Fluff

Patrols were so boring.
If it wasn’t for the Boss holding her hand the entire time, Teddy would have flopped to the sidewalk for a quick bearnap already. All they were doing was walking.
Walking!
She could do walking at home.
Teddy knew that she wasn’t being fair. The walking at home wouldn’t be the same as the walking here. They weren’t walking to get anywhere, they were walking to be able to walk next to a bunch of boring heroes so that the Boss could look less suspicious and stuff.
It was all real clever, but Teddy was a girl of action. If she wasn’t sleeping, eating, or doing her business, then she ought to be helping the Boss, or helping her comrades in the proletariat.
That gave her an idea.
Teddy looked at all the heroes around her.
There was the big Slaymaker guy in his kinda-cool armour. He seemed like a level-headed kind of person. When the others stopped for autographs, he was right there with the Boss and that woman in the cheetah costume telling people that he wasn’t interested.
The other two, Glamazon and Hindsight, were lapping up all the attention, making themselves look bigger and more important like... like a couple of big fat aristocrates getting bigger and fatter off of the proletariat's attention.
The only thing people should get big and fat on, Teddy believed, was the shared work of their comrades, and lots of fish.
The bit where they wrote and defaced people’s private property was over now, and they were back on track to go nowhere. That meant that Teddy could either be bored, or she could be a good bear and make the best of it.
“Hey, Slaymaker guy,” Teddy said. “Are you a capitalist under all that armour?”
The big hero looked way down at her, then shook his head. “No? Not really. I haven’t really given it that much thought.”
Teddy frowned. What would a capitalist hero look like?
Probably someone that wanted to grow stronger on the oppression of those beneath them, instead of supporting them. It would have to be a hero who placed their own popularity and fame and money before the needs of the people they were supposed to be heroing. Also, according to what Teddy knew, they’d probably be fat.
“I think that if you were a capitalist hero, you’d be all like ‘I’ll save you miss, but only if you pay me and we can take pictures and stuff after.’” Teddy said.
Slaymaker snorted. “Uh-huh. And what would the better kind of hero do?”
Teddy needed to think about this too. She was a communist villain not a hero. “I think,” she began slowly. “That a communist hero would put the needs of the community first. They’d be a hero because it’s something only they could do, but they’d know that fighting villains isn’t something that needs to be done if you can stop the villains by, uh, addressing the things making them villains... yeah. And they wouldn’t need much from the community, because they’d live just like a normal person.”
“That’s surprisingly eloquent,” Cheatah said. “I don’t think people would want to risk their lives being heroes just because it’s the right thing to do, though. You need more than that. Fame and money fill that gap.”
Teddy pouted. “That’s stupid.”
“I don’t know, kid,” Hindsight said. “I think I’m on the other side here. I’m a corporate hero. Does that make me evil?” he asked.
“Obviously,” Teddy said. “Not good evil, just lame evil.”
Hindsight shook his bandage-wrapped head. “What? Being a hero isn’t evil, kid.”
“No, of course not,” Teddy said. Villains like her were evil. Heroes, like she said, were just stupid. “But if you’re a hero just to make a bunch of money and feel more important than other people, then you’re the worst kind of hero.”
She had the impression that Hindsight was glaring at her, but she was right so he could glare all he wanted. The only person allowed to feel more important than others was the Boss.
“Kid, I think you’re delusional. You can’t expect people to do anything for free.”
Teddy patted her dress where her red book was tucked away. “I read this thing, by some guy called Karl Mark, and his friend Fred Angel, and they say that if you want to be happy with the work you’re doing, you need to see yourself in it. I think he meant like, uh... Boss, what’s the word for a thing that’s another thing, but not literally that thing?”
The Boss blinked a few times. “A metaphor?”
“Yeah, thanks,” Teddy said. “Karl was talkin about a metaphor. Like, can you see yourself being a lame hero that only does stuff for money, or are you an okay hero that does stuff to help people and because it’s what you like doing?”
Hindsight was quiet for a bit, which meant that Teddy had scored a bunch of points. “I didn’t come here prepared to debate a damned preteen on economic theory,” he muttered.
“I suppose that’s one of the reasons villains are so bad, right?” Cheatah asked. She seemed much more interested in this conversation than anything else so far.
“Nah,” Teddy said. “See, villains, the good villains.” She squeezed the Boss’ hand. “They do villain stuff because that’s who they are, it’s who they wanna be. They don’t do it for money. The money they take is to do bigger things. And they don’t just hurt people because they can, they hurt people to be able to do even more stuff later. Villains are the ultimate communist ideal.”
The heroes were all silent, no doubt awed by Teddy’s superior reasoning.
“Um,” The Boss said. “T-Ursa Minor can be a bit opinionated, but she means well?”
Yeah, that was right!
“Uh-huh,” Hindsight said. He shook his head and looked past them all. They were nearing another intersection, with Glamazon leading the way with a few sparkling balls hovering by her side and around her openly worn nameplate. “Let’s pause here for a bit,” Hindsight said.
“Need a break?” Glamazon asked. “We’ve been walking for a while.”
Hindsight moved over to the side. The intersection was cut into the side of a bit of a hill, so the corner they were on didn’t have any buildings, but instead of a steep hill with an old lamp post atop it. The dirt was all smushed in a diagonal path that people had probably been using as a shortcut since forever.
A bench sat next to the lamp, one that Hindsight used. He placed his hands between his knees and lowered his head. “Let me use use my power for a bit,” he said. “It’ll make scouting a little easier.”
“Alright,” Glamazon said.
For some reason, the Boss was letting Glamazon lead them. It was a bit weird, since she wasn’t a boss like the Boss, but Teddy didn’t question it much.
No one seemed to mind Hindsight just sitting there for a bit. To be fair, Teddy’s legs could use a bit of a break. Bears were not always long distance walkers.
Teddy plopped herself down on the grass next to the Boss, arm reaching way, way up to keep a hold of the Boss’ hand. She was still pondering about cool things, like how she’d get to be real smug at Athena later when they got back home, when Hindsight jumped on his bench and let out a low gasp.
“You alright?” Glamazon asked.
Hindsight scrambled to his feet. “That way,” he said while pointing off to the side.
“What? No, we’re meant to go that way,” Glamazon said with a gesture in the other direction.
The hero shook his head. “No, you don’t get it. There’s a villain over there. I saw it.”
“What?” Glamazon said. She was pulling her phone out already. “I’ll call it in.”
“Nevermind that!” Hindsight said. “We have to stop them.” He turned to the others, the Boss included. “Come on, quick!”
“Oh no,” the Boss said.
Teddy didn’t see it as much of a bad thing. Beating people up was one of her favorite things to do. “Let’s go, Boss! We’re gonna be big ol’ heroes today.”
***