Chapter Text
“Mike, c’mon, we’re waiting!” Lucas groaned from outside.
“I’m coming, I’m coming! Geez,” Mike responded with a sigh, zipping up his blue winter jacket.
The Snow Ball was just a few weeks ago, and while they all had a great time (especially Dustin; he wouldn’t shut up about dancing with Nancy for at least a few days afterwards), they all much preferred the activity they were about to get into: a classic Hawkins snowball fight.
It wasn’t patented just yet, but it was their own personal, party tradition.
Mike hurried out the door, his mom yelling something unintelligible as he shut the door behind him. Ahead, he saw Lucas, Dustin, and Will– all dressed in their own cold-weather gear.
“Hey Lucas, I thought Max was joining us this time,” Dustin spoke up, glancing around to try and spot the bright redhead.
“I dunno where she is, she said she’d—”
“Sorry we’re late!” A familiar voice called out, the sound of boots crunching through the snow getting louder with every second.
The boys all looked behind them and, sure enough, there was Max. She was trudging through the knee-high snow with…El at her side? Why was she here?
Mike was thrilled, to say the least, and made his way over to his girlfriend. She seemed confused, her cheeks reddened from the biting winter wind, but also…excited? It was hard to tell.
“El! I didn’t think you’d be joining us! Hopper usually doesn’t let you leave,” Mike grinned at her, grabbing her gloved hands lightly.
She looked over to Max, who was now smirking.
“Max said I should come.”
Mike met the gaze of Max, who shrugged.
“What can I say? I’m persuasive, and can you even say you’ve lived life if you’ve never… done this?!” She laughed, kneeling down to gather a pile of snow in her hands and toss it up at Lucas’s chest.
“Hey!” He scoffed, brushing it off his jacket, “No fair! We didn’t start!”
“Too slow!” Max laughed, standing back up to her full height.
El raised her eyebrow at the couple’s antics and looked back to Mike.
“What are they…doing?”
Mike chuckled, pointing down to the snow and then back to where Max had hit Lucas.
“It’s a game called a ‘snowball fight'. You just gather some snow in your hands like this,” he reached down and demonstrated, “and then you throw it!”
With that, he threw his snowball at Dustin, who dodged it swiftly.
“Mike! We still need to assign teams!” He shrieked, glancing at everyone as he counted the number of people per team in his head.
Usually, the teams were Will and Mike against Lucas and Dustin, but with their girlfriends in the equation…actually, it didn’t change much.
“The girls can be a team,” Dustin deduced, “and then the other teams will stay the same.”
Lucas crossed his arms in mild protest, “Why can’t it be me and Max, El and Mike, and you and Will?”
Will spoke up then, already against the idea.
“Not everything has to be…couple-oriented,” he shook his head, “I like Dustin’s idea. Plus, it doesn’t change any of our traditions or anything, y’know?”
Before Mike or Lucas could argue against Will, Max grabbed El’s forearm and tugged her closer.
“We accept your challenge, and you boys are about to be begging on your knees for mercy,” she snickered and dragged El off to a distant corner of the clearing.
The teams were set, then: Will and Mike, Lucas and Dustin, and El and Max.
The three groups began building their respective “forts” in their designated areas. Will and Mike had theirs down to a science; a packed wall of snow just tall enough for them to peek over when lying down on the ground.
Dustin and Lucas switched up their gameplan every year, sometimes the change paying off– sometimes, well, not at all. This year they decided to employ the strategy of Mike and Will, though theirs was not nearly as fortified. It looked more curved than anything else, and it was flimsy at best. More time was spent stocking up on ammunition for the battle, which always behooved them later.
The boys were anxious to see what Max and El would do. They didn’t want to say that they didn’t believe in their skills, but…the truth was easy to ascertain.
Peeking over the packed snow, Will let out a quiet gasp.
“Mike, look across the field,” he tapped Mike’s shoulder.
Looking up over the wall, Mike saw what the girls had been working on: El had used her powers, judging by her bloodied nose, to make a wall of steel. Not literal steel, but packed snow piled several feet high. Taller than Eleven, at least, judging by how she looked standing in front of it.
“How is that even possible?” Mike asked with a scoff, “By all logic, that shouldn’t even–”
“It’s superpowers, okay? We don’t know how strong they are,” Will interrupted in a mumble. “What matters is that they have an actual wall of defense, meanwhile we have a small bit of packed snow.”
From where Dustin and Lucas were working on their defenses, Mike heard a groan.
“No fair, Max! El shouldn’t be allowed to use her powers!” Lucas called out.
“I think it’s totally fair!” Max replied, “You didn’t think we stood a chance on our own! I’m just proving you wrong!”
And so, after a few more moments of preparation, the fight commenced. Snowballs flew across the field, though the space wasn’t all that big given that it was right by the Wheelers’ house. Blurs of white were followed by shrieks and laughs, taunting one another as they got their hits in.
The winner was determined each year by a very simple rule: if the snowball hit your head, you were out. It wasn’t an out for your whole team, just you, but obviously when both members of your team were out– that was it.
El had a…mildly unfair advantage, all things considered, when it came to this game. Being able to stay almost entirely behind the fort and still hit her opponents’ bodies proved useful, but the angle wasn’t good enough to be entirely accurate.
“Lucas, watch out!” Dustin called to his teammate, who– while gathering some more snowballs in his arms– was being snuck up on by his girlfriend.
Before he could register what was happening, Max hit him in the head with a small snowball. He yelped from the sudden cold.
“What the– Max, c’mon! Really?”
“Haha!” She laughed, running back to safety, but not before Dustin attempted to throw a snowball at her.
As the snowball flew, and was definitely gunning to hit the back of Max’s head, El redirected it to whack Dustin in the face.
“My eyes!” Dustin shrieked and tumbled backwards.
“Dude, it’s just snow,” Lucas grumbled, annoyed with the girls.
Now it was Will and Mike against the insanely overpowered duo of El and Max.
“What are we gonna do?” Will whispered, peeking over the wall of snow.
Their options were limited, that was for sure, and Mike considered each one. He could continue this battle, absolutely destroying the girls in a matter of seconds (or so he thought, that is), or…
Wouldn’t he be a great boyfriend if he let El win? That’s what all gentlemen do. He’s seen it in movies; letting the woman win so she’d be all happy or something.
“Follow my lead,” he mumbled to Will, and made a dramatic show of standing up.
Will, unsure of Mike’s plan, followed suit hesitantly. Mike turned his back to the girls, and within a matter of seconds, El would surely sink a snowball into his head.
Right?
Realizing what Mike was attempting to do, Will grabbed his arm and tried to yank him down, “No, we’re not just–”
“We know what you’re doing, idiot!” Max yelled across the field.
“Yeah, idiot!” El yelled also, clearly just going along with what Max was saying.
Why were girls so confusing? Don’t they like winning? He was just giving them that opportunity!
“Face us like actual men!” Max scoffed, “Unless you’re so scared that you’re just surrendering!”
Mike was going to reply, but Will successfully yanked him down into the snow, nearly falling into the barricade.
“What are you doing!? You’re not seriously gonna let them win, right? We have a streak going!”
It was true that Will and Mike had won the snowball fight for the past two years, going for a third this time, but Mike had a girlfriend now, okay? It…complicated things.
“Girlfriend or not, we are a team! El’s not your partner right now, I am!” Will huffed, like he was reading Mike’s mind.
That gave Mike something to consider. Clearly the girls didn’t want the extra help, and Will wanted them to win and continue their streak…
Maybe he had his priorities mixed up after all.
He sighed, “Sorry, I guess I just got carried away w–”
Two snowballs respectively hit Will and Mike in the head, ending the snowball fight entirely. El and Max loomed over them victoriously, grinning ear to ear.
“And that’s how it’s done,” Max chuckled, looking at El, “Guess we are the new champions.”
Lucas and Dustin came over finally, Will and Mike still too stunned to speak.
“That was sick!” Dustin smiled, his earlier upsetness forgotten entirely.
“Don’t congratulate them!” Lucas grumbled, helping Will and Mike up from the snow.
“Oh quit your whining,” Max rolled her eyes, “you’re such a baby sometimes, Lucas.”
Before they could keep bickering and celebrating all the same, a sleek car pulled up to the curb by the field.
“Hey, brat!” A familiar, gruff voice called from the car, the rolled down window showing Billy in the driver’s seat.
She sighed and crossed her arms, “Billy, I told you I didn’t need a ride home, just leave.”
He clicked his tongue, shaking his head.
“Too bad, Maxine,” he said almost tauntingly, “Mother dearest wants you home for dinner. Says it’s ‘important that we spend this quality time together before the year ends’, or some bullshit like that.”
After a few more moments of arguing, Max got in the car with Billy. Her and El definitely grew closer today, though El was still closest with Mike– made obvious by them standing at each other’s side while Billy drove off.
“He’s such a jerk,” Lucas muttered, “We were just having fun, and he came to ruin it.”
“Did he lie?” El spoke up.
“About the whole ‘dinner’ thing?” Dustin adjusted his wool beanie, “Maybe, maybe not. Even if he is telling the truth, he still doesn’t have to be so…him about it.”
“Max left, so will you all leave?” She asked another question, glancing around the field with the evidence of their snow-war.
“Nah,” Mike sighed, “we can stay out here for a while longer, right?”
Will glanced at his watch, then shook his head, “My mom wants me back soon, I’m sure Jonathan will be here to pick me up in a few. We can go inside and warm up, though? Maybe watch whatever is on the TV?”
Lucas shrugged, “I should get going, my mom needs me to watch Erica for a bit. Not that she even needs it, but my mom is still delusional about her daughter.”
“Delusional how?” El asked.
“Erica is a psycho, that’s how. Never once has that girl been nice to me, and that’s saying something, because she’s 10 years old.”
So, the group split up: Jonathan pulling up in the old car to take Will home, Lucas walking to his house in the snow, Dustin going home after calling Steve for a ride from the Wheeler’s landline, El staying after a little later until Hopper showed up to take her home– curfew and all that.
The snowball fight, per usual, was a major success– but what really mattered more than winning or losing was including their two new friends into that tradition. While it’s up in the air (maybe literally) if El and Max cheated their way to victory, Mike quickly realized early into his “genius plan” that maybe movies and sitcoms didn’t apply to every situation.