Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

December 17th— the first day of Saturnalia, an ancient Roman festival during which gifts were given and ordinary social norms were overturned.

“It’s your birthday, isn’t it?” Roxan—Miss Ritchi says, interrupting Megamind’s painstakingly rehearsed monologue about the (carefully designed and extensively safety-tested) mechanized whirling vortex of blades with which he is attempting, unsuccessfully, to menace her.

He loses his place in his prepared speech, stuttering ignominiously to silence, his fingers clutching the edges of his cape (a stupid, nervous habit; he’s tried so hard to rid himself of it—)

“—w-what?” he says, hating himself for the way his voice trembles on the word, hating himself for the way he can feel heat flooding his face.

(at least he hasn’t started the broadcast yet; at least it’s only Ro—Miss Ritchi here, witnessing him like this. although that’s not really much comfort; he’d rather look like an idiot in front of the entire city than in front of her, but—)

“Today,” Roxanne says, eyes on his face, “it’s your birthday, isn’t it?”

He stares at her. His first impulse is to deny it; he doesn’t quite know why. It shouldn’t matter, her knowing; it doesn’t matter; of course it doesn’t—but it makes him feel, somehow, very terribly exposed.

“Why do you know that?” he blurts out instead.

“I—“ Roxanne hesitates for an almost imperceptible moment, “I got curious,” she said. “I charted out the dates of all the times you’ve kidnapped me over the years—”

Megamind blinks. Why would she…?

“—and I noticed that you always kidnap me on December seventeenth,” Roxanne continues, “and since most of your other annual kidnappings happen on holidays, I started wondering if maybe this was your birthday. It is?”

There is a silence.

“—yes.”

The word falls between them, quiet and unequivocal, like the proverbial pin dropping into the silence.

Megamind winces, regretting saying it already, waiting for her to ask the next, obvious question: why do you kidnap me every year on your birthday; Megamind; is it because you have some sort of sick fascination with me, you disgusting alien freak—

“Do you, um,” Roxanne clears her throat, “—do you and Minion—celebrate?”

Megamind stares at her, fingers moving nervously on the edge of his cape now. What is happening with this conversation? Why is this conversation happening at all? She can’t possibly care about the answer; why is she asking the question—

“No,” he says.

(Minion knows Megamind doesn’t feel much like celebrating anything, pretty much the whole month of December. Megamind has always felt guilty about that: the screaming black despair that hits him every winter, without fail—it’s not like it wasn’t Minion’s planet, too, and Minion copes all right; he gets a little melancholy around the actual date, but if it wasn’t for Megamind and his inability to function like a rational being, Minion would be able to enjoy the general atmosphere of festivity and christmas and—everything. Instead of trying to make sure Megamind doesn’t have another breakdown.)

“—no, we don’t really celebrate,” he says.

“—oh,” Roxanne says, a tone in her voice that he can’t place—disapproval? disappointment?

Megamind realizes that his fingers are playing with the edge of his cape and balls his hands into fists to force them still.

“Why?” he asks, half-defiantly, ready for some sort of attack or criticism from her, wondering what kind of insult she’s going to spin around his birthday, around his not celebrating his birthday.

(a joke about how he’s never managed to accomplish anything at his age? a comment about him not celebrating because he doesn’t have anyone to invite to any party he might have? a—)

“I—” Roxanne glances away from him for a moment, looks back into his face, “well—I was. Wondering if you—wanted to. Celebrate. With—with me?”

Her eyes dart away from his; she gives a strange-sounding laugh.

“I mean—I’m here…on your birthday. You always—I’m always—with you. On your birthday. So I thought maybe that—was something—you might want to…I don’t know.”

She’s looking at the floor now. Megamind realizes, distantly, that he has stopped breathing. He waits—for her to say something else, for her to look up, for her to laugh and say she was joking. She doesn’t, though. She just stares at the floor—

He needs to see her face. He needs to see her expression, needs to see—

Megamind moves toward her, stops in front of her. She doesn’t look up—he should put his hand under her chin, should force her to look up, should make her look at him.

He drops into a crouch in front of her instead, looks hard into her face. She meets his eyes, biting her lip, her cheeks a little flushed.

(why? why is she blushing? there has to be a reason, and it has to be an involuntary reaction; people can’t blush deliberately, can they?)

(why would she ask him that? Why?)

He bites down on the inside of his cheek, thoughts clicking into place. Logically—logically, there are two possibilities: either she has figured out that he is desperately, hopelessly, pathetically in love with her, and this is a conversational trap, her playing with him until she’s ready to reveal her knowledge and crush him…or she is really, honestly asking because she’s—interested in celebrating his birthday with him?

(two possibilities, and neither makes sense; the latter is flatly impossible, but the former doesn’t fit at all with Roxanne’s character—she is certainly capable of cruelty, but when she wants to hurt, she strikes quick and sudden: a thrust to the heart, not a slow, drawn-out torment.)

Two possibilities—

Oh, to hell with it, Megamind decides, biting down harder on the inside of his cheek, tasting blood. If it’s the first option, then he’s lost already and there’s no point in trying to salvage the situation. The worst has already occurred.

He feels almost cheerful about that, really—a dark, hurtful sort of cheer, but a cheer nevertheless, and—

And if it’s the other possibility

(which it isn’t)

(of course it isn’t)

(it isn’t)

He’s not going to delude himself with false hope; he is not hoping; he will not allow it—his racing heartbeat and the twisting, fluttering feeling in the pit of his stomach are meaningless and not indicative of hope—

—but if it is the other possibility—

Well. He’s not going to miss his one and only chance, however remote and impossible, of Roxanne voluntarily allowing him to be in her presence.

Yes, to hell with it. To hell with everything.

“Yes,” Megamind says, looking up into Roxanne’s face and not looking away, “yes, I would like that.”

Chapter Text

(December 13th--Roxanne, alone in her apartment.)

All right, so this is, admittedly, a pretty weird thing to be doing. Roxanne is aware. But—when she got her box of Christmas things out of the hall closet last week, she got—a bit distracted. Thinking about Megamind. And Christmas. And Megamind during Christmas. And wondering what she should wear for the annual Christmas kidnapping—

(if she knew for sure that it was going to take place somewhere inside, she could buy that new dress she saw in the shop window, the other day—dark blue with a flared skirt and a neckline that would show off her collarbones. She could wear it with her silver earrings that look like snowflakes…)

—and it occurs to her, then, that it’s a little strange that she knows Megamind’s routine well enough to plan an outfit for a kidnapping.

But he does always kidnap her on Christmas—and—well, she has a pretty good feel for when a kidnapping is coming, anyway, a sort of approximate idea of…

She frowns, thinking, and picks up a pen and a notebook from the coffee table.

The Christmas decorations are forgotten entirely. She spends the next four hours charting out all of the times, over the years, that Megamind has kidnapped her.

And then she spends the rest of the week doing that as well.

She hangs everything up on her wall, calendar dates and newspaper clippings and quotes from her reports—more notes about what she remembers best about particular kidnappings. Roxanne finds that she does remember all of them, better than she would have expected. She tapes things to the wall and connects things that seem to go together with pins and bits of string and—

Yeah, okay, it looks a little like she’s lost her mind, but it’s not like she has friends over to comment on it, and it’s easier to think, with everything in front of her like that.

A pattern emerges. The kidnappings are usually spaced about a week apart, yes, but the intervals aren’t completely regular. And there’s always a kidnapping on major holidays, her birthday included, even when it doesn’t fit with the usual pattern of one-kidnapping-a-week.

There’s a longer than usual period of inactivity during most of October, before her birthday, and then another slightly longer than usual pause, between her birthday and Halloween—she thinks the comparatively low amount of supervillain activity during the beginning of October is probably so he can increase anticipation for the Halloween plans; Megamind is always at his most enthusiastic on Halloween.

There isn’t the same kind of break before Chrismas, though, which is strange, since Christmas is such a major holiday in Metro City. Even if Megamind doesn’t like Christmas (he doesn’t; Roxanne doesn’t even need the chart to tell her that; she pays attention, and Megamind’s verbal sparring is always a little stiffer, and a little crueler, on Christmas)—

But even if he doesn’t like Christmas, the Christmas evil plots are always big and showy and intricate, you’d think he would want to raise the anticipation for them, and give himself time to plan it all out more carefully.

There’s no period of inactivity during the middle of December, though. In fact—

In fact, he always kidnaps her, every year, on December seventeenth.

Huh. That’s—odd.

She double checks her chart.

Yes—December seventeenth, every year, like clockwork.

—and that very odd, because the only other dates with that sort of annual pattern are actual holidays. And her birthday.

Why would December seventeenth…?

She researches the date and doesn’t come up with much. It’s the start of the ancient Roman holiday of Saturnalia, which does seem like something that might interest Megamind, but if the evil plots were specifically linked with that, he would say something about it: Megamind’s not subtle when it comes to evil plots.

(the only other dates with an annual pattern—actual holidays. and her—and her birthday—)

Her birthday.

Is—is December seventeenth—is it maybe his—is December seventeenth maybe Megamind’s birthday?

Why wouldn’t he say something to her, if it was his birthday?

Maybe he doesn’t want to share something as—personal and important as that with—with her?

But—but he always kidnaps her, that day. On December seventeenth. Which—if it’s his birthday, then maybe he does want her around, maybe he does want—

Okay. Okay, Roxanne just needs to—to take a break from this. A breather. To step back for a moment.

She steps back.

She looks again.

And she sees—

Her living room wall, covered in a gigantic chart of every interaction she’s ever had with Megamind, complete with her favorite recollections of every interaction, all of the hours that she’s spent trying to figure out the pattern, figure out the way his mind works, to figure out him.

(the dark blue dress she bought for Christmas, draped over the back of the couch, chosen for the way it flares out around her hips, the way it frames her shoulders, the way it complements the style and the color of Megamind’s clothes—)

And she understands.

“—oh,” she says, rather blankly, and sits down hard on her still-unopened box of Christmas decorations.

“Oh, no.”

Chapter Text

Megamind deliberately sabotages the deathtrap. It’s not difficult to do: a tiny screw lodged between the gears of the machinery and the whole thing grinds to a halt.

He’s pretty sure Roxanne knows what he’s doing. It’s silly, really, that he’s doing it, but he doesn’t feel able to go on with the usual battle, after that conversation with Roxanne.

(perhaps that was the point of the conversation, the reason she brought it up—maybe she’s wanting to go home quickly, today, was trying to think of a way to get him to end things faster than usual?)

But when he calls Minion back to the Lair, she doesn’t show any visible sings of impatience to be gone; Megamind watches her face closely when Minion suggests that she stay for refreshments while Megamind attempts to fix the (not actually broken) deathtrap. But she agrees and doesn’t seem anything but pleased and—maybe slightly flustered? Nervous?

(he’s probably reading too much into this)

Minion brings out coffee and the cinnamon rolls left over from today’s breakfast (they might not actually celebrate Megamind’s birthday, but Minion always makes sure to have plenty of sugary snacks on hand, during December. Megamind wonders, always, if it’s Minion’s way of stealthily celebrating without telling Megamind, or if it’s just an attempt to make sure that Megamind actually eats.)

Megamind pretends to be busy with the machine and watches Roxanne from the corners of his eyes, her one untied hand curled around her coffee cup, and he doesn’t argue very hard before giving into Minion’s scolding and coming over to eat, too.

He sits in his chair, across from Roxanne, and holds a cup of coffee in his hands (he can scarcely feel the warmth through the material of his gloves) and pretends that he isn’t staring at her.

Roxanne licks icing from her thumb. Megamind glances away quickly, feeling guilty, somehow, for looking.

Minion takes her home and Megamind sits on the floor in the lab, knees drawn into his chest, arms around his legs, and breathes. The brainbots come, singly, in pairs, and in little swarms, hover above his shoulders and his head, and then circle around him, making mechanical whirring noises of concern. He closes his eyes and leans his forehead on his knees.

(the brainbots set up a slow, continuous rotation around him, moving together like a school of fish—a defensive formation.)

He wraps his arms around the top of his head now and—

Breathes.

Breathes.

Breathes.

He goes to Roxanne’s apartment the next day. She told him he could.

She told him that he could bring Minion, as well, but he doesn’t. If this is a trap, then he doesn’t want Minion getting caught in it, too.

He doesn’t even tell Minion where he’s going. Minion would never approve of him walking into a possible trap.

It doesn’t make sense, though, it being a trap. Just like the idea of Roxanne deliberately toying with him doesn’t make sense. That kind of—sustained, long-term cruelty isn’t really in her nature. And he’s never really—

Well. She’s never really given any indication that she thinks he’s worth that kind of effort.

But then, the idea of her honestly requesting his company—that doesn’t make sense, either.

Maybe she feels sorry for him. Maybe this is—her idea of Christmas charity. Or something.

That thought shouldn’t hurt more than the idea of it being a trap, but it does, somehow.

He goes to her apartment anyway.

The sky is leaden and gray when he lands on her balcony; the cold hurts his lungs with each breath he takes and the wind hurts too, stinging his face, biting and clawing at him like a living thing with teeth and talons and hunger.

There’s frost on the glass door of her balcony; she doesn’t answer when he knocks. It’s silent inside, too—he doesn’t think she’s home. He goes to wipe away the frost from the glass, to peer inside and check, but—

He stops himself. This is—this is not a kidnapping. The—the way he usually completely ignores the rules of polite social interaction with her—that’s not appropriate, now.

Which means he can’t try the door, either. There are lock picks in his pocket, so it wouldn’t even matter if it wasn’t unlocked, but he isn’t going to touch them, isn’t going to touch the door.

No.

When someone invites you to their home, there are certain things you’re not supposed to do.

Megamind stands on the balcony for a while, staring at the blank grayness of the sky, and then, finally, he lets himself sit instead.

He pulls his cape closer around himself, aching all over—not just from cold, but from exhaustion, as well. He hasn’t slept in—a while now. A long while. And he hasn’t slept well or solidly for—even longer. He could certainly calculate exactly how long, if he wanted to, but—he doesn’t really care enough to bother.

(he feels like the winter sky—empty and blank and cold. and tired. so very tired.)

He leans back against the wall and closes his eyes. A few minutes go by and he starts to shiver—it hurts, the shivering—it makes his muscles ache—and it makes him feel even more exhausted. He’s relieved when it finally stops.

After a while, it starts to snow, but Megamind does not notice that, because he is asleep.

The snow falls, and keeps on falling, drifting down from the gray sky, covering the gray concrete of Roxanne’s balcony, settling on Megamind’s shoulders, on the tops of his boots, and on his skin.

Time passes.

The snow falls harder.

Chapter Text

Megamind wakes up slowly.

Someone is shouting at him intermittently, and there’s fair bit of pain happening—but it feels distant, soft-edged, like something blurry and out-of-focus. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to wake up all the way.

There’s something odd going on with his breathing—the rhythm, maybe…? Or—the way it seems distant, too, as though it’s something that’s happening to him, rather than something that he’s doing…?

He decides he’d much rather go back to sleep than worry about that.

The voice shouts his name, repeats it, and it is at this moment that Megamind recognizes the voice as Roxanne’s, and her tone as terrified pleading—a tone that he’s never heard from her before.

What is making Roxanne sound like—

—what’s wrong—is she hurt; is someone hurting her—

Megamind wakes up, gasping and—yes, there’s the pain hitting him for real, slamming into his chest like a punch, arcing like electricity through his limbs.

He’s lying on his back on the floor of Roxanne’s living room, his cape and shoulder guards off. Roxanne is on the floor, too, leaning over him, looking absolutely frantic—why—

“—ah—” Megamind says, wincing at the ache in his chest and Roxanne’s face crumples like she’s going to cry.

She makes a small, choked noise, the palm of one hand pressing against her mouth, her other hand moving with quick, uncertain movements—clutching at the material of his collar; brushing, light and fast, over his jaw; fluttering at the hollow of his throat.

Megamind stares at her, his thoughts confused, slower than usual. He doesn’t know what he’s doing lying on the floor, or how he ended up inside Roxanne’s apartment, or why she’s looking at him like that, but the most important question is—

“—are—are you—all right?” Megamind manages to ask her.

Roxanne looks at him, wide-eyed, for a moment, and then she bursts into tears.

She fairly throws herself backwards from him, curling up in a sort of ball, her knees pulled into her chest, her back against a cardboard box that is sitting on the floor, both of her hands pressed to her mouth now. She’s still looking at him while she cries, and rocking back and forth a little, and she’s clearly trying to do it quietly, but not really succeeding.

She shakes her head back and forth wildly; Megamind, alarmed now, pushes himself to a sitting position.

Oh god—should he—what should he—Roxanne isn’t supposed to cry; he doesn’t know how to make her stop, how to help her; what he’s supposed to do at all—

She moves her arms to wrap around her chest, still crying.

“—am—I—all—you—” she chokes out.

Megamind is frozen in place—should he reach out? Should he move away?

“—you weren’t breathing,” Roxanne says, “—you weren’t—I came home late and I thought you’d be here and you weren’t here and I went out to the balcony to look and—oh god what if I hadn’t gone out there, you would have—you weren’t breathing!”

Megamind blinks, understanding dawning.

Oh—oh no.

“You weren’t breathing,” Roxanne says again, “I couldn’t—you—”

“No, no! No,” Megamind says, waving his hands in a way that’s meant to be reassuring but probably falls entirely short of the mark, “no, that’s not—”

He tries putting his hands on her upper arms instead; is that better? He can’t tell.

“—that was—I’m sorry! About that!” he says, not very coherently. “It’s—it’s not as bad as it looks, though; it—that happens when my body temperature drops below a certain point, but it’s not—it’s like—ahh—hibernation! Like frogs!”

“—frogs?” Roxanne asks, sounding bewildered and half-angry now, which is definitely an improvement, but—

“Frogs! Yes! In winter! Their respiration and—with me, my—my oxygen consumption lowers enough that I can get by with cutaneous respiration and—it’s just a thing! That happens! An—an alien thing!”

Roxanne looks at him for a long moment, almost glaring at him through her tears, her ragged breathing evening out. Then she reaches up to scrub the tears from her face almost violently.

Megamind lets go of her arms immediately, suddenly aware that he is crouching extremely close to Roxanne. He moves back quickly, giving her space.

She shoots him an absolutely filthy look.

Megamind curls his body inwards, trying to make himself smaller.

“I thought you were dead,” she says, voice accusing.

Megamind shrinks in on himself a little more. God, he really has screwed this up, hasn’t he? Even worse than he usually screws things up. Walking out onto your balcony to find what you think is a dead body—no wonder she’s angry.

“Sorry,” he says, dropping his eyes to the floor.

“You must have been out there for hours! Why didn’t you just come inside?” Roxanne demands, “I left the door unlocked!”

“—I didn’t want to be impolite,” Megamind says in a small voice.

(and look how that turned out; doesn’t get much more impolite than leaving a dead body on someone’s doorstep)

“Jesus,” Roxanne hisses.

Megamind flinches, and then a wave of shivering hits him.

Ah, god—he hates it when this happens. He might be awake now, but he’s still much too cold, the kind of cold that hurts, his muscles aching, his skin stinging—his fingers feel numb and he can’t really feel his feet at all, and he needs to warm up a little—just a little, before he can leave Roxanne’s apartment safely—

Roxanne makes an angry noise; Megamind shivers miserably and keeps his eyes fixed on the floor.

He hears her moving, and then his head jerks up in surprise, because she is kneeling close in front of him, tugging on of his arms away from his chest.

“You are an idiot,” she says fiercely. “Next time just come inside.”

“—uh?” Megamind says because—next time, what—?

And then he makes another shocked noise because she is reaching for the buckle of his glove—what—what is—

Oh—oh, of course; his hands will warm faster if he takes off his gloves, but—

He moves to unbuckle the glove himself, not wanting to force her to touch him, but he fumbles with the clasp, his fingers still too numb to work properly. Roxanne hisses through her teeth and bats his hand lightly away, unbuckling the clasp herself, and then peeling the leather down.

She pulls the glove off his hand—his fingertips are almost white with cold—then reaches for his other glove, unbuckles it, pulls it off.

Roxanne pushes lightly at his shoulders and Megamind leans back obediently against the couch, staring with wide eyes as Roxanne reaches for his boots, tugs them off one at a time. She scowls at his bare feet—blue and oddly shaped: too narrow, the toes too long. Watching her face, he gets the sense that she is steeling herself for something—to touch his skin, maybe?

And then her expression goes determined and she reaches for the buckle of his belt.

Megamind makes an unintelligible noise of shock, entire body going rigid.

“Shut up, you’re freezing,” Roxanne mutters, face flushing, avoiding his eyes as she unbuckles his belt and pulls it off (her hands are shaking; touching him must have stolen some of her body heat already), “How do I get the rest of this stupid suit off?”

Megamind stares at her, scarcely able to breathe, thoughts as frozen as his body.

And then, slowly, he rises up and turns around so that he’s facing the couch, exposing the zipper that runs the length of his spine.

A moment of stillness, and then he feels Roxanne grasp his shoulder lightly with one hand, feels the fingertips of her other hand brush against the vertebrae at the base of his neck, her hand warm, almost hot, against his chilled skin.

She takes hold of the tab of the zipper and pulls it down.

The sound is very loud in the silence and Megamind closes his eyes, unable to stop his head from bending forwards, baring the back of his neck to Roxanne even further.

(it’s okay, though; she won’t understand—won’t understand the significance of the gesture, the meaning—)

Roxanne’s hands move to his sides, pushing the material of his suit apart, sliding upwards to his shoulders, then down his upper arms, slipping the material down his arms, stopping with the shirt tangled around his wrists. Then her hands move to the small of his back, undoing the zipper of his trousers.

Megamind closes his eyes. He’s shivering even harder now, but he’s not really sure if it’s a reaction to the cold, or a reaction to what is happening right now.

(how is this happening; he can’t really believe that this is happening, can’t believe that he’s sitting here while Roxanne undresses him for any reason at all, even if it’s just—)

“Lie down on the couch,” Roxanne says quietly.

Megamind moves slowly to obey. He rises shakily to half-collapse on the couch, lies down on his back, staring up at Roxanne, who’s already standing over him.

She looks down at him, frowning still, biting her lip, and then she bends, tugging at the waistband of his pants.

Megamind, not breathing at all, lifts his hips for her and lets her pull them down and off his legs.

His hands are still tangled up in his shirt; he could pull it off himself, but somehow it doesn’t really occur to him to do so.

Roxanne reaches down and pulls the shirt off, freeing his hands. Then she glares at his undersuit.

(if Megamind wasn’t freezing, still, he’d be flushing hot by now.)

“—there isn’t any zipper,” Roxanne says, voice almost accusing.

Megamind feels his eyes go wide—even wider than before, feels his breath catch. He gasps and hopes to god that she thinks it’s just his uncontrollable shivering that makes him do it.

“I—n-no, there’s no—it just—it s-stretches—down—”

Roxanne makes a dissatisfied sound and hooks her fingers beneath the collar of the undersuit.

“Sit up, then,” she says brusquely..

Megamind does, staring at her, shaking and shivering and flushing in earnest now, because is she actually going to—

She moves to kneel on the couch behind him; he feels her hands on his neck now, pushing beneath the collar of the undersuit, her palms sliding over the skin of his shoulders—god, oh god—and then the skin of his arms—god—pulling the suit off of his wrists, then pushing it down his sides, down to his hips.

Megamind swallows hard.

He feels Roxanne move her hands away from his body for a moment, and then he feels them against his skin once more, one on his shoulder blade and one at his hip.

Megamind closes his eyes and feels her slide the hand that’s on his shoulder blade up so that it’s on his shoulder again, her thumb at the base of his neck and—

—and it hits him, all at once, in a sick rush of shame, who he is and what he’s doing, letting Roxanne—actually permitting himself to let her touch him, allowing himself to feel her hands on his skin.

He jerks away from the sweet, warm pressure of her hands—he can’t—he doesn’t—he doesn’t deserve—and turns around, moving backwards, putting some distance between them, pulling his legs into his chest, wrapping his arms around his knees, trying to hide himself from Roxanne’s view, so that she doesn’t have to—doesn’t have to look at him, doesn’t have to see—

A beat of silence, just the sound of Megamind’s uneven breathing.

“—I”ll go get you some dry clothes,” Roxanne says, and stands abruptly, and leaves the room.

Megamind grits his teeth to keep them from chattering and closes his eyes tightly and shakes and shakes and shakes.

God, how could he—how could he let himself—

He hears Roxanne’s furnace kick on, and then, after a minute or so, Roxanne’s footsteps. Megamind opens his eyes again as Roxanne drops a pile of blankets and a pair of—

“—um,” Megamind says, because those are shorts; surely she doesn’t want him to—

“Are you going to let me touch you?” Roxanne asks.

Megamind blinks at her, totally lost now.

“—l-let you..?”

“I feel—” Roxanne says, “—I feel like maybe you don’t like to be touched—or maybe you just don’t want me to—but—sharing body body heat seems like it would be a good plan right now because you don’t seem any warmer, Megamind, and it’s really making me concerned.”

Megamind jerks in shock.

“—I—it’s not—I d-don’t m-mind you—t-touching me—it’s—”

(mind? of course he doesn’t mind; that’s not the—it’s just—it’s not—)

—it’s not appropriate; it’s not appropriate for the kind of—of relationship they have—none of this is appropriate for the kind of relationship they have. Damsels aren’t supposed to—they aren’t supposed to care about their villains. They aren’t supposed to invite them to their apartment, aren’t supposed to help them out of their wet clothes when they’re shaking too badly from cold to handle zippers and buckles; they aren’t supposed to look at them with worried eyes and ask them are you going to let me touch you like they’re—like they’re something worth touching—

(like he’s something worth touching)

God, this really must be a charity thing; she really must feel sorry for him. He’s certain he looks pathetic enough for her to pity him, huddled on her couch the way he is, trembling uncontrollably.

That thought hurts even more the second time around.

Megamind closes his eyes against the pain of it.

“—okay,” he says in a small, miserable voice, “—I—y-you c-can—okay.”

Chapter Text

There’s a beat of silence.

“Okay,” Roxanne says, “okay, just—you change, then. I’m going to—I’m going to make you some hot chocolate really quick and then I’ll be right back, all right?”

Megamind nods, stiff and quick and jerky. There’s another half-second of silence and then he hears her walk away.

He takes a shuddery breath and opens his eyes. His gaze falls on the shorts. Megamind bites his lip and glances over the back of the couch, towards the kitchen.

Roxanne is opening the refrigerator door, her back to him. Moving quickly, like he’s tearing a bandage from a wound, Megamind stands on shaky legs, strips the undersuit the rest of the way off his body, and puts on the shorts.

They’re too baggy to stay up on his scrawny hips, but have a drawstring, thankfully. He pulls it taut, but his hands are still shaking and his fingers are still too numb to tie it.

The timer on the microwave beeps; Megamind tries again to tie the string, feeling close to screaming when it still doesn’t work; come on—come on, come on—

“Here,” Roxanne says quietly, “let me.”

Megamind jerks, looking up at her, and then goes still.

Roxanne sets the mug of hot cocoa down on the coffee table and reaches for the string, tying it swiftly.

Her fingertips lightly brush across the skin of his stomach and he flinches reflexively away. Then his legs give out and he collapses, abrupt and ungraceful, onto the couch.

“S-sorry,” he says, to Roxanne’s knees.

(she’s changed clothes, too; she must have done that when she went upstairs to get blankets and clothing for him. she’s wearing a small pair of shorts, herself, and a tank top, the most casually he’s ever seen her dressed.)

Megamind bites the inside of his cheek, feeling more like crying now than screaming.

“Here,” Roxanne says and hands him the cup of cocoa.

He takes it clumsily and stares down at it.

“Drink that. It’s warm and the sugar will help.”

Megamind raises the cup to his lips, glancing up at Roxanne, just in time to see her pull her shirt over her head.

He chokes on his mouthful of hot chocolate, cup jerking in his hands, cocoa spilling over the rim and onto his hands.

Megamind looks away quickly, but not quickly enough that the image of Roxanne taking off her shirt jesus christ isn’t seared into his retinas, permanently seared in his memory: skin and skin and beautiful creamy skin and freckles; she has freckles, and he only saw them for a moment but Megamind knows that he could map out the location of every beauty mark on her torso, chart them like stars—

His hands are shaking even more violently and the cup in his hands is spilling more and—

Roxanne takes it from him.

“S-sorry,” Megamind gasps, eyes closed tightly, “sorry—”

“It’s okay, Megamind,” Roxanne says, voice gentle enough that he’s startled into looking at her again: her too-kind eyes and still too much of her skin showing between the waistband of her shorts and the bottom of her sports bra and then she picks her discarded shirt up off the floor and uses it to wipe the hot chocolate from his hands.

And how is Megamind supposed to handle this?

“It’s okay,” Roxanne says again, “just—give me a sec—”

She picks up one of the blankets, shakes out its folds, and then drapes it over his lap. Megamind sits as still as he can manage with the way he’s still shaking.

Roxanne unfolds the second blanket and drapes it over her shoulders like a cape, part of it pulled over her head like a hood, framing her face.

She lies down on the couch beside him, her head propped up by a throw pillow and the armrest. Still holding two edges of the blanket in her hands, she opens her arms.

“Come here, please,” Roxanne says quietly.

Megamind is still for another moment. She—she wants him to—?

“Lean back against me,” Roxanne says, evidently taking his paralyzed terror for confusion.

Oh god. Ohgodohgodohgod—

Megamind crawls ungracefully over and into the circle of her arms, lies back against her.

It’s—

It’s overwhelming.

(the heat of her, the soft texture of her skin pressed against his, all along almost his entire spine. he’s lying between her legs, which feels shockingly intimate, especially combined with the way her legs are pressed close to his. he has his head pillowed on her shoulder and so the skin of her shoulder, of the curve of her neck, is pressed against the back of his head)

It’s like sinking into a hot bath; Roxanne is so warm and she’s all around him. He feels like he’s melting, dissolving—

She rearranges the blankets, pulling the one that was on his lap up nearly to his chin, ranging the one around her shoulders so that the hood curves protectively around his head now, along with hers. Then she frees one hand from the blankets and, without dislodging him, picks his cup of cocoa up from the coffee table and brings it to him.

Megamind reaches for it, and he’s expecting her to let go of the cup when his hands go around it, but—she wraps her own hands around his and helps him to drink.

He drinks, and hates himself for it, hates himself for taking her help, hates himself for the greedy way his body is soaking up the heat of Roxanne, the greedy way it’s memorizing the exact sensation of her skin against his, her arms around him, her hands over his, helping to tilt a cup to his lips.

Megamind tries, rather desperately, to control the way he’s still shivering; if he keeps shaking this violently, he’s going to end up hurting Roxanne, lying on her the way that he is, all the sharp edges of him digging into her.

(He feels as if he’s made entirely of sharp edges, all unforgivable awkwardness and angles against the softness of her.)

The hot chocolate does help; it warms him, just as Roxanne and the blankets warm him, and slowly, too slowly, he manages to regain control over his own body, bringing his shivering down to a fine tremor that runs through him.

It’s terribly fatiguing, this battle with his own body. Waking up from coldsleep is always exhausting anyway—the energy required to force his system back into functionality is immense and he doesn’t have much a reserve of energy to fall back on, this time. Not with the way he’s been staying awake even more than usual, this month, not when the last thing he could force himself to eat was that cinnamon roll yesterday, with Roxanne.

He’s exhausted by the time he drinks most of the cocoa; Roxanne seems to sense this, because she pulls the cup from his unresisting hands and places it down on the coffee table again.

Megamind’s eyes keep wanting to slip closed, which is unacceptable; he needs to get up, needs to get dressed, needs to leave Roxanne’s apartment and stop imposing on her—

Roxanne pulls the blanket up a little farther, and then slips her hands beneath it and wraps her arms around him.

“Go to sleep,” she tells him, voice soft, and—

And Megamind is unable to stop himself from turning into her, just a little, his forehead against her neck, his hands curled beneath his chin, on her chest—unable to stop himself from accepting whatever she offers, no matter that she can only be offering it to him out of pity.

It is—it is too much, too much and not enough at the same time—the way he can feel her breathing, the warmth of Roxanne’s arms around him, the way she’s holding him close, the kindness and the gentleness of her and the knowledge that it doesn’t mean anything to her, the knowledge that he is unloved and unworthy of love—

He finds that he is weeping, helplessly and silently; too exhausted and defeated to stop the tears, too exhausted even to sob, tears slipping between his tightly shut eyelids and onto Roxanne’s skin, hating himself more than ever for imposing this last, final indignity on her.

“—shh,” Roxanne says.

She tightens one arm around him, one hand pressing against Megamind’s upper back.

“It’s okay,” she whispers, “it’s okay, Megamind—”

She pulls the blanket higher with her other hand, over the back of his head, then wraps her arm around his head, leans her cheek against the the top of it.

“—shh,” she says again, voice soft, “shh, Megamind; go to sleep.”

Megamind cries for a little longer, and then he sleeps.

Eventually, Roxanne sleeps as well.

Roxanne wakes up because someone is knocking on the door.

It’s morning, sunlight streaming through the windows. Megamind is still lying bonelessly, half on top of her, his head on her shoulder. The person at the door knocks again, louder and more insistent. Roxanne, looking down at what she can see of Megamind’s face, sees him frown slightly, and stir.

The person knocks again.

Megamind makes a soft noise of protest as Roxanne untangles herself from him and stands. His eyes flicker open briefly.

“Shh—it’s just someone at the door,” she says soothingly, “go back to sleep; I’ll take care of it.”

Megamind’s eyes close again and he burrows back down into the blankets.

Her shirt is still on the floor from last night; it’s a bit covered in hot chocolate, but it’ll do to wear for long enough to get rid of whoever’s at the door. Roxanne pulls it on as she moves to answer the door—the person is knocking again. Seriously? What can possibly be this important—?

She opens the door, glaring already. The person on the other side, a tall woman dressed like June Cleaver and built like a linebacker, smiles a slightly manic smile.

“Can I help—” Roxanne begins, in a distinctly unfriendly tone.

“—Miss Ritchi—” the woman says, and Roxanne blinks, because the voice is—

“—Minion?” she says disbelievingly.

The woman’s eyes widen and her smile falls away into a look of surprise, which quickly turns into an expression of terror.

“Yes, it’s me,” the woman—Minion says, “Miss Ritchi—please, you haven’t seen Sir, have you?”

His wrings his hands.

“He went out last night without telling me where he was going and it’s terribly cold and he hasn’t come back home and I don’t know where he is; I’ve checked everywhere and I’m worried he might have—and you probably haven’t seen him but I don’t know who else to ask and—”

“Minion—Minion; it’s okay! He’s here,” Roxanne says, opening the door and quickly pulling Minion inside. “He came over last night; he’s asleep on the couch.”

An expression of relief dawns on Minion’s face as this sinks in.

Roxanne closes the door behind him and Minion reaches for the watch on his wrist, twists a dial—

The image of the housewife disappears and Minion moves swiftly past Roxanne, into the living room. Roxanne follows. When she gets there, Minion is standing over the couch, looking down at the still-sleeping Megamind with an almost fierce expression. Roxanne gets the impression that, if he were human, there would be tears in his eyes.

You are an idiot, Sir,” Minion whispers angrily to Megamind, who stirs slightly, but does not wake.

“…yeah,” Roxanne says, her eyes filling with tears, looking down at Megamind, remembering—

(Megamind, still and cold, beneath the snow, propped up against the wall on her balcony, not moving when she said his name, when she shook him. Not moving when she dragged him inside, as she tilted his head back and started rescue breaths and chest compressions and shouted at him and—not moving or breathing and—)

“—yeah,” she whispers again, voice wobbly, “he is.”

Minion looks over at her, catches her wiping at her eyes.

“—sorry,” she says, “I just—I wasn’t here when he got here last night and—he was out on the balcony and—he acted like it wasn’t really a big deal, after I finally got him to wake up b-but he wasn’t breathing and then he took forever to get warm and—”

“Wait,” Minion says, eyes narrowing, “you—you found him in coldsleep?”

“Cold—? Is that what you call it, the—he said it was like frogs—and hibernation,” Roxanne says.

Minion makes an angry noise.

“Of course he did,” he hisses.

“He—he acted like it wasn’t—a big deal…” Roxanne says, “…he said— it was just a thing that happens—”

“Oh, yes,” Minion says in a furious whisper, and Roxanne has never imagined that Minion could sound so angry. “Yes, it is just a thing that happens as a last defense mechanism against freezing to death or drowning; did he happen to mention that part? Did he happen to mention that his body will only stay alive in coldsleep for an extremely limited amount of time? Did he happen to mention that? Or did that just slip your mind, Sir, the way telling me where you were going last night evidently slipped your mind?” Minion adds, in the direction of Megamind.

“—wasn’t that bad,” Megamind mutters from his cocoon of blankets.

Roxanne, who hadn’t realized he was awake, jumps a little.

Minion makes a scoffing sound and Megamind sits up slowly, blankets still wrapped around him.

For a long moment, there’s a very charged silence in Roxanne’s living room.

“—so I’m gonna go take a shower now,” Roxanne says, breaking it, “and then when I come back we’ll all have breakfast, yeah?”

Megamind stares down at the coffee table, so Roxanne looks over at Minion. She feels like she should leave the two of them to work this out, but she really doesn’t want to go until she gets confirmation that they’re still going to be here when she gets back.

Minion meets her eyes and nods stiffly. Roxanne reaches out and puts her hand on his robotic arm and gives it a squeeze, and then, on an impulse that she cannot manage to stifle in time, reaches out to run her hand over the top of Megamind’s head.

“Don’t go anywhere, okay?” she says quietly to him, and then leaves the room quickly, before she can do something even more stupid.

Minion watches Miss Ritchi leave, a little shocked. She’d touched Sir’s head. Even if she doesn’t know the significance of touching heads for Sir’s species—even just as a purely human gesture, it’s still a great deal more affectionate than he would have ever expected from her, directed at Sir.

And she’d evidently let him sleep on her couch—what was happening here?

Minion looked down at Sir, hoping to read some clues from his expression. But Sir is still looking down at the coffee table, blankets pulled close around his body, his shoulders hunched.

“Sir—”

“I know,” Sir says tiredly.

“You need to be careful.”

“I’m sorry, Minion.” His voice is dull.“I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

“Why wouldn’t you just tell me you were going to Miss Ritchi’s?” Minion asks, then moves his fins in a motion of agitation. “Why would you go to Miss Ritchi’s at all, Sir—”

“I didn’t just—she—”

He stops.

“What?” Minion asks, when more doesn’t seem to be forthcoming.

“She asked me to,” Sir says quietly.

“—asked you to,” Minion repeats. “Asked you—asked you to come over?” he says disbelievingly. “Why would she—”

“For my birthday.”

Minion stares at him, more bewildered than ever.

“For your birthday.”

Sir does not say anything more, but he does nod.

Minion throws up his fins in exasperation, looking around Miss Ritchi’s apartment wildly, wishing that there was someone else here to share in his exasperation.

(it’s a feeling he has often, as Sir’s minion)

Then Minion stops, looks hard at one of Miss Ritchi’s walls. that’s—that looks a bit like one of Sir’s idea clouds, but rearranged a little differently. And the handwriting isn’t Sir’s. Why would Miss Ritchi—?

Minion shakes his head, dismissing the distration.

“And why didn’t you tell me about this plan to go to Miss Ritchi’s?” Minion asks.

“I thought you’d tell me not to go,” sir says, still not meeting his eyes.

Minion grinds his jaw in frustration.

He would have told Sir not to go. Would have argued with him and made him stay home, stay away from what was clearly—

“Because it was obviously a trap?” Minion says, closer to a statement than a question.

Sir looks up then, frowning.

“It wasn’t, though,” he says.

“It should have been!” Minion says, “Invited you over for your birthday—Sir! You are smarter than this! And—and you knew that, didn’t you?! You were expecting it to be a trap! Why would you—we’ve talked about this! These self-destructive tendencies; you need to—”

“It wasn’t that!” Sir bursts out.

“Then what was it?” Minion demands.

“I just wanted to see her!”

Minion stares at him for a long moment. Megamind’s shoulders droop again.

“She asked me to,” he says, voice quiet, “and I just wanted to see her.”

Minion stares at him for another long moment.

Just wanted to see her.

Just wanted to—

Oh, no.

An idea is coalescing in Minion’s mind, so many little things that he hasn’t understood over the years, between Sir and Miss Ritchi, so many—and this—this explains them.

“You’ve fallen in love with her,” he says.

Sir’s cheekbones and ears flush; for a moment, Minion thinks he’ll deny it, but then he nods, stiff and jerky.

“When?” Minion asks.

(oh, how could he—how could he miss something like this, something as bad as this; what kind of a minion is he—)

“Years,” Sir says, voice flat.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

(Minion should have noticed; he should have, but how could Sir keep something like this from—)

Sir looks up then, sudden fury blazing in his face.

He shoves himself to his feet, blankets falling away.

“Because it doesn’t matter,” he snarls. “She’s never going to love me back and it doesn’t matter! There’s nothing you could do! What were you going to do, tell me that it was hopeless, tell me that the bad guy doesn’t get the girl? I already know that. I know—I know how this story goes, all right? I have been living it for my entire goddamn existence and—”

His face twists.

“And it is shit, you know that? I hate it. I hate it so much. I don’t want to be the bad guy; I never—but I am, and there’s no changing that, and so I don’t need you to tell me, all right?”

He swipes angrily at the tears on his face and then drops back onto the couch.

“I know I’m the bad guy,” he says again, defeated.

Minion looks at him.

And he—he thinks.

(Miss Ritchi’s hand smoothing itself over Sir’s head—don’t go anywhere, okay?—and the idea cloud in the corner…Minion’s not the best reader, but he can see the way December seventeenth is circled in blue ink, can see birthday? written beside it, can guess how much time the whole thing must have taken Miss Ritchi to put together)

(maybe—)

(—maybe)

(just—just maybe—)

(Minion’s worldview shifts, just a little bit)

“…maybe you don’t have to be,” he says slowly.

Chapter Text

Roxanne is torn between taking a normal amount of time with her shower, which will give Minion and Megamind a chance to talk things out—and the fear that, if she takes too long, Megamind will end up freaking out and leaving the apartment after all. Minion might have agreed to stay, but Megamind hadn’t, and—

Okay, yeah, she could probably hurry a little bit.

Megamind—well, he might be feeling—rather upset. About everything that had—happened last night.

He’d acted as if the torpor she’d found him in hadn’t been a big deal, but Minion had said it was dangerous, and Minion had definitely been worried, when he knocked on her door this morning.

Did Megamind know how frightened she’d been, when she’d found him like that; when he wasn’t moving or breathing?

(His lips, cold and unresponsive as she pressed her mouth to his and started rescue breathing. like a cruel mockery of the kiss she’d only barely allowed herself to imagine sharing with him)

Roxanne, beneath the spray of hot water, wraps her arms around herself and shudders.

(god, she’d been so relieved when he opened his eyes—really, relieved didn’t seem like a big enough word for feeling that had lanced through her, a bolt of joy so intense that it was actually painful)

And then he’d asked if she was all right. If she was all right, as if she was the one in danger here and—

She’d cried then; she hadn’t been able to help it.

Megamind had cried later, when she’d been holding him in her arms, and she hadn’t known why or how to help.

Roxanne had worried at the time that it had been a reaction to being touched, that it had made him so uncomfortable, that he had hated it so much that—but she hadn’t known what to do. He was still shaking a little from the cold, and his skin hadn’t felt warm yet and she’d been afraid—

And then he’d curled inwards, towards her, as though—as though he had—as though he was seeking the comfort of her touch, as though he was trying to hide from some terrible sorrow.

Megamind is always unhappy around Christmas; she knows that, but—this seems—to go much deeper than a mere hatred of the holiday, or even seasonal depression.

(whatever this is, this—this thing that makes Megamind cry like that, makes him sit out on her balcony until he almost freezes to death—whatever this thing is, Roxanne hates it)

Roxanne steps out of the shower, wraps a towel around herself. She presses her lips together, thinking hard.

Megamind had—he had come over, when she invited him, for his birthday. And he had turned towards her when he was crying. And—and Minion had come to her apartment, looking for him, so—

He’d said he would like to celebrate his birthday with her; maybe that—maybe that…extends to—wanting to spend time with her in general? Maybe he—maybe he wants to be friends? She’s probably already the closest thing that Megamind had to a friend, other than Minion, which is—really rather awful, now that she thinks about it, because she’s—

—she’s really not very nice to him, usually. Roxanne knows she goes too far, sometimes, in verbal sparring. She gets caught up in wanting to win, wanting to impress him, wanting—and she ends up saying—

Roxanne winces, remembering some of the things she’s ended up saying.

God, can he really possibly want her around? A sudden wave of doubt hits her.

She pushes it down, holding the memory of her chart close, the way he always kidnaps her on his birthday, written down in ink, undeniable and—

And still on her wall.

Oh. Oh no no no; it’s still hanging up on her living room wall, isn’t it?

She’d meant to leave the studio early yesterday and come home to take it down, but then she’d gotten stuck with that extra story and then there had been the snow storm when she was driving home. Roxanne had been worried about what Megamind would say about it, when she got home to her apartment—he’d probably been there for hours, looking at the damn thing.

She’d told him she’d made a chart, yes, but she hadn’t planned to reveal the scale of it, or the amount of detail she’d gone into, or—and then the whole Megamind-almost-dying thing had understandably driven the chart out of her mind last night, but now he was downstairs with it, with a visual depiction of her obsession with him and dear god why had she taken so long with her shower—

Okay.

(breathe, Roxanne; breathe)

Okay, well—there is—there’s nothing she can do about that now.

He’s seen it; he’s—he’s read the notes she made beside each date of their interactions: Megamind laughed today, Megamind looked sad today, Megamind explained the concept behind the antigravity beam today and I asked him why he isn’t an engineer instead of a supervillain and for a second I thought he was going to give me a real answer but then stupid Metro Man broke through the ceiling and we never got to finish our conversation and—

(breathe, Roxanne, breathe)

Well.

He’s seen it.

So.

So he knows.

Which—it isn’t the end of the world, Roxanne; really it isn’t. So he knows you’re in love with him. So—so what.

Roxanne gives herself a hard look in the mirror, through the steam that’s fogged the glass.

To hell with it.

She is in love with him.

She is not—she is not ashamed of the feeling, so why should she be ashamed of his knowing? As long as he doesn’t feel like she’s trying to—pressure him in any way, it doesn’t matter.

Roxanne lifts her chin and leaves the bathroom.

Megamind and Minion are still downstairs; she can hear them talking together in low voices. It is only with a great deal of willpower that she manages to resist the temptation to crouch near the top of the staircase and eavesdrop.

She does resist it, though, and goes to her room to put on a new pair of clothes.

Roxanne chooses her outfit carefully. Megamind will need to borrow another pair of clothes, too, if he wants to change out of the shorts she gave him, and the only pants she has that he’ll be able to wear are sweatpants. So she can’t wear anything too nice, or he’ll feel underdressed and uncomfortable.

She is trying to make a statement, here, though, a—yes, I do love you and am, in fact, throwing myself at you, but you aren’t under any obligation to accept or reciprocate, of course—kind of statement. But Minion is here, so it can’t be too suggestive, and—

It’s a complicated choice, all right?

She settles on pajamas—it’s saturday; she has the weekend off; she can wear pajamas all day if she wants to, and she’s trying to set the tone for them maybe staying together, in pajamas, all day.

The pajamas she decides to wear are a shorts-and-shirt set— blue cotton, modestly but attractively cut. And there’s a matching robe that goes with them.

Roxanne puts the clothes on and looks at herself in the mirror, fixes her hair, struggles against the need to put on makeup, compromises with just a bit of brown eyeliner, and then reminds herself that if she takes too long she will probably lose her chance to see Megamind at all because he will have already left and this will have been for naught.

She goes back downstairs.

(Megamind is still there and Roxanne breathes a sigh of relief.)

Minion insists on making breakfast. Roxanne tries to convince him that this is unnecessary, but it proves futile, and she is left alone with Megamind in the living room.

Megamind is staring in the direction of the wall with her chart on it, and Roxanne honestly can’t tell if he’s looking at the chart, or just staring absently at nothing, but regardless, it is making her extremely nervous. It’s one thing to decide, alone and upstairs, that she’s going to be brave and brazen the whole in-love-with-Megamind thing out. It is—entirely something else, downstairs, with the reality of Megamind sitting on her sofa, staring at her Wall of Megamind—just staring, and not saying anything.

She fidgets with her robe.

(She can hear Minion, in the kitchen, bustling around, opening cabinets, taking out pots and pans. In the living room, though, the silence lengthens—lenghtens—lenghtens—)

“So—” Roxanne blurts out, breaking it.

Megamind turns towards her in a startled kind of way.

“Do you…do you want to take a shower, too?”

Megamind follows Roxanne up the stairs.

To her bedroom.

He bites down hard on the inside of his cheek when she leads him inside. He knows it doesn’t mean anything; he’s not stupid, and he hasn’t completely lost his mind, the way Minion evidently has; he knows he can’t be anything to Roxanne but a charity case.

(she’d had to help him drink last night, had been forced to hold him while he wept like a child; there is no way she can feel anything for him but pity, mixed, no doubt, with a bit of revulsion—so much of his skin pressed inescapably against hers.)

The bathroom is an en suite. There’s still condensation, on the glass door of it, from Roxanne’s shower.

(Roxanne pulling her shirt over her head last night, the constellations of her freckles, scattered across her skin and)

(stopthinkingthat stopstopSTOP)

He only realizes that he’s been staring blankly at the shower for about thirty seconds when Roxanne reaches past him and turns it on for him, when she brushes the fingertips of her other hand lightly against the inside of his elbow.

“You okay?” she asks, voice soft, no judgement in her tone, but he flinches anyway.

He is not okay. He is broken, and it is harder to forget that than usual, this time of year. And now here he is, all of his brokenness on display in front of Roxanne.

Megamind never wanted her to see this, but there’s no erasing last night from her memory.

(well—of course he could come up with some sort of memory ray, but he definitely isn’t going to. He’s not going to mess around with Roxanne’s brain; the very thought of that is—entirely abhorrent. He loves her mind the way it is.)

“—Megamind?” Roxanne asks, voice still soft, but also a little worried now, and Megamind realizes that he’s been staring blankly again, at her face, this time.

—the noise of the shower behind him, and Roxanne, in front of him, her eyes fixed on his face with an expression of concern in them and Megamind feels like crying again, is so tempted to just give in to the tears—would she put her arms around him again, if he wept? Would she hold him again, if he asked her to?

(you are so disgusting, he thinks savagely at himself, wanting to manipulate her like that)

He wraps his arms around his chest, takes half a step back from her.

“I’m fine,” he says.

Roxanne’s fingers twist in the hem of her robe; for one breathless moment of wild, uncontrollable hope, he thinks that she’ll reach out for him.

She doesn’t, though.

“Okay,” she says after a moment of silence, “I’ll—wait for you in the bedroom, okay?”

Then she steps out of the room and closes the door behind her.

The shower is a bit of an ordeal.

He has to force himself to get undressed, untying the knot in the drawstring of the shorts, the knot that Roxanne tied last night.

(her fingertips brushing softly against his stomach—stop thinking about it—)

Being naked in Roxanne’s apartment makes him feel guilty; so does using her soap to shower with.

He recognizes the scent; it always clings faintly to Roxanne’s skin and now it is all around him, the way she was all around him, last night, when she held him. Even the sensation of the shower’s warmth reminds him of her, of how warm she was, of the way her arms felt around his body.

She’s waiting in the next room; why is she waiting for him? Is it to make sure he isn’t left alone in her bedroom? Why did she want him to shower at her apartment? Presumably it was because she felt like he was dirty—the way he’d understood she felt dirty, after touching him, when she announced her own intention to shower, this morning.

But then she’d touched him again, of her own volition, and for no apparent reason, ran her hand along the curve of his head, told him to stay, and why? None of this makes any sense; it’s as if the world ceased to function in a logical manner, the day before yesterday, when she’d guessed it was his birthday and told him he could come to her apartment if he wanted.

Megamind turns off the shower, steps out, and dries himself.

And—another issue presents itself: the only clothes in the bathroom are the shorts he was wearing before the shower. Does—surely she wouldn’t want him to shower and then put on dirty clothes?

But—but the only other thing in the bathroom is the towel.

He looks between the two choices in dismay for a long moment before, at last, settling on the towel. It doesn’t actually leave any more skin bare than the shorts, once he winds it around his hips, even if it does feel terribly inappropriate.

Megamind puts his hand on the doorknob, feels a wild moment of panic, fights it down, takes hold of the top of the towel with his other hand—okay, okay, it’s definitely not going to fall down on accident, now—and opens the door.

Roxanne is sitting on her bed; at the sight of that, Megamind very nearly slams the door shut again—he can just—live in her bathroom for the foreseeable future! It’ll be fine, right—

She looks up when he opens the door, her eyes going wide, color rushing to her face. Probably it’s just hit her, how incredibly inappropriate this entire scenario is.

For a long moment, she just—sort of stares at him, and Megamind has to fight the urge to try to hide, all of the physical flaws of his body running through his mind in a litany: skin the wrong color, too skinny, torso too long, head too big—

(it’s not like she doesn’t already know, not like she didn’t see him last night. there’s no point in hiding now.)

“—ah!” Roxanne says, standing up suddenly, “—clothes, I’ll—I should get you some clothes…”

She goes to her closet, begins rummaging. Megamind steps gingerly into her bedroom and stands, awkward and half-naked, in the middle of the room, waiting.

Roxanne turns around, a pile of clothing in her arms, and bites her lip at the sight of him, sets her burden down on the bed.

“I’ll, um—be in the hall,” she says, and leaves, closing the door behind herself.

If being naked in Roxanne’s bathroom felt invasive, it is nothing to the way being naked in her bedroom feels. Megamind changes quickly. She’s left him a pair of sweatpants—he pulls the drawstring taut, very pointedly not thinking about Roxanne’s fingertips brushing his stomach, last night. There’s a shirt, too, a worn-looking black baseball t-shirt with the Metro City Wolverines logo on it in faded print. The collar has been cut out, so it fits over his head, but—it’s a little—suggestive, when he puts it on. Thankfully, though, she’s left him a robe to wear, too, a long black silk thing that, when he pulls it on, covers the exposed bits of his shoulders, falls nearly to his ankles, and swishes, comforting and almost cape-like, around the backs of his legs.

There’s a pair of slippers, too, worn and blue; he puts them on—he and Roxanne wear the same size of shoes, Megamind realizes, and doesn’t know how to feel about this information.

The bathrobe doesn’t have a high collar, but, all in all, it’s better than it could be.

He glances quickly at his reflection in Roxanne’s mirror, avoiding looking at his face, focusing only on making sure the clothing is arranged properly, and then he opens her bedroom door and steps into the hall.

Chapter Text

Sir and Miss Ritchi come down the stairs together and Minion, fluttering a little nervously, ushers them over to the table.

He’s only set it for two; there is no way one of Roxanne’s kitchen chairs will hold the weight of his robot body. But Miss Ritchi insists that he eat with them at the table, so, at her instruction, Minion picks up an armchair from the living room and places it at the table for himself.

Minion has set the table so that Miss Ritchi sits at the head of it, Sir at her side. They’ll be closer that way than if he set them up on opposite sides of the table. If Minion’s right about this thing between Miss Ritchi and Sir, if he’s right about what he thinks she’s trying to do here—

(And Minion, looking at Miss Ritchi and Sir, now, is becoming steadily more convinced that he is right, in spite of the way Sir refuses to consider it as a possibility—she’s dressed in blue, and she’s put Sir in black, with a long black silk robe, visually similar to Sir’s usual clothes. And she’s wearing eyeliner, Minion notes. Minion may not know much about pair bonding behavior, but he knows about fashion—he’s been making Sir’s clothes for years, knows how you use clothing to make a statement.)

“Oh my god, Minion, these are delicious,” Miss Ritchi says, taking a bite of the chocolate chip pancakes. “Oh my god, you warmed the syrup; I think I’m in heaven.”

Minion smiles appreciatively at her, but most of his attention is on Sir, who still hasn’t touched his own pancakes and eggs.

He’s staring down at his plate, and his hands are motionless on the table. Minion is just about to say something to him when Miss Ritchi puts down her fork and touches the back of Sir’s hand lightly.

“Do you want some?” she asks.

Sir starts, looking up at her with wide eyes.

“W-what?” he says, but he doesn’t pull his hand away.

(Miss Ritchi doesn’t move her hand, either)

“Do you want some syrup for your pancakes?” Roxanne asks, smiling at him, “Minion warmed it up and it is amazing.”

“—oh—uh—yes. Please?”

Roxanne smiles at him, and then a worried expression comes over her face. She takes hold of his hand more firmly (again Sir jumps but does not pull away).

“Are you warm enough?” she asks. “You still feel a little cold—”

Sir is looking at her, eyes round. Minion opens his mouth to explain, but then stops himself. Pair bonding; pair bonding, gotta let the pair bond take!

He drops a bit of egg in the top of his tank instead of saying anything, focuses on pretending very hard that he is not present at all, which is more than a little difficult when you’re a fish in a six-foot tall robotic gorilla body.

(—difficult but apparently successful; Miss Ritchi and Sir are both looking at each other like they really have forgotten his presence, like they don’t see anything but each other.)

(Yes. Good. Excellent.)

“I’m—that’s—normal,” Sir says, “for—for me, for my species. My—normal body temperature range is a little lower than a human’s…”

Miss Ritchi looks relieved, then frowns and looks hard at him.

“You’re not lying again, are you? Like with the hibernation-torpor thing?”

Sir flushes and scowls at her.

“I wasn’t lying! It is like with frogs!” He gestures sharply with the hand Miss Ritchi is not holding. “You were—working from the assumption that my—that my physical state was as dangerous as it would be if you found a person like that and I wanted to reassure you that this was an erroneous conclusion—”

“—human,” Miss Ritchi says, still looking hard at him.

“—what?” Sir says, brought up short.

“I was working from the assumption that you were in as much danger as a human would have been,” Miss Ritchi says, not looking away from his face.

“…that’s what I said.”

Miss Ritchi tilts her head, looking thoughtful.

“No,” she says, “no, you didn’t. You said a person.”

Sir’s eyelids flicker.

“—a slip of the tongue,” he says dismissively.

“Megamind—”

“Don’t,” he snaps, “stop—stop with the—the nosey reporter thing, Miss Ritchi!”

Miss Ritchi sets her mouth.

(Oh dear. Now they’ve started arguing; that was not the goal here at all—)

“I started CPR, did you know that?” Miss Ritchi says, voice a little hard. “I’m not sure if that’s the recommended procedure in that situation—is it, Minion?” she asks, turning to him suddenly. “I want to know what the protocol actually is, for if that ever happens again.”

Minion starts a bit.

“Uh—well, I don’t think it would have hurt. It’s not always necessary; usually just warmth will start the reanimation process if Sir hasn’t been in coldsleep for too long.”

Miss Ritchi nods sharply.

“Good to know,” she says.

“I can hear you two talking about me,” Sir snaps. “I am right here, you know.”

Miss Ritchi turns towards him again, and her expression softens.

“—I—I know,” she says, “And—thank you. For—for still being here.”

She gives him a quick, uncertain sort of smile, squeezes his hand, and then lets go of it at last.

(it hasn’t escaped Minion’s notice that the two of them were holding hands even while arguing.)

Sir stares at Miss Ritchi in shocked bewilderment. Miss Ritchi passes him the syrup.

Roxanne watches Megamind out of the corner of her eye, sees him pour the syrup over his pancakes, sees him absently begin eating. Okay, good.

She braces herself to put into effect the plan she came up with earlier, in the bathroom. The Get Megamind to Spend Time With Her Socially plan. That’s—not a very good name. The Befriend and Possibly Date the Supervillain plan? Operation Please Like Me?

No, no; those are even worse.

Huh, she makes fun of Megamind’s names for his evil plots, but she really hasn’t been giving him enough credit; this is actually kind of difficult—

(stop stalling, Roxanne)

“So,” she says, to Megamind, heart pounding. “I was—wondering if you were doing anything for Christmas.”

Megamind looks up at her, eyes narrowed suspiciously, his mouth going flat.

“The reporter tricks won’t work, Miss Ritchi,” he says, “I told you so. I am not going to reveal any evil plans—which I may or may not have planned for Christmas!—no matter how hard you try!”

Roxanne rolls her eyes, trying to hide her hurt at the fact that he’s still calling her Miss Ritchi.

“Please,” she says, “you always do an evil plot on Christmas, Megamind. I made a chart, remember?”

She blinks, a sudden thought occurring—surely he did notice the chart, right? It was—really obvious.

(he’d stared at the shower blankly, in the bathroom, as if he didn’t see it; maybe that’s what he had been doing, earlier—? does he not know—?)

Okay, that’s—that’s not important.

(it is. it is important)

But—the matter actually at hand—

“I—I meant besides the evil plot,” she says, “or—instead of the evil plot, if you wanted. I mean—you never seem to really,” she hesitates, then plunges onwards, “you never really seem to enjoy it. On Christmas. So if you wanted to take a break from it this year…”

“Do you have big romantic Christmas plans with your goody-two-shoes boyfriend, Miss Ritchi?” Megamind asks, tone rather nasty, scowling now, arms crossed in front of his body. “So sorry to disappoint you—”

“Oh,” Roxanne says.

Oh, that’s right; Megamind must still think…

(This plan has a lot more steps than she was prepared for, and all of them are difficult and kind of terrifying. If she tells him and Megamind decides there’s no reason to spend time with her at all, not even kidnapping-time, because she’s not the hero’s girlfriend—)

“I’m—Metro Man and I,” Roxanne says, avoiding Megamind’s eyes, looking down at her cup of orange juice, “we were never a couple. I never—I never even wanted us to be a couple. He’s—really not my type.”

She looks up at Megamind, who is staring at her with a frozen sort of expression.

“I was actually wondering if you wanted to spend Christmas with me,” she says.

Megamind is still staring at her.

(his eyes are so green, his lips slightly parted. she wants to kiss him quite badly.)

“Y-you and Minion could—come over for Christmas dinner,” she says. “Or—I don’t know why you dislike Christmas, if it’s a—religious thing; it doesn’t have to be Christmas-Christmas, you know; we don’t need to do any of—that—I just.”

She swallows, doesn’t look away from him.

“—I just want you here,” she says.

Chapter Text

Megamind stares at Roxanne.

Wants him here? Wants—why, why would she want him here? How could she ever—how could she ever want him around?

Charity, he can understand; Roxanne is a good person, but—wanting someone around is different than allowing someone to be around because you feel sorry for them and the concept of her wanting him around does not make any sense.

(She isn’t with Metro Man? How can that—none of this—nothing makes—)

He focuses on—on the part of—what she just said—the part that does make sense, the part he feels able to formulate a response to.

“—I don’t dislike Christmas,” he says blankly.

Roxanne looks taken aback. She frowns.

“But—but you always seem so—unhappy. On Christmas,” she says. “And—I mean, it’s okay if you dislike it; I’m not going to be—”

“I don’t dislike—it’s just—inconvenient timing, I—”

Megamind stands abruptly, unable to take the weight of her gaze, her attention, this conversation, any longer, and moves a few feet away, into the living room, turns his back to the table. He wraps his arms around his chest, takes a shuddery breath, lets it out.

“…Megamind?” Roxanne asks, sounding a little worried and what world is he living in?

What world is this, where Roxanne says his name in that tone and tells him she wants him around and—the kindness of this world hurts him almost unbearably.

“Sir—” Minion says.

Megamind closes his eyes briefly.

“It’s okay,” he says, keeping his voice steady by sheer willpower, “you—you can tell her, Minion. I’m not going to be angry with you.”

There is a short silence. Megamind can picture Roxanne turning to Minion, can picture the inquiring expression on her face.

“Our planet,” Minion says, “the planet that Sir and I are from—it got pulled into a black hole. We—we think we’re the only ones who got out. And the day…happened to coincide with the date of Christmas.”

Megamind hears Roxanne’s sharp intake of breath. He hears her stand—why is she—?

“I’m so sorry,” she says, voice slightly muffled.

(ah, she’s hugging Minion; that’s why her voice sounds like that; that’s why she stood.)

“—Thank you, Miss Ritchi,” Minion says.

Megamind hears Roxanne’s footsteps, moving closer, and then she’s in front of him, her eyes very blue and sorrowful. She reaches out and puts her fingertips lightly on his elbow.

“I’m so sorry, Megamind,” she says.

She reaches out hesitantly with her other hand.

(Megamind does not move. Does not move. Does not move.)

“Is it all right if I hug you?” she asks.

Megamind breaks.

“Why?’ he bursts out, voice wild and wavering in the middle of the word because this doesn’t make any sense.

Roxanne blinks, swaying back a little (she does not take her hand from his elbow).

“—why—am I sorry?” she asks. “Or—why do I want to hug you?”

“Not why are you sorry,” Megamind says, making a swift gesture with his free arm, “of course you’re sorry; you’re a good person; of course you’d be sorry! Why do you keep touching me? Why would you ask me to come over? Why did you say you want me to be here?”

Roxanne stares at him, her eyes wide.

“I—” she says, looking almost frightened, “I—because I—like you, Megamind.”

She takes a small, quick breath, glances down at her hand on his arm, tightens her fingers in the material of the robe he’s wearing. Then she looks up, meeting his eyes. Her face is a little pale, her expression open and set: determination layered over fear.

“—I—love you, actually,” she says. “I’m—in love with you.”

Megamind—

—stops breathing.

(the world he thinks, distantly, should stop, right this moment, should freeze here and stop spinning, because did she really just say that she—)

Roxanne gives a nervous laugh.

“I mean—” she says, and then gestures at some papers hanging on her living room wall, as if this will explain everything.

(what is happening? how is this moment still happening?)

“But—but those are two separate things, Megamind,” Roxanne says, looking worried now, eyebrows drawing together, a little line appearing between them. “Me liking you and me being in love with you. They aren’t—my liking you, my wanting to—to be friends with you, to spend time with you—that isn’t—dependent on—”

She swallows visibly, takes hold of his other arm in her other hand. Megamind can see her fighting to keep eye contact with him.

“My liking you isn’t dependent on the possibility of you ever—reciprocating, romantically,” she says slowly, as though this is terribly important, “you don’t need to feel pressured to—do anything like that—to make me keep liking you. O-okay?”

Megamind stares at her.

(his mind is a sort of static hum)

“…I need to sit,” Megamind says, and does.

Sir sits abruptly on the floor. Miss Ritchi looks more than a little alarmed.

“Megamind—”

“Miss Ritchi,” Minion calls to her quietly.

She looks around at him, her expression miserable and terrified. He gives her the most reassuring look he can and gestures at her to follow him into the kitchen.

He walks calmly, but inside, Minion feels like turning somersaults in his suit’s headpiece. Miss Ritchi loves Sir! She said it, out loud and explicitly! Minion never considered the possibility of a romantic pair bond between Sir and Miss Ritchi before today, but he is so glad it’s happening now.

Sir needs more people who love him, needs more people willing to tell him that they love him—the Warden and Sir’s uncles do love Sir, Minion knows, but Sir tends to—forget things like that, if people aren’t willing to say it out loud.

And Miss Ritchi was Sir’s pair bonding choice and she feels the same way.

She’s going to be a good partner for Sir, too, Minion can tell—she’d been very clear that Sir wasn’t to feel pressured, and that says a lot about what kind of person she is, about how much she cares for Sir.

Minion had been prepared for a months-long, maybe years-long campaign to get the two of them together, and now this is happening instead, and it is so much better.

He stops in front of the refrigerator and looks at Miss Ritchi with a warm glow of approval in his heart.

(she glances at Sir, looking worried, still)

“…should I not have said that?” she asks in a small voice.

“No, no!” Minion says, “You should, you definitely should; thank you for—he just. Sir gets overwhelmed, sometimes. This time of year, especially. And—and he’s not really used to good things happening, you know?”

Miss Ritchi looks a little stricken at that, and then an expression of hope mingled with fear comes over her face.

“This—this is a good thing, then?” she asks uncertainly, biting her lip, glancing at Sir again, as if she can’t keep her eyes off him for very long.

Minion smiles at her when she looks back at him.

“Yes, Miss Ritchi,” he says gently. “This is a very good thing.”

Megamind sits on the floor and focuses on breathing.

(I like you. I want you here. I love you. I’m in love with you.)

He breathes, his heart fluttering in his chest like something with wings. He feels light, he feels—as if he is made out of light, a wave of brightness washing through his body from his chest through his fingertips.

(I love you)

He looks up at Roxanne’s wall, the one she gestured at. Why—

Megamind frowns, tips his head and then stands, moves closer to get a better look.

The chart, of course, the one she made, the way she figured out his birthday.

There is—there is a lot more on here, about him, than just speculations about his birthday.

He touches, with shaking fingertips, one of the pages taped to the wall: the date of one of their earliest kidnappings, and the note in blue ink and Roxanne’s handwriting next to it—

I heard Megamind’s real laugh for the first time.

Megamind looks at the rest of the chart, reads the other notes:

talked to Megamind for two hours when Metro Man was late. Of course he had to come during the most interesting part of the conversation…

…Megamind likes puns; we had a sort of contest today, to see who could work the most into the banter. he didn’t say anything but I know that he knew what I was doing; I could see him hiding a smile…

…sometimes I don’t think Megamind likes being a supervillain very much. He looked sad again today…

…When Minion gave us drinks, I took the wrong one on purpose because I wanted to know how Megamind takes his coffee. (with way too much cream/sugar, turns out)…

…Megamind seemed sad again. I even tried puns but I still couldn’t make him laugh…

…Megamind explained the concept behind the antigravity beam today and I asked him why he isn’t an engineer instead of a supervillain and for a second I thought he was going to give me a real answer but then stupid Metro Man broke through the ceiling and we never got to finish our conversation…

…finally got a smile out of Megamind again today…

“Sorry,” Megamind hears Roxanne’s voice say quietly, from behind his shoulder, “that’s—this is—probably pretty—weird.”

Megamind turns to her.

“No,” he says, breathlessly, tears rising in his eyes, “no, it’s—this is—wonderful.”

Happiness blooms softly in her expression, like a flower opening in the sun.

“Minion—wanted me to tell you that he went back to the Lair,” she says, “he—said he had some things to do. So I was wondering—if maybe you wanted to stay here. With—with me. We could decorate for Christmas, if you wanted…”

She gives him an uncertain, hopeful look.

“I—would like that very much, Miss Ritchi,” Megamind says.

She looks happy when he says this; Megamind has never considered the possibility that he could put that expression on Roxanne’s face. It is so beautiful; he wants her to be this happy always.

“Good,” she asks. “That’s—I’m glad. And—” she bites her lip a little shyly. “And—would you call me Roxanne? I’d really like you to.”

(a pulse of joy goes through Megamind’s entire being in a swift burst of light, like an entire sunrise compressed into a single beautiful instant.)

“I—I would like that very much, Roxanne,” Megamind says, and reaches out to brush his fingertips lightly over her wrist.

She smiles at him like he’s given her a gift.

Megamind loses track of how many times he wants to kiss her, that day.

Several times while they’re putting the tree together. Twice, definitely, when he’s untangling the electric lights. Again when they put the tinsel on the tree, and also when they’re hanging the ornaments and—

Well.

Pretty much he wants to kiss her the whole day, actually.

And he—he thinks she wants him to, which is—really incomprehensibly amazing and also kind of terrifying and when he hangs a sprig of fake mistletoe up on her ceiling, she looks at him speculatively, as if she’s considering—

And he flushes from the top of his head to the middle of his chest and starts babbling about Norse mythology, and the whole Balder-Loki-mistletoe-murder thing, which is not at all a romantic topic of conversation, damn it, Megamind, but at least Roxanne seems to think it’s passably interesting.

It takes most of the day to decorate Roxanne’s apartment. Megamind has never decorated for Christmas, before; it’s really rather fun, and he feels a little guilty that Minion isn’t here to enjoy it, too.

Minion really is a fantastic fish; leaving Megamind alone with Roxanne. Seeing, before Megamind did, the way that Roxanne feels—

(I love you. I’m in love with you. Megamind holds the words to his heart and feels himself glowing with happiness.)

When he gets back tot he Lair, Megamind decides, feeling light and giddy, he’s going to ask Minion about what else Minion had said during that conversation—about Megamind maybe not having to be the bad guy. Minion was—he was right about Roxanne, maybe—maybe he’s right about that, too. Maybe Megamind doesn’t have to—maybe Megamind…

“Okay, break time, yeah?” Roxanne says.

She collapses dramatically onto the couch. Megamind, feeling terribly daring, sits down next to her. She looks at him and grins, and he finds that he’s smiling as well, so wide his face hurts. Roxanne laughs, for no reason, and that turns out to be contagious as well; soon they’re both laughing at absolutely nothing.

“Hey,” Roxanne says, snickering a little as their laughter finally tapers off, “do you want to eat something?”

“Oh!” Megamind notices, with some surprise, that he is hungry. “Yes?”

“Okay, good!” Roxanne gets to her feet. “No, no, you stay here! And close your eyes!”

Megamind, obediently, settles back down on the couch, eyes closed.

He hears Roxanne’s footsteps moving away, into the kitchen, then the sound of her moving around. Then there’s a click noise and the quality of the light through his eyelids changes—ah, she’s—turned off the lights? Why—

“Open your eyes,” Roxanne says.

Megamind opens his eyes.

She’s holding a cake. It’s in a glass cake pan, with lit candles stuck in the top of it, glowing and flickering.

Roxanne sets the cake down on the coffee table in front of him.

“It’s just a box mix,” she says, voice a little too fast, “I’m not anywhere near as good a cook as Minion, but I wanted to make you something and—”

Megamind looks up at her, and his expression must show what he’s feeling, because she smiles at him, slow and soft, candlelight dancing warm and golden in her hair and in her eyes.

“Make a wish, Megamind,” she says softly.

(the thought darts through his mind with a fierce kind of joy: this, always, please.)

Megamind blows out the candles.

Chapter Text

Minion goes back to the Lair, already making plans for presents—something handmade, of course. Hats, maybe, for both Sir and Miss Ritchi. He’s been wanting to work on his crochet skills for ages, but there isn’t a lot of opportunity for knitwear in the ensemble of a supervillain.

When Sir finally comes home that night, looking giddy and dazed and smiling ear to ear, Minion has already picked out yarn and patterns and hidden them away.

“You—” Sir says, voice serious in spite of the way he’s grinning widely, “Minion, you are the most fantastic fish ever to exist.”

Minion flutters his fins happily at the praise, and at the way Sir is smiling.

“The date went well?” Minion asks eagerly.

Sir laughs and spins in a circle, then hugs himself happily.

“It went so well,” he says, “and—Minion—I—I wanted to talk to you about—what else you said, earlier.”

Minion looks at him inquiringly, and Sir’s expression turns serious.

“About me maybe not having to be the bad guy,” Sir says. “Minion—Minion, would you tell me what you think about that? Would you tell me—Minon—Minion, do you think I can do it?”

Minion smiles at him, his heart feeling lighter than it has in years.

“Sir,” he says with complete honesty, “I think you can do anything.”

Sir’s face lights up.

December 20th: Roxanne and Megamind, in her apartment, attempting to make cookies.

“Roxanne,” Megamind says, carefully leveling the cup of flour before handing it to her, “would you—”

He cuts himself off, bites his lip nervously. This is—really very important, but asking for things is…it’s difficult.

“Mm?” Roxanne says, pouring the flour into the mixing bowl and leaning into him a little, so that their elbows brush. “Would I what?”

Megamind leans into her slightly as well, the momentary contact giving him courage.

“—would you help me talk to Metro Man?” he asks.

Roxanne turns her head to look at him, a slight frown creasing her forehead.

(there’s a smudge of flour on her nose; it’s unreasonably adorable)

“To Metro Man?” she asks.

“I—I want to quit supervillainy,” Megamind says, still shocked somehow, at being able to say the words out loud. “And I—Minion and I were thinking—that a public truce with Metro Man might—”

Roxanne’s eyes widen with surprise, and then she looks apprehensive.

“Is—this—” she gestures between the two of them with the mixing spoon, “Is this the—reason you’re wanting to stop?” she asks.

Megamind frowns and tilts his head.

“I mean,” Roxanne hesitates, then continues, “I am definitely—all for you quitting if you really want to, but I don’t want you to feel—like it’s something you have to do, just for me…”

“Oh, no!” Megamind shakes his head, “No, I—I’ve wanted to stop for—being a super villain was never what I—really wanted to do. I just—I never thought I had a choice before. It was—this, with—with you, and, and something Minion said, that made me see…that things could be different.”

Roxanne’s face clears and she smiles.

“Yeah?” she says. “Okay. Okay, yes, I can definitely help you talk to Metro Man.”

“Oh, good,” Megamind says, relieved. He gives her a small, wicked smirk, looking up at her through his lashes. “Because I’m hoping that you being there will help to curb my reflexive impulse to punch him in the face…”

Roxanne laughs.

“Bad habits die hard,” she says.

Megamind grins, pleased. (she has such a beautiful laugh; he loves hearing it)

“Something like that,” he says. “Of course, the punching impulse will be much less strong anyway, now that I know you’re not actually dating him.”

Roxanne raises her eyebrows, flushing slightly.

“Is that so?” she says, voice arch and warm with affectionate pleasure.

Megamind feels his face go hot. He ducks his head.

“—yeah,” he says shyly.

He risks a quick glance up at her, then blushes even more as their eyes meet. She’s smiling at him and he feels like he’s going to melt.

Then she frowns.

“…did we put in the baking powder already?” she asks.

Megamind blinks.

“…I have no idea,” he says.

“Crap.”

“I did warn you I was bad at this!”

“Okay, we’ll just—we’ll just add a little bit in, then,” Roxanne says reasonably. “Like—half of what the recipe calls for. It’ll be fine.”

December 21st: Megamind, Roxanne, and Metro Man in Roxanne’s apartment.

“Have another cookie,” Roxanne urges.

Metro Man looks slightly pained.

“Er—no thanks, Roxy,” he says, eyeing the (beautifully frosted, but unfortunately extremely salty cookies) with distaste.

Something definitely went wrong with the cookies. Roxanne, after she and Megamind tried one, said that they must have already added the baking powder, after all. Minion, after he tried one, said he was pretty sure they had already added the baking powder at least three times. Metro Man, after trying one, merely looked uncomfortable. Roxanne keeps offering him more anyway; Megamind can see the glint of amused mischief in her eye and feels a rush of affection so powerful he can’t help beaming at her.

When he looks back over at Metro Man, the hero is looking at him with a thoughtful expression. Megamind flushes self-consciously.

“So this is something you’re actually serious about?” Metro Man says, voice a little incredulous, a little suspicious.

Megamind bristles at his tone, but he keeps his voice even.

“Of course I’m serious,” he says. “What, you think I went to all this effort for a joke?”

Metro Man sets his jaw, eyes glinting.

“Well, you did always have a weird sense of humor,” he says.

A flash of anger makes Megamind’s chin lift, makes his lip curl.

“Right,” he snaps, “because picking up someone’s bicycle and threatening to throw it into the air—while they’re still on it—so they can ‘phone home’—that’s a really fun joke.”

Metro Man opens his mouth to retort.

“—wait, what, now?” Roxanne says.

“Oh, come on, that was in high school!” Metro Man says.

Megamind glares at him. Ah, yes, here comes that punching feeling again.

(Roxanne isn’t with this idiot. She never was and she never wanted to be, he reminds himself. She’s with him, instead. Wants to be with him. She asks him over to her apartment and watches movies with him on the couch and bakes terrible cookies with him and doesn’t even mind that they’re terrible.)

He takes a breath, feeling calmer already, and glances over at Roxanne. She’s looking at Metro Man, a steely glint in her gaze. Metro Man is fidgeting and avoiding her eyes.

“High school,” she says slowly.

She glances over at Megamind, who shrugs dismissively.

Roxanne looks back at Metro Man and narrows her eyes. He looks even more acutely uncomfortable.

She bares her teeth in a smile.

“Have another cookie, Wayne,” she says pleasantly.

Metro Man looks as if he might refuse for a moment. Roxanne’s smile widens. He quails visibly and takes another cookie, bites into his with a miserable expression.

“Fine,” he says, voice a little muffled with cookie, “we can do a truce. I guess that’ll give me time to start dealing with other kinds of crime—”

“No,” Megamind says forcefully.

“What do you mean, no?” Metro Man says, gesturing with his half-eaten cookie. “I gotta do something! What do you care what I’m doing?”

“I just finally got the criminal underworld of this city functioning properly, you—you trust fund idiot! I can’t have you blundering in like an—elephant in a china shop—”

“—bull in a china shop,” Metro Man says, “and I don’t blunder—!”

“Like a large, clumsy mammal of uncertain species in a china shop,” Megamind says sharply, “And you most certainly do blunder! The city doesn’t need you! I’ve got crime in Metrocity under control; if you start arresting people willy-nilly it’s all going to fall apart and then where will we be?”

“I’m a superhero!” Metro Man says, nettled. “What else am I supposed to do? If I’m not dealing with criminals, then I might as well just—”

Metro Man stops suddenly in the middle of his sentence. Megamind waits for him to go on, then glances over at Roxanne. She gives him a look that says she doesn’t know what’s up, either.

“…retire,” Metro Man says, eyes wide, jaw dropping a little. “I could…I could retire,” he says slowly.

Megamind blinks. Something in Metro Man’s tone reminds him of how it felt, saying I want to quit supervillainy out loud for the first time.

He and Roxanne exchange another glance, and Megamind knows that she’s thinking the same thing that he is.

“—do you want to retire?” he asks Metro Man.

Metro Man sets down the mangled remains of his cookie. He looks up at Megamind with a serious expression.

“Buddy,” he says, in an awed voice, “I—I really think I kinda do.”

 December 22nd: three days until Christmas Eve.

“You’re sure he’s going to like it?” Roxanne says, pressing the phone closer to her ear.

“I’m sure!” Megamind’s voice comes through the speaker. “Minion loves cooking; he’ll enjoy the fancy candy molds, I promise!”

“It’s really not going to be like—weird or offensive that I picked out the ones that are shaped like fish?” Roxanne asks nervously, “I mean, I thought it was funny in the store, but then when I got home I started worrying—”

Megamind laughs.

“It is funny!” he says, “He’ll think so too; don’t worry!”

Roxanne smiles, hearing him laugh (she can’t help it).

“Okay,” she says, “you got him something, too, right?”

“A new apron,” Megamind says, “I, uh—sort of—ahem—accidentally singed the other one. Slightly. Slightly more than slightly.”

“Oh my god, you really are bad at cooking!” Roxanne laughs.

“This wasn’t even cooking!” Megamind says, “I just, you know…ran into the kitchen because my hand was on fire and I needed the extinguisher. And then I ran into Minion…it was an accident! Stop laughing, Miss Ritchi; it was a traumatizing experience for everyone involved!”

(he’s laughing himself, even as he tries to admonish her)

Later, after he’s hung up the phone, Megamind looks down at the gift he’s selected for Roxanne.

There were a lot of choices, of course, but this—this is what he wants to give her.

He puts the box down on his bedside table.

Roxanne, alone in her apartment, also looks down at a gift she’s chosen.

She’s never seen Megamind wear ordinary clothing before; maybe he doesn’t like them; maybe he won’t like this, but—she’d seen it and thought of him, pictured him wearing it: soft and comfortable and warm.

(it’s going to be a long time, she thinks, before she gets over instinctively wanting to warm Megamind up.)

She ties a bow around the package and places it beneath the tree.

 December 23rd: The last day of Saturnalia, the ancient Roman festival celebrating liberation and role reversals.

“…Roxanne Ritchi, reporting from downtown, where, in the spirit of the holiday season, two long-time superpowered rivals have publicly declared their intention to halt their years-long feud. The Mayor of Metro City, when KCMP requested a comment, expressed his approval of the proposed truce. Next up is a live interview with the former supervillain and his famous aquatic henchfish, Minion—”

December 24th: Christmas Eve.

Megamind is standing in Roxanne’s living room, looking out of the glass doors to Roxanne’s balcony.

He’s wearing the sweater she bought him—a soft blue thing that’s the same color as the dress Roxanne has on. She told him he didn’t have to wear it if he didn’t like it, and he couldn’t help looking at her as if she was crazy. Didn’t like it—he reaches up with wondering hands to stroke the material of the collar—this is—this is his new favorite piece of clothing, now.

(the hat Minion made him is wonderful, too, of course, but—Minion would understand. Roxanne bought him a sweater in his color—she’s wearing his color—she bought him something that matches her.)

And it’s so soft—he touches the collar again. Megamind has never worn something this soft.

He can hear Minion and Roxanne talking and laughing in the kitchen, but he’s not really listening to the words they’re saying, just the—the sound of their voices: the people he loves, together and happy.

(he thinks—he thinks of his parents, and his heart twists a little painfully, the lights of the city blurring as his eyes fill with tears.)

Megamind closes his eyes.

“Minion kicked me out of the kitchen, too,” Roxanne says, moving to stand beside him at the window. “He said I was just in the way—”

She stops, reaching out to touch his arm.

“Hey,” she says, voice going soft. “You okay?”

Megamind looks over at her, tries to smile.

“Sorry,” he says, “I just—”

He waves a hand, then lets it drop to his side again. Roxanne reaches for it, lacing their fingers together. Megamind tightens his fingers around hers and looks out the window again.

“You’re still allowed to feel sad, you know, Megamind,” she says quietly.

Megamind looks over at her, startled at her perception.

(but of course—of course she would understand. Roxanne has always seen him better than anyone else.)

“…thank you,” he says, voice low.

She smiles at him gently and squeezes his hand.

“But—you’re also allowed to feel happy, Megamind,” she says.

Megamind laughs this time, quiet and amazed.

(yes, she always has seen him better than anyone else.)

“Thank you,” he says again. “I love you, Roxanne.”

Her eyes go wide and her breath catches.

“Are—are you sure?” she asks in a small voice after a long moment. “You—you don’t have to, you know, Megamind.”

“Yes,” Megamind says, turning towards her, smiling. “Yes, I’m—I’m very sure.”

He takes a slim, flat box from the pocket of his trousers.

“This is for you,” he says.

Roxanne takes the box and opens it, and her mouth shapes itself into a soft O of wonder.

There’s a necklace inside, seven tiny silver stars held together by delicate silver wire and strung on a silver chain so fine it’s nearly invisible.

“It’s a constellation,” Megamind says quietly, “you could see it when you looked up at the sky on my planet. It’s called Alte-re. The Queen of the Stars.”

Roxanne looks up at him.

“…you made this—for me?” she asks, voice hushed and trembling a little.

Megamind meets her eyes, holds her gaze.

“I made that for you years ago, Roxanne,” he says. “I just—never thought I’d get the chance to give it to you.”

She understands then, Megamind can see that she does, can see it in her expression, which shines with happiness and love more brightly than any constellation ever could.

“Would you help me put it on?” she asks.

 Minion, carrying the food from the kitchen to the table, sees them standing beside the window, sees Miss Ritchi turn, sees Sir fasten a delicate silver necklace around her throat.

When she turns again, already smiling at Sir, Minion sees the shape of the necklace that she wears, and—

—well, fish can’t cry, not even tears of joy, but that’s what Minion feels like doing.

 Later that night, after Minion has gone home to the Lair—he says to check on the brainbots, but that isn’t really fooling anyone, Megamind and Roxanne sit on her couch together.

She’s reading, a book in her hand, her head bent. Megamind has a book too, but he’s too caught up in looking at her to read—her shoulders and neck rising out of her blue dress, her hair lying against her cheek, the look of quiet absorption on her face, and Alte-re shining at her throat.

Megamind puts down his book and stands abruptly. Roxanne looks up at him, a questioning expression on her face. He opens his mouth, then closes it, shakes his head, and—

—moves to stand, deliberately, beneath the sprig of mistletoe he hung from Roxanne’s ceiling.

“Roxanne,” he says, a little nervously, “would—would you—come here, please?”

Roxanne’s face lights up. She closes her book, rises, and comes to him.

She steps close, very close, and Megamind thrills at the closeness of her.

He can feel his heart beating in his throat. She reaches up to place the fingertips of one hand lightly at the hollow of it, reaches up to cup his cheek with the other.

Megamind swallows. He reaches out with one hand and lets his fingers touch the material of her dress, lets his hand settle at her hip. With his other hand, he strokes her hair.

He’s shaking, he realizes, and is not at all surprised.

“I—” he says, “I—don’t—really know what I’m doing, Roxanne.”

He isn’t just talking about the kiss, and he can see that Roxanne understands that, can see her catch his meaning.

“That’s all right, Megamind,” she says. “That’s all right. We’ll figure it out together, okay?”

And he can tell that she isn’t just talking about the kiss, either.

“Okay,” he whispers.

Roxanne smiles at him with her heart in her eyes and Megamind leans forward and kisses her, then.

(And—together—they figure it out.)