You overheard him by accident earlier. Steve was talking to Nancy on the phone, voice low and fragile.

“I don’t even know who I am anymore when they don’t need me.” He admits. “I don’t think there is anything else.”

When you bring it up later, he shuts down immediately — defensive, embarrassed. But eventually, the truth spills out after a few more minutes of you coaxing him to tell you.

He ends up telling you how being “the babysitter and mom of the Party” started as a joke and turned into his whole identity. How protecting the kids gave him a purpose when everything else fell apart. How the idea of them growing up, leaving Hawkins, not needing him anymore makes his chest ache.

“What happens when you’re all fine without me?” He asks quietly. “What happens when I’m not useful?”

He admits he’s scared that once the danger of the Upside Down is gone, people will realize he doesn’t actually matter — that he was just convenient.

You’re the only one he lets see how terrified he is of being left behind for some reason, the only one who knows about his slight identity crisis.