Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I need to win this year.”

Metro Man looks up from his coffee, blinking at his girlfriend of four years. She’s stirring sugar into her own drink and looks very matter-of-fact.

“Uh,” he says. This came out of left field. “What?”

“I need to win this year,” Roxanne says again, looking up at him and smiling a pleasant smile that doesn't reach her eyes. “The auction. The Valentine’s Day date auction. I need to win.”

This does not clear up any of Wayne’s confusion. Slowly, he sits back in his chair. “Yeah, I kinda gathered that’s what you meant,” he says. “Why? We can go on a date any—”

“Not with you.”

Wayne’s attention sharpens.

“Oh,” he says.

For the past few years, Metro City has hosted a Valentine’s Day charity auction at which members of the public bid for a date that evening with either the city’s superhero or supervillain. It’s a pain in the ass for both of them, for various reasons, but Wayne doesn’t usually mind too much. It’s for a good cause. And since he and Roxie started ‘dating,’ his Valentine's dates have mostly kept their hands to themselves.

Megamind does very much mind, Wayne knows, but one of the terms of his license as solo supervillain in Metro is mandatory participation in local “sponsored community support events,” the same as Wayne’s hero license. So he’s stuck, too.

This is the first time Roxanne has made any indication of intending to enter the bidding. Wayne knows for a fact that she doesn’t have the money for it; this is an auction, not a raffle drawing. The people who win are high rollers. And it isn't private, not even a little. The whole event is a spectacle, streamed live with the bidders in front of webcams that turn on when their bids hit twenty-five thousand to keep the suspense up and the lag down; early bids are numerous.

“You have questions,” Roxanne says, calm but looking very determined. “I get it. Go ahead.”

“Yeah, uh, I’ll take ‘why?’ for five hundred, Alec.”

She snorts, then sighs. “Figured you’d start there. It’s…a bunch of reasons. You know how much I hate that they make you guys do this.”

Wayne nods. Roxanne has mentioned to him before that she thinks it’s horrible, the way he and his nemesis are forced into this every year. He’s told her he’s fine with it, but she only ever seems marginally satisfied by his reassurance. He’s been wondering for a while now if her primary concern isn't…elsewhere.

“I think it’s disgusting,” she says, very frankly. “You know this. It’s fine for you—you’re in the public eye all the time, everyone loves you, you’re everybody’s best friend. But…it’s…different for him.” Neither of them needs to clarify who he is. “He’s so private, Wayne. Dragging him out, making him plan some nonsense public date…it’s horrendous.”

“Right, yeah, you’ve said,” Wayne says. “You don’t have to justify yourself to me, I’m just…why now? Why this year?”

Roxanne’s lips thin and her expression darkens.

Wayne frowns.

Slowly, he asks, “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” She takes a drink of her coffee and frowns down at the swirling liquid, shakes her head a little. “I don’t…have details. I haven’t asked; it’s not my place. It is really, truly none of my business. But.”

That sounds ominous. Roxanne doesn’t typically leave questions unanswered; she’s a lot like Megamind that way.

“What do you think happened?”

She looks away, out the window at the crowded street outside. “I really don’t want to even speculate. He’s always…off, this time of year. In the winter. Which, fine, plenty of people are,” she adds, and Wayne nods, “but he was exceptionally weird after last year’s Valentine’s Date. I mean…really exceptionally weird. Jumpy, wouldn’t look at me, wouldn’t laugh. Barely even looked at Minion.”

“He seemed fine to me,” Wayne says, puzzled.

“He’s good at seeming, you know that.” She wrinkles her nose at him. “I’m talking about before the cameras came on. He was weird like that for the next three or four months. And now he’s acting weird again.” She shakes her head. “He’s scared. I don’t know, I don’t know what…everything went fine on the date, Larissa said.”

“Right, you interviewed her recently.” He doesn’t mention the tone that hit when Roxanne dropped last year’s winner’s name, but he notices it. Something about this isn’t sitting right.

“Yeah, she said they had a really nice time.” She bites her lip. “But something happened. I don’t know what, but it was bad. And I just…”

She trails off. Swallows.

“I just want him to have a good night, this year,” she finally says, trying to smile as she drags her gaze back to him. Wayne doesn’t smile back; he’s too worried and he’s thinking too hard, trying to remember his various interactions with the little guy over the past year. Was something wrong? Did he miss something? What did he miss? Was Megamind hurt?

Roxanne is still talking. “And yeah, he won’t have a choice this time either, but…at least he knows me. That’s got to count for something, right? It has be a little better.”

Wayne yanks himself back to the present and forces himself to focus. Because whatever happened, whatever he missed…he can’t do anything about that. But this, now, here, today? This is an opportunity. A big one, too: it isn’t knocking, it’s blowing vuvuzelas and kicking down his door.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” he says, leaning forward and tilting his head. “Seriously, what’s up? If I’m gonna help with this, I gotta know the story.”

Roxanne looks at him.

“C’mon, Roxie. What am I gonna say, no?”

She wets her lips, looks away.

“Larissa and I went to school together,” she says, eventually. “I know her. We were roommates for a semester.”

“You don’t like her.”

“You don’t have to be a genius to figure that one out.” Roxanne’s lip curls. “She’s a snake. That’s all I’m saying, I don’t have proof of anything, I don’t have anything except…worries, and prior knowledge, and some…personal effects.”

Wayne recoils. “Wait, what? You stole something?”

“Oh, shut up,” she snaps. “It was necessary. Listen, the point is—I do not know what happened last year, but something did, and knowing Larissa, it wasn’t good. And I just…I can’t…” She trails off and bites her lip again, scowling out the window of the coffeeshop. “She’s going to try again, Wayne,” she says finally. “I made damn sure to get what I needed, and she’s not the type to keep more backups than she thinks is necessary. So.”

He sighs. He may keep to the straight and narrow, but he isn’t stupid; he can read between those lines. “She was blackmailing him.”

Roxanne shrugs. Sips her latte.

“And you stole her blackmail, and he doesn’t know, and she knows he doesn’t know, and she’s going to try to get more. Yes?”

His girlfriend looks at him for a second, then narrows her eyes and broadens her inflection. “You know, this becomes a liability if you say it all out loud in public, Metro Moron.”

He snorts. “It’s a shame you aren’t a tenor, ‘cause that impression is spot-on.”

“It should be, I spend enough time around him.” She sighs. “Anyway. Please say you’ll help?”

“Of course I will.” He doesn’t even have to think about it. “How much do you need?”

“I can’t pay you back,” she warns, and he makes a noise like pffbpbpbt and waves a massive hand.

“It’s a gift. Least I can do for four good years of your time.” A thought occurs, and he grins. “Actually, tell you what—come on down to First National at…say, three tomorrow afternoon, yeah? Bring your passport and your social security card. We’ll sign some papers,” he feels his smile widen; Roxanne is lifting her drink to her mouth, “and I’ll just go ahead and make you a signer on my checking account.”

Roxanne chokes and splutters coffee down her front. “Agh, fuck! God—yeah, thanks, napkins—jesus, Wayne, warn a girl before you say something like that!” She stares at him, blotting at her chest with paper napkins. “Are you serious? Like…you’re giving me direct access to your cash?”

“Yeah! We’ll switch it over to joint checking.” He shrugs, struggling not to laugh at her expression. “What are you going to do, buy six solid gold yachts? C’mon. And my banker won’t think anything’s weird about it; he’ll probably just think we’re getting engaged soon.”

“Okay, four years…okay, that’s fair. Still, that’s a lot,” she adds, sounding rueful but broadcasting Relief with her whole face. “You don’t have to go that far.”

“Nah,” he says again. “I want to. It’s safest, anyway. I remember last year she won with some kinda crazy inheritance, right? Better if you don’t have limits. Run her up past two million if you gotta, give the tabloids something to chew on. Like I give a rat’s patoot.”

“Wayne, I love you,” Roxanne says, fervent. Wayne chuckles.

“Love you too. Hey, also, uh.” He takes a deep breath and makes a decision. Roxie’s trusting him with a sneaky plan, right? He can trust her. She’s probably the only person on earth he does trust. “Hey, uh, I’m real glad you weren’t talking about winning a date with me, because…um.” He grimace-smiles, shrugs hard, and Roxanne’s eyes go wide and her jaw drops.

She grabs his hand, eyes alight with secondhand excitement. “No way! Wayne, oh my god! What’s his name?”

“Adam. Uh.”

“Oh my god, you’re blushing, I don’t believe it!” She squeezes. “How long? When?”

Laughing, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand, Wayne admits, “Like…six months?”

Roxanne makes a face of total excitement. “What? Congrats!”

“Yeah. Heh.” He swallows, feeling his ears burn. “Yeah, and I just…I really just wanna take him on a date. A real one, you know? A night out. Nice dinner, go bowling or something. Without hiding.”

His girlfriend’s eyes are shining. “Wayne,” she says, in a tone of absolute sincerity, “I am so proud of you. I had no idea!” Suddenly she gasps and grips his hand. “Oh. Oh, idea.”

He lifts his eyebrows; Roxanne typically has good ideas. “Yeah?”

She grins, wide and white and excited. It’s an expression Wayne usually sees on his tiny nemesis, but he isn’t about to point that out to Roxanne.

“What do you think about a heist?”

He squints at her. “A heist.”

She bobs her head hard. “Yes! Let’s…what if we make this big? This is how you come out! The beginning! As far as anybody knows, this is how you meet your boyfriend! He buys a date with you, you hit it off…whirlwind romance, love at first sight!”

Wayne shakes his head. “It won’t work. They’ll be tracing the money—I’m having to run it through two of my dad’s shell companies in the Caymans anyway—”

“Not if it comes from me!”

He pauses. “Sorry?”

“Listen.” She drops her voice, leaning across the table and seizing his hand in both of hers, now. “You and I will go to the bank tomorrow, like you said. Word will get around that we’re extra-serious. I’ll find some reason to interview your boy. He and I will hit it off, publicly. We’ll do a couple outings, public appearances; we’ll make sure there’s a trail of him and me making friends—I’ll invite him to some work function instead of you, and the tabloids will go off about it. And then he wins your date with money I wire him from your—our—account.”

Wayne feels his jaw drop as excitement rises in his chest. “You’ll set us up together,” he whisper-exclaims, and Roxanne nods hard, her whole face alight with the same wild excitement he’s feeling. Wayne is already nodding back. “You’ll set us up! You met this guy, vetted him, you know he’s great, you know we’ll hit it off—going to the bank freaked you out! You don’t want to get engaged to me—oh! Oh hey! This way we can even tell people you knew I was gay this whole time!”

“Exactly!” She beams at him and Wayne beams back, a feeling like freedom or floating in his mouth and throat. “Exactly, yeah! Yes? Is this good? And then,” she continues, “I’ll win your arch-fucking-nemesis, again with your money,” she lets go of him to spread her hands in front of her shoulders, palm-up, “pretending to build a scandal, right? Give you a reason to break up with me if you want one—”

“—except it backfires,” Wayne finishes, “because I fall hard for this dude and I don’t even need the reason!”

“Yes!”

Wayne sits back in his seat, giddy. “You,” he says, “are an evil genius.”

Roxanne sits back, too, cheeks pink and eyes gleaming as she fans herself. “I know,” she says happily. “Whoo! Feel like I need a cigarette. So you’re in? Yes?”

“Absolutely. I am in. I am so in. And Adam will love the whole idea, he’ll think it’s hilarious. And,” he adds, feeling bold, “I am funding your outfit. We’re going to my tailor and we are gonna rock the little guy’s world. Okay?”

Roxanne eyes him suspiciously, still grinning. “You have a plan, too, don’t you.”

“Yep,” he says, popping the P and grinning right back, feeling rather evil himself. His ship. is. coming. in.

He is not pointing this out to Roxanne either, though; Adam would tell him not to count his sailors before they’ve disembarked, and he would be right.

“Well, whatever, I’m not complaining. Now, help me think of some reason for me to interview your boy…”

Wayne’s afternoons at his tailor’s are some of his only afternoons off, and some of his favorites, especially because Roxanne hates shopping and Wayne loves playing dress-up and always has. One of the best parts of superheroing: costumes! Costumes, as far as the eye can see! Not all of them have been hits with the public (Wayne has fond memories of a pair of gold hotpants that made Megamind laugh so hard he got hiccups as soon as he saw Metro Man; that was an easy capture), but they’ve all been such fun.

And Roxanne’s reactions are just the best. Wayne texted James a couple of ideas the week prior, and he has come through with a vengeance as he always does.

“I look ridiculous,” Roxanne says, turning slowly in front of the floor-length tri-fold mirror. “I am not Audrey Hepburn and my hips do not need the help. You’ve gotta be kidding me—oh?”

“Gotta wear it with the jacket,” Wayne says, helping her on with it. It’s cut just a little above her narrow waist. “Here. I studded it myself. What do you think?”

“Oh,” Roxanne says, turning this way and that in the mirror. “Oh, that really does fix it. God, look at my waist, I am not this small.”

“You are,” he says. “Listen, the skirt makes your hips look amazing, and the jacket highlights everything, so hush. He’s an ass man, you know he is. Oh! And! Thanks, James.” He takes the velveteen box from the man and turns to Roxanne. “Eh?”

Her mouth falls open. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh I am dead serious,” he returns, grinning. The peridot pendant in the necklace is somewhere in the vicinity of twenty carats, and the ones in the chain from which the pear-shaped gem hangs are interspersed with dazzling moissanites. The accompanying earrings are comparatively simple, a pair of studs with pear-shaped drops on delicate silver chains.

“What if I break it?”

“It’s your problem? Seriously, Roxie, this stuff isn’t on loan or anything. You deserve nice things.”

Roxanne sends Wayne an exasperated look but sighs and runs her fingertips over the stones. He seizes his lip between his teeth and wiggles his eyebrows at her, pushes the open box gently at her, teasing.

“I guess I could try it on…”

“That’s my girl. Here.” He lifts it from its case as she turns to face the mirror, and he clasps it around her neck and then floats up a little and beams at her. “You look amazing.”

She laughs a little, catches his eye in the mirror. “Not sure this look is very you, my love. People will talk.” Wayne just sends her another shit-eating grin with wiggly eyebrows, and she sighs and returns her attention to her outfit: classic pencil dress with a mermaid ruffle at the hem, peplums on the skirt to emphasize her waist and hips, cropped leather jacket with shining spikes, flashy statement necklace the exact color of Megamind’s eyes…

“People will talk,” she murmurs again, unable to fully hide her little grin, and Wayne makes a face like :D and kisses the top of her head.

Chapter Text

The rest of January speeds past with all the grace of a newborn gazelle and February cold stumbles in on its heels, and Roxanne spends most of it worrying about Megamind. He’s keeping a good front when the cameras are on, but he’s jittery.

Relax, she wants to tell him. Please relax. I have you. You’re okay. But she knows him, and she knows the odds he’ll believe her when he’s in this kind of mood. The world is against him and he is not safe and he will not listen and he will not slow down; he is sharp, unfriendly.

But.

“Megamind,” Roxanne says on the ninth, because she cannot bear not to, “are you okay?”

He looks at her, green eyes flashing, and arches an eyebrow. “But of course! Aren’t I always?”

She looks at his hands, stiff on the arms of his chair, and he follows her gaze and then flushes and yanks them back and crosses his arms over his chest instead and glares at her.

“You are,” Roxanne says, slow. “But I think you’ve been better. You don’t have to pretend with me,” she tells him. “You know that.”

He snorts, mirthless. “I have to pretend with everyone, my dear Miss Ritchi. Supervillain, yes?" He wiggles his fingers without unclenching his arms. "I simply cannot afford mistakes.”

She tries again. “Valentine’s Day is coming up.”

His expression slams closed. “Fuck off,” he hisses, and pops to his feet and stalks to one of his control panels, pulls a lever. The Bootwheel of Death falls out of the ceiling with a deafening cLANG and begins spinning—loudly—and Megamind goes back to whatever he had been doing when Roxanne called his attention away.

She sighs.

After the plot fails and Metro Man hauls Megamind off to prison, Roxanne wakes up on her sofa to find Minion pacing her living room.

“Minion,” she says, startled, trying to shake the effects of the spray off and focus her attention. Minion is actually exactly the guy she had been hoping to see at some point but had no idea how to actually contact. “Um. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I am worried,” he frets. “Sir isn’t usually this bad! He hates this holiday, he always has, and the auction especially, but—ohhhh, this year is taking him really badly! I don’t know what to do.”

She swallows hard. “Do you know what happened?” she ventures. “Last year? I…”

“I don’t! I’ve asked. He won’t talk to me about it. I just know it was bad.” He sighs, his little face rumpled and upset. “I don’t know what to do,” he says again.

“I’ve got it covered this year,” Roxanne says, before she can stop herself. “I have a plan. And I think it’s a good one. I’ve…I’ve got his back, okay? It’s not going to happen again, whatever it was. I promise.”

Minion looks at her.

“I promise,” she says again, earnest. “Minion. I swear. Nothing bad.”

“You’ve got his back.”

“Yes.” She nods. “Yes, I do. And—and yours, obviously, of course, but I—god, do you know what he has planned, this year? Because I don’t want to shit all over his plans, but–”

“Nothing,” Minion says, his little face beginning to pinch. “He’s refusing to plan anything this year! He said, he said—‘a walk in the park,’ and when I said it would be freezing he said that was the point. It’ll put everything in jeopardy if the winner complains! I don’t—"

“It’s okay,” Roxanne says quickly. “Minion, I promise. I’ve got it covered. Everything, the date, activities, everything. Can I ask you? What you think? I’m so glad you’re here,” she says in a rush, getting to her feet and only wobbling a little bit. Minion catches her anyway, big hands coming up under her elbows in case she needs them. Bless. But she keeps talking. “I’m sure, I’m sure he’ll like what I have planned, but…but I’m also not sure, you know? Can I get your input?”

Minion blinks a couple times. “You—have—a date planned?”

Roxanne nods hard and twists her fingers into to the fur of his arms. “Yes! I do. I have a plan, okay? I’m going to win it. I just, I hate that they make him do this, I hate it so much. I want to help. I need to help. Okay?”

He shakes himself. He is a minion; plans are his forte. “Oh…kay? Okay? Yes. Okay. Um! A, a plan? You have a plan. What—is—the plan?”

She breathes a sigh of relief and straightens up. “Okay, so—”

Valentine’s morning dawns cold and gray, with the smell of snow in the air and the promise of it on the weather channels for three zip codes. But the air is clear for the day although the sun is cold, and Megamind feels a strange sort of kinship with the light. Pale, thin, his shine gone out. He hates this. Has always hated this.

And last year’s date…

It had seemed like it was going well. It really had. Larissa was nice! She had laughed, she had talked, she had touched his arm and asked questions and smiled until finally he began to relax and answer them…

…and then she turned on him. Just when he had begun to think—to hope—she wouldn’t.

It isn't the first time someone turned on him that way in his life, it shouldn't sting so badly. But Megamind can't have nice things. Not even when he's doing his absolute best, really trying his hardest! He has hoped, over the years, that one of these dates might pan out. That maybe someone would take an interest in him, rather than buy the story of a date with a supervillain.

But screw that. He should have known better than to hope. What is he, a maiden in need of rescue? Looking for a soft Someday-My-Prince-Will-Come story? Bah. So much for the romantic; it's high time he killed that part of himself.

If he could only figure out how.

Who will it be this year, he wonders dully. He wouldn’t put it past that bitch to come after him again. She’s probably the type. She hasn’t even used what she has against him yet, she must be biding her time. Fuck.

Well. It doesn’t matter. Megamind does not fucking care anymore; they can make him participate in this farce but only as far as he wills it. He doesn’t mind cold weather, he thrives in cold weather. Or so he tells himself. He’ll take his date to whatever food truck is closest to City Hall, and then they'll go for a lovely after-dark stroll through Hill Park, up to the overlook or down along the frozen lake. His date will want to go home early, whoever they are, and then Megamind will be free until next year. There. That’s the plan.

It's risky. But, again, he cannot bring himself to care.

“I’m not wearing the damn suit, Minion,” he snaps, when Minion brings him his usual fancy-dress “normal” clothes the day of. “No. They want to date a supervillain, they can date a fucking supervillain. I’m wearing my leathers or nothing at all.”

Minion swallows. “But—but Sir, what if—”

“No buts, Minion!” He gets to his feet with a hiss and glares up at his friend. Slashes his hand flat through the air like a blade as he snarls, “This is a farce! It has always been a farce! Game-show highest-bidder nonsense—they could at least make it a raffle! Introduce some semblance of chance to the game! Instead of selling me to the highest fucking entitled numpty with more dollars than sense—fuck. No. Put that away, I am not wearing it.”

“But—!”

“I am not wearing it, Minion!”

He paces away with a flick of his cape, heading for the bowels of Evil Lair and his pool. God, he needs a swim, or he is going to snap.

He drags his feet as much as he dares and arrives at City Hall a few minutes after his counterpart settles in for the evening. Wayne appears to be playing on his phone when Megamind enters, squinting hard at the screen the way he always does. The thought crosses his mind (not for the first time) that he should really do something evil with that, one of these days, but taking advantage of the other alien’s sensory issues just seems below the belt, even for him. Less evil and more just plain mean. Wayne can barely tolerate liquid-crystal screens; Megamind can barely tolerate the feeling of dust on his hands and the sound of glass on glass. He can sympathize.

Or, he could sympathize, on any day but today. He slouches over to his seat and throws himself backwards into it with his arms clenched over his chest and his own spikes digging into his ribs. The auction won’t start for a couple minutes yet; they’re probably having technical difficulties. As usual. He feels his lip curl.

“You’re not dressed,” says Metro Man after a while.

“Screw you,” Megamind snaps.

His nemesis looks over at him, but—oddly—there’s no disapproval in his expression, just a kind of steady inscrutability. “You good?”

Megamind glares at him, bares his teeth around his bitten-out, “Phrasing.”

“It’s just one night,” Metro Man says, after a couple seconds. “It’s a load of crab nuggets anyway. It’ll be okay.”

Well that’s not even worth a response beyond a scoffed laugh. Megamind slouches down in his chair, scowling straight ahead.

He doesn’t see that Wayne keeps looking at him, studying the way he’s carrying his tension, studying him on several levels of perception. Doesn’t see the worry lines between Wayne’s brows deepen. Doesn’t see him switch apps and start texting. Megamind just sits, and stares at nothing, and scowls, with anxiety and despair writhing in his stomach. It's not a fun combination.

“—re we are, ladies and gentlemen!” exclaims their host of this year’s farce, the huge screen flickering to life in front of them. Metro Man flinches, and Megamind sighs, terse and resigned. “Welcome to the eighth annual Valentine’s Day Superdate Auction! This year’s funds will be allocated among the city’s youth-oriented programs, what a lovely cause. A brief rundown of the rules for our first-time viewers—”

Megamind and Wayne are both streamed live as well: just their reactions, just visuals. No sound. In years past, Megamind has tried to play the good sport, laughing and downplaying his ee-vil reputation for the evening, but it’s been increasingly difficult to do so in recent years. This year, he isn’t bothering at all anymore. And the host has definitely noticed—he compliments Wayne’s well-cut navy pinstripe suit, then adds, “and it looks like the bidders who prefer more of a wild card will certainly be getting their money’s worth, this year!” and Megamind sneers and rolls his eyes. “Let’s start the bidding at five thousand, five—ten, very good, thank you—I see twenty—”

One by one, faces appear in the previously-empty grid. Megamind doesn’t look up.

"Fifty thousand," says a woman's smooth voice, and Megamind goes cold with rage before he even lifts his eyes to the screen under his lowered brows.

Bitch.

She looks nice. Dressed to the nines, of course she is. She looks more confident than excited or hopeful; she knows, of course, that Megamind can't retaliate against her in any meaningful way without falling under immediate suspicion.

What the hell is wrong with her? Seriously, she isn't rich. She's using her inheritance to bid for this. What does she even want from him? Is it a power play? Just some sick fascination? Something else?

Doesn’t matter. This is just how his life is going; it’s…fine.

The bid goes up to a hundred and twenty thousand pretty quickly before people start dropping out. Megamind sits, hopeless and seething and—much to his irritation—feeling increasingly panicky as well. Becoming a supervillain was supposed to make sure he and Minion were protected from people who wanted to control them! And now he has to put up with this bullshit? Lies and humiliation and blackmail and—

"One sixty," says a new voice, clear and sharp as an electric shock.

Megamind’s head snaps up.

The newcomer's screen is dark, still, while their bid pool is confirmed. But—but that was—was that—? It couldn't be—

"And…oh, wow! It seems we have a dark horse entering the running!" says their host, sounding ridiculously excited at this turn of events. "The face of KMCP News for six years running, Metro City's very own…Roxanne Ritchi!"

She appears in one of the empty slots and winks at the camera, gives a little wave and a sunny smile.

"What the fuck," says Larissa. She's still muted, but her lips are clear and her expression matches the sentiment.

Roxanne sees her, too. Megamind thinks she does, anyway. Her smile goes hard.

What is going on. What is going on. Roxanne? Bidding? With what money?

For him?

“What,” he breathes, entirely without meaning to. What is—what is happening—

—Roxanne. That’s. That is Roxanne up there, and Megamind isn’t—he can’t—

“Take it easy,” says Metro Man, off to his left. Megamind barely hears him.

He stares up at the screen with his blood like thunder in his ears. This can't be possible, but he doesn't…seem to be hallucinating? Roxanne's image never wavers and the host was definitely astonished at her entry. Larissa looks pissed, and Roxanne looks calm except for the set of her jaw, which Megamind recognizes as an indication that she's angry and not backing down.

"Let's make it a nice one hundred seventy-five thousand," Larissa says. They’ve passed the hundred and fifty thousand mark, which means bidders each have six seconds to speak before making their bids. The spectacle drives up donations from viewers at home.

"Seems low," Roxanne returns. "Let's call it two hundred. Good round number."

"Why are you doing this?" Larissa snarls. "You can see him anytime you want! Two and five."

Two strangers bid between them; Megamind doesn’t care. He feels as though he is going to faint. Is this what fainting feels like? A chest full of air, mouth and throat full of silence, ears ringing?

"Yes, I can." Roxanne's smile is cold. "And so can you, over my dead body. Two twenty."

Megamind blinks, confusion pricking at the edges of his shocked hope. Larissa told him, last year, that she knew Roxanne. That they went to school together, that they were friends.

They don't look like friends. And they certainly don't sound like friends. Megamind does not have much of a basis for comparison, but he's pretty sure this is not what friends sound like.

The two women and a very few others bid to five hundred thousand before it’s finally just the two of them and Larissa starts getting hesitant.

More confusion. Why is she so determined to bid Roxanne out? She got everything she wanted from him last year, plus souvenirs, so what's going on?

“What are you doing,” Larissa hisses.

“Winning,” Roxanne replies, grim. “Actually, you know what, screw this. It’s a good cause, right? And you're boring. One million.”

The host appears to be about to explode with excitement. It's a stark contrast to Roxanne's hard little smile. “I—and Roxanne Ritchi just—well, folks—I’m—wooo! Woohoo!”

Off to Megamind’s left, Wayne chuckles. “Attagirl, Roxie.”

Larissa makes a face that looks like she’s swearing and her screen goes dark. Megamind’s heart flips over. Roxanne—

—she won. She won? Roxanne won. Roxanne paid a million dollars to win. Him. A million. What’s—

“Roxanne Ritchi,” says their host, smile splitting his face ear to ear, “is there anything you’d like to say before we close the bidding for the evening?”

Her eyes move to the corner of her screen for a moment and her smile finally warms, and then she takes a deep breath and looks into the camera. Pauses.

Megamind waits, staring up at the screen with his heart in his mouth, barely breathing. Roxanne starts to speak—hesitates—then finally relaxes into a rare grin he recognizes as one of his very favorites.

“I'll see you soon,” she says, and she winks. "I’ve got your back."

In the green room where he’s waiting, Megamind sits in his plastic chair, dumbfounded and dizzy. She has his back? She has—his back. She—

(does she know)

(no, there’s no way)

(she knows something)

She has his back. Larissa isn’t getting her hooks in him again this year. Megamind is—safe. He’s safe. Right? With Roxanne. With Roxanne, he is safe. He hopes. God, he hopes.

Roxanne wants. To go on a date with him. She wants to go on a date with him?

Oh.

Oh no.

Oh oh oh no, OH NO a date that Megamind has not planned at all, oh god oh FUCK—

"Whoa, hey, easy," Wayne says, from across the room. "No need for all that adrenaline. Roxie's got you covered, it’s okay."

Megamind finally turns his head and tries to pin his focus on his enemy, tries to put his panic on hold for a moment so he can parse this.

"She's got it," Wayne says again. "The date? She already planned it. You should get into your suit, though." He nods at the garment bag hanging on the door to the room they’re in, which Megamind had for some reason assumed was Wayne’s despite the fact that the hero is already dressed.

“My suit,” he says through numb lips. “My? Suit?”

"Yeah! That one's yours."

Understanding finally sinks in, pulls Megamind's heart down behind it like a stone. "...You planned this with her." He slowly straightens his spine, swallows hard. "What do you want?"

Because of course. Of fucking course it would be a setup.

But his nemesis holds up his hands, placating, and says, "Hey, don't look at me, I had almost nothing to do with it. The whole thing was Roxie's idea, I dunno why." He shrugs. Megamind stares at him, now so full of confusion and dismay and anger and exhaustion and—and hope, at the end of it all, hope and useless wishing—that he can’t even tell where to start. "I guess she talked to Minion? And he said you were doing the bare minimum this year? Seriously, go get dressed."

Megamind bares his teeth again, wary. "I don't know what kind of nasty game you think you're playing," he begins, but Metro Man shakes his head and holds up three fingers close together.

"No game. No tricks, scout's honor. It's all Roxannie, you'll have to ask her. She's really been looking forward to this," he adds, lifting his eyebrows with an encouraging-looking shrug. “Seriously, you can relax. It’s okay.”

Megamind continues to eye him with uncertain hope and fear clawing at his gut as he tries to make any sense of this at all. Roxanne? Planned this? She wouldn't…but she, she wouldn't…would she? Hurt him? Like this? Would she…?

“It’s okay,” Metro Man says again. “Go on your date! Have a good time! It’s for charity, come on.”

Date. With Roxanne. Megamind pulls a deep breath and hauls himself out of his spiral, presses his feet to the floor and his hands to his knees. Date with Roxanne: that is all that matters. Even if it is a trick, even if it is, this is still a date with Roxanne, and for that, Megamind will go all-in on whatever hand he's dealt and lose with as much grace as a broken heart can muster.

"Right," he says, and rises. Lifts his head.

"Hey, yeah! There you go! Now, go on, go get dressed." Metro Man flits to the door and retrieves the garment bag with a rustle, then turns and thrusts it gently at Megamind’s chest. “It’s okay!”

The nylon of the bag crinkles in his numb fingers as he takes it.

“Heavy,” he says, some surprise pricking its way through his haze of shock and suspicion and relief.

“Yeah, there’s shoes in there too,” Metro Man says. He’s wearing an expression that, on anyone else, Megamind would have called hopeful. It's an expression Metro Man has never aimed at him, though. He isn’t sure what to do with it.

“…Shoes.”

“With lifts! Don’t worry! They’ve got lifts, at least two inches.”

Megamind stares down at the bag.

“Go get dressed,” urges his nemesis, still wearing that weirdly hopeful-looking expression. And Megamind can’t really think of anything else to do, or any particular reason not to, so…

Well. At least the dressing room will offer some privacy and let him gather his thoughts in peace. It’s the last scrap of privacy he’s likely to have for a while.

He hauls his spine straight with an effort.

“Right,” he says again, and turns away.

Chapter Text

So he goes. And gets dressed.

Might as well, right?

The suit is nice, but—to his surprise—it isn't one of his. Did Metro Man pick it up from Minion? It fits him surprisingly well; if Minion didn’t make it, Wayne must have at least gotten his measurements from Minion. Or Roxanne did. Oh, and it's layered, thank evil heaven. The waistcoat actually looks like it has two layers to it, a pale gray one with oxblood boning laid over the deep black base. It gives him extra material between himself and the world that wants him dead, gives extra weight to his thin chest, and it’s laced up the back and fastens with a sort of…corset-style busk in the front. That’s interesting.

It's structured. The laces appear to be mostly decorative; this thing feels like armor. Oh, thank god.

So: dark charcoal suit with subtle pinstripes, gray and black waistcoat with deep red accents. And…huh. Okay, it's Valentine’s Day; a pink shirt is not the end of the world. Wait, is it pink? Could be purple. It’s one of those annoying in-between colors that always trip him up. At least the shirt's collar and cuffs are black. That's different.

Megamind is not expecting the narrow oxblood tie to look half as good as it does when he—after a moment’s hesitation—decides to go for broke and arranges it into a tulip knot at the base of his throat. It matches the boning of the sleek waistcoat, pulls everything together.

Even the shoes fit. And they do indeed make him seem a little taller than he is, which is always his preference. Miracles.

He straightens his tie, fixes his eyeliner a little darker than usual to balance against the contrast and sharp lines of his suit. Swallows. Exhales.

He does actually look quite good. Okay. Tonight…might actually not be a disaster? The giddy relief of that makes his knees weak.

And on top of it, Roxanne said she has his back. He has no idea what she meant by that, and he is still well aware this whole thing is probably a trick or a joke, but her smile and her wink and her words set his helpless heart doing cartwheels and backflips in his chest anyway. Evil gods below, he loves her. She surprises him at every turn with her wit and strength, and now she's surprising him with—with a—date. A date! A contrived public spectacle of a date with probably an ulterior motive, but still!

He could have at least picked up flowers, or something. Oh well.

"Well hey," Wayne exclaims when Megamind steps out of the dressing room. He sits up in his chair, looking cheerfully excited and adjusting his cufflinks. "That looks really slick! I thought it would."

Megamind gathers himself and swallows his pride. He has no evidence that this is going to blow up in his face, and Metro Man and his girlfriend did just drop a million dollars for this. Megamind can be the bigger person and pretend this is real until it goes wrong. Because what if it’s real? What if?

What if 'gullible' is written on the ceiling?

But it’s fine. Megamind has survived worse. He can’t actually think of worse, right now, but he’s survived it. He’s sure.

"Thank you," he says, a little more stiffly than he had meant to. It is the polite thing to do."I…appreciate your effort. In this."

"Eh, it's no big. And, uh. I wanna say." Wayne sits forward and puts his elbows on his knees, fiddles with his cuticles and frowns a little. "You…do know you can come to me, right? I know it's not really your thing, you're a solo act. But if, if something ever happened and you needed…help…like, if something bad happened? You know I'd help you. Right?"

"Of course," says Megamind, who knows no such thing and has to wonder where he's going with this.

"…Good. Cool, that's…all I wanted. Just making sure."

The commotion outside the door suddenly grows a lot louder and more chaotic. Wayne gets to his feet.

"Guess they're here."

Megamind takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders.

He hates. Crowds. Hates them. They feel like claustrophobia on steroids, they feel like an active threat, and right now Megamind’s head is still spinning and he feels like he is about to explode or fall over. But Roxanne climbs out of the car at the curb, already waving hello and greeting the young man who bought Wayne's date and arrived only a few seconds before she did, and Megamind focuses on the only good thing about tonight as best he can and tries to ignore the crush of shouting noise.

She knows this man, he realizes. He's seen enough of Roxanne’s smiles to recognize when one is genuine and familiar. She knows this man, she likes him. They're friends. Does that—is that—significant? What is—

The stranger offers her his arm and she laughs and takes it, and they set off up towards the steps of city hall and their respective dates.

Halfway up the stairs, Roxanne lifts her head. Looks up at Megamind. Makes eye contact.

And smiles.

A real smile. An excited-greeting smile. She looks genuinely, honestly glad to see Megamind standing there, and for a moment—just for a few seconds as Roxanne walks up the stairs toward him with happy eyes—Megamind can forget the crowd and the ordeal and the pain and humiliation that…actually might…not? be? coming? Roxanne doesn't look like she's hiding anything, and Megamind desperately does not want to think she would take part in some kind of cruel prank. He loves her. She wouldn't. Please, please let him be right about this.

He is already smiling back, helpless and dizzy and afraid.

Roxanne unthreads her arm from Wayne’s date partway up the stairs, and she’s still smiling as she approaches Megamind. "Hey, you," she greets him, voice warm and almost playful. "Wow, you look…stunning, actually, I wouldn't have thought pink would be your color!"

"Me," Megamind says, abruptly noticing Roxanne's outfit. "Me? You look—you’re—"

Words fail him. Speechless, for once in his life. The knee-length ultramarine dress she's wearing hugs her hips as she walks, her boots are black and elegant. And her coat—she's wearing leather. Leather and spikes. It's cropped short and studded all over with stars and glittering around the collar and shoulders with spikes, a contrast to the otherwise plain cocktail dress.

And the green pendant and earrings—

—she's in his colors. She is in his colors and she looks so good in them and what Megamind should do is smirk and possibly bring her knuckles to his lips and say something about her flirting with the forces of darkness but—he cannot breathe, cannot speak, can only shake his head and give her a thumbs-up that feels incredibly awkward.

She laughs. "I do look bad, don't I," she says, eyes twinkling at him. "Oh! And—here—"

She digs in her purse and comes up with a box and a blush under her freckles.

"I figured I might as well go all the way," she says as she opens it, embarrassment in her voice.

Megamind blinks down at the box, then huffs a startled laugh through his nose and relaxes just a little. The boutonniere is made of a felted rose with deep blue and green petals, plus some silk leaves and flowers and pearl beads.

He glances up at Roxanne, whose energy is infectious even through his haze of fear and hope. “Wow,” he says, finally managing to tease a little, “I might have worn a ball gown had I known we were going to prom."

Roxanne laughs again. "I just hope you would have let me know ahead of time; I would have needed to match my tie to your dress! Hold still, let me…"

She steps close to pin the thing to his lapel, still laughing. With her head tipped forward, as close as she is, he can already catch the lovely subtle scent of her hair—and oh, he could just—

"There," she says, tugging his lapel back into place and stepping back. "Now we're coordinated! Aaaand oh goody, here come the cameras."

Megamind has seemed mildly concussed up until this point, but Roxanne says cameras and he immediately goes rigid. Aw. That wasn’t what she had meant to do.

She drops her voice. "Here," she says, low, turning to stand next to him and smile out at the flashing crowd. "Put your arm around me."

"Put—excuse me?"

"Come on." She steps close, close against his side, curves her spine to fit herself there. After a moment, Megamind's cold hand comes to rest on the small of her back. Roxanne murmurs, "I'm going to put mine around you, too, yes?" At his nod, she rests her hand on his far shoulder—

—and feels him relax. Not much, not enough that she would have noticed if she wasn't standing right next to him. But enough. Wow, she…wasn't expecting that. She’s touched.

"Okay," she finally says, as Wayne scoops Adam into his arms and lifts off and draws the attention of the crowd, "Let's get out of here before they start trying to—"

"Roxanne, can you tell us why you chose to put so much money on a date with the known criminal who makes a habit of kidnapping you?"

"I can," she says as Megamind bares his teeth and dons his most blazingly evil glare so he can elbow the two of them through the crowd and down the steps, "but I won't."

(oops pretend their arms are around each other)

"Megamind, what was your reaction when you saw—"

"Roxanne Ritchi—"

"If I kiss you, will they shut up?" Megamind mutters, hurrying towards the car in lockstep with her.

Roxanne snorts. "Give them something to talk about? Tempting, but I think it would do the opposite. Here, just get into the car—no, don't go around, I'm coming in after you—"

The passenger seat of the gray sedan isn't the most spacious place he's ever sat, but Roxanne crawls in after him and yanks the door closed against the roar of the crowd, and Megamind can't help but feel like whatever bubble he's in must be the perfect size if it's between him and all that.

"Fucking vultures," Roxanne mutters, exhaling. "Selene, this is Megamind; Megamind, Selene." The driver waves at him and puts the car in gear to start inching away through the crowd. "She'll be driving us to dinner."

"And shaking any unwanted tails," Selene says cheerfully. "Don't worry, I'm very good."

Megamind frowns, tries to focus. "Unwanted tails," he echoes.

"Larissa is a capital-A Asshole," Roxanne says flatly, and yes, Megamind had in fact already noticed this. "She is conniving and dangerous and I don't trust her not to try to pull something while we're out and about. I’m hoping she doesn’t; that seems excessive even for her. But…better safe than sorry, right? And—"

"Yep, got her," Selene announces. "Hold on tight, you two!"

She swerves right.

"Called it," Roxanne says grimly. “God I hate her.”

In response to Megamind’s questioning expression, she gives a terse little sigh and explains, "She dated a friend of mine for a while back when we were in school and she would not let him break up with her. He had to get a PFA and file a fucking restraining order."

Megamind’s brows tug together. "She said you were friends."

"Because she’s a lying sack of shit who probably wanted you to trust her. We were in the same quad for one semester but we were not friends."

Selene fishtails them down a side street, then calls back, "You two are awfully calm, most people freak out when I drive like this."

He frowns. "Why?" he asks, but Roxanne just snorts.

"Nah, you drive like Minion," she replies. "This is fine."

Selene makes a surprised sound in her throat. "Does Minion want a job working covert surveillance for the feds? Sounds like he'd have the driving part down pat. Okay, I think we've lost her now but let me just make sure."

Megamind has gone stiff again. "I didn't quite catch that," he says. "You work doing what with whom?"

"I used to be on a team of vehicular surveillance operatives," Selene says. "We needed to be really good at driving, ha. Offensive and defensive. Yep, we definitely lost her; damn I'm good!"

"You're the best," Roxanne agrees. "Although you could have skipped the whole freaking-out-my-extraterrestrial-friend part."

"Haha, yeah. Sorry. You're fine, don't worry," says their driver, glancing at Megamind in the rearview. "I'm mostly joking anyway. I don't know anything about any X-Files department. Not that I could tell you if I did!"

"How reassuring," Megamind says weakly. He glances over at Roxanne. “And Selene is…?”

“A friend. I’ve known her since we were…what, ten years old?”

“Eight,” Selene says. “Third grade.”

“Right! That’s right. Anyway, I trust her. And she’s letting us borrow her car for the evening, after we get to the restaurant, so I also owe her one.”

“Pffffsh,” scoffs Selene, before Megamind can reply, “you don’t owe me anything. I owe you for that glowing letter of recommendation you sent, back when I was trying to get my foot in the door! Happy to finally return the favor.”

Megamind gives a nervous little laugh that Roxanne absolutely does not ever want to hear from him again. God, this all has to be so weird for him. 

She hesitates for a moment, but… Oh, to hell with it. She puts her hand over Megamind’s balled-up fist on his leg. He startles badly and stares at her, wide-eyed, and Roxanne sends him a smile she hopes is reassuring. Megamind hasn’t pulled his hand back, but he is leaning away from her, tense and grim-faced, and…

"The point is," she says, "you are safe. As safe as I can make you, I promise. I know surprises aren’t really…something you look forward to, but…"

Megamind’s brow furrows and he looks down at their hands. "I don't understand why you're doing this," he says. "I don't—what is—"

"I'm doing it because I want to."

"Yes, obviously, but—"

Roxanne sighs. "Look, I…have my reasons. Okay? Not least of which is that I think it's absolutely awful that they force you to do this every year. Making you put yourself on display for a total stranger? God, it's disgusting! I don't know how they justify it! And I just…" She trails off, feeling silly. "I just want you to have a good night, for once."

Megamind swallows hard. "But—Metro Man's date—this is—some kind of plot. This isn’t—"

She shakes her head hard. "No. No no no, that is separate from this. You're just the icing on the scandal there; we came up with that after I approached Wayne about helping me win your date, okay? It’s not like some sort of double-cross, or something, I just…I wanted to do this."

He stares at her.

“I swear. I just hate that they make you do this, and so I wanted to give you a, a nice date with someone you…well, someone you know, at least, if not trust.” She shrugs hard, scowls. “I just want you to have a nice time. That's all. I swear."

His lips part and his eyes flick back down to their hands.

And then, slowly, he lowers his shoulders, and some of the cornered, hunted look goes out of his expression. Not all of it. But some.

He reaches across himself and rests the tips of his long fingers lightly on her knuckles.

"Thank you," he says.

A few minutes later, Selene turns onto West Orange, makes a sound of surprise, and parks the car with startling ease. “Okay, wow, parking space! So, Annie, you give me a call if you need me, yeah? My ride’s just down the block, the car’s yours for the rest of the night.”

“Thanks,” Roxanne says, voice warm and sincere. “I really appreciate you helping with this.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. We should catch up sometime soon!”

Selene gets out of the car and disappears into the night, waving over her shoulder as she goes.

Roxanne turns to Megamind, who has been uncharacteristically quiet for the last little while. “You okay to keep going?”

He squints at her. "What?" 

“I mean, I made dinner plans, but…I can take you home, now, if you aren’t up for them.” She pauses, then offers, “Or, or we can call Minion to come pick you up. Either way. Whatever you need to do.”

After a moment—a long moment—he shakes his head. Takes a breath. “I’m. Okay. I’m okay. I’m…okay.”

Roxanne waits. She knows Megamind’s thinking face; he’s very obviously working through something. And it’s not like anyone is going to steal their reservation, so she can afford to wait with him in the car for a bit if he needs to collect himself.

It’s surprising, actually. If he does say he needs to go home, she’ll be disappointed, but…she actually does not think she’ll feel particularly resentful. The activities she set up for tonight's date took some doing, but she wasn’t kidding when she said they could call Minion and it would be fine.

To her surprise, though, Megamind finally says, “I am okay. To keep going.”

“You sure? It’s really okay if you aren't,” Roxanne insists.

…He isn’t. She can already tell; his thin face is still very drawn and tired-looking. But Megamind nods anyway, and then just as suddenly turns away and scrambles out of the car. Slams the door behind him.

Huh.

Well…that's fine. That's probably fine. 

If he says he’s good to go, then she’ll roll with it for as long as she can stand it. Something is still wrong, and Roxanne can’t be sure if it’s last year, or the shock of this year, or Larissa trying to intercept them as they left City Hall—which, what the hell—or something else.

But she knows Megamind, and she knows he doesn’t respond well to being pushed. Moreso even than usual, these past few months. Choosing to move forward with this is still a choice, and Roxanne is damned if she’ll make it for him; she’ll just…feel unexpectedly icky about it, for now, and…keep checking in, she supposes. And she'll come fully clean with him after dinner, before the next phase of their date. It'll be okay. 

She takes a deep breath, and nods to herself, and swings her door open into the winter air.

Chapter Text

They’ve parked across from a Spanish restaurant in midtown. “Lucky space,” Roxanne says as she gets out and stretches. “I really was expecting we’d have to park in the garage a block over and walk. You sure you’re good?”

“Lucky,” Megamind echoes. “Yes.”

It’s cold. February in Michigan is not the kindest month, and the snow earlier that week hasn’t melted but turned to icy slush. Roxanne steps up to Megamind’s side and carefully takes his arm. He startles again when she touches him; he had been staring through the front window of the packed restaurant like someone about to face a firing squad.

“So this is the place,” he blurts. And he starts to move forward, but Roxanne tugs on him a little.

“Not that way,” she says. “Follow me.”

He balks. “Where?”

“Are you kidding? You hate people.” She grins at him. "So we aren't going in through the front. Come on."

She loops her arm more securely through his and steers him toward an adjacent side street, little more than an alley, wobbling slightly on the heels of her boots as she steps to avoid puddles and slush.

"See, some restaurants do a thing," she explains as they walk, "with tasting menus and private seating. It's generally not advertised, but if you know the owner or the chef, sometimes they'll mention doing something like this on occasion. Diego doesn't typically offer it on Valentine’s Day anymore—he had some bad experiences with it a while back, and this is one of the busiest nights of the year for them anyway. But he owed me a favor. Also his sous chef has been complaining that the menu has stagnated, so this gives them the opportunity to test some new possibilities with us this evening."

Megamind squints up at her as he follows her up a set of steps. "I am…not sure I follow. Is this not the kitchen entrance?"

"This is for deliveries. Kitchen is further down. Brace yourself, it might be loud."

She pulls the door open. Megamind catches it and holds it so she can enter first—whether this is due to manners or a desire to keep some kind of buffer between himself and the unknown, Roxanne can’t say. She does still feel bad for dragging him out on a night she knows he typically dreads for weeks leading up to it, but…well, it is for a good cause, so…

The crash and clatter of a kitchen at work smacks her in the ears, and she ducks away into the alcove Diego showed her when she was planning all this. “Over here,” she says loudly, and Megamind follows her with big eyes. “This is us.”

The table is small, tucked into a tiny nook lined with wire shelving and a riot of items Minion would probably know what to do with but Megamind is entirely mystified by. The setup might be described by some as "intimate,” but Megamind has only a passing familiarity with the word; he would reach for "cramped." Not in a bad way, though. He has always felt safest in tight spaces if he’s in a new place.

The noise of the kitchen is nearby and quite loud, a cacophony of raised voices and clattering. The table is positioned in such a way that Megamind and Roxanne will have a decent view of the activity there, access to the constant back-and-forth rushing of waitstaff and multi-voiced shouting of the kitchen, but thankfully there is enough space and enough of a partition that the sound level is not too oppressive.

This is…

Wow, this is fantastic, actually. One of the things Megamind loathes the most about these dates is the part where he has to force himself to keep his attention on the person in front of him. He doesn't care about them, doesn't care about their life, doesn't care what they're saying. Forcing himself to feign interest in things he doesn't care about with nothing else interesting to look at is excruciating. It always has been.

He wouldn't have that problem with Roxanne, probably, simply because he does actually care about her and is interested in the things she says, but he absolutely won't have a problem with all this sound and movement right here. So many conversations for him to follow and think about! So many people to watch! So many ways to split his focus! Megamind has never worn glasses, but probably this would be what putting on glasses would be like, he thinks. This sudden clarity. He can almost feel his brain relax as his awareness broadens to let the world flow in.

When he looks at Roxanne, he finds her smiling at him with what looks like amused satisfaction: head tilted down, tight smile but eyes twinkling means hidden laughter...and in combination with the uptweak of her eyebrows when he looks at her, this means he just did something she was expecting and she's pleased about it.

"What?"

"This was a good idea," she says. "Having the kitchen here. I thought…never mind. This is okay, though?"

"This is perfect," he says, with complete honesty. "What did you think?"

She shakes her head, still smiling. "Nothing. I just,” she takes a deep breath, “I was trying to think of where I could bring you that wouldn't be horribly boring for you! You're always all over the place, and dinner generally means sitting still for upwards of an hour, maybe more. If the weather was warmer, I probably would have opted for something outside, but in February…" She shrugs. "A view of the kitchen on the busiest night of the year is the best I could do."

"The view of the kitchen is also perfect," Megamind says when he finally manages to yank himself back from reeling at the fact that Roxanne not only correctly guessed one of his major complaints about restaurants, but specifically planned this date to avoid it. "But. I doubt I would be bored regardless. You're rarely boring."

He hears the words as they leave his mouth and nearly flinches. You're rarely boring? Talk about damning with faint praise. Yikes.

But, to his surprise, Roxanne blinks and looks oddly flattered at this. "Aw," she says. "Thanks, that's...something I've wondered about. I'm glad. Hopefully I'll be able to show you a good time, then. Lord knows it’s about time you had a proper date."

She's—

Ah.

Okay. Okay, no, this does make sense. Hell if Megamind knows why she's doing it, but if she's showing him what a date looks like, then of course she wouldn't react the way she ordinarily would. Usually, a comment like you're rarely boring would be taken as a lead into some sharp-edged banter.

But now the question is: did she mean that?

She's—wondered. About—?

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter! This is a charity thing, it’s not like it has to mean anything in particular.

It’s just that he really wishes it could mean something. Anything. She said in the car, she is doing this because she wants to, and Megamind is feeling a lot better with having walked around a bit and things nearby to focus on, but he still cannot relax. Cannot let himself. Roxanne knew the man who bought Wayne’s date. She bought Megamind with Wayne’s cash. Wayne had not been shocked at all. This is definitely some kind of setup—Roxanne and Metro Man can insist otherwise until they’re blue in the face, pardon the expression, but Megamind is not stupid. He’s game to pretend, but this is absolutely some kind of setup. There must be some other reason for Roxanne to do this than just because she wants to—why would she ever want to? And so he has that to contend with, plus Roxanne saying nice things and thinking of a good place to bring him that he would not hate, and he can’t—

He can’t—

“You okay?”

He jumps a little and looks away from the kitchen and back at his date, who is peering at him.

“Listen,” she says, after a moment, “I did mean it, earlier. If you need to go home…I’m not going to be upset if you need to call it a night and leave.”

Megamind steels himself and shakes his head, drags his face into one of his teasing smiles. “No,” he says. “I will be fine. I am…surprised. That you would think of that particular complaint. I…appreciate the consideration.”

“Okay, but something is—oh! Um.”

They both lean back as glasses of water appear in front of them, along with some other liquid—Megamind’s appears to be carbonated—and a covered basket of something, probably bread if Megamind’s previous dates are anything to go by.

These are followed almost immediately by small plates of something white and rubbery-looking, chopped into small pieces, pan-seared, and tossed in what smells like garlic and lemon.

“Sepia a la plancha,” says the person who brought the food. “Salud!” And they disappear back into the noise.

“No menu,” Megamind says, slowly forcing himself to lower his shoulders. Roxanne shakes her head.

“Nope, no menu. They’re basically just going to bring us lots of little plates and we can either eat what’s on them or not, if we don’t like whatever it is. This looks like squid, I think?”

“…Cuttlefish,” Megamind says, after a moment, chewing thoughtfully. “It’s good.”

“I always feel a little conflicted about eating stuff like this,” Roxanne says, studying her plate. Megamind cocks his head. “It’s…I mean, octopus, squid, cuttlefish…they’re so smart. It feels…I don’t know. Like it might be not good. To eat them. They seem like…they might be people? Whose intelligences are…not…like mine.” She grimaces at Megamind.

He blinks at her, then snorts and continues eating. Thankfully, Roxanne looks amused at this reaction.

“Minion and I had an octopus, for a while,” he tells her, between bites. “I can confirm, some cephalopods are very definitely sapient. But they are also delicious, and this one is already dead. So.”

Roxanne glances down at her plate.

“If you don’t want it, give it to me,” he says, and bares all of his white white teeth. “I’ll see it doesn’t go to waste.”

She sighs, and hesitates, and then pushes her plate over to him. Score!

“Thanks. I don’t mind if other people eat them,” she sighs. “I just…can’t get my head around it, I guess.”

“Your loss,” he shrugs. “Do you eat pork?”

“That’s different. A pig would eat me, too, given the opportunity.”

“True, but a pig does not have the opportunity.”

Roxanne shrugs, sends him another uncomfortable-looking grimace. “I don’t know how it makes sense in my head. And maybe someday I’ll hit a point where I can’t bring myself to eat pork, either—I’ve definitely thought about it! But I’m not there yet.”

Megamind studies her for a moment, then shrugs again and switches his empty plate for her full one. He has certain dietary needs and restrictions, and absolutely no guarantee that he’ll be able to eat anything else tonight. “Well,” he says, “I suppose I should feel relieved to know that you would not kill and eat me just to find out what I taste like.”

For some reason, this makes Roxanne turn a very interesting shade of pink under her freckles and up her ears. “Ah! Ha! Yeah. I suspect I’d have my work cut out for me if I tried. I don’t think you’d—um. Go…down. Without a fight.”

He squints at her. “...I’m missing something.”

She waves at him, blushing all the way up her forehead. “Don’t worry about it. Eat your cuttlefish.”

Well, that was odd. But. Probably not anything bad. And this brief shred of conversation was okay, too; it had felt surprisingly normal, considering how every time he stops to think about what’s happening, he gets caught between his burning heart and the confused fear still gnawing on the frayed edges of his attention.

But, “Technically I am finished eating my cuttlefish,” he tells her, haughty in spite of everything. She rolls her eyes. “I will, however, eat your cuttlefish.”

“Smart-ass.”

“You know it.”

“...Are you sure you’re okay?”

He looks up.

Roxanne grimaces a little and fidgets with her fork. “Sorry. I'm sorry, I don't mean to push, it's just…you still seem like you're gonna break in half if I look at you wrong.” She sends him a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. “I was kind of hoping you would relax at least a little, by now.”

He…ah. He had thought he was hiding his nerves reasonably well at this point. Apparently not.

He could pretend. He could. Probably.

But…

Fuck it. If the date goes south because he pushes for information, then oh no, he gets to go home early and nurse a broken heart. Won’t be the first time he does that after interacting with Roxanne. And if the date continues, he gets to continue having dinner with Roxanne, and then go home and nurse a broken heart. It’s heartbreak either way. The only difference is whether he gets to have fun first—but he cannot really even do that, right now. He’s been bobbing up and down like a cork since Roxanne first appeared on that damned screen and now she's flat-out asking and it simply is not fucking worth it.

So, “There is more to this that you are not telling me,” he says, “and without knowing what it is…this is, of course, your prayrogaitive," he adds, with a thin little smile, "you certainly paid enough to keep your secrets. But, no, I am not going to relax.”

Roxanne blinks at him, and then—to his surprise—she sort of slumps. “…Yeah,” she admits.

Megamind's heart trips on a beat.

“Yeah, there is. Um. I was thinking I'd talk to you about it after dinner—you aren’t going to want to hear this, I don’t want to completely ruin your evening—but maybe, I think maybe I should just—tell you now. Get it over with.”

Oh.

Okay, then.

There’s always something else. Always. Everything in his life has always been about what he does, what he is. Never, not once, not ever, about who he is. And Megamind had known, of course, already. Had said it himself, just now, aloud. But. Hearing Roxanne acknowledge it, hearing her drop the pretense of wanting to be here without even trying to keep up the ruse…stings. More than it should.

“If that’s the hangup,” Roxanne says, oblivious, “then…yeah.”

Megamind lifts his chin and curls his hands into loose fists on the tablecloth in front of himself without really thinking about it. “Tell me what.”

And Roxanne nods, she does nod, and then she takes a deep breath and sighs it out.

"I arranged an interview with Larissa about a month ago."

Megamind recoils. That was absolutely not any of the things he had been expecting to hear.

"Up-and-coming photographer with a wide range of subjects in her portfolio, old school 'friend'…it wasn't hard to get on her schedule,” Roxanne says with an apologetic half-smile. Then she pauses. “And—oh. Um. Should I keep going?”

Megamind follows her gaze, finds that he’s clenched his hands hard. And what he wants to do, what he very nearly does, is uncurl them and flatten them and dismiss this reaction, wave it away somehow. Tell her he’s fine. Laugh it off. Pretend.

What he does is smile a very tight, unfriendly smile, and jerk his head at her, and not relax at all. If Roxanne is done pretending then so is he.

“…Right.” His date bites her lip for a moment. Shakes her head. “Anyway…while she was out of the room, getting coffee…I took these."

She pulls a pair of flash drives out of an inner pocket of her purse and places them on the table. Megamind tracks her hands with his gaze as a spear of ice courses down the length of his spine.

…What. What is…what is happening? Is this happening? What is this gambit? Blackmail. More blackmail? No, same as before. But Roxanne…stole…did she see? She must have seen.

Oh god. Okay. Think. Where to go from here.

(It would be a lot easier to think if his heart was not screaming in his chest.)

(He had wanted so badly to believe she was different.)

"I also took her camera's memory card. Swapped it out for a blank one." Roxanne adds this to the pile, as well. “Aaand this, from the side pocket of her camera bag.” A flat metal box, rectangular, only a couple inches deep. Maybe four by nine inches, and no obvious way to get it open. A strip of masking tape—masking tape! not even a proper label! insult to injury—with Feb 14 2009 scribbled on it in sharpie marker is stuck to the top.

(Highly experimental, government-issue; the devil only knows where Larissa picked up an early-model biostasis chamber. Megamind does not have good memories of that box; even through his rising panic, his left wrist twinges painfully at the sight of it. Frankly he's amazed Larissa still had it in her bag. She didn't sell it? Why on earth would she keep it?)

(He should have stolen it back, should have handled this months ago, should have acted. Should should should. So many things he should have done, and didn't, couldn't bear to, and now—)

(And now—)

—and now Roxanne pushes everything across the table to Megamind.

And withdraws.

And everything in Megamind’s enormous brain grinds to a screeching halt.

He stares down at the storage media on the tablecloth, his mouth dry, his ears ringing. His heart is silent and he can’t seem to remember how to breathe.

(Wait.)

Roxanne is giving these to him? She's just…giving them? To him?

(What?)

"I have no idea what that is, or what's on those drives," Roxanne says, and Megamind snaps his gaze to hers. "I opened one, and there's a folder in the root directory labeled 021409, so I'm sure it's yours. But that's as far as I went. It's none of my business." She sips at her drink while Megamind sits dumbfounded and drymouthed, and then continues, "Anyway. Judging by how upset she was when she called me later that week to see if I had seen the light blue flash drive on her desk while I was there, and how angry she was when I turned up in the lists tonight…I would bet actual money she has no other copies."

Megamind's lungs aren't working, that’s. odd.

He forces his hands to open and slowly picks up one of the flash drives.

It's real.

"See, the thing is," Roxanne says, after a couple more seconds, "Larissa isn't what I would call smart, but she thinks she is, and she likes messing with people. The weird thing is, it doesn't seem to matter if they know she's messing with them or not. She…I don't know. Some people are kind of fucked up, but I really do think most people do try to be good. They just, they don't realize. Doesn't make it okay when they hurt someone, it's just…most people don't go around hurting people just for kicks, you know?"

Megamind can't move.

"But, Larissa…she…as far as I can tell, she has what I'll call a dolphin's sense of interest," Roxanne hedges. "How much do you know about bottlenose dolphins?"

"I know they are extremely amoral," Megamind hears himself say, through numb lips.

Roxanne snorts. "Yeah. Okay, that's pretty much what everyone says. But my thinking is…morality is relative, right? They're amoral by most human standards, but by dolphin standards…they're just dolphins." She shrugs. "So what are dolphin standards? These are highly intelligent, social predators with no hands to build tools or toys with, or make art out of. They have very little to entertain themselves with. So it makes sense to me that a dolphin would prioritize its own entertainment over basically anything else. And if you look at it that way, if the primary question in a dolphin's mind is am I having fun, then the way they are makes sense, right? They care about their own entertainment. And for a dolphin, that's fine." She pauses, sips her drink again. "But," she says as she puts it back down, cocking an eyebrow at Megamind, "you put that mindset in a human…"

Megamind blinks.

Ah.

"Put that mindset in a human, and…I don't know what that is," Roxanne says, her expression dark. "I don't know what you'd call that, other than someone who never grew out of being an extremely dangerous bully. Whatever it is, I don't like it. But my point is…having a you-colored flash drive full of blackmail sitting right in front of me? With me none the wiser? That is very much Larissa's style."

And then suddenly she sends him a mean little grin. "Unfortunately for her, I've got her goddamned number. I know she keeps her important backups taped to the bottom of the top drawer of her desk, and I know how to pick locks, and I cleared out every office supply store in Metro the week before we talked so I would hopefully be able to replace as many drives as possible with blank ones."

Megamind finally finds his voice. "Why?"

"Because that's how people think. Replace what you can, and usually they'll just think they misplaced the—"

"Why do this," he interrupts, so lost and confused he can barely stand it. "Why? Why do…any of this, any of…I don't…why give me these?” He splays his hand over the pile. “You could do anything to me with this, anything, you—"

"I didn't steal that shit just so I could be the one to use it! What do you take me for?”

Megamind stares at her. After a moment, the disgusted (horrified? is it horror? he has such a hard time telling the difference between the two) look on her face softens and falls into something that looks upsettingly similar to disappointment.

“Megamind, I…you know I wouldn’t…” She exhales. “I just…okay. God. Tell you what, give me your hand?" She slides her own across the table towards him, palm up. After a moment, she wiggles her fingers a little.

Moving slowly, feeling as though he's in some kind of dream, Megamind slips his hand into hers and allows her to wrap her fingers around his palm. Allows his own fingers to curl over her soft knuckles.

"I care about you." She squeezes, and Megamind feels his lips part as his breath leaves him. "And…and I don't…I don't think you know that? I thought you did, before, but…"

Megamind shakes his head, mute.

"Well, I do! I mean, holy hell, the whole reason I’m out here tonight with you is that I care what happens to you!” His hand spasms in hers, he can’t help it, but all she does is hold on tighter. “And no, I don't know what happened between you two last year, but I don't need to know. I don't have to be a supergenius to tell when someone is panicking. That bitch hurt you; that's all I fucking need."

All he can do is continue to stare at her, try to memorize her face, the thin line of her mouth and the set of her jaw and the fierce tug of her eyebrows. Her grip on his hand is extremely firm. Warm. Megamind should pull away, should have already pulled away, but he can't, god, he just can't.

"Listen to me: I already hated her," Roxanne says. "She hurt my friend years ago, and now she pulled some bullshit on you, and I—will—end—her. If you want me to."

Megamind clears his throat, forces words. "I'll…be fine.” He shakes his head. “I’ll. I will be fine. She thought—she had—her reasons, but—"

"Reasons—"

"—if, if something unexpected happens," he finishes, speaking over her, "look the other way."

"If something…of course. Yes. Of course." Miracle of miracles, she doesn't press him for details.

"I—" Breathless, he swallows love you. "—ah. I. don't know what to say!” The laugh he manages does not sound like him. “‘Thank you’ hardly seems…adequate, but…"

Roxanne gives him a pleading smile and another little squeeze that he feels with his whole self as she says, "Just let me give you a good night. We have all the way until midnight! The night is young. I told you before, I want you to have a good time. For once. I meant that! Please? Try to relax? Enjoy yourself?"

Why, he doesn't say.

Marry me, he doesn't say.

I love you I love you I love you my gravitational anchor my sunlight my own heart, yours, he doesn't say.

"All right," he says, and his treacherous heart leaps and flips when that makes Roxanne’s expression light up.

“Yeah? You’ll let me take you on a date?”

“You’ve already got me on a date,” he points out, and she crinkles her face into a little half-laugh. Megamind breathes.

“I mean, I do, but seriously, I’m not going to raise hell about it if you just want to call it a night and go home.” She shrugs, looking oddly apologetic. “I don’t know, I just…you hate this. And I hate that you’re forced to do this, and so I'm…on one hand, super excited, but on the other hand, I really don’t want to be part of the problem, so—”

He grips her fingers and she blinks. “You are not part of the problem,” he says quickly. Holy smokes, it’s like the world has come up off his shoulders. He can talk again. The fog of crawling dread has lifted; he can think again. “God, no. Roxanne. No. This is—you are—the best thing! Very best thing that could have happened to me tonight! And you just, this—giving me this—” He withdraws and runs both hands over the pile of storage media, shakes his head. “You have no idea the peace of mind this gives me. Even if you are plotting against me!" he adds with a breathless laugh. "I…was not expecting this.”

"I truly am not plotting against you," she tells him.

Shaking his head, he draws his gun from an inner pocket of his suit coat and dehydrates the whole little pile almost without thinking about it. The action catches up with him as he pulls the trigger and his mind spins a little whispery question mark, but—Roxanne knows his sidearm, she's seen it before; he doesn't have to worry about what she'll think. This is fine. Surely this is fine. He plucks up the little blue cube and tucks it away, along with his gun, and then he sends Roxanne as much of a smile as he can muster with as shocked as he still feels. She’s watching him with an expression he doesn’t know how to read, but it’s not an unhappy one.

“Not many people would have done this for me,” Megamind tells her, heart thumping hard as a year's worth of aching tension begins to ebb slowly away.

“Not many people know you like I do,” she returns, voice warm. “And even I don’t know as much as I’d like. But I’m glad to know what I do, and…I really would like to know you better.”

He hesitates. “Off the record,” he says, questioning, and his world gets lighter still when Roxanne gives an emphatic nod.

“Yes,” she says. “Off the record. Everything. This is just for me.”

“…All right, then,” he finally replies.

Once more into the breach, yes? He can do this again. The Valentine’s Date. With Roxanne? Sure, okay. Why not.

Yes, even.

Maybe she really does just…want to be here. With him. Honestly, he is prepared to believe just about anything right now; the dizzy feeling that swept over him when she won the bidding is back. And the weight on his chest is gone. For several horrible, horrible seconds, he had been forced to confront the very real possibility that Roxanne doesn’t care about him any more than any other human in this city or on this world—and really, she has no reason to. She has every reason not to, in fact. The idea that she might care for him or Minion is patently absurd. But…

“I’ve got your back.”

And this has always been Megamind’s problem, this tendency to believe what he is told. But now he has the knowledge that Roxanne stole quite a lot of blackmail so she could give power back to him. So she could give it back. No conditions, no demands, she didn't even look at it. And she stole it. Made a plan and pulled it off. For him?

Once more into the breach. A date with Roxanne. She will be worth it, she is worth it already; Megamind can let himself have this. For tonight, he can have this.

Just for tonight.

Chapter Text

They chat for a while, relaxing by degrees as they talk, with someone bringing them more small plates of food periodically. It’s all amazing, really, but they both have their favorites. The way Megamind bounces in his seat at the apple and manchego empanadas is something Roxanne is going to be thinking about for a while—she gives him half of hers; it’s good, but she could take or leave it. And Roxanne could happily live on the fried artichoke hearts for a year, which is a blessing because the face Megamind makes when he bites into his is very much less than enthused.

"I’m eating the rest of yours," she says immediately, and he nods and gulps water as she scoops his food onto her plate.

"So, what do you do for fun outside of villainy?" she asks. They’ve chatted a bit about their careers, and Megamind really does seem to have finally perked up now that the hard conversation is out of the way. Thank goodness. If he had been so stiff and jumpy the whole night, Roxanne really would have ended up feeling terrible. "Any hobbies?"

"Plotting, scheming," he shrugs. "Occasionally I try to design locks I won’t be able to pick, and then I pick them. Most of what I do circles back to villainy eventually, one way or another."

"Really," Roxanne says, honestly surprised at this. "Nothing else? No breaks, no vacations?"

"Sometimes I try to make things out of clockwork. Torsion- or motion-propelled small machines." He pauses for a moment, then slowly says, "And…I swim?"

"Recreationally?"

He nods.

"I suppose Evil Lair has room for a pool, somewhere?" Roxanne asks. She files the clockwork thing away to ask about later. "I can’t imagine you heading down to the Y to swim laps."

Megamind snorts. "Ha. No, not anymore. When I was a child, yes, but chlorinated water does bad things to my skin. It was better than nothing," he adds, spinning his fork absently between one tine and his fingertip, "but I do avoid chemically sterilized pools now that I have the luxury."

She frowns. "Where do you swim, then? Do you ever go into the lake?"

"Sometimes. But Minion and I have a…an environmental setup," he says carefully, "in one of the lair’s sublevels. Saltwater. We usually swim there."

"Huh. That’s neat," she says. "I’ll bet it’s nice for him to get out of the suit and stretch his fins sometimes. Is it hard to maintain? I’ve heard of people with saltwater pools before but I’ve never actually swum in one myself."

He hums. "It’s large enough that some of the environmental concerns handle themselves. The fishes breed, the corals grow, the invertebrates multiply. We don’t have the space for mangrove swamps or acres of seagrass beds," he sighs, "so of course we can’t replicate a full ecosystem, but we do have some mangrove saplings in the life support areas, and seagrasses in the deeper section. For the most part, the only animals we occasionally need to worry about are the larger predators. Chapel and Greta both feed primarily on the same variety of inverts, as do some of the other fishes, so it can be a challenge making sure their supply is maintaining itself. We do sometimes have to replenish that trophic level ourselves."

Roxanne stares at him for a moment. When he said ‘saltwater pool,’ she had been imagining something like the pools she swims in on occasion, just with a different filtration system. But this sounds like he’s referring to a fish tank of some kind. A big one.

Well, she can fill in the blanks herself on most of it. But… "Chapel?" she asks. "Greta?"

"Nurse shark and moray eel, respectively."

"Nurse…oh, for heaven’s sake. You are bad." Her amusement overtakes her amazement for a moment. "Nurse Chapel? Star Trek, really?"

Megamind grins at her. "Nerd."

"Oh, look who’s talking!" She laughs, and Megamind chuckles and shrugs again. Roxanne cocks her head. "Is Greta a reference to anything?"

"She came with the name."

More food is slipped onto the table, scallops this time. Roxanne has always felt that once you’ve had one scallop, you’ve had them all, and she’s still preoccupied with the tank. She’s planning to ask how big it actually is; she isn’t expecting to blurt, "Oh fuck that’s good," as soon as she tries the dish in front of her.

"Hmm?" He tries his, blinks. "Oh. Wow, it really is. What’s in this?"

Roxanne tries hers again. It’s in some kind of red garlic sauce, but— "I think saffron?" she hazards. "Probably?"

"Mm. Yes, definitely. And this is…ham of some kind?"

"I’m betting Serrano, this is a Spanish restaurant."

"Huh."

They’re both quiet for a moment, chewing, and then Megamind asks, "What about you? Hobbies? What do you do when not being a reporter or professional pawn?"

"Professional!" Roxanne snorts and glances up at him, eyes twinkling. "You make it sound like I received some kind of training. Hmm…I don’t know. I have my houseplants, but I don’t know if I’d call them a hobby. Oh, and on Wednesdays I volunteer at a cat rescue outside of town—but I think you already knew that."

Megamind shrugs, inclines his head. "Guilty."

"I like to read," she offers. "Fiction mostly, but I’ll read about pretty much anything I’m interested in. I don’t have much time to do much, anymore," she admits. "Work eats most of my life."

"What if it didn’t?" He tilts his head at her. "What would you do?"

Roxanne pauses, thinking. "Hmmm…ha. Probably take a cooking class, for starters. I want to be able to cook like this, holy smokes. I need about seventeen more of those scallops."

Megamind snorts. "Minion could teach you some things," he says. "He’s a wizard in the kitchen."

"I know I’ve never had anything like those cookies he made, a couple years back," Roxanne says with total honesty, referring to a snack Minion offered her during one particularly delayed plot. "Those were phenomenal. The aniseed ones."

"The springerle!" He grins. "You know he carved the molds for those himself?"

Roxanne’s jaw drops. "You’re kidding! The detail on those was unreal. Absolutely amazing." She shakes her head, laughs a little self-consciously. "Well…yeah. Cooking classes with Minion, for sure. If I had time."

There’s a pause. Then:

"You are very good at what you do," Megamind tells her, looking so terribly earnest that it tugs at her. "Truly. It isn’t as though it’s time wasted."

She sighs. "I am," she agrees, "but I can’t switch off. It does get tiring." She aims a smile at him. "I should thank you, actually," she adds, "for routinely forcing me to take some kind of break. I mean, yes, I’m still in front of a camera, but…I don’t know, it’s different."

He laughs a little, ears pinking and eyes flicking sideways. "Ah. Ha. Yes, um. Sorry."

"No, I mean that," Roxanne says, blinking as she says it. Because…oh. That’s true, isn’t it? She had said it sort of just to be nice, although it wasn't untrue. But…no, she really does fully mean it. "Thank you. It’s a little harrowing, sure, but variety is the spice of life, right?"

Megamind’s brow furrows and he frowns into the middle distance for a moment.

"Roxanne," he begins. "Can I ask…when did I become someone you would do this for?" He lifts his eyes to hers. "You hated me. I know you used to."

Surprised, Roxanne frowns, too. "I disliked you," she admits, slowly. "I don't know if 'hate' is accurate. But…that was years ago. And it, it was mostly angry, you know? You didn’t listen to me, you didn’t respect my time or my schedule." She pauses. "But. It’s been a while since you’ve interrupted me in the middle of something really important. I suppose I got used to it."

Megamind swallows and drops his gaze. "So," he says softly, "I wore you down. I’m…sorry."

"…Thank you," she says. She wasn’t expecting him to apologize for that; he genuinely does look like he regrets…something, she can’t be sure exactly what.

She bites her lip, thinking, and then before she can stop herself, she reaches across the table and touches Megamind’s wrist. He jumps a little, or flinches, but Roxanne doesn’t withdraw as she says, "Looking back, though, I don’t know if I would change it. I started off angry, sure, but I did get to know you, eventually. I’m glad I did. And I don’t think you would have known any other way to do it, in the beginning."

He shakes his head, eyes still downcast. Roxanne hesitates, then wraps her hand around his skinny arm and squeezes.

"So, in the end…if that’s the only way it could happen, I’m happy it did." She offers him a smile when he looks up. "I’m happy I know you. I mean that. Rocky start and everything. You were worth it."

His expression changes, goes stunned and soft and unsure, all big green eyes and uncertain mouth.

"Really," Roxanne says, something twisting painfully in her chest as she withdraws. "It would be nice to get a heads-up about the kidnappings, but even without that—"

He jerks. "I can do that," he blurts. He sort of gulps, staring at her, but he does also nod a little when Roxanne stops talking in surprise. "I can—do. That. Plan—things with you. For you."

Her eyebrows have vanished under her bangs, she can tell. "Wait—wait, really? You would do that?"

Megamind nods again. He’s doing the thing where he breathes with his upper chest; Roxanne has never been quite sure what that means beyond agitation. "I don’t…know…how? But. Yes."

"We can figure it out," she says, genuinely stunned and a little bit worried at this reaction, but unable to pass up the opportunity. "I can get a burner phone? One that only you and Minion have the number for. Or, or you could put something together, some kind of communication device that’s more secure."

He nods harder. "I can do that! I can do that. Yes."

"You don’t have to," Roxanne tells him. "Only if you want to. Okay? You don’t owe me, or anything."

Megamind barks a laugh. "Owe you! No. I, I mean, yes I do owe you—many many many times over—ahaha—but this, this isn’t about that. I just—I want—"

Roxanne waits, keeping her expression as open and inviting as she can. Megamind’s eyes are slightly larger than a human’s, as are his brilliantly green irises, so it’s easy to see the way his pupils are pinning and expanding: another sign of agitation, and one that she’s heard of before but never seen. Minion mentioned it once in passing, when Roxanne had been worried Megamind was really upset about a particular jab.

"I just—want," Megamind finally says, halting, "to—keep—being someone who—you are happy to know."

Oh.

Wow, that’s actually really sweet. And he clearly means it; Megamind has always worn his heart on his sleeve and he’s a terrible liar. Touched, Roxanne beams at him before she can even think of how to respond to that. "Aw," she says, and receives a flash of bewildered smile that makes that thing in her chest flip over, "that’s…well, giving me a say in things is a good way to make sure of that! But I’m serious, even without it, I’m glad I have you in my life. I don’t know when it started," she adds, suddenly remembering his original question, "but I’ve always respected you. It’s hard to really hate someone you respect."

"Oh," he says, ears pinking.

Roxanne grins at him and leans back as another pair of small plates arrives for them to try. "Plus it’s hard to hate someone who’s as cute of a dork as you are with your brainbots," she adds, and Megamind jumps and then glares at her in what she’s pretty sure is comically-overacted offense.

"I am not cute," he protests, and heaven help her, Roxanne cannot help how hard she snorts in response. Megamind scowls. "Well, I’m not," he insists, more quietly. "I am very scary and evil."

"You’re wearing a pink shirt and blushing so hard I’m surprised your ears aren’t on fire," Roxanne tells him, and he slaps both hands over his ears as his embarrassed flush blooms over his cheeks and up his forehead. "You are very cute."

"I am intimidating," he says in a sulky sort of voice. "I’m scary."

"Of course you are, my darling," Roxanne drawls, lips twitching. "Of course. Also, you have to try this, oh my god."

He blinks and glances down at his plate as though just realizing it’s there. "Ah? Ah. Right. What is this?"

"Portobello and leek croquettes," Roxanne says. "With some kind of aioli. I think tomato? I didn’t catch that part."

Megamind makes a face. "Eurgh, mushrooms," he says, but he still bites into one of his. And his eyebrows go up in surprise. "Oh! It’s good?"

Roxanne frowns. "That's right, you're not a fan of mushrooms."

"Spongy nonsense." He peers at the breaded oblong he’s just bitten, poking at it with a fingertip. "They’re chopped small enough in this that it doesn’t bother me. The flavor is…not bad. I’ll have to tell Minion."

"Hm." She studies her plate for a moment, then shrugs. "Well, if there’s mushrooms in anything else, I’ll eat yours. I love them. They—"

It is at this point that several things happen in the space of a couple seconds. A server comes through the kitchen doors with a tray piled high with dishes, and trips. Megamind’s back is to the door he’s just come through, but he whirls out of his seat in the blink of an eye regardless, splaying both his long hands under a pair of falling plates and weaving them through the air too quickly for Roxanne’s eye to follow. Several dishes crash to the ground and shatter, but Megamind does catch a few more plates and a bowl stacked on the two he grabbed, as well as two empty glasses on the pointed toe of his shoe. For a moment he stands in a sort of exceptionally tense crane pose, poised on one leg with both hands and his other foot in the air, staring at the waiter who stumbled.

"Uh," says the waiter, who looks just as shocked as Roxanne feels. "Thanks? Thanks."

Megamind jerks his head in a nod and hands him the plates and then the cups. Someone else has already arrived with a broom and dustpan and is busily clearing the area of shards.

Megamind slides back into his seat with his shoulders pulled up halfway to his ears and both fists clenched. Thankfully his suit does not appear to have gotten very much on it.

"—Holy shit," Roxanne says when she finds her voice. "That was incredible."

He grimaces. "I try not to showcase that," he says in a tone of—bizarrely—apology. "The whole…ah…speed thing."

She shakes her head. "I mean, I already knew you can move quickly," she says. "I’ve seen you. But you did that without even seeing him fall!"

"I think quickly," Megamind says with a tight little smile. "And I saw his reflection in that pot behind you. Trajectories, possibilities…it isn’t hard to know where things are going to land and when."

Roxanne is staring at him, stunned. After a moment, he gives an uncomfortable-looking shrug and goes back to his food.

"Huh," she finally says. "That's…I had no idea."

Megamind doesn't respond.

"…You have to hide a lot, don't you," Roxanne says. Around them, the sound of the kitchen seems louder, suddenly. Megamind’s elbows are tight against his sides again; it’s so weird to see him shrink down like this instead of puffing out his chest and crowing about his evil. "More than most people realize."

He’s quiet.

"It’s a shame," she finally says. "To have to hide."

"Hiding isn’t a shame," he says. "The fact that I cannot successfully hide. Ever. That is a shame."

She blinks. He sounded so bitter, just then, and this is another thing she hasn’t seen often: Megamind denying his capabilities.

"The big things, the important things…yes. I can hide. My mantle helps, the weight is a touchstone. But." He scowls down at his food. "If I'm not prepared, or my guard is down. Or socially. Everything, socially, mentally, all of it…no, I cannot hide then. Everything is wrong with me then."

"You've been doing fine with me," Roxanne offers.

"Professionally, yes." His lips thin. "As a supervillain. I am allowed to be…the wrong things, as a supervillain. Expectations are much broader."

She swallows and tries again. "No," she says, "no, I mean…now. Here, tonight. You've been doing fine."

"You're very kind."

"I'm not going to try to convince you," she says, wishing she could. "But really. I wanted to do this for a reason, and so far, I am not regretting it. I'm having fun."

He looks up at her from under his eyebrows. She shrugs hard.

"Frankly if other people are having a problem with you just…existing, that's on them. Not you. For heaven’s sake, just because someone says you're wrong doesn't mean they're right about it."

"But the way I am doesn't fit with human—"

Roxanne splutters into shocked laughter. "Why would I expect you to be human?"

He lifts his head.

She's still almost laughing, but not because it's funny; this is goddamned ridiculous. "Why would—why—Megamind why would I even expect you to act human? You—that would be—wildly unfair to you! You're not human! That's not bad, it's not wrong, it's—it's just how you're made, that's all, it’s what you are! That's normal!"

"Normal," he says, staring. "Normal? You…"

"There is nothing wrong with you," she says, appalled that he thinks there is. "And everything wrong with people's expectations of you, if they're expecting you to act human. Good lord. You aren't human. You don't have to be."

Megamind's lips part, and then he drops his gaze.

He seems to be having a hard time finding words. There are a long few seconds where he just sits, hands wrapped around themselves on the table in front of him and elbows tight against his sides, eyes darting from side to side.

And then his gaze settles. Sort of flickers. And his nostrils flare, and his mouth pinches closed, and his throat works for a moment, and—

And then the moment passes, and he says again, without looking up, "You're very kind."

"I mean it," she says, because that was pretty much the most horrifying reaction she could have imagined. "I don't need you to be human. I don't want you to be human."

"Change the subject."

She looks at him for a second, aching, wanting to reach out and knowing she can't risk it. Knowing she shouldn't even want to, at all. This isn't a real date.

Finally she says, "Have you ever been in my bedroom?"

Megamind shakes his head.

"I didn't think you had." She grins. "Cool, then you'll never guess what pet I've been hiding in there."

There, that seems to perk him up a little. "I…didn't know you had any pets. Can I get a hint?"

"I'm pretty sure you'd hate her."

"Oh? Ah…a snake?"

It's Roxanne’s turn to be surprised. "I didn't know you don't like snakes."

"I find them unsettling. Not a snake, then."

She shakes her head.

He's quiet for a moment, then shrugs. "Tell me."

Roxanne grins and pulls out her phone. She quickly finds one of the better photos of her friend, then passes her phone to the supervillain across from her.

His whole body sort of seizes up and he immediately places her phone down on the table in front of him and yanks his hands back against his chest. "A spider!"

Roxanne beams. "Her name is Oaxaca, she's thirty-five, and she is a very sweet old lady."

Megamind looks entirely repulsed, but to his credit, he doesn't say anything about murdering her pet—a reaction she receives with disappointing frequency. "She's…thirty-five. Years? Old?" At Roxanne’s nod, he asks, "And, and how much longer do you expect her to…?"

"Hopefully, another five or seven years. Scroll one photo to the right for me?"

Megamind swallows, but he swipes the screen and peers down at a picture of a faded polaroid showing a tiny girl with long brown hair, a gingham dress, an ear-to-ear smile missing both front teeth, and a spider roughly the size of her face climbing from her hand onto her shoulder.

"Aaaagh," he says, then startles and hastily turns this into, "Awww. That's. Sweet."

"Thanks for letting me show her off." She smiles a little. "I don't get to gush about her much. People don't…really want to hear about tarantulas."

"I don't mind hearing," he says. "Seeing…is okay. Mostly okay. But hearing is fine. She's, um. Clearly very special to you." He swallows, then manages a weak sort of grin. "And an excellent supervillain repellent. I have never entered your bedroom, and now I never will."

Roxanne laughs. "I can take that back, if you want. Sorry," she adds, as Megamind scoots her phone back across the table to her with just the tips of his fingers, "I know you hate spiders, but…well, I figured it would distract you pretty completely."

"Yes, well done. Um." He shakes himself, eyes tracking her phone until it disappears into her purse. "I did not…realize that they could live that long."

"Some do, some don't. Oaxaca is a Mexican red-knee, so she's got about forty years in her if I keep her right. My parents got her when I was…six months old, I think?" She smiles. "We were babies together. She wasn't meant to be my pet, but I ended up being the one handling her the most, cleaning her tank, feeding her…she's just a spider, I know she doesn't love me. She probably doesn't know me from anyone else. But she knows to crawl onto my hand if I put it in front of her, and not to bother if I'm cleaning her tank. She…well, anyway."

"How did she come to live with you?"

"When I left for school, I begged and begged my parents to let me take her with me. Finally they said they'd give her to me as a present if I graduated summa cum laude." She shrugs. "So I graduated summa cum laude."

"Well done!"

She smiles, a little bit sheepishly. "I love my girl."

"I can see that." He takes a deep breath, then teases, "And who knows? It occurs to me that I might react differently to actually seeing her. Perhaps she isn't a repellent at all."

Roxanne snorts. "Do you want to see her?"

"Not remotely. But I am…curious."

"Well. Maybe someday," Roxanne says. "Thanks for letting me show her off to you."

"So, you know I don't like spiders," Megamind says, "but what about you? Any phobias?"

"Not really. I'm lucky that way." She shrugs, then leans back in her chair as their plates are whisked away and replaced with tightly-packed rounds of small orange chunks.

"Ooo, salmon!" Megamind says, and for a moment—for honestly the first time so far this evening—he seems to light up a little, seems genuinely happy.

"Ewww, salmon," Roxanne agrees, but she picks up her fork regardless.

Unfortunately, this is not like Megamind’s mushroom thing. This is raw salmon, with bits of something else that do nothing to hide the fact that it is raw salmon, and no thank you she does not care for this. This is bait. Still, Megamind seems to like it, so she nudges her plate towards him on the tablecloth and raises her eyebrows.

And sure enough, he shrugs and pulls it towards himself. "You don’t like sushi?"

"Sushi is fine. I don’t like salmon. Never have; the flavor is too strong. And too weird."

"It is distinctive," he agrees.

After a moment, Roxanne says, "For phobias…I suppose I could call my thing about the dark a fear of some kind. I don’t think I would call it a phobia, necessarily," when Megamind cocks his head, "but being in the dark is something I really try to avoid."

"Being in the dark," he echoes. "But the bag is okay?"

Roxanne blinks, squints. "Bag?"

"The kidnapping bag. Over your head."

"Oh!" She laughs a little. "I mean, I wish you would wash the darn thing. It smells like fifty different explosions. But no, that’s fine—I mean being in dark spaces, or having to move around in the dark. Not being able to see what’s around me just…makes my whole spine prickle. It’s stressful."

"Even indoors? In your home?"

She nods. "Even just walking from my bed to the bathroom. I don’t know why. Thankfully it isn’t a problem in the city, for the most part. And my condo is pretty well-lit even at night."

"Huh." He frowns. "That sounds…difficult? I’m not sure I can relate."

"Yeah, ha. I imagine you have pretty good vision even when I can’t see five feet in front of me." Then, when he looks confused, she says, "It's—your eyes reflect in low light. That’s for seeing in the dark, right?"

Megamind colors and goes a little bit tense. "It is. Yes. I…try not to think about it very much."

"Oh." She recoils a little, blinking. "Why not? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…"

"It’s all right, it’s…they’re…creepy, I know. They—"

"Creepy!" she blurts. "They’re—oh, my god."

He cocks his head.

"Just—that is—not the descriptor I would use?" She grimace-smiles, feeling her ears heat and regretting bringing this up. It's obvious Megamind doesn't want to talk about how alien he is, and Roxanne isn't sure how to compliment something that makes him so stiff. "Wow. I mean, not to…I don't know, not to single you out, but seriously—eyes that reflect? Absolutely the coolest possible thing I can think of for eyes to do."

"…Oh," he says. "Oh? Um." His brows tug together. "Thank you?"

"Seriously. You have no idea how many people would kill to have eyeshine, even just for the aesthetic." She swallows. "Anyway, um. Clockwork! You mentioned that earlier; tell me about that. Can you make a wind-up butterfly that actually flies?"

Megamind feels himself perk up, feels his eyebrows fly straight up his forehead. Bless this woman, changing the subject again right before his discomfort had a chance to take hold. "Oh! I tried that!" Trust Roxanne to think of the same thing he had thought of. "That was one of the first things I tried! And the answer is—yes! I can! But it does not fly like a butterfly, it flies like a bee, and not very well. I’m still working on that."

"Something with the wing cycles? Or, or flap cycles, or whatever they're called?"

"Possibly." He shrugs. "I think it is simply that butterflies are so incredibly lightweight. So delicate. It is difficult to achieve the same style of flight with something metal, no matter how fine the work is."

"Hmmm. Maybe some kind of mesh," she muses.

"Already using mesh."

Roxanne frowns into the middle distance, then jumps when Megamind chuckles.

"Hm? What, what’s funny?"

"This is what I love about you," he says, eyes sparkling at her, "I mention a problem and you go straight to solutions mode. Every time."

Roxanne laughs a little bit, too—partly in surprise, partly because something about Megamind’s face—something in his voice, as he says what I love about you—it catches at her. She isn’t imagining it, he’s—it’s not just amusement, it’s—fondness? Is he—fond? Of her?

The possibility should not make her stomach do what it’s doing. What is it doing?

"You know what they say," she teases, hiding her confusion and—and—butterflies? what the fuck? why is she feeling butterflies—like a pro, "if you aren’t part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate."

Megamind looks startled for a split second, and then he throws his head back and cackles. "Part of the—oh, that is bad! I have not heard that one before. Part of the precipitate." Still chortling, he grins at her. "Regardless of what they say, it is something I appreciate. Two heads are better than one, and you never seem shy about lending yours."

Roxanne is still sort of bewildered and fluttery as she demurs, "Oh, I…well, I’m glad! I’m not sure I can be of much help to, ah, to someone of your…mental caliber, but, I’m happy to try."

"Mental caliber," he scoffs. "Oh we are evenly matched there. Different strengths, certainly, but—no, Miss Ritchi, I—no, Roxanne, do not sell yourself short. You are the smartest person I know! And I have met some smarties in my time."

Butterflies. Those are DEFINITELY butterflies in her stomach that she’s feeling; what the hell is going on. How long have those been chrysalised in there? When the fuck did she get warm-fuzzy caterpillars about Megamind?

Thankfully, she is rescued from having to think too hard about this by the arrival of yet another pair of plates, and the removal of most of their cutlery. Double-thankfully, these newest plates appear to contain dessert items, rather than more dinner. This is definitely a good thing; Roxanne can’t speak for her companion, but she honestly isn’t sure how many more tasting plates she’ll be able to manage.

"Oh good," Megamind says, echoing her sentiments. "But…" He pokes at his dessert with his fork. "What is this?"

Roxanne shrugs. "I haven’t the faintest, I didn’t catch what they said. It appears to be…bread? I think?" It’s unrecognizable as such, but cutting into it reveals a sort of french-toast-like texture. It’s been fried and then drizzled in an apricot-ginger syrup, it’s quite good. There are barely two bites of it, but they’re good bites.

"In olive oil," Megamind says, after a moment, and frowns down at his empty plate. "I didn’t realize you could fry things like that in olive oil. Minion uses something else for deeper frying."

"…Olive oil has a low smoke point," Roxanne says, scrolling through some search results on her phone. "So you have to fry at a lower temperature. But evidently it can be done, and is one of the go-tos in Spain."

Megamind makes a vaguely interested noise. "Learn something new every day."

"Now you can go home and try frying something in olive oil."

He snorts, and sips at his drink. "Minion would kill me. Assuming I did not set the kitchen on fire and get myself killed before he had the chance."

Roxanne cocks her head, amused. "Wait, you’re not allowed to cook at home?"

"It’s for both our sakes," he says. "Minion is extremely particular; I would need my own kitchen if I was going to…what on earth is this."

"And natillas de leche," their server says, and vanishes out into the main dining room.

"It’s pudding," Megamind says flatly, poking at it with his dessert spoon. "I do not eat pudding."

"It is not pudding, it’s…whatever they said," Roxanne tells him. "Oh, and it’s really good! It’s got lemon, I think? And…I want to say cinnamon?"

Megamind makes a highly dubious expression, but tries his.

He immediately makes a face and puts his spoon back down again. "No. Bad. Slimy. Yechhh."

"You ate the raw salmon," Roxanne points out. "That was slimy."

"I could still bite it," he insists. "It was only slimy on the outside. This is sweet mucus. No me gusta."

Roxanne shrugs. "Fair enough."

The next dish takes a few minutes. In the meantime, as Roxanne works on her custard, she asks, "So what happened to get you banned from the kitchen?"

He snorts. "What didn't happen? I suppose the most accurate summary is that I destroyed one too many of Minion's cooking implements with my extremely ee-vil and genius concoctions."

She cocks her head, lips twitching. "You seem so precise in other areas of your life."

"I am precise! Yes! And cooking is not precise! It isn't my fault it goes sideways every time."

"It never is," Roxanne says, laughter in her eyes.

Megamind glares at her.

"Well it's true! You never admit when you're wrong. It's always Minion's fault, somehow. Or the food's, apparently."

"That isn't—" He stops. Roxanne is wearing her I'm-right-and-you-know-it expression. He huffs and wrinkles his face at her.

"Why do you need to be right all the time?"

"I don't," he protests. "I do not need to be right. I just—I’m—"

His visible discomfort has been increasing, and Roxanne opens her mouth to wave her question away and change the subject—but suddenly it’s like a light switch flips. Megamind’s shoulders drop, his chin lifts, he arches an eyebrow.

"—brilliant," he says, and shrugs with the tilt of his head. "And no one wants to admit it. For some reason. And—and so I—suppose that I may have gotten into the habit of—insisting on having been right, even when, ah, even when I am—less—right."

"When you’re wrong, you mean," she says, twinkling at him.

He glares back. "I am—when I am—I’m—fine. I suppose. Yes." He huffs a terse-sounding sigh and his expression pinches slightly. "I have—Miss Ritchi, I—maybe this will make more sense if I say I have—a—complicated history. With that word."

She tilts her head. Megamind shrugs again, twirls his hand.

"What I do is wrong," he says, light. "It always has been. Even, even when I was—certain, I was certain that it was right. Even when I was trying, and the outcome was positive—it was wrong. They said. Everyone said." He pauses and picks up his spoon, and begins to play absently with his dessert as he speaks, pulling and dragging the stiff custard into sharp peaks and valleys as he twists and turns the cup this way and that at the base with the fingertips of his other hand. "Eventually I did understand, of course. The only available conclusion was that everything I do is wrong because I am wrong. The wrong thing. Inescapably."

He glances up at her. "You said before, I don’t need to be human. And I appreciate the sentiment—but, regrettably, I must disagree."

"That isn’t—"

"Everything in my experience says otherwise." His smile is bitter and doesn’t reach his eyes. "This is my Everest. And I realized, years ago…I will never make the summit. I realized…I was setting myself up to die trying." He sighs and lays his spoon down. "So."

There are about twenty ways she wants to respond to that, but what comes out when she opens her mouth is, "I’m glad you stopped."

Megamind’s eyebrows go up in what looks like genuine shock. "Oh?"

"Megamind, I already told you, I’m glad I know you. This—"

"No, no—I mean, yes, but—it’s just, the prevailing sentiment on such things seems to be, try harder. If at first you don’t succeed, etc."

She shakes her head. "Sometimes you have to know when to stop. And you said…god, years ago, I’ve forgotten why. But I remember, one time I cracked some joke about Mount Everest and you said it was a mountain better left alone. So I'm glad you stopped."

Then she pauses, and blinks at his dessert.

"Megamind," she says, lips twitching.

He grins.

"Megamind," she says, "did you sculpt Mount Everest out of pudding?"

"Absolutely not," he replies, sounding extremely haughty but grinning ear to ear, "I sculpted Mount Everest out of natillas de leche."

She bursts into laughter.

"And I am quite impressed, Miss Ritchi," he continues, as his dessert slowly sags back down into its bowl, "that you recognized it."

"I mean, it was topical," she chokes out, "and you were very definitely doing something."

He shakes his head. "Still. I wondered if you would notice."

"You very rarely do anything without some kind of purpose," she sighs, still grinning. "And it's Roxanne. We're off the clock, remember?"

"Ah, of course. We—"

"Last one, thank you," says their server, whisking away the natillas and laying down what has to be the final plate of the evening.

Megamind looks down and his eyebrows shoot up once more, and he makes approximately the same face at his plate that Metro Man had made over the top of Roxanne’s head in his tailor’s shop the other week, just totally delighted. Roxanne can’t blame him. This dessert is in the shape of an orange—mandarin orange mousse coated with shining orange glaze, and a stick with a couple of leaves on it poked into the top of it for effect.

"Aw, it’s cute!" Roxanne exclaims. "Oh, but it’s a little bit pudding-y, is it okay?"

Megamind is already nodding. "Mousse is stiff enough," he says thickly. "It’s okay. And look! Filling!"

He’s right, the mousse spheres have some kind of syrup-soaked sponge inside. "Oh that is way too sweet for me," Roxanne says. The rest of the mousse is fine, but whatever that cake is soaked in made her molars feel like they just wiggled.

This doesn’t appear to be a problem for her companion; she says too sweet and Megamind’s eyes snap to her plate.

Half-laughing, she asks, "Do you want my orange core?" and turns her plate to Megamind so he can reach over and scoop the middle out of her dessert.

He pops the whole syrupy thing in his mouth and his eyes roll back in his head as an extremely satisfied grin paints itself over his face.

"That good, huh," Roxanne says, amused. "You’ve got one hell of a sweet tooth. I was wondering what Diego would do with that—he asked if I had any input on food you might like, and all I could tell him at the time was to make the sweetest possible thing he could think of."

Megamind blinks his eyes open at her.

"I called him again after I talked to Minion, of course," she continues as she returns to her dessert, "to let him know your restrictions and a few more of your preferences. But—"

"You—told them what I might like?" he asks, cutting her off. He’s wearing the same face he was when she told him she was happy to have him in her life, all big eyes and soft mouth.

Roxanne pauses. "Yes? That's why I was sort of surprised about the mushrooms." She cocks her head. "Why?"

"So that—they could—make it? For me?" He looks down at his orange, still oozing syrup onto the plate. "This was for me?"

"Yeah, of course," she says, bewildered. "All of it was."

Megamind pulls back and up, pulls his elbows against his sides, still blinking at his dessert. Pinkish color is blooming over his cheeks and up his ears.

"Oh," he says.

Suddenly worried, she says, "Was that bad? Should I not have…" She trails off; Megamind is shaking his head. He also isn’t looking at her—his gaze is all over the place and he keeps moving his eyebrows like he wants to speak but can’t quite get there—but he doesn’t look upset, exactly.

"It’s," he finally manages, "it’s—this is—"

He flashes a hand out across the table so abruptly that Roxanne jumps, and he touches her wrist. The same way she touched his, earlier, and then he withdraws so quickly she almost thinks she imagined it.

"It’s really good," he says, popping another bite into his mouth. His ears are extremely pink, now.

"Yeah?"

He nods. The flash of the smile he sends her looks like it’s trying very hard not to be tears. Just for a moment, just for a moment and then it’s gone and his expression is smooth and excited again.

"Do you think I can eat the stick?" he says, plucking it out of the middle of his orange and twirling it between his fingers.

She snorts. "I think that’s probably just a stick," she tells him, but he bites it anyway, and Roxanne can’t help but burst out laughing at the horrible face he pulls after.

Chapter Text

"That was," Megamind says, as he reaches the bottom of the stairs, "amazing. Absolutely fantastic."

Her eyebrows go up and a surprised-looking smile lights her eyes. "Yeah?"

She wraps her hand around his elbow when he offers her his arm so she won’t fall on their way back to the car. It’s snowing now, the clouds from earlier and the weatherman both having made good on their promises. Not too hard, thankfully, but the air and ground are cold enough that the snow is sticking. It’s a safe bet the plows will be out later.

Megamind nods. "Yes. Weird pudding and all! All of that was…far, far better than anything I could have hoped for tonight."

Her hand tightens on his arm. "Are you up for something else after this? It’s okay if you aren’t."

He thinks for a moment, or tries to. His mind is still somewhat fuzzy with the sudden absence of stress.

They reach the car.

"Can I know what 'something else’ entails," Megamind finally says, speaking as carefully as he can. If she wants it to be a surprise, he hardly wants to offend her, but also…

…also, he does not have it in him for any more surprises, tonight.

Thankfully, Roxanne doesn’t seem offended at all, only startled. "Oh! Yeah, of course, sorry—um, I was thinking—botanical gardens?"

He squints at her. "Botanical gardens."

"Mm-hm."

"In February?"

"Oh—a lot of these ones are indoors. The outdoor gardens are mostly closed for the season, but there’s still plenty to see!"

He wrinkles his face and tries to process. Botanical gardens. That’s…new. He has never seen anything similar. It would be…maybe relaxing? Probably not terrible? And if Roxanne wants to go, then…

"Here," Roxanne says, and opens the passenger door for him. "Let’s get in the car and warm up, get out of this cold. You don’t have to decide right away, you can take a minute."

Grateful, he nods and slips into the car. He isn’t really thinking anything except ??gardensWhy? until Roxanne leans her head and peers down at…ah, she’s checking to make sure he’s all the way in before she closes his door. That’s kind of her. No one has ever…oh, that’s…something he has really only seen in movies. He has attempted it a couple of times in prior years—to open the door for a date, and then close it for them as well—but he has never had the opportunity to experience it, himself.

It's nice. Feels nice. Attentive.

Huh. It would be lovely to be able to ponder this beyond his sense of oddly flattered confusion, but his door closes and suddenly Megamind full-body shudders. What—

What—

His—he’s safe and he can’t—

He has the blackmail. The photos, and his—

—items, he—has them back, he—Larissa can’t—

Megamind tracks Roxanne with unfocused eyes as she hurries around the front of the car, but looks quickly away when she climbs in. He’s having trouble remaining upright, suddenly.

"Whoo! Brisk out there. Hang on, let me just…" Roxanne turns the key and the car stutters to life. Cold air immediately blasts out of the vents, and she yelps and fumbles at the controls.

"No no no oh god, um—aaghhh this isn’t my car, where’s the ‘fan off’ button—no, not down, I want off, where's—"

Megamind gently bats her hand out of the way and turns the heat off. "This one," he hears himself say.

And then it’s just the two of them. They’re alone, for really the first time all night. And Megamind can breathe, sort of. Holy shit. It’s just Roxanne here.

It’s just Roxanne here and no one is getting the shit Larissa took from him and he can, at last, draw a full breath.

"So," Roxanne says, but Megamind jerks.

"No don’t," he blurts, too loudly, and then he catches himself. "Just. Wait. Give me. A minute."

"Sure," she replies, after a second. There’s a note in her voice he doesn’t recognize and doesn’t have brainspace to analyze right now; he can’t even bring himself to look at her. It’s too much—it’s too much. Suddenly. "Of course, take your time. However long you need."

Oh thank god okay he has permission. His air gasps out of him and he pitches forward like his spine is gone. Catches his face in his hands—maybe that’s enough? Nope—he groans and shudders and falls all the way forward, fumbling under his seat until he finds the mechanism to slam it backwards and give himself room to put his face between his knees.

There. Yes. He squeezes his legs against his ears until he can hear his heartbeat and his breathing and nothing else.

This is. Better. Okay.

"You going to be okay?" asks Roxanne’s voice, muffled, and Megamind responds with some kind of affirmative.

He’s okay.

Everything is not ruined. He’s safe—well, his license is safe, anyway—for another year. Which means Minion is, too. And Megamind as well, of course, in theory if not practice. Whatever else happens tonight, he has this at least.

And he’s losing his shit, a little bit, right in front of Roxanne. That’s. Not good, especially since she was probably thinking he was past all this already, but fuck if he can help it right now. And it’s not like Megamind has much to lose now that the biggest of his bases is covered. A belated panic response is possibly not the worst thing to happen. He’s fine.

And anyway, it is just Roxanne; he can afford to be a little bit softer-edged in front of Roxanne. He even cried in front of Roxanne, once—years ago, when Minion was lost under half a building and Megamind was ripping his palms open on the rubble—and she never said anything about it. She just screamed until Metro Man got there, and then she made him help. And she has done so much for him, tonight. So much.

So.

A minute ticks by. The car hums around him. Inside, cold. Outside, snow.

Megamind breathes.

In the driver’s seat, Roxanne tucks her hands into her armpits and stares through the condensation curling out of her mouth in the still air of the car, a small frown tugging her brows together. She has this opportunity to pause for a moment, and…she can’t help but think of the shocked way Megamind blinked up at her just now when she checked to make sure his feet were in the car before she closed his door, and his helpless smile when their eyes met on the steps up to City Hall earlier. The hot swell of fury that gripped her when she finished logging into the auction and saw Larissa already in the lists, saw the way Megamind's head shot up when Roxanne made her first bid. The look on his face as he stared up at his screen with eyes like saucers and skin like chalk.

And she remembers his question from dinner, and she still has that flutter in her stomach that kicked off when he said he loved something about her, and so she finally actually pauses and really thinks…

When DID Megamind become someone she would do all this for?

It seems absurd, now, sitting here in the car with him, but she hasn't actually given it much thought. Until now, she was only looking at this as…well, of course she would plan a proper date for this, if Megamind wasn't going to. Of course she would! Wasn't that the point of this whole stupid charity thing?

But…no, in fact. She didn't have to plan anything. Didn't have to do any of this at all. She absolutely could have just won the bidding and told Megamind he was free to go home; he probably even would have thanked her. The point wasn't just to keep him safe, the point was also to give him a nice time.

Holy shit. That's why she's felt so conflicted, isn't it? She could have let him go, she should have let him go, but she didn't want to. She wanted to take him on a date.

She wanted to take him on a date.

And she had specifically planned it to be a date he might actually enjoy; she had been genuinely relieved and excited to learn that he hadn't planned anything and she would have free rein. Also upset and worried about him, of course, but…

She wanted to do this. Was excited to do this. She was calling in favors and making plans and looking forward to doing this with Megamind. She put a lot of thought into this date and went to a lot of effort to try and make sure Megamind would be happy. Because. She wanted him to be happy.

Staring out the windshield, Roxanne feels her own eyes going wide, then wider.

That's why this whole auction thing makes her so upset, isn't it? Not just that it's selling Megamind to the highest bidder for the evening, but that he hates it. He hides it well enough from most people but Roxanne knows him, knows how to read him, and it makes him so miserable, and…

…And Roxanne wants him to be happy. Is upset when he is unhappy.

Well. That's…maybe not good.

Or…

Wait. Maybe it is?

Her purse rustles as she pulls it into her lap to blindly dig for her chapstick and lip stain in the shallow half-dark of the street lights. Chapstick goes first with her hands moving on autopilot, gaze fixed on the middle distance and brows lightly furrowed, thinking furiously.

Why would it be not good? Megamind is fun and funny and surprisingly easy to talk to, now that they're one on one and the cameras are off. Yeah, his career is a hurdle, but it's not the end of the world. He's a villain, but he isn't cruel about it, he's principled. Would it be so terrible, to be excited about Megamind? Is it so terrible, to be excited to take Megamind on a date and hope he enjoys himself? Is it so terrible to worry over his happiness, his comfort?

Is it so terrible to want to make him happy?

Rubbing her lips together as she caps the little tube, she looks over at him, bent double in the passenger seat with his hands gripping his knees, and she notices this time that it is her heart when it squeezes.

Fuck. Fuck.

Roxanne gulps, then makes a conscious effort to slowly exhale and steady herself as she sweeps lip stain onto her mouth with practiced ease. 

Well, she tells herself, replacing the applicator and tucking everything away into her purse, she’s got him on a date now. And she can afford to let him sit and breathe for a while and give herself time to process. That’s fine.

The radio when she turns it on is quiet, something with a strummy guitar and a guy singing. Little bit of a duet on what she suspects is the chorus. And I will go if you ask me to; I will stay if you dare—and if I go, I’m goin' shameless; I’ll let my hunger take me there—

Hell of a choice for Valentine’s Day. Uncertain, she breaks the silence to quietly ask, "Is this music okay, or…?"

"Mm. ‘S fine yes."

He can barely make it out, honestly, with the way his knees are squeezed to his ears, but he thinks it sounds a bit like the music Minion listens to when he’s in a certain mood. Megamind usually can’t stand it, himself; it hits too close, it feels too sharp. It feels like twisting an old knife. But this is…this is fine, tonight, actually. He’s too tired for twisting tonight. Or maybe he's already fully twisted.

Finally the song fades out. A soft rustle nearby catches his ear—leather against fabric—and a moment later there’s a k'klik and warmth flows over the skin of his head. Ah, she’s turned the heater back on.

Megamind sighs and relaxes his knees.

After a long few seconds, Roxanne’s low voice says, "Hey."

"Mmgmhgh."

"I meant it when I said I won’t be upset if you need to call it a night."

Well. That is kind of her.

But ultimately unnecessary. Megamind heaves an enormous sigh and rolls himself upright, already shaking his huge head. "No. I…no. Simply needed to sit. For a moment. Alone with you."

She doesn’t reply. Finally he looks over at her.

"I want to keep going," he says, firm. He is tired but he is game. "Botanical gardens. Bring on the botanicals." Roxanne laughs, and the weight of Megamind's bones eases just a little. "Give me the gardens. Dinner was fantastic and if you have more planned, then I am ready for more."

She beams at him, her eyes flicking around his face. "Really? You're sure? It's a bit of a drive, like, half an hour past city limits. Is that okay?"

"Absolutely." If it means he has more time with Roxanne, Megamind will sit in this car for five hours, long day or no. Double that, if it means she'll keep smiling at him this way. Really? Not just dinner, she wants to take him somewhere else, as well? More time? "Yes, bring it on."

She laughs again and puts the car in gear. "All right! Awesome, I really think you'll like this."

As they’re heading out of midtown, Roxanne breaks the silence with, "One good thing about Valentine’s Day—the roads are pretty clear later in the evening. Everyone is already parked and mostly still eating."

Megamind swallows. Ah, more conversation, but without the distraction and easy discussion topic of food this time. But that’s probably okay, he can probably still manage. "Yes," he says. And then, because that didn't feel like enough, he adds, "I am…surprised we were able to park where we did."

"So was I! I don’t know that I’ve ever been able to find parking on Orange Street. The universe must have been looking out for us."

Megamind can’t help it, his mouth twists. "Mm. Yes, right."

"Hm?"

He shakes his head a little. "The universe. It isn’t really…I don’t…I try not to think of things that way."

"Oh?"

"I can accept Earth-focused belief systems," he finally says. "Anything larger…would be cruel. Extremely. If it were true."

"Ah. Right, of course, that…makes sense." She glances over at him. "Sorry. It was mostly just a figure of speech."

He shrugs.

She swallows. "Hey, um. As long as I’ve already made you uncomfortable," (Megamind snorts into a laugh and looks over at her), "I really…I want to ask. Why do you put up with this every year?"

In her peripheral vision, Megamind tilts his head. Roxanne shrugs. "I mean…I know it's 'required,' but there are definitely other heroes and villains who skip out on stuff like this every so often. Plead sick, or refuse but then go all-in on some other thing so nobody goes after them. And you hate this so much, so…why…?"

"I'm surprised you don't already know," he says, after a moment.

"I'm sure some of it is just that you and Wayne are higher-profile, since it's just the two of you. But that can't be the only reason."

Megamind is quiet. And very still.

"It's got to be pretty major," Roxanne says, after a few seconds, "to get you to participate even this year, when you were so upset about it. And…Minion seemed pretty frantic about it, too." She pauses, then ventures, "Should I be worried?"

That makes him stir back to life, taking a breath and releasing it. "I don't know why you would be. But. There are…certain hoops I must jump through," he says carefully, "to maintain my license as a supervillain under state section 170, with federal recognition under 481(a)."

"That's the one that lets you extend your license to bonded henchpersons." She's trying to remember the regulations Wayne has mentioned over the years. Beside her, Megamind nods, and Roxanne squints out at the road ahead. "I do know about the regs," she says. "The hoops. But like I said, there are other licensed supers that refuse to participate in certain events."

Megamind hesitates. Roxanne lets him think this time; she knows from experience that if she doesn’t ease off at a certain point, he’ll just get snappish and angry.

Finally he says, "I jeopardized our lives and freedom once when I was eighteen. I cannot risk doing so again. I will not. I…oh, but I nearly did, anyway, I suppose," he admits, wilting a little. "Tonight. If not for you, I would have taken whoever won this year’s date for a walk in the park, and dinner at…some food truck or other, whatever was open."

Roxanne snorts in spite of herself. "Freeze them solid and encourage them to tap out early? Yeah, I can see how that might cause someone to complain."

"I couldn't," he says. "I just…I couldn't. It would still be a date, it qualified. There is precedent in Michigan."

"True." They’re at a red light, so Roxanne can actually look over at her date properly for a moment. "But the courts aren't exactly friendly, where you're concerned."

Megamind's little smile is bitter and doesn't reach his eyes. "Have you ever wondered why I attended public school?"

She nods.

"Same reason Metro Man did. Metahuman asylum seekers have a couple of ways to obtain citizenship if they arrive in the US as minors under the age of ten, you know this. One of which is to participate in certain 'cultural milestones.' But extraterrestrial asylum seekers must go the cultural milestone route; we have no other options available to us. "

"…You needed to graduate from high school in order to gain citizenship?" That’s the silliest thing she’s ever heard in her life.

"Among a few other things, but yes. Seems pretty basic, right? And yet." He sighs. "Shortly before my final exams, Minion's…autonomy was…compromised."

Roxanne recoils. Megamind notices; he sort of grimaces and waves a hand.

"Some…people who…wanted to control me…realized I had already, ah, eliminated the original measures they took, so they went for the next best thing. I suspect they were assuming I would not make it through shool. And if it was only for my own sake, I probably wouldn't have. But. I was…highly motivated."

"Minion was relying on you," Roxanne murmurs.

He nods. "So. I didn't graduate. I couldn't! I needed to get Minion back. Which I did, and I declared myself a supervillain at the same time, which took care of two birds in a bush. The light is green."

"Wait," Roxanne says, jumping a little and returning her attention to the road. "Wait, hold on. If you needed to graduate, but you never did, then…are you guys still undocumented?"

His teeth flash in a mirthless grin as they pass under a street lamp. "Illegal aliens! Yes!"

She shoots him a Look. "Undocumented. But then…Megamind, what the hell, how does that work? Villains and heroes have all kinds of, of weird taxes and forms and—"

"A hero/villain license number qualifies as a valid USCIS A-number."

Roxanne stops.

…Wait.

Does that…mean…

No. It can't.

Can it?

"Are you telling me," she says slowly, "that a villain license is equivalent to a fucking green card? Is that…that is insane, tell me that isn't where you're going with this."

"It is. As long as I keep my license up to date and valid, I—and any henchpersons under my command—enjoy the full protections of the law and most of the same rights as any other citizen. We can't vote or leave the country, but…" He trails off. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she says. Too lightly.

"You're lying," he says. "You're upset. Why."

Roxanne is not upset. Roxanne is livid. What the fuck. What the fuck is that.

"It’s—just—was there no other way to get documentation at all? What, you’re an alien, so, so, so—oops, you couldn’t attend graduation! Looks like you’ll have to become a fucking supervillain?"

"Or a henchperson! Technically! And the plan was already villainy," he protests, as if that’s remotely her point. "I was already laying the groundwork when all of this happened. It simply meant I had one less failsafe for us, but—"

"But you didn’t have a choice! I mean, jesus, Megamind!"

"I didn’t need one! And—and yes I did too have a choice! I could have chosen to delay getting Minion back and finish out my classes. I chose not to!"

"That is not a choice, that is a hostage situation, oh my god."

"It’s still a decision." He sounds offended. "And I'm good at it, I do like my job! It’s fine."

"For the love of christ almighty—"

"It’s fine! I am fine."

She swallows and restrains herself, with some difficulty. Forces herself to take a deep breath in through her nose.

"Okay," she says. "I'm not going to tell you how to live your life."

"Thank you," he says, stiff.

"But with that being said," she continues, "if you ever decide you do want to quit supervillainy…let me know. I will do everything in my power to make that happen."

He scoffs a half-laugh and brushes this aside. "I appreciate the offer, I suppose," he says. "You’re very kind."

They’re coming up on another red light. "What, you don’t think I can find a loophole?"

"It isn't personal. In any other situation I would have absolute faith in your abilities. In this case…" He trails off, shrugs. "If such a loophole existed, I would have found it years ago."

Roxanne’s stomach turns over. The car stops, and for a long few seconds, all she can do is sit and stare at—at this alien creature from another world sitting in the passenger seat with his jaw set and a carefully deliberate expression on his face, apparently unaware of the bombshell he just dropped.

She wets her lips. "Say that again, but slower."

Megamind squints at her.

"What I just heard you say was…if you could be safe without being a villain, you would have taken that option."

He jerks. She raises her eyebrows.

"I—wh—no, that—"

"That wasn’t what you meant?"

He gapes at her, blinking, mouth opening and closing but no sound coming out.

Roxanne tries again. "Tell me that’s not what you meant."

"It’s—that’s—not what I meant, that’s not what I meant!"

"Are you lying?"

He’s silent.

Roxanne swallows. Shakes her head. In front of them, the light turns green, so she takes a breath and turns away again, trying not to let herself feel too awful. That was further than she had wanted to go, a lot further, but also oh my god what the fuck.

After a long, long moment, Megamind says, "I don’t—know."

"What?"

He sounds extremely reluctant. "I don’t know," he says again. "I don’t—it’s not—"

An awkward silence falls between them. Roxanne can’t stand to let this one linger for very long; she was already pushing her luck. She hadn't expected to wind up pushing so hard, or so far; that little revelation caught her completely unawares.

"It’s okay." She tries to send him a quick smile. "I’m—I’m sorry. You don’t have to…we don’t have to talk about this, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you this much more uncomfortable! I didn't realize what a can of worms I was opening with that one."

Megamind is quiet for a while, during which Roxanne mostly chews on her lip.

But then—incredibly—he huffs a laugh. "Ha. This is what you do, though," he says, and his voice is warm; he does sound amused. "You find something that needs to be looked at, and then you ask nosy questions until someone finally looks at it."

"Okay, yes, but I’m trying to make this a fun night!" she exclaims. "Not find all your cracks and pry them open and shine a light in like, Oooo, What’s That?!"

Megamind splutters all the way to actual laughter. "Yes, perhaps don’t shine lights inside me; I don’t know how you would pull that off but I will not react well to it."

"Here’s hoping you never need a colonoscopy."

He snorts into giggles. It’s a laugh Roxanne has never heard from him before but it sounds fully genuine, and it helps ease her conscience after dragging all of that uncomfortable career whatnot out into the light. Not to mention, dragging Megamind out on a night he typically hates, just because she wanted to. She’s still trying not to feel like a heel for that one.

"Are you having fun?" she blurts.

Megamind sort of startles and looks over at her, still half-laughing. "Am I—what?"

"Are you having fun," she says again. It's sort of pathetic, how much she's hoping the answer is yes. "Tonight. With me, so far. Despite all the, um, the nosy prying?"

He does hesitate, which makes her heart trip on a beat, but… "I am," he says, sounding as though he wasn't expecting this to be the case. Roxanne exhales. "Yes, I—am. Having fun, tonight, with you, so far. I think."

"Thank goodness." She sends him a relieved grin and receives a tentative sort of smile in return. "You'll tell me if you stop having fun, right? You'll say something? If—if something isn’t good, or I go too far? Like earlier, when you said to change the subject. You’ll keep doing that?"

"Yes, if you want me to. Why?"

Because I like you and I want you to be happy, but she catches the words before they can make their way out into the car.

"Because," she says, instead. Buying time to think of something more substantial, because when Megamind wants to know something, he doesn’t typically let it go. "Just. Because."

Megamind studies her for a moment—she pretends to be absorbed in driving, and not notice—and then he puffs another laugh through his nose and turns away. "All right," he agrees, to Roxanne’s total astonishment. "Because."

If she were chewing on gum, she would have swallowed it.

But she doesn’t say anything. She’d rather not jinx it. And what if it’s yet another thing that would push him back into discomfort? Better for her to just let it slide, too.

The silence that falls this time is amicable. The car is warm inside, and Roxanne is driving carefully through the snow falling all around and melting on the road, with Megamind in the passenger seat.

He really seems like such a love, now that she's one on one with him. He's willing to work with her schedule, if it means she'll…what was it he said? Not keep caring about him, although that was the implication she remembers…

…Oh. It was that he wants to keep being someone she's happy to know.

There's not much he can do to change that at this point, but she knows he won't believe her if she says it. All she can do is keep making sure he's as safe as she can keep him, and try to make sure he has fun. She really is so relieved he enjoyed the dinner she planned.

The windshield wipers thump gently as she drives, and the wheels hiss on the wet pavement. Roxanne pilots them carefully through the wet streets, with the radio strumming along in the background.

“Thank you,” Megamind says, unexpectedly. “For doing this. Everything.”

Roxanne smiles a little. “Of course. I just wish I had thought to do it years ago.”

In her peripheral vision, his reflective pupils flash as he looks over at her. “Did you…truly not open those folders?”

“Like I said, they weren’t my business.” She sighs. “I’m nosy, but…there’s nosy, and then there’s nosy, you know?”

He’s quiet.

“I thought about it,” she finally says. “I’ll admit, I was tempted. But I couldn’t do that to you. I don’t—want to be one of the people who hurts you that way. Who violates your privacy. Not like that.”

To her surprise, he chuckles. “I see. Well. Thank you.”

Roxanne swallows. "Can I ask one thing?"

"I might not answer."

"Why…why not destroy her anyway?" She peers over at him, shakes her head. "I mean, blackmail, I get it, but I wouldn't have thought that kind of thing would be enough to…"

She trails off.

Megamind's lips thin. "Photographic evidence of vulnerability is not something a man in my position can afford." He pauses, then continues, "Also. I didn't…want to. Give it…time. Energy. Attention. I couldn't…"

"I get it," Roxanne says, when he stops. "I, okay. I'm so sorry," she adds. "You did everything right. I promise you did. Whatever happened was not your fault."

Megamind glances at her. "…I don't know exactly what you're assuming happened last year," he says, "but it probably is not what you're thinking."

"Then…no, it's okay," she says, shaking her head. "You don't have to tell me. I mean, if you want to talk about it, you absolutely can, but—please don't feel like you have to."

He's quiet for a long moment.

Finally he says, “She proved she had access to information that she could have only obtained from one very particular source. And it—that—it isn’t—a thing I want to think about. Ever. Not ever. I couldn’t—and knowing she has this, she could—sell the knowledge, she—but—people saw me. With her. At her home.”

“Oh.” Roxanne hisses between her teeth. “Of course. And she could accuse you of anything.”

He nods. “Exactly. Exactly. So. I needed to wait. Let suspicion die down. And then, but then I couldn’t…I couldn’t. I don’t know why. And. She said…it was for her brother, she said I had…”

“Larissa doesn’t have a brother.”

He stops. “What?”

“She’s an only child. Whatever she said about a ‘brother,’ it was probably just to make you think you deserved it.”

For a second, he doesn’t say anything, and then he bursts out, “Then what the fuck is her problem? Why me? Why—at least if it was sexual that would have made SOME sense, but—she didn’t even—and! and she didn't even—sell the fucking—she has nothing! Now! At all! I don’t—what the—” He barks a wild laugh. “Okay, drug me stupid, strip me naked, hold me down—okay! I’m with you so far! But—then just to—fuck, god, fuck this, no. I can’t—she—no. Unbelievably fucking stupid. The whole thing.”

Roxanne swallows, then leans over and fumbles for a second, grips his hand. Squeezes hard, and tries not to notice the way his bony fingers curl around her own the instant she makes contact. "It’s okay. I’ve got you, okay? We’ll figure it out." Her blood is screaming in her ears, pounding so hard. What? What? Drug—strip—what? "Try to forget about her, for tonight."

He exhales. Nods.

“Thank you,” he says again. Then, "You keep doing this," returning the squeeze of her fingers. "Why?"

"Oh…" She shrugs, horrified and trying desperately to hide it, still trying to process literally any of that without pulling over and demanding to know what happened so she—can—well, not file a police report, the police won't do shit for Megamind and it's been too long anyway. But surely Roxanne could do something! Help somehow! It wasn't sexual? It sure sounds like it was sexual. "Um. I don't…no reason? It's a date."

"…Right." He lets go and turns away.

"It-it's not that I don't want to," she tells him, dragging herself back into focus with an enormous effort. Changing the subject. He's changing the subject; she will follow him. She will honor that. "It's not…I just…I tend to be physical, that's all. With people I like. Trust! With people I trust. Do you want me to stop? I can stop."

Megamind glances back at her, brow furrowing. "Is it permissible to be…physical…with someone you trust when you know they don't mind?"

"Generally? I think so?"

"Hm. Then no, you do not need to stop."

She swallows. "You can, too," she tells him. "If you want to."

"Noted."

…Hmmm.

"Dare you to try it," she says, teasing in spite of herself. "You touched my wrist in the restaurant for like a second, I dare you to hold my hand when we get there."

He snorts. "Oh, that's how it is?"

"Not my fault if you're chicken."

"I am not chicken!"

"Prove it!" She pokes his arm and is relieved when he doesn't flinch. "Come on, Mister Supervillain, you'll manhandle me while I'm unconscious but as soon as I'm awake it's hands-off? Please."

He huffs at her. "Well excuse me for respecting your space, for once."

"You're excused. And you are doing a lovely job, but—you could stand to respect my space while invading it just a little bit, if you want to."

Megamind barks a laugh. "Define parameters for 'a little bit.'"

"You—oh. Um…holding hands, holding arms, leaning on. We’ll start there. Yes?”

In her peripheral vision, Megamind’s reflective pupils flash. “Yes, fine, okay. And you will see! I am not a chicken!”

She snickers in spite of her pounding heart. “If you really don’t want to, it’s okay.”

“Well now if I do it you’ll know I want to,” he complains.

“I already know you want to.” She takes the exit her GPS tells her to, puts her blinker on to merge. “You aren’t subtle.”

“Wh—! You—! How dare you, I am TRYING to be VULNERABLE AND BROODY and you are being mean to me,” he whines. Roxanne laughs. “You’re bullying me. You’re the worst.”

“I am, I’m very cruel and terrible.”

“The worst!” he exclaims. “Just the worst, why do I put up with you.”

“No idea, but I swear. One of these days I am going to wrap you in a blanket and prop you up in a big squishy chair in front of a nice fire, give you a hot chocolate, and tell you everything is going to be okay.”

He stops, then scowls and wrinkles his nose at her. “That—that sounds—terrible. I want none of that, don’t you dare.”

Roxanne snorts. “Are you lying?” she asks again.

“…No of course not why would you ask that.”

“Megamind…”

“You don’t have a fireplace! I don’t have a fireplace. Where would you get the fire?”

She shrugs. “We could go winter camping?”

“Why on earth would you bring a big squishy chair camping. I realize I am not a wilderness guru but somehow I do not think that is standard camping gear.”

“Okay, so…maybe we could rent a cabin?”

“Also we live in Metro City.”

Roxanne thinks for a moment. Then she clicks her fingers. “Ah! I’ve got it!”

“What?”

“We’ll light Larissa on fire.”

Megamind wheezes so hard he starts coughing.

“What! It’s perfect! We’ll be doing the world a favor. It’ll be a net benefit for humanity. You get closure, I get vengeance, and we’ll feed her sticky corpse to your piranhas! Everybody wins!”

Megamind was already hiccup-crying with laughter, and the crack about his piranhas sends him into another helpless wheeze. Chuckling, Roxanne rummages in her purse until she finds her packet of tissues. Megamind accepts it with a nod, still alternating between attempting to heave air into his lungs and cracking up all over again.

Finally he sniffs hard and blows his nose, panting.

“Feel better?” Roxanne asks, cheerful. She will! think about all of that later! Not now. But dear lord.

“Yes, actually.” He snickers again, swallows another shudder of mirth as he blots at his eyes. “Oh. You are wonderful. Ow, my ribs. Thank you, I needed that.”

“I suspected you might.” She takes her hand off the wheel and rests it palm up on the center console. “I’m glad I could help.”

After a moment, Megamind huffs another soft laugh and nets his fingers with hers, and then finally he turns his attention to the road ahead with his hand warm in Roxanne's, wearing what feels like his first real smile in more than a year.

Chapter Text

The gardens are reasonably far from the city, and pretty far from the parking lot as well—they take up a lot of space outdoors—and the path to the conservatory that houses the indoor and tropical plants is longer than Roxanne remembers. She's brought different shoes with her for this part. Most of the outdoor exhibits are closed for the season, but a few are still open, and she isn’t sure if Megamind will want to walk outside. Especially considering his original plan had been to go for a walk in a park at night.

In February. Well, different strokes for different folks, etc.

She pulls her winter wedges out of her bag and quickly shucks off her fancy boots, stowing them on the floor of the passenger side of the car.

“Ooo, obstacles for me to trip on,” Megamind declares, eyeing these as she sets them down. He’s already climbing out of the car, speaking over his shoulder. “How very thoughtful.”

“Hush, you. I’m not going for a long, meandering walk in those heels.”

“Ah. A shame. Though I can hardly blame you; humans do seem to complain about them an awful lot.”

As she rises and shrugs her bag onto her shoulder—the spikes on her jacket make this somewhat more difficult than usual—she peers across the top of the gray sedan at him. “You don’t have trouble in heels? Wait, do you—how high have you worn?”

He cocks an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“I would, it’s why I asked.” She grins and shuts her door, and the car gives a little beep and a flash of its lights as she locks it. “You have everything you need?”

He nods.

“Good. Come on, we’re heading for that building on the hill.”

Megamind falls into step beside her. “It seems quite far away.”

“Thus the change of shoes. Will you be all right in those?”

“Hm?” He glances down. “Oh. I think so. Why are your boots still heeled?”

“They’re just wedges, they’re fine! And let me know if you need to slow down; otherwise I’m going to keep walking fast.” She takes a breath of freezing air that catches in her throat, then coughs a little. “Ahgh. Good lord, it’s cold.”

“It is chilly, yes.”

She glances over at him. “Will you want to wander around outside at all? I think there are still a couple of outdoor walking paths available to the public.”

Megamind considers this for a moment, then shakes his head. “No. This is far colder than my preferred ambient temperature. I can endure if I have to, but I would like to be inside.”

Roxanne nods, relieved. “That sounds good.”

He looks over at her and seems to hesitate. Before Roxanne can ask if something is wrong, though, he seizes her hand and declares, “Ha! See! Not chicken!”

Laughing, Roxanne shakes her head. “So I see,” she says, shifting to a more comfortable grip, “so I see.”

They make it through the gates with very little trouble, although Roxanne does have a small wardrobe malfunction. Her skirt is not designed for vaulting over turnstyles, alas.

“Whoop! Agh—oh no, aaaa—!”

Megamind quickly snaps his face away when her skirt rides up. Laughing, Roxanne hops down onto the floor and quickly shimmies the stretchy fabric back down over her hips and legs.

“I’m okay, I’m good now,” she stammers, flustered, feeling her blood in her cheeks. “Wasn’t expecting that, oops.”

Megamind turns back towards her and gives her a quick sort of up-down once-over. Roxanne can’t tell for sure—the gardens’ lamps are out, and while the snowy sky is bright with scattered light, her night vision has never been stellar—but she thinks he might be a little bit pink. His expression certainly seems warm, eyes sparkling with…what, amusement? Affection? Attraction?

She’s thinking it might actually be attraction, and she’s thinking wow okay she would be okay with that, but then suddenly he sort of jumps and cocks his head. “Ah—will you be all right? Out here? It’s dark.”

“What? Oh!” She laughs a little. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m a little spine-tingly, but it’s not bad. I’m with you, and visibility out here is decent, with the snow and all.”

“Yes? Good. Onward!”

He sets off again, walking quickly, but his legs are fairly short for his height and it isn’t hard for Roxanne to stay even with him. “Right,” she says, “yep, it’s just a little further. Probably only a couple more minutes.”

“I know, I can see.” His voice is definitely amused this time, and Roxanne rolls her eyes.

“I’m making conversation, smartass.”

“I have built a long and glorious career on being a smartass; don’t think I’m going to stop now.”

She barks a laugh, then purposely stumbles sideways into him, knocking him off-balance.

“Wh—hey!”

Grinning, she does it again, and this time Megamind makes a sound of recognition and then shoves back against her, laughing and stumbling to continue down the snowy asphalt.

She’s laughing as well, breathless and stubbornly pushing, but her shoes are even less grippy than his and she’s sliding like a Looney Toon. She hits the grass and yelps at the unexpected change in texture. It catches her feet and grabs at her, and she says, “Ah, fuck!” as her feet go out from under her—she’s already reaching for—

Megamind catches her. More accurately, he’s already shifting his arm from ‘shove position’ to ‘handrail position,’ exactly as Roxanne had unthinkingly taken for granted that he would. Her hand closes on his forearm and he pivots one hundred eighty degrees on the ball of his foot to catch her opposite elbow and lift her, still chuckling with amusement.

“I win,” he declares, eyes dancing. “Ha! You fell, you lose.”

“I did not fall,” she protests, indignant to cover the way her heart is pounding, “you caught me! Shouldn’t have done that if you wanted to win.”

Megamind scowls. “I caught you because I was being a good date,” he grouses. “Shall I simply let you continue to the ground next time?”

Roxanne crinkles her nose at him, nettled at having let him back her into an either/or. No, she doesn’t want him to stop catching her. One because hello, she’s in her thirties and falling is not what it used to be, and two because ahahahaha his arm under his sleeve was like stone and Roxanne would not mind at all getting a better idea of what shape Megamind might be underneath all that fabric. His leathers may not leave much to the imagination, but they are padded, she knows.

“If you let me continue to the ground, I’m dragging you down with me,” she declares, as primly as she can. Megamind snorts. “And I am doing my level best to fall on top of you, so. Fair warning.”

“Yes, threaten me with a good time, that will definitely work,” he returns, smooth. His eyelids are lowered and the curve of his mouth is—

“Yeah, yeah,” she mutters, grabbing his hand again and tugging him along after her. “Come on.”

“What, no rejoinder?”

“I’m cold and I almost fell! You hush.”

Fuck. Fuck fuck okay those butterflies from earlier are DEFINITELY still going nuts. She is not imagining things. Great! Fantastic. Okay.

She had already known he was attractive, but actual feelings? Oh goddammit.

Megamind grumbles good-naturedly next to her, but he hushes.

His hand in hers is quite bony. If this were a real date, and they were walking like this, Roxanne thinks, he would put his arm around her back, rest his hand on her opposite hip. She would grip his shoulder. Like they stood on the steps of City Hall, earlier this evening! Only more certain, and less jumpy, and Megamind would not be three different panic attacks held together by a very fancy suit.

(Not that she can blame him. She's still holding onto that comment he made in the car. Like hell is she bringing it up; she'll burst into tears if she does and then Megamind will have to comfort her about his horrible experience, and nope nope nope, she will not do that to him. But holy shit.)

Speaking of which, she is really hoping to get a better look at that vest he’s wearing. Yowza. It looks like it has actual boning in it, like a corset? How Wayne thought of that, she’ll never know, but she has to hand it to her boyfriend: he knows Roxanne’s tastes.

She squints into the night, absently netting her fingers with Megamind’s as they walk. Actually, thinking of that…does Megamind actually know she isn’t dating Metro Man? She’s kind of been assuming he already knows, he’s a genius after all, surely he has figured it out. But then again, Wayne is quite good at covering his tracks—Roxanne herself had had no idea he was seeing anyone, and she has her ear to the ground on a lot of things—and Megamind is, as he mentioned earlier this evening, a bit of a social misfit…

Hmmm. She should…maybe tell him? Can she trust him? The last thing she wants to do is out Wayne to his arch-nemesis, but since the plan is to use this whole event as the kickoff for him to come out and start dating Adam in the open…maybe it’s okay?

Well, she’ll text him and ask, at some point. She’s already got the other thing she wants to text him about.

But that can wait until they stop walking. Oh, and she also needs to reach out to her contact at the gardens and let her know they’ve arrived; she had meant to do that at the car. Whoops.

The conservatory is quite old, built prior to the Great Depression. It is also enormous, and primarily made of metal and glass—a giant greenhouse of sorts, with multiple rooms of carefully-curated indoor gardens. It’s been an age since Roxanne last visited, and then it had been a work trip; she had stopped by to cover the celebration of the opening of the butterfly house. It was smaller than she had been expecting, but from the way everyone ‘in the know’ talked, it is actually fairly large by butterfly house standards.

She isn’t telling Megamind about the butterfly house just yet. He hates surprises, she knows he hates surprises, but she just can’t help herself! At the very least, she can wait to tell him about it for a while.

And god, okay, she is paying attention now and oh goddammit there’s that little flare of excitement and apprehension at the thought of showing him butterflies, at the thought of the expression she’s hoping to see on his face. She has really got it bad. How has this snuck up on her like this?

But this has always been Roxanne’s curse. She is comfortable in herself and well-established, and she isn’t afraid to take the initiative when she sees an opportunity. But she also tends to forge ahead without stopping and looking inward. Looking inward isn’t usually a problem for her, when she knows to do it—like now—but she isn’t exactly in the habit of second-guessing herself or examining her motives. She trusts herself. Maybe a little bit too much.

Well, there are worse things than to trust oneself, she supposes, but GOD it sure would be nice if her heart would not sneak up on her like this! For pete’s sake, this is the kind of date she would have planned if she were going to propose! She really did want this to be special, didn’t she?

She doesn’t realize she’s groaned under her breath until Megamind glances over at her and says, “Hm? Something wrong?”

“Huh? Oh! No, sorry. Just thinking. I’m…I, um, I may have gone a little bit overboard with all this.” She shoots him a sheepish smile. “It occurs to me.”

He looks surprised. “Is that bad?”

“No! No, not bad. Just…I don’t know. Don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”

“I’m not sure why I would.” He shrugs. “Also, ‘a little bit overboard’ is my personal go-to when planning nearly anything! So! You are in good company.”

Roxanne huffs a laugh, relieved. “Oh—that is true, isn’t it? You are mister ‘go big or go home.’”

“I am indeed! Yes! Ah, and here we are at last.”

As they crest the hill, he releases her hand with an “Ooo!” and skips ahead, turning and looking up at the tall building’s facade. “Art deco!” he exclaims. “Nineteen twenty…seven? I want to say? Those cornices are distinctive. How do we get inside?”

Tissues, chapstick, keys…ah! Phone. She fumbles to enter Mary’s number with her numb fingertips.

The security guard picks up on the second ring. “Roxanne?”

“Yep! We’re out front.”

“Okay, sit tight. Be right there.”

Roxanne hangs up, and then—before she can second-guess herself or think any more about it—she texts Metro Man.

Help I think I have feelings for Megamind

"Okay!" she exclaims, hurrying forward to get a little closer to her companion as he paces slowly back and forth in front of the conservatory, peering up at it. "So, this is the next place. On our list."

"Yes! Indoor gardens," he says, still peering up and around at the building. The old glass is only translucent at this point, sort of grimy, and most of the overhead lights are still off. But a lot of shadowy greenery is visible inside nonetheless. "Why?”

She gives a nervous laugh. "I just, I thought you probably don't get to see very many flowers, usually. Or plants in general. When I was a kid, my family went camping a lot, we were outdoors as much as possible, but—a while back, you mentioned you grew up basically incarcerated. And I realized you really don’t get much exposure to nature…really at all? So. I wanted to fix that, at least for tonight."

In her purse, her phone chimes.

"That's probably Mary again," she blurts, fumbling it free. "I'll, uh, I’ll let her know we're…um…"

Uh yeah you think???? lol

Everything in her mind sort of hiccups, and then she feels herself flush very red. She clenches her phone in front of her chest with both hands, glaring.

EXCUSE YOU, I AM HAVING A CRISIS! LOL?????? she sends back.

dunno why. he's kinda exactly your type.

she glares down at her phone. EXPLAIN?????

roxie. cmon. sheila? billy? your type is anti-establishment engineering types with strong jawlines & stronger morals

Roxanne glances up at Megamind and blushes harder.

omg fuck you

fuck HIM, roxannie banannie, that's kinda my point here lol

how long have you known?!?!?!?

a while?? definitely since you started agonizing over how to plan the best date ever for the guy

i was not AGONIZING

“Roxanne, your—friend—is, she’s—I can see her, I think?” Megamind says. He’s edging towards the door and glancing quizzically back in her direction. “I think she’s letting us in. Who are you texting?”

Hey roxanne it's Adam here, Wayne is laughing too hard to type :P girl you were absolutely agonizing and we can argue about this later

omg fuck why okay. okay. goddammit

attagirl ;D now go get that diiiiiick

She doesn't realize she's made some kind of scandalized noise until Megamind says, "Something wrong?"

Roxanne sends back an all-caps LIKEWISE and then slams her phone into her purse, ears on fire. "Nope! Mary will meet us in the vestibule. Come on."

She marches around him and heads for the door.

"Watch—there's—"

And the universe must hate her specifically, because she hits the patch of ice right as he says to watch out and goes straight over backwards with a little shriek, directly into Megamind's arms, yet again.

"—black ice," he finishes in her ear. "Ha. Here—"

He tips her carefully up onto her feet. Roxanne is laughing helplessly, adrenaline thundering in her veins and head spinning and cheeks burning with embarrassment. "Whoo! Wow! That's—thanks! Did that look as much like a cartoon backflop as it felt? Hooo."

"It did not look at all comical," Megamind tells her, but his mouth is twitching. "A very distinguished fall. Are you quite certain you're all right? You're awfully…um. Pink?"

"I'm human. Comes with the territory for some of us."

Megamind snorts.

"Here," Roxanne says, and reaches for him. "Maybe you'd better help me. I love these shoes, but they were…maybe not the wisest choice, if it’s this slippery out."

"They make you quite tall," he says, stepping close and allowing Roxanne to wrap her hand around his upper arm. "It is…it looks good. On you. Even if it isn't…normal. For a date."

Walking next to him with her eyes on her toes, Roxanne wrinkles her nose, briefly distracted. "Not normal for a date? What, for me to be tall?"

"Taller than your date," he says. "It isn't the norm. For, for straight couples."

Roxanne blinks, then snorts. "It isn't the social ideal," she corrects him. "I don't know that I would call it abnormal. There are lots of short guys out there with taller girlfriends. Also," she adds, "just…as an FYI? I'm bi. Can't be part of a straight couple. I know what you meant, but." She shrugs. "Just to be clear."

"Ah. Interesting." He pauses and takes a moment to steady her as they reach the top of the stairs. Another light has gone on inside the building and someone is working inside to unlock the first set of doors. "So am I," he says, with a little shrug. "Which was…sort of a shock. To realize. I had assumed I was gay for a very long time."

"Oh?"

He sends her a grin, but doesn't elaborate. Well, that's okay, it's kind of a personal topic. And Mary is at the outer set of doors, now, unlocking them, so any conversation will have to wait, anyway.

"Hey," Roxanne sings, as she pulls the door open, "thank you so much for doing this for us! I really appreciate it."

The older woman stepping aside to let them through offers her a stiff-looking but genuine enough smile. "Happy to help! I, ah, hope everything goes well for you. This evening."

"No messes, no breakage, no plucking the specimens," Roxanne assures her, then looks at Megamind. "Okay?"

"I will behave," he agrees, despite having failed at this exact thing his entire life.

Mary nods and waves them past. "The cleaners aren't due until early tomorrow morning, so you should be okay as long as you're out by two," she says as she shepherds them inside and locks the doors behind them. "Roxanne, just…text me when you need to be let out, okay?"

"I can," Megamind begins, but Roxanne very cheerfully says, "Will do!" and then loops her arm through his again and quickly steers him away.

"She has assured me it's no problem to let us in for the night, but she is nervous," she tells him in an undertone. "We really aren't supposed to be in here. So I know you could let us out without tripping the alarms, but let's do this one by the book, okay?"

He nods.

"Thanks."

Megamind swallows, and then suddenly leans close and teases, "Breaking the rules for me, Miss Ritchi? You really shouldn't have. I might get used to it."

"Hey, I'm not above breaking a few rules for a good cause!"

"Really? That wasn't what you said when I met you."

She feels herself go red again. "Oh? I…well. I have…changed, since then."

"Have you."

"We both have," she protests. "That's what people do."

"We—wait, how have I changed?" He seems genuinely taken aback.

"You smile more now," she says, still defensive, "and you don't snap at Minion when we talk. And you put more effort into clearing the blocks before battles instead of during than you used to."

Megamind pulls his head back on his long neck, blinking. "I—"

"People change," she insists. "I'm not a cop."

He barks a laugh. "I know," he finally says, "I do know that! I'm not—I suppose I should apologize, I—seem to have poked a nerve. Ah—so! Who is Mary?”

“I honestly forget where I met her,” Roxanne says, gratefully switching gears. “I know a lot of people, ha. Also the gardens’ executive director owed me one; I helped get her son a really good internship with KMCP a while back. So.”

He squints at her. "How many favors did you call in for this date?" he asks. "Exactly?"

"Oh, I don't know." She's pink under her freckles. "A few? I wasn't really keeping track. Oh, maps! One sec, let me just grab one of these…" She darts away.

Megamind wanders forward by himself, drawn by the sound of water flowing nearby. “How do we turn on the lights?” he asks over his shoulder.

“They should be motion-activated!”

He nods to himself and pushes through the first set of doors, beyond which are shapes he isn’t sure how to interpret in the dim red of the building’s emergency lighting. The hinges grind a little bit as he shoves them open, and then the lights come on.

His jaw drops.

When Roxanne had said, "gardens," Megamind had not been entirely sure what to expect. Flowers, certainly. But he was imagining something similar to Minion's indoor herb garden, with each plant in its place in a rack. Minion keeps his plants along the walls near the sofa; Megamind had imagined maybe aisles of plants, like at a store. That would offer enough space to house the variety of plants that people might actually travel to see.

That is not what he walks into.

Everything is so green. A fountain just in front of the door was what he had heard, its shallow pool trickling down and away over narrow stones into a deeper area further down. This is the centerpiece of the room, which is simply an enormous rectangle with walking paths around the perimeter. On either side of the fountain, palm trees in giant pots fit in perfectly among a riot of what he can only assume must be tropical foliage, from the heat and heavy moisture of the air. Orange and scarlet flowers bloom en masse behind the fountain, with a lush grassy area to one side and more tropical plants arranged along the little artificial stream.

Megamind has seen trees before, of course. He’s been to Hill Park, after all. But some of these plants have leaves longer than he is tall, and they aren't even trees. The variety is more than he was prepared to see at all. Flowers, shrubs, trees, okay. Green leaves, colored flowers. That's what plants are, yes? Apparently not. Apparently he has never really thought about the in-betweens and outliers, and this room is full of them. They may not even be outliers, he realizes; after all, everywhere is 'exotic' to someone else. These plants are normal, somewhere. All of them are.

His heart is pounding and his head is spinning as he kicks into a higher gear.

Roxanne’s voice says, "So? What do you think?"

Manymanymanythings he thinks. Manythings. Lotsmany, VERY fastgoing and. Yes.

It takes him a second to pull words together and arrange them into a sentence in English. “Can—I—walk on that grass?”

She pauses for a moment, but says, “It’s…just grass, so…I don’t see why not. Maybe take off your shoes and socks?”

Barefoot? More new things. Megamind has never walked barefoot on grass; it’s dangerous to do so in the city, where broken glass and grubby garbage function as a deterrent. But yes, okay, he can—he can do barefoot, he can go barefoot here. He can try. He crouches down and quickly tugs his laces free, pulls his feet out of his shoes and strips out of his socks, and then finally he hikes up his trouser legs and splashes through the fountain with his eyes on the greenery and his feet pressing oddly against the scattered coins on the tile. Who gathers those? How often?

And then—

He pushes the ball of his foot down on the grass, testing, and he gasps.

“Oh! It’s soft!” he exclaims, enchanted. He had been keeping his weight on his other foot, which was still in the fountain (tilegrout rough, straight-straight-edged, and coins roundRound pushing on his skin—the grass is much nicer, much nicer), and he quickly steps onto the grass with both feet and bounces a little. “It's soft! I thought it would prickle!” He takes a couple steps forward, scrunching his long toes in the green. The blades of grass bend under his feet like a deep carpet, cool and soft, and for a moment it’s the only thing Megamind can think of: soft-tickle, cold, so thick. The blades are flat, he can see their edges, and he had thought maybe they would be sharp and uncomfortable the way bare feet on the bottom of the fountain was uncomfortable—but no, this is lovely.

Then he notices: oh, the air tastes different? It smells of flowers, of course, but it tastes different! Wet and alive! Like the grass! And everything is so bright. He straightens, looking around—

Ooo!

He bounds over to a spray of frothy-looking orange flowers and drops into a crouch. “Oh-oh-oh what are these! I love these!” They look like feathery paintbrushes! He doesn’t touch them, but they look like they would be fun to touch.

“Some kind of celosia, I think?”

photo by Carl Lewis

“Celosia,” he echoes, tilting his head as the word rolls over his tongue. It suits them, he thinks. Lots of esses and light vowels. “They’re fluffy! And look, look at the fractal growth patterns! It's beautiful!"

"The what?"

"Look, it grows in fractals! It's a Fibonacci flower; I've only ever seen this in, in broccoli, I think! Oh and and and this, what is this?” He pops to his feet and arches his back as best he can in the vest he’s wearing, staring up at the tree he’s under.

“That’s a spindle palm.”

“Look at its trunk! It’s so silly! Spinnndle palm.” He beams over his shoulder at her, is delighted to find Roxanne already smiling back at him, looking almost as entertained as he feels.

“You should maybe get off the grass, soon,” she tells him, as he stands and stares around and around at the life surrounding him. "I'm so happy you're enjoying yourself but there's a lot more to see! And we can come back here later, if you want to."

“Okay,” he says, and he wanders back onto the path still looking around, trying to take everything in. He barely even registers the fountain coins this time; everywhere he looks is something new! Flowers yes, but interesting leaves and growth structures also! And so many shades of green, more than he has ever seen! As he puts his shoes back on, he looks across the path and there are little flowers, purpley-blue cute ones like clusters of soft bells!

“Those are grape hyacinth,” Roxanne’s voice says. “You can probably touch those.”

He catches his breath and reaches out with a fingertip, petting gently down over the tiny bells, and then he very very lightly squishes the whole cluster. It is soft!

photo by keepps

He remains crouching for a moment, staring wide-eyed down at the grape hyacinth and trying to gather himself.

“You okay?”

He nods hard. “So okay! The okayest. It’s so big here!” He straightens, intending to ask how many rooms the building has and if he can see the map, but as he gets to his feet, a splash of orange catches his eye from further down the row and he gasps and skips away. “Oh! Spiky flower!”

“It’s a bird of paradise,” Roxanne says, laughter in her voice as she follows him.

“It’s ridiculous,” he declares, bouncing on the balls of his feet despite how it rubs the backs of his shoes on his ankles. The grass was a little bit damp, and the fountain was quite wet, and now his feet are dampwet, as well. “What time is it right now? How long can we stay? Can we stay until two? Mary said we could stay until two.”

“We can stay until two,” Roxanne confirms, and Megamind punches the air with both hands and cheers. “You might need to drive us back, though, I’ll probably be way too sleepy.”

He looks at her and forces himself to focus as much of his attention as he can spare on her face. “Are you sure? We can stay? You won’t mind?”

“I won’t mind,” she says, and he can see from the way her eyes crinkle up at the corners that she means it. “I’m glad you’re enjoying this! I hoped you would." Her smile goes a little sheepish. "I was kind of worried you would be bored. They’re just plants, after all.”

“But they’re new!” he exclaims. “I like new things, I love new things! I don’t know any of these! I, I know—I know daffodils, and roses, and tulips. And the flowers Minion grows for my bees. These are not those! And it tastes good! The air! Can you taste it?”

Roxanne obligingly opens her mouth and inhales. Megamind waits, eager but not terribly hopeful; most humans don’t have the same sensory sensitivity that he does.

But to his surprise, she says, “I can taste something,” and tries again. “I think…I think just moisture? Probably just the lack of smog, actually.” She laughs a little and sends him an apologetic grin. “Sorry.”

He shakes his head hard. “Do not be sorry! You tried! You—oh what is that!”

And away he goes again.

Roxanne follows him as he bounds around the massive room, crowing with delight at discovery after discovery. He’s amazing like this, so full of wonder and excitement. Every now and then he comes darting back to her, waving his hands for her to follow more quickly so he can show her something specific: bougainvillea that looks like it has funny little muppet eyestalks, hanging fuschia that looks like earrings Roxanne might wear. Sprays of fuzzy purple throatwort, clustered at the bases of leaves half again as long as Roxanne’s torso.

And…

“Look! Look at the pinstripes on the dutchman’s breeches,” he exclaims, pointing at a white flower with no markings on it that Roxanne can see. “Isn’t it amazing, it really looks like fabric!”

Roxanne squints at it, then at Megamind. “Stripes?”

“Yes! Look, running lengthways, pointing at the pistil?”

She shakes her head, and Megamind suddenly flashes a grimace. “Oh, I apologize,” he says, sounding terribly sincere. “I’m sorry. I think they must be butterfly colors. I can’t always—sometimes it’s obvious what’s a butterfly color, but when the stripes are small like this they just look like stripes. I didn’t mean to play a trick.”

Roxanne shakes her head again, this time in confusion. “What? No, I’m not offended, don’t worry, just…sorry, butterfly colors?”

“Alien,” he says, still apologetic. “I can see some of the same colors as butterflies and other pollinators.”

“Oh!” She looks back down at the dutchman’s breeches. “Oh, how cool! So they have invisible stripes? Invisible to me.”

He nods.

“Can you show me another flower with butterfly colors in it?”

That makes him blink a bit. “I…can, yes. But, but you won’t be able to…?”

“That’s okay!” She shrugs, feeling weirdly intrigued at this new revelation. “I just think it’s cool you can see them. Do daisies have secret colors?”

“These ones do.” He leads her over to a cluster of small yellow flowers. They look very plain, although the shade of yellow is very pretty and buttery. “See, they have—well, you can’t see, probably. What do they look like to you?”

“Just yellow.”

He blinks. “Just…just yellow? Only yellow at all?”

She nods.

“Oh,” he says, looking so dismayed she can’t help but stifle a laugh. “I’m sorry. They’re so pretty! The tips of the petals, those are yellow, but, but then the inner part, it’s—sort of yellow and purple at the same time, it’s a color I call urpreen, humans can’t see it. Like, like a neon brown? But here, this is the part I think is neat—each petal, here, each one has a spot on it, bright yellow, like at the ends of the leaves. Here in a ring around the center.”

human / bee / butterfly vision; photo by Klaus Schmitt

It’s still just yellow, but Roxanne thinks she can guess why he would be interested. “Oh, like guiding lights at an airport! To make the center stand out, and guide the insects in?”

Megamind’s expression lights up. “Yes! Yes exactly! I’ve seen my bees follow spots like this lots of times on the flowers Minion grows.”

Roxanne looks back down at the unassuming yellow plant, making a mental note to ask him about bees later, if she sees an opening. “That’s very cool that you can see it.”

He flushes. “Ha. Ahaha. I’m, I’m glad you think so?” His brow furrows a little. “I could be lying,” he says slowly. “You wouldn’t know.”

She shrugs. “Not sure what purpose that would serve. But yeah, you could be. I would believe you. I’m a pretty firm believer in taking people at their word when they talk about how they see the world.”

Megamind tips his head from side to side, looking thoughtful.

“That,” he says finally, “is why you have so many friends, I think. You listen. You believe people. And you believe in people, too,” he adds. “I have noticed. In a way that makes them believe in themselves. Um, for-for a while, at least," he adds, stammering a little as his ears turn pink. "But. That's rare.”

“Oh? Oh. Um. Thank you.” She laughs a little, feeling her own ears heat as well. “I don’t actually have a ton of friends, though. A few, sure, but really I’m just well-connected.”

“But many of those connections would be your friends,” he insists, “if you wanted them to be. That counts, I think! My connections would not be my friends.”

“Huh.” She considers this for a moment. “You might be right.”

He arches a brow and draws himself up with a little wiggle of his shoulders as he thrusts a finger into the air. “I am always right, Miss Ritchi! I am, after all, a genius.”

She rolls her eyes. “Uh-huh. Well, come on, Mister Genius, let’s head into the next room, okay? I think we’ve seen about all there is to see in this one. The next one has a sort of pool in it.”

His haughty, cocky mask drops instantly. “Oh! A pool? Yes! I want to see! Is it this way? Let’s go!”

And, once again, away he goes.

Chapter Text

They still have to the remainder of the main hall to get through before the next area, and Megamind gets distracted quickly, of course. Roxanne catches up to him and falls into step alongside him. As they walk, with Megamind still looking all around at the flowers by the pathway, he says, "I don’t suppose you could fill me in on what sort of scandal you’re building with Metro Man."

At his side, Roxanne barks a laugh. "Ha! Oh, lord…yeah, I guess I…okay, look, you have to swear you aren't going to use this stuff against him. This is all off the record for you, as well."

He makes a disgruntled noise, but says, "Of course. That is only fair."

"You remember the guy who won his date tonight? I paid for that. The story is going to be that I'm setting them up together, but…Adam is actually already Wayne’s boyfriend. Has been for a few months now."

Megamind pauses, then exclaims, "Oh! Oh, I see. Oh that's fun! I like that. So then I am the reason for a potential breakup!"

"Exactly!"

He hesitates again, then turns his head and squints at her. "But," he says, "you don't seem surprised. Have you been…oh, what's the term. This whole time, you’ve been his mustache ride?"

His—

Roxanne splutters into a wheeze of laughter so hard it curls her whole body inward, and Megamind wrinkles his face at her in reproach. "Don't laugh at me," he complains.

"Sorry!" she gasps out. "Oh, oh my god—sorry, I can't—I'm so sorry, I'm, I'm not laughing at you, I swe-I swear—Megamind oh my god—yes-yes, I have been bearding for him," she finally chokes, "I have been his beard. I have NOT been his mus-mustache ri-hi-hide—"

He purses his lips. "I am reasonably certain you are, in fact, laughing at me, Miss Ritchi."

She waves at him, tears in her eyes and cheeks beginning to hurt. "Sorry! No, no I swear—it was—an honest mistake! I'm—oh, god. Fuck. It's just—I'm trying, I swear I'm trying. Ow, oh my ribs."

She leans over and braces her hands on her knees, still giggling helplessly. Megamind heaves a loud sigh and a glance up shows him pulling his phone out of his pocket. Roxanne wheezes all over again.

A second later, Megamind makes a noise like a cow in a wind tunnel and then starts cackling.

"See?" Roxanne demands, between gasps, "do you see?" and Megamind nods wildly.

"I do! I do! Oh, no."

Finally Roxanne forces herself upright, wiping carefully at her eyes so she doesn’t smear her eyeliner. "Ahhgh. God, you’re funny. That’s…I honestly can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard."

"I can," he says, still snickering a bit, himself. "August second, 2006. Minion called squirrels ‘backyard vermin’ when I asked a question, because he was sick and we didn’t know it, and you laughed so hard you got hiccups. Ooo!" He darts over to a cluster of flowers and drops into a crouch. "Look at these! They’re me-colored!" He holds out a hand for comparison.

"Aw, they are!" Roxanne crouches, too. It’s a bigleaf hydrangea, according to the little plaque, ‘Tokyo Delight’ variant. They’re a lovely pale blue with lavender undertones, the same as Megamind’s skin. "Oh, and look at the species name. Macrophylla. Megamind, macrophylla!"

"It is me!" he exclaims. "Ha!" He glances further down the row. "Oh—oh and look, look at those, they look like they’re made of crepe! I love that color."

Roxanne hums and straightens. "It’s a gorgeous shade of purple, you need a cape lined in that color."

"I do! You get me."

She feels herself flush a little bit. "Thank you," she says. She's perfectly aware that 'you get me' is oftentimes something people simply say in appreciation; it's likely Megamind didn't mean it as praise or as gratitude. Still, she can't help but feel flattered. "Thanks, I try."

He glances over at her and says, rising back to his feet, "You very definitely succeed." He appears to sober a bit as he adds, "This is…this. is. the best date ever."

"Aw, you mean that?"

"I never would have thought to do this." He shrugs, and runs his fingertips lightly over the leaves of a tree they're walking past. "I am…enjoying it. Truly."

That sounded unexpectedly sincere. And for a moment, it seems like he's about to say something else—he takes a breath, his shoulders go tense, he looks at her—but then he exhales and shakes his head a little. And all he says is, finally, "Thank you very much for taking the time."

The words are kind but he seems sort of downcast, suddenly, so Roxanne offers him a grin and gently elbows him. "Of course! I'm enjoying watching you go cuckoo for cocoa puffs over pretty flowers." When he scoffs to hide his startled laugh, she loops her arm through his and says, "And thank YOU for giving me the perfect reason to come all the way out here. Now, come on! I want to see what you think of the pool room!"

The 'pool' room is structured similarly to the main hall: a long, rectangular exhibit in the center, with walking paths around the outside. But the first room offered paths across its gardens at irregular intervals. This one is smaller, and its centerpiece is recessed into the floor. Slender palm trees grow out of cuboid boxes, and their fronds and stems are reflected in the two or three inches of water that covers the floor.

And, of course, this space boasts still more flowers and hanging baskets around the railings, and the stairs down into the pool are cleverly covered in plants—but Megamind does not appear to be interested in any of these just yet. The lights come on and he exclaims, "Oh!" and spins to face Roxanne with just as much glee as he had in the last room. "Can we go and splash?"

She laughs a little. "Um…"

They aren’t supposed to. But he looks so hopeful, and as she hesitates, his eager smile starts to fade and go nervous instead, and she can’t stand that. Hashtag yolo, right? Besides, there’s no one around.

"Yeah, let's do it," she declares, and he lights right back up again. "No shoes, though."

"Yes of course no shoes, of course—"

He scuffles back into his bare feet, then remains crouching so he can roll up his trouser legs. The material of his suit doesn’t take well to being rolled; it slides right back down.

"Here, hang on," Roxanne says, "I might have something."

She digs around in her bag until she finds a half-empty packet of bobby pins. "Maybe pin them up with these?"

He nods and rolls them back up again, and slides a few bobby pins up over the fabric. They stay put this time.

"Marvelous," he declares, and then he shucks out of his suit jacket and unfastens his vest. As he turns, Roxanne can see—it laces up the back, crisscrossing in an elegant curve all the way down his long spine. The lacing appears to be strictly decorative, fitted to him with no actual tension or extra laces Roxanne can see, but still. Oh no. Oh no, she is going to have WORDS with Wayne after this. How dare Megamind be just as attractive partway out of his suit as he is while fully dressed?

Megamind appears to have no idea that Roxanne is staring. He drapes his jacket over the rail, over some plants, and throws his vest onto it as well. His shirt pulls tight across his shoulders as he stretches with a groan of satisfaction—oh that is not fair—and then he whips around and dances down the stairs like he’s done it every day of his life, step-step-stepping between the containers of plants without even appearing to think about it, arms out for balance and face split in a smile as wide and bright as the sun.

The reflecting pool was as smooth as glass when they came in, in the absence of a crowd to stir the air, and brand-new ripples scatter and break light over the floor as soon as Megamind splashes down. He skips down the middle of the pool in his dress shirt and his tie, barefoot with his arms out, spinning, laughing. Dipping down to one side to scoop his fingers through the water and throw it into the water in a glittering arc that he spins under, still laughing as it falls and speckles across his shirt.

Roxanne follows a little more slowly, having to shimmy out of her nylons as well as take off her ankle boots, and enjoying watching him play.

She has seen Megamind grim, has seen him wounded, has seen him crying with fear as he dug for Minion in the rubble of a mistake. She has seen him scornful and hissing, seen him jumpy and unsmiling in the wake of something going horribly wrong with a woman Roxanne was hoping never to think of again after she graduated. She has seen him from a distance through her camera, years and years ago in an alley, ruthless and turning away from a gurgling body with his eyes flashing green and teeth flashing white in the night, blood on his knuckles and dripping down his chin from his lip.

And she has seen him laughing and smiling, too, of course. Of course. He gets so excited on plot days. But never like this, god, never breathless and beaming and bright-eyed with wonder like this.

It makes her heart hurt. Has he had this joy in him the whole time she’s known him? He must have. She does catch glimpses of it here and there sometimes, the way he sparkles when she surprises him or when Wayne says something astute for once, but she had no idea he could shine this way. She will bring him flowers every day if it makes him look like this.

The brown stone tiles of the pool under her feet are cold, cold, and the soles of her feet pinch as she picks her way down the steps between the pots and boxes of flowers. But she grits her teeth and splashes over to Megamind in the cool water anyway. She wants to join him, and part of her has always wanted to see how the big shallow pool would feel. Mostly how it feels is cold and sort of slippery—the brown stone tile offers zero traction. She’ll have to be careful; if she falls again and Megamind has to catch her a third time, he’ll never let her hear the end of it.

(It would be worth it, though.)

"How on earth do you manage to spin around like that without falling on this tile," Roxanne asks, fascinated. Megamind pauses in his frolicking and blinks down at his feet.

"Falling? Oh—I suppose it is slippery. Just good balance, I suppose." He gives a little shrug. "Have to have good balance when you’re as top-heavy as I am! What kinds of trees are these? Their trunks are different, they aren’t the spindle palms again."

"I’m not sure about these ones," she admits. "They’re cute, though. I wonder if this is as tall as they get?"

He hops over to one, splashing with his feet like a child in a puddle, then peers up at the huge plant. "It would be silly to plant a tree that would outgrow its space," he says. "Like having a fish that would grow too big for its tank. Why would you?"

"Maybe they would replant it somewhere else later?"

"Hmmm," Megamind says. "Perhaps."

And then, "Oh dammit," because one of his trouser legs has just popped free of its pins and fallen down into the water. "Well, that’s a lost cause. Do you see your pins?"

"Yeah, they’re right there," she says as she moves carefully over to him. He’s squinting down at the area around his feet. "You can’t see them?"

"Again, alien," he says.

"I thought you go swimming all the time, though."

"I can see wonderfully well under the water," he says, in the voice that means he is rolling his eyes. "Looking down at the top of the water…less wonderfully. Slightly less wonderfully."

"Only slightly," she replies, dry, and he makes a little huffy sound.

"Yes! Only slightly."

"Well, that’s okay, I can see them fine. Here, I’ll pin it for you so it won’t fall again, I know a good way." She hikes her skirt halfway up her thighs and kneels down.

…Oh. Oh the water is a lot colder now that it’s on more of her legs than just her feet and ankles. Roxanne may not be spending very much longer down here with Megamind, no matter how cute he is when he's excited.

But she rolls up his trouser leg regardless, and crosses the bobby pins over each other for greater stability. Megamind watches her do this, holding very still, and then as she’s finishing with the last pin, he makes a sudden kind of scandalized noise and buries his face in his hands.

"Huh?" Roxanne pushes herself back up to her feet on the nearby plant box, sliding her hand up under the overhanging wet leaves to find the edge so she won’t slip. "What’s wrong?"

His voice is muffled. "I just understood your ‘going down’ joke from dinner."

"My joke…" It takes her a second to remember what he’s talking about, and then she snorts. "Oh. Yeah, sorry."

"No no. It was entertaining wordplay. No need to apologize."

"Then why are you hiding?"

He snaps his hands back down to his sides and throws his head back. "No reason! Absolutely no reason whatsoever I just noticed those! What are those?" He stumbles backwards, staring up at the ceiling and the hanging baskets of purple flowers.

"The baskets?" Roxanne is good at switching tracks, but possibly not quite as good as Megamind.

"They’re so pretty! They look fluffy!" He scowls and plants his fists on his hips, turning away and wading back out into the open center of the pool, away from the palms. "Why can’t I fly? Why is Metro Man the one with the cool power of flight? Unfair. The universe is cruel and unfeeling. I want to go and look at those flowers and I can’t, this is the worst."

Roxanne clicks her fingers. "I think I know where we can find one that’s lower down!"

"Ah! Ahaha! This is the best! And you are the best, also, as well; it is a superlaytive paradox. Where is it?"

"Just ahead of the orchid room, I think. Do you want to go now?"

His eyes light up and he nods.

Roxanne hesitates. This is the second time she's suggested they move on. "Are you sure? We have several hours here, you can splash around some more if you want."

His lit-up expression does something she isn’t sure what to do with. Sort of fond and sort of pained. "Why do you keep…? Yes," he says, half-laughing, "yes, I’m sure. I splash around all the time at home. Seeing more things is just as appealing as this." He waves a hand around at the water.

Roxanne’s feet are starting to cramp with cold, but she resists the urge to head for the stairs. "Yes, but you aren’t at home. I just…I don’t…want to rush you."

Megamind pauses. His green eyes flick around the room, and Roxanne thinks maybe he’s looking at the baskets of plants.

His lips part.

But all he says is, "Yes. I want to see! I want to keep moving. And…and we can come back? If, if I…? If I…"

"If you want to," Roxanne says, heart aching, "of course we’ll come back."

Megamind’s face relaxes into another smile, and Roxanne is a fucking goner.

It is not the same kind of plant as the fluffy purple hanging baskets, it turns out. This one is massive. Dark green fern leaves hang four or so feet above a metal grate in the floor, draping around the structure where they’re growing. "Oooo!" Megamind exclaims, and rushes to stand under it. From underneath, it’s shady, and the greens he can see both from the fern and the surrounding plants are very dark green. It’s a lovely color, but he has to wonder what it would look like with sunlight streaming through the glass of the conservatory’s ceiling.

"Aw, I guess it isn’t the same species," Roxanne says, behind him, but he flaps a hand at her.

"I feel like the trunk of a tree with this overhead! This is still very cool," he insists, turning to grin at her from the shade and then jumping when a drop of water hits his head. "Ah! Haha! It drips!" He looks up, blink-flinching as another drip smacks onto his cheek.

It really is neat. The fronds are so thick, and from underneath, he can see the way they sprout from woody stems curling and twisting down from the basket.

"Those are rhizomes," Roxanne tells him when he exclaims over the way they curl. "They’re sort of root structures. It’s neat that they’ve got it hanging like an air plant, I wonder if it needs particular care this way?"

"Rabbit’s foot fern," Megamind reads, "Davallia fejeensis. Huh! Why rabbit’s foot?"

"Let me look it up, one sec."

A few seconds later she says, "Oh. Uh…I don’t…oh, that’s unsettling. Um, apparently those rhizomes can get really white and furry-looking?"

Megamind cocks his head and comes to peer over her shoulder. "Eeeeghhghgh," he says, pulling his head back and pulling a face. "No, those are very bad, those look like spider legs."

"And not even a proper spider! They look all wrong."

"Besides which, not to mention: where is the REST of the spider?" 

She pauses, suggests, "Maybe it's a multidimensional horrorterror spider?"

"Aha! Yes!" He flashes his most sparkling smile. "Arachnog-Sothoth!"

Roxanne splutters into a laugh. "Oh, that would be awful! Nothing but legs and eyes."

Megamind shudders and pushes at her phone. "Put it away, I can feel it touching me," he complains, still grinning.

"It reaches from beyond the veeeeil," Roxanne sings in her best spooky voice, but she puts it away. "Do you want to spend more time with your drippy fern? Or do you want to keep moving? I think the orchid room is next, or we could go back to the reflecting pool."

"I am wet enough already, I think," he says, glancing ruefully down at his leg. The fabric is wet all the way to his knee, and clinging uncomfortably despite how he tried to scrape as much water out of it as possible before putting his sock and shoe back on. "Let’s look at the orchids."

Roxanne grins. "I think you’ll really like this one. They’ve got it set up kind of like a rainforest, it’s really neat. Come on, this way."

Megamind readily agrees to go with her, but there is more to look at every step of the way and Roxanne doesn't have the heart to drag him away from what he wants to see. So they walk together, chatting, and they pause every couple of feet so Megamind can coo and exclaim over various flowers and plants. He seems especially interested in variegated leaves, which Roxanne wasn't expecting. She's never paid much attention to them, herself, but Megamind points at the way color spills away from veins and curls in from edges, the way the different shades bend and blend, and it is…pretty, honestly.

"When I was sixteen, my family went to Costa Rica," Roxanne tells him. "I think we saw some of these growing wild. They're annual plants here, they die out over the winter. I had never seen them just growing with everything else by the side of the road."

"I thought of that earlier," he says. "These are normal, somewhere. I've never seen anything like them. Or these! Oh, look, look at these! Henna coleus," he says, reading from the plant's little plaque. "Look how red they are underneath!"

"That is really cool," Roxanne agrees, as Megamind tilts his head this way and that.

photo by Serres Fortier

"It's like rivers," he says. "The way the color clings to the veins looks like rivers, on maps. I wonder why it does that?" He frowns and straightens, drumming his fingers absently on his vest and jacket where he's carrying them over one arm. "It doesn't have a flower to attract pollinators. It's just leaves. It's just pretty."

Roxanne shrugs. "Sometimes that happens," she tells him. "Sometimes things are just pretty. Not everything has to have a purpose. Sometimes nature just…does things, and it doesn't cost any extra energy, so it stays."

He runs his fingertip down the raggedy edge of one of the coleus leaves, looking thoughtful.

screencap taken from Phipps conservatory virtual tour; link in Author's Note

Roxanne has seen the orchids before, of course. This is one of the rooms she always looks forward to the most. It's been a few years since she saw it last, but this is one of the few exhibits that doesn't change very much; the space is narrow and set up like a little chunk of rainforest, with orchids set in pots along mossy branches and stones, walls covered in tropical plants, and tiny fountains in terracotta pots of their own. It's hot, and the air is heavy with moisture. Roxanne always feels a bit like this space should have frogs singing in it, when she visits.

Megamind's reaction to all this is not what Roxanne was expecting. They walk into the room and the lights come on, and instead of gasping with delight, Megamind makes a noise like he's just been punched.

Startled, Roxanne turns to blink at him. "You okay?"

"I don't know," Megamind whispers. He stares around like he isn't even seeing anything, and she jumps when pale membranes flick sideways over his eyes and back. A rattling shudder travels down his thin frame. "I don't—I don't know. It's, it's warm, it's—I'm—I, I need to sit, I need—"

"Here, here," she says, taking his arm and guiding him forward to a decorative rock with a flat place for sitting. He tips his head back, mouth open and gasping as his eyes fall closed, shuddering again.

She sits down beside him, taking his coat and vest from him. He still has his head back and his eyes shut, but he definitely notices; she feels him shift sideways a little—not enough that she’s worried about having accidentally invaded his space, just enough to give her more room to sit—and his breathing changes. His lips part on an exhale and his shoulders drop, he relaxes. Breathes. What Roxanne can see of his expression looks like he’s having something akin to a religious experience.

His coat rustles a little as she sets it aside. "Here," she says, hesitantly touching his arm. "Roll up your sleeves a little, get some air. Do you need to leave? Do you want to stay?"

"Hm?" He hauls himself upright and blinks vaguely at her, then looks down at his hands. "Oh. Yes, yes, let me…"

He goes for his tie first, loosening it and unfastening his collar, and then he fumbles to unbutton his cuffs. His hands are unsteady; he yanks at the buttons with jerky movements. Roxanne bites her lip to keep herself from offering to help; she may not be sure where his mental state might be, but helping with this would feel—a little too much, for her, right now. She had not been thinking of what Megamind would look like barehanded with his tie half-undone and his collar open, rolling his sleeves up over his chiseled forearms, but oh. Oh no. Once again, oh no, he’s so much hotter than usual.

And literally, too.

"Are you okay?" She peers at him, concerned, but he just nods and tilts his face up again, gulping and breathing hard. "You, um, you look like you might be overheating."

"No no no, I think—I think we may have just found my optimal temperature," he says, breathy. "Basking temperature? Maybe? And the humidity is—the humidity, god, it—this is—probably similar to the climate my species evolved to before the Shallowing? Oh, my god. Just…can we just…sit for a moment? Can we just…?"

"Of course we can," she says. They have all night—well, until two, anyway—and she already took tomorrow off work. She'll ignore whatever the heck a shallowing is for now. "We can stay as long as you like."

"Thank you," he gasps. He fumbles a hand over and squeezes her knee hard, then runs both hands up and over his forehead with another full-body tremor. "Thank you, this is—incredible, this is—"

From the way he’s breathing, he can’t possibly be comfortable sitting upright like this. He looks the way Roxanne feels when she’s about to be sick, honestly. "What do you want to do," Roxanne says. She hates to keep making him talk, but he looks like he needs something. "It’s okay, whatever it is. Are you sure you’re all right?"

Megamind nods. "Yes, yes, I’m amazing, fantastic. I’m—can I—it's okay? Really? I want—really? I can?"

"Go for it," she says immediately. "Whatever you need! I’m glad you’re figuring this out!"

He swallows again, gives another jerky nod, and then slides down off of the rock and onto the floor, slumping half against the stone and half against Roxanne’s leg as he opens the rest of his shirt. Panting, he rests the back of his enormous head against her thigh.

A moment later, he reaches up and past his shoulder to pat awkwardly at her knee. Roxanne takes his hand without thinking, but she isn’t expecting his fingers to close around her own in return, isn’t expecting him to squeeze back before dropping both hands limply into his lap.

They sit. Around them, the sound of water in little fountains, the hum of the room's misty irrigation system kicking on. Bright flowers, glistening leaves. It’s tempting for Roxanne to pull out her phone, to do something while she waits for Megamind to finish basking or whatever it is that he’s doing, but…this is special. His breathing is slowing down now that he’s finally leaning up against something, and getting to see him at rest is just as special as getting to see him at play. Seeing him like this, blue skin visible all the way down to his waist, his eyes closed and breathing slow. Totally still, for once in his hyperactive life. 

She doesn’t mean to do it, doesn’t mean to brush her knuckles over the smooth curve of bone at his temple, the backs of her fingers stroking the soft dip there. But she does, and Megamind stirs, and he says—mumbles, really, his voice low and soft and his eyes still closed—

"You are so good to me, Roxanne."

—and Roxanne thinks—

Aw, fuck.

She’s still trying to think of how to reply to that when she pets her other hand over his forehead and he opens his eyes and blinks slowly at her with his pupils blown, and then he sort of stretches his neck and tips his head back over her knee and she very nearly leans down and—

Nope. Nope nope nope tonight was very specifically about NOT being someone who does that to him. Tonight was very specifically about being someone Megamind can lean on and trust not to hurt him when he’s heat-drunk and blissed out and dizzy. Very specifically about having his back.

The trouble is, she isn’t sure how to phrase I want so badly to be good to you without kissing him about it.

Finally she settles on, "I’m glad someone is," and very carefully rests her hand on his sharp shoulder for a moment. "I’m glad 'someone' is me."

And Megamind sighs, and closes his eyes, and tips his head against her wrist, and relaxes.

Chapter Text

The two of them remain in the orchid room for nearly a full hour before they finally move on, and when Megamind does eventually get back up and button his shirt, it is only because Roxanne had sat on her stone for as long as she could and her tailbone was aching beyond the point she could continue to ignore. Even then, she had tried to insist she would be okay, she just needed to stretch, but Megamind just smiled and shook his head and said they should probably move on.

Now he stands at one of the windows in the next room over—a long, narrow room called the silver garden, where the plants hail from desert and Mediterranean climates and bear silvery coatings on their leaf structures—and stares into the darkened courtyard outside. The courtyard contains a series of ponds, currently wintering over and rather drab as a result.

"That’s a water lily exhibit in warmer months," Roxanne tells him. "It’s a shame we couldn’t see it tonight, it’s really pretty."

Megamind nods.

Roxanne frowns. He hasn't seemed as enthusiastic about this area as she was expecting him to be. Yes, his mouth fell open when they walked in, and yes, he had stared around at the desert landscape with fascination and delight, but…so far, he hasn't bounced away to look at this-this-that-over-there the way she imagined he might.

photo from wikimedia commons

"You okay?"

He’s quiet.

Roxanne stands with him for a moment, looking out the windows and wondering if she should say something else to fill the silence or let him think or—

—a light touch on the back of her hand makes her look down.

Megamind has swung his arm away from his hip, just a little, and brushed the backs of his fingers over hers.

She glances back up at his face. He still hasn’t moved, and his expression as he stares out into the night is, for once, difficult to read.

But he hasn’t dropped his hand.

…oh, who cares.

Roxanne slips her hand behind his and wraps her fingers around his palm. "We should, um. We should do this again," she says, as his hand closes on hers and he trembles into motion beside her, breathing again. She swallows. "Later in the year. Dinner—we could—do dinner together again, and then come back to the botanical gardens and look at the outdoor flowers. And the water lilies. If you want to! Do you want to?"

His hand around hers is extremely stiff, but he nods again.

"Megamind?"

"…I do. Yes."

She hesitates.

"I never realized plants could be so captivating," he says, before she can ask if he's really okay or try to find out why he still seems so down. "I thought…I always thought flowers were just…pretty."

"They are pretty," Roxanne says, confused.

"But these aren’t flowers." He turns and gestures at the silvery plants that line the wide flagstone pathway. "These are…desert plants, I think. Cacti, and…and…I don’t know what else. They’re beautiful."

He lets go of her and walks a little way, then stops, staring down at the frothy sprays of silver makana.

photo from terra nova nurseries

"There is so much on this planet that I’m never going to see," he says, hands hanging at his sides.

For a moment, she thinks he’s going to continue. But he just sighs, and shakes his head, and says nothing.

"Do you want to see it?" Roxanne asks. "Because…I’m pretty sure you can do anything you want to. You’re probably the most determined person I’ve ever met. If you want something, go get it."

"Hm."

After a long moment, Roxanne goes over to him. "Hey. You sure you’re okay? Is it…um, is it what you said about the orchids? Being like the weather on…where you’re from?"

He sighs. "A little. I suppose. Do you know, I almost certainly would never have seen anything like this on my homeworld?"

She cocks her head.

"It’s true. They underwent a catastrophic extinction event several generations before I was born. It wiped out nearly all non-marine life, and we lost a significant percentage of our aquatic biodiversity as well. Flowers like this, plants like this…" He shakes his head. "I would never have seen anything like it. This is, this is…something I could only see here."

He bumps her hand again. And, again, Roxanne takes his in hers, but this time she nets their fingers together.

He doesn’t say anything else for a while, and finally it really seems like he isn’t going to. But…Roxanne thinks, after some consideration, absently rubbing her thumb back and forth over his skin…she thinks, okay, maybe she does know what he means. It must be fairly rare for him to experience very much on Earth that he wouldn’t have had some kind of parallel to at home. And it would have been more comfortable for him there, too, in basically every way. He is wearing a life that doesn’t fit him. And he’s making the most of it, obviously, but—

"I do like villainy," Megamind says, out of nowhere. Roxanne jumps.

"Hm?"

"Villainy," he says. He still sounds sort of distant, distracted. "I do like it. It isn’t as though I’m miserable this way."

She hesitates, but finally has to point out, "It also isn’t as though you have a choice." She exhales. "Look, I’m not saying you should consider giving it up, I just—"

"I can’t give it up. I told you earlier."

"—happen to think that that, right there, is a giant screaming problem," she says, as gently as she can. "It isn’t…it’s…look, what if someday you don’t want to continue? Or you can’t continue?"

He’s quiet.

"Megamind?"

"I…try not…to think about that," he says, subdued. "It doesn’t…help. It won’t change anything."

"But that’s my point," she exclaims. "Just—would you—consider it? Please? Working with me to try and fix it? There has to be a way. Blackmail, even. You said, if there was a way, you would have found it. You don’t have to look for it alone. Please just think about it. Okay? So that if you ever do want to stop, you can."

He sighs.

"Please," Roxanne says again. "Just think about it."

"…Fine," he says, at last. He sighs and turns his head, looks back out through the window at the snowy garden. "I will take it under advisement."

Following his gaze, Roxanne bites her lip.

She spent close to an hour on that rock, in silence, with Megamind leaning on her with his clothes undone and his head tipped back. And she had been thinking hard.

The thing about Roxanne is…she's a planner. Not by nature. By nature, she is an impulsive and curious creature, and it's gotten her into trouble over the years, and so she became a planner. To get where she is today. Megamind speaks to her on a level she usually tries to ignore.

But is that so bad?

Standing here with him in this garden of cacti and desert grasses and trees, between these cold windows, holding his hand…

"Will you do this again next year," Megamind murmurs.

She blinks and refocuses. "Do this…buy your date, you mean? Do you want me to?"

"Please." His hand twitches in hers; she firms her grip without really thinking about it.

"Then I will."

His eyes meet hers in their translucent reflections. "Just because I want you to?"

"Not just for that." She leans sideways, bumps their shoulders together. "I'm having a lot of fun tonight. I'm looking forward to seeing you again."

He looks like he can't quite believe that, but all he says is, "I can plan next year's. Trade off. I have a place I like to eat, I think you might—also—enjoy. We could go. And, and then…maybe, we could go to…somewhere else?"

"How about the planetarium? We could pretend to stargaze," she offers. "Not much of a way to do that here in the city."

He hesitates. "Maybe. Maybe that. I don't…always handle stars well. But. It has been a long time since I saw all of them at once."

"Aw." She squeezes. "We don't have to do that, then. Something else. Oh, or—the aquarium? We could break in and go swimming?"

He makes a soft sound in his throat, but all he says is, "I'd like that. Swimming, with you."

"Well, that's a possibility too, then. I'm sure I'll have fun no matter where we go," she adds, because he still seems terribly off about something. "Fun is only a little bit about where you go. Mostly it's about who you're with. I always have fun with you, one way or another."

"Do you." He glances down at their hands. "That is…truly wonderful to hear."

He doesn’t actually seem to realize what Roxanne was asking, when she asked if he wanted to do this again. Or, what she was trying to ask. Starting to ask.

She opens her mouth—

Her phone chirps in her purse. Roxanne freezes.

Megamind turns and cocks an eyebrow at her.

Any other notification. Any other notification, she would ignore. But this one, on this night, after all that has happened…

She frowns and steps back, digging for her phone. "I’m really sorry, one sec. I thought I had taken care of everything."

Megamind shrugs and turns away to wander a little ways away, still peering around at the various silvery plants, and Roxanne quickly pulls up her home security app.

She has several motion cameras at her apartment’s various entry points. There are quite a few, despite being seventeen floors up. And while Megamind basically comes and goes as he pleases, he isn’t the only one who occasionally tries to gain entrance to Roxanne Ritchi’s living space. Metro Man is always only a scream away, and Roxanne has long suspected Megamind probably is as well, but…she prefers to keep track of her security on her own. It’s the principle of the thing.

And, sure enough, less than a minute ago there was a power flicker that lasted several seconds. Her sensors are reporting this has been resolved, but her cameras are still having trouble coming back online.

Hmmm.

She raises her voice. Megamind is currently crouching to rub a leaf of wooly lamb's ear between his fingertips. "Sorry about that! I swear, these new phones. Every app has its own little quirks to silence."

"Everything all right?"

"Oh, yeah. It's fine." She sighs and stretches. "Although, as long as we’ve been interrupted, I kinda need to use the bathroom. Do you mind taking a detour? The bathrooms here are actually really cool, they're in this wing that's…kind of a pod of single-stall rooms down a corridor with the walls covered top to bottom in greenery."

There, that seems to brighten him up a little. "Oh? That does sound interesting. Okay."

It isn’t far. And it gives Roxanne the opportunity to direct Megamind away from the final part of their date, the butterfly room. She’s really very excited to see his reaction to that, and she knows if he sees signs for it, he'll be bouncing off the walls until they get there.

For now, she leaves him sitting on a bench and peering interestedly up and around at the walls of the wide hallway, which are—true to her word—covered entirely in lush green plants. Ferns and mosses and such, damp, shady ground cover.

He’s so cute. She knows he was feeling something complicated and potentially very heavy back there, what with talking about villainy and his homeworld nearly in the same breath, but he is still so wide-eyed and intrigued at everything she can show him. Oh, sweetheart.

In the bathroom, she drops her smile and pulls her phone out of her bag.

Deep breath in through your nose, Roxanne. Sigh it out the same way. Ground yourself.

Focus.

Hey. Very very sorry to ask, but my security cameras just malfunctioned and cut out. I have a bad feeling and I suspect I have a certain home intruder, she types out, and then pauses, staring down at her phone and trying to think. God, this sounds insane. Is she overreacting? She’s overreacting.

Ground. Focus.

…no. Larissa came after them in the car, and Megamind was more rattled at the sight of the flash drives and that box than Roxanne has ever seen him. Roxanne may not be sure exactly what happened, but she knows Larissa hurt him and humiliated him and sent him running scared. And she knows her former roommate doesn't give up easily.

Her lip between her teeth, she finishes, would you be willing to just do a quick sweep and let me know if someone is in my apartment? and if Oaxaca's ok? No need to intervene, I have a neighbor on deck who’ll help if I need it. Sorry.

She sends the text.

Then she takes another huge breath, and releases it through her mouth. Closes her eyes, and holds her next breath for four, releases it for four, waits for four, and then breathes in for four. Hold for four. Repeat.

Square breathing, the most basic calming technique she knows.

Her phone buzzes in her hand on the third cycle. She has it up to read the response even before her eyes have finished focusing under the harsh bathroom lights, so she’s blinking and squinting to read Wayne’s response.

Who IS this chick??? your fuzzy bug is fine but yeah uh, she’s in your bedroom closet???? what the F, are you ok???

Roxanne goes hot, and then very cold as rage sweeps through her.

I’m fine. Thanks, you can go enjoy your night.

You sure? I don’t mind stepping in!!

I can’t prove nexus if you do it. She’s not a meta. Gotta do this one by the mundane book. I’ll text you when she’s gone :) thanks for helping, sorry to bother you

I WANT YOU TO BOTHER ME IF YOU’VE GOT A BURGLAR, BANANNIE, HOLY GUACAMOLE

Thanks lol

She closes their chat and quickly calls Opal, her neighbor across the hall. A cracked voice answers on the second ring. "Roxanne, dear? Is that you? Aren’t you busy?"

Roxanne releases a shaky breath. "Yeah, it’s me. I’m really sorry to call so late, somebody just broke into my place but the alarm didn’t go off. Tech malfunction. Can you please call the cops for me? I’d do it myself, I really would, it’s just—"

"It’s just you’re on a date with a pig magnet, dear. I read you loud and clear. A break-in! Of course I’ll call. Are you sure?"

"Metro Man just confirmed, someone’s there. A lady in my bedroom closet, in my loft upstairs."

"My goodness. All right, honey, I’ll call Dennis and his partner. We’ll clear her out, don’t you worry."

Her grandson is in the MCPD, which sheds sort of an odd light on her ‘pig magnet’ comment. Roxanne exhales. "Thanks, Mrs. L. Hey, can I bring you dinner tomorrow? I’m picking up Indian food, you like the palak paneer and daal makhani, right?"

"Oh that would be just lovely! Of course. Now, you two go and have fun, I’ll call if we need anything. As far as they know, I just heard something suspicious."

Click.

Roxanne lowers her phone and drops her chin to her chest, rolls her head slowly from side to side in a vain attempt to work some of the tension out of her shoulders. She shrugs out of her leather jacket and lays it over her purse on the sink—her extended stay in the orchid room left her feeling unpleasantly sticky—and rubs her fingertips into her shoulders.

Okay. So, the cops will arrest Larissa. She’ll post bail, of course, whatever it is, but probably not until morning. This should be enough to prevent her from coming after Roxanne and Megamind again tonight at least, and she’ll have to go to court. If Roxanne plays her cards right, she might be able to pull a conspiracy to commit murder charge…although that might be a reach, and would almost certainly require Roxanne to admit to her own theft of Larissa’s blackmail. She’ll have to call her lawyer in the morning and see if he can help her through this nonsense after Dennis calls her with the police report number from the arrest.

And, god willing, Megamind won’t find out about this new development until tomorrow at the earliest. He deserves to not worry about this crap for one night.

…Should she tell him anyway? He does sort of have a right to know. This might not have to involve him, but it’s almost certainly going to affect him somehow.

What if she went to the papers? Make this whole thing public, blow the whole scandal all over the news…?

No. No, that wouldn’t fly unless she knew what the blackmail actually was and could sensationalize it in Megamind’s favor.

"Fuck," she sighs. "Fuuuuck. Why is this my life?"

She does use the bathroom, since she’s in there. She might as well. It’s weird, being all by herself—the room is only intended for one person, but the gardens are so quiet. Last time she was in one of these restrooms, she could hear all kinds of chatter, and hand dryers, and toilets flushing.

But it’s just her, now. And Megamind, who has been targeted and cornered and hurt for the last fucking time in his life, if Roxanne has anything to say about it.

Roxanne was intending to put on a happy face as she exited the bathroom, but when Megamind stands up from where he was waiting for her on the bench across the hall from the restrooms, his own smile falls almost immediately and he says, "Oh. What’s the matter?"

So, she must not have been able to make that particular goal.

Nothing, she wants to say. Nothing, everything is fine.

I asked you out earlier and I don't think you noticed and I don't know how to do it again.

I’m so, so scared for you and I can’t really even explain why.

She just sighs, and shakes her head.

"I…"

Seeing him there brought it all down again. Everything feels terribly real, suddenly, in a way that it hadn’t quite felt when she had been making arrangements in the restroom. The situation is out of her control now, and all she can do is wait. What she wants to do now is to beam at him and say something to make him laugh and then lead him to the butterfly room to crow over all the shiny insects, but…

Finally she just says, sounding a lot more tired than she wanted to, "I could really use a hug. Is that okay?"

Megamind’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead, but he nods and steps forward. "You—of course? Yes! Of course. Um."

Roxanne shudders another sigh and goes to him without hesitating, wraps her arms around his funny skinny body and tucks her face down against his shoulder, rounding her own shoulders to fit better into his arms. Slim hands flutter uncertainly at her back before settling.

But they do settle, and Megamind holds her tightly. He’s very strong, for all his slight frame, and his wiry arms are more of a comfort than Roxanne’s massive boyfriend’s have ever been.

"Whatever is wrong," Megamind says, his voice low and worried, "I will help."

Roxanne huffs a mirthless laugh. "I don’t want you to have to help," she says, crossing her arms over his back and holding him tighter. "I want you to never have to worry about any of this, ever again."

"Any of what?"

She shakes her head.

"Roxanne," Megamind says, insistent, and shuffles her until she lifts her head, "any of what?"

"Just—this! This, this fucking—auction," she explodes, "and Larissa, and people trying to trick you and trap you and hurt you and just—I hate it! I hate it. I’m sorry." She shakes her head again, hard. "And—and! You have to be a villain? It’s sick!" Her voice cracks, and she feels Megamind’s stance change as his expression clears and goes wary. Quickly, she continues, "And I know, I know you enjoy it, I know you’re happy for the most part, but I just—you just—you—never had a choice! You never—" She cuts herself off, gulps hard around the stone in her throat.

"You never had a choice," she says again, less agitated but more wobbly. "I hate it. God, is—is everything in your life something you’ve been cornered and locked into? It really seems like everything is—"

"You aren’t."

She falters, blinking and focusing on his face. "What?"

"I said," he says, "you aren’t."

After a long moment, he tips forward, ducks in and clunks gently against her forehead. Roxanne hears herself make a startled sound in her throat.

"You…aren’t…anything I’ve been locked into," Megamind says, eyes downcast, nudging purposefully against her. Bewildered, Roxanne pushes back. "I could have chosen anyone. I found you. I chose you. I will continue to choose you."

"Oh," she manages.

"And it is reassuring," he adds. "To know that, when presented with a choice, I made such a good one. Just this once, at least."

Roxanne pulls him into another hug, holding onto him as hard and as tight as she can. Once again, it’s that or kiss him. "Thanks. Thank you. I’m so sorry."

Megamind pats her, and then he steps back, straightening his tie, which is back in place. "Nothing to be sorry for. Thank you for…being here. For choosing me too, tonight." He sends her a grin, sort of wry, and picks up his vest to start shrugging back into it. "You really are the best decision I ever made, Roxanne."

Her heart twists, hard and sharp, and she catches her breath. "I…god, thank you. Do you mind if we sit? Just for a couple of minutes?"

He looks surprised, but he shrugs. "Of course. It’s…nice, here, I like these walls of plants."

"Cold and damp," she manages to tease, sitting down and then rolling her shoulders. "Aghgh. I need to clean out my purse."

"Too heavy?"

"Mmm. Yeah, a little. I’m not usually carrying it for so long."

He nods and leans back, and then, to Roxanne’s amusement, he pulls his feet up and braces his heels on the bench, with his knees against his chest. He doesn’t say anything; maybe it’s just comfortable for him. His vest is still unfastened in the front, it isn't pinning him upright.

Roxanne glances sideways at him, then lifts her arm. "Can I put this along the back of the bench?"

"Hm?"

"Like this?"

She reaches around behind his back. Megamind stiffens and his head snaps around to look at her hand on his other side, and Roxanne almost pulls away—but then he says, "Oh! Yes, okay," and slants his entire self towards her. Wow?

Very carefully, she settles her arm around him and shifts her own stance to better accommodate the way he’s curled up. Megamind relaxes, and to her absolute shock, tips his head sideways and rests it on her shoulder and the back of the bench, with his crown fitted perfectly to the curve of her neck.

"Okay?" Roxanne asks.

"Mm. Yes, very."

Around them, there’s a soft hiss as whatever irrigation system dampens all this greenery kicks on.

"…I wonder," Megamind says, after a minute or so tick by, "if there was anything like this under the water, in parents’ time."

"Oh?"

"Mm. They may have had the resources by then. We had finally more or less fully re-established ourselves on floating habitats when…"

He trails off.

"I’m so sorry," Roxanne says. "I really can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like. Remembering everything. Forced to raise yourselves here."

Megamind breathes for a moment.

At last he says, "Never really had much choice."

In this, either, huh, Roxanne thinks, oh, sweetheart, and unconsciously tightens her hold on him.

Megamind says, "It was this or kill myself. And I…don’t want to die."

"I’m glad."

He swallows. "Can I ask—are we planning to stay very much longer? I—it isn’t that I want to leave, but—expectations, planning, I—"

She smiles. "It’s okay, you can ask anything you like! And, there’s one more room here that I want to show you. I think you’ll really like it. Is that okay? And then we can go home. Back to my place, and wait for Minion to come and pick you up. Okay?"

She feels him exhale and the tension all falls out of him. "Okay," he says. "Yes, that sounds fine."

Roxanne hesitates, then says, "And, um…likewise, by the way," a trifle shyly. "About being a good decision. Wh—hey! Don't you scoff at me, I mean that!" She pokes him gently in the ribs, stung and hiding it. "What, you think I had to keep being your pawn? You think I don't know how to be a bad decision and a miserable experience? Please."

"I think I had you tied to rockets and ice beams and giant whirring saw blades," he protests, setting his feet on the floor and sitting up, but he does splutter a laugh when Roxanne makes a playfully disgruntled noise and wraps her arm back around him and shakes him a little. "I hardly think you were in any position to piss me off! Okay—okay," he says, squaring himself and pulling away and glaring at her with a smile tugging at his mouth, "how would you have made me leave you alone?"

"Screamed abuse at Minion and then cried messily when you got upset about it."

His mouth is already open to contradict her, but that makes him pause and then scrunch his whole face into an irritated scowl. "That is below the belt."

"You asked." She sends him a cocky smirk. On one hand, oh no the cuddles are over; on the other hand, needling Megamind is a beloved pastime and he rarely seems to really mind. "You're just mad because it would have worked."

He doesn't argue. "Fine! So why didn't you? You've already said, you didn't enjoy being kidnapped, you disliked me, you were angry at first! Why did you put up with it? If you knew how to make me stop?"

"I liked Minion! And I was worried about him, I didn't want to yell at him."

He blinks, then stares at her. "You what."

"I liked him!" She shrugs hard. "He was always so nice, and you two seemed so weird with each other at first and I couldn't figure out your dynamic and he was obviously sapient and you were super bossy and I was worried, I didn't know if he was okay or if you were just using him or what was happening."

Far from looking offended, Megamind just looks stunned and sort of admiring now. "Do you know," he says, "I never would have guessed that might be a factor. But, looking back…"

He trails off.

"I suppose our working relationship could seem…slightly out of balance to the untrained eye."

Roxanne snorts. "Slightly out of balance. Look, I'll take your word for it, you guys clearly have some kind of arrangement that works for the two of you, and I've seen him give as good as he gets. But speaking as a bystander, you can be a real dick to him sometimes."

Megamind's jaw drops. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. Be nicer to Minion." She raises her eyebrows. "From what you were telling me in the car, he is completely reliant on you for his safety. That's—"

"Minion is well aware that he can put me in my place if I go too far," Megamind says, voice sharp and edged with warning.

Roxanne isn't having that, either. "He knows he can, and I've seen him do it, but if you push him—does he feel able to put his foot down? Can you trust that? I just—look, like I said, he seems content with your arrangement—"

"I should hope so."

"—but content is not happy or comfortable, I am just saying. And you don't need to bristle like this about it," she adds, softening her tone a little. "Come on, please? I'm not upset with you, I don't think you're being cruel to him. But you apparently have way more power over his situation than I realized, and—and so I just—wanted to maybe mention that, is all."

Megamind is still scowling, but he also isn't meeting her eyes.

"That is a reasonable concern," he finally says, extremely stiffly. "That is—reasonable. Yes."

"I know you do a lot for him," she offers. "I do know that."

His lips twist and he cants his head a little. "I…yes. Well. Not as much as I used to. He is…almost totally autonomous, at this point. Which is more than he could have expected in our culture of origin, he tells me, but…oh. Aha." He blinks, then slumps and drags a hand down the side of his face. "Damn. It had not occurred to me to consider whether that information might have been offered in gratitude rather than simply to tell me." He pauses, then grimaces. "Ah. That could…be…somewhat less than totally fantastic."

Roxanne hesitates, then nudges him again and sends him a toothy grin. "So I'm right."

He glares at her.

She grins harder. She knows how to wind him up and she knows how to ease him down, and unless she is very much mistaken, he's starting to hide an exasperated smile around the corners of his eyes. "I am, ha, I was right! Say it, say I was right. 'Fine, Miss Ritchi, you were right.' Like that!"

He loses the fight to maintain his glare, snorting hard at her imitation of his inflection and aiming a bony finger at her. "You! You are terrible! And I do not like you at all, worst decision ever, I changed my mind. Very well. But I will require another hug."

"Oh no, how unpleasant. Your terms are most acceptable."

He clatters his jaw at her, showing his teeth, which honestly is startling. But he's rolling his eyes in the next second and saying, "Fine, Miss Ritchi, you were right."

Roxanne cackles and pops to her feet, taking his hand and pulling him up off the bench and into a hug. All the way up off his feet, it turns out; he yelp-chirps and clutches his arms around her shoulders. That's okay though, she can work with that and pretend it was intentional—she turns around and sets him down, still holding onto him.

"—ah! Hahaha!" He's blinking, wide-eyed and breathless and startled, gripping her shoulders. "That was! Fun?"

He's solid and heavy and he appears to be looking at her mouth and Roxanne wants to kiss him so badly, god; he's right here and that simple fact is apparently even more of a miracle than she had ever realized. Let alone that he's allowing her to ask all these questions, let alone that he's negotiating for hugs.

He's—

Oh, oh wait, that's—she could—

She wants to treat him right, wants to show him how much more he should expect from people, but—

"Miss—Roxanne? What's—"

"I want to kiss you, I'm so sorry," she blurts.

Chapter Text

She can't seem to let go of him, despite how he's just frozen. "I'm, I'm sorry, I just—you're so lovely and I want—but, but I want you to feel safe and I want you to—you are safe, I promise you are, I—"

"Kiss me?" His eyes are enormous. "You want…would you? Yes? You want? Yes?"

Oh thank goodness.

Everything in her is just screaming at her to kiss him as hard as she can, with everything she has, and she wants to, she wants to. But she can do that later, hopefully, maybe, if he lets her. He's so stiff in her arms and he honestly looks scared, and she can't—she can't—but he is leaning towards her and not away, as stiff as he is, so—

When Roxanne kisses him, she has one hand on his spine and the other on his waist, and she keeps her mouth as gentle as she can manage with as trembly-excited as she is. And Megamind is still frozen, still almost flinching, but when she goes to withdraw—she only pressed her lips to his for a moment, just for a moment—he makes a sound of complaint and lurches after her, shuddering to life in her arms and pressing closer. He sort of gasps, actually, and when she returns with another kiss he melts against her even as his arms tighten and hold her closer.

Things Roxanne absolutely was not expecting from the Master Of All Villainy: literally any of that, holy smokes.

When she finally does ease away, Megamind stares at her with his lips parted and his cheeks and ears the same rose-lavender as his shirt. And then he gulps, and moves one hand to curl his fingers carefully under Roxanne’s chin. His touch is light, but it crackles through her like lightning anyway for how unexpected it is. 

He tips his head to the side, just a little, jerky and hesitant, and leans in. Pauses.

Roxanne leans in as well and his eyebrows fly up in shock and then pull down into an expression almost of pain, and he kisses her. Just the way she kissed him: carefully, and relatively quickly, although he does linger for a moment longer than she did before he withdraws.

(His lips are cool and a little bit chapped, and his mouth is as soft as the touch of his hands, and his skin smells like machine smoke and leather from this close. Roxanne could go on kissing Megamind very happily for a while.)

They stare at each other for a long few seconds, and then Roxanne laughs and sort of gasps out, "You have no idea how hard it was not to kiss you back in the orchid room."

Megamind's whole face falls open in blatant shock. "You what—you wanted to? Then? You did? I thought, maybe, I mean I thought if you were ever going to, it would be then. You—wait." He blinks a few times and then his jaw drops even further. "Were you—asking—me out? Before? Earlier? Afterwards?"

Roxanne snorts into laughter. "Yes!" she chokes out, before he can be offended. "Yes, oh my god. Okay, you really didn’t realize, then!"

Megamind goggles at her.

Then he lets out an inarticulate but delighted yell and throws both arms into the air and—

Okay this is the best reaction Roxanne has ever received to asking someone out, bar none, because Megamind makes a sound of sheer glee and hops fully into her arms. He grips her waist with both legs around the small of her back and seizes her face in both hands and kisses her hard, once twice thrice, with Roxanne clutching him around his back with one hand and her other—oops, under his incredibly bony ass, but hey, at least she caught him.

He lifts his head and beams down at her, one hand fluttering at his own chest and his other going to stroke and comb at her short hair. "Yes? Yes to going out? Yes to going out! Again! With you!"

All Roxanne can do is beam right back up at him, breathlessly laughing, and then squeeze him and spin around and around still holding him. Megamind yips and scrambles to clutch at her shoulders, giggling.

He lands without complaint when she sets him down, instead taking her hands and dancing her around in a circle, still beaming brighter than sunrise, and then he stumbles back, eyes huge and shining. He doesn't appear to know what to do with his hands, fluttering them to cover his mouth, wringing them together. "Wow! Wow, I—you—are you—sure? I'm, I'm not—I have never, I've never, um—I am—not going to be—very normal, I'm—"

"You think I don't know that?" Roxanne says, pulling him into another hug with his arms crushed between them. "That's fine! I don't want normal, I want you! Are you okay?" He hasn't moved to pull his hands free.

"I am the most okay I have ever been," he declares, but his voice is thin and thready. "I am—you just—oh wow. Oh."

Roxanne laughs a little; she can’t help it. "You sure?"

"I'm fine," he says, sounding dazed as he finally wiggles free enough to hug her in return. "I'm—I really am—fine. Finally." He looks up at Roxanne. "I, I woke up this morning wanting to raze the city to the ground, and, and now—I'm—quite possibly the happiest thing on two legs! I—you have—no idea, no idea what I’ve been—" He gulps and she feels his fingertips drag across her back as his hands clench. "Really?" he says. "You want—really? For, for how long? Why? I don’t—this is—"

She tightens her hold on him, digging into his shoulders a little in the hopes that it might ground him. "Yes really," she says, smiling into his eyes. "Yes, really. I want to at least try. With you. Are you okay? What’s going on in that lovely big brain of yours?"

"WayTooManyThingsToSayAtOnce," he gasps. "I don’t—I need—um—"

"A hug? The orchid room again? Do you need to just sit?"

His giddy expression goes anguished. "Why are you like this," he groans, "why are you nice to me, I don’t—you keep—"

"I’m not impatient," she offers. "I have nowhere I need to be. I’m happy to just stay here with you."

"—Not normal," he complains, a shudder running through him, and then another, "it’s not—it’s not—"

But she already told him…?

Oh!

"That doesn’t make it wrong," she says, keeping her tone bright and amused. "The opposite of normal isn’t wrong, it’s just odd." She sends him a grin and tugs him forward, hoping he’ll…yep go forehead-to-forehead again with her, hooray. "And I happen to like odd. If odd cheers and jumps into my arms when he’s happy, I like odd very much."

"Okay," he whispers, "okay. Yes. Just."

"...Was this okay?" she asks, suddenly worried. "Was…are you sure you're…?"

"Don't know," he says, breathy, "don't—I can't—I'm not—this was, this was beautiful, everything is so beautiful and you're kissing me and—I'm—"

Hmm.

"You will not be my first ‘not normal’ partner," she tells him, quiet and trying not to let her mounting concern show in her voice. "Okay? Whatever you need. We’ll work on it."

"Yes but what if it isn’t what you need," he says, desperate. "What if it isn’t—humans who, who get to know me, they—and even if they don't know me! Even if they—it’s—all of them, all of them! I’m not right, I’m not—"

"We’ll work on it." She grips him hard and nudges forward, but he lurches back like he’s been electrocuted. "I told you," she says, in spite of this. "I do not expect you to be human. Okay?"

He shakes his head.

"No?"

"I don't," he whispers, stumbling backwards. He folds an arm across his stomach, presses his other hand to his mouth, shaking his head as Roxanne follows, reaching to catch his shoulder. "I can't. I can't. I don't. Everything is—everything is—"

…It's too much.

Of course it's too much. After the year he's had? All that stress, the anxiety and the dread of the auction, and then all this excitement? He made it through dinner and had something like a very quiet panic attack. Of course something is wrong: he is exhausted. Megamind is a quivering bundle of extremely raw nerves and Roxanne just dumped about fifty thousand volts of euphoria into him. Of course he’s collapsing in on himself now.

Also, this is just how he goes. She knew this already, to some degree. Megamind can turn on a dime but surprises don't always take him well, and…

…oh. And Minion sometimes steps back when plots go wrong, she remembers; sometimes he doesn’t try to call Megamind’s attention or fix anything. Maybe instead of trying to calm him down, instead of trying to reassure and hold back…should she maybe be letting him break apart? If he needs to? It seems like he might really need to.

…And, oh again. That’s a thought. A cold shock of worry goes through her as she remembers the way he went silently to pieces in the car. If he doesn't break now, the risk is that he'll do it later, alone. Not even Minion knows what happened to him last year. And Megamind was so upset, for months, and…

Carefully, Roxanne grips his shoulder and goes to cup his cheek, and her heart twists at how hard he flinches at that. He doesn't pull away, though; is that a good sign? A bad one?

"Megamind," she says, "what is wrong."

He shakes his head again.

Roxanne sweeps her thumb over his skin. "What do you need," she whispers, trying to process, trying to think of what to do, trying to think of something that isn’t hold on, hold him, hold on.

"Nothing," he insists, "it’s not—everything is—fine. I’m fine. Tonight—was wonderful. Everything is…"

Very quietly, trying to keep her voice from cracking, she tells him, "I do not need you to be human. What do you need?"

"—wrong, it’s wrong," he blurts, breaking, "I can’t—it’s just—you can’t be—doing this, not with me, not with me—"

Okay. She swallows hard and gathers herself.

Now, or later. The only question is if she'll be there to help him through it or not.

"What have I done to tell you I want you to be different," she asks, and—

His expression contorts. As she had known it would. "Nothing, nothing, you have done nothing, it's me," he hisses, shaking his head. "It's me, it's always, it’s always—"

"Wrong?" she asks, aching. His eyes fly wide and then narrow to slits and he yanks himself backwards again, stumbling away from her.

"Yes! Yes! This isn't—it's too—you cannot want this! You cannot want this, not with me, not for long," he spits, "not with—you're going to—everything is so, so much more than I ever—but you’re going to realize, you’re going to find out all the disgusting things I've ever—"

"Three years ago, I watched you beat a guy half to death in an alley," she interrupts.

"Not what I mean! It's—"

"Too many nice things?" She raises her eyebrows.

"The way I am with people is broken," he insists, desperate, hugging his arms across his thin chest, gasping shallow breaths. "It's—I can't—being with people isn't, I was—"

"That's okay—"

"Listen to me!" he cries, but she hauls her spine straight and matches him and exclaims back, sharp, "Then talk to me! Tell me why! Don't tell me what I want, don't tell me what I'm going to do! What is going on in your head? You were so happy a minute ago and now you're throwing it back at me and you won’t let me comfort you and I can't help if I don't understand what's happening! So what's! Wrong with you!"

He jerks like he’s been slapped, then snarls, "I don't know! I have never known! If I knew I could fix it but I'm not human and I don't—"

"Then what is feeding it! What is feeding this! I can't help if I don't know, so tell me!"

"Roxanne when I was six years old they took my hand and my fingers to keep me from getting away," he says in a voice that sounds nothing like him, edged and shrill. "They took my hand—and they put a thing in my head and it hurt and I couldn’t THINK and I—and they took my—and then, and when I was—they—I—woke up. on a table. with. hands inside. me. Taking—cutting—" He gulps. His face has been draining of color as he speaks and his eyes are getting bigger and bigger and there is a ringing in Roxanne’s ears and she can't move.

"—happened—twice," he manages, "—second time was—worse—I woke up before they started and I had to wait and I couldn’t—they—put—a fucking explosive—in me—and sent me home, sent me home, and the only reason they did not take me again as an adult is because I had my uncles hold me down and rip me back open again to get it out—" He's shaking so badly it's more of a shiver, gasping every few words. "You do not want this! Everyone, everyone sees it, everyone—nothing, nothing worth any of this—childhood, middle school, high school, everyone looks at me and—sees—you! You do not! Want! To get into a—relationship with—not with anything as—as fundamentally fucking broken as—this! Me! You don't!"

"Do not ever," Roxanne hears herself say, "presume to tell me what I want."

He gapes at her, trembling like a leaf at the end of a branch in a rising hurricane, white to the lips, eyes like plates.

"Megamind," Roxanne says, dizzy and sick with fury and running on autopilot, "do you maybe need to just scream, for a minute."

"—What," he says.

"Do you need to scream," she says again, over the slamming of her heartbeat in her ears. "It sounds like you didn't get to. When you really needed to. There's no one around. Would you like to do it now?"

Megamind blinks once.

"It’s all right," she says, numb. "Whatever you need to do right now—whatever it is, it's okay."

He makes a kind of garbled questioning noise and catches her gaze, holds it.

"I mean it," she says, "anything, whatever you need to do, it's okay."

"Scream-screaming?"

"If you need to scream…maybe, maybe it will help, it's all I can think of, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

He stares for a second longer, and then suddenly the little dry leaf of him snaps free of its branch and goes spinning away into the boiling sky. His face contorts into something terrified and hollow and he's nodding, nodding.

To her shock, though, he grabs her wrist and staggers with her over back to the bench where he had been sitting earlier. As Roxanne drops down next to him, sitting sideways with her knees together, facing him, Megamind reaches for her with both hands, reaches forward and—

—presses the heels of his narrow palms over Roxanne’s ears, hard. Looks at her again and then grimaces his eyes shut.

For a moment he just struggles, and Roxanne—all she can think is—hold on, hold on, hold on.

She rests her own palms in the soft dips of his temples and brings their foreheads together one more time. It seems to be something to help; she’s seen him do it with Minion to reassure, and that pattern seems to be continuing here. "I've got you," she says again, her own voice loud in her ears with the world muted this way. "Let go. Let it out."

He heaves air in, and—

The noise that comes out of him is terrible, even with his hands over her ears. A whistling, rough-edged shriek like metal tearing. Like a railroad trestle twisting free of its anchors and collapsing. Roxanne nudges against his forehead and clenches her eyes closed; she doesn't want to squeeze his head the way he's squeezing hers, so she focuses on her thumbs instead, rubbing circles and circles and circles.

Megamind screams. Breathes in, panting for a moment, and then his wrist twinges and he's screaming again before he can catch himself.

He hadn't been able to, a year ago. His memory is spotty after a certain point but the horror hasn't left him, the dim realization of what was about to happen when she pinned his wrist to the table and cold metal bit into his skin a second later. The nightmare shrieking in his mind when the fingers of his other hand began to follow. She knew how to drug him, knew exactly how to incapacitate and throw him back into the hell he barely survived as a child—he was already naked, already cold; he knew what must be next, he knew—

—but she got the dosage wrong. And bone is sharp, unbandaged. He caught her a stunning blow across the face with the bleeding stump of his wrist and fled into the night with his voice still locked and his brain on fire. Stumbled to one of his safehouses and cleaned himself up, then crawled into the tub there and shivered and shivered and shivered until morning, staring at the past.

He has always had days, even as an adult with nearly thirty years between himself and his wounds, when he could not bear to touch his thumb to his little finger. And for three months last year while he healed and hid from the world and hid from Minion and pretended he was fine with his hologram in place…that was all he could do.

And now, tonight, he was FINALLY able to say what happened out loud and it was—it was after so many nice things? After Roxanne gave him a beautiful beautiful night and said she wanted to try and date him, after she held his hand and held him in her arms and she kissed him and showed him so many new and pretty things, and—but—she knows now. The way he is meant to be treated according to everyone else on this cursed planet. That wasn't even getting into that awful polly wanna cracker birdseed incident when he was fifteen. He had nearly died from that. There is something fundamentally wrong with him. What the fuck does she think she's doing, acting like everything he is is okay? She doesn't see it in him yet but she will, she will, she has to. She's too observant not to.

(The even more harrowing prospect is that she might be right. He remembers he had thought the same thing, once.)

Finally, when he runs out of air the third time, the words she's saying sink in through the horror of memory and he hears her.

"That's right, that's exactly right, you're doing so good—"

He catches his breath and holds it, waiting…and then finally, when no more screams crawl up into his mouth, he lowers his hands…

…And bursts straight into messy tears instead.

Well! That’s! Embarrassing!

But Roxanne just pulls him into a tight hug, one arm around his shoulders and her other hand digging in her purse for…oh, the little packet of tissues from earlier, that’s nice of her.

That’s—it’s—

"Easy," she murmurs, pressing the tissues into his palm. "Shhh, let it out. I know. I’m so sorry, I know it’s a lot, let it out. You’re doing so good."

Why is she being this way to him? She can’t—she can’t—

He can’t seem to stop crying. What is going on? He hasn’t been like this in years, he usually has much better control over himself than this! What is happening? Tonight was wonderful, tonight was so good, tonight was everything he’s never dared dream of and more! He should be over the moon, he should be exultant, on cloud nine! He WAS all those things! And now he’s sobbing on Roxanne like a fucking child? He was holding himself in check so well, until now!

Finally he gives up and just bends the rest of the way down and shoves his face into her lap, the whole of him just absolutely burning with humiliation and…and grief, and…whatever the hell else he’s feeling right now, he doesn’t even know anymore. Rage? To hell with it, who cares.

Warm hands rub slow circles on his upper back, rest heavy on the back of his head, and Megamind clenches his eyes closed against the dark of Roxanne’s skirt, and cries.

Finally, though, he does seem to be able to get something like a full breath. It’s unsteady, and his shoulders are still hitching badly, but he is able to sniff hard and shove himself up.

"Sor-sorry," he hiccups, glaring, fumbling to get a tissue out of the little packet crinkle-crumpled in his trembling fist. "Don’t—I don’t know what’s—happen-happening with me—"

"What’s happening is you’ve been under a truly horrifying amount of stress," Roxanne says, in a voice he doesn't know what to do with and is too raw to try and parse. "And it’s okay now." She’s moved her hands to his arms and she’s rubbing up and down. Touching his shoulders as he angrily blows his nose. Touching him, keeping her hands on him, and from someone who isn't one of the men who raised him, who saved his life, that should have him running for cover…but all he wants instead is to roll his whole self up in her arms and just keep on fucking screaming until he breaks apart into his component molecules.

He wads the kleenex up in his fist and tries to get his face under control. But every time he tries to bring himself to look at Roxanne, his eyes fill and his face goes hot and scrunchy and he just—

"Let it go," she says, scooting in a little and sliding her arm around his back instead. "It’s okay."

He hiccups, shakes his head.

"Yes," she says, "it is. It’s okay. It's just me, here. I’ve got you."

That does it. He dissolves all over again. Great job, Megamind. Some supervillain he is.

But Roxanne doesn't say anything about it, doesn't make fun. She just takes his hand, rubbing her thumb back and forth over the backs of his fingers. After a couple seconds, Megamind feels her hesitate, and then she touches the scars up near his knuckles.

"Are these…where they…"

He gulps and shakes his head. "Those-those were last year," he chokes out, and pulls away so he can tug the cuff of his sleeve up and show her the matching scar he wears as a bracelet on his other wrist, ragged and silvery.

"…Jesus," Roxanne whispers, and twists sideways and puts both arms around him. "God, I’m…I’m so sorry, no wonder you’ve been so wrung-out. How on earth did you manage to hide it?"

"Wasn’t easy." That’s all he’s really able to say about it, and thankfully, Roxanne seems to know better than to push for anything more on this one. She doesn't ask why, doesn't ask for details; he knows she must want to but she doesn't say anything at all.

She shakes her head and rests her cheek on the back of his shoulder, and she drags her fingers in the folds of his suit coat, and holds on.

Megamind finally, eventually, is able to draw a shuddering breath and let it out without more tears following. He waits for a moment to see if he can finally compose himself, and then he swallows and blows his nose. He’s down to his last tissue now; he’s been trying to ration them.

His lips are cracked and his whole face feels horrible and puffy. But. He can breathe, finally.

"—everything is going to be okay," says Roxanne, in a low voice.

Megamind clears his throat. Breathes for a moment.

Finally he rasps out, "You forgot the fire and the blanket. And-and the squishy chair."

"The…? Oh. Oh, my god." She sits up and pulls on him a little. "C'mere."

Exhaustion tugging at every inch of him, Megamind turns toward Roxanne and allows himself to be gathered into more of a hug. Allows his arms to slowly twine around her back, allows his head to droop onto her shoulder.

"…Why would you go and pull that out of me," he hears himself say. "Why would you do that to me."

She pauses, but finally she says, her voice half-choked with something he can’t understand, "I didn’t know what else to do, it seemed like it was going to happen either way. I’m so sorry, I get it if you're upset with me, I completely get it."

He swallows. Breathes. Roxanne’s hands are warm on his back, her shoulder is warm against his forehead. Her breathing sounds wrong, but he doesn’t have enough space to think of why.

Finally she asks, sounding very rough, "Do you…feel any better? At least? It, um. It seemed like you really needed that."

He nods.

"I am…sorry," he says hoarsely. "That you had to be here for it."

The apology chafes. Apologies always do. The implication, the recognition and admission that he has done something that was…not…right. Yet again. It chafes. But in this case, it is the right thing, he thinks. To have broken down this way, to have sicked his nightmares up all over Roxanne’s emotional shoes…this was not okay. He thinks. He's pretty sure she was expecting it, is pretty sure she was even nudging him towards it; she hasn't denied it. And he is not…ungrateful, exactly; he does feel better. And it's like earlier, yes? This is what Roxanne does. She finds something that needs to be looked at, and yanks at it until someone looks. He knows this about her, he loves this about her. But. Still. He should have had better self-control.

But, "l am honored," Roxanne says, "to have been allowed to be here. And I, I mean it: you did so good, you did exactly right."

…Huh.

Every time. Every time he has been—opened, in some way—his voice has not—been—accessible. Megamind has probably got several years of screaming to catch up on.

"You deserve better," he says, but there’s no bite to it. "Someone stable. Normal."

"Nobody is really normal," she begins, but he snarls, "You know what I mean—"

"Fine, okay, whatever!" she snaps, and he jerks away like a frightened rabbit. "I do not WANT normal, I want you! Screaming and sweet kisses and everything! We'll figure it out, I'll figure it out, I WANT us to figure it out! Together! You think I've never dated anyone with issues before? Come on."

"—Sorry," he tries again. Oh, there are tears on her cheeks? She was crying? He made her cry? "Ruined—I ruined—"

Roxanne leans forward and kisses him quickly before breaking away, shaking her head. "No. Nothing is ruined, nothing. I promise."

"You wanted this to be a nice night," he tries, his stomach twisting, his mind hung up on ??kiss?? but she keeps shaking her head.

"I wanted to give you a nice time," she says. "What you do with it is up to you! And I want you to have what you need, everything you need, I want you to know you're safe and I want you to have room to relax. You can't do those things with all that locked up in you! Thank you for letting go a little."

He stares at her. "Thanking me," he whispers.

"Yes!" She looks at him, a pleading sort of smile on her lips and her eyes starting to well with tears. "Thank you for letting me be here for you. I know it wasn't something you wanted to happen tonight, I KNOW that, so thank you."

And what he wants to do then, what he wants to do no matter how it galls him, is apologize again. He is not a thing to thank, this was not a thing that warrants gratitude—

"Your line here is, you're welcome," Roxanne says, her eyes swimming.

He swallows. "You're welcome," he manages.

Her smile pushes bright lines down over her cheeks. Megamind blinks, jumps a little. He pulls the last tissue out of the packet and hesitates—

He rips it in half and offers her a piece, and she hiccups a laugh and takes it. And then she freezes, because Megamind has just touched her chin to steady her so he can lean in and brush his mouth softly over the tear-damp outer corners of her eyes. One, two.

As he sits back, exhausted and aching and not really thinking much of it (or anything else), Roxanne blurts, "Oh my god why the hell would you think I wouldn't want you?"

He blinks, then snorts and carefully blows his nose on his half-tissue. Roxanne follows suit, shaking her head.

"I don't know," he rasps. "It seems clear enough to me, but…"

"Nonsense. Absolute nonsense, you are a treasure, you are a gift. If you thought any of that stuff would make me want to back out and wait for someone else, you were sorely mistaken," she tells him with a very wet and incredulous laugh. "I still want you."

"Okay, but—and I, I want—I do want this, you, I want—but—"

"I want you," she tells him, sounding desperate. "Can you just believe it? It's okay if you can't but can you please just try?"

"—I’ll try," he whispers. "I will try, I’ll—why?"

Roxanne turns and stares at him.

"Because you're you," she says, as though this should be obvious. As though this is an explanation. "Isn't that enough?"

He drops his gaze. The lines around his mouth pull tight as he feels his lips twist.

Roxanne leans in and kisses him again. Again. But all Megamind says, sounding absolutely dead tired even to his own ears as she withdraws, is, "…Do you still like ‘odd’?"

"Yes. So, so much." Roxanne sniffs hard. "Also, I don't care, I am finding you a way to get citizenship whether you ask me to or not. I'll get the Scott family's lawyers on it, the firm that helped them with Wayne's adoption is still in business. And I know people. Knowing people is kind of my thing." Her lip curls. "The fact that your villain's license is the only thing keeping you out of—out of that—shit—that is a travesty and I am not having it. I am not having it. No. That is not going to continue, do you understand me?"

"Okay," he whispers. "Thank you."

She scrubs the heel of her hand over her eyes. "I mean, jesus, no wonder you're Mister Go Big Or Go Home," she says, in a voice that says she’s either trying to laugh or about to cry again. "You don't have a safe home to go to! All you've got is Go Big. Am I still a good decision?"

He nods. "The best decision," he manages, firm. "The best. Am I—still—a person you’re happy to know?"

"Yes, god, oh my god. Yes."

He shakes his head and forces himself to exhale. "Okay. Good. I am…sorry."

To his surprise, Roxanne snorts. "Listen. You have just had a lot of good excitement after an extended period of extreme stress, after something that scared the everloving bejeezus out of you and probably fired up some really old fears, in addition to being…grotesquely physically traumatic. Yes?"

He jerks his head in a nod.

"Yeah, pretty sure I would want to have a screaming, crying meltdown, too, after all that," she says.

Megamind exhales a puff of amusement in spite of himself. "Well, when you put it that way."

"So." She smiles at him. "No apologizing. Okay? I’m just glad it happened while I was here. You shouldn’t have to handle that much alone."

He heaves an enormous, shuddering sigh, and slumps. Rubs a hand down his face. Nods.

"You’re a miracle, you know that," Roxanne says. Then she sighs. "Also, thank you, because this…helps make a little bit more sense out of how intent she was on getting her claws back into you tonight."

He makes a confused sound, inquisitive.

"I’m betting whoever told her how to chemically incapacitate you did so in exchange for promises of your DNA," she says. "And she didn’t give it to them. Like I said, she thinks she's smarter than she is—maybe she thought she had more time, maybe she liked having a trophy and got greedy and figured she could get more from you this year."

Megamind shudders.

"Sorry," Roxanne says, but he shakes his head.

"No. No, don’t be. You are…probably correct." He heaves a sigh. "My biological material denatures extremely quickly. And they didn't have stasis technology when I was there. Whatever samples they took from me have been useless since…probably a couple of months after they let me go."

"…After they let you go," she echoes, soft. "I'm…god. I'm so sorry. Sweetheart. That should never have happened."

He sighs. "Brighter minds than yours have seen the necessity of it," he begins, but Roxanne sits bolt upright and cuts him off.

"Brighter minds than mine have seen the utility of it," she says, sharp. "They saw the use. To hell with necessity, they could have spent some money on scanning and x-ray tech and better locks and never laid a hand on you; do not EVER call that shit necessary, do you understand me?"

He swallows. "They saw the worth of it," he tries, but Roxanne grabs his hand and grips it so hard his knuckles creak.

"Yeah," she says, "they did. But you know what they didn't see? Because they didn't want to? Your worth. Your inherent fucking worth as a fucking person." She jiggles his hand. "Look at me. Megamind, look at me."

He doesn't.

"You are worth just as much as I am," she says flatly, in spite of this. "You are, and Minion is. Don't you shake your head at me! I'm brilliant," she says, and Megamind breaks into a snort of startled laughter, "you said yourself I'm brilliant. So believe me. Can you try?"

He nods. Sighs, deep and shuddering.

"Say I'm right," she says again. His hand in hers suddenly goes very, very tight. "Say it. Say 'fine, Miss Ritchi, you were right and I deserve better.'"

For a long few seconds, he doesn't move.

Finally he says, his voice low and far too steady for the way he's crushing her fingers, "…Change the subject."

Roxanne blinks. Megamind's throat works for a moment.

Finally she leans forward, and kisses his shoulder, and declares, "I am going to drag my tongue straight up the side of your face."

Megamind twists and stares at her, wearing the most shocked and revolted expression Roxanne has ever seen on anyone. He doesn't let go of her, but his grip goes loose. "What? Ew! No! Gross!"

Roxanne forces herself to laugh and sit back on the bench. "Why not?"

(She can set this aside for now. They have time. She can set it aside. There is a time to push and a time to pull back, and she told Megamind earlier, he should say when he needs her to change the subject. She will respect that. She will.)

(Somebody has to.)

"Because it's gross! Ew! Yes, fine, I do deserve better than that! No!"

Roxanne snickers and tangles her fingers with his. "Fine. I'll spare you the indignity this time. But as your girlfriend I do claim exclusive licking rights."

"Back at you," he says, distracted and disgusted. Thank goodness for the distraction, at least there were no enormous hairy spiders this time, but eeurgh.

Then Roxanne wiggles her eyebrows at him, and he realizes what was implied, and he blinks and then feels himself turn scarlet.

"Oh," he says. "Um?"

"Kissing you now," she says, and he does lean in and meet her.

(good warmsoft good and so nice so nice so nice)

(little bit salty, this time. must be tears, maybe.)

(kissing? still? he still gets kisses? made roxanne cry and still gets kisses? lost every single shred of self-control, still gets kisses?)

(megamind is finding, to his dismay, that he likes kisses very much.)

Roxanne isn't bothered at all by how cracked his lips are after all that; she's just happy beyond belief that he still wants to kiss her at all, and so she kisses him until he exhales into her mouth and his grip on her hand slackens just a little further.

She kisses him twice more, quickly, then sits back and sends him a smile. "Looking forward to more of that with you," she tells him, and he blinks and his ears go pink all over again.

No time to let his mind get the better of him again, though. She takes both his hands and rises, pulling him up after her. "Come on," she says. "If we stay sitting we won't get to the last thing I want to show you. Unless you're tired? Do you want to go home now?"

He is tired. He is tired down to his bones and his whole body is aching. His feet hurt; the water from his slacks has soaked into his sock and the shoe on that foot is rubbing now. But he is also game, and badly in need of additional distractions, so he says, "Yes. Let's keep going, I want—I want to see. More. I want to see more."

Roxanne smiles.

There is a moment of confusion when Megamind suddenly yanks himself back, wriggling his shoulders…but oh, that's okay, he’s just shedding his coat and—oh and his vest as well, and then he pitches forward and wraps his arms around Roxanne and buries his face against her neck.

She hugs him back, as tight as she can, scritching her nails absently, slowly, over the surprisingly sharp knobs of his spine.

He mumbles something, and she pauses. "Hm? What’s that?"

"I said—do—do I still—get to come home with you?"

Oh.

Something about that catches her, just the way it did back at the restaurant when he said this is what I love about you.

He isn’t going, he’s coming. Home.

Do I get to come home.

"Yeah," she whispers, pulling him closer still somehow. Her brain feels as though it is on fire, wondering yet again how she hasn’t known she wanted this so badly, twisting up with horror she can't bring herself to look at yet, affection and protective fury coiling in roughly equal measures in her chest and the back of her head. "Yeah. Come home with me."

Megamind exhales and curls inward around her, and Roxanne stares over his shoulder and bites her lips together to keep from crying.

Chapter Text

At this point, she and Megamind have both shed their outerwear, and he at least shows no indication of wanting to put it back on. He is quiet and a bit jumpy as they move back into the main part of the conservatory, but then the ceilings go high and the palm trees are so tall, and Roxanne feels him take a breath as he runs the fingers of the hand she isn’t holding through a fountain, and—

He does relax again. And surprisingly quickly, considering how deep the shadows beneath his eyes are, now. He relaxes, and he holds Roxanne’s hand, and Roxanne is a bit chilly but honestly, the chill is more than worth it for the way Megamind pulls her into tight hugs and occasional kisses almost every time he pauses to look at flowers. He seems so amazed, every time she lets him.

"You said, one more room?" he asks, after a few minutes, and when she nods, he says, looking almost shy, "Okay, and—can we take the long way?"

That’s probably also a good sign.

Still. Megamind might be relaxing again, but Roxanne cannot afford to and doesn’t want to try. Her stomach is still full of sick-twisty feelings and she’s still doing her best not to think too hard about any of what she’s just learned. All she wants is for Megamind to have some more fun before they need to leave, but at the same time, she is aching to just bring him somewhere she can cling to him and cry for him. And Megamind is resilient, she knows, but…she realizes, as they walk and he looks this way and that, pauses here and there to lean in close to something to sniff and blink at it…he does not seem to want to let go of her hand. And on the couple of instances where she needs to let go, to re-situate her heavy purse or check her phone and see if she’s received a certain voicemail from the MCPD, he is reaching for her again as soon as she's free. It's sweet, but it makes her heart hurt.

"Oh," she says, as they pass a wide doorway, "hold on. Do you want to go in here? How are you with smells? It’s tropical fruits and spices."

Up go the eyebrows. "Oh? Smells? I am the best at smells! I love smells!" he exclaims. "Let’s go see!"

He ducks past her and tugs her after him, and the way his features light up as they enter the spice room is such a relief, thank heavens. He looks exhausted but he does also look genuinely enthusiastic, still.

"Oh!" he exclaims. "Oh—is that what a banana looks like when it’s at home? They grow upside-down!"

She laughs a little. "Yeah, it’s bizarre, right?"

"And I think their leaves are as big as me," he says, tilting his head from side to side. "What’s, what is this one? What’s—" He snuff-snuffs at the air a little. "Oooo, cinnamon? Is this a cinnamon tree? I thought they were bigger!"

"I can’t smell any cinnamon," she says, surprised.

"Ollo, best at smells," he says again, sounding amused. "I just said! It, ah, my species had a sort of…chemoreceptive communication." He twirls his hand, gesturing vaguely. "Emotional expression used to take place subliminally, chemically. I still have those receptors, this room is incredible but I don’t know if I can stay in here for very long."

…huh. That was a lot more than she would have ever expected him to share. He has been sharing a lot with her tonight, since she assured him everything was off the record. Did he trust that? Completely? And he can still talk about things like this, can still share, even after everything that just happened?

Does he have any idea how absolutely incredible he is?

"Well, we’ll just keep walking, then," she decides, "and look at stuff as we go past? There’s a papaya deeper in, and a coffee plant. Can I ask, um…how did that work underwater?"

"It didn’t," he says, falling into step beside her. "After the Shallowing we used the subvoice instead. Deeper vocalizations," he explains, when she sends him a confused expression, "to sing under our words. To emote that way. And visually, of course," gesturing at his face and wiggling his eyebrows so she laughs again.

"Of course," she agrees, grinning. "Yes, you’re very good at emoting visually. But…wait, if you still have those receptors, do you pick up human emotions? Like an empath?"

He makes a yuck face. "Not a very good one," he says. "You people have no idea how to control yourselves. I pick up on all kinds of nonsense from you. Caffeine helps, I don’t know why."

"Aw, that’s unfortunate," she says.

Then she blinks as she realizes— "Oh, no wonder you don’t like crowds," she exclaims, and Megamind snorts, and she feels her eyes widen slightly. "Oh, no, no wonder you didn’t like school! That must have been terrible!"

"It was! Yes! I smoked like a chimney in shool, it was the only thing I’ve found that blocks my receptors completely. I don’t need to, anymore, usually. Crowds are…yes, bad chemically, but at this point I consume enough coffee that I don’t usually even think of it. Oh! Speaking of which! Is this the coffee?"

He darts over to it, still holding onto Roxanne; it’s a good thing the flagstone paths aren’t terribly wide or he might jerk her off her feet before she could jump to follow him. "Is this what coffee looks like," he exclaims, running his fingers over green leaves and puffs of frothy white flowers. "It’s so soft! It’s fuzzy!"

"Going to start growing those for your bees?" she teases.

"And for me!" he exclaims. "Maybe, I don’t know. I am discovering I quite like plants!"

"It’s a shame the papaya isn’t in bloom," she says, looking upwards at the branches overhead. "Papaya flowers are pretty, they have curly petals. Um. …Megamind?"

"Hmm? Yes, what?"

"Are you sure you’re okay?" And then, when he pulls his head back and tips it sideways at her, blinking, she squeezes his hand. "It’s just, I don’t…you aren’t letting go? You don’t have to hold my hand, not if—whoa, hey!" He’s just jerked away, wide-eyed. "You can, if you want to!" she quickly says, reaching to take his hand again. It looks like he hadn’t wanted to let go. She hesitates, and then, feeling silly, lifts his knuckles to her mouth and kisses them. He blinks again and his ears go pink. "It’s definitely okay, if you want to," she says, "I’m sorry. I just, I wanted to make sure you weren’t doing it just because of what I said earlier, or…I don't know, because you thought you had to, or something."

His face was already settling back down out of its expression of alarm, and now he squints at her. "Because of what you said earlier?"

"When I dared you?"

She sees the recognition flash across his features, but comprehension does not appear to be following. That’s actually reassuring.

Roxanne shakes her head. "Never mind. It’s fine, then, as long as you want to."

"Do you want me to?" he asks, looking worried. "I don’t have to, if you don’t want…"

She nets her fingers with his and grips his hand hard. "I want you to! I didn’t mean to make you feel weird about it, I just…" She shakes her head and sighs, trying to think of how to phrase this. It all feels supremely awkward. "I was trying really, really hard not to come onto you, tonight. So I wanted to make sure. You…seem a little distracted, and…I mean, you did seem happy initially, but then there was that whole…thing, and…anyway. I just wanted to make sure."

There’s the comprehension. His features smooth out and he huffs a laugh. "You…ah. Aha. Well, it may relieve you to know that, ah…you were not aware of this, but—when you asked me—I had been trying to think of a way to maybe—maybe—ask you out. To dinner, at least, again."

She recoils in genuine surprise. "Wait, really?"

He shrugs, flushing pink across his high cheekbones. "You said you had thought of doing this with me prior to the development of your Metro Man plot. And, and everything was so…you put so much thought into dinner. And then you planned this, as well. So I thought, in the car, you might be…I thought maybe you were thinking of…but, but then you didn’t? And you continued not to?" He shrugs again and grimaces. "So then I thought I was wrong. Maybe I misunderstood. If I am distracted now…I suppose I am simply adjusting."

"Oh!" Roxanne shakes her head. "No, no, I’m the one who misunderstood! It’s kind of funny, actually, I didn’t even realize until tonight. I’ve had feelings for you for ages. Come on, we should keep walking."

But Megamind blinks and frowns and seems to hesitate, and he doesn’t move to follow her when she takes a step. "You…? Oh? Oh. I don’t—but if this is, if this is an—impulse thing," he stammers, "if it's—I don’t want, if it isn’t—"

"It is as much an impulse thing as planning this date was," she says dryly. "Which involved a lot of thinking and planning and phone calls and worrying. And theft. You were worth all that to me without even thinking about it, so I don’t think ‘impulse’ is the right word."

"But, but you haven’t…but you aren’t really dating…are you unhappy? Single?"

Around them, a sprinkler system kicks on, and Roxanne jumps. But all she says is, "No, I’ve been very happy being single. And…no, I haven’t really dated anyone in years, you’re right. But a partner has always been something I want to find, someday." She smiles a little. He's staring at her, wide-eyed. "I might be a little bit dense about my heart, but ‘hm, do I want to try and date Megamind’ was kind of a no-brainer."

And then, when he still looks uncertain, she thinks, fuck it, go for broke; go big or go home. Isn’t that what Megamind always says? And if he’s still adjusting, then he might as well calibrate his expectations accurately. Might as well just lay it all out flat. 

"Look," she says. She steps a little closer, gentles her tone a little. "To be clear. I am not just looking for a good time from you. I wouldn’t have asked to date you if I was. Okay? If all you want is a good time, that’s probably fine, I can probably do that, but if I ask someone out, I’m—like I said, I’m hoping for a—a partner."

"A partner," he echoes, still studying her face with an intensity he usually reserves for unexpected curveballs on plot days. "And that means…what? Exactly?"

She takes a deep breath. Come on, self. Lay it out flat, come on. "It means I’m hoping for something that ideally would end up in the forty, forty-five-years-ish range. And everything that entails. No pressure, or anything," she adds, because his eyes have just gone the roundest, "this is just so we’re on the same page, here. Okay?"

He opens and closes his mouth like a fish a couple times, still boggling at her. Roxanne squeezes his hand.

Finally he manages a very breathless, "O-okay," in return. "Oh. Okay? I’d. I’d like that." His expression pinches. "You…really? You really see me as someone you could…?"

"Share my life with? Maybe. It’s actually super easy to imagine." Another deep breath, and a smile that she hopes is winning. "So. Again, it’s okay if you’re looking for something different. But that’s my goal."

He stares at her. He doesn’t appear to be breathing, and some of the color is draining out of his face.

Roxanne bites her lip, then says, "Let’s trade jackets!"

Megamind blinks.

"Let…huh?"

She’s shaking out her cropped leather jacket from where she had it draped over her arm. "Come on, give me yours, let’s trade. I’m cold, and I’ll bet you’ll feel a little better with some spikes, yeah?"

Slowly, he takes his suit coat and follows her motions. Even more slowly, he hands it to her, and takes the leather one Roxanne gives him. For a moment, he just looks down at it.

But he does put it on. Sort of. It fits him well in the shoulders, but the arms are far too short, so he simply drapes it over his shoulders like a cape.

"Better?" Roxanne asks.

He gulps. Nods. Flashes her a smile that feels far more nervous than he was hoping it would be.

"I, I don’t know, I won’t…be…"

She takes his hand again. "I do not need you to be. Now come on, before this place sends you into a sneezing fit, or something." He barks a startled laugh. "There’s still a bunch of flowers to look at while we walk, do you still want to see?"

"What? Oh. Yes, I…yes."

He follows as she leads him down the path, around a marble basin with sprays of fragrant leaves and glass sculpture in the middle of the long room, and trees on all sides, all around. Trees with bark he’s never seen, and likely never to see again except in a place like this.

A partner. Partners. She wants…

But he told her, already. The worst of it. And she saw how he can be! She sat with him and saw him through one of the strangest breakdowns he’s ever experienced. And…she still wants? A partner? Him?

Forty years?

He could—but he doesn’t—

Forty years. Forty. She wants to try him on and see if she wants him for forty years. Megamind has not ever envisioned himself as someone to whom that length of time could apply, at all.

He swallows. He has not ever envisioned, previously. But he could…learn. To do that. To be that. To be someone like that. He could learn. He’s Megamind, he can learn anything he wants to if he spends enough time on it. And forty years is a lot of time.

…This is what Roxanne does, he remembers, and his shivering heart calms slightly. Roxanne pulls things that need to be looked at out into the light, so he can look at them. And the light in this conservatory is very good: it’s easy to see the connection. The piece he has been missing, between what she pointed out earlier and what she probably doesn’t realize she’s pointed out just now.

If there was a loophole, he would have taken it. This is an uncomfortable thought and denial is not just a river in Egypt, but there is only so far Megamind can sail upriver before he runs aground and has to confront himself. So: yes. He would have taken it. But why bother, when the years ahead are not a privilege he has any claim to? Roxanne keeps saying things like what if in the future, Roxanne keeps saying maybe someday, Roxanne keeps saying that might change. It doesn’t sound reasonable to Megamind.

But ah, no: of course it wouldn’t sound reasonable to Megamind. His view is limited. He is haltered and harnessed and blinkered, focused entirely on what very little of his future he can see. But. He could take the blinkers off, yes? Uncouple his harness and lift his head and breathe the free air, really breathe, and see where he really is; Roxanne would help. Wouldn’t she? He could—

A shudder runs through him and Roxanne’s head snaps around. "You okay?"

"Mm. Um. Yes. No?" He puffs a sharp sigh through his nose. "Magic 8 Ball says to ask again later." He glances at her, then shifts his grip so their fingers are tangled together and re-focuses. "Um. What…what is your favorite kind of flower?"

She hesitates for a moment. Megamind flutter-squeezes her hand, praying she doesn’t push him.

And she must get the message, because she squeezes back and says, "Like, in bouquets, or all-time favorite in general?"

"…Both?"

"Hmmm." She appears to think for a moment. "In bouquets…peonies, I think. And in general…I don’t know. I liked those hydrangeas we saw earlier, the blue ones." She pauses.

Then she sweeps her thumb over his skin and says, "I think my favorite flowers are whatever ones I’m looking at with you."

Oh—

He stops walking and pulls her close (she has been letting him do this each time he stops and he is living) and he kisses her with his fingers on her jaw and his heart in his mouth, and Roxanne smiles against his lips. She bites her bottom lip and grins at him when he pulls away, and Megamind can hardly believe what’s happening.

There is a seriousness, though, somewhere in the set of her brows and her jaw. So as they continue down the path, he swallows and asks, "You are…certain you’re okay. With everything. My, my…I think the term is ‘demons’?"

She sighs, and her hand tightens in his. "I’m still thinking about everything. Processing. It hasn’t changed how I feel, if that’s what you mean. But holy shit, I am planning to cuddle the absolute hell out of you when we get home."

He snorts, although his hopeful heart leaps inside him at the idea. "I won’t say no to that."

"Good."

They walk together in silence for a moment, Megamind looking here-there-everywhere and thinking and thinking and thinking, with his stomach in a knot. Roxanne’s hand in his is a comfort, and her words are reassuring, but he can’t help but to worry regardless.

"And I haven’t ruined anything," he says, after a minute.

"What? No! Of course not!"

He goes a little further. Walking. Everything is fine. Everything is fine, right?

…Nope. "I do realize," he blurts, "that I do not have a lot of experience on dates, but the, ah, the screaming and the crying do not seem like standard first-date activities."

Roxanne splutters into laughter, but it doesn’t sound like it’s directed at him and it doesn’t bristle him. "The—oh, lord. I mean, no, they aren’t," she agrees. She lets go of his hand and his heart trips on a beat, but she immediately loops her arm through his instead and pulls him to walk closer beside her. So, that’s okay. That’s okay. He bends his arm across his chest to more comfortably settle her hand in the crook of his elbow. "But breakdowns happen, you know? Panic happens! I’m not going to hold it against you."

He’s quiet.

Roxanne’s grip tightens slightly on his forearm, and she rests her other palm on his bicep as they walk. "If you aren’t upset with me for sort of pushing you into that," she says, "why on earth would I be upset with you for showing it to me? Sweet—sweetheart—is that okay? I can call you that?"

He nodnodnodnodnods. Sweetheart stabbed him directly through to his spine and sent warmth all the way out to the tips of his fingers and toes and the crown of his head.

"Sweetheart, I do not think any of the fun we’ve had tonight has been retroactively spoiled by you including me in that. I meant it when I thanked you earlier; I do not see any of what happened in that light. Was it ruined for you?"

He shakes his head.

"Then…listen. I'm…going to be thinking about all that for a while, probably," she admits, her voice going a little softer. Megamind swallows. "If I think about it too hard tonight, I will start crying and never stop. You are a miracle, I said that already and I’ll probably say it again, you are so lovely and so good at what you do, running your city. And you could have been awful. Everything you've been through…no one could blame you. But you try so hard, you're such a good man, and I—"

"I don't think I agree with that," he says, a little bit stiffly, but Roxanne scoffs gently and just holds onto his arm.

"Megamind, you lived through an actual nightmare situation, like seriously that is horror movie stuff, okay? And then on top of it, you grew up in prison!"

Megamind wrinkles his face at her. "I liked my prison."

"You grew up in an environment that people regularly come out of with post-traumatic stress! You—"

"Well I liked it," he grumbles, but. She is not wrong. He is well aware.

"—lived through that, you lived in that, and you are still—still!—someone I would trust with my life, someone I do trust to handle me physically while I am unconscious!" She shakes her head again, hard. "You are so trustworthy and you try, you do try, I mean just LOOK at Metro City's H/V D&BI stats—"

"Our what—"

"Our hero/villain death and bystander injury statistics. They are incredibly low for a city with our level of counter-aligned arching activity, do you know that? Have you—oh, my god, you haven’t even been tracking them?"

Bewildered, Megamind shrugs.

"Well, they're low, trust me. And most people attribute that to Metro Man's powerset—he's basically Superman, right?—but I know better, a lot of people know better, hell, Metro Man knows better, I cannot TELL you how many times he's told me he could not afford to do the high-profile work he focuses on without you running the show behind the scenes." She throws her free hand into the air, then gestures wildly at something vaguely in front of them that Megamind recognizes, reluctantly, as her point. "You are a good man. Maybe you don't know that, but I do. You want and you fight and you try so hard to do the right thing, even if it isn't always a good thing, and I—love that about you. I love that. It was already a miracle, considering where you grew up, doubly so with—with all the shit you told me tonight, and—"

"But I—"

"You have been through hell," she says flatly. "You have been through shit that could have made you so cruel, could have made you the ultimate nihilist, but you chose not to be. You are such a good person and it kills me that you don't know that."

"The—it—wait, don't deride nihilism," he protests, blinking, abruptly sidetracked. He stops walking and pulls away, offended, but oh goddammit his hand has ended up in hers again anyway, oh well. "Don't deride nihilism; a solid understanding of moral non-cognitivism is imperative as a philosophical counterweight against which to balance your development of personal consequentialism and your internal framework for virtue ethics."

Roxanne stares at him.

Then she bursts out, "What?"

He swallows. Okay, he’ll try to boil it down. "Absolutist—well, academically hypothetical absolutist, anyway—moral theories such as consequentialism and virtue ethics and stoicism only function usefully when paired with a deeper acknowledgement of morality's inherently relative relationship to the individual. Moral nihilism is a critical part of that understanding, and—and ah, yes, okay, I am hearing now why you think I might potentially qualify as a 'good' person. Hm. That’s. Interesting."

"…What?"

"Um," he says, shaking himself a little, gesturing vaguely, trying to think about this newest revelation and boil this whole thing down still further at the same time, "um. You need relativism in order to balance absolutism, because a significant part of morality is relative. Not in a vacuum, but unique to the individual. Failure to understand this is how you develop a static framework that fails to allow room for growth, rather than something more dynamic and useful. Something you can update as you gain more perspective and experience."

Roxanne continues to stare. Her mouth is open; it isn’t every day Megamind stuns her so completely. "Is that…is…that…that's not Kant, is it? The whole, um, utilitarian—"

"You're probably thinking of Bentham, and utilitarianism is useful only as an academic talking point," he says flatly. "It is baby ethics, for babies. No, I am not talking about utilitarianism."

"Metro Man says—"

He rolls his eyes. "Of course Metro Mahn says," he drawls, curling his lip. "Because his chin is bigger than his brain."

Roxanne shakes her head. Pinches the bridge of her nose, waves at him. "Okay, okay. Look, just…that doesn't matter."

"Correct! It doesn't matter! That's what I'm saying—"

"Megamind, for the love of god," she sighs, "you just finished telling me you were fucking tortured as a child, you just finished catching up on some badly-needed literal screaming, and now you are talking moral philosophy, and you think I'm somehow out of line for being a little bit in love with you already? Jesus christ."

"…Was-wasn't torture," he says, faltering. "I don't think they cared enough for that."

Roxanne splutters something inarticulate and indignant and the only reason she does not rake both hands down her face is because she doesn't want to mess up her makeup more than her tears already have.

"You, um, you…what? You're…" He gulps. "I think, I think I got…distracted? Somewhat? Wait, then you…what…? I'm…"

"A little bit," she says, feeling her ears heat, "yes, good god, I maybe didn't notice until now, but like I said earlier: I have had feelings for you for ages, okay? And so far, you have done nothing to counter them. You’re just going to have to figure out how to cope with that concept."

"…You love me?" He blinks slowly, lips parted, eyes wide. "Even…even just a little?"

She shrugs, uncomfortable. She had not actually meant to blurt that out. "Yes? Look, you don't have to do anything about it, but yes. I couldn't put together a date like this without some kind of love at the core of it. I'm not going to say I'm totally in love with you, yet, but…yes, I…well, anyway. Yes."

He stares at her for a moment longer…

…and then his face lights up and he leaps backwards and punches the air with both fists and a "Yes!"

Roxanne jumps. Megamind doesn't appear to notice that she's startled; he dances around her with his hands still up, all but skipping, and then he spins around on his heels and lands facing her. Seizes one of her hands and lifts it, spins her as if they’re dancing, and then pulls her into his arms and kisses her soundly.

"Oh my god," he declares, as soon as he pops free. "Really? Why? Is it my scintillating wit? My vibrant personality? My upsettingly frequent and frankly jarring mood swings?" His crescent-moon smile is plastered across his handsome face; Roxanne can’t help but laugh a little. "Is it my creepy eyes? My extremely tasteful and well-groomed soul patch? Is it the fact that I am, apparently, an orchid plant of some kind? Are you florosexual?"

Roxanne snorts. Megamind is positively beaming, all bright white teeth and sparkling green eyes. They are still red-rimmed and shadowed, but he is broadcasting genuine delight regardless.

"It's because I'm attracted to Dork Energy, I think," she says, teasing. Megamind scoffs and sticks his tongue out at her, but he hasn’t lost his smile. "You're my type! My type is anti-establishment engineering dorks with strong jawlines and stronger morals. That's you to a T."

He rolls his eyes despite the way his lips are twitching. "Oh, and how many 'anti-establishment engineers' have you actually dated? Were they more experienced?"

"At least two," she says, but doesn’t elaborate. "You're a faster learner than both of them combined, and I am exceptionally delighted to be able to say I have kissed you many times now and it has been fabulous, experience level notwithstanding."

His eyes narrow. "Flattery will get you everywhere, Miss Ritchi. You sound very excited about all this."

"I am excited!" she exclaims. He has been incredibly affectionate with her so far, almost ridiculously so considering they've been together less than an hour. Roxanne hasn't had this many hugs or kisses in years; it's lovely. Even with as rattled as she still feels, it's so lovely. And reassuring. "I am excited about you, and you can't stop me. You are exactly my type and I am so mad I didn't see that sooner."

He glares at her for a second longer and then his smile flashes out again and he drags her into yet another crushing hug. Grinning, Roxanne squeezes him. Dork.

"You are, ah," he says over her shoulder, "you are my type. As well. For what it is worth, if I have a type."

"Wait, really?" She pulls back, blinking at him. "That's surprising! From what you said earlier I would have assumed your type was…well, primarily men."

"My type is high intellect," he says. "It doesn't seem to matter beyond that, now that I've been paying attention. But consider where I was raised! We did not have hyperintelligent women where I was."

Roxanne shakes her head. "Wow," she says. "Well, if intellect is what does it for you, I'm terribly flattered to have caught your eye."

He goes pink. "Oh, you have done a bit more than simply ‘catch it,’" he says. "You have held it unopposed for nearly six years now. Well done."

She blinks again. "Six years?"

He shrugs, and flushes even pinker.

Roxanne gapes at him. Megamind is not known for his attention span; she absolutely would not ever have guessed he might have had his eye on her for that length of time.

"Oh," she says, a little bit weakly. Well, in that case, she'll let herself feel a little bit better about having feelings for him already that she didn't know about for heaven only knows how long. And—oh, and maybe that's why he seems so desperate to hold her? 

He sends her a small smile. "I will not tell you I am in love with you, either," he tells her, in the sort of voice that says he does not need to, "but. Strong feelings can safely be assumed on my part. Very strong. Very extremely. At the very least."

Aw. Okay, she feels a LOT bit better about having feelings for him already. "You sweet thing," she says, amazed, and Megamind blinks and turns exceptionally red as she slowly steps closer and slides an arm around behind his shoulders. "I had no idea. Come here."

She kisses him again, but this time she scrapes her teeth over his bottom lip, making him gasp so she can dart her tongue behind his teeth and drag it back. Megamind inhales sharply, and then, tentative, he touches his tongue to hers.

He does not appear to notice the small noise he makes when Roxanne slides her tongue along his and sighs into his mouth, but holy smokes, okay, she is going to make it her mission in life to figure out how to get him to make that noise again, as many times as possible. Somehow she doesn't think he'll be opposed. 

When she eases away, he blinks his eyes open at her, lips parted, cheeks flushed. He looks very beautifully kissed.

"…Well," he says, unfocused and breathy, his arms around her, "on the other hand, if you kiss me like that I will say whatever you like."

Roxanne laughs, and ducks forward and quickly kisses him once more, leaving him blinking and dazed when she finally does step back to take his hand again. "Just mean it, whatever you do say," she says. "That’s all that really matters to me, is that you mean it. Okay?"

"Okay," he says, still unfocused. "Um. Yes."

"Come on," she says.

And she starts to turn away, but Megamind makes a sound in his throat and pulls her back.

"Roxanne—wait? Can I—please."

She cocks her head at him, and he swallows.

"Can I—may I—please—know where we’re going," he asks. Halting and apologetic. "I, I know you were—not wanting to tell me. I know. But I…"

He trails off.

Roxanne blinks once, then relaxes into a smile. "Yeah, that’s fine," she says, and he exhales. "Oh, but I’ll tell you what! Can I ask a favor?"

Megamind squints at her, hesitating.

"I’ll tell you exactly what’s next," she says. "Either way, of course I will, I don’t mind. And for the rest of the night as well! But, but could we wait until we get there for the next bit? And, um. When…when we get there, could you close your eyes just while I take you inside? Just so it can still be like a surprise? Please? Do you think that would be okay?"

He blinks at her and his eyebrows twitch towards each other.

"It’s fine if it isn’t," she quickly adds, but then suddenly he’s smiling, half-laughing as he shakes his head at her, leaning forward to nudge against her forehead.

"Of course," he says, his voice warm and amused. "I will try. Yes, I think that will be all right."

"You will tell me if it turns out not to be," she says.

Megamind lifts his head, but thankfully this turns out to be so he can give her a small sort of wondering smile. "Yes," he says again. "Yes, I will tell you." His smile goes slightly teasing, but his eyes above it are still very soft. "I will…continue to allow you to be good to me."

She swallows, her throat suddenly thick. "You really do deserve so much better," she tells him. "So, so much more than what you’ve been handed. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to hear it, but—it’s true. You deserve better. You always have."

He shakes his head. "I wouldn’t know what could possibly be better than this," he says. "I have you, I have tonight. So! What did you think for the rest of tonight, after we depart your," he lifts a hand and wiggle-squiggles his fingers at her, flashing his eyes against the light for effect, "mystery room of mysteriousness?"

Roxanne takes a deep breath, and nods. Tries not to grin at his little antics, tries not to cry at I have you, I don't know what could be better. "Okay. So, after this next part, assuming you’re in agreement…we’re just going to have some coffee and then head back to my place, and you can call Minion to come pick you up. And you and I will have some time on the sofa to…talk, and plan, and maybe rest. Cuddle. That sound okay?"

"That sounds beautiful." His lips curve upwards, he lifts his chin. "A soft and beautiful end to a soft and beautiful evening."

"Wonderful." She breathes. "And, and you’re sure you can wait? Until we get there, to find out the rest?"

The shadows under his eyes are very dark. But he smiles, and he leans forwards and bumps noses. "I can wait."

The conservatory is constructed in such a way that visitors should never have to backtrack unless they want to. Roxanne could very easily set herself on a path and see everything there is to see in the building without ever seeing anything twice, other than at a distance. It’s a brilliant setup, but she does have to wonder—worry, really—whether Megamind will be disappointed that they won’t be going back to any of the places they’ve already visited. Unless he wants to retrace their steps, of course, but Roxanne is beginning to flag and Megamind really does seem tired.

But he says, when she mentions this, "Oh…well! You said! We can come back, if I want to. You never said it has to be tonight! And, and if we are—dating—partners, if we are dating partners, then—we will come back again, another time, after this. Me, with you. Because I want to." And he nods, with his shoulders square and stiff, as if this was a finality…but Roxanne hears the question behind it, and laughs.

"Of course we’ll come back again, another time after this," she agrees. "I want to, too."

And Megamind's smile blazes out and he beams with his whole face, and in that moment, Roxanne feels like she could fight the whole world and come out with the title.

All of which is to say they are able to reach the door she has been looking forward to without having to retrace their steps. They also manage to get there somehow without Megamind figuring out where they’re going, and when Roxanne stops walking and he starts to look around in confusion, she blurts, "Close your eyes!" and he immediately flinches them shut.

And he keeps them shut, is the thing, even as his startled expression smooths into apprehensive curiosity and he says, "Aha! At last! And where are we, now, my dear secretive Miss Ritchi? What is this, next?"

Roxanne wets her lips and takes his elbow, but doesn’t try to pull him. "Okay! So, um. Are you still okay? You’re sure?"

His thin face tugs into a smile despite his tension and he huffs a short laugh through his nose. "Yes," he says. "Yes. I am sure."

"Okay. So, right now, what’s going to happen is—and, again, this is assuming you’re on board!—we’ll go through a door, and then you’ll feel us go through some hanging plastic flaps. They’re pretty heavy," she says, as Megamind tilts his head and sends her a curious sort of confusey face with his eyes still shut, "and that’s because, um," she swallows, "it’s because this room needs a little vestibule, so that none of the butterflies escape."

Megamind gasps and his eyes pop open, brilliant green with his pupils pinned down in sudden excitement. "Oh! Butterflies! Butterflies, you got me butterflies? On this date?"

Oh thank goodness, hooray, he sounds exactly as delighted as she was hoping he would be. Relieved and beaming, she nods, and Megamind’s eyebrows fly up and he—okay, that’s the same face he wore at the restaurant when she said of course, it was all for you, a smile that looks like it might be tears—and he pulls her into a hard kiss without any preamble or warning at all. Her heart twists, then leaps. She arches forward into him; god but it’s been a long time since anyone has done this for her. Pulled her in and threw an arm around her shoulders and cupped her face with his other hand. Sharp and brief and strong and when he breaks away a moment later, there really are tears in his voice this time when he says, "Roxanne I can count the number of butterflies I have seen that are not very plain cabbage whites on one hand! Really? There’s a butterfly room here, you brought me to see butterflies?"

She nods again, harder, staring into his eyes and startled and smiling with his hand on her face and feeling extremely kissed and thinking holy hell, where have you been these past few years, how have you been right in front of me all this time—

He snaps his eyes closed and hops into position beside her. He loops his arm through hers and grips her hard that way, curving his body to fit her side, and says, "Show me!!!!!!!" with about eleven exclamation points after it.

Roxanne laughs, breathless and nearly dizzy with shocked affection. "Come on, this way," she says, already fumbling for the handle. "In here."

Chapter Text

The plastic flaps fall thump-clattering closed behind them, and Roxanne glances around the room as the lights come on. It’s quite a large space, with wide flagstone paths running here and there between the tree-planted gardens, flowers everywhere. Colorful ceramic bird baths with chunks of brown-edged mango and wilted melon and citrus in them, little dishes of water. They match the flowers—bright under the lights, sprays of scarlet and rose pink and purple and blue. They match the residents as well, who are beginning to stir.

"Okay," she says. Megamind is almost vibrating with anticipation beside her. "Open your eyes."

He does.

One of the things Roxanne likes best about Megamind is that when he smiles—really smiles, not an evil grin or a wicked smirk of some kind—it starts in his brows and lips and slowly rises and explodes over his whole face. And the best part, the best part, is the way it pulls his whole body up after it. His shoulders come up as he unloops himself from Roxanne and puts his long fingers over his mouth, all shining eyes and wrinkly forehead and crinkly delight across his whole face as he stares slowly around at the plants and paths and—

"Butterflies," he exhales, stepping forward, turning slowly in place. "Oh, look at them!"

The room’s occupants are still waking up, still rousing and coming to life, so the whole space is a lot less butter-fluttery than she was hoping for when she brought him in here. Thankfully, Megamind has no basis for comparison, and he does not appear to notice or care that the insects aren’t fully active. He gazes around looking like a kid on Christmas morning for a few seconds—a small eternity, for a brain that moves as quickly as his does—and then he lets out a sharp gasp and darts away.

"Look! Look at this! Roxanne look! It’s eating!"

A black and green butterfly has landed on one of the mango chunks and unfurled its proboscis. Megamind drops Roxanne’s jacket and his vest on a handy stone and then crouches beside it, openly fascinated, watching as it moves its feet, its mouthparts, its thorax and abdomen. And then he sees something else and gasps and pops to his feet—inadvertently startling the little thing away from its fruit. He pauses. "Oh—! Oh? Oh, I didn’t mean to…"

Roxanne approaches him. "It’s fine, it has so many other dishes to land on! What did you see?"

"Um." He shakes himself out of his hesitant disappointment. "Um—right! Yes! This one!" He skips sideways to the edge of the path and points a long finger up at a spotted brown leaf roughly the size of Roxanne’s palm. As she watches, the leaf shifts outwards to reveal a bright shock of deep blue iridescence.

"A morpho!" she says. "Yeah, they’re really popular at places like this. Look, hang on…"

She puts her pinky fingers in her mouth, behind her teeth, and blows a high, clear whistle. A falling note. And around them, blue wings and striped wings and speckled wings open and rise away from the walls and branches, into flight. Towards other walls and other branches, and towards food dishes, and towards each other. And towards Megamind, who is gazing at Roxanne instead of at the butterflies with an expression that looks both surprised and impressed.

"Where," he says, "did you learn to demand attention in subtropical riverspring Punktsyk?"

Roxanne blinks. "I understood some of those words?"

"The language my family spoke." He mimics her whistle almost exactly and the butterflies all take flight again, "—was the noise for ‘hey, pay attention!’"

"Oh!" She shrugs. "It’s kind of the same here, honestly. A sharp, loud whistle always makes people sit up and look around. That’s neat that it sounded similar!"

He shakes his head. "Amazing. Oh?"

His little startled jump did not frighten the butterfly that landed on his forehead. It flexes its wings and Roxanne laughs at Megamind's expression.

"Sorry! No, I'm sorry, you just look so shocked. It—huh."

Another butterfly has landed on him, a little way up from the first. And, like the first one, it doesn't seem particularly bothered about Megamind moving.

He rumples his forehead, wrinkles his nose. "They tickle," he complains. "I can feel their little feet. Here." He lifts a hand and nudges very gently at a couple of little black legs as another butterfly lands on his temple.

To Roxanne’s absolute amazement, the morpho—which she remembers as being a fairly jumpy species—crawls onto the backs of Megamind's fingers and clings there as he brings it down to look at it. Another takes its place almost immediately.

"Oh, you're flower-colored," she realizes. The one on Megamind's hand has uncurled its proboscis and is probing around between his fingers.

"Mm. Yes, and I'm fairly certain they can see the lines of my photolymph system."

She cocks her head. "Your…?" Her eyebrows go up. "Wait, do you have butterfly colors?"

Megamind laughs a little. "Not exactly. But I do have…something in my skin that some insects seem to notice. My bees definitely do."

art by ejga-ostja on tumblr

Carefully, Roxanne settles beside him. One of his passengers startles away, but she can't feel too badly; she's sure it'll be back. "You mentioned your bees before," she says. "Do you and Minion have hives? An apiary?"

He nods.

"That's really cool," she tells him. "How on earth did you get started on that? Beekeeping isn’t really an interest I would have expected from you."

Megamind sends her a wry little smile. "I am putting rather a lot of trust in you already, my dear Miss Ritchi," he says. "Alas, I don't…think I can, ah. Handle much more biology conversation this evening. My apologies."

"Oh! Um…right, of course. Change the subject?"

"Please."

She grins. "Can we try and take a selfie together with the butterflies on your head?"

Megamind snorts. And he nods, and he curls against Roxanne’s side as she puts her arm around him and lifts her phone for the two of them to smile at.

She takes a few pictures before sitting up a little, and then Megamind sits up and says, "Ooo!" and flits away before she can show him any of what she took. Well, that’s okay, he’ll just be surprised later when she (hopefully) gives him one of them in a frame at some point.

Thankfully, she was able to get one really good picture of the two of them smiling up at the camera. A couple are blurry. But the list of pictures also boasts one in which Megamind isn’t looking at the camera at all: he’s looking sideways at Roxanne with what looks like a combination of joy and the same wonder he’s directed at all the various flowers and plants he’s seen this evening.

Roxanne swallows, her heart squeezing.

She texts Mary to let her know they’re in the butterfly room and nearly done, takes a moment to check a new voicemail—yep, it’s Dennis letting her know her home was broken into, a suspect has been apprehended, and the police report number. Good—and then she stows her phone and shrugs off Megamind’s suit coat; the butterfly room isn’t as intense as the orchid room but it is fairly warm and humid. She lays the coat over his vest and her jacket where they’re lying on a stone.

"Hey," she says, smiling at him as she comes up to him. There are a couple of bird baths nearby, all of them crawling with butterflies at this point, and another bench just a little way down the path in case sitting is required.

"Hi," he returns, blinking big eyes at her. "Look at this one, look how green!" He holds up a hand with a smallish moth on it, green and black. A different kind than before.

"Aw, it matches your eyes!"

He blinks, then looks at it. Grins, wide and sparkling. "Oh! It does! Ha! And—oh! Oh over there!"

And away he goes again.

Roxanne huffs a laugh through her nose in spite of the way her heart is still aching for him.

God, and it's so funny that he was thinking of trying to ask her, too. She wouldn’t have expected him to be so bold as that, but…well, she supposes it does make sense that he would think of it. This really was sort of an overboard date. But oh, well, if it made him feel special even for a second, it was all worth it, even without any kissing or deeper conversations at all.

Her earlier thought percolates up again, the one about how this is the sort of date she would have planned in order to propose, and she thinks, wouldn't it be funny if someday…? And she thinks, well, the gardens do offer a photography package for couples who want to plan a proposal in advance. She could look into that, someday, maybe.

And then she thinks—

Wait.

Hold it.

Wait, back up.

"Oh but that's obvious," she breathes, already fumbling to get her phone back out again.

She taps a question into Google, holds her breath while the search runs.

There. First result. List of significant life events and cultural milestones that qualify a metahuman or offworld immigrant for permanent residency and naturalization—

—YES.

Oh, and—oh thank goodness, yes AGAIN. Double bingo.

The world sways around her and she inhales and sits down hard on one of the stones in the open space nearby. She hadn't even realized her breath had left her.

"Megamind," she says, suddenly feeling very shaky indeed.

(She would have expected to feel trapped at this, or cornered. Or conflicted. This was not how she was picturing her evening going and this is a fairly major development, this would be life-changing. But she does a sort of frantic version of her usual run-down of her body’s signals—back of her skull, behind her jaw, throat, stomach, gut, hips, knees—and the shaky feeling is big, but ultimately it’s only a simple flutter behind her solar plexus, which she recognizes a moment later as excitement/relief rather than apprehension, the way she was expecting.)

"Hmm?"

I found our loophole, is what she starts to say as he approaches.

But her brain catches up to her just enough to say wait wait WAIT pump the BRAKES, that is a LOT, and she stammers, barely able to form words, "Um. Um—sorry, no, you don't have to come over, I just—need—to hide? For a minute?"

He blinks once and then glances up at the ceiling. "Oh, the lights," he says. And he picks up his suit coat and throws it over Roxanne’s head so it hangs down in front of her face and knees like a tent. "Like that?"

She's frozen, startled. She had said hide without really thinking; what she'd meant was I need to be able to think about something very very very big and important without (1) worrying about what my face is doing, and (2) you asking what's wrong; could you just ignore me for a minute, or maybe I could step into the hallway briefly?

But this works too.

She exhales and leans her elbows on her knees. "Yeah," she says. His coat already smells like leather, somehow, and…almonds? Huh. "Yeah, this is perfect. Thanks."

"You're all right?"

She nods. "Yep! Just. Needed to be…dark. For a minute. Thanks."

"I understand," he says, cold hand patting her shoulder. Roxanne hums a vague affirmative.

A knot crawls into her throat when his hand remains on her shoulder, and it pulls tight when he settles onto his knees on the mulch next to her a moment later.

"Is touching okay?" he asks. He sounds worried. "Touching still okay? Um," and he drops his hand and sort of—nudges—under her elbow, against her ribs, poking his sharp face into the shadows, "can we share?"

"Yeah, absolutely," Roxanne says, because he can't really see her face from his vantage so it still counts as hiding. Well, partly that. And partly…

His head is against her ribs. Her arm is around his shoulders at the moment, but Roxanne realizes almost instantly: she could hurt Megamind very badly, very easily if she wanted to right now. He is on his knees and his hands are in his lap now, and Roxanne is elevated. If she tightened her arm, yanked up and twisted, she could probably snap his neck.

There is no way Megamind is not aware of this. The thought probably wouldn't even have occurred to Roxanne normally, but this position seems deliberately vulnerable in a way his leaning on her in the orchid room did not.

Distracted and intrigued, she moves her hand from his shoulder to his chest, so that her arm is pressed to the length of his neck, and—

He lifts his chin, turns his head. Presses his temple to the curve of her ribs. Exhales.

—God.

Roxanne has just realized her feelings for him. Just tonight, at all. What she's contemplating…god, okay: what she already knows on some level that she's going to do…it doesn't make sense, does it? Dating him is one thing, but this…

This is the second or third time he's put his head in her lap, she realizes vaguely. Not quite in her lap, this time, but certainly he's resting it in her arms. Offering it to her. Something about that strikes her, but she's still hung up on oh my god, here it is, here's how to make him safe, but it's marriage, holy shit.

But. It's just papers, right? He deserves so much more than just papers, but this is…this is by the book, not even a loophole; this is defensible on its face.

Is this what she wants? To do? She doesn't have to. Megamind hasn't thought of it by now (a fact which makes her heart sort of wring itself in two very painful directions) and even if he does think of it at some point, he would almost certainly not mention it to her, she knows.

She doesn't realize she's pressed her hand harder to his chest until he hums and tips forward to rest against her thigh, and—

Roxanne glances down at the curve of his head, the length of his neck, the slope of his shoulder, and—

Oh.

Oh.

When she was growing up, her family's doctor had framed artwork all through his building. Generic nonsense pieces, nothing special, standard doctor's office fare. But there was one that Roxanne had liked to look at in particular. She always hoped she would be in that room when she visited. It was a sort of Renaissance-era painting of a girl or a young woman, seated, and at her side…

She has to bite her lip hard to swallow a bubble of sudden laughter, because she's just realized why the way Megamind is leaning on her feels both extraordinarily special and oddly familiar. And, with that realization, she also receives a sense of peace and certainty, because—

When a unicorn kneels beside you and lays its head in your lap, unbidden, you protect that. Whatever you have to do, you protect that. Even if the unicorn is from outer space. 

She takes a slow, deep breath through her nose. The edge of Megamind's jaw is sharp in her hand as she lifts his chin and tips him up so she can bend and press her lips to his forehead.

He leans away when she sits up, and he looks up at her in the shadows, eyes flashing. He touches her knee. "Will you be okay if I keep looking around?"

"What? Absolutely, oh my goodness, I'll be fine," she assures him with a smile. "I'm, um, I'm…feeling a lot better now, anyway."

She lifts his jacket off her head and shakes her head a bit to settle her bangs. "Just, um," she says as Megamind rises, "just—kiss me?"

He tilts his head at her—he definitely knows she's thinking something—but he does tug her to her feet and kiss her readily enough.

(Yep, definitely excitement and relief. And peace, and certainty. Also some nervousness as her plan sinks in, but nothing that would stop her.)

(His mouth is so soft.)

"You're sure everything is okay?"

"Yeah," she whispers. "Yeah, just…I’m…incredibly lucky, that’s all. You…" She pulls him into a hug. Holy shit, she's allowed to do that, now.

And he hugs her back. Megamind hugs her back, he wraps his arms around her so tightly and he isn't wearing his suit coat or Roxanne’s jacket or even the lovely vest Wayne found for him. He's just in his thin shirt, and he's letting Roxanne give him a hug, and…and this is certainly not their first hug, tonight, but this all seems very precious. To her. Suddenly. He let her into his life tonight; he has shared with her so many things that he did not have to.

He even let her see him cry, just a little while ago. He broke down completely back there, he was more raw in those few minutes than Roxanne has ever seen him. He let her see that. He let her do that; he didn't have to. And he let her see him in the car, too…and earlier tonight, before she could even reassure him, she had put her arm around his shoulders and Megamind had relaxed. Under her arm, against her side, staring down a crowd with absolutely no assurance that tonight would not end in agony or worse. Roxanne had put her arm around him, and Megamind had relaxed.

Strong feelings can safely be assumed on my part.

Standing here with her now, looking all around at the butterflies with his eyes red-rimmed and puffy but shining with excitement nonetheless…

As he withdraws, smiling, and skips away again, Roxanne watches him and thinks, she could do far worse than this. And, honestly, she is not sure she could ever do better. She is not sure ‘better’ exists.

But god, if she tells him—he—how will he take that? As, as—what did he call it? An impulse thing? She couldn’t fault him for taking it poorly, if he takes it poorly. Also, she kissed him once and he freaked out; what on earth would this do? Bring him to the edge again?

Still, he needs to know. And—holy fuck, she really does need to tell him about Larissa, she realizes. He would want to know. Knowing what she did to him? Not to mention, knowing he probably wants to go after her himself, now that it’s safe to do so.

Or I could just tell Minion, she thinks, not very seriously. Nobody would ever find the body. Megamind is ruthless, but Minion is vicious when he wants to be.

…No. It’s Megamind’s fight. He’s the one who was hurt; he’s the one who gets to decide how he wants to proceed.

But…

She looks up at him again, where he’s off stepping carefully across the mulch between flowers and plants, gazing up at one of the trees, at the line of butterflies on one of its lower branches, lip between his teeth and his whole tired face shining with delight as if his earlier upset never happened.

…later. Later, after this. Maybe while they’re walking back to the car, or something. If worse comes to worst, she can always turn the car on and climb into the back seat with him and let him shake himself to pieces and scream or cry or cuss or whatever he needs to do to feel okay again. For now…for now, she’ll just sit back down on her rock and finish reading this blog post she found discussing potential issues and stumbling blocks to the ‘loophole’ she’s just uncovered so she’ll be informed.

Oh, and. She texts Wayne. Because sitting and reading, it turns out, are not adequate distractions from the horrors she has been trying not to look at.

angry
Oh no! Why?
If I write why I will start crying again. When did he start coming to school when you were kids?? How old?
I wanna say maybe 3rd grade? So maybe 8 or 9 I guess? What’s up are you OK
Do you know what went down prior to that
Nope
Swear you don’t know. Please. I need to know who to be mad at and if you’re on that list, you better tell me right now
??? swear on my name, I have no idea. What’s up?

Roxanne swallows hard. Pulls her lower lip between her teeth until she tastes copper and tap-taps at her little screen, trying to squint through the blur.

He spent idk how many years at some gov’t facility and YOU DO NOT want to know what the hell they did to him. it is worse than you can think of
Oh dang
Like I am actually literally shaking with rage writing this but i have to say SOMETHING TO SOMEONE or i’m going to fucking explode. He’s finally having fun again and I don’t wanna bring him down but please imagine that i am screaming. right now. no words, just screeching
Oh my gosh. OK
Uh
Oh F, and he didn’t make it to graduation did he
NOPE
Roxiemoxie chickie darlin, my bestest ever girl, please tell me his f!cking villain’s license is not his citizenship
I could tell you taht but I would be lying
Awwwww beans :(
YEP
Roxie what happened last year? I know you know
And I know he doesn’t want me to know, but you know I need to know what we're dealing with, what the F happened
if i say "mild dismemberment" can you fill in the blanks
HEY?????????????
it wasn’t the first time it happened. some fed somewhere has it out for him. maybe ex-fed, i dunno, I'm not waiting around to find out
H E Y ?????????????

Roxanne scrubs the heel of her hand over her eyes. Sniffs hard. Swallows and forces her breathing steady.

So I’m going to marry him and we’re gonna get his papers in order. You’re going to be one of our witnesses please.
Absolutely 100% yes, and how dare you not let me handle her personally, now I’M angry, how dare you not let me off-leash
I didn’t know at that point. or I might have let you.

"Roxanne?"

She looks up. "Hm?"

"Are you sure you're okay? You seem…upset?"

"What…? Oh." She laughs a little. "Yeah, sorry. I think my allergy meds are wearing off, the flowers are a little strong in here. I’m fine, don’t you worry. Having fun?"

He beams, nods. Brandishes a little guide pamphlet, heaven only knows where he picked it up. "I have found nearly all of the butterflies on this paper!"

"See if you can get all of them!"

He nods again and turns away. He still has butterflies on his head; he appears to have accepted his fate.

In her hand, her phone buzzes.

Probably a good thing you didn’t.
Maybe. I don’t know. We’ll talk later. Thank you i love you
Love you too, be safe, call me if you need me.
Oh, he tell you about the birdseed thing?
no?
Ah OK if he didn’t bring it up DO NOT ASK HIM
Wayne please i’m really tired, is there like…a cliffnotes version or something

It takes him a while to respond to that. Roxanne contents herself with her blog article as best she can, smiling at the smallish butterfly with orange markings that lands on her hand and stays for a while, moving its wings. It's not a monarch, she has no idea what it is, but it's cute. And it's nice to have the company.

Finally her phone buzzes in her hand and a text notification pops up. She opens it.

CliffsNotes version is I had to scoop birdseed out of him until he could breathe one time when we were 15. DO NOT mention parrots or probably birds in general if he's already upset :/ sorry

Roxanne slumps forward, rubbing at her temple with her free hand as she closes her eyes. Jesus. Okay. Well, that explains why Megamind mentioned school while he was breaking down, why he mentioned humans reacting badly to him or treating him cruelly in a couple stages of his life prior to becoming a villain. She had sort of wondered about that, but like hell was she about to ask for details. And like hell is she going to ask for details NOW, she honestly does not want to know what happened there. There's a lot to read between those lines, and Roxanne wants none of it.

A distant exclamation reaches her ears and she looks up. Megamind is bouncing on the balls of his feet, staring up at something fluttery and scarlet red clinging to the screen inside the darkened window up by the ceiling. As she looks, he turns toward her and points up at it with one hand, waving the pamphlet in his other hand as he hops in place, beaming. Roxanne grins and nods at him, eyebrows up, silently telling him she sees, she sees!

The fact that he has this boundless capacity for excitement in him—still, after everything—is never not going to amaze her. Hopefully someday it will stop feeling like such a punch in the stomach.

Her phone buzzes again and she glances down, then lets out a bleak laugh.

OR FROGS. He’s got a phobia, I think

Roxanne starts to type out something sarcastic about how she had, in fact, already guessed that frogs were probably an unsafe topic of conversation…but she deletes it, and sends a simple thumbs-up emoji instead. She already feels a little bad about saying anything; the last thing she wants to do is clue Megamind's arch-nemesis in on the worst things he's ever experienced.

By the time she’s done texting, she’s also done reading her blog post, and so she takes a calming breath, and gets to her feet. And stretches.

She is not thinking about what Wayne just told her. She is not. She is adding it to the pile of horrors and she is going to call her therapist first thing in the morning and see about squeezing in an emergency session this week. All she is going to register tonight is a vague sense of irritation that Wayne hasn’t told her to avoid these topics before. Thankfully, she’s pretty sure it’s never come up over the years; if it has come up, Megamind must not have reacted badly in any particularly memorable way. But ugh. How dare her boyfriend, honestly. He’s a dear friend and she loves him, but he can be so thoughtless at times.

(She would have pushed him for details before tonight and she knows it.)

(BUT STILL.)

Megamind is crouched down in a corner like a—oh, for the love of god—like a big blue frog, peering at something under a leaf.

"Look," he says, pointing with a bony finger as Roxanne approaches, "a cocoon!"

She lowers herself into a crouch. "Aw, let me see? Oh, it's cute! Did you know it's a chrysalis if it's a butterfly, and a cocoon if it's a moth?"

He blinks at her. "That is so oddly arbitruary," he says. "Why?"

She shrugs. "No idea. How are you holding up?"

His brows tug together. Slowly, he rises and straightens and looks around; Roxanne follows a little less flexibly, and slips her hand in behind his and holds onto him.

"I think," Megamind says, "I am tired. It's not two o'clock yet, and I haven’t found the last species, but…I am…done. I think I'm done. I would like to go home now, please." He looks at her with an apology in his expression. "But this has been…magical. Truly, Roxanne, I…I am tired beyond belief, but…this has been the best date I could ever have wanted. Thank you."

She gives him a smile. "I'm glad. And I'm tired too, I don't mind calling it a night. We’ll come back another time, I promise."

He smiles back, and squeezes her hand.

The butterfly house exits near the secondary entrance and exit of the conservatory, near a closed and darkened gift shop and a cafeteria and some vending machines. The lights in this area don't come on as they exit, but the space is lit with a dim collection of what are probably emergency lights, so it's easy to see the little folding table across the hall. It carries a pair of steaming styrofoam cups full of dark liquid, one of which has a little red straw in it. 

"Aw! Aw, yay, she did it," Roxanne beams. She takes the straw-less cup. "Thank heavens, coffee. Here—you take yours with like eight sugars, right? Actual sugar, no sweetener?"

Megamind flutters a smile at her as he takes the little styrofoam cup, but—

His hands close around it and suddenly his face goes slack and he looks down.

"You okay?"

He pulls his shoulders sharply up, yanks his elbows in against his sides. Grips the cup in front of his chest, squinting down at it.

"…Hon?"

He jerks his head sideways, staring down at his drink in the shadowy light of the exit signs and the lights filtering through the butterfly house’s plastic flaps.

"I don’t—I’m—sorry. It’s—sorry. No." He shakes his head hard and pushes the cup carefully back into Roxanne’s hands in the next second as if it’s burned him. "No. No. I can’t. Thank you, I’m—sorry."

He’s beginning to tremble. Alarmed, she sets it aside. "Okay! It’s okay. Hey, it’s me, okay? It’s just me. Can I hold your hand?" His breathing is starting to come hard and fast.

"Don’t know, I don’t know—"

"Okay, um…" An idea strikes. "Oh! Can you drink soda? In cans. Sealed. You can open it yourself?"

His expression sort of fractures and twists and he looks at her with an odd combination of—it looks like grief and gratitude, that’s—

"It’s okay! I’m not mad, you aren’t doing anything wrong! Can you…? Okay." He’s nodding rapidly. Roxanne whips around and darts to the vending machines. By sheer dumb luck, one of them boasts cans of Pepsi made with actual sugar, and she punches the numbers in and waits impatiently for the can to fall. 

On her way back over to him, she cracks it just enough to release some pressure so it won’t go everywhere when he opens it the rest of the way. Some of it foams onto the floor, which she feels badly about, but ah well, the cleaning crew will be here in an hour or two. So, it’s fine. It’s fine.

"Here," she says, shoving the soda at Megamind. His fingers are trembling badly, but he immediately cracks it open and gulps at it.

As he lowers the can, Roxanne steps close and quickly throws her jacket around behind him, tugging it over his shoulders again and then skipping backwards, away, her hands open.

Megamind blinks at her, wearing a patently baffled expression.

"It’s—you said earlier, your mantle is a touchstone? I, I thought maybe—I wasn’t sure if—spikes, and something a little heavier—it seemed to help before?"

He bares his teeth in understanding and reaches across his chest to grip her jacket with one hand. "Hhhhfffff—I’m—what is—wrong with—fuck me, I—" He lets out a raw snarl.

"Sweetheart, it’s okay," Roxanne whispers.

"It wasn’t even the first time. It should not be eating me like this." He takes a slug of Pepsi, wearing a very ugly expression. "I did tell you," he adds, voice breaking, eyes flashing in the low light as he glances up and glares at her, "this was a bad idea. You will not want this. Give it a week. Two, tops."

Don’t tell me what I want, she tries to say again, but the words won’t come.

Megamind drinks his soda, chugs it the rest of the way. And then, panting, he scrunches the can and throws it into a trash can across the hall with barely a glance.

Slowly, Roxanne reaches for him. He jumps when she touches him, twitches badly, but she grips his arm anyway, slides her palm up the sharp edge of his jaw again.

"I will be the judge of that," she says. "Of whether I—want—this. With you. And I do."

He shakes his head. Makes a face like he’s trying to curl his lip, but he’s blinking too hard, and he doesn't pull away.

(He doesn't pull away. He lives his days covered in spikes and armor, his usual contact is when he is either struck or grabbed against his will, he is shaking in the memory of agony at the hands of the last person who bought him this way, and he does not pull away from Roxanne.)

A sound of pain breaks out of him as she kisses him but Roxanne does it anyway, looping her arms around his shoulders and his waist. Holding him close and kissing his mouth and licking gently into him until finally he stumbles forward against her with another soft and helpless sound, breathing and kissing her in return, sliding his arms around her. Sliding his fingers into her hair. Breathing like he's come back to life. 

"—sorry, I’m sorry," he whispers when he breaks away. He shoves his head against hers, shakes it back and forth. Clenches and unclenches his hands against her back and the nape of her neck. "I don’t know what’s—I don't know what's the matter with me tonight; I usually can’t talk about it at all, not at all, I can’t make the words, and now—twice, now, I—I’m so sorry."

Roxanne is already shaking her head right back at him. "No, no, shhh, don’t apologize, please don’t apologize," she says, hushed, trying to match his tone. "Sweetheart, no, you are allowed to say no. Even just to coffee. And you're allowed to freak out a little! Whatever you need, okay? I said that before, and I meant that, I meant it. I don’t need you to be perfect, I just need you to be you. Whatever that means. Whatever that means."

She kisses him again, quickly, and then rolls her head back to go back to touching foreheads as Megamind gulps and exhales into the space between their mouths. "Listen, um." She swallows hard. "I, I should tell you, you should know—I had Larissa arrested tonight."

Beat.

Megamind lifts his head.

"…What?"

"She's in jail. She'll be there until a judge sets bail. Probably until morning, at the very least."

Megamind is staring at her. "You…had her arrested? For me?" He blinks once and then his eyes go suspiciously bright and his mouth pinches a little. "You did that for me?"

"I mean, she broke into my home, so," Roxanne says, unaccountably embarrassed at the way Megamind is gazing at her with his heart in his eyes. He can't, he can't be looking at her like that. Not like that. Roxanne knows she's good, but she's only ever had one person look at her like that before—years ago, a random stranger she danced with in a club and then never saw again; he had looked at her like she hung the moon—and she didn't know what to do with it then and she knows even less what to do with it now, from someone she's dating and will hopefully see again with extreme frequency.

"She…" That catches him by complete surprise, she can tell. He goes stiff in her arms and yanks his head back on his long neck and his voice goes sharp and dangerous. "I'm sorry. She did what?"

"I would have wanted to have her behind bars either way, after what you told me," Roxanne begins, but Megamind steps back and waves at her and cuts her off.

"Explain."

So she retrieves her cup of the lukewarm coffee Mary made, and explains. The notification, her security system, Metro Man. Her neighbor. 

"Your bedroom closet?"

"That's what he said."

Megamind's expression has turned thunderously angry. "How very interesting," he bites out. "A moment, if you please, my dear; I shall rally a squadron of bots to do a sweep and ensure all is as it should be."

…God, he's so unnecessarily hot when he's angry. Roxanne has never been called ‘my dear’ before, but damn, it works with his villain’s accent. She takes another sip of coffee and watches as he pulls up some sort of holographic interface from the face of his wristwatch, flicking and gesturing at it with his lips a thin line.

It barely takes him a minute. "There," he says as he dismisses the display with a gesture, "you're getting the works. Bug sweep, total prior layout comparison, substance sweep and analysis. Electronics testing. If anything is amiss, rest assured: we will find it."

Roxanne offers him a smile. "Thank you, sweetheart," she says. With everything else that's been happening tonight, somehow the thought that Larissa might have left some kind of nasty surprise behind had not occurred to her. Thank goodness Megamind had thought of it before she even had a chance to worry; she's beginning to feel wrung-out after all this. "You are so wonderful."

He heaves a sigh and steps close, lowering his forehead to rest on her shoulder for a moment. Roxanne pats him a couple times with the hand that is not holding her coffee.

Thankfully, he appears to have calmed somewhat when he lifts his head again; he's actually smirking at her. "…You did have her arrested for me," he says, mouth curling up at the corners. "You could have left her there, we could have dealt with her ourselves. But you put her behind bars for me. Thank you."

Roxanne grins, shrugs. Hopes he can't tell that she's all-over tingling and warm from the brush of his temple at the side of her throat. "Of course! I'm glad it was okay, after what you told me I was a little worried I accidentally interfered with your plans or something. But I just…I did not want her anywhere near you. Not tonight."

He shakes his huge head. "I have not had the luxury of planning, where she is concerned. I do now, of course, but I have been fortunate enough to be otherwise occupied this evening." He winks at her. And then he scowls and adds, "I will come up with something in the morning. I need to know who she talked to, I need to know exactly what deal she struck. And when."

"If I can help at all…"

"I will tell you."

She pauses. Megamind appears to be thinking, but whatever he’s thinking about…Roxanne is willing to bet he would appreciate a distraction. So she clears her throat, in the dark hallway, and sips her own coffee. And she says, "At the risk of sounding like I’m belittling your entirely justified rage…has anyone ever told you you’re hot when you’re angry?"

Megamind recoils, blinking, visibly refocusing. "Has anyone—what? No. No, mostly I hear that I am extraordinarily scary when upset."

Roxanne flushes warm. "Ha. No, sorry, you’re…definitely extremely sexy. When angry. Not the first time I’ve thought that, and it will not be the last. Sorry."

He stares at her in consternation for a moment, his pupils reflecting brightest green, and then he splutters an odd-sounding laugh. "Oh? Oh! Well. Ha. I…suppose I am happy to hear that. I am pleased. That you remain unafraid of me."

Roxanne snorts. "I remain unafraid. Yeah, that’s never gonna change. You might be able to scare the rest of the city, but you can’t scare me. I know you’re adorable and there’s nothing you can do about it."

He makes a sound of extreme offense and opens his mouth to retort, but a voice interrupts him. A voice, and footsteps, approaching.

"Roxanne? Um…Meg-Megamind…? Are you two…?"

A grimace flashes across his face as his expression goes briefly panicked. He freezes, then snatches up his coffee from the little table and—

At first Roxanne thinks he means to drink it despite not wanting to, and she starts forward, alarmed. But Megamind looks at it, looks around, still wide-eyed, and—

—throws the contents directly into a potted plant and then yanks his cup back in front of his chest.

Mary comes bustling around the corner. She looks much more relaxed than she did earlier; her guests are leaving hours before the arrival of anyone who might ask awkward questions. All is well.

"Oh! Good! There you are," she calls as she approaches. "Did you both have a nice time?"

"A wonderful time," Roxanne says, beaming at her. "Absolutely fantastic, we had a blast."

"I didn’t break anything," Megamind says, too loudly. Mary blinks at him and twitches her eyebrows up in the middle. Ah, that is the face that means he has just said something strange. Blast.

But Roxanne exclaims, "It’s true! He didn’t! He did very well," and slips her hand around his elbow and fits herself against his side. "I’m very proud of him."

"Oh," Mary says, still looking mildly confused. "Well! That’s good! I’m glad."

Megamind swallows. "Thank you for the coffee," he says, very stiffly. "It was. Good."

Mary blinks, and then she smiles, looking at once startled and flattered. "Was it? Oh, I hoped it would be. Everyone says you have such a sweet tooth. I put in ten sugars. Roxanne said eight, but I thought, round up."

He nods. Twitches a return smile. "It was perfect. I…thank you. You are kind."

She beams. "Well, here, let me take y’all’s rubbish. What happened to the straw?" she asks, as she gathers up their cups.

"Ate it," Megamind lies without missing a beat. "Was delicious. Thank you, good snack. Yum yum good."

At his side, Roxanne wibbles her air out through her nose. It’s not a sound he has ever heard from her before, and he cocks an eyebrow at her. "Are you all right?"

"‘M fine," she croaks, deadpan, but Megamind can tell she’s in no fit state to make words.

Well. He can fake it. Surely he can fake it.

"Thank you very much for all of your help this evening," he says, very carefully. At his side, Roxanne is smiling and nodding. "We will…have to come back someday during normal hours."

"You will! The light will be so much better," the night guard says as she unlocks the doors. "Y’all drive safe in this snow, keep warm," and she waves them out into the night. 

Chapter Text

Roxanne turns and waves over her shoulder as she hurries out. And then the doors swing closed behind them and latch, and she whips back around and whinnys her way into a storm of outright cackling. She laughs nearly as hard as she had at Megamind’s ‘mustache ride’ slip-up, hard enough to start coughing, clutching his arm to remain upright. Megamind very happily holds himself steady, enjoying…her warmth, her trust, her amusement. All of it. Her. 

In all their years of association with each other, all their attempts to trip each other over words and turns of phrase, Megamind has seen Roxanne laugh like this only a handful of times. It's probably his favorite of all her laughs: unpretty, unselfconscious. Wholly and unquestionably genuine. He remembers each instance and treasures them for their joy and rarity.

But now, twice in one night? And he wasn't even trying. He didn't try either time. And—and yes, okay, it is—she is laughing at him, in a way, but it doesn't rankle. It doesn't hurt. He doesn't know why.

He also doesn't care why. He is mostly just enjoying the moment, and trying to realize that he will have more moments like this one with Roxanne, and failing to comprehend. It's freezing outside and somehow this is the warmest he's ever felt in his life, his heart feels as though it is bursting with light.

Finally Roxanne drags in air and gasps out, "Just—plish! right into the plant and then fucking—'ate it! yum yum good!'"

"Yes, I know, I am the Most Funny," he agrees.

At last she sighs and wipes at her eyes. "Aaagh. You are the most funny. Yum yum good," and she bursts into bright laughter all over again.

Megamind rolls his eyes at her, grinning, but he doesn't argue. "To the car?" he asks, stepping back so he can shrug into his vest before he embarrasses himself and starts shivering. As he fastens it, he adds, "You may continue to wear my coat, if you like. You were right, the weight of this one is…better." He slides his arms into Roxanne’s sleeves and then scowls down at his wrists as he plucks at his shirt cuffs to pull them free. "Even if I do look ridiculous."

Roxanne laughs again. "You look fabulous, you always do! But thank you, I don't have your layers. Also, you smell amazing? Your coat also smells amazing? Already, somehow?" She lifts a lapel and presses it briefly to her nose, then grins at him. "Be careful lending me your clothes, I’ll keep them until they stop smelling like you and start smelling like me."

"Oh no," he says. "What a terrible fate that will be," and Roxanne snorts and takes the arm he offers her.

They hurry back down the long path to the parking lot much more quickly than they had approached the conservatory. The night is colder now, and they're both tired, and they are also both still running high on adrenaline and giddy confusion about their new status towards each other.

And Roxanne is still struggling with herself. 

Okay, okay yes, she's found the answer. And she's basically already decided. She wants him safe, this will keep him safe. But this is so much, this is too much, this is…

She very cheerfully bearded for Metro Man for four years, and she will very cheerfully hop into a green card marriage with his nemesis. Because god, fuck, there are too many questions! And not enough answers! Who told Larissa how to hurt him? And why? And what are they going to try next, now that she's failed to gain access to him a second time? Are they going to come after him themself, will they make Minion a target?

Targeting Minion would absolutely be Roxanne's next move, if she was trying to get to Megamind. But there isn't a lot she can do for Minion without knowing more about his legal status. She seriously doubts the courts would allow her to marry him, which is speciesist and awful but still the nature of things in the USA: the less human you look, the less likely the law is to support you where it counts. It's a problem elsewhere, as well, but many nations do have some protections in place for non-hominid metahumans and offworld immigrants. In the US…well, the ACLU can only do so much.

Point is: marriage is probably not an option for Minion. Not yet, at least. And Roxanne would bet dollars to doughnuts he needs more than one "cultural milestone" (ugh) before he can gain full legal protections…

Adoption? Could he be adopted? It might not be enough, but surely it would help. She'll have to check with Wayne; he has papers. But he also went to public school, and he knew exactly what Roxanne was upset about when she was texting him earlier, so…

Too many questions. Too many questions and too few answers. But Roxanne has this one answer, at least, this one solution she can throw at Megamind's feet and armor him with. 

He deserves so much better, so much better than this. He should have a normal relationship. So should she! But Roxanne went into tonight with the goal of keeping him away from someone who wants to hurt him, and Roxanne is not one to back down from a challenge. Maybe if Megamind had not told her exactly what nightmares he lived through, maybe if he had played his hand closer to the vest, maybe Roxanne would have held off. Maybe she would wait to tell him. But he did tell her, and she is still trying not to think about it too hard, and she cannot help the gut-clenching fear that he might be staring down the barrel of those same nightmares again in the near future, and she is not having it. No. For all she knows, Megamind is on borrowed time. 

He deserves so much more than this. So does she. This should not be the reality they're working with. 

But here they are. Megamind has scars on his hands and scars in his mind, and Roxanne cannot help him with those. But she can keep him from acquiring any more. 

So. Too much it may be, but they'll figure it out. They'll get there. Roxanne went into tonight wanting Megamind to be safe, and if this is what she needs to do to make that happen, then By God it is what she will do. 

"You know what I love about you, Roxie," Wayne said to her a couple years ago. "It's that if you thought it was the right thing to do, you would burn down the sky."

("In what universe would that ever be the right thing to do?" she had demanded, aghast. 

"Dunno. But you'd do it."

"…I'd make Megamind figure out how to put it back." 

"Yeah, but you'd still do it.") 

There is a reason Metro Man has been so comfortable with her all these years, when he hasn't let anyone else close enough to ever kick his ass at checkers on his home turf. And the reason is that even when he doesn't know, can't even guess what the right thing is supposed to be, Roxanne sure as hell will. And she will be right. And she will be able to explain why she is right. He has told her before: he knows very few people capable of explaining the right thing as clearly as Roxanne.

Interestingly, Megamind is also one of these very few people; this is, Roxanne suspects, why Wayne has seemed so incredibly excited about getting the two of them together for an evening. When she sees him next, she is going to shake him, invulnerability be damned, and then possibly she will buy him and Adam a nice basket of fancy cheese or something.

For now, she hurries through the cold, Megamind bouncing along at her side. 

As they approach the turnstiles under their wide roof, Roxanne shivers and makes a small disgruntled sound, but she can't hide the smile in her voice.

"Oh, lord," she says, "oh the metal is going to be so much colder this time."

But instead of agreeing, or making some sly comment about her earlier wardrobe malfunction, Megamind puts his hand over hers on his arm and stops walking and cocks his head at the spokes of metal ahead.

(There's still a few yards to go before they hit the building. Most of it is downhill.) 

"Everything okay?"

(Oh this will be easy.)

He looks over at her, wearing an expression Roxanne knows some of her coworkers would read as sinister intent, but which she recognizes as sparkly-eyed mischief. "Want to do something fun?" 

She blinks. But sure, she's game. "Okay?"

He tenses, grinning. "Trust me?"

"Yes, always."

Megamind's smile flashes into the night. He throws her arm into the air, slides his shoulder in under her as he pivots and bends in the snow, scooping Roxanne up off her feet and into a princess carry as she yelps and clutches at his shoulders.

"Aighh! What—"

"Hold on tight and lean towards me!"

He bounces on the balls of his feet, skips backwards a couple of steps, and then he takes off down the slope at a dead run. Roxanne sucks in a gasp and twists towards Megamind's body, curling her knees up and dragging her fingers in his sleeve.

He's strong. She knows this. She knows he is much, much stronger than he looks for as slight as he is, but she is not—she is not expecting him to burst into one of his evil laughs as he breaks into a sprint—is not expecting herself to be able to turn her head and look ahead at where they're going instead of hiding her face—is not expecting him to be outright cackling with glee as he snaps the two of them into the air and clears the turnstiles and lands—feet down, both feet down; he isn't continuing to run and catch them running because—oh, aha, there's a film of ice over the concrete on the other side of the hurdle that Roxanne hadn't seen. Megamind hits the ground and absorbs the shock with his knees and they go sliding away over the ground.

She can feel him move, can feel every hard muscle shift under the thin fabric of his shirt and the studs of her jacket as he compensates for their momentum, can feel how he pushes one foot down harder than the other to send them into a couple of wild spins to kill their speed. By the time they stop, he's standing with both feet planted and his knees straight, Roxanne in his arms, breathless laughter in his throat.

"There!" he exclaims, setting her on her feet, beaming. "Ha! Wasn't that fun? And you never had to touch the metammmmph—!"

Roxanne has just cleaved her mouth to his with a gasp. Megamind makes a sound of shock but kisses her back, fumbling to match her intensity and squeaking in surprise when she sinks her teeth into his lip.

Heart hammering in her chest, she scrapes her teeth over him and then kisses twice along his jaw up to his ear. "That was evil," she hisses, and Megamind makes a sound like begging and sex and arches his neck—Roxanne nips his ear and whispers, "and I loved it," and then she kisses the soft skin behind the corner of his jaw.

Megamind has jerked in her arms at each pass of her mouth, but now he fully throws his head back as he gasps, "Yes—what—you—oh, ohmygod—"

It is a damned good thing he slid them far enough down the path for any walls to be inconveniently far away, because the noise he makes when Roxanne bites down on the beautiful tendon under her mouth is enough to make her glance frantically around for something to shove him up against and see what other lovely noises she might be able to pull out of him.

Alas. The only option nearby is a tree, and it has enough snow on its branches to remind her that she's freezing and Megamind is in a jacket that doesn't even fit him, and—oh and right yes goddammit AND he deserves better, of course, than to be shoved against a tree for makeouts in the snow. Obviously.

Darn.

Well.

Maybe some other time.

She releases his neck and pulls herself into a hug instead, and Megamind immediately wraps his arms around her, staggering, still half-laughing.

"Ah—oh, my goodness," he gasps, and Roxanne snorts into his shoulder. "Okay! Yes! Picking you up and running around with you gets good reactions and many kisses, noted, okay."

She laughs. Quickly kisses his mouth again, pulling back before either of them can deepen the contact. "Sorry about that," she tries. "I, um. Wow, that was…you’re really something else."

Megamind mock-squints at her, wrinkling his whole face but grinning hard. "Wait, so, would picking you up and running around with you while you’re awake always have netted beautiful kisses, or was that just because we’re—together, now?"

Roxanne grins, and taps the end of his nose. "That," she says, and he jerks his head back, but she can’t miss the pure delight on his face a second later as she takes his arm and tugs him to keep going towards the car, "would not always have resulted in kisses, but it would definitely have resulted in me being…way more hot and bothered about you a lot sooner."

"Hot and…? Oh. Oh," he says, and he bumps his hip into her leg on the path. "Aha, I see. And…how long has that been…?"

"The physical side? A while," she says. Her cheeks are warm, but she bumps him back and makes him laugh. "It’s, um. It’s been a while." She glances sideways, finds him gently prodding the place where she bit him, color in his cheeks and a funny curly smile on his lips. God, he’s cute. She wins so hard.

Oh. Speaking of which.

She squints ahead of them. Probably only a couple minutes left before they reach the car. Okay, yes, go time.

I found our loophole, she tries to say. I found it I found it I found it

"Listen, I…um, what…what do you want me to call you, by the way?"

Crap!

He turns his head and peers at her. "…Megamind? And I do like sweetheart, is that…?"

"No," she laughs, "I mean—partner? Boyfriend?"

"Oh, yes, either of those," he agrees, nodding. "I like those. Why?"

She squeezes his arm. "I just…wanted to make sure. Um."

"Why?" he asks again.

She shrugs. She can’t exactly say I have something big I need to tell you and I don’t know how to say it and I don’t know how to work up to it, help.

"I didn't want to assume. I’ve had partners who really just preferred ‘partner’ to anything else, so. But, um, it—it occurs to me, it might not actually—matter? Um—"

"I do like boyfriend," he says, with a note in his voice that she isn’t sure about. Roxanne pauses. "I…male is…perhaps not the most accurate description of what I am. But it is the least inaccurate. And the most comfortable. But." He shrugs, but it's a little twitchy. "You have rather swept me off my feet this evening, and it has been…nice. I know it is not the norm, but…if boyfriend is still…"

Roxanne blinks, and then she feels her whole face wrinkle into a grimace. "Megamind are you saying boys aren’t allowed to get treated to nice things."

"No! No! I am saying it is not the norm! Like your shoes earlier! Our heights!" He sounds extremely offended. "I am a supervillain; I do not care what is allowed! And. It has been nice. As I said."

She can’t help but laugh a little. "Oh, sweetheart. For heaven’s sake. If you like being treated like a princess on occasion, that will not make you any less of a king, okay? And—just—look, I suspect you were probably joking earlier but I might as well just put it out there: if you ever do want to put on a ball gown and go somewhere, or just stay home, or really anything, I will happily join you. Or I can wear a suit if you would like me to. Either way."

Megamind pauses, and then he looks over at her, warmth in his eyes and a smile teasing the corners of his mouth. "Do you know," he says, and he does at least sound a little more relaxed now, "from…I think anyone else on the planet, with the possible exception of Minion, I would take that as mockery?"

"Oh—no, I didn't mean—"

"From anyone else on the planet, I said." He leans into her for a moment. "I know you better. Thank you. I…thank you. That…means more to me than you probably realize."

Roxanne swallows.

"Um," she says, "sort of on that note, relating to…sweeping you off your feet. I need to tell you. Before we get to the car," she takes a deep breath and finally blurts, "I found our loophole."

It takes him a second. Long enough for her to wonder if he misheard.

But then suddenly he stumbles and nearly falls, and Roxanne exclaims "Whoa!" and catches him. "I hadn't meant 'off your feet' literally! Are you okay?"

Megamind staggers, turns towards her, grips her arms. "You what," he says, breathless and pale, "you found—already? You—how, where? What—?"

"It's, it's actually not even a loophole," she says, holding onto him, trying to stay calm. She's speaking too quickly, but she can't seem to stop herself. "It's by the book, it's fully established. And, and I am…nervous, but I am also…committed, you need to know that. I, I mean—I trust you, I know you wouldn't try to, to lock me into anything, so—"

"Roxanne what are you talking about."

"You only need one more cultural milestone, yes?"

Eyes searching her face, white to the lips, he nods.

"Marriage qualifies," she says. "And it's got a bunch of other protections along with the milestone. Marry me."

Megamind rocks back on his heels with a noise like he's been punched, but Roxanne forges ahead.

"What I'm thinking is—give us a, a week or so, okay? Just a little bit of time to talk to a lawyer and get everything in order and, and maybe just see how we are together. Okay? And then either way, either way, no matter how we are, we'll get married and get you you fully documented, protected, everything. Because even if we don't work out," she says, because Megamind's face is completely blank and all remaining color is draining out of it, "even if we don't, divorce does also qualify as long as we stay married for a year first. You'll be safe. And—and we can figure something else out for Minion, I know we can. I know we can find something. But…okay? Is this okay? For you? At least?"

He's staring through her into the middle distance, swaying on his feet.

"Get. Married," he echoes, dropping the words like stones into the freezing air. "I can. Get married."

Roxanne nods hard. Fuck, she was not expecting to feel this frantic about all this, about asking, but her stomach is twisting and her heart is in her throat and—

"I can't…do. that. To you," he says, in the same dazed tone.

"Nononono, listen, just listen! It's—listen, we can get divorced if we hate it, but—but just listen to me! Because I was thinking—we'll keep on dating, of course, because it's just papers, it's just papers, I'm so sorry. But then, but then someday," she swallows hard, clutching him, struggling to keep her voice steady, "someday when we know for sure we would want to get married anyway, someday I can do a real proposal—or, or you can!—and then we'll get married for real. Not just on paper. Okay? We can do a whole ceremony and reception, or, or just go on a nice vacation with the three of us, or just the two of us, or…whatever you like. Okay?"

He lifts his eyes to hers. Opens his mouth, shakes his head a little. It isn't often that Roxanne has been able to stun Megamind speechless.

She gulps. Her voice cracks. "It's just—I can't stand it, I can't stand it, this sword hanging over your head like this. You've been a villain in good standing at the federal level more than long enough to qualify for a marriage license in the state of Michigan."

He stares at her.

"Megamind—sweetheart—I went into tonight just wanting you to be safe. Please let me make that happen, please let me? Please? And, and you'll never have to do this auction again," she's nearly crying now, "never if you don't want to, and—and then—and then someday we can get married again but for real, for us, when we want to. Okay? Is that—does that sound okay?"

He blinks once.

And then his whole face crumples and he chokes out, "That sounds fantastic," and he throws his arms around her and shoves his face down into her collar, against her shoulder.

"Thank you," he whispers, muffled. "Thank you—"

Roxanne holds onto him as hard as she can, relief sweeping through her and making her knees weak. Oh, thank goodness, he does not appear to be saying no.

The way he says Metrocity is mine. The sentiment behind that phrase, when Megamind says it, the way he enforces it. MY villain. MY alien, MINE. Megamind is hers, not in belonging but in simple relation. The way her home is hers. Because she is his.

Shivering, she stumbles closer, trying to hold him more securely. Megamind shifts and wraps his arms around her back under the suit coat she's still wearing and pulls himself against her with what feels like all his strength; her ribs creak.

"I've got you," Roxanne whispers. "Okay. It's okay, I've got you. Is that…yes? Is that…oh, thank god, okay." He's nodding hard.

"I am—sorry," he gasps, muffled. His hands curl into fists against her back. "Just—sorry, you shouldn't—have to rush into—I am so sorry but yes, god yes, please—thank you—"

"I don't have to. I don't have to, we could find another way if we needed to. But we don't need to! We don't need to! I mean, this is so easy, and like I said, if we hate it, if we really do, we can get divorced and you will still be safe. Safer, at least!"

He shakes his head. "Why," he manages. "I'm…"

"Because somebody out there wants pieces of you," Roxanne says, sharp. She sniffs hard, gulps, shakes her head. "I don't know if Larissa hid at my place just to hurt me or to also get access to you because she assumed I'd bring you up with me, but," she jostles him until he lifts his head so she can look him in the eye, "I want this over. If someone comes after you in a van, or, or…sabotages your next license renewal, or something, I want to know you aren't going to disappear into some fucked-up detention facility because some asshole saw an opportunity and you can't be deported." He's standing and just looking at her like he's too tired even to cry, and she cups his cheek in her hand. He tips toward her palm, puts his own hand over hers on his face and pushes her against his skin as his head falls forward to clunk against hers. "And if you DO disappear, for whatever fucking reason," she says, "you will have a family with roots here and a legitimate legal claim to you who can bring you home. Who WILL bring you home. Also I have known and cared about you for years and we get along great so far! I can think of way worse reasons to rush into something! Okay? Please?"

He nods. "Okay," he whispers. "Yes."

Then he pulls a shivery breath and straightens. "Come on," he says, voice thick. He looks at her eyes for a second and then squeezes his closed, bumps his temple against hers and nods there. "You're freezing, I'm cold, let's get to the car? Let-let's go home? Do you need me to drive?"

She shakes her head. "I can drive. I'm awake enough, I'll be okay. Come on," and they keep their arms around each other as they fall back into step towards the car.

Chapter Text

As Roxanne closes her car door behind her—she had opened Megamind's for him again, and he had laughed quietly at her but let her do it—she glances over at him, and finds him staring straight out the windshield. He looks completely stunned, as well as completely exhausted.

She swallows hard.

"I should tell you," she says carefully, "if you don't want to, or if you want to wait for a while, or anything…it's okay. This has to be what you want, too."

He doesn't move. After a moment, she turns the key in the ignition and then quickly turns the fan off until the car can warm up a little. Roxanne is no stranger to freezing for fashion, but there's no reason to add a fan to the mix just because—

"In what universe would I not want this."

She hesitates. He sounded very subdued, just then. "This one?" she ventures, watching uncertainly as he moves his hands to his shoulders, crossing his arms over his chest. "I mean, you were pretty insistent about being 'fine' earlier. I really wasn't sure if you'd say yes."

Slowly, the huge head shakes from side to side. "I…that was…before. You kissed me. And said…you…want. Me. With you. Us, together. Do not touch me," he warns, twisting away when she reaches for him. She pauses. "If you touch me right now I will lose my mind, I can't. I can't. I can't."

"Okay." She holds up her hands and sits back in the driver's seat. "Okay, no touching. You okay?"

"No," he says. His shoulders are still twisted towards the window. "I am not. I am—you have—asked me if I am okay so many times tonight. I lost count shortly after we arrived here at the conservatory but you checked if I was all right more than twenty times prior to that. I, and I am—I have been—I wanted, I wanted—so badly for this to be—real—"

He cuts himself off suddenly with a half-choked little sound. Shakes his head hard.

"I can't," he whispers. "I can't."

Neither can Roxanne. "Sweetheart," she begins—

—Megamind jerks and gasps like she's just slapped him. Alarmed, she stops.

"That!" he exclaims. "That! I, you—I have wanted, I have—wanted, and I can't—"

"What can't you?" she asks in bewilderment. "You can't…what? Have what you want? Be loved? Handle what's happening?"

"Any of it! All of it!" He sighs. Looks away. "You can touch me. But if you do, know that there is a greater-than-zero possibility that I will throw myself over the center console and fuse myself to you like—like some kind of—slimy—mollusc. Like a barnacle."

He’s still hugging himself hard. Slowly, Roxanne reaches over, and rests a hand on the back of his shoulder. Megamind twitches but doesn’t pull away, so she slides her palm up until she can push her fingers in under his and net them with his much longer ones. Pushing up under his hand.

She had already sort of expected this downswing. And it's certainly okay if Megamind needs to be low…but…

Gently, she says, "Barnacles are crustaceans."

She sees him frown, and then he lifts his head a little and turns and squints at her. "Excuse me?"

"They’re not molluscs," she insists, earnest, still very gentle. "They’re crustaceans. Arthropods."

His expression pulls into what Roxanne can only describe as ‘fascinated horror.’

"No," he says, "that’s fake. You’re lying."

Roxanne shakes her head and sends him a hopeful smile. "Nope. On god. Gun to my head, they’re arthropods." She feels her smile shift to more of a grin as she withdraws and adds, "I’m not going to lie to a merman about barnacles."

His eyebrows shoot up his forehead and he splutters into incredulous laughter. "Wow!" he exclaims. "I hate that! That’s—that’s terrible! That is a terrible fact, why would you tell me this? That’s going to haunt me! And why do you know this? Why don’t I know this!"

She laughs and puts the car in gear, starts backing out of their spot. "I’ve owned a tarantula for thirty-seven years, of course I know about arthropods! And you hate things with too many legs, of course you wouldn’t be looking things up about this!"

"Barnacles don’t HAVE LEGS," he protests—and then he stops. His eyes go wide. "They don’t, do they? Do barnacles have legs?"

"No, why would they have legs?"

"WELL WHY WOULD THEY BE CRABS," he cries, gesturing wildly at nothing. Roxanne bursts out laughing. "Why would they—why would—everything is a lie! Everything I know is a lie! I’m terrible, barnacles are molluscs, butterflies taste good! Lies! All lies! Apparently!"

Roxanne recoils, shaking her head, feeling rather as though she’s just whiplashed. "Megamind did you eat a butterfly in there?"

"I found a wing on the ground and I was curious, leave me alone," he complains.

"You ate it off the ground?"

"No! Yes? Shut up!"

She bursts into laughter and shifts into drive. Megamind is still half-laughing as well.

"How do you do that," he says, shaking his head, gazing at her with his heart in his eyes. "How do you take my moods and make them funny, and it doesn’t hurt?"

"I think it’s a partner thing," she begins, but he waves at her.

"No, even before today," he says. "You cheer me up more often than not. I don’t know how."

"Oh." She considers for a moment. "In that case I’m not sure. Maybe just because I know you?"

"Maybe." He sounds doubtful. After a moment, he swallows and says, "And…you truly are okay with this? I don't mean to unwrap the gift horse," he quickly adds when she stifles a sigh, and she sputters despite herself. "But knowing me is one thing. You want…you are really willing to do this for me? Marriage?"

If he thinks she didn’t catch that little slip, he’s sorely mistaken. Megamind may be tired, but Roxanne’s brain is on fire.

"You had it right the first time," she says. "I want to do this."

"But," he says. "I’m not…I’m not…"

"You are to me."

He doesn’t reply.

The tracks their car left in the snow on their way in are mostly filled in, just dips in the snow that fell while they were wandering around inside the conservatory. But they still show as soft shadows in the yellow light of the street lamps along the winding drive out to the main road, on the other side from the unbroken inches of snow rolling away under Roxanne’s headlights, crunching down under her wheels.

After a moment, she looks over at her partner. "Megamind," she says, "what you said earlier, about…humans who know you. You said, all of them, everyone. But the men at the prison, the ones who raised you, who helped you, when you were little. If I asked them to tell me, are you worth saving."

Megamind's lips thin.

"If I asked them. What would they say?"

He exhales slowly, shifting his arms to cross over his chest again. He still doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t have to.

Roxanne nods. "The ones who really know you, know you’re worth it. And so do I."

They’ve reached the main road, and Roxanne puts on her turn signal and leans forward to check to the right—

—but Megamind’s hand on her wrist stops her.

Startled, she looks over at him, finds him still hugging his chest with one arm and holding onto her wrist with surprising strength.

"If," he says, his mouth a thin line and the shadows around his eyes very dark, "if I. ever. needed you to cut into me. Would you do it."

The click-tick-click-tick of the turn signal seems exceptionally loud in Roxanne’s ears, suddenly.

"I don’t know how to answer that," she says, stunned.

"If it was. Necessary." His voice is very tight. "If. I needed you to do it. Would you."

Ears ringing, Roxanne gazes at him for a long moment.

But in the end…in the end, there really is only one way she can answer it.

She covers his hand on her wrist with her own, and squeezes. "Yeah," she says, dragging the words out of her mouth and trying to sound light about it, trying not to sound like they taste like glass, "if…if you really needed me to, if we couldn't find a doctor you trusted. Yes, of course I would."

His expression pinches. "And. Would you sing," he says, teeth flashing, eyes squeezed nearly closed.

She blinks. "Would I…"

"Would you sing to me. During."

Staring at him, heart screaming in her chest, Roxanne nods. Yes, anything to make it more bearable, anything you want, she tries to say. But. Words. Words, not so much, right now.

To her relief—and her absolute shock—Megamind breathes. Relaxes. Nods, and starts to withdraw his hand, but Roxanne quickly grabs it and nets her fingers with his.

Usually the only time she has trouble speaking like this is when she’s having a nightmare and can’t scream for help. Interestingly, her voice when she finally forces words out sounds similar: thready, raspy.

"I will do," she manages, "everything I can to knock you the fuck out first. But yes. If you absolutely need me to. And yes, I will sing."

He nods again. His thin face has gone back to exhaustion. "Thank you," he whispers. "I…had to ask."

"I get it," she says. His hand in hers is bony and cold and solid and so, so reassuring, something to hold onto. "I do. You need to know if, if I’ll…make the hard choices."

He nods.

Roxanne swallows. "I love you," she says.

"I know."

And maybe from someone else, she would be worried or startled or disappointed at the lack of I love you, too after that. But Megamind looks at her with his heart in his eyes and sends her a wobbly, twitchy smile, and she realizes—

—oh.

Her stomach roils and she has to swallow a wave of nausea.

Oh, that's what he was asking.

Do you love me enough to—

It's all she can do not to throw the car into park and drag him into the backseat so she can wrap him in her arms and shove her face against his chest and cry. But. The night is late, and Megamind is exhausted. And Roxanne is deeply, deeply rattled, but she is also tired, and it will keep. It has to keep. For now.

(You should not see THAT as a declaration of love! That should not be on the list of declarations of love! That should not EVER be ANYWHERE NEAR the list! Oh my god! she wants to wail. Oh my god what the fuck has this world done to you, oh my god what the fuck have we done—)

"Good," she says instead. Her answering smile feels very wobbly as well. "I'm glad."

He takes a breath, and nods. "And I love you, too," he adds, and squeezes her hand. He brings it to his mouth and kisses the back of it, then ducks his head and pushes her hand to his forehead for a moment. "And thank you," he says. "Can we turn on the heat now, I am freezing."

Roxanne manages to huff into laughter. She nods, and flicks the heater on, and then she very gently tugs her hand away so she can finally turn out onto the main road.

They’re both quiet for a few minutes after that. It’s been a long night, lots to think about. For a while, Roxanne's teeth are clenched so hard she can feel them in her ears.

But finally she is able to exhale and feel her shoulders drop a little, and with her own sigh, Megamind finally clears his throat and takes a breath.

"It’s not going to be easy," he warns. "I’m…I have never done this. I told you."

"I know that." She nods. Swallows, breathes, and then sends him a smile. The car is warm now, and she is warm in his suit coat with her necklace still cool and heavy on her chest, and it's easier to feel more steady now that she's warm and was able to take a few moments to collect herself. "I know, I promise I do. But I don’t need it to be easy! And…" She laughs a little. "You’ve told me a lot of things tonight. Way, way more than I was expecting when I said everything was off-record. It still is," she quickly adds when she sees him sort of twitch, "it definitely still is off-record. But, my point is, if you can be this open with me just…just on a date you didn’t even want to go on? If you can trust me this way?" She shakes her head. "I think we’ll be fine."

"You’re…really okay?" he asks again. "No reservations at all?"

"None about you." She shakes her head. He might not mean to second-guess her, but she already knows it will probably be a while before he'll be able to stop. This is all even more sudden for him than it is for her; at least she had the time to plan this date! Megamind had no idea ANY of this was coming. "I just still can’t believe this is the easiest and most bulletproof way to get this done. It's awful. You cannot be the only one out there in this predicament, and it's a horrible predicament to be in, so…no, I don’t think I would say I have reservations, but…if, if I seem upset, or reserved, it’s just—this never should have been necessary. I am so relieved to have found a solution this quickly but I am also so angry that it's necessary."

"Ah," he says. "Yes. I see."

"You deserve a real proposal," she says flatly. "You deserve a, a ring, and a full relationship, and a sense of certainty. Excitement for the future. Not—just—papers. Not just papers and fear."

He's quiet, and Roxanne huffs a sigh through her nose and focuses on the road. Or tries to. At least. 

Everything is quiet, now. It’ll pick up a little in the city, she knows—even past midnight, Metro never sleeps. But here, half an hour or so down the highway outside of town, it’s mostly just them and the salted, plowed road, and the snow, and the traffic signals.

After a while, she adds, "And it kills me that you don't know that."

He's quiet for a while.

"I think I used to," he says, eventually. "I remember, I…used to believe that." He pauses. Frowns. Slowly says, "I don’t remember when I stopped."

Roxanne shakes her head.

Megamind swallows. "But, but see this my way," he says. "It's…Miss…Roxanne. It isn't just papers."

"It is! And it's awful! HOW is this the first time you're hearing this possibility? Any decent human being would—"

"No," he says, "they wouldn't. And you said why, yourself. Earlier."

She glances over at him, and he gathers himself. "It isn't just papers," he says, trying to keep his voice from wobbling. "It is—also—frankly—a truly breathtaking amount of trust. That if you ever want to get divorced, I—a supervillain, AND one with a documented history of exploiting you—I will not make it difficult for you. Trust that I will be—worth—the risk, and the paperwork, and the time it takes to stay married long enough to qualify for a divorce that doesn't turn around and undo everything we worked for. You know this. Roxanne."

She grumbles acknowledgement.

"It is not just papers. It's—it is my life." He touches her wrist again, gently this time, and she immediately takes her hand off the wheel and slots her fingers back into the spaces between his. Megamind squeezes. "You will be taking," his voice cracks, "an enormous legal risk to give me my life back. And I couldn't even realize it was missing."

Roxanne shakes her head.

"You are," he insists. "You…you asked, earlier, what I do besides villainy. I told you, I told you, I do not have much. Little twiddly-fiddly springley clockwork things, and while I am making them, I am still thinking about villainy, do you understand? Villainy, or the city."

He swallows and pulls away. "I barely sleep. I hate it. I don't sleep if I can avoid it," he tells her; "sleep is exhausting and my dreams are often horrendous. Even just trying to sleep is exhausting. I lie down and all I can think of is—bigger, badder, what's next, what's the plan, how do I come out ahead if not on top, how do I keep up the show. I can't…I can't stop! It hurts when I stop! If I don't have something to do, something to look at or think about or talk about, I can't—I can't, I don't know how.

"But." He bites his lip. "When you said, you found our loophole. The first…my first thought was…oh. Maybe I can rest."

Roxanne glances over at him, startled. He's staring down at his hands, picking sharply at the edges of his nails, eyebrows up in agitation.

"I don't know what that means," he says, "but I wasn't expecting it. I would not have expected that to be first. I don't know what it means."

"…I think probably it means you're tired," she offers, after a moment.

Megamind shakes his head. "I don't know," he says. "I don't know. I don't…know why you needed to know all of that. Can we listen to the radio?"

Roxanne wordlessly turns it on. It's a different vibe this time, more uptempo. 

—to sing, sing at the top of your voice, love without fear in your heart—and feel. Feel like you still have a choice—

"Oh, I should tell you," she says, thinking, choices. Megamind glances over at her.

—if we all light up, we can—scare away the dark—

Heck of a lyric. "If we get you settled," she says, turning the music down a little bit, "and you still want villainy, that's absolutely okay with me. I'm not doing this because I want you to be different. I just want you to be able to do what you want to do."

"Noted. Thank you."

On the radio, the guy is singing about what mom and dad said to do, expectations and whatnot, and oh hey, that's also a decent change of subject, probably, she thinks maybe. 

"What did you want to do when you were little?" she asks.

Megamind frowns at her. "Huh?"

"Before all that…stuff happened," she glances over at him, "when you were really little. What did you want to do when you grew up?"

"When I was really little?"

"Yeah! I wanted to be a ballerina, what did you want?" 

He’s quiet for a few seconds.

"I wanted to be Superman."

It's so unexpected that she barks a laugh, but her heart still twists hard as that sinks in. The implications. Especially considering who his rival is. "No, sorry, I'm not laughing at you," she quickly says, "it's just—sorry, that caught me by surprise. Oh, no. Really?"

"Last child of a dead species under a lost star," he says, with a twist of a half-smile. "Sent to Earth to grow up, with gifts beyond what humans can do. I didn't have his powerset, of course, but…" He trails off, shrugs. "Uncle Davy took me to see Superman in theaters when I was two and it was all I could talk about for ages. It was what got me talking at all, honestly. He brought comic books for me after that, every week. Every week."

He sighs. "And then I met Mister Goody Two Shoes, and…well. There was Superman! Obviously! And obviously in need of a Luthor, a Brainiac, a worthy challenger, and…well…" He presses his hand to his chest, twirls his wrist. His voice changes slightly. "Clearly I fit the bill! So. Yes, I originally wanted to be Superman, but as the position was filled and no one was interested in anything I had to offer in that or any other area, I simply…gave the people what they wanted. Instead."

Roxanne bites her lip.

There was. An awful lot he skipped over, in that 'and then.' She's not going to mention it, not specifically, but she couldn't help but notice.

"Megamind," she says, "that was a really good interview response, but you've never been a people pleaser. What really happened?"

He drops his hands and sends her a dirty look. "I don't like you," he complains. "What do you think happened? I was bored to tears in school, I had no friends. I was safe enough in prison but outside I was on my own, and this world mostly seems to want me dead, so. I was the quiet kid who smoked every available minute of the day and would have had perfect grades without trying if my teachers had not hated me, and by high school if you looked at me wrong I would find a way to hurt you and I would do it. The only person capable of stopping me was Metro Douche. The only people who dared fuck with me were his friends. I WANTED to please people, I TRIED to please people, but that was the one thing I could not figure out how to do, so I threw in the towel on being liked and went the villain route instead. If I couldn't be Superman then at least I could be Lex Luthor. Why do you want to marry this? I am a mess, Roxanne."

"Because you're Lex Luthor if Luthor was Batman."

He opens his mouth to argue—

—and then he closes it. He wrinkles his face the way he always does when he knows she's right and he doesn't like it.

"Aghngnnnghhhh," he says.

"And you're fun!" she tells him. "You're Batman, but you've got some of his villains' sense of fun and whimsy. You see things in ways I forgot existed, I…" She shakes her head. "There is so much wonder in you," she says. "Tonight was the most fun I've ever had just looking at flowers! You see how they grow, how their leaves are arranged, their root structures! I felt like a kid again, looking at all that! I love it! And you deserve to be able to do what you want to do, so—"

"Why do I deserve that—"

"Because everyone does." She sends him a Look. "Everyone deserves that. And no, not everyone can actually do it, but that is a gross injustice and really unfortunate. Megamind," she says, making a conscious effort to come down because oops that had all come out way sharper than she had wanted it to, "I'm not going to try to convince you. But I am better-rested and better-organized than you, and I will outlast your stubborn blue butt on this."

"Fine," he sighs. "Fine. You…fine. What do you like to do on the weekends?"

She blinks. "Weekends?"

"You asked about my early-childhood career aspirations, I am asking about your hobbies again. Do you, do you go…bowling, ice skating? You have your cat shelter." He pauses, then ventures, "Clubbing?"

Roxanne sighs inwardly, but she laughs a little and doesn’t push it. Those were dangerous waters, and…well, she definitely has more to say, but also oh thank goodness, a distraction. The rest can wait. "God, clubbing! I used to go out pretty regularly for a while but no, I haven't gone to a club in years."

He stills, blinking at her. "Oh. Why did you stop?"

"It was never really my scene? I had fun, don't get me wrong," she shrugs, "but it was just something to do with friends. Eileen was super into it, I used to go with her before she got with her boyfriend."

Megamind makes a sound of what she thinks might be tentative interest, and she glances over at him. "Have you ever gone out to a club?" she teases. 

To her surprise, he replies, "I have indeed. Mostly in disguise, of course, but. Any, ah…memorable experiences?" Roxanne tilts her head, and he shrugs. "Everyone seems to have at least one."

He isn’t wrong, but…he seems…like he’s fishing. "I’ve had a few," she hedges, squinting out the windshield, trying to figure out his angle. 

"Favorite one?"

She takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment. Bites her lip.

But finally she figures what the hell, why not, she might as well. He'll reveal whatever it is he's really asking when he's ready.

"Is it weird to tell your new partner about the one that got away," she says, and Megamind's face goes shocked and then gleeful. 

"Oh," he says, in the voice that means wiggly eyebrows, and then he sings, "Stoooorytiiiime," and she laughs again.

"I don't know if I can even really call him that," she admits. "It’s not like I actually asked him out. I was downtown with Eileen and a couple of her other friends, years ago. And we were, you know, having fun. Girls night. We were at this place called the Jitterbug—yeah, yeah, you can laugh; it was definitely kind of a retro theme but they had really good music—we were dancing by ourselves or with whoever. But we, um, eventually we were all kind of hanging around near the DJ, and…there was this guy standing alone. Standing with his back to the wall, looking…I don't know. Lost, I guess? Kinda sad? He looked lonely, really. I assume he came with someone and they went off and left him, but…he was cute. And I was checking him out, and I guess Eileen was, too, because I caught her eye and she was like, if you don't dance with the sad guy, I'm gonna.

"So I thought, sure, why not. Maybe try and brighten this dude's night and have some fun. If he gets handsy or something, I can always ditch him. I—"

"Is this a thing for you, then?" Megamind sounds deeply amused. "Rescuing sad men from bad dates?"

Roxanne pauses, blinking. "Oh! Um…well, I…wouldn’t have said it was, but…maybe?" She laughs a little. "I don’t know, I just, I see someone having a bad time and sometimes I want to see if I can help it be a good time." She shrugs again. "Anyway. I went up to him and I said, dance with me! and he was like, WHAT???? because holy shit it was loud, and I was like, DANCE WITH ME!!!!! and he still didn’t seem to understand, so I figured, okay…body language."

Megamind snorts.

"So I, you know, turned around and…danced. On him. A bit. He got the memo pretty quickly. Um." She sweeps her hair to the side, embarrassed, and sort of half-laughs. When she glances over at her partner again, Megamind’s lips are twitching and his eyes are twinkling at her, and she feels her ears heat. It feels weird to be saying any of this to Megamind, but hey, he ASKED, and at least he doesn't look put off. "But, but honestly, he was…really unexpectedly sweet? Um. You know, you go up to a strange guy in a club and start dancing on him, you kind of don’t expect…much? But this dude…I had to reach behind me and grab his hands and put them on my hips. And I kept looking back, like, is he actually even into this? But he didn’t push me away, and after I got his hands on my hips he did actually start to, you know, move with me and everything."

"You got your point across, yes," Megamind says, still sounding like he's trying hard not to laugh.

"I guess I must have! And his hands only wandered once and not even very far, and I just kinda moved them back to my hips and they did not wander again, so…we just…kept dancing. Eventually the DJ announced final song, and, and I felt my guy kind of hesitate, and…then he spun me around and caught me, pulled me against him. So we danced the last one face to face, it was great. I had still been a little unsure, because I couldn’t actually tell, um, if he was—if he was having a hard time, as it were—" Megamind snorts and she laughs again, self-conscious— "but also he seemed into it enough with my back to him, and then when he turned me around, he was definitely into it. He kept his eyes down but he was kind of smiling and kind of breathless—"

"I can’t imagine why."

"—and he finally actually did put his hands on my ass, which was, you know, fine by me. And, um. And it was really nice! And then the lights came up, and…god. I wanted, I wanted to give him my number, but I had already convinced myself not to, for…reasons, it’s a long story, but ugh, I have regretted it ever since. I couldn’t get him out of my head, I mean, it’s been like eight years and I’m still thinking about him." She sighs. "Anyway. The lights came up, and the music stopped, and…"

She trails off, trying to think of how to say this next part without giving Megamind the wrong idea. The last thing she wants is for him to think she’s going to walk off and leave him if she sees that guy again, but—

"And you kissed him," Megamind says. Startled, Roxanne looks over at him. He’s grinning, and speaking with an odd combination of wistfulness and glee. "On the corner of his mouth. And you said, thanks, and you ran your fingers down his chest as you turned away, and then you left. Linked arms with your friend and walked away. You looked over your shoulder at him once and then you disappeared and you never saw him again."

Roxanne stares at Megamind as best she can while driving.

"What," she says.

Smirking at her, Megamind taps his mouth, the corner of his lower lip on the right-hand side. "Just here."

"You’re JOKING," she says, and he laughs.

"No. You danced with me all night, you kissed me and you thanked me with a smile like the goddamned Mona Lisa, and then you walked away," he says. His teeth flash in his cheshire-cat grin in the dark car. "I bought that club, you know," he says. Roxanne is staring at him, dumbfounded. "When it went up for sale. I went back so many times, hoping you would come back. But you never did. Eventually I decided I had simply been forgettable, but—"

"What? I did come back!" she exclaims, reeling. He recoils at that, raising his eyebrows at her. "I did! I came back! I came back every weekend for, like, a month, looking for you!"

He’s gaping at her now as well. "You—you did? You did?" She nods, and he beams and does a little wiggle with his shoulders. "You did! I was looking, too! But I didn’t see you."

"Couldn't you have put the brainbots out looking for me?" 

"What could I tell them? They were all still quite new, and I didn’t know who you were. ‘Be on the lookout for a tall brunette with an amazing ass’?"

Roxanne barks a laugh. "I’m five three."

"Not in those heels, you weren’t," he says, fervent. "Do you still have that dress? Because I could feel every single stitch of lace under that thing, and…holy hell, I didn’t have any interest in lace prior to that night but ohhhh, I definitely do now." He shivers; Roxanne sees him do it.

"Oh? Noted," she purrs, grinning despite her swirling shock. She remembers the dress she was wearing—it was not really standard clubbing fare, it was ankle-length. But it was also cobweb-thin and it clung in all the best ways, in all the right places; she used to get quite a bit of attention in it. "I do still have that dress, it just so happens. It'll probably be a little tighter now, but I bet it'll still fit."

Megamind makes a small, punched-out noise.

"And I do still wear lace, on occasion. I’ll wear both for you sometime soon," she promises, coy, and that gets a noise like ah—! and oh ho ho, that is VERY gratifying.

Megamind clears his throat. "You were a vision," he tells her, gazing at her with an extremely goofy smile on his face. "You truly were. The dress, and the shoes, and that lipstick, and your hair…I believe the term is, ‘awooga’?"

Roxanne bursts into bright laughter. "Oh my god, I can’t believe that was you!"

"It was!" He scoots around in his seat to face her better, eyes alight. "You asked me, once, back when I started using you in my plans, why I chose you. Do you remember what I told you?"

"You said my work had caught your eye," she says. Then she grins. "You also warned me not to dig any further than I had already dug."

"Mm, yes. Well. That was the truth, of course," he winks at her, "but it may not have been the WHOLE truth."

"Oh, my god," she says again, touching her mouth and stifling another laugh as she realizes what must have happened. "You saw me on TV, and…"

"Yes, the whole truth is you rescued me from myself in a club and disappeared, and then I just HAPPENED to see you on the television two years later and I was so startled that I accidentally clipped my thumb to the cables I was securing. Suddenly my phantom Cinderella had a name! and a profession! and THEN I discovered she was BRILLIANT and she had already been following my activities as Overlord for months and very cleverly covering her tracks—you can imagine my conflicting feelings about that!—and now tonight I find out she is not actually the Cinderella in this story at all, I am." 

"I love a happy ending!" She pauses, still half-laughing, then adds, "Although…I guess it’s a beginning for us, isn’t it? Still sort of a fairytale beginning, though, yeah."

He looks over at her with his brows up in apparent surprise, and then he reaches over and nets his long, cold fingers with Roxanne’s again. She’s all too happy to take one hand off the wheel to hold onto his; the hardest part of driving home with him right now is that she cannot cuddle him while doing so.

(Holy shit. Holy shit? Her missed connection was Megamind, all those years ago? The odds feel incredible, but…but maybe they aren’t, after all. If he was looking for her, if he remembered her from that night at the Jitterbug, then it isn’t a coincidence at all that he found her. And hadn’t she thought of him earlier tonight? Less than an hour ago? Her mystery man who looked at her like she hung the moon, just the same way Megamind did?)

"It is," he says. "It is a beginning. And—and yes—yes. This does feel like a fairy story, from where I am sitting, I must say."

Roxanne sends him a smile as she squeezes his hand. "I’m glad. You deserve a happily ever after."

He hesitates, then squeezes back, sweeps his thumb back and forth over her skin.

"Maybe," he says.

"You do!" she insists, heart twisting. She can't help it; she’s still reeling in delight over this latest revelation but she also remembers how terribly lost he had looked all those years ago, how lonely, and rescued me from myself hurt to hear. She can't help but to try and insist. "Please, sweetheart, you know you do. You know you do—you want it to be true, I know you do, you’re just—you’re just scared of what it means. If you deserve better."

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him jerk backwards. He snatches his hand away. "I'm not scared!" His voice pitches mockingly high. "Ooo, so scary! Why would I be scared of that."

"Because I know you," she says. "And you—Megamind, you wish the world was just. And if you deserve better, then it would mean you did not deserve any of what has been done to you." She shakes her head hard, gripping the wheel so her knuckles go white. "It would mean what happened to you was wrong. It would mean you were right to be angry, you were right to try and escape, you were right," her voice cracks and suddenly there are tears in her eyes, fuck fuck fuck oh no, "to want to scream and cry about it! It would mean you were hurt for no good reason!"

"Roxanne—"

"And you WERE hurt for no good reason! I don't even know how to process that much hurt! I don't know how! No SHIT you told yourself you didn’t deserve any better," she rakes her wrist across her eyes, she can't seem to stop herself anymore, everything is shaky and all her carefully-maintained control is cracking, "I don't know how you could stand to live in a world where you did! But you did! You do!"

"Roxanne I am the reason most transplant recipients no longer have to remain on immunosuppressants for years," he says, sharp. "I am the reason sickle-cell blood disorders are as treatable as they are, I am the reason cognition can often be partially or entirely restored after what used to be catastrophic brain injuries. I am the reason we don't lose our elders to Alzheimer's anymore. All of those were me," he says tightly. "And I do happen to think they are good reasons."

"Why does ANY OF THAT mean they had to hurt you!"

Her voice was much louder and sharper-edged than she meant it to be. Megamind startles away. "What—"

"Why! Why did they HAVE to hurt you to get that stuff! Megamind! WHY!"

"I—they—you weren't there!" he protests. "You don't—it was, they didn't—"

"They didn't! They didn't have to!" She shakes her head wildly back and forth, volume rising. "They did not fucking have to hurt you! Taking the time to figure out how to do it without hurting you might have been expensive, and difficult, and time-consuming, but they could have done it! They could have and they didn't! Why!"

"They—I don't—"

"Because it was CHEAP!" She's halfway screaming. Her voice breaks. "Because hurting you was CHEAP! It was EASY! You were a child with no rights! and I do not know what the FUCK they said to you that made you think what they were doing was ever necessary, but THEY LIED! Megamind! They LIED! They hurt you because it was easy and cheap and there was no one to stop them! They never HAD to do it! And they put a, a thing inside you so they would be able to force you to let them keep doing it! They NEVER had to do that! Tell me I'm wrong!"

He's silent.

"Tell me I'm wrong!" she cries, slamming the heel of her hand against the wheel with each word for emphasis. "Megamind! Tell me I'm wrong!"

He shakes his head.

"Fuck!" she cries, scrubbing at her eyes again. "God! They—fucking—it should never have happened, it should never have happened! I don't care what good came out of it! I don't care! It was sick!"

"There's a gas station," Megamind says, very quietly. "Pull over. Before we get on the highway."

Roxanne sniffs hard and nods, and puts her blinker on with a trembling hand, and pulls into the parking lot.

"Wait here."

Megamind does something to his watch and the next thing Roxanne knows, the man sitting next to her is a black human with locs pulled back from his face, and he's getting out of the car and briskly walking into the gas station.

Roxanne puts her forehead on the steering wheel between her hands and sobs.

She already cried earlier. While Megamind was melting down, she cried with him then. But. She had been focused on getting him through it. And she very decidedly had been trying not to think about what he had said.

And she could have handled it, is the thing. She had not wanted to lose her temper that way, had not wanted to shout. If the worst of it was simply what Megamind told her tonight, she's sure she could have handled it. Processed it in therapy later, maybe. But. No. The worst part is not what the fuck happened to him as a child, the worst part is his inability to agree that he deserved anything better. He hasn't said he deserved what happened, thank heavens for that…but he also can't admit he at least deserves better? What is with that? And to focus on the public good that came of it…well, at least he has something good to look at, but to speak as though the ends can possibly justify the disgusting means—

(To feel the need to ask his partner if they would sing to him if they ever—needed to—if he should ever need them to—)

Her door handle clicks, and Roxanne throws off her seatbelt and bolts to her feet and flings her arms around Megamind's shoulders and buries her face against his neck and the woolen collar of his illusion's coat, and finally just gives up and cries.

Megamind wraps his arms around her and holds on. Rests his cheek on her hair. A crinkly plastic bag bumps against her hip with something sharp-cornered in it, but she can't care, she can't; she's holding one of the most incredible people she's ever met in her life and he doesn't know what he's worth and she loves him so much and he has been hurt so badly and she cannot fucking be anything except incandescently furious and sick with horror and rage over it.

Finally, though, she is able to heave in enough air to hiccup, "You, you did deserve-deserve better, you al-you always did," and Megamind sighs.

He leans back, and rustles around in the bag, and then he puts a box of tissues into Roxanne’s hands.

"I did," he finally says, very quietly. "I did, didn't I."

She grips the box hard in one hand, seizes his arm hard enough with her other hand that he winces. "You still do! You still-you still do!"

His lips thin. She keeps talking.

"You deserve—this whole, this whole date, all of it—you deserve nice things! You should be treat-treated well! With respect! You should have someone who loves you making you feel special sometimes, you should—you should have—the—basic ability to choose a career other than supervillain! You should never EVER have to worry about whether someone is going to cut off your fucking fingers! Never NEVER ever!"

His expression does soften and fall into uncertainty at that. Roxanne keeps going, tears rolling down her cheeks. "You deserve these things! You do! Because everyone does! And it's okay, it's okay if you can't believe it yet. It's o-it's okay." She shakes her head and claws at the tissue box until she's able to get one free and blow her nose in it. "But I am going to keep telling you," she says, still hiccuping. "I will out-stubborn you. I warn you. I will. I'm a bulldog. You do deserve better and I will never stop telling you. I will never stop fighting you on this, I am going to win this. I'm going to win. I'm going to."

Megamind touches her chin and she looks at him, shoulders hitching. Standing in the slush of the parking lot, aching with love and secondhand pain, shivering with tears and with cold.

"Thank you," he says, "please do," and he leans forward and brushes a soft kiss over the corner of her mouth. Exactly, exactly where she kissed him, the first time she ever kissed him, years and years and years before she loved him. Before he ever knew her name.

Then he says, gentle, before she can burst all the way into tears all over again, "Roxanne. Would you like me to drive?"

Roxanne glances back at the car and wipes her eyes on her sleeve. Megamind's sleeve. "Would-would you mind?" He pulls a tissue from the box and hands it to her. She blots at her eyes. "That would…yes, please, thank-thank you. Sorry."

He smiles and nods and shoos her around to the passenger side.

Then he jumps. "Oh! Wait no!"

Alarmed, startled, she freezes. Starts to look around for why he might have stopped her so suddenly.

"It's my turn! It's my turn, I get to do it!" He scampers back around the car, skidding a little bit and scrambling in his dress shoes on the snowy, icy pavement, and yanks her door open for her. "Ha!"

Roxanne splutters into tearful laughter. "Oh my god you're ridiculous," she groans, but she does sit. And she does manage a very thick, "Thank you, my darling clown," but she very nearly bursts back into tears at the way he is so fun, still, and so kind, and—

Megamind squeezes the space in front of his long nose and releases a gleeful metallic bark like a bicycle horn. And he closes the door while Roxanne is wheezing into unexpected hysterical laughter instead of tears. 

"Don't want clown noises, don't call me a clown," he says as he climbs into the driver's seat. Roxanne cackles into her hands and the tissue she's still holding.

(Megamind studies her for a moment, and then very carefully begins to rub a firm hand up and down her back. This is what one of his uncles used to do for him. It helped, he remembers.)

He only withdraws when her teary giggles finally begin to subside. "Also, I got you cookies," he tells her. "They're in the bag. I will require at least one as thanks for making you laugh."

"Oh, ow, my abs. Huh?" She opens the bag and sure enough, there are several packets of vanilla waffle cookies waiting for her. "Aw," she says, looking up at him in pleased surprise, still blinking back tears and sniffling despite her mirth, "you didn-you didn't have to do that!"

"No, but the man in there getting antifreeze said they are what he buys his wife when she's upset," Megamind says, backing out of their parking space and heading for the main road. "Those and the tissues with lotion in. And I thought, well, my—ah, my—wife—is upset. So, I will buy those things."

Roxanne looks down at the tissues. They do indeed claim to contain aloe and moisturizer. And they are very soft.

She looks back up at Megamind, who is staring fixedly out the windshield. He sounded chipper enough, but his eyes are just a little too wide and the lines at the corners of his mouth are deep.

"You're sweet," she says, voice cracking. "You're a good man."

"Nonsense! I simply did what is done."

"You're my good man," she says, and Megamind goes ulp and his tense, slightly nervous expression abruptly goes frying-panned. She gulps, too. Breathes deeply, releases her breath slowly. "So, um. Do we want to go with 'husband and wife' now, or wait until…?"

"Until we mean it?"

She nods. "Mm-hm, yeah. Oh, that's our ramp up there on the right."

"Ah." He's quiet for a bit.

Roxanne lets him think. She focuses on licking clean tissues and cleaning up what she's sure must be enormous smudges of eyeliner and mascara around her eyes. God, she feels like a mess, and Megamind was so sweet to handle her as he did.

Finally, as he merges them onto the highway, he says, "I never thought I would be a partner of any kind. Boyfriend is…a dream. A good dream. Husband…" He swallows. "I never dared. I woke up first. It didn't seem…it was beyond…anything."

Roxanne touches his shoulder, and he takes her hand and presses her knuckles first to his lips, then to his chest.

"Husband it is, then," she says, soft, "and we'll reassess as we go, if we need to. And I'm sorry for yelling."

"What?"

"I am sorry," she says, pulling away so she can blow her nose once more and then rummage for a packet of cookies, "for raising my voice at you. For losing my temper. I'm…tired. And feeling way more, um…way more fragile than usual. With everything. It got the better of me, I'm sorry."

Megamind sends her a completely bewildered expression at this. "You don't have to apologize," he says, sounding baffled. "You were upset. Being upset was not unreasonable."

"No, I know that," she says. "But I'm still sorry for yelling about it. Here."

"Ah! I see." He takes the cookie she passes him. "That's…okay? Thank you?"

She blows her nose again. "Yeah, I've…basically, I have been trying not to freak out about what you told me…pretty much ever since you told me. And don't you dare apologize," she blurts when he opens his mouth. He laughs instead, sounding taken aback. "Don't you dare. I am honored to have been told, I am so happy to have been trusted with your pain. I hope you can keep trusting me. But holy shit, sweetheart. Oh, my god."

"It was a lot," he says, after a moment. "It…really was. Wasn't it."

"Yeah." She snorts a very damp, very mirthless laugh. "Yeah, 'a lot' is probably the mildest description I can think of."

A couple of seconds pass, and then Megamind asks, "If I hadn't told you, would you still have offered marriage? To—to help me?"

"Not yet," she sighs. "I mean, I wouldn't have realized the need! The urgency! But I definitely still would be hoping to offer marriage in the future regardless." She reaches over and pokes his elbow, and he blinks over at her with a little smile. "I told you, remember? Forty-five years."

She groans a little and then curls down in her seat and puts her head on the center console. Megamind's hand on her shoulder makes her jump, but she reaches up and nets their fingers together before he can pull away.

"I only wish it was because we were ready," she says, with another very shuddery sigh. "I'm…sorry."

"Do not apologize for this," he says, fingers tightening on her shoulder. "Do not ever apologize for this. For wanting me to be…safe," he clears his throat, "for wanting to keep me safe, yourself. Please. Don't be sorry. And you said forty-five-ish years."

"Pedant," she says, fond. 

"I'm a correct pedant."

She grins. "Yes, well, now I know your weakness is cursed crustacean facts; you will never know peace. Pillbugs are also crustaceans." 

"What the FUCK is a pillbug."

Shocked, she looks up at him. "What do you mean, what's a pillbug? You know, woodlice! Roly polys, sowbugs, doodlebugs? I have a friend in Surrey who calls them cheesy bobs. Here," she pulls out her phone and looks them up so she can hopefully hide her bubble of mirth at the way his whole face scrunches as he mouths cheesy bobs into the dark of the car. "Yeah, here! These."

He glances at the screen and then glares thunderously down at Roxanne for a moment before returning his attention to the empty road. "Pillbugs are not crustaceans."

"They are, too! What would you think they are?"

"Insects!"

"Too many legs to be insects."

He pauses, blinking out the windshield, then exclaims, "I hate this!"

"Why? They’re basically just shrimps! Little tiny land shrimps that can roll up into spheres! They’re terrestrial isopods!"

"You’re a terrestrial isopod!"

"I don’t have enough LEGS to be a terrestrial isopod!"

"And thank evil for that," he says. Roxanne snorts.

"You can thank my parents for that, actually."

"I can thank your entire evolutionary lineage for that," he says, "and I do. No more crab facts please."

"You know there are more crustaceans than just crabs—"

"YES, SO I HEAR. Ugh, WHY are you like this?"

"Because I love you," she says, laughing despite how thick her throat still feels. "And I thought I lost you years ago in that club, and now I find out you've been here the whole time, and I want to share everything with you. Especially crab facts! I didn't think I would ever find a topic I know more about than you!"

He grumbles. 

"Consider them your penance for not telling me who you were," she says loftily, laying her head back down again. Her seat belt is stabbing her in the ribs but that's okay. "Were you ever going to?" 

He shrugs, and she can hear the grin in his voice when he speaks. "I tried to think of how to do it, but it just seemed creepy, no matter how I phrased it. And—truly, I nearly forgot it, after a while. I stopped thinking about it! You became so much more than just the girl who made me start to question my sexuality."

Roxanne blinks. "Oh no," she realizes. "Oh that's right, you would have still been thinking of yourself as gay at that point! Oh, shit, that never even occurred to me, I am so sorry."

He snorts. "I was somewhat shocked at my, hm, responses to you, yes," he says, wry. "But most of my initial hesitancy was simply…most people were ignoring me. They looked right through me. I went out that night because I knew they would do that, because I knew I would be…nothing. But you…didn't…let me." He shakes his head. "You came up to me and you didn't leave until the lights came on. You stayed with me. I started to move my hands and you didn't want me to do that but you didn't lash out or walk away, you just showed me where you wanted me instead and you stayed. And for me, at that time…" He trails off, still shaking his head. "That was revolutionary. I couldn't use clubs after that. Not well. People would ignore me and I would be angry instead of feeling dead; I would remember you and I would think why was that one different, and…well. Eventually someone else did something similar, even gave me her number afterwards, and after that I was done. I was just done. I never went back."

"I told you, there's nothing wrong with you," Roxanne says sleepily. "There really isn't. Really. Seems like a lot of people've tried to get you to think there was, but…it wasn't true. And you said yourself, you used to believe that. You can believe it again."

He's quiet for a long time, after that. 

Can she be right? Is there…really nothing wrong with him? He isn't human; is that…really okay? 

It's easiest and most comfortable to tell himself what everyone else has told him: that the way he lives scorned and reviled is the necessary, natural order of things. His destiny. The alternative—what Roxanne has been describing—is terrifying. But he does remember, though he hates it—he remembers lying awake at night as a young adult, consumed with the persistence of memory and the horrible claustrophobic feeling of the cage he felt the world building around him. The cage he was forced back into each time he ever tried to leave. Surely it was not the natural order of things, for him to be caged that way. Everything in him raged against it, for so long. 

But it is easier, even now, to focus on the world he can see through the bars. If he presses his face against them, he can't even see that they are bars, at all. He can pretend it is a window he's looking through, he can imagine there are no bars and he is not trapped and to stay is a choice he is making.

Roxanne is asking him to look at the bars. Asking him to acknowledge them. To look at his own powerlessness. Megamind HATES looking at his own powerlessness—

—but. Also. 

Also, she has opened the door.

She walked right up and ripped it open and offered him some of the contact and affection for which he has been so starved for so long, and now the door is open and Roxanne is standing in the doorway and assembling tools to break the lock so he will never be trapped again.

"Why did you want to do this," he murmurs without meaning to. 

Roxanne had been dozing on the center console, but now her fingers twitch in his. "Hmmm?" 

"Tonight," he says. "Why did you—want—to do this? For me? In the first place?" He swallows. "You said at dinner it was just to give me a good night, a nice date. But later you said you wanted to keep me safe. You didn't realize you wanted me yet, romantically, so then why…?" 

"Mmm. Oh." She yawns. "A few reasons. I think we already talked about most of them? But I think," she stretches a little, "I think really it comes down to…last year freaked you out so badly. You were acting off for months. And then I realized you were going to do the auction again anyway?" She shakes her head and sits up. "Someone like you, someone as resourceful and canny and, and defiant as you, walking himself onto the gallows? No. Something was really wrong, and I couldn't leave you up to chance. I couldn't live with myself if I did that. I had to do something." 

He swallows. "I am so glad you did."

"Me, too," she says. "Me, too. This isn't how I pictured my night going, but…fuck it. I am not leaving you to die."

He jerks in shock at her phrasing. "I might not be—"

"I don't care," she snarls, savage. "'Might' isn't good enough. You've made a home for yourself in your corner and it's a damned good one, but it's still a fucking corner. I am not leaving you there alone."

Megamind's heart crawls back up into his throat again.

"You are so good to me," he tells her, not for the first time. And he swallows, and silently resolves to try to stop harping on it.

He takes the exit towards Metro City. In the passenger seat, Roxanne has bent over and is rustling around in the plastic bag again. 

"Like I said before, I'm glad someone is finally being good to you," she says, muffled, "and I'm glad 'someone' is me. Aha! Get out from under my seat." She straightens, holding the tissue box, and she pulls a couple tissues out and puts them on his leg. 

Then she offers him a little packet. "Have a cookie, sweetheart," she says with a tired grin. "We're going to be okay. Everything," she says, "is going to be okay soon. And it's okay if you have to keep asking. I get it."

He can almost believe it. Almost, if she's the one saying it. Megamind might never be truly safe, not really, but Roxanne’s smile when he reaches over and wiggles one of the vanilla cookies free of its wrapper in a shower of dust and crumbs might, maybe, be bright enough to light a path to a safer life.

He bites his cookie, chews contemplatively.

In the passenger seat, Roxanne glances over at him with mischief glinting in her eyes as she says, "Did you know Japanese spider crabs span twelve and a half feet from one front claw to the other?" and Megamind blows crumbs across the dashboard.

"No more crab facts!" 

Chapter Text

It's nearly two in the morning by the time they pull into the garage for Roxanne’s building. She doesn't have her own car, of course, but the parking rate for guests isn't terrible for one night. Nothing she'd want to pay regularly, but it's fine.

Fiddling with the band of his watch, Megamind hesitates as Roxanne locks the car. But she takes his hand in the echo of its cheerful I'm-Locked! chirp, and smiles at him.

"Leave it," she says, leading him towards the elevator. "I like your face."

"But if someone sees—"

"Then I make pleasant conversation until they go away," she says. "Please, sweetheart. Give me some credit, I am pretty decent at setting people at their ease."

He makes a sound of grumbly agreement, and she grins.

"Besides, it's ass o'clock." She yawns through the ding! of the elevator. "Most everyone in my building is asleep. Come on."

His hand in hers is exceptionally stiff, but he doesn't argue. He is deep in thought, and it is awfully late.

Awfully late, and he's been off his feet for more than half an hour now. The pain in his heels that was so easily ignored while he was walking around in the conservatory and the parking lot is no longer a shadow, it is bright and sharp and sears into his feet with every move. As they step out of the elevator at Roxanne’s floor, Megamind—not stumbles, he doesn't stumble, he just—limps, suddenly, on both feet. Compensates with his knees a little too hard instead of walking normally. He doesn't hide it quickly enough.

"Whoa! You good?"

"Fine," he says, waving her concern away. He straightens. "My feet. Wet socks, that's all. I'll be fine."

"Okay," she says, but she does not sound convinced.

He walks with her to her door, keeping his gait as normal as possible despite how it peels and pulls at him. He is quite good at hiding pain, but…

…it's harder, for some reason, tonight. Harder to do. Roxanne unlocks her door and Megamind follows her inside and gasp-whines before he can catch himself, and Roxanne stops and stares at him.

"You are not fine," she says. "Go sit down, for heaven's sake! Take off your shoes and socks."

He nods, and he lets himself limp and bend his knees more on his way to the sofa. It rankles his pride a little but honestly it's mostly just a relief; that's…weird.

"I'll go grab the band aids," Roxanne says, unzipping and stepping out of her own shoes. "Can you handle neosporin? Um, and…should I offer to make you coffee, or…?"

"Yes to the neosporin, best not to the coffee," he says. He pulls his shoes off, wincing. "Ah. Shit, hfffsss… You really don't have to," he starts to add, but Roxanne has already disappeared up the stairs to her loft.

Megamind sighs and peels off his cold, damp socks. He's glad Roxanne is away for this part; he could have straight-faced it but—

Oh, he realizes, his teeth in his lip and a high whine of pain in his nose as his second sock comes free. Oh. Right. This is Roxanne. 

This is Roxanne, and he really is fully comfortable with her. He shouldn't be, god, he shouldn't be; to relax is such a risk, to relax is to invite pain. He should still hide. Relationship or no. Part of him still recoils from the thought of Roxanne seeing him vulnerable, has been recoiling from that thought all night. Logically, rationally, he should not trust her. He should still hide. But…

That part of him is tired. Exhausted from being betrayed so many times, and still aching to trust. 

This has always been his curse: to believe what he is told, to want so badly to trust and be trusted. He doesn’t want to hide. Has never wanted to, especially not from Roxanne, and he is reaching the point now where he doesn't think he could hide himself from her if he wanted to. Even earlier tonight, half out of his mind with stress and the echo of pain from down the years, he had thought—no, not Roxanne. She would not hurt him. She would not. He loves her.

And in the elevator, just a minute ago—oh, the elevator had nearly gone very badly. Megamind had stood with Roxanne’s hand in his and the stupid nothing music playing in his ears and thought—small box, alone, she could tase him so easily—

But this is Roxanne, he had snarled at himself.

Doorman saw him with her, she could say he did anything after the fact—

This is Roxanne.

Seventeen floors, nowhere to run once he's inside and cornered—

This is Roxanne.

He had stood. And he had said nothing. Her hand was so warm in his, the brush of her arm and the curve of her hip at his side were so electrifying—so familiar and so new—and safe, she was safe, he was safe with her. And when she had yawned, and looked over at him with laughter in her eyes and in her voice, and said, "It's probably a good thing we didn't stay all the way until two. I'm sorry, I know you wanted to, but you'll have to put me to bed if I stay up much later as it is! Thanks for driving the last leg. You doing okay?" Megamind had felt like the most foolish person in the world.

"I am still the best I have ever been," he had declared, smiling and shoving his hissing mind into the background where it belonged. "And I am happy to be home earlier than planned. Although I fail to see any problem with tucking you in," he added, daring to bump her with his elbow, and Roxanne had beamed and moved closer still, put her free hand on his arm and her head on his shoulder with a sound of small pleasure, and Megamind's heart had nearly burst with light. He loves her.

This is why.

This, and everything else about the beautiful reality of her, of course, but—he does not have to hide, he does not WANT to hide. He had told himself at the restaurant, just for tonight, he can let himself have this just for tonight. Just for tonight, everything is off the record—Roxanne had said it was and Megamind had taken her words and swallowed them down into his heart and trusted them. Had been so tired and wanted so badly to trust them that he went all-in and threw all caution to the winds and hurled his battered heart at Roxanne with all his strength because it hurts, it hurts, and it does not fucking matter anymore because why does he matter, why bother fighting it, it doesn't matter, he doesn't matter—just for tonight he can throw his heart at her and then he can go home and piece it back together when she drops it and it breaks—it doesn't matter—

—but Roxanne caught him. At every turn, she caught him and took him in stride and cradled his lonesome, patched-together heart and told him, Yes. You Do.

You're worth it, she said. You're a miracle, she said. You deserve better.

Megamind doesn't know about deserve, but he knows he trusts Roxanne. And miracles…

The odds of surviving the things he has survived are astronomical. Quite literally astrally huge. Megamind should be dead so many times. He can understand why his survival might seem miraculous.

But he didn't survive alone, is the thing. He had his parents, who sent him away. He had his uncles, who kept him. Who raised him. He had members of his uncles' families, in some cases. He had his warden. His doctor at the prison. Even Metro Man, once, back when they were teenagers—he found Megamind trapped and dying and he freed him, helped him up, helped him breathe, and got him home and safe. And Minion, always Minion, over and over and over and over again. 

Megamind has lived his life alone in so many ways, but he would not have lived at all if someone had not thought he was worth saving. Every time he has hit rock bottom but once, someone has seen him and crawled down there with him and helped him to get out. Sometimes painfully, sometimes angrily, and never without effort on Megamind's part—but they have helped him reach enough solid ground that he could pull himself up the rest of the way. Because they decided he was worth it. 

Megamind has never survived alone but once, and that once was exactly one year ago tonight. He survived that only by the skin of his teeth and the speed with which he metabolizes sedatives, and even surviving had felt like it destroyed him. Larissa had been kind to him. Interested. She had plied him with questions and laughter, had let him begin to relax, and then she had betrayed him in almost the worst way he can think of, because he was worth nothing to her beyond her own entertainment and what value he carries in his genetics. And frankly, he did not need that shit! Megamind has known his whole life that he is only worth as much as he can build and bleed; he did not need her to remind him. Realizing she had also seen the truth of it, and realizing he could do nothing to defend himself against her, even to himself…it had very nearly killed him.

Rock bottom again, and finally alone.

But somehow, somehow Roxanne saw him down there, curled up on the rocks and too tired to climb, and she more than just climbed down to him. She brought a helicopter and search lights and rock climbing gear to get out, she brought water and food and fun. She listened and let him show her his anchor. The weight of it.

And then she stood up and said, come on. Let's get you free and cover up this hole so you won't fall in again. You are worth it. I will help you carry that. Belay on. 

And she had got him out. Megamind has never survived alone. 

Maybe that's the miracle. 

Megamind sits on Roxanne’s sofa in her home, unarmored, with her clock in his ears and his blood in his shoes, and gazes into the middle distance, thinking…

…Huh.

Maybe he is worth it. 

When Roxanne comes back downstairs with a tube and a box in hand, Megamind is sitting with his bare feet on her floor and his long skinny body half-reclined and his head tipped back on the back of her sofa and one arm thrown over his eyes.

She laughs. "Asleep already?"

He hums. "Not even a little bit." He lifts his head, blinking at her as his eyes readjust to the light. "Kiss?"

She looks surprised for the briefest instant—

—and then her expression goes soft and her eyes crinkle softly up at the corners and she agrees, "Yeah, kiss," and she braces a hand on the back of the couch and she bends and kisses him with absolutely no hesitation.

When she withdraws, she's smiling. Color rises under her freckles and her eyes slip away as she says, "I, um. I love you," and she quickly hides her eyes against his shoulder before Megamind can kiss her again.

He forces the stone in his throat away with an effort but he can't quite help the way his voice cracks as he says, "I love you, too."

After a brief hesitation, he makes what feels like an extremely bold move, and he lifts his head and turns it to press his nose and mouth to the soft bare slope of Roxanne's shoulder. She jerks but doesn't withdraw, in fact she makes a similar sound to the one she had made in the elevator, so…

He kisses her shoulder. Lightly, and very carefully, and—and she exhales and tips her head away just a little and so he sits up and kisses the side of her neck, as well, because it's right there and it's so warm. And there is a small cluster of freckles just under the side of her chin that he has always wanted to kiss, and so before he can tell himself not to, he brushes his lips over it—and—

Oh and her skin is different. He wraps his hand around her arm to steady himself without pulling her in or knocking her off-balance, and suddenly her skin is odd and bumpy.

Frowning, he sits back and nudges her up. "Are you all right? Your skin just went funny."

Roxanne stares at him, lips parted and eyes hazy. "My…?"

"It's bumpy? Is that okay? Are you—oh, are you cold?" Yes, that's what happens when humans get cold. "Do you want my coat again? Where did you put it?" He looks around.

She flushes scarlet. "I'm fine," she says, stepping back and rubbing her hands up and down her arms. "The, um, the kissing was nice, I…oh, drat, your coat must be upstairs, I wasn't really thinking when I took it off. Do you need it?"

Megamind hesitates. But—

"No," he realizes, blinking. "No, I—"

Unfortunately he says this in exactly the same moment that Roxanne’s eyes fly wide and she gasps, "Oh, no, your gun! Oh my goodness I am so sorry, let me run and get that—or do you want to go get it? Oh, but Oaxaca’s up there, you don’t want—crap, I’m—I’ll just go get your coat and like, toss it to you, or something, I’ll—"

Megamind leans forward and flashes a hand out and catches her wrist. "I don’t need it," he says, gazing up at her. "I’m okay."

"Are you sure?" She looks back down at him with worry written all over her face. "I’m so sorry, I completely forgot it was in there. It’s so lightweight."

He shakes his head. "I don’t need it," he says again. "It’s just you. I’m okay."

She blinks, and suddenly then her face does a thing that looks like she might be about to cry—

—but then all that happens is she says, "Okay. Good, I just…I don’t want you to feel unsafe. But. Yay, okay, um, I'll…here, let me, let me take a look at your feet?"

Bewildered but amenable, Megamind nods and sort of stretches as Roxanne settles on the floor at his feet with her lips between her teeth and her legs curled under her.

(His mouth is still tingling from kissing her skin. He wants to do that again. More. He has felt so alive at every point of contact, every time, but skin especially—he has not—touched very much skin, yet, except for kissing. That was incredible, and—)

(Oh and he had felt as though his own neck was on fire when Roxanne kissed it back at the conservatory, in the snow. His neck and other places farther south as well. Oh. Aha. That's…aha. Possibly why Roxanne’s ears are so very red, still. Definitely why Megamind's feel so warm at the memory.)

"Okay," she says, oblivious to Megamind's sudden flare of comprehension. She pushes his trouser leg up so she can pull his foot into her lap (this sends another wash of heat up over him as her palm brushes his shin), and…

"Here, let me see what we're—oh. Oh no, ouch!"

Lost in thought and with his troublesome socks off, Megamind had honestly forgotten that his feet were hurting. He grimaces a little as she stares up at him in indignant consternation.

"For heaven's sake, how long have you been walking on this?"

He shrugs. "I have a very high tolerance for pain."

"That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt! Okay, hold still, this will probably sting a bit…god, I’m going to have to use the big band-aids on this…why on earth didn't you say something?"

He shrugs, then jumps and hisses softly between his teeth as she dabs ointment onto the torn-open, raw area on the back of his foot.

"Sorry," she murmurs, her hands warm as fire and entirely too gentle on his skin, "sorry, almost done. Is the other one also like this?"

"It's—I'm—not sure."

It isn't hurt. It's sore and probably blistered, but it isn't torn. But Roxanne is still taking such care with him, seeing to his feet, of all things, and his feet are cold but her hands are warm, and she’s touching his skin and he just…

This so much more dear than anything he could have imagined for tonight.

Or ever, really. 

Roxanne finishes with the band-aids and rests his foot in her lap, and Megamind bites his lip and unconsciously curls his long toes over her thigh as she picks up his other one.

"Hm," she says, pressing gently on the inflamed hot spot on his sharp heel. "Definitely the start of a blister, here. Is it okay if I put a band-aid on anyway? It might help the skin stay down."

Tongue-tied and so desperately in love with her that he can barely think of anything else, Megamind nods.

He touches her hair as she finishes smoothing one of the largest band-aids down over his skin, and she looks up.

Thank you, Roxanne, he wants to say, but she catches his hand and holds it. He pauses.

"Hey, so," she says. "I um. Hey."

She kisses his knuckles and he tweaks an eyebrow up at her. Sends her an inquisitive grin and scrunches his toes against her leg, trying not to explode into confused happy tears all over again. He’s too tired, really, for very many more tears tonight, but there’s a lump in his throat in the shape of his heart and the world is softer and more beautiful than he had ever thought it could be for him. 

"I had a thought, while I was upstairs," she says, oblivious. "About Minion."

"Oh?"

She nods. "Yeah. And…I don't know how to say this without sounding like I'm trying to backtrack on you. But. He hasn't even had the few protections you've had. And if I swoop in and, and scoop you out from under him, I'm worried that could…I just, I think we should…maybe…make sure we have some kind of plan to make sure he’ll be safe. First. I think—"

Megamind cuts her off, already nodding. Relief swirls in him. "Yes. Yes I would definitely like to get him squared off, first, please. Yes, agreed, definitely."

"Squared away." Roxanne is also nodding, nodding. "Yes, exactly. A plan, at least—we also need to know how a change in your legal status might affect his. We cannot afford lapses in protections for either of you. And you guys are a package deal," she says. Megamind blinks at her. "I know that. I just…I don’t really know how to make sure he knows I know that? Except to make him top priority, on this. We have a plan for you. He needs a plan, too. We can get married before we put it in action, but we need to at least have one."

"Yes," he agrees. It makes sense; he's going to be safe. Maybe not tomorrow, but he will be. Minion has no such assurance. And Minion’s current protections are established entirely based on Megamind's, so Megamind does not want to change anything until he knows Minion is safe. It makes sense, and he can already tell it's going to be even more of a relief than he is currently capable of processing.

But Roxanne keeps talking, and she seems…strangely agitated? He isn't sure why? 

"And, and maybe we’ll figure something out super easily while we’re reviewing everything for you! Maybe we will! Like—can we adopt him, can we sponsor him as a sibling, can we—something. But. He needs to be our priority until we have a way forward that will hold up for both of you." She takes a very deep breath and asks, "Is that okay?"

He scrunches his nose at her. He has already said it was okay.

And sometimes the funny answer is irresistible. "You like Minion more than me," he accuses.

"Wh—you ass, I do not, I like you both in totally different directions," she says—and then probably she sees the way his lips are twitching, because she sighs and glares reproachfully at him.

He laughs. "Yes," he says, smiling down at her, "yes. That is more than okay. Thank you."

"I don't want to seem like I'm trying to back out of, you know, us," she begins, but Megamind shakes his head hard.

"No. You have, ah. Made yourself quite clear." He sends her a small grimace. "I may not be fully able to understand it just yet, but. I'll…be…I'll be okay. Eventually. I am always okay, eventually—"

"I know you are."

"—and I am beyond glad that you are in this for him, too." He shakes his head. "I could not believe it when you started talking to him, that first time, you know," he tells her. "You danced with me, you talked to him, you’re wonderfully smart. Is there anything you can’t do?"

"Oh, lots of things," she says dryly. "You'll find out. But…good, okay. Thanks. And."

He feels his eyebrows go up. "And?" There's more? 

She gulps, starts to speak. Fails and shakes her head. 

Worried, Megamind squeezes her fingers, and Roxanne squeezes back hard and finally blurts, "Wow, sorry, I just…wasn't actually expecting this to feel very significant! But. Um. Okay, you were way more chill about the Minion thing than I thought you would be, this might not be necessary?" He's squinting at her in complete confusion but she's nodding to herself as she says, "But…um…okay. Yeah. Right hand," she says, holding his—

—and then she reaches into her pocket and comes up with something small.

"Can we call this a promise?" she says, and slides it up onto his ring finger. Megamind catches his breath, mouth falling open and eyes going wide. "Okay? I swear, I would go to the courthouse with you tomorrow if I could, but it probably will take us a little while to get everything in order. Make sure everything is really airtight for both of you. So—so this is a promise, okay?"

"Roxanne," he whispers. She holds onto his fingers.

"I’d marry you tomorrow if I could, but I can't. But I can swear to you: as soon as we can, as soon as we have a plan for Minion and a lawyer's assurance that your paperwork will hold up," she stares up into his face, blue eyes flick-flicking between his, "I will go with you to City Hall and we will take care of you. I promise. Yes?"

Tongue-tied, heart full absolutely to bursting, he nods. He touches her cheek, her hair with the backs of his trembling fingers. Nods.

She nods back, and exhales, and swallows hard.

"That, um. Good. Thank you. That one always sort of reminded me of you," she says, scooting closer and leaning against his legs, and he blinks down at the ring.

It isn't something he ever would have imagined for himself, but it is lovely. Silver, with three round stones all in a row along the bone of his finger, one large one in the middle and two smaller ones on either end. The little ones are clear and shine with rose and pale blue in the light, and the middle…he thinks at first that the middle stone is a butterfly wing, a morpho wing under a clear cabochon of some kind. But—oh, but no, from the side the stone is dark. Not clear. But it shines storm-blue when the light catches it.

He tips his hand from side to side, touches the middle stone.

"It's labradorite," Roxanne says. "The other two are moonstones. I like the shape because I could never decide if it was planets or a hurricane. Both of those seem like you."

He snorts despite himself. Shakes his head.

"It is beautiful," he finally rasps. "I am…honored. And I know," he gulps and steadies himself a little, "I know—to you it is just—papers. That's okay, it's okay. But."

"It's more than that to you," she says softly, hugging his legs again. "I know, it's why I wanted to give you something about it."

He nods. Yes, he tries to say, but his voice fails him, so he just nods, and swallows hard.

And then slowly bends forward to rest his forehead on her crown as he moves his hand to cradle the back of her head. Roxanne freezes.

"I promise," he finally manages, holding his tone even only with extreme effort, "to do—my best—to believe you. To believe your truths. When what you tell me seems unbelievable." Her ring is heavy and her hair is warm in his fingers. "When your truths are beyond my comprehension, I will—try—to trust you, still."

Roxanne sits very still for a second, just long enough for Megamind to begin to think maybe that was wrong—but then suddenly she explodes into motion. "Aw, sweetheart," she exclaims, scrambling up onto her knees and letting go of his legs, throwing her arms around his shoulders instead, "aw, sweetheart, you don't have to promise anything! You're—oh my god, you are just the best, I swear. Okay, look at me—"

She shuffles him backwards, just a little, clinging to his shoulder with one hand and holding his cheek with the other. Beaming up into his eyes from her knees on the floor.

"—thank you," she says, wide-eyed and smiling up into his face as he belatedly wraps an arm around her back, still clinging to the sofa cushion by his leg with his other hand, "thank you, that means so much, I appreciate so much that you would try to do that for me. And—"

"I might not make it," he rasps, but Roxanne shakes her head hard and rubs her thumb over his skin.

"No no no no that's what I wanted to say! It is okay if your best is not perfect! I don't need it to be perfect. I just need it to be yours. We'll get there, we'll get there, I know we will."

He gulps. Nods. Touches her hair, the freckled skin of her cheek. Manages, "Your faith—in me—is fucking stunning—"

—but to his surprise, she snorts.

"I don't know why it would be," she says. "Of course you'll do your best, you always do your best. Why wouldn't that be enough? Come here," and she draws him down and kisses him while he's still reeling over the simple trust in that statement. The simple fact that she noticed, at all. And that she thinks his best is enough, and—

"And," she adds, falling back and wiping the wet skin under his eyes with her thumbs as she looks up into them, "it's okay if it isn't enough, too. We'll figure it out together. Understand?"

He nods. Roxanne nods back, then takes his hand and presses another kiss to the backs of his fingers.

He looks down at his hand, already turning it from side to side again. "It's beautiful," he whispers. He clears his throat. "It’s…a little bit big, do you mind if I…?"

He moves it to his middle finger as Roxanne shifts up off the floor and onto the couch beside him. Ah, there, that's better; it doesn't spin quite as freely. The moonstones are on struts that curve with his finger, with decorative dots of metal to continue the curve just far enough to balance everything out.

He shows her, and she nods. "Yeah, you can wear it however you'd like! Just keep your left ring finger free, for someday? Yes?"

"For someday," he echoes, heart thumping painfully hard. "Yes. I…yes. I do not want anything on my left until you're—until we’re ready." He gulps, then glances sideways at her.

He needs…he needs to say something. Something to lighten things. He is so tired and Roxanne is yawning and blinking and they need a small good thing to smile about…

Oh. Oh, she'll like this. It's not something he ever thought he would ever tell her, but he knows now, she'll like this. 

"Do you know," he says, "the idea that you might give me a ring, any ring, is…" His face heats. "I wish I could say it was not something I ever dared to imagine. But."

Roxanne leans into his side, peering at his face with something like delight in her tired expression. Ha, he was right. "Wait, you imagined this?"

"Dreamed it. Once. Only once." 

"Stooorytiiiime," Roxanne sings, mimicking him from earlier, and he laughs. 

The couch cushions shift a little as he leans back, and a lot when Roxanne pulls her knees up and curls against his side with his arm around her. He wraps his fingers over her arm, thrilling everywhere she's touching him, his whole body feeling pulled to her like a magnet.

It feels like a miracle when his voice comes out totally even. "I told you," he says, "I very rarely dream anything pleasant."

"Mm. I can imagine why."

"Yes. Well. Several years ago," he takes a deep breath, "I was…not…well. I hit a low point. Lower than usual. I slogged through a plot anyway, of course—routine, you know, keeping up appearances, maintaining my trademark. And you were so angry. You said I was going to make you miss a flight, and I said good, I can't have my primary pawn off gallivanting out of reach where I couldn't grab her as needed. And you said," he switches to Roxanne's voice without really thinking about it, sarcastic and biting, "Awww, if you miss me so much I'll just drag you to the beach with me, next time, and save myself the fucking stress!"

Roxanne snaps her fingers. "I remember that! I made some crack about you getting sunburned and turning navy blue."

"Yes!" He laughs. "And I don't know why that struck me. But then a couple days later, I…dreamed, I dreamed I was with you. Somewhere warm. I think we swam, at some point? Dreams are vague, even my dreams are vague a lot of the time, but I remember there was water. And I made you laugh. It was nice." He pauses. Swallows. "And you…held my hand," his voice goes rough, "and you said…I think you asked me to stay? And I looked down, and. There was a ring."

He stops, struggling for a moment. Roxanne touches the back of his hand, runs her fingertips across his knuckles just behind where her ring sits. 

(Megamind does not particularly like his hands. They're too weirdly long and narrow, his fingers too spidery-spindly. But the ring…it looks elegant. On his hand. Makes his gloveless hand a nice thing to look at. Even with the fading scars. He barely sees them; the ring is such a wonder.)

(Roxanne slips her hand under his and loosely nets their fingers, and his heart trips on a beat at the sight of their skin together. Beautiful.)

(Huh.)

"Did you say yes?" Roxanne asks, and he huffs a laugh and re-focuses.

"I didn't say anything, I woke up! And I was extremely upset about doing so, I can tell you." Roxanne chuckles, and he sighs. "But. It helped. Has helped, since. To remember it, to remember you. When I am…low."

Her fingers tighten around his palm. "I'm glad."

He hesitates, then laughs again and curls his own fingers down around hers, just for a moment. Then he tugs away and drags them down his face. "I cannot believe I just told you about that," he mumbles into his palm, grinning. His ears are warm. "I always imagined that if you found out, I would—I would expire! My soul would teakettle itself out my ears and blow away," he waves, twirls his wrist, and Roxanne splutters, "and I would die! I would just die if you ever found out. I would simply" —he hiccup-squeaks— "and wither right into a dry little husk on the floor. Oh, this is funny to you? I am so happy to hear you find my potential shuffling off of this mortal coil so fantastically funny, Miss Ritchi."

She's giggling helplessly, trying to shake her head. "What—you just—how did you do that? HukhGEEP—"

"You've just insulted my mother."

"I have not," she laughs, and swats playfully at his chest. "Oh, stop."

He grins and looks back down at his hand, tilting it in the light so it flashes butterfly-bright. He is sitting with Roxanne, on her sofa in her home, and she's laughing at his side, under his arm. She knows about the dancing and she knows about his dreaming and she is still willing to—wanting to!—bind herself to him so he will be safe.

(And! More importantly and more incredibly! Partner herself with him so she can explore the possibility of a happy future together with him! Which is a possibility she seems to really think might be more of a probability, and that is really the most impossible part of tonight, in the end, Megamind thinks.)

Wonders never cease. 

He’ll have to make her something small to wear, as well. But Roxanne can’t wear very much jewelry on-air; it will need to be subtle. A small pendant, maybe…? No, no, she wears a variety of necklaces; he doesn’t want to lock her into anything. Oh, maybe an ear cuff, something she can wear under her hair where her ear is hidden! Yes, he could throw that together tomorrow. The curl of a wave doubling back over sand, folding, stirring. Yes. In silver, for his spikes, and—with—garnets, maybe? Her customary red?

He’ll figure it out. He glances sideways at the shining auburn curve of her hair and—

He wants—he could—could he? It's—he has seen this done in movies and it seemed—okay? For a partner? To—

Keeping his movements as slow and deliberate as he can considering how fluttery-nervous as he feels, Megamind reaches across himself and scoops the smooth fall of Roxanne’s hair up and back just far enough to let him bend his head and brush his mouth over the soft pink shell of her ear. 

Still curled up against his side, Roxanne sort of jump-spasms. Megamind immediately lifts his head and releases her arm and leans away. "No? Bad?" 

She laughs a little and sends him an amused glance. "Not bad. Just, that's—um, a little bit much for tonight, love. I'm flagging pretty hard."

Megamind blinks and runs through a few possibilities of what this might mean, but none of them make much sense. He squints at her. Cocks his head. 

Roxanne’s eyebrows go up. "Wait, were you not…?" 

He turns his head a little and squints harder, peering at her sort of sideways. Glancing away and then back to her in bewilderment. 

"Oh, for…" She snorts. "Sorry. Um, a move like that after a date like this could be interpreted as a, as a gambit for some fairly serious makeouts."

Megamind recoils. "Oh? Oh, no, that wasn't—that was not—I just wanted—" 

"You…wanted to kiss my ear just for the sake of kissing my ear?" She sounds deeply amused, and when he nods, she does laugh. It doesn't sound mean-spirited, though. "Oh. My god, you are—just—the best thing ever." 

She pulls away and stands up and he can't help but feel like he's messed up somehow, despite the nice words, but then she starts fiddling with her earrings, tugging them free of her ears with an enormous yawn. 

"What—are you doing?"

"Taking off my jewelry." She glances back over at him as she unfastens her necklace, and Megamind's mouth goes dry at the bare wings of her collarbones. "I'm, um. Really tired, but…do you wanna just lie down? On the sofa for a bit?"

Blinking, he nods, and Roxanne’s face relaxes into a relieved-looking smile.

"Awesome. Maybe lose the tie and the belt? Get comfortable?" Her necklace clatters softly as she lays it down on the coffee table by her earrings, and then she stretches, groans. She really does sound exhausted, when she speaks again. "I think…I think I'm gonna lie on you and cuddle you until…probably until I fall asleep, is that okay? And then I'll go to bed properly when Minion gets here."

Megamind is already working on his tie. "That sounds beautiful," he says, with complete honesty. "One moment…ah, here we go."

He piles his tie and his belt on Roxanne’s coffee table, beside her jewelry and the box of bandages and squeeze-dimpled tube of ointment. And then he steels himself and sits down.

"Sure you're okay?" Roxanne asks, from where she's turning out the overhead light. The lamp on her side table is glowing warm and golden; she leaves this lit as the high ceiling falls into shadows. "Sorry, I was sitting there trying to think of how to ask about lying down without sounding like I was expecting…more." 

Megamind snorts. "Roxanne, you could ask me to give you a massage while removing your clothing in front of me and I probably would not infer anything beyond 'oh, no, her back hurts.'"

She bursts out laughing. "Noted! Really? You wouldn't take anything more from that?" 

He sighs and waves vaguely at nothing. "Well NOW that I've SAID it. I might additionally wonder if you had perhaps slept on your neck funny."

"You sweet thing. Aw." The lights above her kitchen go dark. "And you wouldn't want…?" 

"Oh I would definitely want, I would be a complete mess, but facts are facts. I would be oblivious." He lies back on her sofa, dragging a squashy throw pillow over to put under his long neck. Breathing deeply.

(He wonders for a brief moment if perhaps reclining this way might trigger some kind of unexpected fear response, the way Mary's coffee had, earlier. If stumbling to lie down while consumed with amazement at his good fortune might be enough to override his trust in Roxanne.

And maybe if he were drugged again, it might, but simple exhaustion is not disorienting enough. He lies down and breathes deeply and everything is shadowy warm and golden-red: Roxanne’s home, Roxanne everywhere. Megamind is safe. With Roxanne, he is safe. He knows. She would not hurt him. She will not. She loves him.) 

And a moment later he hears her footsteps on the rug, and a moment after that, Roxanne hums softly and crawls up over him and pillows her head on him.

Then she flops a hand at the decorative blanket on the back of her couch until Megamind barks a laugh and sits up enough to help her spread it over the pair of them. "My dear Miss Ritchi," he sighs, as she finally settles onto his chest. "What am I going to do with you."

"Mmm. A lot of things, I hope." She fumbles behind herself until she finds his wrist, and she hums again as she guides him to rest his hand on her soft hip. "Share my life. Share yours with me. Teach me how to ask you for…back massages. At some point, if you want to."

He snorts. "We'll need communication devices."

"Ooo, yes!" she says. "I want to text you silly pictures. Can I text you silly pictures? Oh and I want to send recipes to Minion, I wanna trade recipes…"

He laughs softly. "Of course."

Roxanne yawns again, and then she sighs a little. And pauses.

Very quietly, she says, "I do love you. Already. I mean that. And I’ll love you more tomorrow. Every day."

He wraps his hand around hers on his chest and shuffles her up on the sofa until her cheek is on his shoulder and her head is on the pillow behind his neck, and he can turn and push his nose and mouth into her hair. And he can hold her better.

"Thank you," he finally manages, blinking like crazy until he has to just squeeze his eyes closed. "Thank you. Yes. I love—I love you too, I love you too. I love you."

Roxanne heaves an enormous sigh. "Mmm. And we'll be okay! We'll figure it out. I'm, um. I'm…basically asleep, you should call Minion."

"Right, of course," he says. He lets his head fall back. Ah, and this, this is why he avoids lying down and closing his eyes: exhaustion swells and rolls over him.

He fights it off. "Yes. Good night, Roxanne."

She hums in response and cuddles down against his thin chest, and—okay, yes, he needs to stay awake to call Minion, but also he wants to lie here and enjoy this for as long as he can. The world is so bewilderingly wonderful in spite of how confusing everything still is that Megamind could sing if he wasn't so wrung-out. He's too tired to purr the way he ordinarily might, but…

Oh. He wants to purr, he realizes. For the first time in more than a year, he wants to purr.

And he thinks he might be able to, tomorrow.

He means to call Minion. Really, he does. He thinks of lifting his heavy arm, thinks of bringing his watch to his mouth, thinks of waiting for Minion to reply, thinks of what to say—Minion, I am at Roxanne’s, I'm ready, come pick me up. You'll never believe what's happening—

—Oh, Sir, that's wonderful, says the Minion in his imagination, I'm so happy, and all the light is gold behind Megamind's eyes, and—

—he inhales. Warm hands are tugging on him to sit up. Roxanne.

Her apartment is dark. All the warm reds of the space are laid over now in purples and burgundies, and snow is thick on her balcony, and she's wearing fleece pajamas. Her makeup is gone and her hair is damp and she smells endearingly of mint.

"Oh you're soft now," he mumbles, still too asleep even to be confused, running a bony hand over her arm. "Awww. 'S nice."

Roxanne laughs softly. "Come on, you. Up." She slides her hands down under his shoulders and pulls until he lifts himself up to sitting and swings his legs down. The throw blanket slithers to the floor; Megamind wrinkles his nose at it. "It's a quarter to four, if you stay on the sofa you'll be stiff in the morning. Come on."

Bleary-eyed, yawning, still worn out beyond belief at the lack of stress weighing him down, Megamind follows her through her darkened apartment. He takes the glass of cold water she pours him from the pitcher she keeps in her refrigerator—oh, she sips from his glass first, that's sweet of her, she doesn't have to do that, he trusts her—and he drinks it. It's nice. Filtered. It's good water. Megamind likes good water.

"Minion buzzed your watch," she tells him, voice low as he drinks. "He was worried, but I talked to him, he's fine. I told him to come in the morning, you need to sleep."

Hm? "Don't need to sleep," he grumbles. Ridiculous concept.

Roxanne’s lips twitch. "Oh. Right, of course not, dear. My mistake. Are you done with your water?"

Water? He looks down. Oh. Yes. Yes, water is a good idea. Water is good. He likes good water. He finishes his water.

And then he's following Roxanne again, up a flight of stairs in all the long shadows with her bare feet walking in front of him, and…

…oh, hooray, a bed. Bed bed bed, yes, Megamind likes bed. Megamind is too asleep to not like bed. Bed is so good. He crawls into bed without bothering to hunt around for pajamas; the clothes he's wearing are fine. They feel weird, but they’re fine; Megamind is primarily interested in the pillow. It’s longer than his own, the one he’s used to, and it looks…yes, hooray again, oh it’s gloriously soft. He flops down with a sigh, with his neck over the good soft thing, and someone pulls another pillow under the curve of his head. Smaller pillow, even softer. Oh that is nice.

He sighs and squiggles himself down into all the pillowsoft. Yes, it’s nice, he thinks, vague. Mattress is also soft, wow. Big pillowy mattress, thick with feathers. Mmm. Very squishy, good smell. All is a safe-smelling cloud tonight. Good dream…

…oh. Somewhere in the back of his mind a little spark labeled ?spider?bigspider? flares.

He lifts his head and summons words. Barely. "Hmmmmmza'spydr?"

"I put her away in the powder room downstairs," says Roxanne’s voice. "No spider here."

Megamind chirrups happily and snuggles back down again. Hooray, no spider. 

All is warmWarm. It's so good. Everything is heavy heavy soft nice, and he doesn't realize he's humming contentcontentcontentment until Roxanne’s voice murmurs, "Is that the subvoice?"

"Mmmmnyesss," he sighs, overtop of his mumble-hum. "Mm-hm. 's good. Cozy. Oh you're warm! yay! ooo, fuzzy-fuzzy," as he pats a hand vaguely over the dip of her fleece-covered spine when she settles in close and puts her head back down on his chest. "Mmm…hm, can I sleep? It's okay?"

"Yeah," Roxanne’s voice whispers. "Yeah, you can sleep. It's okay."

Ah, good. It’s okay to sleep, then, if she says so. Megamind yawns, high and whistling, and shifts just a little, tips himself towards the big, hearthfire-warm thing in bed with him that sounds like Roxanne. There. Perfect. "It's okay," he echoes on a sigh, as she settles down onto him. "Everything…’s going to be okay…"

"It is," agrees Roxanne’s voice, quiet in the night, with the blanket heavy overtop of him. His heart is so full. Everything is so full and so impossibly beautiful and nothing hurts except his feet, but it's a good hurt, it's good, because Roxanne took care of them, too. "Everything is going to be okay now. Stay. Have sweet dreams, Megamind," and—for the first time in a long time—

Megamind does.

Chapter Text

Roxanne wakes up with her brain on fire.

The process of waking is slow enough, up to a point. Nice cool pillow, nice cozy bed, absolutely the best way to wake up. And there's a soft sort of thrumming nearby, a gentle rush and flutter-thump. At first her brain classifies it as phone vibration, because it’s sort of a triplet beat, but then she swims a little higher up toward the surface of consciousness and—she realizes—

Oh, the nice cool pillow she’s snuggled up to is not, in fact, a pillow. It’s a body, and it belongs to—

Her eyes fly open and her brain ignites.

Megamind. Yes that’s right. Dating/marriage/borrowed time. But enough time to fight, probably. Also: Lawyers. Therapist. Minion. Hopefully in that order.

The blankets rustle softly as she lifts herself up just a little. She doesn’t want to wake Megamind if she doesn’t have to; her impression over the years (and from what he told her last night) is that he probably needs as much sleep as he can get. And he’ll only be in the way of the first few things she needs to get done.

His skin in the early-morning sunlight is pale blue and sort of translucently thin over his skull and high cheekbones. His lips are parted and his long fingers are relaxed where one arm is thrown over his head on the pillow. Gazing down at him, peacefully asleep in her bed with shadows like bruises under his eyes, she can’t help but remember all the times he has complained at Minion for telling her something, answering a question. All the times he has lit up and bounced in his seat with excitement when Roxanne asked him directly, and then caught himself and pulled himself back and hissed at or teased her for prying. All the times he hasn’t caught himself. And all the times last night that he just…told her about himself. His life. Who he is, how he is, even when she had not asked to know.

Looking at him now, asleep in her bed in last night’s clothes, she thinks, How long have you wanted to just…talk to someone?

It’s tempting to lie back down on him. Cuddle up and go back to sleep or try to work on her phone until he wakes…

…No. She has too much to do.

Megamind doesn’t move as she slides carefully out of bed, yawning and thinking, okay. Coffee. No—wait—clothes first, then coffee before she does anything else, and then she’s going for her address book and getting on the phone.

(She’s opting for comfort over fashion today, but she is still trying to look nice—it’s a young relationship and she isn’t sure about wearing her old fleece pajamas around, no matter how cute Megamind was about them last night. So it’s a dark purple sweater dress and thick winter leggings today, and socks. And her slippers.)

She takes a few minutes to jot down some notes as the coffee brews and then a few more as she sips at her first cup. She gets her goals in order, gets down what she knows, what she doesn’t know. What she hopes to gain with this call. And honestly, now that she’s standing at her kitchen island in her slippers and leaning on her elbows in the cold light of a February morning, it’s really very obvious that last night’s offer of marriage was a decision she made in a state of controlled panic. But that does not mean her reasoning was not sound, and it does not mean she wants to renege. Like hell. All of what she told Megamind last night was absolutely true: she wants him, wants this, is committed.

It was a decision made partly in panic. That doesn't make it a bad decision.

She takes a deep breath and picks up her phone.

Time to go to war.

When Minion arrives at Roxanne’s apartment, he isn’t entirely sure what to expect. She sounded exceptionally sleepy last night, when he gave up on pacing and worrying and finally push-activated the speaker on Megamind’s watch in a fit of anxiety to hopefully find out what was going on.

Apparently both of them had honestly been asleep. Minion had not pushed for details, but…together, it sounded like, on the sofa. Roxanne had sounded tired but she had also seemed very focused and firm when she told him everything was fine, Megamind was asleep, come over in the morning and we’ll all have breakfast, I’ll make pancakes.

He had some misgivings but that sounded like a decent enough plan, except for the matter of who exactly will make the pancakes. Minion will make the pancakes. He has seen the blackened discs Roxanne calls pancakes, and he is not interested in seeing them again.

For now, he taps lightly on the glass of her doors when he lands the hoverbike, then lets himself inside. Roxanne is wandering in a circle near her windows with her phone at her ear, and she gives him a little wave and a smile that morphs into a bit of a grimace as she turns away.

"—Janet! Yeah, hi! It’s Roxanne Ritchi calling, how are…good, I’m good! Yeah, it’s been a while. I’m, um, I’m calling because, ah, because my life kind of just went sideways? In a good way, it’s a good kind of sideways, I think, but I was hoping to…yeah, what’s your availability next week? Do you have any…" She pauses, sort of grimaces. "Yeah, so, long story short, I’m…" deep breath, "hopping into basically a green card marriage with a guy who was subjected to medical torture as a child so we can hopefully prevent it from happening again. …No, he technically is already documented, but it’s under Section 170 with basically no wiggle room; if that goes south, he’s up shit creek and so is his—um—brother? Um—" Another pause, and then she snorts and her face goes very pink. "Yeah, god, how did you guess? Look, it’s just, I do love him and I’m not unhappy about doing this, but it’s a lot to process; I was hoping maybe you could…oh! Tomorrow at noon! Tomorrow is great! That is perfect, thank you so much. I will see you then. Tomorrow. Yeah, take care. You too."

She pokes the end call button and sort of slumps and exhales.

"Holy shit," she says, in a tone of declaration. "I was not expecting her to have an opening that soon. Thank god. Hi, Minion, guess what!"

"I don’t think I need to guess," he says, staring at her with big eyes. "What happened? Is he okay? Are you okay?"

"He’s…been better, I think. I could use a hug," she says, wandering over to him and dropping her phone on the counter next to a notebook full of scribbles as she approaches, rubbing the tips of her fingers into her eye, "if that’s all right."

Minion is not terribly well-versed in the art of hugging anyone who is not his Sir, but it can’t be that different, and he certainly is not about to say no to Roxanne. He knuckles down almost without thinking and scoops her up to his dome the same way he does Megamind, and Roxanne wraps her arms around his glass.

"Oh wow this is way better than what I was picturing," she mumbles. "Thank you Minion."

"What were you picturing?"

"Kind of just mashing my face against your chest and stretching my arms out as wide as they’d go?" She sighs, and Minion sets her back down. "Hugging the dome, way better. Hi."

"Hi," he returns, one hand on her shoulder. "You said hi already."

"Yeah, sorry, it’s been…a really weird last twelve hours. Megamind is still in bed, I woke up a while ago and couldn’t get back to sleep. Do you drink…coffee? Can you drink coffee?"

"I do not and cannot. He’s in…bed? Whose bed? Your bed? He’s in your bed?"

She nods, yawning, turning away to go into the kitchen and pour herself a mug of coffee from a half-empty pot. Minion follows, feeling as though he is gaining a new appreciation for the term ‘out of his depth.’ "Yeah," Roxanne says, "I thought it would be more comfortable than the sofa. And I wanted to cling, after…everything."

She glances back at Minion. "How blunt do you want me to be about this?" she asks.

"Um. Very?" Megamind does not ease into things; Minion is unfamiliar with the process and has found that attempting to soften the blow only stresses him out. "Just tell me. As best you can. Please. I can handle it."

Her coffee bloops as she pours milk into it. "You may want to sit down," she warns, but Minion can’t help but smile a little bit at that.

"I can’t sit down," he says. "Thank you for forgetting."

She turns back around, milk in hand to return it to the fridge, and pauses, looking…he isn’t sure what that expression means. It isn’t one she wears very often. "Right," she says. "I’m so sorry."

Oh, she thought…? Oops. "No, I do mean that," he hastens to add. "Really. I appreciate it, sort of tongue in cheek." 

And, uh-oh. He wasn’t sure about the last one, but that’s the face Sir makes shortly before he goes down to their pool on his bad days. That’s not good.

But all she says is, "I know." She exhales, swallows. "I know you do. Um," she says, "just…one sec, let me put this away."

Ordinarily he would offer to do it for her, but Roxanne looks like she needs a purpose right now, so he just stands by her kitchen island, worrying, watching her, and he braces himself when she turns around after putting the milk away and closing the fridge. Her lips are a thin line.

Slowly, she approaches him, and holds out a hand. And, slowly, Minion lifts his own hand and slips the side of his enormous metal palm into hers, and lets her close her fingers around it. He wraps his own closed as well, very very carefully, around her tiny fingers.

(He remembers how she staggered to her feet weeks ago, when he was too upset to go back to Evil Lair after taking her home—she had scrambled upright so fast he had to catch her—and she had a plan, she said; she had a plan and she thought it was a good one but she asked for his help, as long as he was there, so—and so he caught her and he helped—gave what information he could—and now here she is again, not stumbling but still holding onto him with that same sort of frantic energy—)

For a moment, she just breathes, and stares somewhere in the vicinity of his knees. Her shoulders are moving; her shoulders don’t usually move when she breathes; that’s usually Sir’s thing. What’s—

She takes a deep breath and her shoulders come up and she says, quietly but with no hesitation—

"I love you."

Minion’s whole face falls open.

"I realized last night," she says. "Minion you are one of my best friends and I love you so much." She shakes her head, voice cracking. "You are—both—way more important to me than I ever realized you could be. And—"

"Wait," he whispers. "Wait. Stop. I—I’m not, I can’t—I’m—"

"You don’t have to say it back, you don’t have to feel it back," she says, sounding very tired and very tense. "I’m not asking for anything, I’m just. Telling you. And it, and it’s not the same way as him, I don’t know how to explain it, but—well. Anyway. I love you, both of you," deep breath, "and I am so angry for you both. Just…absolutely so blisteringly angry I can’t even see straight about your entire legal situation."

"Our legal…but our situation is fine," he protests, "we're fine; he always says we're—" 

"Your legal situation forces him to make himself accessible to people who want to cut pieces off of his body," Roxanne says, sharp. In his dome, Minion jerks. "Forces him practically at gunpoint. He has been maintaining and holding the line like a champ, but no. No, it is…fundamentally, categorically not 'fine.'"

Minion’s ears are ringing. That's new.

"I am scared out of my mind for you guys." She swallows again, more of a gulp. And she’s half-laughing, suddenly, but she has tears in her eyes when she finally looks up at him. "I honestly can't tell if I'm more angry or more scared. I don't know how you can live like this. Seriously, I feel like my lungs are going to melt through my ribs every time I stop and think about it for too long."

"We’ve—but we've been okay so far," he stammers, still trying to wrap his head around any of that. He doesn’t dare squeeze her hand, but he can put his other hand on her shoulder and arm. Bracing. Still trying to process. "We’ve been okay, he's so careful, we—"

She’s shaking her head. "No. No no, listen." She curls her arm up and puts her hand on his on her shoulder, and he can feel her squeezing where she’s holding on, the tactile sensors are quite good. "Someone told Larissa what they did to him when he was a kid, back when they had him at…wherever they had him."

Minion’s world slows.

"Someone told her exactly what they did to him, and that was what she did to him again, last year."

His world stops.

"The hands thing," she says. "Just the hands thing, I think, but…"

"You. Think," he says.

"I don’t see how she could have…done more. I don’t see how he could possibly have lived if she did. Not without you."

And it was without him. Fully, entirely. Megamind had staggered into Evil Lair and gone straight to his quarters before Minion ever even knew he was back.

Hm.

That’s.

Upsetting.

But it does explain quite a lot. The number of times he saw Megamind sitting, staring at his tools or his drawing supplies with his teeth clenched and his eyes pinning with stress. How frequently he was dropping things, for a while, and not even laughing at himself and swearing about it with his usual cheer. How grim he was.

"I see," he whispers.

"Then you, you do know about, the um…"

"Yes. Some." He gathers himself; Roxanne is staring up at him and trying to talk to him and Minion can focus, he can focus. "He doesn't talk about it, but I…figured some things out on my own, and I overheard our uncles once. So. Yes, I do know some of it." He blinks, tips sideways in his dome as he realizes… "Wait. Did he tell you?"

Roxanne nods. She sniffs, gulps. Squeezes his hands again and finally pulls away to go and retrieve her coffee.

"He didn't mean to," she says. "I think he tried not to. He just…I think it was the stress?" She turns, leans back against the edge of the counter with her mug in both hands. Shakes her head. "I…kissed him, and I asked if he wanted to date, and he seemed so happy, and then…and then this whole past year just caught up with him all at once, I think. Also, I…kind of pushed him. A little." She grimaces. "I don’t know if that was the right move, I hope it was."

"If you didn’t, I would have," Minion says, "it's high time he said something about it."

She chews on her lip and nods. "Thank you," she tells him. "That…helps. So…yeah, he…blurted out a little about what happened to him back then. Medically. How he has been treated. By humans. And I had already figured out that his fucking villain’s license is standing in for his citizenship," she spits, suddenly acrid. "And yours. It’s sick."

"It isn’t as though we have a choice," he says, stung, and her gaze snaps to him.

"Not that you’re villains, for Pete's sake, that you HAVE to be! That THAT is all that’s keeping him off a lab table and away from the damned military! Because that’s what happens, Minion," she says sharply, "that is what happens if they get their hands on him again. Maybe they didn't know what they had before, but they would now, and they will—"

"You do not have to tell me what they'll do to him," Minion says, cutting her off very quietly. "I am well aware."

She jerks her chin in a nod. "Right. Okay. Sorry, I just…like I said," she says, "I haven’t been this upset since…I don’t know when." Her expression pinches and she rubs the heel of her hand into her eye. "I’m so happy and I’m so scared and I just. Sorry. I’m sorry." She takes a deep breath and shudders it out again, blinking hard, mouth sort of wobbling. 

Minion rises in his tank and peers over her shoulder at the coffeemaker. "Maybe slow down on the caffeine," he ventures. That gets a huff of laughter.

"Yeah," she says. She sniffs. Swallows. "Yeah. But you see why I'm going so hard on it is absolutely not fine, I hope." 

He nods. 

Roxanne looks down at her mug. A muscle pulses in her jaw. "It’s sick," she says again. "It is fucking unacceptable. And—and I—he only needs one more ‘cultural milestone’ to be able to get some real protections." She does big air quotes, makes a face. Her lip curls.

"…Hence the marriage," Minion says.

Roxanne nods. "That’s the plan. For him, anyway. My lawyers are working on finding something for you before we move forward with it, though."

And she sniffs again and takes a drink of coffee, but Minion blinks and recoils slightly.

"They…what? They’re what? Lawyers? For me?"

"Yes. So, that was my therapist I was talking to when you came in," she says. She sounds steadier now that she’s talking plans, which is funny considering Minion suddenly feels like what little bearing he was gathering on the situation has just slid out from under him and scattered across the floor. "I called her as soon as I got off the phone with Fred. Fred Bucklin," she clarifies, when Minion just continues to look baffled. "At Rosenberger, Buehler, Bucklin, and Tennis. They’re very good, that's the firm that handled Wayne’s…everything, years ago. Fred's retired, he’s ‘of counsel’ now, but we had a good conversation. He says he’ll tag back in for this."

"Tag back in for what," Minion says. Everything is shivery and sort of hazy. What is happening.

"For finally getting you guys properly naturalized," she says, "both of you," and the world—still frozen, still sluggish—swims around him. "Real, actual citizenship, not just Megamind being forced to abide by every tiny detail of his license. And step fucking one of that is going to be getting you into the system with a full legal name. ‘Minion’ isn’t going to be enough, you’ll need a surname at least."

The world isn’t meant to swim like this. Swimming is Minion’s job.

"The same as or different from Sir’s," he hears himself say. 

"That’s one of the things they’re figuring out, so come up with a couple of possibilities. It—"

"If his is off-limits can I borrow yours," his voice says, from a long way off.

Ringing silence from where he remembers Roxanne was standing.

Minion isn’t…seeing, very much, right now. Echoes of his abyssal heritage: his senses do not prioritize vision when he's this stressed. But he does hear her say, in a sort of oddly thick-sounding voice, "Of course. Of course you can, that can absolutely be on the list of possibles. You okay?"

"Thanks," he says, and, "I need to turn off piloting now," and that’s right about when his suit auto-locks down onto its knuckles, at maintenance height. This tilts his dome somewhat, but the angle isn’t sharp enough to be uncomfortable.

So. It turns out he does, in fact, need to sit down. Sort of. 

"Can I help?"

"Um," he says, turning in a nearsighted circle, agitated. "I don’t—um—"

"Coming in at your two o’clock," she says, and he swivels to face her. Ah! There she is. Haloed with rainbow light. She looks terribly worried as she asks, "Is touching okay or is that a no-thanks?"

"I have tactile sensors in the fur, I’ll feel it."

She blinks. "You…okay, but do you want it?"

He stares at her, trying to parse this, trying to think—

After a long moment, she takes a deep breath and comes in front of him, and leans her head against his glass. Does—does she know—

"Minion," she says, very quietly, "listen to my voice, listen to what I’m saying, it’s important."

"Okay," he whispers, and squeezes his eyes closed.

"With someone like me, I would offer a hug or something," she says. "But I don’t know how to help someone who lives in the water. I want to help you. What do you need?"

He swallows. "Talk-talk to me," he stammers out, "and. Pat. My arms. No no NO not like that, not like that, that’s just prickles, I hate that—harder, push harder—okay. Okay."

The sensation of grounding pressure washes over him as she starts firmly smoothing his fur. There, that’s a little better.

"I know this is a lot," she says in a low voice. "I know. I’m so sorry to dump this on you, first thing in the morning like this. But I need you to know, I need you to know that Megamind’s solution might be fairly simple and straightforward, but we are not moving forward with anything until we know what the plan is for you. Okay?"

He nods.

"What are you thinking right now?"

It takes him a good few seconds to reply. Minion is thinking a LOT of things; it’s one of the blessings and curses of having a mindtwin, a bonded singer. He has all sorts of capabilities that his ancestors and unbonded kindred did not, and sometimes when he is overwhelmed those capabilities can spiral away from him in unuseful ways. Right now he’s—he can’t—he has been living so long with—knowing he is not anything like human, unrecognizable as sapient to all but a very few people—

He couldn’t even go to school. Not for long. Warden Jim had tried to insist, but after a couple particularly bad incidents in the schoolyard, Megamind had begged and screamed and finally cried himself sick until Jim said okay, okay, Minion could stay home where it was safe. Everything he knows of reading and, much later, writing, he learned from his uncles, not a schoolteacher. And everything he knows of everything else, he learned from Megamind, bringing home his schoolbooks and reciting the day’s lectures to Minion at night after lights-out. They did the homework together by Minion’s bioluminescence. Minion wasn’t ever very good at it, his spelling was atrocious for years and he still absolutely cannot handle calculus, but—

And then—years, years of people—humans—looking through him, over him—failing utterly to speak to him. Again and again and again and Minion is alive and free only because Megamind gritted his teeth and grinned around them and filed the necessary paperwork to—do—to be what he has to be, to keep them—Minion is only free because—

—because Megamind has faithfully followed every detailed subclause of his license’s obnoxious rules, one of which was to force him into shit like this stupid terrible charity auction every damn year—

What is he thinking? Right now?

Roxanne is still petting his arms, hard, the way Minion told her. Megamind is upstairs, asleep after sunrise for the first time in months, because Roxanne put him to bed in a state of mind that let him rest. Minion is standing where he is because Roxanne told him to come to breakfast, she explained, she—

She has lawyers and—lawyers for him, for him and for Megamind, she—

What is he thinking?

He stares down at Roxanne through the glass of his dome. 

"You have always been so kind to me," he whispers. 

Megamind swims up to waking with sunlight blazing through his eyelids. For a moment, all he can do is squint at the bright thing with his brain full of question marks, searching for the familiar combination of stress and dread in the back of his mind. He's awake enough to recognize that he feels strange, so then why…?

Oh, fuck, that's the sun. What the—where is—no, oh god NO his bedroom faces north; where the HELL is he—? 

He hisses and scrambles to sit up, kick-kicking at the mattress and flailing the pillows away until he has space to get free. And then he bolts himself upright, chest heaving, pupils pinning, and he stares wildly around at—

Big soft bed. Walls. Big window—fire escape outside—exit. Door, open, bright space beyond. Other door opposite window, also open, dark space beyond. Bureau and mirror opposite him and offset slightly.

A bedroom.

Roxanne’s.

The previous day comes flooding back in a tidal sweep so strong it actually rocks him backwards. Hours and hours of the same horrible crawling dread that has shadowed him for months now rising and curling up through him—Larissa, again, and he couldn't—and then Roxanne, out of nowhere, winning the bid and wearing his colors and sweeping him away to a dinner that was actually fun and interesting and fully edible for him, and then driving with him out to a garden nearly the size of Evil Lair, walking with him, letting him look and explore, sitting with him—letting him bask—holding his hand—her mouth, her arms—and he—he said—he told her, said what happened, some of it, blurted it in clumsy broken dizzy words and he cried—but it was okay, it was okay—she helped him to scream and she gave him a good dinner and flowers and butterflies, more butterflies than he has ever seen in his life before—

And it was okay. It was all okay. And Roxanne wants to date him. Is already dating him. This is her bed. He slept here.

She loves him.

Megamind loved his mystery Cinderella for two years before he ever found her, and he has loved Roxanne for…he doesn't know for how long. But the idea that she might be able to feel anything like the way he feels about her, that she might ever feel anything as everything as love, for him…he could barely dream of it.

He looks down at his hand, at the shimmering storm-blue of Roxanne’s ring.

The amount of trust in him, to give him this, to make such promises…

It makes his chest hurt. It makes his heart light but it still hurts, the same way her insistence that he has nothing wrong with him hurts. Because she is trading her freedom for his, at least for a while, and because if she will do this, knowing him better than any other human except the men who raised him, knowing him and what he is, what he does, what he's capable of—if she will, knowing the things she does—then, statistically, so would quite a few other people. The likelihood of Roxanne being the only person alive to see his value beyond what he can bleed is nearly impossible.

It means he was right. As she said. He was right to be angry, was right to chafe at—at his—mistreatment. It means the way he has been treated was mistreatment. This was not the natural, necessary way of things. He was right the first time.

At least in theory. 

That's. Hmmm.

He'll think more about that later. He can't wrap his head around it right now. The idea adds up, but the knowledge won't stick. It’s all a big sort of nothing space, and very dark, and he suspects eventually he’s going to be very very angry, but for now—

For now—

The blankets rustle as he swings his feet down. His clothes are lined and rumpled with sleeping, his beard and his eyebrows are every which way. But he feels rested. Awake. And…hopeful, despite everything. Maybe he can have a future that is not steeped in fear.

He stretches and then uses his watch to summon a few brainbots with some necessary supplies. Tiny pliers and snips and low-gauge silver wire, and…hm. Yes. Garnets. For now, garnets. Good, those will be along shortly. Also, more clothes! Clothes that are his style, and are not wrinkled!

He would simply go home and dress and work there, but now that he is awake, he can hear conversation downstairs. He’s pretty sure this means he will be staying for a while.

Shower first.

Roxanne’s shower is terrible. It is wet and it gets the job done, but private showers are for enjoying, and Roxanne’s is too weak to enjoy at all. Megamind is in and out in less than three minutes.

But she has eyeliner on her sink, and Megamind has new plans to renovate Roxanne’s bathroom as soon as she gives the go-ahead (bigger shower, better showerhead with a proper hose, and! a heated! floor!). So he can't feel too disgruntled about it.

He has elected to wear fingerless gloves rather than remove Roxanne’s ring. He is…not…ready to do that, yet. The rest of his clothes are black jeans, dark gray Henley open over a particular fitted undershirt (this will not be the first time he has worn something in the hopes that Roxanne might like it, but it will be the first that he wears with the specific hope of eliciting actual contact). Boots with platforms, studded to match his belt. And fabric pauldrons with sleeves—this is a sort of upper-chest garment that he likes with this shirt; it wraps around behind his shoulders and buckles diagonally across his chest, AND it has a fitted neck piece that he can snap closed to fully cover and protect his shoulders.

Layers. Megamind likes layers.

Even if he is being somewhat daring with one of them.

Minion and Roxanne have both decided, sort of by mutual unspoken agreement, to hold off on breakfast until Megamind comes downstairs; Roxanne is absolutely unsurprised at Minion’s confirmation that his sleep habits at home are abysmal.

"It’s not so bad at the prison, he tends to go along with their routine for the most part," Minion explains after he calms down a bit and they move to Roxanne’s sitting area, "but at Evil Lair, he pretty much keeps his own schedule. I keep up where I can, but…maybe, with you, he’ll want to rest more often."

Roxanne suspects he’s probably right. The way Megamind jumped very slightly each time she touched him last night had not escaped her notice. From what Megamind and Minion have both told her, it sounds like they were both raised pretty closely by the inmates at the prison as children, but as adults…well, she can only assume Megamind at least is basically starving for friendly contact. If she can entice him to bed with promises of cuddles…

She’s always slept better with someone else nearby. And Megamind spent the whole night on his back and didn’t snore once, which she’s feeling very optimistic about. Every single one of her prior masculine partners has snored to some degree. Assuming last night wasn’t an anomaly, she’s looking forward to spending more nights with him.

"I really am happy," she assures Minion, sitting on her sofa now with her coffee in hand. "I’m…excited. I am just also furious, is all. It’s a confusing time!"

"Hence the therapist," he says, and she laughs and nods.

"Yes, hence the therapist."

Upstairs, the shower kicks on. Roxanne’s eyebrows go up. "Oh!"

"Something wrong?"

"No, of course not. I just…"

Minion tilts himself at her, questioning.

"I just really wasn’t expecting him to be comfortable using my shower yet?" She's still sort of blinking in surprise, now sort of smiling as well. "That’s…huh."

Minion studies her for a moment. Her expression and the set of her shoulders have both just gone quite soft.

"…He trusts you, you know," he says. Her eyes flick to him and she looks surprised for the briefest instant, and then she goes softer still.

"He does. I noticed that." She smiles down into her coffee. "I really don’t know why."

"Neither do I," Minion says. "I have been telling him it was unwise to do so for years."

He waits until Roxanne looks at him again, and then he sends her a smile.

"It was always sort of hypocritical of me," he admits. "And I’m glad to have been proven wrong." 

They’re still chatting a few minutes later, laughing about the brainbots just showing up out of nowhere with a small pile of different-sized wire and tools, when footsteps from Roxanne’s semi-occluded loft make them both look up.

"What are you two gossiping about," Megamind demands as he flounces down the stairs. Roxanne has never met anyone else who can really be said to flounce in skin-tight denim and platform boots, but Megamind is a professional. "If it's me, I demand to know. Is it me? Of course it's me."

He flops down in Roxanne’s wingback chair and lounges there as if he owns it, arms on the armrests and legs splayed. "You," he says, smirking at Roxanne and twirling a playful finger at her, "put me in your bed last night. When did you do that? HOW did you do that without waking me up?"

She barely hears him; her mouth goes dry.

Holy shit.

It was easy to forget last night, with the pink and the well-cut suit and everything, that Megamind's casual attire is generally about as extra as his supervillain gear. His base clothes wouldn't be out of the ordinary on the street but his accessories definitely would be, especially considering his henley is open all the way down the placket and he appears to be wearing some kind of sheer lace underthing between it and his blue skin.

Megamind sees her looking. His smirk widens to a grin and he taps his chest, arching a brow. "Yes, this is entirely your fault," he tells her. "Do you like it? I like it."

She finds her voice. "Is that thing not monumentally itchy?" she asks.

He scowls. "Why are you like Minion," he complains. "Always so obnoxiously annoyingly practical! I am trying to be attractive and intriguing and you are RUINING it."

"Oh, what happened to vulnerable and brooding?"

Megamind makes a noise like mLehhh and sticks his tongue out at her. 

"I finish all the seams with satin bias tape," Minion tells her. "It's fun to do while I watch my shows. The seams are darker but he says they don’t itch at all."

"Oh, neat," says Roxanne.

Ignored in his chair, Megamind pouts.

"You're very pretty. I'll be getting stuff to make breakfast when you're done peacocking, sweetheart," Roxanne says, dropping a kiss on the top of his head on her way past. Megamind hisses at her.

Then he stares at Minion in wide-eyed consternation, with the place her lips touched flaring tingly-hot. "What's! happening! Last night was perfect and I was okay upstairs and now I am buzzing!"

"I warned her you might be, before you came downstairs," Minion says. He glances down at the coffee table. "Why don't you throw something together with those, Sir? Help calm your nerves."

Megamind looks at the coils of wire and his tools, and the beads his bots faithfully arranged for him. He glances over at Roxanne in her kitchen—ah, okay, she’s grinning to herself. That feels better. "Aaaaargghh," he says, but he scoops up his pieces and sets to snipping lengths of wire so he'll be able to work while pacing.

Which he does. Stalking back and forth along the long line of windows and Roxanne’s French doors. It's hard to really get a good pace going without a cape to flick behind you, but he makes it work, looping coils of wire on his long fingers and swinging back to the coffee table now and then to snatch up more supplies.

He also has to touch his lips a couple of times, to remember her ear. This feels silly. Feels like it also sends a nice warm curl down to his stomach. And he can still feel her kiss on the crown of his head; is that normal?

Doesn't matter if it's normal, he reminds himself. Roxanne said last night, over and over and over in a hundred small ways and explicitly: she does not need him to be human. Does not expect that of him. Does not need him to be perfect. Does not need him to be normal, does not need this relationship with him to be normal.

Getting his head around that…well, believing it isn’t really possible, any more than being human would be. But remembering she said it helps, a little. And he can hear her chatting and laughing brightly with Minion; she doesn’t SOUND upset or put-upon. That helps a lot.

He paces and twists his wires and breathes, and eventually he does have something he's happy with. And by the time he finishes the final little finishing touches with his smallest file (the ends of the curls need to be ground down to points; it isn’t necessary but it’s still very necessary), he has three more ideas for future plots and thought of four potential contacts with whom to…ahem, politely inquire as to Larissa's source and potential sponsor.

The bright little thing he's made glitters as he turns it over and over in his hands in the sunlight, studying it, checking it for sharp edges. A few additional beads, silver ones, made their way into the design at some point—he didn't even know he had them on hand, but he does like the effect. They provide a sense of structure. Stability. And…heartbeat points, if he lets himself admit to the sentiment. The design is highly stylized, but.

It isn't much. Spare parts, really. Spare parts and sparkly beads, a magpie’s gift. He wishes it were more.

But it needs to be small, he reminds himself. This is honestly probably bigger than it ought to be, but it was as small as he could make himself go with no planning. And he made it, the same as he made his promise to try to believe her, yesterday. She responded very well to that. He can make her something nicer when he has more time, if she is offended at this. Smaller, if she needs him to make something smaller.

He squares his shoulders.

Roxanne is laying out table settings when she realizes Megamind isn't stalking around in front of her windows anymore, but she doesn't have much time to wonder where he's gone. She straightens, and a step on the rug behind her makes her grin.

"Feeling better?"

"Mm."

He nudges the back of her head with his own, then steps close to her back and drops a kiss onto her shoulder, and another to the side of her neck.

A blue hand partially wrapped in black leather appears in her field of vision, holding something small and brightly shining up between two fingers. Confused and warm all down her side, Roxanne takes it. Megamind seems to dither for a second—

—and then he pokes his nose down into her collar and slides his arm around her ribs. His other arm slowly twines around her as well, hugging her to his chest while she turns the little thing over in her fingers and pretends not to feel dizzy at being held like this by someone she's actually attracted to.

(Comfortable in her shower, comfortable holding onto her—Minion said Megamind trusts her, but goodness, how long has he trusted her like this and not shown it? Has he just been holding himself back this whole time?)

It's beautiful—coils of shining silver wire form a series of loops and curls around a pair of dark red teardrop-shaped stones and several little beads. It's all curves, no sharp edges; it reminds her of the delicate filigree that covers the stock of his dehydration gun.

"Megamind, this is amazing, did you make this just now?"

He nods. Turns his head and pushes his mouth to her neck again. "Mhm. For you."

"Huh?" She's still sort of distracted at his arms and the strength in his wiry hands, as well as reeling at the fact that he just threw this together with no forethought, basically just conjured this pretty twist of silver out of nothing.

For her?

"It's—wait, for me? What—um, what—is it?"

"Like this," he says, lifting it out of her grasp and touching her hair—her ear, he—oh, he slides it over the outer rim of her ear and then lifts his hands away. And he politely or valiantly ignores Roxanne’s shiver and the way she tilts her head with his hand pulling her hair back and arches her neck entirely without meaning to—

He kisses her neck again, though, and trails a thumb down from her ear to the top of her shoulder as he drops his hands. Lightly, almost absently. Roxanne is going to climb him.

Oblivious to her internal beflusterment, he says, "I thought, you gave me this," holding his hand up so she can see his ring as she turns around in his arms. "And I thought…I wanted…to give you. Something. But, but small, so you can wear it with your other jewelry. Under your hair. So you won't have to worry about it on your broadcasts. Maybe. It’s…but that one is a bit big. I can make a different one."

She stares at him, blinking at his sharp, tired face.

The long curtains are open, the sunlight is bright through her windows. Not direct sunlight, not from the north in the morning in the winter. But it's brighter than anything she's ever seen Megamind standing in without being fully outside, and never from this close, and never with the blue skin of his chest visible through a sharp Vee of lace cut all the way down his sternum. He's scowling, not meeting her eyes; he looks almost embarrassed.

"Um. Wow!" she says, touching it, feeling the curls of it, "I want to see it on me, come on," and she grabs his hand and tugs him with her over to her powder room.

She flicks on the light and leans forward over Oaxaca's little vivarium on the counter, pulling her hair back to tuck it behind her ear and better see the shining curl of wire in the mirror. It's actually no heavier than most of her other earrings despite being almost entirely metal and sitting over the whole of her ear. It's a good weight, and the placement won't interfere too much with an earpiece. And it is…okay, a little big to wear at work, but it is almost entirely hidden under her hair already, and she can grow out her hair a little and still keep her current cut if she needs to. The lines of it are smooth and clean and not at all spiky; it flows along the shell of her ear and curls around its beads and she never would have expected such a neat little thing from Megamind.

She turns, beaming. To her surprise, he followed her inside. "I love it," she declares. "I love you! You didn't have to do this for me! Come here."

He's a lot taller in these shoes than he was last night; Roxanne has to tip her face up to kiss him now. That's all right; she's five three. She's used to being shorter. And Megamind seems to adapt to the difference just fine. He seems much less nervous and scowly when she pulls away; he lines his hand along her chin so she'll tilt her head and show him the earpiece.

"It does fit," he says, and she nods, "good. I hoped it would, but I only had the one kiss to go on! It, ah, it isn't much. But I wanted you to have something. I can make you a much nicer one with a little more time, if—"

"You can but you won't, I love this one," she says immediately. "It's perfect! It's so pretty, I love the silver! And the red matches your tie from last night. One of my favorite shades. Thank you, sweetheart. I can't believe you just threw this together for me like it was nothing, oh my god!"

She turns back to the mirror, still beaming, and tilts her head this way and that, eyes dancing with clear delight and admiration.

Confused, Megamind blinks. Wait, that sounded like…is the scrap nothingness of this gift part of the appeal? For her? He had worried she might be offended at the lack of thought, but now it seems like the exact opposite might be true.

"You don't want a nicer one," he says, to clarify. He steps up next to her so he can see how it sits on her ear; he hasn't made one quite like this before.

"No, why would I?" She sounds completely baffled as she looks up at him in the glass. "You made this out of nowhere with your hands."

"I did also use pliers—"

"So not my point," she says, and turns, drapes her arms around his shoulders (the way she did once years ago in that club when he finally spun her around) and presses her lips to his again (the way he had hoped she would once years ago in that club when he finally spun her around).

He gasps through his nose, and then his arms are around her and Roxanne kisses him again, and then again, and Megamind holds her tighter, hands and hips both twitching because now she's turned him and he's backed up against the wall and the low countertop with the sink and she's standing so close and—

Roxanne moves a hand to gently cup the side of his neck and Megamind grabs for the counter to steady himself, and the lid of the previously-unnoticed glass tank next to the sink rattles slightly against his elbow.

Breathless, lips parted and flushed with kissing, Megamind glances down. "What's this?"

"Hm? Oh, that's—remember? That's Oaxaca's—tank."

…Oops.

She comes out of the bathroom in time to see Minion turn around and peer contemplatively up at the ceiling. "Huh. I didn't think that light fixture would hold Sir's weight."

"I'm fine! I am super and awesomely fine and not embarrassed at all!"

Roxanne glances at Minion. "Is he ever actually telling the truth when he says he's fine?"

"Rarely."

"Ah." She looks up. "Can I offer you a ladder?"

"Ladder would be great, thanks, yes!"

Laughing to herself, shaking her head, she goes and retrieves the extendable folding ladder she keeps in her deep storage closet.

Megamind scrambles back down to the floor a few moments later, pink-cheeked and wide-eyed and bristling defensively like a cat. "You saw nothing!" he declares. "Nobody saw that. WHY is she in the bathroom! You said she was in your bedroom! I was trying very hard when I woke up NOT to see where she might be; why is she down here!"

Laughing helplessly, Roxanne pulls him into a hug. He's nearly vibrating. "I told you last night! I moved her down here before I came to get you for bed!" She says nothing about his abrupt application of Looney Toon physics. 

"Was I awake when you told me this?"

"I think so? Maybe?" She squeezes him and he finally does hug her back. "Maybe not, though. I thought you were joking when you asked how I got you to bed without waking you up—sweetheart, you walked. And you asked me where Oaxaca was, right before you passed out."

"I did not!"

"You definitely did, you were very cute about it."

"I was not cute!"

"Pancakes!" Minion announces loudly. "Pancakes! You two! Breakfast! For evil's sake come and eat something before you start bickering."

Megamind stands at her balcony door later that day with his heart in his mouth. Roxanne is in his arms, gazing into his face with her hands on his back, and Minion is just outside, turning on his comically-huge hoverbike with its comically-small sidecar.

It's well past noon. Megamind has made every excuse to linger, to delay leaving—made excuses, and another (smaller) earpiece for Roxanne to wear at work despite her protestations—but finally he can't ignore the screaming in the back of his head that he's overstaying his welcome and Roxanne is too polite or too kind to tell him and he should go home.

"You can stay," she tells him. "I don't mind. I might not be very entertaining, but…"

He shakes his head.

"No?"

"I have to go. I have to. Go." His shoulders are stiff and his handsome face is troubled, but he does sound very firm. "And think about…things? I have to go think about things."

Roxanne nods.

She doesn't step back, though.

She explained her plan to both of them over breakfast, gave them the phone numbers and names of the lawyer and law office she's hired. Told them what preliminary information and documentation Fred will probably need to get started. "I'll keep you informed as best I can as we move forward," she said. "Nothing happens without your signoff and go-ahead. Can you get in touch with your people at the prison and let them know what's happening? Find out what they need to be able to give information. Or it can all go through you as a go-between, if that's more comfortable—it's just a little more work for you guys."

"It all sounds like so much," Minion said, voicing Megamind's thoughts. "Are you sure?"

"One hundred percent."

Megamind laid out his plans, as well. As much as he could afford to, at least; Roxanne still needs to maintain plausible deniability in certain areas. So, no names. But she was able to give him some additional people to contact for information if it should become necessary.

He can trust her with his secrets. His physical proximity. He can sleep in her bed with her; that's honestly fairly surprising to him. Still, it’s hard to be fully open about his…all of this. The darker side of his villainy. He’s sure he’ll get there eventually; he wants to get there eventually. But.

For now, he swallows hard. "What next?" he asks. Her body is warm in front of him, her hands are warm behind him; they're steadying. "What…how…open should we be, about all this?"

Roxanne bites her lip. "Let me touch base with Wayne and Adam," she says, her thumbs rubbing down against the muscles on either side of his spine. "See what they’re thinking in terms of timing? I figure we’ll ‘come out’ when they do, as long as it’s in the near future. Is that okay?" At his nod, she hesitates, then slowly asks, "How open are you okay with me being, with Wayne? About, about your…"

He feels his lips twist, but all he says is, "How much have you already told him?"

"Not much. No details. But enough that he’s as pissed as I am about Larissa."

Slowly, Megamind releases a breath through his nose. But at last he has to say, "Be as open as you like. If you think it will help. He…I do…owe him. My life. So." He gives a sharp shrug. "If you think it will help."

"Ah. Yeah, he…mentioned that." She sighs, nods. "Okay. Thank—"

"Mentioned what."

"…Again, not much, no details," she says. Megamind has gone rigid. "You were fifteen, I think?" She’s paying close attention to Megamind’s face as she says this, and his mouth contorts immediately and his nostrils flare.

Still, his voice is mostly even when he says, "You should tell him to tell you."

"I really don’t need to know," she says, very quietly. "If you want me to know, I’ll ask him, but…" She trails off; Megamind is nodding.

"It would be. Good. If you knew." His lips are extremely thin and the lines around his mouth are deeper than she’s ever seen them. "Don’t-don’t ask me, I can’t. Say. The words. Don’t ask me."

She’s nodding back, patting him, trying to get his attention back on her instead of at whatever shadows in his past are circling. "Okay, I will. I will, I’ll ask him. Sweetheart—Megamind, sweetheart, look at me. Look at me. Now."

It really is amazing, the way she can see him drag himself into focus. He’s still way too tense under her hands, and his lips are turned down at the corners and his eyes are too big, but he is looking at her.

"Do you love me," she says.

He blinks. Recoils just a little. "Yes," he replies. "Yes, obviously, what kind of a question is that?"

"Humor me. Tell me you love me?"

There, that got half his mouth to curl upward, that got a little bit of a blush going. "I love you?"

Roxanne beams at him, squeezes him closer. "Yay. One more time, without the question."

He huffs a laugh but says, "I love you."

"Good." She grins up at him. "I love you, too."

She feels his breath ghost over her cheek with his exhale as she kisses him. Feels him slowly begin to relax. And when he finally lifts his head away, she doesn’t give him any time to get swept back into memories or uncertainty—she tilts her head and taps the ear fascinator he made for her. "Does this mean something?" she asks. "Minion said something about—oh, it does mean something! What is it? Do I get to know?"

"It’s, ah…it isn’t direct," he says, cheeks and ears very pink. "It isn’t literal. But, but it does bear a certain resemblance to the concept of, ah, the sun through rain. On the waves. And, and the…blending? Of the water? The rain and the sea. I don’t know if…"

Intrigued, Roxanne turns away and picks up the smaller one he made. It’s a little cuff to cling to the outer edge of her ear, and it’s very pretty but she much prefers the first one he made for her, with all its freeform curls. It’s heavier on her ear, more reassuring. "And this one?"

"Well that one WAS going to just be the pull of water backwards over sand," he says, suddenly scowling, and he gestures at the tiny circular gear supporting the main curl, "but then this made its way in there, and now it’s probably closer to the pull of the moon on the sea, which is a little bit more than I was hoping to express at this point in our relationship, but here we are."

Roxanne snorts in spite of herself. "A little bit more," she says dryly. She blinks down at the little thing in her hands, turning it over in her fingers, thinking she's really going to need to learn more about whatever symbolism he's talking about; it sounds fascinating. "A little bit more? We’re getting married."

"Yes, okay, well," he shifts his weight from foot to foot, spluttering, clearly flustered, "I still—it’s—can I—and can I please just hear you say you want that, again," he says in a rush. "I just—I do not mean to doubt you, I don't mean to. But—"

"Of course! Yes, goodness, of course." She shakes her head and slips the smaller cuff into the pocket of her sweater, then reaches for him. Holy smokes, she gets to reach for Megamind now, and he moves right back into her arms and very carefully rests his fluttering hands on her waist. "We are speedrunning this thing, we are going all out of order, I can't blame you for wanting to hear it! I am definitely here because I want to be." He hisses his breath between his teeth and nods, but before he can say anything, she continues, "I gave you that ring because I want you to have it. Same reason you made me this, and the other one." She touches her ear. "And someday we’ll get married again because we want to, for real, but for now…we're going to tackle the future together one day at a time. The same as any other couple. Okay? The same as any other two people who want to be together."

He exhales. "…Right. Yes. Two people."

Roxanne blinks, then frowns pulls him closer, tilting her head at him. "I do want to be with you," she says. "You know that. I do."

Megamind swallows, nods again. "I…know. Yes. I do know. But you would do this, still, even if you didn't," he adds. "Even if—even if you didn’t love me. It’s who you are."

That makes her pause. And frown a little harder.

"…I suppose that's true," she slowly says. "Yes. Just like I bearded for Wayne for as long as I did. But—but I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t want to. And I wouldn’t do this either. So—"

"But that is what I am saying, Roxanne," he says, with a wry, amused twist of his mouth. "You would want to anyway. Because you are a fixer. You see a problem and you want it solved. You’re a fixer, and you are," his voice cracks and goes rough, "a good person. Because to you—to you, this is—a problem." He shakes his head a little. "To you, this is a problem. Worth solving. And I love you more than you know. Not—not for—for this, not what you're doing," taking a very shivery breath as Roxanne gazes into his face and holds onto him, "just. You, just—you. I love you."

"I love you, too," Roxanne pulls him into a tight hug, heart aching, "I love you too," and then she leans back and kisses his mouth three times, quickly. He’s starting to smile by the last one, thank heavens. Watching Megamind's eyes go bright from this close, hearing his voice break when she's standing close enough to feel his heartbeat against her own chest…god, no. Please, let the two of them build a life where this is worth solving, you are worth saving are not radical concepts capable of moving him halfway to tears like this.

But all she can do right now is to hug him again, hard. Hide her face in the smooth curve of his neck, breathe him in. Megamind’s hand settles on her head, holding her against his shoulder; his other arm is a comforting strength around her back. And he hums. A contented sound.

Which is good. It’s good that he is feeling lighter-hearted again. But Roxanne’s chest is tight.

Letting him go feels so risky. There is so much Roxanne doesn’t know yet, and she and Megamind have this in common—neither of them likes not knowing things. But. He needs to leave, and she needs to get on with the rest of her day and maybe have a nap to make up for her late night. She cannot actually keep him here with her. And if she says very much on this particular line of thinking, she won’t be able to let go of him.

So, finally, she straightens. Steps back a little bit. Forces her fingers to unwrap themselves from where she was clenching them hard in the hem of his ridiculous shoulder garment, and rests her hand over his sternum instead, on the lace there, on his beating heart. She squeezes the bottom of her sweater in the other so she can’t pull herself back into his arms again.

She pats him a little, feeling ridiculous, feeling suddenly like she’s about to cry, biting the inside of her lip hard to keep the tears down.

"Please be safe," she finally says.

Useless, really. He isn’t safe, and he won’t be for some time yet. But Megamind presses his hand over hers on his chest, and brushes his other thumb over the corner of Roxanne’s mouth, long fingers curling under her chin.

"With you?" he says, gently tipping her face up. "Always."

Roxanne is blinking back tears but Megamind’s eyes are twinkling and he’s smiling, and he leans forward and kisses her before she can do much more than pull a shaky breath in response to that. He doesn’t move away when he withdraws.

"Yes?" he asks. "You’ll be okay?"

Wordless, she nods. "Yeah," she manages. "Yeah, I’ll be okay. Text me?"

He nods. Kisses her again, her mouth and then her forehead, guiding her with his hand on her chin.

As he steps back, Roxanne forces a grin and adds, "And wear that again sometime," nodding towards his chest, and Megamind laughs.

He turns away—

—and then he turns back.

"Not tomorrow," he says, sounding very hopeful, "but the next day. Do…something, together? With me?"

Roxanne’s smile splits her face so fast it makes a noise around her teeth, even with the stone in her throat. "Definitely," she says. "Absolutely. I'll be home by six?"

"I'll be here," he agrees, and then he's ducking away out the door and Roxanne is laughing to herself at the dual realization that he probably isn’t kidding and she's honestly fine with that. Her last real partner, she would have wanted some time to decompress from work before seeing him…but Megamind is welcome in her life anytime.

Minion waves as Megamind scrambles into the hoverbike’s sidecar, and Roxanne waves back…and then they’re gone.

She stands by her doors for a long time after that, gazing out at the wintery city, just thinking. Everything is different now. Better, yes, but bigger. Darker, too. 

Snow clouds rolling in. 

I need to win this year, is what she told Wayne, weeks and weeks ago. I need to win.

She won more than she ever expected to, but the feeling of needing to win has not faded. If anything, it's solidified. Someday, when her loved ones fly away, she will know they’ll fly home again safe. Someday she'll take Megamind to a garden in the daylight, and she'll get to see him in sunlight surrounded by flowers. Someday he will know what he's worth, he'll know it's so much more than he ever could have guessed before. He will. They'll light up the shadows and bring him and Minion into the sun.

One day at a time.