Prologue
Little Miss Disappear. The name has never left me.
There are two people inside me, two very different personalities which war with each other every time I open my mouth. They've never combined – I'm either Invisigirl, or Violet Parr. Violet is a socially awkward, bookish girl who hides behind a sheaf of inky black hair and prefers to write poetry, falling hopelessly in love with boys who will never notice her. Invisigirl is a ruthless defender of Retroville, a superhero who can sling clichés from between gritted teeth at the drop of a hat. She's not afraid of anything – she's almost cocky in her guardianship of her hometown. As of late, Violet has been winning more battles at home; I learned a long time ago that hiding and listening give better results than bulling my way forward and demanding them. But sometimes situations call for demanding, sometimes people won't give until you pull back hard until they crack. So whenever my mask is shielding my secret identity, Invisigirl comes out and I'm back in the streets, fighting crime and throwing force shields, letting my pent-up energy explode out of me until I feel as though every inch of skin is soaked in static.
Invisigirl is dangerous.
But she can crack too – whenever Invisigirl fails, I'm back to plain old me. Little Miss Disappear, Violet Parr, and the girl who flees from pain. I pushed myself, forced my superhero out into the open when I asked out Tony Rydinger, the boy I had longed after for most of my high school life. But the mask was off when I attended the date, and he must have discovered how shy I was, how much work would have to go into a relationship with me. Because although he promised to call, and I kept my phone in my hand for the next month or more, I never received so much as a text from the most popular jock in school. And I wasn't stupid enough to call him and risk damaging my pride any more than it already was.
So I was alone once more, alone with my superhero identity and my family. But even the strongest of ties dissolve.
I ran from Tony, from romance in high school. I ran towards my superhero lifestyle – a dead end job I knew I was too good for, getting new gear for Invisigirl almost every week. Nobody would place awkward Violet Parr, waitress at the local greasy spoon, with Invisigirl, the superhero bubbling with confidence and humming with force shields. I ran from fame and towards anonymity; Invisigirl never stayed behind for press conferences or marched in parades.
I think you can guess what I did at my mother's funeral.
Dash and my father were there, of course. Dash, with his slender frame and thick blonde hair in waves around his impishly handsome face, sitting next to my hulking mountain of a father. Both of them had been crying together, their grief raw and exposed on their faces. A cover story had to be created for the loss of Elastigirl, so rumors were spread that she had gotten married and quietly retired into her alter ego. I was the person who dealt with the press, while the men of my family dealt with their grief. My own emotions were shunted aside like cold, naked, unwanted creatures.
I ran from the funeral. Dash remained, as painful as it was for him, but he had always been braver than I.
There have been moments when I considered suicide, yes. But death never appealed to me. The idea of endless sleep…that was what kept me flirting with the drop. Endless sleep, forever shorn off of both Violet and Invisigirl. They both disgusted me. But pain kept me alive, and the fear of it kept me away from suicide. I'd like to think that some inner well of bravery flickered to life whenever my moods became dark, but I know that isn't true. The fear of afterlife, of being held accountable for my actions, was what really kept me tethered to humanity.
But now there's an entirely different reason for living.
Revenge.
His death bonded my family. His survival tore my father apart. For months, my father hunted the man down, only to find he had been acquitted from his crimes due to a legal loophole and too much red tape for anyone to be bothered with. If there was anything Syndrome was good at, it was politics and inventing. His inventions fueled our military as penance for his crimes, and my father became a beast unknown to our family. Only my mother could calm him down, only my mother could remind him of our strong family ties. But when that building collapsed with my mother still in it, my father flew apart. He shattered into a thousand pieces, and only Dash was there to pick them up again. I couldn't deal with my own grief, never mind my father's crumbling morals, morals which were beginning to corrupt the most sterling of superheroes.
Syndrome was responsible for my father's sudden corruptibility, and indirectly responsible for my mother's death. It was his hardware which enabled Bomb Voyage to blow up the building full of innocent people and my mother, the sensible Helen Parr. Rumors snuck around, as always, and through some delicate probing I discovered the relationship between Syndrome and Bomb Voyage had never been better. Had he been under Syndrome's orders to blow up the Municipal building? Probably not. Had Syndrome done anything to stop Bomb? No, I don't believe so.
That made him guilty in my book.
Revenge was the best reason I could think of for staying alive. Funny how saving the lives of innocent people never occurred to me; there were other, better, superheroes to take my place. I was expendable.
But I was also incredible.
And Syndrome would finally be held responsible for his crimes.
A/N: I've seen a lot of Syndrome-captures-Violet-to-get-revenge fanfiction, but not a whole lot of the other way around. Which spawned this little fic. So a review or two to keep me on track would be LOVELY. :)