She's a young thing.
Very easy on the eyes; which is weird, because up to this point humans all had the same gray effect on him. Perhaps it was because of her fluid way of speaking. Intelligent and and insightful. Kind blue eyes.
Roxanne Ritchi was already Metro Man's favorite woman, it seemed, yet she was barely peaking twenty-two. Soft brown tresses fall across her pale white shoulders, curling at the ends, cupping her strong, elegant jaw. It was hard not to see her physical beauty. It was a relishable thing to find a sweet young thing like her, pretty of body and mind.
She's a divorcee from Pennsylvania; graduated from university with a degree in journalism two years ago, and already she's racing through a new career in Metro City with smoke on her feet. Been here not even a whole year yet and she's already the talk of the town.
It's not long until her budding reputation reaches the one and only Metro Man. They do a few interviews together, and... it gets the better of him. How could such a lovely woman want to be with a meat head like Wayne?
Maybe she was just shrewd enough to see a fruitful opportunity in both career and financial support. Well. He could provide all that, too!
He already wanted to lecture her on the dangers of attaching herself to a man that could destroy the world on a whim with no one able to stop him when he kidnaps her for the first time. Yet, the moment his fishy friend pulls the sack off her head, she lets out a strangled yell and punches him in the face.
Oh jolly.
From then on he ties her hands behind her back.
Steadily they get used to the other; she rapidly is becoming use to his half-manic behavior. His inventions, his style, his flair on the dramatics. After all, he hunkered down in an abandoned theater.
He started to pick up on her own habits. Miss Ritchi was a very practical woman; she cuts her hair short because "flying with Metro Man is a recipe for bad hair". She rolls her eyes when he throws a whirling blade in her face. She's got a silver tongue when she wishes to. She's so use to him by now that if he left her untied, she'd sit on her hands all prettily and roll her eyes as he tripped over himself.
Yet there are things she laid out early on in their relationship that she made him swear not to cross. One, never approach her at her home. Not him, not Minion. Secondly, if he was going to kidnap her, he should do it on a weekday, between 8 a.m to 3 p.m. Weekends were forbidden to him.
All she really insists on is this.
"I need to be back home by two thirty, okay?" She asks once, seriousness lacing her face. Brows burrowed, lips turned down, eyes hard on him. He can't bring himself to deny such a little thing. No "please make the ropes looser," no "I'm terribly afraid of highs," no "I'm afraid of the situation at hand". She makes not one peep about anything else, exlucing his "predictability", which is insanely insulting. She's the one who begs on the time he snags her!
If he ever suggests kidnapping her at a different time, she looks like it'd be the end of the world. And so he follows her rules.
He complies because she's quite the desirable damsel. He does wish she'd scream more, but any other woman would probably never shut up. And Metro Man appears to favor her above all others, besides his mother. The media loves her. She's gorgeous both inside and out. What's not to like?
But the time. Always about time, with her.
Megamind thinks it's because of some woman-related thing he'd have no understanding of. Hell. He doesn't get a lot of human male things, either.
Yet as the sixth month of their professional relationship passes, he decides to take a ride down Main St. in the invisible car around sunset, and—
He sees her sitting down at a cafe with none other than Wayne. And his hand is over hers.
Oh, get out of town!
A little hurt, he puts the car in reverse and speeds back to the Lair within a few minutes, pulling out a random evil scheme from a box and putting it into action before he could even say "Minion, get ready."
Oh, that's why she wants punctuality!? To be all KISSY FACE with WAYNE!?
He tells himself he's not jealous. Tries to quell the anger. But. He thought she'd valued smarts over muscle. Well. At least he thought.
He doesn't feel bad when she groans in annoyance at yet another kidnapping.
After that moment he ignores the punctuality rule.
He kidnaps her on a weekday after three, a time which she told him was "not acceptable". Megamind expects her to get angry. Yell. Pitch a fit. Show a side to her that tells him she's not the perfect woman he'd fantasized her to be.
Though she is a bit upset when the knock-out spray wears out, and throws out a few words he'd forbid on live television, most of all she's… worried.
She looks at him like he's done some grave transgression against her family. "I can't be here! I need to go, right now! Megamind!"
So he tries to get her into their game, like usual. But. She's entirely uncooperative! If that doesn't make it worse, then trying to convince Minion to convince him to let her go takes the cake.
But.
Megamind is weak, before her eyes. And so he relents, fuming and upset they never even got to call Metro Man yet.
She's knocked out, and Minion drops her off at Main St, as she asked to be.
Megamind escapes to his room and sleeps for about five hours, before getting up to work on an even better plan than before.
But.
He wants to know what's so specially about Wayne that she has to reserve time for him. It infuriates him to no end, but Miss Ritchi is a smart woman. Surely there's an underlining reason… She can't… love him… right? The thought terrifies him.
So, against another one of her rules, he goes to her apartment the following day.
It's seven at night, and the sun has set and the one or two stars the city lights allow him to see are out. A breeze ruffles through his cape as he lands on her balcony. Turning his hover bike off, he jumps down and dehydrates it. Sticking it into his pocket he turns around and presses his face to the glass of her window.
In all of his illegal activities, spying into a woman's home is the most… daring. A little too much for him, pressing against certain boundaries even he's too refined to cross. Yet here he is, his inhumanly green eyes hungrily eating up her apartment.
It screams Roxanne Ritchi.
A red brick wall is to his right. A little four-person cherry-wood table, topped with a vase of lovely red roses. Small yet practical kitchen with a silver fridge, decorated in a few colorful things by cartoon magnets. There's a set of spiral stairs to the far left, past her little living room of a bright red couch and black coffee table. A loft apartment, he thinks for a moment but sees about three doors overlooking the railing of the second floor. The lighting is low, coating the apartment in hazy orange light.
He pulls away, seeing no sign of Miss Ritchi or Scotty Boy.
Unless.
Gritting his teeth he pulls out his de-gun and tries pushing into the apartment. The doors are locked. Why would she lock the balcony doors when she's on the one-hundreth thousand floor of the building!?
Skillfully he unlocks the doors and steps inside, feeling like an alien stepping onto alien ground.
Well. It was true.
A small voice from one of the bedrooms upstairs sets him on guard, and he aims his gun at whatever might come forth. His hearing is thrice as powerful as a human's, he learned early on, and he tunes in with a glower.
"I love you, sweet cheeks," comes Miss Ritchi's soft voice.
He wants to cry. What did Wayne do disserve this woman's affection?
Megamind steps back and lowers his gun. This wasn't his place. He shouldn't be here to begin with. And why now? They set the standards early on. Months ago. Who was he to want this little woman, who was at best eight years younger than him?
The first door opens and out comes Roxanne herself, stepping forth from a dimly lit room. With her soft little hand she closes the door, but leaves it open a crack. She's also humming to herself, swaying her hips as she comes down the stairs.
He hasn't been spotted yet. Panicking, he ducks for the sofa and crouches down, praying she doesn't see him in her apartment like the pathetic creep he was.
She's holding what looks like a tiny thermometer, and a bottle of pills, which rattle as she comes skipping down the stairs. Her bare feet pad along the floor as she goes to the kitchen. She's being quiet; yes. Wayne's hearing is much more sensitive than his.
But why the hell is she seemingly serving his butt when Miss Ritchi is the one deserving the praise!?
He's decided that he can't stay here, it's time to go. He shouldn't have come at all. He's nowhere near as handsome as Wayne. He's not human. Well. Wayne's not either but he's anatomically correct as far as humans go. So he gets up and lets out the breath he was holding.
She jumps around so fast she nearly screams, but she merely gasps and looks at him with shock.
And then fury.
"Megamind!" She whisper-shouts. "What the hell are you doing here!?"
"I was going to kidnap you," he forces on some of his more eeevil persona. "But it appears you've put the golden boy to bed!"
A look of—something falls across her face. Her brows lower, her lips purse together. She's quiet for exactly two seconds before—
"Excuse me?"
It isn't a question.
It's a threat, and he knows it, because suddenly her hands are on a drawer, and she's pulling it out to withdraw a knife.
Fuck did he mess up. Well. Fine, then. Wake Wayne up and schlep him back to prison! Doesn't mean he can poke at Miss Ritch's seams.
"Megamind," she starts, back to him. "I want you out of my apartment or so help me God I will chase you out myself."
"Oooooh," he waves his hands, despite the worry that he's crossed a serious boundary. "My nosy reporter has teeth! Do tell me how that'll work. I'll just come right back!"
"Ssh!"
"Or what?"
"Shut. Up—"
"La la la la!"
"Mega—!"
"Mommy?"
He freezes and whips his head around as a small, young voice greets them from the second floor.
And there's a little boy, standing at the railing. No older than three or four, dressed in race car footie pajamas and a stuffed crocodile in his arms. His skin is pale, paler than Ritchi's, with wide crossed brown eyes. A mop of brown hair sits upon his little head, almost spiked up onto a mohawk from how disheveled he is. He opens his mouth to speak, but the child opens his mouth again.
"Mommy? Who are you talking to?"
Well, shit.