Hiding

by: Yamathan

Disclaimer: "The Incredibles," Violet Parr, Dash Parr, Bob Parr, and Helen Parr, Syndrome, as well as Tony Rydinger, are the copyrighted intellectual property of Pixar Studios, and Pixar Incorporated. I, the Author, hold no claims to these said stakes of intillectual property. I in no way lay claim to the characters depicted or mentioned in this fictional work. I do not seek to write this work of fiction for financial gain. I, the Author, wish to write this "fanfiction" as a piece of entertainment. This story in no way intentially refects the original character designs, viewpoints, or even the initial artistic intent, of Pixar, or Pixar Incorporated for any financial gain.

Chapter One: Barrel Gazing

It felt cold, and the clamminess of the sweat on Violet's palms didn't help.

She'd snuck it in with her outfit -- Yes, The Outfit -- last night, after the latest feat of daring-do.

Violet shuddered. The memory felt cold too.

---

Every single last bank robber had definitely been armed to the nines, yet the ringleader always had this special handgun. He called special attention to this fine beauty, the highest grade with the finest-quality armor-piercing rounds money could buy. The one that he pistol-whipped Dash with as he mouthed off during his monologue.

That was the snap, the change. Everything was a blur, a red mist, until her father told her quite firmly that he wasn't going to hurt Dash, or anyone. His strong, Incredibly strong, hands held Violet's back, keeping her from slamming the butt into his skull again. The brass-and-teak revolver was slick with his blood, but none of it stuck. It just rolled off those Tetrex black gloves. The crimson beads fell away, down, down ...

While she was busy washing off the blood in a nearby water fountain, her parents talked with the police. Standard procedure was probably what was going on; soon enough the Captain would pull out his third Triple Chocolate Delight donut that day and take a large bite out of it. While the officer reached into the donut box to do just that, the criminal ringleader was taken away on a gurney.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw huge frame lifted up by no less than three EMTs and an beefy policeman. Someone had muttered, "it didn't look good." They were right. It didn't.

No one but Violet noticed the drops of blood going down the pipe, and that was only because she was focusing on it to block everything else out.

Violet never knew blood looked like that in water before.

It was about that time that she vomited violently into the fountain.

--

There had to have been a ride home. There was no accounting for her arriving home without that happening. But there was no "remembering" until she got to the living room, and only thought when she reached the upstairs hallway.

Violet faintly remembered something about her parents asking how her school went. How strange! It was a Tuesday, where'd the time gone, I thought it was Friday earlier today, how's the pep rally going -- half-heartedly. There was something in her father's eyes.

It was like they were trying to gloss over the fact that their little daughter ... it was better not to think about it.

As soon as she could get away from that, Violet went into her room, closed the blinds, and tried to sleep - poorly.

---

That was last night. Violet hadn't left the room; 8am came and went, 10 am found her still in bed and trying to sleep, vaguely - the bus had left at 830, Dash running out the door, Helen making some sick-day excuse for Violet. 11am through 3pm had gone uneventfully, staring at the ceiling. Bob's booming voice was hushed, for once - "honey, I'm home" reduced to whispers.

And this was now.

6pm had come without fanfare, and now 7pm came. No lights on, no nightlights lit - ( not that she ever had one, what was the point of having a night-light for a child who knew things could be invisible?) and the whole house eerily quiet. The blinds were still drawn, a tiny sliver of the streetlight poking through.

Shifting the weight of the pistol between her hands in a cradling way, it was interesting to see how that light played on the ... thing.

She paid special attention to how tilting her hands a certain way made the mirror lights off the quicksilver metal of the barel dance on her face. Pretty, even.

The bile rose in her throat. That day had brought her the closest she'd ever been to killing someone. Ever, even on a Super team - it was always her father or mother who beat the living snot out of The Bad Guy, with her and Dash running in the background, carefully weaving force fields or knocking guns out of loose hands at sonic speeds.

And that plan was totally thrown out of balance. There was no elegance, or even courage in this. She had gone that far -- almost to kill a man -- to protect her family from some two-bit thieves. Didn't it suit her perfectly, the useless little girl with no real superpowers, panicking over some dipshit crime lord with a fancy piece? It's not like Dash was going to keep the bruises for long; he was able to run and heal beautifully.

Like the light. Beautiful.

---

It was all a matter of perception, like the speed and distance of ships at sea.

As far as the public was concerned, The Incredibles would always defeat The Bad Guy. The television networks, the most recent incarnation of the old Saturday morning cartoon shows, would have one believe that the Incredibles would save the day, lick their wounds and then go to the big celebration dinner down at City Hall. Dash would play outside with the other Super children. Bob would talk about some of the Good Old Days with his old friends, and Helen would try to mingle just a little bit with the mayor's wife, getting to know the First Family of the Metroville a little better.

Then almost half of the social elite of Metroville would sit down to a good old-fashioned steak dinner, with mashed potatoes and gravy. Violet would pick at her plate wistfully; no matter how many times she hinted to her family, the message never got across that she was vegetarian, and that mashed potatoes only went so far. Bob would put away three heaping plates and two servings of The Mayor's Wife's best pie. Mind you, it seemed like he always turned it into muscle the very next day -- something that the round mayor would always jocularly envy as he busily put just as much away, proudly sitting next to and chumming with the ever-famous Mr. Incredible.

Violet's mouth twitched into a smile, albeit a weak one, thinking about it. The Supers were back on the upswing, thanks in no small part to her family. The day seemed to be saved much more often now -- terrorist organizations were silently decimated in a single night. Starving refugees were mysteriously transported to stateside emergency shelters under the radar, over the sonar. Supers like the newest incarnation of Solar Flare graced the ranks of the Secret Service. Considering many Supers hadn't donned their uniforms for fifteen years, they sure as Hell did a good job acting like The Good Guys again. And like any good Superhero, they never got hurt.

As far as the public was concerned.

But any Super knew that there were insane dangers of fighting supervillainy, and even petty criminal life. The risk of being shot, or maimed, or quick-nuked, or vaporized was always gripping on the cape.

Those dangers were gigging Violet in the back of her mind. Over time, they had become a burden Atlas would shrug. She didn't know what to do any more, it seemed like the odds might actually be against them. Superpowers couldn't overcome basic statistics. They'd just been lucky so many times, it was easy to forget that their lives were on the line. One day they'd get careless, or the "other side" would get smart.

And what could Violet do about it?

Throw up a force field? It's not like it stopped the Omnibot from smacking it hard enough Violet passed out from the strain.

Turning invisible always worked with people who saw into the normal spectrum, but every once in a while you got a villain who could see into the infrared or ultraviolet spectrum. Even Supers had to obey the laws of physics and throw off heat, respire bodily fluids, sweat out pheremones.

And, plain and simple, she wasn't nearly as physically strong or athletic as her father, her brother Dash, or even her mother. She couldn't use her powers to protect her family, not consistently.

There would come a day that she couldn't play Blind Man's Bluff. There'd come a day when things went truly, truly bad. And there would be blood, and not The Bad Guy's.

--

Those burdens seemed a world away and as close as the palm of her hand, suddenly, as Violet heard the click. She looked down; she must have tugged at the trigger. Violet trembled, sighing in a shudder.

Me and my butterfingers, she thought. A loaded firearm without a safety, and I'm playing butterfingers by myself with it.

There were three bullets left -- armor-piercing. The Outfits that Edna Mode had made for her family were top-notch, though. Even something as high-grade as these bullets left behind were bruises. Deep, flesh-aching bruises, but bruises nonetheless.

But what would happen, she thought without feeling much of anything, if the gun was aimed at the head?

Just like a murderous little girl, it's best just not to think about it.

Violet felt cold and numb inside, her index finger tracing the metallic outline of the trigger. It was with some amount of detached interest that Violet felt the edges. Playing. Fiddling. It wasn't until she started to think of just how easy it would be for her herself to pull that trigger, and leave this mess behind, that she really came out of her reverie.

Violet mentally and physically recoiled. Her index finger fleetingly gained purchase far away from the trigger, and entirely on where it was pointed. What the Hell am I doing with this thing? rang in her head, but it was an empty and hallow note. She didn't know why she did anything the way she did lately. Violet just knew that she did it. That bothered her. It bothered her almost as much as her mind's sudden and unthinking leap to thoughts of suicide.

It was so ... bizarre. Back when Violet was the sort-of-outsider, the pseudo-gothic kid seldom few knew was in their class. Everyone at school thought she was fine, as long as she didn't take to cutting herself and writing dark haiku too close to them, thank you. It used to frustrate her that she could fulfil that niche as well as she could be "normal". And no normal little girl could put chameleons to shame, or defy the laws of physics easy as sneezing.

That far from normal, Violet could only turn to thinking of being a Super. Violet didn't understand how she couldn't hack it. Other Supers managed just fine with this kind of stress, Hell, her father thrived on it as a part of his job and passion. Why was she so fragile?

If her parents found her little secret piece of shame, Violet figured she'd somehow just say she was keeping it as a keepsake. A simple keepsake. One of those trinkets you keep from your very first successes as a Super. No harm done in taking a gun from a crime scene soaked in blood, right?

But she took that back as soon as she thought it. Her parents were already worried about her. It wasn't uncommon to go into a fit of rage in the Super world. Despite that, Violet could tell what Bob and Helen were thinking - the family business was eating away at her innocence.

There wasn't much room for innocence in this business, though.

---

"Violet! Time for dinner!" her mother yelled down the hallway. She could tell by the smells more than her calendar that it was definitely Wednesday night. The smell of leftovers -- she could tell by the conflicting meat smells in the air, which made her stomach quease a little bit again -- wafted through her mostly-closed door. So silly, being able to turn completely invisible but still wanting to hide.

She remembered a time when she wasn't just hiding secrets from her family; she tried to hide herself from the entire world. She'd gone some way since then, but ...

Violet faltered a little, trying her best to dole out a cheerful "Yes, Mom!" Hearing something or other about vegetarian lasagna, Violet slid the metal burden underneath her bed, nestled between a stack of Teen magazines and her journal. The magazines that she read to catch up on all the latest hot movie stars. The old journal that raved that Tony Rydinger was the only guy she would ever want.

It gave her just a moment of pause between the foot of her bed and the door, letting in just a crack of light into the room.

There was something ... wrong. Something was wrong about where she kept the gun, why she was keeping the gun, what was dragging her entire world down like this.

"Why?" almost passed her lips, but they died there. She didn't know. Violet Incredible didn't have a clue how to face the inner demons clawing at her some nights, just as she didn't know how to face The Bad Guy day after Godforsaken day.

She didn't have the foggiest idea what she was doing, going in her darkened room, any more. In fact, it sort of scared her how easily her mind seemed to wander and return to a very dark place in her life. Despite the silence of both her conscience and intuition, her purged stomach was growling. Violet crossed the room, making sure last night's clothes weren't too wrinkled from sleeping in, rubbed at her eyes --

And realized her mask was still on.

She took it off. Violet imagined on some level that there should be some sort of a metaphor in this action. Something that somehow pointed as to why she felt the vast difference between her time as a Super and her time being good-old, yet new-and-improved, Violet Parr.

There wasn't.

Violet she closed her door, checked the lock, and went to dinner. Her metal ugliness, and the thoughts it brought out in her, didn't need to be revealed tonight.

She didn't think she'd ever sit in the dark recesses of her room with a danger to her, and to her family. She didn't think that there'd be any more cause for alarm on the part of her parents -- she'd put on a happier face, use her hair bands and get more acquaintances in school. She was trying to move past the angst in her life. Violet wanted to get to be someone more ... normal, she guessed. She wouldn't need this time in the dark corners in her mind any more.

Violet Parr wasn't sure if she could say the same for Violet Incredible.