Always Be There For You ~ Dustin Henderson x Reader

Chapter 21: The Case of the Missing Lifeguard

 There was a moment when I woke up when everything was peaceful. There was a nightstand to my left and I was in a much more comfortable bed. It felt a little less like a prison. I forgot about everything for an instant; all the pain I was in, being kidnapped by Russians, being unable to see the ones I love, and even the torture I had been put through.

Then, like a sudden crack of lightning, my brain caught up to my current state. I looked to my right and noticed a heart monitor and IV. I lifted my arm to stretch but felt two sensations; a searing pain from the wounds on my back, and the tugging of handcuffs restraining my right wrist. I groaned in agony at the feeling of gashes on my back, causing the door to swing open.

"Good, you're awake," Dr. Zharkov remarked, with Ozerov close behind.

"I know you're usually just used for torture, but can you please give me some morphine or something?" I groaned.

"In a minute," Ozerov replied, "Before you lose all sense, I'd like to tell you how your mission went."

"Well, I almost died. So probably like shit," I spat.

"You did die. We had to... revive you," Ozerov stated plainly, "But your mission was a great success. We not only have some of those bats that attacked you but something much bigger..." My eyes widened as I thought back to Will's disappearance. Shit, did they really use me as bait for a Demogorgon? And did it actually work? Ozerov looked at Dr. Zharkov and nodded.

Dr. Zharkov walked across the room, grabbed a bottle of pain medication, and placed it into my IV. Ozerov started to walk away but turned around before reaching the door.

"One more thing," He grabbed a small handheld mirror off of a dresser, "You haven't seen yourself in a while. So, here's a refresher." Ozerov held the mirror in front of me and I looked at myself.

I looked utterly exhausted. My hair was an oily mess and the bags under my eyes went on for days. There was a massive gauze bandage on my neck covering the gash that one of those bats had given me. However, the most striking difference was my eyes. They began to fill with tears as it seemed as though all remnants of joy had been drained out of them. After what felt like an eternity of torture, this was what broke me.

The morphine started to kick in and Ozerov set the mirror down. He waved goodbye with a chuckle as he walked away. I stared hazily at him as he exited the door and cursed him out under my breath.

~3rd Person~

Robin stood in the back room of Scoops Ahoy. There weren't many customers, so she could slip away and work on cracking the code. She had translated the final part, and now just needed to decode it.

"The week is long. The silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west. A trip to China sounds nice if you tread lightly," Robin read. She hummed to herself for a minute as she thought about what each word could mean. She heard a knock at the door to the service corridor and opened it up. It was a delivery man from Lynx Transportation. Robin signed the clipboard and took the shipment. As the delivery man walked away, Robin noticed that the logo on the back of his shirt was a silver Lynx.

"Silver cat," Robin muttered to herself. That's when it clicked. She dashed out of the back room and ran through Scoops Ahoy just as Steve and Dustin were getting back from their stakeout.

"You're not gonna believe who Dustin thought was Russian," Steve remarked.

"You did too!" Dustin retorted. Robin ignored them and went out to the center of the food court. She stood on a small platform and looked around at the mall before her.

"A trip to china sounds nice," She recited as she looked at the sign for the restaurant "Imperial Panda". She looked around and spotted Kaufman Shoes.

"If you tread lightly." She spun around on the platform, trying to figure out what the last part of the code meant. Then, she spotted the clock in the center of the wall before her; whose hands were blue and yellow.

"When blue meets yellow in the west!" Robin enthusiastically exclaimed. Steve and Dustin walked over to her with confusion.

"Robin, what are you doing?" Steve questioned.

"I cracked it," Robin responded, "I cracked the code!"

~Y/n's POV~

A few hours after Ozerov and Dr. Zharkov left, I sat in my bed all looped up on pain medication. The weird thoughts I was having due to my altered mental state was giving me enough entertainment to stay awake. I heard my door slowly open. I sighed, thinking it was probably either Ozerov or Dr. Zharkov.

"Come on, are you really..." My voice trailed off as I saw an unfamiliar face. He had glasses, and curly hair, and was wearing a lab coat. I looked at him quizzically, normally the same few people came to see me, but I didn't recognize this man. He was holding something in his hand.

He held out whatever he was holding to me, and I took it. He had given me the drawings that I hid under my bed. He smiled at me sweetly.

"Thank you," I muttered, he gave me a confused look, "Oh yeah. Спасибо"

"Alexei," He introduced himself.

"Y/n," I replied. I wanted to ask him why Alexei was doing this for me, but I didn't know enough Russian to put a simple sentence like that together.

"Спасибо," I thanked. I wanted him to know how grateful I was. He nodded and grinned before leaving me alone. I looked down at my drawings with a smile. I missed my friends so much, any little bit of them that I had counted. Even if it was a simple drawing.

~3rd Person~

Dustin, Steve, and Robin sat on the roof of a nearby building late at night. They watched as a whistling man wheeled crates from Kaufman Shoes and Imperial Panda into a huge storage room. Dustin looked at the man through his binoculars with interest.

"What do you think's in those boxes?" Steve asked.

"Guns, bombs," Dustin replied.

"Chemical weapons," Robin added.

"Whatever it is, they're armed to the teeth," Dustin focused on a particularly burly guard with a massive gun.

"Great. That's great," Steve sassed, "Hey what's in there?" Steve pointed at a new batch of crates being wheeled into the storage room.

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

"Let me check it out," Steve ordered, reaching for Dustin's binoculars.

"I'm still looking!" Dustin retorted. Steve reached just enough that he knocked the binoculars out of Dustin's hands, sending them clattering to the ground below. The guards turned in their direction and pointed their guns as Dustin, Steve, and Robin ducked to avoid being seen.

"Well, I think we found your Russians," Robin remarked.