Disclaimer: I do not own nor do I claim to own any characters or concepts related to Megamind. This is a nonprofit work of fanfiction.
I cannot begin to thank Rawles enough for her work as editor. Restructuring and rewriting this chapter was a nightmare, but it was a profitable and necessary nightmare, and it is thanks to her advice to do so (and where to begin) that this chapter is anything other than a total disaster.
Thanks also to everyone who has read, reviewed, or favorited this! I'm very thankful for your patience and for your support, and I hope you'll stick around.
Our Beautiful Tomorrow
Chapter Three.
Roxanne slapped the water off. The faucet gurgled then the flow thinned and stopped. She staggered out of the tub, dripping cold water as she dressed quickly in sweats and t-shirt. The sweatpants, already soaking through, clung to her thighs.
The camera. She needed the camera. Nausea bloomed in her belly; she tamped it down.
Her apartment was warm, but the water had cooled her, and the dry air on her damp skin called up goosepimples from her arms. Water beaded the small of her back. Roxanne crossed her arms against the chill and hurried to her canvas bag, dropped on the sofa as she'd come in.
The few brief minutes it took to set up her laptop dragged on. She scratched at her hair and stared at the loading screen. Holes, she thought; she had burned holes in the ceiling. She wondered if she'd burnt straight through to the floor above and how she'd explain that to the superintendent, then she fisted her hands in her hair. Her stomach bucked.
"Calm down," she said. "Calm down. You're fine. It's okay."
Why the hell had she gone charging into Megamind's lair like that anyway? Because, she thought viciously, no one else would. She laughed, then clenched her teeth against the edge of it.
The laptop sang one high note. Roxanne breathed against her wrists and counted to ten. She smoothed her hands down the back of her neck.
"Okay," she said. Her voice resounded in the stillness of her apartment. "Okay. Focus. One thing at a time."
Roxanne turned to her laptop.
She'd taken few photos before Megamind's brainbots had come roaring down from above—a handful compared to the tapestry that had masked so broad a wall. Even if there was anything here in the handful of close shots she'd snapped, it might not be enough. She set her jaw and opened the folder.
One of the photos was garbage, blurred as she'd turned to see the advancing brainbots. That, she deleted. Two more she flagged as meaningless; those she minimized.
A flash of red caught her eye: a long sheet of paper covered with Megamind's cramped scrawl. She maximized the file and zoomed in on the top right corner. Unfolding on the couch, she reached for a notebook and somewhere in the recesses of her bag, a working pen.
Writing by hand calmed her, and the work of finding patterns and meaning with so little to go off of caught her as it always did. The sun set, passing through the sky and casting long shadows in its wake. One by one, the lights of Metro City flickered on, bright in the heavy dark of night.
A beep sounded: her laptop, warning of a low battery. Roxanne slapped it shut. The lid clicked into place beneath her hand. She stayed there a moment, her hand on top of the computer, the notebook balanced in her lap. Her skin prickled. Then she rose, tossing her notebook aside.
It was impossible. No, she thought, implausible, absolutely incredible that Megamind would want to create another superhero to, what? Destroy? Another superhero to catch him and send him back to jail? Did he miss having his butt kicked on a regular basis? Miss the humiliation, the jeering crowds?
She turned round to face her loft, the glass doors to the balcony at her back.
"He's got everything he wanted," she said, "and he wants someone to take it away from him? It doesn't make sense. Maybe— Maybe I'm looking at this wrong. I need to take a step back. I need to rethink this."
She scrubbed at her face. Her fingertips pushed against her eyes, and the pressure, dull and immediate, called up the memory of red light and the delicate scent of smoke. She dropped her hands. Her apartment spread before her, narrow and sleek and quiet but for her breathing and the whisper of air.
If she went back to Megamind's lair— Roxanne paced, mapping the living room. If she went back, then what? What could she possibly ask of him? A reason? Something to make sense of this? The sweatpants hung, heavy at her hips.
He hadn't intended to shoot her; she knew that much. He'd shouted when the gun fired between them, though she guessed that might have been as much out of fear for himself as anything else. Why hadn't he come after her? Then she thought of the brainbots chasing her and Bernard, and of the weight of the gun in her hand as she turned to throw it. The glass bulb had shattered first, then the metal had warped and burst.
Roxanne stopped at the foot of the couch. She looked out the glass doors to the lights of the buildings across the street. She cupped her hand against her forehead. Her skin felt hot, near feverish. A thin reflection of herself stared back at her from the doors.
"He can't take it away from me," she said to her reflection. "That's why he hasn't come after me." She ran her fingers through her bangs, carding them back from her brow. "He wouldn't have a back-up. He never does. He probably doesn't even remember where the plans are."
She supposed she was lucky she hadn't died. But a superhero? He wanted a superhero. Why did he want a superhero? Roxanne pulled at her hair till her scalp ached with it.
She needed a drink.
A bottle of cheap supermarket wine reclined at the back of her refrigerator. Roxanne dug it out and fished a square glass from the cupboard. The foil on the cap stuck then gave way at last, and Roxanne poured a half-glass. She belted that down right there in her kitchen, then she poured out another half. The glass was cool against her fingers. She looked down to it, watching the small ripples washing through the wine.
She should text Bernard. The clock over the stove showed half past nine, ticking over to 9:31. The soft hum of the refrigerator rose around her. Roxanne rested her head against it. She drew in a steadying breath. The clock changed again. Tomorrow. She would text him tomorrow.
Roxanne hefted the bottle and the glass, and she carried both with her to the balcony. Her sweatpants drooped, the hem hooked beneath her heels. The glamour of it struck her as she kneed the door open.
"This is Roxanne Ritchi," she said to her reflection, warped in the angled glass, "reporting from my apartment, where I'm having a nervous breakdown."
She slipped out onto the balcony, the bottle of Arbor Mist heavy in one hand, the glass light in the other. She set the bottle down on the parapet and took another mouthful of wine. It slithered, bitter, along her tongue. Cradling the glass to her chest, she drew her shoulders together and leaned out over Metro City.
The city lights shone, glimmering like small stars. A wind bore down between the apartment buildings towering along the block; it carded through her hair. Her sleeves ruffled. Far below, a siren wailed, and the whine vibrated in her ear.
Roxanne turned from the wind, brushing her bangs back from the corner of her eye. There, in the dark, Megamind's lair waited. Was he there, she wondered, obsessing over his failure, or did he spend his evenings at City Hall gloating over his triumph?
"So why did you do it?" She tightened her hand about the glass and thought of pitching it in his face. Her wrist ached. "If you didn't want to win, why did you kill him?"
The wind dragged at her. Roxanne looked down to her drink, translucent and shyly pink. She rolled the glass between her fingers.
Another siren cut through the night. An ambulance screamed down streets Metro City had abandoned in the wake of Megamind's rise. Roxanne closed her eyes and listened.
In the silence of the night she heard: the ambulance roaring, a man shouting, the muffled sobs of a child, the blistering snap of a gun firing.
Roxanne jerked, pushing away from the parapet. The glass spilled, thrown on its side; it rolled off and fell the fifteen floors to the sidewalk where it shattered. She covered her ears against the splintering cacophony.
Had Metro Man heard this: the city, crying out? The vastness of Metro City subsumed her. Roxanne sank into a crouch and bowed her head to her knees. Somewhere out on the edges of the city a woman screamed then was silent. Roxanne's gut lurched. She clapped her hands over her ears, and the sound was like thunder muffled in cloth.
Her heart stuttered. Roxanne focused on that rushed beating, her breathing, the faint rustle of the wind stirring her hair.
Slowly, the world receded.
Roxanne shifted, cradling her head. Her eyes itched, wet. The smooth tiles of the balcony were cool beneath her toes.
Metro City murmured, calling. Was this what Megamind wanted? She dug her nails into her hair, pinching her scalp.
"Why aren't you happy?" she bit through her teeth. "Isn't this what you wanted? You selfish, awful—" She broke off, hiding her face in the crook of her elbow.
She remained on the balcony until she could dry her eyes and trust them to stay so. The moon shone, fat and brilliant. Roxanne stood carefully. She lifted the bottle from the rail, weighing it, and looked out across the city. Then she went inside and closed the doors on the balcony.
One by one she turned out the lights.
Dawn blossomed. Roxanne padded through her apartment, coffee mug firmly in hand. Sleeplessness stretched her bones and filled her head with scattered, unformed thoughts. The night faded fully, and she found day had come again no different than before. The kitchen clock ticked the seconds to the hour; four rolled into five rolled into six at last. Sunlight lit her loft, fine as air.
The thought of calling out sick occurred to her once, but as she looked to her cell she thought of that report, due the week after, and of the proposal locked in her desk and the segment she needed to film for Wake Up, Metro City. Roxanne sighed and pressed her wrist to her brow. She smoothed her thumb down the back of her phone. Then she straightened and flicked her phone open.
She selected Whitman, Bernard in her contacts list and opened the text message screen. Still up for coffee? she wrote. She hesitated a moment, then she punched send and rose to dress, tossing her phone aside on the coffee table. He probably wasn't even up yet.
The phone buzzed suddenly, clattering toward the edge. Roxanne dove for it. God knew it had taken enough abuse over the last few months. She flicked it open again.
One new message: Bernard, writing, coffee great. where at? lol :-)
Roxanne settled back against the couch. She cradled the phone in her hand. Her loft was silent, waiting. She'd called him her partner the day before, as he held his hands out to her.
Starbuck's on Smoketown and 23rd, she typed. 7:30 OK?
A moment, then her phone buzzed again. Bernard filled the screen.
730! can't wait. see you there. lol :-)
Roxanne smiled, the first she had in hours. Thanks! Hope it isn't any trouble. Then, as the thought struck her, she added, LOL. ;)
She snapped her phone shut. Seven-thirty. That gave her time enough to shower and to dress.
Roxanne looked out the balcony doors to the sunlight creeping over the parapets and spilling across the stones.
"Okay," she said.
She spotted Bernard by his scarecrow hair. Roxanne smiled and hitched her bag high upon her shoulder. Weaving through the breakfast crowd, she snuck up behind him. Lightly, she tapped his arm.
Bernard, his face turned up to the menu, started and turned sharply to his left, then his right. His glasses sat crooked on his nose, and he blinked owlishly at her, his green eyes wide. Roxanne smiled.
"Oh!" he said. He smoothed his sweater over his breast. "Hello. It's you. Roxanne." He smiled. His face lit.
"Sorry I'm late," she said. "The drive took a little longer than I expected. Traffic's backed up all down twentieth. I hope you weren't waiting long."
"No, I just got here myself." He fixed his glasses, setting them straight. "I like your blouse. The sleeves are fascinating."
Roxanne laughed, surprised, and touched her arm. The cloth fluttered, loose. She'd worn a light blouse with sleeves that billowed at the elbows and tapered at the wrists.
Bernard winced. "I'm sorry. I don't have much practical experience with social niceties. Was that inappropriate? It goes well with your skirt." He finished with such a look of misery, Roxanne had to turn away that she wouldn't laugh in his face.
"No, it's fine. I just wasn't expecting any of that."
"I'll try to warn you next time," he said ruefully.
"Thank you," she said gravely, "I'd appreciate that. So!"
She looked to the menu, and Bernard followed suit. Roxanne peeked up at him. His lips parted. He'd a curl of hair tucked behind his ear, a tamed escapee from the rest of the wild golden nest.
"Have you ordered yet?" she asked.
"I've never been here before," he admitted. His brow wrinkled. "I feel like an explorer lost in a strange culture, surrounded by alien customs. The drinks lingo alone could take years to crack." He gestured widely to the menu, his fingers hooking.
"Wow, you really don't get out." She set her hands on her hips, cocked her brow, and said, "Well, for a limited time only, you have Roxanne Ritchi, ace reporter and cafe native, on hand to translate. Whatever you want, ask away."
"Anything?" He fanned his hand out, as if across a table. "Anything at all."
"Anything at all."
Bernard cupped his chin, resting his elbow on his other arm. He squinted up at the menu. Roxanne smiled at the small frown pulling at his mouth.
"All right," he said at last. He pointed. "There. What on Earth is a caramel mackeeyaytoo?"
"Caramel macchiato."
Bernard flittered his fingers as if to say, what's the difference?
"It's basically a vanilla latte with extra foam and caramel stirred in," she told him. "A little sweet, though."
"Ahh." He stroked his lower lip, creasing it beneath his thumb. His eyes flickered to her. "And a latte. What's that?"
"Espresso with milk and foam. Unsweetened, unless you ask."
"Mocha vay-leen-cee-yuh."
"Mocha valencia," she said clearly, minding the vowels. "Mocha with extra espresso and orange syrup. Very sweet." She rounded her eyes and pulled her lips down.
"Mocha, plain."
"Espresso, milk, and chocolate. But don't let the chocolate trick you. It's not sweet."
He snapped off, "Caramel frappuccino," at her, his inflection perfect, and Roxanne laughed and clapped her hands before her throat.
"I'm guessing you like caramel," she said, teasing.
He spread his hands. "You've caught me. My tawdriest secret uncovered at last."
"Don't sell yourself so short," she said. She nudged him gently with her shoulder. "I'm sure you have much nastier secrets."
Bernard scoffed at this. "Who can define what's nasty and what's not? Is taking candy from small, helpless children really so wrong?"
"I just solved the case of the candy burglar," she told him.
"Oh, did you!" He leaned nearer, his large eyes larger yet. He'd a halo of pale lashes framing each deep, green eye. His cartoonish frown teased. "Well, I for one can't wait for that groundbreaking report."
"If you're not too full of all that candy you're stealing from babies," she said drily, "do you know what you want to drink?"
He settled and said, "That last one, the caramel frappuccino? Whatever that is, I want three."
"Three!" Her eyebrows shot up, and she felt another laugh rising.
"I'm on a high energy diet," he said primly.
She considered him: slight and not much taller than her. "Well, the frappuccino should take care of that. I'm guessing you want them venti?"
Bernard touched his stomach and held his other hand up, guarding. "Oh, no, thank you, I'm allergic."
Helpless, Roxanne covered her eyes and shook through her laugh. She peeked over her fingers at Bernard, who smiled cluelessly, and turned away.
"A venti is a large," she managed at last. "Extra espresso."
He made a soft ohhh noise and nodded. "Then I'd like to change my no to a yes. Is it really so funny?"
She waved her hand at him. "It's just—"
She looked at him, standing there in his navy turtleneck and his pressed suit with its neat, clean lines. Bernard blinked and the lights overhead winked off his glasses. Roxanne smiled again, feeling it soft on her face.
"I thought for sure you were the kind of guy who came in to a Starbucks every day at noon with this long order for the same drink every day," she confessed. "You know, the guy who holds up the line for ten minutes to complain about how he ordered an extra shot of syrup, not sugar." She lifted her hand in a loose fist, mock-remonstrative.
"I suppose," Bernard said slowly, thinking, "we aren't always what we've led others to believe."
"I guess not," she said, and he smiled at her like the sun rising.
Roxanne smoothed her hair behind her ear. She looked again to the menu. "So what do you feel like eating?"
They took a table in the back, near a narrow window which looked out on a small courtyard that was littered with loose paper and trash. A looping XXNO PASS marred the far wall in bright red, a warning from one gang to another. Sunlight spilled pale and thin across the table.
"What's this really about?" Bernard said. "You didn't call me out just to buy me coffee."
She turned from the window. He smiled again, a small and encouraging crook of his mouth. Yesterday he'd spat dust from his mouth and helped her to her feet.
Roxanne leaned over the table, and Bernard mirrored her, closing the space between them. His wrist struck one of his frappuccinos and he looked down, diverted.
"I know what Megamind's planning," she said quietly so that the man who swept past their table wouldn't hear.
Bernard looked up, surprise widening his mouth. "What, already? You've figured out his— It hasn't even been a day."
She pinched off a dry half-smile. "Hmm, well, it would've taken longer if he hadn't shot me."
"I'm sure he didn't intend to shoot you," Bernard said, comforting. "It was probably all some crazy mix-up." He leaned closer, clasping his hands, then unclasping them to tug out his cuffs. "And what exactly is he planning?"
"That's the thing. It doesn't even make sense." She sat back and gestured to the window and the courtyard, stricken with the disease that crept through Metro City. "Metro City is his. He got what he wanted when he killed Metro Man."
Bernard's face drew tight, shuttering. At the museum, sorrow had bowed his shoulders and filmed his eyes. Roxanne reached across the table and covered his hand with her own. He looked to her, and beneath her palm his fingers shifted, half-flexing. She squeezed his hand once and let go.
Bernard cleared his throat. "So," he said, drawing the frappuccino near. He fumbled for the straw. "What about this mysterious plan doesn't make sense?"
"Well," she reasoned, "for one, he's trying to make a new superhero."
Bernard choked on his drink.
"Exactly," she said, triumphant. "But why would he want someone to fight? Did he like getting his butt kicked?"
"Who enjoys having their butt kicked?" Bernard rasped, hand at his throat. "I mean, that just seems a little—" He laughed, then pressed his fist to his mouth, holding back a cough.
"All I can think is he must miss the challenge," and she rolled her eyes at this. "Which is rich." She stabbed at her salad. "He kills Metro Man, he takes over the city, the police won't stand up to him or anyone else, and now the gangs are running wild, the city is a dump, no one will go outside after dark—"
Roxanne broke off. She glared out the window at the graffiti lining the bricks across the way, at the trash now fluttering in a small breeze trapped in the courtyard.
"He won," she said, "and now he doesn't want it."
He waited, quiet. Roxanne breathed out, harsh through her nose. A couple with a screaming child in tow entered the shop, the toddler's yells drowning out the bell ringing.
After another moment, Bernard ventured, "You said, if he hadn't shot you. I thought the— whatever it was— that it failed."
She grimaced and rubbed her arm, near her shoulder. When she'd dressed for work she had checked her back in the mirror and seen nothing, no scab, no bruise, no mark of any sort. The ache in her arm had faded, too, the muscle stretching easily and without complaint. She'd trailed her fingers across the smooth skin and stared at herself in the mirror for a long and silent minute.
Now Roxanne turned to Bernard.
"Believe me," she said, "I hate saying this, but Megamind's plan wasn't a complete failure."
"You mean—" Bernard rose, suffused with sudden energy. "The— It worked?"
"I don't know what it was," she told him. "But when I got home last night, I..."
Bernard leaned closer still, his eyes enormous, his smile transformative.
"I had," she said, and it was too much suddenly, all of it too much: the bolt firing, the holes in her ceiling, the ambulance wailing in the night, Bernard with his throat sleek as, breathless, he lifted his face to hers.
"Oh, God," she said, "this must sound nuts to you."
"No!" he said immediately. "No, absolutely not. No more nuts than—" He cast about. "Than a mocha vellumca."
Roxanne heaved a laugh and covered her face. Very delicately he touched her arms, not drawing them down, but simply touching them. She slid her hands down, pressing her fingers to her lips. Bernard smiled sweetly.
"Maybe a demonstration?" he suggested. "Just to prove to yourself you aren't imagining things."
She drew a breath, and exhaustion receded, lurking yet at the edges.
"Good idea," she said. She parted her hands and smiled gratefully at him. The corners of his mouth softened.
The sunlight shifted, a cloud rolling across the sun, casting a thin shadow over them. Roxanne ran her fork through the salad.
"Let's finish lunch first."
"Better idea," he said, his eyes crinkling.
What wind had stirred through the courtyard had gone when Roxanne led Bernard through the small and broken gate. The gate sighed on its hinges; it hung at a crooked downward angle. A week-old newspaper lay still and silent at the corner where the alley opened into the courtyard, a skinny box laid with cobblestones. Her heels clicked, sharp as flint on the rocks.
Roxanne pointed. "That used to be a bookstore." Her voice echoed off the walls and faded. "Calli's Used and New. They closed a month ago."
She stopped at the heart of the courtyard and revolved on her heel, looking up to the clouded sky.
"This whole street used to be alive. Megamind killed that, too."
Bernard turned with her. He looked away from her to a line of windows, their curtains drawn against the courtyard. His shoulder bent slightly. Roxanne touched his back, and he cleared his throat.
"You were going to show me," he said. He turned back to her. His mouth sloped as his shoulder did, but he smiled. "A demonstration of your might."
"Not that mighty."
"Yet," he corrected, and it fell like a drop of rain in her chest.
"Well," she said with forced lightness, "here goes."
She checked that she stood clear of that tall window set into the side of the Starbucks, then she looked to the wall where someone had painted XXNO PASS. Her eyes itched. She breathed out, slow and even. She thought of building heat and fired.
The twin beams cut into the brick with a violent, grinding snarl. Dust and smoke poured out of the spraypainted O, and Roxanne closed her eyes. The heat cut off. Her head hurt, but it was a distant hurt. When she opened her eyes, the itch had dwindled to a suggestion.
She had done that: burned into brick as if it were paper. The thought was sharp and cold, and it unsettled her belly; but so too did it exhilirate her, her heart tripping quickly in her breast. To see this here in daylight with another as witness: it was different. It was real.
She turned to Bernard, smiling so her face hurt. His face was slack as he looked from the wall to her.
"So, not so nuts after all," she said.
He laughed wildly and caught her face in his hands. "You did it!" he shouted, and he spun away from her, his fists raised to the sky. "Look at this! You did it!"
She laughed too. "I did, didn't I?" She had. She had.
He spun about, his hair thick like smoke. That sudden energy suffused him. His eyes shone.
"Roxanne, with this, you can fight Megamind! You can use these, these powers to face him! To defeat him!"
"I'm going to need some training first," she told him.
"Yes, of course. There are so many powers you have to master: flying, ice breath, super speed, your stupendous super strength, heat vision—" He gestured to the wall.
"Super hearing," she said.
She folded her arms across her chest and stood beside him. Bernard looked up, breathing as if he'd run a mile to come here to this spot. Roxanne looked up as well. XXNO PASS, the wall said. A bottle rolled against her foot.
"And I can help you," Bernard was saying. "I know everything about Metro Man, his powers—"
"Thank you," she said. "Bernard." She touched his elbow and turned from him as he turned to her.
Roxanne looked the courtyard over: dirtied, abandoned, cracked and overgrown with litter and weeds and the sick of the city. The wind carried the sound of breaking glass to her, of glass crunching beneath heavy feet. She tightened her arms about her chest.
"Megamind's not the only thing we have to deal with. The entire city needs change."
"It needs a hero," said Bernard at her back.
"Yes," she said, listening. The wind sang. "It does."
