Better Than Perfect
Note: Inspired by a tumblr conversation between Set and anakinkshamer about MegaRox wedding attire ideas. Set, thank you for encouraging me to post this!
He'd never expected to get a happily ever after, that's not how the bad guy's story ends. (Companion fic to All That Glitters; slightly angsty and slightly fluffy with a happy ending).
When Megamind is little he builds families out of the pictures in magazines, cutting the figures out and pasting them all together into one picture. This one is Uncle Larry, and this one is Uncle Charlie, and here's Uncle Erik and the warden and Minion—models masquerading as guards and inmates crowding the image until he'd included every one of them. He colored their clothes orange or navy blue with badges, carefully drawing tattoos and scars and piercings.
There was never anyone with blue skin in the magazines, so he'd color in one of the kids with his crayons and add himself to the picture that way.
There was never anyone like Minion, either. So he carefully sketches Minion onto a piece of cardboard, and then he can put his friend into any picture he likes.
One day an uncle (not one of the nice ones) asks why didn't he build a real family. One mom, one dad, maybe some brothers or sisters. That's a family. Dozens of prison inmates and a freak piranha most definitely aren't.
Megamind blinks down at the paper in his hands, the back of it a little wavy from all the glue. A sick, loose feeling rises from his gut, like something important has come unfastened deep inside. His other uncles are quick to put this one in his place and offer reassurance and praise, but the damage is done.
He knows it is only pretend but...what else is he supposed to do?
(faces peering in at him, tight smiles under sad eyes, skin wrong-color like his own and heads too big like his own, and behind them the awful sky and the panic sirens and—)
A real family.
He's always known he's never going to have one of those.
He doesn't make any more paper collages after that.
It is the dress that catches his eye, this fairy creation of sparkling light and white lace and pearls beaded all along the bodice and a full, flowing skirt that looks so shiny and soft he could hardly even imagine what it might feel like. Better than his baby blankets, even, which he didn't have anymore—he was too old for baby stuff, the warden said, and had taken them away.
"What's this?"
It is just him and Uncle Larry in the library. Uncle Larry is in charge of it, and Megamind comes in to help him any chance he can. Especially when it comes to sorting through new materials. Uncle Larry glances up from sorting at the sound of his soft voice.
"What? Oh. Pff. Bridal magazine? How the hell did that trash get in here?" Uncle Larry reaches out to take it from him and Megamind clutches it to his chest, drawing back. Uncle Larry scoffs at him. "What, you want that thing? What the hell for?"
He seems genuinely puzzled, and has lowered his hand, so Megamind steps forward carefully, opening the page and pointing. "This," he said again. "What is this?"
His uncle's eyes stare at the page, then at Megamind. His brow furrows. "You mean..." He shakes his head, muttering under his breath. "Christ Almighty, a kid in a prison, what are we..." Stops himself, and blows out a breath. "Okay, kid. C'mere." He pats his leg and Megamind walks around the table and hops up to sit on his knee.
"H'okay, so. This here is a wedding. See this lady in the ballgown? She's the bride, and that guy there, the one in the monkey—ah. The one in the tuxedo, he's the groom. So what this here is, these two people, they're gonna get hitched. Um. Married. That's when..."
They flip through the magazine together, the whole thing, Uncle Larry explaining anything Megamind asks.
"But who are they?" He brushes his fingertips over the page, the shining edge of the pretty clothes. "How'd they meet each other? How do they know they're in love and wanna get married?"
Uncle Larry is quiet for a long moment. "Okay, kid," he says at last. "I've never done this before, so. Gimme a little slack if I get some of it wrong." He clears his throat, and then said, gruff and soft, "Once upon a time..."
Once upon a time there were heroes and villains and a damsel in distress. And every story ends with the hero and the girl riding off into the sunset and living Happily Ever After.
No one ever talks about what happens to the bad guy, because no one cares. That isn't the story.
So Megamind doesn't have a script for this part, he's gone off the page, beyond The End and into uncharted territory.
Here there be dragons, and they all wear his own face.
(just because you're the hero, now, doesn't mean you aren't still a monster—this he knows very well)
The bad guy doesn't get a Happily Ever After. The bad guy isn't supposed to get any after at all.
He isn't the villain anymore, and he knows in his heart he's never really going to be the hero, and the real life weight of that space between is vast, and impossible.
Roxanne tells him to just be himself, and seems to think that's fine, but what Roxanne doesn't know is that himself is and always has been a complete and utter wreck.
Being himself is how things get broken. How he had gotten...broken.
But Roxanne is relentless. And patient. He'd never known stubbornness could be so soft, but somehow she is and by some impossible miracle...it works. In the face of her gentle tenacity, he lowers his defenses and lets her see just what a catastrophe he really is.
And against all reason, she stays.
Asking her to marry him is the most terrifying moment of his life.
Which is kind of saying a lot. He was a supervillian, after all, he's been in just about every kind of near-death situation there is. Not the least of which, surviving a black hole and journey through space at eight days old.
He almost can't do it. Not almost doesn't decide to do it—almost can't, physical incapability. His throat locks up and every muscle in his body is frozen, inert and unresponsive, brain sheering away in some kind of blind terror, unable to articulate a single word—
But Roxanne doesn't laugh or get angry at his silence and stumbling, Roxanne smiles at him, sweet and soft and everything he never deserved and couldn't live without and—
And he says it. He asks her. Shaky and rough-voiced and nothing at all like he'd imagined, like he'd wanted but Roxanne sucks in a breath and looks at him like he'd just offered her the whole world and then she starts to cry and throws her arms around him and says, in his ear, the one word that goes straight to his heart like a bolt of lightning, sending the dead thing skipping and stuttering.
Yes.
She says yes.
And for a moment he feels something so bright, so close to pure joy that it hurts, sharp and sudden, and he thinks he might actually have a heart attack.
(he hadn't actually thought she would say yes)
Wayne gets ordained just for this, because Roxanne asked him to and because he wants, for once, to do something good for Megamind, something the guy will actually accept. And it's always been the three of them, anyway. It seems only fitting that it's the three of them now.
Again. Still. Standing up here in front of the whole of Metro City.
(Minion could have done it but Minion has never been comfortable in the spotlight and he's standing in as Best Friend to both of them, holding Roxanne's bouquet at the base of the stairs and looking up at them with wobbly eyes full of oily tears–so proud he thinks his heart might burst)
And Megamind is standing there, holding Roxanne's hands, feeling terribly nervous and very much like the world is sort of blurry around the edges—there's the crowd, but there's always been the crowd—Wayne's voice, yes, that too is part of this—but the world seems to be a little too…close, too much his own breath and heartbeat in his ears and he's trying to focus on Roxanne, here in front of him, smiling at him.
Roxanne who is going to marry him—here, now, with all these people watching and she's so beautiful and just—here, with him, she hasn't vanished at the last second like he's been half-afraid she might—No, I changed my mind, I don't love you after all—
(he knows if he'd spoken to her of this she'd have reassured him and he couldn't have handled that—he knows he's just being anxious and paranoid and, and broken, he knows he is, but—oh, but—)
But she's really here, and she's wearing the earrings he'd given her for Christmas and she's about to be wearing his ring, and say Yes, I do in front of all these people and this is real, this is really happening—
Tears prick his eyes and he fights, hard, against crying in front of the whole damn city but also—more so—to keep his face still and calm, keep joy in his expression, for her—always for her—
(oh god, let me have this, please, let me have this one thing—let this be more than good enough, please just let this one thing be perfect—)
((she deserves so much more than the good enough which is all he will ever be able to give her))
And he's going to cry, after all, isn't he? He can feel the flood of it rising through his chest, closing off his throat. His fingers squeeze Roxanne's, he's trying to hold on, trying so hard to keep his mouth from trembling, to keep his eyes from filling but—
(but he's losing this battle, too)
The world goes all hot and wavery around the edges and oh god he's going to fall apart in front of all these damn people and—
Roxanne's hands tighten around his, tugging him, almost like in a dance and he responds to the pressure without thinking and suddenly they are side by side, facing Wayne, their backs to the audience and Megamind can hear the crowd murmur but it falls quiet under the swish of Roxanne's dress.
Megamind thinks, distantly, he might still fall after all, his knees are watery and wobbling but then Roxanne wraps one arm around the small of his back, holding him firmly against her side and she kisses his cheek, where one tear had slipped free.
"Sorry," she says, smiling at Wayne and not sounding sorry at all. "Do continue."
There is a sound from the crowd, almost like laughter but far too soft.
(their laughter has always been full of hidden teeth, before; it's never been affectionate, this way; never been kind)
And then Wayne goes on, clearing his throat and grinning and continuing through the words Roxanne has written and Megamind's heart is still pounding but she's holding him—she's steady beside him and the pressure of her arm is firm and tight around his back where she's holding him and even in front of all these people he feels—he feels—
(safe)
He feels like it's okay, it's finally going to be…okay, and maybe he almost messed things up after all but with Roxanne standing beside him to hold him when he needs it, maybe he doesn't have to be–maybe things will be—
(what's the word for better than perfect)
(maybe it's something like forever)
(maybe it sounds like I love you)