathroom. “Whiz away.”
The dining room downstairs didn’t fare much better in terms of space, everyone in the house was crammed at the table, food was set in the middle, but the amount was quickly dwindling. As they all finished their food they scrambled quickly to get their things so they could leave for their respective jobs and such.
Mike, Will, and Holly raced to the school on their bikes, Mike had turned on the radio after Holly’s incessant reminders, they listened as Robin reminded them to follow the rules and comply with the military that had currently taken over Hawkins.
School passed by slowly, Mike hadn’t really attained any of the information that he had learned that day. Although he was worried about Dustin, he really hoped that he would stop trying to keep the Hellfire club going, as much as Mike himself missed Eddie, and he missed him a lot he hated seeing Dustin targeted even more than he had been in their childhood.
Mike didn’t even know why he bothered with school at this point, it felt like it didn’t really matter as much considering the world was in a state of ending at all times, at lunch him, Lucas, Dustin, and Will tuned back into the radio to listen to Robin’s secret messages, there was a crawl tonight.
Preparing for the crawl was as normal as it ever was, that’s not what worried Mike, what worried Mike was the fact that Will had some weird episode earlier in the day, he pushed that to the back of his head. They had the upcoming crawl to worry about.
The preparation went by quickly, Mike had enjoyed his conversation with El,
On the rooftop of the radio tower. He loved the girl so much, and she loved him too, but not in the way everyone thought they loved each other.
After the events of getting out of California and back to Hawkins Mike and El had a very long conversation, they realized that the love that they shared was not as romantic as they had originally thought, although the love had been there when they were younger as it developed it developed into something more friendly, she relied on him and he relied on her. But there hadn’t been a spark for a long time. He shared with her things that he never would’ve shared with anyone and she understood him.
That conversation on the rooftop had left him feeling lighter, he reassured her about his thoughts on the future, and even though it sounded fantastical he hoped to anyone above that it could be true. He wanted his friends and family to pull through no matter what, he thought to himself. “Do you think Dustin is okay?” El suddenly asked, Mike turned and thought for a moment, it was odd that he hadn’t showed up yet. If he didn’t turn up soon they’d have to start without him, and if Mike was being honest that made him very uneasy. He looked at El anyways, “Oh yeah for sure.” he said with a reassuring grin.
Dustin never showed. They started the crawl without him, Mike and Lucas had biked to the clocktower by the military base without much conversation or struggle. They watched for the right moments to get hopper on the transport truck, something was pissing Mike off, “Can you stop chewing so loud.” MIke said, annoyed as he looked over at Lucas, Lucas didn’t bother looking back as he continued chewing with his mouth open “I’m a sniper, snipers chew gum.” Mike rolled his eyes. The mission continued smoothly as Mike relayed the information Lucas gathered with his binoculars.
“He’s in.” Mike said, leaning back with a sigh as he watched the truck that carried Hopper move into the upside down without issue. That meant that the next part of the mission had started, by now Steve and Jonathan would be driving in the van following Hopper's location through the upside down.
Mike and Lucas had their backs against the wall in the bell tower, their part was over. As they discussed some random thing of the day, weird feedback came through the radio then Joyce’s distressed voice. “Hopper what’s going on? Do you copy? Hopper.”
Mike and Lucas sat up quickly, previous conversation forgotten. But they quickly felt relieved when Hopper’s voice came through, “Yeah, I copy.” They heard Joyce sigh before asking what happened, “I don’t know, but we just slammed to a stop.” Lucas looked at Mike, “Why would they stop?” Mike shrugged at Lucas, they were both concerned.
The conversation didn’t last long at all. In fact, Mike and Lucas didn’t hear anything from Hopper or Joyce at all, they sat there having no clue what in the world was going on. Lucas grabbed the radio from Mike, “Guys what’s going on? Do you copy.” There was no response. “What do we do?” Lucas looked at Mike, “I’m not sure, let's just wait until we get new orders.” Mike said even though he didn’t seem sure about that plan either.
It felt like forever waiting for someone to finally radio through to them, until there was static crackling through, and a frantic voice. “Mike, Lucas! Do you copy?” It was Nancy. Mike felt his heart jump, her voice was frantic and terrified. Mike grabbed the walkie, “Nancy! We’re here, we copy! What’s going on!” it barely took a second for Nancy to respond, “Get to our house! It’s going to be attacked, Will saw something Mike, we need to get there now!”
Mike and Lucas didn’t waste any time getting on their bikes and going as fast as they could trying to get to the Wheeler’s household, they had no clue what Nancy meant or how Will could have known, but her voice was enough to push them on.
Biking frantically, breath heaving. Mike radio’d Nancy, “What’s your location? Over.” He asked out of breath, Nancy responded quickly “Pickett, 5 miles away.” Mike felt mild relief knowing she wasn’t far away. “You’re way ahead of us. Radio us as soon as you get there!” He was still worried, he didn’t know what she would walk into, he listened as she responded that she would alert them before saying one last thing “And Nancy, be careful.” There was no response through the walkie but he knew she had to have heard him.
Mike and Lucas arrived at the Wheeler household 15 minutes later, there were medical professionals everywhere. Mike watched them move quickly before snapping out of his stupor and looking for Nancy, he found her quickly as she quickly ushered them to her car, “Nancy, what happened?” He asked out of breath trying to move away from her hand on his lower back.
He turned around to look at her, eyes widening as he noticed that she was covered in blood. He didn’t question her any more and let himself be crowded to the car, him and Lucas got in the back as she got in the driver's seat and quickly drove off after the ambulance. She didn’t look at him as she said “Our house was attacked, mom and dad were hurt. Bad. and it got Holly.”