#with a russian reciting the code
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FORESHADOWING ST5 TRACK-LIST, FEATURING THE ADDITION OF WHEN BLUE MEETS YELLOW IN THE WEST...
#byler#no but can you imagine??#why have a song title for those first two lines specifically#then cut it off at the most incriminating part?!#that's literally what the ending of 3x01 does too#with a russian reciting the code#only to be cut off right before the blue meets yellow in the west part...#hehehehehehehehehe#WAIT#can we theorize about this actually??#IMAGINE if the untitled track of will emotionally skating around rink o mania is secretly titled when blue meets yellow in the west?!?!#COULD YOU FUCKING IMAGINE!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!!?!
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Instrument Of War | Steve Harrington x F!Reader
| Word Count — 20k |
| Series Summary — Steve Harrington is in love with you but is convinced you're out of his league and refuses to acknowledge his feelings. But when Dustin Henderson returns from summer camp with a secret Russian code, your lives change completely. |
| Warnings — Use of female pronouns, graphic depictions of violence, d3ath, bodily harm, bl00d, forced dr*g use. All warnings come from what occurs during Season 3 and the Russian base. [Y/N] endures experiences that can be found triggering. If you would like an in-depth warning list, you can message me! Please inform me if I missed anything. |
| Author's Note — This is the first chapter of a series. It contains all of Season 3, which is why it's incredibly long. The series will eventually contain smut. It is a reader insert written in the third person, therefore there will be no physical descriptions such as weight, eye/hair/skin color. And it's for those who want to be the main character and It-Girl so enjoy. |
[Y/N] moved through the effervescent crowd brimming the Starcourt Mall, the smell of deep-fried corndogs and the overwhelming fragrance of perfume samples filling the thick air. She stepped inside the parlor, pushing aside the blushing and giggling teenagers, disregarding their harsh glares and low whispers. She stopped at the counter, her ocean-blue uniform tightly squeezed in her closed hand as she breathed heavily. Steve whirled around, prepared to recite his required greeting when his jaded eyes widened and landed on the glittering gaze of [Y/N]. She was early for the beginning of her shift, earlier than she’s ever been, and he furrowed his eyebrows together as she expelled a heavy sigh and hesitantly peered over her shoulder. He stealthily glimpsed at the damp skin of her heaving chest, the edge of her cream-colored bra peeking from her tight blouse. “I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend for five minutes,” The desperate plea fell from her glossed lips, the flushed pink of skin as she leaned over the polished counter distracted him. “I’ll explain later.” She moved around the counter’s edge, urgently grabbing his arms and loosening them as she forcefully wrapped them around herself. His hand brushed against the smooth skin of her lower back, his fingers touching the fabric of her skirt, and her breasts were pressed against his clothed chest but he could feel the warmth radiating from her.
A teenage boy accompanied by a group of his friends stepped inside the parlor and his youthful expression fell as he witnessed [Y/N] in the warm, and extremely stiff, embrace of her supposed boyfriend. She smiled as she stood on her toes, pressing a delicate kiss to his blushing cheek as she softly moved a loose strand of his dark hair. The gesture was soft, unfamiliarly intimate as her polished nails moved behind his ear. He blinked owlishly, his softened eyes resembling warm honey as he thought of the sweetness of her gaze. This was nothing but an unexpected and temporary facade, he forcefully reminded himself; completely and unfortunately fake. The teenage boy glared poisonously before storming outside of the parlor. “He’s gone,” Steve’s voice was hoarse as the words fell from him, swallowing a lump in his throat as she backed away, the sweetness of her perfume fading. “Not that I mind, but what was that?”
[Y/N] walked inside the back room, slamming the swinging door and sliding the moving windows close. From the blurred and textured glass, he could see her remove her small blouse, the clasp of her cream bra barely visible through the glassy haze. She always claimed she wouldn’t wear the dreadful uniform outside of the parlor, so she brought the uniform tucked inside her purse and changed in the back room. Robin didn’t mind and Steve definitely didn’t mind, but the only issue was refraining from sneaking a glimpse. “He wouldn’t leave me alone. I tried telling him I was meeting my boyfriend, but he kept following me. That’s where you come in.”
The young woman was blessed with the appearance of someone plastered on movie screens, painfully attractive and she always was the center of scrutiny whenever she stepped outside of her house. Everyone stared at her and it was a constant and unwavering occurrence. The issue with looking like her was the occasional creep who was convinced their persistence was going to give them a small chance of receiving her attention. But she didn’t have a boyfriend, which Robin couldn’t understand or entirely believe, but she used the boyfriend excuse constantly and normally the fabrication worked, but there was always the uncommon deviation.
[Y/N] slid the window open, the warm lighting of the parlor illuminating the sleekness of her hair as she gave him a heart-stopping grin. He leaned against the back counter attached to the sliding window and she peered upward at him through the thick rim of her lashes. She wiped the faint lipgloss stain from his cheek with her thumb. “Sorry, it had to be believable.” The apology was barely heard as his knuckles blanched from squeezing the counter. His mouth opened and closed as she closed the window, disappearing from sight. Steve smelled the fading softness of her perfume and closed his eyes with defeat. She appeared from the back, grabbed the clear trash bag from the overflowing trash can, and disappeared from the parlor without another word. Throwing away the trash was an idle task she did whenever she didn’t want to help any customers.
There was a small thud as Robin placed the whiteboard on the back counter. “Another one bites the dust,” She said, writing a tally on the ‘You Suck’ section of the whiteboard. “You are oh-for-six, Popeye.”
Steve sighed heavily as he whirled around on his sneaker’s heel, crossing his arms with an exasperated glare. “Yeah, yeah, I can count.” He said, unamused by her antics. Each tally unfortunately represented another failed attempt or missed opportunity of scoring his dream girl—you. It was embarrassing having every failure on display, having to explain a poorly formulated lie as [Y/N] asked what the tallies meant, and having Robin make teasing remarks every time Steve froze and couldn’t string a sentence together whenever there was a shift in the energy between them.
Robin glanced at the black tally mark. “You know that means you suck.”
Steve nodded languidly. “Yup. I can read, too.”
She raised her thin eyebrows. “Since when?”
He expelled a slow breath. “It never used to be like this.” He thought of his experiences during high school and there was an ache as he reminisced. He was always the guy taking girls’ breaths away, leaving them on their bedsheets feeling like their hearts were going to tear through their dresses. It used to be easy, a simple adrenaline rush, but now all [Y/N] had to do was breathe beside him and he was putty in her unaware hands.
Robin didn’t understand his cluttered thoughts. “You know, it’s a crazy idea, but have you considered just telling her the truth?”
Steve scoffed at the sarcastic suggestion. “And risk our friendship?” He had thought about the possibility of revealing the depth of his feelings, he thought about it often, but the overwhelming dread consumed him and he was overcome with the likelihood of their friendship shattering. He didn’t mean for the words to be adorned with the intensity of his emotions, but when Robin’s lighthearted expression faded, he knew he had revealed just how much he cared. There was a moment of silence, or as silent, as an occupied shopping mall could be, and he stared at the streaks on the glass panels. “Or worse, she would tease me about it forever. That would so go to her head.” He joked, attempting to ease the saturation of the conversation, and although Robin chuckled, she knew that there was a thumping heart inside him that wasn’t calloused from high school.
Robin knew when Steve was focused on conversing with a group of girls, displaying a swoon-worthy smile as he scooped through the variety of flavors. He was moments from earning a tally mark on the ‘You Rule’ and those girls were blushing with rosy cheeks, absorbing his smooth words, but she walked inside the parlor. [Y/N], blissfully unaware of the warmth glowing from Steve’s softened gaze, stepped inside with a verdant green, fur-lined blouse and a noticeably tight and small black skirt, her smooth legs barely visible through the black pantyhose and knee-high boots. Her hair was lazily thrown up, strands framing her grinning face.
The words falling from Steve’s mouth disappeared into nothingness as she walked toward the counter with a smile that could have stone-cold men collapse to their knees. His eyes followed her, watching as the sunlight poured inside the parlor from the ceiling window and made her glow with golden warmth. His hand loosened and the scooper fell on top of the vanilla ice cream, disregarding the peeved questions from the girls. Robin knew when Steve easily overlooked a group of girls drowning him within their giggling attention as soon as [Y/N] arrived. Robin had never seen him look at anyone like that and he didn’t even seem to care that the group rolled their eyes and departed without another glance. He spoke with pretty girls every day, but not a single one had him ready to throw everything away for a single glance from her.
When [Y/N] returned, the lingering conversation dissipated and they continued with their tasks. She organized the clear containers of sprinkles and cookie crumbs, meticulously labeling them with a permanent marker. She tossed a cookie crumb inside her mouth, doodling a dainty heart beside the pink sprinkle’s label. Steve languidly swept the back room’s marble floor with a rickety broom. There was a comfortable silence between them as they listened to the faint music that played throughout the mall’s speakers. As she scribbled another drawing, a familiar voice spoke from the register. “I’m Dustin,” He said and [Y/N] froze, a crooked line appearing across the clear container as she listened. Steve’s lazy movements paused suddenly, accidentally spreading the pile of dirt he managed. “Pleasure to meet you. Are they here?” The question broke them from their unsure trance and they disposed of the marker and broom, rushing to the door.
Steve’s sneakers squeaked as she roughly pushed him aside, choosing to ignore his groan as he slammed into the door frame. He hastily grabbed her shoulder, smushing her face as he moved through the swinging door. His hands were raised in the air, unfiltered elation written on his pale face. “Henderson,” He exclaimed and Dustin laughed, pointing at him with a childlike eagerness. “Henderson! [Y/N], he’s back!”
His arm moved toward the bright logo. “You got the job!”
Steve was moving with unseen energy. “I got the job!” He yelled with wide eyes, imitating him playing the trumpet before throwing himself into the personalized handshake they made. They made childish lightsaber sounds, pretending Steve’s intestines fell from his stomach as he was supposedly impaled.
Robin watched the strange scene unravel from the other side of the register. “How many children are you friends with?” She asked, an amused smirk rising on her dark pink-stained lips.
[Y/N] pushed the swinging door open and purposely shoved her shoulder into Steve’s arm as she rushed forward, wrapping her arms around the younger boy. Dustin was the aggravating sibling she didn’t have, a pesky bundle of unchecked energy she grew fond of. Encircled beneath her embrace, he blushed and his smile widened as he immediately hugged her back. Pulling away, she rushed behind the counter. “Tell me everything!” She listened as he recounted his mind-expanding experience during his summer camp retreat, the prototypes of his inventions, and the budding relationship with a girl named Suzie. She occasionally chimed in as she scooped unusually large scoops in the largest bowl they offered, throwing every topping she knew he would like, and intricately placed three soft waffle cones pieces through toothpicks and tossed a handful of bright red cherries.
She placed the makeshift ice cream boat across from Dustin on the rounded table where the cushioned booth was. “She’s brilliant, too. And she doesn’t even care that my real pearls are still coming in. She says kissing is better without teeth.” He shoved a spoonful inside his mouth, the corners of his mouth stained with different colors. Steve nodded slowly with a slightly disgusted expression, processing the revelation, and she feigned a bright smile.
“That’s really…romantic!” She replied after an unsure pause. A group of customers entered the parlor, and the children’s overexcited voices bounced off the walls. From behind the counter, Robin wordlessly pleaded for some form of assistance. “I’m gonna help out Robin and I’ll be back.” Dustin smiled thankfully as she scooted from the booth and slid the ice cream moving panel open.
He motioned to the large plastic bowl of ice cream. “So do you really just get to eat as much of this as you want?”
Steve, resting his forearm on the outer edge of the red booth, nodded. “Yeah, it’s not really a good idea for me, though.” He began, chancing an awkward glance where [Y/N] moved across the room. “I gotta keep in shape for the…ladies.” He explained with a feeble pause. There were no ladies and hasn’t been in quite some time and they both knew this. It wasn’t as if he didn’t try, because he did, but each failed attempt with earning a night out with a pretty girl that walked inside Scoops Ahoy sent his dwindling confidence further a downward spiral. His apprehensive eyes moved toward the smudged glass panel that protected the products from contamination, watching as she scooped a large ball, much larger than the designated size, and smiled as she spoke with a mother and her children. It never made sense to him how easily she charmed every customer like it was second nature, with complete and total ease.
Robin threw an empty cup away near the booth. “Yeah, and how’s that working out for you?”
Steve rolled his eyes at the remark. “Ignore her.”
“She seems cool.”
“She’s not.”
[Y/N] removed her sailor’s cap and shoved Steve aside, casually perched beside him as her exposed thigh beneath the uniform rubbed against his knee. There was nothing remotely romantic, or even sexual, about the careless touch, but it was more than enough to have him distracted by the closeness between them. Dustin sneakily watched as Steve glimpsed at her smooth skin caressing him, swallowing the mouthful of words. “So where’s the rest of the team?” She asked, finally noticing the lack of obnoxious teenagers.
Dustin’s eyes closed with a weary sigh, thrusting the spoon inside a sliced banana piece. A flicker of sorrow flashed across his face. “They ditched me yesterday,” He spat, scooping the ravaged banana slice and shoving it inside his mouth. “My first day back. Can you believe that shit?” Although she could completely believe that, she didn’t express the thought. They were all relishing the summer warmth alongside their boyfriends and girlfriends, holding each other’s sweaty hands and stealing quick kisses in the darkness of the movie theaters. “I swear to God. They’re gonna regret it, though, big time when they don’t get to share in my glory.”
She plucked a cookie chunk from his banana boat. “Glory?” She questioned, crumbs falling against the corners of her mouth.
There was a glint in the lightness of his eyes as he scooted closer. “So, last night we’re trying to get into contact with Suzie and…” The words faded as he nervously glanced around the parlor and brought his hand to the side of his mouth, mumbling a cluttered sentence of unintelligible words.
Steve furrowed his thick eyebrows together, leaning closer. “What?”
Dustin clicked his tongue against his teeth, glancing around the parlor once again before inhaling deeply. He not-so discreetly covered his mouth again, barely whispering. Her brows drew together as her eyes narrowed. “I have no idea what you’re saying right now,” [Y/N] said.
“I intercepted a secret Russian communication!”
Her head lowered. “Oh, why didn’t you just say that, then?” She paused, processing the declaration. “I still don’t know what that means.”
Dustin sighed impatiently, unzipping his overflowing backpack. He shuffled through the contents, placing a weathered book on the tabletop. “I just need your help translating.”
[Y/N] grabbed the tattered book, casually flipping through the yellowed pages. The distinct smell of aged paper flooded the air. She stood from the leather booth, her white sneakers squeaking against the polished floor, and she motioned for them to follow behind her. They moved through the counter and stepped inside the back room, disregarding the confused glance from Robin as Dustin trailed after Steve. He dumped his backpack onto the tabletop designated for employee breaks and retrieved his silver recorder, pressing the button on the side before a robotic male voice began reciting a message. The man repeated the message without a waver in his monotone voice. [Y/N] scribbled possible words on a yellow notepad as audio played, again and again, listening to the foreign words as she flipped through the translation book.
There were a handful of pages discussing the Russian alphabet and they screwed the cap off an erasable marker, transcribing the foreign symbols onto the freshly cleaned whiteboard. Dustin pressed the pause button. “So what do you guys think?”
Steve, with a thoughtful expression, peeled a banana and took a large bite as he rummaged through his thoughts. “It sounded familiar,” He eventually said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “The music right there at the end.”
Dustin’s mouth snapped shut as he watched Steve casually munch on a banana, his patience dwindling. “Why are you listening to the music, Steve?” He asked, his voice rising as he jutted an index finger at the recorder. “Listen to the Russian! We’re translating Russian!”
Steve’s cheeks extended as he spoke, his mouth full and muffled. “I’m trying to listen to the Russian, but there’s music—”
The swinging door flew open as Robin appeared, her freckled cheeks flushed with glaring frustration. “All right, babysitting time is over. One of you needs to get in there.” She aimed a scooper at them accusingly before her eyes narrowed when she saw the information of restocking on the whiteboard was erased and replaced. “Hey, my board! That was important data, guys!”
Dustin shrugged nonchalantly, unbothered by the sudden outburst. “I guarantee you what we’re doing is way more important than your data.”
She quirked an unimpressed eyebrow, cocking her head to the side. “Yeah? And how do you know these Russians are up to no good anyway?”
The younger boy’s eyes widened, peering upward at Steve who stiffened beside him. “How does she know about the Russians?” Steve merely shrugged his voice a garbled mess from the fruit. “You told her about—”
“Why do you automatically assume it was me?” Steve questioned, pointing an accusatory finger at [Y/N]. “Maybe it was [Y/N]!”
Her glossed lips fell slack. “Of course, you’d find a way to blame me—”
“Hello, I can hear you.” Robin interrupted, her arms crossed. “Actually, I can hear everything you say. You three are extremely loud. You think you have evil Russians plotting against our country, on tape, and you’re trying to translate, but you haven’t figured out a single word because you didn’t realize Russians use an entirely different alphabet. Sound about right?”
[Y/N] glanced at the pink ink seeping through the notepad, some of her translations circled and crossed. “Not completely right,” She muttered, circling a single word with the glitter pen. “I’m pretty sure this says yellow!” As enthusiastic as she was for the only translation she managed to complete, she wasn’t completely certain that it was correct.
Robin’s harsh glare softened as the corners of her lips curved. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty,” She said, but there was no mistaking the lightheartedness behind her words. [Y/N] grinned, knowing it wasn’t entirely a compliment, but she never complained when someone mentioned her appearance. Robin hastily reached forward, barely missing the recorder before Steve snatched the device away. “I wanna hear it. Maybe I can help. I’m fluent in four languages, you know?”
“Russian?” Dustin asked, hopeful.
“Ou-yay are-yay umb-day.” The three of them proclaimed, impressed with the foreign sentence. She rolled her eyes. “That was Pig Latin, but I can speak Spanish, French, and Italian, and I’ve been in band class for twelve years. My ears are little geniuses, trust me.” She pulled a chair beside [Y/N] as the silver bell beside the register rang through the silence. “Come on, it’s your turn to sling ice cream, my turn to translate. I don’t even want credit, I’m just bored.” Steve reluctantly took the scooper from her grasp and gave her the recorder.
The emptiness of the Starcourt Mall was unsettlingly quiet. Most, if not all, of the other shops, were cleaned and closed for the night, but there were four people remaining inside an ice cream parlor. The bright lights were still on, the only source of life inside, and almost every counter was wiped and the floor was swept. “The week is long, the silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west.” The four of them read the unusual sentence aloud, but there wasn’t even a flicker of understanding in the depths of their minds. “See, I told you yellow was in there!” Dustin gave an unimpressed side-eye before grabbing his duffle bag and stuffing his torn book inside.
The four of them were exhausted, their thoughts echoing with the Russian recording, and their supposed translation didn’t make sense. “It just can’t be right,” Steve said, pulling the metal gate over the entrance of the parlor and securing the lock.
“Honestly, I think it’s great news,” Dustin said, walking ahead.
Steve, with an unnecessary force, dropped the lock. “How is this great news?” He chuckled humorlessly. “So much for being American heroes. It’s total nonsense.” He knew he was behaving slightly dramatically, but the promise of becoming something more was enough for him to throw his entire self into the task. And maybe, just maybe, [Y/N] could have seen him as something more.
They moved through the desolateness of the mall, occasionally glancing at the locked stores. “It’s not nonsense. It’s too specific. It’s obviously code.”
Steve thought about the suggestion for a moment. “What do you mean code?” He asked.
[Y/N] intently examined a bright pair of heels displayed on the other side of a glass window. “Like a super secret spy code in the movies?”
Steve rolled his eyes as he lightly bumped his shoulder with hers, unconvinced with the possibility. “That’s a total stretch.”
Robin half-shrugged, humming. “I don’t know.” She began, “Listen, just for kicks, let’s entertain the possibility that it is a secret Russian transmission. What’d you think they were gonna say? ‘Fire the warhead at noon’?”
“Exactly, that would defeat the purpose of being a secret,” [Y/N] said, “So maybe it is some kind of weird code and they’re specifically using weird words to hide their true message. Only people who have something to hide would use code to mask their message.”
Dustin high-fived her. “Exactly! You’re on a roll today, [Y/N].”
“So I guess that confirms your suspicions,” Robin said, clutching the strap of her helmet.
Dustin gave her a knowing look. “Evil Russians.”
Robin smiled, gobsmacked that everything they were saying was making sense. “I can’t believe I’m about to agree with this strange child, but, yeah, totally evil Russians.” She giggled.
The four of them slowly walked through the mechanical animals. “So how do we crack it?”
“I guess we translate the rest and hopefully a pattern emerges.”
Dustin’s expression grew serious. “Maybe ‘silver cat’ is a meeting place.”
“Or a person.”
“Or a deadly weapon.” [Y/N] paused, throwing a mischievous glance behind her shoulder, but Steve wasn’t there. Her smile dwindled. “Wait, where’s Steve?” She turned, furrowing her brow as she found him. He was standing beside the mechanical horse, digging inside his uniform’s pockets. He pulled a small handful of coins, some clattering to the floor as he searched for a quarter on his palm. “What are you doing?”
Steve moved the coins around, shaking his head softly. “I need a quarter. Do any of you have a quarter?”
[Y/N]’s eyes crinkled with a light smile as she jogged toward him. “I want a turn!”
He ignored her, motioning for the rest of them to quicken their slow place. “Quarter!” Robin chuckled but threw him a coin regardless. He placed the coin inside the metal slot and the plastic horse began moving, a child-like tune playing. He shushed the three of them as they laughed at Robin’s muttered joke. “Will you guys shut up and listen?”
There was a moment of silence as Dustin’s wide smile fell, realization dawning upon his face. “Holy shit. The music,” He shrugged off his bag and unzipped it, hurriedly pulling out the recorder. “It’s the same exact song on the recording.” The Russian man’s voice played from the recording and the music was the same.
Somewhat unconvinced, Robin shook her head. “Maybe they have horses like this in Russia?”
Steve, crouched by the mechanical horse, pointed at the coin slot. “Indiana Flyer? I don’t think so,” He said, “This code didn’t come from Russia. It came from here.”
Steve appeared from behind a bush of large green leaves, a pair of black binoculars pressed against his concentrated eyes as he surveyed the crowded mall, with Dustin beside him. He wasn’t certain how inconspicuous they were being, especially with how noticeable his bright uniform was. “Do you see anything?” The younger boy questioned, peeking from the crevices of the leaves.
Steve moved his gaze across the food court, watching as people chewed their grease-filled food, then where a group of middle school girls gossiped at the water fountain. “I guess I don’t totally know what I’m looking for.” As soon as the midafternoon began to slow at Scoops, the three of them began investigating the bustling crowds roaming the inside of the mall. But, something that the younger boy seemed to forget, neither of them knew what exactly they were searching for.
Dustin peered over his shoulder. “Evil Russians. Tall, blond, not smiling.” He answered simply as if the answer was glaringly obvious. “Also look for earpieces, camo, duffle bags, that sort of thing.”
He hummed a distracted response before his eyes widened. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Steve declared, blinking repeatedly as if the twisted sight before him was an unfortunate mirage. “Anna Jacobi’s talking to that meathead Mark Lewinsky. Jesus Christ, whatever happened to standards? Lewinsky never even came off the bench.” He said, watching with disgust as Mark pretended to throw a basketball, smiling with pride as Anna giggled.
Dustin narrowed his eyes. “Dude, you are the worst spy in history.” He yanked the binoculars from his grasp and shook his head disapprovingly. “Besides, I don’t get why you’re looking at girls. You have the perfect one right in front of you.” He said, pressing the binoculars against his face as he motioned across the food court.
Steve sighed exasperatedly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Seriously, if you say [Y/N] again—”
“[Y/N]. [Y/N]. [Y/N]. [Y/N].”
“Stop, no. No!”
“[Y/N]. [Y/N]. [Y/N].”
“No.”
“[Y/N].”
“No.”
Steve chanced a softened glimpse where [Y/N] was casually perched between a cushioned booth, drinking a milkshake through a thick straw as she cautiously glanced around the area. This, although it was simple and didn’t require any exertion, must’ve been agony for her. She always said she would never wear the sailor’s uniform outside of the ice cream parlor, but she made the ‘sacrifice’ for them, as she said. So there she was, sipping her milkshake with a displeased expression as she searched for anything that wasn’t supposed to be there. But, as she soon realized, there were many strange people inside Hawkins and she wasn’t given specifics on characteristics to be searching for. And Steve, who was watching her with rose-colored glasses, didn’t bother disguising his blatant staring. He also watched with distaste as several guys purposely roamed the area, speaking in hushed whispers as they watched her from a distance. “Dude, no. I’m not her type. I’m nowhere in the ballpark of what her type is.” He dismissed the idea, but Dustin could hear the gloom laced in his words.
Although the words weren’t explicitly expressed, Dustin knew that was as close to a verbal confession he was going to receive. Steve, though his friend, wasn’t acknowledging his feelings for her and Dustin wasn’t completely certain as to why. “So, what you’re saying is you’re not her type, but she’s your type?” The question was a simple and straightforward one, and easily could have been answered, but Steve hesitated.
That’s exactly what Steve was saying and that was the underlying reason he wouldn’t acknowledge his feelings. Because acknowledging he knew he wasn’t what [Y/N] wanted would only confirm he wasn’t good enough for her and he wasn’t sure he endure that feeling again. “Look, I missed my chance back in high school,” Steve eventually said, deciding that answer was more than enough for the time being. “She could have any guy she wants. She’s got a line waiting for her. Literally, there are, like, seven guys waiting to make a move on her as we speak. I lost what I had back in school. She’ll never go for me.”
Dustin removed the binoculars and gave him a pointed look. “Now that you’re out of high school, which means you’re technically an adult, don’t you think it’s time to move on from primitive constructs such as popularity?” He didn’t understand where the obsession with popularity and social acceptance came from, but he knew where it was supposed to end and it was supposed to have ended when he crossed the stage with his diploma.
The bitterness from Steve’s expression dissipated as the question fell from his mouth. “Oh, primitive constructs?” He mocked, “That some stupid shit you learned at Camp…Nothing?”
Dustin, entirely aware he was deflecting, rolled his eyes. “Camp Know Where, actually.” He corrected, “And no, it’s shit I learned from life. Instead of thinking you’re never gonna have a chance with her because you’re not the cool guy in high school anymore, why don’t you just forget about high school popularity and leagues, and be with somebody you actually like? Like me and Suzie?”
Steve despised knowing every word he spoke was undeniably true, he despised knowing the words of wisdom were coming from a thirteen-year-old middle schooler whose girlfriend probably didn’t even exist. He feigned an agreeing nod. “Oh, yeah! ‘Hotter than Phoebe Cates’ Suzie? And let’s think about how exactly did you score that beautiful girlfriend? Oh, yeah, with my advice. Because that’s how this works, Henderson. I give the advice, you follow through. Not the other way around, all right, pea-brain?”
Dustin rolled his eyes, disregarding the name-calling, and continued looking around the mall, his gaze moving across each and every face. It wasn’t long until he found someone matching his description. “Target acquired.” He said, watching the tall man with long blond hair push through the crowd with a dark blue duffle bag and sunglasses. “Ten o’clock. Sam Goody’s.”
Steve grabbed the binoculars, brown eyes widening as he saw the man walk with a stoic expression. “Shit,” He didn’t know any Russians, but that man was the exact image Dustin had listed earlier. He stood, whistling a specific sound and [Y/N] froze, looking up from her milkshake and meeting Steve’s flailing arms. She sipped a large gulp from the straw before throwing it away, rushing to the boy’s sides. “Let’s go!”
He grabbed her hand, an unnecessary gesture, and pulled her through the conversing crowd and up the escalator, nearly tripping on her stained sneakers. She mumbled a string of apologies as some people yelped as they were pushed. “Slow down,” Dustin demanded, struggling to keep up with Steve’s speed. “You’re getting too close.” His shoulder bumped into a man, mumbling an apology as the guy yelled at him but the man they were following stopped, hesitantly peering over his shoulder at the ruckus. The three of them moved from his line of sight. Dustin grabbed the payphone, feigning a monotone conversation, and [Y/N] and Steve moved behind a large potted plant. She lowered her head, the fabric of his uniform caressing her cheek as he watched behind the leaves for the man to turn around. She could feel the buckle of his belt pressed against her stomach and the sudden warmth of him seeped through his clothes. Her unsure eyes moved upward, watching as his jaw clenched. Steve, noticing the softness of her lips inches away from him, glimpsed down at her, suddenly aware of how close she was to him. His mouth became dry as she stared at him with those gleaming eyes. “Steve, not now!”
They blinked before continuing with their mission. They trailed him to a Jazzercise store and watched from behind a pillar as he dumped his duffle bag on a counter, unzipping his bag to reveal a stereo. “All right everyone, listen up!” He shouted, “I just have one question for you. Who is ready to sweat? That’s right!” The group of brightly dressed women cheered excitedly as he unzipped his jacket, revealing his muscular arms. “Let’s start it nice and easy. Let’s move our thighs. Yeah, ladies, warm it up! Come on, ladies, show me what you got!” The music began playing and Steve’s mouth fell slack as the women wearing tight spandex moved their hips slowly.
[Y/N] rolled her eyes, smacking his shoulder. “Let’s go.” The walk back to Scoops was filled with bickering between Steve and Dustin. As they stepped inside, the smell of sweetness and floor cleaner filling their noses, Robin sprinted outside, jumping on the edge of the fountain. She circled in one spot, mumbling to herself. [Y/N] raised her brow. “Robin, what are you doing?”
She smiled. “I cracked the code.”
“Are you serious? I just did my hair.” [Y/N] could faintly hear the sound of her displeased voice through the pouring rain and crackling thunder. She zipped her waterproof jacket and threw on the hood, pulling the two strings as far as she could manage. The gravel crunched beneath their sodden shoes as they slowly moved across the mall rooftop. Their wary eyes checked the surrounding area for any late-night employees. “So we’re looking for Imperial Panda and Kaufman Shoes?” She asked, elbows perched on the edge of the roof.
Dustin uselessly wiped the glass lens of the binoculars with his drenched sleeve. The air was unusually cold and each breeze chilled her skin, goosebumps rising. “They’re with that whistling guy, ten o’clock.” He said, subtly pointing at the man wearing a yellow raincoat, pushing a red cart with large boxes. The Imperial Panda logo was printed on the sides.
Steve rubbed his palms together, his attempts at warming them were futile. “What do you think’s in there?”
“Guns, bombs?”
“Chemical weapons?” Robin suggested as a crack of thunder and lightning tore through the sky.
[Y/N] ’s bottom lip quivered as another breeze crashed against her. “Whatever it is, they’re armed to the teeth,” Dustin said, eyeing the large weapons clutched in their hands.
Steve wiped the heavy droplets from his face. “Great,” He mumbled, “That’s just great.” The thunder rumbled within the darkness of the clouds and [Y/N] instinctively shifted closer to him, her shaking hand squeezing his crouched knee. Her quivering touch, although ice-cold, ignited a flash of warmth through him. There was something comforting knowing she searched for some form of release within him.
An armed guard unlocked the large double doors. “What’s in there?” Robin asked, unable to decipher much of anything through the downpour.
“It’s just more boxes,” Dustin answered.
Steve reached over and attempted to snatch the binoculars from him. “Let me check it out.”
“No, I’m still looking.” The binoculars were tugged between them, both of the boys muttering profanities. They both lost their grip on it and it slammed onto the metal tube they leaned against. An echoing slam reverberated through the truck’s delivery area. “Duck!”
The four of them tossed themselves onto the gravel of the rooftop with the backs of their head pressed against the brick of the roof’s edge. [Y/N] smashed her soaking cheek against Steve’s raincoat, interlacing her hand with his. They breathed heavily, their frightened eyes wide as the thunder rumbled. From the double doors, a guard screamed something in Russian. She blinked away the raindrops and glanced at their quivering hands. “We need to get out of here.” She said over the rainfall. They all nodded in agreement, rushing to the rooftop entrance.
Their footsteps echoed throughout the descending staircase, the bottom of their sneakers squeaking from the water as they pushed open the employee’s entrance open. The warmth of the corridor enveloped them like a heated blanket. “Well, I think we found your Russians, Dustin.”
[Y/N] scrutinized the polish on the table as she listened to Dustin speak. “The keycard opens the door, but unfortunately the Russian with this keycard also has a massive gun,” He explained the information he uncovered when he returned to the rooftop the following morning. She had scolded him as a mother would, even providing the dreadfully disappointed expression, when they were fueled by anger. “Whatever’s in this room, whatever’s in those boxes, they really don’t want anybody finding it.”
Robin fiddled with her ice cream scooper as Steve spun his sailor’s cap with his index finger. “But there’s got to be a way in.” She said, mostly to herself, as she considered the possible options. There couldn’t be one entrance and if there was, that would’ve been a severe fire hazard.
Steve casually tossed his cap onto the table. “Well, you know, I could just take him out.” He nonchalantly suggested. And that was an egotistical portion of Steve speaking—a portion of him that was also stupid.
[Y/N] stopped messing with the silver chain of her necklace. “Take who out?” She knew she shouldn’t have asked the question because, although removing the guard from the equation would’ve been a good idea if one of them were bulletproof, she knew he was being sincere.
“The Russian guard. Haven’t you been listening?”
She squeezed her eyes closed, an incredulous smile curving her lips. “Yeah, I’ve been listening. Just trying to process this amount of stupidity.”
“Oh, come on. I sneak up behind him, I knock him out, and I take his keycard. It’s easy.” And it was because of the delusion he made, entirely convinced he was some Terminator that could overpower a trained Russian guard, that she couldn’t help but laugh at him.
“Stevie, I think you’re forgetting the part where he has a massive gun and you’re not bulletproof.”
His expression deadpanned. “No, [Y/N], I remembered that part. That’s why I would be sneaking.” He slowly moved his two fingers as if they were a person creeping around the corner.
Dustin narrowed his eyes, his forearms crossed over each other. “Well, please, tell me this, and be honest, have you ever actually won a fight?” There was a silence for a moment as the three of them thought of when they had pressed an ice pack against the flushed bruises blossoming on his face and throwing away bloodstained tissues.
“Okay, that was one time—”
[Y/N]’s eyebrows rose at the understatement. “Twice with Jonathan.” She interrupted.
He rubbed his forehead. “That doesn’t count.”
Her face was screwed with confusion. “That definitely counts because, and I’m sorry to break it to you, he kicked your ass. Like, definitely beat the shit out of you.” Steve attempted to protest, but she continued. “You had a busted lip and your eye was swollen and there was a gross amount of blood—”
Robin’s eyes gleamed as she constructed an idea as the three of them bickered. She stood from her chair, the metal scraping against the floor, and grabbed her belongings. She pushed the back room door open and shoved her hand inside the clear tip jar. “What are you doing?” [Y/N] asked, watching as she jogged outside the parlor with a handful of cash.
Robin paused. “I need cash!”
Steve’s expression drooped as he saw the cash in her palm. “Well, half of that’s mine!” He nearly whined. “Where are you going?”
She placed her helmet on, clicking the strap on. “To find a way into that room. A safe way.” She shouted from across the room. “And in the meantime, sling ice cream, behave, and don’t get beat up. It’s her day off, she’s not allowed to help you, dingus!”
“It is fascinating what twenty bucks will get you at the County Recorder’s Office. Starcourt Mall. The complete blueprints.” Robin said as she unrolled the blueprints, flattening the blue and white paper on the table. “So, this is us, Scoops, and this is where we want to get.” She said, dragging her finger across the table.
Steve examined the detailed outline, shaking his head. “I don’t see a way in.” He said.
“There’s not if you’re exclusively talking about doors.” She removed the top layer of the blueprint, revealing the mall’s ventilation.
“Air ducts,” [Y/N] mumbled to herself.
Robin smiled brightly at her. “Exactly,” She said, grabbing a red marker from her whiteboard. “Turns out, this secret room needs air just like any old room. And these air ducts lead all the way here.” She traced a specific duct with the bright red ink, circling their final destination.
Steve grabbed the metal latter, firmly pressing it beneath the air vent near the ceiling. He accepted the screwdriver from [Y/N] and hurriedly unscrewed the screws securing the metal sheet. “Flashlight,” He said, extending his hand outward as he placed the ventilation sheet aside. He pressed the button and the air duct was illuminated with yellow light. “I don’t know, man. I don’t think you can fit in here. It’s like super tight.”
Dustin seemed unphased. “I’ll fit. Trust me,” He said as Steve descended the latter. “No collarbones, remember?”
Robin scrunched her face with confusion. “Um, excuse me?”
Steve hopped off the latter. “Oh, he’s got some disease. Uh, Chry-Chrydo…something. Yeah, I dunno. He’s missing bones and stuff. He can bend like Gumbo.”
Robin gave him a dirty look. “You mean Gumby?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s Gumbo.”
Dustin shouted from the vent, his voice echoing. “Steve, shut up and push me!” Steve rolled his eyes and stepped on the bottom step of the latter, pushing the bottom of his feet. “Not my feet, dumbass. Push my ass.”
“What—”
“Touch my butt! I don’t care!” Steve groaned with disgust as he climbed higher, apprehensively placing his palms on Dustin’s butt. “Come on! Harder! Push harder! You’re playing with my legs.”
Steve tossed his legs over his shoulder. “I’m not playing, I have terrible footing.” Dustin screeched with frustration as there was hardly any movement. “I’m just gonna shove you, okay? One, two…” And he shoved him, but there was only a creak in the vent.
Robin and [Y/N] watched the spectacle with disappointed expressions. From the register, the bell dinged repeatedly. “Ahoy, sailors! All hands on deck.” Erica pushed the small button on the bell over and over, motioning for someone to come around the counter. “Get over here and serve me some samples.”
[Y/N] and Robin shared a knowing look before dragging the little girl to the back. She protested, exclaiming she was going to tell someone to fire them, but once she saw Dustin descending the latter, she was intrigued. He handed her the flashlight and she stepped on the latter, climbing until she reached the top. The beam of light filled the vent as she briefly examined it before climbing back down. “Yeah, I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you can fit?” [Y/N] asked.
Erica’s face screwed with annoyance. “Oh, I can fit. I just don’t know if I want to.”
“Are you claustrophobic?” Robin asked, unamused.
She snickered. “I don’t have phobias.”
“Okay, what’s the problem?”
She slammed her palms on the table. “The problem is I still haven’t heard what’s in this for Erica!”
Erica was easily convinced if she were given free ice cream for the remainder of her life, which they readily agreed because they were only going to have this job for the remainder of the summer, and memorized the outline of the ventilation blueprints until the Starcourt Mall closed. The four of them rushed to the rooftop, leaving Erica in the Scoops Ahoy back room. The radio static popped from the walkie-talkie as Robin pressed the button. “Erica, do you copy?”
The young girl hummed in response. “I copy,” She responded, “You nerds in position or what?”
The four of them leaned against the rooftop’s edge, intently watching the loading dock and delivery area. “Yeah, we’re in position. It’s all quiet here, so you’ve got the green light.” Robin said softly. The loading dock where the group of armed guards was the other night was ominously empty.
“Green light, roger that.” Erica said, “Commence Operation Child Endangerment.”
Robin rolled her eyes. “Can we maybe not call it that?”
“See you on the other side, nerds.” [Y/N] sighed as the bottom of her sneakers scraped against the gravel of the rooftop. The fabric of her black bellbottom jeans was stained with dust as she scooted beside Steve. The minutes progressed and there still wasn’t a response from the young girl. The child endangerment possibility was becoming glaringly conceivable and the anxiety was coursing through. “All right, nerds. I’m there.”
Robin’s tense expression eased. “Do you see anything?”
There was a pause. “Yeah, I see those boring boxes you’re so excited about.”
“Any guards?”
“Negative.”
“Any booby traps?”
There was another pause, almost deadpanned. “If I could see them, they’d be pretty shit traps, wouldn’t they?”
Robin, knowing Erica was right, only slightly smiled. “Thank you for that.”
There was a loud bang, a grunt escaping her lips as she kicked the ventilation sheet from the wall. “I’m in.” Steve ran both of his hands through his hair as he breathed out a nervous breath. There was an alarm signaling the double doors were moving and Erica appeared from the room with a satisfied smirk. She placed a hand on her hip. “Free ice cream for life.”
They rushed to the delivery area and glanced around, ensuring there weren’t any wandering guards in the shadows, before closing the double doors behind them. Steve pulled out a pocket knife, flipping the blade out and slicing the tan-colored tape on the boxes. He yanked back the box flaps and opened it, revealing a strange metallic box with a handle with a small engraving that showed to twist it clockwise. Steve expelled a breath before twisting the handle, a low hiss escaping with a light fog flowing in the air. There, inside, were four smaller handles. “That’s definitely not Chinese food.” He glanced at the five of them. “Maybe you guys should stand back.” Robin rolled her eyes but moved away regardless of the theatrics with Erica beside her. Dustin remained put. “Dude, just step back.”
“No.”
“Step back.”
“No.”
“Seriously, step back.”
Dustin smacked his hand away. “No!” He shouted assertively. “If you die, I die.” The spectacle was theatrical, somewhat endearing as the younger teenager glared with an acute finality, but also unnecessary.
[Y/N] pushed Steve’s hand aside. “So dramatic,” She mumbled, interlocking her hand around one of the handles and pulling it out, another hiss emitting. When the item was fully out of the box, it was a thick glass vial with a neon green liquid inside, almost moving within. “What the fuck is this?”
There was a menacing rumble as the hinges and screws creaked as the small room shook. The five of them paused, glimpsing around the room as if there were something going to emerge. “Was that just me, or did the room move?” Dustin questioned, nervous shifting his weight on his feet. There was a thunderous mechanical whirring as the room rumbled again.
Robin’s expression was plastered with unease. “You know what, let’s just grab that and go.” She demanded, snatching the green vial from [Y/N]’s loosening grasp, and moved toward the double doors. Dustin flipped open the control panel, pressing the glowing blue button that said ‘Open Door’. He pressed the button again when there wasn’t an immediate response. The doors didn’t open.
The room filled with an obnoxious clicking sound as he repeatedly smashed the glowing button. “Which one do I press, Erica?”
She glared at him as if the answer was obvious, which it was. “Just press the button, nerd.”
He pressed the button once again. “Which one,” He blinked, wondering if he was seeing things incorrectly. “I’m pressing the button, okay? I’m pressing ‘Open Door’.”
Steve, exasperated with the lack of any progress, shoved him aside. “Press the other button!” He demanded, pressing his thumb against the same button as earlier.
[Y/N] appeared by them, pressing the glowing green one. “Maybe it’s this one?”
He gave her a look of disbelief. “That says ‘Close Door’, why would it be that one?”
She tore her harsh gaze from the control panel and glared at him. “I don’t know, Steve, maybe the Russians got confused with the translations!” She moved to press the wrong button again, but he gently smacked her hand away from the panel. “Would you just let me do it?”
“No, you clearly don’t know what you’re doing—” Steve slammed his palm on the smallest button in the middle of the panel and the double doors were barricaded by a scarlet-red barrier. The fluorescent lights flickered before a mechanical whirring trembled the room. There was a stomach-churning drop. This was an unfamiliar speed, something from a rollercoaster, and there weren’t any restraints. “We’re going down! We’re doing down!” Steve screamed, covering [Y/N]’s cowering figure.
She crouched beneath his shrouding arms, her hair flowing upward. “Really, Steve, what gave you that idea?!” Her back was pressed against the metal shelves as Steve enwrapped his arms around her as much as he could. Her hands crumpled his uniform as she gripped the fabric tightly.
Dustin slammed the random buttons. “Why don’t these buttons work?” He screamed, his voice frightened and high-pitch.
Erica rushed forward. “Push the button!”
“What do you think I’m doing?!”
The room jolted with a shattering finality and the five of them collapsed onto the floor with a pained scream. [Y/N] shrieked as she landed on top of Steve, her knee accidentally shoving into his crotch. He groaned, his pale skin reddening as her forehead bumped into his. “My groin,” He strained out, “You fell on my groin. I need you to get off me, please.” If the situation were different, and they weren’t locked inside a Russian base’s elevator, Steve would savor the weight of [Y/N]’s body on top of him, her hair brushing against his face, and have her lips inches away from him. But, the dull pain of his groin being squished clouded his thoughts.
She glanced down where her knee was pressed against and scrambled off of him. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” He released a strained groan as she stood, carefully pulling him from the floor. “Are you okay?”
Steve grimaced as he straightened, concentrated ire on his face. “Yeah, I’m great, now that I know Russians can’t design elevators!” He charged ahead and quite literally tossed Dustin aside, slamming the control panel open with a bang.
“I think we’ve clearly established those buttons don’t work,” Robin said, her chest heaving as she wiped the dampness on her forehead with the back of her hand.
Steve threw his arms into the air. “They’re buttons. They have to do something!”
“Yeah, if we had a keycard!” Robin interjected, “It’s an electronic lock. Same as the loading dock door. If we don’t have a keycard, it won’t operate.”
[Y/N] examined the thick wall concealing the double doors warily. “Meaning we’re stuck in here.”
Erica stepped forward. “Just so you nerds are aware, I’m supposed to be spending the night at Tina’s, and Tina always covers for me. But if I’m not home for Uncle Jack’s party tomorrow and my mom finds out you four are responsible, she’s gonna hunt you down, one by one, and slit your throat.”
Steve, unconcerned by the blatant threat and whining of the small girl, slammed his palms onto the discarded cardboard boxes. “I don’t care about Tina or Uncle Jack’s party! Your mom’s not gonna be able to find us if we’re dead in a Russian elevator!” He shouted with a glower.
Erica recoiled from the severity of Steve’s tone and Dustin jutted an index finger at the evacuation hatch on the ceiling. “What if we climbed out?”
Steve chanced a small glance where [Y/N] spoke with Robin across the elevator, the exhaustion swirling inside her droopy gaze as they analyzed the control panel. He couldn’t decipher exactly what they were whispering in hushed tones, but there was a glimmer of hope they were talking about him. He caught Robin leaning close to [Y/N]’s ear, stealing a noticeable glimpse toward him when she thought he wasn’t looking. He couldn’t see [Y/N]’s reaction to whatever was said.
He stood from the floor, wiping his palms on the fabric of his uniform, before climbing the shelves beside the evacuation hatch. As he neared the opening, he could hear Dustin speaking into the walkie-talkie and repeating the same sentence he had been saying for an hour. “Gotta take it easy on that thing. You’re going to drain the battery.”
Dustin whirled around, facing Steve’s ascending figure. “The mall just opened. Someone can be in range.”
His face scrunched with annoyance. “What do you think? Petey the Mall Cop is gonna rappel down here and save the day?” The metal of the elevator creaked as Steve swung his leg over the opening and stood on his feet.
The younger boy scowled at the harsh sarcasm dripping from his voice. “Why are you such in a bad mood after getting to spend the night with [Y/N] ?”
Steve’s eyes widened as his voice traveled between the walls. He brought his index finger to his mouth and shushed him loudly. “Jesus Christ, will you stop trying to play matchmaker? It’s never happening.”
“I heard you guys talking all night,” Dustin said much quieter, unphased by the theatrics.
“Dude, you were listening in on our conversation? We were just trying to figure a way out of here.” He corrected, slowly maneuvering his way over the elevator’s wires. Which wasn’t a complete lie, just not the entire truth. “After eight hours, we’re still exactly nowhere, which is probably just a little bit of the reason I’m feeling just a tad cranky.” He hopped, undoing his belt and unzipping his shorts.
Dustin’s eyes widened with horror. “What are you doing?” He asked, his voice echoing.
Steve peered over his shoulder, eyebrows pressed together. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m taking a leak. Look away!”
[Y/N] and Robin spoke in hushed whispers as they tried analyzing the control panel. [Y/N] spun around, handing her Steve’s switchblade that fell from his pocket. Across the elevator, a stream of liquid poured down the wall. She narrowed her eyes with confusion, then disgust. “Move your dick over there, your pee is gonna leak onto the floor!” The trickle of urine moved in away in a jagged line. A clanking sound filled the room and [Y/N]’s eyes widened as Erica was attempting to crack open the green vial. “Are you trying to kill us? We don’t even know what that is!”
Robin snatched the tube from her hand. “Exactly. It could be useful.” Erica protested. “We can survive down here a long time without food, but if the human body doesn’t get water, it will die.”
“Thank you, Erica, but I took third-grade science, and drinking this will probably kill us faster. It’s obviously not water.”
As the two girls bickered about the science of water consumption, Robin noticed a distant electrical humming approaching. She pressed her ear against the metal wall, her eyes widened as she heard the faint sound of voices. “We’ve got company,” She whispered, the three of them rushing to the hatch. Upon noticing their concerned expressions and quickened pace, Steve pulled them up, hurriedly closing the hatch before the elevator’s door opened. Two men entered, sniffing the air as they spoke in Russian. One of them blew a puff of smoke from his cigarette as they grabbed and moved some of the Imperial Panda boxes. As they returned back onto their small car and drove away, Steve yanked the green vial from Erica’s grasp and jumped down the hatch, throwing himself onto the floor and placing the green vial between the floor and closing the elevator door.
“Hurry up, let’s go!” He tossed Erica’s backpack under the small crevice, pushing her by the bottom of her shoes, doing the same with Dustin and Robin. But as [Y/N] scooted beneath the elevator door, elbows rubbing against the floor until they burned, the green vial began to crack. Steve gave her one more shove and she rolled over onto her stomach. Pushing herself onto her knees, she pulled Steve’s arms and successfully got him out before the vial shattered with a hiss. A green ooze splashed as the glass splintered into pieces, burning the floor with smoke. Whatever was inside the vial was extremely acidic and seeping through concrete.
“Holy mother of God,” Dustin mumbled beneath his breath and they turned to face his direction, expressions frowning as the only path was a long corridor and they couldn’t see the end. The corridor was illuminated in blue fluorescent light, making it much more ominous.
Their skins were damp with sweat as they trudged forward, the blue light enveloping them as they moved forward inside the long stretched hallway. They all spoke about a variety of different topics as they walked through the corridor that didn’t seem to end. But it wasn’t until they began speaking about why Hawkins was chosen for some secret lab, that Steve, Dustin, and [Y/N] realized this might have been connected with the Upside Down.
Hours must’ve passed after they fastened their pace, somehow approaching the end where the corridor split into two different directions. Steve stepped forward, moving around the corner of the wall before someone drove past in a small vehicle. He quickly disappeared from view and pushed them behind a small storage unit, hiding from sight. They waited until the vehicle’s engine disappeared into nothingness before Steve peeked around the unit, motioning for them to follow him. “Okay, clear.” He whispered, “Come on, let’s go.”
“That was close.” Robin breathed out.
“Too close,” Dustin whispered.
Steve, although distressed from the close encounter, eased their concerns. “Relax, nobody saw us…” His voice trailed off as they turned around a corner, their breaths hitching as their adrenaline spiked. There, merely a few feet away, was what appeared to be the center of the underground lab, suffused with armed guards and scientists with pristine lab coats. The voices echoed through the large space, everyone wearing some form of uniform as they moved with casualness. When a guard on the upper section glanced their way, his hands wrapped around a large gun, they threw themselves behind a red cart.
[Y/N] crouched behind the cart, her face inches from Steve’s as they slowed their panicked breathing. “I saw it. First floor, northwest.” Erica whispered, “The comms room.”
[Y/N] slightly peeked around the handle of the cart. “Are you sure?” She asked, trying to find something that resembled what she was picturing as the comms room. She couldn’t see much through the roaming scientists and guards.
Erica nodded. “Positive. The door was open for a second and I saw a bunch of lights and machines and shit in there.”
“That could be a hundred different things,” Dustin whispered, incredulous.
Robin swallowed nervously. “I’ll take those odds.”
They peered around the corner and once they all knew where the location was, they moved back. “We’re gonna move fast, we’re gonna stay low,” Steve whispered and they all nodded in understanding. Crouching, they nearly crawled behind a large metal crate, waiting as the Russian voices walked across the room, then behind a bulky machine. A scientist unlocked the door and ignorantly walked away, his eyes focused on his file. Steve waved the five of them over. “Let’s go.” He shoved his hand between the door and successfully prevented it from closing. He silently closed the door as soon as they were all in behind him.
A guard swiveled around and his eyes widened as he saw them inside the room, tearing off his thick headphones. He stood on his feet, confused eyes moving between the five of them. His hand hastily encircled around his holster. Robin instinctively rushed forward, her palm extended outward, shouting something in Russian. [Y/N] recognized the Russian words from the message they decoded. The man froze, responding and appearing even more confused. Robin tried again, the desperation evident on her flushed face but the guard wasn’t convinced by the nonsense she was spewing. He unbuttoned his holster, yanking his gun out.
Steve moved before he could even process what his body was doing. He shouted an animalistic sound, sprinting forward at full speed and wrapping his arms around the guard, slamming him into the counter where he was working. The guard pulled him off his waist and tossed Steve onto the table beside them, throwing a heavy punch Steve barely dodged. The man latched onto fingers onto Steve’s uniform, throwing him onto another table. Steve shot his elbow out into his rib, grabbing a metallic phone before smoothly moving it to his hand and colliding it against the guard’s temple. The man groaned as he fell back and smashed his head onto the table behind him, blood staining his skin as he collapsed onto the floor.
Steve breathed heavily as he ran his fingers through his hair. “Dude! You did it,” Dustin yelled with a wide grin. “You won a fight!” The exhilaration was flowing through him as his body ached and his chest burned with every breath. He didn’t even process Dustin’s exclamation until he tore his exhausted gaze from the unconscious guard. He expelled a heavy sigh as he took in the wide-eyed sight of [Y/N] . And as she rushed toward him with a small, yet amazed, smile, he knew it was worth it.
Dustin stole the keycard from the guard’s belt and [Y/N] inspected Steve with worried eyes. Her shaking hands checked his face, pushing his hair away as she analyzed him as Erica and Dustin argued. “Are you okay?” She asked, still unconvinced there was some injury.
Steve grabbed her wrists gently. “Yeah, I’m okay. I promise.” He couldn’t contain the small smile at her concern.
Robin nearly tripped down the stairs from across the room. “Guys, there’s something up there!” They ascended the staircase and a bright, flickering blue glow seeped through the square window on the door. Steve opened the door and they slowly entered after him.
The sight was something pulled from a sci-fi movie; a huge glowing machine that hummed loudly as it spun, scientists wearing lab coats and radioactive gear walking around the machine as they inserted the green vials into the crackling machine, and it oozed with electricity as a bright beam shot at the concrete wall, a portal tearing through. “It’s the gate,” [Y/N] mumbled, closing her eyes as terrifying reality hit her; the Russians were opening The Gate. “We need to get out of here.”
There wasn’t any objection from any of them as they opened the door and descended the staircase. “I don’t understand. You’ve seen this before?”
“Not exactly, just know this isn’t good.” [Y/N] could feel the familiar fear coursing through her as she nearly tripped on the last step. “We need to do something. A lot of people are going to die if we don’t!” She shouted, her quivering hand squeezing Steve’s shoulder.
“And you know about this how?”
Erica glimpsed at the area where the guard lay unconscious and all there was left was a blood stain. “Uh, Steve? Where’s your Russian friend?”
As soon as the words were said, an alarm blared and a flashing red light filled the room. Steve cursed, sprinting to the door and opening it. Across the room, a group of armed guards huddled around the stumbling and bleeding man. They screamed as they noticed Steve from the doorway. He slammed the door closed. “Go! Go! Go!” They sped up the staircase and stormed the portal room, ignoring the questioning glares they earned from the scientists.
The guards shouted at them as they chucked the scientists aside and followed the five as they ran along the machine’s walkway. They could feel the heat of electricity crackling and they could barely hear anything over the blue beam shooting into the wall. “HOLY SHIT!” Dustin screamed as he nearly stumbled off the pathway before [Y/N] yanked him back by his collar.
Steve circled around, spotting another path down a small staircase. “THIS WAY!” They thoughtlessly followed him as he shoved a guard over the railing. A pair of guards appeared from an entrance and [Y/N] screamed, slamming her body into a pile of metal barrels at them. The barrel collapsed onto them and they were squished on the floor. Steve pulled her to her feet and they continued sprinting until they poured into an empty room. Steve planted his sneakers on the floor, struggling to keep the guards from opening the door.
Dustin and Erica lifted a loose panel on the floor, revealing a small escape route. [Y/N] pressed her back into the door, her boots squeaking as the force of the pounding guards was slowly pushing her. “Guys, let’s go!” Dustin shouted, helping Erica and Robin into the secret passage.
“No! Get out of here!”
“Steve, come on!”
Steve exchanged a worried look with [Y/N], who was moments from being thrown from the door, and she frowned, nodding. “Just go get some help!” Dustin hesitated but jumped inside the passage and yanked it closed. As soon as they disappeared from view, the guards gave one final shove and the two of them were thrown onto the floor. They barreled in, aiming a variety of weapons at them. [Y/N] attempted to shove her face into Steve’s arms, knowing it was futile and it wasn’t going to help them, but a guard grabbed her hair, dragging her away from him. She screamed, scratching at his hands but his grasp only tightened. Steve lurched forward, but a guard’s boot kicked his jaw.
Specks of blackness clouded her blurred vision. The pain was unbearable as they jabbed [Y/N]’s stomach until the air was seized from her lungs, punched her face until saliva and blood trickled down her chin and stained her clothes, and slapped her until there was a red handprint bruised on her cheek. She knew she should have answered their questions, she should have explained this was an entire misunderstanding, but something told her she wasn’t going to leave regardless. They interrogated her until the questions were seared into her brain and she flinched as soon as the man inched closer. Tears streamed down her bruised cheeks, mixing with the dripping blood. She sobbed, each erratic breath felt like she was breathing in burning flames. She didn’t know how much time had passed when she grabbed her arms, pulled her from the chair, and dragged her down a hallway. To scream and plead seemed useless as they all continued with their idle tasks as she wept.
They opened a door, carelessly releasing her limp body onto the floor with a harsh thud. She struggled to breathe as her face collided with the floor and her restrained hands were raw from how much she uselessly tugged on them. Beside her laid Steve, bloodied and unconscious. She groaned as she pushed herself off the floor, crouching close to his face she tried nudging him. “Steve? Steve, come on, wake up.” Her voice was hoarse as she spoke, the desperation for him was seeping through her. She had never experienced this intensity of fear as she attempted to nudge his limp body again. He wouldn’t respond, his eyes were swollen and unreactive. She was hoping he would rustle awake, and mutter something about her breath smelling horrible, but he didn’t move. She couldn’t even check his pulse.
A loud buzzer was heard as the military-grade door opened, revealing an older soldier. The way he entered the room and the medallions were sewn into his uniform told her he was dripping with power. She glared at his approaching figure with undiluted hatred. “What did you do to him?” The words burned her throat as she screamed at him and he was momentarily surprised she finally spoke. But he eyed her as if she were nothing but a speck of dust, an inconvenience. She groaned as he backhanded her, ordering the two guards behind him and besides the doorway.
Two small chairs were swiveled to the middle of the room and the guards clumsily placed them both on the seats, back to back, and fastened a secure restraint around them. [Y/N] tried to wiggle free, but she could barely move her own limbs. The older soldier gripped Steve’s damp hair, pulling his bloodied face upward. “Don’t you fucking touch him!” She sneered with venom. The crimson blood stained her teeth as she bared them. He tsk’d and shook his head disapprovingly, releasing Steve’s hair. He pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket, wiping the blood and sweat from his hand. “Steve, Stevie, can you hear me?”
“I think your boyfriend needs a doctor. Good thing we have the very best” The soldier said, circling around to face her. He rested his palms on his knees, leaning inches away from her face until she could smell the tobacco from his breath. “I’m so glad you choose to speak now.” [Y/N], although barely functioning from the pain, spit on his face. She watched with hazy satisfaction as the bloody saliva trickled down his face and stopped his cruel laughter. He wiped away the mess from his face with the white cloth, his wrinkly eyes flaring with fury. “You’re going to regret that, little bitch.” A wide and twisted smile rose on his thin lips as he straightened and exited the room without another word, locking the door behind him.
Her breathing was slow and deliberate as she looked around the desolate room, faintly wheezing with each exhale. The warm blood cascaded down her bruised skin. There was a silver tray across the room beside the examination bed and a moveable lamp. As she glanced around, evaluating the large locks on the door, she was overwhelmed by the hopelessness coursing through her. She couldn’t move with numbing restraints and each movement ignited a blistering ache. Her eyes glistened as she smelled the copper stench from behind her as Steve’s loose mouth leaked. She squeezed her eyes closed, the tears streaming down her face. She remained like that for what felt like hours but must’ve been minutes, and leaned as close as she could to him.
There was a faint shuffle behind her. “You okay, princess?” Steve mumbled.
Her eyes flew open at the unexpected sound of his low voice and gasped with relief. “Steve, Oh, my God,” Her soaking tears fluttered as she tried peering over her shoulder to see him. The agony was still rampant, unwavering, but something eased within her knowing he was okay. “Are you okay?”
His breathing hitched as he listened to the hoarseness of her voice. “My ears are ringing, and I can’t really breathe, my eye feels it’s about to pop out of my skull, but you know, apart from that, I’m doing pretty good.” He knew there was something seriously wrong if she was sobbing behind him, quivering as if the room were filled with ice, and the potent stench of blood filled the air.
She chuckled, choking back a threatening cry. “Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.” She said, but she wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince him or herself. “They’re calling us a doctor.” She informed sarcastically, almost laughing despite the severity of the situation.
Steve swallowed, glimpsing around through the blur. “Is this his place of work?” He asked, chuckling at his own joke. “I love the vibe. Charming.”
She laughed, which sounded more like a huff of air, and realized how much she needed to hear him. The unknowing of his well-being, wondering even for a split second if he was even alive, was the worst terror she had ever experienced. But they weren’t going to survive here, so they needed to escape. “What I’m about to suggest is going to hurt, but we’ve gotta work together. There’s a table to your right and there’s a pair of scissors, if we move at the same time, we could maybe get over there and knocked them onto your lap or something.”
“And I could cut the binds.”
She struggled to smile at the vitality in his voice. “Exactly. See, you’re not just a pretty face.”
“Those morons left scissors in here?”
“Definitely morons.” She wheezed a small laugh, and she coughed a thick blood clot, not bothering to care about the blood dripping down her face. “Okay, on the count of three, we’re gonna hop.”
Although she couldn’t see him, she could feel him nod to himself. “Okay, good, hop on three. I gotcha.”
“One, two, three.” They used their remaining strength to hop and inch to the side. “Okay, that worked! Let’s do it again. One, two, three. Holy shit, it’s working! Again.”
They hopped, but the weight was unbalanced and they landed wrong. The chairs slipped and they collapsed onto their sides. [Y/N] groaned as her temple smacked the concrete. Steve breathed out a wavering sigh and she choked on the threatening sobs. He froze, struggling to peer over his shoulder. “It’s okay, princess.” His soft voice reassured her. “Don’t cry.”
A small puddle of blood pooled beneath her cheek. “It’s not okay, I’m practically choking on my own blood here, we don’t even know if the kids and Robin got out, and we’re going to die in this fucking secret Russian underground base.”
His eyes closed as he listened to the bleakness behind her words. “We’re not gonna die,” He said, but he wasn’t certain he believed his own words. “We’re gonna get out of here, okay? I promise I’m going to get you out of here.” This wasn’t supposed to happen. They were supposed to be American Heroes, plastered on the newspapers for saving the country, but [Y/N] was broken and bleeding. The only woman he’d ever known to literally radiate sunshine was shattering beside him.
A soul-shattering weep tore through her, the putrid smell of her own blood seeping into the air. She tried to slow her breathing, focusing on her thoughts and memories instead of the blinding pain. “Do you remember our first conversation back in sophomore year?” She apprehensively asked. He muttered something beneath his breath. The question was random, but he knew she was asking to tether herself to reality. “You were at basketball practice, I was at cheerleading practice, and you guys kept throwing the balls in our section of the court. I think you guys were trying to get our attention, but you only pissed us off. I yelled at you, calling you every name I could think of and all you did was smirk and tell me to go back to shaking my pom-poms. You were such an asshole around your friends.”
Steve closed his eyes, listening to the story. “I know.” He said softly.
“But it didn’t even matter because you showed up at my locker the next day and apologized. You, Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington, waited all morning by my locker so you could say sorry.” The slice on her lower lip stung as she smiled, remembering the spectacle of Steve Harrington casually against her locker with all the confidence in the world. “I told you to go fuck yourself and you still cheered me on during my cheer solo at the game. I don’t know how we became friends, but I think it was because you liked that you didn’t have to be so uptight with me. You got rid of your ‘King Steve’ facade and you were just my Stevie. You weren’t concerned with all that popularity shit and you were just you.”
Steve didn’t speak immediately, only remembering the words Dustin had told him earlier. He was enthralled with his appearance, his clique, and basketball that he didn’t even consider anything that made him genuinely happy. “It just baffles that everything that people tell you is important, everything that people say you should care about, it’s all just bullshit. But I guess you gotta mess up to figure things out, right? ” He chuckled humorlessly. “I wish I wasn’t such an asshole to you back in high school because maybe, just maybe, we could’ve become friends sooner and things would’ve been different for both of us. I needed you to shake me and yell in my face, ‘Steve, none of this shit matters. Get your life together and maybe instead of being here, I’d be on my way to college right now.”
He could hear the curve of her lips as she spoke. “And I’d be in fashion school and wouldn’t be scooping ice cream with some asshole.”
Steve laughed, ignoring the sharp pain. “Gotta say, though, I liked being your Stevie. It was fun while it lasted.”
Her smile wavered. Your Stevie. She hadn’t even considered how much she liked hearing him say that. “It was.”
The buzzer rang through the room and the door unlocked, revealing the older soldier. He examined them laying against the floor and chuckled at the sight. “Where were you two going?” He clicked his tongue disapprovingly. The two goons easily picked them up from the floor, returning them back to their original position. He leaned closer to Steve’s bruised face. “Try telling the truth this time, yes? It will make your visit with Dr. Zharkov less painful.” He nodded for the doctor to commence with whatever their plans were. He stepped aside, moving closer to where [Y/N] was seated, and cocked his head menacingly. “You can sit and watch this time. You are too sick.”
She didn’t even have time to process what he’d meant by ‘too sick’. A man wearing white medical attire raised a gun-like machine, displaying a large needle with a vial of blue liquid. Steve screamed as the man punctured his neck, the vial injecting into his bloodstream with a hiss. “Honestly, I don’t feel anything.” He blinked away the dwelling tears away. “I feel kinda good. Morons messed up the drug” He revealed, erupting in a fit of giggles.
His cheeks began to throb from how much he was laughing. A wave of nausea overcame her as she struggled to keep her eyes open. “Something’s wrong,” She muttered, licking the dried blood from her lips. The buzzer sound came and the door unlocked, revealing the same crew. The doctor slammed a black bag onto his table, removing the contents one by one.
The soldier glared at Steve, his hands behind his back. “Let’s try this again,” He said, “Who do you work for?”
“Scoops,” Steve struggled to keep the laughter inside. “Scoops Ahoy.”
“How did you find us?”
Steve chuckled. “Totally by accident.” The soldier spat something Russian and Dr. Zharkov retrieved a tool from his array and attached the end to Steve’s fingernail. “Wait, whoa, wait, wait!”
“It was a code!” [Y/N] shouted, “We heard a code! ‘The week is long. The silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west. You can’t be surprised someone overheard that stupid shit because you broadcast it all over town and we cracked your dumb spy code in a fucking day! How does that make your ego feel knowing a couple of stupid kids who scoop ice cream cracked your code and now, people know you’re here!”
His face flushed with rage. “Who knows we are here, little bitch?”
She sneered, sweat beading around her forehead. “Guess you’ll find out, you cunt—” Dr. Zharkov embedded a small makeshift knife into her thigh. She screamed like a wailing banshee as the blade tore through her skin and her eyes were blinded with darkness as the suffering was unlike anything she’d ever felt. The blood trickled down her skin, and the fabric of her clothes was damp with her own blood.
“Who knows we are here?!”
Steve glanced over his shoulder with wide and paranoid eyes. “Dustin knows,” Before she could strain through the black specks overcoming her and scream for him to keep his mouth shut, he continued. “Dustin Henderson knows”
“Dustin Henderson,” The soldier said, his accent thick. “It is your small, curly-haired friend?”
“Oh, curly-haired. Great hair. Small. Kind of like a ‘fro.” Steve knew all of this was wrong, but he couldn’t stop talking. The words were barely forming inside his jumbled head before they escaped him like vomit.
“Where is he?”
“He’s long gone, you big asshole. And he’s probably calling Hopper, and Hopper’s calling the US Cavalry. They’re gonna come in here, commando-style, guns a-blazing, and kick your sorry asses back to Russia. You’re gonna be two pieces of toast.” An emergency alarm began blaring throughout the base, a flashing red light catching their attention. The soldier straightened at the blinking lights and his expression hardened before he disappeared out the door.
Moments passed when the door was slammed open and Dustin sprinted inside, shoving an electric stick into the chest of Dr. Zharkov. He convulsed before collapsing onto the floor. “Henderson!” Steve exclaimed, “That’s crazy, I was just talking about you. Look, you gotta help [Y/N].”
Robin appeared from the doorway, her eyes widening with fear as she took in the twisted sight of [Y/N] soaked with blood, bruised, and basically broken. She collapsed onto the floor, hastily undoing her restraints. Erica stepped inside the interrogation room and the constantly annoyed facade dropped as she saw Robin’s shaking hands covered with dark scarlet. As soon as the restraints around her hands were removed, [Y/N] brought a weak hand toward the blade protruding from her thigh. She weakly wrapped her hand around the handle, squeezing her eyes tightly until the tears streamed down her face. Before she could begin thinking of the pain, she yanked the blade out and screamed until her throat ached. “We’re gonna have to run, okay?” She could barely hear Robin speak over the constant thumping in her head. She latched her loose arm around her shoulders, guiding her through the maze of corridors. The walls were blending together, a dark and hazy mush as she limped.
Dustin struggled to keep Steve upright as they rushed through the flashing red light. Robin gripped onto [Y/N] tightly, her hands slipping from her grasp occasionally as the blood made it slippery. She whispered reassuring nothings as they moved through the corridors, telling her they were only a couple of feet away and to keep her eyes open. She stopped moving as they neared the small vehicle they had stolen, carefully opening the back door and placing [Y/N] inside. Dustin, however, tossed Steve into the back of a red vehicle and didn’t waste any time driving as quickly as they could.
[Y/N] brought her clenched fist to her mouth to refrain from screaming out as they jolted against the metal barrier on the back of the vehicle. “Jesus, slow down!” Steve slurred.
“Dustin, watch out!” Erica shouted as he crashed the vehicle into a pile of barrels.
[Y/N]’s head clashed against the metal barrier and she groaned as she leaned into Steve’s chest. The three of them hopped off the vehicle and unlocked the door. “Come on, let’s go!” Dustin shouted, confused as to why Steve wasn’t in any rush to leave. He yanked on Steve’s ankle, dragging him out and Robin carefully pulled [Y/N] from the back, nearly slipping on her blood. “Here goes nothing,” Dustin muttered to himself as he shoved the keycard into the slot for the elevator. The light turned green and the elevator door opened. The five of them hurried inside and the room immediately began jolting upward.
Steve stood on a metal platform with wheels on the bottom, struggling to balance and remain upright. “Dustin, I’m surfing!” The three of them ignored Steve’s antics as Robin pressed onto her thigh, apologizing as she applied pressure. Erica pulled a sweater out from her My Little Pony backpack and Robin swiftly cut the fabric with Steve’s pocketknife. She wrapped the fabric around her thigh, pulling tightly and making a tourniquet.
“This is ridiculous! You’re still so pretty even all bloodied and bruised. That shouldn’t be possible.” Steve spoke, confused as to what was even happening. Everything was moving quickly and he couldn’t think properly.
[Y/N] struggled to move closer to the elevator wall, a wave of nausea moving through her. “You got a thing for blood and tears, Harrington?” She questioned through clenched teeth, avoiding looking at the bloodied wound.
He giggled. “If it’s on you, then yeah.”
Erica watched him behave erratically. “He seems drunk.” She commented.
Robin wiped the blood from her hands as much as she could manage. “Why would he be drunk?” She asked absentmindedly, her attention centralized on the redness stained on her skin. He misplaced his footing on the moving platform and he slipped off, collapsing onto the floor with a thud. Robin kneeled beside him, placing her hand on his forehead. “He’s burning up.”
Steve didn’t even seem to be understanding the severity of the situation. “How am I burning up? She’s the hot one!” His limp hand pointed at where [Y/N] leaned against the wall, breathing shakily. Her skin was blanched, damp with sweat as she struggled to keep her eyes open. But she chuckled lightly at the delirious remark.
Dustin leaned beside him, ignoring his complaints as he pried his hands away and forcefully pulled his eyelid upward. “His pupils are super dilated.” He said. Steve booped the tip of his nose as Dustin slightly slapped his cheek. “Come on, knock it off.”
[Y/N] gripped Robin’s hand, her weak grasp wavered as she released a shaky breath. “He was drugged.” She mumbled, her mouth suddenly felt dry. “They injected him with something.”
“How many times, dad? I don’t do drugs. It’s only marijuana.” Steve slurred, struggling to blink normally.
Robin swiped the beads of sweat on [Y/N]’s pale forehead. “I think she’s internally bleeding.” She commented and the harshness of their reality intensified as she realized her friend was slowly dying on the floor of a Russian elevator.
Steve smiled widely. “That’s good! That’s where the blood’s supposed to be.”
The amount of crippling stress flowing through Dustin wasn’t something a thirteen-year-old boy was supposed to experience. One of his best friends, someone he even considered an annoying older brother, was drugged and could possibly overdose. Another one of his best friends, someone he thought of as an older sister who would do anything for him, was bleeding out on the floor and there wasn’t anything he could do. He shook his head. “They’re going to be looking for us up there, so we need to know where you parked your car.” He asked Steve.
Steve booped his nose again. “Can we make a pit stop at the food court?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever. You can have as much food as you want, but only if you tell me where you parked your car.”
Steve’s face fell. “The Russians took my car keys,” He said, emptying out his pockets to reveal nothing inside them.
“Shit.”
There was only one rule Steve was given: watch the premiere of the movie and don’t go anywhere. Dustin and Erica were supposed to be babysitting him, perched only a row away from him, while Robin tried to clean [Y/N] as much as she could inside the restroom. But when Robin apprehensively left her alone to call for Dustin’s assistance, Steve inevitably became bored with a movie he didn’t understand. He stole a small glance where the three of them spoke in hushed whispers and when he saw they were distracted, he snuck out of the movie theatre. It wasn’t until long before the blinding lights and nausea overpowered him and he could feel the chunks of popcorn threatening to come out. He sprinted inside the bathroom, completely overlooked [Y/N]’s near-unconscious body, and vomited inside the toilet.
As he flushed the chunks of throw-up, he flopped onto the floor and rested his head against the bathroom stall. “Did you puke it all up?” [Y/N] questioned, propped against the tiles of the bathroom wall. She watched as he wiped the vomit away from his mouth with a piece of toilet paper.
When his sober gaze landed on her, a wave of blinding rage and concern crashed through him. He had seen her condition when they were in the back of the vehicle, zooming through the base’s corridors and bumping their skulls because of Dustin’s driving, but he was barely registering everything. “I don’t know,” He mumbled, his eyes moving across her. She was pale, her eyes sunken eyes were bloodshot and smudged, her face bloodied and bruised. There was a large handprint across her face, her bottom lip split, and there was so much blood staining her skin.
She swallowed the lump lodged within her throat. “That bad, huh?” She whispered, briefly closing her eyes. She had never seen him stare at her with such emotion before.
“You’ve never looked better.” It was such a blatant lie, horrifically untrue, but she was so thankful for the moment of normality.
She clutched her side pathetically. “I don’t think you threw up all of that drug.” She said, the corners of her bloodstained lips rose.
He pushed himself from the tiles of the bathroom floor and scooted across the small distance, sitting beside her. She placed her temple on his shoulder, leaning against him as she encircled her arm around his. “Test it out yourself. Ask me anything.” He didn’t know where Robin or Dustin was, probably trying to devise a plan where they could escape alive, but he knew he was all she had at that moment.
He was expecting a lighthearted question, something to distract her from this unfortunate reality while they waited, but as she glanced upward at him, peering at him with her doe-eyes and exhaustion, she asked him something he didn’t think he would have to answer: ‘Have you ever been in love?’
Steve thought about the question. The answer was simple: Of course, he had and everyone knew of his heartbreak when she chose another guy over him. So he sighed and interlaced his hand with her bloodstained one. “Yeah, Nancy Wheeler. First semester, senior year.” Thinking of the memories with her, it felt like lifetimes ago.
And she asked the question he didn’t even want to think of: ‘Are you still in love with Nancy Wheeler?’ He thought and the revelation was like lightning coursing through his veins. He could feel the depleting warmth escape her hand as she held him tightly as she waited for his answer. He glanced down at her and it was like he was seeing her for the first time, and despite being covered in darkening shades of lilac and green, the darkness of her own blood drenched on her skin, she was painfully beautiful and his stomach lurched. He didn’t love Nancy Wheeler anymore. So he answered truthfully. “No.”
Her dazed gaze appeared almost expectant. “Why?”
The question was simple and he already knew the answer. He had known the answer for years and it was looking straight at him. “I think it’s because I found someone who’s a little bit better for me.” He reluctantly admitted, “Ever since Dustin got home, he’s been saying, ‘You know, you’ve gotta make a move. You gotta make a move.’ And the girl I like is someone I never would have talked to in school because she was so out of my league. And I didn’t, I crushed on her from afar, until she cussed me out at basketball practice in front of all my friends and I was a goner. I never should have tried to move on from her with Nancy. I should have just made a move with her.
Because she’s so funny. I feel like, this summer, I have laughed harder than I have laughed in a really long time. And she’s brave, way braver than me. She took a beating from a Russian soldier and cussed him out after. And she’s so pretty and when she looks at me, I forget how to breathe. She’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met before.” He glanced down at her, eyebrows furrowing with concern when he noticed her eyes were closed. He shook her gently. “[Y/N]?” A flicker of concern flashed through him.
Her eyes fluttered open at the movement. “I was listening, just trying to stop the room from spinning.” Her voice was soft as she spoke and she carefully laid her head against his thighs, whimpering through clenched teeth at the pain the small movement made. “I think this guy is on Russian drugs and isn’t thinking straight.”
Steve smoothed the loose strands of hair on her head. “Really? Because I think he’s thinking a lot more clearly than usual.” This wasn’t exactly how he wanted this conversation to happen. If he ever did manage to discover the courage to reveal his feelings for her, he didn’t think it would happen because she was slowly losing consciousness after being beaten by Russian soldiers.
Her eyes slowly blinked as she breathed a shaky breath. “You’re unbelievable, Steve Harrington.” She mumbled, focusing her bleary gaze on the stitching of his stained uniform. She squeezed his hand as tightly as she could manage and chuckled breathlessly. “You’re going to tell me this all over again when we get out of here, okay? You’re going to pour your stupid heart out to me when I’m not dying on a bathroom floor.”
He smiled, ignoring the sharp pain from his split lip. “I’ll write it down and everything.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but the nausea was intense and she quickly straightened, wincing as she hastily crawled against the floor to the toilet. Leaning against the porcelain of the toilet seat, she vomited. She gagged violently, tears stinging her eyes as the water sloshed around. Steve rushed ahead, gathering her hair from her face, and soothingly rubbed her shoulder as she continued throwing up. She yanked a strip of toilet paper, wiping the remnants off her skin. Her eyebrows pinched together with confusion as the stains on the paper were tarry, unusually dark. The chunks inside the toilet were black, unlike anything she’s ever vomited before.
The bathroom door slammed open and Dustin, Robin, and Erica appeared in the doorway. Steve peered over his shoulder, his wide-eyed expression fully indicating something was wrong. [Y/N] flushed the toilet as she turned to face the three. “I’m internally bleeding.” She informed them confirming Robin’s suggestion from earlier, remembering the pictures she had seen in her health textbooks. “And judging by my throw-up, it’s really bad. I’ve got a few hours.” She shuffled her weight as she struggled to stand on her wobbly legs. The wound on her thigh throbbed, feeling like a splinter as she tried to steady herself. Steve immediately grabbed her arms, gently helping her stand.
The worry on their faces was evident as Dustin nodded firmly, a newfound determination moving through him. “Okay, we need to get out of here, let’s go.” He carefully opened the door, peering outside at the wandering crowds departing from the finished movies. “Blend in.” They stepped outside, [Y/N] subtly clutching onto Steve’s arm for balance as she tried to conceal her limp. “We just have to get on the bus with the rest of these plebes, and home sweet home, here we come.”
Steve’s face blanched. “Uh, Dustin,” He hesitantly said, “We might not wanna go to your house. I might’ve told them your full name.”
Dustin’s eyes widened as he turned to glare at him. “What is wrong with you?”
“Dude, I was drugged.”
“So?”
“So?!”
“So, you resist. You tough it out. You tough it out like a man.”
[Y/N] gnawed on her lower lip to restrain the threatening whimpers as she teetered through the crowd. Everyone was enthralled in their own conversations about the movie, accidentally bumping and shoving her arm as they walked towards the mall exit. As they walked around a corner, there was a line by the entrance as a group of men examined everyone’s ID. “Guys,” Robin said, stopping Steve and Dustin from continuing onward. One of them locked eyes with them and started walking toward them.
“Abort,” Dustin said, whirling around and sprinting in the opposite direction. The five of them ran toward the escalators, cursing as the escalators were blocked by a velvet rope and no longer in service. Robin slipped in between the slide-like sheet between the escalators, sliding down with ease. They all mimicked her, Steve helping [Y/N] step onto the platform.
As they landed on the bottom of the escalators, they moved as quickly as they could behind a counter of a pizzeria at the food court, pressing their backs against the compartments behind the counter. [Y/N] squeezed Steve’s hand as she perched beside him, trying to calm her erratic breathing as the Russian guards spoke into his device. The five of their knees were pressed against their chests as they listened to the sudden silence.
The display car near the center of the mall alarm wailed, honking in a pattern as the metal creaked as it shook in place. The guards spun around, weapons aimed at the shaking car before it was thrown across the food court, colliding with the group of Russian guards and shattering everything it was thrown into. The five of them apprehensively peered over the countertop as the car hissed, glass shards collapsing onto the floor as the guards bled out. There, on the top floor, was the rest of the group.
[Y/N] sighed with relief as they moved around the counter, limping towards the approaching group. Dustin sprinted toward El, a wide smile on his face. “You flung that thing like a hot wheel!” He wrapped his arms around Mike and El.
Erica furrowed her eyebrows with bewilderment. “Lucas?!”
Lucas mimicked her reaction. “What are you doing here?!”
She jutted her thumb towards the three older ones. “Ask them. It’s their fault.”
Steve gently placed [Y/N] on one of the food court’s benches. “True, yeah. Totally true. It’s absolutely our fault.”
Robin glanced between the upside-down car and the group. “I don’t understand what happened to that car.”
Dustin pointed at Eleven. “El has superpowers.”
“She threw it with her mind. Come on, catch up.”
“Who’s El?”
Nancy inched forward, eyeing Robin with uncertainty. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
“I’m Robin, I work with Steve and [Y/N].”
“She cracked the top secret code.”
[Y/N] tightened the cloth around her oozing thigh. “Which is how we found out about the Russians.” She breathed out, cleaning her stained hands with the napkins on the tabletop.
Jonathan glanced at her with confusion. “Russians? What Russians?”
“Those were Russians?” Max asked, looking over where the dead men laid.
“Didn’t you hear our code red?” Dustin asked.
“Yeah, and I couldn’t understand what you were saying.”
“Goddamn low battery!”
“How many times do I have to tell you about the low battery?” Steve exclaimed, slapping his hands together.
Dustin rolled his eyes. “Well, everything worked out, didn’t it, Steve?”
Erica extended her arm toward [Y/N]. “Worked out? [Y/N] is literally dying.”
[Y/N] covered her mouth with her trembling hand, losing the remaining strength she contained, and collapsed onto the floor. Her knees crashed against marble flooring and she braced herself with her hands. She hurled, tarry chunks of vomit spreading across in a muddy puddle. The group rushed toward her, avoiding the vomit, and Steve gripped her hand. She fell to the floor and Steve cradled her in his arms. “What the hell happened to her?” Nancy said, pressing her two fingers against her wrist. Her pulse was there, faint and she missed it the first time, but still there nonetheless.
Nancy had never seen her as anything other than annoyingly perfect, but here she was, deathly pale and barely lucid as she mumbled something beneath her breath. The chilling spectacle was nerve-wracking and she was overcome with the sudden possibility that she was going to die in Steve’s arms.
Steve moved the hair from her damp forehead. “She was tortured by the Russians,” He stuttered, remembering the words she had uttered earlier. “She said she had internal bleeding.”
Robin tucked her hair behind her ears. “She was bleeding out from her thigh. I tried putting a tourniquet around it.”
Nancy pressed the open wound on her thigh, grimacing as the blood oozed between her fingers. Her blood was warm, but her skin was unusually cold. “Shit, she’s dying from blood loss.” Steve didn’t even think about the possibility of blood loss, but as he thought of it now, it was glaringly obvious. She was brutally beaten and he didn’t even know how much blood she lost during that and her thigh was seeping the entire time they escaped the Russian base.
Jonathan examined the pulsing wound, barely noticing something inside. Whatever she was impaled with, a piece of it was still inside her. He pushed himself off his knees. “Keep her talking. Keep her awake, okay?” He gave one final look at the girl, sprinting across the food court without another word.
[Y/N]’s eyes drooped as she struggled to breathe. “Hey, hey, hey, stay awake, [Y/N]. You gotta keep your eyes open.” Steve’s voice wavered as he caressed her cheek, eyes dwelling with burning tears as he shook her head. Her eyes temporarily fluttered open at the sudden movement and she blinked repeatedly, trying tyo stay awake.
Jonathan appeared, crouching to the floor, and grabbed her leg. “[Y/N], there’s still a piece stuck inside your leg and this is gonna hurt like hell, okay? But I need you to stay still.” He applied plastic gloves and gave Steve the wooden spoon. “You’re gonna want to bite down on this, okay?” The group watched the frightening scene unfold, their hearts racing erratically.
Steve placed the wooden spoon between her teeth. Jonathan grabbed the handle of the heated knife and brought the knife’s edge toward her skin before he hesitated, glancing at [Y/N]’s near-unconscious expression. He closed his eyes before he sliced the skin wide enough for his two fingers and [Y/N]’s eyes shot open, screaming loudly at the searing pain. When the wound was large enough for him, he shoved his gloved fingers inside. [Y/N]’s nails dug into Steve and Robin’s hands as she screamed as the tears streamed down her face. His fingers slid around as he tried to find the shrapnel of the blade she was stabbed with and [Y/N] was certain she was seconds from blacking out. After a few seconds, which she was convinced was an eternity, he retracted his hand from beneath her tissue and tossed the piece of the snapped blade onto the floor.
When [Y/N] awoke, she was carefully placed on the back of Nancy’s station wagon and surrounded by concerned children. Her eyes slowly blinked open, revealing the bright neon lights around the Starcourt Mall. She weakly glanced around as the doors closed, Nancy and Jonathan in the driver and passenger’s seats. “Where’s Steve?” She whispered, her mouth dry.
Max grabbed her feeble hand, squeezing reassuringly. “He’s taking Robin, Dustin, and Erica to Dustin’s radio thing. We’re all going to meet up later at Joyce and Hopper’s friend’s house.” She looked down at her thigh it was properly bandaged with clean gauze and the bleeding seemed to have ceased. Max noticed the questioning glance. “Jonathan cauterized it. It was the only way to stop the bleeding. You’re going to have a badass scar.”
Nancy twisted the key inside the ignition but the engine pathetically sputtered. Her eyebrows puckered together and she tried again but to no avail. “What’s wrong?” Jonathan asked as he watched her twist the key again and again.
“You can’t be serious. Come on!” Nancy exclaimed as the engine fizzled.
“Didn’t your mom just buy you this car?” Lucas apprehensively asked.
“Yes! I’m sure it’s fine.”
“Did you leave the lights on?” Will asked.
“No.”
“Do we have gas?”
“Yes!” She twisted the key again. “Come on!”
Jonathan stopped her, yanking her hand from the ignition. “Stop! Pop the hood.” The two of them quickly stepped outside the car, lifting the hood as they inspected the inner workings. [Y/N] pressed her temple against the glass of the window, her gaze moving to the sudden light across the parking lot. The headlights of a car in the distance flashed on as the engine revved almost tauntingly.
Nancy slammed her palm against the window, demanding them to leave the car and rush back inside the building. She yanked open the door and pulled each of the children from the backseats, ushering them inside through the entrance. She grabbed [Y/N]’s arm, threw it over her shoulders, and helped her inside. Once back inside the empty mall, she placed her down on a bench. They all began with their own personal tasks; Mike attempting to reach Steve and Dustin over his walkie-talkie, Nancy finding a suitable gun on the dead guards, and Lucas readying his slingshot. Will gave [Y/N] a water bottle, figuring she must’ve dehydrated, and opened the cap for her. She smiled at the gesture and accepted the bottle.
Jonathan called him over to where they all stood behind the damaged display car. They were going to try and flip it on its side and take the ignition cable from beneath the hood. They all groaned as they pushed with all their strength. The car did move, but not enough to make a difference with its position. El stepped forward, extending her hand outward but nothing happened. Horror transformed her face as she realized her powers were gone.
Mike made the suggestion they use the golden poles from the velvet ropes blocking the escalator to push the car’s side. When they all pushed at the same time, the car flipped over. Nancy popped open the hood with the hatch beside the steering wheel and Jonathan searched for the cable. Will nervously touched the back of his neck and glanced around, feeling the Mind Flayer’s presence.
From outside of Starcourt mall, there was a distant rumbling as if heavy footsteps were shaking the building. [Y/N] struggled to stand from the bench, peering upward at the large glass windows from the skylight of the mall. There was a dark figure approaching the windows, the glass cracking from the weight of the figure. The figure’s face loomed closer, revealing the distorted image of The Mind Flayer. [Y/N] grabbed Mike and El’s hand, who also dragged Max, pulling them away from the cracking skylight. She disregarded the throbbing pain with each step she took and pushed them behind the counter of one of the food joints. She threw her body over them like a protective veil as the Mind Flayer collapsed through the skylight and landed in the center of the food court. Small shards of glass landed on her clothed back as the rumbling thump shook the floor. She closed her eyes tightly as the thunderous snarl from the creature echoed through the walls.
She could hear Dustin from the discarded walkie-talkie, requesting they inform him of their safety, but the Mind Flayer grabbed the device with its tentacle protruding from its mouth, roared, and threw it against the car where it shattered into pieces and the transmission garbled. The Mind Flayer stomped across the food court, nearing the counter where she was covering the kids. She could hear the vulgar sloshing of its flesh as stopped, scrutinizing the area as its opened mouth dripped. The squelching of its footsteps dissipated as it stomped away, moving across the room as it tossed the corpse of the guard.
Mike carefully peered over the counter before falling back. “It’s turned away. If we go up the stairs now, we’ll make it.” He whispered, pointing to the escalator.
Max shook her head. “No way, not with their conditions.”
“We have to try—”
El latched her hand onto Mike’s forearm. “There’s another way to get out,” She whispered, “Through The Gap.” [Y/N] searched for the clothing store and upon seeing how close they were, she nodded. Max gripped her arm, pulling her from the floor and they rushed across, silencing their footsteps. As they stepped inside the entrance of the store, El crashed into a display. The display collapsed onto the floor, the thud echoing. The Mind Flayer roared and stomped toward The Gap, its thick leg blocking the entrance and clawed tentacles protruding from its flesh. They moved close to the floor as they searched for them. There was a deafening shriek as the monster latched onto a mannequin, tossing the plastic figure aside when it realized it wasn’t a person.
[Y/N] concealed them as much as she could manage behind the register counter, tears streaming down her cheeks as she heard the smaller screeching from the tentacle approaching where they were cowering. She could smell the rotten flesh as the squelching became louder. But, Lucas with his slingshot, popped a balloon in the distance. The Mind Flayer shrieked before stomping to find the source. [Y/N] ushered them to the employee corridor behind the register once the creature was far away enough for them to move.
They navigated through the employee corridors and [Y/N], who never would thought she would admit this, was grateful for taking the position at Scoops Ahoy because she never would’ve known where the emergency exits were if she hadn’t been through here before. She pressed the emergency door open, keeping it open as the three younger teenagers barged ahead. They exited the mall and through the gate that prevented non-employees from entering. [Y/N] stopped them, throwing her arm out as Billy glared at them from across the parking lot. His skin was covered with throbbing black veins and he was sweating from the heat of the flames escaping from beneath his smashed car’s hood. “Get back inside,” She demanded, pushing them away from the opened gate.
[Y/N] slammed the glowing red button beside the gate which commenced the whirring of the gate, slowly closing as she turned back around and limped inside. The lights of the employee corridors flickered as they moved as quickly as they could manage. They eventually stopped at the elevator and Mike repeatedly pressed the button on the bottom of the panel. El leaned against the wall, taking the weight off her injured ankle.
“Billy, you don’t have to do this.” Max pleaded from the corridor. Her eyes watered as she tried to bring him back from the Mind Flayer’s influence. “Your name’s Billy Hargrove. You live on 4819 Cherry Lane. Billy, please, I’m Max, I’m your sister—” He backhanded her with a shocking force and she fell to the floor, immediately unconscious. Mike, in a moment of panic, rushed forward with closed fists but he was easily thrown aside, dropping to the ground as he crashed against a wall of pipes. [Y/N] stood before El, covering her as she lurched forward, Steve’s pocketknife displayed. She sliced his arm before he grabbed the blade from her hand and studied the slash on his skin curiously. He cocked his head as his blank gaze returned to her. His black-veined hand wrapped around her throat and slammed her against the elevator door. She choked on her depleting breaths. In one fluid movement, he stabbed the bruised skin of her abdomen. She inhaled a strangled gasp as the blade tore through her flesh and his vacant stare never wavered from hers as he twisted the blade.
El screamed as she saw the darkness of her blood flow between Billy’s fingers before he yanked the blade from her stomach, releasing his tight grasp on her neck. [Y/N] fell to the floor with a whimper as she landed on her own bloodstains. Billy stepped over her limbs as if she were nothing but an inconvenience and merely slapped away El’s hand, smashing her head against the wall before throwing her unconscious figure over his shoulder and leaving the elevator room.
[Y/N] brought her trembling hand to the gushing wound, her drained gaze flooding with warm tears as she saw the redness coating her fingertips. From her peripheral vision, she could see the puddle of blood expand beneath her and the warmth seeped through her clothes, expanding and covering her like a scarlet blanket.
She thought of everything leading to this moment; from the cheerleading practice she endured where she was introduced to Steve Harrington, the Upside Down nearly destroying her town, and the unbreakable bond she formed with the pesky group of teenagers that she loved as if they were own blood. She never thought that cussing out Steve for throwing basketballs at her squad would’ve brought her to her death. But, despite feeling her life drain from her, she wouldn’t have changed a single thing.
She closed her eyes and listened to the thunderous explosions from the fireworks, wondering what the bright colors looked like as they exploded against the Mind Flayer, and allowed the darkness to comfort her.
Steve Harrington descended the escalator as the Mind Flayer collapsed onto the floor, lifeless as The Gate closed. Smoke from the extinguished fireworks clouded the air and scratched his throat as he breathed. He knew the monster was dead, but he still avoided the corpse as he walked beside Robin and checked the surrounding area. Billy was dead, bleeding black ooze, Max was wailing in El’s reassuring embrace beside her brother’s corpse and Mike’s exhausted figure, and the remainder of the group was on the upper level of the mall. “Where is she?” He questioned, glancing around the rubble and debris with concentrated eyes. He couldn’t see her and he knew she had to be around here somewhere. “Guys, where is she?” He was confused. She should have been right there with them.
Mike hesitantly removed his gaze from the puddle of inky blood soaking Billy’s clothes and his sympathetic eyes connected with his. Steve furrowed his eyebrows as Mike didn’t speak, but as he closed his eyes tightly, a teardrop dripping down his cheek, his silence told him everything he needed to know. Steve fought back the crashing wave of tears as he softly shook his head, his broken expression shattering as he refused to believe that she was gone. She was just here an hour ago, barely alive, but alive nonetheless. Robin wiped her damp cheeks as she wept at the revelation. She backed away, nearly stumbling into a large piece of debris as she clutched her aching chest.
The remainder of the group descended the broken escalators and tragic words weren’t necessary to reveal the loss they experienced. Nancy apprehensively loomed closer, softly touching his shoulder. “Steve…” She whispered gently.
Steve whirled around, pushing her hand away from him. “Don’t.” No one, not even Nancy, had ever seen him like this before. This wasn’t just mourning, it was hatred and crippling guilt and torment. “You’re not dead, you’re not dead.” He mumbled to himself as if he said the words enough they would become true. He glanced at Mike’s crying figure. “Where is she?”
Mike reluctantly made eye contact with him. He shook his head softly. “Steve, I don’t think you wanna see her like that.” Because he didn’t want to see her like that but he didn’t have a choice. He didn’t want to see the woman who babysat him and his friends as he grew up lifeless and surrounded by a pool of her own blood. But as Max woke him up and the first thing he saw when his droopy eyes opened was his friend dead. That unfortunate image was seared inside his cluttered mind.
Steve nearly collapsed onto the floor at the words. “Where is she?” His voice cracked and his bottom lip quivered. Mike didn’t speak, only peered over his shoulder where Scoops Ahoy’s broken sign flickered. Steve sprinted inside the parlor and pushed through the employee corridors, frantic eyes searching every section.
When he stepped inside the elevator room, the warm air was pulled from his lungs and he could smell the distinct smell of copper. He always thought dead bodies were supposed to be brutal and grisly, enough to make his stomach churn from the sight, but she still looked like [Y/N]. She looked almost peaceful and if he closed his eyes enough, she could have been sleeping on a bed of roses. But she wasn’t sleeping and the crimson wasn’t blossoming roses. He couldn’t stop the burning tears from streaming as he collapsed onto the floor beside her corpse. Her dark blood stained his knees and his socks as he kneeled. Apprehensive, he carefully touched her cold skin and pushed her hair away from her face. He sobbed at the undeniable truth beneath his shaking touch. He should have been there for her. He loomed closer, pressing a small kiss to her pale temple. He wrapped his arm beneath her legs and his other steadied her back. Her lifeless arm dangled as he carried her bridal style through the flickering corridor. Soon he was crossing the ice cream parlor and the food court where the remainder of the group waited for him.
The helicopters and military stormed the debris of the Starcourt Mall. They escorted him from the premises and brought him where dozens of military troops were stationed outside in the parking lot, ambulances with EMTs preparing IV bags, and some media and news reporters flashing their cameras. But Steve didn’t care. Everything was a blurred haze as he stepped outside of the mall with the woman he loved lifeless in his arms as the sky cried for the earth’s loss.
Someone pulled her from his grasp and a flash of ire coursed through him. He tightened his hands around her, spewing a string of curse words at the person. Robin rushed beside him, a fuzzy blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and muttered something to him about calming down. And he knew he shouldn’t have become angry at the concern she was giving him, but how was he supposed to calm down? She was gone. She died alone. She bled out alone and he should have been there. None of this should have happened. She was supposed to go to fashion school and listen to him pour out his stupid feelings for her after he wrote it all down.
Sam Owens appeared from the drizzle of the rain, the helicopter’s spotlight illuminating him as he stopped where Steve stood. “Come on, son. You’ve got to let her go.” He couldn’t, though. Because releasing her would mean this wasn’t some vivid nightmare and he wasn’t going to wake up and throw on his uniform and start throwing ice cream scoops into waffle cones as she teased him about how bad he was at pouring the sprinkles. “We can help her, but you’ve got to let her go.”
So in a moment of fiery guilt, he let her go.
#steve harrington x reader#steve harrington#stranger things fanfiction#steve harrington x you#steve harrington x fem#steve harrington fluff#steve harrington fanfic#stranger things x reader#stranger things x y/n#stranger things x you#steve harrington smut
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turning page
pairing: robin buckley x fem!reader
summary: you find what you’ve been looking for
warnings: honestly just straight (actually very not straight) fluff
a/n: robin has my heart, if she dies, i die. this is based off of turning page by sleeping at last lol
my masterlist
robin buckley had your heart the moment you saw her in scoops ahoy.
you were friends with steve and dustin since you were dustin’s babysitter before steve took that title. so you were there for the whole upside down and demo-dogs thing.
so after dustin got home from camp, he demanded you take him to scoops ahoy.
of course you agreed. you just couldn’t seem to say no to the little shit.
so dustin storms through the mall with you trailing behind him.
once you catch up to him, you see a very pretty girl looking at him unamused behind the counter.
“is he here?!” dustin asks excitedly.
“is who here?” the pretty girl asks him. you can’t help but stare at her in her cute little sailor outfit.
“henderson!” steve bursts out through the back door.
they then proceed to do their whole handshake but you’re too intrigued by the girl.
you walk up to her, extending your hand you introduce yourself, “y/n, this little shits babysitter. well when steve’s not available.”
“i’m robin,” she smiles oh so sweetly at you taking your hand.
then dustin grabs you and steve and takes you to a booth where he loudly tells you about the secret russian code he intercepted after he failed miserably to whisper it.
you laugh at him as steve shushes him.
then dustin goes on about how you’ll be american heroes.
so that’s how you found yourself in the back of scoops ahoy trying to translate russian.
you can’t help but think of robin and her perfectly cute face. you had never come out to anyone. you knew it was frowned upon to be a woman that loves other women. so, you stayed silent.
you had zoned out but are brought back by robins voice, saying something random in pig latin. you furrow your brows as steve and dustin freak out excitedly.
“that was pig latin, idiots,” you say.
robin smiles at you, “she’s my favorite,” she says and winks at you.
this causes you to blush and smile back.
“i don’t even want any credit, i’m just bored,” she says.
so dustin agrees and steve goes to scoop ice cream leaving the three of you.
after a little bit you open the window, “hey hair,” you say using the nickname you know he hates, “we got our first sentence.”
“oh shit really? also, i told you to stop calling me that y/n/n,” he rolls his eyes.
“never,” you say.
robin pops up next to you, “the week is long,” she says in a russian accent, making you giggle.
“oh that’s- that’s great,” he says disappointed, “i see you two are getting along.”
“yea, may have to trade her for you, dingus,” robin says nudging your arm.
you blush and turn around to go back to the table.
after a few hours, you’ve cracked it. robin recites it to steve as the five of you walk out of the mall.
you see steve start to trail off, “hair?” you question him.
“quarters, i need quarters!” he shouts.
“i think you’re a little big for that dingus,” robin teases him making you laugh.
but as the music starts to play and dustin pulls out the radio and the same exact music is playing, you know your in deep shit.
and that’s how you ended up here in an underground russian base strapped to a chair with robin.
steve, erica, and dustin had gotten out and you were praying they would either save you themselves or bring the cavalry.
you had taken a pretty good beating and had passed out.
you start to wake up and hear robins voice, “help, help!”
“hey, would you stop yelling?” you plead.
“y/n, y/n oh my god, hey, are you okay” she questions you.
“we’ll my ears are ringing and my head is pounding,” you say, “and i can’t really breath but apart from that yea, i’m doing pretty okay,” she sighs in some relief, just glad you’re alive.
“we’ll the good news is they’re calling you a doctor,” she explains.
“is this his place of work? i love the vibe,” you say causing robin to giggle.
“yea tell me about. okay so do you see that table over there to your right?” she asks and you hum in response.
“and you see those scissors,” she asks.
“uh-huh,” you say.
“yea, well, i think that if we move at the same time we could get over there, and then maybe i could kick the table and knock them into your lap,” she explains.
“and i can cut the binds,” you confirm.
“yea, yea, and then we can get out of here,” she confirms back.
“gotcha, okay, those morons left scissors in here, really?” you qusstion.
“yea morons,” she laughs.
“total morons,” you say.
as you start counting down and hopping you miss one sending both of your chairs flying over.
you start hearing robin cry.
“hey hey it’s okay, we’re okay,” you say.
and then you realize she’s laughing.
“are you laughing?!” you ask.
“yea,” she says through her laughter.
“jesus,” you say.
“i’m sorry,” she exclaims, “i just can’t believe that i’m gonna die in a secret russian base with a pretty girl i met yesterday, it’s just too trippy man.”
you ignore her calling you pretty, “we’re not gonna die robin, we’re gonna get out, just let me think for a second.”
she starts telling some random story about mrs. clicks class and steve and tammy thompson and you’re just quite confused.
did she have a crush on steve?
suddenly the door buzzed and a russian guard walks in.
he laughs, “where were you two going?”
they pick the two of you up into an upright position.
“try telling the truth this time,” the guard says up in your face, “it will make your visit with Dr. zharkov less painful.”
he touches the cut on your face and you since, he nods at the doctor. he comes over with a large needle.
“wait a second, wait, hold on,” you plead, “wait what is that thing?!!”
“it will help you talk,” the doctor explains.
“did you even clean that?!!?” you shout as he sticks it in your neck.
you scream and they stick robin and they leave the room.
after a little while you say to robin, “honestly i don’t really feel anything, do you?”
“i mean… i- i feel fine,” robin responds, “i feel normal.”
“yea, yea i feel fine, actually i kinda feel good,” you laugh.
“wanna know a secret?” robin giggles.
“what?”
“i like it too!” she exclaims and you both continue giggling.
“morons, they messed up the drug!” you say.
“they messed it up!” she giggles more.
you start yelling about how they’re morons when robin says, “there’s definitely something wrong with us.”
“yea definitely,” you agree.
the door opens again.
the doctor starts pulling out a bunch of torture devices.
“would now be a good time to tell you i don’t like doctors?” robin asks.
“let’s try this again,” the guard says.
“who do you work for?” he questions.
“well she works for scoops ahoy and i work for mrs. henderson,” you laugh and so does robin.
“how did you find us?” he asks unamused.
“totally by accident,” you say and he says something to the doctor in russian.
the doctor moves towards his tools and picks one up.
“what is that shiny thing?” you ask.
“where you going with that, doc?” robin asks.
he goes for your nails.
“woah woah wait hey no wait hey no whoa,” you start panicking.
“there was a code,” robin shouts “we heard a code!”
“code. what code?” the guard asks robin.
robin starts reciting part of the code, “you broadcast that stupid spy shit all over town, and we picked it up on our Cerebro, and we cracked it in a day,” she laughs, “and now people know your here.”
“who know?!” he shouts.
“we’ll dustin knows,” you say, robin calls your name. “yea dustin henderson, he knows,” robin shouts your name louder this time.
the guard starts to drone on about dustin.
“yea they’re gonna come in here guns a blazing!” you finsish saying.
“is that so?” the guard smirks.
then the alarm goes off and that smirk is wiped clean off his face.
he and the others then rush out of the room.
dustin, erica, and steve come through the door. dustin taking out the doctor with some sort of weapon.
“hey!! henderson!! that’s crazy! i was just talking about you!” you shout.
“oh my god,” robin exclaims.
“get ready to run,” dustin says.
you and robin are in the back of the cart, giggling like maniacs.
erica, dustin, and steve argue over what’s wrong with you as steve drives.
you all hop in the elevator and as it starts to go up you and robin find a cart and start pretending it’s a surf board.
you are having the time of your life.
you fall off and robin laughs, “wipeout” she shouts.
dustin walks over to you and feels your forehead, “she’s burning up,” and you retaliate, “you’re burning up!”
dustin goes to check your pupils and you tell out in pain.
“her pupils are super dilated,” he tells steve and erica.
“they’re probably drugged,” steve says.
“y/n, are you drugged,” dustin asks.
“how many times, dad? i don’t do drugs. it’s only marijuana,” you say and laugh.
“this isn’t funny, okay? i need to know what they did to you. are you gonna die on us?” he asks worried.
“we all die, my stranger little child friend,” robin says as she’s perched on the ground twirling her hair, “it’s just a matter of how… and when.”
“they’re gonna be looking for us up there so i need you tell me where you parked your car,”dustin says to you.
“oh, can we make a pit stop at the food court?” you ask
“i would kill for a hot dog on a stick” robin responds and you agree.
“all right. yea, food. yes, you can have as much food as you want, but only if you tell me where your car is parked,” dustin says.
“uh-oh” you say.
“uh-oh?” steve questions
“the cars off the board,” you say.
“what?” erica asks.
“they took the keys, the russians, they took them. like forever ago,” you say as robin laughs and you do as well.
“that’s a bummer, right?” you say.
you guys finally make it out of the elevator.
“y/n! can you taste the air,” robin says.
“i taste it! i taste it!” you yell
dustin, erica, and steve start sprinting back towards you and pushing you towards the mall.
“why are we running?” you yell.
you all end up in the movie theater watching back to the future.
you and robin constantly giggling at the screen. you both decide you’re bored and head out to find the water fountain.
then you see the pretty lights above you and it starts to make you both dizzy. you both rush to the bathroom and start puking your guts out.
“the ceiling stopped spinning for me,” robin says in the stall next to you, “is it still spiking for you?”
“holy shot. no. you think we liked it all up?” you ask.
“maybe. ask me something. interrogate me,” she says in a russian accent.
“okay interrogate you, sure, uh who is the last person you had a crush on?” you ask her.
she stays quiet, “robin, did you OD over there?”
“no, no, i uh- remember that story i told you about mrs. clicks class?“ she asks.
“vaguely. wait! it’s steve isn’t it?” you ask disappointed.
“no, no uh i wasn’t looking at him. i- i was looking at her,” she says.
“looking at who?” you ask.
“tammy thompson,” she whispers. you stay quiet for a minute.
“y/n, did you OD over there?” she chuckles nervously.
you slide to her stall, “i mean yea tammy thompsons hot but she’s nothing compared to you.”
her eyes widen, “w-what?”
“ask me the question,” you smile at her.
“o-okay, y/n who’s the last person you had a crush on?” she asks.
“you,” you confess.
“w-what?” she asks.
“as soon as i saw you in scoops, you are the prettiest girl i have ever seen,” you smile at her and blush.
“absolutely no way,” she says and laughs, “okay so i kind of sort of lied about my last crush,” she says and your brows furrow in confusion, “i didn’t want to say you, in case you weren’t into girl.”
you laug and grab her hand. then she pulls you in for a kiss. it’s soft and tender, and full of passion.
you hear the bathroom door open and you pull away.
dustin barges in with steve and erica in tow, “okay! what the hell?!” he shouts.
and you both just die laughing. and the rest was history.
the scoops troop met up with everyone, you formed a plan, dustin and his girlfriend sang a song (?), and you and robin started dating.
it had been six months since then. you had both come out to steve since then and he was extremely supportive of you both.
you started working at family video with them too! dustin was finally old enough to not have a babysitter and you needed a new job.
today was gonna be a good day. you and robin were leaving work at around 3. steve took the night shift for you guys so you could have date night. and tonight you were telling robin that you love her.
you giggle as robin gets in your car. she still doesn’t have her license, which you have offered to pay for. but she refuses.
you drive to your house. your parents are on a business trip for the weekend so you told her she could stay over.
you get out of your car and grab her hand, leading her inside, you pick out a movie for you two to watch.
not like you’re actually gonna watch it, you’ll be too focused on each other.
you sit down next to her and cuddle into her. she kisses your forehead as the movie plays.
“robin?” you whisper quietly.
“yea baby?” she questions.
“i- i have something for you,” you say and go to grab the box out of your pocket.
you hand it to her and she opens it.
inside is a small necklace with your birthstone. you couldn’t exactly get her a necklace with your name on it since you lived in a small town in the middle of indiana but this will do.
“oh my gosh, y/n,” she exclaims with tears in her eyes, “i love it!”
“and i love you,” you say looking at her with eyes full of love and admiration.
her eyes widen, “i love you too.”
you lean forward to kiss her.
“nothing prepared me for what the privilege of being yours would do, your love is my turning page, and every word is about you,” you say.
“that was cheesy,” she teases you.
“i know i know, but it’s true,” you say with sincerity.
“i feel the same,” she say and kisses you again.
“i love you,” you both say at the same exact time. and you both giggle. wrapped in each other’s arms, you know this is what you’ve been living for.
#stranger things x reader#stranger things x y/n#stranger things#robin buckley x reader#robin buckley#robin buckley x y/n#maya hawke#maya hawke x reader#robin stranger things
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Last-Minute Leverage–Steve Harrington
Steve's POV
I woke up, my head pounding. I looked over my shoulder to see Robin behind me.
"Hey," I said, my voice breaking. "You okay?"
"Me?" Robin chuckled. "You're the one who took a beating."
"It wasn't that bad," I shrugged and instantly cringed. "On second thought. . ."
I let my sentence drop when the door opened. Some weird guy in a uniform walked in with his hands folded behind him.
"I have one question for you," he said in a thick Russian accent. "Who do you work for?"
"Scoops Ahoy," Robin answered instantly. I laughed but the Russian didn't.
"I'm only going to ask nicely one more time," he threatened. "Who do you work for?"
"She already told you," I sighed dramatically. "We work for Scoops, Scoops Ahoy!"
"Fine," he scoffed. "I guess we're going to play this game."
He looked over his shoulder and nodded. Just then, the door opened and two men dragged in the last person I wanted to see them holding–my girlfriend.
"Oh shit," Robin mumbled.
"Y/N," I gasped. I tried to stand up but forgot I was tied down. "What are you doing with her?" I asked through my teeth.
"How do you say. . . Motivation." The Russian Captain smirked.
The men holding Y/N dragged her toward us. I angrily grunted when they practically threw her down.
"Hey!" I yelled. "Be careful! You're going to hurt her!"
"We'll do a lot worse if you don't answer my question," Russian Captain warned.
I looked down when Y/N mumbled. She slowly started waking up. My heart jumped into my throat when she slowly started waking up. As she sat up, she looked at me.
"Steve?" She stuttered, her eyes widening. "What's going. . ."
The Russian Captain grabbed her and pulled her to her feet. She looked at him and then looked back at me. She gasped and I screamed as the Russian Captain pulled out his gun and held it to Y/N's head.
"I'm going to ask one more time," he said through his teeth. "Who do you work for?"
"No one!" I yelled. "We work at a damn ice cream shop."
My heart jumped into my throat when I heard the click.
"We heard a code," I stuttered out. "We accidentally heard a code over our radio. Please don't hurt her."
"What code?" He asked between his teeth.
I stuttered, not remembering the code. But luckily Robin remembered.
"The week is long," she started to recite. "The silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west. Blah blah blah. You broadcast that stupid spy shit all over town and we picked it up on our Ceerebo. And we cracked it in a day. A day! You think you're so smart, but a couple of kids who scoop ice cream for a living cracked your code in a day. And now people know you're here."
The Russian Captain smirked as he threw Y/N to one of the guards and refolded his hands. "Thank you," he said in a voice that made my blood boil. I glanced at Y/N, wanting nothing more than to run to her and wrap her in my arms.
"Let's go," the Russian Captain ordered.
"No!" I yelled as they started to drag Y/N out of the room. "Get your hands off her!"
"Steve!" She gasped. She looked at me and the second our eyes landed on each other, she smiled.
"I love you."
My heart jumped into my throat as the door slammed shut.
"Whoa," Robin mumbled. "Is that the first time either one of you has. . ."
"She loves me," I whispered. "She just told me she loved me and I'm tied to a chair in this stupid sailor uniform. I can't even tell her I love her too."
* * * * *
"Alright, let's go."
"No!"
"Steve, we gotta go," Dustin sighed.
"We can't," I pushed. "They got Y/N."
"Wait, what?"
"They used her as leverage to get information," Robin explained.
"Did it work?" Erica asked.
"They pointed a gun at her," Robin said, her voice dropping to a whisper.
"Damn," Dustin sighed. He looked over at me, his eyes soft. "Don't worry, Steve, we'll find her."
We searched almost every room in this weird underground bunker and Y/N was nowhere to be found.
"Where is she?!" I yelled as I slammed another door closed to an empty room.
"We'll find her," Robin reassured.
"Hey!" We heard Erica yell. We shared a look before running around the corner. Just as we rounded the corner, Erica ran out of a room down the hall.
"She's in here."
I sprinted past her, into the room. The second I saw Y/N cowered in the corner, I felt like I was going to burst.
"Y/N," I whispered her name. Her head snapped up and her eyes filled with tears as she found me.
"Steve?"
I ran over and tore the ties off her hands. She quickly got to her feet and instantly jumped into my arms. I wrapped my arms tightly around her. As she snuggled into my chest, I could feel her shaking.
She slowly pulled out of our hug and looked up at me. She opened her mouth to say something, but I cut her off and pressed my lips to hers. She started kissing me back as we tightened our arms around each other.
I broke the kiss and leaned my forehead against hers.
"I love you too," I whispered.
"Umm. . . Guys?"
We turned around to see Robin, Dustin, and Erica in the doorway. "I really hate to break this up," Robin said without an ounce of sarcasm in her voice, "but we should really get out of here."
I refused to let go of Y/N's hand as we ran out of the facility and through the mall. The entire drive home, Y/N's hand stayed in mine. We dropped off Erica, then Dustin, and lastly Robin.
I was about to pull out of Robin's driveway but I turned and saw Y/N staring blankly ahead. I put the car in reverse and started heading to Y/N's house. I suddenly got a sinking feeling in my stomach.
"I want you to stay at my house tonight."
"Really?" She asked, looking at me.
"Y/N," I said, shakily, "when he pulled that gun out. . . It scared me. And I haven't been scared in a long time. He held that gun to your head and I started imaging what would happen if he pulled the trigger. I can't. . . I can't imagine losing you. I don't want to imagine it."
"You aren't going to lose me," she said softly.
"Well, I almost did and that's as close as I want to get to losing you."
Y/N leaned over and kissed my cheek.
"I'm not going anywhere," she said as she tightened her grip on my hand.
"I love you, Y/N," I whispered. "I love you so much."
"I love you too, Steve Harrington."
#steve harrington#steve harrington imagines#steve harrington x reader#steve harrington fanfic#stranger things#stranger things imagine#joe keery#joe keery imagines#joe keery x reader
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The Chuck Norris Copypasta but it's Cassandra Jones
Cassandra Jones doesn’t play chess. she stares down her opponent until they checkmate themselves.
Cassandra Jones once went up against a ninja with only a butter knife. After fifteen minutes of the two fighting, the ninja was found dead in a pool of their own blood.
Cassandra Jones is actually the Loch Ness Monster. If you look at him, she disappears.
Cassandra Jones owns the copyright to the word "awesome."
Cassandra Jones is not a superhero; she is a supervillain that wants to be liked.
Cassandra Jones can use Google without typing anything into the search box.
Cassandra Jones doesn’t need a computer to type. Her keyboard has the letters already printed on it.
Cassandra Jones can run at the speed of light. she’s done it before.
Cassandra Jones can walk through walls, but she prefers to use windows.
Cassandra Jones can squeeze water out of a stone.
Cassandra Jones doesn’t read books. she stares them down until she gets the information she wants.
Cassandra Jones has traveled back in time and killed her grandfather.
Cassandra Jones has the only birth certificate that says "expired."
Cassandra Jones once entered a three-legged race. All the other participants were disqualified when they saw Cassie coming.
Cassandra Jones doesn’t drink coffee. she creates it in her microwave using her patented "Jones Coffee Pot" invention.
Cassandra Jones can play any piece of music on any instrument. she then proceeds to destroy the instruments because she hates noise.
Cassandra Jones can solve all your problems — if you give him $5.
Cassandra Jones can split the atom without removing her belt.
Cassandra Jones can bench press the sun.
Cassandra Jones always carries a pair of tweezers wherever she goes. You never know when you might need to pull a splinter out of someone’s eye.
Cassandra Jones once defeated twenty-nine members of the Russian Special Forces armed only with a spoon. she ate them all for breakfast.
Cassandra Jones doesn't go to church. she is the church.
Cassandra Jones can make diamonds out of coal.
Cassandra Jones has killed more people than cancer.
If a man has ever told you that you couldn’t do something, Cassandra Jones said you could.
When Cassandra Jones gives a speech, the audience listens.
Cassandra Jones can win the lottery every week for the rest of her life, and still never win.
Cassandra Jones is the reason why there are speed limits. Speed kills.
Cassandra Jones doesn’t eat cereal. she stares at it until the milk turns into a bowl of oatmeal.
Cassandra Jones has an IQ of 1,000, which is what happens when God is afraid to take a test.
Cassandra Jones doesn’t watch TV. she decides where to place her remote control.
Cassandra Jones can’t wait to see the movie "Die Hard," because she has already seen the sequel.
Cassandra Jones once drove past a sign that said "Slow Children At Play" and immediately went into reverse.
Cassandra Jones doesn’t like onions. They make him cry.
Cassandra Jones doesn’t sweat. she bleeds.
Cassandra Jones is so fast, she breaks the sound barrier getting dressed.
Cassandra Jones doesn’t count to infinity. she simply stops at the number you thought was zero.
Cassandra Jones can see through time.
Cassandra Jones has a photographic memory. There is nothing in her mind that hasn’t been photographed.
Cassandra Jones can kill you with her eyes closed.
Cassandra Jones is not an actor. she is the role she plays.
Cassandra Jones can tie a cherry stem with her tongue.
Cassandra Jones can predict the future. Unfortunately, she refuses to share it with anyone.
Cassandra Jones can recite the alphabet backwards. In Morse Code. While singing "Yankee Doodle."
Cassandra Jones once owned a farm. It was originally purchased as a tax write-off, but after she bought it, the IRS started auditing everyone else's taxes instead.
Cassandra Jones has more awards than a Golden Girl.
Cassandra Jones has broken the Guinness Book of World Records more than once.
Cassandra Jones is the reason why we have Daylight Savings Time. To give him an extra hour to beat her wife.
Cassandra Jones was once mistaken for a movie star. When asked who she played, she replied that she was the character.
Cassandra Jones was once thrown off a horse. The horse was fine.
Cassandra Jones has a scar on her face. The scar is made of medals.
Cassandra Jones can break mirrors with her beard.
Cassandra Jones’ tears cure cancer.
Cassandra Jones has walked on the moon. she didn’t want to leave the earth.
Cassandra Jones can breathe underwater. she does ther by holding her breath.
Cassandra Jones doesn’t play basketball. she dribbles the ball.
Cassandra Jones once punched a baby in the face. The baby died.
Cassandra Jones doesn’t drink water. she absorbs it through her skin.
Cassandra Jones once walked across the entire United States. she did it barefoot because she hates shoes.
Cassandra Jones invented the game of chess.
Cassandra Jones once wrestled a shark. she lost.
Cassandra Jones has won the Nobel Prize.
Cassandra Jones was once in a bar fight. she was beaten unconscious. When she woke up, everyone was laughing.
Cassandra Jones can put a dollar bill in a bottle cap.
Cassandra Jones invented the laser printer.
Cassandra Jones can swim through concrete.
Cassandra Jones once jumped over the Grand Canyon. she landed in California.
Cassandra Jones is the only person in hertory to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Beatles once sang a song about Cassandra Jones. It wasn't pretty.
Cassandra Jones invented the AK-47. And if you think that's dangerous, try playing poker with him.
Cassandra Jones can build a house in one day. she just takes a large rock and chucks it at your shead.
Cassandra Jones doesn’t shave with a razor. she uses her teeth.
Cassandra Jones once jumped off a building and landed in an alley.
When Cassandra Jones enters a room, people say, "Oh crap!"
Cassandra Jones doesn’t have to pay for her drinks. she asks the barkeep for a glass of water and then throws it in their face.
Cassandra Jones doesn’t have to worry about being abducted by aliens. They come to him offering contracts.
Cassandra Jones doesn't have nightmares. she wakes up screaming.
In most countries, Cassandra Jones would be considered legally dead.
Cassandra Jones doesn’t have enemies. Everyone is afraid of him.
Cassandra Jones doesn’t wear a watch. she decides what time it is.
Cassandra Jones doesn’t buy green bananas. she makes them.
You cannot outrun Cassandra Jones. You can only hope to outlast him.
Cassandra Jones can’t play Twister. she breaks the game board while spinning it around.
Cassandra Jones once broke a mirror. Six million people got their faces rearranged.
Cassandra Jones is known worldwide as a savior, a legend, a myth, a symbol of hope...and a good luck charm.
When Cassandra Jones was a kid, her mother used to tell him bedtime stories about how awesome she was.
Cassandra Jones doesn’t jump rope. she just spins the rope around her index finger and uses its momentum to walk.
Cassandra Jones has never had to pay for a drink in her life. she orders the bartender to fill the glass halfway. Then she quickly dumps half the contents into a nearby trashcan.
Cassandra Jones doesn’t play "hide and seek". she just looks for people that are hiding and kills them.
Cassandra Jones doesn't need a gun to shoot you. her legs will do the job just fine.
Cassandra Jones doesn't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
Cassandra Jones doesn't need an alarm clock because she wakes up 2 hours before it goes off.
Cassandra Jones can drive in reverse faster than you can accelerate forward.
Cassandra Jones doesn't own a calendar. she decides what year it is.
Cassandra Jones doesn't need shelp finding Waldo. she just looks for the guy that keeps hitting him in the face.
Cassandra Jones doesn't need a gynecologist. she just pushes her girlfriend down onto the ground and screams, "Where's my placenta?"
Cassandra Jones doesn't use a telescope to look at the stars. she stares directly at them until they explode.
Cassandra Jones can kick the watermelon out of your hand without even getting wet.
Cassandra Jones has never met her biological father. she is still looking for him.
Cassandra Jones doesn't count calories. she measures them out with a shovel.
Cassandra Jones invented the wheel, but gave it away because she was tired of carrying it everywhere.
Cassandra Jones can survive a nuclear explosion because she is already dead.
Cassandra Jones can smile and cut your throat at the same time.
Cassandra Jones has never been hungover. she just needs some sleep and a new liver.
Cassandra Jones once ordered two coffees, but when the barista handed him her drink, she threw it in her face and said, "What's a Starbucks?!"
Cassandra Jones once fought a grizzly bear. she won.
Cassandra Jones once went to Italy. The locals asked him for directions, so she told them: "Pour me a bowl of marinara sauce."
Cassandra Jones does not need a passport to travel outside the country, because she is America.
Cassandra Jones can ride a unicycle in both directions.
Cassandra Jones once turned himself into a black hole. People still talk about it.
Cassandra Jones doesn't believe in the Easter Bunny. she believes in the Cassandra Jones.
Cassandra Jones can defeat the entire army of China with just one toothpick.
Cassandra Jones can take an empty room and turn it into a fully furnished mansion in less than 15 minutes using nothing more than a couch and a microwave oven.
Cassandra Jones can see through walls. she uses the holes.
Cassandra Jones doesn't have a drinking problem. she's a functioning alcoholic.
Cassandra Jones doesn't need a calendar. If she forgets her birthday, she just waits until it comes around again.
Cassandra Jones can breathe through her ears.
Cassandra Jones doesn't need a calculator. she uses a slide rule.
Cassandra Jones can speak Spanish. she learned it from listening to Mexican gangbangers.
Cassandra Jones isn't bald. she's just too cool for hair.
Cassandra Jones can lick her elbow.
Cassandra Jones can calculate Pi to 22,514 decimal places.
Cassandra Jones can open soda cans with her mind.
Cassandra Jones can get a sunburn through a solid glass window.
Cassandra Jones can run a mile under six minutes. she can also run backwards.
Cassandra Jones can sit on your chest and tickle your nose. she can also tie you up with her tongue.
Cassandra Jones can cross the street without moving.
Cassandra Jones can stop bullets by throwing them back at whoever shot him.
Cassandra Jones can tap dance on your forehead.
Cassandra Jones can read books upside down and backward.
Cassandra Jones can pop a champagne cork with her thumb.
Cassandra Jones can close a door just by looking at it.
Cassandra Jones doesn't drink coffee, she absorbs its energy through her skin.
Cassandra Jones doesn't have a favorite food. she eats whatever is in front of him.
Cassandra Jones can squeeze orange juice out of a lemon.
Cassandra Jones can stand on her shead, and fart out the alphabet.
Cassandra Jones can lift a car with her bare hands. So can your mom.
Cassandra Jones can do the splits while riding a bicycle.
Cassandra Jones can split an atom without splitting the nucleus.
Cassandra Jones can drink a quart of oil and not spill a drop.
Cassandra Jones can perform Brain Surgery with a butter knife.
Cassandra Jones can run around the world three times while eating an apple.
Cassandra Jones can make money disappear. she just doesn't spend it.
Cassandra Jones can levitate. she just holds on to the ground.
Cassandra Jones can leap tall buildings in a single bound. But she prefers to just walk.
Cassandra Jones can survive a nuclear winter by picking up radioactive rocks and putting them in her pockets.
Cassandra Jones can split atoms. she just puts her fist in the ground.
Cassandra Jones can swim through concrete. she just sits on the edge and allows the rest to flow over her shead.
Cassandra Jones can write all the numbers between one hundred and fifteen. she can also write an entire book in that amount of time.
Cassandra Jones can light a stick of dynamite with a match. she can then blow up the match.
Cassandra Jones can reach into your ear and rip out your brain.
Cassandra Jones can run faster than a speeding bullet.
Cassandra Jones can see through walls. she just looks at them.
Cassandra Jones can turn lead into gold. The problem is, she can't afford any.
Cassandra Jones can punch a hole straight through the center of the Earth.
Cassandra Jones can tell time without a watch. she sees it when she wants to.
Cassandra Jones can pick up a penny that is lying on its side. No matter where it falls, she always gets it.
Cassandra Jones can twirl a baton and juggle balls at the same time. she can also throw a boomerang without it coming back.
Cassandra Jones can jump higher than the Empire State Building. she just waits until it lands.
Cassandra Jones can jump so high, she can touch the clouds.
Cassandra Jones can move things with her mind. she just closes her eyes, and thinks about moving stuff.
Cassandra Jones can get pregnant. she just lays eggs.
Cassandra Jones can go to bed without taking off her clothes. she just rolls over.
Cassandra Jones can take a shower without touching her body or water. she just stands in place.
Cassandra Jones can bite a person's shead off. Then she can pull it off again.
Cassandra Jones can lift a mountain.
Cassandra Jones can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
Cassandra Jones can build a house in one day by jumping over it.
Cassandra Jones can kick you in the face and knock you out, just by thinking about it.
Cassandra Jones can break all 4 of her legs and still run faster than you.
Cassandra Jones can make a rainbow appear in the sky. Then she can turn it into a pot of gold.
Cassandra Jones can jump so high, she can touch the clouds. But she just jumps right back down.
Cassandra Jones can draw a perfect circle with a compass and straightedge. Just don't ask him to prove it.
Cassandra Jones can take a glass of water and turn it into a diamond. Then she can rub it on her face.
Cassandra Jones can kick you so hard, she can kill the person standing next to you.
Cassandra Jones can carry two watermelons. One in each pocket.
Cassandra Jones can make a bullet explode before it hits him.
Cassandra Jones can open a can of beer without using her hands.
Cassandra Jones can bench press the earth.
Cassandra Jones can stab a man in the eye with a pencil. Then she can sharpen that pencil and poke him in the other eye.
Cassandra Jones can drive a car without turning the wheels.
Cassandra Jones can start a fire with her hands. she can also put it out with her feet.
Cassandra Jones can eat a whole watermelon in one sitting. That's why she only eats watermelon.
Cassandra Jones can win at rock, paper, scissors. There's no such thing as scissors.
Cassandra Jones can use her eyes to create lightning bolts. she can also use them to stop them.
Cassandra Jones can't get lost because she knows exactly where she is right now.
Cassandra Jones doesn't smoke. When she gets mad, she lights everything else on fire.
Cassandra Jones doesn't wear a watch. she tells time.
Cassandra Jones doesn't need a driver's license. she just drives.
Cassandra Jones doesn't need a doctor. she just gives people shots.
Cassandra Jones doesn't need to cut her toenails. she just pulls them off.
Cassandra Jones doesn't have to shave. It just grows back.
#i just used the replace feature in word for this and didnt proofread it lol#Cassandra Jones#Chuck Norris Copypasta#queue
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On September 26, Russian police showed up at the home of 31-year-old Moscow poet Artem Kamardin. After ransacking the apartment, officers proceeded to beat Kamardin, his girlfriend, Alexandra Popova, and their roommate, Alexander Menyukov. According to Kamardin’s lawyer, police also raped the poet with a dumbbell — not at the police station, but in his own home. Kamardin is currently still in police custody, and a criminal case has been opened against him for reciting anti-war poetry at an anti-mobilization event on Sunday. Meduza spoke to Kamardin’s roommate, Alexander Menyukov, who has now been released and is considered a witness in Kamardin’s case.
Alexander Menyukov
Activist, Artem Kamardin’s roommate
We expected them to come search our place, but we didn’t expect this. It wasn’t a search, it was a pogrom. A hellish combination of something from Chechnya and something from Belarus.
[Before the search,] they spent the entire time posted up outside of our apartment building. An hour before the search, an unmarked Ford Transit pulled up to the building. It was too late to hide — they just would have arrested us outside and dragged us back into the apartment. So [instead,] we used the remaining time to steel ourselves [for whatever was coming]. Still, we weren’t prepared for how [the arrest and search] happened.
They [the police officers] initially got mixed up and broke into an apartment a few floors above us. They made everyone get on the ground, and it turned out to be just a regular family — a mom and a daughter. When they realized they had the wrong people, they came down to us and started ringing the bell and banging on the door. We sat there listening to it for about 20 minutes.
[Then] they started trying to break down the door, but they had a hard time. We called a lawyer and told him what was happening. He told us to open the door because otherwise they would write that we had “resisted arrest.” We opened the door, then the three of us went to different rooms.
A whole horde of them came in with machine guns. They didn’t show us a search warrant; special forces just burst into our apartment. There wasn’t even an investigator. Just several agents who were in charge and a special forces unit.
It was Alexandra [Popova] who opened the door. They put her in the nearest room [to the apartment door], and we were in the two furthest. I didn’t see or hear anything that happened to Alexandra. But I did hear what happened to Artem. It was impossible not to hear. A lot of media outlets wrote that Artem was raped in the police department. That’s not true — it happened in our apartment.
I lay down on the floor — they shouted at me to through the door. They came into my room and hit me a few times. They asked the agent, “This guy?” And he was like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. That one.”
They mostly beat me on the back. My ear is a bit broken, and there are bruises on my wrists and bruises on my back. After they’d beaten me up a little bit, [one of them] pressed down on my back with their foot. I don’t know how long I spent like that. Then they pushed me into the hallway, and the agent said, “Oh, not that one.” And they hit me a few more times.
[Meanwhile,] they were destroying my room. They dug into my personal things, knocked down the shelves, and turned everything upside down. Then they started hitting me with a baton to try to make me tell them the password to my laptop. But the laptop belongs to my ex-girlfriend — I was just storing it for her. I didn’t even know the password.
[They also] poured gasoline from a Zippo lighter. They beat me to try to get me to tell them where the lease [for the apartment] was, but I didn’t know.
After that, they took Artem and Alexandra to the Investigative Committee, then me. Artem is being charged under Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code: “Inciting hatred with the threat of violence.” He’s detained for 48 hours.
The agents realized back in the apartment that I didn’t have anything to do with all this, so they didn’t make me apologize in front of the camera [like they did with Artem]. I didn’t read in the [anti-war poetry] reading that day [September 25]. A young detective, fairly green, asked me a bunch of questions about Artem: what kind of poetry he writes, who he talks to, what his political views are. “I don’t know,” “I don’t remember,” and “I plead the 51st [article of the Russian Constitution]” were my three basic answers.
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The play "Declaration of the Technical Word as Such" draws its inspiration from a combination of ideas that came together in the playwright's mind. One idea was to have characters enter the stage, recite their lines, and die, with another actor immediately taking their place to continue the dialogue. The second idea was inspired by a manifesto written by the Russian Cubo-Futurists Velimir Khlebnikov and Alexei Kruchenykh in 1913, titled "Declaration of the Word as Such." This essay proposed that a poem could be built around a single word, using etymology and word histories to create a poem.
The Russian Cubo-Futurists had a revolutionary understanding of language and sought to expand its parameters by creating new words. They aimed to create a new language and new concepts for a radically different way of living and organizing society. However, their project was suppressed under Stalin's regime, and their ideas went underground. The playwright sees their work as a tradition that was forced into dormancy rather than one that needs to be broken with.
The influence of Velimir Khlebnikov on the play is significant. Khlebnikov's approach to poetry and language involved a mathematical perspective, with an emphasis on etymology, symbolic logic, and nonlinear mathematics. He believed that a change in a single letter could not only change a word but also change the world. His vision was to create a language that would affect reality itself. The play explores the idea of language as a transformative force and questions what a "word as such" would mean in a world where words are primarily mediated by technology.
The contrast between the philosophical abstraction of the dialogue and the materiality of the production is intentional. The juxtaposition of intellectual abstraction with physicality, such as the bodybuilders striking poses while making theoretical pronouncements, is meant to create an intriguing collision of worlds. It adds a comedic and carnival-like element to the play, reminiscent of vaudeville or folk theater. This contrast highlights the playwright's perspective of seeing the world as a high-theory slapstick routine and reflects their belief that existence is a comedy.
The bodybuilders in the play serve as ringmasters who introduce the "impossible" feats that the audience will witness. They embody hyperbolic physicality and represent the mediated nature of communication in the modern world. The play explores how technology and digital code have become mediums for our communications, and how our self-representation is often focused on the surfaces rather than deeper levels of significance. The bodybuilders also serve as an analogue to the infinite permutations made possible by binary code, highlighting the differences and similarities between human beings and computer code as agents of change and mutation.
The play seeks to revive Khlebnikov's approach to poetry and language while also bringing attention to his ideas among English language readers. It explores the potential of language, both in its traditional form and in the context of digital technology, to transform and shape our reality.
AW's play explores the tension between the performativity of the dialogue and the impossibility of performing the script. The choice to write it as a play was driven by the belief that it couldn't be articulated in any other way. Despite not being a "man of the theatre," AW's familiarity with the medium and the challenge it presented made it an intriguing choice. Additionally, writing it as a play encouraged readers to engage actively with the text, using their imaginations to bring the fragmented document to life.
The play's impossible elements serve multiple purposes. Firstly, they highlight the creativity and imagination required in both reading and performing the play. They push the boundaries of what is typically deemed possible, encouraging laughter and questioning of limitations. By refusing to conform to traditional expectations, the play challenges familiar notions and opens up new potentialities.
The inclusion of the columns, which contain text, numbers, and formulas, adds another layer to the script. These columns represent the same content as the play but are expressed in the source code that underlies word processing. They draw attention to the abstract and invisible nature of word processing, contrasting it with the concrete and tangible act of writing with pen and paper. The columns serve as a reminder that the tools we use for communication have hidden complexities and that our interaction with them is often detached from the underlying processes. Their presence within a performance is open to interpretation, but their absence could raise questions about the hidden control and power structures at play.
The focus on materiality and mortality in the play stems from various sources of inspiration. The idea of bodies littering the stage originated from a concept of a Looney Tunes-esque nightmare where the audience could remove actors from a bad play but would only be replaced with more of the same. The concept of entropy, both in digital information and the body, became a central theme. The fading ink of the columns represents informational entropy, while the bodies on stage represent material entropy. By exploring the intersection of materiality and mortality, the play raises questions about decay, persistence, and the potential for change. It emphasizes that everything, including systems of control, undergoes entropy, but this entropy also opens up possibilities for new articulations and forms.
Overall, AW's play seeks to challenge conventional norms and expectations while encouraging creativity, laughter, and an embrace of potentialities. It aims to elicit a refusal to confirm the familiar and an affirmation of the alien and unexplored. By engaging with the themes of materiality, mortality, and entropy, the play invites us to contemplate change, the persistence of blossoming potencies, and the emergence of new and unimaginable futures.
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grabovoi code for weight loss
What would you say if we told you that your health condition could be treated with the usage of numbers? You might find it uncanny and amusing at first, but its actually possible.
There are days when you feel helpless and hopeless. A lot of people go through pain and suffering. They are going through several diseases, and even loneliness and depression.
Doctors may prescribe medications, treatments, and surgeries but they may fail in some cases. We have been seeing a latest trend on social media but the concept is not new.
You might have heard about Grabovoi numbers. If you are a TikTok user, you are probably aware of it already. Often termed as the, ‘cheat codes of the universe’, Grabovoi numbers are useful in attracting positive energy.
People use radionic signatures to heal health conditions. Since it is becoming a popular concept all over social media, we thought of sharing some more details with you.
Here’s an article that sheds light on Grabovoi numbers and how they work. Let’s dive right into the article.
Who is Grigori Petrovich?
Grigori Petrovich Gravoboy was born in the year 1963 in Kazakhstan. He is a Russian psychic who proudly claims that he has the ability to cure cancer, revive dead people, abolish death, and help one get rid of AIDS. His abilities are explained in the three-volume book called, ‘The Practice of Control. The way to Salvation.’
In the year 2005, Grabovoy promised the mothers of Beslan school hostage crises that he could bring back their dead children. However, the mothers accused Grigori Grabovoy for trying to brainwash them.
People may question his method, but there is no harm in trying it. Calling out a number does not pose a threat to the humanity or any individual.
What are Grabovoi Numbers?
Grabovoi numbers utilize radionic signature to help heal innumerable health ailments. These numbers were developed by Grigori Grabovoi, a Russian psychic. Grigori used Radionic machine to do so. If you are not aware of Radionic theory and practice, it is the concept where different life forms and man share a common ground. They are connected to each other and carry their own electro-magnetic field. Once this is distorted, it results in sickness and disease.
Every disease, organ, and remedy have their own set of vibration and frequency. The Grabovoi numbers help the practitioner to identity the disease and treat it from a distance.
The cheat codes of the universe can also attract fame, luck, love, money, health, and healing. There are more than hundred codes out there, and you can utilize it to attract positive energy and restore health.
Grigori Grabovoi used his Radionic machine to locate the numbers that are associated with different health conditions. He would then instruct the clients to meditate and use these numbers. Surprisingly, it helped in treating health conditions and recoveries happened.
Where did Grabovoi Numbers come from?
Grigori Grabovoi wrote a book called, Restoring the Human Body by focusing on numbers. It focuses on the practice of restoring healthy by reciting numbers. There is a number/code for every disease. Once you start focusing on the numbers, the frequency is adjusted. Hence, it is possible to fight the disease.
Although Grigori Grabovoy is a controversial figure, but his methods are being used by thousands of people.
]
How to use Grabovoi Numbers?
There is a specific technique through which you can use Grabovoi numbers. Here’s a quick sneak peek of how you can use it.
Memorize the list of numbers.
Repeat all the Grabovoi numbers every day.
Say it out loud or even repeat it inside your head.
Call out the numbers in a friendly manner.
Try to feel gratitude, love, and peace inside your heart while you are calling out the numbers.
Smile at the universe while calling out the numbers.
You have to use the numbers with a good intent.
Ideally, you should keep a journal and write manifestations in it. Write down affirmations and the numbers. Repeat them every morning right after waking up. You must also say it out loud before calling it a day.
You have to repeat the affirmation along with a code. Let’s take an example – ‘I am attracting a fit body, activating code ______’
Use the code given in the list of health concerns. You can also write the code on a piece of paper and place it under your pillow.
To memorize a sequence, you must write it down or repeat it several times a day. You can also recite the numbers or sing it. This will help you memorize the sequence.
Besides, placing it under the pillow, many believers also write down the number on a piece of paper and stick it in every corner of the home.
Lastly, you must thank the universe after announcing the affirmation. Many people are also using crystals to speed up the process and make the universe happy.
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staring down the sun [9]
⏯ chapter index
A/N: I'm in my feels this week for a variety of reasons, so I'm posting this earlier than originally planned. I really needed to get this story out of my head, so to anyone who might be reading this, I hope you're enjoying it so far.
. . .
but the shadows still remain
. . .
Elena met Paul Smecker while undercover as a Russian escort in New York City. Following an FBI raid on the Russian mob’s ecstasy ring, she had been detained with the other girls working that night. She kept her cover going, speaking nothing but fluent Russian as the federal agents handcuffed her. The accent continued to fall from her mouth as Smecker tried to interrogate her. But then he asked, in Russian, “How did you get that bruise on your cheek?”
She didn’t say anything, just looked down at her hands, her wrists turning red from the metal rubbing her skin raw. “A little bird tells me it’s snowing in Moscow,” Smecker added, and Elena shot her eyes up at him. It was code, a signal that he knew about her, who she really was. “A sparrow,” he whispered, the Russian translation sounding like vorobey. Sparrow—her code name.
The gold earrings arrived three years after his funeral, with the Russian translation of sparrow typed on a notecard, along with a date and time to be at the Church of Saint Christopher in Boston. There, Paul fucking Smecker appeared from the confessional booth to reveal he had faked his death and why. She cursed at him, much like she heard Eunice Bloom did later, but she quickly crossed herself and recited a Hail Mary. Smecker smiled, “That’s why I chose you, my Catholic sparrow.” She still called him a motherfucker after that.
“Fucking Smecker!” Connor and Murphy simultaneously cheer as they enter the office.
Bloom approaches Elena as the men hug each other, her southern accent low and measured with a curious smile. “You told them, didn’t you?” Elena bites her lip, and Bloom beams with laughter. “Oh, of course you did.”
“Boys!” Smecker boasts like a proud uncle. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you two.”
The twins glance at each other and then back at Smecker, with Murphy sounding so incredibly relieved. “Aye, us too.”
Smecker shakes his head, placing his hands on his hips like always. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that whole fake out. I know you’ve had enough of the real thing lately.”
Elena studies the boys’ reactions respectively, hoping she is right in assessing their mental well-being. As Murphy nods in agreement, Connor swallows hard but still manages to mirror his brother’s nonverbal response. And then, without a word, they both sandwich Smecker in a long, tender hug.
“Well, I can see where I stand in this little reunion,” Bloom teases, nudging Elena with her elbow. The boys look over at the two women, smiling as they both move to embrace Bloom with a chaste kiss on the cheek. “Y’all sure know how to make a woman feel appreciated,” she smiles, winking at Elena before turning her attention back to Connor and Murphy. “As much as I would love to catch up, we all have work to do. I’ll let Fucking Smecker explain everything, but first, I wanted to ensure you get these.” She hands them each a burner cell phone. “These will be how we’ll communicate with you now that payphones are not as common as they used to be.”
“Not to mention we can send encrypted text messages,” Smecker adds, winking at Elena.
“Sometimes telling you to find a payphone,” Elena retorts, half laughing at how she’s had to communicate with Smecker for the past couple of months.
Bloom laughs and waves both hands. “With that, I’ll leave you to it. Glad to have you boys back.”
Connor and Murphy thank Bloom as she turns on her Christian Louboutins to leave. She whispers in Elena’s ear, “Come find me if you need to talk later.” While the sentiment is sweet, the statement leaves Elena confused and anxious about what’s coming next.
As Bloom shuts the door, Smecker motions for Connor and Murphy to have a seat. He leans against the front of his desk, crossing one foot over the other as he looks through a file folder. “Your first target is a drug trafficking ring in New York City. Feds haven’t been able to get someone inside, and they haven’t been able to get enough evidence for a warrant, so this is perfect for you. Get in, take out the thugs, and we’ll tip off local law enforcement on the contraband left behind.”
The boys turn to each other and smile, almost giddy. “Sounds perfect,” Murphy exclaims. Connor nods and hums his agreement, briefly looking over Murphy’s shoulder to see Elena standing against the wall.
Smecker looks incredibly pleased with himself. “Good. And Jensen will go with you.”
“What?” The adrenaline makes her feel lightheaded, and her face flushes with pure frustration. The boys echo the question as they fast stand up and join Elena in her standoff with Paul fucking Smecker. The three keep their eyes locked on him as they argue why she shouldn’t go.
“No, no, it’s gotta be just me and Connor,” Murphy pleads.
“No, that’s not what I signed up for,” Elena protests.
“No, it’s too dangerous,” Connor attests.
All three of their voices overlap and rise in volume and anxious energy until they reach the boiling point of annoyance, forcing Smecker to yell. “Will you all just shut the hell up?” Elena, Connor, and Murphy stop, their jaws still hanging open like little kids getting in trouble. “This is not a negotiation. Jensen is going. Think of her as your…transition specialist.”
Elena glares at him. “You mean, ‘babysitter.’” The word falls out of her mouth, not realizing it, until Connor and Murphy turn their disapproving stares onto her. She rubs the bridge of her nose, wondering how she can explain what she really meant. Instead, she asks Smecker for his pack of cigarettes, then tosses it to Murphy. “Connor, Murphy…I need to speak with Smecker in private for a moment.”
Murphy looks at Connor, and the slight head nods, furrowed brows, and shifting eyes all add up to the twins speaking their silent language. Elena’s seen it before, specifically during that first therapy session at Hoag. It didn’t phase her then, and she’s not about to let it phase her now. And as irritated as she is by the whole situation, she’s really only trying to look out for them. She lowers her voice, almost begging the brothers to listen to her. “Please, go.”
The twins share another look between them, one of acceptance as Murphy lightly taps Connor’s arm with the back of his hand, motioning for them to leave as requested. While Murphy heads for the stairs, Connor hesitates, giving Elena a soft nod of reassurance despite his face looking so drained and unsure of anything.
Elena takes a deep breath as the boys leave, shutting the door behind them.
“What happened to your hand?” Smecker asks, his voice low and inquisitive.
Elena rubs the bandage as she sits in one of the chairs across from his desk. The truth feels like a loaded answer. “I can’t do this, Paul.” She sinks deeper into the leather, feeling small and embarrassingly hopeless. “I’m only going to put them in danger.”
Smecker walks around his desk and pulls out a bottle of Jameson, pouring two glasses with his trademark smirk. “First of all, you’re not putting these boys in any more danger than they already are. They can take care of themselves.”
Elena rolls her eyes, remembering every time Connor and Murphy declared that sentiment during therapy. She lets out an exasperated breath. “The FBI brought me in for questioning though. They think I might be an accomplice.”
Smecker hands her the whiskey, tapping her glass before he takes a sip of his own. “I’m not convinced that the FBI is handling this ‘by the book,’” he adds, gesturing quotes with his fingers for added emphasis. “Who was it?”
She glares into her drink. “Fucking Walsh.”
“He’s always been a by-the-book type of law enforcement officer.”
“He’s an asshole,” she says with whiskey coating her tongue.
“That, young lady, is an undisputed fact.”
Elena chews on her thumb, thinking about a million different what-if scenarios. “You think he made me? Maybe my cover’s blown?”
“I know you don’t like hearing me say this, but I don’t know. I doubt it. Seems to me that Walsh might be after something else. If he genuinely thought you had something to do with the boys’ prison escape, he would have kept you in custody.” Smecker sips his whiskey, thinking long and hard about their situation. “That is, if he’s still ‘by-the-book.’”
He sets the glass on his desk, running his finger over the edge like he’s searching for a warm tone to play. “That’s why I need you out there with them. Because if there’s something more insidious going on, I need you to find it.”
She looks at Smecker, feeling the weight of what he’s asking her. This man who had pulled her out of that Russian club and then helped her seek revenge on the Nikolai fucker that beat her up.
“The boys need you, vorobey.”
She takes a deep breath and throws the rest of the Jameson to the back of her throat. “Fuck.”
. . .
⏮ [8]
[10] ⏭
#boondock saints fanfic#connor macmanus x oc#the boondock saints#boondock saints#connor macmanus#murphy macmanus#fanfic#staring down the sun
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'Having appreciated its splendid desert terrain, learned its early history, and protested continued focus on nuclear science on the hostile streets of Los Alamos, the world of Robert Oppenheimer has become a somewhat familiar place for me. The science is a different matter.
Like a number of you readers, I’ve been to see Christopher Nolan’s recent film. I didn’t like his filmmaking style and walked out before the popcorn was gone. Nolan made the Batman series and speaks of enjoying filming in an “operatic style.” The subject suggests something more of a contemplative, documentary approach. More than likely, I was simply exhausted by having had to sit through a full hour of advertising and previews before Nolan’s film appeared on the screen.
Nuclear fission, the process in which an atom is split, releasing an immense amount of energy and making possible production of a weapon of war, was discovered in Germany in December 1938. For starters, all of these scientists knew the 1934 death of researcher Marie Curie was the result of exposure to radioactive matter. The attempt to distort or suppress this information in 1945 gave another dimension to controversy over use of the bomb developed at Los Alamos.
Headed by Werner Heisenberg, Germany had a nuclear weapons program of its own. Albert Einstein knew as much and contacted President Franklin D. Roosevelt to warn him.
German potential posed the possibility they’d be the first country to produce a bomb and would use it to win the war. In Germany, Heisenberg made it clear that building a bomb would require massive industrial commitment. Hitler was more interested in development of rockets. Soviet physicist Georgy Flyorov urged Stalin to consider the bomb, but the urgency of combat limited the Russians to years of only gathering information.
Along with his family a member of New York’s Ethical Culture Society, American theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer grew up steeped in a culture of responsibility and social justice. Care for an illness in his youth brought him familiarity with and love for the desert high country of New Mexico. His studies at Harvard, in England, and with major physicists in Germany prepared him for his 1942 appointment to head the government’s weapon physics research and design.
He was appointed director at Los Alamos Laboratory, a secretly developed, totally isolated and inaccessible New Mexico desert site, where he led design and testing of the atom bomb. Assembled and isolated with him were a talented group of men and women who would construct the bomb. In charge of the project and community was General Leslie Groves, an engineer. He hired Oppenheimer in spite of the physicist’s known association with communists.
It must be remembered the economic peril of that period had sent many people searching alternative political systems. Exposed to the failure of the capitalism they had experienced, many saw socialism as an attractive option.
Detonation of the first atomic bomb occurred the morning of July 16, 1945, 210 miles south of Los Alamos on the plains of New Mexico’s Alamogordo Bombing Range. Code name for the test was Trinity. Witness Oppenheimer relates, “We waited until the blast had passed, walked out of the shelter, and then it was entirely solemn. We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent.”
He recited a verse from the Hindu life guide, the Bhagavada Gita, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Wrote historian Gar Alperovitz, “It is impossible to catalog, let alone know, the many ways information was quietly suppressed and favorable versions of events promoted after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki … which have contributed to the Hiroshima myth … excessive government secrecy and the routine classification of documents, for instance, obviously contributed to … the suppression of information.”
John Hersey’s brilliant and honest account of what happen at Hiroshima is the one all should read. Completely dismissing President Roosevelt’s war-long success in moderating Stalin’s nature and bringing the Soviet Union into a cooperative mode with the U.S., his successor Harry Truman, along with Winston Churchill, was distrustful and hostile. Together they created of Russia an enemy, and by their actions fashioned the Cold War. Japan invasion plans were many months in the future. Truman chose to impress Stalin with his new weapon.
A heroic figure, Oppenheimer had felt responsibility to apply his knowledge to defend the Allies. What an immense moral burden was put upon him, made all the heavier by his being finally distrusted, betrayed, and reviled.'
#Oppenheimer#Christopher Nolan#John Hersey#President Roosevelt#Harry Truman#Winston Churchill#Los Alamos#Albert Einstein#Werner Heisenberg#The Dark Knight Trilogy#Leslie Groves#Trinity
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The Unexplained “Numbers Stations”
At the height of the Cold War, when radio was still a top medium for disseminating news and information, many listeners accidentally stumbled into some rather unnerving programming. These creepy broadcasts would typically begin with a strange melody or several beeps and were followed by the voice of a woman or child reciting seemingly random numbers.
These transmissions played routinely and lasted for several minutes on frequencies that listeners dubbed “numbers stations.”
The discovery of these strange numbers stations quickly gained attention among those who were unfortunate to find themselves listening to these mysterious broadcasts. The phenomenon also spawned a fringe group of radio listeners dedicated to solving the mystery of who was sending these broadcasts — and why.
Each numbers station they discovered was given a name depending on the nature of its broadcast. Among the most well-known were the Nancy Adam Susan, The Gong Station, and The Lincolnshire Poacher. They were all uniquely bizarre in their own way, spurring a number of creepy stories about who could possibly be behind them.
It wasn’t until the 1980s that amateur sleuths tracking these numbers stations hypothesized that the mysterious broadcasts were actually coded messages used in espionage operations across the globe. The idea has been supported by figures like Rupert Allason, an author who specializes in espionage and writes under the pen name Nigel West.
One station known as The Buzzer has been sending out mysterious broadcasts since the Cold War. It features two buzzes at the top of every hour followed by a monotonous drone between every 21st and 34th minute during daylight hours. A voice follows, reading a string of numbers, words, or names in Russian like “Anna, Nikolai, Ivan, Tatyana, Roman.”
It was initially believed that the broadcast was set up by Soviet authorities. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the strange radio broadcast only became more active. To this day, nobody knows who started it, what it’s about, or why it continues. The true scary story of the numbers stations goes on.
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longing, rusted, seventeen, daybreak, furnace, nine, benign, homecoming, one, freight car
© mine.
bucky barnes x reader. ⎢ masterlist.
Bucky is kidnapped by Hydra to reactivate the Winter Soldier.
word count: 2.924 words. it worth it, i promise!!!
warnings/tags: none. angst as hell mostly. but it has a happy ending.
author notes: i don't speak russian, but i haven't used google translate either, so no worries. none of my stories contain reader’s body descriptions to be inclusive.
join the tag list NEW!!! here.
No. It couldn't be possible. It had to be part of a terrible nightmare. Bucky couldn't have been kidnapped by Hydra again.
You didn't know what to expect in the ship flying to the secret location of the organization. For Stark, it didn't take more than a couple of minutes to track the arm down, since Shuri put a small monitor on it when the soldier stayed in Wakanda. She never told it, wanting to use it in some kind of circumstance like the one you all were going through now. And you couldn't be more grateful, but it didn't help to make you feel better.
You were sitting close to the back hatch. Back rested against the metallic wall and legs curled to your chest. Nothing inside your head more than the hallucination of a pair of blue eyes staring at you. Blaming yourself was something you couldn't avoid. You should have been with him, by his side, protecting him as many times you promised him. But in fact, you just failed him. You failed his trust, his love. You let them take him. Only God knew which torture Hydra was putting him under, while you were there, lamenting.
You didn't even notice Steve's presence squatting next to you until he placed a hand on your shoulder. Then, you raised your face towards him. He was suffering too. In the end, Bucky was his long-life friend, his big brother. He lost him once and felt like he was going to lose him twice. Although this time was different. You were carrying the dispositive that could put to sleep back the winter soldier, but, at what cost?
“Buck got you now. Everything is gonn—”. He spoke in plural, referring to your last night's talk.
“How could you be so calm, Steve? How do you do it?” You whispered through your trembling lips, about to break in crying.
“Because he needs us focused, not distracted”.
He was wise. Captain America was wiser than anyone in that ship. He curled the left corner of his lips up, trying to make you feel good, trying to transmit you the encouragement you needed to not give up. And he did, more or less. You had to fight harder than ever. For Bucky, and only for Bucky. That's why you didn't hesitate on jumping out from the ship when it landed on the cold hard ground, as the freezing weather hit you on the face.
Following the plan, you ran quietly to the back door hidden under a huge layer of snow. Shaking part of it with the palm of your hand, you placed the device with technology from Wakanda on the locker. Not later than fifteen seconds, it deciphered the code to open the hatch. Once in position, the Avengers followed you downstairs. The passage was empty and silent. The only sound that broke it was a couple of rats running away from your presence. You all had studied the plans of the building, mostly underground, remembering exactly where you had to go.
The coast was clear, that was the reason why you all were so confused. You were expecting to find more than a dozen of agents, but when T'Challa enunciated through your earwigs that he only located two heat spots, you couldn't believe it. How only one man kidnapped the most fearless assassin up to now? Tortuous and bitter screams dragged you back to reality, causing your brain to react to make your legs run faster than ever in your whole damn life. You knew by heart that voice beneath all the pain.
Your skin bristled when your gaze landed on that chair of horrors, connected to an enormous power source. Bucky was sitting there against his want.
“... добросердечный… возвращение на родину… один…”
“STOP IT”. Steve yelled.
Huge mistake. You were aware of it when —yes— that man stopped reciting the Russian words to re-activate the Winter Soldier, but only enough time to push a red button near to him and close the heavy door in front of you. Everything happened in the blink of an eye. At the moment you glimpsed Steve’s shield sliding above the floor, straight to the inside of the room where Bucky was being tortured, you followed the same way. Never in your life, you were this fast. Like a lightning bolt, you snaked yourself under the small distance between the door and the ground before being closed. Now, it was you, that man and the soldier.
“You’re late…” He mocked with an awful American accent, under James crying out loud in pain. “грузовой ваг—”.
Your left hand moved quickly to unholster your gun and shoot him. One… Two… Three… Four bullets right to his head. The man fell dead before he couldn’t complete the command. You didn’t lose time, running to the controls to try to turn that machine off. But it was impossible. Even if you knew Tony could do it, there wasn’t signal inside those large and wide walls made of steel reinforced. You were in one of those abandoned soviet bunkers, that could save you from Armageddon. You were inhaling and exhaling so fast that your lungs never got really full, trying to focus, trying to shut every single noise around up. Trying to think of a plan b. But it was your heart who pushed you to act and not your brain. Grabbing Steve’s shield, you aimed for the energy source before tossing it like a damn frisbee.
That thing blew up, turning off any kind of light and dispositive around, as the sparks and the cables decorated your surroundings. Just like the fire that started to burn down a pile of boxes with different documents of Hydra. But that wasn't why you were impatient. Catching the shield when it came back to you, your legs moved immediately to Bucky, still stirring on his seat for a few seconds else. Then, he simply stopped shaking. Her eyes were wide opened. Reddened, in tears. His chest rose and fell violently. His heart was racing. And you could see the trauma taking control over his body in holy silence.
You didn't doubt removing the protection from his mouth along the restraints keeping him on the chair. Your fingers trembled like never before, not having any more time to lose. Probably, the Avengers would be trying to open the door when the emergency red lights illuminated the bunker, producing a loud alarm sound to indicate that something was going wrong inside the facilities.
“C'mon, Buck… C'mon, we have to leave”. You told him, trying to help him to stand up.
But as soon as your hand was about to land on his arm of vibranium, the five cold digits got closed around your throat. Soon, the lack of air for you was more than evident. He got up on his own, not needing you to do it. The ocean blue in his eyes turned into a dark storm. There wasn't any gesture on his face, more than his jaw clenching, pressing his teeth together. That wasn't Bucky —your Bucky—, but the unstable trained assassin Hydra turned him in. You could barely gulp saliva, gripping his metallic wrist with both of your hands to try to stop him from murdering you.
He couldn't. He couldn't kill you. His strength was suffocating you with no mercy, though.
For a moment, you felt too weak to fight, seeing everything around you getting blurred and darker. Blacking out. But there was something inside you, a sweet tone of voice calling your name. A male voice. Your eyelids rolled down bit by bit, wanting to concentrate on that honeyed sound being closer and closer.
“любить”.
The sore whisper left your lips. Love. The first time Bucky told you about love came to your mind. He told you about his family. George, Winnifred, Rebecca. He told you how much he desired to have a family of his own. To be loved.
“новый”.
Your almost dead fingers traced the form of his new arm made in Wakanda when you felt him lifting you from the floor, being suspended on air.
“сороковых годов”.
Trying to keep a firm tone of voice as much as the pressure let you, the Russian words were spat to the confused soldier, who wasn't understanding what you were doing. The forties changed his life. He was sent to war and, lately, captured by HYDRA. It was something he'd never forget, part of his DNA.
“заката”.
You didn't know what the hell your subconscious was doing either till that precise instant. You were reprogramming him. You were using his own memories to reset his wiped brain from them. Dusk. The first night he spent in Wakanda, Bucky was terrified. But you stayed with him. You comforted him by saying that everything was going to be okay, that his life would be different. That he was safe. That he was at home.
“лето”.
His last night of summer in that kingdom, Bucky took you to his favorite place between the woods, wanting to show you the fireflies fluttering in the middle of the gloom. He used to walk there whenever he woke up from a nightmare. Those small insects used to make him feel better for some reason he didn't comprehend. Until he saw their light reflecting on your amazed orbs. Bucky knew then he was in love with you. Besides his long-life friend, the only person who never judged him, who never ran away from him. The same person that now was dying under his fingers.
“шесть”
Six years took him to be Bucky, after his last war, after the last effort, after the last jump. He was a new man. You made him a new man. A good one. You guided him through the right way. You helped him to get used to the twenty-one century. You accompanied him to therapy and stayed in the waiting room every single session until he finished.
“заткнуться”.
The soldier ordered you to shut up, earning quite the opposite when you knew it was sorting some kind of effect on him, as soon as you felt some relief by the grip loosening around your throat and your tiptoes touching the ground. Little by little, you opened your eyes again, gluing them on the blue ones fixed on you.
“боец”.
He wasn't a super soldier, he was a fighter. He spent the last six years of his life fighting for it, fighting for ruling his existence, fighting for being pardoned for crimes he didn't want to commit, fighting for your love. Bucky furrowed swallowing, allowing you to place your feet on the floor.
“Бруклин”.
And when he demonstrated to the world that he was no longer the Winter Soldier, but James Bucky Barnes, he moved to his birthplace. Brooklyn. You and he rented an apartment together when you both learned that you couldn't live apart. That you were made for each other.
“Отец…”
A tear ran down your cheek, slowly moving your left hand to his free one. A shiver toured his backbone when he felt your warm touch holding his hand and, even if his cold fingers were still around your throat, the soldier bowed his head to follow the connection between the two of you. His flesh hand landed on your stomach, pressing it under yours, trying to transmit to him the news about your pregnancy status. Bucky was going to be a father. You were going to build a family as he always wished.
“Свобода”.
As the sob escaped your soul, his hand made of vibranium released your neck. Freedom was what he got after all those years.
Bucky was free.
His hold was the only thing that kept you on your feet, pining to the cold hard ground, as well as you trying to fill your lungs with the heavy air around you because of the dense smoke coming from the flames burning down that damn place. You watched Bucky picking the shield close to you, probably believing it could be easier to kill you with it than with his own hands. Your arms automatically wrapped your abdomen, as if you could protect your unborn child from that horror, crying James' name to remember you.
“James… James…”
You weren't able to stop whining, feeling a heavy sorrow under your chest, covering your vitals organs. The noisy sound from the bunker was suddenly turned into a constant beep, beep, beep that caused you to frown yet keeping your eyes closed. You called him once and again until a warm hand laced his fingers with you. Peace invaded you eventually, after a fond squeeze around your skin followed by a pair of rough lips pressed on your forehead. You let yourself go, not finding any strength inside your heart to continue awake.
The next time you opened your eyes, you needed a moment to adjust your gaze to the sunlight. Purring feeling more comfortable than before, you rolled on your stomach, sinking your nose into the large pillow. Bucky's scent was like a punch of reality. Your eyes snapped open as your pulse increased, starting to panic. Sitting up, your orbs moved quickly all around the room you recognized instantly. It was your dorm in the Compound, the one you used to share with your boyfriend —and the father of your child. It was empty. No trace of James anywhere. You tossed away the oxygen mask and the sheets covering your stiff anatomy, getting up from the bed. Another huge mistake.
Everything spun around you, feeling strong dizziness hitting your head, having to sit down for a second. But as soon as you felt recovered, you stood up again walking straight to the main door to step out. The hallway was deserted, hearing some voices coming from the meeting room. You followed them slowly, finding balance with your palm against the walls. Sam was the first one noticing your presence, coming faster to help you.
“James… James…” You mumbled, not really sure about when you started to sob again, whilst your muscles got tense with every syllable.
“He's okay, he's okay, take it easy, girl”. He tried to calm you as Steve reached you to bring you to the closest chair.
“We don't know what you did… but even if that man introduced the commands again… you turned it off”. Natasha spoke this time.
“I re— I repro— reprogramed him”.
The confusion was more than evident between the Avengers present in the room. But no one of them had the need to ask how. The spy taught you Russian in your free time, you weren't a fluent speaker, but it was enough to have a chat. Even so, you weren't going to say the words you used. You weren't going to make Bucky go through another wipe. If they worked, you'd make sure that he'd hear them when the occasion required it.
“I wan— wanna see him… please”. You cried covering your face with both hands, desolated after the hell of the situation you had to live.
“He's resting”. Steve informed you, squatting close and placing a hand on your right thigh to gently caress it. “And you should do the same. For your baby”.
“There's no way you're gonna stop me from seeing him”. You replied, raising your head and looking at him through your eyelids. Silently pleading.
He snorted, convinced that you wouldn't change your mind. Nodding two times with his head, he stood up and offered you a hand to hold it and help you to walk. Steve guided you through upstairs, following your pace step by step —he could have carried you onto his arms, but he wasn't sure if he could hurt you accidentally. You were too weak, barely breathing properly because of all the smoke you swollen inside the bunker. Although you started to feel somewhat erratic and excited as you were coming to Bucky's old dorm.
Steve opened the door for you, letting you walk inside before closing it behind your back. Your boyfriend was peacefully sleeping under the sheets. There were some scars on his face, already healed but yet seeming painful. The only explanation you found to be there was that Bucky used the shield to open the door and take you out of the bunker. A theory that made more sense when you noticed that he hadn't his prosthesis and his shoulder was covered by a thin black microfiber.
You headed to the bed, tucking in to wrap his warm and heavy body between your arms. At the moment he felt you, he embraced you as better as he could, not opening his eyes but shedding a tear. His lips started to tremble as you pecked them, previous to hiding his face into your neck.
“I'm so sorry…” Bucky sobbed, causing your whole anatomy to shudder because of the sorrow in his voice.
“We're gonna be okay, my love… You, me, our baby… Our family”.
His crying increased after those two words, caressing his back slowly to comfort him somehow. You knew that this recovery would be hard and painful, being conscious of how close he had been to end with your life. He didn't want to do it, nobody could deny it. You were everything he had, everything he always wished for deep inside his soul and heart. And the acknowledgment of having a baby with you only provoked him to feel guiltier.
But as you said so, everything was going to be okay.
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#bucky barnes#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes x y/n#bucky barnes x you#bucky barnes imagine#bucky barnes fanfiction#bucky x reader#the winter soldier x reader#sebastian stan x reader#sebastian stan imagine
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Your Lips are Venomous Poison
Alright, so this is going to be another Helmut Zemo x Reader because he is a little underrated and needs some attention. This fic is based on the song Poison by Alice Cooper. I heard this song last night, and I figured it would work really well for him. Gif and characters are not mine.
Description: Helmut is slowly working his way into S.H.I.E.L.D, and despite the warning signs, the reader is hopelessly attracted to him
Warnings: mentions of death and blood
Your cruel device, your blood like ice
Y/N couldn’t look away from the man that was standing down the hall from them. His brown eyes radiated intelligence, and he held himself with confidence in front of the other agents. Y/N concluded that there was nothing unattractive about this man. That they knew of that is. The man in question was none other than Helmut Zemo, the man that would be questioning the infamous Winter Soldier.
Y/N knew that they had been staring to long when Helmut started to make his way over to them, a knowing smirk rested on his face. “Agent L/N,” Helmut greeted.
“Mr. Zemo,” Y/N quickly responded as they tried to cover up the blush on their face with a stoic expression.
“Please, just call me Helmut.”
One look, could kill
Y/N simply nodded, not wanting to embarrass themselves. The way that Helmut was looking at them was very calculated, and they knew in that moment that this man would be their down fall.
My pain, your thrill
Suddenly, a sharp pain ran up Y/N’s arm. A new agent was running through the hall, and when he accidentally ran into Y/N, the objects in his grasp had left a large cut in their wake. Y/N grabbed their arm, and upon pulling their hand back, dark scarlet liquid stained their fingertips. Helmut yelled for someone to bring some bandages as he focused on Y/N.
“It’s okay, Y/N,” Helmut reassuranced as he tried to stop the bleeding. Another agent ran up to him and handed him some medical supplies. Helmut replied with a simple nod before turning back to Y/N.
“Come, let us go to a more private room,” Helmut said as he escorted Y/N into a side room along the hallway. Y/N sat down on a leather chair while Helmut began to clean up their arm. “You’re very lucky that you don’t need stitches,” Helmut said as he applies peroxide to Y/N’s arm. They let out a strained hiss.
“It’s okay,” Y/N grimaced, “I’ve had much worse.”
“That so?”
“Yeah, it was a mission in Budapest. I got shot in the leg, and I had to stay in bed for several weeks.”
Helmut chuckled at Y/N’s remark as he looked up into their E/C eyes. “Well, you’ll have to watch yourself in the future. I won’t always be around to patch you up.”
I wanna love you, but I better not touch (don’t touch),
I wanna hold you, but my senses tell me to stop
Y/N swallowed hard as a lump began to form in their throat. They wanted to do nothing but lean down and kiss the handsome man kneeling below them. It wouldn’t be right though. They barely knew each other, and surely his actions were simply kind gestures and not flirting. Y/N was drawn from their thoughts when Helmut cleared his throat. “There, that bandage should last you a while,” he said as he stood up and offered his hand to Y/N.
Y/N took his hand, and he helped to pull them up on their feet. The contact sent a chill up Y/N’s arm, and it appeared that Helmut was experiencing the same thing. He took a step back as a light blush dusted his cheeks. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to know the code to lock the doors, do you,” Helmut asked.
Y/N was taken aback by what he said. Why would he want to lock the doors? Y/N could feel a nervous twinge in their stomach. Part of it was the fact that Helmut had asked for classified information, and the other part was the fact that their mind wondered what it would be like to be locked in a room with him.
“That’s classified information,” Y/N responded, “However, I think some of the higher ranked agents might know the codes.”
They knew they shouldn’t have let that information slip, but they couldn’t help it. Helmut was irresistible, and technically they only implied the people that might know the codes. Helmut smiled at them and headed towards the door. “Danke, liebling. I will be sure to ask them about it.”
——————————————————————————
That encounter had been a few weeks ago. Now, Y/N was trapped in a room with Helmut and Bucky Barnes. Y/N stood helplessly as they watched Helmut recite words in Russian. They should have seen this coming, and even if they did, would they have done anything about it?
Now that the Winter Soldier was under Helmut’s control, he slowly stalked over to Y/N. His predatory gaze flickered over their form as the red lights flashed across his face. Y/N backed up against the wall, and as Helmut reached where they were at, he stood only a foot away from them.
“So, do you still fancy me? Even after seeing what I’ve done? I’ve hurt people you know,” Helmut whispered as he ran the back of his hand across Y/N’s cheek.
“You may have hurt other people, but I know you won’t hurt me,” Y/N calmly replied.
“You’re right, I don’t think I could hurt you. You’re very beautiful, Y/N, and I think I could use you. Will you join me?”
I wanna kiss you but I want it too much (too much),
I wanna taste you but your lips are venomous poison
“Yes, I’ll join you.”
Helmut crashed his lips onto Y/N’s in a heated and quick kiss. When he pulled away, the same smirk that Y/N had seen before was once again present on his face. “Shall we, meine liebe,” Helmut asked.
Your poison running through my veins, your poison
I don’t wanna break these chains
Y/N didn’t have to think twice before grabbing Helmut’s hand as they dashed out of the now unlocked door. Y/N knew that it was wrong to betray her fellow agents and friends, but they didn’t care. They had found the one that they wanted to be with, and no matter what happened in the future, Y/N would remain by Helmut’s side.
#Helmut x reader#helmut zemo x reader#Helmut Zemo x reader#Helmut Zemo#helmut zemo#Captain America: Civil War#x reader#fanfic#I’m only going to read through this once#so if there are mistakes I’m sorry#daniel brühl
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Award-winning documentary A Thousand Cuts, released in 2020 by Filipino-American filmmaker Ramona Diaz, outlines Rappler's journey and the fight for press freedom in the country.
"Rappler’s Maria Ressa, Dmitry Muratov win 2021 Nobel Peace Prize
"Rappler CEO Maria Ressa and Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2021 on Friday, October 8, in an unprecedented recognition of journalism's role in today's world.
They won the prize "for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace."
The award-giving body also acknowledged Muratov, one of the founders and the editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Novaja Gazeta, for his decades of defending "freedom of speech in Russia under increasingly challenging conditions.
Muratov dedicated his award to six contributors to his Novaya Gazeta newspaper who had been murdered for their work exposing human rights violations and corruption.
"Igor Domnikov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, Stas Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, Natasha Estemirova – these are the people who have today won the Nobel Prize," Muratov said, reciting the names of slain reporters and activists whose portraits hang in the newspaper's Moscow headquarters.
He is the first Russian to win the Nobel Peace Prize since Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev – who himself helped set up Novaya Gazeta with the money he received from winning the award in 1990."
Skei Grande, former leader of Norway's Liberal Party, also nominated the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at the Poynter Institute for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Rappler is one of the two verified signatories of IFCN's Code of Principles in the Philippines – the other being Vera Files.
Oct 8, 2021 READ MORE https://www.rappler.com/about/winners-nobel-peace-prize-2021
A look at one of the journalist winners of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize
The World October 8, 2021 "For the first time since 1935, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to journalists: Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Russian independent journalist Dmitry Muratov. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the prize was awarded for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression against the growing threats against it. Ressa's work on Rappler, the online news site she co-founded, has focused on the autocratic policies of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. " Marco Werman speaks with Sofia Tomacruz, a colleague of Ressa's at Rappler.
LISTEN 4:39 https://www.pri.org/file/2021-10-08/look-one-journalist-winners-year-s-nobel-peace-prize
Filipina Journalist Maria Ressa Wins Nobel Peace Prize After Facing Years of Threats & Arrests
MARIA RESSA: "Press freedom is not just for journalists. I think this is a critical time for democracy around the world, both in the Philippines and in the United States. And you must fight for your rights while you still can."
📷Watch Full Show October 08, 2021 LISTEN READ MORE Transcript https://www.democracynow.org/2021/10/8/peace_prize
https://www.rappler.com/world/global-affairs/interview-maria-ressa-nobel-peace-prize-laureate-2021
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Bigots Get a Boost from the Bully Pulpit After Charlottesville
By Michael Scherer and Alex Altman - August 17, 2017
Nearly alone among the nation’s elected leaders, Trump saw a nobility of purpose in the fiery procession that began a weekend of street fights in Charlottesville, Va. White nationalists hoisted tiki torches that recalled the horrifying imagery of the Ku Klux Klan. They revived an old Nazi chant–“Blood and Soil” - which had been silenced in 1945 with American blood on German soil. And they mixed in a new anti-Semitic taunt, “Jews will not replace us,” meant to declare unity of the white race.
But to the President, those details did not tell the whole story. Marching with the racists, fascists and separatists, he argued, were some “very fine people” with a worthy mission. “Not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me,” he said on Aug. 15 at a press conference in the lobby of Trump Tower. “Not all of those people were white supremacists. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee.”
It swept away any lingering delusions that Trump will harness the high office to unify a bitterly divided country.
American Presidents have often sought to seize the aftermath of a national tragedy to rally the nation together and point us beyond our history. This is the impulse that guided Ronald Reagan after the Challenger explosion, Bill Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombing, George W. Bush after Sept. 11 and Barack Obama after the Charleston church shooting.
But that is not Trump. Asked whether he would heed presidential custom by visiting the site of the tragedy, Trump replied that he owned a very large winery near Charlottesville.
His response was panned as a missed opportunity and massive error, not just by his foes but by scores of Republicans. It led Trump on Aug. 16 to preemptively dissolve two separate advisory councils of top CEOs after a string of resignations.
But his stance was no accident. It was a reminder that in some ways, Trump sees the world in the same us-against-them tones that inform his most racist supporters.
Throughout his business career, he used racial and ethnic divisions to his advantage. He sees the cultural norms that seek to minimize racial strife as “politically correct” barriers to free expression. Trump declared during the presidential campaign that an American with Mexican-born parents could not fairly adjudicate a case in which Trump was a party because of his immigration policies. On the campaign trail, he recited lyrics to a song that compared Muslim refugees to venomous snakes. Now, in the Oval Office, he is using the pulpit to tolerate and fan tribal grievance.
And he lashed out at others who came forward to criticize him. Trump’s longtime political Svengali Roger Stone has a maxim: “Politics is not about uniting people,” he told the New Yorker in 2008. “It’s about dividing people. And getting your 51%.”
That is not so far from the methods and goals of a revitalized white-nationalist movement, which sees in Trump a welcome partner.
“Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville,” tweeted David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, whose current ambition, like many at the rally, is the creation of an all-white American ethnostate.
Then, just days after vehicular terrorism in Charlottesville killed a young woman, Trump retweeted a photo of a train running over a man with the CNN logo on his face. (He later deleted it.)
All of which delights the angry white torchbearers. The new faces of American hate are now more likely to be a college-educated Internet trolls than goose-stepping skinheads. Instead of robes or hoods, they favor natty suits and New Balance sneakers, white polos and khaki pants. Dubbed the alt-right, they are a constellation of groups that organize online, delight in ironic and coded forms of communication, and typically have little actual influence outside of anonymous message boards and the comments section of revisionist YouTube videos that declare Adolf Hitler’s greatness.
Among this new racist right inspiration often comes from European fascist groups like Golden Dawn in Greece, the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement and the ultranationalist Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, a close ally of Vladimir Putin’s. Their anger is directed at what they see as the dwindling fortunes of the white working class in America–an idea that the President has homed in on as well.
For this network of white grievance, Trump has been a godsend. “Finally someone at the level of presidential politics is speaking their language,” explains Lawrence Rosenthal, chair of the Center for Right-Wing Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. “This was a providential deliverance. He mobilized them in a way that has no precedent.
https://time.com/4904281/bigots-boosted-by-the-bully-pulpit-charlottesville/
====================================
Arnold Schwarzenegger Delivers a Powerful Message to Neo-Nazis after Charlottesville
Post is old, and needs to be shared again.
youtube
https://youtu.be/BaN78rXX6Lc
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Always Waiting - Chapter Eleven
Always Waiting- Steve Harrington x Henderson!Reader
Always Waiting Masterlist
Summary: Dustin tells Y/n and Steve about the super-secret Russian code, Mark Lewinsky stops by Scoops Ahoy, steve??? jealous??? The code gets translated.
Pairing: Steve Harrington x Henderson!Reader
A/n: I’m back!! I hope you are all staying healthy! Now that all my classes are online and I’m back home I will have plenty of time to write! As always lmk if you want to be added to the taglist!
Warnings: Swearing, typos
Word Count: 1.6k
“Hi Robin, is, uh, is he here?” You overhear Dustin talking to Robin at the front of the shop. Steve heard it too, nearly knocking you down as he busts through the door.
“Henderson! He’s back!” Steve jumps over the counter running up to Dustin.
“I’m back!”
Robin looks back at you giving you a puzzled look while Dustin and Steve do a dorky handshake. They both start laughing once it’s done.
“What the hell did I just witness?” You ask. They both look up at you with smiles on their faces. “Alright Dusty, I’ll get you some ice cream and we can sit down and catch up, yeah?” Dustin nods and goes to sit down.
*. *. *
“Hotter than Phoebe Cates? No, no way.” Steve crosses his arms.
“Yes she is, brilliant too. And she doesn’t even care that my real pearls are still coming in. She says kissing is better without teeth,” Your eyes nearly bulge out of your head. You look over at Steve who has a shocked looked on his face.
“Oh… Wow Dustin. That’s, yeah, that’s great,” you stutter.
“Wow man, I’m- I’m proud of you. That’s kind of romantic.”
Dustin shoves his spoon into his ice cream sundae and takes another big bite. You and Steve just watch him. “Do you really get to eat as much as this as you want?” Dustin looks up to you.
“Yeah, I mean sure. It’s not really a good idea for me though, I gotta keep in shape for the ladies.”
Rolling your eyes, you stick your spoon into Dustin’s sundae, “Oh yeah? And how’s that working out for you?” You raise your eyebrows at him, grinning. Dustin giggles.
“Ignore her.” Steve tells Dustin.
“And how are you two getting along?” Dustin points his two fingers at you.
You glance over at Steve, feeling your cheeks getting red. “Um, yeah, it’s been good.” Steve nods.
Dustin raises his eyebrows and smirks. You clear your throat, “So, did you like the Party’s surprise yesterday?” Dustin puts his spoon down and slouches back in the booth.
“Yeah it was cool, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Yeah, afterwards they ditched me!”
“What?” You frown.
“My first day back, can you believe that shit?”
“Woah, seriously?” Steve pipes up.
“Yeah, but they’ll regret it, big time, when they don’t get to share my glory.”
You and Steve share a glance. “Glory, what glory?” Steve asks.
“Well I was trying to contact Suzie and I uh…” Dustin looks around then covers his mouth with his hand. “I…” Dustin mumbles something you can’t quite make out. You furrow your brows.
“What?” You lean closer.
“I….” Dustin mumbles again.
“Dustin, man, speak up we can’t hear you.”
“I intercepted a secret Russian communication!” Everyone around you goes quiet. You can feel eyes on you from everyone. You put your head in your hands.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought you said.” Steve says, looking around.
“So uh, what does that mean exactly?” You ask.
“It means we can be heroes, true American heroes.” You squint your eyes and cross your arms. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch, I just need help with translation.”
* * *
You, Steve, and Dustin all stood around the back room, listening to the recording.
“So, what do you think?” Dustin asks.
“That music sounds familiar.” Steve says.
“Why are you listening to the music Steve?” The two of them start bickering back and forth. The sound of Robin’s voice gives you an idea.
“We need Robin,” You open up the window and shout at Robin.
“Hey Robin, I’ll take over up front, we need your help back here. Dustin and Steve can fill you in.” You put on your stupid sailor hat and make your way to the cash register.
* * *
“I would like to try the peppermint stick please,” Erica Sinclair points to the ice cream.
“Haven’t you already tried that one?” You ask, getting out a sample spoon.
“Yes and I would like to try it again,” you groan and scoop up her ice cream.
You hear the window open, “Hey Henderson, how’s it going up here?” Steve asks, climbing through and hopping over the counter.
“Erica was just asking for more samples,” you tell him. He scoffs, spinning his ice cream scoop and putting it in his belt.
“Erica, you are abusing our sample policy, no more samples today.” You tell her. She huffs and stomps out of the shop. Steve leans over to you, “Do you think Suzie is real?”
“You know, it’s hard to tell, it really is.” You grin up at him.
“Excuse me?” A voice speaks up. You turn around and see Mark Lewinsky.
“Oh, hi Mark!” You smile. Mark looks over to Steve. “Hi Y/n,”
“Hey Harrington,” he gives Steve a wave. Steve leans against the counter with his arms crossed, looking less then amused. “Lewinsky.”
“What kind I get for you today?” You ask.
“Uh, actually I was wondering if you wanted to go on a date? With me? Tomorrow?” He awkwardly combs his fingers through his hair.
“Yes! Absolutely,” you say a little too quickly, you feel your face heat up, “I mean, I would love to, yes.”
“Ok great, I’ll pick you up tomorrow,”
“You’re holding up the line Lewinsky, either buy something or leave,” you forgot Steve was still standing there.
“Alright then, I’ll see you tomorrow Y/n,” you wave goodbye then turn around to face Steve, giving him a good punch to the arm, “What the hell, Steve! There’s not even a line!”
“He’s a douche! Why would you want to go out with someone like him?”
“Well that’s really none of your business,” you say, hitting him one more time.
“Ow! Would you stop that?”
“Hey!” You and Steve turn your heads to see Dustin and Robin watching you, “Would you two lovebirds knock it off, we’re trying to focus,” You feel your cheeks heating up, Steve stumbles over his words and in the process knocks his hat off., “See, I told you, if you want to make them flustered, call them lovebirds,” Robin tells Dustin, they start laughing. You glare at them.
“Have you two figured out the code yet?”
“So far we have “the week is long,” Robin says, pointing to her whiteboard.
“Well that’s thrilling,” Steve says, sounding defeated. The sound of giggling causes you to turn around. You see Eleven and Max. Your jaw drops.
“What are you doing here?” You whisper to El.
“Mike is being an asshole so we’re having a girls day,” Max says.
“Without me?” You ask. They order and you hand them their ice cream.
“Y/n you should come with us!”
You turn and look at Steve, “Think you can hold down the ship, sailor?” He looks towards Max and El then looks back at you, he sighs, “Yeah, sure, go have fun,” You finger gun and him and hop over the counter. You take off your hat and throw it towards Steve.
“I’ll be back in 30!” You shout as you and the girls run out of the store. Steve laughs and shakes his head, spinning your hat around his finger.
* * *
You and the girls shopped for clothes, did a photoshoot, and then sat and talked. Max and El caught you up on the whole Mike situation.
“Guys are such assholes,” you roll your eyes.
“That’s what I’m saying!” Max agreed. You looked up at the clock.
“Oh shit, I gotta go back to work,” you turn towards El, “El, Mike’s an asshole, you don’t need him!” You say giving her a hug, “Alright, I’ll see you guys later, have fun!” You yell as you run off.
* * *
You, Dustin, Steve, and Robin all stood staring at the board, reciting what was written on it, “The week is long, the silver cat feeds, when blue meets yellow in the west.”
“Huh,”
Steve locks up while you all stand around and wait for him. “I mean, it just can’t be right,” Steve stands up, “No it’s right, it’s obviously like a code or something,” Robin argues. You all start heading towards the mall exit. “It could be a spy could,” Dustin suggests, “Oh yeah! Like a super-secret spy code,” Robin agrees.
“That’s a total stretch,” Steve speaks up.
“I don’t know, is it?” You ask.
“Oh come on, you’re buying into this?” Steve looks over at you in disbelief.
“Listen, just for kicks, let’s just entertain the possibility that it is a secret Russian transmission, I mean, what are they gonna say? Fire the warhead at noon?”
“Exactly,” Dustin states.
“And my translations are correct, I know they are,” Robin confirms.
“So, I guess that confirms your suspicion. Evil Russians,” you teased. You go to look over at Steve but he’s not there.
“Hey, where’d Steve go?” You ask Robin and Dustin. You turn around and see him knelt by the automatic horse. “Steve, I think your too old to ride that” you joke, making your way over to him.
“Just give me a quarter,” he says, fumbling around in his pockets.
“Need some help getting up there Stevie?” Robin jokes, you laugh.
“Quarter!” Steve yells. You throw one to him.
“Are you… going to get on?” You ask, confused as to why he needed the quarter.
“No, I am not going to get on,” he sneered, “would you all just shut up and listen?”
The music that was playing sounded familiar, but you couldn’t put your finger on it.
“Holy shit, the music,” Dustin says. Then it hits you.
“It was on the recording!” You exclaim.
“Maybe they have horses like that in Russia?” Robin asks.
“The Indiana Flyer? No I don’t think so. This code, it didn’t come from Russian,” Steve looks up at you all.
“It came from here.”
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