This is the first Despicable Me fanfiction I've ever written, and will be only lightly proofread for the sake of being able to type these up as the moment hits me and have a quick enough turnaround for upload. Though I know none of the characters cuss or are exceptionally violent in the movies, I want to portray a more realistic (As realistic as a story about super villains and super secret agent spies can be) take on the characters with a little more grit so there will be cursing, references or discussion of violence, and further adult themes. Won't be the bulk of the story, by far, this thing is supposed to be relatively light outside of character development moments, but it will be there. If these kinds of things bother you, you've been warned. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy what I have to offer up. This story takes place, obviously, between the rescue of Lucy from the super macho death and the wedding. Obviously.
The large, vaulted ceiling room so often dark and dreary was illuminated with natural light for once as its owner paced back and forth over the hardwood floor. His closet was fairly modest, for obvious reason, and was emptied onto the wide bed and whatever chair he could find to prop up what he had to offer. For once he was cursing just how monochrome his wardrobe was.
'Black is a good color.' he assured himself as he set the fifth slate grey sweater onto the pile of other slate grey sweaters. 'It's slimming.' a wary glance was cast to his middle, frown carving into his features. 'Slimming is good.'
Growling he turned away from the bed again, arms hooking by the hands behind his back as he began to brood. He had, maybe, two hours left and he was still skulking about his bedroom in his under shirt and a pair of pajama pants. Why did suddenly everything he owned seem entirely too informal? It was just dinner!
He began sorting through the few button up shirts he owned again. By now most were far too small or stained with some sort of mechanical grease, or bloodied… or singed. Each shirt had a story of some college upstart with a self-perceived sense of style trying to break into the big leagues. No more small time heists of crown snatching or bank robbing for him! He was going to become more than just a criminal with shiny gadgets!
A long finger poked through a jagged and blood stained hole in the shoulder of the shirt where he knew a matching scar was on his person. The thought brought a smirk to his face and he tossed the shirt into the pile that was now securely in the trash bin along with everything else he'd determined was outdated or just didn't fit anymore. Moving to his heavy, reinforced coat and thick sweater was the best decision he'd ever made. Functional and devilishly fashionable, if he did say so himself. A classic.
The trudge came to a stop when he realized that the functional fashion was literally all that was left. His coat hanging on a chair, a pond of grey sweaters on one corner of the bed and three black trousers ranging from plain to pinstriped on the other. Black dress socks as far as the eye could see. His shoulders slumped, jaw tightening as panic began to set in.
'Am I really that much of a bachelor?'
The door to the room slammed open, sending the man jumping out of his skin and stumbling to turn around and greet the sudden intruders who were barrelling toward him. Three girls, his girls, were on the move. Leaping over the bed to immediately begin digging through his things, hopping up to his leg where she clung and the third pulling along what looked like a body bag behind her.
"Girls! What have I told you about knocking!" he snapped, bending down to pick up the youngest of the three from his leg. She squirmed happily until she was rested upon his hip. "Agnes." he greeted her fondly, her arms wrapping as best they could around her adoptive father.
"Gru!" she replied, "We're here to help you get ready! You're gonna look so pretty!" her grip stayed tight on his shirt as he tried to pry her off of him and set her on the bed beside Edith who was currently sticking her head through one of the turtle necks, hands gripping the fabric through the material of the sleeves.
"You have such a big head." she exclaimed, looking up at him with a cheshire grin. "I mean, I knew it was big but being bald I didn't think it needed so mu-Ack!" she tumbled from the sweater as Gru pulled it up and back over her head in one swift move sending her rolling into her sister with a fit of giggles.
"I do not have a big head." he declared, heavy accent only causing his words to sound harsher despite the amused grin he cast the girls. "And I don't need any help. I am perfectly capable of getting dressed on my own. Without!" and he pointed a finger at the pair, wagging it, "Without the help of little girls!" The sweater was draped over an arm, his free hand waving Edith and Agnes toward the door. "Now go play. I'll be out soon to get you ready for bed." As he turned away from the two on the bed he came face to face with his eldest, bristling his spine at the sight of her. She was the one with the mystery bag. "Margo." he greeted hesitantly.
Margo smiled politely, adjusting her glasses with two of her fingers, "Gru." From behind her she pulled the black bag forward by the hanger, its silver zipper gleaming in the warm light of the sunset outside his tall windows. "You want to make a good impression. We found this stuffed behind all the raincoats and spare bomb casings in the hall closet." her head tilted, a sincere grin on her face. "I think it would be great."
"No, no, no." he refused, taking up the bag and unzipping it to reveal an old suit that was haphazardly shoved into it. The trousers weren't even on the hanger but heaped at the bottom of the sack. "I am not wearing a three piece to go get chicken fingers." the zipper was promptly zipped closed as the girls all voiced their disappointed protests. "No! It's too formal! What, what, do you think we're going to some sort of fancy spy party or something? Phuh!"
"But you want to look like prince charming, don't you? You have to look beautiful or she might not want to come back!" little Agnes protested, crawling to the other side of the bed as he made his way back to the closet to promptly shove the suit bag up and amidst the collection of junk on the shelf above the army of empty hangers.
"Yeah!" Edith rejoined, flopping onto the edge of the bed, "You don't want to be boring! She's already seen you in all of this stuff."
"Edith! Agnes!" Margo rebuked them, coming to the other side of the bed to join the rest of the family, "You're being rude!" her attention shifted to their father who was eyeing them all with a look of consternation, "But… they do have a point. Are you sure you don't have anything that's not.. well…" her hand swept up the ankle of a pant leg, letting it flop back to the bed. "This? You do want to look good for her, right?"
He sighed, shaking his head as he approached his daughters and took a knee in front of them. A hand settled on Margo's shoulder as he addressed her first. "I do, you know that but it shouldn't really matter, right?" his hand smoothed back her hair as he looked to his other two girls, "I didn't have to dress up all nice and worry about how I looked when we met and you loved me anyway. Who we are is what's important. Not what we wear."
Edith wrinkled her nose a bit, "Yeah, but you were kind of a jerk." despite the commentary she eyed him from under her knit cap, "I mean, c'mon. You put down newspapers like we were puppies!"
He gave the girl a playful shove in the shoulder and she flopped back onto the bed in a fit of laughter, the other two beginning to giggle in turn. "At least I'm not still a jerk, unlike some people I know." One of his arms wrapped around Agnes as she balanced her way from his knee back to his side from the bed as Edith sat herself back up. Margo also came a bit closer, slipping under an arm to rest her own across his back. "Everything will be fine, girls. What will happen will happen and you all should be hoping for the best, yes? Lucy is a nice lady, I'm sure everything will go over well."
"I hope so." Agnes murmured sulkily, resting her head on his shoulder which he took advantage of to kiss the top of it. "I like Lucy. I think she'd be a great mom."
"Eheh, let us not be getting ahead of ourselves." Gru warned nervously, "It's just one date."
"But there could be more." Margo urged, tugging at his shirt insistently. Edith nodded, launching at her father to hang from his neck, forcing him to sit more upright to counterbalance the weight leaving her laying draped over his chest with legs kicking in their dangling.
"Yeah! And then she can come visit us and we can hang out and get her to get you to let us stay up late and eat what we want!"
Gru rolled his eyes, picking up Margo and Agnes in his arms and circling them together against his chest, all three, as they burst into laughter. "Now stop that, you three, you're going to curse the whole things with your wild fancies." He carried the three to the foot of the bed, each getting a kiss of their own on the brow before he knelt down to drop them off a few feet from the door. "Now, do as I said and go-" Gru was forced to pause, head and shoulders slumping as he heard the voice that drew the girls attention away.
"Where is that son of mine? What is he doing?" the woman demanded in her typical tone of agitation to the chorus of babbling that followed close behind her.
"Grandma!" the three cheered, rushing to the door as the elderly woman entered the threshold with her own hanger and clothing in hand. She gave the girls a pat on the back as they hugged her, fishing out hard candies from a pocket to offer each of them. However petty it may have been, the other adult in the room found himself bitter at the candies he was never offered. Or, moreover, the candies he would be offered and then have retracted with the reminder that candies were for winners.
"Hello, mom." he greeted the old woman as she broke away from the girls to now stand in his towering shadow. His arms crossed behind his back again he stared down at her passively from over his hooked nose. "What are you doing here?"
"I heard you tricked some poor woman into going on a date with you." she informed him dryly. Before he had the opportunity to offer a rebuttal a rather loud orange shirt was shoved into his face. The fabric was silky smooth, collar flamboyantly pointy and the buttons down the front only went so high up the chest as what would just barely be considered beyond the realm of tasteful into sleazy. It was something he could have sworn she had stolen from El Macho himself if it wasn't for the fact that the shirt was so tightly tailored that he could practically see the silhouette of her dance instructor. A man she so lovingly purred the name of Panther when he was brought up in conversation. A man who was significantly more toned and slender than Gru figured he would ever be able to achieve by fault of sheer genetics. Not for any lack of trying. If being an on the go villain never trimmed him down so much no amount of gym time would help him at age 50.
"I don't need your help! And I didn't trick anyone!" he barked, waving his arms at the four women and the chittering minions to shoo them out of the room. "Go, now! Go, go!" The girls squealed, running down the hall giddily and back toward their room though his mother needed a nudge and a push to get at least to the other side of the door.
"I should have known it wouldn't have worked! You have no taste after all! And that gut of yours has got to g-" her voice was cut off and muffled by the heavy door that was slammed shut behind her.
The man ran a palm over his face, pausing in just the right place that he might massage the bridge of his nose and try to work out the beginnings of a stress headache. The idea of cancelling the whole thing hadn't crept into his thoughts until that moment. As he looked over the dimming room, the messy bed with its dull attire, he realized he was perhaps a bit out of his league here. At the most fundamental entirely out of his element.
'Villains don't date.' he told himself as he began to fold the clothing into tidy stacks, laying them side by side, 'They meet up, banter and-' a hand lifted, waving in time with his thoughts 'Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am! And you're done.' Gru dropped to sit on the edge of the bed, resting his elbows onto the backs or his knees and pressing his face into his palms with a groan of frustration. If only he could follow his own advice.
Drawing his palms down his his face he looked across from him to the body length mirror, staring at the reflection of his face stretched out under the pressure of his dragging hands. He abruptly released his cheeks, slate eyes catching on one of the many pictures the girls liked to wedge into the mirror frame. 'I'm not a villain anymore.' came the thought, warmth carried on it from deep within his chest as he stood again to pluck the image of his small family of four.
'It's time to change.'
Gru took one last look to the clothing he had to choose from and sighed.
'Fuck.'