❁

steve complained, not wanting to bother with the translating process.

"what do you mean 'why is it in russian?', the person who recorded it was obviously russian." dustin replied, giving him an incredulous look.

steve held up his hands. "okay, okay. just play the tape."

the group had leftrobin at the counter, and were now seated in the back room to listen to the recording. "that sounded familiar." steve mumbled after the recording had finished, a banana in his mouth.

"what sounded familiar?" meadow asked, looking up at him.

"the music." steve replied, his mouth still full. "the music right there at the end."

dustin rolled his eyes. "why were you listening to the music, steve, you were supposed to be listening to the russian! we're translating russian!" he exclaimed.

"i'm trying to listen to the russian, but there's music." steve defended himself. an annoyed robin bursted through the doors.

"babysitting is over, you need to get in there." robin said, tired of working by herself. she looked over at her white board (previously full of stupid things steve did), that had the russian alphabet on it. "my board! that was important data, shitbirds."

meadow chuckled, but dustin shook his head. "i guarantee what we're doing is more important than your data."

"yeah?" robin replied. "and how do you know these russians are up to no good anyways?"

dustin looked to steve and meadow. "she knows about the russians?" he asked. "did you tell her about the russians?" he pointed to meadow as she held up her hands in defense. "did you tell her about the russians?" he then asked steve, who shook his head.

robin rolled her eyes. "hello, i can hear you. in fact, i can hear everything. you two boys are extremely loud. you think you have evil russians plotting against our country, on tape, and you're trying to translate it but you haven't found anything because you didn't realize russians use an entirely different alphabet than we do. sound about right?"

meadow leaned back in her chair. "pretty accurate if you ask me." robin smiled, leaning over to grab the tape. the two boys jumped over to take it away.

"i wanna hear it." robin said.

"why?" dustin and steve asked in unison.

"because maybe i can help." robin replied. "i'm fluent in four languages, you know."

meadow raised a brow, impressed. "russian?" she asked, arms crossed over her stomach.

"ou-yay are-yay umb-day." robin replied, watching as both boys got excited while meadow nearly doubled over in laughter, recognizing that the other girl was calling them dumb in pig latin. "that was pig latin, dingus." robin said to an excited steve and dustin, whose smiles immediately faded.

"idiot." steve said to dustin, as if he was the only one who believed it.

robin sat down next to meadow. "but, i speak spanish, and french, and italian, and i've been in band for twelve years."

"twelve?" meadow asked with a raised brow.

"so can you please go sling icecream and i'll translate. i don't even want the credit, i'm just bored." robin said, earning a chuckle from meadow. steve sighed, taking the icecream scooper from robin's hand.

"i'll be back." steve said, pressing a chaste kiss to meadow's forehead.

dustin gagged. "disgusting." he mumbled under his breath, playing the tape again.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

robin wrote out words onto a notepad, collecting all of the translations she'd gotten so far. "we got our first sentence." she said, proud of herself.

"the week is long." meadow said, looking down at what robin had written. "what the fuck does that mean?" robin shrugged in response, moving to tell steve. meadow looked towards the window, seeing eleven and max. "what are you two doing here?" she asked, a wide grin on her face. she moved out of the back room and gave each girl a side hug.

"we're taking.. a break from boys." eleven replied, thinking about her sentence in the cutest way possible.

meadow raised a brow. "yeah? and why's that?"

"mike is lying to her." max said, making meadow cross her arms. "he said his nana was sick as an excuse to not go to her house."

"no way." meadow said, looking at the two girls.

eleven nodded. "way. max says to.. dump his ass."

meadow chuckled, nodding. "if he's going to do that.. then, yeah, go for it." eleven looked to max and the two laughed, holding their icecream. "well i gotta get back but it was great to see you two." the three hugged and then max and eleven left.

"is she even supposed to be here?" steve asked meadow as she walked by.

"oh, absolutely not." she replied.

steve chuckled, reaching out his arm and grabbing her waist as she walked by. "i'm lonely." he complained, putting both arms on her lower back.

meadow leaned in as if to kiss him, pulling back and whispering "sucks to suck." before taking his hat off and putting it on her head.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

after a long day of trial and error, the new group had finally finished translating the whole audio. "the week is long.." they said in unison. "the silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west." they all furrowed their brows, disappointed and confused.

"it just can't be right." steve said as he closed up shop.

robin shook her head, "it's right."

"honestly, i think this is great news." dustin said.

"how can this be great news?" steve asked, following behind them. "i mean, so much for being american heroes."

meadow strayed behind so she now walked beside him. "true, but at least we aren't under attack." she reasoned.

"it's complete nonsense." steve replied.

"it's not nonsense." dustin countered. "it's too specific. it's obviously a code."

steve's brow furrowed. "what do you mean, a code?"

"like a super secret spy code." dustin replied, excited.

"that's a bit of a stretch." an unconvinced steve said.

meadow shook her head. "is it?"

steve looked to her. "you're buying into this?"

robin nodded in agreement. "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'? my translation is correct. 'the silver car feeds'.. why would anyone talk like that unless they were trying to mask the meaning of their message."

"exactly." meadow and dustin said.

"and why would anyone be trying to mask the meaning of their message unless the message was somehow sensitive?" robin continued.

"exactly." both hendersons agreed. steve made a mock talking action.

robin smiled. "so i guess that confirms your suspicion." she said to dustin.

"evil russians." he nodded. "so how do we crack it?"

"i guess we translate the rest and hopefully a pattern emerges." robin said.

dustin agreed and the two spoke some more, but meadow turned around when she noticed steve had stopped walking. "what are you doing?" she asked as he walked over to one of the mall's carousel-like horses. he didn't reply to her question, only emptying his pockets.

"do you have a quarter?" he asked her, and she let out a giggle.

"are you sure you're tall enough?" she asked, and he ignored her, turning to the others.

"do you have a quarter?" he asked them, and robin and dustin were both equally amused. robin reached into her pocket and tossed him a quarter, watching as he kneeled down next to the now moving ride.

robin chuckled. "do you need help getting up, little stevie?" she asked, and meadow and dustin both started laughing. steve silenced them with his finger, leaning in and listening to the music intently.

"would you three just shut up and listen?" he said, and they looked down at the horse as it slowly moved to the music.

meadow quirked a brow. "wait, isn't that.."

"holy shit." dustin spoke in awe. "the music!" he pulled out the transmission, playing it to hear the music match up.

"steve you're a genius." meadow said, and he smiled wide at that.

robin shook her head. "i don't understand. maybe they have horses like this in russia."

steve pointer to the label. "'indiana flyer'? i don't think so. this code.. it didn't come from russia." he turned to meadow. "it came from here."