Dream is based on an early brainbot test by Ron Pucherelli, which can be seen starting at 1:02 if you go to vimeo dot com slash 28919386 .
CHAPTER 14
Megamind wakes up warm and slow. The room is bright. Roxanne's head is on his shoulder and her arm is still draped across his chest. Her breathing is slow and deep.
I love you, he thinks, feeling a pang go through him. He wants—
Could he? Maybe? Could that be true, can he love her?
But he would know, wouldn't he? Everyone knows. Everyone knows when they're in love.
He sighs and closes his eyes. He's going to tell her. Today. This can't go on. It seems—almost absurd; he left Evil Lair barely two days ago utterly convinced that he could swing being a pretend boyfriend for three days without losing his marbles. A night and a day and another night next to Roxanne put the lie to that conviction.
"Mmgn," Roxanne says, her arm around him going tight. "Ffflgth."
He chuckles low in his throat and she hums another unintelligible syllable and then lifts her head a little, makes a squinty face in the morning sunlight and looks down at him, blinking eyes that are still a little puffy from last night's tears.
"Good morning, Miss Ritchi," he says, cocking an eyebrow at her and hoping—praying—she remembers last night, remembers this was her suggestion—
She drops her head back down onto his chest and yawns. "G'mornng handsome," she mumbles, and Megamind breathes. "How'd you sleep?"
"Quite well," he says, "thanks to you." He yawns, too, then, and slowly urges her off of him so he can sit up and swing his legs down. He loves the cuddles, but there's only so much he can take before he starts thinking about things he doesn't want to think about. "I didn't dream again."
"I dreamed I was a salad," Roxanne tells him, her voice still rough with sleep. "I had croutons."
Megamind turns and looks down at her, lying half on her side and smiling sleepily up at him with her hair all gloriously messy, and bursts into helpless laughter. He stands, shaking his head, and flips the covers up over her to hide himself from view so he can get into his undersuit. Roxanne laughs, too, muffled by bedclothes.
Eventually, when Megamind doesn't say anything after that, she pokes her head out. He's in his undersuit, standing in front of the mirror, looking at his hands.
She crawls out of bed and goes over to him, takes his hands in hers and kisses the scarred knuckles of first one, then the other. Then she brushes her thumbs over the scars there, old and pale. "You got these fighting," she says, and Megamind nods. Roxanne presses her lips together in a brittle smile. "I wish you didn't have to." She kisses them again. "I wish you never had to."
He twitches a small smile at her when she looks at him, and—slowly turns his right hand to brush his fingertips down her cheek.
Then he quickly turns himself away to find a shirt and his jeans. He can't. He can't be doing this. Allow her to hold him and allow himself to feel her warmth, tell himself he feels loved—this is a lie. All of it. This is false, fake, pretend, it isn't real.
It isn't.
He buttons his shirt in silence and then leans his forehead against the wall, listening to the soft rustling of Roxanne getting dressed behind him and trying not to think about it, wondering if the hollowed-out space behind his ribs can possibly get any bigger or more hollow than it is.
Breakfast is french toast made with eggnog instead of milk. It is, possibly, the best french toast Megamind has ever had, a fact which feels like a massive betrayal of Minion's trust in him, but—he consoles himself with the knowledge that once he presents eggnog to Minion as a possibility, Minion's french toast will once again be secured as Megamind's favorite.
Breakfast is also a surprisingly cheerful affair, considering last night's unpleasantness. Huh. Apparently this really is just something that happens, sometimes. Still, he's pretty sure he picks up on some wariness from Roxanne's direction and some aloofness from Dorothy's, so.
She's my mother and I love her and I know she has my back, Roxanne said. But she also doesn't realize how much it hurts to be corrected all the time.
Family is a strange thing, he thinks vaguely, and he thanks Rosemary for passing him the orange juice.
After breakfast, Megamind sits himself down on the floor to play tug-of-war with Echo and a slimy, frayed rope while the family members exchange gifts until he cannot possibly wait one second longer, and then he crouches and picks up a box wrapped in shiny black paper and silver ribbon.
"You need to open this now," he says, handing it to Roxanne. "I have been dying to give you this since I conceived of it a few weeks ago."
She looks up at him, smiling, startled. "You made this? Wow, it's heavy."
He nods, grinning in spite of the despair churning inside him. He really is excited to see how she reacts to this. It occurs to him—suddenly—that this may be somewhat overkill, but—it's too late now.
She puts the box in her lap as Megamind sits down beside her to watch her pull off the wrapping paper and open the lid.
Inside is a block of protective foam made of a material she's never seen before, and inside that is—
No less mystified than she was prior, Roxanne lifts a heavy sphere of shining steel out of the box. It's only about half a foot in diameter, with concentric circles angling down on its right and left hemispheres, on either side of a circle of red glass. Miniscule etchings trace over the surface, which also seems to have—are they light bulbs? Little indicator lights?—scattered organically across the space between the two rings of circles.
She looks at Megamind and raises her eyebrows expectantly. His grin widens and he carefully takes the sphere from her and moves the box off her legs so he can put the sphere down in her lap, with the red circle pointing up at her face. Very quietly, he says, "Now, stroke it—like this, from here to here—and tell it to wake up."
Roxanne brushes her fingertips across its surface. "Wake up," she says, feeling sort of silly. "It's—it's time to wake up—"
There's a click, and then a whirr, and then the red circle flickers to life and—blinks at her—
The sphere lifts off her lap with a sort of crooning hum, the circles on its sides lagging just a little behind the rest of it, fluttering away from its body like little folded wings.
Roxanne's face lights up slowly as comprehension dawns. "Hey," she says softly, "hello, beautiful, good morning!"
The bot whirrs at her, cocks itself a little, blinks a few times.
"My name is Roxanne," she tells it, brushing the backs of her fingers gently over its sides, petting it. "Do you have a name?"
"It does not," Megamind says quietly.
"Her name is Dream," Roxanne says immediately, still running gentle fingertips and knuckles over the steel surface. "If she wants to be, of course, but—hi! Yes, hello! I love you, do you know that? Good morning, baby, hello!"
Dream blinks at her, then swings in the air and croons, a high, musical whirring sound like a happy trill. Roxanne looks over at Megamind, eyes shining, delighted all over again as Dream presses itself against her hands. "She makes tribble noises?"
He's trying desperately to keep his smile under control but he might as well give up, honestly. "It doesn't have room in the hardware for the usual barking," he says. "But I couldn't not give it a voice, so. Yes, it makes some different noises. Trills, squeaks. A few whistles."
"Those are all excellent." Roxanne beams down at the robot hovering above her lap. "I love you! Yes, I do, I love you!" Dream trills again and Roxanne laughs and trills back, a long rolled r, and Dream chirps a response as it shifts a hatch on its ventral surface to extend a couple of dainty metallic tendrils, which wrap gently around Roxanne's fingers, testing and learning them.
"And she—oh, do the bots have genders?" she asks. "I've been meaning to ask. You've referred to Ducky as 'her.'"
"Most don't," Megamind admits. "But a few of them do change their designation in some fashion. I haven't been able to figure out why, but it's probably none of my business anyway."
"But they do have a designation?" Rose asks. Megamind glances up.
"Most don't," he says again. "Gender is one of the few code modules the Host wrote entirely themselves. Frankly I didn't think to include gender as an identity-specific possibility. Individual bots who have genders download the module to include that designation with their other IDspecs."
"Huh," Roxanne says. "Well, I won't assign one, then. Can I see its IDspecs?"
"I'm interested to see if it lets you. Give it your phone and let's find out."
Roxanne juggles her cell phone out of her back pocket and offers it to the humming sphere, then laughs when it zips around in the air, tipping and spinning and tilting its body to get a better look at the black rectangle.
"Watch out, Roxanne," Salim says, grinning, "your boyfriend is about to get remote access to all your stuff."
He sounds like he's joking but Megamind stiffens anyway. Roxanne just rolls her eyes. "Oh, like he doesn't already have remote access to everyone in Metro. Yes, that's right, it's an interface we can share," she adds as Dream runs several curious tendrils over the device. The tendrils appear to extend from dorsal-curling spirals as their neutral positions in Dream's ventral chassis. "This is a phone, can you say phone?"
Dream trills a little. It does sound like it's mimicking Roxanne's tone; the sound is rounder.
"Good," Roxanne says, "that's right! Phone!"
The little bot extends a tendril to touch the charging port, clicks for a few seconds as it shifts something down the tendril's segments, and then plugs in and opens a blank memo.
_IDSPEC
Brainbot Model 17.0, Designation: 001
Serial No. 000TR504D
Alternate: "_Dream"
HardwareChassis: SPH3R301D_T35T001
HardwareTactile: TNT_10
SoftOS: _QLAM003
BiOS: PipSqueak
CoreScribe: PipSpeak
Roxanne makes a soft sound in her throat. "Its bios is called pipsqueak?"
:_IDSPEC_?Roksann?
Megamind winces. "Um, so, spelling in BotSYN is…highly phonetic. They understand potential sounds associated with letters in the roman alphabet, but they learn organically. It will eventually learn to spell in…probably several languages and possibly several alphabets, but that will come later. You'll have to tell it if you want it to use a spelling paradigm other than BotSYN."
"Yes, that's right, my name is Roxanne," she replies. "You may also see it spelled this way…"
Dream is already offering the phone back with a new line.
:_IDSPEC_AltVis:
"Good," Megamind murmurs. "Good, it knows see corresponds to visual input and it's using that to refer to encounter."
She glances at him as she hands the phone back to Dream. "Does it understand English?"
"The bots enter the Host knowing helping verbs and prepositions," he says. "The rest, they learn from context and shared knowledge from older bots."
Her eyebrows go up. "You weren't kidding when you said they were pattern-recognition machines."
"I very much was not exaggerating, no." He nods at the other brainbots, who are either lazily orbiting the Christmas tree or ripping at the discarded wrapping paper. "It helps that they're here. I assume—yes, see? Jeremy and Ducky are flocking with it. 87534 is thinking about it…yes, there it goes. See how they turn together? Sharing data."
"Huh," Roxanne says. "That's handy."
"I'm happy you like it," he says, eyes sparkling as he watches her interact with the little robot. "It will eventually learn to help you in certain small tasks. I'm not sure what, yet. Maybe it will come to work with you and you can finally ditch that shiftless, gum-chewing cameraman of yours. Its camera is certainly powerful enough, and it has memory capacity for eighteen consecutive hours of video footage."
Roxanne makes an interested noise. "That would be incredible," she says, as Dream heads over to investigate the Christmas tree with the other brainbots. They make room for her, blinking and bowging quietly at her as she croons and trills at them, more tendrils extending to touch and learn them and the tree and its surroundings in general.
"I love it," Roxanne says. "I can't wait to see what it does at home."
"It is programmed to recognize your private spaces," he tells her, his expression going faintly worried. "Your bathrooms, your bedroom. It won't enter those unless called." Roxanne raises her eyebrows at him, surprised, and Megamind shrugs sharply. "I thought—I just. Thought. It is capable of recording video, and it is linked to my servers, and—ah?" Roxanne has just cupped his sharp chin and made eye contact, silently asking about a kiss, and God help him, he cannot stop himself from pressing forward into her.
(not real, not real; her family is watching, that's why)
"I trust you," she says as she breaks the kiss, staring into his eyes. "But that was very sweet of you to think of." She pets his facial hair with her thumb, then grins. "My turn!" she exclaims, hopping up and retrieving a large, rectangular box from under the tree while Megamind is still reeling, lips tingling.
This box is wrapped in blue-striped paper, also with silver ribbon, and it is also fairly heavy. Megamind cocks his head at her as he tugs off the ribbon and, against all reason, slips his long fingers under the tape to ease the paper off in one piece.
"Ugghhhh," Roxanne groans. "Seriously? Megamind, my love, you are killing me. I'm dying."
"Patience is a virtue, Miss Ritchi," Megamind says severely, quirking half a smirk at her in spite of himself, stalling for time and composure.
Salim leans forward from where he's sitting in the rocking chair, wearing a new sweater over his pajamas and an extremely silly-looking hat. "Yeah, nobody in this family has either of those things," he says. Rose swats him, laughing.
Roxanne just rolls her eyes and ignores this. "I thought you said mischief is its own reward."
"That I did," Megamind agrees. "But I said nothing about patience. …There. Was that so hard?"
"Excruciating," she says. "Open it!"
He arches an eyebrow at her, smooths his hands over the lid as he lifts the other half of his mouth into a lazy grin.
"Megamind," she pouts, and he finally gives in.
He isn't immediately sure what he's looking at, upon opening the box. It's black fabric—wool?—and silver spikes. And silver fur. Frowning, he lifts it out of the box, sees toggles, stands up and shakes it the rest of the way free.
It's a cape. Or—no, not a cape, a cloak. Full-length, with a sharp overlap in the front to eliminate gaps, it's lined with silver fur and the shoulders of it are formed and stiff, like his mantle. Also like his mantle, The shoulders of the cloak are heavy with steel spikes of varying heights, artistically arranged. Smaller studs adorn the edges of the deep hood and diffuse down the black wool from the shoulders, flashing in the morning light like snow or stars. The corner that crosses his chest carries a heavy-looking clasp that—ah, it hooks onto the opposite shoulder. And then the silver toggles on black leather loops go down—
He stares at it. It looks so warm.
"So," Roxanne says, "I've noticed you hardly ever do outdoor plots in the wintertime, and Minion is usually the one who does most of the kidnappings between October and April. And I thought, I thought it might be because you get cold. One of my coworkers makes cloaks and sells them online, and I designed this and asked Minion what the measurements should be, and…well, after she finished it, he helped me put the formed mantle inside and stud it. And. Voila!"
She looks at him for a moment. He's still just staring at it, his eyes big and his lips slightly parted, holding it out in front of him and blinking at it. Finally she asks, "Do you like it?" and she's relieved when he nods hard. Smiling, she says, "Do you want me to hold it while you unbutton it so you can try it on?"
Megamind nods again, so Roxanne stands up, laughing a little, and takes the heavy garment so he can unhook the clasp and undo the toggles. She really is pleased with how it turned out.
"My coworker said the fur is mostly mink and arctic fox," she says as he turns around and backs in under the mantle, which she settles carefully on his thin shoulders. "Reclaimed from secondhand coats that were in good condition. I figure, if you wear the coat Minion made you under it, and your tall boots, you should stay pretty toasty. Maybe you'll be able to go outside more in the wintertime. Turn?"
He turns, clasping the cloak across his chest. It has slits for his arms with heavier fur lining them to help keep cold out; that's a nice touch.
The heavy fabric drapes perfectly around him. He's standing barefoot in Roxanne's mother's living room but he looks positively regal, Roxanne thinks.
She grins as he looks down at himself. "You look amazing," she says. "I love that on you. Oh, perfect, thank you Rose!"
Rose has appeared with the tall, thin mirror that usually hangs on the back of the other bedroom door. "I thought this might give him a better angle," she says.
Megamind blinks at himself, lifting a hand to touch the riot of spikes on his shoulders, lifting the hood up over his head—and it fits perfectly. For the first time in his life, he has a hood with room to spare, and there's nothing between his head and the hood but it's so soft.
And Roxanne was right. He does look amazing.
He turns to her, steps to her, puts one hand on the back of her head and the other on the small of her back and pulls her in, presses his forehead hard against hers. He's struggling to find words, but—
"Roxanne," he says, with his heart in his throat, "thank you. It is—so warm. Beautiful. I—thank you."
Then he steps back, swallows hard. "I need to talk to you," he says, his eyes huge and glittering brighter than usual. "Please. Privately. I—there is something you need to know. Please."
Concerned, she nods. "Okay. Do you—do you want to go outside, or up to—my room, or—?"
He's quiet for a moment, considering this. Finally he says, "Outside."
So Roxanne shrugs into her coat and scarf, her gloves, her boots. Megamind wears his new winter cloak over his wool coat, as Roxanne suggested, and they go out into the blaze of sunlight, the shade of the porch a haven against the glare of sun on the snow.
Megamind drops into the porch swing and looks away over the wintery landscape. "I want to preface this," he says, before Roxanne can ask what on earth the matter is, "by thanking you for everything you've done for me. Over the years, of course, but—these past few days, in particular, have been—a revelation. The prospect of—having prospects is—beyond anything. Everything. But also, ice skating, and—church and this morning, and coffee with you, and—dinner with you—Rose teaching me how to do mascara—and Salim making new coffee—he hugged me and—and—your mother let me borrow her pin." He gasps in a breath. "You have been. So unspeakably kind to me. And, and of course I know my presence here was strictly mercenary but, even in the in-between times, even when we were—alone, you still—you let me touch you, you almost—you seemed to seek me, I don't know."
"Megamind," Roxanne begins, but he shakes his head hard.
"Please—let me speak, please, I'm sorry, I—know I tend to monologue but if I don't say this now I don't know if—and I should have done this years ago."
Roxanne pinches her lips together. He's sitting ramrod straight on the porch swing, gasping shallow breaths every few words; he looks like he's about to either burst into tears or throw up. Potentially both.
He swallows hard. Breathes for a moment while he gathers himself. "I want to give you something," he finally says. "And—but it—is something you should have had all along, something I—stole from you."
Roxanne waits, watching him, worrying, while he recomposes himself.
"I would like to give you a choice," Megamind says firmly. "I—more than this, I want to give you the final say in the nature of our interactions going forward. If you should want any," he adds. "I don't know if you would—ever choose to associate with me voluntarily, publicly or in private, but it doesn't matter. If you want me to continue kidnapping you on occasion, I will—work with your schedule, figure out times that work for you, I—absolutely do not want to be—a drain on your energy. Resources. I thought, before, I could be nothing more than a drain on you, but you—this—I can be more, I could have been, all along. And even if—no. I should have done this ages ago. I was selfish. I—I'm sorry, Roxanne."
He goes quiet.
After a moment, Roxanne takes a deep, slow inhale. She's trying hard to sort through all that, but she keeps getting caught on that if, that if you should want any. It's kind of him to offer, but she's already told him she enjoys the kidnappings, hasn't she? While they were skating?
A spike of ice stabs down her spine. Has she completely misread the situation between them?
But no, no, she reassures herself, Megamind all but melts every time they kiss and he's sitting here apologizing and struggling not to cry; she can't possibly be misreading that.
"Megamind," she says carefully, "are you saying you don't want to keep kidnapping me?"
"What I want," he says, "needs to not matter anymore. I want to know what you want."
Roxanne squints at him and slowly sits down in one of the porch chairs, facing him at an angle. "Okay, that's good, but—what I want is to know if we can both get what we—"
"What I want does not matter," Megamind snarls. "Not to the universe, not to you, not to me. Please, I—this is—"
"What you want matters to me," Roxanne protests. "It matters to me a lot."
His lip curls. "You say that now," he says.
Stung, she leans back in her chair. "I am not just going to randomly stop caring," she begins, but he shakes his head again. When Megamind shakes his head, there's no mistaking it.
"There is more to this you don't know," he tells her, still glaring out across the snow. "There's—you need to go into this fully informed before you say that. I'm—I'm not human, Roxanne, and I—there are things about me, psychologically, that—don't fit."
Wrong for this world, she thinks, a pang running through her, most humans notice within a few minutes of speaking to me. She knows the feeling.
"So tell me," she says. "Talk to me. Tell me what has you looking like you're walking to the gallows, and I'll…what, so you want me to decide if I—if I ever want to see you again after we get home? If I want to, how often?"
He winces a little, but he nods.
This is ridiculous, you're being ridiculous; of course I want to see you again! But Roxanne can already see how well that's likely to be received, right now. "Fine," she says. "Okay. Megamind, listen, whatever it is…it's okay. You can tell me, I'm not…I'm not going to be upset."
"Ha," he says dully, and slumps forward a little. "Ha. But…yes. Okay." He pulls a deep breath, lets it out in a puff of steam in the freezing air. "I am…you may have noticed, I can be single-minded about some things. Obsessive." He glances over at her; she nods. "In this case," he says, "the problem is—one of my—"
He stops. After a moment, his expression twists, goes sour. "I am obsessed with you," he says flatly. "Fixated on you. To a truly upsetting degree, really, it's…even I find it disturbing. I have tried to stop, I promise I have, but to no avail; in lieu of changing my focus, I—have done my best not to let it affect—our interactions, but—it almost certainly has. Affected them. To some extent. Despite my best efforts. Despite Minion's best efforts to act as a behavioral touchstone for me." He frowns down into the middle distance, his expression pinched and his shoulders rounded and his elbows slicked against his sides; god, he looks so, so desperately upset.
Roxanne is staring at him. "Fixated," she whispers, stunned. Okay, no, she…had not actually seen that one coming. "Obsessed? As in…do you mean, stalker-y, or…?"
He shakes his head. "No. You have your privacy. Privacy is important, distance is important, you aren't—mine, I'm not entitled to you. I know this. That level of attention would make you unhappy, and your happiness is—it—is imperative. To me. In, in a way I'm not certain how to articulate."
Well. This is sort of a lot to take in, but a thought occurs, and she wonders…her happiness comes first? In the face of something Megamind calls obsession, Roxanne's happiness is imperative to him?
She swallows. Cautiously asks, "How, exactly, does this…obsession…manifest, then?"
"I think of you," he says, taking another deep breath, his voice shaking, "all the time. Every day. I see something new, and I think, Miss Ritchi would like this. Miss Ritchi would hate this. This would make her laugh. She would make fun of this. On my bad days, I wish you were with me so badly it hurts, sometimes, here," tapping himself in the middle of his chest, "under my xiphoid process. On my good days, I wish I could go and find you, see you smile—but, again. Privacy." He's quiet for a while, thinking, and then he says, "I make something new and I think, Miss Ritchi would know how to take this apart. I program new software for the brainbots and I think, will Miss Ritchi enjoy how the AI builds off this? I went onto the roof of the Lair at night last week to do some repairs and I saw the red moon hanging low in the sky over the lake, shining up out of the water, and I thought, Roxanne should be here, she should see this.
"I don't know why I think these things, why I want these things. I have no claim to you. I know this.
"And when you are with me, when you're in the Lair, it's…" He pauses, tilting his head sideways on the top of his long neck as he searches for a word. "…different. It's. A different place, with you; it's…more full? Somehow?" His eyes flick from side to side; he's frowning harder, now. "It's…I don't know how to say this. I don't know if words exist for this. It's…having you near me is…like…" Frustration rumples his face, and he closes his eyes, searching.
Finally his expression clears. "Sunrise."
Roxanne blinks, but of course Megamind doesn't see. He nods a little, tips his face up in the cold, clear air. "Having you near me is like sunrise," he says again, "in a high pressure zone in early spring, when…when the morning is gold, and the air is…clean, and clear, and the wind off the bay curls around your fingers and just, just touches your skin…" He lifts his hands a little, fingertips moving very slightly. His head is still tipped back, his eyes are still closed. "…And the snow is melting, and everything is quiet…and the world is new. It's like that." He exhales, falls back into his bleak scowl again. "It's nice," he says, opening his eyes. "Even here, you leave, you come back—and seeing you walk in is—it is like walking into evening sunlight after spending all afternoon in the freezing Lair. I don't have words for it. I don't know what's happening. I do not understand it."
He's quiet for a long moment, not looking at her. Roxanne's head is spinning but she doesn't dare move. "And yes, I realize how, how incredibly—how completely awful this all must sound to you—I hope, I hope you aren't frightened. But. It is long past time you knew about this." His expression twists and he clenches his fists in his lap. "I'm so sorry I didn't say anything sooner. Before the kissing and the—touching. I liked that, I—too much. I liked that too much and I should have told you. Which brings me," he continues, his voice going sardonic just as Roxanne thinks he's finally finished describing exactly what it's like to be in love with someone, "to the wanting."
She shakes her head, now completely thrown. "Wanting…sex?"
"Wanting to see you," he says flatly. "Wanting you to want to see me. Wanting to put my head in your lap. Wanting to put my hands in your hair. Wanting to kiss you. Wanting to hear you laugh, wanting to see you smile, wanting to make you happy, wanting to hold you when you're sad, wanting to tell you how absolutely screamingly delighted I am every time you figure out pieces of my plot before I can explain them." He heaves a miserable-sounding sigh. "Wanting to just—sit. With you. Just sit next to you and not say anything, just sit, at your side, every minute of every day of my life until I die.
"And wanting—other things. Disgusting things. Your hands on me, your mouth on me, I—sex, yes, when I think about it. I try not to, but my success on that count is," He gulps, his ears going pink and his expression going pained, "limited. I'm sorry." He shakes his head. "I am so, so sorry. I should have warned you years ago."
Roxanne stands up from her chair and sits down on the porch swing in front of him. His eyes are closed.
Slowly, she reaches forward and takes his hands. Megamind startles badly, but Roxanne only takes his hands in hers and holds them. "Megamind," she says quietly, "please look at me."
He opens his eyes, but he can't seem to meet her gaze. After a moment, he sort of—gulps—and squeezes his eyes closed again. What Roxanne wants to do is pull him into her arms and kiss him and kiss him and kiss him and never stop, but—words.
"Thank you for telling me," she says, keeping her voice low. "Thank you for finally telling me all that. And—Megamind, can I—can I please tell you, you aren't obsessed with me."
His eyes pop open. "Is that supposed to be a joke?" he demands, sounding shocked. "Please tell me you're trying to be funny; I don't think I can explain all this again—"
Roxanne shakes her head, grips his hands harder. "No, I'm—you're in love with me," she blurts, and his expression blows open. For a moment, Megamind goes totally soft in front of her, loses his tension and all his hard edges, goes wide-eyed and hopeful and vulnerable. "Oh," he breathes.
"You just exactly, perfectly described the experience of being in love. My experience, anyway." She swallows. "Wanting all that, feeling all that, and—and doing nothing, because you want me to be happy more and that's what you think will make me happy—Megamind, that's what love is."
"Oh," he whispers again, shocked and marveling, and—
—and then he snaps straight into horror. He yanks his hands away, rips himself back and away from her and stumbles onto his feet. "Fuck," he chokes. "Fuck me, I cannot believe—" He lets out a bark of mirthless laughter. "Of course! Of course. Because of course it would be love, after all! And of course I wouldn't be able to—right. Okay. Fuck."
Roxanne remains seated; the last thing she wants to do right now is accidentally freak him out even worse. Roxanne-seated-Megamind-standing-shouting is a safe dynamic, it's a known space; hopefully it will help feel a little more familiar.
"Megamind," she says, but he shakes his head hard.
"No," he says. "No."
Megamind scrubs both hands down his face and then spins and stalks away across the porch in silence, dark cloak sweeping around and behind him. He stalks away, stalks back. Away, and back. Away, and back. Away—
He stops at the other end of the porch and grips the railing with both hands on either side of his body.
Roxanne waits. She's seen him pace like this a few times before when he's been forced to switch from one plan to another, vastly different plan with little to no time to prepare. She, herself, feels…weirdly calm about this whole thing. Just a huge sense of relief. Of course she does; she knows Megamind loves her and she knows she loves him; she has her best-case scenario.
Megamind, on the other hand, is struggling. And as much as Roxanne still wants to just—walk to him—put her hand on his back, his face, kiss him—
She'll get her chance to talk. He's working through something; interrupting is not going to help.
("Sometimes Sir just needs to get his thoughts out into the air before they'll leave him alone," Minion told Roxanne once, years ago, in an undertone, as Megamind ranted under his breath in what sounded like several languages at once. "Don't pay him any mind.")
(Granted, he isn't talking right now, but the motions are the same.)
Across the porch, Megamind's head comes up and his shoulders come down as his spine straightens.
He turns and walks back to the porch swing, stops in front of Roxanne, facing her. His eyes are wide and his brows are high and his breathing is shallow; he looks like he's a heartbeat away from full panic. "So," he says, his voice cracking in the middle of the word, "I am—in love with you. And—and this is, almost, worse, because I—can't think of any reason for you to ever—"
He cuts himself off, closes his eyes, gulps. Roxanne opens her mouth but Megamind keeps going, speaking very quickly with his eyes squeezed tightly shut. "Miss Ritchi, I—do understand completely if this is—repugnant to you, if, if you are angry, if—because," he lets out something a little like a laugh and a little like a sob, "I assure you, I am blisteringly, blindingly furious with myself about this." He clenches his fists at his sides so hard his knuckles crack. "I never wanted to do this to you, to—put you in this position—I love you! I love you. God, I'm—I'm so sorry."
He risks looking at Roxanne. She's just sort of staring at him, now, her lips parted; and fuck, he wants to lick them, what the hell is wrong with him.
"But," he says, closing his eyes again so he won't have to see her face, "if...if it is love, Miss Ritchi, and I think you're right, I think it is, then…you have said, you're comfortable with me; you've said you trust me; you—you kissed me, put your hands on my skin—even, even in the dark with only me to know it, where it could serve no purpose—and so—" His voice is shaking badly, now, his breath already heaving in and out of his lungs. "—so I can't—I have to, I have to ask if maybe you—could you someday—"
If maybe you could love me, too; maybe I could be—
"I know I am—too much all the wrong things, I know." He swallows hard and it's enough to break the last shreds of control he held over his expression. He feels his whole face crumple inward as his throat goes thick and tight, feels himself bare his teeth around the words, "I, I know there is nothing here for you but I still, I still hope—"
"Stop," Roxanne whispers, and he stops, shaking, clenching his breath behind his gritted teeth and struggling desperately not to burst all the way into tears. Mostly sort of failing.
"You love me," Roxanne whispers, and fuck, he can't read her tone, she—
He hears her move and catches himself just before he stumbles back, manages to turn it into just a really bad flinch. He's had pretty good control over that reaction, these past couple days, but now, with the truth of his heart finally shivering naked in front of him in the winter air—he hides behind his eyelids, trembling, waiting for her to strike or shout at him, drive him back, but—
Her hands settle softly on his skin, cradling his face, and Roxanne's low voice says, "Megamind, you just said you love me; how on earth does that add up to nothing here for me?"
He's shaking so badly he can hardly get words out. "I—because I'm too—"
"You are not nothing," she tells him, in the same low voice, as she puts her arms around him and pulls him to her. "You are everything."
Megamind ducks his head and shoves his face into the soft curve of her neck, gasping for breath, and hates himself for loving the way she curls her arm up around his cranium to hold him there, careful of the spikes, with her other arm tight around his back. Hates himself for wrapping his arms around her without even thinking about it.
"Shhh," Roxanne says. "Shh. Megamind. Listen to me, okay? I love you, too."
He shakes his head against her, denying this, but he can't bring himself to pull away.
"Yes," Roxanne says, quiet and relentless. She touches his (wrong-shaped) head, his (wrong-shaped) body, holds them against her with both arms as though she wants him there even though she can't, she can't, she can't possibly. "Yes, I do, I love you."
"You don't," he gasps into the muffling space between them, "you don't love me, that's preposterous. Your family is getting to you."
"Megamind—"
"This trip is getting to you," he spits, yanking his head up and pressing his forehead against her temple because he is stretched out and wound clockspring-tight and he cannot fucking help it anymore. "We have been acting like a mated pair and now you're bonding with me; that is what humans do; it isn't love, Roxanne."
"It is not what humans do," she says, stung.
"Yes it is!" he cries, anguished. "Yes, it is, it—vasopressin, oxytocin, these are bonding hormones stimulated in humans by engaging in pair-bonding behavior. As you have been doing with me!" He finally, finally casts himself away from her and stumbles back, wrapping his arms around himself so he can't wrap them around her again. "That's all this is!" he cries, backing away, curling over his arms. "It isn't love!"
Roxanne stares at him, then reaches for him. "There is more to it than—don't you shake your head at me! Don't you tell me how I feel; those are just chemicals! If I experienced this with someone I didn't like, yes, I might feel more of a connection to them, but I wouldn't love them! You can't—"
"A month away from me and this won't even seem real," he begins, tears in his eyes, but Roxanne cuts him off.
"Oh, shut up," she snaps, following as he backs away. "Megamind, you—precious genius, please back your self-hating ass up and listen to me! I let you talk, now it's my turn! You don't get to describe love in abstract terms like you're Walt fucking Whitman because you think it's a fixation and then presume to tell me what I'm feeling!"
He backs away from her, shaking his head—he doesn't even know why; he should be over the moon but he just—he can't—he can't love her she can't love him it's not real it's—
"This is not new, do you understand me?" She catches him, grips his upper arms through the studded wool. "I realized what it was yesterday when I kissed you, but this is not a recent development. I am spectacularly godawful at realizing how I feel in the moment so I guess it's not surprising I wouldn't notice, but I really do think about you all the damn time! I really do look forward to your stupid kidnappings! And I really am disappointed when you skip a couple weeks even though I'm also excited to see what you've come up with! Yes, I am, Megamind; I said don't you shake your head at me!" She shakes him a little. "Look at me. I said—oh for fuck's sake—" She takes his face in her hands again and pulls him up so she can stare into his eyes, glittering green and brimming with tears.
"I love you," she tells him firmly, her heart aching. "I love the brainbots and I love seeing whatever new thing you've invented, I love listening to you talk about what you build, I love—these past few weeks, seeing you, getting to just—hang out with you, hold you in my arms and—and be held? Just talking to you, having coffee, having dinner—this has been amazing and I want more of it, okay? I love you, okay?"
He's staring at her. "You—you're only saying so because I said it," he tries, but Roxanne isn't having that.
"No, I just told you, I knew I was in love with you since yesterday morning. I kissed you and—but I knew I had feelings for you before that, even! When you turned and saw me and smiled in Evil Lair last week, I loved you then and I only sort of knew it but—I didn't realize how much. Or in what way."
She tips his face to hers and kisses his trembling mouth, tastes freshwater tears, and then she sticks her arms through the slits in his cloak and wraps them around his skinny body, pulls him close.
"I really do think about you a lot," she murmurs, resting her forehead against his as he slowly twines his arms around her shoulders, "and I really am bad at knowing how I feel. For something as, as slow and as beautiful as getting to know somebody who hides himself away like you do…for something as gradual as falling in love with you…I'm not surprised it took me until now to notice." She swallows hard. "And I really have enjoyed getting to hold you and kiss you and—oh—how did you put it?—put my hands on you, my mouth on you. And yes, Megamind," she adds, lips twitching as she remembers his phrasing, "I do also want to do disgusting sex things with you, too, so don't start on yourself for that."
He lets out a little choked-off sound that might be a laugh.
Encouraged, Roxanne continues, "And I want you to like yourself. I want you to love yourself, but—failing that I at least want you to be able to see yourself in the mirror and feel good about how you look. I want you to be happy in your skin," suddenly her voice is thick, "and I want you to be happy in your career. I just—I really, really want you to be happy, sweetling." She gulps. "I thought you were, I—for a really long time, I thought you—"
Megamind makes a sound even he doesn't know how to describe and closes what little distance was left between them and presses his lips to Roxanne's again. He barely draws back to tilt his head before he's kissing her again as one of her hands comes up to hold the back of his head through the hood of his cloak. She holds him there as he kisses her, as he sucks her lip between his teeth, as she pulls his tongue into her mouth while she moves both hands to wrap around his body and the skin of his skull—
(he loves her he loves her he loves her, if she'd done that at any other time he might have worried, but she's sucking on his tongue and he absolutely cannot fear rejection while she's doing that)
(how the hell did he not figure this out before, how)
(in retrospect it seems so obvious)
(he thought he couldn't, wasn't capable, but he told her everything, everything, described it as best he could, and she recognized it—)
She pushes forward and he steps back and back and back until his back hits the freezing stone of the house—he can feel the freeze of the stone but he's—warm in his winter cloak, warm in Roxanne's arms; she loves him. She must love him; his head is pillowed against her hand instead of the wall, and Megamind's head is heavy; she must be scraping her knuckles but—
She backs him hard against the wall and licks into him, bites his lip so he moans, she makes a noise back—how is this his life right now—
Even when she stops kissing him, she just draws a slow, shuddering breath, and curls herself awkwardly down to push the top of her head against his sternum, the back of her head under his chin. She leaves her hand between his head and the wall until he leans forward to press the soft skin under his chin against her hair, and then she just slips her arm down around his shoulders like that's where it was always meant to rest, heedless of the spikes digging into the sleeve of her coat. It cannot possibly be comfortable for her. She does not seem to care.
"You want to give me the final say in how often I see you and in what way," she murmurs. "Okay, I'll make a proposal, but you have to agree to it, okay? I'm not setting anything if you aren't happy with it, understand?"
"I understand," he whispers.
"Then—Megamind—no more weekly kidnappings." He makes a noise, but she keeps going, pinning him firmly against the wall with the top of her head and her body weight. "I want to see you every damn day. I want to kiss you goodnight, I want to wish you good morning, I want you to wake me up when you have bad dreams so I can put my head on your chest and let you sleep." Her hands go tense against him; he can feel her hold him tighter without squeezing. He's sure she would squeeze him harder if she could, but he's already pretty completely squoze. "I want to bicker about whether potato bread or whole wheat bread is better for sandwiches for lunch and I want to make gallon batches of simple syrup so we can keep it in the fridge and always have it ready for your coffee.
"And I want you to cool it with the Miss fucking Ritchi, already; my name is Roxanne and it's about time you started calling me that consistently."
Megamind lifts his head and jostles her back far enough to blink at her, his expression faintly confused in spite of the tears drying on his cheeks. "Sourdough is superior to both of those," he says, and Roxanne snorts.
"True," she says, lips twitching, "but pumpernickel is the best bread of all of them. Kiss me."
He makes a sort of vaguely agreeable sound and does so, with his heart leaping and spinning in his chest like it's fighting to fly. When he breaks away to breathe, he opens his eyes and looks at her, freckly and flushed, her eyes as blue as ice but so, so warm for him, and—
"I love you," he says, wondering and soft, bringing a hand around to touch her face the way she touched his earlier, cupping her cold cheek. "I—really? It's—all the things I said, that—isn't bad? Wrong?"
She shakes her head, smiling into his eyes. "Not wrong," she says. "You want, but you don't take, Megamind. Wanting is okay. And you ask. Wanting and then asking is also okay."
"I want to tell you I love you," he says immediately. "I want to tell you that every day. I have wanted to tell you I love you for so long, Roxanne."
Roxanne stares at him, bewildered. "And you still thought all that was just a fixation?"
He shrugs sharply. "If it was love, I—thought I—would have known. I would have known if I loved you; everyone always knows when they're in love." He swallows. "I assumed I wasn't capable of—such things."
Roxanne makes an angry sound in her throat and kisses him again, soft and slow, slipping one hand around to cup him low on the back of his head so he hums.
"I love you," he breathes as soon as she breaks away.
"I love you," she says. "I love you so much. And no, not everyone knows when they're in love. I didn't. I've been in love with you for…a long time, probably, and I never realized. Even when I did, I couldn't tell for a while if it was platonic or romantic. All I knew was I loved you and wanted to kiss you." She swallows, admits, "I'm still not totally sure what the distinction is. But I know I love you, and I know I want to kiss you, and—and I want you to be happy."
Megamind sends her a wobbly smile. "That all sounds more than okay to me," he says, and she smiles back and starts to lean in for another kiss, but— "Wait," says Megamind. "What—does that mean? You—want to see me every day; I want that, too, but I'm not sure what—I don't—"
Roxanne blinks. "I sort of assumed that meant I wanted to try dating," she says slowly, and the light that's been dawning in the dark hollow of Megamind's chest flares into brilliance. He can tell by the way Roxanne grins at him that it's shining out through his face.
"Did you?" he says. "Really? Dating? In—in public? I don't—really?"
"Of course," she says, shaking her head like she's confused. "Why wouldn't I? Assuming you won't be arrested as soon as we step outside, of course."
"But I'm…" He gestures wordlessly at himself.
"Not some dirty little secret I'm going to hide away and hope no one ever finds out," Roxanne says. "Megamind, I wouldn't date you at all if I wasn't willing to do so openly. And I know you don't like the way you look, but I am not kidding when I say you are easily, far and away one of the most beautiful people I've ever seen."
"Roxanne, I am deformed by all human standards," he exclaims.
"Okay, one—deformed is…yikes, and two, I'm not even evaluating you on human standards, because that would be stupid. I like how you look. You don't have to agree with me, you just have to believe me."
Megamind opens his mouth, then closes it and sort of squints at her. After a moment, Roxanne sighs a little and takes his chin in her hand, tugs him into yet another kiss, this time sliding both her hands up to hold him behind his jaw, cradling his whole head in her splayed fingers.
He rests his forehead on hers for a moment when she finally breaks the kiss. Then he shyly says, "I think you are allowed to grab my butt, now, if we're dating," and she laughs, bright and clear in the morning air.
"I think we need to go back inside, actually," she says regretfully, stepping away. "Finish up Christmas. Mom's going to be all weird about us taking a break in the middle of everything to go make out."
He takes her hand. "Roxanne," he says. "Let's go home early?"
That was unexpected. "What?"
"You don't want to be here," he says. "At least, I don't think you do. You're tired. And, and so am I.
"So let's go home early," he says, squeezing her fingers as pinkish color spreads up his cheeks to his ears. "Let's—let's have ourselves a—merry little Christmas evening. Of our own." He shrugs gently. "Minion doesn't expect us back until tomorrow. Hop Kee is open; we could order from there. And stay at your apartment. Or the Lair, I'm not picky. I just—I don't care what we do, I just—want to hold onto you. Alone. If, if you want to."
Startled, she says, "I don't—oh, but I don't want to impose on a restaurant on Christmas—"
"Minion and I almost always go there on Christmas," he says. "They'll probably wonder what happened to me this year. Let's go home. We can pick up the brainbots Minion called about on our way."
She wavers. He isn't wrong; she would like to leave. Her relationship with her mother isn't any more or less fraught than it was before last night happened, but—Roxanne is tense and her nerves are raw, and—can she? Really? Just bow out and go home like—?
She doesn't get to see Rose and Salim often, though. But—oh, she has the hovercraft now, it's so fast, she can see them more—
"It's Christmas, though," she says, reluctant. "You're supposed to be with family on Christmas."
He cocks an eyebrow. "Doing what I was supposed to never won me any prizes," he says dryly. "Besides. Aren't you your family, too?" Roxanne frowns a little. "You don't have to stay if you don't want to, you don't have to always be what you're supposed to be. You can just be you."
She smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "I don't always know how, though," she says. "I know I'm me, obviously, but…I'm not always sure how to…"
She trails off as Megamind takes her hands in his, turns them palm-up. Folds her thumbs across her palms, then carefully rolls her fists closed. Startled, Roxanne looks up at him—when did he notice her doing that?
He has his head tipped down; he's looking up at her through his eyelashes. "Do you want to go home?" he asks, quiet, and Roxanne nods, her heart suddenly so full she thinks she might cry. Megamind leans forward, turns his head, kisses her on the cheek. "Then we go home. That's how."
So they go inside and help with tidying up the wrapping paper and ribbon, and then they quietly excuse themselves and go upstairs to pack up and give their bags to the brainbots (and Dream, who watches Roxanne fold her clothes for a minute before picking up a shirt in a few curious little tentacles and flopping it around on the bed in vaguely folding-like motions).
Megamind is packed and ready to go in three minutes. Roxanne takes a little longer, and when she comes down, she finds her boyfriend sitting sideways on the sofa, chatting animatedly with Rose about something or other—dogs, probably, she thinks. She holds a finger to her lips when Rose glances at her so she can start to sneak up on Megamind, but—
"Oh, good, you're back," he says, turning his head around on his long neck like an owl and grinning up at her when her hand is six inches from his back.
Roxanne jumps when he turns, then laughs and sits down beside him, kisses his shoulder. "You knew it was me," she says, surprised. That must have been why he waited until she was almost on him to turn around; he never would have stood for that from anyone else.
Megamind just smiles up at her as he bends down and rolls onto his back, resting his massive head in her lap. "I could recognize you by touch alone, by smell," he tells her, lifting his hand to brush his knuckles over the line of her jaw. "I would know you blind, by the way your breaths came and your feet struck the earth—I would know you in death, at the end of the world."
Roxanne bites both her lips together, her throat tightening unexpectedly. "That's from the Song of Achilles," she says. "That's—Megamind, you giant dork, I love you so much."
"Oh, lord, please do not get her started on Achilles and Patroclus," Rose says, but Megamind just smiles and strokes his fingers through Roxanne's hair.
"I like hearing about Achilles and Patroclus," he declares. "I like hearing Roxanne talk about them. They're no Eros and Psyche—they need a much happier ending—but they have a good enough story, I suppose."
Roxanne's mouth curls up at the corners as her eyes go soft. She rests her hand on his chest, over where his heart would be if he was human. "You would like Eros and Psyche," she whispers, smiling down at him. "Hades and Persephone, too, I bet."
Megamind clears his throat and smiles and neither confirms nor denies this entirely accurate assessment of his tastes.
"So, Megamind and I are going to check out early," Roxanne says, looking around. "I'm…pretty well exhausted, and this has been a ton of new stuff, for him."
"Oh," Dorothy says, startled, as Rose makes a complainingly indignant noise. "What? No, you should stay. It's Christmas."
Roxanne shakes her head. "I'm tired," she says again, "and I have the hovercraft, now. It only took us about three hours to get here, so visiting will be much easier. I can come for weekends! It'll be nice."
"Oooh, and you can come visit me and Salim, too," Rose says, brightening. "We never get to see you, that'll be lovely!"
Roxanne nods and brushes her thumb back and forth on Megamind's chest until he threads his fingers with hers and squeezes. "Yeah," she says. "Yeah, it will. That hovercraft is going to make my life a lot easier." She smiles. "Everyone should have a supervillain in their life," she says. "They're wonderfully good to have around, I've found."
"All right," Rose says. "Now, you have my number and Salim's. Call me, seriously. And see if Minion will give me his number! I want to text with him! He sounds like fun!"
Megamind laughs. "He is fun," he says. "I'll—try. I'm not the best with phones."
She smiles. "Sounds good. Just stay in touch somehow, okay? By pigeon if you have to. I'll send you makeup tips. Hug?"
The last word throws him, but it isn't actually a request; she's already stepping into his space and pulling him into hers. Startled, he pats her back a few times.
"It was—nice," he says, struck by the sudden realization that he might actually see her again someday. "Nice. To meet you. I…enjoyed this."
"Same!" she exclaims, pulling back and gripping his shoulders, smiling brightly down at him. "Seriously, don't be a stranger. You and Annie need to come see me and Salim in Los Lunas. He says you have an uncle near us?"
"S-sort of," he stammers.
Salim claps him on the back as he comes around to say goodbye. "Well, hey," he says, gripping Megamind's hand. "Come visit him, and come visit us. And Echo! Okay?" He tugs the alien into a hug. "Good to meet you, man. Take care of my sister-in-law. She can handle herself, but I only have the one, so."
Off to one side, Dorothy and Roxanne are talking. Dorothy sounds more or less calm and resigned, which Megamind figures is about as much as they can hope for.
"Well," Dorothy says, "I'm sorry you're leaving, but I understand. Drive—fly safe, yes?"
Roxanne sighs. "Yes, Mom, I'll fly safe."
Dorothy nods, then seems to hesitate. "Your man is…observant," she says, after a moment. "He mentioned some things to me that…well. I want to talk to my doctor. See about getting a referral to a shrink. I'm…I don't think I was this bad when you were in school, I think it's getting worse again, and…I'm sorry. You seem to wind up bearing the brunt of it when you visit."
Roxanne blinks, then stares at her. It isn't like her mother to admit something like that. "—Thanks," she says, after a moment. "I—yes, I think—that's a good idea."
They stand for a moment, awkward in the silence while Rose and Megamind and Salim chat nearby.
"I know you try," Dorothy finally says. "I—really am only trying to help."
Roxanne takes a deep breath. "I know," she says evenly. "But I am already doing my best. All it does when you try to help is remind me of how I'm failing."
"That really is not how I mean it," Dorothy tries, but Roxanne shakes her head.
"I know, I know it isn't," she says, "but that's how I hear it. Because it's, it's all little things, but—little things pile up into a big thing." Maybe the way Megamind phrased it will be better. "Basic math. Little plus little equals big, right? Eventually? But I'm glad you're going to try and talk to someone about it," she continues quickly, before her mother can argue, "that means a lot. Thanks."
Dorothy nods. Then she jumps a little and takes a small paper bag with the top rolled down off the sideboard. "Oh, and here! For when you get home. Don't want to miss out. Be sure and wash it before you cut into it. And be sure to share with—with Megamind."
Roxanne snorts. "Thanks, Mom."
"Hey!" Salim exclaims, gripping her wrist. "I need a hug before you go!" He tugs her in and wraps both arms around her, lifts her off the ground so she yelps, spins her in a half-circle, and puts her down next to Megamind. "Take care of him," he says, grinning. "I got no brothers. I want to be the only Turkish lad from Chicago in Los Lunas with a blue brother-in-law, okay?"
Roxanne snorts. "Are you not the only Turkish lad from Chicago in Los Lunas?"
"Nah," he grins, "there's me and like two other guys. I gotta set myself apart somehow, build my brand."
Megamind chimes in, "Happy to help, if Roxanne is okay with keeping me around for the next forty years or so. I'm down."
Roxanne feels her expression freeze, but—it's—because the first thing in her head, honest to goodness, is, I will keep you until this planet is ripped out from under me. What she says is, "Call it sixty years, and you've got yourself a deal."
Dorothy clears her throat. "Annie, you never know how—"
"Stop," Roxanne says, not looking at her.
"Okay," says Dorothy. "Hug your sister. And you," she adds, opening her arms in Megamind's direction and wearing an expression that says she won't blame him if he keeps his distance, "I expect to see you here for Easter at the latest!"
He hugs her. One because he isn't sure how not to, and two because he does sort of want to. Easter? Really? She wants to see him again?
Salim and Rose want to see him again, too, he remembers. He—
He has a place he can come back to. Away from Metro City. A place he can return to, with people who want to see him. And a place he's never been, where people also want to see him.
Huh.
When Roxanne turns around, Megamind is scritching up and down along Echo's spine and crooning to her in the back of his throat. She laughs. "Come on, love," she says, and he looks up at her with bright and dancing eyes for a second and then sweeps two steps forward and wraps her in his arms, squeezes so hard.
As they walk out to the hovercraft, with the family waving from the windows, Salim glances up at Rose. "You realize they only just started dating," he says quietly, and she snorts.
"Oh yes," she says. "Oh I know. But I'm not worried."
"What?" says Dorothy.
"Nothing, Mom."