Love Is A Battlefield (A Stranger Things/Steve Harrington Fanfiction)

Chapter Fifty-Five: Operation Child Endangerment

Once the mall closed, Steve, Robin, Dustin, and I head for the roof, and settled into our position watching the door. We waited until the last delivery of the night, and until the armed guard left the premises, to radio Erica.

"Erica, do you copy?" Robin asked.

"Mm-hmm. I copy. You nerds in position or what?"

"Yeah, we're in position. Its all quiet here, so you've got the green light."

"Green light. Roger that. Commence Operation Child Endangerment." 

"Can we maybe not call it that?" Steve nodded in agreement.

"I mean, that's kind of what it is, let's be real." I said.

"My point exactly. See you on the other side, nerds."

It was another twenty minutes until we heard from her again.

"Alright nerds. I'm there."

"Do you-Do you see anything?" Robin questioned.

"Yeah, I see those boring boxes you're so excited about."

"Any guards?"

"Negative."

"Booby traps?"

"If I could see them, they'd be pretty crap traps, wouldn't they?"

"Thank you for that." I chuckled.

"I can't tell if I like her or not," I said to Steve, "I think I do."

"Of course you do." He said dryly, putting a hand on my knee. 

"I'm in." 

"Oh gosh." Steve tangled his hands in his hair in relief as the doors came swinging open and Erica stood in the doorway, decked out in safety gear with two flashlights taped to her helmet.

"Free ice cream for. Life." She called from the ground. We all stood up, climbing down from the roof and meeting her down below. 

We rushed in and quickly located the Imperial Panda and Kauffman shoes deliveries. Dustin handed Steve his pocket knife and he cut them all open. As Steve handed Dustin back the knife I pulled one of the boxes open, revealing a very weird, very industrial looking container. I reached in, grabbing the handle, when Steve put a hand on my shoulder.

"Why don't you let me do that?" I raised my eyebrows at him and he held his hands up. "Right...sorry. Forgot who I was talking to." I nodded, shooting him a smile before twisting the bar and removing the lid. We all looked into the container to see that not only was there some kind of vapor emanating from the container, there were four more handled-objects waiting to be extracted and inspected by us, a child, an eight grader, and three Mall Ice-Cream shop employees, one of which still being a High School student.

"That's definitely not Chinese food." Steve said. I reached in, going to grab one of the handles when Steve stopped me. "Ok, you got the lid, no reason for you to take all the risks." I held my hands up now and he reached in, grasping the handle. "Uh, maybe you guys should, you know, stand back."

Robin and Erica stepped back while Dustin and I stayed where we were.

"No." Dustin said.

"Just step back, ok?" He put a hand on his chest, trying to push him back. 

"No."

"Step back! Seriously!"

"No! No!" Dustin exclaimed. "If you die, I die." Steve glanced at me and I shrugged.