. . . of a Powerpuff Girl

"Why can't I wear this? It's what's in style right now!"

"Maybe it's because you had more on when you were born," volunteered Buttercup in the spirit of not helping at all.

Blossom Utonium cast her sister a smoldering look that was an inch away from cutting her down with lasers. She was modeling her new, bright pink bikini. Had she been anywhere but in the living room of their DexLabs suite, she would have caused record amounts of whiplash and traffic accidents.

"Hey, I was there. Just tellin' it like it is," Buttercup defended.

"There are plenty of other pretty style bathing suits, Blossom," Bubbles piped, trying to come to the help of both parties without exactly dipping a toe in the waters.

Buttercup suffered from no such inhibitions. "Yeah, and some of them actually use more than four square inches of fabric, Lady Godiva!"

"Buttercup, please." The Professor gestured for her to let him deal with the situation. "For the last time, Blossom, no."

"But . . . Professor!"

"I give you girls plenty of latitude and you know it. I'm not asking too much."

The front door of the suite opening caused a pause in the family debate as Dexter, their slightly older adopted brother, walked in for lunch. The only thing visible of him was his purple gloves and his safety orange hair, as his nose was buried in some report or other for one of his companies. Fresh from a meeting, he read as he walked, clearly on some sort of business tycoon autopilot as he somehow maneuvered the stairs without breaking his concentration or his neck. Completely unconscious to anything but production numbers, he wandered right into the middle of the fray. Accompanying Dexter was his best friend, Ben Tennyson, who had been relegated to pack mule. Weighed down with file folders, he lingered at the top of the stairs, dumping the files on the table in the foyer and then struggling to keep the slick paper from sliding away from him.

"Dexter," snapped Blossom, determined to get a second opinion, "do you see anything wrong with what I'm wearing?"

Poor Dexter looked up and saw more of his sister's skin than he'd ever seen at once in the past four years. Reports went flying as he let out a manly scream, seizing the Professor as a shield and yanking him over to stand between the two teens.

"I rest my case," said the Professor, folding his arms.

At Dexter's screech, Ben abandoned his pile of papers and pounded down the stairs, searching for a threat and ready to go hero. Blossom put her hands on her hips, but her annoyance was directed at Dexter and that fact that she had to make a distinction.

"It's a bikini, not a bra, Dexter."

Dexter made a squeaky noise, unconvinced, but did not emerge from his hiding spot behind Professor Utonium.

Blossom appealed to her last hope. "Ben!"

"You look great, Blossom," he immediately replied, smiling in appreciation of a pretty girl.

Warned the Professor, "Ben!"

"You look awful," he immediately amended, well aware of who the most dangerous person in the room really was.

The Professor took a few steps forward and Dexter moved with him as he appealed to his extremely beautiful and talented creation. "Blossom, I'm glad you've got the confidence and poise to wear that . . ." He struggled to find the words for the skimpy outfit. "Bathing suit, but you're still fifteen – ten if you want to get technical. I'm your father, and I am not going to allow my youngest daughter to wear that in public!"

The argument was automatic and came to her lips before his words fully registered. "But I . . . wait, wait! What?"

"What what?"

"Did you just say what I think you said?"

The Professor groped for the source of her reaction. Frowning, he went back over what he'd just said. "That you're ten?"

Bikinis and bras forgotten, Blossom stared at her father in jaw-dropping shock. "No! I'm the youngest?"

He blinked, having attached no significance to the order of their creation since the time between one Powerpuff Girl being formed when the Chemical X had exploded and the other two was negligible to say the least. Apparently he'd been dead wrong.

Delighted with Blossom's reaction, Buttercup turned to share a smirk with Bubbles and was surprised to see her blonde and blue sister was easily as shaken as Blossom, possibly more so.

"All these years I've been the youngest Powerpuff Girl and you never told me?" demanded Blossom as if the order of coming into being somehow affected the dynamics of the superhero trio.

"He didn't tell us, either," Buttercup pointed out in an undertone.

"Hey!" came Dexter's heavily accented voice from behind the Professor. He'd gone from traumatized to indignant, but he still stayed hidden. "I'm the youngest over in my useless DeeDee-centric family!"

"I'm youngest too," defended the Professor.

"I'm oldest and youngest," said Ben, smug and happy. "Only child."

"I can't believe I'm the youngest. I thought I was the oldest," said Blossom. She turned away, stricken. "I'm the leader, not the baby."

The Professor sighed. "There's less than a second between each of you. I checked the tapes in the lab after I blew it up."

"Is that where I get it from?" wondered Dexter.

Buttercup, enjoying every moment of her pushy sister's reaction to what to her was pretty unremarkable news, threw gasoline on the fire. She elbowed Bubbles, pulling faces and pointing. "And considering I'm sittin' pretty as the poster child for middle child syndrome that means . . ."

"What?" demanded Bubbles, her nerves snapping. She knew what was coming, but obviously was going to fight it every step of the way. Her voice was piercing and savage and the men all winced. "What does it MEAN, Buttercup?"

It was her father who replied. "For all intents and purposes, you were all born at the same time, but Buttercup is right. She is the middle girl."

"Woot! Called it!" crowed Buttercup, cutting a victory dance between her dismayed sisters.

Big blue eyes grew larger still as Bubbles faced this harsh reality. A moment later her chin quivered and her eyes filled with tears and suddenly she was bawling at the top of her supremely healthy lungs.

"Noooooo! It's not fair! I'm too cute to be so old! I wanna be the baby!" whined Bubbles.

"You're sure acting like one!" yelled Buttercup.

"And apparently I am one!" raged Blossom.

"Well, duh!"

With his three girls melting down before him and his son still cowering behind him, Patrick Utonium looked heavenwards for strength, shaking his head. "And I wanted girls. What the hell was I thinking?"

Ben watched the scene with wide-eyed appreciation as the girls got louder. "Wow. Kinda makes me glad all my kids flew off to deep space."

"Quit bragging."