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goggles-mcgee · 1 year

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Bambino Mio

ST AU where Steve is technically a missing kid in Italy. Richard Harrington had fallen for a women from Italy, Luciana Catalano. Both from well off families, both wanting to see the world before they settled down. It's when they were visiting Luciana's family in Sicily that Luciana was told she couldn't travel and was going to have her baby there. Richard was not happy, to be fair he was not happy before they left to begin with. The two were fighting about anything and everything and her having his son in Italy seemed to make matters worse.

Richard Harrington was not a nice guy and Luciana had learned that a bit too slowly and a bit too late into the relationship. They weren't married, a fact that seemed to make him angry but her oh so happy. She couldn't imagine being tied down to him. He was barely there for her pregnancy and when he was he just made her feel small and inadequate. Then her son was born.

Her beautiful baby Stefano.

Richard was angry enough that his son was born in Sicily and that he would have to do paperwork to make his child have dual citizenship, but then they learned that Luciana was still very weak after the pregnancy and could not travel still. Then it turned out it wasn't just the pregnancy that was making her weak, she was sick. And because she was sick she didn't want to leave her family, plus they were all doing so much to help with Stefano.

Richard just couldn't see that. Or really anything but his own anger and problems. Problems he made for himself. He constantly got mad at her for being sick, for being “weak.” Then there was his desperation, because that was the only word for it, need to take Stefano back to the States to show his parents he had an Heir for the company he told her he didn’t even want. Her family didn't like him but they loved little Stefano who honestly looked so much like her.

They loved having him around and doting on him. He was their precious little Dolcezza! Three years had past and Luciana’s health was slowly getting better, though Richard’s attitude did not help in the slightest. He, of course traveled back to the States from time to time to visit his family, and each time he returned was another time that Luciana questioned what she saw in him. She was fully planning on filing for full-custody as soon as she was back to full health but things changed.

Richard started acting weird. He didn't pick fights, he started being helpful and Luciana felt stupid to admit she thought maybe just maybe he realized what a blessing her and Stefano were to him. Sure he had to take a lot more business calls, and the calls were very long but she just figured it was a lot of work with him getting more involved in the family business like he said he was doing. Then one day he said he wanted to take Stefano out to the markets for a Father-Son day. Luciana felt stupid about it now but at the time she thought it was nothing more than Richard finally accepting their situation and wanting to integrate himself in her family and Italy more, so she easily agreed. He convinced her he would pack their bags and lunches for the day so she could rest and because he didn’t want to bother any of her family members given the terms they were on at the moment. It made sense to her, maybe if she hadn’t been dosed on so much medication she would have been more clear-headed, but that was the last day she saw her son and Richard.

Of course she reported it but nothing came of it, he had already fled the country and the biggest shock came when she found out he had lied about his last name their entire relationship. Luciano felt like a fool and fell into a deep depression, but she and the authorities were determined to bring her baby home.

She had panicked, she had cried, she had raged. Most importantly, she planned.

Every birthday of Stefano’s that passed she cried for her baby boy. She yearned to hold him in her arms and kiss his little nose and just never let him go. Each birthday that past was like a nail in her heart but she and her family did whatever they could based off the information Luciana had of her former lover. They never knew if it was true or not but they did all they could. She got in contact with old friends, who at first refused to talk to her because apparently she was crazy and a stalker and Richard was just oh so scared of what she would do if she found him. ....Yeah. That pissed her off to no end but she stood strong and convinced them of her sanity and credibility, when they found out what Richard had done they were horrified. Each felt betrayed by the man and they made a schedule to message each other on Talkomatic to help Luciana find him and her baby and just to catch up.

Stefano would have been 10 at that time. Tracking her old friends down took four years, (This was the seventies at the time) then actually getting them to talk to her took three. During that time she was making sure everything was ready for when she traveled back to the States since she knew she would be there for an extended and unknown period of time.

Stefano was 12 when they found out his father’s name was actually Richard Harrington and not Richard Hartman like he told them all.

He was 12 and a half when they found out Richard Harrington had moved from his family’s home of Indianapolis to the small town of Hawkins.

It took her no time to fly and settle things so she could stay with a friend that lived in Terre Haute. The move took a lot out of her and unfortunately her health took a small dive again but it was stuff she could manage, but it did take a year before she was up to full health yet again and able to take her case to Hawkins Local Police.

Stefano was 14 when she realized they were doing nothing to help her and had warned Richard and his wife about someone calling to accuse him of child abduction and her sisters Theresa and Chiara joined her. The sisters instead went to the State Police and even sent her case to the FBI just in case she wasn’t treated seriously. Her son turned 15 when she finally got the help she deserved and he was 17 when the case was solid enough that forces were on the move to track down Richard and Christine Harrington. Luciana and her sisters took that time to buy their own house and apply for their US citizenship because Luciana didn’t want to rip her baby boy from everything he knew despite wanting to take him back to Italy like her heart wanted and her sisters refused to leave them alone. It was a couple months after he turned 17 that everything was set for her to go find her baby boy and explain everything to him. He was practically an adult and that hurt to think about but she was determined to make up the missing years and make it up to him that she and authorities blindsided him with everything.

It was a day in early July that she built up the courage to go find her baby and arrived in Hawkins. She arrived to chaos. She asked what was happening, apparently there was a fire at some mall. Then she asked where she could find Steve Harrington even if the name made her sick, that was not her bambino’s name.

He worked at said mall.

Luciana didn’t even remember stealing that car.

When she arrived it was to the aftermath and she saw many people reuniting with loved ones. Her heart had been in her throat as she barely had even set the car in park before jumping out and running around hoping she would recognize her baby. Then she saw the hair first, just like hers minus the sweat, soot and blood. Oh God blood! She ran and the closer she got she could make out some moles, her Stefano was blessed with many just like his grandfather, but the thing she noticed most was how hurt her son was. He looked awful despite her still thinking he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in a long time. There was nothing stopping her tears and her shout of, “Stefano! Mio Bambino!”

He looked at her and she thought she saw him murmur, “Mama?” But she wasn’t sure, she didn’t stop running until she had her son in her arms, she checked him over while stumbling over her words but he just looked at her in awe with his own tears slipping down his face. It was an eventful reunion and she knew she missed a lot of important things but Luciana had her son back and nothing would take him from her. Not again.

In this AU Steve is the same age as Robin, why? because I wanted him to be in school with the kiddos and with Robin and Eddie >3> The length of time was purely for plot reasons, I have no idea how long that would have taken back then. Richard lied about his name because he was awful and at the time had been dating multiple woman and had given each of them a different last name because he didn’t want anything traced back to him, especially kids. (More so if they ended up being girls.) Basically he was a con artist but things with Luciana were somewhat different. He found out she was having a boy and thought he would finally settle down but he found her too “combative” and not at all like a proper wife. His parents, mainly his father was threatening to cut his allowance and cut him out of his inheritance for his “womanizing” ways but when he admitted his latest tryst was having a boy his father was ready to forgive and forget if he brought the boy into the family to be the heir to the family business so they could carry on the Harrington name.

The hiccup was they absolutely did not want him marrying Luciana since he was already engaged! Yep! An arranged marriage that his father had planned for him ever since he was a teen but he rebelled by traveling and sleeping with any girl he found attractive. His parents helped him with the paperwork and everything to kidnap Steve and falsify his birth certificate with Christine Harrington nee Peters named as his mother.

Steve knew Christine wasn’t his birth mother but he learned to pretend very quickly. Though he never forgot how his birth mom smelt of honey, spiced apples and garlic. The garlic was never strong in his memories but it was always subtly there. He remembered lullabies sung to him and a soft voice calling him Stefano, but her face had started fading as he grew and it killed him. Every year that past with his father and Christine was another year that little Stefano prayed and hoped and wished his mother would take him away. That she would save him. He stopped wishing at 14. He was 16 when he started to believe he would always be alone. He was 17 when his Mama found him. He thought maybe it was an after effect of the Russian torture but no, she was actually there and for the first time in a long time, Stefano cried.