Chapter Text
POV Dustin Henderson
With last night’s groundbreaking discovery of the Russian message being a secret code to decipher and that it was coming from the suspiciously new mall in Hawkins, all thoughts of being a late bloomer and his hurt at the Party’s disbelief in Suzie’s existence were pushed to the very back of Dustin’s mind. It suited him just fine. Dustin preferred having a mystery to solve for his brain to fixate on instead of dealing with his feelings. There were more important things to focus on than Dustin’s personal problems and the thrill of another adventure gave his mood a boost. He wasn’t going to look into why that was just yet, either.
That was how Dustin found himself doing spy craft with Steve in the mall’s food court while Robin manned Scoops Ahoy by herself trying to translate more of the code. Dustin and Steve were crouching behind some fake plants. Steve was currently using the binoculars Dustin had brought with him. They were trying to track down evil Russians. Admittedly, going off the most basic of stereotypes probably wasn’t the brightest idea Dustin’s ever had, but it was truly all he could come up with.
Dustin took a deep breath and told himself to stay calm, but it was hard when Steve was being the worst spy ever while hogging the binoculars. After Steve grumbled about that Lewinsky dude again, Dustin scoffed and rolled his eyes. He snatched back his spyware and took over the search that should have been in the forefront of Steve’s mind. Dustin wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much that it wasn’t or why the idea of Steve not seeing what’s in front of him in the form of Robin felt like a slap to his face.
“What’s your type again? Not awesome?” Dustin huffed to Steve after he said Robin wasn’t his type. The two boys turned to each other and scowled at the same time. Dustin went back to scouring the mall with his binoculars, but it got harder to concentrate as Steve elaborated on his stance.
“For your information, she’s still in school.” Steve explained. “And she’s weird. She’s a weirdo.”
Dustin felt his heart sink a little bit. He still had all of high school left. Would that become a problem between them eventually? There was also the fact that Dustin knew he was the weirdest person Steve had ever met and he was absolutely unapologetic about it while Steve used to care about how others viewed him and probably still did. If Steve didn’t like Robin because she was weird, did he even truly like him? Or did he hang around because he had no other options currently? Was he lonely and desperate? Did he feel an obligation to look after him since their life or death adventure eight months ago? Steve was a good Alpha and Dustin was still technically an undesignated pup. It was probably a biological calling Steve literally couldn’t ignore.
“And she’s hyper. I don’t like that she’s hyper,” Steve continued.
It took a lot of willpower on Dustin’s behalf to refrain from making a scene at that, but he was ranting in his mind: Steve, your best friend is a hyper nerd who tried raising a demodog and is now making you search for evil Russians with him! What do you mean you don’t like that about her?! Do you like that about me? Or am I too much? I’m always too much…
“And she did drama. That’s a bad look,” Steve droned on and Dustin was losing it more and more.
Dustin loved drama and used to be in a club for it and had the shirt to prove it. That’s part of what drew him to Dungeons and Dragons in the first place. It challenged his brain while also allowing him to show off his theatrics. There’s a reason he was the Bard of the Party!
“And she’s in band? No!” Steve finished his list of cons for Robin with a very firm shake of his head.
Music wasn’t cool now? Dustin looked down at the Weird Al t-shirt under his cassette tape covered button up and frowned. He didn’t understand what made him so different from Robin and it really confused him. Dustin was tired of feeling like he was never taken seriously despite how smart and mature he thought himself to be. And he was really tired of always feeling like a placeholder in his friends’ lives despite how resigned he was to feeling that way.
“Now that you’re out of high school, which means you’re technically an adult Alpha, don’t you think it’s time to move on from primitive constructs such as popularity?” Dustin finally asked as he made eye contact with his older friend. He hoped he was able to mask most of the irritation he felt at what Steve had said.
“Oh, primitive constructs? That some stupid shit you learned at Camp Know… Nothing?” Steve sniped back. Dustin felt a thrill travel down his spine at the thought of poking at the Alpha enough to make him snap.
“Camp Know Where, actually,” Dustin corrected while pointing to his hat very dramatically. “And no, it's shit I learned from life.” Because some people had no choice — our differences weren’t able to be hidden at all on a genetic or biological level — and learning and accepting our lot in life early on is what makes it survivable and worthwhile. That was the part he always left unsaid because he didn’t think anyone else would relate to it, especially not an Alpha in his prime who breezed through high school social hierarchies without a snag until his last year.
Dustin went back to looking for an evil Russian to follow and was glad he did because a blonde man with a duffle bag caught his attention immediately.
“Evil Russian ten o’clock,” Dustin said already handing off the binoculars to Steve.
He took off following after the man leaving Steve to catch up.
“What the hell, Henderson?” Steve grumbled and Dustin swore his older friend was forcing down the Alpha voice right now.
“Didn’t want to lose him,” Dustin replied trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible.
“Don’t do that again or our mission is over,” Steve whispered directly into Dustin’s ear and allowed a small growl to be heard. Instead of scaring him or making him want to comply, all Dustin felt was a thrill of excitement run down his spine. He was never going to stop riling up the Alpha of his pack, not when it gave him such a rush. Why did Steve react so strongly to him and not the rest of the Party? Dustin had never been able to figure that out.
Steve and Dustin hid behind a mall map directory almost in plain sight and watched dumbfounded as the Evil Russian turned out to really be a jazzercise instructor. Steve raised his eyebrows while Dustin furrowed his. This was just another reminder that Dustin was a late bloomer. Steve clearly liked what he saw and Dustin was mortified by it. There would always be a gap between them.
“Come on. Let’s go back to Robin,” Dustin mumbled and walked off again.
“Henderson, wait! What’s wrong?” Steve asked Dustin after gripping his arm and pulling him to a stop. “I can smell your sour mood.”
“It’s nothing, Steve. Was just reminded of how different we are. It’s not important,” Dustin insisted. “Please, just drop it. You know there’s better things to spend time on right now.”
Dustin watched as Steve’s brown eyes scoured every inch of his face before sighing.
“Fine, but we’ll come back to this later if I still feel like something is wrong,” Steve acquiesced.
On their way back to Scoops Ahoy, the two boys ran into Robin in the food court. She was standing on a bench and Dustin swore he could see the gears turning in her mind. It confirmed for Dustin that Steve was crazy for not seeing what was right in front of him.
“Robin, what’re you doing?” Steve asked. He looked around the mall as if to make sure the trio wasn’t being watched by anyone.
“I cracked the code!” Robin said as she hopped down from her stoop. Dustin gave her a big smile not caring about his missing teeth for once as they followed her back to ice scream shop.
That was how Dustin found himself next to Steve and Robin on the roof of the mall in the pouring rain after the mall closed. His raincoat was doing nothing to keep him warm, but Dustin refused to stop scoping out Robin’s lead with his trusty binoculars.
“They’re with that whistling guy ten o’clock,” Dustin whispered to his friends.
“What do you think’s in there?” Steve asked.
“Guns, bombs?” Dustin hypothesized.
“Chemical weapons?” Robin guessed.
“Whatever it is, they’re armed to the teeth.” Dustin stated matter of factly.
“Great. Just great,” Steve groaned as he wiped water out of his eyes.
Dustin went back to watching as their targets opened up a holding unit with more boxes. Steve and Robin must have heard the doos open because they immediately asked what was in there.
“More boxes,” Dustin supplied lamely. He hated not having all the facts at his disposal.
“Let me check it out,” Steve demanded as he tried taking the binoculars from his younger friend.
“No, I’m still looking!” Dustin protested.
“Lemme check, Henderson,” Steve commanded this time.
Dustin wasn’t having it. He yanked back his binoculars and got it a small tussle with Steve that caused the binoculars to drop onto the metal landing. A loud clank was made directly by them. Dustin, Steve, and Robin gasped in surprise before quickly ducking and sliding down onto the soaking wet cement. Dustin pretended not to notice Steve and Robin holding hands. It was what he wanted after all. He just wasn’t sure why he felt on the outside again.
The trio quickly escaped before the security guards came looking for them. Back inside the mall, they speed walked down the hallways leading to the employee parking lot.
“Guess we found your evil Russians,” Robin stated.
A new problem to solve was just what Dustin needed to get his mind off Steve’s words from earlier. Rationally and logically, he knew Steve wasn’t saying those things about Robin about him or that they were even bad or true. Accepting that emotionally and mentally was another thing entirely. Instead of working on that, Dustin fixated on figuring out how to break into that heavily guarded storage unit. There was no use in ruminating on feelings if Hawkins was in danger again.