Gray Days

Written under Pen Name "Yamathan"

Chapter One: "All Good Things"

There were plenty of times that Bob Parr had felt like this.

The day he got fired from his work as a paper-pushing claims adjuster was probably the most punctuated example of it, – something of a staccato in the doldrums of his life – but he often felt it.

During his personal "Dark Times", that anger, deep down, that wouldn't completely go away. His wife could very well make due being a housewife and deal with the kids, even if she got flustered at how hectic it could be. But Bob knew that she loved her kids enough to forget being Elastigirl and be a good mother. A small part of Bob wanted him to do very much the same – be the exemplary Dad, join the PTA and take his son to baseball games. Although he probably would have never pegged himself to be so, he knew that soon enough he'd want nothing more than fret over Violet, waiting for her to get back from a date with that ... Dyringer kid from school.

It was Dyringer, wasn't it? It really showed how little Bob paid attention to the here and now, or the soon-to-be. A very large part of Bob wanted desperately to go back to the Glory Days of Supers. An exceedingly large part of him wanted to retain his image as Mr. Incredible, when just being what felt natural and normal was all that people asked of him. Saving the day, saving the world, working miracles all around -- that's all he really wanted to do back then, and it's all what Bob yearned to go back to now.

A part of him wanted to forget being Mr. Incredible and be The All-American Father, even if some would say that meant being "just" the All-American Father. But he felt so overwhelmed by that other voice, always calling him back to

But there was a bigger part of Bob that wanted to go back to The Glory Days. The days when he and his friends would sit around the table, play some poker, and talk about how many villains they'd busted in the past week. The camaraderie was fierce; he knew those people like they had been around him since he cut his first tooth. They would talk about their job. Yes, it was a job all self-respecting Supers leapt to early in the morning, and keep on keeping on until dusk, or much later.

The smaller part of Bob would fight the greater, and insist that he wasn't paying enough attention to the here and now, to his beautiful wife and great children. Bob would always think about that for a moment, but he always returned to what he remembered of The Glory Days.

There was always something so alive and fresh back then. Every moment Bob-no, Mr Incredible- knew that some super villain would come out of the shadows, declare their grievance on him, and then monologue him almost to death while he very quietly picked a massive object up to hurl at their head.

Then in celebration the mayor would insist that Mr. Incredible come to dinner with the family in a small intimate Italian restaurant, where the food was warm and the reception warmer. He was glad, later on, that he took the opportunity to do so some times ... but he was even more glad when he went to a local Scouts meeting to talk about the importance of fire safety.
Back in those days Mr. Incredible (or Bob for a long while) never gave thought to how easy it was to defeat The Bad Guy. All he cared about was how exhilarating it felt to know he did some good, take the garbage of humanity out to the curb, and then dust off his hands to go join the boys down at the docks for a cold one and talk about his day. He was a complete boy scout, doing all of this good without asking for anything in return.

Mr. Incredible never thought he would see the day when the people he had fought so hard to protect … when the entire country would turn on him and play him for a monster.

He never, ever, ever meant to hurt a single innocent person. If anything, as a superhero it was his duty to make sure that the average Joe didn't get hurt by The Bad Guy. It made him queasy to think that trying to stop a villain had ever hurt anyone on the sidelines, certainly he never thought that his Glory Day shining moments had hurt a bystander.

People always said that those times someone got hurt were just the necessary evils of saving the day once again. Bob always thought, maybe a little arrogantly, that he had only accomplished bruising someone's pride. As his government sponsor had always told him, oftentimes it was someone's wallet that felt hurt more than the person.

Bob didn't know the financial costs of his daily adventures. He left that up to his government sponsors. He always thought that he was completely truthful when he said that he never actually hurt anyone -- except for The Bad Guy, of course. But seeing all of those angry faces in the jury box – Bob realized that he had hurt people physically. It made him sick to think that The Good Guy had hurt innocent people. It was something so ... wrong to think about.

That internal confusion, the idea that he had somehow hurt one of the innocent bystanders of Metroville while trying to "save the day once again", was probably what began Bob's anger. A tiny spark, one that would probably flounder out when he came to terms with the dangers of his occupation.

But something kindled it into a smoldering fire, one that erupted at his crooked boss, his tiny car, his incapacitating cubicle ... What, you ask, was the kindling for that fire?

Simple greed.

Fifteen years ago, he saw it in the eyes of the plaintiffs. In those murky depths there was always that cold calculating thirst to grub all the money that Uncle Sam would throw their way, combined with the yearning for even more.

He didn't know if it was borne of indignancy, the sheer fact that some yahoo had lurched their train forward and snapping their necks ... or if it was the idea of entitlement, that Uncle Sam "owed them one" for letting these "Supers" go around and raise their insurance rates to the sky.

Bob didn't know; it wasn't his job. But an anger not unlike what he felt today was what he faced in court fifteen years ago. He didn't know what to do, or what to say – every personal damages attorney in the Grand Old U. S. of A. wanted a piece of the action.

The Innocent Citizen -- were they really so innocent? They wanted so much from him, from his sponsor, from the insurance agencies that provided Superhero Protection Clauses. If they were really hurt so much, then a simple Letter to the Editor in the City Herald would have prompted Mr. Incredible to shell out as much money as he could muster. But it looked like they were planning on feasting on much deeper pockets -- Uncle Sam's.

How could an innocent be so greedy? Mr. Incredible started to wonder if The Little Guy needed saving from The Bad Guy any more, if he was the problem, if somehow going into retirement had been the solution ...

Both during the end of The Glory Days and today, fifteen years later, it seemed like even the Federal Government didn't have a keen enough legal defense to prove that the Supers really only wanted to help. No one wanted him, or Dynamo, or Refractoid, or even the once-ravingly popular Frozone.

No one wanted them. No one cared. It sent him into a rage sometimes, the idea that the people that he wanted to help hated his guts.

But secretly Bob was also writhing in the fact he still wanted to help them.

In the corner of his mind, he covered it with the warm, protective blanket of "I just want to be Mr. Incredible again." There didn't seem like there would ever be a time when people trusted Supers again. He could manage this anger, broiling just behind his greatest love; the unattainable love of becoming a Super once more.

At the end of those dark times, it was a storybook ending. Splashed across the television screens of America and the world, there he was. He wasn't Bob Parr, he was the New Mr. Incredible, saving the day once more alongside his family. God, he was so utterly proud of them. At the end of the big "Showtime", his outlooks were wonderful. He could save the day, get back his old dignity, and learn how to be a better father in his private life, all at the same time.

But that anger, and the reasons he had it, wouldn't go away, no matter how much had changed over the past day.

The fires were still burning.