Author's Note: I would like to thank all my readers and reviewers for their patience with these larger than usual gaps between my postings. There is an excellent reason for it: I have finally discovered the cause of the pain that has been plaguing the muscles and joints of my right arm (and more recently my neck and left shoulder) since the beginning of the year. After six months of drug treatment for elevated cholesterol, I was struck by the nasty and terrible side-effect of statin drugs, the deterioration of muscle cells and tissue. I was fortunate that it didn't get any worse, and chose to first hit my weak spots, where I already had such conditions as tendinitis and bursitis. This discovery was made, strangely enough, on the anniversary of my father's death, which we now know was caused at least in part by this very same problem with statin drugs. Within a few days of stopping the drug, I saw noticeable improvement in the pain, and while it has not entirely healed and may require additional treatment and therapy, at least it's not getting worse, and I do have hope that I will recover, if not fully then at least to a much more tolerable state. So you may count on me to keep on writing, even if it isn't swiftly. For myself, I'm just glad to know that the cause for my pain was discovered before the damage became too severe.

Thanks once more for all your patience and support. On with the story! (And oh, about the hateful Maybelle Duke: she's not in this chapter, but she'll be back...)

Chapter Three

Elsewhere in the city, Megamind's first day back on the job was going somewhat less obnoxiously. As he and Minion had decided to use hoverbikes rather than the Invisible Car — it was easier to see what was happening on the streets from above the canyons of tall buildings rather than trapped between them on the restricted space of the roads — there was a certain necessary distance between him and the populace. From that vantage, it appeared as if all was normal.

At some of the schools over which Megamind passed, checking to make certain all was going well, the kids heading from cars and vans and buses toward the school buildings stopped to wave up at him. Their lack of fear brought a smile to the ex-villain's face. Even though he truly had no desire to father children of his own, he had come to enjoy the times when he gave talks at schools or to various kids' groups — so long as the youngsters were well-behaved, not the little hellions and bullies for whom he still held no love. To be able to positively influence so many young lives was very fulfilling, in its own way. If he hadn't been so powerfully drawn to his current life as an inventor and hero, he thought that he might have enjoyed being a teacher.

But maybe he didn't have the patience for it. Sometimes, he could tell that even Roxanne got a little annoyed with him when he expected her to understand and pick up things as fast as he did. He usually did try to make allowances for the fact that he was smarter than anyone else on the planet — and though he was learning not to be so boastful about it, it was the truth; he'd been given enough intelligence tests during his years in prison for that fact to be well established. He had nothing but admiration for Roxanne's own intelligence, especially her deductive reasoning that made her such a good reporter and sharp interviewer. But when he was fired up with enthusiasm over a new discovery or invention or idea, he forgot himself, and would babble on and on to her, not paying attention to the fact that she'd been trying to get him to slow down or clarify something until she started to get irritated by his behavior.

He was better these days, really he was, but some habits were hard to break, and Roxanne had told him time and again that his enthusiasm was something she loved about him. He had to learn how not to lose it while being considerate of others, and that particular combination seemed to be a formula he simply couldn't figure out. And if he couldn't manage that, he didn't see how he could manage being a teacher to anyone, child or adult.

That particular thought was flitting through his big head when he heard Minion's voice come crackling over the comm. "All's quiet on the north end of town, sir," the ichthyoid reported, his tone exceptionally cheerful. He really had been looking forward to today, and Megamind didn't blame him. Minion deserved better recognition than he'd given him over the years, and it was well past time that he started to get it.

"Same on the south," the blue hero answered, "with the exception of a traffic jam at Fifteenth and Lincoln."

"Trouble?" Minion almost sounded as if he wanted it to be so, just so he could get into some action, now that he was no longer merely his boss's sidekick.

Megamind had to fight not to laugh, and was only marginally successful. "Sorry, my piscine partner, the only action was between a garbage truck and the control box for the traffic lights. The police and the brainbots have everything under control — unless of course you want to experience first hand the heady excitement of conducting traffic during the morning rush."

"Ah..." Minion's enthusiasm audibly waned. "Nah, I think I'll give that a miss. I suppose we should be happy that the police are taking care of it pretty much on their own. That way we can save our energy and resources for the important situations!"

As he neared their agreed upon rendezvous point over the major expressway interchange just to the east of the downtown and saw Minion rapidly approaching from the north, Megamind rolled his eyes in extravagant disgust at the notion of what the city's movers and shakers considered important. "Yes, like meeting with city pigwigs who no doubt still think they can dictate the terms of my parole."

"It's 'bigwigs,' sir," the fish said helpfully. He guided his hoverbike — the older and larger of the pair, with which he once saved Roxanne under the guise of his ward and on which he felt most comfortable — to idle alongside Megamind's, hovering well above the interchange and the news helicopters buzzing about to report on current traffic conditions. "And I don't think that your parole is still an issue. The governor's given you every pardon he can, you've paid all the restitution everyone's asked for, and the President promised he'll come through with whatever pardons are left to be made as soon as he can."

That comment drew an even more extreme reaction of disbelief from the ex-villain. "And we know just how fast 'soon' can be when it comes to the government. I'm not going to hold my breath until I turn pink in the face, waiting."

Minion's frown was one of worry, not irritation. "You're not exactly in a chipper mood today, sir. Is something wrong? Did you get another call from the Mayor, reminding you about the meeting this afternoon? Did you and Mrs. Roxanne have an argument?"

Megamind shook his head as a report from some of the brainbots out on street patrol came chittering over the comm, mentioning a situation on the far east side with a broken water main. There was no request for extra help, and if Wayne's advice about being Metro City's resident hero had taught Megamind one thing, it was prudence, the wisdom to assess a situation first and not jump to do every single thing other people — or even brainbots — asked of him. Since they hadn't been able to call on him for a full month, the genius was curious to see if there was any evidence of improved adaptation on their part.

"No, nothing like that," he assured his guardian as he indicated that they should head in the direction of the call, but not too hastily. "I guess it's just all that's happened over the last few months has gotten me to thinking about a lot of things I used to just ignore, if I thought of them at all."

Minion weighed the significance of his ward's comments. "Ooh, that does sound serious. What've you been talking about when I'm not around, sir? Moving the Lair? Hiring extra help? Quitting the hero business? Having—"

The piscine suddenly inflated like a puffer fish as he bit his lip on a shocking possibility. "Oh — OH! Oh, sir, Mrs. Roxanne isn't — I mean, you're not going to be — that is, Mr. Wayne wasn't right about little Thejhans—!"

"No!" Megamind cut off his friend's panicking train of thought before his entire little body exploded. "No, she isn't, I'm not, and Wayne's wrong. But it's something we did talk about — Roxanne and I, not Wayne."

He let the noise of the bikes and the wind rush past them for a long minute. "Minion, how do you think I'd be as a father?"

His erstwhile henchfish was silent for such a long time, Megamind was sure he hadn't heard the question. Granted, having the comm system helped overcome the noise inherent in riding the hoverbikes, but sometimes, it wasn't enough. Yet when he turned to see if such was the case, he could tell that the ichthyoid had merely been thinking hard before speaking.

When he saw his blue boss glance in his direction, Minion cleared his throat. "Do you want my honest opinion?" he asked, something that he wouldn't have dared to ask not so many months ago.

The reformed villain snorted. "When have I ever not wanted your honest opinion?" he asked with an indignant air.

Minion answered with a pure "get real" look. "Seriously? All the time, sir. Starting when you were about six months old and—"

Megamind revved his bike's engine just enough to drown out the beginning of the long, long litany. "All right, all right, point taken! I've been fairly remiss that way, but not now. I really do want to know what you think."

The robot-assisted fish considered the request for a moment more, then decided to take the risk and give his friend what he'd asked for. "All right, then, here it is: To be perfectly honest, sir, I don't think you'd be very good. Not that I don't expect that you'd try as hard as you could, and for all I know you might turn out to be fantastic, but... well, let's face it. You grew up in an abnormal environment and didn't have the right kind of role models to learn from. I tried to take care of you as best I could, and I think I did an okay job in the long run, but this would be so different. You and Roxanne both love your work, you get irritated way too often when either of you are on a roll and anything interrupts it, and even the best nannies and daycare and everything in the world can't make up for the love and care of your parents. And it's just such a terrible risk if things didn't work out. It could wind up driving the two of you apart in really bad ways, and the kids would be stuck in the middle, and hurt by it. It's your decision, of course, both of you, but I can't help but feel that it's not a good idea." From both his manner and his tone, he felt just awful, saying those words.

But to his relief, Megamind was not offended; if anything, he appeared even more relieved than Minion. "Oh, good, then it's not just me!" he said with an immense sigh. "Roxanne told me she felt the same way I did, that she doesn't really feel any urge to have children of her own and wants to focus on her career instead, but I was afraid she might've said that because she didn't want to pressure me into something I'd already said I didn't want."

The piscine's cringe became a crooked smile. "Sir, I may not know her quite as well as you do, but I think I know Mrs. Roxanne well enough to say that she wouldn't have lied about something she honestly wanted just to make you feel better — not something this important, anyway."

The ex-villain sighed again. "I know, you're right, she wouldn't. I just... I've heard so many things in the media about how much every woman wants children, how it's such a perfect, wonderful thing, how everything bad in your life just goes away when a baby enters the picture... If that's true, I couldn't imagine why Roxanne wouldn't want it, and it would be the most selfish, villainous thing I've ever done, asking her to give up such an incredible miracle because I don't want it!"

Minion reached out and grabbed one edge of the cape that streamed behind his ward, tugging just enough to get his boss's attention as he slowed his bike to a hover. Megamind followed his lead and essentially stopped, the bikes now hovering high above the broad highways below. He looked toward his fishy friend with a querulous glance, confused.

Minion's amber eyes fixed him with his best dead-serious gaze. "I know what you're talking about, sir," he said, having stopped because he wanted to make sure his ward heard every single word he had to say. "I watch more TV and movies than you do, and I read magazines and go to Internet sites you don't. I've seen studies and statistics, and while those things you heard may be true for some people, for a lot of others, it's really just a fantasy, a fairy tale kind of perfection that never works out to be the way it's sold. Sensible people don't let other people sell them on a way to live their lives; they choose for themselves what's right."

Megamind nibbled on his lower lip in the way he did when he was feeling exceptionally unsure of himself. "But I'm not very sensible! I tried to choose the right course for my life once before and I did a terrible job of it...!"

The amber eyes rolled. "When you were six, Mykaal! Everyone makes bad choices when they're young — I made bad choices, too, letting you get away with this whole nonsense of believing you were destined to be Evil when I knew it just wasn't so. But none of that matters, now. What matters is that you've learned from your mistakes, and you've been doing a lot better, thinking before acting. You made the right choice when you married Roxanne, and from what you've just told me, you showed a lot more sense than you used to when you talked with her about having children before it wound up being a moot point that you'd gotten around to discussing only when it was too late."

The genius's green eyes blinked with a strangely innocent wonder as his black-gloved fingers drummed on the bike's handgrips. "Really? I thought it was more like trying to get my own way."

The water inside Minion's habitat bubbled as he blew a singularly dismissive raspberry. "Pfffffft. The old you would've just done whatever you wanted, no matter what anyone else thought or felt about it. You wouldn't've talked about it unless it was to say, 'Oh, by the way, this is how things are going to be, so sorry if it messes up any plans you had.'"

Megamind's face turned an interesting shade of fuchsia as he winced, mortified. "I did that to you a lot, didn't I?"

But Minion truly wasn't bothered. "Did, as in past tense. If you do now, you usually catch yourself halfway, and then apologize. That makes a huge difference. For you and Roxanne to discuss this now was the right thing to do, and if not having children is what you want and it's the choice you made together, then it's right for both of you, and what other people say or think doesn't mean a thing. Recognizing your limitations and understanding what you want from your own life is being responsible, sir, not selfish. And anyone who tells you that you should or must do what they've decided is right for everyone — well, they're the ones being selfish and irresponsible, not you!"

By the end of Minion's most emphatic little speech, Megamind's complexion had returned almost to its normal blue; he smiled faintly, sheepishly. "Roxanne said a lot of those same things," he admitted. "You're right, she wasn't just saying what she thought I wanted to hear, it's not her way. Will it bother you, though, Minion? You seem to get along so much better with children than I do."

His partner laughed. "Yes, when I don't have to take care of them or be responsible for them, day after day! I've already had that experience with you, sir, and to tell the truth, I was terrified that you two would decide you wanted kids and find a way to have them, and then I'd feel that my duty to you extended to them, for the rest of my life. At least when you were still a baby, you were living in a place where almost everything was locked away and people were watching everything — and you still managed to find ways to get into trouble! Trying to keep an eye on a baby in the Lair, and a baby that has you and Mrs. Roxanne for parents...! Oh, no, sir, I'm glad you made this decision. I really do enjoy being able to help you with your work; I would've felt cheated out of what's left of my life if I'd had to be responsible for looking after your children instead."

Under his broad studded collar, the hero's shoulders sagged. "And you would've done it, whether you liked it or not. I couldn't ask that of you, Minion, but I know that's what would've happened. I don't know who else we could've trusted as much as you. I wasn't just relieved for myself when Roxanne told me that she felt the same way I do. You've already sacrificed so much for me; it wouldn't've been fair to ask even more of you. You deserve a chance to choose whatever future you want, the same as anyone else."

As abruptly as he'd wilted, Megamind perked up. "Do you think I'd be any good as a teacher?"

The sudden change of topic almost put a whiplash crick in Minion's robotic neck. As it was, his entire body spun inside the habitat dome, finally stopping to give his friend a startled look. "What, now? Isn't being the Defender of Metro City enough of a job for you?"

The ex-villain flapped one hand in a vigorous wave of dismissal. "No, no, not now, of course, there's still so much to be done for the city and all! But when I saw the children going to shkool today, I thought that perhaps I could do something more for them someday — oh, I don't know when, maybe when I get too old to be a proper protector or something."

"And you thought about teaching," Minion deduced as they continued on toward the trouble spot the brainbots had reported. "I guess you could try, but I hear it's a lot of work, and can be pretty difficult if you don't have a ton of patience — no offense."

Megamind was remarkably equable. "None taken, I've already thought of that. I'm learning how to be more patient for Roxanne's sake, but she's just one person, and an exceptionally bright one at that. I don't know if I could ever learn to be patient enough for a whole classroom of children."

"Well, if you could manage it for a few at a time, you could always consider mentoring instead."

"Mentooring?" The word felt strange on the blue man's pink tongue.

"Mentoring," Minion repeated, deliberately emphasizing the correct pronunciation. "It's a more personal way of tutoring someone or taking them into a kind of apprenticeship. Mentors are usually experts in their fields who teach others what they know and help them develop their skills in an area of common interest, one on one. I could see you doing that — as a matter of fact, I already have."

The long blue face scrunched with furious thought. "When?" he wondered, bewildered.

"With Seth Morgan, the police rookie who wanted to learn how to do emergency field repairs for the brainbots. He was really interested in robotics and cybernetics, and all the time you gave him, showing him how certain things worked and how they could be fixed with limited time and resources, discussing it via emails, helping him when he got stuck and had problems, things like that — that's what a mentor does."

"It is?" Megamind sounded quite surprised. "But... that wasn't difficult at all, I actually enjoyed it!"

Minion nodded. "It wasn't difficult because you were both interested, Seth was a quick learner, and you got along very well. You may have enjoyed it, but you also helped him, a lot. He's now the best person on the whole MCPD force when it comes to making repairs on damaged brainbots in the field. The other officers call him their EBT — Emergency Brainbot Technician. And he got there because you mentored him when you had the time, and still do."

"I didn't know that's what I was doing," the ex-villain admitted. "And this sort of on-and-off teaching is something people want? Not just policemen who work with my equipment?"

"Sure, and not only adults, either. It's a kind of teaching where you aren't just thrown together with random kids in a school, or with whatever people signed up for a class. There's a lot of information about it on the Internet, sir, I can show you some of it when we have time."

The green eyes widened. "Really? How do you know so much about this men-tor-ing?" Megamind asked, very carefully imitating Minion's pronunciation.

Now, it was the ichthyoid's turn to be sheepish. "Because that's part of how I learned to cook and sew as well as I do. I learned the basics myself, but when I got interested in doing more, I started to write to people whose work I admired from reading books or seeing their programs on public television, and I asked them for advice."

"They didn't have a problem, corresponding with a fish with a criminal record?"

"Well... They didn't have a problem corresponding with Min Yung. I had to make up some sort of name, anyway — who would've taken a letter from someone named 'Minion' seriously? I did eventually tell the truth to the ones I became friends with, and they actually thought the whole thing was very amusing — as a criminal, I never really did more than aid and abet, and a lot of them could sympathize with that, for their own reasons. Now, I sometimes get people asking for my help and advice."

"You do?" Megamind was genuinely shocked, though not angrily. "Just how much of a secret life do you have, Minion? I didn't know you had friends like that! Why didn't you ever tell me?"

The fish hesitated as they came close to the area from which the brainbots had signaled, slowing as they moved closer to the ground to see what was going on below. "Because I was afraid of upsetting you, sir. I was writing to these people for years before you gave up being evil; it started back when you decided you wanted to make one of the Lairs permanent, so you could work on building a place that felt like a home."

"That early? I don't think I was even eighteen, then!"

"I know, you weren't. You didn't have any friends of your own at the time, and I didn't want you to feel left out, like I was abandoning you. I'm sorry, I should've said something sooner..."

But the blue head shook. "No, it's okay, I understand. I would've been jealous of them and annoyed with you back then, I'm sure. I'm not complaining, I'm just surprised. You're a fish of remarkable depth, Minion — no pun intended."

His partner laughed. "Actually, I think my kind were more comfortable in rivers than in the oceans, sir, like piranhas or the open-water types of anglerfish. But thanks for the compliment."

"You're welcome. Good heavens, what is their problem?" Megamind's exasperated tone and expression was well-suited to the scene below, not to mention the mayday some of the brainbots had started to put out only moments ago. The intersection of two major surface streets below had turned into a small lake, due to the water main break, the site being at the bottom of two steep hills, and poor drainage in the aging infrastructure of the area. A number of DPW and emergency vehicles were already on the scene, working to fix the break, clear the storm drains, and handle rerouting the traffic. Not all of the cars had avoided the deep water; some had tried to drive through it and had gotten stuck with water now up to the very tops of their hoods.

A swarm of brainbots were assisting the rescue crews that were trying to get the stranded people safely out of their vehicles, but things didn't appear to be going quite as smoothly as they should have been. While the brainbots had been able to rescue the occupants of most of the stranded vehicles — carrying them to safety once they opened their windows and climbed out far enough for the bots to lift them away — one person in an expensive sportscar was refusing to abandon his vehicle or even open the window. Not only was the car at an especially low point, but it was near to where the main had broken, where the ground beneath the road was rapidly being eaten away. A sinkhole had formed and was still growing, and the sportscar was none too slowly being swallowed by it.

The brainbots were frantically trying to pull the car out or at least hold it up until a crane of some sort could be brought in to haul it out, but the bots had limited strength, and there wasn't sufficient room for enough of them to get a hold on the car to pull it above the water, which was pulling it down as more and more flooded into the car's interior. The driver inside was now panicking, as pressure against his door and window wouldn't let him open either to escape, the water inside was rising rapidly, and his earlier pigheaded refusal to let any of the bots break a window to get him out now made them reluctant to even try.

From the air, the situation looked very strange as the brainbots who couldn't help hold up the car were whizzing about in a panic, all their domes flashing and flaring with electrical agitation as they tried to think of a solution. Their answer was coming through to Megamind loud and clear: Call Daddy!

"Well, sir," Minion said as they headed down to intervene before the car sank, the person inside drowned, or the panicking brainbots flew into a total cyborg tizzy, "it looks like this might be the perfect chance to finally field test the new setting for your de-gun. It was a shame you didn't really get an opportunity during that last fight with the Terror Trio."

"Just what I was thinking," the ex-villain agreed. "But get your grappling lines ready, just in case."

Minion signaled his understanding of the plan with thumbs-up as they slowed their downward swoop to let the swarm of brainbots register their arrival. A lot of these were younger bots, without much experience in thinking creatively beyond their initial programming. The older bots that weren't trying to keep the car from sinking were doing their best to keep the panicking youngsters in line, but it was like a few mother hens attempting to do crowd control among a flock of a hundred frenzied chicks.

As the ichthyoid readied his bike's grappling line system for emergency deployment, he also flew on a course that did a better job of herding the frantic less-experienced brainbots out of the way. Neither he nor Megamind could really blame them for their reaction; the bots that were new to patrol duty were usually sent on the east side circuit because that part of town was the quietest, where the city dwindled into middle-class bedroom suburbs and open farmlands. There was less there to draw the interest of more serious criminal elements, and usually a busy day meant rounding up lost pets, changing a tire on some poor citizen's car, or contacting the police if something like a burglary or a stolen car should happen. The occasional kitchen fire was about the most panic the inexperienced bots could handle, and really, they had been doing okay with this current crisis, until the sinkhole had opened up right under the stubbornly stranded motorist.

Well, with any luck, the situation would quickly be resolved. As he brought his own hoverbike into position a good thirty feet above the sinking sportscar, Megamind drew his de-gun and flipped it to its newest, and still most experimental, setting: DEFY. Lining up a clear shot on the car's roof, he waited only until Minion was at the ready before taking aim and firing. A bolt of faintly greenish-blue lightning crackled from the weapon and enveloped the car, spreading from the part that the brainbots were managing to keep above the water to those parts below. For a few moments, nothing happened.

Then, the water that had been threatening to swallow the car and drown its occupant started to froth as the vehicle began to rise upward, defying gravity, an effect the new setting for the de-gun had been designed to create. It wasn't a swift rise — that had been one of the problems Megamind had encountered. The gravity defying effect had been too strong at first, and had had an unfortunate tendency to send its subject rocketing up so fast, a few holes had been punched through the Lair's living floor, through those ceilings, and up through the roof. That sudden upward motion and the collisions had also had an undesirable habit of demolishing the test subject, which had been completely inanimate and expendable objects until the problem was corrected.

Toning it down to get a nice, gentle lift, however, had made the effect more of an arrest than a rise, useful for doing things like catching a person falling from the top of a building or stopping a crashing plane before it hit the ground, not so good for allowing a person or an object trapped in something like quicksand or mud or even water to rise free of what was holding it down. And even when it worked, the effect was currently of erratic duration. It could last for ten hours or for ten seconds, the latter being annoyingly most common.

Happily, the effective weightlessness worked correctly this time. With only the weight of the water to contend with and not that of both vehicle and water combined, the brainbots already pulling at the sportscar were at last able to lift it free, the body gushing water out of all the openings through which the insides had been flooded. When it was clear of the accident-made pond, Minion directed the brainbots to hustle it to the nearest open pavement, before the effect wore off.

It did that precisely three seconds after the car had made it over dry, open ground. The sudden return of weight where there had been almost nothing a moment before yanked the car out of the brainbots' claws, and it hit the pavement with a loud, hard thunk! that blew all four tires.

As far as Megamind, Minion, the brainbots, and the various emergency services were concerned, it was a successful, gone-without-a-hitch rescue. As far as the dimwitted motorist was concerned, the only important thing was who was going to pay for the damaged tires, scratched paint, and other ruination inflicted on his poor, expensive car. A couple of officers steered the ranting guy away from the two heroes who'd just saved his life, one giving Minion a clear signal that they'd take care of it so that he could handle calming down the panicked brainbots while Megamind pondered the effectiveness of the new Defy setting.

"Hmm, well, the duration certainly needs to be improved," the genius reflected after they'd landed their bikes and dismounted, the wheels in his brain already hard at work on the potential solutions. "But overall, I'd call it a successful field test. What is it, Zap?" he asked the brainbot who was nudging his elbow, one of the older bots that acted as a trainer for those less experienced. Zap had gotten his name because of a glitch that had been fixed years ago, an imperfection in his original dome that allowed enough of the normally contained energy field within to leak out and give anyone who touched him a powerful static electric zap.

As one of the most experienced patrol bots, he'd been doing his best to keep order in the ranks, but the younger cyborgs had very nearly overwhelmed him. Now that things had calmed down again, he approached Daddy to get his attention, bowging for the blue hero to follow him toward one of the fire department's EMT vans, which was there as a precautionary measure. The back of the van was open as Zap led Megamind to it, and though there didn't appear to be any human injuries, one of the techs was seated on the open rear gate, holding a trembling and obviously distressed brainbot on his lap, as one might hold a frightened and distressed puppy.

Megamind recognized the bot as a very young one Roxanne had dubbed Puddles. A new addition to the Rescue Bot class, Puddles didn't actually leave little "gifts" behind him, but he was so nervous and excitable in his eagerness to please Daddy and Minion and now Mommy, he had a habit of both causing and getting into minor accidents of other kinds, reminding Roxanne of a puppy she'd once known.

When the ex-villain saw just which bot was being soothed by the EMT, he clicked his tongue in very gentle, amused scolding. "What trouble have you gotten yourself into this time, Puddles?" he asked. The young bot hunkered down, trying to do the impossible feat of literally making himself smaller in the man's lap.

The medic — a tall young man somewhere in his latter twenties with a head of thick, dark, curly hair and wire-rimmed glasses, Ben Epstein from his ID tag — smiled crookedly at the mention of the bot's name. "Nothing that was really his fault, sir," he told the city's defender, understanding the joke in the brainbot's name. "He was trying to help the others who were keeping that idiot's sportscar out of the sinkhole, but his arm got yanked loose when the car shifted and started to sink even deeper." He nodded toward the detached limb lying nearby inside the van. "I think it kinda traumatized the poor little guy, so the others brought him here to keep him out of the way while they kept working on the emergency. My training is medical, not robotics, so all I could think of to do to help was just keep him quiet until either the others were free or someone who knew what they were doing showed up to fix him."

Megamind chuckled as he waggled one finger at Puddles while he reached for the detached arm with his other hand. "Yes, and you wouldn't use this as an excuse to get some personal attention while the others worked, would you, Puddles?"

The bot gave a little bowg that was both pathetic and chagrined. "Oh, I wouldn't say that, sir," Ben defended the poor injured thing. "It must've been pretty traumatic, getting his arm pulled off...!"

"For some of the older brainbots, yes," the ex-villain agreed, gesturing for the medic to lift Puddles from his lap. "But Puddles is less than a year old, and I've incorporated some new features into the design for this class of bots." He held up the end of the arm that attached to the main body for Ben's perusal. "The coupling is designed to self-release if its tolerance limits are exceeded, so it doesn't cause any real damage. The attachment point—" He tapped the long, gloved fingers of his left hand to the pertinent area on Puddles' bottom. "—here, is designed to self-heal when the proper end of the arm is inserted. In an emergency situation, the bots might take an injured bot to safety if they can, but the emergency is always to take priority. Though I'm surprised Zap didn't do this himself after the crisis was over."

"The brainbot that brought you here?" Ben asked as Megamind checked the end of the detached arm to make sure there had been no secondary damage that might've prevented a successful reattachment. "I think he wanted to, but this little guy was too scared to leave my lap."

The hero snorted, recognizing Puddles' "I want special attention" tactics. "Or he saw me arrive with Minion and decided only one of us would do. You were waiting for Daddy or Uncle Minion to do this, weren't you, you naughty little cyborg?"

The tiny bowg Puddles let loose was so sheepish, it was plain that Megamind had nailed the situation. If the bot had been able to blush, shamefaced, he would have. But his maker only laughed softly, as did the medic. "Well, then, I suppose I can forgive you for it, this time," the alien said, putting emphasis on the last two words. "This was your first time out when there was a serious emergency. But don't expect to be coodled like this again!"

The sound Puddles made was an obvious promise to be better behaved in the future. Megamind had Ben lift up the bot so he could clearly watch the reattachment procedure, and how simple it actually was. "In case this should come up again," he told the medic. "It won't work with the older bots or ones designed for heavier lifting, but all the brainbots with this configuration at the arm connection have this self-healing attachment feature."

"That's good to know," the younger man said with a nod as he memorized the appearance of the area Megamind indicated. "You know, sir, I've been thinking that since most of the emergency services are working with your brainbots quite a bit, these days, it might be a good idea to put together a little manual on basic first aid for the little guys. I know that Seth Morgan with MCPD has studied up to be something of a real specialist, but it wouldn't hurt for the rest of us to know a few of the simple things, like this, and have a manual to refer to. It could leave you and Minion and Seth free to take care of the more serious things, and let the bots with minor injuries get back on their feet — or whatever — quicker."

Megamind had been about to say that there were actually brainbots specifically programmed to render aid to other bots injured out in the field, but there weren't terribly many of them. The young man's suggestion could actually free them to take care of the more serious cyborg casualties. He nodded as he showed the medic the proper way the arm should be positioned before the coupling was reattached. "Yes, I think that's an excellent idea," he approved. "I'm not exactly sure when I could fit it into my shedooal, though, and we don't have our own equipment for publication..."

"You wouldn't need it, sir," Ben assured him. "It could be an electronic manual to begin with, and my dad's in the printing business. I'm sure he'd consider this a public service thing for the city and do it for free."

Megamind looked up at the tall fellow, grinning. "You've already asked him, haven't you?" When the medic blushed, he relented. "It's still a good idea, and we can arrange something when I've caught up with all the work that piled up while I was on vacation. Pay attention, now, this is really quite simple..."

Ben paid very close attention, noting the position of the arm and place on the brainbot where it would be connected. He watched the black-gloved hands deftly but not too quickly push the end of the metal arm against what turned out to be a covered slot, which automatically slid open as it detected the pressure of the proper substance in the proper shape bearing down on it. When the connector moved into position inside, other parts of the opening suddenly snapped into place, securing and reconnecting the arm, allowing for it to once again move and extend as it should.

Ben was startled by the force with which the thing sealed up. "Whoa, you'd have to be careful to keep your fingers out of there or they'd get bitten off, wouldn't they?"

But Megamind shook his head. "Nope. The sensors won't open for anything but the right alloy in the right shape, not unless that part of the system is deliberately shut down to allow access for other repairs and maintenance. Minion damaged a couple of fingertips and I ruined nearly a dozen pairs of work gloves while we were developing this."

The medic glanced at the alien's leather clad hands, wondering for a moment if a finger or two might be a bit short because of previous accidents. He saw that they were not, and also saw the glint of morning sunlight off silver metal on a non-studded, spikeless part of his left hand. He grinned.

"Ah, we heard that you and Ms Ritchi got married while you were out of town," he said, nodding toward the platinum wedding ring. "Congratulations! I hope it doesn't offend you, sir, but the guys and gals at Station Number Five had a betting pool going about how long it would take before you popped the question — and here it seems you went and did the whole nine yards inside of a month!"

Taken by surprise by the medic's comments, Megamind was both chagrined and proud; he couldn't help it. "I hope I didn't disappoint too many people," he joked, unable to contain his own sappy smile.

But Ben's grin only widened. "Oh, I'm sure some of the losers will be upset, but not me. I was the only one who was sure you'd ask before the end of the year, and that makes me the winner! Of course, I won't get to collect until there's been some kind of official announcement, but I can be patient. It's just good to know I was right. My girlfriend and I always thought the two of you would make a good couple. It wasn't hard to tell that under all the bickering and kidnapping, you really liked each other."

Now, the hero's cheeks purpled. "Really, was it obvious to everyone in the world but me?" he lamented. "What good is it, having a big brain if I can't use it to see past the end of my nose?"

The answering chuckle was sympathetic. "You know what they say, sir: love is blind. It can be hard for even the smartest person to see and understand what's right in front of him when his heart's blocking the view."

That reply was so unexpected and yet so simple, it rendered Megamind completely speechless for what seemed a very, very long time. He opened his mouth to say something, and when not even a squeak came out, he closed it, swallowed several times until his throat didn't feel as if he was scouring it from the inside with coarse sandpaper, then tried again. "I...never thought of it like that. I guess I was getting in my own way all along by pretending to be something I wasn't."

Ben shrugged. "Could be. You wouldn't be the first guy who did it — though you're not exactly the macho jock type who usually does. And so long as the two of you are happy now, it doesn't really matter how long it took to get here. I'm happy for you, and I'm sure everyone else at the station is, too."

Just then, Minion called for his boss to come join him over where a group of brainbots were getting into a squabble while attempting to repair the tires on the car they'd dropped. Ben was also summoned, to give first aid to the car's owner, who had deliberately kicked a fire hydrant during the course of his rantings and may have broken his foot. As they went their separate ways, Puddles following Daddy, Megamind paused to glance back at the medic, a sudden connection in his head turning on a light.

The brilliant green eyes turned to the hovering brainbot. "Did I just do mentooring again?" he wondered aloud, a little shocked and a little fascinated. That had been so easy...! He would have to ask Minion about it — maybe Roxanne, too, if she could make it to the City Council meeting that afternoon.

Megamind continued on, muttering to himself about this strange mentooring thing, and Puddles, good little bot that he was trying to be, could only follow obediently and answer his maker with his equivalent of a very confused shrug.

To be continued...