Weeks pass. Nothing gets better for either of them.

Roxanne does reach a sort of equilibrium with herself and her own decisions, but she can't figure out how to tell her 'boyfriend' what's going on. Wayne is one of her best friends, her safety net. Neither of them has romantic feelings for the other, but they're close and they do have a good time together. She doesn't want to lose that any more than she wants to lose what she has with Megamind.

And she's in love with Wayne's nemesis. His nemesis. She can only imagine how he'll react to that.

Does she have to tell him? Maybe she doesn't have to tell him at all? If she isn't going to tell Megamind either, then…does it matter?

Ugh.

"Why is everything so complicated," she mumbles into her pillow, despairing.

Maybe she could make Megamind fall in love with her somehow. Instead of just hoping he does, over time. That would solve everything! He would love her and she would love him and then everything would be wonderful! Perfect!

Except. That would be wrong. And skeevy. And Roxanne doesn't want to act differently to make Megamind love her; she wants him to love her for who she already is. And...she really isn't sure that he can't. Really all she knows is that he doesn't date, and she's beyond lucky even to be as close to him as she is currently.

"Why is everything so complicated," she groans.

Alien flowers. Alien flowers that point down? Are they pollinated by fish? Marine mammals? Sea bees? She wants to know! And she can't ask! Not without tipping Megamind off! This is! Annoying! Roxanne does more research on seagrasses than she has done on anything else in recent years, and she receives no answers. Admiral Algae might know, might have found something by now in whatever she's doing, but yikes, no thank you. Like hell is Roxanne asking Mira for anything. And like hell is she bringing her more petals; Mira can have what was in that one jar and that's it, that's all she's getting.

Much good may they do her. Roxanne is a little annoyed with herself for not demanding Mira give them back to her. But it's not like they were doing anyone any good on Roxanne's shelf, and if they can shed light on terrestrial—what was it? Growth mechanisms?—then sure, why not. Maybe that's important somehow. Either way, Admiral Algae is probably not the sort of villain to hand anything over to the government just out of spite, not if she keeps all her own equipment and data literally in-house. She was actively irritated with that student of hers and she still gave him help with his Hanahaki without even being asked. So.

The point is: Roxanne is full of questions and no answers, and she. hates. that.

She does eventually buckle under the enormous weight of her curiosity. She's good at asking gently poking questions, and so she starts occasionally attempting to ask about biology and fish and maybe Megamind? Maybe tell me how this works? Waxy layer? Some water plants are slimy, some terrestrial plants are waxy, what's the point of that? Minion! Minion, how do plants survive in saltwater, I'm just curious, yes I know corals are animals, I want to know about plants. Hypothetically.

Both of them are…strangely cagey about their responses.


A few weeks later, Roxanne begins to suspect that Megamind seems to be sort of withdrawing from her. He's been too busy to talk very much for multiple kidnappings in a row, which is unusual, and he's prickly and strange when he does interact, reluctant to answer any questions or engage in banter. It makes her stomach feel weird.

He laughs at her 'jumping the shark' joke when he reveals his robotic great whites, and for a moment she thinks maybe things are okay. But then he turns away and quickly busies himself with the controls.

And she's waking up closer and closer to when the plot kicks off, she realizes. That doesn't seem like a good sign at all.

Crap. Crap crap crap. Crab nuggets, as Wayne says. This was not what Roxanne wanted at all.

Roxanne tries to withdraw, too. Tries to be respectful of Megamind and Minion's space, if that's what they need. She crossed a line, she can tell, even if she isn't sure exactly what line it was, or where, or when.

It's winter now, the days growing shorter and nights growing longer. The cold matches the chill in Roxanne's bones, the fear that somehow she jeopardized something that she didn't even realize was in danger. She wakes up less than half an hour before plots kick off and finds Megamind fully engaged in his work, too intently focused to interact with her almost at all. She can talk to Minion a little, but he's acting shy, too.

Finally she can't stand it. She misses their conversations, misses Megamind's laughter, misses feeling secure with him. One day shortly after Thanksgiving, she says, "Hey, I—I need to apologize, I think? Probably to both of you."

Megamind turns to look at her, his eyebrows up but his mouth flat. Minion tips sideways in his dome.

"I just…I think I crossed some kind of line, a little while ago. I got…too personal? And, and I didn't notice how uncomfortable you were."

"Okay," Megamind says. He looks uncertain, still. Suspicious.

"The plants stuff? Seagrasses," she says, and recognition flashes across his thin features just before his eyes narrow and his expression closes off.

"Ah," says Minion, "right," but he doesn't say anything else.

Yep. That was it, then. Fuck. Roxanne swallows. "I just—I was talking with—people a while back? Networking, sort of. And they said some things about aquatic plants and I got curious. But—but I should have—thought about how it would seem, singling you guys out about it. Making my curiosity your problem. You," she grimaces, "probably feel singled-out about marine biology enough just living here. I didn't think about how I might make that worse. And…I'm sorry. I'll do better."

Megamind blinks at her, and then finally he softens a little. He exhales and some of the tension he had been carrying falls out of him as he drops into his chair.

"Okay," he says again. "Um. Thank you? I…

"Why did you want to know," he asks suddenly. "Why did—I do realize your interests are wide and varied, Miss Ritchi, but that was highly specific and I—don't—handle specific biological interest very well."

"I like flowers," she says. "And I learned seagrasses are the only marine flowering plant. And I wondered why that was, and how that might translate to other plants, or hypothetical ones, and—and I did try to look things up on my own, but—I don't have the academic background to fully understand the research I kept finding. So I asked you."

"Right, okay, but you didn't ask," he says, biting off the last word and wrinkling his face. "You kept—doing that thing you do, that—you—kept trying to steer the conversation. You didn't ask."

Roxanne sits back in the kidnapping chair a bit. Oh. Didn't she? She had thought she was asking, but...no, she must not have. Because she hadn't wanted to flat-out ask about alien plants, hadn't wanted to potentially tip him off. And she had thought she was being clear enough, but...apparently not.

Megamind's eyes are on her face, his pupils pinned down tiny with focus as he watches her thinking—

—and then suddenly he relaxes.

"You didn't intend to do that," he says.

Roxanne shakes her head, still trying to remember the details. "No, I…no. I thought…wait."

"Oh I see," Minion says, sounding very relieved. "I get it. It's your job to do this sort of thing when you're looking for information. You did it without thinking."

"I…sort of? I mean. I didn't think about it, no." She frowns. "But," she says slowly, "I used to do that sort of thing with you all the time."

There's a pause.

"Yes," Megamind says, finally. "You did. And so you know of course that I can dance around and read between lines with the best of them, but at this point, I am," he takes a deep breath, "accustomed to a certain level of—of trust. From you."

Roxanne blinks.

"So. Please just ask. Either you had a specific question and you wouldn't ask it, or you wanted me to guess what it was, or you didn't want me to guess, or...I thought something was wrong."

"Nothing is wrong. I promise." She huffs a nervous laugh and shifts a little in her chair, sends him a hopeful face. "So…are we okay? I really am sorry about freaking you out."

Megamind smiles at her and nods. "We're okay," he says, and his voice is tired but he looks so openly relieved that Roxanne actually sends a little thank you skywards, mentally. "Yes. But what was it you wanted to know?" he adds. "The thing you wouldn't say?"

Roxanne swallows. Shakes her head. "It's fine," she says, forcing a smile. "I shouldn't have—"

"Please just ask," he says, closing his eyes. "Put me out of my misery; I desperately want to stop thinking about this. Trust me, if I don't want to answer then I'll just mock you for thinking I would."

She takes a deep breath. "I just...I know you and Minion are...aquatic," she says carefully, "and I just...like I said, I heard seagrasses are the only fully aquatic flowers plants on Earth. The only ones. And I've been trying to learn why that is, and I was also—I was trying to picture—trying to think of, um. What...are the flowers like? Where you're from? Are there flowers?" Megamind inhales and sits back in his chair and she quickly adds, "And you don't have to answer! You don't—"

"What were the flowers like."

She falters. "What?"

"Were there flowers. Past tense."

"Past—?"

"Our planet was sucked into a black hole when we were babies," Minion says flatly, and Roxanne twists in the kidnapping chair despite how it pulls at her shoulders and stares up at him, speechless. "It wasn't great," he says. "Pretty high up in the top ten worst days of my life."

Roxanne's mouth is open. It's been a while since she was handed a piece of information that made her totally blank this way, but her whole brain is just sort of a question mark right now.

"Thanks, Minion," Megamind says dryly, sounding very far away, "that's definitely a conversation I felt like having today."

"You were already on 'past tense,' Sir. She might as well know."

Megamind sighs, rubs the bridge of his nose. Roxanne looks back at him, still stunned beyond words.

(Man, she is really putting her foot in it these days, huh? Yeah, let's freak him out and then ask him to remember surviving a planetary omnicide! Great idea! Good job, Roxanne, well done!)

"Anyway, yes," Megamind says, and she swallows and tries to focus on him. "Yes, there were flowers. All kinds. Fully aquatic, partly aquatic. Some of them were even bioluminescent. Some species featured in our mythology, our..." He makes a face. "Birth and death cycles? My parents' language used the same word for hatching and dying; they viewed both of those as the same things. A metamorphosis, I suppose? Or a change in the state of matter? I don't know the specifics of any biology, I'm afraid, but does this answer your question?"

"How-how are you just talking about this," she manages. "Your...your whole planet is..."

"Toast. Yes."

"I am so sorry," she says. "I—yes, it answers—oh, my god."

He smiles thinly and throws one leg over the other, lounging carefully backwards in his high-backed swivel chair in such a perfectly casual show of I-don't-care that Roxanne knows immediately that he cares a lot. "Yes, well. What's done is done but I don't plan on talking about this again, possibly ever, so if you want to ask anything else..."

She shakes her head hard. "No. No, that's—okay. Thank you. For telling me. I'm so sorry, I, I didn't mean to bring up a—such a painful subject."

"You didn't know." He shrugs. "Frankly, I am just pleased to be back on solid ground, here! You've been no fun at all recently."

Roxanne slumps forward in her chair, drops her head for a moment. "Yeah, seriously. I weirded you out, then brought up...wow. If you decide I'm more trouble than I'm worth after this, believe me, no hard feelings. I get it."

Megamind snorts. "Are you kidding? Start from scratch on a new pawn? Don't be ridiculous. You're definitely trouble, Miss Ritchi, but you've got a long way to go before it's more than you're worth. You nosy reporter, you, always poking and prying," he adds, his feet hitting the ground and his voice going teasing and sly, "your nosy skills have finally backfired! Your greatest strength is your greatest weakness! It—"

He stops dead, eyes widening.

"Oh but that's obvious," he says.

"Sir?"

Roxanne raises her eyebrows. "You okay?"

Megamind refocuses on her face and flashes a blinding smile. "I am the best I have ever been!" he exclaims. He leaps out of his chair, flinging one hand into the air with a flourish. "Minion! Change of plans, we're tabling this plot, I have things to do!"

And he heads away with the skipping gait that means he's so excited he's partially forgotten how legs work, and disappears down a trapdoor with a whoop.

...Okay.

Well, that...that sure was a conversation. That just happened.

Roxanne stares after him, her head spinning.

Their whole planet? Their whole planet, they...

She's not just coughing up alien flowers, she's coughing up the last of these alien flowers that will ever exist, anywhere in the universe. The realization honestly makes her feel a little bit sick; that's—

Oh my god. She's. She's in love with the last alien of Megamind's entire species that will ever exist, anywhere in the universe. The fact that she knows him at all is a miracle; the fact that she loves him suddenly feels extraordinarily high-stakes. It's a good thing she's tied to the chair, because the impulse to chase him down and wrap him in her arms, spikes and all, and never let him go is very strong.

Minion studies her blank, shocked expression for a moment longer, then heaves a sigh, shakes himself, and bustles over to a cupboard where the can of kidnapping spray is kept. "Thank you," he says over his shoulder, to try and pull Roxanne's attention back to the here-and-now. "I wasn't sure what was wrong either. I was worried someone was paying you."

Behind him, she makes a startled sound and says, "What? No! No, god, I would never—I am not going to sell information on you two. No."

He sends her a smile over his shoulder. "I hoped you wouldn't," he says. Where is that spray? He had it just this morning; he's sure he put it back. "I didn't think you would. But. I have to be careful. You know me," he laughs weakly, "always the worrywart."

"Minion, if I was going to sell you out, I would have done it back when I didn't like you guys."

He pauses. Then he looks back at her, touched and somewhat befuddled. "You like us?"

"Yes? Of course I do." She sends him a look that says why are you even asking. "I love having you guys as friends, I didn't mean to freak you out so badly. I really missed talking with you before the cameras turn on."

Minion beams. "I missed it, too," he says, closing the cupboard and giving up on the spray. "And I know Sir did. Just now was the most excited I've ever seen him, this time of year. I don't know what he thought of, just then, but...well done."

"I am sorry," she says, grimacing. "I had no idea."

Minion smiles at her. "I know. It's okay. Just, if you're going to ask about our homeworld...maybe do it in the summer."

Roxanne gives a weak half-laugh, nods, and closes her eyes and tips her face up.

"I can't find the knockout spray," Minion says, patting her shoulder. "I think, just this once, we can make do with a blindfold."


(It's not really surprising that whatever keeps Roxanne's Hanahaki at bay around Megamind extends to Minion, as well.)

(Roxanne can't tell if she's relieved or disappointed about that.)