"Ugh," Roxanne groaned as she placed both elbows on the desk and began to massage her temples, an attempt to quell the ever growing headache that came with working late hours. It had been a long day, the longest she had worked in quite some time-as it was she and Vanessa, her new assigned camera operator (a young African American woman of rare beauty and competent skill), had only just gotten back to the station fifteen minutes prior. Already she was heavily involved in finishing up a few reports, the cursor of her word processor blinking patiently as it awaited her continued progress. Vanessa sat adjacent to her-courtesy of her boss's suggestion that they work near each other to "bond"-editing video footage from earlier; what didn't make it into tonight's broadcasts could still be included in the morning news.
"Are you okay?" Vanessa shot her a concerned look, "you didn't inhale too much smoke from that house fire earlier, did you?"
"I'm fine," she replied, looking up to her friend with hazy blue eyes "just tired. We've been working all day, and I didn't get a lot of sleep last night "
"Late night with your boyfriend?" Vanessa grinned mischievously, waggling her eyebrows in implication. "You know, he did seem especially happy to see you after he stopped that bank robbery earlier."
"Ha!' Roxanne snorted, amused, "we're not like that. Not everyone has to be intensely physical to be in love, you know. You'd be surprised how conservative my views are on that subject. Anyways, he was happy because that's the first time either of us have seen each other in three days, we've both been too busy meeting the city's demands." She sighed, "I love my job but sometimes it really gets in the way of my personal life."
"I know what you mean," Vanessa empathized, I had no idea this job could be so time consuming I hardly ever see my apartment, except to sleep in it."
"It's usually not this bad," Roxanne offered, then focused her attention back on her computer, "just a few more hours and hopefully we can go home."
"You want some food? Neither of us have eaten, I can pick something up for you if you'd like."
Her eyes shifted to the digital clock on her desktop, it read 7:30. "Well that explains the headache," she said, "I forgot about dinner."
"Alright then!" Vanessa chirruped, pulling some menus out from a side drawer, "Let's see, we have German, Chinese, Indian, sandwich shops, pizza...a little bit of everything. Your call, although I'm going to go ahead and elim..." Vanessa's voiced trailed off as the lights went out. "What was that?"
"Thank God this program auto-saves," Roxanne blurted through the sudden darkness, ignoring the influx of excited chatter mixed with the beeping and whirring down noises of various pieces of equipment, "looks like the power's out."
Vanessa groaned, "Tell me this doesn't mean that I'm going to have to get the van again."
A beam of light made it's way into the room as her boss, a staunch, often irascible man who was easily in his mid fifties, stepped in, and she noted the reaper-like silhouette of his hand as he pointed a finger towards her friend and fellow reporter, Janet Johnson. "Johnson," he piped, "find out more about this outage. I need to know how big it is, what's causing it, and when they expect to have it fixed. Since Eric is sick, Mike will be your cameraman tonight, I expect to see a full, televised report within the next hour. Ritchi, you and Vanessa are off, I suspect we'll need you both in the morning if your boyfriend has had any involvement in this, good or bad."
Roxanne rolled her eyes, unseen by her boss in the dark, why he insisted upon calling reporters by their last names, and cameramen by their first she would never know. She then looked towards where Vanessa, had been before the lights had gone off. "Right," she said, searching for her coworkers hand, "come on Vanessa, I'll help you out. I know this place like the back of my hand."
Once outside, the two parted ways and Roxanne waved her friend on as she watched the girl drive off. Roxanne herself preferred to walk home, although she questioned such a decision when she turned to face the shadowed, empty streets before her. Save for the occasional passing car the area around her remained eerily still and she was completely alone. She sighed, the distance was not terribly long, only nine blocks away, she would make it.
Barely one block into her journey, however, she was met with an amusing sight indeed. In front of her, a few yards away, bathed in a small beam of light stood the lone figure of a familiar blue alien. She smirked as her steps brought her closer, noting that the light came from a brain-bot hovering above him, it's "eye" removed and affixed with a small spotlight. It gave a small "bow" in greeting.
"Why am I led to believe that this isn't a coincidence," she said as she came to stand in front of him, placing a hand firmly upon her hip and swaying to the side.
"Well hello to you too," he snorted as he gave her a taunting grin.
"Alright, my entire office is up in arms and lord knows how much of the city is currently in the dark. Fess up, what have you done?"
"Oh I didn't do anything." Megamind replied, smugly crossing his arms and leaning against the nearest wall, "nothing at all. Metro Mahn, however, may have played a part."
His ego was practically glowing. Oh, he had definitely been up to something and she could guess the why, just not the how. She affixed him with a sardonic pout, determined to get to the bottom of the situation, "what did you ask him to do this time?"
"Let's just say that utility crews will soon be hard at work repairing a blown transformer, recently damaged by a random, somewhat inexplicable bolt of lightning."
"Lightning? How did you...what did you do, have him take one of your giant Tesla coils and blow it up? "
"Something like that, except, you know, smaller," his gestures emphasized his words, hands paralleling each other and coming closer to convey a decrease in size, "more efficient."
"Don't you think that's a little obvious?"
"What? It's supposed to rain tomorrow, there are clouds forming it the sky...who knows what could have happened. Completely plausible."
"And this," she paused and stepped closer to him, wrapping her arms around his neck, "blown transformer just happens to have occurred near my place of employment while I was working late hours. That's not suspicious at all."
"A freak chance of nature!" he defended himself, although there was no weight to his words, "I wasn't even there! How are they supposed to know it was me?"
"Three reasons:" she explained, "one," she tapped the back of his neck with her finger, "you've never needed to be anywhere, you have the brain-bots for that; two, lightning is your logo, how are they not supposed to know it was you; and three, some of these citizens have been cleaning up after you for years, they know your handiwork," she tilted her head, ever the amused one for having caught him in the midst of not thinking things through.
"Oh...well, I didn't think about that. I guess I'll need an alibi."
"Lucky for you" she bumped her forehead against his his, "I know the chief engineer at Metro City Power, one of our primary go-to guys when we need information about things like this. I think I can convince him to give a false statement, just this once."
"I knew there was a reason that we were together."
"Mhmm," she murmured, taking in his scent as she buried her nose into the side of his neck. A variety of fragrances-courtesy Jean Paul Gaultier's Le Mâle-met her nostrils, one moment it was vanilla, the next, orange, then cinnamon, mint, lavender, sandalwood, cedar, and a variety of other fragrances that nearly drove her mad with longing. She placed a kiss to his neck, then, remembering their line of dialogue, she added: "well, my usefulness had better not be the only thing you like about me."
"I've missed you," he intoned, his voice dropping low as he abruptly ditched the defensive facade. It caught her attention, and she lifted her head to address him. Two, vibrant green eyes fixed upon hers, reflecting the deeper, more carefully regulated emotions within him, and he sighed. In truth, he could have cared less about the consequences of his earlier actions, he just wanted to be with her, and if that meant threatening his public image then so be it.
"I've missed you too, I can't believe how hectic these past few days have been. No walks in the park, no late night movies, no homemade dinners, no...well just no you. I can hardly stand it."
"But you've been okay besides that? I saw some of the reports you did while I was working on a new prototype for the city's water treatment plant."
"Yeah, I'm fine. I see you haven't fared so well, though," she said as she noted a small bruise on the side of his face, cleverly hidden within the shadow of his cheekbone. "Do I even want to know how many more of these bruises you have underneath all of that spandex and leather? I heard about you manhandling that robber earlier, you have to me more careful, you know, I don't want to c..." her dialogue was interrupted as he rushed in to claim her lips, no longer able to stand the distance between them.
She gave a yip of surprise, followed by what was nearly a laugh but which quickly transformed into a hum of contentment. It was not the first time ha had done something like this, interrupting her words, and nor would it be the last. She understood the gesture for what it was, however, never mistaking it as an attempt to shut her up. Rather, she knew it to be an an expression of his growing passion for her-the more he stood there in front of her, the more anxious he became to show her how much he loved her, and he internalized such emotions until his desire finally got the better of him. Despite his denial of the fact, he was still new to the idea of romantic love, it was as alien to him as he was to earth, and he was still learning how to process how it made him feel. Not that she had any complaints, however, he was doing just fine from where she was standing.
Long blue arms circled around her waist, and she found herself pulling him in closer. A mixture of sugar and mint filled her mouth, causing her tongue to tingle. He had brushed his teeth recently, and had possibly consumed more than a few mints on his way to greet her. Good, she thought, he was expecting her to kiss him now, and likewise knew that she would enjoy it, a drastic change from when they had first started dating again four months prior. He had feared that she might be repulsed, then; not by the fact that he had been her former kidnapper and Metro City's most feared villain but rather by the fact that he simply was not human.
How could she ever be repulsed? She thought as she kissed him over and over again, he was the most beautiful thing she had ever encountered. She broke away from their kiss, pausing to catch her breath and to deal with the sudden influx of emotion that such thoughts brought her.
"Are you alright Roxanne?" he queried through ragged breaths, his heart beating at a rapid pace.
"More than alright," she replied, looking back up at him once she had successfully evaded the threat of tears. She kissed him again, softer this time and slower, and then paused, "you know, I think this is your best kidnapping to date."
"Oh really now?" he quipped, "Even better than suspending you over a pit of electric eels and forcing Metro Mahn to swim though them as the only means of getting to you? I thought that one was pretty good."
"I'm pretty sure that I prefer being caught up in yours arms over being caught up in a rope."
He opened his mouth to reply, but then stopped, unable to refute such a bold statement. Instead he affixed her with a "you win" look, ever amazed by her ability to verbally disarm him.
"But besides that," she continued, smiling at his reaction, "I really needed to just take five, all I've done today is focus on the negative things that can happen in this world, I needed to be reminded of the positive."
"Too much negativity is bad; that's how lightning comes about, you know. The negative charge at the bottom of a cloud grows so great that it pushes the electrons away from the ground and causes it to have a positive charge. Eventually this persuades the air to..." he paused as the sound of her stomach growling, "what on earth was that? Haven't you eaten today?"
"Breakfast?" she offered meekly, "I don't actually remember."
"Gah!" he exclaimed, his face lit with horror. "Why didn't you say something? And here I was...well let's get you something to eat! I am kidnapping you after all, and I have to actually take you somewhere for this to count as a kidnapping."
"Do you now?"
She yelped, finding herself suddenly lifted into the air as he scooped her up within his arms. His arms were disproportionately strong compared to the rest of his body, and he used them to their full advantage. "You of all people, Miss Ritchi, should know how a kidnapping is supposed to play out."
"Well as long as this kidnapping doesn't involve take-out I'm completely willing to comply."
"You want me to cook for you?" he responded, incredulous. His hidden ability to cook had been revealed to her some months prior, but it still surprised him when she asked (or in this case when she hinted) for him to call upon such a rarely used talent.
"Please?"
A smile rose upon his lips, his heart swelling with pride, "Of course! I will use my wickedly eeeeevhil yet secretly good culinary (which, true to his character he mispronounced keuwl-unh-ahry) skills to defeat my newest foe, Roxanne's stomach!" He started walking then, anxious for them to be on their way. "To the invisible car!"
"I think you might actually win this one," she said, nodding her head as he moved "yep, I have a very good feeling about this."
"Of course you do, I always emerge victorious."
"Very funny," she replied, then began twisting her body, reaching at an odd angle to ruffle through her purse as it dangled below his arms, "First, however, I need to make a call."
"That's not part of the protocol for being kidnapped," he said, raising a brow.
"It's part of the protocol for the 'getting your boyfriend out of trouble' plan" she retorted.
"Oh yeah?" he chuckled, "And what are you going to say to get me out of this one?"
She smirked, "It's simple. I'm just going to tell my friend that I've been abducted by aliens, but that I'm not looking to be rescued, and that any efforts in helping me prolong that abduction would be greatly appreciated."
"And you think that's going to work?"
"Well, that and free tickets to the baseball game next Friday won't hurt my cause."
"Devious!" he exclaimed, spinning her around, "I like it!"
She kissed the bottom part of his chin and then dialed the number for Metro City Power. After a moment, she keyed the extension. "Yes Mr. Sullivan? This is Roxanne Ritchi from News 8. I'm doing well, thank you. Listen, I have a small favor to ask of you...an issue of public safety, if you will."
Roxanne always had had a way with words.