Slash level: 2 (very broad references)
"How much more shopping do we have to do?" Leo sighed as he hefted a shopping bag over his shoulder. "We have been at this mall for three hours. Three cinnamon roll-less hours, people!"
Chase rolled his eyes. "We've got presents for Mr. Davenport and Tasha, Bree's got something for Ethan-"
"A nose hair trimmer," the girl in question exclaimed brightly.
"Right," Chase said. "The last thing we need is-"
"Oh look!" Adam grabbed Chase's shoulder and pointed to the department store ahead of them. "It says 'Come write letters to Santa'. Can we? Can we? Can we?"
Bree smiled. "I can ask for those noise-canceling headphones and matching eye mask." She shot a look at her brothers; Chase blushed. "I want the purple ones with the rhinestones," she clapped her hands.
"I wonder if Santa could bring me a tiny cannon for Horatio the Hedgehog Cannonball," Adam said. "I'm going to make the world's first hedgehog circus."
Chase beamed. "Maybe Santa will bring me the new Arithmitech calculator. It can do equations with imaginary numbers." He let out a nerdy giggle.
The other three teens stared at him.
"What? I like math!"
"Let's go," Adam tugged Chase's and Bree's arms and they jogged over to the little red desk.
Leo followed slowly. "You guys," he said when he caught up with them, "this is for little kids."
"Why?" Bree asked, underlining 'noise-canceling' in her letter three times.
"Because only little kids write to Santa. Why do you think the mailbox here is so tiny?"
Adam fielded that one. "Duh. Because the elves are the ones who get the mail, obviously. Santa's way too busy with the list. There's a lot of people in the world. Chase, how do you spell 'hedgehog'?"
Chase held up a hand as he finished his letter. "There!" He folded it up and leaned over Adam, cross-legged on the floor. "Let me see." He fixed the spelling and Adam folded it.
Bree signed hers with a heart as the 'o' in Davenport. "Done!" She collected the letters and dropped them into the little mailbox.
"Well, well, well, look at the Davendorks," a sneering voice preceded Trent's sneering face, surrounded by a gaggle of football players. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Writing letters to Santa," Adam answered. "We're done if you want to write yours."
Trent scoffed. "Santa? You babies still believe all that Santa junk?"
The three bionics exchanged looks. "What do you mean?" Bree asked.
The football player laughed. "Santa's not real, losers."
"Yes, he is," Adam said. "Tell him, Leo."
All attention turned to the youngest, who looked uncomfortable. "Well," he began.
At the crushed look on the faces of his step-siblings, Leo made up his mind. With more courage than sense, he turned to the football players. "Of course, Santa's real. These guys are just such jerks they probably haven't gotten presents from Santa since they could talk, that's why they think he doesn't exist." This was probably social suicide, but he wasn't going to side with the jocks over his new family. "C'mon, guys," he led the bionics away from the store, trying to ignore the shouted comments of "Losers! Freaks! Babies!"
Chase turned back and shouted, "Come say that to our faces!"
Adam took a fighting stance and Bree got into sprinting position.
"Chase, what are you-" Leo was cut off by the shrill alarm bells of the store's security system. He stared as a mall security guard found watches in all of the football player's jeans. "Did you guys do that?"
Bree looked at Chase. "You used your telekinesis, didn't you?"
Chase nodded smugly, a small wince on his face.
Adam reached out and put his hands over Chase's ears, grinning back when his brother flashed a grateful smile at him. The youngest bionic may have trained himself to withstand the sound of the school bell, but the mall security system was much shriller.
The four teens walked away from the spluttering jocks and unamused mall cops.
"Hey," Leo said, "before you saw the letters to Santa station, you said we still had one thing left on our list. What is it?"
Chase grinned. "Cinnamon rolls at the food court."
Leo pumped his fist in the air. "Yes!"
"Oh no!" Adam suddenly exclaimed.
The other three turned to him.
"What's wrong?" Bree asked.
"Leo didn't get a chance to write his letter," Adam said.
Leo smiled. "It's cool. I already got three of the most awesome gifts anyone could ask for."
Adam's eyes widened. "Oh, did you get three hedgehogs? Can I borrow them for the circus?"
Chase rolled his eyes. "He means us, Adam."
"Oh." The tall teen hugged Leo tightly and lifted him off the ground. "So, I don't need to get you anything?"
"Air would be nice," Leo squawked as Adam's super-strength squeezed his lungs.
Sheepishly, Adam put Leo down and everyone moved in for a hug.
Leo pulled back. "Okay, okay, enough mushy stuff. There's a cinnamon roll as big as my head and it's got our names on it!"
The bionic teens raced off, Bree winning of course, as Leo fired off a quick text to Mr. Davenport. 'Santa' was going to get them exactly what they asked for in their letters.
