IV
The Departure
Now that at least some of the air had been cleared, the rest of that day and the next went well. Even the shopping trip turned out to be pleasant, with the exception of some snooty patrons they encountered at the Bayside shops, whose clearly "whispered" insults and anger toward the city's former villain very nearly incited Roxanne to more truly villainous behavior than her mortified boyfriend had ever attempted. They somehow managed to avoid making a scene by the grace of the open-minded shopkeeper who intervened before Roxanne had a chance to lay into the bigoted twits who had more money than brains. Given events of the previous day, she'd started eyeing one of the shop's decorative drapery rods with a wickedly pointed tip to use as a skewer to make snob kabob of the four so-called "ladies."
Afterward, the reporter realized how close she had come to damaging both her own image and that of the one she wished to protect with an inappropriate display of violence. In the weakness of an angry outburst, intensified by the exhaustion of both mind and body, she would have been painted as a vicious and dangerous shrew and Megamind as a coward who wouldn't or couldn't protect himself against twisted "truths." More than anything else, this underscored their need for time away from Metro City, to renew their strength, regain their sense of unity, and find a proper perspective on the world and their places in it.
That evening, while they were trying to decide just how they were going to manage to get themselves and everything they would need or want during such a long stay packed into a single vehicle — which common sense told them should be Roxanne's reasonably normal-looking but storage handicapped Corvette rather than the larger but terribly conspicuous when not invisible and not exactly well-suited for a long road trip Invisible Car — Wayne showed up with the keys to the house and directions to it. He saw their dilemma, and offered a feasible solution.
"I'll take it over for you tonight," he said, reminding them that though the rest of the world believed he had tragically lost his superpowers, he still had them and was quite capable of using them. "As long as I go after dark, no one will be the wiser and it'll save you the trouble. I called the day before yesterday to get all the utilities turned back on and have the caretakers come in to get the place cleaned up and ready for you. I was thinking about taking a quick hop over tonight to make sure everything was done, anyway. Though I may need to make an extra trip or two," he added with a chuckle and a wink, noting the heap of bags and satchels and such that they had been trying to find a way to fit into a car that was much too small in terms of luggage space. "As a matter of fact, I was going to ask if you'd like to skip the trip on that slow boat from Ludington to Manitowoc and have me drop off you and whatever car you're planning to take, early tomorrow morning."
Megamind coughed, covering a fit of uneasiness. "Ah...that might not be a bad idea," was his opinion. The year before he and Wayne had first met Roxanne, a mishap in his annual attempt to best Metro City's Fourth of July fireworks display had accidentally flattened the docks of the S.S. Badger Ferry in Ludington. No one had been hurt, thankfully, and the boat itself had been out of port, but there had been considerable property damage, and even now, some thirteen years later, even though he had secretly paid restitution for the damage some years ago, Megamind was reluctant to go near the place for fear that someone might peg him as the culprit in that incident, which had been written off as a freak gas line explosion.
Roxanne understood his feelings, but she wasn't quite as eager to accept the offer. "I wasn't exactly thrilled by the prospect of taking the ferry; it's not as fast as the one that goes to Milwaukee. But to just be dropped off at the front door...! That kind of spoils the whole feeling of travel, of going to a new and different place. I'm not sure I want to take convenience that far!"
"She's got a point," Wayne had to admit. "When I was a kid, I hated that long, boring trip when I could've just picked up the car and flown it there, but my mom liked the drive, and my dad liked taking the ferry. And you'll need a car there, unless you plan to just stick within walking distance of the house. That's half of what makes it such a good place to get away from it all; there're only two roads that cross the bay to get onto the upper peninsula, and there aren't any ferries that go there from the mainland. No cabs or buses or real airports, either — heck, the one in Sturgeon Bay can't handle more than small planes, and it has a standing warning about deer, turkeys, and gulls as hazards on the runways."
"Turkeys?" Megamind echoed, trying to picture it. "They raise turkeys in their airports?" That seemed too peculiar to be possible, even to him.
Both Wayne and Roxanne chuckled. "Not that kind of turkey, hon," the reporter explained, knowing that he was picturing the Thanksgiving staple. "Wild ones. We don't see them around here, but out in the country, they've made a big comeback. I hope we get to see a flock or two; I've heard they can be very smart birds, and impressive."
Her beau was dubious. "Impressive birds? Turkeys? That hardly seems likely..."
"Wait until you see 'em," Wayne suggested. "Birds can be pretty impressive, like eagles. They've got those up there, too. Okay, if you want to drive in yourself at least part of the way, Roxie, I can drop you off somewhere along highway 42, maybe north of Two Rivers. There're plenty of stretches of farmland and parks along that route where I could bring you in before dawn, and no one would notice."
Megamind's doubt-filled look contorted to one of greater distaste. "Before dawn? Don't you believe in sleeping in?"
His former rival shrugged. "I work when I have to — and if I don't want anyone to see me, that's as good a time as any, unless you want to experience the thrill of re-entry speeds without a heat shield."
Both prospective travelers gulped. "No thanks," was Roxanne's opinion. "Especially since we'll be doing this in my car. I'd rather not have the finish burned off."
"It won't be so bad," Wayne promised them. "This way, you'll get to see the sunrise over the lake, too. It's pretty, and kinda romantic, if you get my drift." His grin was perilously close to a suggestive leer.
Now, they both looked at him with perfectly matched expressions of exasperation. "Ha-ha-ha," his ex-nemesis drawled sarcastically. "Very funny. But I think we can manage that part of our lives without your help."
At least the retired hero had the decency to look properly chastised, aware that he'd crossed a line and sorry he'd done so. "Okay, okay, I get it, that's off limits, no problem. Just get everything you want to take ready to go by ten tonight, and I'll come pick it up and fly it to the house. And be ready by 4:30 tomorrow morning. The sun doesn't actually come up until 5:30 or so, but it starts getting light a lot earlier, and I don't want to chance being spotted by some farmer sending his cows out to pasture."
Megamind groaned at the very thought, never having been an early riser. Roxanne patted his arm in consolation. "We don't need to hit the road right away when we get there," she pointed out. "And I don't mind if you want to sleep while I drive. I'm the one who wanted that part of the travel experience, after all."
That was an acceptable compromise. And so, it was settled.
ooooooooooo
Pre-dawn came much earlier than anyone in the Lair was truly happy with, especially given that bedtime the night before hadn't come until after midnight, when the last preparations had been made. Knowing that Wayne would be arriving at 4:30, Minion had gotten up a half hour earlier, to rouse his sleeping friends and prepare them a light breakfast while they struggled to awaken properly and get dressed. The coffee and croissants were enough, especially since he'd brewed the coffee strong, to provide an extra jolt he knew his friends needed at this hour of the day.
"I'm going to miss both of you," the fish told them as he brought breakfast to the table with almost obscene energy, given the definitely obscene hour. "But I don't want you to worry about me being lonely or anything. I've got a lot of things I've been planning to do when I had the time, and Mr. Scott's even asked if he could go out on patrol with me, once in a while. He knows he can't be obvious about using his powers, but there's nothing really all that strange about the city's retired hero giving advice to the new hero's sidekick when he has to work alone, is there?"
"Just so long as he doesn't get any ideas about making this a regular thing," Megamind only half-grumped, mostly because he still felt like crawling back into bed. In truth, he had already started to see some merit to Wayne's offer of help with his tasks as the city's defender. Alone, the weight of the job would likely be unbearable; with Minion and the brainbots, it was tolerable, but with the aid of someone with experience who could be called upon in a pinch... The ex-villain had begun to understand why his long-time rival regretted that they had never been friends. On their own, they were each formidable in their own ways; together, they could have dealt with almost anything. Moving beyond their past conflicts to true friendship would take time, but it might just be doable, someday. Not any time soon, though.
"Are you sure you don't want to take along a couple of brainbots, just to do housekeeping?" Minion asked, glad that the Boss hadn't argued against Wayne's assistance. He'd handled the hero work on his own for a few days from time to time, but he'd been admittedly nervous about tackling it alone for weeks.
Roxanne shook her head. "Not that it's a bad idea in principle," she explained, "but you know how hard they can be to contain, and how upset they get when they feel penned in. Unless we want to have them tagging along everywhere we go, we'd be better off without them. We don't want them trashing the Scotts' house if they got bored while we were out, after all."
Megamind grunted. "Yes, I can just imagine how thrilled that would make them — and how easy it would be, not attracting attention with brainbots flitting after us like flying puppies. A good suggestion, Minion, but I think Roxanne's right about leaving them at home."
He slathered a second croissant with jam of some indefinite fruit flavor that was red. Though the stuff was quite sweet, he often wondered if the process of jam making inherently robbed it of the actual flavor of the fruit from which it was presumably made, or if the manufacturers had gotten so cheap, they used as little of the real stuff as possible. Usually, his sharp sense of smell made flavors more intense, but in many processed things, there was a strange disconnect between the scent and the taste, as if the scent was artificial, a lure to make people think they were eating what should have been producing the smell. On the whole, however, this was much too much thinking for the hour of the day.
He finished preparing his croissant, took a large bite, then waved it at Minion as he gestured before swallowing and speaking. "You know that Wayne isn't allowed in this part of the Lair — and by that I mean this entire floor. If the two of you want to hang up together, do it at his place, or downstairs. Not here."
Minion shrugged and nodded at the same time, ignoring his master's slight mangling of the colloquial phrase. "I know, sir — but I do think Mr. Scott is really making an honest effort to mend some fences with us."
The blue nose wrinkled. "Perhaps. I said I'm willing to let him try, but that doesn't mean I'm going to just let him have free access to every part of my life right off the boot. For now, the living floor is off limits to him. I don't want him up here, and I don't even want him to know it's here."
"Don't you think he already knows?" Roxanne wondered, eating her own croissant with just a touch of light butter, and like Minion ignoring his slip of the colloquialism to pass unmentioned. "Aside from the fact that you've been using this as your primary lair for years, don't you think he's already checked it out with his super vision?"
"He hasn't been here that often," Megamind pointed out. "Only since I gave up villainy. Once I decided to make a home for myself here, I always used other sites as the base of operations when I actually carried out any plans against him. It was only for the last one that I used this Lair to hold you, because the controls to operate the Death Ray satellite couldn't be moved easily. Unless he's totally rude and snoopy, invading my privacy with his powers when he visits, he doesn't know about the living quarters on this floor. From some things he's said to me since you moved in, he thinks we're living in some converted storage rooms, here and in the basement. I haven't bothered to tell him otherwise."
Roxanne was genuinely surprised. "You mean you actually don't want to show off and brag to him about all the beautiful things you've done up here?"
The blue head shook emphatically. "Not yet. Someday, maybe, but not now. I want to keep this private. He doesn't need to know about it."
He was clearly serious about the matter, and neither Roxanne nor Minion attempted to argue with him. When he was ready to change his mind he would, and until then, any efforts to make him change it would only result in pointless friction — something they definitely did not need any more of. Best friend and girlfriend exchanged glances and shrugs, decided not to pursue it, and let it go.
Fifteen minutes later, they were on the street, waiting outside Roxanne's Corvette for their "lift" to arrive. The skies were still as dark as they ever got in an urban area as big as Metro City, which certainly explained Wayne's desire to do this before the inhabitants started to really wake up and get moving. Minion and Pinky waited with them, and when the former Metro Man arrived, punctually at the first tick of the half-hour, there were goodbyes all around.
Minion's was a cheerfully offered, "Have a wonderful trip!" that came with hugs and two thermoses of coffee (one black, for Roxanne, the other double extra sweet, with chocolate and a fair amount of cream, for Megamind), as well as a small cold sack with chilled drinks and snacks, in case the day got too warm before they arrived at their destination. Pinky bowged her farewells in forlorn misery, loath to be separated from Roxanne for more than a day (though how the little bot understood that this was going to happen, neither Minion nor Megamind were quite sure).
Wayne promised to report back and let them know that the couple had made it safe and sound to the opposite shore, once the transit was completed. Then, with the passengers securely belted in and the doors and windows tightly closed, he carefully lifted up the car so as not to jostle those within, and with only the softest whoosh of displaced air, whisked them off into the darkness over Lake Michigan.
ooooooooooo
Less than fifteen minutes later, Wayne gently settled the car in an empty parking area at the end of a gravel and packed dirt road quite near the western shore of the lake. There were a number of trees to both the north and south of the road, providing a convenient shelter from any potentially prying eyes. Before leaving, the ex-hero tapped on the driver's side window, which Roxanne graciously lowered.
"Hope the ride was smooth enough," he said with a smile, since he had been extra careful to avoid any uncomfortable jostling that might upset those within.
"It was fine," Roxanne assured him, "though it did feel a little bit like riding the shuttle up into orbit."
"Ah, yeah, I suppose it would, since I was probably doing around 500 and this car isn't exactly built for that. But I did try to keep from speeding up and slowing down too fast, so I hope it wasn't too unsettling."
Megamind made a rather sour face, simply to be difficult at this ungodly hour of the day. "If there's ever a next time, warn us about bringing those little bags they use on jets. I'm glad we didn't bother with much of a breakfast!"
Wayne was genuinely contrite. "Sorry, Megs, I promise I'll take it easier next time — if there is one. Okay, then, I've got all your luggage squared away at the house, and you've got the keys and a map for getting there. You're in Two Creeks County Park here, so all you need to do is drive up this road back maybe half a mile to highway 42—" He pointed in the proper direction. "—hang a right, and just keep following the signs for 42 until you get to Beach Road in Sister Bay. You shouldn't have any trouble finding the house from there. And if you do decide you want to kick back here and sleep a little longer before heading up, you might want to follow 57 into Sister Bay instead. 42 goes through all the little towns along the Green Bay side, and a few of 'em can be kind of annoying to drive through if there're a lot of pedestrians and bikes on the road. This is their high season, after all."
"Thanks for the tip," Roxanne said with a smile. "You'll help Minion take care of the city while we're gone, right?"
"Only as much as he wants me to help," the musician promised, glancing at the other alien to see his reaction. "There's only so much I can do without blowing my cover and causing a lot of problems, so this'll be Minion's call, not mine."
That seemed to please Megamind. "Good, he has much more sense than you do! Just make sure you don't use this as an excuse to go snooping around the Lair!"
"Retired superhero's honor," Wayne pledged, complete with the traditional Boy Scout salute. "I know a guy's gotta keep some things secret, especially when that guy has a hero's job. And it'd be a crappy way to start a friendship, prying into your business while you're gone. I'm on the level about this, Megs. I really do want us to be friends someday, and I know it won't ever happen if I do things to show I can't be trusted."
In the meager light provided by the car's auxiliary dash lights and a distant street lamp, the sincerity on the big lug's face was clear to see. Even his former arch-nemesis couldn't find it in him to deny it, although he was inclined to attribute that lapse to an early morning lack of energy. "Just see that you don't," he replied without any real bite to his words.
His acceptance brought a huge smile to Wayne's face. "I won't. Well, then, I'd better be heading back before it gets too light." A rapidly growing purple-gray smear on the eastern horizon was already promising the coming day. "Have a great time, you two. And if there's anything you need or anything wrong with the house, just give a call and let me know." With another smile and a jaunty wave, he was off, gone quicker than the eye could follow.
After the last eddies of the dust stirred up in his wake had settled, Roxanne left the window open for a minute to smell the sweet pre-dawn air of the countryside before closing it to discourage any mosquitoes that might think to come after them for a quick bite to eat. She turned to Megamind, who was fiddling with the car's GPS. "Well, should we hit the road or wait to watch the sunrise and catch a nap?" she asked.
"If Wayne didn't make a mistake and put us down in the wrong place, it's about an hour and a half's drive to his parents' house," the alien reported, adding with a mischievous smirk, "if you want to stick to the speed limits, of course."
Roxanne playfully swatted his arm. "Flooring the accelerator just to get somewhere fast isn't exactly my idea of getting the most out of the trip," she reminded him. "Besides, Wisconsin's been pretty nice to us. I don't want to spoil that by collecting speeding tickets in every small town along the shore on our first day here."
The black eyebrows twitched expressively. "They'll never know if we turn on the invisibility mode..."
She nixed the idea immediately, deflecting his hand even as he reached for the stealth mode button. "Uh-uh, no way, I asked you to put that in only so I could avoid paparazzi trying to follow me home, and to get away from the occasional would-be kidnapper. I don't want this trip to be about hiding behind invisibility screens and holographic disguises. Do you?"
Megamind pondered the question, then shook his head. "No, not really. We're doing this to get rid of stress, and I can tell you from experience, pretending to be something you're not is some of the worst stress ever. If I never need to use the holowatch again — barring the occasional fun surprise and legitimate hero work disguises, of course — I wouldn't miss it. Much. So, if you want to drive at legal speeds to appreciate the scenery, we should probably catch a nap first. I'm still half-asleep, and driving before the sun's up won't let you see much of the countryside, either."
"Good thought. Did Minion remember to — oh, yeah, right behind your seat," she answered her own question, reaching back to bring forward a small travel pillow. Being August, the weather was quite warm, so no covers would be needed. "Do you need one?" she asked, seeing another pillow tucked behind the seats.
The ex-villain shook his head. "I'm good. Though we might want to turn on the invisibility mode until we leave, just in case there's some local law about not sleeping in parks."
Roxanne agreed, and thumbed the button to activate the invisibility mode, which remained active even after she shut off the car's auxiliary power.
In the slowly fading darkness that enveloped them, little could be clearly heard or seen of the world outside. For a minute or two, their own breathing seemed strangely loud, but grew less so as their ears adjusted to the complete stillness. After a while, the reporter thought that Megamind had fallen asleep; she closed her eyes and was preparing to relax into sleep herself when he spoke.
"Roxanne," came his voice out of the pre-dawn gloom, softly, "I don't want to start another pointless fight, and I don't want you to think that I'm trying to pin any sort of blame on you, but something's been gnawing at the back of my mind ever since yesterday afternoon — well, the day before yesterday afternoon, now."
She was fairly certain she knew where this was going. "Does this have to do with me and Stewart Mitchell? Because if it does, I promise I am not interested in him in any way, and I never was, not even as my producer. I can name several others I would rather have had assigned to me, all of them a lot better than him. Yes, I made the best of working with him and he seemed to be doing a pretty decent job, but if I'd been given a choice to begin with, he wouldn't have even made the first cut."
She could hear the small smile in his voice. "That's nice to know, but that wasn't what I was thinking. I was wondering: do you have idea why he decided that now would be a good time to try to... get you... involved with him? Romantically, that is."
Roxanne snorted indelicately. "There was never anything romantic about what he had in mind, and you knew it before I did! But to answer your question, I have some ideas, yes, but I don't know for sure."
With the steady brightening of the eastern sky, she could see as well as hear it when he turned in his seat to face her. "What ideas?"
Now, she was quiet for a bit, thinking. She turned to face him as well, and saw the bright green eyes watching her curiously, hungry for some kind of answer that might help make sense of what seemed so senseless. At length, she sighed. "Well, I suppose it could have just been a coincidence, or that Mitchell thought if he presented me with his 'suggestion' for a vacation with him, I might find it irresistible, because he had something in mind that would top whatever we had planned. Obviously, he was wrong. But..."
When she fell silent again, reflecting on the matter, Megamind couldn't let it rest for long. "But...?"
Once more, she sighed, deeply. "I'm not quite sure," she admitted. "Could I think about this a little longer? I'm not trying to put you off or avoid giving you a straight answer. I just want to be sure that I don't say the wrong thing by accident just because I'm tired. I don't want to fight anymore, either, especially not over Mitchell. I don't want to waste another second of my life over a piece of scum like him. I'll have an answer for you by tonight, I promise. Though it may not be accurate; I don't know for sure what that sleazoid was thinking, or why."
Megamind said nothing for several moments as he digested this; then he nodded. "Okay. You're right, it's hard to think clearly about things like this when you're tired. I don't blame you for what happened, Roxanne, really. But I don't like feeling so jealous and terrified every time a new man comes into your life. I know that you aren't looking for someone to replace me, I'm reasonably sure that you wouldn't even consider it—"
Roxanne reached out to touch his cheek, her caress gentle. "You can be absolutely sure of it, Mykaal. I love you, and there isn't another person in the universe who could possibly replace you. And that's not because you're the last of your kind. You're one of a kind, utterly unique, and I love it."
He smiled, both a bit shakily and a bit smugly, but accepted her assurance, gratefully. "I just want to understand why this happened now, if it's possible, if I can. I don't want this to keep happening, especially since in your line of work, people come and go so often. You will work with other men, and some will probably become your friends. I don't want to automatically hate them because I'm afraid of them."
She realized that this was a huge admission for the ex-villain to make, that he was afraid of something he would never be able to avoid: his own deep-seated feelings of jealousy and possessiveness that sometimes would threaten to overpower him simply because he had so very much to lose. Mindful of this, Roxanne vowed that she would try even harder to help him find that understanding. "We'll work this out together, sweetie. I want to understand it as much as you do, because I hate being even indirectly involved in anything that hurts you. You've already been hurt enough for a dozen lifetimes."
He didn't argue with her, and she was grateful. When he reached across the gearshift to take her hand and leaned over to kiss her, gently, she smiled. The sports car wasn't the best place for cuddling, but for now, this simple contact was enough. He smiled as he sat back again and, after watching the lovely spectacle of the rising sun, they closed their eyes and drifted off to sleep.
To be continued...
