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Much to the surprise of everyone around him. Steve Harrington's favorite subject was English in high school. Specifically the parts about Greek myths.
He doesn't know why, and he doesn't think he'll ever know why. But it was his favorite part of his high school career. Learning about the Greeks and their stories and their mythos.
When he looks around at this group of misfits he's suddenly been pulled into like a moth being led to a flame, he sees those myths yet again.
They're insistent that he helps them train, helps them learn how to race. Just like their insistence that he helps them rebuild the area to better before Steve's glory days.
Sometimes the little shits even make him take them out for milkshakes.
Steve pretends he minds, but he doesn't. Since his accident he hasn't even felt close to who he used to be in the past. Doesn't even know if that person still exists anymore. The kids though make him feel like building a new person isn't as hard as he thinks.
Jonathan seems to still be searching for that old Steve though. Not that Steve himself blames him, Dustin does, but Steve doesn't.
Steve and Jonathan are building audience stands today, the rest of the kids are practicing off in the distance or in Dustin and Will's case are working in the almost finished garage.
Steve remembers the myths again as they take a small moment, staring off at the kids, and before he knows it he's opening his mouth to speak.
"You know some people would look at these kids and think of them in tragic Greek myths. But they'd think of the wrong ones and the kids wouldn't have tragic endings."
Jonathan looks at him a little funny, but seems to be having a good day as he chooses to hear Steve out.
"What do you mean?"
"Other people wouldn't understand who's who. They'd misunderstand the kids and the myths in one fell swoop."
Steve gets up and gets back to work, Jonathan follows but doesn't want to drop the topic yet.
"Try me. Give me what myths they are but don't tell me who's who."
"Icarus, Daedalus, Prometheus, Atlas, and Pandora."
Jonathan pauses and takes time to think, they both continue hammering in boards and screwing in nails.
"Dustin is Daedalus, Mike is Icarus, Will is Atlas, Lucas is Prometheus, and Max is Pandora." Jonathan finally comes up with his answer.
Steve laughs a little, not to make fun, but because Jonathan gave the exact answers he had been expecting.
"You're wrong."
"Then explain what's right."
Steve smiles and looks off towards the garage.
"Dustin is Pandora. Someone born to be curious and want nothing more to find all of the knowledge that could possibly be available within reach. Opening up that pathway to knowledge only to see the horror that waits at the bottom."
He pauses before moving to look at the track, watching as the blue trans am speeds up before slowing down around the corner of the track."
"Mike is Daedalus. Caught in a plan of his own creation and knowing the dangers that would follow his escape wouldn't just affect him. Knowing that if something goes wrong it's his fault."
Steve looks back at the garage to see Will shaking a can of spray paint in his hand.
"Will is Icarus. Trusting of others and wanting nothing but the best for everyone, but losing everything the moment he chooses to be selfish. To want more freedom then he was supposed to be given and wanting more power than others think he should have."
His eyes roam back to the track as Lucas sits on the sidelines with a stopwatch in his hands.
"Lucas is Atlas. Believing it his responsibility to hold the world on his shoulders because he can. He is stable enough out of them all and as long as he can hold it together for one more minute everything's going to be ok. He thinks it's his penance for having the best childhood of them all."
Steve sighs before moving to the redhead falling out of her car, yelling something at Mike in victory.
"And finally Max is Prometheus. Who had knowledge that others needed to survive and gave it to them behind the backs of those who never wanted them to know. Who made the choice to sacrifice and is paying for it with immortal death for the rest of time."
By the time Steve has finished talking they're talking another small break again.
The two of them are quiet and contemplative again before Jonathan breaks the silence this time.
"You said they weren't tragic though?"
It sounds hopeful, as if it weren't for that statement at the beginning of this rant Jonathan would be sure of their fates to crash and burn.
"No they aren't."
"How?"
"Pandora does open the jar, and while they may have caught a glimpse of what was at the bottom, other hands shut the jar before it could escape. And Daedalus may have made the idea but he had a council on his side that he learned to turn to for help when he felt like it may be too much for him to handle alone. Icarus's wings were crafted more carefully, looked over by more people, and therefore did not go up in flames. Atlas's friends noticed his behavior and told him that they were all doing it together or not at all and helped him hold the sky to lighten his load. Prometheus gave the knowledge and was bound to suffer torment for the rest of time but discovered that favors are not forgotten and had been freed, immortal wounds stitched together with several precise hands."
By the end of Steve's speech Jonathan is looking at him in awe.
"You really believe in them don't you?"
The old Steve would have played it off, told him he was wrong, or pretended like this belief was founded in pity.
Steve is learning he can be another person now.
"Yeah. Yeah I do. How could I not believe in living myths and legends?"