Inability to access variables made during step events

So I got a strange missing object reference, and came to see someone else running into the same issue.

Tldr, references to variables created during step events, cannot be accessed by other objects.
Example:

Instance create order:
object_a
object_b

Create
- object_a is created and is devoid of variables
- object_b is created finds object a and saves its id

Step
- object_a creates a variable X during its step event
- object_b uses object_a.X to do something

Where before object_b would be...

Inability to access variables made during step events