A/N: First time writing fic in years. Be gentle?
"Are you sure you never held a candle for Metro Man?"
The question came out of the blue, so much so that Roxanne jumped and sputtered into her coffee cup, setting it down before she spilled it and glancing over her shoulder at Megamind. He was at eye-level with her, clasping the back of her chair and looking at her with one eyebrow quirked dramatically and an expression of deep academic skepticism on his face. She resisted the urge to kiss the tip of his nose and mustered up her best unimpressed stare.
"We're going to do this again?" she drawled, pleased that no matter what else changed between them, she still got the chance to banter. More or less. "We've been over this. He was just a superhero. I was the convenient damsel in distress. You were the one who kidnapped me. I'm not sure why, but there's no accounting for your taste—impeccable though it may be."
"Yes, but. I mean. Well, I was watching some footage from the day of my last battle with Metro Man and I happened to notice. Much of your on-camera work is mostly your own copy, you have led me to believe, and—"
"Wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait! You keep tapes of me?"
"No, I keep tapes of me. Your involvement in them is coincidental. Insofar as…well. You aren't integral to all my plans. Well, at least in the sense that…either way, they are tapes of my schemes, for myself. You just happen to be in them." He rallied spectacularly, sticking his nose in the air with some of that old-fashioned villain's arrogance, and Roxie hid a giggle behind her hand.
"But that's not what's important right now!" She had to hand it to him, when Megamind had his mind set on something, he had spectacular focus. Considering the bulk of his time was spent jumping from idea to idea like a caffeinated kitten, it always impressed Roxie when he decided to zero in on a conversational thread and keep it running through his back-tracking and tangents. "What's important is these newscasts of yours!" he went on, straightening up and whirling in a swoosh of cape. He must have been expecting company; usually he didn't wear a cape until noon. It was a very dramatic cape, though, quite good for swooshing. She'd have to compliment Minion on it. But in the meantime…
"What about them?"
"You wrote the copy for your presentations about Metro Man, didn't you?"
"Sometimes. Why?"
"His heart is an ocean inside of a bigger ocean, does that sound familiar to you?" He stared at her with strangely accusatory eyes, and Roxie felt her heart melt. "You told me you had no interest in him, that he wasn't your type. You're not the type to gush unnecessarily, ace reporter Roxanne Ritchi. So what was that about, hmm?" He steepled his fingers, looking smugly at her over the tops of them, and Roxie resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
"Theatrics, Megamind. You of all people should know about theatrics." She raised an eyebrow at him. He raised his own in response.
"You've never struck me as the theatrical type," he sniped back.
"You still barely know me."
"I know you enough to know you're not the theatrical type!"
"For all you know I went to school for theatre!"
"For all I know you didn't go to theatre school, and I know rather a lot because we ran a background check before I started kidnapping you!"
"What?"
"Public relations, Miss Ritchi, public relations! Can't go around kidnapping just anyone! How would that look?"
"And there you go! It all comes back to theatrics!"
"Which I know significantly more about than you because I'm the supervillain!" He leaped up, stabbing a finger into the air, and clearly realized his mistake too late. "…Hero!"
At that point, Roxanne started laughing too hard to continue the banter. "How," she gasped, collapsing over the table and forcing herself back under control, "did you two do it? How did you keep a straight face?"
"Practice, Miss Ritchi," Megamind answered gravely, crossing his arms over his chest and staring coldly down his nose at her. "Practice. In front of a mirror, sometimes."
"For hours," Minion added from the kitchen doorway. "Um, sir, the mayor's aide and some gentlemen with briefcases are here to see you…something about redesigning the downtown? They brought donuts." The last bit was added a trifle resentfully; Minion considered taking care of the refreshments a part of his job, and he seemed to think that other people doing it was an insult to his skills as a minion.
Megamind's expression brightened and he turned to the door, but then he glanced back at Roxie, waving his hand vaguely to Minion.
"Would you mind showing them in and bringing them here, Minion? Miss Ritchi and I have some unfinished business to attend to."
"…Yes, sir. Of course, sir." Minion looked slightly hurt, but he still flashed Roxie his signature wink and a slightly forced smile as he turned and headed back to the now less-than-secret entrance to the lair-turned-Solitary Fortress. It wasn't very solitary; Minion lived there and Roxie spent enough time there that she might as well have, but it was the look of the thing. Superheroes had Solitary Fortresses, supervillains had Evil Lairs. Reporters had decent apartments in midtown with a lovely view of the city, but they also occasionally slept on couches in Solitary Fortresses. Or so Roxie was coming to believe.
Megamind coughed and turned back, resting his palms on the table and leaning down so he was at eye-level with Roxie again. "Now then, Miss Ritchi. Where were we?"
"Theatrics and you not believing that Metro Man and I were never an item," she answered, sitting up a little straighter and shaking her head. "Believe it or not, Megamind, I wouldn't lie to you." The look on his face said that he believed it, but something in his eyes suggested he still had doubts. God, he was so easy to read. Roxie sighed. "What do I have to do to prove that I never had feelings for him, Megamind? He was a superhero. I was indebted to him because he kept saving me. Because a certain dashing supergenius kept kidnapping me, remember? I had to show my gratitude somehow. And I don't know, going home with a man who can punch through brick just never appealed to me, no matter how good his hair was."
He brightened a little bit, but that uncertainty was still there. Rolling her eyes again and sighing her most theatrical sigh, Roxie reached out and grabbed him by the cape. It really was a good cape. Good for tugging as well as swooshing. Overall very nicely put-together. She'd definitely have to compliment Minion on it. "What do I have to do to get you to believe me, Megamind?" she asked again, and this time she tugged him close and dropped her voice. He turned purple and she had to bite back a smile. It was like he had never seen her before, the way he reacted whenever she got close to him.
"I believe you," he said, and his eyes no longer said they doubted her. Now they said something rather less uncertain. Roxie laughed softly and pulled him the remaining few inches she needed to kiss him soundly.
"I hope so," she said when they pulled apart. "I'd hate to think I go to all this trouble and it's wasted on you."
"Not wasted at all, Roxie. No…not in the slightest." He was still flushed and now he was grinning. Roxie shook her head and gave him a wry smile. Megamind would have said something more, but a discreet cough from the doorway had him straightening up and turning with the proper pomp and circumstance a true super hero required.
"Ah, Minion. Thank you for showing them in. Good morning, gentlemen. If you'd come right this way, I can show you what I've been working on…" And he swept out, trailing contentment and businessmen in his wake. Roxanne shook her head with a smile and turned back to her coffee.