1
Steve often got lost in his mother's closet. He’d hold his breath and pull on his mothers far-too-small-for-herself but still far-too-large-for-him pair of bright red heels. Steve would take a couple unbalanced steps towards the full-length mirror on the other side of the large walk-in wardrobe and stand there looking at himself, transfixed.
But the look was not complete, yet. Steve would pull out the shiny wand of rose lipstick his mother had gotten as part of a set last Christmas from their old neighbours, the Davidsons.
The Davidson’s didn’t live in Hawkins anymore. Mr Davidson lost his job after a nasty article in the local newspaper had labelled him utterly un-American or so Steve had been told by his dad. The paper gave Steve’s mother a sour expression as she quietly decided to throw out the Lipsticks that early January before she could send out her thank you cards to all their neighbours for their Christmas gifts. Steve’s dad said he always knew there was something off about that Davidson man, over his potatoes and steak that dinner.
The whole ordeal was honestly a net positive in Steve's eyes as it placed him in front of the perfect opportunity to snatch the set of pretty lip colors out from the house's bins from between the piles of out-of-style Christmas decorations and large green bottles from New Year's.
As his parents forgot about Steve in their bedroom, Steve soundlessly ran back into the house. He fell onto the floor of his room to stuff the box of makeup far beneath his bed, under his piles of out-of-season sportswear, where no one but himself would find it.
Steve pulled the lid off with a quiet pop and lightly colored his bottom lip with shaky hands. It was completely soft and a little waxy. He looked into the mirror and rubbed his lips together, mimicking what he had seen his mother do a million times each morning in the bathroom.
Steve stood there for a long time looking at his heels and his lips. He could be anyone he wanted inside his mother's closet, anyone he wanted to be. Steve wondered who this was in front of him. This confident girl standing in the mirror that he found to replace himself. His chest tightened with the fear of being somewhere he knew shouldn't be, of doing something he shouldn’t.
She wouldn’t be scared, Steve thought.
Steve brushed a little of the rose from the lipstick on her cheeks in a trance,
and instantly regretted it as he heard tires coming up the drive. Steve ran out of the room and to his room where he threw the lipstick out of sight under his bed. The front door opened as Steve locked his tiny self in the bathroom and stretched to turn the tap on and scrub his face of all traces of rose.
Steve heard steps coming up the tall staircase when he realized he was still wearing bright red heels. Steve blitzed out into the hallway, through his parent’s bedroom’s doorway, and fell with a thud as he tried to make a sharp turn to his mother's closet.
“Steven? We’re home, what are you doing in here?”
“Oh, -a, nothing Mom!”
Steve said in the most relaxed voice he could muster from his tiny eight-year-old body, as he slipped out of the closet where he had replaced the shoes inside.
Steve's mother walked inside the room with a stern look on her face.
“Steven. I’ve told you this before, you’re not allowed in mine and your father's room. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I’m sorry Mom, it won’t happen again.”
“I know it won’t.”
She finished with a small whack to his head as he left the room. She didn’t see but Steve was smiling to himself as he made his way downstairs, even as his head started to sting from the blow.
He’d gotten away with it.
Steve thought to himself as he helped his dad take whatever new sculpture or painting out of the car that his parents had found on their afternoon business trip out of Hawkins that they bought so they could look at and admire it, instead of their son.
***
Nancy was beginning to think she had made a mistake last year when she had gone with Jonathan over to Murray’s house to shine a light on their quiet town of Hawkins and what had happened to Barb.
Imagine for a moment, if a foreign state,,,
Dr. Owens's voice echoed in her head as Dustin screamed at Joyce, Murray, and Murray’s Russian scientist friend (who looked rather confused by the whole ordeal). Joyce was crying, and Murray’s expression was just grey.
Everyone had made it out,,, except for three.
“They’re not dead! I know they’re not! I should have-!”
Dustin went still, eyes wide.
Nancy put a hand on Dustin’s shoulder,
“Hey it’s going to be ok-”
“Get the hell off me!”
Dustin ran back towards the flames of Starcourt.
“Dustin!”
Eleven yelled at him as she chased after him, the rest of their party chased after them.
Dustin was running to the left of Starcourt, towards one of the trucks sent to take care of the fire.
“Steve!”
Nancy looked closer at the truck as Dustin picked up the pace,
“Get the fuck off of him you fucking communists!”
Nancy saw him. It was Steve! And his co-worker from the ice cream shop in the mall. They were still in their bright sailor uniforms as they were dragged into the back of the truck, by who looked to be American army soldiers and an old man in a gray suit.
Nancy crashed into Eleven, who had stopped frozen at the sight of the old man.
They were too far away, and the truck began to speed off into the night.
“No!”
Dustin screamed,
“That was Robin and Steve! I saw them! They're alive! Those Russians have them!”
Joyce caught up to him, slowing him down.
“I know baby I know, we’re going to get them back. I promise.”
He cried and screamed through Joyce's arms as the rest of them looked on at the truck turning onto the main road and out of sight.
Let's say the soviets…what they would do, if they heard about our mistakes?
***
Ooo ooh ooh thank fuck we got away with it.
Robin thought as she and Steve were swept out of that evil Russian base by the American soldiers like a pair of coke-riddled dust bunnies.
They didn’t fight back one bit as they were pulled out from underneath a Flaming Starcourt and into the fresh summer air. Robin just laughed into Steve's neck as he giggled through her disgusting hair. Her thoughts rattled around her skull in winding, spinning spirals and crashed into each other. She thought about Steve, then about Nancy, then school, then the Scoops, then her parents. She held on for as long as she could to that thought. Her parents. Rob thought about what they would be thinking, and what they guessed must be happening to her right now.
Her dad had left work in his grey suit and his greying hair as her mom had woken her up for breakfast. She had smiled at Robin in her workout fit and the lies Rob was feeding her about who she was friends with, and what she was listening to, and why she really worked at the scoops and who Rob really was as a person.
Less than a day ago that was all her life was about. A constant struggle as Rob pushed her true self out of her parent's sight and pulled on a mask of what her parents would want to see out of their daughter. Robin frowned for a moment, and then those thoughts just slipped away from her as new ones filled her mind.
The last thing she saw before the doors of the semi-truck closed on her was the short white hair of a man, dressed in a grey suit, just like the one her father owns.
Maybe these guys aren't here to save us.
With the doors locked, the truck quickly started up and threw Rob and Steve back onto the floor of the freight box.
Yep, definitely not saving.
The truck took a sharp turn that made Robin’s head spin and her stomach flip. Her and Steve both puked up what they could (which was everything).
“Ooh shitt,”
Rob was lying on the floor next to Steve, Just far enough away from the puke so it wouldn’t get in her hair.
“the truck’s still shaking, but,, I think my head’s stopped spinning. Steve, as your head stopped spinning?”
“Holy shit, yeah, Do you think we puked up the rest of the drugs?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Ok um,, then, ask me something, see if I'm still tripping.”
Robin thought for a moment.
“...Why did you lie to Dustin? About finding another exit?”
Steve moved to prop himself up on the wall of the freight, he didn’t look at Robin.
“He’s just a kid Rob. I’m sorry I got you dragged into all this. When we got to that vent, I just wanted them to be safe. Dustin and Erica, they’d already had to deal with way too much horror show shit, especially Dustin. I should have told you earlier.”
He glanced her way for a second, then away. Robin realized he didn’t think she’d believe what he was going to say.
“This isn’t mine or Dustin's first time dealing with this kind of thing.”
“You’ve fought Russians before?”
“No nono, we’ve,, well it’s a lot to explain, let me think..”
Robin didn’t mind waiting for Steve to get his thoughts in order. She pulled herself up opposite Steve, on the other wall. She honestly didn’t know if she wanted to hear any more horrifying shit today. After she moved here from Chicago two years ago, she thought her life would finally be normal. But now she was swept up by an underground Russian scientist, Steve Harrington of all people, she didn’t want her life to be any more weird. She’d believe it though, whatever it was Steve was going to say, she’d believe anything after the night they just had. She’d been through worse.
Steve sighed and rubbed his face.
“You know Hawkins Lab?”
“Yeah? That creepy bunch of scientists out in the woods who killed that girl a few years back? What about them?”
Robin replied, then remembered the rest of that particular story,
“Shit! That was in your backyard, wasn’t it?! I totally forgot about that news article. Was that just a cover-up? For more secret Russians?”
“No, it was us. Americans I mean. It was a cover, but I didn’t find out because of Barb.”
Steve grimaced.
“That big portal we saw the Russians building under Starcourt, Hawkins Lab was experimenting with that same shit long before the Russians found out about Hawkins. They were making gates to different dimensions, experimenting on kids, crazy shit like that.”
“And how did you find out about all of this?”
“I didn’t. Dustin and his party of lame-ass nerds did. It was his friend Will who went missing in ‘83. I was dating Nancy at the time and her brother is best friends with Will.
Will fell into one of the portals that had leaked from the lab and Dustin and his friends found one of the kids they were experimenting on in the woods while they were searching for him.
I got pulled into the whole thing by accident. Long story short, I ended up smashing demon monster heads with Johnathan Byers and,, the rest is history really.”
Experimenting on kids, fighting demons, it was all sounding too much like-
Robin grabbed her stomach trying to keep a second round of nausea down.
“I'm feeling sick all over again, I think I'm still drugged.”
She took a breath,
Don’t think about that now
“Johnathan knows about this shit too? Man, I ate lunch with him for the last couple of years and I never heard him talk about any of this. I guess he didn’t really talk about anything really. I believe you though, my life’s been turned into an absolute comic book, this week. I just need to be saved by the X-men and it’ll complete the image.”
She looked at Steve and his face was somewhere between a smile and a grimace, or maybe he was still a little queasy too,
“You’re not far off really.”
“I’m not going to ask.”
They sat for a little while. It had started to rain and they could hear it beating the top of the truck. Some water was leaking into the freight from a small hole in the far corner, it splashed vomit on Robin’s shoes.
“Steve? You still gotta ask me a question. Ste-eve?, you OD over there?”
Steve looked as if he was drifting a little, he snapped back to himself at Robin's question.
“No no, just,, don’t know what to ask.”
Rob shivered,
how in the world were they going to get out of this.
“Steve,” Rob said as she looked up at the dark ceiling. “these military guys, they can’t do anything worse to us than the Russians did,, can they?”
“Probably not Rob, but it’s really not something I want to think too hard on.”
Rob laughed weakly,
“haa, you said ‘hard on’ !”
“Ha Ha.”
Steve said sarcastically, but still cracked a grin,
“you’re definitely still drugged, Buckley.”
Robin smiled,
“At least I’m not-waA!”
Robin was cut short as the truck stopped abruptly and threw them both to the floor.
***
Brenner didn’t need his old research, he didn’t need a lab, he didn't need the U.S. Government.
He had all he needed, and that was enough to get him over the line.
Russians were beginning to infiltrate the States and were sticking their cold hands in his research. It didn’t matter to Brenner though, cause he’d been at this shit for years. Those Soviets were stumbling around in the dark with whatever little science experiments they were trying to pull underneath Hawkins. Brenner and his remaining team of ex-government soldiers had been monitoring the Russian’s progress since they got here and built that eye-saw of a shopping mall. The progress, which was largely obtained by one man alone, Dr Alexi Kuznetsov. Brenner was lucky that that group of brats led by Jim Hopper took down their faulty operation, it placed Brenner in front of the perfect opportunity to snatch up some new test subjects for his own operation.
Older ones this time. Phase one of his plan had gone accordingly, now that he knew precisely how the power sets could affect the hosts, and more importantly, how to control said hosts. It was time to start phase two, to his perfect soldiers.
He thought about using some of his own team, but they were too limited. He couldn’t waste any of his people as lab rats.
He needed subjects who had already been subjected to the Upside Down. One's the government would cover up the disappearances for, without Brenner needing to get his hand dirty. Yes, this was the perfect set of rats he could have asked for.
Brenner motioned for two of his men to open the freight doors. The man behind him prepped one needle full of glowing green and red liquid.
“Keep those steady, any strong movement could cause the formula to mutate,” Brenner warned them.
The soldier nodded, lowering it back into the case next to the other two vials.
***
The doors slammed on the inside of the truck sending Steve scrambling backwards-
Awshit fucking gross!
-and right into his and Rob’s puke.
The white hair and grey suit were the same as before, but the old man was now smiling a large all-American-smile at the two of them. The old man told the man behind him to be careful with what looked like a gigantic horse tranquilizer filled with the green goop from back in the Russian base and another red liquid.
The two teens scrambled to their feet.
“Hey! Let us go!” Steve tried to yell the most intimidating voice he could manage.
“You two, restrain them.” Brenner motioned to the two guards in front who began to walk toward Steve and Robin.
Robin jolted back, and swung a right hook at one of the men. He stumbled back but it wasn't enough to stop him as he grabbed her arm and pushed her against the wall. “I don’t know who you are but you’ve clearly never been to Hawkins if you're trying to kidnap people in the middle of the town! The police here are crazy! They'll search all of Indiana. If you don’t let us go, the chief is going to be here any minute now to send you straight to state prison!”
As the soldiers pulled them down and tied them to the back of the truck’s interior, the old man just laughed,
“No, I know for certain the chief of police won't be going anywhere, anymore.”
Steve tugged at the rope binding him to the rusting wall,
“The hell do you know, bastard!”
The old man calmly walked forward and leaned over Steve, grabbing him by the collar of his stupid sailor uniform.
“Oh I know everything that goes on this down Steven Harrington, I've been watching over you, and your family, and your friends, over everyone you’ve ever met. I’ve been monitoring this town for the past three years, I know everything.”
Steve smiled through his teeth,
“Who the hell are you? Santa Claus?”
And spat on the old man’s boring dress shoes. He threw Steve back against the wall with a bang and walked back to the other end of the truck to the man holding the case of horse tranquilizers.
Robin struggled against her ropes, full of rage and fear. She looked like a wild animal to Steve.
“Hold them down.”
“Get off me!” Robin yelled.
Brenner took one of the large needles, walking over to Robin instead of Steve this time.
She looked so scared, why had Steve let her come with him and Dustin in the first place.
“HEY!”
Steve yelled, trying to get his attention.
“Over here, bastard! What's in this then? Did you blend up a couple of the Christmas Elves or some shit?”
Robin screamed as the monster of a man injected the red and green serum straight into her chest.
“ROBIN! NO!”
Steve pulled and pulled against the rope, trying to get to Robin, but the soldiers held him down as he screamed bloody murder at the man with white hair standing over him.
The serum made his entire body burn as it raced up, through his heart and into his skull.