"Why, Miss Ritchi," Megamind says, feigning surprise as he turns in his chair in early February, "what an unexpected pleasure to see you! As you can see," he gets to his feet and skips over to his latest machine, "today will definitely be the day I defeat Metro Man and take control of Metrocity!"

"Do you ever think about settling down?" Roxanne asks, wistful. Her throat hurts from the huge buds and she's been trying to imagine Megamind mowing a lawn. It hasn't been working. She's...upsettingly okay with that. If she wanted a picket fence, maybe she'd be over him. Somehow he is STILL worth it, even with buds the length of her hand. "Ever think about giving it a rest?"

He scowls at her. "Settle down was what they told me almost daily, back in shool. I do not settle, I act out."

Oh, I bet I can persuade you to at least take a break if you just come a little closer. She rolls her eyes instead of saying that. "Seems like you're settling when it comes to actually defeating Metro Man. Come on, you actually think that thing's going to make a dent in him?"

"Several dents! Many dents, yes! Look look look—"

He bounds across the room in three steps and vaults onto his machine with his usual easy grace, explaining what it does and the measures he's taken to ensure its projectiles actually slow "the flying idiot" down somewhat.

"Projectiles," Roxanne says, unimpressed. "You're going to shoot him with…bullets."

Megamind wrinkles his face at her. "No, Miss Ritchi, I am going to shoot him with tiny homing missiles designed to puncture his suit and enter his flight system via the siphons on his back, whereupon they will explode."

"I don't think that's going to kill him."

"The point is not to kill him, the point is to defeat him—"

"How did you get the missiles to lock onto his siphons through the flight suit?"

Megamind smirks and waggles a long finger at her. "Ah-ah. Nosy. That's none of your business."

"Wh—you made it my business when you tied me to a chair and explained your plan!" she exclaims. He laughs. She barely keeps herself from joining in. "You know you want to clue me in," she says. "You want to gloat about whatever little discovery you think constitutes a weakness. Come on, Megamind," she teases as he begins to circle her, grinning, "impress a lady. You're bursting to tell, just admit it."

"Gladly!" He stops in front of her with his arms crossed over his thin chest and his hips cocked, still grinning, eyes twinkling. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to do it."

Roxanne raises an eyebrow. "Hm. Maybe I'm impressed anyway, I didn't think impulse control was your strong suit."

Megamind snorts. "Ohhh don't mistake me, it's certainly tempting, temptress. I am quite proud of this one! But I don't need you tipping off your boyfriend in tights, so I'm afraid the answer has to be no."

She sighs and rolls her eyes at him.

And then she pauses and says, "Wait—your eyeliner is smudged. Left eye."

Megamind looks startled. "What? Oh. Let me see—" He darts back over to his workstation and pops open a hidden drawer Roxanne has known was there since seven kidnappings in, when he nearly forgot his eyeliner entirely and was about to turn on the cameras when Minion stopped him.

He checks the offending eye in a little mirror and makes a disgruntled noise as he takes out a black pencil. "Third time I've had to do this today," he says, in a tone of clear annoyance. "It's a different brand than my usual and I will not be trying this again."

"What happened to your usual?"

Megamind swears and scrubs the eyeliner off with the heel of his hand. It wipes away far too easily at just a touch, and Roxanne grimaces with the kind of sympathy that comes with recognition.

"They changed the formula," he snaps. I don't know what they did, but it made my eyes puff up last time I opened a new tube. I looked like I had been crying for a month! But this new stuff—ugh, I could just throw it! My skin does not work with it at all. Fucking—alien texture won't—" He hisses under his breath.

"Do you want to try mine?" Roxanne offers. Megamind looks at her. Both his eyes are smudged now and his expression is comically defeated, but Roxanne doesn't laugh. "I don't know if it'll be any better, but you're welcome to try. It's in the outside zipper pocket of my purse."

He studies her for a moment, then sighs and nods and tugs her bag out from its shrapnel-resistant cubby, whistling sharply over his shoulder to signal one of the brainbots to come and unbind Roxanne's hands. She doesn't even blink; this is amost routine, now-Megamind allowing her to be somewhat comfortable when they have to break character for a while.

Megamind finds the eyeliner reasonably quickly, but instead of applying it, he draws a quick line on the skin behind his ear and caps it.

"And now we wait," he says shortly. "Should take around five minutes to see if I'll react."

Ah. Yes, that makes sense, if he had a reaction to the other stuff. Roxanne cocks her head at him as he busies himself with fully removing what he's already wearing. "Why don't you make your own? You make…just about everything else you use, I thought."

Megamind shrugs. "Until now it hasn't been an issue. But I won't deny I've been considering it.

"So! How's your week going? What's new in news reporting?"

Roxanne sighs. "Hal tried to give me Hanahaki petals again."

Megamind's expression darkens. "Again? "

"This is the third time. And he keeps trying to dye them." She shakes her head. "I reported him to HR, of course, but they won't do anything. They keep saying it isn't actionable unless I'm 'deceived to my detriment'."

He growls. "That's bullshit. That's bullshit. Your reaction to an attempt at deception isn't the problem! The attempt is!"

"Thank you! God, at least you get it!" She slouches in her chair, glaring. "I mean, yeah, I realize legally you can't go after that kind of thing. But I'm not asking them to prosecute him or fire him! I just want him away from me! It's getting really old. And frankly it's starting to freak me out; he's been doing this for a couple months now and I don't think he's actually trying to move on at all."

"Anything I can do to help?"

She pulls up short, blinking. "You—what?"

He shrugs. "I am a supervillain," he says. "I know how to intimidate. And I have…certain strings I can pull, favors owed. Do you want him fired?"

Roxanne gapes at him. "Um…that. Would be great, honestly. All I really want is to not have to see him every damn day, but…yeah, getting him all the way away from me would probably be best for both of us."

Megamind nods. "Consider it done. We—"

"And in exchange? Do you want anything?"

It's his turn to stop and look surprised. "What? No. This isn't a favor. I consider this payment for services rendered." She must look as bewildered as she feels at that, because Megamind's expression softens with amusement. "My dear Miss Ritchi," he says, arching a brow as he uncaps her eyeliner and turns away, "I have forced you to be an unwilling participant in my schemes for several years now. Surely I owe you this small deed, at least… oh, now THAT is better!" He turns and beams at her, eyeliner in place and on point.

"That does look better," Roxanne agrees, smiling back without thinking about it. "I think it's a little thicker than your usual but honestly, you look really good like that. You should wear it that way more often."

He looks briefly startled, then flashes another grin. "I may just keep it," he teases, wiggling the pencil at her.

"Do it," she tells him. "I have more at home. You still have that line behind your ear, by the way."

"Ah! Yes, right." He scrubs at it with his fingertips. It smudges a little but doesn't come off—it's the whole reason Roxanne buys this brand. Looks like it adheres to his skin just as well as hers.

She grins, shakes her head. "Here," she says, reaching for him. "Let me."

For a moment, she thinks he won't. She isn't actually expecting him to agree; she just couldn't stop herself from offering.

But he nods and approaches, comes in close—rests his hand on the back of her chair behind her shoulder and leans down, turning his face away and presenting her with his ear and the long, strong line of his neck. He tips his great head, his hand on the back of the chair with his spiked gloves digging into her shoulder, and Roxanne—

—touches his head. The soft slope of the back of his skull. Rubs her thumb in circles over the line behind his ear.

It's not gentle; it can't be, to get the smudge of makeup off his skin. But he presses into her hand and his eyes squeeze closed, and Roxanne does, for a moment, gentle her touch when the smudge is gone.

And there's—a second, just a second, when Megamind turns his head and opens his eyes and—Roxanne could kiss him. Could draw him down to her mouth with her hand on his head and her thumb behind the soft shell of his ear, and—

Megamind snaps himself upright and steps back.

"—all clean," Roxanne says, belatedly. He cackles, voice high and wild.

"I am Evil! And therefore I will never be clean! But thank you," he adds, ears pinking. "Your…assistance is, of course, appreciated."

Roxanne snorts. Hopefully he doesn't notice how pink her own ears are. "Have to look our best for the cameras, don't we?"

"We do indeed," he agrees. "We do indeed. Ah! Thank you, Minion. We had just finished up, but—"

His friend has just bustled in with a tray of snacks and a pitcher of what Roxanne knows is obscenely sweet tea. "—But her hands are already free," Minion says brusquely, "so we might as well pretend to be good hosts."

Thank god. Roxanne can stay a little longer. Give her throat a break.


Today is so much worse for both of them, when they part.

Minion brings Roxanne back to the newsroom after the plot wraps up because it's still early in the day, and it does not go well for her. Her throat closes almost as soon as she gets back to her desk. And—oh.

Oh this. Oh this is a bad one, she can tell. This one feels like squeezing, it's so big. She stumbles away from her desk and sprints for the restroom, already digging in her purse for her bottle of expectorant and her inhaler.

The restroom isn't empty this time, so she locks herself in one of the stalls instead of bending over the sink. She nearly collapses, catching herself with her elbow locked, her hand gripping the toilet seat.

"You okay?" calls the only other person in the room—Jessee, Roxanne thinks, by her voice. "You okay, girl? I can roll you some expectorant, if you need it!"

That's kind of her. "I'm—I'm okay," Roxanne manages, still coughing so hard she can barely breathe. "I have—already—" She hauls in air and shoves it out, rough and barking.

"You got this," Jessee says, from farther down the row. "Come on, girl, keep on going. You got this!"

Roxanne doesn't have a whole lot of choices, but the encouragement is nice. Solidarity, if the other woman has a bottle of expectorant with her. Wish they weren't in a bathroom stall at the office, but oh well. She'll have to invite Jessee out for drinks some night.

She pulls one more big breath, shoves out one more hard cough, and half-gags on the flower when its unfurling petals cleave briefly to the back of her tongue. But she does finally spit it out.

Roxanne gulps a couple times, dizzily staring down at the flower that's just plopped into the toilet. It's huge, as she expected, but it absolutely is not any of the species she's seen before, from anyone.

That's…

Okay. Yes. That's pretty much what the flower experts told her to expect, actually, because that is definitely not a flower that exists on Earth. Roxanne is certain. The lobed petals are arranged in a pattern she is not familiar with. They're alternating? Somehow? Deep blue petals falling open around a silvery-gold starburst at the center, and while it does appear to have some air-pollination setup of some kind, the stamen and anther structure does, indeed, point down into the water in long, sweeping curls that splay unfortunately across the bottom of the toilet bowl.

It's a gorgeous flower, truly, but Roxanne is not going to reach into the office toilet and bring it home. She'll make more.

She flushes it, dazed.

And she invites Jessee out for drinks and commiseration while the two of them are washing their hands. At the very least, she'll make a new friend out of this. It's an ill wind that blows no good, after all.


Megamind nearly loses everything at dinner that night in the cafeteria of the Prison for the Criminally Gifted. He only saves himself by switching to breathing through his gills (again) as soon as he feels the chronic tickle in his throat become the telltale scratch that means a bud is coming.

He finishes dinner in silence with his head spinning from lack of oxygen and his fragile gill tissue drying and cracking in the cold air. And when he finally staggers back to his cell and heaves air into his lungs—

It comes out in a helpless storm of coughing so intense that it drives him to his knees on the floor. A horrible, stabbing pain lances through his chest like forty knives, like the knowledge that Roxanne does not, cannot want him in return, and sometimes he can almost be okay with that but right now it hurts, and he can't—he can't—breathe—

He spits out a dahlia flower in full bloom and gets no relief. Only the feeling of another flower unfolding in his thin, aching chest. His sides are wet with cold and sharp with pain; his gills are bleeding through the slits in his skin.

Megamind drops to one elbow on the concrete in the dark, clutching his throat with his free hand and wheezing, gasping, vaguely wishing for death. Being around Roxanne is so wonderful, a bright and joyous thing in the moment. He cannot regret it, cannot regret the star behind his ribs that warms at the light of her smile. But god. Fuck. It hurts. And he's alone and he's in pain and he can't breathe and just shoot him now, please.

There's a sound behind him, and footsteps, and then a big hand on his heaving back.

"Shhh," whispers Mitch, in his seventies now. He settles onto the floor with a low oofing sound and stretches out his legs. "Hey, kiddo, hey. Okay."

Megamind lets out a noise like a sob.

"Guards are quieting," Guduza says, kneeling on Megamind's other side and slipping his palm against his wide forehead to stop him scraping it on the floor of his cell. "Hey. Mzwamandla, uzolunga. Wena kuzolunga."

"Ngiyaphila," Megamind chokes out. "I'm—okay—Baba, ib-ibuhlungu, kubuhlungu kakhulu—" He gags, spits. Pants for a moment and coughs again, long and whooping.

Mitch rubs his back. "I know, kiddo. I know it hurts. Let go, you don't gotta be quiet."

"Relax yourself," Guduza tells him, one hand on his forehead and the other gently patting his sharp shoulder. "It's okay. It is. Let it be, now, son. Let it come."

Finally, finally Megamind spits another flower onto the floor of his cell and sucks air into his starved lungs without anything in the way. His vision is whirling, he has tears streaking his face and blood soaking into the sides of his jumpsuit. He nearly collapses onto his side right there on the floor, but Guduza grips his wrists.

"Up," he whispers, firm. "Into bed with you. Come."

He helps Megamind up and guides him staggering to his bed, lays him down and tugs his shoes off for him as if he was still a child while Mitch slowly gets back to his feet.

Miserable and humiliated, Megamind rolls to face the wall, breath hitching, as Guduza tugs the sheet up over him.

Mitch sits down on the edge of his mattress. "Kid. You got to tell her."

"And stop seeing her?" Megamind rasps. "No."

"Yes," says Mitch. "If that's what it takes."

Megamind curls tighter around his shivering, lonely heart, tasting blood. "I love her," he whispers.

"And it's killing you."

He scoffs painfully. "Nobody dies of Hanahaki."

"Figuratively speaking," Mitch says, exasperated. "What, Blue, so you're gonna live your life in pain? Except for the couple hours a week you get to see her?"

"Lots of people do. I'll be fine."

"You are not fine," Mitch says. "And you are not 'lots of people.' You're you. And you're my son and I am worried for your health."

At the foot of the bed, Guduza sighs. "All right. Say, he tells her. Say, he brings to her his heart tomorrow and tells her it is hers, ah? And then what?"

"Khumalo if you ain't gonna help you can fuck right off," Mitch snaps.

"I'll tell you then what," Guduza continues. "I'll tell you. She feels guilty! That it goes this long and she doesn't help! And our Mzwamandla he feels guilty too, that he brings to her a problem she cannot solve!"

"And then they spend some time apart," Mitch says, "and he gets over her! And he stops horking up fucking dahlias!"

Guduza shakes his head. "I don't think that's how it goes. Our boy he has a steady heart. All chaos and crowding in his mind and peace like a river where it counts. You know this."

"I'm still here, you know," Megamind mumbles, sullen. "I can hear you."

"So what happens is: they both are miserable. And he loses even those few hours of heart's-ease."

Megamind coughs, winces, spits out petals.

Mitch sighs. "Fine. Fine, yeah. Okay." He reaches over and rubs a palm over Megamind's skull, shakes his head at the answering soft rumble-mumble of apology-gratitude-apology.

"Let the boy do what he needs to," Guduza says. "He'll figure it out."

Silence, for a while.

Finally Megamind sniffs hard and swallows. "Today was nice," he says, voice still scratchy. "Today was…she. Let me use her eyeliner. Gave it to me to keep. She. Touched my face. The back of my head." Slowly, he lifts an arm, rests his fingertips on the skin behind his ear. Heaves a shuddering sigh, whispers, "Her hand was warm."

Mitch's eyebrows go up. He turns and looks at Guduza, whose expression doesn't change—it rarely does—but the latter does sound faintly shocked when he says, "And you still are sure she would not…?"

Megamind sighs again. Shakes his head, drops his hand to the lumpy pillow in front of his mouth. "It was a favor. I had a smudge, that's all. Not because she wanted to."

"Don't think she'd've offered if she didn't want to," Mitch says slowly, but Megamind brushes this off.

"Not like—not like that. Just. It was a neutral thing. She wasn't smiling and she was very tense."

His uncles are quiet for a long few seconds before Guduza shakes his head. "Well," he says. "Well. You are tired. And my knees hurt."

It's his usual time for us to go excuse, and as usual, Mitch grumbles, " My knees hurt. Your knees haven't hurt a day in your life, you gumby bastard."

"Yes, yes, come bitch at me when your hip subluxates in your sleep three times a night, Mitchell. Come on." He grips Mitch's elbow and hauls the other old man up.

Megamind twists onto his back and squints at them. "Where are the guards?"

Guduza's teeth flash at him. "Sebestyén has been having fun."

"Ey's been putting them in sleeper holds since you left the cafeteria," Mitch says.

There's a rustle in the vent above Megamind's bed and then it swings down on one screw, creak-squeaking. A person with shaggy brown hair and an exceptionally narrow frame sticks eir head and shoulders into the cell and stage-whispers in a thick Hungarian accent, "Evening, Blue! Sorry about your hiccups! Can I have a flower?"

Megamind snorts with exhausted laughter. "Dunno. What're you gonna do with it?"

"Gesso the petals into my current work. Acrylic."

He sighs, rolls his eyes, nods. "Yeah, here—oh. Thanks, Ubaba," as Guduza passes one of the wine-dark blooms up to the vent.

"Maaaany thanks!" Ey disappears again, hooking the edge of the vent panel with a lockpick to pull it back up so ey can screw it back into place.

Silence. Megamind's haunt Sebestyén moves like a ghost.

He lies down, rubbing his eyes. "Thank you," he says as the two men who did the most work in raising him and Minion turn to leave. "I…thanks. Don't, don't worry if it happens again. I'll be okay."

They nod. Mitch asks, "What you want to do with the other flower?"

Megamind sighs. "Flush it," he says. "I'm sure I'll make more."

He lies down, pulls his scratchy blanket over himself, and closes his eyes.

Her whole hand, she—put her whole hand on him. Palm and fingers. Maybe…

…no. It's because she's known him for years. That's all.

He breathes carefully and falls into uneasy sleep with the echo of Roxanne's hand still tingling on his skin.