Chapter Thirty-One – Bears Just Wanna Bear

Spending a weekend day at Steffie’s place was kinda cool. At least, Teddy enjoyed herself. Steffie was really bad at soccer, but it was fun to see her stumbling around, and the entire time, Steffie had a smile that was almost bear-like in its ferocity.

The playtime came to an end though. Teddy was hungry, Steffie’s legs were sore, and the older people like Big Sis had decided to get out of the sun to chat.

Teddy and the others were pushed to the living room with snacks and juice boxes and the older people stayed by the kitchen to talk. Teddy found her attention somewhat split between talking with her friends and the filthy capitalist propaganda on the TV. The between-cartoon commercials were loud and flashy and awesome looking, but Teddy knew that it was all a terrible facade designed to trick her brain into wanting to buy all the cool stuff they had.

That didn’t mean it didn’t work. She still wanted the stuff. She just didn’t want to buy it like a happy little capitalist would. Maybe she could convince the Boss to burglarize a toy store?

Steffie wobbled over to a couch and her eyes narrowed. Then she did a three-point turn so that the back of her legs hit the edge of the couch. She sat. It was clearly a bit awkward, with her legs at a perfect square angle, but it worked well enough, even if Teddy wasn’t sure she’d be able to un-sit.

“Do you think I could go to school?” Steffie asked.

“School?” Athena repeated. “With those legs?”

Steffie nodded rapidly.

Athena eyed the legs for a moment, then shook her head. “No, not those.”

“Why not?” Steffie asked.

“They’re too obviously made by Maple. People would know that they’re special, and then they’d get all prissy about it. You know how adults can be. ‘Is this safe,’ ‘what if it breaks’ ‘can she kick someone into tomorrow with those?’ And a bunch of other dumb questions.”

Steffie pouted, but the answer seemed to mostly satisfy her. The question itself, however, nagged at Teddy. “Why would you want to go to school?”

Steffie looked surprised at the question. “Why wouldn’t I? Don’t you want to?”

Teddy shrugged. She’d never given it much thought, and when she did, school seemed boring. She already had lessons with Miss Headerson which were hard enough. Sometimes the Boss would teach her stuff too. Who wanted to sit in some boring room when they could learn on the job, especially when the job was awesome stuff like pulling heists and fighting heroes?

“Sounds boring,” Teddy said.

“No way!” Steffie said. “Mom’s a teacher, and she really likes school. There’s a lot of people to make friends with, and you learn stuff together, and there’s like, tests and recess and sometimes if you’re good they’ll watch movies.”

“You can watch movies at home,” Athena pointed out.

“Yeah, we do all of that already,” Teddy said. “And without some non-Boss boss telling us to behave.”

Steffie shook her head. “You just don’t get it,” she said.

Teddy agreed, she really didn’t. But at the same time, something about all of this worried her. “Why do you want to go to this school thing so much anyway?”

“I… don’t know, I just want to,” Steffie replied with a shrug.

Soon after, the Boss, minion Sam, and Miss Headerson returned from their chit chat. Unfortunately, Steffie had to step out of the new legs for the moment. She was disappointed about it, but perked up when she learned that Maple was going to use the old legs to make newer, better legs. Soon she was back in her chair, looking a lot smile-y-er than usual, and she wasn’t an un-smiley person to begin with.

“Alright gang, time to go home,” the Boss said before placing a hand on Maple and one of Trinity’s heads.

Teddy felt a little detached as they said their goodbyes, traded hugs with Steffie and Miss Headerson, then started the trip back to base. Once they were back in the van, with Teddy squeezed in at the back behind Sam who was at the wheel, she found herself still wrestling with the concept of school.

Would it be… fun?

She figured it wouldn’t be, but maybe it was something she could investigate? She leaned back in her seat and watched the world slip by outside. It struck her again just how many ads she was seeing all the time. Images of food that looked too tasty to be real, pretty women in nice dresses that wouldn’t fit Teddy in a million years, smiling heroes being all yucky and hero-like.

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She’d seen it all before, but it hadn’t bothered her. Now she was feeling… something.

“You okay?”

Teddy looked up and found Athena glancing at her. They were near the overpass, Sam parked in a lot not too far from the base. The others were heading out already but Teddy had zoned out. “Uh, yeah yeah, I’m coming,” she said.

Surprisingly, Athena stayed by her side. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Teddy said.

“Something looks wrong,” Athena replied.

“Your face is wrong,” Teddy shot right back.

Athena rolled her eyes, then she shifted to the side and bumped her shoulder against Teddy’s. “Something’s going on in your head. I can feel it. It’s annoying you. If you tell me I’ll stop bothering you.”

Teddy grumbled, but she knew that Athena could be super hard-headed when she wanted to be. There was no point in fighting her. “I was just thinking a lot. About like, school and stuff. I dunno.”

“You wanted to go after all?” Athena asked.

“What? No. It sounds awful.”

“Hmm. then tell me what you’re thinking, and then you can relax.”

“Why would that make me relax?” Teddy asked.

“Because then I can do the thinking for you. I’m much better at it,” Athena said without a shred of self-doubt.

“Just feeling weird.”

“About school?” Athena asked.

“Kinda,” Teddy said. She reached up and picked at the side of her nose. “It’s like, I don’t wanna go. It’s stupid and boring. But Steffie does. And I guess I don’t get why.”

Athena was quiet for a moment as she thought. “Maybe she just wants to have a normal life?”

Teddy looked at her sister. “Normal? Like what we have?”

“I don’t think we’re normal,” Athena said. “But we have the Boss, we do cool stuff, we’re all villains, so we obviously know better. But I still don’t think that’s normal. Normal is what most people do, and we don’t do that.”

“I guess,” Teddy said before going quiet. She hadn’t thought of that before. Her life felt pretty normal. Sleep, wake up, poop, eat, sometimes beat up a hero or another villain or steal some stuff, do what the Boss said, then go back to sleep again.

“Our normal’s not other people’s normal,” Athena continued. “And Steffie’s… nice, but she’s kind of normal-normal, you know? Except for the whole wheelchair thing, and she’d probably like to be even more normaler.”

“Hm,” Teddy chewed on the thought.

“Feeling better?” Athena asked after a while.

“Maybe. I mean, yeah. Just weird to think about.”

Athena grinned. “At least you’re thinking. Don’t do too much of that, you might hurt yourself.” She dodged Teddy’s shove, then laughed. “Maybe we can do something fun instead of hurting your head?”

“Something fun?” Teddy asked.

Athena’s eyes were glimmering. It was a dangerous look. “How about we go to school after all?”

“What? Why?”

“No no, not the normal way. We can sneak into a school, then remind them how we’re the best! I bet there’s a lot of stuff worth taking in there.”

“I’m in,” Trinity said as she popped up between them.

“How long have you been listening?” Teddy asked.

Trinity blinked. “The whole time? But I forgot most of it. Except the bit about stealing from a school. That sounds fun!”

Teddy considered it for a bit. “We can’t tell the Boss,” she finally said. It would have to be a secret between sisters, but not Big Sis.

They arrived at the overpass, and then the Boss paused by the entrance. “Alright girls, I’m going to be heading out with Sam and Maple. We need some supplies again, and I figured that getting things now would be better than waiting. Can you behave yourselves while we’re out?”

“Sure thing, Boss!” Teddy said.

Athena and Trinity nodded along, then they slipped into the opening corridor of the bunker. The door shut, and the three of them looked at each other.

The timing was almost too perfect.

“We’ll have to wait a bit for her to get further away,” Athena said.

“One of me can stay here,” Trinity said. “So that I can make a mess so it looks like we were here the whole time. I bet I can stuff some pillows in Teddy’s bed and say she’s sleeping.”

Teddy grinned, a lot of the worry she’d been feeling bleeding away. This was going to be fun!

***

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