Maeve sat at her desk, ignoring her teacher, absentmindedly fiddling with a daisy she had found earlier in the day. Ever since last night, she had been feeling more nervous than usual. She knew she needed to capture Adam, Bree, and Chase before her father got even angrier, but something kept holding her back.

Was it Bree? She had been such a good friend to Maeve in the past few weeks. What kind of friend would Maeve be if she kept lying?

Or could it be Chase? Every time she tried to deny it, her body betrayed her. The way her heart fluttered when he smiled at her in the hallway. How she found herself standing close to him, even in group settings. The fact that she couldn't wait to see him every day in school. Maeve used to find pleasure in the fact that he was nervous around her too, but now it just made her feel worse about herself and her mission.

Or maybe it was none of this. Maybe it was her. Maybe her dad was right - maybe she really couldn't handle a mission like this. She wondered how Marcus had seemingly no problem with the whole ordeal, yet she second-guessed all of her decisions.

Either way, there was no way she could quit now. She was in too deep.

The bell rang. Maeve looked down to a pile of petals that she had ripped off the flower. As the other students packed up and left the classroom, Maeve held the flower tenderly in her hand, allowing perfect new petals to regrow in seconds, before setting it back down on the table.

Maeve walked out to the hallway to see Bree and Leo talking by the stairs.

"Hey, Breezy!" Maeve said.

Bree breathed a sigh of relief. "Finally, someone normal!" She grabbed Maeve's arm.

Leo remained silent. She knew after last night that he was probably too nervous to talk to her, but something made her miss his antics.

"Hey, guys!" Chase and Adam approached Leo, Bree, and Maeve. Chase had a baby carrier strapped to his chest containing a baby doll.

"Chase, have you been stealing from five-year-old girls again?" Leo smiled. Adam nodded gleefully.

"Again?" Maeve questioned.

Chase simply glared. "Ha ha. It's for health class. Each of us has to babysit a robo-baby for a night." Chase's robo-baby let out an automated crying noise, and Chase's eyes widened. "Are you hungry? Yes, you are, my snoogie-woogie-boogie!"

"Just when we thought he couldn't get any creepier," Bree said.

"I think it's cute," Maeve smiled. Chase looked away from her nervously.

"It cries when it's tired or hungry!" Chase explained. "I have to take care of him because if I don't, I lose a point. Which, of course," he turned the baby doll around to reveal a screen with the number 100, "I haven't! And I won't, because I have downloaded every childcare book available. I even know how to rescue a baby out of an alligator's mouth. Happens more often than you think."

"Wait, what do you mean you downloaded the childcare books?" Maeve inquired. She knew what he had meant, but wanted to see how he would cover up his slip-of-tongue.

Adam rolled his eyes. "Duh, he downloaded them onto the hard drive in his brain."

Chase jumped. "Uh, he means the hard drive on my computer!" He dropped his volume and said to Maeve, "He gets a little confused sometimes."

Maeve nodded as if to understand.

"So, where's your baby?" Bree asked Adam. "Lost it already?" She looked at Maeve, and the two of them laughed.

"Ha ha. No. Do you really think I'm that irresponsible?" Adam opened his backpack to reveal the legs of an upside-down robo-baby. "It's in here! I named him 'Shut Your Cryhole'. That way, whenever I say his name, he'll know to stop crying!"

"You keep your baby in a bag?" Leo asked.

"Yeah! It's super toasty, books to read if he's bored, and it's totally safe!" Adam pulled his robo-baby out by the foot to reveal pencils and food wrappers stuck all over him. Adam gasped. "You found my gum!"

"Adam, please don't-" Maeve began, but Adam had already pulled the gum off the baby and stuck it in his mouth. Soon after, he took it out and gasped.

"And a penny!" He exclaimed.

Chase stared. "Dude, you are totally gonna fail this assignment."

"No, I'm not, because unlike you, I know what a baby likes. I think like a baby!"

Bree laughed. "Yeah, he's got you there," she told Chase.

"Oh, yeah?" Chase scoffed. "Well, if you're such an expert on babies, why don't we just let the scores speak for themselves?"

"Uh, you're on!" said Adam, still holding his robo-baby upside down, showing the score screen. "I've got a 98! I'm only two points behind."

Maeve reached over and turned the baby right-side up. "That's an 86."

Adam's doll cried. "Aw, it's okay, Shut Your Cryhole," he said, rocking the baby. "Okay, seriously, shut your cryhole, Shut Your Cryhole." He walked off with Chase.

Bree rolled her eyes. "Come on, Leo, we're gonna be late for our physics test."

"Ew, physics," Maeve said. "Good luck, Bree!" She walked away.

-

A few hours later, Maeve entered her biology classroom. Chase was already sitting down, his robo-baby in his backpack. He smiled when Maeve walked in.

"Hey, Chase. Chase's baby," Maeve greeted.

Chase laughed. "How has your day been?"

"Okay. Pretty uneventful," Maeve sighed. "What about you? How is Baby Chase doing?"

"Still at 100 points!" Chase said triumphantly.

"Congratulations!" Maeve laughed. "I never knew you were such a caretaker."

He smiled as if to say something, but the teacher began to speak. She explained a lab they would be working on in class.

Minutes later, Chase and Maeve had their lab supplies set up.

"Alright," Chase read from the lab procedure, "It says here to set up the beakers of enzyme solution and then heat them each in different increments. So, what do you wanna do?"

"Uhhhh... I can heat them if you can set them up," Maeve suggested. They set to work, Chase carefully measuring amounts of water and and enzyme and then stirring them together. She had never seen him this focused before.

Maeve pulled her eyes away from Chase and started setting up the flame to heat the solutions. Chase and Maeve talked as they worked on the lab.

"So, did you have fun last night? You know, before everything happened with Leo," Maeve asked.

Chase smiled. "Yeah! The frozen yogurt place was cool."

"It was. And..." she paused. "It was fun to hang out with you."

Chase's smile deepened, and he cleared his throat. "I had fun too. I was thinking... my dad is pretty strict about what I do these days, but it would be cool if we..." he shrugged. Maeve's heart leapt. "We could go to the movies. Or something, I don't know," he said.

Maeve smiled hesitantly. She thought about what he had said. Did he just ask her out? "Like, with Adam and Bree?"

Chase frowned a little. "Yeah, or, I mean..." he stopped talking and he lowered his gaze, his eyes widening. "Maeve- you're on fire."

What?

"What do you..." Maeve looked down to her hand, which had somehow ventured too close to the flame that was heating the beaker. A substantial orange flame flickered along her pointer finger, growing bigger every second.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Maeve jumped. She didn't feel anything, of course - bionic environmental adaptation will do that for you.

But Chase didn't know that.

Maeve looked over to Chase, who was panicking. She waved her hand, putting out the flames instantly.

"Wha-" Chase stammered. He had been about to get the fire extinguisher, but now he just stated at Maeve, shocked. "How... how did you not get burnt?"

Maeve stared. She couldn't exactly tell him that she had the bionic ability to manipulate fire, and so she obviously couldn't be hurt by it.

But how else could she cover this up?

"Um..." she said, her voice faltering. "Uh, lucky? I guess?" She tried. Chase kept staring, nearly horrified.

Oh no. No, no, no. This was bad. What would he think of her now? Would he find out she was bionic? Would he even want to hang out with her anymore?

At that moment, Chase's robo-baby let out a cry. Chase barely registered it. Maeve reached past him to grab the baby and its toy bottle.

She laughed nervously. "Uh, looks like Baby Chase is hungry."

A second later, the bell rang. Thank God. The two cleaned up their experiment, Maeve rushing, panicked. She didn't know how Chase would react, but she knew this:

She had messed up, and she needed to get the hell out of that classroom.

-

ik marcus isn't in this episode in the show but i needed more chapters😞

also you guys know i love chase 4ever but i'm lowkey kinda shipping maeve with bree...

also ok i feel like normally i'm better at writing stories BUT when i'm writing this i'm imagining it as the literal lab rats tv show and not a fully fledged novel which i think is screwing with my book writing ability does that make sense... sorry baes