𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 : 4.7k

☆゜·。。·゜゜·。。·゜★

𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐁𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐋𝐘 𝐑𝐄𝐅𝐔𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐌𝐔𝐂𝐇 𝐅𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 than just over Steve's shoulder. She was the one with powers and an elementary understanding of Russian, after all. If worse came to worst, she could be their saving grace. Owen was only going to let him believe he was the one leading the way.

The others, however, were more than willing to just follow the two bullheaded, wannabe heroes with their matching death wishes. This gave Dustin all the time in the world to admire the architecture around him — if you could even call it that.

"I mean, you guys have to admit, as a feat of engineering alone, this is impressive."

"Impressive?" Owen's eyebrows furrowed. "It's a hallway, Dustin. A very long hallway."

Steve's face was scrunched in confusion when he looked over his shoulder. "Not to mention, it's a total fire hazard," he pointed out, skeptically. "There's no stairs, there's no exit, there's just an elevator that drops you halfway to Hell."

"They're Commies," Erica reminded the group. "You don't pay people, they cut corners."

Steve's face scrunched in confusion, but Robin interjected before he could comment. "To be fair to our Russian comrades, I don't think this tunnel was meant for walking," she mentioned, bringing up a very good point. "Think about it, they developed the perfect system for transporting that cargo."

Dustin nodded. "It all comes into the mall like any old delivery."

"And then they load it up onto those trucks and nobody's the wiser," Robin finished.

Owen's gaze was fixed on the ground in front of her, her eyes catching on every chip and scratch in the paint. "Except us. We're the wiser," she mumbled, feeling a mixture of both pride and doom, because actually being the wiser often put them in awful situations like this.

"You think they built this whole mall just so they could transport that green poison?" Steve mused, unable to see the point in it all. The mall probably cost a shit-ton to build... and all for some glamorous cover-up? It seemed unnecessary.

"I very seriously doubt that it's something as boring as poison," Dustin refuted. "It's gotta be something much more valuable, like promethium or something."

"Promethium?" Owen echoed, her eyebrows skyrocketing.

"What the hell's promethium?" Steve asked.

"It's what Victor Stone's dad used to make Cyborg's bionic and cybernetic components," Robin swiftly informed them.

Owen's expression grew dull and uninterested again. "Oh, so it's not actually real."

"Well, promethium is real, but Victor Stone isn't," Dustin corrected, dubiously glancing sideways at her. She and Steve were the only ones present with high school diplomas, and yet neither of them knew one of the 118 chemical elements? The Indiana public school system had seriously failed them.

Erica let out a loud groan, disrupting the conversation and dramatically clutching her stomach. "You're all so nerdy, it makes me physically ill," she choked, faking a gag for good measure.

"No, no, no," Steve butted in, his brows knitted together. "No, don't lump me in with them. I'm not a nerd, alright?"

Robin snorted at his immediate reaction. "Why so sensitive, Harrington?" she tauntingly cooed, a smirk on her lips. "Afraid of losing cool points to a ten-year-old child?"

"No, I'm just saying I don't know jack shit about Prometheus."

"Yeah, me either, but I didn't get my panties in a twist over being counted as one of the nerds," Owen scoffed with a teasing smirk. Her cool exterior instantly went up in flames when Steve's eyes darted over his shoulder, shooting daggers at her. Her smirk vanished and her hands shot up defensively, only lowering once he turned to face the oncoming hallway again.

"It's actually Promethium. Prometheus is a Greek mythological figure, but whatever," Dustin said, breaking through the bout of tension with his little factoid. "All I'm saying is, it's probably being used to make something."

"Or power something," Robin suggested.

Dustin glanced at her. "Like a nuclear weapon?" he proposed, not an ounce of humor in his voice.

Robin nodded, but a small grin pulled at her lips. "Totally." She sounded almost in disbelief, like she couldn't fathom the words leaving her own mouth. And honestly, Owen could barely believe them herself.

"Walking towards a nuclear weapon. That's great. That'd be great," Steve muttered, sarcastically. Owen's stare bored into the back of his head, unable to recall a time in which he had ever gone in the opposite direction of the obvious danger. But she knew better than to bring that up, so she just listened in as Robin continued thinking out loud.

"But if they're building something, why here? 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..." she continued talking through her every thought, but Owen's mind had begun to drift elsewhere.

Robin brought up a very good point. A nuclear weapon? In Hawkins? Sure, Owen had witnessed some real weird shit happen in this town — first hand, at that. But surely she and the other residents weren't this unlucky... right?

Except maybe it had nothing to do with luck.

The same thought seemed to click for Dustin, Owen, and Steve simultaneously. The only three members of their group with knowledge regarding Hawkins National Lab and their fucked-up agenda. The trio's footsteps slowed, while Erica and Robin kept wandering ahead. They shared nervous looks, each of them trying to figure out if this could be some grand scheme they weren't aware of.

"You think the Russians know?" Dustin asked, his voice hushed.

"About the–" Steve started.

"They could." Owen interrupted before he could accidentally divulge all their secrets to Robin and Erica. Steve's hands settled on his hips as he tried to process this new information.

"So it's connected?" he asked.

"Maybe."

Just hearing Dustin vocalize it made Owen feel sick. She thought that this nightmare was over for all of them when the lab got shut down. The possibility that Hawkins Lab had gone global just made this mission even more terrifying.

"How?" Steve murmured.

"I don't know, but it's..." Dustin trailed off.

Steve stole a quick peek over at Owen, instantly spotting the concern that had taken shape on her face. His heart ached at the sight and at the knowledge that he couldn't do anything to fix it. Owen had told him about her history with the people at the lab, what they put her and her biological parents through. And although they weren't sure that those same people were involved, it was still...

"Possible," the three of them sighed at once.

A few feet away, Robin finally realized that over half of the original group was taking a gossip break in the middle of the secret Russian transport system. She spun around, her hands flinging through the air as she did. "I'm sorry, is there something you three would like to share with the class?" Her tone was only halfway joking; the other half was exasperated, more than ready to get the hell out of the tunnels.

An abrupt communication from Dustin's walkie talkie stole everyone's attention and redirected it towards Erica's My Little Pony backpack. A very familiar, very distinct Russian voice came sputtering through, relaying the same message that they had decoded days ago. Owen, Dustin, and Steve rushed over, unzipping the backpack with shaking fingers.

The five of them sat in silence, listening to the man's voice with bated breath.

"Wherever that broadcast is coming from–" Dustin began.

"It's close," Robin confirmed with a small smirk. "And if there's one thing we know about that signal..."

"It can reach the surface."

Everyone's stare lifted at once, their minds flooded with newfound hope of an escape. If they could just hijack that broadcast, their chances of someone rescuing them would basically skyrocket. Of course, that would require a successful hijacking. But it was more than aimless wandering of the tunnel system.

"Holy shit..." Owen breathed, her heart racing.

"Let's go." Robin nodded decisively and began marching onwards once more.

Owen made a move to start following her, but Steve wordlessly caught her arm. She turned to face him with a questioning look in her eye. Although he didn't outright say anything, the fear on his face spoke volumes.

None of them knew what they were walking into, but with Hawkins Lab potentially involved, danger was practically a definite. Not that they had much of a choice. This could be their only way out of this hellhole. Owen knew that — which meant that Steve almost certainly knew it, too.

So, despite the dread she felt bubbling below the surface, Owen's shoulders lifted in a weak shrug – a shrug that said 'I know... but what else are we supposed to do?' – and she slipped her arm from his grasp. Then, she reached out and took his hand in hers, gently squeezing his calloused palm.

They had faced monsters before. How bad could a couple Russians be?

☆゜·。。·゜゜·。。·゜★

With their proximity to the source of the Russian code, the group was also forced into a couple close encounters with the people that worked in the compound. Luckily, with Owen's internal danger signal, they had been able to duck out of sight just in time. And that's exactly how they all found themselves tucked between the wall and an obnoxiously large generator.

Owen could hear a PA system echoing messages through the tunnels, workers perusing around them, and little transport vehicles zipping past. All of that, mixed with her thumping heartbeat, made for the perfect ambiance on this mission. She had probably asked herself why the hell they were doing this a million times — actually, make that a trillion. If this is what it took to be an American hero, she wasn't exactly sure that she was cut out for such a lifestyle.

Once the nearby voices had faded, Steve's head jutted out from behind the generator, making sure the coast was clear before they scurried to their next hideout. "Okay, clear." He slowly crept around the edge, waving everyone along behind him. "It's clear. C'mon, let's go."

"Okay, that one was close," Robin said, her voice shaky.

"Too close," Dustin agreed, shooting a chiding glance at Owen. Her eyebrows knitted as her shoulders shot upwards defensively.

Steve's eyes rolled at their dramatics. Somehow, his nerves had calmed slightly amidst all of their run-ins; it was like his brain kicked into autopilot when faced with immediate danger. A blessing and a curse, really. "Relax, alright? Relax. Nobody saw..." his voice faded away as he rounded a corner. When the others caught up with him, his stunned silence became easily understandable.

They had reached headquarters.

The room was huge, filled with a bunch of high tech shit that Owen wasn't familiar with, soldiers with guns, and scientists who looked much too similar to the ones at Hawkins Lab. She had seriously miscalculated when she presumed that there would only be a couple Russians.

Even though Owen was still trying to process everything she was seeing, a jagged shiver bolting up her spine and leaving goosebumps in its wake forced her to shove the discovery into the back of her mind.

"Hide, now. We've gotta hide," she forcefully reminded the others. A sudden scramble ensued as they searched for the nearest hiding spot.

"Shit–"

"Jesus!"

Their nearest and best bet was a huge chest on wheels, just big enough to cover all of them if they crouched low enough. They piled behind it, tucked out of sight. Owen's back pressed against the uneven wall behind her, barely able to register her friends' whispered conversation happening around her with the way the blood was rushing in her ears.

It was Erica's quiet voice that broke through her haze first. "I saw it. First door, northwest." Steve's eyebrows furrowed, his head lowering closer to hers to make sure he heard her right.

"Saw what?"

"The comms room!" she hissed.

His face scrunched in total disbelief. He even peered around the edge of the chest, wondering if he had missed something completely obvious. But when he didn't immediately spot a door with a bright red, flashing neon sign that read 'Comms Room', he gave up. "You saw the comms room?" he asked, facing her again.

"Correct."

From where he was crouched beside Owen, Dustin chimed in. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. The door was open for a second, and I saw a bunch of lights and machines and shit in there."

"That could be a hundred different things," Dustin pointed out with a sigh.

The group sat in silence, weighing their options. They certainly hadn't walked all this way for nothing. But was it worth it to risk their lives based on a room Erica had seen for only a couple seconds?

"I'll take those odds," Robin announced.

But Steve didn't seem nearly as receptive to the idea. All the guards with their huge guns and official-looking military garb had pretty much scared him shitless. Although he would never admit it, he could barely even keep up in hand-to-hand combat, so it seemed pretty unlikely that he would be able to overthrow any of those commies. The thought of parading the kids and his group of friends right into the thick of it was certifiably insane in his mind.

"We can't hide behind this thing forever," Owen reminded him. Steve's gaze snapped towards her, spotting the way her jaw was set and the furrow of her brow. Her determination severely contrasted the softness in her voice, but the combination ignited something within him.

If she believed they could do it, then so did he.

Steve gave a curt nod before turning to look around the chest once more. He caught sight of the door that Erica was referring to: the first door, northwest. It had a key card reader, just like the elevator. That meant they would either need to sneak in with someone or catch somebody leaving. The latter was likely their best bet.

He twisted to face the group again, looking deadly serious. "Alright. We're gonna move fast, we're gonna stay low. Okay?"

With only a hushed chorus of 'okays' from the group, Steve turned on his heel and began sneaking towards another huge shipment box closer towards the center of the room. Owen and the others tagged along, keeping their heads down as they scurried past oblivious guards. Eventually, they made it to the door of the comms room, by way of various hiding spots.

Luckily, Steve's preferred plan worked just as intended. A man in a lab coat exited the comms room, too preoccupied with whatever was on his clipboard to even notice the group of kids ducking in behind him. Steve caught the door just before it slammed shut, holding it open and allowing the others to run in after him.

A shiver ran up Owen's spine the minute she crossed over the threshold. Instinctively, her eyes landed on the back of a Russian guard's head, a hefty pair of headphones settled atop his dark hair. It didn't take long for him to detect their presence, the realization making him leap up and slide off the headgear.

Strangely, he almost looked as scared as they were. Wide eyes, jaw agape, heavy beads of sweat pouring down his forehead. Owen could only imagine how they looked — a group of pirates and their two child companions. It certainly wasn't something you saw at work every day.

Owen couldn't help but notice the way that the guard's hand began to move towards the gun attached to his hip. She pulled in a gasp through her nose, mentally preparing herself to use her powers in any way possible, but Robin was quick to de-escalate the man. She leapt forward, a hand outstretched as she rattled off the Russian she could remember.

"Tread lightly!" she exclaimed in the foreign language. The guard froze, taken aback momentarily. "Tread lightly," she repeated, more forcefully this time.

"Who are you?" The man demanded, using a couple words that Owen actually recognized from her class in high school. She perked up, leaning forward onto her tiptoes in order to whisper to Robin.

"He wants to know who you are," Owen translated, before leaning back into her original position with politely folded hands.

"Silver cat..." Robin told the man, pointing to herself. Then, if that wasn't clear enough, she motioned towards her nonexistent cat tail and repeated herself very slowly. "Silver cat."

Although Owen didn't understand the guard's next words, she could see the confusion written on his face. Their rudimentary Russian wasn't making this interaction any smoother. Robin tried one more time, stepping forward with a nervous, lopsided smile. "China?"

But the man had had enough. He shook his head in disapproval before closing his hand around the gun on his hip. Right as Owen stepped forward to intervene, Steve let out a crazed shout and barreled past her. He slammed the guard against the comms table before being thrown off to the side.

The man's heavy fist swung towards Steve's face, but he flung himself out of reach just in time. Suddenly, Steve was being grabbed by the shirt and slammed face first against the comms table. But before the guard could attack him again from behind, his elbow went flying back, jabbing him right in the stomach.

This gave Steve just enough time to grab the intercom and bash the guard across the face with it. The man unsteadily toppled backwards, roughly knocking his head against the edge of a table before he hit the ground. A muffled groan left his crumpled form as blood seeped from the fresh wound on his temple.

"Dude!" Dustin excitedly blurted, catching Steve's attention. "You did it! You won a fight!"

Steve glanced back down at the unconscious guard, like he still hadn't fully registered what he did. "Jeez..." he muttered, quietly. Then, he let out a short, breathless laugh. When he looked up again with a proud gleam in his eye, his gaze landed on Owen first. Sure, taking down a dangerous threat was nice, the principle of it and all. But did it even matter if she wasn't impressed?

"Holy shit, Harrington," Owen gasped around a laugh. Dustin rushed past her to grab the guard's key card, but she was solely focused on Steve sauntering back towards her. "I didn't think you had it in you."

"Oh, that?" He gestured back towards the defeated guard with a carefree point of his thumb. For a moment, he pretended to act clueless, given away only by the faint smirk on his lips. "That was nothing."

"I don't know. As much as I hate to admit it, that seemed like a little more than nothing."

"Oh, really?" Steve's smug persona was back in full swing, accompanied by a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

Owen and Steve were so wrapped up in their own little world that they barely even registered the kids arguing beside them — not to mention, Robin wandering up a set of nearby stairs. But it felt kind of nice to act normal again, if only for a moment. As soon as they had decided to break into the Russian elevator, Owen had felt this horrible tension in her shoulders, in the way her jaw was constantly clenched. She would've been happy just to have a bit of relief from that feeling, but seeing a smile on Steve's face was the cherry on top.

"Guys! There's something up there," Robin announced, having reappeared at the bottom of the staircase.

Effectively pulled out of their bubble, Steve and Owen exchanged a look of concern before taking the kids and following her back up the flight of stairs. Despite Steve protesting, the group pushed through the heavy door to get a better look. However, once they were actually inside, Owen was pretty sure that she would've preferred to stay ignorant about this specific piece of information.

A bright blue glow radiated over their faces, pulsing irregularly and making Owen's brain throb behind her eyes. The group peered through a set of long windows, looking over the shoulders of a bunch of scientists in their long white coats and other workers in hazmat suits. Just beyond the glass, a gigantic machine whirred, various mechanisms within it spinning rapidly. The men and women in the hazmat suits were injecting those canisters of green slime right into the machine, using it as fuel, just like Robin and Dustin had theorized.

Most notably, from the center of the machine, a single, blinding beam of light was being shot into a gaping cavity in the wall. The wall didn't look like one Owen had seen before, though. There was no cement or wood like one would anticipate. The fleshy material made her mind flash back to the tunnels she and Hopper had been trapped in last year. That tunnel system was made up of slithering, living vines that could sense and feel the environment around them. With the way this wall was twitching and bubbling in certain places, she couldn't help but feel like this may be a similar situation.

"The gate," Dustin and Steve gasped, in synchronous realization.

The longer Owen stared at the gate, the stronger her headache got. Although, it was as if she couldn't tear her eyes away. It wasn't until a sharp flash of pain dug deeply into the back of her neck that her eyes finally squeezed shut. She let out a choked gasp, hunching over as the sensation somehow got worse. A thick drop of blood rolled from her nose, splattering onto the hard, metal floor below her.

Steve was right at her side as soon as he noticed what was going on, a comforting hand on her back. "Shit, we gotta get Owen out of here." He had forgotten about her sensitivity with stuff like this. Hell, she could practically sense when Law was going to stub his toe. There was no telling what exposure to something like an interdimensional portal would do to her.

Collectively, they all began to hurry back down the stairs, with Owen at the very back, hobbling slowly behind them. Steve was right there with her, of course, his steady hand in hers to make sure she didn't tumble down to the bottom by accident. Even though she insisted that she didn't need help, the telltale swaying and sickly complexion told him everything he needed to know.

"I don't understand. You've seen this before?" Robin asked.

"Not exactly," Steve answered, flatly.

"Then what, exactly?" she demanded, whipping around to face him.

"All you need to know is it's bad," Dustin informed her.

"It's really bad," Steve agreed.

"Like, end-of-the-human-race-as-we-know-it kind of bad."

Finally, they reached the bottom of the stairs, but Steve still wound Owen's arm around his shoulders, just in case. And judging by the way she slouched tiredly against his side, it seemed like that was a good idea.

"Um, Steve? Where's your Russian friend?" Erica wondered aloud, redirecting the older kids' focus onto another new problem. Only a smear of blood on the floor remained where the guard's body once was.

Not even a second later, a deafening alarm began to blare through the base. Lights flashed overhead and shouts could be heard from outside the door. Steve peered through the door's little window, seeing the way guards and scientists alike were scrambling about the floor. Someone must've spotted his unfamiliar face through the glass, because Steve suddenly jerked away, muttering expletives.

"Go, go, go, go, go!" he shouted to the others, nodding his head towards the stairs they had just descended. "Hope you're ready to go mobile, Owen," he murmured, ducking his head to talk to her.

"Pretty sure we were already mobile, Harrington," she huffed. Still, she did the best she could to not hinder him, lugging her heavy feet up each step with as much speed as she could muster.

The five of them burst into the observatory room, startling all of the scientists. Their steps stuttered to a halt, feeling frozen in place. Every eye was on them, easily putting two and two together with the alarm sounding overhead and the group of kids in pirate costumes in front of them.

Heavy footsteps coming up behind them jolted the kids into action again. "Go, go, go! Shit!" Steve yelled. Left with no other choice, Dustin led the group out onto the platform directly in front of the gate. They stood at the very edge, caught between a crowd of angry Russians and a portal between worlds.

"Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!" Dustin screamed, his voice drowned out by the loud thrum of the machine next to them. Wind whipped through Owen's hair, tousling it and drying the streaks of blood on her upper lip. She had anticipated that this level of proximity to the gate would've drained her completely, making her a dead-weight for Steve to haul through the compound.

Instead, she felt like a live wire. Everything, down to her fingertips, tingled and crackled like she was on fire from the inside out. Her heart was rattling her ribcage and her lungs burned with the heavy breaths she pulled in. Her mouth tasted coppery, making her stomach turn. Her movements were jerky as her gaze darted around the room, searching for an escape.

The moment her wild eyes landed on the staircase to a lower deck, it was like all of her adrenaline took over. "This way!" she shouted over the machine, detaching herself from Steve so that they both had a better chance of fleeing. He wasn't sure where this bout of energy came from, but he and the others followed without question.

Owen roughly shoved a man in a hazmat suit out of their way as she ran towards an unmarked door. She could only hope that this was an exit of some sort, a way out of this shithole. Behind her, Steve pushed a tower of oil drums into a cluster of oncoming guards, buying them some more time to get to safety.

"Come on! Go, go, go, go!" Steve yelled, waving the kids in front of him.

Owen flung the door open, launching herself inside the boiler room and holding it for the others. Steve was the last to run in and he forcefully slammed the door behind him. He and Owen were pressing all of their body weight against it, but they were still outnumbered. Several guards pounded against the door, attempting to shove their way inside. Owen and Steve were jostled about as they tried to keep their footing, forced to listen to all the angry Russian being spouted at them.

"Here, c'mon! Let's go!" Erica had found a large vent in the floor and swung it open with Dustin's help.

"Yeah, guys. Come on!" he instructed, looking at the others expectantly.

Robin stood in between the two groups, looking torn. She wasn't sure whether to stay and help hold the guards back or make their great escape. But for Owen, the decision was pretty clear.

"Robin, we'll hold them back! You three go and get some help!"

Robin took an unsure step towards the vent, her eyebrows pinching together. "Are you sure?"

Steve gritted his teeth after an especially hard thump against the door. "Just go!"

Robin scurried up to join the kids, only stopping because Dustin had hesitated in the opening of the vent. "I won't forget you!" he announced, dramatically. Although the sentiment was sweet, it was so not the time.

"Go!" Owen and Steve shouted in unison.

Finally, he dropped beneath the lip of the floor and Robin jumped in after him, slamming the vent shut. But when one door closes, another one opens. Owen and Steve could only fend off the Russians for so long before they were overpowered. The door went flying open, sending the two of them tumbling backwards.

Much like a cat with its nine lives, Owen was still upright, only stumbling slightly when shoved. Steve, on the other hand, was in a heap on the floor, having slammed against the wall behind them. No matter their ending position, several guns were pointed in their faces, accompanied by a blur of Russian scolding.

Owen warily stared into the barrel of a gun, slowly lifting her trembling hands in defeat. Steve mirrored her movements, realizing that, for once, there was no sneaky way out of this. All they had was the hope that Robin and the others would figure out a way to rescue them.