wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee i have no idea if the rating on this should change, but it's pretty tame? i've seen racier stuff on television, so i think it's fine.

cuddles and talking, hooray hoorays!

Chapter 15
Towards the Sun - Rihanna

Megamind is in the park in Metro again, one afternoon a couple of weeks after that. Roxanne is walking beside him; he is growing much more comfortable on his own but this is a nice day, unseasonably warm, and Megamind is happy to spend it in the sunshine in his city, where hardly anyone screams at him anymore, with Roxanne.

They're walking by the lake, under the trees behind a small beach where some people are swimming and sitting on the rocky shoreline. Chatting quietly with each other, laughing. And—Megamind sees—

His smile slipping, he pauses, turns. Frowns out at the water.

(waves have rhythm; swimmers have rhythm; even people playing and talking have a certain kind of rhythm—patterns—Megamind is good at patterns—light catches on the water out of the corner of his eye, a break in the pattern—)

"Something wrong?" Roxanne asks. Megamind doesn't take his eyes off the waves, but he's gazing out towards the horizon, far past any of the swimmers; that's odd. "What are you looking at?"

"I thought I saw—there was a—"

The next thing Roxanne knows, Megamind is trilling a sharp command into his watch and ripping himself out of his boots.

"What," she begins, but he's already gone, sprinting across the rocks towards the lake.

"You," he snaps, tapping the shoulder of a girl with her phone out as he passes, "911, ambulance, now!"

He splashes into the water and dives, ignoring the startled exclamations around him. Roxanne hurries to follow him onto the beach and stares after him, hoping this isn't what it sounded like.

"What's going on?" someone asks, but all she can do is shake her head.

"I'm not sure," she says. "He said he saw something, but I don't—" She cuts herself off as Megamind's head breaks the surface. He's holding onto a shape that becomes recognizable as an unconscious human when he begins kicking back to shore.

"—Yeah, Lakeside Park near Pavilion Three," the girl behind Roxanne is saying, "yeah I think someone was drowning—the um, the—lifeguard is bringing him in now—thanks, okay—"

Megamind kicks into shore at a clip that surprises everyone except Roxanne, and yes: he has a man with him, his eyes closed and his lips gray. A couple other humans splash out to meet them and help bring the swimmer onto the beach.

"I got my first aid cert renewed last week," someone says; "here, let me see—okay—"

Megamind stalks away and up onto the grass to retrieve a non-rebreather mask and small oxygen tank from the brainbots hovering there. He has a blanket and a towel, too, and—ah, and that must have been what he requested via the watch, Roxanne realizes. Quick thinking, but that's not terribly surprising, considering who he is.

On the stones, the woman with the first aid certification is still performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Megamind crouches and begins setting up the oxygen tank and mask.

"Get this on him when he starts breathing," he says shortly, as Roxanne falls in at his back. "He should really be intubated, but that will have to wait for the paramedics. I can shove a tube down my own throat, no problem, but someone else? Ha! Rather not chance it. I'll be right back."

He rises, leaving the mask resting ready on the stones, oxygen already flowing, and jogs back into the lake.

Roxanne waits on the stones near the water's edge, bewildered and worried. Megamind doesn't often sound brusque like that, and there's a man on the beach who might be dying, and Megamind is back in the lake but Roxanne is pretty sure he's not set up for freshwater anymore; how soon will he need salt before his gills start bleeding?

"Dizzy," the woman with the first aid certification gasps, after a minute or so. "Can anyone else—"

A twenty-something with tattoos all the way up their arms and neck moves in. "Here, I got it."

Roxanne tucks her fingers in her armpits and stares out at the lake.

"So…you're Roxanne Ritchi."

"For thirty-seven years, now," she agrees, not looking at the man who spoke.

"And you're…dating? Megamind?"

Ugh. She's receiving this question with increasing frequency. Thus far, she's been skirting and deflecting it (the trick is not to deny anything; people will believe her or they won't, but Roxanne learned the hard way years ago—deny something they've already made up their minds on, and she's either delusional or a liar), but it's getting very old.

And she isn't in the best mood.

"I've heard rumors," someone else says. Roxanne glances at them, then looks back out at the water. Maybe if she just pretends to have gone temporarily deaf?

"I heard she was dating his fish."

"Looks to me like he is a fish."

"Yeah, just out of curiosity," says yet another voice, "what's wrong with humans? First Metro Man, now this?"

So much for ignoring them. Roxanne resists the urge to grit her teeth, snorts with laughter instead. "All right, first of all," she says, turning, "Metro Man is about as queer as a three-dollar bill and I was fully aware of that fact from our third 'date' forward." She gives the man an amused if derisive expression. "Which we covered in depth back when he came out, so I'm awfully curious about what, exactly, you consider 'dating.' And secondly," the edge in her voice is anything but friendly, "while I do tend to date people I've known for a while and already know I get along with, and while Megamind and Minion both fall into that category, I am curious as to why, exactly, you think it is any of your goddamned business what I, a stranger, do in my free time."

"I was just—"

"And thirdly," Roxanne contines, voice going knife-sharp despite the smile she's still wearing, "a man is fighting for his life on the ground in front of you, and you…are speculating about my love life? Is that really what you're doing?" She pauses for just a moment, then cocks her head and widens her smile to show a few more teeth than is usually proper. "What's your name?"

And, when in doubt, a healthy dose of public shame—plus the reminder that Roxanne can make that shame infinitely more public at her leisure—can usually be relied upon for a quick shut-down. Sure enough, the man flushes, mumbles something dismissive, and turns away.

There aren't any more snide comments, either. Roxanne turns back to the lake, satisfied. That's what I thought.

Circumstances don't allow time for anyone to recover; Megamind stands up in the shallows approximately three seconds later and staggers up onto the beach, dragging something floppy and rubber behind him.

"What's that?" someone asks.

"Inflatable paddleboard." He drops it on the ground with a wet splat. "Wonderful inventions until they spring a leak. Ah, thank you, Miss Ritchi." He takes the towel Roxanne hands him and scrubs it over his face.

"You've intubated yourself?" the stranger with the tattoos asks from where they're kneeling on the rocks, waiting to be tapped back in if needed.

Megamind shrugs. "No one else was going to," he says, frowning down at the man on the stones as he towels off. "Minion was unconscious and the brainbots are hopeless when it comes to first aid on organics."

"But wouldn't a doctor—"

"I don't do doctors," Megamind says, flat. The woman doing rescue breaths wheezes out a woo-hoo! and grabs for the oxygen. "I would rather have died. And I need to go," he adds, stepping back and clenching his hands at his sides as sirens become audible approaching the park. "I don't react well to, ah, medical personnel. Or uniforms. Sirens. And, and they don't generally—anyway, best of luck. I—"

"How did you know to look for a paddleboard?"

"That's Warner Staal," Megamind says, backing away. "He sells them. There was an article in the newspaper when he opened his shop four years ago. I—I have to—" He moves his head and peers up the embankment in the direction of the approaching sirens.

"You go ahead," Roxanne says, handing him his shoes. "I'll be right behind you."

Megamind nods and heads away at a brisk half-trot without looking back, elbows at his sides. Roxanne lingers just long enough to get the names and contact information of the two people who handled the first aid, then hurries to catch up with her boyfriend. She just barely manages to stop herself from reaching for his hand.

"What the hell was he thinking, going out that far without a personal floatation device on an inflatable paddleboard," Megamind snaps as she draws even with him, stones crunching against each other under their feet. "That's completely idiotic."

"Doesn't matter why," she says. "You got him in before his heart stopped and those people got him breathing again; he's lucky."

Megamind makes a grumbly sort of noise.

"We're going to want some kind of statement on this," Roxanne says. "Especially if he lives."

Megamind makes another grumbly noise, louder this time.

"Hey," Roxanne says, finally just giving up and gripping him by the wrist as she stops walking. "Hey, hold on. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he snaps, turning to face her without actually looking at her. "I'm fine. I just—it was—a lot of people. And. Looking at me. I am not used to that. And I am still technically a supervillain, and—I'm—not sure how to—talk. To people."

She sends him a tentative smile. "I thought you did okay," she offers. Megamind stares away at the ground, lips thin and shoulders tense. Roxanne studies his unhappy expression for a moment, then squeezes his wrist.

"Come on," she says, voice gentle. "Let's go back to the lair."

Megamind startles and looks up with something like alarm or dismay in his face. "We don't have to—"

"You're soaked," Roxanne says, "and you need salt water, and I had an unpleasant conversation with one of those people back there. I'd rather not stay."

Megamind swallows, nods. "Okay," he says quietly. "Okay, I'll…we can…go. To the lair."

He's quiet on the way back, and Roxanne is under no illusions as to why: he was viewing today as a date, of sorts. So was Roxanne, but she has a different ending in mind than Megamind probably does, and she's just figured out exactly how to make it work.

Also, she wants to talk to him, and she knows he isn't likely to speak freely under the sky. He is good at seeming calm, but Roxanne has known him for years; she knows most of his subtle tells. She's a reasonably observant person, generally speaking, and she knows Megamind was already struggling to keep from looking over his shoulder even before all the drama just now.

And she has noticed a few other things, recently. The way his eyes lose focus, and the way his hands get jumpy, and the frequency with which that happens—and she has also noticed that he has not crafted anything new in quite some time.

When they finally pull back into Evil Lair in somewhat despondent silence and Megamind puts the car in park on what looks like autopilot, Roxanne finally startles him out of his thoughts with, "Megamind, do you need to build something?"

He jumps and turns to look at her. "I don't, I—what? Build? What?"

"You haven't made anything new since we started this," she says. "Except for our armor bracelets and Wayne's auditory dampeners. Even good things." She tilts her head. "You okay?"

Megamind blinks, then slumps a little and looks away.

"I…don't know what to do," he tells her, corners of his mouth curving down, voice quiet. "Everything I think of circles back around and turns into guns."

Huh. Roxanne wasn't really expecting a particular response, but it wouldn't have been that one. "Guns?"

"Various ray guns. Lasers." He swallows. "I just," he says, "if I sit down to make something like the, the prototype energy conduits I want to try, or the moss-algae biopurification tanks, or the glass, and—and a new kind of ray gun falls into my hands instead—" He flushes, looks away. "Sorry," he mutters. "It's stupid."

"I don't think it's stupid," Roxanne tells him, putting her hand over his on the gear shift. "Your whole world revolved around weapons design for almost half your life; it makes sense that you're having trouble letting go of that."

"More than half," Megamind says, with a bitter little twist of his mouth, but he doesn't elaborate. After a moment, Roxanne shrugs.

"More than half, then," she says. "So of course you're still thinking in that direction. It's what you know. It's a safe bet." She squeezes his hand. "That doesn't mean you have to feel bad about it."

"I don't," he says, surprising her. "I don't feel bad—I did, but—not anymore. I just, actually sitting down and trying to make something else—if—" He swallows and pulls away. Looks down at his hands in his lap, fidgeting with the hem of his damp shirt. "What if that's all I can do?" he asks quietly. "What if…what if that's really all I'm good for?"

Roxanne thinks for a moment. "What if," she says, "you pick what you want to build, and we build it together?"

Megamind's gaze snaps to her and he lifts his head.

"Together," he says.

He's studying her face with startling intensity and Roxanne feels her ears heat. "I've never seen you at work except for when I was in the kidnapping chair," she says. "And I told you before, Megamind, your mind is incredible. If I can help—I don't want to get in the way, obviously, but—"

"You wouldn't be in the way," he says, sitting up. His eyes are wide, eyebrows rising; he's excited. Interested, at least. "You wouldn't be in the way at all, I would—I would love to work with you, Roxanne." Then he thinks of something. His face falls a little. "Oh, but—I don't want to rely on you for everything, though."

Roxanne laughs. "You aren't," she says. "Not yet, anyway. It's only relying on me for everything if you need me there every time. But just the first few times, just to start out…" She picks up his hand, turns off his underlay, then laughs quietly when Megamind makes a face and flinches at his wet clothes suddenly hitting his real skin. "I really would like to help," she tells him, smiling as she strokes his mechanical fingers between her palms.

Wet clothes or no, Megamind still looks absolutely floored. Before his mood can turn, Roxanne continues, "So. Day after tomorrow. Come over in the evening, and we'll decide what we want to do? You can bring some options with you, or we can play it by ear. Okay?"

He blinks, then ducks his head and sends her a sheepish sort of grin. "Giving me something to look forward to?"

She smiles. "In the short term," she confirms, voice teasing, still playing absently with his hand and running her fingertips over his palm.

"And the long term?"

He also sounds like he's probably teasing, but Roxanne pauses anyway. "It's Halloween, soon," she offers. She knows better than to say anything about Christmas, but other holidays should be safe. "You could take Derya trick-or-treating. Dress her up as a brainbot."

He laughs. "And dress a brainbot up as Derya," he says. Then he makes a sort of disappointed sound and adds, "It is her first Halloween, though. I imagine her parents will want this one to themselves."

But Roxanne has had a few seconds to think, now, and she already has an alternative. "Thanksgiving, then," she says. "You and Minion and I are all going out to my uncle's old cabin in Montana."

Megamind cocks his head at her. "We are?"

She nods. "Yep. We are. Maybe the rest of my family, too, I don't know; I'll have to talk with them about it. But there's your long term."

He studies her for a moment. "What about your job?" he asks.

Roxanne has some thoughts about that, but she isn't quite ready to share them yet. "My job will just have to take a back seat," she says breezily, and she brings his hand up to kiss his knuckles. "I've found something more important."

Megamind blushes, looks away. His fingers twitch. It really is amazing how much his prosthetic works like the real thing, Roxanne thinks, not for the first time. His silicone skin is obviously different, and the organomechanical muscles don't have the same give as biological ones, but the way it moves is indistinguishable from his other arm. She has to wonder how long it took him to perfect. Has to wonder if he had the technology ready to go when he lost his arm—was he prepared? Did he see that coming? Or was he caught unawares?

She squeezes his fingers gently. "For now," she begins—

—and breaks off, last-minute uncertainty kicking at her. She pauses, bites her lip.

Megamind turns back toward her and cocks his head. It's not like Roxanne to lose her nerve mid-sentence like that. "What?"

She goes pink under her freckles, then takes a deep breath and sends him a small, hopeful-looking smile. "Show me the reef pool?"

Confused, he wrinkles his face at her. Of course she knows he needs to regain equilibrium, she knows the pool is where he's headed, but…when she asked him to take them back to Evil Lair, he assumed she wanted to hang out with Minion until he was finished swimming. That's what usually happens when he needs to submerge for a while. And she looks nervous. Smiling, but nervous; is he missing something?

"The…but I haven't got any scuba gear for you, yet," he slowly says. "And, and you don't have a swimsuit."

"Do I need one?"

Does she—

Oh. Oh.

"Um," says Megamind, gaping at her as his massive brain briefly shorts out. "Um. No, I. I suppose not. If, if you're comfortable. That's—um—clothing, clothing optional."

"Good," says Roxanne, her smile relaxing, and she reaches to cup his jaw and pull him into a deep kiss.

Megamind keeps a wet-dry room accessible from the reef pool: a sort of domed grotto under the floor, with a shallow-water channel next to a raised floor for the rare occasions Minion gets hurt or sick and Megamind needs to stay with him without sharing water. It's close quarters, but the dry section offers a sink and a hose and a trunk with spare blankets and sheets for the low, narrow bed there. The lighting is dim and softly green, and water laps softly at the edges of the shallow channel—

—and if the bed is little more than a cot and the mattress is just a bit lumpy, well, neither Megamind nor Roxanne notices. By the time the two of them actually make it into the grotto, they are both rather heavily distracted.

Later, lying skin-to-skin together on the little cot, their bodies streaked with salt from the reef water and their breathing slow, both of them still glowing and loose-limbed and sated, Megamind murmurs, "I am about to sound hopelessly nerdy, Roxanne."

She lets out a startled little laugh and continues to trace absent spirals across his chest. "Oh?"

"If I tell you that working with you on a project is probably my oldest fantasy featuring you," he says, moving his fingers slowly through her hair despite its damp saltwater tangles, "will you make fun of me?"

Roxanne's lips twitch. "Maybe a little bit," she says. "Really? It is?"

"Mm. I am…terribly excited about this. You have no idea."

"Really," she says again, her hand stilling as she tips her head back to look up at him. "A project? That was your fantasy?"

He tugs a strand of her hair in an ineffective, affectionate response to her skeptical tone. "Not the only fantasy," he says, rolling his eyes, wrinkling his nose at her. "But yes. It was the first one."

Roxanne shifts a little, kicks the blanket until it isn't rumpled up under her hip anymore, then rolls onto her side. Megamind rolls with her, settles down spooning close against her back with his good arm hugged around her and the other under her neck. Roxanne makes a pleased little sound in her throat.

"Do I get to know why?" she asks, after a moment. She moves her hands to the stump of his arm and massages gently there, the muscles under his old scar and the surface-level calluses from his prosthetic. Megamind makes a soft noise in his subvoice, a rattling sort of rumble, almost a purr. She smiles. "Care to share any details?"

"If you want," he says. "Mmm, that's. Nice. Thank you."

But he doesn't say anything else for a while, doesn't explain or elaborate. He just lies quietly behind her, holding her.

"What kind of project?" Roxanne asks eventually, and Megamind chuckles.

"I could never decide what kind," he says. He's smiling, she can tell. "Not for sure. I thought about lots of things. As for details…" He trails off, then huffs a laugh. "You were incredibly frustrating, do you know that?" he says, amusement in his voice. "You refused to scream, you refused to be frightened, you took your cues entirely on your own terms—if you took them at all!—you refused to be even remotely impressed with anything I could come up with…very annoying."

Roxanne remembers those early days, remembers how irritated Megamind would get with her sometimes. She used to make it a point to get him going—after all, if he was going to disrupt her plans and piss her off, the least she could do was return the favor. He never stopped kidnapping her, never lost interest or stayed upset enough to just leave her alone, but he can't possibly have enjoyed all that.

"And you kept pestering me because…you liked being annoyed?" Roxanne can't keep the skepticism from her tone.

Megamind snorts. "What? No. The liking came later. But I respected you." He sounds wry. "You didn't react in any of the ways I was used to. No screaming, no shouting verbal abuse, no unsettling enthusiasm or gushing praise. You were…calm. Watchful. Also insightful, I liked that. And I'd had one or two who were similar before, but then on top of that you were kind to Minion. That was…significant points in your favor. And then you were consistently witty in addition to being fearless, and—well. I knew I could rely on you to break the monotony. You weren't boring."

Roxanne ducks her head a little, turns to kiss the skin of his arm. Megamind hums and snuggles closer, muscles moving under his skin, and he makes a soft little sound of pleasure when she rubs at the knot of tissue under his scar.

"And then when I got used to you," he continues, "and you were used to me, I began to notice—you were never impressed, not even a little bit. You participated in your own way and you were definitely paying attention, but your reports on my various antics were…professional. Strictly factual. Nothing beyond that."

"I didn't want to encourage you," Roxanne murmurs.

"It certainly would have been encouraging," Megamind says. "But you didn't, and it was annoying. I started—I began to actually work with you in mind, sometimes. To no avail, of course, but I did really try, a few times. I started to think—well, she's definitely intelligent—what if—what would happen if she ever was impressed? What would that look like?"

He swallows. Pauses for a moment.

"And I thought—well, she's curious. Because you were, Roxanne," he adds, "you always were curious; I could count on your interest, at least. So—she would ask questions, I thought, but—more directly. Actual questions, real ones, not just nosy leading statements to get me to give up information. I imagined that for a while, and then—then I thought, oh, maybe she would have an idea for me." He presses his hand to her sternum under the curve of her breast as his voice goes nostalgic, almost longing. "Maybe you would think of something, something I could make—something only I could make—and you would tell me about it! You would want to know if it was possible, you would attempt to describe the various particulars and I would try to understand…and of course you are very particular, and you would probably snap at me that I didn't understand what you were describing, and I would say well then why don't you help me actually do this instead of sitting there telling me how I should do it and all the ways I'm going to get it wrong—and—you would!" He moves his hand to her shoulder, squeezes; his shorn-off arm presses up against her neck just a little. He nuzzles his cheek against her back. "You would agree to work with me on it and make sure nothing went wrong. Because it would be your invention, really, simply with my hands and my tools and equipment.

"And, and then I would show you—my drawing board, and how I transfer my designs into the brainbots and which brainbots help me with which phases of a build, and the prototype labs and the test and staging arenas—and maybe you would add to your idea when you saw what the possibilities were. We would talk and work out a design, and then of course we'd both take part of the build—argue over who had the spanner last and what they did with it—I doubt you can weld, so I would handle the welding and electrical and you would do the body work and assembly and—anything else you wanted. I thought it would be fun," he concludes, sounding very wistful. "We could have fun with it. Maybe you would be impressed and maybe you wouldn't, but you would have fun. And I…could help you make something new. Something I never thought of."

Roxanne swallows the lump in her throat and rolls over so she can hug one arm over his body, press her face to his long throat. "That does sound like fun," she says softly.

"Doesn't it? I thought so." He hugs her back, strokes her back with his fingertips. "I really am looking forward to this. Thank you," he adds, "for being so willing to help me."

"Anything I can do," Roxanne tells him, and he squeezes her.

Then she pauses. Moves her hand that's pinned between them to smooth the backs of her fingers over his chest, absently rubbing along one of the longer scars there. It seems not to have healed properly; there's a slight but noticeable dip in the muscle. "I really want this to work," she admits, her voice soft. "Us."

Megamind's heart gives a hard pulse. "So do I," he replies. "I love you a lot, Roxanne," he says, slipping his arm down tighter around her and hugging her hard for a moment. "I'm—and thank you for bearing with me; I'm not—really sure what I did to make you fall in love with me, but—thank you."

It really is incredible, Roxanne thinks vaguely, how extremely cuddly this man is. He's a very solitary person, very private despite his bubbly personality, but when it comes to physical contact he is absolutely ravenous for it. As soon as he realized Roxanne truly would tell him if she needed space or to simply not be touched, all hesitation about touching her went out the window.

She's so glad that's the case.

"You didn't do anything," she says. "Megamind—I meant it when I said I want you in my life. I want you with me even if you decide you need to go back to villainy. I love you. It's not about what you do; I love who you are."

He huffs a laugh. "Skittish," he says dryly. "Shy and nervous and clingy and too jumpy and full of weird disturbing thoughts."

"Yes, all of that," she agrees, propping herself up on her elbow and grinning down at him as he finally settles onto his back again, close beside her, almost underneath her. "But you forgot some things."

He runs his hand slowly up her side. "Such as?"

"Such as…oh, fun-loving and kind and loyal," Roxanne says, "and full of wonderful amazing impossible ideas. Determined. Warm. And I love how you cling," she adds. "Physically, I mean; I know the rest of it isn't really very healthy. I know you're working on it. We'll get there. But I really do love how you hold me." Her grin softens, turns fond. "I used to think," she says, touching his face, the scarred plane of his cheek, "it was so silly and cliched when people said they feel like the only two in the world when they're with their partner. But I swear, sometimes you look at me and smile…and I just…everything else goes away. You put your arms around me and I don't have to think about anything else."

His eyebrows twitch, pull together, and he tips his head up a little, asking for a kiss—and of course Roxanne leans down and presses her lips to his and kisses him slow and sweet, with her fingertips brushing his cheek and his arm hugging the small of her back.

Roxanne chuckles as she lies back down and cuddles in against him on the narrow bed. "Also, you smell delicious," she says. Megamind snorts. "I know it's just the cyanide but I swear you smell like an almond cake, it's wonderful."

He laughs.

"And you aren't the only one who feels—inadequate," she admits, after a moment. "Uncertain, scared. I…I'm just human. I'm doing my best, but I don't know how to do any of this, any more than you do. And you're," she laughs a little, "an actual supergenius, okay; what happens when—when you realize I'm nothing special and you don't need me?" Megamind makes an indignant noise at that and she quickly adds, "I know that's silly, I know that's not really how this works, but. I still worry, sometimes."

Megamind lifts his head again and stares at her, then growls sharply enough that Roxanne startles and sits up and looks down at him. "I want to get one thing straight right now," he says, glaring at her but reaching up to tug her shoulder so she slowly lies back down, half-draped across him with her arms on his shoulders so she can keep looking at his sharp face. "I am well aware that I do not need you, Roxanne. I am with you because I love you. You are the smartest person—the absolute smartest person I know. Smartest, most observant. Witty and spirited and, and brave—and you do so much, so much more than you need to; you don't know how to leave things alone. You're a bulldog, Roxanne; you're amazing."

She smiles, confused but flattered, as he presses his blunt fingertips into the muscle beside her spine and drags them down. "I don't think I'd say smartest," Roxanne begins, closing her eyes as he rubs in little circles at the small of her back. "I'm—mmm, higher—I'm no quantum engineer."

"Different kinds of smart," he says. He picks himself up and kisses her between her eyebrows, then bends to press their foreheads together for a moment. "Just because you can't visualize interparticular spin interactions doesn't mean you aren't brilliant. You—okay," he says, when he falls back and finds Roxanne still looking as doubtful as she can while getting an impromptu, one-handed back massage, "okay, look—you remember the Fell Firestorm, of course you remember. You realized the fuel conduits were misaligned before I even turned it on. And you told me so before the plan could go south. Yes?"

"I mean, you had to explain what it was, first—"

Megamind rolls his eyes. "Oh, so you can't look at a complicated device designed by someone who isn't even your species and immediately guess its full purpose; oh no, you're an idiot; how did I never realize." He shakes his head at her, begins working his way up her back to her neck. "I didn't tell you its primary fuel source was plasmoctane," he reminds her, pushing his thumb and fingertips on either side of the dip at the base of her skull and rubbing there. Roxanne groans and drops her forehead to his chest—the back of her neck might not be as sensitive as Megamind's, but this still feels amazing. "You figured that out on your own, some-fucking-how, I'm still confused about that. And I've never explained the safety requirements for plasmoctane-acetylene burners, I am quite certain I never did, so how you knew it was wrong—"

"It just had a—it had a similar setup as most of your brainbots," Roxanne mumbles, in a tone that suggests she would be protesting if she wasn't so relaxed. "It was obviously supposed to, anyway."

Megamind snorts. "Yes, obviously," he agrees, "except for the part where most people probably would not actually notice it. And even if they did, they wouldn't be confident enough to yell at me about it and tell me to," he grins and switches his voice over to Roxanne's, "go and take a fucking nap before you blow us all to kingdom come, Megamind, I mean come on, this is basic!"

Roxanne stifles a laugh. "I didn't really sound like that, did I?"

"You very much did," Megamind tells her, warmth in his voice as he moves his hand to the slope of her shoulder, pushes and pulls at the muscle there. She makes an incoherent, pleased noise and lies down still further, flattening herself on Megamind's thin chest. "Also, if you noticed it was configured along the same lines as a brainbot's thrusters, then you already suspected something was amiss before I explained it; I didn't have to explain it at all. I just confirmed what you already knew.

"And that's—that's the kind of brilliant you are, Roxanne," he finishes. "You notice things. You're perceptive. And, and not just with machines and things, either; you—" He swallows, stills his hand. "You saw me drowning when no one else did. And you threw me a ring. I didn't even realize how tired I was until you pulled me in." He pauses briefly, and Roxanne struggles up enough to kiss the base of his throat before finally curling back down next to him with her head pillowed on his shoulder, her arm hugging his body, his thigh between her legs. "You didn't have to do that," he says, laying his long hand on her arm, pressing gently. "You didn't have to do any of it. I kept asking about your family all those months ago because I was selfish, I—didn't care, not at first—I only wanted you to smile at me again. You didn't have to bring me all the way into your life like you did. But you did. And I consider myself unfathomably lucky that you somehow fell in love with me in the process."

Roxanne smiles a little. "Even with all the nasty things I've said to you over the years?"

Megamind shrugs. "You say nasty things when you're upset," he says, stroking her hair and shifting just a little bit so he can tangle their legs together more favorably. "And I have a garbage sense of self-worth, and that's—I can already see that coming to bite us one of these days, yes, but—so we have flaws, so what? I love you. I love the flaws."

"Oh, don't start with I love you because you're not perfect," Roxanne begins, but stops when Megamind bursts out laughing.

"Not because," he says. "God, no, I don't love you because you're flawed, everyone is flawed; that just sounds like weird code for I love you because you need me." He shakes his head. "With," he says, lying naked and and content at Roxanne's side. "With the flaws. I know the flaws; I love them, too. They're part of you. How can I possibly not love all of you?"

Roxanne swallows against the sudden lump in her throat. "Oh," she says, when she can. That's a difference she probably never would have thought of. "Oh. I'm—thank you, my love; that's—a wonderful way to put it. And—and Megamind, you—I love yours, too, and I hope you know that. And I hope you know you're worth more than you think—you are worth so much more than the things you build."

He nods. Sighs. "I know inventing isn't all I'm good for," he says. "In theory."

Roxanne tilts her head.

"Megamind," she says. "I'm curious—when you say garbage sense of self-worth, how garbage are we talking? What do you think you're worth to the world?"

He hesitates. Finally he offers, "Pickled frog in a jar?"

Roxanne splutters with startled laughter. "Pickled—Megamind, that's awful! I'm sorry, I-that's not funny, I'm just-" She shakes her head, incredulous. "Why pickled, of all things?"

He shrugs. "Science class," he says, quiet.

And Roxanne thinks—

E.T. gave him nightmares because of men in white coats; he left the city as a child but almost certainly not by choice; he'd rather die than visit a hospital; he all but screamed at Wayne for looking inside him—

—frog, a pickled frog in a jar, science class—

What the actual screaming fuck, she almost says.

"No," she says, when she finds her voice. "No, you are good for so much more than that. There's so much more in this world for you. I promise. You deserve so much more."

He frowns. "I don't know about deserve."

"I do," she tells him, her heart and mind both still reeling in horrified shock, hoping beyond hope that she's wrong and that isn't what it sounded like. "I know you don't know, but I do, and you deserve good things. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to have people around you who care about you, who want to keep you safe and want you to have fun, who want to have fun with you. You deserve a future where you don't feel like you have to do something that's going to kill you."

"How do you know," he murmurs.

Roxanne squeezes him. "That's the wrong question," she says. "Everyone deserves those things. Everyone. The real question is, why don't you know that?"

He's quiet for a few seconds and then his expression scrunches and his body sort of—jerks—

Roxanne wraps her arms around him and squeezes him as hard as she can. "And Megamind," she says, "I should tell you. I was always impressed with you. Angry too, and resentful—but impressed. You are so, so brilliant. Your brain is—god. Incredible." She reaches up to rub her hands backwards over the smooth dome of his scalp.

Megamind twitches, then slowly tips towards her and turns his head, so Roxanne picks herself up on her elbows and kisses him with her hands still cradling his massive skull. She kisses him slow and deep and leisurely, then eases back and bumps her nose gently against the soft line of his facial hair.

It isn't quite as soft as it usually is. She lifts her head and grins.

"Your beard is all messy," she tells him, and Megamind flushes and cocks a wry eyebrow at her.

"Oh, and whose fault is that," he says dryly, and Roxanne laughs and kisses him again. She smiles against his mouth, and Megamind hums and brushes his hand down her body to her hip, then lower.