OK, after a month sitting on my lazy BUTT, trying to PAY ATTENTION to this chapter, I FINALLY CORRECTED IT! AND IT STILL SUCKS IN MY EYES, BUT AT LEAST IT'S A LITTLE BETTER! JUST GIVE THE STORY A CHANCE, PLEEEASE? I spent ten months working on it. PLEASE?

Ok. Read what I revised.


Chapter 2

After a week of trying and trying to think of what to do for Roxanne, he had a vague idea in his head, but he still needed to find out exactly where would be the best place to take her so that she'd be happy with it. He didn't want to decide and then find out that she hated where he took her, because then he'd never forgive himself for screwing up on something so was the utmost perfectionist. It needed to be exactly right for her.

And from those thoughts, he created a plan.

He called her in the late morning; a morning after a nice mocha latte from Starbucks and some donuts just how he liked it. He would casually ask questions that might reveal the best place Megamind could take her to show her that he loved her. Weird strategy, but he would have to try. Experiment. He iked experiments. This should be easy.

Megamind dialed Roxanne's number on his cell phone as he lounged sideways in his evil chair, feet danglif from one end and head hanging down from the other end so he could thik better. As the dial tone went off thrice, he briefly wondered if a lightbulb in the ceiling needed changing before Roxanne's voice came on.

"Hello?"

"Miss Ritchi! Ollo!"

"Hey, Megs. What's up?"

"Oh, nothing… I was just curious, uh, would you mind if I got reservations for two at that restaurant, what's it called? It just slipped my mind…"

"Yeah?"

"Reservations at Rillian for tonight. I know it's short notice, but… even though I'm a celebrity now, it's still pretty much impossible to get in. Are you up for it?"

Megamind thought she was going to decline, but she said, "Really? Wow. That's an impressive feat." She paused. "Yeah, I'm free, I'll be there. What time?"

"Five-thirty seems about right. I'll pick you up at your apartment?"

"Sure. Oh, and Megamind?"

"Uh huh?"

"Is there… anything else you want to tell me?" Roxanne tested to see if Megamind really did want to say that he loved her. Her voice had an expectant tone in it, a tone Megamind sensed immediately.

He froze. Did she know? Was she getting antsy?

"I don't think so", he croaked. He cleared his throat. He hoped Roxanne wouldn't think he was avoiding telling her something important. It just came out a little too shaky.

"Oh… ok", Roxanne said, hiding her disappointment. Maybe it was just the timing that was wrong. Maybe he was nervous. "I'll see you tonight, then."

"Can't wait," Megamind grinned.

"Sure. Bye."

"Bye."

Roxanne hung up. Megamind pocketed his Samsung phone. Now he had to come up with a strategy for finding out which place would suit Roxanne best to take her to. He'd take a simple pad and pen to record anything that seemed important. That seemed like a good method. And he would have to wear something more low-key than his regular suit that was adorned with spikes. He figured it was only good when he was saving people, and it was more costumey than casual or formal.

He thought a little more. Spikes… they were his style. A spiked collar wouldn't hurt, he was sure, and in fact it might look fetching.

That very night, He ended up wearing a white tailored shirt with the cuffs rolled halfway up his forearm. That, and black skinny jeans that hugged his legs perfectly with his regular boots that he had polished a bit, completed by a light mist of cologne; even some eyeliner.

Once he was all freshened up, he grabbed the keys to his car adorned with fins and spikes, and was about to enter the driver's seat when he heard the clanking of Minion's metallic feet approaching.

Megamind looked up and raised his eyebrows in greeting.

"Date? Or did you decide to admit to her?"

"Well… I'm doing this sort of experiment, really. Roxanne deserves the best, I think, and I haven't come up with a good place to take her yet." He looked at the notepad in his hands. "Is it normal to take notes on a date?"

Minion looked a bit confused. "Umm… well, Sir, if it's going to help you decide, then… I guess."

"Good. Thanks." He gave a quick smile of gratitude to his friend, and then hopped eagerly into his car to drive out the garage and to Roxanne's apartment complex.


By the exact time he got to the curb, that was when Roxanne strutted out the building, quickly to that faamiliar shimmer that caught her eyes out on the roadside that signified Megamind was there, on invisible mode. He rolled down thee window a bit.

"Get in quick!" he whispered with urgency. "I don't exactly feel like signing autographs right now!"

Roxanne laughed through her nose, but reached for the elusive door handle and was in the passenger seat in one smooth move. Her outfit of choice for tonight was the blue dress with ruffles Megamind recognized on sight as the one she'd worn at his museum unveiling, and it was one of his favorites. Her heeled shoes were not too high, not too low, making her the same height as him, head and all. There were pearls earrings on her ears: champagne-colored ones that were large and round and polished so they gleamed. She looked stunning, and Megamind's voice was caught in his throat for a short moment.

After sharing a timid smile, Megamind drove off into a street where ferns and wildflowers grew on the curbside. There was suddenly a strange silence that had settled in the car; one that was slightly awkward and tight. He had nothing much to say. Judging from Roxanne's tone on the phone earlier, she would want him to confess his love, but… not until he had the plan clear in his head.

Even the littlest details mattered to him. What places had he observed that she liked from the time they had been together? Did foreign cuisine appeal to her? Foreign… anything?

He couldn't very well take his eyes off the road to scan her up and down, though. That was what the notepad was for.

After a few more minutes of slient, smooth driving, they pulled up to a parking lot outside a two-storied restaurant that was flanked with white gardenias in pots, and twisting up the thin pillars that held up the awning. A faint light came from the inside, illuminating the darkening, grey-blue sky above with the friendly glow that was tinged with some orange.

They walked inside, swinging the doors open, and were greeted by cool air and a quiet, relaxing atmosphere as it usually was. Nice. It smelled like wine and baguettes in there. Some people briefly stopped eating to stare, but thankfully not for long, knowing Megamind probably needed space if he was on a date.

After Megamind and Roxanne were shown to their table, and the waiter ran off to check on an order, they sat down, and Megamind silently slipped the pad from his pocket and placed it on his thigh. His pen quietly clicked open, and then he began talking.

"Those… shoes look quite fitting on you. Where'd you get them?"He questioned innocently.

"My shoes?" Roxanne repeated, glancing at her feet. "Imported from Paris. I splurge when I can." She fingered her earring. "These earrings are from there too, but do you really want to hear a rant about clothing? As soon as you started wearing normal clothes you complained about Minion putting every outfit together for you."

"Well, yes, he tends to be a mother fish when it comes to most things, including my normal wear. But imported clothing from Europe must have cost a fortune."

"Well, when you have money to spare from all that publicity with Metro Man, you've got to use it sometime. I can only imagine how hard it was to get a shirt that fits you like,"- She looked him up and down briefly, her breath catching a little at the tightness of the fabric.—"that. Does Minion tailor it for you? Or do you shop in the boy's department?"

Megamind went a little purple at the last sentence, but laughed a bit to compensate, and said, "Yes, as a matter of fact. But he takes even longer than on my costumes; ironic, I know. He always wants me to make a good impression wearing this clothing, since I've never before."

Roxanne nodded slowly. For years she'd never seen him in anything but rubber and leather and latex, and once his biohazard pajamas one awkward evening when Megamind had felt and evil plan coming on at midnight. Minion cared about how his master went about and how he was dressed, whether he was caped or jeaned or vested or belted.

"So… speaking of Parisian fashion, guess what happened yesterday?"

"Hmm?"

"Paparazzi attacked me!"

"How is that related to—"

Megamind was just desperate to collect more information. He had to. As much as he could. Even if that meant going off into these unrelated tangents which was not very abnormal for him, but did get a little weird. Plus, what had happened to him the other day was worth telling.

"Minion and I were just making a few routes out, collecting spare parts, but what was unusual was that paparazzi suddenly decided to rush up to us and get pictures when they had kept their distance the rest of the time before, and it was such an inconvenient time for them to show up, that I whipped out my De-Gun and said, "Stay back or there will be a few dozen blue cubes surrounding me in the next second!"

Roxanne forgot all about the subject change and laughed when he spastically waved a gun made of his fingers up in the air to imitate the moment. "Then I shot a beam of energy into the air to try and scare them off, but then a cube landed at my feet a few moments later when I had just expected it to shoot right into space and not come back. After Minion had stopped laughing to himself when we slipped into the car, he said I'd hit a crow. Laughable, is it not?" After he had spoken his story, he blushed a little and gave a smile that stretched out just a little too much. That…was idiotic.

"Um… yeah! Sure!" Roxanne allowed, and gave a small chuckle to make up for it. He was acting… strange all of a sudden. His face was tight like he had just acknowledged the stupidity of how he had told the small story. He was acting like all the times he'd tried to…

Hmm.

"Papparazzi suck, don't they?" Roxanne suggested, smirking a bit. Megamind nodded enthusiastically. He hated them with a passion. He jotted thast down for no apparent reason.

They talked about other minor things as well, and gradually Megamind's notepad filled with these short annotations he'd smartly and casually gathered during that time, and pretty soon their food was served after they had ordered shortly before. Just in case, Megamind observed what was on her plate in case it would help with his notes…

French Ravioli. And she was even drinking French wine. He was vaguely aware of her saying something to him as these little puzzle pieces all began to gather themselves in his thoughts until he had an obvious idea screaming to be written down before it was dismissed. Paris was ideal, no doubt about it. The more he considerd it, the better it sounded. If it would make her happy, it would make him happy. And… with all this work, they both needed vacations. He spotted some fairly free time ahead of him, so why not? Maybe just for a week? That would certainly be enough.

And about telling Minion… he guessed he'd be fine with it, but with the time he'd been spending with Roxanne, he needed attention as well before his master just went out of the country for seven days. Now what to do about that…

"Megamind?" Roxanne snapped him out of his pondering. "You…didn't seem terribly focused on what I just said. I asked you if you want to do anything on my week off at the news station", she said.

Whoa, he thought. Luck just strides right in at the best times for me.

"Oh, of course! Actually, I was just thinking about something you'll rather enjoy!" he hinted.

"And what might that be?"

"Something. Something you won't coax from me no matter how your wily reporter ways may tempt."

Roxanne raised an eyebrow, almost challenging him. "Oh, really?" She took a quick sip of wine.

"Yes, really. Don't try. You'll know soon enough." He wrote it down, setting the thought in stone. Paris was the ultimate choice.

He froze when Roxanne asked him, "Megs, are you… writing something?"

Dang. He instinctively tossed his notepad on the carpeted ground to make up a fib. "No… um, my notepad just fell out of my pocket, I think I'll go under and get it now!" He descended to the floor and snatched the pad up, placing it hastily in his shirt pocket to face a suspicious Roxanne. He didn't like that look. She was on to him.

"So it fell out of that shirt pocket that was empty before."

"Roxanne, don't be silly, I have—"

"Megamind, your jeans have no pockets."

Right. He forgot about that.

"Writing at the table? Let me see that." She held her hand out to him with a dissaproving look. For a minute, he thought he was cornered, but… ah. He had the perfect alibi.

"Well, uh, no, because… you know how I am. I need to get this stuff out of my head, see, and I was just jotting down concepts for some sort of new contraption I've been thinking about. Nothing much."

"Well, I'd love to hear about it if it's not too terribly secret." She leaned over the table, attentive and with a small grin on her face. At first, Megamind hesitated, then adjusted his spike collar and grinned smugly to himself. It wouldn't be a total lie, since he did have a prototype in the works now at the top of the Lair, where the fake observatory was.

They sat there for a long while, conversing comfortably and eating dessert as they did so. Megamind felt carefree and content as he ate his bowl of chocolate ice cream.

Paris. He had to keep that in mind.


He pulled up at the curb outside of her apartment when the sky was dark, and the lights in the city were shining bright and strong as they ever did. They'd ended up talking long after evening and into late night when the restaurant had been clearing up. That usually happened, not that Megamind had anything to complain about it.

Before Roxanne climbed out of his car, he felt a slight warmth press against his shoulder tenderly, making a little sprig of lavender color pop up on his thin cheekbones. There was a pressure of lips on his cheek and a slight smacking sound as they parted from him. When he turned his gaze around, he found a smiling face with ravishing blue eyes staring right back, but with an inquisitive glint he knew, which confused him.

"Good night."

"Good night, Miss Ritchi. Sleep well,"Megamind said back, wishing he could kiss her lips. But she threw a last slightly tired but sweet look over her shoulder as she quickly climbed out of the car, slammed the heavy door closed, and strode back inside her building and in the elevator up to her apartment.

Megamind drove off, stroking his cheek once with his finger. Along the way, he was aware of the pad of paper in his pocket resting against his chest that had all his little notes it a neat order on it. He really was willing to think as far as Paris. If he was to please and impress Roxanne, it'd make him, and most of all, her, happy. Paris…

As a plan formed in his genius head, he also pondered the possibility of his contraption mentioned to Roxanne earlier actually working when he tested it out tomorrow, with assistance from Minion. His giant Tesla coil he'd been working on for a month… he'd checked up on all the inner workings and then double checked it a few more times, so he figured he had a pretty good chance of it working.

As for telling Minion about the trip…

"Minion!" Megamind called to his robotic henchman the next morning while he sipped his coffee and ate a donut, his whole breakfast fresh out of Starbucks. He felt somewhat groggy from staying up until the wee hours of the morning the night before, and that made him forget to put on his spiked mantle, but he knew the coffee would fix things in a jiff, especially since he needed it to sustain himself if he was to make the Tesla coil work today. He didn't need a mantle for that.

"Minion, come here!" He leaned a little in his chair in urgency, almost tipping it, but he caught himself in time. Some of his coffee sloshed over and spattered on the floor.

"Oops…"

Quickly, he gulped the rest of the drink down and set it clumsily on the table as he tapped his long fingers, waiting for his henchman until he could hear stray bowgs of the brainbots followed by metal clanking of his robotic gorilla feet.

"What is it?" he asked politely when he reached the kitchen entrance.

"We're testing out the Tesla coil today. Remember? I've been working on it forever."

"Actually, I think you've only been working on it a month-and-a-half", Minion corrected.

Megamind tried calculating in his head, but said, "Oh, whatever. I guess I work fast." He grinned widely. "I just need to collect my supplies, and we can be on our way! Plus, I need to tell you something when we get on the roof." He began to slide out of his chair to prance over to his idea cloud where some toolboxes resided.

"Wait!"

Then he halted in his steps.

"Sir, is that coffee on the floor?"

He glanced at what he had spilled earlier.

"Oh, could you clean that, Minion? I need to unearth my work goggles, they've been hiding from me all week…"

And with that, he hastily dashed off out of the kitchen to search for that elusive headgear. Minion was left behind rolling his eyes and searching for the Swiffer mop instead.


Megamind found his materials and Minion finished cleaning up the mess at about the same time, and met at the railed elevator that lifted them up a few stories, out of the Lair, on the roof to face the early morning sun glaring back down at them. Megamind squinted and turned away for a second, his just-awakened eyes trying to adjust to the sudden flash of light until after the first few moments, and then he didn't care.

The duo swiftly made their way past the towering fake observatory from all that time ago. Megamind didn't feel like he should take it down… he just… sort of liked it up there. The Lair'd look weird without it now.

But to go along with it was the giant Tesla Coil he'd invented that was to shoot a wave of concentrated electricity to power lines in case power went out in a storm. And the coil was solar paneled, so it made its own electricity if others had none. And if the nearby power lines were severed, then he could control the beams and branch them out to other lines and different generators to give electricity to all who required it. The machine was pretty good for the first un-evil thing he'd created to polish up his reputation a bit. Solar-paneled, desgned like no other Tesla coil, and it towered proudly at the height of the observatory.

Megamind snapped his fingers, and two of his brainbots raced over to him as he removed his gloves, the bots grasping them gently in their spindly tendrils. He replaced the bare space on his hands with his thicker, dirtier work gloves, and then also snapped on his goggles so that nothing harmful got in his eyes.

Minion followed his master to the door in the cage that encased the Tesla coil, where the blue man drew out a key to unlock the slightly weathered padlock that secured the door. It popped open with a high squeal. Eagerly, the two bounded inside and set to work on the final components it needed to start functioning.

"Okay Minion, you know how to boot it up, right?" Megamind checked up as he settled his things down on the concrete and wheeled his crawler out, lying flat on his back on it and disappearing inside a hatch in the coil with a wrench in hand.

"I'm working on it right now!" Minion affirmed from around the other side of the energy source where he was typing various coded commands into a heavy control panel. Megamind continued to oil up the inner workings of his invention as the topic he wanted to discuss suddenly came to mind. How should he explain it to Minion? Paris was pretty far away, to say the least…

Well, staying silent was not going to work. And wasn't he good at brigning up topics out of nowhere at any time?

"Sir, I should ask you, did you make any progress with Roxanne last night?" Minion blurted out, breaking the silence. Megamind paused. He wheeled out of the hatch he was working in, and gave Minion an eager look, craning his head so they could see each other. "Uh-huh," he affirmed. He wiped a smudge of lubricant from the side of his face. Then he wore a more serious look. "Minion", he started carefully. He wheeled back inside the hatch so he would not have to see Minion's expression if he disapproved. "Roxanne and I just made light conversation, and it really seemed like…I had Paris in mind for a while now, and I've discovered that that would be the ideal place for her to travel to if I were to ask her," he said hesitantly. He winced inwardly and waited for Minion to start reasoning with him about why this was a mediocre idea. No matter how eager Megamind got about a far-fetched idea, there was always some kind of con, or 'what if?' down the road.

Minion was only mildly surprised at this, since it was typical of him to think big, especially for Roxanne, but still, Paris was in a whole different time zone. Unless they could choose an appropriate date to go when crime was running low in the city, and unless Roxanne wasn't terribly busy, that was almost completely out of the question.

When he didn't answer for a moment, Megamind started trying to explain himself before Minion started to go all parental on him with a million-and-one reasons against this idea desinged also to try and breach his very elusive conscience so he could make more clever choices for himself occasionally. After all, that was one of Minion's purposes. Without him around to talk sense into his master, he would have likely throw himself off a building at age sixteen, or something worse.

"Oh, Paris!" Minion said absently. His fish head cocked inside the water-filled dome perched upon his clunky metal gorilla robot. How should he say this…?

"Well… do you haved a plan, Sir? Or have you just decided, like, now?"

"Roxanne said that she had a week off from KMCP, starting Wednesday," Megamind started to explain. He finally rolled himself out of the hatch to talk to Minion properly without distorting his voice in the cavity. He lifted the goggles off of his eyes and rested them atop his blue forehead, peering at the robotic icthyoid. "I plan to tell Roxanne about it on Sunday. It'll give her time to consider the concept, and if she does accept by some wild chance, she'll stil have time to pack and everything." A glimmer from the bright morning sun danced inside his shockingly green eyes. He squinted, annoyed at the stabbing sunbeam, and then pulled his goggles back over his eyes and returned inside the hatch to tighten a loose bolt that had almost fallen out completely.

Minion thought about this plan, deciding it could sound a little short notice, but there was still a chance of Roxanne saying yes. A slim one. But even so, that slim chance could very well be bigger, since Minion knew how much his master valued her, and in turn, how much she valued him. Judging from the times she'd visited the Lair, maybe the chance wasn't so slim unless there was something important she had to do while she was on her week off.

"Are you sure about that? Paris is hours off of this time zone, and you're only going to give her a few day's notice. Especially if it's Paris, France you have in mind."

Megamind let out a laugh that was half-amused and half-nervous. "Minion, don't be ridiculous. Why would I take Roxanne to Tex-as? It's much too hot and muggy there for her liking, and besides, she hates country lifestyle."

There was a sense of finality in his sentence, indicating he would elaborate no further for now, since there was a new invention to test. He'd just finished his work screwing together some of the inner workings and twisting the electricity intensity controls, meanwhile Minion had also finished inputting the activation code, so there really was nothing much to question now that the Tesla coil was ready to spark to life.

Hastily, he stood up,kicked the crawler out of the way, picked up his toolbox, and bolted the metal hatch closed tightly. Minion punched the Enter button.

They both waited for a whirr of the inner mechanics churning, and then exited the metal cage, running fot the heavy door so the oncoming electricity wouldn't get them both electrocuted when the coil started doing its work, which was bound to happen soon.

At a distance, Megamind drew out the small control box from the toolbox, his fingers closing around it firmly, hovering over the buttons hesitantly.

A bright, yellowish fork of lightning radiated from the tip of the coil , catching onto the rods in the metal cage, followed by two more tendrils; some thick, some thin. Megamind closed a hand around the gyrating joystick on his remote, controlling on of the forks and how it bent and twisted. His thin blue mouth curled up into a proud smile.

"Ah, now this should definitely start doing its proper job soon enough. I knew it would work perfectly as usual." He smirked over to Minion, who in turn gave him a bright thumbs-up and continued to watch the Tesla coil's tendrils crackle and snap against the barred dome.

Until there came some sort of deep, painful-sounding churn from the inner mechanics that sounded anything but good.

"Ok, now what was that?" Megamind's grin immediately started to droop. His eyes darted from his prototype back down the control box, and soon he realized the movements of the arcs of electricity were out of sync with the directions he was issuing with the joystick. He jiggled the handle, but the sparks still wavered about uncontrolled and seeming to have a will of their own.

Then he heard the distinct sound of a screw or bolt or something rattling about somewhere inside the generator. It started to vibrate and shake around.

Clackety-clack! It went, as if reminding him of his own stupidity for not screwing it in tightly enough, He must've gotten distracted while he'd been discussing the Paris plot with Minion and had forgotten to fasten something in with that extra firm twist he always made to make absolute sure it was secure. He did it for a reason.

And now he'd just failed.

The stupid genius's remote clattered to the ground, his mind slowly working out of the little terrified bout it had just went through. Chewing his lips, he brought himself to look back at his messed-up creation, which had started to whine a bit louder. Tendrils of smoke emitted from the hatch where Megamind should have been able to screw the bolt or whatever it was, up tight.

"Sir, you cannot look me in the eyes and say that was normal."

Megamind laughed, trying to reassure himself.

"Ha! Um… you're right! That wasn't normal! Just… take the elevator back down and I'll deal with everything…"

Minion rolled his eyes, but complied. If there was any way, he could probably shut it off using the control box, and then he'd dart right back into that hatch to fix whatever had come loose. Megamind waited until Minion had disappeared completely from sight to frantically scramble to pick the remote back up and punch the kill button.

Nothing happened.

"Blast it! I failed again!"

He paced around, angry at himself for being so distracted just by making light conversation until he took a closer look at his coil, which he figured would probably start smoking and possibly even explode by the looks of how it was shaking the ground and sparking all over. The lightning started to wink on and off erratically, just looking like a plain chaotic mess.

He figured he would have to get off the roof soon. Maybe it would be best to see what happened to the machine from a distance. At least it wasn't anything toxic that was exploding. He figured it would only scratch the roof.

With a heavy, frustrated sigh of defeat yet again, he stepped stiffly into the elevator and went down, crawling at a snail's pace until he was outside on the concrete ground, estimating when the coil would explode or implode or whatever it was gonna do.

He didn't even look at the machine until he heard some raucous noises coming from it, and then all at once the whole thing started breaking and sending bits of metal flying, hitting the scaffolding of the nearby fake observatory. The metal clattered noisily.

Megamind's and Minion's mouths hung open as they watched the whole thing crumble inside the heavy cage it was enclosed in bit by bit, smoke puffing out in huge, black swirling clouds. After about fifteen minutes of disentigration, all was silent.

Minion was the first one to move, stealing a nervous glance over at his master who looked stuck between wanting to cry, or have a tantrum, or go back to bed. Whichever outlet he took, though, it would only happen when he tore his wide, gawking green eyes away from the wreckage he'd accidentally caused.

After another minute or two, he closed his mouth and blinked several times.

"It's another faliure. Just like the evil days…"

The disappointed blue alien started to walk away, back inside the Lair, bending over, looking defeated as he had too many times before.

Minion couldn't think of anything to say to him. He understood why this was depressing. He finally had a chance to create something that works, and it failed. That would dampen anyone's day considerably.

Maybe he'd just check the roof for any damage.

Meanwhile, Megamind laid completely drained out on the couch.

He worriedly thought, if he failed at this one good invention, would he fail at other, more complex things?

Like maintaning a relationship with Roxanne Ritchi?

And he didn't even want to get started at how he'd come with the news of taking her to Paris.

Was this one of his phobias now?

Faliure?


MNEH. I STILL NO LIKEY. And I'm sure the whole world is lining up to read this story, right? Yeah, it's so popular...

AGGHHH WHY U NO REVIEW! I'M WASTING AWAY SLOWWWWLYYY... But I will keep correcting the crappiness. JUST YOU WAIT!