"Come on, Kota. It's only a pinch. Don't be such a wuss."

"Is this really necessary?"

"It's all in the name of science, my lesser-minded brother." Lily smiled deviously. She had her brother's hand in her own with a needle aimed down at his finger. Dakota wore an expression of extreme wariness, ready to pull away and run for it if she suddenly decided to play doctor and amputate. He sucked in a breath as she poked him, using a small examination glass to collect the sample she'd fought tooth and nail for. Her father could argue with her all he wanted, but her research wasn't about to be halted by mere parents. As soon as the deed was done, Dakota stuck his finger in his mouth with a frown.

"Don't make me re-arrange your room again." He muttered. His sister hadn't heard him, however. She was already over at her microscope examining the evidence. Her long orange hair had been pulled into a ponytail, and she even wore a lab coat. The whole look gave her the appearance of being a somewhat short adult. Then again, she was already fairly short for her age, only an inch or two over five feet. So much for enjoying a childhood and having a normal life like everyone else. It was one of the things that Dakota often found Buddy lecturing Lily about, but she wasn't about to slow her plans down to make him happy.

"You do, and I'll disintegrate your guitar. For real this time." The response was distracted. Dakota knew he wouldn't get anything else out of her for the rest of the night. He shook his head, leaving the girl to her work. It was a short walk from the room in Buddy's office building to the ground floor. He waved at the secretary on his way out, pulling his skateboard out of his backpack and rolling towards home.

Dakota cleared his mind as the skateboard gained speed, taking the time to think. The wind blowing directly at him would do nothing to kill the teen's momentum. It was the one time he could use his powers without being noticed, and he took full advantage of it. He saw the world differently, felt things that others couldn't. It was hard to explain, but he'd never really felt normal outside of his school life. Had his mother felt like that? Dakota took a leap over a park bench, landing effortlessly. Then again, who was he to talk about feeling like a freak when his younger sister was attending college at thirteen?

"I'm home, Mom." The boy had called into the front door. The skateboard floated to its usual position against a far wall. He kicked his shoes off as Violet stuck her head around a corner, waving enthusiastically.

"History test?" She raised an eyebrow. Her son cringed backwards and her gaze turned from excitement to disappointment. That was until he smiled and did a thumbs-up.

"Passed. Ninety-five."

"And what was I saying about stu-"

"I know, I know, you're always right. Don't need to rub it in." Dakota rolled his eyes as his mother returned to the kitchen with a particularly smug look on her face. He'd thought about it many times and realized that regardless of the 'rules of the house', he might've had the raddest mom on the block. Something about Violet just screamed bubbly. It was as if she was living a perfect life, and the positive energy infected everybody around her. Now if only her cooking could be half as awesome. He'd have nothing to complain about. The spikey-haired boy shuffled his way to his room, hopping on his bed and picking up the guitar he'd acquired a few years back. Within minutes he had his music player pumping tunes into his ears, strumming along with his favorite songs. A famous musician he would be, and that was the end of it!

"Pack it up, work's over." Buddy stuck his head into Lily's work area, raising an eyebrow at the numerous different vials and things he didn't bother putting a name to that littered the room. This wasn't his area of expertise, and he didn't even pretend to understand half of what his daughter was attempting to accomplish. He made bombs and built machines; the human genome had no place in his work. The young girl had appeared from behind a table carrying several objects which she'd quickly put away. A few minutes later, the two were taking the car home.

"Do I want to know what you're doing in there?" He'd asked her casually, and she'd shrugged.

"Gene splicing. I'm trying to pull the chromosome apart to get down into the molecular level. I have a feeling I'll find the answer there. It's so close, I can smell it!"

"If you need them to explode, page me."

"Very funny, Dad." Lily sighed. A small computer sat in her lap and she typed at it diligently. Notes from her various experiments, outcomes and shortfalls littered the desktop. Buddy sighed, stopping for the red-light.

"But seriously, you should considering giving it a rest for a minute."

"When I'm on the verge of an important discovery? Forget it!"

"I would've said the same thing."

"You of all people would know what that's like."

"Me of all people also know what it's like to regret never stopping to smell the flowers once in a while. Brainiac or not, you've only got one life." Lily shut her laptop, shoving it into her bag with an exaggerated sigh. She reached up to let her hair from its ponytail, wrapping the band around her wrists.

"Yeah, yeah. Be a kid. I get it. Fine. Sleepover on saturday, and we get to do your makeup." The look on her face had been entirely too malicious for his liking, but his 'when hell freezees over' expression had caused her to laugh out loud. For the first time in several months, it felt like father and daughter instead of two co-workers in the car. For the sake of pleasant conversation, she talked about her day at school, the cute boys, and the dumbest teacher she'd ever met.

As much as she hated her father constantly impeding on her work and research, she couldn't entirely dislike him. Beyond similar minds and manerisms, they couldn't be any more different. They where on opposite ends of the intelligence spectrum. However, when it all came down to it, he was the only person she could relate to and often the only person worth talking to when she was having a bad day. It had been Buddy's idea to move her experiments into his office building much to Violet's discontent; some of it was becoming too dangerous or high-profile for a typical suburban home. He wasn't encouraging Lily! He was keeping the house in one piece! Perhaps he wasn't such a bad guy after all.

Lily had a considerably large smile on her face as she'd entered her home after a particularly lame attempt at cracking a joke. She had nearly tripped over Dakota who had been laying on the floor, watching a television program.

"You guys just missed it." He pointed at the tube as a reporter mentioned something about the day being saved thanks to the efforts of a certain group of supers, one of them being their mother. As expected, dinner had been set out ahead of time for the two late-comers to munch on. "Can't wait to get out there too." Dakota sighed dreamily.

"That's a conversation I'll save until your mom gets home." Buddy muttered past his fork.

"What's that about Mom?" Violet popped her head into the front door and sweeping in with her usual smile. The kids cheered and Buddy rolled his eyes while the raven-haired woman took a gentle bow and said her thank yous to the audience. All seemed to be well until her eyes met Buddy's. For split second he could've sworn that something was amiss, but the moment had passed as quickly as it had been there. This strange occurence had left him pondering while Dakota talked with his mother excitedly about the next upcoming weeks. The young telekenetic had finally been deemed experienced enough to join the battle for good!

"We'll run by Rick's office after school tomorrow so he can go over all the details. Unfortunately, we can't just just go willy nilly after the baddies. And you won't be alone at any time, at least if I have anything to say about it." Violet tutted at Dakota as he moaned. All that work and he'd still have a babysitter?

"At least you don't have a three hour homeroom tomorrow." Lily countered her brother's discontent. "Boooring!" The teen was taken from his line of thought, staring at his sister instead.

"Are you kidding? I'd kill for that! Lucky!"

"Just because you want to sit around and rot your brains out..."

"Better than burning them out over all this training."

"Moving chairs around with your mind must be so hard." Lily rolled her eyes.

"As a matter of fact it is." He snapped back in such a sassy way that it caused both of them to snicker. Violet shook her head, pointing towards the hallway. With sighs of defeat they both headed off to bed. Violet put her elbows up on the kitchen table that they'd all been sitting at, fingers burried into her bangs. She made a tired noise in the direction of the man who'd spaced out on his text messages. A set of blue eyes shifted up towards her just long enough to adress that he was listening.

"One of the new kids on the block did some interesting name-dropping."

"Such as?"

"Would you believe that he was talking about you?" The suggestion had caused Buddy to quit his typing immediately. Instead, his eyes were focused on the screen that had delivered the strange message only a few days before. Could it be the same person? Violet focused in on his reaction, suddenly suspicious. There was no way that he could have enough time to be causing trouble himself. Maybe it was just coincidence...but then again, this wouldn't be the first time that he had been caught raising hell on the sidelines.

"Stop whatever you're thinking." He'd spoken as if on a queue.

"What exactly am I thinking?" She raised an eyebrow.

"What did I tell you about assuming?"

"What did I tell you about jumping to conclusions?" She shot him down immediately, but it had taken no less than that to turn what should have been a simple conversation into a debate of which of them was the most credible. Buddy clenched his jaw for a moment.

"Whatever the hell it is, I've got nothing to do with it. You should know better." It would have ended there if he hadn't added such an accusatory remark at the end of his sentence. When she sat there with her mouth open, speechless, he'd realized too late the can of worms he'd just opened.

"You're right, Buddy. I should know better. I should definately know better about some guy that came out of nowhere talking about Syndrome like you two were best pals or something! I really should know exactly what my husband is up to when I'm not around!"

"Because people NEVER lie, Vi." The way in which he'd used the sarcasm caused her to throw her hands up.

"God, fine! It isn't you! Whatever the case, call your little pals and have a bad-guy conference or whatever it is you people do-"

"This is NOT the road you want to go down."

"Not again, anyway." Violet grumbled, dropping her head into her arms. Buddy pushed his chair back harshly, clearly refusing to be a martyr when he'd done nothing to deserve it. He got to his feet and snapped the phone shut.

"Check the ego before you come to bed. It's really unflattering." He hissed, stalking away. Violet repressed the groan she wanted so badly to let out until she was sure he was out of hearing distance. Did the most self-centered man on the planet really just have enough nerve to say that to her? She wasn't sure if she wanted to join him at all now.

If this isn't irony, I don't know what is...

Violet sat on the couch with a solitary light later that night. She had a cup of tea in hand and every intention of sleeping there if she could only calm herself down. Sure, she'd accidentally jumped down his throat for no reason. Maybe. But she of all people knew how hard it was for Buddy to stay on the right side of the law. No matter how many times he promised that things would change, something else would always crop up, and now that there were kids involved, she had every right to take these slip-ups seriously! Especially now that Dakota was going to be allowed along on her missions! Violet sighed, rubbing out a headache. Maybe she was just getting upset over nothing. Maybe that new guy had just been trying to get under everyone's skin. Damnit, why are you still dwelling over it?

He'd stalked around the room for nearly half an hour instead of going to sleep. Just before the point at which he was sure he would run a hole in the floor, he'd flipped open his phone and speed-dialed, peering through the blinds while it rang. This was getting cleared up. Now.

"Mirage, darling..."

"What do you want from me, Buddy." The woman sighed from the other line, wandering across her apartment after the late-night call.

"Hook me up with a number, if you'd be so kind. A certain minion and I have some catching up to do."