AN: Most of us know what this kind of day feels like. I'm having one of those days and finding it extremely difficult to figure out how to progress on my other projects. I know where it should go, but not how I should go about writing it. That being said, one-shots are super hard to develop the characters right in such a short little story. Ugh. So Megs gets an idea from a very... peculiar... source. On to teh storeh!
"Ugh," he groaned, dropping his head on his desk, not minding the fact that he was probably wrinkling several of his plans and he could feel a stray bolt making an impression on his forehead. Today was not his day. It was rainy and gloomy outside, which normally made him very happy and chipper. Not today. He was suffering from a severe bout of creative block. He called it his "I-don't-want-donuts-leave-me-aloooone" day. Or days, to be accurate. He'd never gotten so stuck before in his life. He'd hit a wall. He knew what his goal was, but had exhausted all of his ideas for getting to that goal: defeating Metro Man once and for all. He grumbled about "goody-two-shoes" and "only idiots wear their undies outside of their costumes" and "nincompoop with the IQ of a squirrel" into his schematics.
He was so off his game, he wasn't even wearing his cape. He didn't even care. He really needed an idea to launch off of, but he couldn't come up with a single one. He'd poked and prodded at Metro Man for years and had yet to find the man's weakness. He refused to accept that he might not have one. He'd already tried asking Minion what to do, but the damn fish didn't give him anything useful.
"Maybe you should take a break, Sir," he'd said. It made him grouchiest just thinking about it. Supervillains DON'T take breaks. Didn't he understand that? Someone might try to undermine his position of THE supervillain of Metrosity and no way in hell was he going to let some snot nosed hot shot punk try to pull the rug right out from under him. Nuh uh. No breaks. No.
But he had to admit, though he would never tell Minion, that there wasn't much point in sitting around all day trying to think of something. He wished there was someone else he could talk to, get a second opinion on all of this, maybe some new insight that would give him a few hundred more ideas. Being on the top was always lonely, and he was usually used to it. He had Minion, after all, but when even he couldn't give him good advice, he felt himself wishing for more support.
People thought of ideas and even if most humans' ideas were barbaric at best, they triggered better, more refined ideas in his own mind. Finally feeling like he had a bit of a plan, if not a very good one, he got into the invisible car and drove to a horrifying place he'd never dared to step foot in before today.
Being in disguise at a... Ugh.. shopping mall.. (was he pronouncing that right?) was a bit reckless. However, sitting in the food court, munching on waffle fries from Chick-fil-a while people watching (and listening) wasn't the stupidest thing he could have done. For having that big brain of his, he could certainly come up with a LOT of stupid ideas. More than he'd care to admit. And when he happened to see Miss Richi, he sat up a little bit straighter and fiddled with his earpiece so he could hear what she was chatting about with her friend. That. Was one of his stupid ideas. He tried not to look inconspicuous as he listened in, but he could feel his face getting hot and his hands tremble. Finally, he ripped the earpiece out with a loud, disgusted "Ugh!" and paid no mind to the several hundred eyes that turned to look at him. He got back to the invisible car as quickly as he could without running and shuddered several times when his mind went back to what he just heard. How could women talk like that in a public place?! Honestly! He thought Miss Richi was different but in this, she was exactly the same as any other pervert in this city.
He told himself he was disgusted, not intrigued by what Miss Richi had to say. No, definitely not. And her friend could damn well keep her crustaceans to herself! He tore his disguise watch off and drove home, ignoring the obvious purple tone to his skin.
"Do you think-?" Roxanne stared after the black haired man that stormed out of the mall.
"No way. He was probably just frustrated at whomever he was talking to on his Bluetooth," her blond acquaintance replied. Roxanne wasn't entirely convinced and went to pick up the "bluetooth" he'd thrown on the ground. She stuffed it in her pocket so she could check it out later when she'd left the blond bimbo back at her own apartment. Cassidy was sweet, she really was, but she was as smart as a box of rocks. And she had no shame. Like, at all. Roxanne was thoroughly embarrassed by some of the topics she'd bring up, but she'd gone along with it. The fact that the man had stormed out with a "I'm so gonna hurl if I don't get out of here right NOW" face as soon as Cassidy had finished her sentence made her a bit suspicious. She tucked that thought away for later.
Megamind was embarrassed to have actually gotten and idea from that conversation, but he'd never tell a soul. Nuh uh. No way in HELL would he ever repeat that.
Anyway, microbots. He wished he'd thought of it sooner. How on earth could the superhero defend against tiny little creepers eating you from the inside out? Yes, it was diabolical and gave him more ideas in case this one failed. Minion was just happy to see his boss back at work. He'd come home without a word and gotten to work on bots so tiny, he had to look at them through a microscope to work on them. They consisted of a microchip, a microcomputer, and an itsy bitsy vat in which he put a harsh acid and a way for them to make more of it, all surrounded by a white metal shell and had a little bug-like face with pinchers for the effect. Normally he would HATE for anything of his to be that dreaded colour rejector, but it would be best for them to be white while they were on the surface of the superhero's skin. He- quite literally- wouldn't know what hit him.
As soon as Roxanne got home, she plucked the earpiece out of her pocket and used her magnifying mirror to get a better look at it. This was no Bluetooth, but it did look well made. She tried not to jump to conclusions before she got out her tiny screwdriver from her old glasses case. Yes, she used to have four eyes, ha ha, whatever. The screwdriver proved very useful and she managed to take apart the whole damn thing. Inside was a bunch of machinery that she couldn't identify but damn if she didn't recognize the logo on the inside cover. That man could not NOT put his logo somewhere on his inventions, he was much too prideful for that. She groaned unhappily. Great. He heard that. That either inflated his ego or totally weirded him out and I get the feeling it's a little bit of both, she thought. Either way, it'll be rather.. interesting the next time he kidnaps me.
"Minion, isn't there some way we can call out Metro Mahn without Miss Richi?" Well that threw Minion for a loop. Megamind was fidgety and would not look Minion directly in the eyes.
"Sir, what happened that suddenly made you allergic to Miss Richi?" He turned purple all the way to his collarbone.
"N-nothing!" He shouted, waving his arms. "I-I just thought we could use some umm, change! Yeah, that's it, why not switch it up now and then?" He asked Minion nervously. Minion didn't buy it. He rolled his eyes and turned his back to his boss to walk to the invisible car.
"I'll be back with Miss Richi in an hour, Sir, so get yourself together." Megamind swallowed thickly.
Roxanne was still getting ready for work when Minion grabbed her. Lord only knows how he got in, but he surprised her when she was going to her kitchen for coffee and got the opposite instead. Well, she thought, at least that means he can't be that disgusted with me.
Megamind was pacing, pacing, pacing, trying to burn off his nervous energy so he could get into character before Minion got back with Miss Richi. He really needed to invent something to prevent blood from rising in excess to embarrassing areas like his ears and cheeks. He did not, lemme repeat that, did NOT want to blush in front of Miss Richi. If he did, she might realize that he was the weirdo in the mall. After all, she did have those nosy reporter skills of hers.
Wait a second... That's it! He grinned like a mad man and scanned himself with his disguise watch. While he had it on he would look like himself but not have to deal with pesky things such as blushing. He activated it just before Minion parked in the garage. He felt giddy now and jumped from one foot to the other as he loaded the microbot cartridge into a special gun he'd made for this occasion. It would make it look like his invention malfunctioned, since it would only blast air at Metro Man, but that was the beauty of it all. If it worked, Minion would of course fetch him from prison within a few days and take over city hall together. If it didn't, well... he'd likely get a rather unwelcome and angry visitor. See, even if the bots weren't enough to kill him, they would certainly annoy the shit out of him. He would feel ill for as long as those bots were doing their jobs and it could be years before they all naturally die. And Megamind being the fair opponent that he was, wouldn't want to face Metro Man when he was already half way to hell. Well, good heaven but that would be hell for a villain like him.
Even if he was a villain, he had a strict moral code quite similar to Metro Man's. In the middle of one of their fights last year, some numbskull thought it was the perfect time to rape a poor girl- while the superhero was too busy to save her. However, what he had not expected was that the two would stop fighting and BOTH hunt him down like the dog he was. Then they got back to their fight. Megamind did not stand for shit like that.
Minion got out of the invisible car and slung Miss Richi's unconscious body over his shoulder. He was happy to see Sir acting like his usual self again, though he was perplexed as to why he hadn't been himself in the first place. Just as everything was falling into place, Miss Richi woke up as feisty as ever.
"Ugh, seriously? At this point you should just get a new bag to throw over my head. It's starting to wear holes in it any way, eavesdropper," she sneered. Megamind refused to let her know he knew that she knew that he had been listening to their raunchy conversation and thanked the evil gods for his disguise watch. It'd saved his rear before and it would again- likely several times in the next few months alone.
"Excuse me, Miss Richi? I have no idea what you're talking about." He put his ankle on his knee elegantly and stroked the dome of the brainbot in his lap. She rolled her eyes.
"Your logo was on the inside of your earpiece and last time I checked, you didn't sell anyone your technology." He panicked internally. He hadn't even thought of the possibility of Miss Richi finding his earpiece! What on earth-
"Aww, cat got your tongue, big boy?" She mocked. He glared at her.
"I'll have you know I never go into such atrocious places such as malls! There's disease and-"
"I never said anything about a mall," she purred. Oh fuck, he thought. The jig is up.
"Okay, it's so not my fault you happened to be walking by while I was people watching! And seriously?! What he fuck! I didn't even hear half of the words you and that blonde," he said blonde like it was a disease. "Were talking about in prison! Prison! Jesus!" He ended his tirade by pushing the brainbot out of his lap and spinning to but his back towards her. Roxanne just giggled.
"Adults talking about adult stuff."
"You shouldn't talk like that in public! It's just-just-"
"It's not our fault some nosy uninformed villain was listening on our conversation," she pointed out. Megamind was blown away. He'd expected at least a bit of embarrassment from Miss Richi but nooo sirree. "Go people watching at a preschool next time," she suggested.
"Ugh I don't want to talk about this anymore." Megamind massaged his throbbing temples. "Minion, let's get this show on the road, shall we?"
It took a surprisingly short amount of time for Metro Man to come to the rescue, likely because Megamind had given him a very good idea of where they were just so he could get this done and get away from that woman. He couldn't look her in the eye right now and it would be some time before he could. He shot Metro Man with the cartridge, which the hero laughed at and he felt so bad for the little guy that he didn't even haul him off to jail, seeing as how the only crime he committed was kidnapping Roxanne, and she never filed charges. Plus, his invention failed so... Boringly.
So instead of getting an unwelcome visitor in prison, Megamind got one in his own home. Metro Man crashed through the ceiling, yet again.
"Seriously?! Do you even realize how long that takes to patch up? There are perfectly good wall holes covered by plywood that you could plow through, but noooo, you have to make a fuckin dramatic entrance even if you're just here to bitch at me!" Megamind complained. "See, now I should just let those microbots make you sick until you surrender instead of just playing fair and shutting them off." Metro Man glared at the criminal in pajamas. "Hey, I wasn't the one who assumed my invention was broken." Metro Man rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.
"That's pretty low, even for you, man. An invisible weapon that eats away at my insides? Gross and definitely not strong enough."
"Low for me? Hah!" Megamind looked a bit off. Even though he was in his pajamas, he had heavy black bags under his eyes. "Go talk to your girlfriend and ask her about her trip to the mall! Jesus Christ!" He shuddered and rifled through a drawer for the remote for the microbots. "Minion?" He called behind him. "Have you seen the remote for the microbots?" The fish chortled from the other room.
"Second drawer down, red remote with blue buttons! I swear, if your head wasn't attached to your body you'd lose it constantly!" Megamind found the correct remote and disabled the microbots.
"There. Now you'll start feeling back to your normal, too bright and white self in no time." Megamind's face darkened visibly. "I'm serious about Miss Richi, though. I don't think you'd like hearing what she was saying. Not fit for a superhero's girlfriend, and that's coming from your nemesis." Metro Man shrugged, but went to investigate anyway.
Roxanne was fuming. Megamind was so childish that he had to tell her fake boyfriend? Really?!
"Wayne, it's not as bad as he made it sound. He's just... obviously very innocent minded still." Metro Man snorted. "No, I'm serious! Cassidy was, well, talking about a little problem she was having after her birthday party and Megamind was listening to our conversation. He flipped the fuck out, ripped his earpiece out, threw it on the ground and got out of there as fast as he could." Roxanne sipped a cup of relaxing tea to calm her anger.
"He made it sound like you said something, Roxy," Wayne prodded, nudging her gently with his elbow, which still made her tea slosh over the side of her mug and dribble onto her pajamas.
"Yeah, well... You know Cassidy. She brings up the worst topics to talk about in pubic. She was the one who brought him up, not me!" Wayne raised a single eyebrow with a smirk that made her pink. "I didn't say anything that bad!" She claimed.
"So lemme get this straight," Wayne started. "You were at the mall with your sexually deviant friend who brought up Megamind. Probably something towards the inappropriate side. And you contributed to the conversation, Megamind heard, and he was so disgusted that he blew his cover and ditched his earpiece? God, Roxy, you must've been discussing some rather... Strange things." Roxanne's face was red and she stared at her carpet. Suddenly, a huge light bulb came to Metro Man. "Oh my god, you have a crush on him, don't you?!" Roxanne spat out the tea that had been in her mouth and choked on it a bit as her face got close to purple in colour.
"Are you insane?" She shouted at him. He just grinned.
"You totally do. Roxy has a cruuuush~" he teased. She slapped his arm and ignored the sting in her hand.
"Get out! I have to get ready for work!" She claimed, trying to shove the superhero back out onto her balcony.
"Alright, alright!" Wayne said. "But if I'm wrong about a future with little blue babies, I'll eat my left hand." With another laugh, he floated away to keep a close watch on his city, leaving Roxanne to grumble as she got ready for work and lied to herself for what seemed like the hundredth time.