"Oh, I give up," he hears Roxanne mutter to herself. She raises her voice. "Megamind, can you come here, please?"
Megamind, up to his elbows in the faulty mechanism of the Cumulous Accumulator, looks up at her in surprise. Roxanne, tied in her chair, looks back at him, an expression of annoyance on her face.
"—Miss Ritchi?" he asks.
"I need you to help me, please," she says, and Megamind is on his feet in an instant.
"What is it; what's wrong?" he says, crossing to her—it has to be important, if she's willing to ask him for help; is she hurt, is—
"Can you please get my damn hair out of my face?" she says, voice irritated, "It is driving me up the wall. Ugh, I hate when it gets this awkward length."
Megamind stares at Roxanne blankly. She narrows her eyes at him.
"And since it's your fault I missed my appointment to get it cut last week, I'm pretty sure I deserve a little assistance, Megamind, so don't even start with the evil laughter and the 'villains don't help captives' thing—"
"—ah?" Megamind manages to say, voice strangled.
A gust of wind blows another bit of Roxanne's hair across her eyes—up here on the roof of the Lair, it's rather windy, and Roxanne's hair is, she's correct, several centimeters longer than she usually wears it and what does she mean, she wants him to get her hair out of her face, what is—
Roxanne growls in frustration and tosses her head, trying ineffectually to flip her hair out of her eyes.
"Help," she hisses, and it's definitely more of a command than a plea.
"Um," says Megamind.
Roxanne glares at him from beneath the hair that's hanging in her face and it is impossibly sexy and—no no! Okay, he can do this, he can do this; it's not a big deal—
Right—aaaahhh right, okay—
Megamind starts to reach for her, then stops himself—there's machine oil on his gloves, from his attempts to fix the Cumulous Accumulator—
He unbuckles one glove, fumbling a little with the catch, and he feels himself flushing beneath Roxanne's gaze.
"N-no sense in getting you dirty, Miss Ritchi," he says, hoping like hell that she doesn't notice the way his voice shakes slightly.
He pulls the glove off and reaches hesitantly for her again.
She's—she's very close; he's standing over her and she's looking up at him, and he more than half expects her to pull away when he reaches out.
But she doesn't.
She doesn't pull away, and to his complete and utter shock, his fingertips brush across the skin of her forehead.
(He feels like he's dying.)
His skin is on her skin, and he stops breathing as he brushes Roxanne's hair to the side, memorizing this moment, memorizing the sensation of being allowed to touch her like this.
He's careful, as he sweeps her hair behind her ear, not to touch the beautiful pink sea shell curve of it.
(god, but he wants to touch; wants to draw his fingertip along the rim of her ear, wants to let his hand trail down the column of her throat and then across the line of her clavicle, wants—)
He tucks her hair back without touching her ear and steps away from her, trying to remember how to breathe.
Megamind turns quickly, intending to walk away, but—
Roxanne makes a sound of annoyance behind him. He looks back.
Her hair has fallen into her face again; she's glaring up at it and trying to blow it out of her eyes.
She catches him looking at her and gives him a wry grimace.
"Okay, new plan," she says, "there's bobby pins in my purse."
"…bobby pins," Megamind repeats, the world seeming to tilt beneath him at an alarming angle.
Oh evil gods, he's supposed to touch her again? He barely lived through it the first time; how is he meant to handle this?
"Bobby pins," Roxanne says, nodding. She waits a moment. "In my purse," she prompts.
"—in your purse," Megamind agrees, feeling lightheaded.
Megamind kneels, in a sort of daze, and reaches for the purse at Roxanne's feet. He looks up at her—does she seriously want him to—but she gestures at him impatiently with her shoulders, so he opens the purse.
"The little zipper part," Roxanne says, and, after some fumbling, Megamind manages to locate pocket she means.
"One pin should be enough," she says.
Megamind takes one of the pins from the pocket and zips the pouch back up. He stands.
All right. He can—he can handle this. Just—just like he did before, he'll sweep her hair out of her face and then he'll put in the pin. Easy. Simple.
…he's probably going to need two hands for this, isn't he.
Megamind takes off his other glove while Roxanne waits and watches, probably impatiently, and he tries to reassure himself that taking off his gloves while she watches is in no way inappropriate or anything like undressing, but he's not really convinced.
He tosses the gloves on the ground and steps close to her again, and, just like before, she tips her face up invitingly
(as if for a kiss—stop. stop thinking like that, Megamind.)
Megamind reaches for her and again a shock goes through him when she doesn't flinch away, when their skin touches.
He brushes her hair from her face and sweeps it to the side, then, holding it gingerly in place, brings the pin up with his other hand and—
—fumbles with it, trying to get it to slide into her hair. What. How is. What the hell—
The pin slips in his fingers and catches nothing. Megamind feels his face flare with embarrassed heat and Roxanne makes a choking sort of sound, as if she's trying not to laugh.
He tries again to—oh come on; it cannot be this hard to just pin someone's—okay, so maybe he needs to pry the little metal legs of the pin apart so it'll catch in her hair—
The pin pings out of his fingers and into the air; Megamind makes a noise of alarm and snatches for it, barely catching it. He manages it, just barely.
When he looks into Roxanne's face, she's clearly fighting not to laugh, her hair hanging in her eyes again.
Dear evil gods this is never going to end, is it? How does he get himself into these humiliating situations? You are a disgrace to supervillainy, Megamind; a disgrace.
He'd take comfort in the thought that at least it's only Roxanne, watching him struggle with this nonsense, but he would trade a crowd of critics gladly, if he could just stop looking like such a complete idiot in front of her.
Cursing fluently in his head, Megamind brushes Roxanne's hair across her brow yet again and, holding the metal legs of the pin slightly apart, slips it into—
The pin springs off his finger again and Megamind is unable to hold back from screaming under his breath in frustration.
And he has no idea where the damn thing landed, now, so—
Roxanne laughs.
Megamind goes perfectly still, feeling as if someone's sent an electric current straight up his spine and shorted out the synapses of his brain.
Roxanne throws her head back and leans against the back of the chair, and she laughs, and the sound is—
—oh god. it's the best sound ever.
Megamind stares at her while she laughs, as she tapers off into snickering, as she bites the side of her cheek to try to get herself under control.
"—ah, sorry," she says, lips quivering slightly, "I, uh—know you're having—trouble—and trying to help me—"
She sounds like she means the apology, like she really is worried that she might have offended him by laughing, and ordinarily the mere fact of Roxanne apologizing to him would be worth a week's worth of internal dithering at least to Megamind—
—but he doesn't give a single solitary damn that she was laughing at him; all he can think about is how incomprehensibly wonderful the sound of her laughter was and how much he wants to make her do it again.
Roxanne is biting her lower lip, now, looking uncertain, so he draws himself up, squaring his shoulders and lifting his chin in a parody of affronted dignity.
"Oh, yes, laugh it up, Miss Ritchi!" he exclaims. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is, trying to pin someone's hair for them when you've never had any of your own?"
Roxanne's eyes widen in surprise, and then crinkle at the corners, the edges of her lips starting to curve up.
"—fairly difficult, I imagine," she says, voice rich with amusement, and that's almost as good as a laugh.
"Incredibly difficult! A task of—sisyphean proportions—evil little—spring-y thingies—okay, I give up, Miss Ritchi; I have no idea where it landed; I'm afraid we're going to have to count that pin as a casualty—"
Roxanne laughs again and Megamind sneaks a pleased look at her as he bends to get another pin from her purse.
"That's okay; they cost like—one cent, each," she says. "Considering all of the hits my wardrobe has taken, evil-plan-wise, a bobby pin is nothing."
He looks up at her and rolls his eyes exaggeratedly.
"Sacrifices are inevitable in the quest for greatness, Miss Ritchi! You of all people should know that!"
She rolls her eyes back at him, but there's still a smile hiding at the corners of her mouth.
"Mm hm," she says, "Sacrifices like my favorite pair of stiletto pumps—why is it always my shoes that are the ones getting dropped in the alligator pit?"
"I wear sensible shoes, Miss Ritchi," Megamind tells her primly. "Shoes designed not to slip off at inopportune moments."
(he knows which pair of shoes she's talking about, of course; the loss of them really was a tragedy; they showed off the beautiful shape of her ankles phenomenally.)
Roxanne is still complaining:
"—comfortable and you could wear them to work or to a date; that is, if I ever had a date—"
Megamind glances up at her sharply, frowning.
"Your boyfriend doesn't take you on dates?" he asks in disbelief.
Roxanne's eyes go wide; a light flush spreads itself over her cheeks.
"Um," she says, and then hesitates, presses her lips together for a moment, as if deciding something.
"What boyfriend?" she asks, voice quiet.
Megamind blinks.
There is—a long silence, oddly charged.
What boyfriend? What is she playing at? He looks at her for a moment, trying to figure out her expression, and her eyes slide away from his, the blush on her cheeks deepening slightly.
Ooookay? Well.
He thinks about making one of his usual cracks about Metro Man, but—Megamind really doesn't want to talk about him, doesn't want to think about Roxanne dating that jerk, doesn't want to—he wants Roxanne to laugh again, wants to brush her hair out of her face once more.
(wants a lot more than that, but he'll take what he can get, as always, and hold it precious.)
Megamind clears his throat. He stands and moves to Roxanne again. She's still avoiding his eyes; he can't think why, so he gestures at the pin in his hand, the movement deliberately overdramatic, wanting to get her attention, wanting to make her smile.
"Is there some sort of…arcane coiffure secret to this," he says, pulling a face, "or do you normally just stab wildly and hope for the best?"
His plan works; she glances up at him again, her eyes dancing with amusement.
(oh god; she looks even more beautiful than normal, like this)
"'Arcane coiffure secret'," she scoffs, shaking her head. "It's just a bobby pin."
Megamind arches an eyebrow at her pointedly, and she grins.
"Okay, okay!" she says, "—so first off, you're going to want to turn the pin over so that the grooves are on bottom."
Megamind frowns again and turns the pin over.
"Why—?"
"The grooves are there to keep the pin from sliding out of your hair once it's in," Roxanne says. "It holds better like that."
Megamind groans.
"You mean even if I miraculously manage to get this thing in your hair, there's still a chance it's going to fall right out again?" Megamind asks, throwing her a look of horror.
Roxanne snickers.
"Yeah, but you should be good if the grooves are on the bottom," she says. "All right, show me how you're holding the pin—okay, no, you're pushing the sides of it too far apart, that's why it keeps jumping out of your hand like that. Just—yeah, gently…"
Megamind holds the pin with careful awkwardness.
This would have been so much simpler if he just untied Roxanne's hands and let her do this herself.
(he's been expecting Roxanne to point this out, this entire time; he's terribly surprised, really, that she hasn't)
Megamind sweeps Roxanne's hair aside and—slips the pin into her hair.
He blinks at it in shock for a moment—holy shit, he actually did it?!
"Success!" he says, "Ha! Take that, stupid impossible pin thing!"
Roxanne laughs a little and Megamind feels like his heart has gone all warm and golden.
He wishes, suddenly, absurdly, that he hadn't managed to do it. He could have touched Roxanne's hair again, at least one more time.
(no. no no no. he is not—going to be any—creepier about his obsession with Roxanne than he can help)
Megamind's fingers curl in to his palm, remembering the warmth of Roxanne's skin, the silken-softness of her hair.
"…you're staring; do I look weird?" Roxanne asks.
"You look beautiful," Megamind says automatically, before he can think better of it.
Roxanne's eyes go round—shitshitshitshit—
"You must rate your skills as a hairdresser pretty high," she says.
"No, you're just always beautiful," Megamind blurts out because things weren't bad enough already. "I—! You—! I mean—aaaahhh—that's not—!"
Roxanne's eyebrows are climbing higher and higher and fuck him; it's moments like these that Megamind reeeeally wishes that the science behind the reset button hadn't turned out to be impossible because dear god if he could just erase the last twelve seconds or so of his existence that would be superb—
Megamind finally shuts himself up by dint of actually physically biting his tongue; the edges of Roxanne's lips are trembling again, like she isn't sure if she wants to laugh or not, and she's staring at him, her eyes wide.
Downstairs, in the Lair, something audibly crashes.
Sheer relief floods Megamind's entire body.
"—excuse me," he says, and flees.
...to be continued.