Chapter Text
"It's a...a what?"
For a rarity, she's not tied, but sitting freely in her chair with the little card held in both hands. She looks like she's trying to bite back laughter, but the fact that she's trying is...encouraging. He shoots Minion a covert look.
See?! I told you!
Minion just shuts his eyes, shaking his head.
Doubty little henchfish.
"A frequent kidnapping card," Megamind says again, swishing his cape behind him as he comes around to stand at her side. "See these little squares? Every time we kidnap you, you get a stamp here. And once you've filled up the card—"
He lowers his voice, looming over her, aiming for sinister—observes, with delighted surprise and gratification, the way her spine stiffens, her shoulders even twitching in a quick, convulsive little motion that might, with hardly any imaginative license at all, be construed as a suppressed shiver.
"—you win," he murmurs, all silken menace, turning the promise into a threat, "a prize, Miss Ritchi."
Her eyes flick up to his, her fingers tightening on the card.
"What, ah. What kind of prize?"
"You'll have to fill it up and find out." He tries not to seem too eager or excited.
Dignity can be hard to hold on to around Roxanne sometimes.
Like now. With her looking up at him like that—looking up and starting to smile, all knowing and smirky.
Megamind swirls his cape again, striding confidently towards the console and, because he's all puffed up with happy feelings about Roxanne and has his head in the clouds, entirely fails to step over the power cord for the laser drill, trips and tangles himself in it, falls off of the platform still wrapped up in the damn thing, and dangles helplessly over the pit while Metro Man swoops in to put the final touches on today's disaster.
Anyway.
It takes some months for the card to fill up. This is, of course, part of the Plan. He needs the time to lay the groundwork and...well. To work up the guts to actually tell her what the prize is.
He prepares himself for disgust, for anger, for accusations and laughter and ridicule and every other possible form he could imagine her rejection taking.
Which is a lot, his mind has no lack of imagination when it comes to how she might say no; the only thing he has difficulty with is actually imagining she might say yes or of what would happen after that yes.
Confessing his feelings to her in the first place—no. He has to skip that part, every time, because his will isn't quite strong enough to conjure any version where the word yes passes her lips.
Afterwards, though, that he can see. The two of them sitting on the couch together, maybe, with Roxanne pressed into his side and his arm around her shoulders and maybe there's a movie on the TV, and she'd be watching that but he would be watching her.
Or having dinner together—he can imagine that, too, both in the Lair and out, in some public restaurant...like a real date. Like a real couple, just two normal people who smile at each other over candlelight and hold hands and in these daydreams she laughs at every one of his jokes.
That's the best part, imagining her smiling at him and laughing and holding his arm or leaning against his shoulder. Maybe sitting together on her balcony watching the sun set over the city.
So. Dating. He can imagine...dating Roxanne.
You will try. You will try, damn it.
The worst she can do is say no.
She says no.
It's horrible, just the absolute. fucking. WORST.
Roxanne calls off work for the week and spends the whole time locked up in her apartment, windows shut and lights off, consoling herself with all her favorite movies and too much take-out and pizza. Telling herself a thousand lies she can't believe.
Things like, It will be okay.
And, Don't panic.
And, It could be worse, you could have said YES and just imagine kissing him and touching him and then he shouts, Surprise! and the lights come up and he's laughing because he recorded the whole humiliating thing just imagine...
Yeah, she's never been great at soothing self-talk.
Megamind had flipped his cape back and tilted his chin and fixed her with that burning smolder and he'd said—
—what he'd said—
—in that smooth, silky voice that goes straight to the pit of her belly and lights everything on fire—and Roxanne Ritchi, who faces deathtraps on a weekly basis—
Had flat-out panicked.
The flirting had started as a means to an end, just to trip him up. Harmless, she'd thought, smiling up at him through her lashes and feeling her heart skip when he'd blush or stammer.
But.
Yes.
But.
And now—
And now he knows.
And nothing will ever be okay ever again.
Would California be far enough away, or should she look at immigrating to another country? He'll never let her hear the end of it, he's a supervillain, merciless taunting is practically part of his DNA.
Miss Ritchi you're in loooove with me. There would be pointing and laughing and gloating—
She spends the week chewing her nails and teetering on the edge of nervous panic, waiting for his face on the news being all smarmy and smug and telling everyone her secret.
Only that never happens.
Roxanne goes back to work the following Monday—and never makes it to work. Minion gasses her in the parking garage.
She's so used to the routine that, when she wakes up in the dark of the kidnapping bag, she automatically makes a complaining noise and begins to toss her head, before the rest of her brain comes online sufficiently to make her realize the unequivocally superior course of action here would be to pretend to be unconscious.
But as soon as she thinks that, it's already too late; the kidnapping bag is being torn off of her head like someone ripping a protective bandage off of a half-healed wound, leaving Roxanne wincing in the light, squinting up at—
Minion.
She blinks, eyes drawing involuntarily past Minion to find Megamind—
Who is in a giant spiky robot, a good distance away, his back towards her—and then he turns in the suit and his eyes meet hers and her stomach twists and—
"Miss Ritchi! We meet again!"
Old line, delivered with villainous flair and enthusiasm, except—
"—by the smell of things, you still haven't washed the bag," she says, answering by rote, automatic, and then he turns away, eyes leaving hers, and her stomach clenches even tighter.
It does that throughout the entirety of the evil plot, her stomach, winds itself into roiling, hot knots, tighter each time he so much as glances in her direction, as she waits for him to say it, waits—waits—waits—
—anticipation fretting at the fraying strings of her nerves, coiling and twisting around the knots in her stomach, until she's afraid she might actually be sick, until she's almost ready to shout the words herself, just to get it over with.
Except.
"—last you'll ever see of Roxanne Ritchi!—"
"—oldest evil trick in the book!—"
"—nothing can stop my evil plan now!—"
Except throughout the whole ordeal, the only things Megamind says are almost frantically normal—a skim-the-surface script of supervillainy, more shallow and impersonal than things between them have been since the very early days of the kidnappings.
After the battle, Roxanne finds herself eye-to-eye with Megamind as he stands handcuffed at the side of the police car, waiting to be hauled away. She cringes internally in anticipation, but instead of sneering at her, his eyes go wide and his mouth flattens and his skin pales to a sickly dishwater-gray hue.
He looks like he's about to bolt—or be ill, maybe, seems there's something going around ha-ha—
—and then she bolts, with her heart like thunder in her ears.
Wayne can't quite put his finger on just what is weird about the battle—sure, everything seems normal on the surface, but...
yes. normal.
too normal.
He keeps looking between Roxie and Megamind, tries to catch Minion's eye, trying to see if anyone but him has picked up on the weirdness, but everyone except him seems to have suddenly developed an acute dislike of eye contact—not only are they all refusing to meet Wayne's eyes, they're all avoiding looking directly at each other, too.
It gives him, to be honest, the creeps.
Roxie is practically mechanical for the post-battle interview, doesn't say anything the entire flight to her apartment. He spends the journey silently rehearsing ways to subtly, politely enquire what is going on.
When he sets her gently down on her balcony, though, she collapses into one of the lounge chairs.
Wayne crosses his arms.
"Okay. What's going on."
She hisses through her teeth, fingers rubbing at her temples like she's trying to knead her head into a different shape.
"I'm just—I'm—off my game today, that's all."
Off her game? Yeah. Riiight. The game is what is off.
Wayne diplomatically does not point this out.
"You are never off your game," he says, instead. "Last Christmas you had step throat and a sinus infection and Megamind had to call time out."
She slumps down with her face in her hands. Wayne sighs.
"Alright, look," he says, heroically self-sacrificing his intense need to know on the altar of friendship, "if you don't wanna talk to me—"
"Mnlvw'im," Roxanne says, words muffled by her hands.
Wayne blinks.
"Uhh—sorry, I didn't quite catch that—"
Roxanne raises her face from her hands, fixes him with a look somewhere between tragic and murderous.
"I'm in love with him," she says, enunciating viciously, "Megamind. I love him, I'm in love with him. And—and—he, ah. A while ago, he. Told me he was interested. And. And I said no."
Wayne floats down until his feet hover just above the patio.
Oh—kay. So that's, uh. A lot. To take in.
"...why'd you say no?" he says, asking what is probably the safest question.
"Because I'm a coward."
He slants her a look that says oh come on Roxie and she blows out a breath, looking away from him.
"I am, Wayne. None of that—" she waves a hand "—the deathtraps and the supers business, that's different. We both know he would never actually hurt me."
Yeah, Wayne thinks, because the little guy is madly in love with you and has been since just about the dawn of time.
"So go talk to him."
Roxanne buries her face in her hands and groans dramatically, almost a growling kind of wail. Wayne shakes his head.
Jeeze.
"You want me to go talk to him?"
"No! Jesus, no."
She looks so horrified at the thought it would be comical if it weren't so insulting.
Rude. Like he could say anything worse about it to Megamind than Roxie already has.
Wayne heaves a long-suffering sigh, lets go of the flight to sit down on the wide wall around the edge of the balcony. Crosses a booted foot over one knee, white tassels swinging in the wind. Roxanne mutters a curse word beneath her breath and kicks her heel against the leg of her chair, glaring out at the skyline.
"Roxie, look," Wayne says. "We've had our differences, you and me, but if you want to know what I really think about all this..." He pauses, waits until she looks at him. "You just gotta make a decision. That's all. Just—decide what you're gonna do, and do it. Quit tormenting yourself with what-ifs. That's not the Roxanne Ritchi I know."
So, so tempted just to tell her hey don't worry; Megamind's in love with you, too—but, well, he's probably done enough harm to the guy over the years; the least he can do is keep his trap shut and not meddle too much in this, now.
Roxanne leans back in the chair, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Suck it up and face the music, huh?" she says.
"Hey," he says, "now you've got it!" He shoots her a charming grin, throws in a wink for good measure; she gives him an unimpressed stare, so he floats himself over to where she's sitting and ruffles a hand vigorously in her hair.
She hisses like an angry cat, swats at him like one, too.
"Wayne Scott! Don't! touch! my hair!—damn it—"
He lets her evade him at last and she smoothes her hair back into place, fixing him with a glare somewhat ruined by the smile beneath it.
"Hey, now; that just-been-rescued tousled look is in this season, didn't you know?"
She makes a vulgar gesture at him and he grins, drifts out past the edge of the building.
"—Wayne."
He glances back over his shoulder at her.
Roxanne—she's always such a spitfire it's easy to forget how small she is. But standing there with the wind blowing her blowing hair and her arms crossed over her chest, hands cupping her elbows, she looks very...fragile.
Very human.
"Thanks," she says.
He grins. "Anytime."
She plans her attack for Metro Man Day, which she can't help but feel that Wayne, with his smug just talk to him it's easy pep talk deserves.
Roxanne is nervous until she wakes up the day of and puts on the little red dress with the low collar and slips into a pair of heels.
Sipping her coffee, watching the sun come over the city she feels the nerves settle into excitement.
No point in planning for anything specific—Megamind is anything but predictable. She'll just take whatever opportunity arises. Call a time once things seem clear enough, maybe, and...see how it goes from there.
Take it slow and smooth. Baby steps. Kissing and cuddling and I really like you, too, maybe we should date.
And not confess the whole madly in love with him thing. That would be way too much for the first day.
Slow and easy.
Yeah. She can do this.
There is a decidedly evil tilt to her smile in the mirror as she checks her hair one last time before heading to work.
Megamind won't know what hit him.
"Time out!"
It bursts out in the middle of some nonsense about a microwave of evil, and now all three of them are staring wide-eyed at her.
Minion recovers first, and after a moment of adjusting things on the console, the Deathray powers down. Megamind slides back down onto his feet, staring right at her. Behind him, Minion waves cheerily at the superhero.
"Okay, Mr. Scott! Miss Ritchi called a time out, so I'll be taking her home." He pulls a lever on the console in front of him. The observatory doors above Metro Man grind open, flakes of rust drifting down in the bright beam of sunlight pouring in. Metro Man squints in the view screen.
"Oh? ...Oh! Oh, ah. Yeah! Okay, I'll just—"
The screen goes dark as Minion shuts off the cameras.
"Time out?" Megamind says. "Time out? You're calling time out today?" Nose wrinkled, mouth twisted, utterly incredulous, one arm gesturing behind him at the distant observatory on the hill. "But—wha—augh." Megamind rubs both hands over his face, hard, groaning from behind his fingers. "But this was such a good Plan."
"Yes. Um." Her eyes flick to Minion's face. "Are all the cameras off?"
He looks from Megamind, who is now peering suspiciously at her from between splayed fingers, back to her. She can feel the heat rising in her cheeks.
"Yeah...?"
Roxanne lets out a breath.
This is a lot more nerve-wracking now that it is actually happening. Her heart is vibrating.
"I changed my mind. About the card. I changed my mind. I should have said yes."
Megamind's face goes completely, carefully blank. Minion's eyes switch back and forth between them, his face expression growing confused.
"We discontinued that promotion, Miss Ritchi. You said no."
There is an edge to his low voice and for a dizzying moment her heart falters—has he changed his mind?
She wets her lips and forces herself to meet his eyes.
"I've reconsidered."
Silence, stretching taut between them as he just stares at her. Roxanne wonders if he thinks she's trying to trick him, and gives him a tentative, tremulous smile.
"I don't think your boyfriend will be very happy to hear that."
She refrains from pointing out that he hadn't seemed to care about that before. Wait—
Oh, god—
Had...had the whole thing just been a way to get to Metro Man?
(fuuuUUUUUUUCK)
Roxanne takes a breath, watching him carefully, "Wayne isn't my boyfriend. We've never actually dated. Not even once. He isn't, um. My type."
"Not—not your type?"
Heart pounding beneath her skin, she holds his eyes and says, "No. He's too... good... for me."
Megamind draws in a sharp breath. Then—
"That'll be enough for today, Minion."
"Wha... Wait a minute, what's going on here?"
"Miss Ritchi and I have some things to...discuss."
"About the kidnapping card? Miss Ritchi, I'm so sorry, I tried to talk him out of it but you know how he is when he gets these ideas—"
Megamind fixes him with a fierce glare and draws his hand sharply across his throat and Minion shuts his mouth so fast that, even through the water and the glass of his suit's headpiece, Roxanne can hear his teeth click together.
They step into the deep quiet of his room and the door clicks shut behind them and Roxanne is standing right there, with her hand tucked around his elbow and her hip brushing against his.
"So. This is your room. I've always wondered what it looked like."
"You have?"
A blush stains her cheeks.
"Of course I have." She glances at him from the corner of her eyes. "Would there be spikes, I wondered. Silk sheets? King sized bed?"
"You—" she'd wondered about his bed, oh that was—guhhhh— "I think they're—cotton?" he manages, hoarsely, and Roxanne lets out a breathy snort, looking away from him and smiling.
"Hmm," she says, walking over and bending to run her hand across the blanket.
Her dress is really short and she's wearing the most lovely heels and he lets out an unsteady breath and tears his eyes away from her and—and—
Sees the stupid fuzzy bat slippers on the floor by his desk chair and takes several long, casual sidesteps over to kick them viciously under the desk.
Okay, okay. He can handle this he can do this. He'll just—kiss her.
He'll just.
Kiss.
Roxanne.
What if that isn't enough, though, what if she wants more, what will he do then? Scream for Minion to come rescue him? She is talking about his bed she is touching his bed and if things go...that far he is going to do something truly horrendous like tell her, I love you, or Roxanne will you marry me.
He has, perhaps, not thought this entirely through.
He'd felt a bit like he'd been hit with a fucking freight train when she'd said I changed my mind, I should have said yes.
How about I pick you up on Friday and we go see a movie or something first, would have been so much better of an answer then dragging her straight back to his bedroom
oh my god Megamind WHAT is WRONG with you.
Everything?
Yeah. That seems about right.
Roxanne glances over at Megamind—he's staring into the middle distance blankly, clearly too busy having some kind of nervous crisis to pay attention to her.
Awkward, god, this is so, so awkward.
She chews at her lower lip, face getting hotter—casts desperately around for some sort of, of conversation starter, something, anything—
oh thank god.
A stereo system sitting on his dresser; in lieu of succumbing to a nervous crisis of her own, she walks over to the stereo and clicks play.
Come and get your love
Megamind goes pale behind his hands, lowering them to stare wide-eyed at her over splayed fingers.
"What?" she asks, a surge of unease flooding through her. She glances at the stereo. "It's not...going to explode or something is it?"
"No. What? No. No, it's...perfectly fine. Fine. Everything's fine. Perfect. Perfectly. Um."
She watches his throat move as he swallows.
"Do you...not like the song? I can put a different tape in if you—"
Megamind shoots across the room towards her at warp speed and the sheer panic on his face has her, despite his reassurances about the low probability of it exploding, immediately taking several long steps away from the stereo.
"No!" he half-shouts. "No! It—the song's fine, I love the song, it's—ah—"
The end notes of Come and Get Your Love fade into a slow drumbeat and vibrant guitar strains.
Megamind twitches, whole body jittering back and sideways, as if hit by an invisible sucker-punch, and all at once, Roxanne is vibrating on the edge of potential hysteria, shaken-soda-can laughter bubbling up until she has to bite her lips to keep it from spilling out. Oh god don't let her start laughing; if she starts laughing she's not sure she's going to be able to stop—
Baby
when I think about you
I think about loooove
Darling
Don't wanna live without you And your looooove
I FEEL LIKE MAKIN—
A blue flash, and the music cuts off abruptly.
Megamind fumbles the de-gun back into the holster at his hip in a silence was so loud it almost pulses.
"Going to be a little awkward, without music," Roxanne says after a silent eternity of a moment.
Megamind lets out a breath. His eyes keep darting all around the room, everywhere but at her.
"—so are we gonna do this, or what?"
Voice too loud, her estimation of volume thrown off by the deafening silence. Megamind flinches again, fingers grasping at the edges of his cape. He swallows visibly, green eyes wide—takes a deep breath.
"Right!" he says, voice just as too-loud as hers. "Yes, of course; let's..."
Megamind takes a breath and then a step towards her. Her heart lifts, exited, buzzing with nerves and anticipation but... Megamind looks a little like he is walking to his doom, flat, pinched mouth, wrinkled brow, heavy directionless gaze.
It isn't exactly doing good things for her confidence.
And then he's in front of her, leaning forward, head tilting and eyes slipping shut and Roxanne's mind fizzles into wild static and she tips her head towards his, lips parting and—
Megamind makes a noise like a harpsichord being dropped down a flight of stairs, and scuttles away from her, backwards and sideways, leaving her standing there, off balance and staring at his back.
The elevator her stomach is on hits the bottom.
Megamind, back still towards her, presses a hand to his mouth, shakes his head back and forth sharply, and the remains of Roxanne's dignity, lying shredded around her, burst into furious flame.
"I knew it," she hisses, not sure if she's more angry with him or with herself. "You are bluffing."
He straightens his shoulders—she can almost hear his teeth grinding.
"I am not," he says.
He drops his hand from his mouth, clenches it in a fist at his side.
"No? Prove it. Get back over here and kiss me."
He whirls, cape swirling around him like black ink in water, eyes dark and furious, as though he's the one with the right to be angry, here—
"Why?" a snarl, glare fixed on her face. "Why are you doing this?"
"I told you—"
A sharp gesture of one black-gloved hand cuts her off.
"—no," he says, "what you told me was no, Miss Ritchi—"
"I know that; I told you I—"
"What, changed your mind?" he says incredulously. "Just—went back home and thought to yourself 'huh, you know, on second thought, maybe I don't find the giant-headed blue supervillain completely repulsive after all—"
"Repuls—I never said repulsive!"
"Why else would you say no?"
"I thought you were trying to trick me!"
"Trick you? Why would I trick you about—"
"Because you know how I feel and—"
Oh.
Oh, no.
Shit. Shitshitshit—
But it's too late, and she's staring at him now with eyes wide, feeling horribly exposed. Her face is burning and her heart seems to have quit working somewhere along the line—
Megamind goes very still, then takes a slow, deliberate step towards her.
His eyes narrow, fixed like twin green lasers on her face.
"How you feel..." he repeats slowly.
A string of curses runs seamlessly through her mind and her heart slams against her ribs, as if trying to make up for its previous inactivity. Roxanne clenches her fists, trying to breathe; Megamind takes another step towards her and she backs up so fast she falls onto the bed with an undignified little bounce.
He stops, watches her through slitted eyes. Tilts his head to one side.
"How do you feel, Miss Ritchi?" Low, silken voice.
Fuck. Her fingers dug into the sheets.
Well.
Not like telling him the truth can make things any worse.
She takes a breath. Lets it out. Unclenches her fingers and rests her hands on her lap and looks up into his eyes.
"Megamind, I'm in love with you."
His expression—shifts, face moving in the most rapid and dramatic change of expression she's ever seen it go through.
The familiar supervillain expression melts, blue skin shading gray. His jaw drops open. No sound comes out.
And then his eyes roll back in his head and Roxanne barely scrambles up from the bed and makes it across the distance in time to catch him as he faints.