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𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐌𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐆𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐈𝐍 𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐃 in Hawkins, things hadn't gone according to plan... thankfully. Only a few months after she arrived, news got out about a missing child and an escapee from the infamous Hawkins National Laboratory which of course sparked the interest of the Soviet scientists she was working for. Their obsession with the lab gave Molly the perfect opportunity to escape.
Where to exactly? She hadn't planned that far. You'd be right to call her impulsive but she prefers the term 'opportunistic'. After a night spent in the high school's lost property storage, she decided to flee to the house of a popular upperclassman, Steve Harrington. He usually bragged about how well-respected his parents were so she was willing to use their so-called respect as leverage. Should the Soviets find her at the Harrington house, they could not simply kill her since it would arise too much suspicion, especially from such a 'well-respected' family.
Speaking of, the missing child in question was Will Byers. Molly had formed somewhat of a bond with his older brother, Jonathan. They were both outcasts, Jonathan being an introverted loner and Molly being a "transfer student from Poland" (at least that's what the Soviets told the school) thus outsiders.
Coming to America actually changed a lot in Molly. She found that bitter cruelty and animalistic rage within her beginning to settle. She slowly became more compassionate towards others and human life in general. She suspected it was because she was no longer surrounded by guards and scientists who were equally apathetic towards human life and instead families and friends who care deeply for others in their community. It felt strange and foreign to Molly and she was rather sour when she found how unaccepting a lot of people were to strangers, but just seeing human compassion again awoke something in Molly that had been long since dormant and presumed dead. Love.
Molly and Jonathan didn't get extremely close until Will went missing. Despite her objective to not grow close to anyone, she understood how frightening it was to lose a sibling. For the first time, she actually saw herself in one of these Americans. She did her best to comfort him and even helped him put up missing posters around town, but when he got involved in the conspiracy in Hawkins Labs alongside Nancy Wheeler, she decided to keep her distance. She didn't want him to get himself killed but at the same time it would be too suspicious if she told him to stop investigating altogether. Luckily, both Jonathan and his brother lived to tell the tale.
Strangely, through the rigamarole, Molly ended up bonding with Steve Harrington. It seemed they had both been socially abandoned by Jonathan and Nancy as they teamed up together. Upon their initial meeting, Molly thought Steve was an absolute dickhead of a man and only found pleasure out of annoying him or freaking him out. Over time though, she found he was somewhat good-humoured and began to genuinely enjoy his company. Make no mistake, she was nothing like those girls who gawked over his hair and good looks, she simply appreciated the man's friendship. Especially since he did let her stay at his house when he found out she was technically homeless.
Steve was actually the first person Molly told about her being an ex-Soviet spy. At least, the first person she told and clarified that it wasn't a joke. Naturally, an all-American boy like Steve freaked out but he was calmed once she told him that despite being a proud Russian, she hates the Soviets more than he does because they killed her family. After that, Molly found herself hanging around Steve a lot, often third-wheeling his and Nancy's alone time. She told herself that it was just to make sure he didn't tell anyone her secrets, but as much as Molly would kill herself before admitting it, Steve Harrington was the first person she found herself opening up to and becoming truly close with in a long time.
It was towards the beginning of Molly's second year at Hawkins High something very strange happened. Not anything supernatural or superhuman like Molly had grown used to, but strange in a very human way.
The morning before class, Molly was sitting next to Steve's car. Nancy was inside the parked vehicle, giving Steve advice on his college application letter. With all the talk of college applications Molly had started growing worried about her cover. No one had planned on her staying for this long, at least with this particular cover story. The last time she had made plans for her future was when she was an innocent ten-year-old and wanted to be a movie star/fashion designer/model/author/physicist. Now all these adults were asking for her to prepare for a future she wasn't even certain she would live to see through.
It was no secret Molly had accepted death many more times than the average seventeen-year-old and expected to many more times in her especially uncertain future. She supposed she could simply lie about what she wanted to do with her life, she had gotten very good at acting in the past year, but then she'd likely have to go to college and do something she's hardly even interested in.
Then came the question of where the hell she'd get the money from. Nobody knew that most of her family was dead and that the survivors, if any, were likely told that she was dead. She didn't even have a birth certificate for god sake. Which reminded her, she really needed to find someone who'd be willing to forge one for her-
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
Molly's rapid thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a revving engine and rock music blasting from a car radio. Almost like something out of a movie, a sleek blue Camaro pulled into the school parking lot. It had summoned an audience as well. Even Nancy and Steve had emerged from his car to get a look.
A young red-headed girl got out of the passenger seat first and rolled away on a skateboard towards the middle school. She was followed by a boy who looked Molly and Steve's age, decked out in denim jeans and jacket, with a mullet of dirty-blond hair, that in a certain light could be confused for a golden lion's mane, and a groomed mustache of the same shade.
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He almost looked fake to her, like someone out of a poster for those trashy cool-guy movies at the local cinema. He looked so aggressively American, it was almost funny to her. She had almost began laughing to herself when the guy turned towards her and she caught a glimpse of the most striking ocean blue eyes Molly had seen. Okay, now Molly had to admit, as laughable as his outfit and hairstyle was, the guy was very naturally attractive, that was probably the only reason he was capable of pulling all that off. That and his casual yet abundant confidence. He could tell all those girls were staring at his ass, and it only fuelled the fire of his obvious ego.
It was only after he walked off that Molly noted his license plate. California. She'd heard about California, a supposed land of sun, beaches, palm trees and bikinis. She always thought she'd hate a place like that. Could you blame her? After being born in Leningrad and spending most of her adolescence in a frozen prison camp, is it really a shock that the thought of constant sunshine and high temperatures wouldn't feel that natural to her? Hell, she barely survived the previous summer in Hawkins. She felt like she couldn't move or think in such harsh heat which is especially terrifying for someone on the run from the Soviet Union.
"He looks like a cowboy," Molly finally broke the silence between the three gawking teens, "C'mon, education time."
