For the rest of the day, Sofia talked with Robin when she was on her break, ate ice cream and read. She was mostly trying to relax and not think about what happened.
"Erica, do you copy?" Robin asks to the walkie-talkie.
"Mm-hmm. I copy" Erica responds. "You nerds in position or what?"
"Yeah, we're in position" Robin says. "It's all quiet here, so you've got the green light"
"Green light, roger that. Commence Operation Child Endangerment" Erica says.
"Can we maybe not call it that?" Sofia asks, grabbing the walkie-talkie from Robin's hands.
"See you on the other side. Nerds" Erica says, shutting the walkie-talkie off.
After a few minutes, the doors to the secret room open, and Erica says "Free ice cream for life". They enter the room and Steve cuts open one of the boxes, revealing a metal box. Steve opens it and there's 4 compartments inside.
"That's definitely not Chinese food" Steve says, getting ready to open it. "Uh, maybe you guys should, you know, stand back".
Robin, Sofia and Erica back away, but Dustin doesn't. "Just step back, okay?" Steve asks.
"No" Dustin insists. "If you die, I die".
"Well, that's nice" Sofia whispers, sarcastically.
Steve opens it, showing a cylinder filled with some green goo. "What the hell?" he mumbles.
"What is that?" Robin asks, but before anyone has the time to reply, the room moves.
"Was that just me, or did the room move?" Sofia asks, feeling scared.
"Booby traps" Erica whispers.
"You know what? Let's just grab that and go" Robin says anxiously, grabbing the cylinder.
"Which one do I press, Erica?" Dustin asks, after pressing the "Door open" button and nothing happens.
"Just press the damn button, nerd" Erica says.
"Which one? I'm pressing the button, okay?" Dustin asks, and he and Erica start yelling at each other over the button.
Suddenly, the door slams shut, and the elevator starts going down. They all start to lose balance and try to hold something. Sofia goes over to the shelves and holds them, screaming.
"Shit! Shit!" Dustin screams, and Sofia looks at him to make sure he's not hurt.
"We're going down! We're going down!" Steve screams.
"Yeah, no shit, Harrington!" Robin screams back at him.
Erica and Dustin keep screaming at each other as the elevator goes down. Meanwhile, Sofia grabs onto Robin's hand, as they're both holding the shelves. Sofia feels more panicked than ever. It was like her heart could come out of her mouth.
Suddenly, the elevator crashes down, making all of them fall. Robin hits her head, Dustin and Erica fall, Steve falls on his back and Sofia gets projected against some boxes, hitting her head on the ground.
It takes her some seconds, but once she opens her eyes everything is blurry. She hears muffled voices but can't really tell who's who. She closes her eyes and opens them again, seeing four blurry faces looking down at her.
"Sofia? Can you hear me?" she hears Dustin ask, as he pokes her face.
"What?" Sofia asks back, not fully conscious yet.
"Great, now my sister's deaf" Dustin says, getting up.
Steve and Dustin start yelling at each other about some keycard, while Sofia tries to sit down, with Robin's help.
"You alright?" Robin, who's still processing everything, asks Sofia with a worried look.
"Yeah" she whispers, looking at Steve and Dustin, putting her hand in her head.
"We're stuck here" Dustin tells the group.
"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 three are responsible, she's gonna hunt you down, one by one, and slit your throat" Erica says.
"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!" Steve yells.
"Hey. What if we climbed out?" Dustin asks, pointing at the top of the elevator.
After realizing climbing isn't an option, they talked about other options, but none would really work. Dustin and Erica fell asleep first, and shortly after Steve did too, although he made a speech about why he wouldn't fall sleep.
Robin's pacing around the room while Sofia's sitting on the floor, with her back against the wall. Her head still hurts a bit from the impact, and she can tell some bruises are forming. She's mostly trying to calm herself down- she's more worried about Dustin than about herself.
"Hey" Sofia says, looking at Robin. Sofia really needed a distraction from her troubled mind.
She stops pacing around and looks back at Sofia. "Hey" Robin says.
"You okay?" Sofia asks her, knowing the answer.
"Not really. I'm not used to being stuck in Russian elevators" Robin jokes, sitting down next to Sofia. "What about you?"
"I don't know how to feel, since I've never experienced anything like this" Sofia jokes back. "It's so weird 'cause now all I can think about is all the worst case scenarios and be dramatic. Like, I just thinking about all the things I haven't done yet..."
"Yeah, I get it" Robin chuckles. "I feel like I've missed out so much. Like, I would love to visit Europe. It's one of my biggest dreams. My parents were those hippies who just traveled the world like there was no tomorrow, and to be honest, I'm jealous of them. They protested, spoke their mind, traveled a lot... that's just a dream life"
"You know, one of my biggest dreams is actually to backpack around Europe" Sofia says, making Robin open her mouth in surprise.
"Really? You're like the first person who wants to do that. I had this plan, like 2 years ago. I called it Operation Croissant, it was basically a plan to go on vacation through Europe over the summer, but then I realized I have no money to do that, so..." Robin chuckles.
"Maybe we can go... one day" Sofia smiles, looking directly into Robin's eyes.
"Yeah, if we get out of here" Robin smiles, looking into Sofia's eyes.
Robin places her head on Sofia's shoulder, trying to get some sleep, although the thought of having her head on Sofia's shoulder made her nervous. Sofia places her head on top of Robin's head and tries not to move a lot, to not bother Robin.
Being close to Robin felt like heaven to Sofia, and she finally accepted it. Sometimes she gets the feeling that Robin likes girls too but tries not to daydream about it too much so that her heart doesn't break when Robin shows up with a boyfriend.
Robin looks at Sofia and feels like everything's alright. It's like she's magical. As her face rests on Sofia's shoulder, she has an internal fight between her brain, who tells her that it's too soon to like Sofia, and her heart, who tells her to kiss Sofia and marry her right on the spot.
Sofia wakes up to the sound of metal hitting metal. She realizes she's lying down, with Erica's backpack as a pillow, and finds it weird because she doesn't remember falling asleep like that.
She rubs her face, fixes her hair and sits down, looking at Robin and Erica talking.
"Hey, hey! Be careful, careful, careful!" Robin shouts at Erica. "We don't even know what that is"
"Exactly. It could be useful" Erica points out.
"Useful how?" Robin asks.
"We can survive down here a long time without food, but if the human body doesn't get water, it will die" Erica says.
"I hate to break it to you, but this is not water" Robin says, with the green goo cylinder in her hand.
"No, but it's a liquid, and if it comes down to me drinking that shit or dying of thirst, I drink" Erica says, with a devil-ish smile.
"Hi" Sofia says, getting up. "Why does it smell like piss?" she asks Robin, who's trying to keep Erica from drinking the green goo.
"Steve" Robin says, rolling her eyes.
"Why am I not surprised?" Sofia asks.
Robin sprints over to the door and places her head, looking confused. "We've got company".
As they start climbing to the top of the elevator, Sofia looks around and starts putting the boxes in place.
"Sofia, come here, what are you doing?!" Dustin whispers to Sofia.
"We can't let them know we were here" Sofia whispers back, putting the final boxes in place. She climbs as the elevator door starts slowly open.
They stand at the top of the elevator, nervously waiting for the Russian guys to go away. When they hear the door closing, Steve climbs down and places the green goo cylinder under the elevator, leaving enough room to escape.
First goes Erica, then Dustin, Robin, Sofia and lastly Steve, right before the elevator crashes the cylinder and closes.
"Jesus Christ" Steve says, looking at the melted floor.
"Still wanna drink that?" Sofia asks Erica.
"Holy mother of God" Dustin says, making everyone turn around, facing a long hallway.
"Well... hope you guys are in good shape" Steve says. "I'm looking at you, roast beef" Steve says to Dustin, starting to walk away. "Let's go, come on"
"Why me?" Dustin asks, and Sofia pats him on the shoulder.
"I mean, you have to admit, as a feat of engineering alone, this is impressive" Dustin says, as they walk for what felt like hours.
"What are you talking about? It's a total fire hazard. There's no stairs, there's no exit, there's just an elevator that drops you halfway to hell" Steve says.
"They're Commies. You don't pay people, they cut corners" Erica points out.
"To be fair to our Russian comrades, I don't think this tunnel was designed for walking. Think about it, they developed the perfect system for transporting that cargo" Robin says.
"It all comes into the mall like any old delivery" Sofia adds.
"And then they load it up onto those trucks and nobody's the wiser" Robin says.
"You think they built this whole mall so they could transport that green poison?" Steve asks.
"I very seriously doubt it's something as boring as poison. It's gotta be much more valuable, like promethium or something" Dustin says.
"What the hell is promethium?" Steve asks.
"It's what Victor Stone's dad used to make Cyborg's bionic and cybernetic components" Robin explains.
"You're all so nerdy, it makes me physically ill" Erica says.
"No, no, no. No, don't lump me in with them. I'm not a nerd, all right?" Steve says, offended.
"Why so sensitive, Harrington? Afraid of losing cool points to a ten-year-old child?" Robin asks, making Sofia chuckle.
"No, I'm just saying I don't know jack shit about Prometheus" Steve says.
"Promethium. Prometheus is a Greek mythological figure, but whatever. All I'm saying is, it's probably being used to make something." Dustin says.
"Or power something" Sofia adds.
"Like a nuclear weapon?" Dustin asks.
"Totally" Sofia responds, and Robin nods in agreement. "A tiny Oppenheimer".
"Walking towards a nuclear weapon. That's great. That'd be great" Steve says.
"But if they're building something, why here?" Robin asks. "I mean, Hawkins. Seriously. Of all places. At the very best, we're a toilet stop on your way to Disneyland, but maybe that's it. Maybe it's our very..."
Steve and Dustin stop walking, but Sofia, Robin and Erica keep talking and making jokes.
"I'm sorry, is there something you'd like to share with the class?" Robin asks, turning around when she realized Steve and Dustin weren't walking with them.
Steve looks at Dustin and then looks back at the 3 girls. He opens his mouth to say something, but the walkie-talkie starts making noises.
"Walkie" Steve says, rushing over to it, and the others do so too.
They start hearing a man talk, and Sofia starts saying what he's saying at the same time. "Поездка в Китай звучит красиво. Если вы ступите легко"
"It's the code" Robin says and Sofia nods.
"Wherever that broadcast is coming from..." Dustin says.
"It's close" Robin says. "And if there's one thing we know about that signal..."
"It can reach the surface" Sofia says.
"Let's go" Robin says.
After more time walking, they almost got caught, but hid just in time. "Okay, that was close" Robin says.
"Too close" Sofia says nervously.
"Relax. All right? Relax. Nobody saw..." Steve says but stops talking when he realizes they made it to the heart of the area, swarming with guards and scientists. They look around, impressed by big room.
"Shit!" they duck and hide behind some boxes, almost getting caught, again.
"I saw it. First floor, northwest" Erica says.
"Saw what?" Steve asks the girl.
"The comms room" Erica responds.
"You saw the comms room?" Sofia asks.
"Correct" Erica reinsures.
"Are you sure?" Dustin asks.
"Positive. The door was open for a second, and I saw a bunch of lights and machines and shit in there" Erica explains.
"That could be a hundred different things" Dustin says.
"I'll take those odds" Robin says, looking at Steve and Sofia for reinsurance. They look at the room again, trying to come up with a plan.
"All right. We're gonna move fast, we're gonna stay low. Okay?" Steve asks.
"Okay" the group responds.
They quickly walk across the room, hiding behind boxes until they get to the comms room. Steve opens the door, making sure everybody was in. When he entered, they spotted a Russian man who looked very surprised to see them. He goes to grab his gun, but Robin stops him as she starts talking.
"действовать осторожно!" ["Tread lightly"] Robin blurts out, taking a step ahead. "действовать осторожно!" ["Tread lightly"].
"кто ты?" ["Who are you?] the man asks.
Sofia decides to join, saying only the words she knew in Russian. "магазин мороженого!" ["ice cream shop"] she blurts out, not really remembering what it was. The man makes an even more confused face.
"Серебряный кот... Серебряный кот" ["Silver cat... Silver cat"] Robin says.
"я не понимаю" ["I don't understand"] the man says.
Robin looks back at Sofia, who shrugs, not knowing what to say. "Китай?" ["China?"] Robin asks.
The man scoffs and grabs his gun. Steve starts yelling and sprints at the man, throwing him against the panel. The man turns around and throws Steve to the other side of the panel and tries to slap Steve, but he dodges. Steve is once again thrown at the panel, but this time he elbows the man, throwing him across the panel. Steve grabs some sort of microphone and hits the man in the head, knocking him out.
"Dude! You did it! You own a fight!" Dustin says, clearly proud of Steve.
"Jeez..." Steve says, panting, and laughs softly.
Dustin walks over to the man and steals his keycard.
"What are you doing?" Erica asks, madly.
"Getting us our ticket out of here" Dustin responds.
"You want to walk all the way back?" Erica asks.
"Well, we can hang out for a little bit, relax, have a picnic maybe" Dustin responds, sarcastically.
"Have a picnic? We came here for the radio" Erica says. Sofia checks on Steve while the two kids are fighting, making sure he's not hurt.
"Guys" Robin says, looking with concern at the group. "There's something up there"
They walk up some stairs and open a door. They walk over to another door, seeing a big blue light. Looking more into it, it looks like a portal. Erica, Robin and Sofia had no idea what they were looking at, but Steve and Dustin got the confirmation they needed: the Russians were trying to open a gate.
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A/N:
helloo, i just realized i never wrote an author's note so hi!! i hope you're liking the story so far :)
I have finished writing season 3, but I'll keep posting a chapter every 2 days for now.
I hope you like Sofia and Robin's relationship! It may seem like it's going very slow, but there's going to be a sorta big jump on their relationship very soon😳 also, I hope yall dont think I'm changing Robin a lot, this is my interpretation of the character.
I can't wait for you guys to know my plans for the story!
Btw, I just wanna tell yall that english isn't my first language (you may have noticed it already), so there are some scenes that are hard for me to describe, so if you have any suggestions please comment!
another day, another slay