Lady Scott is not a stupid woman; the first time her six-year-old son breaks her arm, she begins to be afraid.
(not of him; never of him, but for him)
She sees the shape of things to come, even before he breaks her arm for the second time and her husband says you know, dear, maybe we aren't equipped to handle this sort of—well. there are—government agencies, you know, meant to deal with this kind of—
he just doesn't know his own strength she says, over and over and over again, smiling and smiling and smiling and-
And it's true, he doesn't know his own strength, but that's really not the most worrying problem.
Her son—
—Wayne—forgets that people are fragile. And he doesn't really understand the concept of hurt.
It isn't his fault, of course it isn't! How can they expect him to understand hurt when he's never experienced pain before?
(you know how, if you play too rough with your toys, dear, they end up smashed and then you can't play with them any more? well, if you play too rough with people, they can end up like that, too. that's why you need to be careful, darling, when you play. do you understand, Wayne?)
Wayne doesn't understand, not really. His definition of hurt lies somewhere in between broken and sad.
(But that's better than how he thought about it before she tried to explain: somewhere between boring and screaming.)
It isn't his fault. The world is just not built for her son, and it is not his fault.
She does what she can. Money is, as always, an asset. She funds a school for him, fills it with children she thinks he'll like, makes sure the instructor knows who's signing her paycheck.
(her husband thinks it's his idea; she's careful to make sure that he does.)
Lady Scott smiles and hints and flutters and simpers and plays stupid and bends the world to her will, shapes it around her son as best she can.
(She still sends her son to school every morning with a lump of dread in the pit of her stomach.)
The blue child is so visibly alien, even more obviously not human than Wayne—that's why she pushes so hard to have him attend her son's school, why she invites the warden of the city prison over to lunch and chatters away to him about scholarships and opportunities and children need a chance to make friends their own age, especially children like ours, don't you think?
(It's the way she says ours that hooks him, she can tell)
It turns out better than she hoped; the blue child evidently has behavioral problems-that's how the instructor describes it, in her reports.
he's bad, is how Wayne puts it, when he tells her about it. I put him in the corner for the teacher.
He puffs up his little chest, proudly showing off the gold stars that decorate it. She said I was a little hero!
(He's wearing his sweater tied over his shoulders, and Lady Scott blinks at the image-hands on his hips, chin jutting, chest out, and the sweater on his shoulders like a—)
You did very good, Lady Scott tells him. I'm proud to have such a good boy for a son.
(and she files that idea—she said I was a little hero—away for further contemplation.)
The blue child continues to have behavioral problems, to be, as Wayne puts it, bad, which is quite fortunate, as all of his explosions and occasional fires distract from the times that Wayne—forgets his own strength.
When Wayne breaks the leg of one of his classmates during a dodgeball game (and gives the girl a head injury that actually knocks her eyes crooked)—when this happens—somehow, merely mentioning that the blue child was present when this happened is enough to convince everyone that he, and not Wayne, is actually to blame for the incident.
Wayne, darliing, Lady Scott tells her son gently, you really need to be more careful with your friends when you play, dear.
Wayne looks thoughtful.
There are no more incidents during dodgeball, except for the day that the blue child somehow manages to break a window, hit a bystander, and nearly injure the instructor.
He also sets off some sort of bomb, in the school—a paint bomb, but a bomb, nevertheless, and Lady Scott reluctantly agrees to allow the instructor to expel him.
She turns it into a lesson, for Wayne: this is what happens when you're bad. (It is vital that Wayne understands the value of being good. She has no way of checking his strength, save with chains of morality, which feel, even to her, worryingly fragile.)
The newspaper, at her insistence (such a convenient thing, money), runs a photograph of the expelled child on the front page, with that word in the headline: bad.
(She chooses the photograph—a shot from far away enough to hide the expression on the blue child's face, to disguise how small he is.)
Lady Scott buys her son a collection of superhero comic books for his birthday that year.
(It isn't a plan; not yet.)
(But it will be.)
Against her better judgement, Lady Scott allows her son to attend the public high school.
The blue child—Megamind, he calls himself now, apparently—attends as well.
This, again, turns out to be convenient—he is loud, and distracting, and prone to making trouble—sometimes on purpose, sometimes, she thinks, accidentally, but that's not especially important, because even when Wayne wrenches one of his classmates' arms out of the socket, pulling playfully on her arm, all anybody really wants to talk about is the fact that Megamind caused a fire in the science classroom, that same day.
Lady Scott's plan coalesces at a pep rally.
The school cheerleaders are performing a routine; the audience is pretending to be interested, when suddenly the gymnasium doors fly open and Megamind bursts through them, holding a large beaker that is smoking and frothing in an alarming way.
His gaze falls on the crowd and he freezes, eyes going wide, as if he's surprised to see them all there, and then Wayne flies in and yanks the beaker out of his hands, shoving him down.
(hard, too hard; Lady Scott has made a study of the sort of force that humans can withstand, and that is too hard)
Megamind falls, hitting his head on the gym floor with a loud, sickening crack. Wayne flies out of the gym doors. There's a muffled explosion, from some distance away, but Lady Scott is not concerned with that, is too busy holding her breath over the way that Megamind is crumpled on the floor, not getting up, and oh—oh no; Wayne's finally done it, he's finally—oh god, please, no, not her son; it isn't his fault, he just doesn't know his own strength and—
Megamind gets up, staggers a few steps, and then Wayne is back in front of him, grabbing his collar and yanking him up in the air, dangling him from one hand to the cheers of the crowd.
Lady Scott's heart is in her throat and Megamind's feet are kicking weakly, but when Wayne finally lowers him to the ground, in front of the principal, he doesn't seem very much worse for the wear. He glares balefully at Wayne, and her son looks sternly at him, twisting his arm behind his back (too far, too sudden, too much force, but—)
But Megamind doesn't even scream, doesn't do anything but try to twist away and kick Wayne in the shins and—
Well.
Well, then.
This could be useful.
(When Megamind takes, a few short years later, to calling himself a supervillain, the several newspapers now owned by the Scott family are happy to let him claim the title.)
Lady Scott is not a stupid woman, she knows that inventing a supervillain to entertain her son is morally questionable at best, as well as dangerous for everyone in Metro City who isn't invulnerable like Wayne.
She has nightmares about it, sometimes, and she waits, during her waking hours, for the day that someone finally gets killed by this deadly game that she's started.
(She does not regret it, however. Damnation is a small price to pay for her son's safety and happiness.)
And it's not just Megamind that she fears—Wayne still forgets his own strength from time to time, still gets careless or impatient and—well.
(it isn't his fault)
But.
But. The first time Megamind snatches up a hostage during a battle, holds her up in front of his body like a shield, and Wayne uses his laser vision anyway, the red lights arcing towards the captive woman—
—Megamind twists their bodies around, seemingly accidentally, and the lasers hit him instead of the girl.
And when, during one battle, her son throws a car at Megamind's battle suit—
(from too far away, too slowly; Lady Scott knows more about violence, by now, than she ever wished to, and she knows that Megamind has more than enough time to dodge the vehicle, which wouldn't be a problem if there wasn't a crowd of people standing behind him—)
—Megamind doesn't dodge. He moves in the wrong direction, and the car hits the battle suit full on, crashing harmlessly to the street, instead of plowing through the crowd.
And when Megamind kidnaps Lady Scott—on Mother's Day; she's…oddly flattered at that, actually—she notes the way the ropes are tied to be comfortable, the way they are set up like a safety harness, the way the weapon is never pointed exactly at her—
(and the way that, when her son bursts through the wall and sends a large chunk of debris flying in her direction, Megamind subtly places his own body in the way—)
—and Lady Scott knows that she chose well.
Roxanne Ritchi is not exactly the kind of woman Lady Scott would have picked out for her son, had she been consulted.
Oh, she likes her, certainly, but that isn't the issue. Roxanne simply isn't a good choice for Wayne.
(Lady Scott would never tell her son that. She does her best to hint, but—Wayne is quite adamant that Miss Ritchi is the one he wants.)
Lady Scott would have preferred someone less ambitious (more willing to stop working and devote her time to keeping Wayne busy), or more ambitious (someone she could take under her wing, teach her how to twist the world with a sweet vacant smile, the way Lady Scott does).
She would have preferred someone less—hard, less difficult, less prone to blurting out truths that are better left unspoken.
She would have vastly preferred someone less obviously attracted to Wayne's arch nemesis.
Fortunately, the girl doesn't seem to be aware of the fact that she's attracted. Even more fortunately, Megamind doesn't seem to be aware of the fact that she's attracted. Most fortunately of all, Wayne doesn't seem to be aware of the fact that she's attracted.
Lady Scott would have to do something, if Wayne were to realize that his girlfriend is—at least sexually interested to his rival, possibly, Lady Scott thinks, romantically fixated on him.
Those government agencies, the ones that her husband mentioned, when Wayne was small—they're still very much existence. No doubt they'd be thrilled to get their hands on Metro City's other alien life form.
(Lady Scott would regret it, of course. But she would do it. If she had to.)
Lady Scott takes a decorous sip of champagne and watches, without seeming to watch, her son's former archenemy.
(her son is on the other side of the room, his date on his arm. He's evidently having a good time; she can hear the loud, happy sound of Wayne's laughter ringing out)
Megamind is over in a corner of the ballroom, talking to the chief of police.
No doubt he looks comfortable, to the other partygoers. But Lady Scott sees the tightness around his eyes, the way he's holding himself stiffly, the way he flinches when someone behind him says something too loudly.
And then Roxanne Ritchi, talking to someone else a few feet away, looks up at Megamind, smiles, excuses herself from her conversation, and goes to stand next to him, brushing her lips to his cheek and then murmuring something in his ear. He gives her a swift look of gratitude, and Roxanne says something to the chief of police, who turns his attention to her instead of Megamind.
Megamind slips away from the conversation a few moments later, and then through the door and into the hall.
Lady Scott watches him go, then moves slowly after him.
She finds Megamind in the portrait hall, hiding in the shadow of a pillar, arms wrapped around his own chest, breathing so slowly and evenly that it has to be deliberate.
"Oh!" Lady Scott says, with a bright, surprised smile, "I didn't see you there! I hope you're enjoying the party; we're all ever so pleased to have you." She gestures gracefully with her champagne. "I think it's marvelous, what you've been doing for the city; I know Wayne thinks so, too—have you talked to him about it? I'm sure he'd have some helpful ideas—although, really, what do I know?" she says self-deprecatingly with a tinkling laugh.
Megamind tips his large head at her, shadows blooming deeper beneath his cheekbones.
"—doesn't it—get tiring?" he asks hesitantly.
Lady Scott blinks at him, playing up the confusion she really does feel.
"I beg your pardon?" she asks.
"Playing stupid," Megamind says, "doesn't it—get tiring?"
Lady Scott laughs again, but there's a brittle edge to the silvery tone, even to her own ears.
"Whatever do you—"
Megamind frowns.
(all of a sudden, she feels terribly exposed)
"He's going to be all right, you know," Megamind says abruptly.
(Lady Scott feels as if she's missed a step on a staircase while walking in high heels, as though she's falling, scrabbling frantically for the railing.)
"He doesn't want to be a hero anymore," Megamind says, "but that—doesn't mean that he's going to—do something—bad? Dangerous?—you—you don't need to worry about him."
"—I don't know what you're talking about," Lady Scott says through numb lips.
Megamind's frown goes deeper.
"You—you don't have to pretend," he says. "I—already know."
Lady Scott takes a sharp breath.
"What do you know?" she asks, voice harder than she wants it to be.
Megamind shrugs.
"Everything," he says. "I—I know about the newspapers and—and everything else. I know—I know. You've been—afraid. But. But you don't need to be. You don't need to worry about him."
Lady Scott's breath hisses between her teeth. Megamind is staring at her and she's gripping her champagne glass a little too hard, and this is it, isn't it; this is the moment of truth, of reckoning, of—
She draws herself up, spine straightening.
"I regret the necessity," she says coldly, tilting her chin up. "But I would do it again."
Megamind blinks at her, expression going—
"Oh," he says, "oh—no, I wasn't—I don't—I don't blame you."
And again Lady Scott feels as though she's missed a step on the stairs, as though she's hurtling downwards to something hard and dangerous, and—
She made her peace long ago, with what she's done to this city, to this man—
(to the little blue child with the big eyes looking sadly out of a prison bus window in that photograph)
—she's accepted the weight of her guilt, the weight of her actions, the shaping of the blue child into a living safety net for her son.
She has never expected this—it's not even forgiveness, it's utter absolution from guilt: I don't blame you.
She must look as stricken as she feels, because Megamind reaches out uncertainly and pats her on the hand in an incredibly awkward way.
"He's my son," Lady Scott chokes out through the tears that rise up in her throat, in her eyes. "He's—he's my son. I couldn't—I had to—"
"I know," Megamind says soothingly, "I know, I know you did; I know."
Lady Scott presses her lips together and controls herself.
Megamind looks closely at her, hesitates for a moment in silence, biting his lip.
"Our pods came here at the same time, you know," he blurts out, "I—mine was—his—I got struck off course, just before I landed, um. in your—where he—where he landed. I would have—" he takes a deep, shaky breath, then says deliberately, "he is lucky to have you. And—things are going to be all right. Everything is—going to be all right. I'm—going to make sure that they're all right."
And then he pats her hand again and walks swiftly away, disappearing down the hall and into the ballroom once more.
Lady Scott stares after him, frozen.
And then takes a breath, smooths her hands down her dress, curves her lips into a carefully controlled smile, and goes back to the party.
Wayne is laughing again, when she walks into the ballroom.
(He's going to be all right, you know)
For the first time in almost thirty years, Lady Scott allows herself to think—she thinks that he might.