I'm not a fan of crossovers, but I couldn't resist making a teeny, tiny reference to one of my favorite characters from The Incredibles, just this once. I think she would fit in well with the Megamind universe.
Many thanks to KBJones, who came up with the idea of Roxanne receiving a surprise invitation!
Roxanne held up her black dress shoe and asked Metro Man, "Notice anything unusual?"
He turned in the kitchen chair, making it creak alarmingly under his weight, and looked at the pump with a puzzled smile. She knew his x-ray vision would soon uncover the secret.
He blinked and looked up at her. "There's metal in the toe."
"And the heel," she said, unable to keep the pleased smirk off her face. "The world's only steel-toed pumps. Remember seeing him limp? All thanks to my little friends. Stomped on his foot and kicked him in the shins."
Metro Man had whisked Megamind back to prison pretty fast after that last failed death trap with Megamind's new, improved drill. What with one thing and another she hadn't gotten around to telling the hero about her little trick.
She'd had to wear them everyday because Megamind could pounce at any time. The shoes were heavy, but seeing the shocked look on Megamind's face had been so worth it.
She hadn't succeeded in escaping his clutches, she never did, and he'd be on his guard next time so the trick wouldn't work twice, but still she was quite proud of herself.
Regaling her friend Wayne with the tale seemed the perfect way to start off movie night.
The hero's brows knitted together in a frown. "Roxie, I can't believe you did that," he cried, raising his hands. "He could have hurt you."
She scoffed and held the shoe to her chest as if to protect it, surprised by his negative reaction. "Yeah, right! I've pepper-sprayed him, elbowed him, and thrown stuff at his head, he never retaliates. 'A gentleman as well as a super-villain'," she said, doing a fair imitation of the dastardly villain.
"I'm serious," Metro Man said, dropping his hands into his lap. "In a hostage situation you cannot give the abductor an excuse to hurt you."
"What am I supposed to do, just take it?" she snapped. "I have to fight back somehow!"
"This is Megamind."
"Exactly." She rolled her eyes and walked briskly across the apartment to scoop up the other pump. She carried them into the bedroom.
What's the big deal? she thought, shoving them onto the shoe tree in the closet. Here I thought he'd get a - - ahaha - - kick out of it.
She went back to the kitchen. Metro Man was getting two sodas out of the fridge. He was dressed casually this evening, in a green polo shirt and blue jeans. This time he'd driven his Bentley to her place rather than flown. He liked driving once in a while, it relaxed him.
Long ago, when she was a rising star on the KMCP news team, they had gone out on three semi-serious dates. He'd kissed her after each one, but in a sort of perfunctory way, as if the good-night kiss were all part of the package. But even if he'd been the world's greatest kisser it wouldn't have mattered. Though she was flattered by the attention of the city's hero, he really was not her type.
She tried to let him down easy. He took it in stride, and said that he hoped they could still be friends. And meant it.
He was a good friend too, even if he was vain, egotistical, and sometimes overprotective. Like now.
"Just because he hasn't hurt you yet doesn't mean he can't," he said, putting one can on the table for her and popping the tab on the other. "You're at his mercy. He's unpredictable." Leaning against the counter he hooked a thumb in his pocket and lifted the can to his lips.
"Wayne, he is incredibly predictable." She began counting off on her fingers. "First, he kidnaps me, and gloats. Oh, God, does he gloat. Second, he brags about his stupid plan. Third, he gets on the airwaves and challenges you. Then he..."
Metro Man waved a hand to interrupt her. "You didn't hear what he did the other night, did you?"
She sat down at the table with a sigh and picked up her soda. "Of course I heard. Four guys stuck to telephone poles."
"Stapled to telephone poles," Metro Man said, waving a finger.
She jabbed a finger in the air too, to illustrate her point. "Through their piercings. It's not like he put any new holes in them. Mostly."
She'd been horrified by the news, until more details about the whole thing came out in later newspaper articles.
After looking into the backgrounds of the victims, she began to feel like maybe Megamind had done everyone a favor.
"Oh, well, that's okay then," Metro Man said with a snort. "I was there, Roxanne, it wasn't pretty. Two of 'em by their ears, and one by his nose. That's just sick." He shuddered. "And the fourth guy didn't have any piercings. He got his ear stapled to the pole anyway!"
"Oh, yeah. That was the rapist," she said brightly.
"He was accused, never convicted."
"Those charges were dropped because of technicalities."
Metro Man gave her an incredulous look and then just shook his head. "That doesn't make what Megamind did right."
Roxanne crossed her arms. "Every one of those guys had rap sheets a mile long."
"That's not the point."
The timer went off and Roxanne began to push her chair back but Metro Man waved at her to sit back down. "Naw, I'll get 'em." Going to the oven he reached in and took out the pizzas.
Roxanne grimaced. "Wayne, could you use potholders? Geez, I almost feel like I'm getting burned just watching you."
Wayne blinked at the two trays he held in his bare hands. For a moment his frown lightened as he gave her a wry grin. "Sorry. Where do you want these?"
Pizzas cut up and distributed, they sat at the table to continue the argument, the DVD they were supposed to be watching lying forgotten on top of the television.
"It wasn't like Megamind was doing some secret vigilante work," Wayne said. He could easily eat both pizzas, and faster too, so he paced himself and chewed slowly. "They were all members of Psycho Delic's gang. They've been at each other's throats for years."
"So I'm guessing they weren't at the docks at three in the morning collecting donations for the Epilepsy Foundation," Roxanne said, hacking her pizza slice with her fork.
"I can't believe you're defending him," Metro Man said.
"I'm not," Roxanne protested, grimacing. "I'm just..." She pressed her lips together in a thin line. She wasn't defending him, was she? "Just trying to make sense of it," she muttered. "Usually he just attacks you."
"Whatever was going on, he did it for his own personal reasons, not because he wanted to do a favor for the Metro City PD. Probably a spat over turf. He spray-painted his fancy 'M' logo in blue on the nearest wall." Metro Man swept his arm through the air as if to demonstrate the size. "And there were two brainbots in plain sight. Recording everything, I'll bet."
"You try following them?"
Metro Man shook his head and wrinkled his nose as if to show how useless it was to try to follow brainbots back to Evil Lair. Which it was. He'd tried. They just led him around in circles.
Once he caught one and took it to the police station to see if they could put a tracer on it. The brainbot went berserk, firing lasers at everything in sight, and he was forced to destroy it. He felt kind of bad about that, though they were creepy little things, so he didn't try that again.
"Like there's not enough crime around," he grumbled, tearing off a huge bite of pizza. His cheek bulged. "Idiots. They gotta fight over every stupid little..."
"Were those men badly hurt?" she asked, before he could get into a rant. She'd heard his views on the city's super-villains before, many times.
"Eh. They were pretty banged up, but they could walk. Once I got 'em loose."
"How? Laser vision?"
"One of the cops went into the Port Authority office and got a staple remover."
Roxanne bit her lip to stifle an inappropriate giggle. She ducked her head, but Metro Man noticed.
"You actually think that's funny?" he said.
"Yeah, I do," she snapped, irritated by his holier-than-thou attitude. She wasn't going to lose much sleep over a bunch of thugs getting roughed up. "Why did they say they were there?"
Metro Man shifted in his seat. "Just out for a walk, they said, when Megamind attacked them for no reason," he said, his mouth forming into a half grimace.
"So you didn't believe them," she said, cocking her head.
Metro Man sighed. "Not really, no. Two of them had outstanding arrest warrants."
They chewed in silence for a while. Roxanne shoved the remains of her pizza around.
Metro Man twirled a piece of crust in his big fingers, then tossed it onto his plate. "Roxie, I didn't mean to start an argument. I just worry."
He leaned his elbows on the table. Meeting her gaze, he shrugged, and gave her a disarming smile. "I mean, can you blame me? Don't want to see you get dropped in the alligator pit or something. Who else would I share cheap frozen pizza with?"
His voice had become light and cheery. Unable to stay mad, she felt a grin twist her lips almost against her will. "Yeah, no one else'd put up with you and your super-charm. And I'll have you know this is the best take-and-bake in the country. Wanna choke down some more?"
Metro Man chuckled and picked up two more slices. "Don't mind if I do," he said. "Where'd you get those shoes made?"
"Edna Mode."
Metro Man's eyebrows almost disappeared into his hair as he gaped at her. "Edna Mode? How'd you afford her? How'd you even get an appointment?"
Roxanne smirked and lowered her eyes, snagging another pizza slice. "I just asked." Still smiling, she shrugged one shoulder modestly. "A special for the Damsel of Metro City." She put her wrist on her forehead and let her head fall back, batting her eyes. "The hard part was getting her to quit. She wanted to make me shoes with spring-loaded knives, shoes with spy cameras, all kinds of hardware." Roxanne was thinking of taking her up on the offer of camera shoes.
Metro Man finished off another slice in two gulps. "Guess I'm not the only charmer around here."
"You should have her design something for you."
He looked alarmed. "No way! I'm keeping my cape."
They sat in the living room to watch the movie, a new romantic comedy that Wayne had picked out. It fell short on both fronts so they spent more time making fun of it than watching it. If it were any other guy she would have suspected him of picking a movie to please her in the hopes of a romantic entanglement with her later. But this was Wayne.
The rest of the evening passed pleasantly enough, though they avoided any further discussion of Megamind's dangerous or not-dangerous actions toward her.
Despite all the weapons Megamind pointed at her head on a near-weekly basis, she simply couldn't believe he wished her any real harm. A real villain could easily have committed all sorts of vile acts against her.
Quite frankly, he reminded her of her little brother Nate, back when they were kids and he got into the habit one summer of following her around, trying to hit her with water balloons.
After they were both safely in adulthood, she grilled Nate about it.
"You were such a brat," she said. "About drove me nuts."
"I had to get you to pay attention to me somehow," Nate said, grinning.
Yes, Megamind reminded her of Nate. Except Megamind's interest in her was not exactly brotherly.
That thought caused a smile to tug at her mouth, and she sucked her lips in.
What is wrong with me? Surely she wasn't flattered by Megamind's attention. It has been way too long since my last date.
Late one afternoon as she was finishing up a set of interview questions for the owner of the new hardware store that was supposed to create hundreds of new jobs (she had a hard time believing the 'hundreds' part), the Scott family's chauffeur, Phil Spencer, came to her cubicle.
"Good afternoon, Miss Ritchi," Spencer said with a smile.
Roxanne smiled back. "Hi, Phil. What are you doing here?"
"Please, Miss Ritchi, call me Spencer," he corrected gently, giving her a little half-bow. "I have a message for you," he said, and handed her an envelope.
Roxanne opened it and took out a creamy white card embossed with swirling gold letters.
You are cordially invited to a lovely, candlelit dinner, catered by Romano's.
"So what's the occasion?" she asked, looking up at the limo driver.
He smiled and gave a slight shrug by way of apology. "Sorry, Miss Ritchi. My orders were just to pick you up and bring you to dinner."
Her forehead tightened. Wayne usually didn't do stuff like this anymore unless he was trying to give someone else the impression that they were a hot item. His mother, maybe. Lady Scott was a sweet lady, and she liked Roxanne a lot. Metro Man never had the guts to tell his mom the truth.
She shouldn't feel too superior. She didn't quite have the guts to tell her own mother about the truth of their relationship either.
Maybe he was paying her back for dinner, and trying to make up for the disagreement they'd had last week as well, though this was a pretty flamboyant apology, whisking her away for a surprise dinner. But maybe he felt guilty. He knew how much she hated being treated like some fainting maiden who was unable to look after herself.
A little warning would have been nice, she thought irritably. He should have called her to make sure it was all right.
She ran her thumb over the gold lettering, and glanced at Spencer from under her lashes.
It was the same old Phil Spencer, with neatly pressed suit and clean-scrubbed face. Megamind never hired anyone else to do his dirty work anyway, it was always him or Minion who grabbed her.
Unless...he'd put Spencer under some sort of mind control drug and...
She shook her head. I am getting way too paranoid. Besides, Spencer looked fine, brown eyes clear, his manner deferential, the same as always. He nodded at her co-workers as they strolled by, murmuring "Afternoon" and "Hi there." He actually seemed a little more upbeat than usual.
When it came to kidnappings, she preferred it when Minion came for her. Megamind had a tendency to drag it out, with an 'Ah ha, my proud vixen, so you thought you could escape my clutches!' or some crap like that. Minion always knocked her out right away.
I must be going insane. Now she was beginning to rank her kidnappers on a scale. Speed of rendering victim unconscious, effectiveness of rope tying, degree of infuriating monologue...well, Megamind was on a level all by himself with that one.
Hal stuck his head around the corner with a big grin. "Goin' to dinner, huh? You think you can score a doggie bag?"
Roxanne felt her neck tense. "I'll see what I can do," she said, grabbing a random stack of papers off the desk and sending off as many 'I am extremely busy' vibes as possible.
"Gotcha." Hal gave her a big wink and pointed at her, making a gun shape with his hand and clicking his tongue. "So you're a limo driver," Hal said, turning to Spencer. "Must be neat."
Spencer blinked. "Oh, yeah. I drive a lot. Drive all over."
Roxanne frowned at the stack in her hand, which turned out to be some promotional material for a new country club being built on the outskirts of the city. For a moment she was tempted to file it in the wastebasket, but with a suppressed sigh she put it in the inbox. News was news, even if it was just another playground for the rich and famous.
"So what's it like, working for the Scotts?" Hal asked. "I'll bet you make loads of dough."
"Uh...well, I, uh..."
"I'm ready to go," Roxanne said loudly. She shut down the computer and snatched up her purse, fairly shooting out of the cubicle.
Spencer looked relieved. "Right this way, Miss Ritchi," he said, walking briskly toward the nearest exit.
"Don't forget that doggie bag, Roxie!" Hal called.
There is a nice piece of fanart titled "MM-Dahling" by divine-miss-m, over on deviantart dot com, where Edna Mode is holding Megamind's cape and saying "No capes, dahling!"