Being the Hero
Summary: In the wake of victory, Megamind feels the long-term strain of being the good guy. He never expected to battle with old enemies against old friends. Being the villain is easy. Being the hero is melan-colly.
AN: This is the result of a movie night of awesomeness and a brain filled with the urge to escape long work hours. Post Megamind movie, obviously. I really liked this film—it didn't touch the same stars as other animated films, but the heart and characters just amazed me.
Please note the genre; this is not a romance, but it will include said sub-genre. And quite a lot of humour. And pain, anguish, drama. Suspense. A tad of mystery. Two tablespoons of supernatural and science fiction. Honestly, if there's a genre not involved, please point it out so I can PostIt note it somewhere on my desktop and probably forget about and end up omitting anyway.
Chapter One: Metrocity Melancholy
Megamind inhaled deeply and spread out his arms to the open sky. "Minion! Smell that freedom! Feel it coursing through your veins!"
As usual, his fish-mechanized-turned-lab-monster loyal henchman was standing just behind the blue mastermind, whilst Megamind looked over the city from the deck of the newly rebuilt observatory. "Uhhh, sir, I don't breathe air. And I'm partially confident that my veins are freedom-free. In fact, do I even have veins?"
"Don't be selfish, Minion," his best friend snapped, waving a gloved hand as he leaned over the metal railing and smiled wickedly at the sunset. "How could you be so focused on yourself when there's a whole city of...of..." He threw his hand out towards the buildings and the people at the base of the hill and faltered. "...people out there, who need me to...to..."
"Save them?" Minion suggested tentatively.
"Exactly!" Megamind balled a fist in front of him. "Right now, I'm certain there's someone, anyone who needs the composing resserence of their hero and his legion of brain-bots, just waiting..."
An awkwardly silent moment passed, in which the sun descended by another few millimeters across the horizon. "Anyone!" shouted Megamind a little frantically.
In the blissful tranquility the followed, a very small blue bird came fluttering over to Megamind, chirping happily, and landed on one of his shoulder spikes.
"Aaaaah!" He sprung back and pressed his back against Minion. Minion made a shooing gesture with half-lidded eyes, and the bird flitted away again. Megamind quickly regained his composure. "This world is filled with some of the most terrifying things, Minion. I don't understand—where are all the evil challengers? I mean, this is...it's so...so..."
"Boring?"
"Perfect!" exclaimed the blue genius. "It's like being trapped in my prison cell for eternity, only it's bigger, and cleaner and smells like freedom instead of questionably eradicated traces of human body fluids." He heaved a sigh. "Oh, what's the point, Minion? Evil or good, bad or really bad, there's nothing left for me here in Metrocity. They don't need a hero. They needed Metroman when I was in my brilliant hero-thwarting prime, but now? What am I, but a handsome face on a two hundred foot tall statue and a giant brain slowly going to galactic waste?" Groaning, he slumped over on the smooth, white railing of the balcony.
"Sir, there's plenty here for you in Metro City. It's only been two months since you defeated Titan," Minion tried to console him, tapping through the portable schedule disk in his hands. "Odds are, someone will follow in your footsteps—your baby seal leather ones—eventually. And are we forgetting to mention Roxanne?" he added suggestively.
"Ah, yes. Roxanne." Megamind sighed again, but this time with contentment. "Your depressing monologue almost made me forget that today's our two-month anniversary. Do you really think she'll like my surprise?"
"Well," Minion replied in the way that suggested he didn't want to hurt his master's tender feelings. "It's hard to say at this point. It could go either way?"
"I had this entire observatory rebuilt just to show her what she means to me," Megamind went on, standing up straight once more. He turned around curtly and strolled into the dome where he had everything set up exactly the way it had been two months and some weeks ago. Not in this observatory exactly, but he had to contribute back to society somehow, didn't he? "Exactly how much time do we have before they get here?"
Minion checked his watch. "Actually, they should be here any second. Should I, uh...you know...go run some errands?"
Megamind gave him a cold glare.
"On second thought, I'll just stick around in case you need me. You know, until you realize how awkward it will be with me here," the fish replied sarcastically, then lit up as he checked his disc module. "They're arrived, sir."
Just as he said, the arrival of Megamind's swarm of brain-bots was preceded by their telltale buzzing-chomping sounds and in through the gap in the dome they flew. In their carefully padded claws was a tied and bound woman in a blue dress, brown bag covering her head and shoes long gone missing. They put her down on the metal chair in the center of the room.
Megamind, now sitting in the swiveling chair across from her, grinned as Minion grabbed the sac and pulled it off their captive's head. The mastermind himself turned around slowly, fingers laced together in front of him. "Olo, Roxanne."
"You still haven't washed the bag!" she snapped at him, then, blinking her eyes, looked around the observatory. "Oh, no. Don't tell me..."
"Surprised to see me, are you?" said Megamind, smirking. "I see you're still dressed for work—I hope I didn't frighten you with my deceiving and versateel tactics."
"It's versatile, and no, you're still completely predictable, Megamind, no matter how much you've changed," Roxanne replied lowly, before returning the wry smile.
"Don't be so quick to judge!" The blue genius leaped to his feet and put his hand on a lever behind him and pulled it. "You think you're so clever, Roxanne Ritchie, but you never could have predicted this!"
Roxanne opened her mouth to retort, but as the floor around her chair retracted this time, her field of vision was suddenly flooded with a curtain of fluttering, colourful wings. She let out a small laugh as the curtain rose all round her towards the ceiling. "Ah, butterflies? Really."
"Oh, but the terror is just beginning!" He put down another switch, and a series of metal claws sprang out from a pedestal in the floor. Brightly coloured flowers were packed tightly in the grips instead of weapons. "And this! This one's the worst of all!"
Stuffed animals, some sparkly confetti and finally, a small white kitten dropped out of the various place and into her lap. The frightened (and frankly, quite adorable) little feline mewled before springing off the chair and diving for cover behind some of the machines. Roxanne put on a wide smile, her eyes almost sparkling at him as Megamind smugly strode towards her. The retracting floor closed with a few mechanical clicks and Miss Ritchie pulled her arms out from behind her back, since they had never been truly bound in the first place. She stood up and put her arms around him when he was near enough.
"Very clever," she said, before exchanging with him a quick kiss. "So how many butterflies did your brain-bots kill before you managed to pull this off?"
"Just one," he promised, holding up a slender finger. "But it was really more of a moth, so technically...zero."
"Uh, huh. And what about you—are you okay today?"
Megamind frowned slightly and pulled away, his green eyes averting for a brief second. "Okay? Why wouldn't I be okay today, or any other day? I mean, every day is just really, the same day, and...I'm not getting anywhere, am I?" he asked dubiously.
She shook her head.
"If you two don't mind, I'm going to...go pretend to fix the dehydration ray in the car," Minion interjected softly, tip-toeing away from the couple and towards the staircase. Locked under her eyes, Megamind couldn't object to anything without losing his battle of wills with Roxanne.
"I know it's hard being a hero in a city with no super villains," she told him, in a way that was a tad bit too patronizing for Megamind—though he didn't say. "Don't worry, I'm not going to lecture you after you went through all this trouble. Even though dinner and a movie would have worked just fine."
"Temptress," he said with a smile, and turned with her to face the balcony outside. When they reached the railing, Roxanne hooked an arm around his and rest her head against his shoulder.
"Do you want to know a secret?" she asked, sighing. "I love this. I mean, I do love a good kidnapping and life-threatening confrontations between good and evil as much as the last reporter, but Metro City is safe. Asking for anything more seems a little selfish, don't you think?"
"I wish I knew what I thought. If I could take you with me, I'd give up everything I have now just to go back in time to before...before Metroman's not-so-demise, before Titan and that silly obsession of mine to rule Metrocity."
"Back to when you were evil, you mean?"
"Ah, that's just it, my dearest Roxanne," he said, glancing over at her with a loving smirk. "I wouldn't go without you, and with you...there is no evil. I only wish life could be exciting and good at the same time."
Her large blue eyes traveled to his and she unconsciously held on to him tighter. "Who says it can't be? There's...there's more to life than battling your nemesis, Megamind. Most people get by just fighting their insurance companies and common colds."
Megamind looked on sadly over the cityscape, as though hearing but not comprehending. Roxanne knew it would take much, much more time to get through to him on a 'normal' level. Unlike Metroman, he was still living in the past, clinging to a way of living that he could never return to. She wholeheartedly believed that he had no interest in being the super villain of ages past, but given enough free rein without a strong guiding hand, he just might end up doing something stupid, like creating another Titan to relive his glory days.
Glory days. It almost sounded as though he was being forced into retirement. Until recently, she never thought seriously about what Metro City would be like without Megamind—if only Metroman were left, with no one to fight back against other than petty criminals. The tables were turned now. There were only heroes left, and after Megamind proved just how capable he was against not only one invincible enemy, but two...what criminal would even think about showing his face anywhere but the darkest corners of the city?
"There's always tomorrow," she said, breaking the silence and dark orange glow of the setting sun. "Think of all the kinds at the museum who want to meet Metro City's most endearing super genius, all the lives you'll be inspiring-"
She stopped in mid-sentence, as several dozen blocks away into the heart of downtown Metro City, an orange fireball erupted from the roof of a medium-sized building. From this distance, the magnitude of the explosion was obviously not befitting a 'normal' emergency. A few seconds of stunned silence later, in which Megamind and Roxanne looked out with slightly agape mouths. "What was that?" Roxanne asked a moment later, cautiously.
"Brain-bots!" Megamind's single command went without elaboration—his small swarm of flying mechanical henchmen swirled into the open near-dusk air toward the source of mayhem. "Daddy will be right behind you!" he called.
"Megamind!" Roxanne reached out to grab his arm before he could take off, furling her brow. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
His face froze up with unveiled hesitation and confusion. "Yeeeee...nnn...nnn-yes?" he finally decided on, trying to read her face in order to gauge her reaction.
Roxanne stepped forward and kissed him, for longer than she had before to ensure he got the message. Enjoying just how much she could wrap him around her finger with that simple little gesture, she pulled back smiling. "Reporter. Remember? If it's not too much trouble, I'd like a ride to the scene of the action so I can also do my job?"
"Oh." Then he grinned, and she let out surprised cry when he swooped over and scooped her up in his arms.
"Ahh! N-Not now!" she laughed, swinging her legs and grappling him around the neck as they raced together down the long staircase towards the bottom. "Slow down! You'll fall over and cripple us both!"
"I'm sorry, I don't understand your strange and barbaric 'captive language'," he mocked as the door to the observatory flew open. "La la la la, not listening! What's that? Nope, still unable to translate that last part—something about my soft, sweet tenor of a voice and unrivaled good looks?"
This was the last few moments either one of the freshly united pair would experience without the foreshadowing uncertainty that awaited. Roxanne remembered this almost painfully. She had no idea at the time, just how dangerous Metro City was for a super villain who had defected to the right side. And she had no idea just how much evil was lurking behind the facade of peacetime. Real evil.
If only she'd known.