Yes, I know – I suck.

And I'm very, very sorry about that.

I don't know why I keep forgetting about this fic.

You reviewers have always been so souper

Thank you, Nny11, the real Violet Parr, soccergurl1990, Edani, DElf4242, dyu123 and TonyLoaf from i-kronos for REMINDING ME

I really do need it.

So sorry about the ridiculously huge delay

I hope this chapter keeps you going for a while. I'll try and be faster next time.

Enjoy! Love LJ xXx

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Throw Me. Chapter Seventeen. It's All Relative: Part Three

- o -

"Bob..." Helen begins uncertainly, dodging another punch and ducking a thrown car tyre. She tries again, more forcefully now: "Bob – listen to me, I know you're there." She tucks a strand of her auburn hair behind her ear decisively and springs across to the opposite rooftop.

"Bob – where are you? You need to get past this, honey," she says, striking inspiration. "You just missed Jack-Jack's first powers. He isn't powerless after all. And it got me thinking, you know, Bob. It got me thinking about how we found out about Vi and Dash's powers. Remember that?"

Her husband starts to rip down the tower block on which she's standing but Helen Parr is, as ever, unperturbed and continues. "Remember when Vi was just learning to crawl and I was out at the store? It was before we knew she had any sort of powers and I left you with her. I remember coming back to find you lifting up all the couches and furniture; you had the guilt written all over your face. You thought you'd lost her, remember? You'd been playing hide and seek and she'd just disappeared..."

Helen jumps the building just before Bob knocks down foundations completely. He apparently does not remember.

"I know you're in there, Bob," Helen yells, making a quick escape across the tops of buildings and houses. "You gotta get past this."

-

Dash follows his sister as she jogs down the street. It's an infuriatingly slow pace for him but then he doesn't know where she's aiming for so he can't exactly go on ahead.

"What's going on, Vi?" he asks as he runs.

"The voice," she says between breaths. "I recognise it. I need to check something out." And she stops outside a house Dash doesn't recognise. Vi is already halfway up the path and Dash, pausing, turns his head to the mail box and reads off it one word: Rydinger.

He looks up in surprise and speeds down in his sister's footsteps towards the front door. It opens when he gets there. Tony stands in the doorway. He blinks. He rubs his eyes.

"Uhh..." he looks at the two small supers dazedly. "Can I help you?"

"Tony," Violet begins. "Tony – I need your help with something."

"How do you know who I am?" he asks uncertainly and Violet remembers her mask and costume.

"I just do," she says.

Tony hesitates for a moment and then lets them both in. His mother, father and younger sister crowd around the television set. Like every family in the state right now, they are transfixed by the news bulletin which dominates most channels, showing terrifying footage of The Super Who's Betrayed The City and the latest announcement: that police security systems have been alerted of convicted super, Mirage's illegal use of her powers.

Tony's family don't even notice the supers trooping into their home and to their middle son's bedroom. If they did see them, in their matching suits, they would have certainly chucked them out or called the cops. Violet is grateful then that Tony is Super-Obsessed enough to think optimistically and not only hope but to know, that right now he can't trust the media's insinuations.

"What do you need me for?" he asks, shutting the door. Violet peers around his room.

She looks at him directly – she'd missed that and makes a mental note to tell him he was right. To tell him she forgives him – and trusts him. Because she understands now, it all makes so much sense.

"I need to borrow your address book," she tells him.

With a shrug of his shoulders, he opens a drawer and hands it to her. As her gloved hand brushes his, he narrows his eyes and looks closer into the black-masked face.

"...Violet?" he murmurs apprehensively. Her eyes widen beneath the mask. And then, tucking the small book into her pocket, suddenly she isn't there anymore.

Tony Rydinger hears a swoosh of air where the small blonde boy once stood. His bedroom door opens and shuts within the second. He knows his room is empty and he sits with a sigh back onto the edge of his bed. Maybe, he thinks, maybe someone will find the truth.

-

"How about Dash, Bob?" Helen tries again, urgently. "Remember when he first got his powers?"

Bob throws another punch at her and Helen evades it again – just. She's tiring now and knows his stamina tops hers. She knows that, despite her far superior agility, he can keep fighting for longer than she can. She knows that. She knows him.

"Come on, Bob – please," she calls, leaping behind him. He turns slowly and throws a taxi-cab at her which she manages to avoid. "Please, Bob. You have to fight this."

-

The room is freezing cold and Lucius continues concentrating all of his efforts on keeping the temperature in decline. A smile crosses his face when the outline of his kidnapper shivers suddenly.

"What's going on?" he turns to Lucius. "Stop that!"

Distracted for a moment, he loses his grip on the task at hand.

"Stop it!" the high-pitched scream splits from the lips of Mr. Incredible standing out in the city streets. "What are you doing? Stop that!"

"Who are you?" Helen demands of the foreign voice emitting from her husbands mouth, trying to piece together what's going on.

But as soon as she yells the words, the attacker is aware of his slip-up and grits his teeth, ignoring the sub-zero temperatures. He doesn't have much time, he realises, and swings another punch at Elastigirl, who'd inched closer.

-

Helen springs behind him again and latches onto his muscular back.

"Bob – don't let this beat you." she whispers in his ear desperately. "You can't leave me now, Bob. I'm not..." she pauses. Bob notices her on his shoulder and reaches back for her. "I'm not strong enough."

Her whispered words travel down his ear and send a shiver down his spine. Something in him stirs and sharpens. The hazy world become clear – like a free-diver surfacing at the last moment; another second under and he would've been lost forever.

But as he breaks the surface of his trapped world, the attacker took one last shot. While Bob had still been struggling to get back control over his own body, his hands had reached over his back. They had grabbed hold of his wife and hauled her, with effortless strength, off from where she clung onto him. She'd been too intent on the words that whispered from her lips to react fast enough.

His arms pulled her over his head. The held her in the air for a split-second and, with Bob's own eyes regaining consciousness of what he was seeing, flung her with all the strength in his biceps against the wall of the crumbling building.

"No!" he yells, seeing what he couldn't prevent his body from doing. "No – no, Helen!"

The building showers her in plaster and stone from the impact of her body hitting the side. He yells. He runs to her. He brushes her auburn hair and the gritty dust from her face.

"Helen...Oh God...what have I...?"

Her eyes are closed.

"...What have I done?"

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