Megamind picks her up and Roxanne's thoughts burst apart and scatter. He's—this is—
She thought she was going to die; she thought she was going to die but Megamind saved her and now he's—he's—
—carrying her, holding her in his arms like—
She wraps her arms around his shoulders, her heart—flipping in her chest: fear, joy, panic, love, like the picture on a badly tuned television set, unable to settle on a single emotion.
Roxanne tightens her arms around Megamind's shoulders and lets her mind go silent in a staticky roar.
He carries her out of the strip mine.
"Hover bike," Megamind says, and he loosens his grip on her.
Roxanne's first instinct is to clutch him tighter, but she makes herself let go of him, forces herself to allow him to lower her to the ground.
She's shaking all over; her knees want to buckle but she will not permit this; she will not; Roxanne, get a hold of yourself—
—oh god; she's still holding the fucking handgun—
She makes a horrified noise, holds it out at arms length, and Megamind swiftly plucks it from her fingers, and there is probably something wrong that Roxanne feels so very relieved that Megamind is the one with the gun now.
"Spikeless," Megamind says, and the brainbot makes an inquiring noise. "Get rid of this."
The brainbot flies in and snaps the handgun up in its metal teeth, jaws tightening until the pistol cracks in half, and then the brainbot drops the now useless gun it on the ground.
"Miss Ritchi," Megamind says, and Roxanne turns her gaze from the brainbot to him again.
He's on the hover bike now, de-gun stuck in his waistband—right, he isn't wearing his holster—and he's looking at her as if he's waiting for—oh, Roxanne realizes, thoughts coming together only with an effort; he wants her to get on the bike, so that they can get out of here.
(Please god, yes, she wants to get out of here.)
She climbs on the back of the bike and wraps her arms around his waist.
"You're going to have to hold on tightly," Megamind tells her, and Roxanne has absolutely no problem with that.
It's—it's a shame really; Roxanne has always wanted to ride on the hover bike. And now she finally gets too, and she's too—she can't even—she can't even enjoy it; she's too busy clinging to Megamind (he said she could; he told her to) and hiding her face against his shoulder, trying to force herself not to fall apart.
Breathe.
Breathe.
—breathe, Roxanne, breathe—
Megamind lands the bike, cuts the engines, swings himself off the seat, so quickly that Roxanne almost doesn't have time to make herself loosen her viselike grip on him.
They're on her balcony, Roxanne sees, and she slides off the bike, movements slow and deliberate, the only way she can keep herself from falling. The brainbot, which must have followed them to her apartment, hovers near her shoulder.
Megamind turns to her, movement too abrupt, and smiles, hard and angry and just a little bit crazed.
"Do you want to scream?" he asks her. "Or should I?"
Roxanne blinks at him; what is he—
"You know what," he says. "I'll do it myself. I feel like screaming, anyway."
And Roxanne still—
Megamind puts both hands on the railing, leans over it, head tipped back, face to the sky.
"Help!" he screams, so loud and sudden that Roxanne jumps. (The brainbot makes an alarmed sort of noise and nudges her shoulder, as if it's worried she's going to fall over.)
"Help! God! If I could please, please get some fucking help for once in my goddamn life!"
A noise behind Roxanne makes her turn.
Wayne is there, in full costume, not three feet away.
Roxanne shrieks and jumps again (the brainbot pushes against her arm).
God fucking damn that freaky fucking super-speed thing—
"Help!" Megamind screams one last time.
"Uh," says Wayne, eyes darting between Megamind and Roxanne, clearly deeply confused, his manner switching between his Metro Man, Defender of Metro City pose and his normal posture.
Megamind whirls around, an expression of rage on his face.
"Oh, good," he spits out. "You're here."
Wayne looks at Roxanne like he's waiting for a cue, but Roxanne is holding herself together by sheer will and she does not know what to say to him anyway and—
"We have some things to discuss," Megamind tells Wayne. "Spikeless, the photographs."
The brainbot flies over to Wayne, hesitating a few feet away from him as if frightened to get closer, and then drops the photographs. Wayne darts forward to catch them.
"Bowg!"
The brainbot darts back towards Roxanne, electricity crackling rapidly in its dome, eyestalk fixed on Wayne, who is looking at the photographs, an expression of dismay dawning on his face.
"First off," Megamind says, low and furious, "what the actual fuck is wrong with you? You have a girlfriend; she deserves better than—than fucking this!" He waves his hand at the photographs, voice rising. "And secondly! If! If you—as a public figure—are going to cheat on your girlfriend—you piece of shit—do not! Do it at a strip club! Owned by a goddamn gangster! Basic! Common! Sense!"
Megamind presses his lips together in a thin line, breaths sharply through his nose.
"There are doubtless copies of those photographs somewhere in the city," he says. "I would strongly advise you to deal with this before they inevitably leak."
"What." Wayne says weakly. "Is this. Is this you blackmailing me?"
Megamind gives a wordless snarl.
"God," he says, "This! This is why I fucking hate you—one of the many reasons—every time I try to do the right thing, you act like—no! No, goddamn it, this is not be fucking blackmailing you. This is me warning you that someone—not me!—most likely has photographs of you cheating on your girlfriend with a male stripper in an alleyway, and that you should probably—you asshole—make some sort of pre-emptive media announcement about this!"
"Well, I was in the middle," Wayne says, looking flushed and nettled, "of trying to tell my mother that I'm gay when you interrupted my with all of the screaming!"
Megamind goes still.
"Come again."
"Gay!" Wayne shouts. "Is a thing that I am! I'm gay! Roxy isn't my girlfriend because I am gay, all right?" He stops, and a shocked smile comes over his face. "Hey. You guys are the first people I told that to. That felt pretty great."
Roxanne smiles weakly at him.
"Congratulations," she says. "Glad you finally realized."
"Wait, you knew?" Wayne says, at the same time Megamind says—
"You knew about this?" HIs eyes narrow. "And you decided the let me think—what, just to fuck with me? As some sort of sick joke—"
"Oh, do not even," Roxanne hisses, glaring at him. "Do not even talk about sick fucking jokes, Megamind!"
She's expecting him to snap back at her, but he—flinches, instead, shoulders hunching, arms wrapping around himself as if in reaction to a physical blow.
"Of course," he says, eyes dropping, backing away from her. "Of course, I—never mind—"
"Er," Wayne says, glancing between Roxanne and Megamind. "What are you guys—what happened to you guys? You're all wet; was it raining?"
"I got kidnapped," Roxanne says shortly, not really wanting to explain.
"I decided to quit supervillainy," Megamind says at the same time.
Wayne stares at him.
"Uh, is that—" he asks finally. "Is—that the joke?"
Megamind laughs, a startled, harsh sound.
"I'm—pretty sure—my entire fucking life is the joke, actually," he says,and then grins that feral, too-wide smile. "But I am very, very serious about quitting. No more. I am done. I quit."
"You—you just quit?" Wayne asks, wide eyed and shocked. "You can—we can—I—is that allowed?"
Megamind makes a scornful, dismissive sound.
"Do I look like I give a shit about allowed? I'm sure I can manage to strike some sort of plea bargain deal with the—extremely corrupt, did you know?—law enforcement and 'justice' system of Metrocity in exchange for my information about the city's criminal underworld." He smirks at Wayne. "Have fun dealing with that, by the way."
Wayne gapes at him.
Huh, Roxanne sort of feels like she's floating; that's weird. Probably not good.
"Right," Wayne says uncertainly, "uh. But—would you—" he hesitates, and then goes on, "would you—ever—I don't know—would you want to help with that? I mean," he continues, sounding more confident, "like I told Roxy, it was pretty cool working with you during Psycho Delic's gas attack last Halloween! We could—"
"Did you seriously," Megamind says, voice dangerous, "just offer me a position as your fucking sidekick?"
"I—" Wayne says, scratching the back of his neck, "I was thinking—replacement? Eventually? If you wanted?"
Megamind stares at him blankly.
Oh, Roxanne is dizzy. That is. She needs to get inside.
"Replacement," Megamind says slowly.
"You said," Wayne gestures, still holding the photographs in one hand. "You said we could quit! If we wanted! Man, do I ever want to! I just—people are so annoying, you know? It's all 'save me! save me!' I'm tired of saving them! I just want to live my life. So I just thought, 'hey, maybe he'd like to take over, play the game from the other side', you know?"
"Ah?" Megamind says, looking almost as dazed as Roxanne feels.
She starts edging for the door that leads from the balcony to the living room.
"And we could maybe ease into it, you know?" she hears Wayne ask behind her. "Don't you—do you think?"
"We would—work together?" Megamind asks. "And then—I would—take over? This is a thing—that you want me to do?"
"Oh, yeah!"
Megamind makes a shocked noise.
"So—so you'll do it?"
"I—yes?" Megamind says.
"Yes! All right! All right, I gotta go; I gotta talk to my mom and then I think I'm gonna ask out the manicurist guy at this spa place! You guys are good, right? Talk to you later?"
Roxanne, in the middle of stepping inside, makes a vague noise of assent and lifts her hand in a half-assed sort of wave.
God, the inside of her apartment is still hung with all of Megamind's—with all of the props from his joke this morning; she's going to have to get rid of all that and—
Roxanne hears Megamind make a noise, close behind her; she turns and he's—oh, wow, much closer than she was expecting, his face creased in a scowl.
"You are barefoot," he says. "There's broken glass; you need to—"
Roxanne's knees buckle and he catches her, picking her up in his arms again, just like earlier in the mine, earlier when they both almost died, when she—oh god—Roxanne is shaking suddenly, clinging weakly to Megamind—she feels cold, cold all over, and she can't seem to catch her breath, and her heart is racing—
"—I think I'm dying," she blurts.