CHAPTER SIXTEEN
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"OKAY, SO IF I WERE A RUSSIAN SPY, I'd probably try to keep to myself, but it's definitely weird that he was trying to communicate with a radio right there in the middle of the hallway," Lexie was saying to herself, planted next to Robin on the counter at Scoops Ahoy. She definitely didn't work there, and the customers could tell, but at this point she may as well have.

They both had notepads out, the translation written out on Robin's and an entire list of places that a Russian spy might want to hide or go in the mall on Lexie's. Since they weren't really sure what the goal or motivation was, she had just jotted down a lot of places that might be good for hiding what you were up to. Some of the places were crossed out from when she decided it was a stupid idea or Robin had given her input and said it wasn't very likely.

After her shift at the station, she had come directly to the mall. When she arrived, Steve and Dustin were nowhere to be found. Robin had explained that they were out doing 'spycraft' which actually just meant they were walking around the mall with a pair of binoculars. It would be an actual miracle if they could actually uncover a Russian conspiracy with the way they were going.

"How would someone not notice me? Maybe I look like someone from here, which is how nobody noticed the Russian," she went on while Robin repeated the translation over her, both of them in their own worlds.

Robin was flicking through the translation book when a knock came from the back door. She sighed and opened up the sliding glass window on the counter and slid through into the back. Lexie continued to scribble onto her notepad, mumbling to herself about whether or not it made sense for Russian spies to be hiding at the Gap.

A few moments later, Robin came in through the back door, her eyes fixed ahead toward the hallway. Lexie looked up, distracted by the sound of her leaving the back as well as Dustin and Steve making their return.

"You, guys, you're not gonna believe who Dustin thought was a Russian," Steve was saying amusedly, while Dustin simply looked irritated with him.

"You did too," Dustin protested firmly.

"I did not," Steve denied as they reached the counter.

"Yes, you did," Dustin repeated. Robin suddenly pushed in between them and bolted out of the ice cream shop.

"No, I did not."

Lexie furrowed her brows and threw her notepad down beside her. She slid off the counter and her feet hit the ground. Dustin and Steve were still squabbling at each other and she could have sworn that Steve was trying to tell her something, but she ended up just as distracted trying to keep up with Robin.

She left them behind, still in the shop, and saw that Robin was looking around quickly at all of the shops from the center of the mall.

"Robin?" Lexie asked, finally reaching her and looking around where she was looking in confusion. "Are you okay? Did you see...?" She wanted to finish that sentence with 'a Russian' but decided that maybe talking about it in the middle of a bunch of people was maybe not a good idea.

"A trip to China sounds nice," Robin said, gasping lightly and looking down at her notepad. "If you tread lightly."

She continued to repeat parts of the translation and Lexie stood there, still confused as ever. Steve and Dustin came up next to her, also looking very perplexed.

"Robin, what are you doing?" Steve asked, looking at Lexie for a second as if she could offer some clarity. Unfortunately, she could not.

"I cracked it," Robin replied confidently. She jumped down from the bench she was standing on and started to grin. "I cracked the code."

__________

As they stepped outside into the rain, far past mall hours, Lexie was starting to feel extremely nervous about the whole thing all over again. Before, it was shocking, and then it was just her scribbling on a notepad all day. There was nothing of consequence about that.

But her, Steve, Dustin, and Robin all scaling a roof to watch the shipments arrive at the mall? That felt just a little bit more of consequence. Sure, maybe they were just going to watch some packages arrive. But what if they actually found something?

During this process, Lexie realized she didn't have a rain jacket because she had lost hers the previous year and so now she was being swallowed by a spare one of Steve's. It would have taken her too long to go home and get one of her jackets, so he had just grabbed one of his for her.

Dustin had the binoculars in his hands and was watching as a large truck backed up to the loading dock of the mall. Lexie was blinking rapidly and squinting, trying her best to keep the rain water from splashing into her face. One of her hands was holding up the hood so it actually acted like a hood. It kept flopping down into her face since it was so big. The other hand was leaning up against the edge of the roof, gripping it as tight as she could because she still couldn't believe they were actually doing this.

"Look for Imperial Panda and Kaufman Shoes," Robin told everyone, but it was more so directed toward Dustin since he could see more than the rest of them.

"Is this allowed? This feels like maybe we shouldn't be doing this?" Lexie said, trying to be loud enough over the rain. She was in between Steve and Robin, glancing to either side of her.

"But, Lex, if we save the country –"

"Steve, I swear if you say what I think you're about to say," she cautioned, hitting him in the arm while he laughed at her. She couldn't help but laugh along with him.

"They're with that whistling guy, twelve o'clock," Dustin pointed out, gesturing in the general direction he was talking about.

She could barely hear the whistling given the rain and how far away they were, but she could vaguely make out a panda on the side of one of the boxes that the man that Dustin had pointed at was wheeling.

"What do you think's in there?" Steve asked, squinting aggressively. He had been wiping his hair and his eyes every two seconds on account of the downpour.

"Guns, bombs?" Dustin suggested.

"Chemical weapons?" Robin added.

"Chinese food?" Lexie said nervously, knowing that it wasn't true because there were men dressed in all black standing at the entrance to the loading bay with objects in their hands that she knew wasn't anything good.

"Whatever it is, they're armed to the teeth," Dustin confirmed, Lexie feeling her stomach dip a little bit in fear.

"Great, that's great," Steve responded, wiping his eyes again and closing them with a nod. His hair completely flattened against his head.

The man who was wheeling the Imperial Panda boxes stopped at a door, where one of the men in black swiped something over a keypad and the door opened.

"Hey, what's in there?" Robin asked, referring to the door. Nobody but Dustin could see anything with very good clarity.

"It's just more boxes," Dustin said.

"Let me check it out," Steve told him, grabbing for the binoculars clumsily.

"No, I'm still looking," Dustin protested, yanking them back aggressively so that Steve couldn't take them.

"Lemme see it," Steve maintained, fumbling for them messily, hands slipping around on the slick surface of the binoculars.

"Hang on!"

"Guys –" Lexie began, just about ready to insert her hand into the mix when they slipped and knocked the binoculars into a metal pipe that ran along the side of the roof. A loud thud rang out so loud, Lexie could have sworn people inside of the mall would have heard it.

"Duck!" Dustin grunted as he threw himself to the ground. The other three followed quickly as the men in blacked raised their weapons in response to the noise. Lexie's heart was beating so aggressively she was shocked that they couldn't hear that too.

Her back hit the edge of the rooftop and she scooted herself down to make sure that the big hood on the jacket wasn't visible. What she didn't realize was that in their panic, she and Steve had grabbed each other's hands tightly, holding on for dear life in between them.

Lexie's eyes were squeezed shut and she snapped them open when she could hear the door to the bottom of the stairs bust open. She glanced over at Steve and met his eyes with pure fear in hers.

"We gotta move!" Robin whispered, gesturing for all of them to run for the door that led into the back mall hallways.

Steve leapt up and dragged Lexie with him, everyone running as fast as they possibly could because a Russian spy with a gun was after them. Lexie thought that these days for them were over, but boy was she wrong.

The minute she entered a building, she felt a little bit better. Nervously, they all walked as fast as possible through the hallways, Lexie not really sure where she was going because she didn't work there and wasn't familiar with the path.

"Well, I think we found your Russians," Robin finally said once they were reasonably sure they were far enough away. And she was right — that all but confirmed it. But there were so many.

Lexie felt like she was going to throw up. What were they doing? Was a small town mall really the best coverup they could think of?

She was so nervous her head felt like it was buzzing. Like she was ten pounds lighter and she was dizzy. The air conditioning in the building made her feel like she was an ice cube. The large hood of Steve's jacket had fallen off of her head while they were running and now it was just her hair plastered to her head and shoulders.

In an attempt to control her breathing, Lexie took a slow deep breath and hoped nobody would notice it. She tried her best to make it quiet.

Steve squeezed her hand tightly. She had barely noticed that their hands were still clasped together as they raced through the halls.

__________

Once again, she sat in Steve's passenger seat but now she was drenched in the water from the downpour that was still going strong, wearing his jacket that was entirely too big for her.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asked as he pulled up to their houses. Lexie nodded absently and tried to take another shaky deep breath. "Lex, you're shaking pretty bad."

"I'm just cold," she brushed off, trying to shrug without shaking but failing. It wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't exactly the truth either.

They got out of the car and ran to the front door of her house and she tried her best fumbling with the keys so that they weren't stuck in the rain longer than they had to be. The lights were on in the kitchen and the living room, so she knew that everyone was probably home now. It was getting a little bit late. She had noticed that the lights had been on in his house, too.

"Are your parents home?" she asked him, looking down at herself for a second as she closed the door. They were dripping water everywhere.

"Yeah," he said with a shrug. She knew that he had been getting into it more recently with his dad since he hadn't gotten into college. Without him having to say so she could tell that it was wearing him a little thin.

"Wanna stay here?" she offered without even thinking about it. There was a lot to unpack about why she had asked the question, but maybe she could get him away from his dad for a minute and maybe she would feel less panicked about the whole Russian thing if he was right there. "Not that you have to, we just have a spare room and I know that your dad –"

"Is an asshole?" he finished with a short, bitter laugh. He nodded at her, watching as she slipped her shoes off and tried not to make more of a mess despite the fact that she was getting water all over the floor. "Okay. I'm gonna run over to my house for a change of clothes, though." He gestured down at his soaked sailor's uniform.

It weirdly reminded her of the first night they ever really spoke, and she nodded back at him. "Ahoy," she said with a salute like it was a word that you would ever use for goodbye or see you later. He rolled his eyes at her good naturedly and waved her off.

"Very funny," he said before ducking out the door and sprinting over to his house.

Lexie smiled to herself and walked into the living room, finding Iris and her mother sitting on the couch with glasses of wine watching a movie together. They heard her come in and turned their heads, Iris waving and her mother squinting at how she dripped water all over the floor.

"Why does it look like you just took a dive into the ocean?" Christine asked, gesturing at the water on the floor. "And why is your jacket twice the size of you?"

Iris laughed loudly at the comment and raised her glass playfully.

"An exciting night, Christine, remember what those were like?" she asked, grinning over at her sister.

"I guess you could say that," Lexie mumbled, thinking back to the Russians and how things probably weren't going to get better from there. "Hey, is it cool if Steve stays over tonight?"

"That's fine," Christine agreed immediately, putting her attention back on the movie once she figured that was the end of that conversation. Lexie was grateful to have a parent, or rather parents, really, that trusted her and were lenient about this sort of thing.

"Honey, you okay? You're looking pretty pale," Iris called out to her as she stepped into the kitchen, deciding that maybe some hot tea would make her feel a little bit better.

"Yeah, I'm good," Lexie confirmed. "Just a little bit cold." The front door opened and closed quickly and the sound of shoes being kicked to the side echoed through the hallway. Lexie fiddled with the tea bags, her hands still shaking just a little bit.

While she put the kettle on, she grabbed two mugs from the cabinet thinking that maybe Steve might want some too. And even if he didn't, it was still something for her to do that would distract her from the terrible feeling in her stomach.

Steve had stumbled into the kitchen, almost running directly into her. Lexie fiddled with the zipper to the jacket while she waited for the kettle to heat up and looked over at him when he came busting into the room. She figured he was cold from the rain and was running around to try and warm up.

"Hey," she greeted quietly. "Guest bedroom is upstairs just to the left if you wanna change in there." She wasn't sure why she was even telling him that — he had been over and stayed the night in that bedroom a few times already. She just couldn't really think straight.

He seemed to notice her pale face as well because he shot her a look of concern as she grabbed the kettle and started to pour water into the mugs. Her still being fully dressed in her wet clothes and the jacket, still trailing a little bit of water wherever she went. It was like she had forgotten.

The front door opened again and Emily, Max, and El walked into the kitchen, more silent than usual.

"Oh my god, I told you guys," Emily gasped, pointing at Steve standing in their kitchen. "He lives here now, I swear."

Max smirked and El grinned at Emily.

"What are you guys doing?" Lexie asked tiredly, putting the kettle away and wiping at her face a bit while she waited for the tea to steep.

"They're sleeping over," Emily answered, shooting her sister a questioning look. She seemed more out of it than usual. Yesterday they had a sleepover at El's and so Lexie couldn't keep track of where Emily would be off to next.

"Oh, are they?" Iris questioned from the next room like she was going to kick them all out.

"Only if you guys very generously said yes?" Emily called out to her in her in the voice she used when she wanted something. "We've had a very exhausting night."

"It looks like you're not the only one," Christine added, having made her way from the couch in the living room to the doorway of the kitchen. She looked at all of the people packed into the room and smiled. "It looks like I'm very generous, all of the time."

"Thanks, Mom," Emily said, looking at the other girls with an expression that Lexie couldn't quite read.

"Hey, what did I tell you about the skateboard?" Christine asked, pointing at the object in question that Emily held in her hands.

"Keep it by the door," Emily replied regretfully, stepping back to go put it where it was supposed to go. "Sorry!"

Max had been teaching Emily how to skateboard despite the fact that Emily owned a bike that worked just fine. They had been having fun doing it, and Max had insisted that Emily was getting better despite her denying it vehemently.

"Lexie?" her mother was asking, bringing her back to reality. She hadn't even realized that she wasn't even paying attention anymore. "Are you okay?"

Lexie nodded absently and gestured to her clothes. "I think I'm going to go change. Don't want to catch a cold," she explained, trying to ignore the tightening in her chest.

With every move up the stairs, her wet clothes squished and rubbed uncomfortably against her skin. Now that she was thinking a little too much about that sensation, it was overwhelming her and she kind of wanted to cry. But she had to scold herself into not doing that. Nobody else was probably crying over their discoveries, so why should she?

When she got to her room, she quickly changed into an oversized Blondie shirt and some shorts. Her wet clothes and Steve's jacket were discarded into the corner and she sat on the floor in the middle of her room.

She wasn't sure why, but a chair just wasn't sounding appealing. And with the way her head was spinning a little bit, she needed something that she couldn't fall out of. She was breathing a litttle bit faster and she felt dizzy. So dizzy, she kind of just wanted to lay down on the ground and forget about it.

Now she was worried she was going to pass out. This felt just like when she was at the Byers' and freaked out about everything there. Why was she like this? Was she just not equipped to handle anything? That's certainly what it was seeming like to her. These thoughts just made her even more frustrated.

There was a light knock at her door. "Yeah," she breathed, confirming that it was okay for someone to come in. Her eyes were shut as she gripped the carpet underneath her tightly, trying to catch her breath as quickly as she could. But her chest hurt.

Steve entered the room, his brows furrowing when he saw her sitting on the ground trying desperately to breathe regularly. If Lexie's eyes were open, she would've smiled at the fact that he had two mugs in his hands — the tea she'd forgotten downstairs. He placed the mugs on her bedside table and sat down beside her.

Forcefully, Lexie opened her eyes and forced herself to try and breathe at a regular rate. She was ashamed now that he had actually seen her having this little meltdown.

Instead of judging her though, he just grabbed her hands and squeezed them, breathing slowly so that she could follow along. She thought back to when he had done the same on the Byers' back steps.

Once she finally felt like she wasn't going to pass out or throw up and die, she took a deeper breath and looked over at him. He squeezed her hands again.

     "You okay?" he asked, still looking at her in concern. The rain was continuing to pound on outside, drops hitting the roof of her house aggressively.

     Lexie just shrugged weakly. "You could say that this whole thing is making me nervous," she understated, laughing a little bit now that she had gotten over the attack part of her worry.

     "Well, you're not the only one," he admitted, trying to shrug it off like he typically did. But he looked less confident than usual. "We stumbled onto some big shit."

     "I wish that we could all stop stumbling," she said, sighing a little bit but smiling a little bit nonetheless. They had stumbled onto a lot more than this. Just their luck.

     Steve laughed a little bit and smiled as well. "You don't have to keep helping or anything—" he began, still deeply worried about her well-being.

     "No, I can't just let you guys be stupid all by yourselves," she dismissed with the shake of her head and a loud laugh. "Who would I be if I didn't join in?"

     He laughed at this as well and got up to grab the abandoned tea on the nightstand. "You, uh left this downstairs," he explained sitting back down next to her and handing her one of the mugs.

     "Thank you," she told him quietly, her chest swelling in appreciation for him.

     Things were quiet for a moment before he broke the silence.

     "I want to thank you, actually," he said, staring at her wall absently. "For letting me stay here."

     Lexie waved her hand at him like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You're always welcome here, you know that," she replied easily. That was perhaps the easiest thing to happen to them tonight. Looking over at him, she made sure her voice was completely steady. "I mean it."

     He tore his eyes away from the wall and met hers, staring into them for a long moment. She could tell he wanted to avoid talking about the situation with his parents, and honestly for the time being she could respect it. Suddenly, there was much more going on.

     Without thinking about it, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and took a sip of the tea. He let out a breath and smiled down at himself. Lexie was trying not to sweat, suddenly. She was cursing herself because she just knew that she was blushing — she was probably burning red.

     "Hey," he finally said quietly. "Wanna tell me more about the book with the hairy little elves?"

     She giggled and responded, "The hobbits?"

     "Yeah, sure, whichever are the ones with the hairy feet and no shoes," he explained like there was no difference between what he was saying and what the actual word for it was. "Or just tell me about anything. Or I could tell you, but I don't have anything interesting like you always do."

     "That's not true," Lexie denied immediately, shaking her head with furrowed brows. "I could listen to you talk for like...ever." She grimaced at herself for not really knowing how to find the words and also for maybe getting a little bit too obvious about how she was feeling.

     "Forever? That's a pretty long time there, Lexie, I'm not sure you know how long that is," Steve teased, shrugging at her like she was the one who was digging her own grave. "Pretty big commitment." When he said the last part, he sounded less like he was joking and far less confident.

     "Hey, well, I know what I signed up for," she told him simply, smiling at him softly. "No complaints here."

     They spent a while just sitting on her floor, talking for a while and trying to distract themselves from the anxious realities of their lives. Even if their problems were ever looming over their heads, they were still able to escape even if just for a moment.

     They finished the tea and Lexie, without meaning to, had fallen asleep on Steve's shoulder leaned up against the side of her bed.