Chapter XXIX

When Kore Returned To Earth

Violet heard a soft beeping to her left before anything else.

And then the smell of alcohol. That scent would probably plague her all her life. Did she have a life? Was she alive? She couldn't move, not really. She could feel-she felt pain, not in any specific place, though it intensified in some areas, but her entire body ached and burned as if her flesh was slowly smoldering without a sharp stab of hurt to indicate an actual heat source. Just dull sienna pain.

Another sense waking up. Darkness, but light just beyond. Her lids fluttered hard against her eyeballs, desperately attempting to wrench open. Finally, they cracked, just a bit, and the blurry world beyond burned her retinas with its whiteness.

A figure moved in the pureness of her vision. Small and dark, and as she focused on the singular silhouette it became clearer. Edna, sitting on the edge of...of a bed. A bed Violet was laying in. Her small hands were wrapped around Violet's fingers-she felt that too. The smaller woman seemed to know she was awake, turning to face her, glasses flashing under the fluorescent lights.

Violet's lips moved, but she had no voice, barely any breath, as each inhale was a bit of a battle. But Edna anticipated her question of what.

"You won, darling."

The next time Violet woke she heard voices, some vaguely familiar, some not, garbled words that were nonsense in her brain. Phrases stuck out at her, like buoys bobbing under waves of confusion: blood pressure, trauma, neural activity.

She knew those words or at least knew she knew them once. She tried opening her eyes, but there was a bright light above her, and it was really better for all involved if she just went back to…

Crying. Crying often around her, sometimes close, sometimes not. Warm touches on her fingers, her forehead, her arm. The smell of her father's soap, her mother's soft tones recognizable even through the fog of medically induced sleep. But always thick with tears, someone sniffling, and her name spoken softly, low, as if it was an oath among polite company…

"No internal bleeding…"

"Is he out of surgery, Dad?"

"...Vitals begging to even out…"

"They've done all they could. Don't try to get up."

"...Comas are tricky cases. We can't be sure with them, Mrs. Parr."

"Will he…?"

"...She'll just have to come through on her own…"

"I don't know, son."

"...can keep her comfortable. Speak to her, she'll hear…"

"Will she…?"

Violet swallowed, and her throat stuck painfully. Her face screwed up at the sensation, and she let out a little whimper. At the sound she felt motion rock her body slightly, coming from the direction of her feet. Cracking an eye open, she saw the fluorescent strip lighting of Metroville General. I'm never working here again.

"Vi?"

She couldn't lift her head all the way, but she could tilt her chin down to look at the end of the bed. There, curled up with a book open on his lap was Jack-Jack, wide blue eyes starring at her in wonder. "Vi?!"

"H…"

"She needs water, Jack."

Violet let her head fall to the side. The curtain bisecting the room was pulled back, and laid out long on the bed next to her was Dash, The thin blanket was pulled over his legs, but Violet could see the lump where his bandages wrapped around his thigh.

Jack-Jack hopped down and scurried to the bathroom, filling one of the pink plastic mugs from her side table and running back, water sloshing over the sides. He was at least careful when he brought it to her lips. The first swallow felt like fire down her throat, but the next and the ones after that soothed the burning. Greedily she drank until her stomach revolted at the sudden activity. She grunted to let Jack know to stop tilting the mug and laid her head back.

"What happened…?"

"Jack-Jack, go get Mom and Dad."

The boy whined, and tears immediately crowded his eyes. He'd been too long out of the loop, sent away under false pretenses and come back to half if not all of his family at risk of dying. Of course he wouldn't want to go, worried they might actually succeed this time. "No! I wanna stay with Violet!"

"They need to know he's awake, bud."

"But what if she-"

"Jack," Violet rasped. "If I've stayed awake this long, I'm staying awake now. I promise"

The boy waffled between more protest and obedience, suddenly looking so very young. Just ten, and had seen so much damage happen to his family. Finally, he put the mug on the hospital table and hurried out of the room, whining "Mommy," as he went.

Violet tested her arms and found that she couldn't lift herself. Flopping ungracefully, and a little painfully against her pillows, she queried again, "Dash, what happened?"

"We should wait until-"

"Don't. Tell me."

Dash sighed and shifted on his bed. Reaching over to his own table he pulled a newspaper off, brandishing where he had folded it, at the headline. "You saved the day, Violet. You saved the entire building from going down-and all of our lives."

"How…?"

"Your shield-or shields. It went through the ground floor, it circled the foundations too. When the bomb hit bottom, it knocked out a few floors of windows and created a nice crater in the street, and the bank next door didn't fair all too well, but the building didn't come down."

The foundations. She hadn't even thought of that. She was just trying to save lives, stretching as far as her power could go. Her poor aim was a stroke of luck in her favor-the first in a very long time.

"The bank?"

"No fatalities. A few people were really cut up, but they're all alive. When people saw the fighting and heard the sirens they pretty much cleared the area."

Violet sighed, relieved until she thought of- "Buddy!"

Dash winced. "Vi, you-"

"Is he dead?"

"Mom and D-"

"Dash, please, is he dead?!"

"He's not dead," Bob declared. He was standing in the doorway to their room, holding it open for Helen who burst in, coming straight to Violet's side and holding her face. She examined her daughter's eyes, gently pressing and touching wounds Violet hadn't yet taken stock of, before throwing her arms around her. They were both wearing sweats, not hospital gowns. How long had she been out?

Violet clutched her mother back though it was more like draping her arms around her, relief draining her of the energy panic had bestowed. "Is he in custody?"

"No. He's alive, but he hasn't woken up." Bob sat on the edge of her bed, placing a large warm hand on her ankle through the covers. "They got him in surgery right away to make sure he didn't die outright and worked on him for a good couple of days. Mac had to fight to get into the room. It wasn't until he was opened up did the surgeon let him in-him and five cops."

"Liam's been arrested?!"

"And Robbie-and everyone who was in the building until it's sorted out." Bob lifted his leg slightly and Violet leaned over to see an ankle monitor. He lifted the blanket to show her an anklet of her own strapped to her leg. "House arrest, but they've let us come here to be with you."

"Dicker's been brought in, but he's retired, so all he can do is consult. We told him everything, but Surratt is dead, and she was the head of a federal subdivision," Helen finished. "Right now, as it stands, you invaded a federal building, caused a disturbance which ended up in a director of federal law being blown up. Dicker has been advocating for us and Echo has been raising holy hell, so they know the truth. But on paper, Surrat's account of what's been happening still stands."

Violet was going to kiss Vincent when she saw him next. "But Fell's files-"

"Mirage has been working on it, and Meiko too. Apparently, the Sato family sees a power vacuum occurring, and if they can tie Tanaka to a dirty American agent-both governments will want to wash their hands of it. We'll be free and Tanaka will be too hot for anyone underground to save him, and then…"

"And then their family can stand in Tanaka's place, with all that money and power," Violet concluded, finally laying back down onto her pillows. Apparently taking out the yakuza branch of Toyko was too big of an inconvenience, but a major corporate power wasn't. "But without the drugs, hopefully."

"Mirage said she's never seen her Uncle and cousin so excited. They compared it to fumigating all of Tokyo." Bob tried for a smile, but there was no joy in it. "At least something good can come out of this."

"We won," Dash said. His voice held very little conviction, and Violet saw that his eyes no longer danced with victory. He'd seen too much. "That's something. We accomplished the mission. We did what we set out to do and came back home. Isn't that good?"

It wasn't anymore a question to any of them than to himself. It was in his tone, in the set of his slumped shoulders; the new knowledge that victory, sometimes and horrifically, was almost worse than failure. That the cost was so high, it almost made the buying almost unworthy. They were home, the very same, but they were no longer the very same Parrs. It was strange, to return to the familiar when it was yourself that was alien, like wandering home from a forest covered in someone else's blood.

Just as she had in the hotel, she saw the knowing burden his slender frame, the weight of the world finally resting on his shoulders, and his uncertainty of his ability to hold it up welling in his eyes. It was those knowledgable seeds grew vines to wrap around the heart and throat, the seeds that Fell had planted in her; weeds that did not die with him. Violet's lips trembled and she made to get out of bed.

Dash saw her struggles and hopped up, hissing sharply as his injured leg gave way. Still, he hobbled over, helping their mother push her back against her pillows. Violet grabbed her brother, and pulled him with her, burying her face in his golden hair. He still smelled like her baby brother, like cheap cologne and bubblegum, and that stupid hair wax he used, her little sibling who she had tried to protect all her life.

"I'm sorry Dash," she sobbed, great wracking things that shook them both. She may have been insane, but Surratt was right. She endangered her family because she had been so afraid to lose them. And now… "I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I'm…"

Violet didn't want this for him. She may have saved the day, saved all their lives, been the hero-she may have won. But she felt no victory here: she had not been able to protect her family. Dash would be changed, just like her; would have to suffer the same crises of faith and disillusionment.

But Violet knew he would have to come through it all by himself. There was no protection or help in saving Dash's soul; that was one mission every person undertook in total solitude. No plans, no pushing, no powers could help him now. The knowing and whatever salvation he won for himself would be a scar he'd carry with him all his life-just like the bullet wound on his thigh. All she could do was hold him, and show him it could be survived, despite the damage it left behind.

"Please Vi, please stop. It's fine. We're alive, it's fine. You save me." Her brother held her back, and she felt her shoulder grow wet with his own tears. Distantly she heard Jack-Jack begin to sniffle, and reached out again. The child crawled up, tugging blankets and wires in his desperation to curl under his sister's arm.

But they're here, her heart whispered, so tired of sorrow and needing something more. They're here with me. They may be broken and beaten but they're alive. That is what it was all for. This is what I survived for, this is why I fought. This is mine, no matter what may stain it. No matter what will come, they're alive to face it. Alive, alive–Fell did not kill me in any way!

No, she did not feel victorious surviving her trip from hell and finally crossing the river towards home. But as her brothers wept with her, holding their golden heads to her chest, Violet felt something wake inside her again, beaten and broken but springing eternal, warming her from within where winter had too long reigned.

As their little family huddled around her bed, finally letting the emotions overflow and bleed from them, Violet looked past her brother's shoulder to the newspaper that had fallen on the floor with his departure from the bed.

It was the Metroville Caller heralding SUPER SHOWDOWN AT FEDERAL BUILDING. Small pictures were lining the bottom of the page: the smoking aftermath of the bomb including the practically demolished bank, supers being untied from where Dash had rounded them up, and one horrific photo of herself being carried on a stretcher, her brother on his own, sitting up and screaming, reaching for her...

But right under the headline, the biggest photo of all was the statue of her parents and Frozone outside the NSA building, her father's arm reaching up to the sky, their faces forever grinning to the heavens. There, in the crook of Mr. Incredible's neck and shoulder, was Buddy's body. Bent backward, arms wide like melted wings and limp as a corpse.

The imperfect god flung from heaven.

Be nice Helen had said to him when Bob had complained about the over-excited boy from the fan club. They had been newly engaged, barely told a soul, and every time they were able to sneak away and just be the future Parrs was a delight. But the stresses of the job bled into every aspect of life-and a great deal of it was the transactions with the public. Thye had curled on her ridiculously small couch in her tiny apartment, the clock ignored and the wine consumed. She had placed her hand over his heart in that soothing way of hers and comforted, He loves you-it's a compliment! Besides, think of it as training-for our own kids!

That had warmed him to the idea, despite how Bob had begun to think of the towheaded boy like a gnat; buzzing, annoying and always returning when he least expected it. So he had forced himself to smile through every mini interrogation, every mindless prattle about supers and crime-fighting whenever the boy showed up.

That was what Bob had chosen to remember when he thought of Buddy in the years after the lawsuits. It was what he had focused on in his anger at being shut away, and forced to hide. It was what he regretted, hung up in Syndrome's containment chamber wishing he had told the little brat off sooner, or in his darker moments after the plane, wishing he had let him fly off with the bomb on his cape.

But when Syndrome was dead, when it was all over and he was a hero again, surrounded by young people looking at him so adoringly, Bob never remembered Buddy as a gnat. All he could think of was the very first time they had met-a memory buried so deep it took a jet crash to unearth it.

It had been Metroville's large city hall, just after he had saved the local school's bus from going over a bridge. A car accident had spooked the driver and he had turned too viciously barely stopping as the front wheels crashed through the railings of the overpass. With no trial and no villain to cart off, he had time to linger and meet the people of the city.

The line had been torturously long to shake the hand of Mr. Incredible, and his suit had begun to itch with the sweat created from all the hot light photo flashes. But he stood and smiled, focusing more on the grateful faces of the parents, and the excitement of the children than his own discomfort.

But one child wasn't excited. One was almost painfully shy. A young blond boy, clutching an incredibile replica had been next. Bob had seen him leave and return to the line several times until his father had come to stand with him. His wide blue eyes looked like they were about to pop from his skull with fear and nerves.

His father, a vague figure in Bob's memory totally unremarkable except for his ten-gallon perched on his head and pulled over his eyes, had nudged the child. "Say hello, boy. Don't be scared. You couldn't stop talkin' all the way here!"

The child had glanced about, and Bob knew the signs of searching for an escape pre-bolt too well to let it pass. Getting on one knee, he held out a hand, more at the kid's level. At least he wasn't screaming, getting too close, or insisting on pulling at his leggings. "Hello there. What's your name?"

Silence still, though somehow the boy's eyes got wider, if it was even possible. His father shook his head with a laugh. "Go on, Buddy. C'mon now."

"Buddy? Is that your name?"

He nodded.

"Buddy, that's a good name. Means you're a friend, right? I'd sure like to have such a polite young man as a buddy myself."

The child finally spoke: "R-really?"

"Really. Except...we can't be friends if you don't shake my hand."

Immediately the boy had tucked the car under his arm and grabbed his hand in both of his, shaking it with a wide grin splitting his face. "I'm your biggest fan," he had breathed for the very first time.

"Really now?"

"Yes! I've clipped out every article about you there ever was!"

"That's quite a collection. What have you got here?"

"The Incredible!" Buddy brandished it, showing him the tin car.

Bob had taken it, running his finger along the back fender where there was some messy leftover modeling glue. "Wow, would you look at that? But it's a little broken here, I'm sorry." He had a bunch of these toy replicas in his trunk and liked to give them out to kids. None were this heavy though, made of good metal. "I can get you another-"

"It's not broken," Buddy insisted, pointing to the back. "I added your jet ignition tanks! This was a really old model and I didn't have enough to get the new one so-"

"So you modified it?" Bob had looked closer, and sure enough, it was crude and a little sloppy, but he supposed the little metal pieces stuck on the back did look a bit like the new jet ignition system. "Well, I'll be!"

"Yeah! Pop is gonna give me some scrap from his garage and I'm gonna build a model all on my own so I don't have to keep gluing up this one!" The light in his eyes was infectious.

"No kiddin! I'll just have to come back and see it some time. So you're going to be a mechanic?"

"Like my dad, yeah! I'm even working on replicating the ignitions in the garage!"

That must be fun for his mom wherever she was. "Maybe when you grow up, you can work on the real thing."

Buddy gasped. "You think?!"

"Smart boy like you-why not? I expect to see you become a great mechanic, so stay in school and work hard, you hear?"

"Yes sir!"

After that, they had taken a picture, and the boy babbled all the way out of the hall, his father's laughing as they left, his child twisting to wave goodbye one last time. It had been sweet and made Bob's day a little easier.

But like all things, time corrupted, exposure eroded, and what was once a strong and good memory was shoved away, useless in the face of irritation and anger. He hadn't expected the boy to take him seriously, or to feel so singled out. He said things like that to everyone, loose with his compliments, his smiles, and doling out possible dreams. He was a hero, that's what they did. Bob had just been nice like Helen always told him to do.

And then they had come face to face once more in a God-forsaken jungle, Bob finding nothing of that excited boy in the man who sneered at him. There was no real joy in that shark's grin, no mirth in that insane laugh that echoed in the containment chamber. The child was gone, and the man that stood before Bob was cruel, hateful, and determined. Flinty and cold where once soft shiness had covered him.

The worst thing, however, was not how he was different.

No, the worst thing about Syndrome had been the fact he was all too familiar. Theatrical, bombastic, wearing joviality like a cape as much as the black cloth around his shoulders. What Syndrome had become was a vivid and brilliant mockery of Bob himself. It was Mr. Incredible's shadow, all of his motions and bravado mirrored darkly. Buddy even put his hands on his hips the same way, nodded the same, and barked orders in that overtly authoritative tone Bob had perfected over the years as he strutted around his command center.

It had been like looking into a discolored window of the past, and seeing a reflection smile back when all he wanted to do was weep. Desperately in the lulls between abject rage and despair, he had tried searching for that child in the face of the villain. When Syndrome had leaned close, hissing his insidious plans, Bob had searched every inch of those rage twisted features for something that had long died–someone he could reason with, could reach as he had done so easily before.

And now, standing in the doorway of Buddy's hospital room, he did so again. It was just as difficult, though his face bore no emotion or expression-it was more just hard to see a face at all, he was so badly banged up. Every inch of his body was wrapped in bandages, one eye safely healing under a patch, his nose having been rebroken and set back under thick gauze. Bob had watched him take a beating for Violet's safety-and then in the NSA building, heard him take hours and hours of beatings for revenge. And all the while he had made no sound-no screams or wails for help or to stop as he had in that…

Bob couldn't think about that video. It was too much to handle, even on a relatively empty stomach.

Sitting by the bedside he searched, even as Violet, finally able to walk with some steadiness, leaned over his prone body on the bed, touching his face. Tears silently slid down her cheeks as she whispered for him to wake up-

"Come back to me Buddy. Wake up, and come back to me. We don't have time...please."

She had kissed him over and over, either unaware or uncaring of her father standing right beside her, as if it was enough to wake him from the trauma-induced slumber. But still, he did not move, the monitor above his bed slowly beeping away. She stayed with him, pulling up a chair and murmuring to him, speaking about what they had done, what was still left to do, begging that he wake up, begging that he live. Every time Bob left and came back, she was there, in that same chair, still talking, still smoothing back the red bangs from his bruised and broken face.

When the nurses came to take her back to bed, she flat out refused. Apparently, they were either fearful enough of exciting her in her condition, or everyone at the hospital was still guilty for their part to play in her initial kidnapping, they didn't bother her again until nighttime. Again Violet refused, and they had gotten her parents to come and try to coax her away.

"What if he wakes up and I'm not here," Violet said flatly, with steel behind her words. It was Bob giving her his solemn vow that he'd stay the night that finally moved her. Because after all of it, their fighting and falling out, the secrets and the hiding, Violet still believed her father when he promised something. At least that at the end of everything, was still unbroken.

So for two weeks, Bob sat from dinner to breakfast at Buddy's unwaking side. Violet would come as soon as she was able and relieve him of the duty, allowing him the day to go home and rest (and be interrogated for the umpteenth time), only to return that night. It got to the point that the only time he saw his eldest was in passing, her slowly rising from the chair to give it over to him, and making him swear to call her if he woke.

And at night Bob searched for the boy inside the man, still finding nothing.

What could he have been?

It was a very old thought, one that had whispered across his mind when they had excavated the ruin of their house post-jet for anything salvageable to take to the motel and Bob had seen blood on a few piles of rubble; dried and nearly black. Echos of the inquiry followed him through the years until Violet's return from the forest.

If he had just had one more minute of patience. If he had talked him down earlier instead of basking in his obsessive accolades and then tolerating them out of habit and some misguided sense of kindness. What if Bob had truly been kind and sat the boy down and explained to him the way of things? Or taken the risk and actually guided him into something more productive than a superhero clone?

Would have still ended up in this hospital bed, would Violet still be the ever-vigilant Penelope, at his side, waiting? Bob spent hours hurting his own heart, envisioning the future that might have been, had he not been so proud, so love-drunk on praise and adoration. Not from Buddy-but as Mr. Incredible in general.

Maybe the lawsuits would have never happened, maybe his children would have been raised to love themselves and their powers from the get-go. And maybe, just maybe, Buddy would have been something like among them-something like Robbie. Maybe he would have actually been able to work on the Incridible under a supportive eye instead of on the highway to nowhere, ducking the law and assassins in spades.

Maybe he and Violet would have still ended up together-and maybe Bob would have been happy about it.

Being a very imaginative man, Bob could almost see it; see the flame-haired mechanic, still looking up at him with admiration, body unbroken, mouth still smiling instead of sneering. Violet, happy and never a thought to shame, laughing with him, enjoying life with him-enjoying life at all. There were no traitors in that future, no fear, no hiding, no need for Ultra and his bloody vengeance.

At the same time, it was still hard for Bob to imagine that one little choice could have altered the path of so many, his logistical mind coming to remind him that no one singular instance could really change the course of the world. It was choices upon choices that built the roads from which futures traveled, and Buddy had lined his with cruelty. Or maybe it was his pride, whimpering from the constant beating, trying to justify it. But the back and forth was all Bob had to occupy him as he watched his nemesis sleep.

"Could I have stopped this," he murmured to Buddy. It was a bad habit he had taken up, peppering the man with questions he expected no answer to. Why did he do it? Was it worth it? Did it really help, hunting them all down? Or did you still hurt too badly to know anything else? How did you survive? Why me? Why my baby girl?

The sun was rising now, and Violet would be here soon. She was going to be a little late. It had been her first night discharged and home. Helen had called to say that she was raising hell at the house at being detained by the interrogators, undoing the lies Meg had put in place. Apparently, victory had sapped Violet of all her normal calm composure.

Or perhaps she was finally coming to the end of her endurance.

They had all tried to flip Surratt's narrative, and while most of the evidence backed them up and Echo had made great strides in exonerating them, none could separate the man in the hospital bed from the identity of Syndrome. It was their word against the scores of super children who had recognized his voice (though those children had quieted somewhat when the powers that be had tried making a list of just who had put what marks on the man).

And while Fell's files exonerated him from brainwashing and kidnapping, it only confirmed that he was in fact Syndrome, bought and sold by the madman. Buddy no longer had fingerprints, and as he had been mostly reconstructed, his dental records were a moot point as well. Bob winced, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Violet had explained it, saying that he had cracked so many teeth during Fell's operation, the doctor had basically given him a whole new mouth merely based on what was there before.

It was testimony against testimony who the man in this bed was, and while they tried to figure everything else was, the government was going with the path of least resistance, which meant he was on the hook for a great deal.

At least the Parrs had the good sense not to link him with Bartholomew Pine in all of their statements-that identity was still clean. Mirage, in secret messages funneled into the house's intercom system from her own residence where she and Liam were detained, had relayed that Meiko had scrubbed any record of him being at the gala, just in case. She hoped to sneak Buddy away to hide once more until the coast was clear, so he could live under his real name quietly as he had intended all those years ago. Violet had encouraged that tact, even though she knew it was fruitless.

He wouldn't live that long.

"Could this all have been avoided," Bob continued to muse. All the blood and pain, so thick around them now it was hard to imagine a time where they weren't hurting as anything other than ridiculous naivete. To think that Syndrome and Screenslaver's actions had made them suffer was almost laughable. It was similar; they had gone on the run, gotten in trouble, and something large had exploded and their city had been partially destroyed. But there were no crowds now, no applause and no sense of justice served, and no grand gesturing together as a family for a photo op.

Now it was interrogations and waiting. Waiting for freedom, waiting for it to be over. Waiting for death. Bob passed a hand over his face. "What did I do…"

"Told an annoying kid to fuck off."

Bob hummed his agreement.

Then he shot up from his chair so fast, it flew back and lodged itself in the wall. He had been so lost in his thoughts, he hadn't realized the steady beeping of the bed monitor had sped up. Buddy had one blue eye open and trained on him, but his metallic voice was weak and whispery. "I can't stand hearing you go on. But you're here...which means Violet…?"

"Fine," Bob answered quickly. "Well-no-but-"

"Alive?"

"Yes!"

Buddy closed his eyes and nodded as much as his bandaging would allow. "Make sure she stays that way."

"Why wouldn't I?" Anger seeped in under all the guilt and musings-why did this boy have an uncanny knack of wedging right under his skin?

"Because she bats those big ass eyes and you'd let her do anything-speaking from experience."

"Why don't you rest," Bob snapped. He didn't want to hear about what experience Buddy had with his daughter. "Don't talk."

"It's rude not to answer when someone asks you a question-or ten thousand."

"Oh...you heard?"

"Yes. They should hire you at Gitmo-you're better than Chinese water torture." He swallowed again, and winced at the action. "Anyway-stop crying over the past. It's done. What you did, what I did-doesn't matter now. I'll be out of your life soon enough, and I'll never have to see you again."

The plain statement of facts iced out any rage Bob was starting to build up at the smug little prick's attitude. Really, did nothing rattle the kid? "That's not true."

"Oh, isn't it? Weren't you listening at that fucking thing? I'm gonna die."

"But Violet will never let you go." Bob had seen his little girl determined, seen her face down absolutely terrifying things since she was fifteen-take on more responsibility than a teenager should. He'd seen her brave, stubborn, scared, and shy. But he'd never seen her so in love as she was with Buddy. They were simpatico, in their planning, in their teasing, even in their fighting. He'd caught a glimpse of it at the hotel. Violet and Buddy were almost designed to be together-they didn't seem to need vows or promises to already start acting as one unit.

And Violet only loved forever. That was the type of girl she was.

Buddy winced again, but this time the pain wasn't physical it seemed. "Then I'm going to do something insane."

"What are you gonna do?"

"Swallow my pride."

"Don't choke."

Buddy's lip curled. "You're not making it easier." Bob raised a hand in apology. "I'm gonna humble myself and ask for a favor."

"What, having my daughter isn't enough?"

"She's part of it." Buddy turned his head towards his former idol. "You have to make her forget me."

Bob wanted to laugh. Didn't he think if the father could he would? "You know her-no one can make her do anything."

"You can." Buddy waited until Bob's laughter died out and the hero realized he was serious. "You can. You're different, she loves you differently. She's your biggest defender-even when I pointed out everything wrong with you-which believe me–I made a fantastic effort-she wouldn't budge. She'll listen to you. You can't let her waste her life missing me. I'm not worth it-and she…she's something else. You think the city rocked when she came back? Imagine the world when Vi realizes just what she can do. I don't…I don't want to hold her back. Dead or alive."

"It's asking the impossible," Bob said.

"You're Mr. Incredible," Buddy countered. "Stupidly enough, I still think you can do anything."

Bob didn't have to answer that as the door to the room finally opened. Violet stepped in, her bobbed hair still in wet waves from her shower, dressed in her old college sweatshirt and tights. She paused for only a moment, her brain catching up to what her eyes were seeing, before she flung herself at Buddy, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his neck.

The man groaned loudly but didn't seem to mind the pain that much, seeing as he carefully lifted an arm covered in IVs and bandages up to gingerly hold her shoulders to him. "Hey-c'mon. The cryin', again? You know I can't-"

"Shut up," Violet sobbed. She lifted her head and peppered his damaged face in tear wet kisses. "I hate you, I hate you," she murmured in between each touch of lips before the next kiss landed. "I hate you-I hate you-I'm-so-pissed-at-you."

"Me too-I told you-" He stopped her assault, holding her face with one hand. "I told you not to, Violet. I begged-I begged…"

"I know. I'm sorry." With a watery grin, she traced her fingers along his mouth and swore, "I promise not to do it again?"

"You're such a pain in my ass." But Buddy was grinning-grinning so wide he was dislodging the bandages over his nose and eye. Grinning so guilessly he looked, just for one second, like that boy clutching a toy car all over again.