A Teddy Bear, from the future?

“Gahh,” Stephanie gasped as she came too.

“She is alive,” Selina’s voice purred.

Stephanie looked towards the direction of the voice and found herself looking at the underside of Selina’s DD boobs in a purple and black trimmed rubber bikini top as the cat themed thief leaned over the younger Vigilante.

“Good think I was in the neighborhood,” Selina smiled and folded her arms across her ample chest.

“Translation,” Alfred’s voice called, “She was stealing the mini-submarine from the mini-cave under your riverside residence miss Brown.”

Steph looked over at the feline themed thief took her arms from across her chest and planted her hands on her hips in a defiant stance. From the waist up, Selina was clad only in the shiny rubber top and from the waist down she was wearing the bottom half of a purple and black wetsuit based on her purple and black costume with the arms tied around her waist.

“You can’t let me be heroic even this once?” Selina huffed.

“We would be proud of you being heroic,” Alfred started as he walked over with a cart of instruments.

“If you were in fact being heroic,” Bruce finished as he walked over, “But as it is we are glad you acted as a decent human being and saved Spoiler.”

“Ok, well she seems to be ok, I will be on my way then…” Selina said as she turned on the balls of her feet.

“You are not taking the mini-sub again,” Alfred intoned.

“Fine. Maybe the Woodshold institute has a spare I can borrow…” Selina said with a chipper voice.

Steph watched as Bruce and Alfred both rolled their eyes.

“What hit me?” Stephanie asked.

“Fortunately, it was only this,” Bruce said holding up a mangled teddy bear in a clear plastic evidence bag.

“Where did that come from?” Cass asked as she came over.

“Build a Buddy custom teddy bears in New York City, this one was made to mark the birth of one Valerie Howette-Storm in NYC on March first, twenty thirty-five.”

“That is over a decade into the future,” Tim said as he walked up, “How you doing Steph?”

“Did that break a few ribs?” Steph asked, “Because it felt like it did.”

“No, you are find,” Alfred said, “Please roll to your left, what ever that gunk was that mangled your suit and the bear did not affect your body beyond some pulled hairs it seems.”

“What?” Steph asked.

“Cat pull you out, black tar glue bear to you,” Cass said with a nervous shortness.

Steph reached out and grabbed her friend’s hand. She knew that it would hurt her to point out she was talking like Tanto again, but the touch would reassure her.

“Yeah that goop was pretty gross,” Tim said.

For some reason that upset Steph, she didn’t know why, but it did.

“I got a match on that photo,” Barbara said as she walked into the medical area of the cave, “Hay champ, how you doing?”

“I have felt better,” Steph replied.

“I can relate,” Dick said as he walked in holding a cold pack to his head.

“What…” Steph started.

“Yeah, when that rock exploded above the building, the feed back blew up the transformer they had in basement patching them into the city grid,” Dick smiled.

“Lucky Dick has such a hard head,” Barbara kissed her boyfriend, “Here is the ID from the facial recognition.”

“Susan Storm-Richards, born NYC, Lives in Houston Texas, Nurse Practitioner for NASA, married one Doctor Reed Richards an astrophysicist for NASA and they have two kids, Franklin and Valerie, Valerie was born March first two years ago,” Bruce read the tablet that Barbara hand handed him.

“But the thing said the kid was born in 2035,” Tim noted.

“From what I have observed,” Alfred started, “There is a bizarre degree of synchronicity and divergence in timelines when you get into the questions of parallel dimensions.”

“Considering how Professor McElroy now thinks it is 1967 and he is still in his forties like he was when he got the notion he was King Tut,” Bruce said, “I am inclined to take what Alfred said at face value.”

That made the room silent.

“Do you think there is a version of us as teens in the 1980’s?” Dick asked.

“Like maybe we hung out with the Ninja Turtles and Transformers!” Barbara said in a mock valley girl accent.

“Maybe there is a nineteen seventies kung-fu action movie version of Batman,” Dick added.

“This is why I don’t think about it and just take what Alfred said at face value,” Bruce glared at Dick and Barbara.

“Master Tim, Miss Cass,” Alfred announced, “If Miss Stephanie is up to it you can take her home to get a good night’s sleep. And I mean actually sleeping.”

“Cock blocked before you could plan a move,” Dick snickered, “Good luck little bro, get some rest Steph.”

“I will check on you two in the morning,” Barbara promised.

*

Steph had the weirdest dreams as she got out of bed. From what she recalled, there were three of them. In the first one Catwoman somehow shrank her so she was a three-year-old again, and dropped her in the neck opening of a giant oversized rubber catsuit. As she tumbled in the rubber form it started to tighten and constrict around her making her panic as if she was going to be suffocated in the suit. The second dream was of her in her Bio-Chem class and the professor calling her up to go over the chapter that she hadn’t read because she had been out as Spoiler that night. Only it turned into the classic, she was naked in front of everyone in class nightmare. The third dream was the strangest, she was flying around the city as this vampire, gargoyle, man-bat thing. The reason she was unsure was that as she flew around the city, she was flapping her arms as if they were batwings, but as she came under a bridge, she went up into the support structure under it and clamped her feet on the bottom of the bridge above her and the wings became a cape separate from her arm. She looked ‘up’ at the river below her and then ‘down’ at the bridge above her and noticed the cape hanging up towards the bridge like gravity was reversed. The idea of her being a vampire in a horror movie and green screened on to the ceiling made her think of a villain called ‘Remote Control Freak’ or something that Dick had fought as a Teen Titan.

“Ow!” Steph shouted as she tripped on the boots on her floor.

“You ok?” Cass’s voice came from the hallway.

“Yes,” Steph said as she diverted from the bathroom to the hallway door, “Just tripped on my boots.”

The door opened and Cass was dressed in her workout gear.

‘Are you better after your fall in river last night’ Cass signed.

“Yes,” Steph smiled as she spoke and signed to her friend, “Still a little off but better.”

Cass smiled and gestured a T sign and then pointed down stairs.

“Tim’s down stairs?” Steph asked.

Cass nodded.

“Tell him I will be down right away,” Steph smiled.

“Steph take three hour shower!” Cass yelled down the hall before giggiling and skipping away.

As stray thought crossed Steph’s mind as Cass skipped off, she had an urge to grab her friend’s ass. Steph thought better of the idea knowing that Cass was a trained ninja and would have no problem tossing her ass across the building. As Steph undressed and got in the shower a stray thought crossed her mind. Her wearing a purple and black rubber batsuit. Not a wetsuit or rubber coated hazmat version, but a fashion version like Selina teased them with being made by the fetish shops in down town Gotham. Steph dismissed the idea, but the thought of some shiny boots, black leggings and her purple Biker Barbie tee-shirt seemed like a good idea somehow. Steph got in the shower and started washing herself.

*

Dick, Cass, Tim and Barbara were gathered around the kitchen island as Stephanie walked in.

“What did I miss?” Steph asked noticing the frowns.

“The Red Headed Step Child made the papers,” Dick held up the morning news paper.

“Wow, you look nice,” Tim said looking Steph up and down.

Steph smiled and turned around on the balls of her feet. She had found some flat Doc Martian knee boots, the black shiny spandex leggings and a purple ‘Shrek the Cat’ tee-shirt.

“How is the head Dick?” Steph asked as she made her way to Tim.

“Still filled with rocks,” Barbara smirked.

“No respect, no respect!” Dick did an imitation of Harvey Dangerfield.

Tim gently hugged Steph.

“That looks nice on you,” He whispered in her ear.

“It will look better when we take it off later,” Steph whispered back.

“Yeah, later,” Barbara said, “Grab a bagel and coffee, and lets go, you three have classes this morning, remember?”

*

The first class had be a proforma, the professor had his place wrecked by some flying debris last night, so he came in, took attendance and asked if everyone was alright. Steph sat in the open air patio outside the chemistry building. She had a hour before class. That was when she heard the pair talking as they left.

“Man, Doctor Banister really hit us with that quiz on the reading,” a girl said.

“I really hope I didn’t fail it,” the boy with her said, “If I get another F on anything, Coach is going to cut me from the team.”

Steph sighed, Doctor Banister had to iterations of the same course, those two were in the morning and she was in the noon one. She got out the laptop that Tim had gotten for her from Bruce and opened it up. She reflected for a moment how Bruce was like a step dad or uncle to her and Cass. They always had funds, a place to stay, and gear they needed. As the Laptop came on, the PDF of her text book was already open. It was on the last page of the chapter. That wasn’t right, Steph hadn’t read the chapter. Steph clicked the icons to go back to the start of the chapter and started to read it. But it was like she was rereading it, only this time it was making sense somehow. She kept skimming over the discussion on pheromones and she was understanding. Up until now, she knew that they affected other animals and that “Plant Bitch” used them to hypnotize guys and gals. Steph closed her eyes and mentally finished a paragraph and put her finger on the screen.

“Receptors,” Steph murmered the last word of the paragraph as she opened her eyes.

It was as she had recited. How had she read this already? Why was it like as she reread it, it was making total sense? Steph didn’t have time to ponder the question and just read the chapter.

*

Steph picked up her tray, next class was with Cass, and somehow she was looking forward to the art history class. She had eaten lunch at the college food court after the biochemistry class and had two classes to go.

“Miss Brown,” Doctor Banister’s voice chilled her to the bone.

“Yes Doctor?” Steph turned around to see her Biochemistry teacher behind her with a burrito bowl.

“I just finished grading your quiz,” the doctor said looking at her over his glasses, “I see you actually read the material this time. You got an 89 on that quiz. Be honest, you didn’t read that chapter alone did you? You used some Google to look up extra things didn’t you?”

“I mean, I don’t have a professor of Biochemistry in my apartment,” Steph said sheepishly.

“You can understand the material when you do the readings and apply yourself. Keep it up and you may get some good grades by the end of the semester,” the Doctor said, “And don’t feel bad, everyone seemed to have trouble with the label the diagram part.”

*This uses the Jim Belant Purple and black Catwoman from 1993 to 1998*