Hey Jude - Imaginary Future
❝Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better❞
╔═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╗
GUNTHER'S FIELD TRIP
╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝
(The song is mostly for the last part of the chapter!)
"Erica, do you copy?" Robin asks through the walkie talkie as her, Steve, Gwen, and Dustin sit on the roof of the mall.
"Mm-hmm. I copy. You nerds in position or what?"
"Yeah, we're in position," Robin replies. "It's all quiet here, so you've got the green light."
"Green light, roger that. Commence Operation Child Endangerment."
Gwen sighs and grabs the walkie from Robin. "Can you stop calling it that?"
"I'm just telling it how it is, lady. See you on the other side. Nerds."
Gwen rolls her eyes and hands the walkie back to Robin.
After a few minutes of radio silence, Erica speaks. "Alright, nerds. I'm there."
"Do you- Do you see anything?" Robin asks.
"Yeah, I see those boring boxes you're so excited about."
"Any guards?"
"Negative."
"Booby traps?" Robin teases.
"If I could see them, They'd be pretty shit traps, wouldn't they?"
Robin rolls her eyes. "Thank you for that."
"...I'm in."
"Oh god," Steve groans anxiously.
"Remember what I said about impending doom?" Gwen asks no one in particular.
The door to the building in front of them opens, revealing Erica standing with a hand on her hip. "Free ice cream for life."
The four of them smirk before rushing off of the roof and toward the building Erica had opened. Before going in, Gwen gasps, causing Steve to hang back with her.
"What?" he asks.
Gwen bends down next to the building and scoops up something into her palms. "Look!" She extends her hands to Steve to reveal a small black and brown lizard. "It's an eastern fence lizard!"
"Okay, yeah, cool. But we're kinda in the middle of a Russian investigation."
Gwen ignores him and holds the lizard in front of her face with a smile. "What should we name our new son?"
"Gwen, put the lizard down."
"I'm naming him Gunther," she beams.
Steve sighs. "Gwen-"
"Come on Gunther. We're going on a field trip," she coos, softly holding Gunther in her hands and walking into the building. Steve follows with an eye roll, but he can't suppress the smile on his face.
It's a small metal room with multiple tables, cardboard boxes littered all over the place.
"What's that?" Dustin asks Gwen.
"My new son. I've named him Gunther and he'll be joining us on our investigation," she says sternly.
Erica makes a noise of disgust and scrunches her nose while pointing at the lizard. "Don't let that thing come anywhere near me."
"He's harmless."
"Okay, can we get back on track?" Steve asks desperately.
Steve cuts one of the boxes open while the others crowd around him. In the box is another smaller metal box with a handle on top.
Gwen bites her lip as Steve grasps the handle and opens it, causing white steam to come out of the top revealing four more handles.
Gwen sighs in disappointment. "It's definitely not Chinese food. Damn it."
Steve sets the lid aside before glancing up at the rest of them. "Uh, maybe you guys should, you know, stand back."
"Uh-uh," Gwen shakes her head while Erica and Robin step back gladly.
"Just step back, okay?" Steve tries to push Gwen and Dustin away with his arm.
"No," Dustin agrees with Gwen.
"Step back. Seriously."
"No!" Dustin shouts. "If you die, I die."
Steve looks at Gwen who nods at her brother. "What he said."
Steve shakes his head with closed eyes and raised eyebrows. "Okay," he twists one of the handles and pulls out a metal tube with a neon green substance in it.
"What the hell?" Gwen exclaims.
"What is that?" Robin asks.
Suddenly, the floor beneath them rumbles and the lights dim ever so slightly.
"Is that just me, or did the room move?" Dustin asks.
"Booby traps," Erica whispers.
The room makes another loud noise and Robin rushes over to grab the green tube from Steve. "You know what? Let's just grab that and go."
Dustin walks over to the panel that is supposed to open the door and presses the middle button, but nothing happens. "Which one do I press, Erica?"
"Just press the damn button, nerd."
"Which one? I'm pressing the button, okay."
Gwen pushes Dustin aside and switches Gunther into her left hand. "Press 'open door'!"
"I was!"
Gwen tries, but once again, nothing happens. "What the hell?" She exclaims, pressing it repeatedly as she becomes even more desperate to get out of the small room.
"Just open the- press the other button," Steve nudges Gwen away and presses all the buttons.
"Guys get out of the way so Erica can push the button." Robin says as Gwen backs up next to her.
Everyone begins to yell instructions at each other, beginning to feel more and more anxious, but a loud clang cuts them off. A red wall suddenly appears, covering the door completely.
Gwen doesn't get to let the dread set in before the room begins to fall. Everyone begins to scream bloody murder while they scramble to hold on to something. Behind one of the crates of boxes, they can see the outer wall of the room, revealing just how fast they're falling.
"Shit! Shit!" Dustin scrambles over to the buttons again, pressing every single one.
"We're going down!" Steve screams.
"Yeah, no shit, Harrington!" Robin yells back.
"Impending doom!" Gwen screams, pressing Gunther into her chest and crouching to brace for an impact.
"Why won't these buttons work?!" Dustin squeals.
Gwen tightly closes her eyes and leans on the wall behind her while everyone screams for Dustin to do something he's already trying to do.
Suddenly, the room stills and everyone falls over with a crash. Everyone groans at the impact.
"My goin," Steve winces. "It fell on my groin. Get this thing off of me!"
"Is everyone okay?" Gwen stands up as Dustin picks up the box from Steve's lap.
"Yeah, I'm great, now that I know that Russians can't design elevators!" Steve yells, pushing Dustin out of the way before fiddling with the buttons again.
"I think we've clearly established that those buttons don't work," Robin says.
"They're buttons. They have to do something-"
"Yeah, if we had a key card!" Gwen points out.
Steve peers at her from over his shoulder. "A what?"
"It's an electronic lock. Same as the loading dock door, and they had the same ones at the la-" Gwen cuts herself off and takes a deep breath. "If we don't have a keycard, it won't operate, and that means-"
"We're stuck in here," Robin finishes.
Gwen nods. "Yeah."
Steve stressfully closes the panel to the buttons and runs a hand through his hair.
"Just so you nerds are aware," Erica starts. "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."
"I don't care about Tina! Or uncle Jacks Party!" Steve shouts. "Your moms not gonna be able to find us if we're dead in a Russian elevator."
"Hey," Dustin gets their attention and points at a hole in the ceiling. "What if we climbed out?"
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
The climbing plan was a bust as the ladder leading to the top must've been hundreds of feet long.
So, here Gwen sits cuddled against Steve's side with his arm around her shoulders while Gunther slept on her lap. The others have already gone to sleep, accepting the fact that their best bet is to wait for the mall to open and try to contact someone through the walkie talkie.
Gwen can't sleep. She tried.
Steve fell asleep four hours ago while Gwen was busy trying to use her powers to contact someone, but she couldn't focus enough to do it. She's spent the last few hours trying to empty her mind, because every time she looks around the room, she begins to panic.
She feels helpless. More helpless than she's felt in a long time.
Gwen has improved her control issues immensely these past two years, but something about this situation gives her a whole new sense of desperation.
Gwen looks around again, only to see the walls slowly start to close in on her, inching closer, and closer, and closer.
Gwen closes her eyes with a sigh and rubs a hand over her face, annoyed at herself.
This seems to wake Steve, as she feels him stir next to her and take in a deep breath. He opens his eyes slowly and glances down at Gwen.
"Sorry," she whispers.
"It's okay," He mumbles tiredly, adjusting his arm that sits around his girlfriend. "Your powers still not working?"
Gwen looks up at him and shamefully shakes her head. Steve pulls her closer to place a delicate kiss on the top of her head, silently reminding her that it's not her fault. Gwen leans into his touch and lays her head onto his chest while he rubs soft circles into her shoulder.
"How's our son?" he asks.
"Sleeping," Gwen says, glancing at the lizard in her lap.
"Have you slept at all?" Steve asks and Gwen shakes her head against his chest. Steve sighs. "I'm sorry. I should've listened to you and your 'impending doom' talk."
Gwen nods with a small teasing smile. "Yeah, you should've."
Steve rests his chin on the top of her head with a small laugh. "We're gonna be okay."
After a beat of silence, Gwen speaks up. "How could you know that?"
Steve lifts his head from hers and extends a hand. "Give me your hand," he says, and she does. He places her hand onto his chest, right above his heart. "Do you feel that?" he asks. Gwen feels his heartbeat and nods, looking back up at Steve. "That's how I know. Everything we've been through... We should be dead, but we're not. And we're not gonna be."
A smile breaks out on Gwen's face as she gazes up at her boyfriend. "You're such a cheese ball."
"You love it," he smiles and leans forward to press a meaningful kiss onto Gwen's lips.
Gwen pulls back with her forehead on his. "I love you," she whispers.
"I love you," he whispers back, and with one more kiss, they lay back into each other, closing their eyes.
With Gwen's head on Steves chest, she listens to the soft thumps of Steve's heart, focusing of that, and only that.
Gwen is alive.
Her friends are alive.
Repeating this in her mind, she finally falls into a dreamless sleep.
—an
Introducing: Gunther
beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy
Word count: 1815