...
Revealing
...
"You have fifteen minutes Metro-mahn!" Megamind's voice reverberated through the lair, no doubt echoing in a broadcast across Metro City. "In fifteen minutes, my Mega-Volt Incinerator will be activated, using Roxanne Ritchi to conduct the 500,000 volts of electricity needed to turn Metrosity into a charcoal wasteland!" Megamind gestured to the large iron machine hovering in an almost full circle in the center of the lair, it's two open ends connected by a scornful Roxanne Ritchi, none too pleased that she was spending a Friday evening shackled with her arms over her head to a doomsday device.
"Better make that seven minutes, Metro Man," she called toward the monitor, where Megamind was broadcasting his latest ultimatum. "My arms are getting a little tired."
Megamind shot her an indignant look before giving Minion the order to start the overly-large timer attached to the front of the device. "Fifteen minutes, Fly-boy! Either you complete the circuit on my Mega-Volt Incinerator or she does," he finished with a sinister lilt as he shut off the video feed.
This was truly one of his more clever schemes, if he did say so himself. Making his hostage, and soon Metro Man himself, a physical part of his latest doomsday device would surely be an interesting break from the norm. He wasn't sure if he liked the iron shackles though, because they were a bit medieval-looking, perhaps too much of a departure from his usual style. And Miss Ritchi certainly looked a bit angrier than usual, but that could be attributed to a great many things, and Megamind wasn't about to try to guess the true reason for her annoyance.
As for Roxanne, she was beginning to consider this one of Megamind's more uncomfortable kidnappings. He had never tied her with her arms angled up like this before. Usually, they were bound behind her back, or else her middle was wound with enough rope to keep her arms pinned to her sides. At least the customary time limit was reasonably shorter than usual; she didn't like the idea of her arms going numb while waiting for Metro Man to get here.
Megamind approached her, shoulders back, head high. The platform Roxanne's feet were currently shackled to made her a good foot or so taller than him and he didn't want to appear small. "Well, Miss Ritchi, how do you like my most current creation of evil? It's shocking, no?"
Roxanne groaned. "About as re-volt-ing as your terrible puns."
She glared down her nose at him, and he thought that it seemed wrong somehow. As if, even though she was the hostage and he the criminal, she still held some kind of power over him. Megamind quickly started to regret making that platform so tall.
He took a casual step to the side, half to keep his momentum going and half to get out of her uncomfortable gaze. That was one big advantage to this set-up: the way Roxanne was attached to the device, he could circle around her completely while still being relatively close and intimidating.
"Resistance is futile, Miss Ritchi," he says. She hadn't attempted to resist her bonds yet, but a subtle suggestion couldn't hurt. "Those chains are forged from a metal alloy strong enough to withstand even Metro Man's strength…"
"And they kinda chafe, too," Roxanne fired back, shaking the manacles a little.
Megamind came around to face her again, pushing himself on tiptoe in an effort to get into her face. "That smart mouth will get you nowhere."
"Just like these schemes of yours," she retorts without missing a beat.
He began another revolution about his captive. Only her eyes followed him as he paced around her, disappearing from her peripheral vision. "You just wait till your knight in white tights comes charging in and…" something caught his eye and stopped him in his tracks. "What… what is that on your back?" Megamind didn't even care that the sudden, awed question probably killed whatever threatening tone he was going for. In fact, he forgot what he was supposed to be doing entirely.
Roxanne's heart leapt into her throat and she strained to twist herself enough to glance over her shoulder, her fixed hands and feet giving her little slack to work with.
"Minion, come over here and look at this." Megamind gestured emphatically to his friend like an excited child who found the hiding place for his birthday presents. The fish locked a curious eye with Roxanne before joining his boss. "Miss Ritchi," Megamind sighed, "would you please stop wiggling so much, I told you resistance is futile. Now, Minion, is that what I think it is?"
"What are you talking about?" Roxanne snapped, annoyed that she couldn't effectively see either of them.
He pointed a gloved finger at the sliver of exposed skin where Roxanne's shirt had risen from having her arms raised for a while. Twin swirls of blue trailed down the visible inch of the small of her back, disappearing from view under the waistline of her skirt.
Minion made a noise that sounded suspiciously like someone trying to clear their throat. "Well, it appears to be a tattoo, Sir."
Megamind could do nothing but gape, jaw hanging loose, still pointing at the patch of skin. Roxanne Ritchi had a tattoo. Roxanne Ritchi, the absolute model of conservative virtue, Metro City's golden girl, had a tattoo. He didn't even have one. Granted with his preferred wardrobe it would be pretty pointless for him to get one since no one would ever see it unless he tattooed his skull, but still! Roxanne usually had her back completely covered, so how many people even knew that this marvel existed?
"Something back there interest you?" Roxanne barked, her voice ice cold and threatening.
"We just weren't expecting you to have a tattoo, Miss Ritchi…" Minion broke in softly, attempting to act as mediator.
"Yes," Megamind finally added, when he found his voice. "Who would've guessed Metro City's star reporter has had her back violated by ink."
"Oh please," Roxanne groaned, rolling her eyes, despite the fact that neither of them could see. "It's just a tattoo I got when I was seventeen and trying to feel rebellious. It's not even a risqué tattoo."
"Oh really!" Megamind perked up, mocking and coy. "Then why hide it so thoroughly, Miss Ritchi? We can't see much of it. What is the whole tattoo actually of?"
"None of your business!" Roxanne retorted sharply.
"Sounds a bit defensive to me…" Megamind observed slyly.
"I'm not being defensive, you're being a creep," Roxanne growled.
"Sir," Minion pleaded, resting an apprehensive hand on Megamind shoulder. The hand went ignored.
"I mean, what's the point of having it if no one ever sees it?" Megamind went on, oblivious to Minion, his voice lowered conspiratorially. "Does Metro Man even know it's there?"
"That is it!" Roxanne snapped."Get out here where I can see you! Front and center, both of you!"
The two froze, exchanging shocked looks. Roxanne had certainly never been a traditional screaming, fainting hostage but she had never actually tried to order them around before. And she had never really raised her voice like that before, either. She was usually so unaffected and calm. It was jarring and strangely surreal and Megamind didn't have a clue as to how to respond to it.
"Now!" she added, with dangerous emphasis.
Something in her tone of voice snapped Megamind out of his daze and he staggered away from her, dragging Minion by the arm along with him. He could see her face from their new vantage point, and he'd never seen her so flushed and angry.
"What is your problem?" Roxanne demanded, glaring down at the two villains, still staring at her with wide eyes and unhinged jaws. "Look, I've put up with a lot of discomfort from you. I've been knocked out, tied up, strapped to bombs, and dangled over alligator pits more times than I can count. But I absolutely cannot put up with you ogling my ass like that!"
Megamind flushed instantaneously. "I was not goggle… og…goog… I was not staring at your ass!"
"What do you call it then?" she shot back.
Megamind's mouth opened and closed and then reopened in a helpless cycle that made him look more like a fish than his companion.
Said companion spoke up rather meekly, addressing the irate captive. "We apologize, Miss Ritchi. We didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."
The simple, honest apology actually managed to make Roxanne feel a little better. Call her crazy, but of all the times she'd been kidnapped and tossed around the city, she had never really felt objectified before. Sure, she was constantly being used as bait to drag a muscle-bound man in tights into confrontation after confrontation, but there was always a sort of social element to it. As if Megamind kept dragging her into it because she was one of the few people in Metro City who would cross verbal swords with him, a battle in and of itself. Minion had always been great for polite small talk, as well, which had been hard to find for her lately. And she would never admit it, but it was all a bit fun, especially when Megamind's ego and his clumsiness gave her such great material to throw back at him and tease him with.
And even though he had little to no concept of personal space, when Megamind got into her face he, well, got into her face. When he stared at her, he stared right at her eyes, which would probably be disorienting for some people, but Roxanne was more than comfortable trying to stare him down in return. Having that energy focused on her backside instead of her eyes troubled her in a way she hadn't entirely expected.
Roxanne watched Minion nudge Megamind solidly in the side.
"What?" the blue menace hissed.
Minion twitched in his tank, mimicking the human motion of a not-too-subtle head jerk in Roxanne's direction.
Megamind's eyes darted over Roxanne, still manacled with her arms over her head and that offensive stripe of bare skin showing at her middle. She looked angry, but there was something else in her expression, as well. She had been angry with him before, that was nothing new, but this look was unsettling and different. It was as if he had actually hurt her somehow. Megamind's vision trailed down to floor. Clearly, this particular hostage set-up was a terrible idea.
"Minion, would you get Miss Ritchi a chair, please?" he requested quietly. The order felt hollow and dry in his throat. Somehow, it didn't make him feel any better at all.
"Right away, Sir," Minion replied, not even bothering to point out that allowing their hostage to sit would render the device useless.
Roxanne straightened. She hadn't expected that. Granted, it wasn't really an apology, but it was still quite unlike him to readjust his plans solely because she was uncomfortable. His whole posture was a bit strange, too. Arms crossed stiffly against himself, leaning so his cape covered him almost entirely, eyes darting from the floor to the ceiling to the doorway Minion just exited through, anywhere but at her. He looked pretty purple, too. If they had been in a better mood, she'd probably have made some crack about how much he looked like a grape. However, he seemed so shaken-up and nervous she couldn't bring herself to do it.
He actually looked… embarrassed.
"Umm…" she wracked her brain, needing something, anything, to ward off the incoming lapse of uncomfortable silence. "Thanks for the chair, I guess," she tried.
"You're, um, you're welcome," he responded, glancing at her, then back to the floor again. How had this even happened? He wasn't supposed to cater to his hostage. Then again, he wasn't supposed to ogle her either. He was evil, but he wasn't lecherous. But how was he supposed to know she'd take it that way? He hadn't even realized he'd been staring at her for so long until she'd accused him of it.
And really, that was what bothered him. He shouldn't have been interested in her comfort, or her feelings, or her tattoo, or her ass or anything. He shouldn't have been interested in her at all; she was a means to an end, a device to get Metro Man's attention. Granted, he did like having someone around that knew how to banter well, even if she did have an annoying tendency to pick apart his schemes before Metro Man even got there. But why should he care that she'd had the sloping curve in her back decorated like that?
Yet somehow, he found it fascinating. Roxanne had always been defiant and feisty, but in a controlled, mainstream, appropriate sort of way. The people he had grown up with were often tattooed and pierced to varying degrees, and they had raised him with the knowledge that most deadbeat, normal people frowned upon such things. And here was Roxanne with a respectable job and a respectable boyfriend and the mark of an apparent rebellious streak that belonged more in his world than it did in hers.
The fact that he had barely seen any of it only fueled his fascination further. What image would a seventeen-year-old Roxanne Ritchi decide to permanently ink onto her back? Something cheesy like a flower or the Chinese character for beauty? Her name? The name of an ex-boyfriend? For that matter, how many people had she let see it? Did many people know it was there, or had he stumbled onto a guarded secret? A secret he shouldn't even care about, and yet…
Roxanne began fidgeting, shaking her manacles and staring at the floor with her mouth pressed into a stiff line while she waited for Minion to return with her chair. Now that Megamind thought about it, her mouth was kind of fascinating, too. Thin at the top and plump on the bottom, and able to stretch and purse and contort itself into a variety of shapes. Her eyes were pretty interesting as well. He didn't even have to see them to remember what they looked like. Same with her hair and her hips and… this was getting ridiculous!
The silence in the lair began to grow unbearable. Up until then, their interactions had been characterized by endless amounts of back and forth, insults building on insults, threats met with defiance. The current state of quiet created an uncomfortable void that dwarfed anything that had happened earlier and left both captor and captive wishing Metro Man would just crash through the wall and end it. Megamind could handle the yelling, he could handle Roxanne being angry with him. But he couldn't handle the silence, he couldn't handle being so humiliated and confused he couldn't even look at her for more than a split second.
Megamind coughed. "It seems Metro Man only has eight minutes left to…"
"Do you honestly want to talk about Metro Man right now?" Roxanne interrupted with a groan.
"Yes," he replied lamely, eyes fixed on the flashing timer.
"Y'know, you could apologize," she suggested wryly. "Just a thought."
He scoffed at her. "Villains don't apologize, Miss Ritchi, and I think we've had enough awkward moments for one day."
"Minion doesn't seem to have a problem apologizing."
"Minion doesn't have a problem eating fish flakes either." Megamind mumbled irritably. He was getting her a chair, wasn't that enough?
"All right, how about this," Roxanne proposed, slow and even without a hint of sarcasm. "If you promise not tell anyone about my tattoo, I promise not to tell anyone you apologized and we can go back to normal, okay?"
"Well that's hardly fair. Who am I going to tell? Minion? I don't even know what your tattoo looks like."
"And you never will." Roxanne sighs. "And you should be apologizing anyway, I'm just trying to give you an out so you don't have to worry about your precious reputation or whatever."
"Oh." Megamind responded flatly. When had she become a negotiator? When had negotiating with his captive become a welcome idea? He started to toy absently with the hem of his cape. "I, um…I…"
"You…?" She prodded, leaning forward as much as she could, expectantly.
He let out an exasperated sigh. "I'm sorry I o-ogled you," he managed, half-choking. He chanced a look at her, fixing his gaze on the crease at the corner of her eye.
Roxanne blinked. It was hardly the best apology she'd ever heard. The fact that she'd had to bargain with him for it kind of killed whatever sincerity she would've liked. But she hadn't expected him to go through with it quite that quickly, if at all, and with such little incentive. And then there was that crack in his voice. After all this time she could tell the difference between him struggling to pronounce a word and struggling just to say it.
"Apology accepted," she said with a sly smile. "But only because you stammered."
Minion returned with Roxanne's chair under one arm. Megamind busied himself with the control panel, lowering the chains gradually until her hands were at her sides.
She tugged her shirt back into place as if nothing had really happened.
...
A/N: A big, hearty thanks to my wonderful betas BorntothePurple and raywing for your awesome suggestions and edits!
I wrote this after watching Stranger Than Fiction, which is where the last two lines of dialogue come from. Will Ferrell's love interest in that movie had a bunch of tattoos up one arm as well and that somehow burrowed it's way into my mind and turned into this oneshot.