Y/n's pov
Hours. We had been searching the mall for hours, at least, that's what it felt like for Dustin, Steve and I.
Spycraft could be pretty boring, we soon found out.
Steve was sitting on the ground at the base of the pillar, twirling his hat around on his finger. He had two small messy braids in the back of his hair that I had insisted on doing for him and that he hadn't figured out how to get out of his hair.
Dustin was crouched beside Steve, his binoculars latched tightly to his face, only leaving once or twice, his eyes, scanning the mob of emotional teenagers. He had on his 'Camp Know Where' hat instead of his regular one because his original hat that he had given to me was currently hanging off a chair in my bedroom.
I was sitting on the ground on the other side of the pillar with my back leaning up against it, holding one of Dustin's hands in my left palm and tracing light circles onto his palm with my right hand. I watched Steve with a deadpanned look as he slurped the last drops of his soda that he had made me go and get for him half way through our mission.
I was starting to feel bored as ever on this 'mission' the longer time wore on. I mean, really? What were the odds that we'd find an actual evil Russian, waltzing around the mall in broad daylight?
"Target acquired." Dustin suddenly said.
Okay, so maybe the odds were pretty decent.
"Where?" Steve and I asked in unison, popping up beside a now standing Dustin.
"Ten o'clock. Sam Goody's." Dustin breathed.
"Give me that." Steve said, taking hold of the binoculars.
I looked to where Dustin had directed and sure enough, there was a tall muscular man in shades with long blonde hair and wearing all black while carrying a duffel bag as he shuffled through the crowd.
Something about the man was oddly familiar to me but I shrugged it off.
"Shit. Duffel bag." Steve said.
Steve lowered his binoculars and the three of us looked to each other.
"Evil Russian." Dustin and Steve said in unison.
"Did you legitimately forget you came home with a duffle bag?" I asked Dustin.
All of a sudden, Dustin grabbed hold of my hand and yanked me along through the crowd with Steve on our sudden chase.
"Uh, dust. You can let go now, hun." I said as we walked past a group of elderly women trying on feathered hats.
"Right, sorry." Dustin said, loosening his grip on my arm so that I could jog up to where Steve and him were.
"Slow down." Dustin warned Steve as we squeezed through a group of girls.
"We're losing him." Steve persisted.
"You're getting too close." Dustin said.
Steve's shoulder suddenly collided with a guy not much older than himself, who turned and scowled at him.
"Watch it, dickwad!" He said.
The so-called 'evil Russian' slowed his pace, curiously peering over his shoulder.
That's when it hit me who it was.
Steve and Dustin both pushed me back and Steve pretended he was my mother scolding me beside a plant pot as Dustin yanked the pay phone off the hook, speaking in a monotone voice.
"Hello. Yes. I am fine. How are you?" Dustin said into the phone.
"For the millionth time! You can't just go running off like that. Now, I know you want those new shoes but you'll just have to wait for me to finish my shopping. I saw these really nice plates that I want to look at, so come on. Hurry up. Don't drag your feet." Steve said, pointing his finger at me while his other hand was on his hip and then pretending to walk away with me, grabbing hold of my arm and marching off a few paces before turning around and checking to see if the evil Russian had stopped paying attention.
"Steve, I just realized who-" I tried to explain.
"No time for that, come on, hurry." He said, dragging me over to where Dustin was walking away.
"Sorry, mom." I muttered.
We continued 'sneakily' walking behind him.
Honestly, I thought we were drawing more attention to ourselves while trying to be stealthy than we would if we just walked normally.
We followed him all the way to...
Jazzercise.
That's where I knew him from.
My mom had just recently started going to Jazzercise once the mall opened and she was now obsessed with it. We now had a box in our house that consisted of two dozen VCRs that mom had taped over to make her 'home workout videos' which was basically just her running around in her green leg warmers and doing weird poses, sometimes with Mrs. Wheeler, sometimes without.
Peering around the corner, Steve and Dustin stared into the building in bewilderment as he walked up to the front of the room.
"Alright everyone, listen up!" He yelled.
I just laughed to myself at what Dustin and Steve were probably thinking right now.
"I just have one question for you." He said, putting the black duffel bag down onto the metal counter.
"You guys-" I tried.
"No-shhhh." Steve shushed me.
"Alright, suit yourself then." I said to myself.
"Who..." the man at the front of the room said.
He ripped his glasses off and reached into the duffel bag.
"Is ready to sweat?" He asked, pulling a boom box from the duffel bag.
"...I'm gonna go." I said with a chuckle at their baffled and horrified faces.
"Whatever Robin's doing is probably one hundred times more interesting than this spy shit. I'll be at scoops if you need me." I said with a smile, kissing Dustin's cheek and giving Steve a pat on the shoulder as I walked away.
I walked casually into Scoops Ahoy and jumped over the counter, climbing through the back window.
Huh. Always wanted to do that.
"Tread lightly-oh, hey, y/n. Uh, why are you climbing through the back window...?" Robin asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"Um... just trying something new... anyways what are you doing?" I asked, sitting on the counter beside her.
"Just finishing up the translation. Turns out translating goes a lot faster without those two idiots trying to help. I just still can't figure it out." She said.
"I get what you mean, it all seems weirdly... familiar. To me at least." I said.
"Yeah." She sighed, before we were interrupted by the sudden knocking on the back door.
Robin unhooked her headphones and
walked over to the back door that lead to the employees only hallway.
She yanked it open to reveal a Sphinx delivery man.
"Delivery for you." He said, holding out the package for Robin to take.
"Thank you." She said, taking it.
It looked kind of heavy, and I guessed it was the new shipment of icecream from Michigan that Steve had told me about.
Robin dropped it down onto the break table with a huff and turned back to the man.
She wrote her signature down on the clipboard the man was holding, before giving the pen and paper back.
I looked at him in thought.
His uniform with the silver cat and-wait silver cat.
Silver cat!
"Have a nice day." The man said, starting to retreat.
"Yeah, you too." Robin replied.
I tumbled off the counter and raced over to look out the hallway.
"Silver cat." I mumbled to myself.
"Silver cat!" I gasped.
"What are you going on abou-" Robin said, cutting herself off as she watched the retreating delivery man with wide eyes.
"Silver cat!" She shouted happily.
I grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the shop, letting go of her arm and looking frantically around.
Just then, Steve and Dustin walked up to us, arguing.
"Hey, Robin. You're not gonna believe who Dustin thought was a Russian." Steve grumbled as we walked out of the shop.
Dustin shoved Steve's arm.
"You did too." He said.
"No, I did not!" Steve argued.
"Yes you did!" Dustin complained.
"No, I did not." Steve persisted.
But we didn't listen, in fact we shoved right past the bickering duo without so much as a glance in their direction.
I stood on the ledge of the topiary in the centre of the mall, my eyes scouring each corner of Starcourt as Robin did the same from the ground.
"A trip to China sounds nice." She muttered. "A trip to China... sounds... nice."
"Imperial panda!" She called to me with a grin, to which I returned.
"A trip to China sounds nice." I said to myself, desperately trying to remember the second part.
"If you tread lightly." I said in realization, my eyes landing on Kauffman Shoes, the very place that El, Max and I had gone to just the other day.
"Kauffman Shoes!" I called to her and watched as her eyes darted to it, a smile creeping up her face.
"Okay, the last part is 'when blue meets yellow in the west.' Got it?" She said, spinning around to see the whole mall.
"When blue meets yellow..." I muttered.
My eyes flew across the mall until they landed on the giant clock on one of the main walls, with its blue and yellow hands ticking at every second.
"In the west." Robin finished for me as we turned to each other from the clock with equally large smiles.
We had done it.
We had cracked the code.
"Yo, Robin. Y/n." I heard Steve say.
Steve and Dustin stood at our side, peering up at me with a questioning look.
"What are you doing?" Steve asked the both of us.
"We cracked it." Is all Robin was able to say.
"Cracked what?" Steve asked.
"We cracked the code." I said with a breathless smile.
Word count: 1642