Happy Megamind Monday! Is that still a thing? Megamind Monday?
Either way, ohhhh this is one that has been in the works for A WHILE. It started as a little thing and then it grew way beyond where I expected, and this was the result. If you've read Mischief is its Own Reward, this is the universe where Rose and Salim are from! They are the same people, but nothing else about them is the same - they live in Metro City, here.
I am still trying to learn to be quicker with my writing and not spend so much time agonizing. Depression!Brain is an obstacle, but I am learning to dodge!
(the tl;dr: I feel that I'm a good writer, but when depression!brain kicks in, I can't actually enjoy my own writing, which makes posting things difficult. I keep thinking, "well...this USED to be good...but now it all reads like flat blah...what's happening..." Mental illness, Dal! That's what's happening! Trouble is that even though I know that, not listening to my own brain is difficult. I live in here, you see. :/ but! yes! learning to dodge!)
As always, I urge you to come and find me on Archive Of Our Own. I'm DalNiente over there, and AO3's setup is much more friendly to editing of typos and word choice. My fics there are sliiiightly more fine-tuned.
Anyway. Here we go!
CHAPTER 1
Little Boy - Barns Courtney
Megamind waits, safely ensconced in Roxanne's coat closet, ready to hit her with the spray as soon as she comes home and opens the door to put her jacket away.
It's such a simple little kidnapping, much simpler than the last one (which involved balloons and a live garter snake, because Minion said it would never work and Megamind doesn't know how to take that except as a challenge), and Megamind is feeling mildly pleased with himself about it. She'll never expect this, not after last time.
Of course, the downside is that this kidnapping requires Roxanne to stick to her routine. This turns out to be a problem.
She's on the phone when she gets home, chatting excitedly to someone or other—a friend, no doubt, or a family member, ugh—Megamind can't make out all the words, but he recognizes the tone of voice. Shit. He shrinks back into the jackets and scarves, mouth already twisting in a reproachful sneer. Frankly he already wasn't entirely feeling it today, and the last thing he needs is for some concerned relative to call Metro Man on Roxanne's behalf before Megamind is ready for it. Because of course she'll open the closet door and of course then she'll scream (finally finally finally! but does it have to be today? right now?), and then he'll hit her with the spray, and whoever she's talking to will know what's going on. Of course, they'll know. And of course, then they'll call Metro Man, and everything will be ruined forever.
He grits his teeth. How? How does he pull off balloons and snakes with glowing success, but fail at a basic jump scare? Why is this his life?
But Roxanne doesn't open the closet door. Her voice goes right past him, into her living room. After a moment, he nudges the closet door open just a crack and peeks out, sees her holding her Samsung to her ear as she shrugs off her purse and then her coat, both of which get tossed on the sofa.
Aha. So, no jump scare, today; this will require stealth, instead. And possibly waiting.
Possibly a lot of waiting. Roxanne has crossed to stand in front of her huge windows and she's gesturing wildly with one hand as she exclaims something into the phone, and her back is to him but she doesn't sound like she'll be ending the conversation any time soon.
Megamind puffs a sigh and stretches as best he can in the cramped space, and amuses himself for a few minutes by buttoning all her coats and jackets together. His hip is bothering him again in this position, but oh, well. He'll be fine as soon as he gets moving again.
Until—okay, that was definitely her wrapping-up-now cadence. There are a lot of "uh-huh"s and "okay"s and "well—"s, all delivered in a certain tone, and these all mean it's time to stop talking, soon.
He peeks out again. She's still standing by the windows. Okay, now, quietly…quietly…
Crap! He shrinks back into the closet; she hung up before he could get the jump on her. She turns around after ending the call, and she's still grinning, and—okay, now what is she doing? Pacing around in front of the windows and twirling her phone between her fingers, what is that? What does that mean?
No, no, it doesn't matter what it means. And—and he doesn't care! Of course he doesn't care! All it means is that he has a very narrow window of opportunity, so go, Megamind, go now while her back is turned, go go go—
She cuts herself short on a turn and Megamind scrambles back with a chirp like a canary that's about to be stepped on. Roxanne yips in surprise as she pulls up short to keep from crashing into him (it's not a scream, it doesn't count).
Then she stares at him, still sort of smiling, frozen in shock. Megamind stares back, equally startled. And then, before he can bring the spray back up into position, Roxanne's full smile explodes back across her face and she cries, "I'm going to be an aunt!"
Megamind remains frozen. She—
Roxanne is smiling so hard he can see her molars. She's smiling and her eyes are lit up and dancing with excitement or joy, and Megamind blinks and does his best to process, but he mostly fails. Not due to a lack of processing power; it's just—she—nobody looks at him like that. That is nobody's face upon seeing him, ever, and especially not Roxanne. She's outright beaming at him, smiling like sunlight and laughter, and—and he can start breathing again anytime now—she's very excited, probably hasn't realized what's going—
"Megamind," she says, and so much for the fleetingly improbable possibility that she simply didn't recognize him, somehow, but she's still wearing that excited, dazzlingly-bright, genuine smile. "I'm—I'm going to be an aunt. My sister and her husband are having a baby."
He blinks again and forces himself to say something, anything, and what comes out is a desperately cheerful, too-fast, "Ohwow!ababy!that'sfantastic!"
"I know!" Her smile looks like it's about to leap off her face as she sinks her teeth into her lower lip and twirls around once, spinning on both heels the same way he does. "I'm just—I'm so happy for them, they've been trying for ages and they were starting to think, maybe the hormones weren't—but they're already twelve weeks along!"
Megamind jerks his face into an answering smile and finally manages to recover most of his wits. Any minute now, she's going to fully realize who she's talking to, but…but that is wonderful. Really, it is. He doesn't have to try too hard to sound sincere when he says, "Well, that's…good! Um. Congratulations? Did…did they just find out? Or…?"
Roxanne laughs. "Oh, no, they've known for a while but they didn't want to say, in case…well, just in case. But I'm—I'm actually the first person they've told. I'm so honored! And…" Suddenly she snorts. "Oh jeez, the grandparents don't even know yet. You got the good news first."
Yikes. He grimaces. "Sorry," he says, but she shakes her head. She's still smiling. At him. Like she means it.
"Don't be! Probably a good thing, your reaction was loads better than Salim's dad's is going to be."
Megamind shakes his head, now feeling absolutely bewildered. "Wh…his father won't be happy about this?" Now, there's something he can't get his head around. Maybe if this wasn't good news, but Roxanne said, they've been trying for ages, so this is obviously very much good news. "I…why on earth…?"
She's grinning at him now, but it's rueful, less excited. "He'll be happy he's getting a grandchild, probably. But Salim's family is…traditional? A lot more accepting than some, but they are traditional, and Rose and Salim—um. Aren't. In a few ways." Megamind cocks his head, and Roxanne says, "Um—oh, they aren't actually technically married, for example."
Megamind frowns. "Do they want to be actually-technically-married?" he says, and Roxanne's smile relaxes again.
"See, you ask the important questions," she tells him. And then, while he's still reeling from the warm approval in that statement, she gives another breathless laugh and adds, "I'm so glad you're here!" and she reaches out and actually touches his arm. Megamind goes cold and warm and pink all over. "I was going to go totally nuts if I couldn't share with somebody. You could not have had better timing." She cocks her head. "Wait, were…were you here the whole time? I didn't hear the door open."
"I was hiding in your coat closet," he admits, and Roxanne blinks at him and then bursts into a fit of giggles.
"But I didn't hang up my coat today!" She throws her hands in the air, chokes out, "C-curses! Foiled again!"
"Yes, yes, laugh it up, figures this would go wrong," he mutters, but he can't help the smile that tugs its way onto his face. Roxanne's good spirits are contagious, and…okay, this is rather nice, talking to her without getting yelled at; he really is enjoying this more than he should be.
"I know! The thing with the snake, you pulled off, but hiding in my closet…man, that was just too complicated, huh?" She shakes her head, takes a deep breath, lets it out, lets her laughter fade. She's still smiling, though. "So, I guess we should—"
Her phone jingles and cuts her off; they both jump. Roxanne looks down at it reflexively, says, "Oh—sorry, it's her again, can you…?" She looks back up at Megamind with a hopeful kind of grimace. "Just for a sec…?"
He nods frantically, babbling, "Yes, of course, go ahead," instead of what he should be doing, which is focusing on the kidnapping, Megamind, what are you doing? Incompetent buffoonery, that's what he's doing. But it's worth it for the grateful look she sends him as she answers.
"Hey! What? …Oh, no, yeah. No, absolutely, I won't say anything to the family until you give the go-ahead. I did already tell a friend, though." She sounds apologetic. "It's okay, he's cool, he can keep a secret. You can, right?" She glances back at Megamind, who nods again, stunned (a friend? a friend! she just said he was a friend, this is the best day in the history of good days: the best news he's ever heard, hands-down, bar none, including "atmospheric molecular oxygen: twenty-one percent"). "Yeah—yeah, I know, thirty seconds has to be some kind of record, but I was just…I hung up and then he was there and it just, pop! came right out." She listens for a moment, laughs again. "Yes, of course I trust him, I wouldn't have said he was cool if I…no, it's not…"
Suddenly she looks very shifty indeed. "Rose, don't be ridiculous." Peals of laughter on the other end, an exclamation, a question. Roxanne colors. "Rosemary Ritchi, I will not…no! What? Oh…oh my god okay fine, I'll ask him." She turns to Megamind, blushing furiously and looking severely put-upon. "She wants to know if you'll send her a brainbot for a pet."
He…
What? What?
"I," he manages. (He's already thinking about it. He'll need to write something compatible with small children. The Gilgamesh run is already the least inclined to bite; a smoother chassis wouldn't go amiss, he can do that, build off an existing operating system and design a custom chassis, yes, that's not even hard. A spheroid, maybe, no sharp edges; propulsion and flight taken care of by electric ionization against Earth's magnetic field rather than the usual plasmoctane thrusters.) "I suppose I…I could, but…"
"He'll think about it," Roxanne tells her sister, who cheers, Megamind can hear her cheering, and what is going on? What's going on? What is this? "Okay, Rose, I gotta go now, we're wasting daylight. Sure. Will do, don't I always? Love you too, bye!"
She hangs up and looks at Megamind, who says the first thing that pops into his head. "I am not sending one of my AIs somewhere it might be mistreated," he warns. "They're like dogs, they need stimulation. You can't just turn them off when you don't want to deal with them."
She smiles, startled. It's not surprising he would be concerned about that—she knows he cares about the brainbots, has seen him treat them like living creatures for years—but she had figured he would laugh in her face or roll his eyes at the very idea. "That won't be a problem," she assures him. "We always had dogs growing up, so did Salim's family. And Rose loves your bots, she always loves hearing about them."
"Hm," he says. "Well. We'll see."
"I really wasn't expecting you to even consider it," she tells him.
"I—really wasn't expecting to hear you say you trust me," he replies, fluttering a smile at her that's—it's shy, almost kind. "I suppose we're both surprised."
He sprays her, then, while she's still surprised, but Minion is ecstatic when he hears the news, and Megamind tells her congratulations again on the new addition to her family before he starts the cameras rolling, and the whole scheme is honestly over pretty quickly. Megamind seems almost distracted, and he's still sort of blinking to himself when Metro Man hauls him off to jail.
