— THE BRAIN AND THE BEAUTY
season three — episode two

CHAPTER TWO

      IT HAD BEEN THREE full days since the power outage. Dustin — who had been away for quite some time at a camp — finally returned home and paid both him and Steve a visit at the mall. At that current moment, Oliver was sitting at a booth with Steve to his right and Dustin across from him, shoving spoonfuls of a banana split into his mouth. He had just finished describing his girlfriend to the two older teens, and it seemed like Oliver was the only person who had believed him so far.

      "No, no. No way. Hotter than Phoebe Cates? No." Steve asked in disbelief, shaking his head with a soft chuckle. Oliver smacked him in the arm and gave Dustin a soft smile. However, Dustin didn't care about what Steve thought and continued to gush about his girlfriend. "Mm-hmm. Brilliant, too. And she doesn't even care that my real pearls are still coming in. She says kissing is better without teeth." Oliver found that quite disgusting.

Both he and Steve gave each other a side-eye with the same disgusted looks plastered on their faces. Oliver cleared his throat to try and change the subject, thankfully Steve got the message. "Wow. Yeah, that's great. Proud of you, man. That's. . . that's kinda romantic—." Never mind, he did not get the message.

Oliver sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, turning around to face Robin, who was scooping ice cream for customers who came in every so often. "Help me." He mouthed and she snickered, giving him a fake pout. He frowned and subtly flipped her off, both of their lips slowly curving into a smile. "So do you really just get to eat as much of this as you want?" Dustin asked Steve while shoving another spoon full of ice cream into his mouth.

Steve thought for a moment before nodding. "Yeah. I mean, sure. It's not really a good idea for me, though." Oliver raised an eyebrow and turned to face him, hands crossed over his chest. "I gotta keep in shape for the ladies." He finished, giving Oliver a cheeky smile. Instead of getting a smile in return, Oliver just rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, and how's that working out for you?" Robin piped up from where she was behind them, grabbing a few napkins while holding a cup of ice cream. "Ignore her." Steve seethed while Oliver snorted in laughter, bending over. Steve knew he found this hilarious because of how much his shoulders were shaking. Steve furrowed his eyebrows and smacked Oliver's back, frowning at him. "She seems cool," Dustin said with a goofy smile on his face.

"She's not."

"She is." Steve looked over at Oliver with a face of betrayal. Oliver simply shrugged at him because they both know good and well that Robin is one of the coolest people they had ever met. "So," Steve rolled his eyes at both Oliver and Robin and turned to face Dustin again. "Where are the other knuckleheads?"

"They ditched me yesterday." Oliver straightened up at that, eyebrows furrowed. "No," Steve said in disbelief. It wasn't like them to just run off — scratch that — it was completely like Mike and El to run off because they were so obsessed with being together, but the rest of them — especially Will — just didn't do that. "My first day back. Can you believe that shit?" Steve lurched forward.

      "Whoa. Seriously?" Oliver frowned and shook his head, fixing the lanyard that hung around his neck. "I swear to God." He took another bite of the ice cream and hummed, suddenly remembering something. He leaned away from the table and relaxed into the cushioned booth he was on. "They're gonna regret it, though, big time, when they don't get to share in my glory."

      Oliver raised an eyebrow, not really knowing what the hell he was talking about. "Glory? What do you mean by that?" He leaned forward, setting his arms on the table while Dustin finished chewing his food. Dustin smiled softly and moved closer to the two of them, his voice going down two octaves. "So, last night, we're trying to get in contact with Suzie. . ." Steve hummed at the mention of the girl's name, sending Dustin a knowing smile.

      "And, uh. . ." Oliver furrowed his eyebrows and leaned closer when Dustin started to whisper, trying to catch what he had said, but Steve was in between the two of them so it was hard. "What?" Steve basically read his mind as he stared at Dustin in complete cluelessness. "Uh. . ." Dustin clicked his tongue and moved his hand in front of his mouth, eyes scanning the crowded area in front of them. "I. . . a secret. . . communication." Was all Oliver was able to make that time. Oliver sighed in frustration and let his head hang.

     "Just speak louder," Steve told him, getting annoyed with how quiet he was. Dustin rolled his eyes. "I intercepted a secret Russian communication!" Everyone in the store turned to look at the group — which caused Oliver to sink into his seat in embarrassment as he felt the burning gaze of all of them. Steve noticed this and discreetly placed his hand on his thigh, rubbing it gently to try and calm him down. "Jeez, shh. Yeah, okay, that's what I thought you said." It went silent for a moment and Steve removed his hand from Oliver's thigh, intertwining his hand together on the table.

"What — what does that mean?" He asked Dustin. Dustin sighed at his stupidity but began to explain anyway. "It means, Steve, we could be heroes. True American heroes." Oliver quirked an eyebrow and sat up, finally feeling everyone's gazes off of them. "American heroes." Steve giddily said, liking the sound of that.

"Just think, you could have all the ladies you want and more," Dustin said and Oliver smirked at his attempt of manipulating Steve to help him. "More?" Oliver nodded and hummed in agreement. "More." He winked at Dustin and the smaller boy smiled gratefully at him, giving him a very subtle thumbs-up. "I like more."

"What's the catch?" Steve asked, not knowing if Dustin was trying to set him up or not. It wasn't like Dustin to do something like that but the two of them had just learned that the rest of his friends had ditched him so it seemed like anything was possible as of right now. "No catch, I just need your guys' help. Especially you, Oliver, since you can learn things so quickly." Oliver raised an eyebrow.

"With what?" Steve asked, wondering what was so important that they had to learn something. Dustin raised his eyebrows for a second and turned, digging in his backpack for a second before pulling out a Russian dictionary. "Translation."

Oliver could definitely do that.

      "SO WHAT DO YOU think?" Dustin asked Steve while Oliver finished skimming through the entirety of the Russian Dictionary. Steve has depressingly switched out Robin's tallies with the Russian alphabet, even though Oliver had said that was unnecessary, so now Dustin and Steve were looking at it while Oliver wrote down the first few words of the first sentence. Dustin had recorded the code after realizing they had been repeating the same thing over and over and now had it on a cassette. "It sounded familiar." Dustin furrowed his eyebrows and looked up at the teenager.

      "What?" Steve munched on a banana and pointed at the cassette. "The music. The music right there at the end." Both Oliver and Dustin looked at him with furrowed eyebrows. What did that have to do with this? "Why are you listening to the music, Steve? Listen to the Russian! We're translating Russian." Oliver rolled his eyes and tapped his pen on the piece of paper in front of him.

      "You mean I'm translating Russian." Dustin shrugged his shoulders and waved him off and Steve began to complain. "I'm trying to listen to the Russian, but there's music—."

      The large swinging door was pushed open and an angry Robin stood in the doorway, glaring at Steve. "All right, babysitting time is over. You need to get in there." Steve shuffled backward in surprise when she came rushing into the room, looking at her board. "Hey, my board. That was important data, shitbirds."

      "I tried to tell them that, but they wouldn't listen." Oliver threw his hands up in surrender and Steve nudged him on his arm, frowning at him. "I guarantee you, what we're doing is way more important than your data." Robin crossed her arms over her chest as she approached them, stopping in front of the table that Oliver was sitting at, still writing down some letters. "Yeah? And how do you know these Russians are up to no good anyway?" She questioned.

      "How does she know about the Russians?" Oliver looked at Dustin in disbelief. How could she not know about the Russians? He and Steve were unbelievably loud and there was a Russian alphabet on her whiteboard. Dustin and Steve began to bicker about who had told her while Robin and Oliver looked at each other, unamused. "Hello, I can hear you. Actually, I can hear everything. You are both extremely loud."

      "Told you." Oliver received another nudge from Steve. "You think you have evil Russians plotting against our country, on tape, and you're trying to translate, but haven't figured out a sentence yet because Oliver is the only one in here who knows what the hell he is doing. Sound about right?" Oliver nodded his head in agreement.

      Robin and Steve stared at each other for a quick moment before Robin ducked down and tried to grab the tape. However, Steve grabbed it before she could. "Whoa! What do you think you're doing?" Steve asked her, pointing an accusing finger at her. "I wanna hear it." She answered happily, bouncing a little.

      "Why?" She looked at the two, confused. However, she quickly shrugged her shoulders and nodded her head in the direction of the tape. "'Cause maybe I can help. I'm fluent in four languages, you know." She said proudly, a smile on her face. Oliver nodded and looked back down at his sheet of paper, waiting for Steve to put the tape down so that he could continue listening to it. "Russian?" Dustin asked.

      Oliver snorted in laughter when she started speaking in Pig Latin instead. "Ou-yay are-yay umb-day." Dustin and Steve looked at each other with excited faces, both of them even letting out a little 'oh-ho-ho.'

      "That was Pig Latin, dingus." Oliver grinned at those words as she sat down in the chair across from him, looking down at the words he had already written down. "But I can speak Spanish and French and Italian, and I've been in band for 12 years. My ears are little geniuses, trust me." Oliver nodded in agreement, smiling at Steve. "Uh. . ." Robin frowned at his hesitance and leaned forward as if to emphasize what she was saying.

      "Come on, it's your turn to sling ice cream, my turn to translate. With me and Ollie working together, we can get it figured out in no time," Steve flashed Robin a glare at the use of the nickname rightfully reserved for him and only him. "I don't even want credit. I'm just bored." She held up the ice cream scoop to Steve and he sighed, shaking his head before snatching it from her, handing her the cassette before walking out of the back room.

      "So what do you got so far?" Robin asked, peering over and looking at Oliver's piece of paper with Russian letters and the English variations underneath it. "The week is long." He told her, nodding his head over to the Russian alphabet on the wall as he slid the piece of paper over to her so that she could check if she wanted. "Okay. . . you said you have an eidetic memory, right?" She questioned and he slowly nodded, raising an eyebrow at the sudden question. "Okay, perfect. We'll get this done in no time."

      Dustin silently cheered and pulled another chair up to the table, sitting on the side of the metal table covered with random stuff they were using. "Strawberry. . . vanilla. . . extra whipped cream." Oliver furrowed his eyebrows and pushed himself out of his seat, sliding open the window that divided them from the front of the store. He felt a small smile tug at his lips when he saw Max and El standing in front of the counter, smiling at the sight of their ice cream cones. "Max! El! Nice to see you two." Oliver felt his smile grow when he realized that they were hanging out together. Just yesterday, Max was still convinced that El hated her, and now here they were, hanging out like two regular teenage girls. "Wait a second. Are you even allowed to be here?" Steve asked El. El simply giggled as Max grabbed her by the arm, both of them rushing out of the parlor.

      Steve sighed but shrugged and turned around, now facing Oliver. "We have our first sentence, by the way." Steve raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "The week is long." Steve pursed his lips and frowned, not expecting it to be so boring. "Well, that's thrilling." Oliver shrugged and gave him a small smile, looking up at him. "Yeah, but. . . it's progress. I'll get back to you when we've got more." Steve nodded as Oliver slid the divider shut, sitting back down.

     IT HAD BEEN A few hours and the mall had now closed. The four of them sat together, 3/4 peering over Oliver's shoulder as he wrote down the last of the sentence, lifting the whiteboard that they had written it on. "The week is long, the silver cat feeds, when blue meets yellow in the west." They all said in unison. Oliver furrowed his eyebrows, trying to figure out what the hell that meant, but he was completely clueless this time. Steve sighed and shook his head, grabbing the store's keys from the wall while the others followed behind. "I mean, it just. . . it just can't be right," Steve said, referring to the translation.

      "It's right. I mean, come on, Oliver translated it." Robin said, pointing at the blonde who stood next to her. Oliver let out a breathy laugh and unwrapped his lanyard from around his hand, letting it hang around his neck. "Honestly, I think it's great news," Dustin said, trying to lighten the mood. Steve looked over at him, puzzled. "How is this great news?" He asked him, pulling himself to his feet after he locked the parlor. "I mean, so much for being American heroes." Oliver shook his head and gave Steve's shoulder a comforting pat. "It's total nonsense."

      "It's not nonsense. It's too specific. It's obviously a code." Oliver nodded along, agreeing. He had assumed it was a code but he didn't know what it meant exactly, so he was still trying to figure that part out, his eyes scanning over even the tiniest details of the mall. "What do you mean, a code?" Steve asked Dustin and Oliver almost started yelling at his stupidity. "Like a super-secret spy code." Dustin had a lot more patience than Oliver, that's for sure. "That's a total stretch."

      "I don't know, is it?" Robin asked him, turning her head to look at Steve — who was walking behind her with Oliver to his side. "You're buying into this?" Steve asked her in disbelief, turning to look at Oliver in hopes that at least he was on his side. Oliver smiled at him and he immediately knew that he believed it was a code as well. "Listen, just for kicks, let's entertain the possibility that it is a secret Russian transmission. What'd you think they were gonna say, 'Fire the warhead at noon'?" Oliver stifled a laugh and turned to glare at Steve when he smacked him lightly on the arm.

      "Exactly." Dustin agreed, moving to also walk by Steve. "And my translation is correct," Oliver said, fixing a piece of his hair that was blocking his line of vision. "I know that for sure, so. . . 'The silver cat feeds.' Why would anyone talk like that unless they were trying to mask the meaning of their message?" Steve would've answered but he was too mesmerized by how beautiful Oliver looked under to red and blue lights that illuminated Starcourt. Dustin nodded and hummed, agreeing. "Exactly."

      "And why would anyone wanna mask the true meaning of their message unless the message was somehow sensitive?" Robin said and Dustin repeated the same word once again. Steve looked between the three of them like a fish out of water. He was beyond confused but when was he not? "So I guess that confirms your suspicions." Dustin nodded and smiled.

      "Evil Russians." Robin chuckled and turned to look at both Steve and Oliver. "I can't believe I'm about to agree with this strange child, but, yeah, totally evil Russians." Dustin furrowed his eyebrows and frowned, trying to figure out if he should feel offended or complimented.

      "So how do we crack it?" Oliver heard Steve stop walking abruptly and turned on his heel, watching as Steve bent down in front of a children's ride. Steve started to dig in his pockets, probably searching for a quarter. Oliver bit on his lip and stuck his hand in his back pocket, fishing out a quarter. "Hey, Steve. What are you doing?"

      "Uh, it's a quarter. I need— Do you have a quarter?" Oliver nodded and tossed him the quarter he was holding and Steve caught it with ease. "Sure you're tall enough for that ride?" Robin joked as Steve got down onto his knees, inserting to quarter. When he did, the familiar tune of Daisy Bell started to play. Oliver furrowed his eyebrows as his mind flashed back to the cassette, remembering the music that Steve had pointed out. It was the exact same. "You need help getting up, little Stevie?" Dustin giggled at her joke and Steve shushed them.

      "Would you two just shut up and listen?" With that, the two went silent and started to listen. Dustin seemed to understand first as his face suddenly fell. "Holy shit. The music. The music!" Dustin swung his backpack off of his back and fished through it, finally pulling out his super com. He pressed a few buttons and then the recording was playing again, the same exact tune of Daisy Bell playing very faintly in the background.

      "I don't understand," Robin said, a little upset that she was the last to understand what was happening considering. . . Steve was Steve and Dustin was sort of a genius idiot. "It's the exact same song on the recording."

      "Maybe they have horses like this in Russia," Robin suggested but her idea was immediately shot down when Oliver shook his head. "'Indiana Flyer'?" Steve questioned, reading off the name of the horse. "I don't. . . I don't think so. This code, it. . . didn't come from Russia." He turned to face all of them, a frown settled on his face. "It came from here."

BACK FROM THE DEAD???
it took so long to write this chapter bc writers block was kicking my ass and i kept deleting the chapter because i hated it BUT here it is now el oh el

can't wait to write more scenes between oliver and steve, so far for s3 they've been sort of subtle BUT I CANMT WAIT TO WRITE MORE

also superstar jyp i hate you for making tank and boxer so impossible