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"If you forget me, think
of our gifts to Aphrodite
and all the loveliness that we shared
"all the violet tiaras,
braided rosebuds, dill and
crocus twined around your young neck
"myrrh poured on your head
and on soft mats girls with
all that they most wished for beside them
"while no voices chanted
choruses without ours,
no woodlot bloomed in spring without song..."
-Sappho
Violet Parr has saved the world twice in her short fourteen years of life.
Well, not entirely by herself, and maybe not the entire world, but the point is―she, Violet Parr, is a hero. A young, relatively untrained hero―not for lack of her and Dash’s pestering―but a hero nonetheless.
Fourteen is a difficult age for anyone, but it’s especially difficult if you have powers. Powers that were previously illegal but are now legal thanks, in part, to her―and her baby brother that could shoot lasers out of his eyes, but that's besides the point―almost dying at the hands of crazy adults. Again.
But fourteen.
It’s her last year of junior high, and high school is next. High school.
Violet shudders at the thought.
She leaves Tony Rydinger stranded at the movie theaters in order to chase a band of robbers with her family (because nothing builds family bonds quite like fighting crime together!) and resolves to not let this happen again.
It does.
Tony’s a nice guy, really, and Violet likes him, she really does, but not enough to set aside being a hero. And, honestly, when she thinks about it, she’d rather spend time with her family than with a boy she barely knows and who she won’t be able to share stories with about her many heroic misadventures. She can do that with her family.
They decide―rather diplomatically for fourteen year olds―that they’re better off as just friends. Her parents make a big fuss about it all and ask if she’s okay, but Violet is fine. Surprisingly, she isn’t bothered about the loss of her relationship with Tony at all. If you could call a dozen or so missed dates and awkward interactions in the hallways a relationship in the first place.
Boys are stupid anyways. Dash is enough proof of that. Jack Jack is okay, Violet supposes. But he’s just a baby so he has time to develop the traditional annoying habits that all boys have.
Fourteen is a difficult age for anyone. Violet has to juggle eighth grade and being a superhero and is oftentimes still left on babysitting duty when the bad guys look a little too intense for her and Dash. Dash voices his complaints loudly every time and threatens to escape to help in their dad’s car.
Dad just fixes Dash with a look that wouldn’t be nearly as intimidating if Mom wasn’t making the exact same look right behind his shoulder―they let him pretend that he’s the scary parent in the family―and says that if he tries anything so stupid he’ll sign him up for summer math camp. Mom’s eyes promise much, much worse.
Violet is upset at being left out of hero activities as well, but she understands why. She’s fourteen. She’s mature . Much more mature than Dash, anyways, who still accidentally sinks the couch in water at least twice a week. They really needed to invest in a waterproof couch. Or just hide the floor remote from Dash.
But Violet understands a lot more than she used to. She knows that her parents are just trying to protect her and her brothers for as long as they can, because they know that there are people who would try to take advantage of them and their powers. Who would not bat an eyelash at their age and who would not hesitate to unleash their full strength onto them.
“Baby steps,” mom tells them, stern and unflinching despite Dash’s whining, and Violet agrees. She’d rather be able to do small hero things than not be able to be a hero at all. She’s spent too long not using her powers, she wants to be herself now. Violet just wants to be .
She’s fourteen and thinks she’s got things all figured out, and then Lucius shows up on a Thursday night―not unusual for him, he’s over all the time, trying to make amends for nearly killing them, even though it wasn’t his fault, not really―and throws a gigantic wrench in her supposedly stable identity.
A girl-sized wrench, to be precise.
Her name is Rose and her skin is dark and warm like the earth, like Lucius’s, and her eyes are a deep golden brown. Her hair is the most magnificent thing Violet has ever seen, big and beautiful and untamed. Violet’s never seen hair like that before. Lucius barely has any and Honey’s is always braided tightly. She’s wearing pants and a black t-shirt with a denim jacket tossed casually over her shoulders, and when Lucius introduces her to Violet she salutes and blows a bright pink bubble that pops almost mockingly in Violet’s face.
“Hi.”
Just the one word is enough to throw Violet’s world off its axis, and she feels her cheeks heating up for no apparent reason and she feels the urge to hide, to make herself invisible, but her mother says it’s rude to do that when they have guests over so she refrains.
“My sister just dumped her at my doorstep,” Lucius explains, looking rather frazzled. It’s quite the change from his usual demeanor, cool and unbothered. “Said she couldn’t deal with the stress of it all, and that I was better equipped―” Violet tunes the conversation out after that, content to just watch Rose look entirely uninterested at everything that’s happening around her. From what Violet can gather, she has powers, like Lucius, and her mom apparently couldn’t handle that.
“She also screamed that she didn’t want a dyke living under her roof, so there’s that.”
The room freezes.
Violet’s never heard that word before, doesn’t know what it means, but Lucius moves as if to shield her, gauging her parents’ reactions. Obviously it means something important.
“Oh, sweetheart,” her mom scoops the girl into a hug and Lucius’s shoulders relax, and Violet’s dad just nods at him―he’s never been the best at emotions―and Rose looks bewildered.
Violet just shrugs at her, and Rose smiles back, tentatively.
Something inside Violet’s stomach flutters violently, and she ignores it.
Later, after Lucius and Rose have gone, stuffed to the brim with advice from her parents and a promise to talk to the administration of Violet’s school about a transfer―she and Rose are the same age, after all―Violet thinks back to that word .
“Mom? What did Rose mean? When she said―”
Her mother cuts her off before she can repeat it, and as she explains Violet’s stomach falls. It’s a horrible word to call someone. Never ever repeat it, Violet, do you hear me?
“But what does it mean? ” Violet persists.
“It means…” her mother hesitates. “It means that Rose likes girls the way you liked Tony Rydinger.”
“Oh.”
Oh .
Violet hadn’t known that was possible.
Fourteen is a difficult age for anyone, but Violet supposes it must be harder when you’ve been kicked out of the only home you’ve ever known and forced to transfer to a different school in the middle of December.
People whisper about Rose, gossip spreads as to who she is, where she comes from, why she’s here. Violet ignores all of it and slams her locker rather angrily when she hears people talking about Rose. Honestly, they should just mind their own business.
“What’s the new girl’s deal?” Tony asks her somewhat hopefully.
“What do you mean?”
“Is she single?” Violet gawks and doesn’t know what to say for a moment, because she doesn’t want to say no and let Rose deal with advances she clearly doesn’t want, but she also can’t tell him about Rose.
“I think she has a boyfriend in another city, and she misses him terribly,” Violet lies instead, and out of the corner of her eye she can see Rose, watching them. Rose smiles at her, and Violet supposes she’s done the right thing.
Rose approaches her the next day, materializing as if out of thin air from behind Violet’s locker door, cloaked in her usual denim and with a lazy smirk settled on her face.
“Violet, right?”
Violet knows that Rose knows her name, but she plays along anyways, rolling her eyes.
“Yeah.”
“I guess I’ll need someone to show me around the city, since I’m new,” Rose proposes, golden brown eyes studying Violet intently, as though she’s looking for something, “don’t suppose you’d know anybody willing, would’ya?” Violet feels a small flushing of heat rise to her cheeks and fights it down, because she doesn’t know why Rose makes her feel quite so anxious, and hopes the other girl doesn’t notice.
(She definitely does, smirk growing into the familiar grin Violet sees on Lucius’s face.)
“I could, if you want.”
“That’d be great, Vi, thanks.”
She sweeps away as quickly as she’d come, and Violet is left wondering what exactly is happening. Her cheeks are flushed and she feels a bit dizzy. What is Rose doing to her?
Violet shows her around to the theater, and the best diners―she pointedly avoids visiting Tony’s place of work, because the people there know her as “the water girl” and she doesn’t want Rose to know about that for some reason―and the little ice cream shop at the corner of Huckleberry Street that people forget about, but has the best handmade cones.
Rose comes over to her house one day while her parents are off saving the world, and Dash is at track and field practice, so it’s just the two of them and Jack Jack, who is content to watch the news.
“Weird baby,” Rose comments. She doesn’t know the half of it.
Violet demonstrates her powers—she assumes Rose already knows, she has been on the news a few times, now to brag—but Rose amuses her and claps at each demonstration.
“What can you do?” She had a bet going with Dash. He thought she would be an elemental, like her uncle, maybe fire, but Violet thinks she’s more of a defensive type.
Rose leads her outside and with a little coaxing the yard sprouts into something magnificent. Flowers bloom everywhere, and Violet laughs, marveling in the beauty of it all while Rose smiles at her.
She spots a violet within arms reach and picks it, presenting it to Rose proudly. The other girl accepts it tentatively and smiles at her. It’s a different smile than any of the other ones Violet has seen. Softer.
“Thanks, Vi.”
Jack Jack cries from inside and their moment is lost, because who knows what that baby could get up to when upset.
Life continues. Her family saves the world, Jack Jack burns a stuffed raccoon with his laser eyes for reasons unknown. Dash continues to be the most obnoxious little brother in human history.
Rose fits in there somewhere, but Violet isn’t quite sure where. She feels more important than a friend but Violet doesn’t have the word to describe it.
Dash is the one who points it out.
“Yanno, you talk about Rose an awful lot like you used to talk about Tony.” He says it casually and then continues to eat his Fiber’os, not knowing he’s sent his sister into a panic.
Did she ever really like Tony in the first place? Or did she like the idea of being normal?
A memory surfaces. “ We act normal, mom. I want to BE normal! The only normal one is Jack Jack, and he’s not even toilet trained!”
She had been wrong about Jack Jack. Maybe she was wrong about herself, too.
She calls Void—they’re friends with all of the supers who tried to kill them now—because she can’t talk to Rose about this, for obvious reasons. Plus, Void has blue hair.
Void—Karen—shows up the next day cheery-eyed and Violet immediately drags her to her room to interrogate her away from prying eyes.
“How did you know?” she asks.
“How did I know what?”
“That you like… you know.” She doesn’t want to say it out loud. Saying out loud makes it real. Karen laughs, throwing her head back.
“It’s the hair, isn’t it?” Violet nods and she chuckles some more before talking. “Well, honestly, growing up I always had a bit of a crush on your mom—” Violet takes an appropriate amount of time to be horrified by this revelation “—don’t look at me like that, your mom’s anyone’s dream woman. But then, when I was only a little older than you, actually, I met this girl…”
Fourteen is a difficult age for anyone, but it’s harder when you have to juggle saving the world every other month and having a sexuality crisis.
Violet avoids Rose for the better part of a week before plucking up the courage to see her. Lucius welcomes her in warmly and Honey kisses her on the forehead, directing her to Rose’s room.
The violet she gave her is tucked safely into a pot on the windowsill and it makes her smile. Rose looks up from her homework and smiles at Violet.
“Wanna go for a walk?” she offers, and Violet agrees.
“Did you know?” Violet asks her. Rose looks at her patiently to continue as they wander the streets. “That I was…” her voice stutters. “...like you.”
“I had an inkling,” is all Rose offers as they keep walking. “Did you know that women used to offer their lesbian lovers violets as a secret declaration of love?” Violet’s cheeks flush bright red and she sputters and Rose laughs, warm and throaty and beautiful, and beams at her.
“Honestly,” Rose teases, “you came on a little strong.”
She still needs to tell her parents, her brother, needs to figure out how this will affect her all, but this is a good start.
Rose must notice her inner panic, because she offers some sage advice.
“Listen, if I can survive as a black superpowered lesbian, you can survive as just a lesbian superhero.” She’s very logical. And besides, Karen does it too.
Violet shivers as a rather strong gust of wind rustles past them, and Rose wastes no time shimmying the denim jacket off of herself and draping it over Violet’s shoulders. They walk together in the moonlight, and when Rose’s hand brushes past Violet’s, she takes it.
Fourteen is a difficult age for anyone, but Violet thinks she’ll survive with Rose by her side.