The first time he sees her, he just glances at her, really.
He thinks, later, that the moment should have had more—emphasis, somehow, should have paused and slowed and spun out like something made of honey or molten glass.
(gravitational time dilation; time slowing down near massive things due to the strength of their gravitational fields, and if there's ever an event that should have warped Megamind's personal perception of the fabric of spacetime, it's his first sight of Roxanne Ritchi.)
Instead it's just—a glance.
He's on the rooftop of a building, three stories up, out of breath and dodging blasts from Metro Man's laser eyes. Minion and the brainbots have escaped, according to the contingency plan they worked out ahead of time for this evil plot, so it's just Megamind up there, running along the very edge of the rooftop. In between one step and the next, he glances down and sees—
—a flash of light and movement—the shutter of a camera clicking at him, and then the camera moves and he sees the face behind it, a woman's face tilted up and looking at him.
She's standing—standing, not crouching or cowering or fleeing—beside a parked car, snapping photographs of the fight from up close; much closer than anyone else; interesting that she hasn't taken cover with the rest of the terrified citizenry—
(oh wow; brave; that's interesting)
Megamind glances away from her and dives for cover behind an electrical box.
The sudden heat and ominous zap noise as Metro Man's lasers hit the box tell him that this move was an unfortunate one, even before the wiring begins to spark dangerously, the exposed circuitry crackling and spitting. Megamind holds up a hand, trying to shield his face and looks around frantically—
(he needs to get out of here, needs to get off of this roof, needs to get down to the ground where he might have a hope of getting away; needs to—)
Megamind takes off running for the far edge of the roof; the next building isn't so very far away; he can make it if he jumps—
Or, Megamind reflects in the instant that he hurtles off the rooftop and into space, possibly not.
This is it, he thinks, almost calmly. This is how he dies. Misjudging the distance between two rooftops and slamming face first into a brick wall. This is—
Windowsill! Yes! He can—
Megamind twists in the air as he falls, trying to change his trajectory just enough to—
His boots hit the ledge of the windowsill and his forehead hits the glass of the window rather painfully. For one frantic moment, he scrabbles wildly for a handhold, but there's nothing for his fingers to grip, and the ledge is too narrow for him to balance on and he's going to fall going to fall going to die—
Something to his right, just in his line of vision—a fire escape, one floor down and slightly over.
Megamind bends his knees and pushes off of the window ledge, leaping backwards into the air again, falling once more, but in a sideways arc this time.
He lands hard on the rickety metal platform, one ankle twisting and the back of his head slamming into the railing, making him see glittery little flashes of light at the edges of his vision. Then twin red laser beams just barely miss him, searing the brick in front of him, starting to slice through the metal of the platform.
Megamind vaults over the side of the fire escape, and then he's falling again oh this is just fantastic—
He hits the ground hard in a crouch, the shock of it shooting painfully through his feet and legs and knees, through the fingers of the hand he's put down for balance, up his arm to his shoulder. Lasers slice through the pavement beside him and Megamind rolls out of the way, then pushes himself to his feet and takes off running, sprinting for the mouth of the alleyway, where it opens into the street. Given the choice, he would much rather have run deeper into the alley, slipped down a side street, disappeared, but Metro Man is at his back and Megamind doesn't have a choice at all.
Bursting out into the street, he sees a line of parked cars at his left; he dives for cover behind the first one, looks up quickly and sees—
—part of the metal platform of the fire escape hurtling towards him, no doubt thrown by Metro Man.
Megamind draws his de-gun in an instant and fires swiftly, dehydrating the thing in midair. It falls to the ground as a harmless blue cube.
A sound in front of him; a quick inhalation of breath. Megamind glances in that direction and—
There she is again, the woman with the camera and the startlingly reckless disregard for her own safety. She's standing in the street now, still holding her camera, looking at him.
There is a moment in which the two of them just stare at each other, a moment in which she should scream, should run, but doesn't.
Instead, she lifts her camera and snaps a photograph of him.
She's only a few yards away from him; Megamind crosses the distance between them in the space of about two heartbeats. He sees her eyes go wide as he reaches her, sees her lips part—shock fear alarm—but before she can actually react, he grabs her and pulls her in front of him, one arm wrapped around her tightly; the de-gun in his other hand and aimed at her temple.
She makes an alarmed noise, but she doesn't actually scream—and she doesn't drop her camera.
(very brave yes; that is interesting)
Megamind turns his head to whisper in her ear.
"You should have run while you had the chance."
She makes that sound again, that quick sharp drawing in of her breath that she did earlier when he dehydrated the airborne metal platform.
Megamind sees Metro Man, flying out of the alleyway, pause in his flight as he catches sight of the captive in Megamind's arms.
This is going to work, Megamind thinks, it's going to work; he can do this! The innocent bystander will keep Metro Man back far enough for Megamind to edge away—or, if Metro Man does decide to come closer, Megamind can push her into Metro Man's arms and make a run for it.
Megamind shifts his weight, getting ready to step backwards, and then—
A gleam of red in Metro Man's eyes—oh fuck oh fuck surely he's not going to—
Metro Man puts two fingers of one hand to his temple and hot red light flashes in his eyes and Megamind knows, absolutely knows, that Metro Man does not have precise enough aim with his eye lasers for this—not at this distance, and not with Megamind holding this hostage so closely; nononono—
Megamind twists as quickly as he can, spinning himself and the girl around, covering her head with his arm and shielding her body with his own.
A line of screaming white-hot agony sears the top of his shoulders like a blow from a whip. Megamind gives a cry of pain and releases the girl. He stumbles away, dropping to his knees.
The girl makes a noise of alarm, and then she lunges forward and shoves Megamind hard.
The move is so utterly unexpected that he doesn't even think to try to stop her, just topples over onto the ground.
Yet another indignity to bear, Megamind thinks resignedly, being attacked by your intended captive, after you've injured yourself trying to save her from being burned to death—god, he hopes no one saw that, hopes no one's seeing this, seeing—
(the smell of burning leather burning skin, and the pain oh god the pain; not just the whiplike mark of the laser burn, but pain lancing down his arms, his back; up the back of his neck; oh fuck oh god—)
The girl whips off the red coat she's wearing, throws it over Megamind, drops down to her knees and begins hitting him with the palms of her hands, blows falling on his neck and back and shoulders and upper arms.
The realization that he's on fire hits him just a half a moment too late for it to be true; the girl stops hitting him.
Megamind, dazed and half-wrapped in her coat and still faintly smoking, stares up at her in pained bewilderment.
She looks down at him, her blue eyes wide, her brown hair in wild disarray, framing her face like a dark, tangled halo.
"Oh, my god, are you all right?" she says. "You were on fire!"
"Wh—?" Megamind says.
(is he all right?)
What—why would she ask him that?
She looks like she cares, like she's concerned; why would she—?
He just took her hostage; she should have run away screaming when he released her, should have kicked him or—she shouldn't have torn off her own coat and thrown it over him and frantically put out the flames on his cape. She shouldn't have—
(saved him.)
"—you dropped your camera," he says blankly.
The girl blinks at him, looking disconcerted.
"I—"
"Excuse me, Miss," Megamind hears Metro Man say.
He looks up to see the hero standing on the other side of him, smiling wide and white and not at all as if he's just come within a hair's breadth of accidentally incinerating an innocent bystander, the smug bastard.
"I'll take it from here," Metro Man tells the girl.
"He was on fire!" the girl says—snarls, actually.
Megamind blinks in surprise. So does Metro Man.
The girl surges to her feet, an expression of absolute fury on her face, her eyes blazing and her teeth bared.
But she's not looking at Megamind like that; she's looking at Metro Man, and Megamind must have hit his head harder than he thought, earlier, because reality seems to have been turned slightly sideways.
(are you all right?)
And now she looks as if she's angry with Metro Man; nothing makes sense—
"I know you've had a shock, Miss," Metro Man says, smile still in place, "but you're safe now. Megamind won't be—"
"You set him on fire! You almost set me on fire!" the girl says and—
Megamind takes a quick surprised breath.
(oh. oh—she noticed that? actually noticed the potentially fatal mistake made by the city's supposedly flawless and infallible hero? noticed—)
"What the hell is wrong with you?" the girl demands, glaring at Metro Man.
(—noticed that mistake and is now throwing it in Metro Man's face; god, who is this woman?)
"I—I can assure you, Miss, the situation was entirely under my control—"
The woman makes an angry noise and gives Metro Man a look of withering scorn.
She looks down at Megamind who is still lying at her feet, and he sees her expression is still furious, and he braces himself for the attack he's been anticipating from her—
"Are you okay?" she asks.
Roxanne Ritchi.
Her name is Roxanne Ritchi, and she's apparently a journalist, which goes some way towards explaining the camera and the recklessness, he supposes. She gives a report on the KCMP news station after Megamind's arrest, and he reads her name off the bottom of the screen: Roxanne Ritchi, KCMP intern.
Well, perhaps "gives a report" isn't quite the right term. Takes a report is more accurate. She's technically supposed to be being interviewed by one of KCMP's usual broadcast journalist, a man with a smarmy smile and perfect hair. He gives her the usual boring, conventional questions, the ones that inevitably serve as the interviewee's cue to start the usual simpering, fawning praise of Metro Man.
Miss Ritchi, though—
Miss Ritchi does not take her cues.
She does not fawn. She does not simper.
She summarizes the battle with concise accuracy and a kind of burning intensity that Megamind can feel even through the television screen. And then she points out, quite correctly, that most of the actual property damage from this battle was caused not by Megamind but by Metro Man.
Megamind, sitting in his prison cell, watching the screen, feels his eyes go wide.
(she noticed that, too?)
Miss Ritchi even mentions the way that Metro Man almost burned her with that badly aimed laser attack.
"—is a hero's first concern the safety of the people he's meant to be protecting? Or are other things more important?" Miss Ritchi says, her eyes snapping again as she looks into the camera.
The interviewing journalist, his eyes fairly bulging at this utterly unprecedented implied criticism of Metro Man, loudly tells her that she must have been terrified at being held hostage by the dangerous supervillain Megamind, prompting her with the cue that should lead into the inevitable condemnation of Megamind.
But Miss Ritchi—
Miss Ritchi doesn't take that cue, either.
She tilts her head, looking thoughtful.
"I suppose I was, at the time," she says, "but—really, one has to wonder if Megamind might be more of a danger to himself than to anyone else."
Megamind, in his cell, makes an indignant squawking noise.
"The gun was still set to dehydrate, after all," Miss Ritchi says. "Not so scary. When you think about it."
And then she smirks into the camera, lips quirking sideways, a look of triumph flickering in her eyes for a moment, as if she can see Megamind on the other side of the screen, can see his expression of flabbergasted shock.
The interviewing journalist ends the report quickly, and the program cuts back to the studio, and Megamind stops paying attention.
Not scary? Not scary?
Megamind gets up and begins to pace the cell restlessly.
She'd noticed Metro Man's carelessness, noticed the setting on Megamind's gun—had she noticed Megamind turning the two of them deliberately when Metro Man used his eye lasers? Had she noticed that? She hadn't said so in that report, but the smirk she'd given him at the end of it—
(given the camera, he thinks, shaking his head to clear it. the smirk she'd given to the camera, not specifically to him; surely it couldn't have been meant specifically for him, no matter how much it seemed that way.)
What a strange—what an utterly bewildering—she'd helped him; she'd asked him if he was all right! Why would she do that? And then that report—a taunt, that's what that report had been, not merely a taunt, almost an outright challenge—
Not scary? Not scary?! He is so!
(more of a danger to himself than to anyone else)
Megamind shoves that—
(uncomfortably perceptive)
—comment forcefully out of his mind.
(trying not to think of all the possible safety measures he thought out for that last battle, but didn't bother to actually include in the plan.)
So Miss Ritchi thinks he's not scary, does she? Thinks she can get away with—with—
(saving him)
—challenging him on live television?
Challenging Megamind! Megamind! Criminal genius and master of all villainy!
He'll show her scary! He'll show her—
Megamind, thoughts dancing through his head like lightning, bright and fast, flashes that illuminate pieces of a new plan, a different plan, different from anything he's ever done before—bigger than he's ever done before!
He stops pacing and indulges in an evil laugh. He winces as his laughter pulls at the burns and bandages, and then settles for an evil smile instead.
Show her.
Oh, yes, he has plans for Miss Ritchi.
...to be continued.
notes: I know it's been a while since I published anything; I've been having health issues. I still am, actually-problems breathing which are Very Not Fun. I'm getting some tests run, though. And at least my brain has decided to cooperate with me on writing again! Writing is a good and enjoyable distraction for me. I hope you all enjoyed the start to this story!