Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He’s going to make a hero. He has the Diffuser Gun full of Metro Man’s DNA. All he needs now is a suitable subject, someone with a noble heart and mind who puts the welfare of others above their own.

And then the phone rings, and Roxanne Ritchie is right outside the Evil Lair.

It all goes wrong rather quickly after that. She’s too smart, far too smart, for her own good, and even the incredibly handsome super-genius and master of all villainy that he is, he can’t — look, he’s trying to keep up right now, but he has to be Megamind and Bernard whatshisname the boring man at the same time. Pretending to be a normal boring not-genius of a man makes planning and scheming on the fly so much harder—

— don’t get him wrong, he’s doing an excellent job of flicking back and forth and Roxanne has no idea—

— but something has to go wrong, she always meddles in his plans, it’s kind of her thing, her trademark. So of course, somehow, Miss Ritchie gets the gun, and when Megamind tries to get it back from her, she holds on, not letting go, and there is a tussle, and—

Well. The gun goes off.

“Oh no!” He hears his voice pitching in genuine fear as the bolt of gold ricochets around the room. Arms twining around the difuser gun like it might comfort him, he watches in wide-eyed panic as his one shot, his only chance to make everything right again, just pings off of equipment and tubing and—

Roxanne screams, and recoils, both hands going to her face, and then she loses her balance and her knees hit the concrete. She’s holding her face, her nose all swollen.

The world stops for Megamind, for a moment. 

He has never heard Miss Ritchie scream before. 

He finds that he doesn’t really like it at all, not one bit, no sir.

And the way that she looks at him now is even worse. Her eyes aren’t focused but she’s angry and confused and... 

And is that blood? 

Her nose is bleeding, she looks terrifying and savage and hurt, she’s hurt, he hurt her, he’s never hurt her before, he’s never ever ever hurt her before, and now he has, but it was an accident and he reaches out as though he could maybe fix it, he can fix it, he just needs to— apologise? 

He needs to apologise. 

Like.

Right now.

Because that’s blood. 

She’s bleeding her blood because he shot her—

—and she’s looking at him like that, and…

His voice is very small, as small as he feels right now. “Roxa—”

“BERNARD!” She yells, casting her eyes around the room. “Help me, Bernard!”

Of course Miss Ritche would never call for Megamind, the villain, never, not ever. Especially not now! She doesn’t even want to look at him right now, because he had hurt her - villain! scoundrel! cad! monster!

She gets to her feet, shaky, but she’s never been one to let a little head trauma slow her down (has she ever had head trauma before? Not from him. This is the first time he’s ever hurt her, even if it was by accident — it’s so bad, it’s bad in a way that is bad for good and bad for bad at the same time — and he gave her head trauma!). Off she goes, staggering the first few steps but then she’s running for the Exit. Yelling for Bernard.

The Exit?!

“No no no no no,” Megamind throws down the Diffuser Gun and bolts after her, twisting the watch at the last second, the hardlight flickering into place around him. “Roxanne—!”

She’s windmilling, trying to keep her balance, while the alligators (they’re crocodiles, but he’d never correct her, ever, even the very smartest people are allowed to mis-identify animals used in deathtraps, it’s fine, it’s never bothered him, honest!) jump and snap and forget their toys and the soothing disco beat because they recognise her as The One They Have To Threaten and— 

— but it’s fine! He has her wrist and he’s pulling her to safety (he saved her, he won’t realise for a while but he just saved her!).

“Bernard!” (And she looks at him like she’s so happy to be saved, but it’s hard to focus on that, because her face is swollen, her nose, he did that to her, he hurt her, that’s blood on her face, he made her bleed, he made Roxanne Ritchie bleed).

He - Bernard - pulls her back out of the Exit (she kind of spins in his grip, twirls like they’re dancing; that might be nice, dancing with Miss Ritchie, but now really isn’t the time to be thinking like that) and for a moment he just holds her wrist, staring at her. His mouth works the air a moment, trying to find the right thing to say, something Bernard would say. “… Are you alright?” His voice still feels small, feels offensive to put into the world, how dare he even speak, even exist, after what he just did, after what he did to her—

She’s fierce and angry and her eyes are so bright. Oh, those eyes. They’re so blue, and beautiful (who knew that blue could be beautiful? not him) and what has he done to her. 

“I’m fine.” She twists her hand in his grip, grabs him instead, and pulls him after her as she starts to run. “Let’s get out of here!”

He wishes he wasn’t wearing gloves. He wants to feel the warmth of her skin on his skin (because she looks like she’s running a fever, she’s hurt and it’s his fault, he wants to make sure she’s okay, but he’s a monster — her hands are strong but she’s not hurting him as she pulls him, as they run, as they dash through the lair, they’re running together). The holographic hardlight disguise keeps them apart, keeps her touch just not quite on him. It’s a little unfair. But they’re running together and she’s holding his arm and that’s —

— she’s bleeding, how dare he think about her like this —

She’s so quick, and vicious, and there’s dynamite on the table that was meant for the Robo-Sheep project (he was going to get back to that, right after — oh, no, no, he can’t make them now, not if it’s Roxanne, he can’t threaten her with it, she can’t be the hero because if she’s the hero then he won’t be a supervillain he’d just be a villain and—) and she lets go of his hand to snatch a brainbot from the air (she’s so brilliant, using a spark to light the fuse, making a weapon on the run, she’s so powerful, even when her face is swollen up and she’s dying and it’s all his fault). She gives him the dynamite, while she focuses on the path ahead, on maintaining her balance while she runs. She even banters while she runs, like she’s fine, and he doesn’t understand how she can—

“Daddy’s sorry,” he whispers, as he throws the dynamite behind him. The brainbots will be okay! He built them tough! And it’s not like he’s throwing the dynamite as himself, right? So he’s not Daddy being mean! He’s being Bernard right now, and that should be okay. Roxanne needs to be okay, she needs to be okay, oh evil gods what has he done? 

He shot her! 

In the face! 

No! 

No no no! 

It’s going to be okay! 

Everything’s going to be fine and he’s not going to have a panic attack!

There’s fire and smoke, and they can catch their breath together out in the sunshine. Bernard and Miss Ritchie. Just them. The two of them together. Her eyes are blue!

“We made it,” she says, all cheerful, like her face isn’t broken and bloody and oh evil gods he really is going to have a panic attack.

He reaches out for her, holding her face in both hands. He just needs to touch her, he knows it’s wrong but he’s been so wrong about everything, and now he shot her in the face. But he wants to touch her, wants to make sure she’s okay. “Are you alright? You’re not alright.”

“I’m fine.” She smiles, her eyes still bright and blue, so blue.

He can’t breathe. How can she smile at him like that when he just—!

He chokes, shoulders hitching, and her immediate response is concern.

“Hey, Bernard,” her voice is soft, and soothing, and she puts both of her hands over his, holding him steady, stopping his knees from buckling. “It’s okay. I’m fine. I’m fine, see?”

“No, no, you just— y-you’re not— you’re b-blee-eeding and - and- and - and - I? I? I? I?” A broken record of a noise, or the yelp of an animal in pain.

She shushes him, gently. Shhhh. The sound of the waves. It’s nice. It helps. She squeezes his hands. “It’s okay, Bernard.” She doesn’t wipe the blood on her face away, she just focuses on him, entirely on him. “Take a deep breath, okay? Deep breaths. Breathe with me…”

He wants to cry. He wants to cry and hold her and apologise and fix this — he can fix this. He has to fix this. He didn’t mean to hurt her and he doesn’t want her to bleed and he’s going to have to make this all better and then spend the rest of his life atoning for this one stupid — 

“Breathe with me. Deep breath in, okay? And… let it out. One more time, Bernard, stay with me.”

He hurt her. He’s never hurt her before. Ever. None of the deathtraps were ever meant to hurt her. It was a game, it was always a game and she was always free to call a timeout. 

“This was an accident,” he manages, through breaths that feel more like hiccups, standing on legs that feel like toothpicks. 

Her expression shifts a little, and she lifts one hand from his to touch at her nose. She winces - he flinches - but then she gives a wry smile and a shrug like it’s no big deal. “Yeah. Just an accident. That’s why gun safety’s so important. Focus, c’mon. Keep breathing, Bernard, okay? Breathe with me. You’re gonna be okay. I promise.”

He’s going to be okay? She promises? She promises he’s going to be okay?

“But what about you?” He almost sobs.

“I’m fine.”

He looks at those eyes - so blue, so strong, so powerful - and he believes her. Miss Roxanne Ritchie would never tell a lie, not with eyes like that. 

“Breathe, Bernard.”

So he does. Inhale, and exhale. He just looks at her and breathes, her hands holding his hands to her face. His whole world is that face, those beautiful blue eyes and the freckles and the smile on her lips and the trickle of blood coming out of her nose. She tells him to breathe - inhale and exhale - and he does.

And then she hugs him, and tells him everything’s going to be okay. No-one’s ever hugged him before. Not— not unprompted. Not suddenly and seriously and with a smile like this. Not Roxanne Ritchie. Roxanne Ritchi is hugging him.

He tentatively hugs her back, dazed, drowning in the unexpected endorphins. 

“You did a good job in there, Bernard.” She rubs his back, then pats twice, leaning back to look him in the eye. She smiles. She’s so brave, she’s in pain but she’s smiling for him. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

“Call me?” What?

She smiles. “Yeah, partner. We’ve got an evil plan to decipher, remember?” She squeezes his shoulder. “… I might stop by the hospital,” she murmurs, reaching up to touch her nose.

“Hospital? Dude.” And there’s an interruption (thank the evil gods, actually, because Megamind might just start panicking all over again) in the form of a red-haired camera man with murder in his eyes. “What did you do, dude?!”

“Hal!”

The camera man shoves him. Megamind stumbles back, losing his balance, falling to the ground (this feels familiar, been pushed around since I was born but it’s alright, it’s okay, you can look the other way) but Roxanne Richie moves around the angry, yelling camera man and offers a hand to help Bernard to his feet. She tells him to breathe.

She’s so nice. She’s bleeding and her face is swollen and she’s helping someone else. Like her own welfare doesn’t…

Oh.

Oh.

Oh…

She—

How long has Roxanne Ritchie been a hero?

He watches her, breathless for another reason entirely (maybe for, like, five or six? Let’s go with six: six other reasons), and nods when she asks if he’s fine.

“Are you? You got shot, and—”

“It was an accident,” she says. “I’ll be okay.”

Hal glowers like a school bully at Bernard but then simpers and fawns over Roxanne, offering to take her to the hospital, to be her partner from now on because like obviously the nerd can’t…

Roxanne turns and smiles at Bernard. “I’ll call you,” she says. She just — she just says it, like that, to him, smiling like that, and it stops Megamind’s heart for a moment.

(Yeah. Yeah, uh, six reasons, at least.)

(Partner? Roxanne Ritchie wants to be his partner?)

It isn’t until the news van is peeling down the street that he realises she’s got Metro Man’s DNA suffusing in her veins, and the panic kicks in again.

He wheezes a small choked scream. 

“Sir? Is everything okay, sir?” Minion’s voice comes through the watch. (It’s been coming through for a while, but he hasn’t noticed, he’s been staring down the street and thinking about the hug and—)

Megamind scrambles with the watch so he can answer Minion, and it’s an accident but Bernard’s hardlight fades away. He is back to his natural blues and the spikes and the leather, the supervillain underneath, the monster he’s always been, the monster he absolutely is, confirmed, forever, what has he done? “Code: get the car!”

Chapter Text

Megamind’s knees are jumping through the entire drive as he counts down in his head the moments, the minutes. His baby-seal-skin soles slap against the carmat, tap tap tap tap keeping pace with every single second. Every second that it takes where his mistake becomes just a little bit more worse. Worse than bad! Worse than worse! The WORST! He’s glad Minion is driving but Minion should drive faster—

(the doctors won’t find anything by the time she gets to the hospital, nothing but the trauma that’ll look like just a punch to the face. They’ll let Roxanne go with instructions to rest, use an ice pack, take it easy. There’s midtown traffic that will slow down a news van, and Hal seems like the kind of guy to not drive Roxanne promptly — the same kind of guy/bully that wore stars and tights until not long ago — it’s fine! Roxanne will be fine, she’ll have time to get out of the van and walk into her building and chat to the doorman and wait for the elevator)

Tap tap tap tap - Megamind’s feet keep the time - but he lifts his head as he watches Roxanne’s apartment come into view. Minion drives down the side alley while Megamind twists the seatbelt around his hands and keeps time - tap tap tap tap.

(and get out of the elevator and make it to her apartment. Key in the lock. She’s not feeling well, she’ll only let herself admit that particular fact once she has the door shut and locked behind her)

Tap tap tap - Megamind rolls down the window, unbuckles his seatbelt, and climbs out that way, despite Minion’s protest — there’s no TIME he has to GO — scrabbling up the fire escape like a man possessed, counting the time tap tap tap in his head, there’s so little time left —

And he keeps thinking about all the ways it could get worse: 

she’s falling, 

she hits her head on the counter, 

she’s bleeding some more, 

she’s unconscious, 

or she has a glass of water and chokes on it, 

or drops it, and there’s broken glass, 

she could fall off her balcony and plummet to her death, 

- there are so many ways to die in a studio apartment -

and he keeps imagining all of the ways she could —

He’s on her balcony and knocking on the glass door, frantically, shielding his eyes against the glare and peering inside (he’s never been here before, it’s part of the rules, never visit Roxanne Ritchie’s home address. Minion drops her back home all the time but Megamind? Never. He would never. But this is urgent, and Miss Ritchie is probably —) because he can fix this. He has to fix this. 

“Roxanne? Miss Ritchie. Ritchie, Roxanne Ritchie, hello? Roxanne are you th—”

He stops, his fist suddenly going still against the glass.

Roxanne is in her kitchen and staring back at him. She has a glass of water in her hand and she’s staring at him.

Um.

He knocks again, like he hasn’t just seen her. “Miss Ritchie? Can I have a word with—?”

He hears glass shatter - she dropped the glass? oh no, there really are shards of glass in the kitchen now, look what he did, he made it worse - and Megamind flinches back, feels his back hit the brick wall of the balcony, has both hands raised in what he hopes looks like a gesture of peace and no-weapon-ness and not some kind of trick. 

(‘I come in peace Miss Ritchie’, ha ha, alien joke)

But then nothing happens.

Nothing happens for a few moments.

He lowers his hands slightly and opens one eye cautiously.

Miss Ritchie is gone.

Oh. Well. That’s not… unexpected. But it kind of stings a little (like how it stung when she turned away and yelled for Bernard). Megamind’s shoulders slump in resignation to the disappointment that is his every waking moment of his life, and he drops his arms.

He has a split second to see that Miss Ritchie isn’t gone-gone, just dropped to her knees behind the kitchen counter (oh no oh no oh no is she okay oh no) before there is a sudden bright flash of light.

“Roxanne!” He’s blinded, but he’s drawing his de-gun and shooting the lock on the sliding glass door (he didn’t really pay attention to the setting, the door being Not In His Way was the important part, so as it Decompresses from its frame and crashes to the ground - more glass! More glass everywhere, good job, genius! - he doesn’t linger) so he can run in and check on Roxa—

The Glau are a predatory species. Megamind has an instinctive primordial memory that comes from his own species, a feeling that his kind didn’t lose even after centuries of cultural, social, and technological development. The feeling of being prey to a Glau has been - previously - associated with childhood bullying and social isolation, and he’s dealt with it (he’s dealt with it just fine!) with inventions and spiked black leather and a secret lair.

But in this moment, as Miss Roxanne Ritchie stands up, Megamind feels that primordial terror for the first time as something raw and new and it makes him drop his De-Gun in limp-limbed panic (de-fenceless).

She has teeth. The teeth she has are the same as before, but somehow they feel broader, larger, more perfectly-aligned; a predator’s teeth. Her proportions are larger, broader, taller; everything human about her is still there, but now there is muscle, and tension, and teeth. His eyes can’t leave the teeth (prey knows its end).

Which, honestly, is probably a good thing, because she—

Oh. Oh no.

— she’d gotten larger but her clothes did not —

Roxanne gasps - growls - and stops trying to stand up (because as she does there’s a tearing sound and — oh no, he’s not thinking about it, he’s not!), crouching down behind the kitchen island, her big blue eyes focused on Megamind as shredded cloth hits the floor. Anger? Accusation? Fear? All of the above. 

(an angry, accusing, frightened predator)

(an angry, accusing, frightened Roxanne Ritchie)

Megamind drops his eyes to the floor, sputtering syllables of apology and embarrassment and apology. He fumbles with the catch of his cape and holds it out to her (not looking not looking!) because it’s all he has to offer her right now. It’s something! It’s something.

She won’t take it, she won’t take anything from him, she won’t—

But she does, and it’s barely anything, but she hugs it to herself for modesty’s sake and —

There are so many different ways this can go. But in his mind’s eye, he sees the clearest and most likely scenario as follows:

With one hand holding his cape in front of her, the other hand curls into a fist (huge! terrifying!) and draws back and swings at him, and he stands there and takes it because he deserves it, he made her bleed and then deformed her, and now he broke into her home. He’s evil and he deserves the punch she throws at him. 

And boy, she throws a mean punch.

Metro Man has punched him plenty of times. Metrocity’s Finest knows how to straddle the line between a good show and a good beating (crossing the line is part of the game, it’s normal). But Roxanne Ritchie has never had strength like this, isn’t used to the strength that the infusion of Glau genetic material has given her, so she doesn’t know to hold back. Maybe she doesn’t want to. She is angry and she puts her whole strength - and anger and accusation and fear - into the punch. 

It will send Megamind flying out of the apartment, through the open balcony doorway, his body carving a wide parabolic arc through the air across two city blocks before he impacts into the next skyscraper. He will impact the wall spine-first, and break through one, two, three… 

Maybe five walls? 

No, six. 

Six feels right. 

But it isn’t like he will be paying attention to counting, because he will be too busy trying to breathe. If she hit him in the face, he might be unconscious and have no way of knowing his condition. Fractured skull, intercranial bleeding, bone shards in the brain matter, the works. But she would likely not aim for the face. She would hit him in the chest, aiming for centre mass. So Megamind will be lying or sitting in the debris, staring out those six Megamind-shaped holes in the wall at the Metrocity sky, with broken ribs and collapsed lungs and internal damage that he would not have felt since his first proper fight with Metro Man. 

But worse than any of those times, because he deserves it now. 

It would serve him right to just die here. 

Just choke on his blood, because he made her bleed.

Yeah. That feels right.

…

Yup.

Any second now.

Aaaaany second now.

…

He feels very small without his cape. Very vulnerable. He can’t hide his arms now, can’t hide any of himself, he’s just

(a scrawny blue kid on the playground)

standing there. Here. In Roxanne Ritchie’s apartment. Staring at the floor.

He swallows, nervous. Noisy.

Roxanne breathes hard, shaky, steadying herself. Tall and terrifying and covering herself with his cape.

(Why isn’t she hitting him?)

(He deserves it.)

(But that’s not what heroes do.)

He swallows again, this time choking back a sob, his eyes stinging.

“Megamind?”

Megamind flinches, mostly because (teeth! so many teeth!) the prey instinct, but mostly because she sounded worried about him, and that’s not what the situation calls for right now, Miss Ritchie. He will not insult her further by gawking at her. Making her bleed was bad enough, and now…

His hands pick at each other, pinching the skin, until the silence and stillness is awkward enough that he risks looking up at her. Quickly. Just at her face. Only her face.

Maybe she finds the way he’s cringing too pathetic to even consider him any kind of a threat. Maybe that’s why she’s just staring at him. Not moving or raising a fist, just staring. Roxanne’s big blue eyes are just the same. Just the same as he remembered when she told him ‘breathe, Bernard’ and hugged him, and…

There’s a nervous, frantic knocking at the door. It makes Megamind flinch, skittering backwards like he suddenly remembers the ‘flight’ part the list of ‘a prey-animal’s acceptable reactions to fear’. He almost drops to all fours as he scampers around the kitchen and over to the front door, tossing open the lock and letting in a very worried-looking Minion.

“Oh, sir! You’re —! Oh! Miss Ritchie!”

(Megamind hangs onto the front door and stares down the hall.)

“Minion?” Roxanne’s voice sounds the same, but there are teeth in the sound now.

(Megamind’s grip on the door tightens.)

“Hello, Miss Ritchie. Did sir apologise?”

(She should have hit him, why didn’t she hit him? Metro Man used to hit him all the time, and she has Metro Man’s DNA.)

“No, he — can you shut the door? What is going on?”

Megamind watches the hall apartment vanish as Minion closes the door; Megamind will stand in front of that closed door and stare at the wood panel and not look at Miss Ritchie at all.

Minion shifts a little, interposing himself between Miss Ritchie and Megamind. “It’s… complicated, Miss Ritchie. And an accident. We’re here to fix it.”

“Fix…? Can you fix this?”

(Megamind flinches.)

“Yes, we can!” Minion does his best to sound cheerful. “Right, sir?”

Megamind sort of looks up as Minion digs an elbow gently into his ribs. He makes a mumbled apology-kind-of-noise.

“It really is quite a simple process, Miss Ritchie,” Minion says, his fins tucked close to his body and his gorilla-robot suit hunched, minimising any misconception of a threat display. “And Sir and I are both very, very sorry that this happened. It was not our intention at all, we swear.”

(He just wanted a hero to fight. He wanted a yang to his yin.)

She’s staring at him. She’s holding his cape against her body. 

Megamind feels a flush of heat across his face and ears, and stares down pointedly at the floor. He will not look up. 

He will not look up.

“It was an accident,” Minion insists. “Please, Miss Ritchie, you know we’d never hurt you. Sir didn’t mean to—”

“What is going on, Minion?!”

Even the fish in the gorilla suit flinches. “Just… just something that got out of hand.”

(He just wanted a purpose.)

“Minion.” Stern. Commanding. A predator with a powerful physique. “What happened to me? Why am I… like this?”

“It’s, uh…”

Megamind winces, shutting his eyes. “It’s Metro Man’s DNA, Miss Ritchie.” Lying to her would be worse.

“It’s what?”

Minion flutters in his helmet. “It’s, uh… Yeah. Exactly that.”

She must be looking between the two of them, because Megamind can feel the pressure of her look easing and returning, easing and returning, like sunlight on a cloudy day. He has the perfect sense of it, after all that time fighting Metro Man and knowing how and when to dodge his laser vision. Oh. Oh, right, Miss Ritchie would have laser vision now, wouldn’t she? So he imagines the moment where she just puts a finger to her temple BZZT! Tnd that’s it for him! That’s what he deserves!

But before Megamind can indulge himself in this particular imagining, he is interrupted by Roxanne’s voice.

“You can fix this?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Minion has the extractor gun in his hands, and he steps forward. “If you’ll just allow me, I can get you right as rain in no time.”

“Is it going to hurt?”

Megamind pinches at his wrist, claws his fingertips down his skin. “If it does, I promise you can hit me. One good solid punch, free of charge. Fair is fair.”

“Sir,” Minion sounds curt and disapproving. 

Megamind stops talking. This apartment has a very interesting floor.

“Why would you do this?” Roxanne asks, asks him, asks Megamind, and her voice is louder than it has been before, the sound broader, stronger, exerted like a yell without her even intending to.

Megamind flinches. “It was an accident,” he says, picking at his fingernails and wishing to fall through the floor (maybe all the way to the ground floor, if he was being honest). 

“No.” She is trying to speak softer now. Trying to sound… kind? Trying not to yell at him, at least. “No, why would you do this? Why would you make a way to give someone Metro Man’s powers? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Megamind doesn’t say anything.

Minion tries to fill the silence. “Well, Miss Ritchie, uh… Sir was…”

Megamind flinches again.

“Oh.” Miss Ritchie says, almost as a gasp, followed by a lower, softer, “Oh, Megamind,” of understanding and sympathy; just the sound of that makes him get really, really, really close to sobbing for a second. 

She figured it out. Of course she did, she’s brilliant. She’s Roxanne Ritchie, investigative reporter. She’s the smartest person he knows.

“Megamind,” she says, even daring to step closer, risking the broken glass to move closer and peer around Minion to look at him, the force of her gaze so powerful. “Are you…”

Don’t say it. Please don’t let her say ‘bored’, don’t let her say that, it would be the worst possible thing if Roxanne Ritchie thought that he was bored with ruling Metrocity, that being evil was all a show and pageantry and he wasn’t used to being the headliner, that he has no impetus anymore, that everything is boring, don’t say it, Miss Ritchie, please, don’t say…

“… lonely?”

Megamind feels his thoughts just white out for a moment.

It is strange, to be in a moment where he is unable to think at all.

His incredible intellect just stalls out and nothing happens.

And he just…

He doesn’t know what to say to that.

It went fine. The DNA was extracted and Roxanne Ritchie was back to normal, and it was fine. It was the only part of the day that actually went according to plan, maybe because ‘extract the DNA from Roxanne Ritchie, who you shot accidentally’ was never part of the plan. His plans are all terrible and he should never make any ever again.

The extractor gun, and the DNA in it, needs to be secured somewhere. Minion’s handling it, interstate. The brainbots have all gone to bed. It’s very quiet in the lair. Cold and dank, like Megamind likes it, but he barely notices. At least he’s alone.

He’s in the drawing room, looking up at his latest evil scheme.

He’s wearing layers: footie pajamas (collar folded down), a zip-up grey hoodie (hood also down, it doesm’t fit over his giant blue head anyway), sweatpants, winter socks, a bathrobe. No more protective black leather, he wants (deserves!) to feel like a shapeless blob. He wants to feel like he feels.

He looks up at his diagrams. 

He grabs the ladder. He pulls it into place. He grabs the lever and pulls the brake into place - no sliding or spinning around the room right now. No freedom of flight. He doesn’t deserve it.

He climbs the ladder, pulling down all the papers within reach. He climbs back down the ladder. He drops the whole armful of papers into the empty trashcan. He releases the ladder brake, moves it a few feet, re-engages the brake, then climbs up again. Time to repeat the process.

Time to tear it all down.

Everything goes in the trash.

Stupid idea.

The worst idea.

Minion was right.

So now what? What is left for the incredibly-handsome super-genius and master of all villainy?

Lever. Climb. Papers in the trash.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s all there is. No good ideas, only garbage.

“Megamind?”

He can’t even really bring himself to be surprised. Of course she’s here. Roxanne Ritchie is here, of course she is. She knows where the Evil Lair is, and she knows how to get in. (But why, why is she here? Maybe to punch him? He wouldn’t go flying very far if she did. Especially now she’s back to normal, no more Glau, no more DNA infusion.)

(How come she doesn’t sound angry?)

Megamind plucks more papers from where they’re hanging, then starts descending the ladder again. The armful of papers make a good thump-rustle noise as they go in the trash.

“What are you doing?” She’s by the curtains. She’s watching him.

He glances at her, feels the humiliation of that afternoon wash over him, and starts climbing the ladder again just so he doesn’t have to look at her. Putting a bit more distance between himself and her. “Isn’t it obvious, Miss Ritchie?” He can’t even put on The Voice, the one he uses when the cameras are rolling. He’s just… tired. 

Sad. 

Blue. (Ha ha. … ha.)

He crumples up one of the papers, drops it from a height into the trash bin. Only, it misses. Hits the rim, bounces away. Story of his life! He can’t do anything right. He’ll just keep pulling the papers down into his arms, then, gathering them up. The fruits of a fruitless endeavour. 

“Megamind… Can we talk? Please?”

“No,” he says.

“Why not?”

Revulsion, shame, anger. “Why would you even WANT to talk to me?”

“I just… wanted to make sure you’re alright.”

“Because if I wasn’t alright, that would be a problem for Metrocity.” A momentary triumph. He’s got it. He understands, now. She’s the goody-two-shoes reporter and he’s the Evil Overlord.

“What? No, that’s not what this is about.”

She really needs to make up her mind. “You really need to make up your mind, Miss Ritchie.” He starts tearing down more papers, some with force enough that the pegs-on-strings ping off violently in odd directions. A sad collapsing spiderweb of genius. 

“Are you alright, Megamind?”

He pauses, crumpling a paper in his hand. It’s a long way down to the floor. Enough to hurt, if he fell. But it won’t kill him. Shame. “Of course! Why wouldn’t I be?” He grabs more papers, almost in a rhythm one might call ‘frenzied’ if they weren’t perfectly fine. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have to finish tidying up. I have… plans. New plans. Bigger and better plans. Schemes, even! The future of Metrocity needs a blank canvas and I…”

…

He wishes he had a point to make, and not just an excuse to get her to leave.

This is so embarrassing. 

He descends the ladder, slowly, one arm full of papers. He leans over the trashcan and drops them in.

“New plans,” Roxanne says quietly. 

“Yes! Yes.” He pulls the lever, slides the ladder two feet over, then pulls the lever again to lock in place. “Maybe something to do with the city’s water supply. Wouldn’t that be dastardly? Evil? Absolutely villainous?”

He actually manages a little twirl and a flourish, but the effect is somewhat ruined by the fact he jumps back and gives a yelp. She was right in front of him, when did that happen? She was supposed to be by the curtains, not three feet from him. He doesn’t need this right now.

Her eyes are blue. Her face is that angry-determined that he’s seen when she gets an idea for a new story, something to investigate.

(Please don’t ask me any questions, Miss Ritchie, I’m a mess.)

(A hopeless mess.)

She reaches into the trashcan and pulls out a piece of paper, before he can stop her. But she doesn’t read it. She rolls it into a tube, then holds it up to her face like…

Huh.

Like she’s holding her microphone.

Her face is serious as she speaks into the roll of paper. “This is Roxanne Ritchie, of Channel 8 Metro City News, reporting live from the secret lair of supervillain and current Mayor of Metro City…”

He glances quickly over, shoulders hunching - no-one can see him like this! - but there’s no camera. She’s just… talking to the air? She’s just pretending?

“… as I interview the man himself.”

“Interview?” He asks, weakly. 

She nods. “Megamind, in all your years as a supervillain, you have never once been interviewed.”

“Wh— that’s a patent falsehood, Miss Ritchie. I’ve answered plenty of questions from the press. Including your own personal queries whenever you were … you know. Captured.” He got into it for a second, feeling the whole pageantry and supervillainy settle over him, but then he realised (he didn’t have his cape to flourish, because she still had it, because he was the worst, and…) there wasn’t a point.

But Roxanne Ritchie really knows how to focus. “You’ve answered questions from a press pool, yes, but you’ve never actually allowed yourself to be interviewed. You’ve never had a one-on-one discussion with any individual regarding the press.”

Well, now he has to answer this question properly. “What reporter would have the courage? The temerity? The sheer steely will to look on the face of fear, to stand in the presence of pure evil… and hold its gaze?”

She holds his gaze. 

… this almost isn’t fair. He’s trying to do his best here, like the game apparently calls for, and she keeps looking at him and he’s dressed like a slob and his lair is in such a mess right now, and she is looking right at him. It’s very hard to focus.

She… she seems okay, though. No scars or bruises from the infusion and de-fusion. It’s like none of it ever happened, like he never hurt her at all.

There’s a lump in his throat. He tries to swallow it.

“Megamind.”

“Yes, Roxanne?”

Wait. 

No, no, no. 

He’s not supposed to call her that.

She raises an eyebrow at him.

He swallows again, hunching into himself, picking at his fingernails, eyes drifting down to stare at the floor.

“Megamind.”

He looks up, furtively. 

Roxanne is looking at him, holding her paper ‘microphone’.

“The people of this city - including myself - have a right to answers. And you, Megamind? You have a right to be heard. So.”

She angles the microphone towards him.

He takes a deep breath, straightens up, and faces her. Faces this, head-on. What else is he supposed to do, when faced with a hero?

She asks some hard-hitting questions - of course she does, she’s Roxanne Ritchie, nosy reporter - and sometimes he struggles and backtracks and has to find a new tactic, a new topic, a new explanation. She’s a worthy opponent. That smile of hers is a dangerous weapon. And—

Huh.

This could work.

Maybe, just maybe, this could work.

Notes:

Dedicated to setepenre_set, for their in-depth worldbuilding and characterisation of Megamind being a huge inspiration; also dedicated to hexmage, for their advice, plot ideas, and beta reading.