1Disclaimer: All characters are the property of Pixar. This is a not-for-profit work.
Author's Notes: Not too much plot here, really, just a possible characterization for Helen. It was inspired by some reviews of the film I read in which the critics stated that she was the most complex character, due to the fact that we don't know exactly how well adjusted she really is.
'You are Elastigirl! …What will you do, is this a question? You will show him that you remember that he is Mr. Incredible, and you will re mind him who YOU are!'
Formerly, Elastigirl
By Littlesoprano
She only looks at it a few times a year now, pulling it out from the cupboard above the closet and lifting it from its nondescript grey garment bag. Her Elastigirl suit doesn't hang in a glass case, there as a constant reminder-- not that Bob hasn't offered to put it right alongside his in his study. If she said the word, her pictures and articles and precious hand-drawn thank-you notes would share equal space on the walls. Bob is a considerate man. Long ago, a young Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl would have laughed in disbelief at such an easy ceasefire of their constant competition. Of course, that had all been part of the dance, the game between them. Their courtship had consisted more of masked heroics, charged banter, and endless, drawn-out teases than it had long talks in civilian clothes. Probably it would have been better, knowing what she did now, if those two had been reversed. She'd known, even back then ('You'll have to be more than Mr. Incredible') but she'd been very young, too.
She thinks of trying the suit on at times, but she never does. It's not that it wouldn't fit-- it was, and had to be, completely expandable, after all-- and she hasn't changed much as it is. Not on the outside. But it's an emotional luxury she can't afford, so she contents herself with fingering the proud logo emblazoned on the front or rotating the red mask in her hand. Once she put on one of the gloves-- then stuffed it back in the bag and zipped it safely away.
She knows Bob thinks she doesn't understand about the old days. He thinks she doesn't remember, that she wants to pretend they never happened. He's wrong, but then she's rarely shown him otherwise. If he ever saw her with that suit in her hands, he would know. She can't allow that, and wonders why she allows it to herself. She has to put their former life behind her, because he won't, and one of them must. She has to put it behind her because she knows there are things more important-- their family is more important-- even than the heroics they used to do every day. He knows this and he loves them with all his strength, but he can't make the separation. It's not about him, she is constantly harping to Bob, or about her, but about them, their children, their family. It's about the look on Violet's face when they tell her she will be displaced yet again, moved to another school before she has scarcely made tentative friendships at the last. They should both understand that, but he can't completely, and so it seems right that she shoulder it. She is, after all, a practical woman-- even as Elastigirl she was practical. Why throw a car, she would tease Mr. Incredible, when a simple rock would do? Practical, very, and of course flexible-- able to fit herself to any shape, situation, or role that comes her way.
There are times, when she is very honest with herself, that she knows she wants him to see how she bears their burden. It is horrible and she knows it, but she wonders if it their old games are coming into play, the one-upping. Who can do more, who does more, who cares more? She holds the family together and she does it alone-- there is Elastigirl's proud independence, once again. Mr. Incredible's and Elastigirl's competition had been harmless and above all flirtatious. Now it is neither of those things. Doesn't she resent it all, sometimes? She knows she resents feeling like the enemy, like the heavy-handed repressor. Why does she have to go through weeks and months feeling at times like an overbearing harpy, and so very much older than she is? She has to be the one who quashes Dash's dreams, who berates Robert for his covert acts of heroism that deserve words of praise instead, were their circumstances different. All she wants is to be allowed to be proud of him, but the ban has ruined that. It isn't her choice. She didn't ask for this, but she also knows she must do what she has to for the sake of them all-- even if it breaks her heart every time, in secret.
Robert probably does not know it, but he will always be Mr. Incredible to her, no matter what happens. They not only love one another-- they are still in love, despite the strain. It is always there, but it comes out the most on the days where he is less beaten down and more like himself-- vacations, the rare days at work when he is able to help someone and feel genuinely gratified. It all comes rushing back-- the coy smiles, the quick pinches and kisses. They both relax, sigh, and laugh. Still, there is not a single day-- bad or good-- that goes by when she can't look at him and see the hero he has always been, even through the ill-fitting shirts and distracted frown and now less-than-perfect physique. She knows he was never meant to work crammed in that cold, miserable cubicle inside an equally cold, miserable building. She urges him on because she has to, sends him off in the morning with a quick kiss and a 'have a good day, honey,' even though she knows very well that it probably won't be. He didn't know how she'd mourned for him, how she'd died a little inside when they'd all gone to his family office visit day. He hadn't wanted them to, but she'd insisted-- of course. She'd stood there under the artificial light and felt her hands twitch into fists when his boss ordered his employees-- ordered Bob-- around and demeaned them simply because he held their livelihoods in their hands and could get away with satisfying his sad, power-hungry Napoleon complex at their expense. How she'd wished that man could have seen Bob in in all his superhero glory, and how she'd wished she could have ended his pathetic tirades with one simple elongated swat.
She hadn't, and she didn't share with Bob exactly how close she'd come. It would… muddle things, if she did. But visiting his office had confirmed at least one good thing. She's convinced that he's more heroic to her now, in the way that he goes on at that job to make a life for all of them, than he ever was.
She tries to tell him that, so often. Sometimes the words come out, but she's not sure he really hears them. Sometimes they don't, and she's scolding him for something or another. It happens all too often now.
She wonders what he sees when he looks at her. Does he see anything of the alluring, sassy super-woman he married, or a too-often-exasperated stereotype of a nagging housewife, standing there in her slightly worn-out lavender bathrobe with her arms crossed and a disapproving frown? Sometimes, in their more intimate moments, he still calls her by her old name, in a deep rumbling voice, and she feels very young again. Half of her is happy at that recognition of the not-quite-buried side of herself, while the other half wonders if he's simply re-living the glory days again, pulling her back into the dream along with everything else. That no--- she's Helen, not Elastigirl, not both.
Only that's not true. Sometimes she looks in the mirror and doesn't know exactly who she sees. Bob isn't the only one struggling with who he is, and she knows she should try to share with him how much she's struggling too. She won't, though, because she must be practical, and she must be strong. Everyone thinks she's seamlessly adjusted to her post-Super life, and she's given them no reason to think otherwise. She is, for the most part. She loves what she does now-- being a mother. It is the noblest profession, after all, and she thinks she is good at it. Even on those days when she takes out the suit and thinks of putting it on and skipping across the rooftops again-- flinging herself up and down buildings just because she can… knowing that all her old moves would come back as easily as breathing… dreaming of the thankful expressions and the feeling of accomplishment they brought… knowing she was doing exactly what she was supposed to do by using her powers to help others-- then she sees her children and their home and knows what she is doing is right.
There are still times, though-- when she's using her powers not to help the helpless and protect the city but to vacuum the floor or dust a high shelf-- that she stops and wonders what it was she was born to be. She knows that she if she had to choose between her powers and her family, she would choose the latter, without a second thought in her mind. But that doesn't mean there aren't still two parts to herself. Helen and Elastigirl. Bob is right, and when she's truthful enough with herself she admits it. She puts the second part away, because it will do no good. What does it matter if she still has some of the superhero inside, if she can't release it? Utterly impractical. Things are different now. She's adjusted. She is flexible. She put Elastigirl away just like the suit in the high cupboard.
If only-- if only-- it were that easy. Just because she's put the suit away doesn't mean it isn't still there. Throwing it away, burning it, wouldn't do that. It is indestructible… just like the part of herself that was meant to be Elastigirl, for always.
It's in her blood… but so is being a mother.
Mostly, she just wishes that she could be both.