Steve looked through binoculars to try and spot a Russian with Dustin the very next day. Chris and Robin stayed back to tend Scoops Ahoy, while Beverly and Alicia worked at Beck's Boutique to make it up to Dylan.

"You see anything?" Dustin asked him.

"Uh, I guess I don't totally know what I'm looking for," Steve replied.

"Evil Russians."

"Yeah, exactly. I don't know what an evil Russian looks like."

"Tall, blonde, not smiling," Dustin described and Steve hummed. "Also, look for earpieces, camo, duffel bags, that sort of thing."

"Right, okay, duffel bags." Steve continued to look until he spotted Anna Jacobi talking to Mark Lewinsky. "Oh, you've gotta be kidding me."

"What?"

"Anna Jacobi's talking with that meathead Mark Lewinsky," Steve told him.

"Dude, if you're not gonna focus, just gimme the binoculars."

"Aw, Jesus Christ, whatever happened to standards? I mean, Lewinsky never even came off the bench," Steve complained.

"Dude, you are the worst spy in history, you know that?" Dustin said before he ripped the binoculars away from Steve.

"Stop, hey. Stop."

"Give me those." Dustin fully took them away from him and looked into them himself. "Besides, I don't even get why you're looking at girls, anyway. You have the perfect one right in front of you."

"Seriously, if you say Bev again—"

"Bev," Dustin cut him off.

"No, don't."

"Bev, Bev, Bev, Bev, Bev."

"No. Stop, no. No."

"Bev, Bev, Bev, Bev."

"No."

"Bev."

"No."

"Bev."

"No," Steve said sternly and Dustin finally stopped. "No, man, we're just friends. I mean, I don't even know if we're considered friends 'cause we used to hate each other. So, stop."

"Yeah, used to," Dustin pointed out. "Just because you used to hate each other doesn't mean you're not allowed to like her. And from what I remember you telling me last year, you said you tolerated her, not hated."

Steve rolled his eyes. "That doesn't mean anything. She still hated me."

"Like I said, just because you guys used to hate each other doesn't mean you're not allowed to like her. You're just trying to tell yourself that to stay in denial since you can't handle the fact that you like Beverly Crawford," Dustin explained.

"Dude, what? I'm not in denial. I just don't like her like that," Steve replied in a very unconvincing way.

"Oh, really?"

"Yes! She — she always tried to ruin my life! When I was with Nance, she said shitty stuff about me to her like she was trying to break us up or something. She always tried to get Chris to hate me, which I guess she somehow succeeded in doing so since he kinda does hate me now. And she always yelled at me when I tried to help her," Steve accounted for. "How can I like that, even though it was all my fault in the first place?"

Dustin sighed. "Maybe because the good things outweighed the bad. Like how you apparently saved her life back in 1983 when the Demogorgon attacked at the Byers'. How she offered to go down in the cellar with you when we had the Dart problem. How you guys worked together with us kids and took care of us at the junkyard. How you literally fought Billy after he choked her!" Dustin listed and Steve shook his head, not wanting to hear all of that since Dustin was right. "Look, now that you're out of high school, which means you're technically an adult, don't you think it's time you move on from the bad stuff that happened in high school?"

"Oh, did you learn about moving on from stuff in the past and other shit from Camp Know...Nothing?" Steve questioned, trying to change the subject.

"Camp Know Where, actually," he corrected. "And no, it's shit I learned from life."

"Hm."

"Instead of telling yourself that you don't like her and forcing yourself to try and find someone else, why not focus on the fact that you enjoy being around her? Like me and Suzie," Dustin suggested.

"Oh, Suzie. Yeah, you mean, 'hotter than Phoebe Cates.' Yeah, that Suzie. And, uh, 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 you the advice, you follow through. Not the other way around, all right, pea-brain?" Steve ranted, making Dustin give him a look.

But the Harrington boy couldn't help but think about what Dustin had said. Of course he knew that he had liked Beverly and the only reason he had been flirting with other girls was to try and get rid of his crush since he knew it would never work out.

But, all he could think about was Beverly.

Her face. Her hair. Her laugh. That's what just kept going through his mind every single day, not leaving any room for anything else. It was like a broken record.

But he knew that there was no way Beverly could like him. Sure, he had made it up to her at the Snow Ball a few months ago, but that couldn't have made her do a complete 180 on him, right? There was probably still some part of her that despised him.

If only he knew that he was completely and utterly wrong.

"Whoa, is that Bev making out with some guy?" Dustin spoke after a moment of silence, his mouth dropping.

"What?! Give me that!" Steve exclaimed, ripping the binoculars out of his hands and looking in the direction he was looking in. All he saw was Beverly helping out a customer with a hospitable smile on her face. Steve let out an angry sigh, slowly looking at Dustin with his nose flared and his lips pursed.

"And you don't like her? Yeah, okay, sure," Dustin said mischievously with a laugh, taking the binoculars back.

"I-I don't. I was just..." Steve trailed off, trying to think of something to say, but he couldn't. "Never mind."

"Right."

✦ ✧ ✦

Robin had apparently cracked the code during their shift, not needing any of Steve or Dustin's spy work whatsoever. She had gotten everyone together after all of their shifts had ended and explained what she had found.

The message had been talking about a delivery company, stores in Starcourt Mall, and the hands on the clock. Then, Robin pieced it all together and figured out that a delivery company would be delivering something at 9:45 pm with shipments disguised as products for the stores.

The others hoped that she was right, but the only way to find out was by going to see for themselves. So they planned to meet up at the roof a little before 9:45, wearing water repellent ponchos since it had started to pour.

They then all perched against the railing of the building, looking down at the delivery truck that had came. They noticed some men standing near a door, holding what appeared to be guns. "They don't look very friendly," Beverly commented, wiping water off of her face only for more to come on it since the rain was never-ending.

"Really? I thought they would have made nice friends," Steve replied sarcastically and Beverly laughed quietly, earning a look from Chris at the interaction.

"Okay, so what are we looking for exactly?" Alicia asked over the sound of the pouring rain.

"Look for Imperial Panda and Kaufman Shoes," Robin told them, referring to stores in the mall that the coded message was talking about.

Dustin looked through his binoculars, noticing a man whistling as he wheeled out some boxes from the truck. "They're with that whistling guy, ten o'clock," Dustin pointed out.

"What do you think's in there?" Steve asked, squinting through the rain.

"Guns, bombs?" Dustin deduced.

"Chemical weapons?" Robin added.

"More secret Russian plans?" Alicia continued the list.

"Whatever it is, they're armed to the teeth," Dustin pointed out.

"Great. That's great," Steve spoke sardonically.

"Whatever they're guarding must be pretty important then," Chris assumed like he hadn't just listened to the conversation prior to that.

"Oh, really?" Alicia said sarcastically before she momentarily rolled her eyes. Beverly snorted, making Chris sigh in annoyance.

A door then opened behind the armed men. "Hey, what's in there?" Robin questioned

"It's just more boxes," Dustin answered.

"Let me check it out," Steve said, going to take the binoculars out of the boy's hands.

"No, I'm still looking," Dustin responded, pulling the binoculars away from him.

"Lemme see it!"

"Hang on!" The binoculars then hit the edge of the building, causing a loud bang to occur. "Duck!"

They gasped as they all ducked down, hoping that they weren't spotted by the people down below. Beverly had unknowingly grabbed someone's hand and she looked over to see that it was Steve's. The two glanced at each other before they pulled their hands away, their breathing becoming even heavier because of the interaction.

But they weren't the only ones whose hands had touched.

Robin was in between Chris and Alicia, who had both grabbed one of her hands fearfully. The two hadn't known that each other had grabbed her hands, but Robin most definitely knew. It was her hands after all.

She looked down at her two intertwined hands, blinking slowly for a second. She had looked at Alicia first, who immediately pulled her hand away in embarrassment. Alicia had felt her stomach drop at the touch, becoming even more nervous than she had already been.

Robin's gaze then switched over to Chris, who hadn't taken his hand away. Instead, he looked over and glanced down at Robin's lips since they were so close together. Robin quickly looked away and ripped her hand away, feeling uncomfortable all of a sudden. Chris also looked away from her, not knowing if he had did something wrong. And if he had, he couldn't worry about it now. They had bigger things to worry about.

Dustin looked over the railing only slightly to see that the guards had moved to try and find them. "We have to get out of here," he whispered and they all nodded in agreement, hopping up on their feet to make it back inside the mall.

"Well, I think we found your Russians," Robin spoke as they made their way back through the worker's hallways.

authors note
this chapter is kind of boring
so sorry about that! also im kind
of on vacation so i may not be able to update
as frequently (who am i kidding, I'll probably
find the time LMFAOO) but I just wanted to
let you all know just in case!! hope you
enjoyed!