A Father's Nightmare

The Parrs were eating quietly. It had been a peaceful week. There have been nothing up and about in Metroville. The Under Miner wasn't too bad. He was last week's news. And ever since the Parrs resurfaced again as The Incredibles, other supers seem to surface again. They are younger supers, the people born of the dead supers (taken down by Syndrome) while they were still in hiding. Robert Parr, a.k.a Mr. Incredible is now taking it easy. He realized that he's not young anymore and he has children and a family. So at times he'd give some criminal or villains to other supers. Mrs. Incredible or Helen Parr has her hands full especially with the recent discovery of Jack- Jack's powers. The baby seems to be keen on setting itself up as a fire or fire lasers from his eyes nowadays. Now that Dash has been allowed to compete, all his pranks with Mr. Kropp is reduced. His grades are also rising. In fact, Mr. Kropp is seemed to be pleased with this.

Bob now works in a small printing office. It doesn't pay as much as Insuricare but he gets monthly salary from the NSA too now. He mainly enjoys his time. His company publishes superhero comic books. He is the coordinator of the artists. It's not really a 9 to 5 job. All he has to do is check up on each artist's series three times a week through the phone, making sure that the monthly comic books gets published on time. It's a job that does a cover up as the normal family man pretty well.

In short everything's been pretty well. Well, up till now at least.

"Mom, Dad, I'll be home late on Friday.", she announced at the dinner table. Everyone stopped their chewing after that.

"Oh. Do you need me to get you?", Bob Parr offered. Since resurfacing back again as Mr. Incredible he's been busy to catch up with his kids.

"No, thanks, Dad.",Violet said as she goes to the kitchen with her plate.

"I'm not really busy with anything Vi, would you like me to accompany you?", her mom offered.

"I'm OK, Mom.", she shouted .

Bob knows that his daughter is performing quite well at school. He was sure this is one of the extra-curricular activities. He thought Violet might have some club activity with friends and such. "What is the occasion?" he asked out of curiousity

"I'm going to see a movie with Tony.", answered Vi who came back to the table with a glass of milk.

"Star Wars."

Silence

Dash gave a low-toned whistle. Jack Jack gargled for no reason at all. Violet blushed slightly. Helen looks pleasantly surprised.

Bob though, looked utterly mixed. Bob was silent. He looked shocked, confused,upset, and curious. "A...date...?", he finally managed to utter

"Yes Bob, a date.", Helen beamed.

"But Vi, a date?"

"Yes Dad,a date.", Vi said casually.

"WHO IS HE?"

"Tony Rydinger, he's in the same class with Algebra with me. He lives over in down town. "

Dash started singing, "Violet's got a boyfriend..."

"Shut up"

"Violet's got a boyfriend..."

"I SAID SHUT UP!"

As if cued, Lucius rang the doorbell. Bob opened the door. "Hey kids, Helen, Bob!"

"Lucius! Ice timing, I just finished my dinner!", Bob praised.

Lucius looked non-plussed. "Seriously Bob, you have got to stop those Ice Puns." Helen chortled at that comment.

"Bowling tonight huh?", Helen asked.

Bob said hurriedly. "Bye kids!"

Dash and Violet wove goodbye.

"Can I come with you guys next week?" asked Helen jovially.

Bob quickly ushered Lucius out.

"Yes, Honey!", he hollered.

"We're not going Bowling tonight Lucius." he whispered quickly.

"What?Now I'm not gonna listen to those police scanners anymore, those days are over! We are now..."

"It's not that, Lucius. It's something else..."

Lucius's car stopped in front of a nice brickhouse. It was a bit old. It had some vines around it. The porch was well-lit. A "Rydinger" emblem was printed just outside of it.

"Now what the heck is our business supposed to be?", Lucius asked, annoyed.

"Whaddaya mean?"

"Bob! Look at this house! Do you think this house belongs to some mega ultra super villain guy or lady?"

"No."

"THANK YOU. Now can we go bowling?"

"NO!"

"What is your problem.!"

The conversation stopped immediately. A tall brown-haired boy with a grey shirt popped out of the house carrying a large trash bag. He walked down swiftly, humming a song.

"What do you think?", Bob asked seriously.

"Uh, he's so evil he can even beat Baron Van Ruthless?", replied Lucius sarcastically.

"LUCIUS!"

"Gee Bob, it's just a normal boy! "

"Excuse me Sir..." a voice trailed off. Both Bob and Lucius were caught off-guard. Bob nervously sat upright. He faked what seems to be a smile.

"Are you...lost?", asked the boy.

"Yes, my stupid friend seems to forget how to get to the bowling parlor.", Lucius interjected. "And we are now lost here."

Bob glared viciously at Lucius. Lucius gave a gesture which basically expressed that he's actually saving Bob's hide.

"Well, I think it's north of here and you turn left on Adelaide Avenue. There's the bowling parlor"

"Thanks Tony."

The boy looked surprised. "How did you know my name?"

Bob now is mentally hitting himself on the head. "Lucky guess...", he defended himself. He added a silly smile to his defense.

"Oh okay.", replied Tony

Tony walked inside the house.

"Is he dating your daughter?", Lucius finally said after a little bit of awkward silence. Bob rolled his eyes. "Oh I see.", Lucius muttered. "So you're just worried that Vi might..."

"NICE GOING DAD!" an invisible voice shouted from the car's backseat.

"Violet?How did you get here?"

"I have my ways, especially since I'm invisible the whole time."

"Young lady...I ", Bob started his angry voice.

"Great! Just the thing I needed, I can't face Tony on Friday. How could you do this Dad!"

"I was worried!"

"So worried to embarass me!"

"Vi..Bob was...", Lucius interjected.

"No buts, we are going home now!"

"But this is bowling night!", both Lucius and Bob protested

"HOME!"

"All right Violet.", Lucius reluctantly started the engine. She gets it from her mother...he thought.

Bob and Violet walked silently inside. Violet was fuming angrily and she immediately stormed upstairs to her room. Bob knitted his eyebrows in disbelief. He was just honestly worried! If it were anything this actually proves that he cared! He sneaked in to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of chocolate milk. He IS Violet Maria Parr's father after all!

"Back from a not-so secret engagement?", Helen teased. She knew about it all too well, after all she was the one helping Vi in the car. It was followed by a frown from her husband.

"Come on, you know I didn't have any bad intentions...!"

"I know." Helen said as she wrapped her left arm around Bob's shoulder. She joined him.

"But, you know...Vi is growing up too.Sometimes, we're just not in her picture of things."

"Meaning..?"

Helen sighed. Her husband can be so blind sometimes. "Subtext, she is a teenager, us spying Tony, not cool."

"I know but, the past years I haven't really been a good Dad to her and I'm trying to make it up you know."

"I know that too."

Helen sighed. "Ut's just she's at an awkward age where she needs to find her own identity. She's not the strong Invisigirl. She wants to be...someone she wanted to be"

"How does that supposed to help?"

"For a start, tomorrow she has a geography exam. You can bring some snacks for her while she studied."

Bob carried a couple of chocolate chip cookies with milk. He knocked on Vi's door.

"Come in...", said a semi-lazy voice.

Bob made his way in. Violet didn't really look too pleased. She didn't say anything, she just buried her head inside her thick book. Bob left the cookies beside her.

"So, geography huh?"

"..."

"I was pretty good at it when I was in school."

"..."

"Mrs. Caswell usually would quiz us regularly at the end of the month."

"..."

"I usually studied together with Splash Down. He'd be challenging me with memorizing countries in the end I always gets a better mark than him, even though in those mock quizzes he remembered more than I did."

"That is kinda funny.", Vi said almost whisperingly.

"What is your exam on?"

"Asian countries and their capitals."

"Okay, Indonesia?"

"What kind of country is that Dad, are you joking?"

Bob sighed. "It's south of the Phillipines, East of Singapore and West of Papua New Guinea, it's the islands archipelago. The capital is Jakarta."

Violet looked at her Dad with amazement. She hasn't seen this side at all.

"I've been there with Dyna Guy on a diplomatic mission. They had a couple of nice supers there. Red Spider is one of them."

Violet looked in awe.

"Can we start?"

Vi nodded.

"Let's see, South Korea?"

"Seoul."

"Japan?"

"Tokyo."

"Thailand?"

" err..."

"Bangkok. Mongolia?"

"Ulan Bator."

"The Philippines?"

"Manila."

"China?"

"Err, same name with Mrs. Sincere's dog...BEIJING!"

Then they both smiled stupidly.

"That was awesome Vi."

Violet retracted her smile into a curious face. "Are you having a fight with Dash?"

"What? NO."

"You usually don't come and help me study. Why the change?"

Bob frowned. She has a point. He usually don't give her as much attention. Not that he doesn't love his daughter, he really don't know what to do with a daughter.

"And what is up with spying on Tony?"

"Look, I'm just worried, I don't want you to date some..."

"Super-villain?"

"That wasn't what I wanted to say .", he said, getting a little frustrated. Although he had to admit, that was a witty bit of sarcasm on Violet's part. He had to breathe in and breathe out before saying something else. His daughter is admittedly very smart. He really need to choose the words that comes out f his mouth carefully.

"I just...I haven't been a good Dad to you and... frankly... I..."

"You can whack him dead if he does something funny to me, Mr. Incredible.", interrupted Violet.

Bob was stunned. Violet carved a semi-amused smile in her face. Slowly Bob's face turned into a smile. They looked at each other.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Vi only smiled and chortled a small laugh.

Friday, 1500 hours

"Have a good time you two. ", commented Bob. Tony and Violet smiled at him.

"Thanks Dad.", replied Violet shortly. She was wearing an attractive navy blue shirt with jeans.

"I'll have her here by 8 P.M, Mr Parr, Mrs. Parr.", Tony promised.

"See you later.", said Helen.

As Tony and Violet disappeared from their sight, Helen closed the door.

"Honey," Bob started, "Would you like to see Star Wars too?" He was looking out at Tony and Violet's direction through the front window.

Helen rolled her eyes and sighed.

It's gonna be a long evening...

The End

A.N: I would like to think that Bob can be an overprotective Dad. Especially towards Violet. I'm back writing fanfictions after I swore never to write them anymore.