Roxanne Ritchi had a tendency to get her way. Wayne Scott had thwarted her, refusing to help when Tighten was destroying the city, but she had not given up. She could be as persistent as her blue boyfriend, especially when it was his help she was counting on.
"No, Roxanne. It's too dangerous."
"You think if you give me those powers, I'll abuse them?"
"No, of course not. You're a truly good person, perhaps the best in the city."
"And that's why I want to do this. Come on. I want to bring one criminal to justice. One."
"One who has the same powers you want me to give you and a few decades more experience in using them. Or did you think you'd be juggling babies the first week?"
"No, I know I'll need to practice, but remember, he's never faced anyone who has his powers. And even though he's not a hero anymore, I think he'll be careful not to hurt me. Old habits die hard."
"But a situation like this, where you'd both be facing opponents you've never before encountered, is exactly the kind of situation where accidents happen."
"Like the kind you run into every time you fight a new supervillain?"
"I'm the Defender of the City. It's my job."
"But you won't give yourself those powers."
"Argh! Listen, Roxanne. I don't want to go into the technical details, but the simple explanation is that homo sapiens is much closer to Metro Man's species than mine is. Infusing myself might not work, or it might work but with undesirable side effects, some of which could easily be irreversible. Just trust me on this; we don't want to go there."
"But you don't want to infuse anyone else, either."
"Look, right now the fact that infusion is possible, that an ordinary human can be given Metro Man's powers, is a secret known only to you, Minion and myself, and that is as widely as I want it known. If word of this got out into the genetic engineering community, there would be companies out there offering to sell infusion on the open market, and the world would have a new Tighten to deal with every week."
"Which means that I'm the only one who can do this, unless you can think of some other way of making Wayne pay for what he's done."
Megamind stood still with his eyes unfocused, wrinkling his forehead. Then he began to pace. By now she was used to seeing him do this when he was working on a problem, so she kept up with him as he moved around the no-longer-evil lair, muttering little fragments of ideas. "Tensile strength." A minute later. "Nanotubes. No, no, no, we tried that four years ago." Another minute. "Titanium." She watched for him to smile or speed up, which would be signs that he had the beginnings of an idea, but after a quarter of an hour he slowed down and eventually stopped.
"All right. There's no other way. But I insist on six months of full-time training. No less."
"You didn't give Hal six months of training."
"I only intended for Hal to fight me. You'll be going up against a far more formidable opponent."
"Okay. I'll arrange for a seven-month leave of absence from work."
"I'll prepare the infusion. And one more thing. Minion is not going to like this any more than I do, so I will leave you to explain it to him."
Minion did not like it, but this was one task that did not require his help. During the two weeks while they waited for Roxanne's leave to start, Megamind redesigned the infuser from a gun, intended for secretly infusing an unsuspecting person from a distance, to an inhaler that Roxanne could operate herself. She smiled as she used it, sitting on the couch in the lair, remembering bong hits during her brief days of illegal drug experimentation in college. The stuff tingled warmly in her lungs for a moment. Then she felt dizzy and tired and needed to lie down.
In the next four hours, nothing happened but a nap.
"Was this supposed to take this long?" She asked when Megamind and Minion came to check on her.
"No. I think with Hal Stewart it took less than two hours. Hmmm. Let's reconstruct what happened. He was hit by the infuser charge, then he lay on the sidewalk briefly. Then you drove him home and he staggered and stumbled up to his apartment and collapsed on the bed. We found him there and rather frightened him. He thought we were there to rob him. Minion hit him with the Forget-Me Stick and then he got closed up in that bed that folded up into the wall. That's when it happened."
"Okay," she said, "so inside the Murphy bed it was dark and there wasn't much air. Let's try that." At first they thought they'd just get all the bedding in the lair and pile it on top of her on the couch, but Minion reminded his boss that they could no longer just steal a new couch every time they ruined one. The fish himself had another idea.
"I've got a bolt of black satin in the the sewing nook. Why don't we try wrapping Ms. Ritchi up in that?"
He unrolled eight or ten feet of it on the floor, then had her step onto it, take hold of the two corners and hold them at about shoulder level. He lifted the bolt end up behind her and passed it over her to Megamind, who stood in front of her and brought it down to cover her head. Then the two aliens passed it back and forth around her, unrolling it as they went, wrapping her up like a mummy. It was dark in there, all right, and stuffy, and the fabric muffled the sounds around her. Then it started to get warm, and then it seemed hot enough to burn and there was a golden light that she could both see and feel, that roared in her ears. She felt a sudden spasm of energy burst through her; her head and arms tore through the fabric. The hot golden light and the roaring were gone. She could see again. Her blue boyfriend was still in front of her, but now she was looking down at him.
"It worked," he whispered. Minion brought up a full length mirror. Like his boss, he seemed shorter to her. The black satin wrapped around her like a long, tight-fitting gown. Her reflection had the figure of her dreams.
"No one will recognize me," she observed.
"Good," said Megamind. "We want deniability, both to keep the infusion technology secret and in case you have to get a little rough with Wayne."
"Try to fly," suggested Minion. She levitated while the satin unwound beneath her and the brainbots bowged in confusion. Once she was rid of the last of the black fabric, she tried a few turns in the air, some barrel rolls and a loop-the-loop. Then she flew under Destructo-saur, the biggest robot in the place. It took her a few tries to find its center of gravity, but once she did, lifting it was almost as easy as lifting just herself.
"She is magnificent!" exclaimed the blue hero. "Isn't she magnificent, Minion?"
"Sure is, boss. Way to go, Ms. Ritchi!"
When she tried to set it down, she misjudged and it crashed on its side, pieces flying in all directions from the force of the fall, while the two aliens dove for cover.
"I guess I do need some practice."
###
They started out having Roxanne crash through walls and other large objects, to get herself used to the impact. She practiced wrestling holds with dummies and caught raw eggs thrown by a specially equipped brainbot to develop her manual dexterity. Megamind reconstructed the supersecret superhero supersuit, but repainted it black so that he would be less visible using it at night. For the same reason, the costume Minion made for Roxanne was entirely black, with a mask that concealed half her face. She hadn't wanted a costume, but ordinary clothes tended to get torn up in the course of practice; only the specialized high-strength fabrics would withstand the hard use of superbattles. And she needed something to keep her hair out of her eyes.
"You'll never take me alive, copper!" Practice seemed to bring out the blue hero's suppressed villainous side. Suited up, struggling with Roxanne or fleeing from her across the night sky, he would call out banter that sounded less like Metro Man than like a 1930s gangster movie. The first time she apprehended him, she broke his right arm and two ribs. While he reinforced the suit for greater overall strength and resilience, not just powerful punches, she watched videos of Metro Man in action. In addition to the news coverage, Megamind had his own brainbot-recorded footage of all his battles with the superhero. By the time his broken bones healed, she felt much better prepared. She and Megamind contended in the air, on the pavement, indoors in darkness so that they had to depend on X-ray vision to find each other, and even underwater in the lake. In the beginning, he was often able to get away from her, and sometimes dawn would find him still fleeing, but as the months went by, she got better, to the point where she could defeat him a half-dozen times a night.
One evening after she'd helped work on the Invisible Car by pulling the entire engine out and holding it in the air for twenty minutes, Minion asked her if she was ever tempted to just stay superpowered. She shook her head.
"This body has no sex drive. I used to be amazed that Metro Man was such a gentleman around women, especially the fans who threw themselves at him. Now I know he just wasn't interested."
"That's very good to hear," said Megamind. "Although I recognize that you now conform much more closely to this society's conventional notions of female beauty, I found you much more attractive the other way. I am looking forward very much to the day when this is all over and you can be my beautiful Roxanne again."
"Me, too." She smiled and, very carefully, kissed him.
###
The six month mark. Roxanne landed outside the weathered old schoolhouse in the moonlight. With her X-ray vision she could see Wayne in the bathroom of the underground apartment, in a bathrobe, brushing his teeth. For a moment she considered tunneling down through the sand and bursting through the ceiling above him, but then she decided she wanted to be between him and his usual exit. She opened the door and floated in, being as quiet as possible, although she knew he was probably not paying attention enough to notice her entrance. She lifted up the trapdoor that led to the underground entrance to the apartment. Unlike the drafty building, the tunnel below her was weather-tight and it held a scent she'd never consciously noticed before. His scent.
Her sex drive woke up.
The infusion didn't just give me his powers. It reoriented me sexually so that I don't respond to males of other species, only to his species. Which means only to him. She knew her plan was dead in the water and she should just turn around, go home to the lair, defuse herself and forget all about this, but it was as if invisible cables were attached to her nipples and clitoris, pulling her down to where that man was, the only man in the world. Knowing it was the worst decision she'd ever made, she descended.
Looking through layers of walls, she could see him using the mouthwash, rinsing out his toothbrush, oblivious. She was inside the trophy-bedecked music room at the front before he looked up, alert. She opened the door on the other side of it, letting herself into his kitchen. At the far end of it was another hallway, with doors leading to the bathroom and bedroom. He darted through the bathroom door, then stood and faced her, his fists raised.
"Who are you?" he shouted. "What do you want?"
"It's Roxanne," she replied as she flew up to him, "and I want you." She kept her hands at her sides as she leaned in and kissed him. After a moment, he responded. They embraced and opened their mouths as if each had been starving for the other. Five or six minutes later, the bathrobe hit the floor. Her mask followed immediately, but the costume took a little longer because it was more complicated to get out of. Under it she wore only panties. He tore them away as he moved in to kiss her again. Then he lifted them both off the carpet and floated them into the bedroom. They settled onto the bed without breaking the kiss. There was a long, wordless interval of kissing and nuzzling and pressing their naked bodies together, long enough that she began to notice that he was taking a long time to get erect. Then she began to feel another, more literal kind of heat, the kind she associated with infusion. She had a moment to wonder what was happening and then it was on her, the golden light that washed out her vision, the roaring that filled her ears, the energy in every cell of her body. She still felt him against her, his arms around her, and now she could feel his erection form against her thigh. Blind and deaf, she mounted him by feel. From his first thrust, she felt the ripples of pleasure begin. Her climax was closer to literally burning than she had ever imagined possible, sweeping up her whole awareness in overwhelming sensation.
Then it was over. The bedroom was dark and quiet. She was lying on his chest, completely limp. She tried to use her X-ray vision to compensate for the lack of light, but it didn't work. She realized that she was a prisoner of gravity again, and she could feel the weight of his arms around her back in a way she hadn't felt any weight since her infusion. So the light and noise I just felt was de-fusion.
Wayne's chest inflated under her before he spoke. "Are you okay, Roxie?"
"I'm not injured, but I am back to being a regular helpless human." She sat up. "My powers are gone."
No answer. The light was very dim, but it seemed to her that his outline against the sheet was smaller than the Metro Man she was used to.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
"I can't raise us off the bed. I can't see anything outside this room." He moved his head a little. "No laser vision."
She turned on the light. He was thinner, less tall, with narrower shoulders. More like the kind of man she was normally attracted to, except that he'd gone from being superhumanly buff to not really being in shape at all, though he wasn't really overweight. More like the typical figure for a man in early middle age. "You look like the human version of yourself," she said.
"What's going on, Roxie? How'd this happen? Why did you even have powers in the first place?"
"I talked Megamind into infusing me the way he infused Hal so I could come here and slap your face and have it mean something. I didn't expect to be crazy attracted to you like this. I certainly didn't expect to end up with both of us... depowered. But it's a Megamind plan, so of course something had to go wrong." She finds herself tearing up. "God, it's so hard for him to trust anyone. What will he do when he finds out I cheated on him with you?"
He put his hand up to the side of her face. She's seen that tender, sorrowful expression on his face only once before, when he carried the corpse of a little girl out of the ruins of a collapsed building and gave it to the parents, telling them he was sorry he couldn't save her. The memory put Roxanne's distress in perspective. Megamind might freak out. He might turn back to villainy, might even go on a rampage, but it wasn't certain. Nobody had died yet. Most likely nobody would die at all.
"We have to tell him," Wayne said, "because he's the only one who can figure this out."
The city's new hero didn't freak out or any of the other things Roxanne was afraid of. Instead, when they called him and explained what had happened (with Wayne adding "Congratulations, little buddy. You've finally found my weakness.") he burst into a laugh that recalled his villainous days. Then he insisted that they come to the lair "for testing. This is an unprecedented research opportunity. I'll send Minion to pick you up." Wayne was nervous about leaving his underground fortress, sharply aware of his new vulnerability. In a tee shirt that was now too big and a pair of sweat pants that strained at the waist, he flinched at the first touch of the outside air, even though it was only a little chilly. When they got in the Invisible Car, Minion stared at Wayne for a moment.
"Hi, Ms. Ritchi. Hi, Mr. Scott. Wow. If I didn't know it was you, I'd totally think you were somebody else."
In the lair's small infirmary, Minion weighed and measured Wayne and took samples of his blood, skin and hair while Megamind did the same with Roxanne. The ex-hero was fascinated by the sight of his own blood. Meanwhile, Roxanne took the opportunity to express the worry that had been haunting her ever since she went down the stairs to Wayne's fortress.
"Amnang," she whispered, using her blue lover's real name. "Do you hate me now?"
"For an involuntary act resulting from the response of your artificially altered biochemistry to previously unknown circumstances? Of course not. Why, my former prison mate, Psycho Delic, could emit an aphrodisiac gas from his own pores that would have total strangers going at each other."
"The lust bombings. I remember. But every lust bombing resulted in at least one divorce or broken engagement."
"Because humans are irrational and they don't understand how mechanical lust really is. I do value your intention of sexual fidelity to me, as an act of love, but I don't confuse physical fidelity with love itself. Is your heart still mine, or did one act of passion rearrange your loyalties?"
She smiled a little cynically. "One act of passion that's probably not repeatable. No, he's still the man who ran out on the city. Even if the feelings last after I get defused for good, I wouldn't trust him enough. Besides," she said as she leaned closer, "he's not you." Megamind was careful to put the needle down before they kissed.
After the taking of samples and measurements, Megamind went into the lab to study samples and run tests while Minion began entering data into what they still called the Metro Man database. Wayne and Roxanne watched the eleven o'clock news, which was recorded every night by the lair's video system, because the reporter wanted to see how her colleagues were getting along without her. It was into the football scores when the blue genius walked in with a request for Wayne's attention.
"To develop a decent hypothesis, I must ask a series of questions, very personal and intrusive questions. If you don't want Roxanne to hear the answers, she should leave now."
"Roxie can stay." He was reluctant to let her out of his sight, and barely restrained himself from holding onto her like a fearful toddler clinging to his mother.
"All right," said Megamind. "Tell me about your previous sexual experience."
"There isn't any. I was always afraid of hurting the other person. Besides, until now, I never had that much of a sex drive. When I kissed a girl, it was more because it was expected of me than because I wanted to."
"Any experiences with boys, transsexuals, livestock, anything that moves?"
"Even less. I was only under pressure to show an interest in girls."
"Any solitary experiences, masturbation, wet dreams, involuntary ejaculations?"
"Never."
"So this was not only your first sexual encounter with another person, it was your first orgasm ever."
"Yes."
"Now, when you defused - lost your powers - was that after you had an erection, or before?"
"I... Well, when this defusion thing happened, there were a lot of unfamiliar sensations: heat, light, noise, and sexual arousal. I know I got an erection, because when my eyesight came back enough that I could see what was going on, we were already fucking, but I can't tell you exactly when it started."
"So most of this sexual act took place during defusion?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, my. I'm afraid if you ever experience ordinary sex as the rest of us know it, you're going to be disappointed. Did you orgasm before the process was finished?"
"I think it was all over at once, the defusion and the sex. One minute I was in a state of insane lust with flames around the edges and a side dish of fear that I was hurting Roxie, or was about to hurt her, and wouldn't be able to stop myself. The next thing I knew we were both collapsed on the bed and for the first time in my life, I was exhausted."
"Hmm. All right then. Here is my hypothesis: your powers have the unfortunate side effect of making reproduction impossible, so when you find yourself alone with a potential mate, you temporarily lose them. Until I infused Roxanne, there was no one on Earth whom your body could recognize as a potential mate, so you never experienced it."
Suddenly Wayne was standing up, leaning forward. "Did you say temporarily?"
"Yes. All you should need to do is avoid Roxanne, or anyplace that has her scent, for anywhere from a few hours to several days, and you'll spontaneously regain your powers just as you spontaneously lost them."
"So wait," said Roxanne. "Does this mean that if I avoid him for that long, I could spontaneously reinfuse?"
"Oh. I didn't think of it, but yes. You should both, once you start avoiding each other, also avoid public places, in fact any place where you might draw unwanted attention by suddenly appearing to burst into flame."
"One more question," said Roxanne. "Is it possible that I'm pregnant?"
"Oh, I would definitely advise one of those morning after pills as soon as possible."
"Roxie." Wayne reached for her, though he was too far away to touch her. "One thing I always wanted to be and knew I could never be was a father. Now, though -"
Megamind interrupted. "Think about it, Wayne. A superpowered fetus in a human womb would be no danger until it started to kick. Then the mother would be at risk of serious injury to her spine and internal organs, not to mention the possibility that the fetus would rupture the amniotic sac and, in effect, abort itself." The former hero lowered his head, an expression of bitterness on his face. "I don't mean to increase your suffering," the blue man continued, "but the truth is less cruel in the end than false hope."
Wayne straightened up, composing himself. "You're right. I can handle this." He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "I guess I'll go back to my place and wait."
"I suggest," added Megamind, "that you clean everything she has touched with a good strong-smelling disinfectant." Wayne didn't seem to hear. He stood there looking at Roxanne longingly.
"Goodbye, Wayne," she said. "I'm sorry...No, who am I kidding? I'm not sorry. That was the most amazing experience of my life and I'll never be sorry, but I..." She looked away, groping for words.
"Should I leave you two alone?" asked Megamind.
"No!" Roxanne was at her blue lover's side in an instant, taking his hand. "Wayne, I started this because I was angry, because I wanted you to suffer for what you did. Eleven people died in Tighten's final rampage, because you weren't there to stop him and Megamind didn't have enough experience at fighting someone who really wants to do harm. I wanted you to suffer because you betrayed the trust of the whole city for no reason but self-indulgence. You could have gone about this responsibly. You could have brought in a younger hero to take your place, but you didn't. You owe this city bigtime. But I, I didn't mean for it to come out this... personal."
"You're right," said Wayne, his eyes down. "I was negligent in not preparing the city for my retirement. I just left everybody to flounder." He looked up, met her eyes. "Can you forgive me?"
"Maybe," she answered. "Once you've made amends. I don't know what that will look like, but you're a smart guy. You'll figure it out."
He nodded. "I'll go," he said. "I'll think about it."
"I'll have Minion drive you home." Megamind touched his watch.
###
As soon as Wayne was out of the room, Roxanne let her head sink onto Megamind's shoulder. After a moment, he pulled her into an embrace. They just stood there for a long moment, holding each other. Then he pulled off one glove and began caressing her hair, as he often did. She sighed.
"I'm not as over this as I let him think I am," she whispered. "Part of me is still calling out to him, but it's better if he doesn't know that."
"Part of you may never be over this," he replied. "But if it makes you feel a little more secure, I was thinking that, after the whole story comes out (and I know you, Ms. Nosy Reporter; it will come out) I'll encourage him to pick out some young woman volunteer from among his diehard fans. There are a few who will always be loyal to him, no matter what he's done. I'll infuse her and leave her that way and they can live happily ever after."
"That would be good. I'm kind of scared of what I'm feeling now. I'm hoping I reinfuse and get defused for real and then it'll all be over."
###
When Wayne got back to his underground apartment, he found that he was in no hurry to remove her scent and get his powers back. Being there without her was painful. The longing was eating him alive, but strangely, he welcomed the pain and gave himself almost eagerly to the longing. He got into bed on the same sheet where they'd made love, feeling the pull of gravity, feeling her absence, thinking that he was finally part of the human race, thinking of her, thinking again and again of her. After a few sleepless hours, he got up, went into the music room and picked up his favorite electric guitar, feeling its true weight for the first time. He switched on the amp, tuned up, then turned on the drum machine and scrolled through its menu, looking for love songs. He was thinking of something wistful and yearning, something about beauty lost and unrecoverable, with metaphors about slipping through fingers and foolish mistakes. Then a title scrolled by. "The Boys of Summer" by Don Henley. Remembering it, he felt a kind of strength rising up through him, not the physical strength that had left him when he was in her arms, but strength of will. He clicked it, then stood back as it opened with the single drumstick tapping out that quick insistent rhythm.
He only made a few changes to the lyrics as he sang. The second verse in particular seemed almost like it was written for this situation.
I never will forget that night. I can see you,
I wonder if it was a dream.
Remember how you made me crazy.
Remember how I made you scream.
Now I don't understand what happened to our love,
But, babe, I'm gonna get you back.
I'm gonna show you what I'm made of.
Your brown hair shining in the sun.
I see you telling us the news,
Smiling at everyone.
I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone.