A/N: I usually don't cave to popular demand, but there were so many of you that were begging for more and I was already toying around with the idea, so there you have it. I was also originally only going to make this a oneshot, but I realized that it was going to be a very long oneshot if I did it that way, and anyway I think it's more fun to have chapters.

Just be warned that updates will be sporadic.

FYI: This starts the summer after Violet's freshman year of college.

Daddy's Little Girl

Phase One: Helen

Helen was the first one she told.

She hadn't been planning on telling any of her family about her relationship with Buddy Pine for a good long time, but the circumstances had been dire enough that she really felt that there were no other options.

Coincidentally enough, it had started with her birthday.

She had been woken by choruses of "Violet's got a boyfriend, Violet's got a boyfriend." Normally, this would have elicited nothing more than a groan from her before she rolled over to go back to sleep, but even in her drowsy state she could recognize that although she had a boyfriend, the fact that Dash knew about him was reason for panic.

"What?! No I don't!" she yelped, sitting straight up, relaxing only as she realized a few seconds later that if Dash had found out about him for real, she would have been woken by something far worse than teasing. Heart still pounding from the adrenaline rush, she glared at her younger brother where he was smirking in the doorway. "What are you talking about, dweeb?"

"He's probably talking about these," her mother remarked, coming into the doorway at a far more sedate pace than her speedster of a son had taken. In her hand was a bouquet of roses. "No note or anything. Just your name," Helen continued, laying the flowers down on her bedside. She gave Violet a mischievous smile. "Looks like someone has a secret admirer."

"Why would anyone admire Violet?" Dash demanded, pulling a disgusted face. "Yuck!"

"Can it, pipsqueak," she commanded regally from her bed, crossing her arms, content in the knowledge that Buddy had remembered her birthday. "Today's my birthday, and that means—"

She was cut off by a wordless bellow of rage. Dash, of course, was out of the room in under a second, Violet and her mother scrambling after him to see what was wrong.

"There's a bad man on tv!" the four-year-old Jack-Jack told them excitedly from the entrance to the living room.

There was a sinking feeling in the pit of Violet's stomach. She didn't really need to hear more than that to know what had happened (although the remote control crushed in Bob's fist—thankfully he had kept himself from throwing it at something—certainly reinforced the idea). Buddy had probably even meant it as some kind of twisted birthday present, she realized, and couldn't decide whether to be flattered or annoyed at this.

Syndrome had certainly come a long way. Gone were the self-important theatrics, gone was the insincerity, gone was the cape. He had, of course, retained some of that arrogance and apparent need to goad his opponent, but then he wouldn't be her boyfriend without that.

Her boyfriend was on tv. He was kicking bad-guy butt without cheating or taking the easy way out. Violet found that she was smiling a little bit sappily at the images on the screen, and quickly replaced the smile with a serious expression. Happily, the rest of her family was too preoccupied to have noticed. With some effort, she pulled her attention away from the television set.

"Bob, there's nothing you can do about it," Helen was telling her husband over Dash's nonstop stream of indecipherable words. "By the time you get there he'll be long gone."

"I can't just sit here and do nothing while that monster is on the loose," Mr. Incredible grated, his teeth clenched tightly, his body a portrait of barely contained tension.

"You think I'm happy about it either?" the mother of the family demanded. "But we've got to be realistic here! We can go after him, together, some time that it'll actually make a difference."

"Helen…"

"Bob," she told him gently, picking up the four-year-old that had been tugging on her leg, "the best thing you could possibly do right now is to spend some time with your family. They need reassurance that even with Syndrome back, things are going to be ok."

Which Violet interpreted to mean that the boys were scared and needed their dad to tell them that it would be fine, but that they couldn't say this out loud or Dash would fervently deny anything akin to fear.

"Why don't you take Dash and Jack-Jack out to play ball?" Violet suggested from her position removed from the mayhem, praying like nothing else that her father wouldn't go after Buddy. Please, please, please…

"But Vi, it's your birthday!" Bob protested, something finally breaking through his rage.

"Hey, I'll be fine," she told him, waving her hand in dismissal, miraculously managing to keep her voice nonchalant despite the terror that was raging through her bloodstream. "Besides, I wanted to talk to Mom about some girly stuff anyway. You guys'd just be getting in the way."

"…Fine…" Bob finally relented with a sigh, the tension ebbing from his body. "Come on, boys."

"Sweet!" Dash crowed, and hurried to be the first out the door, Bob following with his youngest on his shoulders.

The house was blissfully quiet upon its sudden lack of Y-chromosomes, and both of the women savored the quiet for a few moments. Violet could tell that her mother was using the opportunity to relax a little, but for her the silence was only making her more and more anxious with every second.

"So," Helen finally said, turning to Violet with a raised eyebrow that made her squirm a little, "girly stuff, huh?"

And that was it. The last straw.

"Ok, you have to promise not to tell Dad, alright?" she said, meeting her mother's gaze earnestly. She could tell her mother—Helen might even understand, to a degree—but if her dad found out before he was supposed to…

"Why would I—"

"Just promise, ok?" Violet persisted, desperate.

"All right, all right!" Helen conceded with a smile, and held up a hand. "I swear your father will not hear a word of this. Scout's honor."

"And don't overreact, ok?"

"Violet…" the older woman cautioned in that tone that mothers have that says "I'm getting exasperated with you so you'd best get on with it" without needing more than one word.

"Ok, so I really do have a boyfriend," she blurted, beginning to gesture helplessly. "I didn't mean to! It's just that he was there on campus all of a sudden and I had to make sure that he wouldn't hurt anyone and then I started to get to know him and he really isn't bad at all, at least not anymore, and then we started going out and I really like him but now Dad's going to kill him and you're never going to forgive me and—"

"Woah, Violet!" Helen interrupted, leaving Violet panting with the intensity of her fretfulness and of her speech, which had gradually risen in pitch and speed. "Slow down! What do you mean you had to make sure he wouldn't hurt anyone? And why is your father going to kill him? He didn't kill any of your other boyfriends!"

"Mom, don't you get it? He isn't like any of my other boyfriends!" Violet exclaimed, throwing her arms wide to encompass the idea of her "other boyfriends."

"All right," the older woman stated skeptically, crossing her arms, "so what is he like?"

This was the hard part. She almost couldn't bring herself to say it; she certainly couldn't bring herself to meet her mother's eyes while she said it. She wrapped her arms around herself and fixed her gaze on her mother's right shoe.

"Buddy," she murmured, then a little bit more loudly to confirm her shame, "Syndrome."

"What?" Helen breathed, but Violet could hear the accusation in even that one word. "Violet, are you saying that he's like Syndrome, or that he is Syndrome?"

She couldn't keep it together anymore. She brought her head up to finally meet her mother's gaze, eyes full of tears. "I'm sorry Mom," she half-sobbed, which she supposed was answer enough.

To say that Helen was stunned was an understatement. It took a moment before she could even speak, but when she did—"Violet, what were you thinking? That man is a killer! He—"

"I know! I know!" Violet interrupted her mother's tirade. "But Mom, he's not like that anymore."

"And how do you know he's not just using you?" the older woman demanded, a combination of horrified and angry and worried that only mothers can accomplish.

"Mom, can you just listen for a minute?" She suddenly felt the need to defend Buddy, in spite of the fact that he had more than earned all the distrust that her mother had for him. "I was suspicious too, at first, but I really think he cares about me." She didn't say that she cared for him too, but the unspoken words were loud enough that she was sure that her mom heard them.

Helen heaved a world-weary sigh and sank into an arm chair, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I think you'd better start from the beginning."

So Violet did. She told her mother the whole story, from the moment when they had first run into one another on her college campus by accident to the villain he had helped her defeat to their first date. She couldn't sit down while she did it, talking a mile a minute and pacing and gesturing hugely.

To her credit, Helen didn't interrupt, although by the end of the tale Violet was desperate for some sort of response. More than anything she wanted her mother to understand, even if she didn't approve.

Once Violet had finished, Helen remained silent for a few moments, clearly thinking things through.

"Well Vi, I don't know if I trust him," she said finally, slowly. She held up a hand to cut off Violet's protest before it even began. "But I agree that he deserves more of a second chance than your father is willing to give him. I just wish that you had told me sooner."

"I thought you'd think I was betraying you," she mumbled, letting her hair drift in front of her face in her old habit of insecurity.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little hurt," Helen told her, standing up and placing a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "And I still don't approve. But you're an adult now, and I trust you to make your own decisions." She was smiling as Violet tentatively glanced up. "I'll make a deal with you. I won't say a word to your father as long as you keep me in the loop about…Buddy." (Violet noticed that it took some effort for Helen to say Buddy rather than Syndrome, but she found that she deeply appreciated it.) "But all bets are off if he takes so much as one step in the wrong direction, do you hear me?"

Violet was so relieved to have that much that she would have agreed to nearly anything. From there the topic of conversation got considerably lighter, until by the time that the boys returned they were baking cookies and laughing.

The rest of the day was uneventful—for a birthday—but Violet noticed when she went to bed that someone had put the bouquet that Buddy had sent her in a vase.

* * *

Violet had thought that telling her family would just add more stress to her life, but in a way having her mother know what was going on made things so much simpler. Granted, there was always that motherly look she received every time she said that she would be going out with friends, because at least half the time by "friends" she meant Buddy, and Helen knew it. The feeling of being under constant surveillance was not a pleasant one.

At the same time, though, she had someone on her side. The next time that Syndrome showed up on television, Helen was there to convince Mr. Incredible that now was not the time to go after him. And the next time, and the next time. On top of that, there was the simple, girly satisfaction of being able to talk to someone about her boyfriend and leave nothing out—even if, on occasion, her mother would cringe in spite of herself at the thought of big bad Syndrome with her little girl.

All the cover-ups had their price, though.

"That's it, Violet. I want to meet him."

Violet looked up from the magazine she had been reading to see her mother standing at the door to her room, arms crossed.

"What?" It was more of an expression of surprise than of confusion. There was only one person that Helen could have been talking about, and she had had a feeling that it would only be a matter of time before this happened. She just…hadn't thought that it would be so soon.

"This is the third time this month that I've had to talk your father out of chasing Syndrome," Helen explained, stepping into the room and closing the door. "He's starting to suspect that something's going on, that—I don't know, that I don't want to fight crime anymore or something. If I'm going to keep lying, I want to make sure that this boyfriend of yours is worth it."

Violet opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again. She had told Buddy that she had told her mother, so he wouldn't be surprised, and once they had realized that this wouldn't just be some fling they had also realized that he would have to make nice with her family sometime. So she nodded instead, and asked her mother how soon she wanted it to be.

Which is how it happened that two days later Violet and Helen told the boys that they were going shopping in the city and instead drove to an out-of-the way park where Buddy was waiting for them.

Violet's stomach was doing flips of nervousness. She desperately wanted her mother to approve of him, but knowing that Violet was dating one of their former foes and seeing it firsthand were bound to be drastically different matters. Not to mention that Buddy still had the habit of saying the most arrogant and/or irritating things, which normally gave her some level of amusement but in this situation could prove to be catastrophic.

But as she and Helen walked up to where he was doing his best to look harmless on a park bench, he gave her a wink that really should have only made her worry more but reassured her instead.

Helen stopped a good two yards away from the bench, and he slowly rose to his feet. Violet hesitated for a few moments as her mother looked him up and down, then took the few steps to stand next to her boyfriend, who took her hand and squeezed it without looking away from Helen.

"Syndrome," Helen finally said by way of greeting, voice stiff. Secretly, Violet was glad that Buddy had let her take the lead.

"Yeesh, no need to be so formal. The name's Buddy when I don't have the mask on," he replied, extending a hand. "Nice to meet you, Mrs. Parr. Or is it Helen?"

"Mrs. Parr," Elastigirl told him firmly, completely ignoring the outstretched hand. "And this isn't exactly the first time we've met."

Buddy winced, withdrawing his hand. "Ooh, yeah, not the greatest first impression there, I'll admit. Still, let bygones be bygones and all that jazz, am I right?"

"I'm not entirely convinced they are bygones," Helen told him bluntly. She took no heed of Violet's mortified exclamation of "Mom!" and continued. "How do I know that you're not still out for revenge?"

"Touché." He saluted Helen as though he was a fencer that had just taken a hit; a glance at his face told Violet that he was smirking. "While I can't say I'd mind Mr. Incredible getting knocked down a few pegs, I happen to value my freedom. The only thing keeping the NSA from slapping on the cuffs is that I've been putting away villains for them. I stop being useful, they stop tolerating me." He glanced down at Violet, his smirk widening. "Not to mention that Violet might have something to say about it if I tried anything."

"You bet I would," Violet muttered, resisting the urge to elbow him in the gut. They had to put on a united front for her mother, after all.

"So you're telling me you're a changed man." It was a statement rather than a question, and a skeptical statement at that. Violet wished fervently that they didn't have to go through all of this—she had told her mother what had happened—but she could understand Helen's need to see for herself.

The smirk was gone. "I'm not all sunshine and daisies now, if that's what you're asking. But I'm not out to hurt anyone, either. Particularly not your daughter."

"Yes, about my daughter—" Helen began, uncrossing her arms to plant her hands on her hips.

"I assure you my intentions are pure," Buddy interrupted, hand held up in a gesture meant to evoke scouts and the honor thereof.

Her mother fixed him with an intense stare. "Just as long as you realize that if you do anything to hurt her, I will personally hunt you down and make sure you regret it for the rest of your life."

"Mom," Violet groaned, "You promised you wouldn't threaten him."

"Trust me babe, I've heard a lot worse," her boyfriend pointed out, which forced her to turn her less-than-happy gaze on him.

"You're going to hear a lot worse when you tell Bob about this," was Helen's contribution. Violet and Buddy shared a look of dismay and cringed; neither of them was looking forward to that eventuality. "And you are going to tell Bob if this goes on too much longer. If you don't, I will."

"How do you define 'too much longer'?" Violet inquired, fidgeting.

"You have until you go back to school." Helen's answer was definitive—apparently she had given this subject some thought.

"All I can say is you're lucky you're worth it," the former villain informed Violet. She couldn't help but smile at that, and her spirits lifted to see her mother's look of tentative approval. Maybe this whole meeting wasn't a disaster after all.

Buddy turned his attention back to Helen. "So I'm gonna guess that we have the green light, then?"

"For now," Violet's mother ground out.

"That's good enough for me," Buddy said with a grin, throwing an arm around Violet's shoulders in a celebratory manner.

Elastigirl sighed, somewhat resignedly. Violet had a feeling that the display of affection was what sealed the deal, and wondered if Buddy had planned it that way or if it was just good timing.

"I guess I'll be back to pick you up at three. You remembered your pepper spray, didn't you Vi?"

"Mom—"

"All right, all right, I'm going."

As they watched Helen walk back to the car, Buddy lifted an eyebrow at Violet.

"Pepper spray?"