Here's Chapter 8. Not a lot to say about it except that things happen. There are some cute scenes, some weird scenes. Linda continues to be strange. We learn more about the PHED. This chapter contains two scenes I've been working on for months and two I stuck in very recently…can you guess which is which?
As always, I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! And happy holidays, everybody. I hope you're well. Big hug.
Chapter 8
When Roxanne wakes up, she's alone. That's new. Megamind is almost always awake before her when they're at home—his patterns have been off while traveling—and sometimes he even gets up and does some work while she's still in bed, but he usually comes back for some quality snuggles when she starts wandering back towards the land of the living. He's said he worries about being clingy, but as she's told him a few times, "Waking up to an alien chewing on my ear is sort of sweet. Weird, but sweet."
But today she rolls over and he isn't there. So she rolls over again; still nothing. Frowning, she flops both arms out to the sides and rolls a few more times, expecting to run into him at any moment—
Thud. She sits up, blinking in confusion and rubbing her hip; she's just fallen out of bed. Morning sunlight is pouring in through the three tall windows, painting the room with its seashell motifs in shades of gold and peach, but her blue man is nowhere to be seen. Neither is the dark-haired human he's been impersonating.
She's a little disappointed, but not terribly surprised in retrospect. It's nine o'clock in the morning in a new place and Megamind is nothing if not curious to a fault, so there's nothing unusual about him waking up and wanting to explore. Knowing him, he's probably been up since five. She hauls herself to her feet and tries in vain to locate her bathrobe, then gives up and just gets dressed for the day.
Downstairs, everything is quietly normal from a human perspective. Megamind as Pavel sits with his back to the stairs, immersed in the chemistry journal Drew had been reading the night before while the other man sips his coffee and reads the paper. Linda is silently and mechanically filling in the daily crossword.
Roxanne tromps down the stairs, yawning hugely, and drapes herself over Megamind's shoulder, and he smiles and relaxes against her with a gentle little hum. "Morning, beautiful. Sleep well?"
"Slept great. You?"
He laughs. "Kept waking up wondering where all the sirens were. What was that thump I heard just now?"
"That was me rolling out of bed because you weren't there to stop me."
He sniffs, unconcerned, but can't hide his little smile at the thought that she'd missed waking up with him. "Oh sure, blame me, it's my fault."
"Mmm, it's always your fault." She chuckles and folds her arms around him. "What you reading?"
"Boring stuff. Organic chemistry journal."
"Just for fun, or you gonna do something cool with it?" She turns her head, kisses his ear. "Make a cool gun…?" Megamind turns beet red.
"This isn't that kind of…a weapon made of this would be horrific," he protests. "I mean, it's definitely possible, but…bleah."
Roxanne smiles and peers down at the paper. "What's a macrocyclic olee—olie—"
"Oligocholate."
"So it's an oligocholate with really big…cycles. How d'you make a gun out of that?"
Megamind shrugs and thinks for a moment. "I guess I'd engineer a photoparticle that would reverse the polarity of the lipid bilayer."
"Ooh, don't tell me." She rests her chin on his shoulder and yawns again, closing her eyes for a minute. "I know this one, photoparticle means it'd be a laser-gun. And the lipid bilayer is cells, right? It would turn people's cells inside out?"
"And I would call it the Leprosy Beam," he purrs, pitching his voice deeper to make himself sound creepy. Roxanne laughs.
"And it would be my squishy!" she exclaims, squeezing him.
Drew clears his throat. "Okay, ew," he says. "That's just gross."
Roxanne chuckles. "And not entirely accurate. Wouldn't it be more of a necrosis beam?"
"It would," Megamind agrees, smiling as she gives him one last little squeeze before she leaves to go get a bowl. He turns a page and returns to his journal. "But leprosy beam sounds cooler."
"It's all presentation with you, yes, we know." Roxanne shakes her head and pours herself some cereal, ignoring the sugar bowl sitting conspicuously by his elbow. "You smell like granola."
"And you smell like toothpaste."
"Haaaaahhhh," Roxanne exhales, and Megamind wrinkles his nose.
"Drew's right. You're grouse."
"Gross, sweetie, long O."
Megamind cocks a haughty eyebrow in her direction but doesn't actually look up. "That's what I said. Grouse."
"A grouse is a kind of bird," she tells him seriously. He doesn't even look up.
"Order galliformes," he says. "Yes, I am aware."
She reaches over with her spoon and raps him gently on the knuckles. "Okay, so you're just doing it to annoy me."
He returns to his journal and turns another page. "Yes, I am," he agrees cheerfully. "Is it working?"
She straightens. "Oh, bullshit you're reading it that fast!"
Now he looks up at her, peering over the tops of Pavel's pince-nez. "I read very quickly, Miss Ritchi, you know this."
"And talking to me at the same time?" She reaches out and closes the journal, puts her hand flat on the cover. "Summarize it," she challenges smugly.
He grins, opens his mouth to reply, and blows an enormous raspberry at her. The spectacles fall off his nose and Roxanne bursts out laughing. "Okay, super-genius. You know what, no more science until you brush your teeth. Morning breath and then cereal on top of it? Gag me."
His mouth falls open. "But Roxanne! I was just getting to the discussion! That's the best part!"
"Then you'd better do a good job," she says, unruffled. "Otherwise those lovely white teeth of yours are going to fall out of your head from all the sweets you manage to pack into your skinny little body. I still can't believe you scoop sugar on granola."
"Ugh. Bossy." He scowls good-naturedly and gets up. "My high rate of mental processing and high metabolism require me to consume what would be to you a disproportionately large quantity of first-level sugars."
"And don't forget to floss. Protect against gingivitis."
"You're evil," he grumbles, and Roxanne smiles in pleased surprise.
"Aww," she says, touched, "thank you."
"Wasn't a compliment."
"Yes it was."
"Yeah, okay, it was." From halfway up the stairs, he yells down, "I can't get gingivitis!"
"Go find someone who cares!" Laughing, she shakes her head and turns back to her cereal, then glances up at Drew and her mother, who are both staring at her with identical stunned expressions. She blinks and frowns at them. "What?"
Drew and Linda look at each other. Linda raises her eyebrows and grins, and Drew shrugs expansively and busies himself with the comics. "Nothin'."
She snorts. "Uh huh."
She sits and eats her cereal, thumbing absently through the abandoned chemistry journal until Megamind comes back downstairs.
"There's orange juice in the fridge," Linda says.
"Great, except I just brushed my teeth," he grumbles, and looks over at Drew, who glances up at him. "Sodium lauryl sulfate," they chorus, and nod respectfully at one another before returning to their respective activities.
Linda grins at her daughter. "Oh, I like this one."
"You liked Peter, too, Ma," Roxanne points out, and Linda shrugs.
"Yeah, but he took a while."
"Oh no he did not, you were all over him the first time I brought him home."
"Give that back," says Megamind, reaching for his journal as he slides back into his seat with a cup of coffee, "it's not like you understand what it's saying anyway."
Drew tenses, but Roxanne just swats him with it and hands it back before picking up one of the unoccupied sections of newspaper. Interesting. Once upon a time, she would have snapped at him not to underestimate her intelligence; now she seems perfectly at ease with what had sounded like a casual insult.
"Hey, you know anything about a guy who calls himself Vitre?" she asks a minute or so later.
Megamind sighs. "Oh, lord. What's he done this time?"
"Apparently he's been turning decorations into glass downtown. Wreaths and topiaries, that kind of thing. You've heard of him, then." She turns the paper around so he can see the picture, and he squints at it for a second before shaking his head disparagingly.
"He's an aspiring villain in the San Francisco bay area. All show and no go if you ask me. He'll never amount to anything, mark my words," he says flatly.
"I don't know," she replies. "Says here the police still don't have any leads on who he is and he's been more active lately."
He huffs. "Yeah, but 'more active' for Vitre is like…" He struggles for a minute before abandoning that line of thought with a frustrated growl. "He's just a low-level super! His power is that he turns things into glass. That's not exactly evil. I mean, maybe he could open a mildly creepy novelty shop or something, but other than that…"
"What if he started turning people into glass?"
He looks up again, suddenly interested. "Has he?" She gives him a Look and he slumps. "Oh. Right. Well, if he did, I for one would be more inclined to take him seriously."
"Well, I think it's good he has a hobby," she says after a moment's consideration. "I bet a glass topiary would look really neat! Wire some lights in it and hang it upside-down and you'd have the coolest chandelier ever."
"But that's the problem," he insists. "You read that and you think it sounds kind of interesting but not like a real problem. He is trying to be evil and it comes off sounding like a hobby."
She raises an eyebrow. "Wasn't it?"
Megamind scowls at her. "Not the same thing." He exhales through his nose, looking away, and Roxanne lays a hand on his arm.
"I guess that is kind of sad for him."
"It would be unbelievably frustrating," he murmurs. "Ten bucks says he's going to snap soon."
"I'm confused," Linda says from where she's sitting at the dining room table, and they both jump. "You sound like he might have a chance if he changed something."
Pavel turns in his chair and leans on the peninsula, shrugging, giving her his full attention. "He might. He definitely has potential, and his head is in the game. His problem is that he's taking the slow rise to power, and that just doesn't fit his capabilities."
"The slow rise?"
"You know, lots of little acts of villainy spread out over a long period of time and a large geographical area. He's showing that he's not going anywhere and he's marking his territory, and that's good," he says, gesturing with his hands. Then he frowns and shakes his head. "The problem with it is that it really only works for people who have scary powers, or who use their powers for really scary things."
"Like turning innocent bystanders into glass?" she asks. "Seems to me that'd alarm a lot of people."
"That's a good example, yes. Lots of little acts of really unsettling villainy, that's what works. But this guy?" He shakes his head and makes an irritated noise in the back of his throat. "He comes off looking like a cheeky prankster, not a threat. The worst part is that he knows it. I read his forum posts, he's becoming increasingly erratic."
"Right," Linda nods, "you said you think he's going to snap soon. Do something really big, really wild and crazy, right?"
"That's right."
"Well, the way I see it, there's really only two ways that can go," she says slowly, and he tilts his head at her. "Either people freak out and bow down, or he marks himself as such a major threat that we take him out before he can go any further."
Pavel's smile is sharp. "Exactly. Either he becomes a fully-fledged supervillain—and then only if he keeps it up—or he goes down and becomes a has-been."
"That'd be a difficult balance to achieve," Linda muses. "Frightening enough to make them fear you, not so frightening that they mark you enough of a threat to warrant immediate take-down."
"Mom!" Pavel and Linda start and look at Roxanne. "You're quoting."
Linda's mouth quirks into a wry smile. "It's relevant to the conversation."
"It is," Pavel agrees, nodding earnestly. "I assume you're referring to Megamind?"
"He went from petty misbehavior as a teenager to an open attack on Washington, D.C., yes. But I think that's where the whole 'threat' thing breaks down," she says, frowning now. "How is that not enough to mark him a clear and present danger to the American public?" Her eyes narrow. "I've never understood that. You know him, right? Care to explain?"
Roxanne puts down her newspaper. "Careful, Mother."
"There may have been extenuating circumstances," Pavel says easily. "He may have been provoked."
"He was provoked, you mean."
Pavel shrugs. "Okay, yes. He was provoked. The PHED stole Minion."
Up goes an eyebrow. "Did they really? I didn't know that."
"It was covered up. That was part of the deal—there was actually a lot of negotiating that went on between him and the PHED." He shrugs again, unsurprised, unruffled. "They reached an understanding. Besides, it was self-defense. If Minion dies, so does Megamind, and given the latter's childhood experiences with the PHED he had no guarantee they wouldn't kill his friend in pursuit of scientific inquiry. I'm sure you can understand why he wouldn't want that made public."
"Oh, absolutely," Linda says, just as Roxanne exclaims, "What?" Drew is frozen with his coffee mug halfway to his lips; he's been sitting like that for a while now.
Pavel looks over at her mildly. "You didn't know that?"
"He never said," she says through clenched teeth. There are two angry red spots high on her cheeks, and her hands are shaking as she folds the paper and stands. "Excuse me. I can't listen to this."
Pavel watches her as she leaves through the sliding door, probably heading down to the beach. Linda, however, is watching him—he looks almost nervous as the door closes, but when he turns back around it's as though nothing at all had happened. Linda smiles at him.
"I'm gonna go see what's up with Annie," Drew announces, and disappears without stopping to put on his shoes.
Pavel looks at Linda, suddenly more panicked than nervous. "I. I should go too. I think I messed up."
"Well, we can't have that," she says pleasantly. "Go fix your mess."
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Roxanne and Drew are standing by the corner of the garage, heads close together, talking in low voices. Megamind can't see Roxanne's face; her back is to him, but Drew looks up as soon as he hears the door close. Megamind swallows and half speed-walks, half-runs to where they're standing.
Roxanne whirls and starts to light into him as soon as she hears him coming, but he cuts her off.
"It's not true," he says flatly. "Any of it. If it were, I'd have told you ages ago."
She falters, blinking a little. "Wh-what?" Some of the tension goes out of her expression. "Oh, thank god. I thought…"
"I'm sorry," he tells her, taking her gently by the shoulders. "I'm so, so sorry but I had to get you out of the room and I couldn't think of any other way to do it."
Drew looks outraged. "So you just manipulated us out of the house? What the hell, man? Not cool."
Megamind doesn't even look at him, just rests his forehead against Roxanne's and hopes she doesn't pull away. "Please. I freaked. I'm sorry."
She holds still for a moment, then pushes on him and nods just a little bit. Just enough to let him know she's only irritated with him, not mad. "Why?"
"Because I know when you're ramping up for an argument," he says softly. "And I knew she wasn't going to take that well, and you'd both end up saying something you'd regret. I'm sorry."
"Stop saying you're sorry," she says, finally pulling back and looking him in the eye. "It's—a good enough reason, I guess. And sweetie, I know you're frazzled as hell, but try not to scare me next time, okay?"
He grins, relieved. "Okay."
"Nine," Drew says out of the clear blue sky, and apparently that's code for something because it makes Roxanne take a step back.
"Everything okay?" Linda calls from the porch.
"We're fine, Ma," Drew yells back.
"Good, I want to show Pavel the yard." She starts to make her way down the few stairs, cane in hand, leaning heavily on the railing.
Megamind takes a few quick steps in her direction. "Do you need…?"
She waves him away, smiling. "No, no. I'm fine. Old bones, that's all, but thank you." Still, he catches her elbow when she hits the grass, steadying her briefly. She pulls away almost immediately but doesn't comment on his action. All she says is, "Your hands are freezing."
"Oh—yes." He colors and uses an excuse he'd overheard once: "I have bad circulation. It's worse in the winter."
"Well, as my mother used to say: cold hands, warm heart." It's an offhand sort of comment that leaves him blinking and stammering by the steps as she approaches the cliff.
The house is right by the beach, as Roxanne had described, but at a significantly higher altitude. The edge of the yard drops off rather abruptly; although there are a few strategically-placed large stones to warn people away from the cliff, there's more than enough space between most of them for two people to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. A set of wooden stairs lead down to the shore below.
"We had a storm a couple nights ago, so the wind is stronger than usual," Linda explains as Pavel approaches. "But it's always windy, especially by the dropoff."
He stares out at the expanse of water, which is a different color and much choppier than the lake he's used to. "This view is amazing."
Drew bounds up on one of the stones and turns his face to the wind, which blows his beard over his shoulder and tangles his long hair behind him. "It's why she and my dad bought this house," he calls over the humming wind. "That and the ground-floor master bedroom. Annie, show him your rock."
Roxanne grins and pats one of the other stones, the top of which is more or less flat. "I used to sit up here and read all the time. It was a good rock for doing homework as long as I didn't let my papers blow away." Smiling nostalgically, she leans against the stone and glances out to sea. "Sometimes there were boats I could watch when I got bored…"
"The two of you scared me to death every time," Linda mutters. "Playing on these rocks like little goats. If I told you once, I'd told you a thousand times, but would you listen?"
Megamind peers over. It really is a long way down to the beach.
Suddenly Drew's voice takes a different tone. Questioning, uncertain. "Annie?"
He turns and sees Roxanne, and oh no. She's standing between the stones a few feet away from the cliff, her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists by her sides, staring unblinkingly down. Her mouth is clamped shut, and he remembers her sleepy admission that she still dreams of falling, sometimes.
Linda frowns. "Roxanne, what's—"
"Shit," she hears Pavel mutter, and that's all the warning he gives before he vaults clean over the boulder separating him from Roxanne from a standing start, landing with his back to the cliff and easing her quickly away from the edge.
I'm too high up
It's the only thing she can think. Too high, too high, man was never meant to go this high (if man were meant to fly he'd have been born with wings), I'm too high
The low voice threads its way through the panic, touching her somewhere deep. "Roxanne."
Not good. That only makes it worse. If she focuses on being okay she can pretend that she is, but now Megamind knows she's not okay, not okay at all, and it's like he's given her permission to freak out. She's dimly aware that she isn't actually breathing. "Roxanne, look at me."
Strong hands on her shoulders, turning her, pulling her back from the edge but it's no good, no good; she's still looking down at the city below with the wind screaming in her hair, in her ears. Too far to fall too high up please God please let me be dead before I hit the ground I'm too high up
Distant voices pass through her hearing without meaning anything. "What's wrong with her?" "Get back, Drew, let him—"
The low voice reaches in again and touches her. "Not at my feet, at my eyes. Come on. Come on, now, gorgeous girl. Look at me, Miss Ritchi." A gentle shake, a low command, fingers under her chin cupping her jaw. "At me."
She tears her eyes away from the fall, gasps, and collapses backwards into her mind, finds herself staring through watering eyes at a pair of calm green irises. She makes a sound; she's not sure which one.
"You know who I am?" he asks in a voice that rings and rolls like thunder below the humming wind. This is not her shy, sweet boyfriend; this is the ruler of Metro City. The 'I am' carries just a touch of the old supervillain, and it is so comfortingly familiar.
Her voice sounds distant to her own ears. "Yes."
His hands on her shoulders tighten, grounding her. "And am I ever going to let you fall?"
"No," she whispers, and suddenly she can breathe again. "No, you won't."
He grins, relieved. "Right," he whispers back, and he's Megamind again, her Megamind, with his slow smile and gentling hands. "No I won't. Run that bike to the ground before we let you fall like that," and his arms go around her like so, and her eyes close against the curve of his neck just like that, and he exhales a long, cold breath into her hair like this and it's all just so right. She knows of course it was Minion who saved her that day, but the voice and the face were Megamind's and he is the one she remembers.
"So I guess I'll take skydiving off our bucket list, huh?" he says after a moment, and she breaks into shaky laughter.
"I didn't know we had a bucket list," she says, letting go of him with an effort. He nods, grinning at her.
"Course we do! I do, anyway. Stuff I want to do with you, typical bucket list stuff. Learn a new language, climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Carve our names into Mars with a giant laser." He shrugs. "You know, the usual stuff."
Her lips twitch and she glances at her mother. "Where are you going to get a giant laser?"
He gestures vaguely. "Oh, I'm sure I'll find one somewhere. Somebody in Metro-oo City is bound to have one somewhere."
She can't help it then, she cracks up. The ebbing adrenaline makes her feel breathless and trembly around the knees, but the blasé way he jokes about his identity is just too funny.
Her mother's voice makes her turn. "You okay?"
She takes a deep breath and nods. "Yeah. Sorry, I guess…I'm afraid of heights?"
Drew snorts. "Since when?"
"Since she fell off the top of a building more than half a mile high," Pavel mutters, and Roxanne gives her brother a weak smile.
"Since Titan."
"Well, let's go take a look at the gardens, then," Linda says, "but didn't Megamind ever do anything that involved heights? Because I seem to remember a few afternoons you spent getting sunburned on top of various and sundry skyscrapers."
Roxanne's gaze goes hard. "Megamind," she says, her voice flat and angry, "was never going to hurt me, Mother." She glares.
"Can we not do this?" Drew asks quietly, but the look on his face isn't exactly hopeful. "Please?"
"I'm not the one who brought it up," she says tightly.
There's a long, tense silence. Linda presses her lips together. Then she squares her shoulders and sets her jaw. "It was an honest question," she states, "and frankly, I'm tired of you jumping down my throat every time I say anything about your b—whatever the hell he is. I'm cold, I'm going inside."
And with that, she turns around and walks away. Three pairs of eyes watch her retreat, stunned. Only after the door closes behind her does Roxanne slowly relax and step away from Megamind, who lets out a long breath. "Well," he says brightly, "that didn't seem so bad!"
Drew and Roxanne look at each other. "That isn't what usually happens," Drew says after a tense pause. "Hey, I'm sorry, do you mind if I talk to my sister alone for a minute?"
"Oh," he says, surprised. "Oh, no, sure. I'll just—go inside."
The trouble with going inside is that Linda is inside. Unfortunately, Megamind doesn't think of this until the door has already closed behind him, and then he's confronted with the uncomfortable sight of Roxanne's mother elbow-deep in dishwater with a black scowl on her face.
He swallows, then goes over and picks up the drying rag. "Here," he says, trying not to sound awkward and failing miserably, "I'll help. It'll go faster with two."
She hands him a plate without missing a beat. "You know, I wish I could just talk to her," she says tightly. "Without her jumping down my throat. I am trying to be civil, I really am…" She blinks furiously and shakes her head.
Well, this is…just delightful. "I guess…you aren't the only one who's irrational where he's concerned," he tries, but Linda just glares at him briefly, eyes flashing.
"I am not irrational where he is concerned," she snaps, "I couldn't give less of a rat's ass about him. I am irrational where she is concerned." She grabs a fistful of spoons and soaps them furiously. "I'm worried about her."
Megamind blinks and opens his mouth, but Linda continues, still in that tight, too-controlled voice.
"I am worried sick to death about her. I have been worried about her for nearly a decade. I'm taking prescription drugs for high blood pressure—you know what my family doesn't have a history of? At all? Yes."
He tries not to flinch. "Well, I—I don't understand. She's told you she isn't in any danger from him, hasn't she?"
"Oh, numerous times." She rolls her eyes. "But has she given me any proof? Ha! Honestly, she sounds brainwashed, and if you tell me he isn't capable of that, ho ho, I shall laugh."
"I seriously doubt you would," he mutters.
"Smart man. Too smart. But that's beside the point." She scrubs furiously for a few seconds, then just drops the dishrag in the water and faces him. "The point is, I'm worried sick about her and have absolutely no reason to believe anything she says. The only points in his favor came from a very brief phone conversation we had a couple months ago, when she and I were pissed off royally at each other, and he picked up her phone and told me to back off."
Pavel recoils. "That's in his favor? How the heck is that in his favor?"
"Because he said we both needed to calm down," she says flatly. "Not just me. He acknowledged that Annie wasn't entirely in the right, either, and I honestly believe he'd have said the same thing if she hadn't been standing right there." She sighs and rubs the bridge of her nose. "I just…I don't know what to think. He's up there trying to drive a wedge into this family, and I don't even understand why."
"That's surprising." He manages a half-joking tone despite the way his stomach is rolling with anxiety. "I mean, considering all the intelligence you seem to have gathered about the outworlders in Metro City. How did you know all that about Sundown?"
She shrugs. "He's not the only Carrollian exile on Earth; my husband has worked with two others," she says tiredly. "They're a fascinating race, they really are, but restricting their movements is…difficult. And he says they're notoriously difficult to place. You have to separate them, put them in big cities or they just go totally mad and Earth only has so many big cities. One Carrollian per seven million humans, that's how it goes…"
"But why restrict them to cities? They're predators, as far as I can tell. Totally carnivorous." He frowns. "Why not land them in the wilderness somewhere?"
She chuckles. "Where, though? Territorial or not, the last thing we want is for them to find each other and start breeding. They might be endangered on their home world—"
"I wonder why," he mutters.
"I mean, honestly, right?" She raises her eyebrows in agreement. "But they have no natural predators here and they're very hard to kill even without that stupid sanction. They'd be terribly invasive."
He half-smiles. "Well, that's one thing you'll never have to worry about from Megamind, at least," he offers. "He's the last of his kind. So is Wa—Metro Man."
She peers at him, her brown eyes suddenly sharp. "'Is'?" she echoes. He grimaces.
"Yes. He's…well, you should probably know. There's a long version of the story and a short one, and you should really get the long one from him. Well, you should really hear all of it from him," he amends. "He's in hiding and you're now one of four people who know he's alive. I know I and the other two are certainly not going to drag him in front of the press, so if they get hold of this, I'll know the reason why."
Her eyebrows rise just a little bit higher. "Was that a threat?"
"Yes." As uncomfortable as he looks, he meets her gaze without flinching.
"You're protecting him."
"You could say that. Yes."
She tilts her head. "Why? You could destroy him with this information. It sounded to me like you even know his secret identity."
He chuckles and finally turns away, picks up the discarded rag and slowly starts rinsing the dishes and piling them in the other side of the sink. Linda moves out of his way. "I've known that for years. Even know his weakness, now. But I don't have any reason to destroy him, so why would I?"
"Why, indeed." And then, out of the clear blue sky, she asks, "Would you like to see baby pictures?"
His head comes up, the odd mood forgotten, his strange eyes poisonous-green and shining with laughter and excitement. "Would I!"
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
She leads him to a small room off to one side, one of the few on the ground floor that has a door. There's a desk with a computer, a worn leather chair facing a closet with a television in it that has Megamind blinking at the arrangement, and shelves upon shelves of books lining the walls.
"The study," Linda says by way of explanation, and shuts the door behind them. When Megamind sends her a questioning glance, she adds, "Annie would kill us both if she knew I was showing you these," and he throws his head back and laughs.
She pulls a small stack of photo albums off a shelf—mostly beige and brownish, although there is one very thin black one in the pile—and places them on a small table by the easy chair, drags the swiveling desk chair over and sits down in it.
"Oh," Megamind says awkwardly. "No, you should have the big chair, it's more comfortable…"
"Not for me, it isn't." She shakes her head. "Not for these old bones. Take a seat."
He doesn't argue, and nearly disappears in the brown leather—the chair could seat two of him side-by-side with room to spare. He really is small.
(The other two come back inside after a few minutes. Roxanne sees that the door to the study is closed and starts towards it, but Drew calls her back. "They're probably talking about you, Small Sister," he says, "and that's a subject where angels fear to tread. And by 'angels' I mean me, and you too if you're smart." So she settles down on the sofa with her book, instead, but keeps one ear pricked, listening for any sound that might indicate trouble.)
She hadn't expected to be able to make Pavel go doe-eyed and melty in under a minute, but he's going "Awwww" almost as soon as she cracks open the first album. For a while, Linda is able to lose herself in the old stories that accompany each picture, all the joys and failings of familyhood.
It's Megamind's first-ever glimpse into what a normal childhood is really like, and he finds himself unable to speak past the lump in his throat more than once as he stares down at the books of faded photographs. There's Roxanne in pigtails holding the biggest frog he's ever seen in both hands, beaming a childish open-mouthed smile of pure glee while her brother stands behind her clutching a net. There she is on a swing-set, hanging upside down from a jungle gym, brandishing an arm in a purple cast while a bald and bearded giant of a man with patterns tattooed across his scalp writes something on it. She's riding the giant's shoulders on the next page. A friend of the family, Megamind assumes.
She's lying on her stomach on the floor, surrounded by blurry crayon drawings. She's getting a piggyback ride through a stream from Drew, whose trousers are rolled up to his knees but wet to halfway up his thigh anyway and who has a field guide to insects stuffed in his back pocket and binoculars around his neck. Her hair is down to her waist and shining brown, then cropped short in the next photo while she holds up the severed ponytail with an excited grin on her face. She's wearing braces. She's not wearing braces and pointing to her mouth.
Linda can barely stop laughing long enough to tell him the story of her first birthday, when she had eaten not only the lit candle but quite a lot of cake when she'd flopped forward and planted her face and both hands in it. "It was the worst mess you've ever seen," she finally chokes out. "Well…there it is, you can probably guess…"
"Oh," he says, staring at a wailing pillar of crumb-y icing with eyes and corduroy pants, "oh, wow."
"'Oh, wow,' is right!"
A few pages later, Roxanne is running through the dusk with another little girl in cornrows who Megamind doesn't recognize. "Chasing lightning bugs," Linda explains, and he has no idea what those are but nods anyway.
And there's Drew, whose nose seems to change shape once every five years or so and who seems to have spent most of his childhood in glasses, a sweater vest, and a scowl—at least in the pictures where Roxanne isn't present.
"They were really close, weren't they?" he says when they come to the end of the second album, peering down at a small series of three photos that were all taken together. Drew glowering down at a National Geographic, Roxanne grabbing it away and stuffing the corner into her mouth, both children laughing and tugging on the magazine.
"Tore it right down the middle," she says fondly, smiling down at the page. "Yes, they still are very close. He took his role as a big brother very seriously, you know, despite the age difference. Nearly six years' gap between them, but he never tried to leave his kid sister at home until he was in his mid-teens. It didn't earn him many friends but she was always paddling along after him like a little duck, and they fought like any children—he managed to dislocate her elbow a couple of time, but oh he has scars from her sharp little nails." She adds as a sort of aside, "If you ever have children, watch out for their fingernails," and he nods his understanding. "But as far as I know they never kept any secrets from each other, not even when she was up at Metro University and he was in Nevada working towards his PhD, and they were always pulling tricks on one another…to this day, she refuses to tell me what he sent her for her eighteenth birthday." She's quiet for a few seconds, lost in memory, and then she looks up at him. "Do you have any siblings?"
His face falls a little as he shakes his head. "None that I know of. My family died when I was very young."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
He simply nods and tries to change the subject. "So what's this one?" He picks up the black album.
"Oh—that, don't look at that—" Linda reaches out to take it from him, but it's too late; he already has it open. She drops her hand back in her lap, grimacing. "Look, it's not—that's just something I made a few months ago. It's too morbid; I've been meaning to put it away."
Megamind stares down at his lap, frozen.
The album is full of newspaper clippings, articles and op-ed pieces and obituaries from years of newspapers, but what has caught his eye is the tiny symbol next to the name in the first obituary: an M broken by a lightning bolt. It really isn't even an obituary, just a death mention. Ricky Aaronsen. The names must be in alphabetical order. He knows what the next one will be without having to look.
Linda's voice sounds nearby, but he doesn't look up. "Give it to me."
"Why?"
"So I can put it away."
He touches the page with shaking fingers. His halting voice sounds distant to his own ears. "You're not going to show it to Roxanne?"
A pause.
"No."
He looks up at her, astonishment written all over his face. "Why? This could—really help your case against Megamind."
"You know what this is?"
"Of course I know what it is," he says, reproachfully enough that Linda blinks. "It's a collection of articles mentioning people who died as a result of his battles with Metro Man." He flips through pages until he reaches V for Velasquez, Antonio, survived by his sister and two brothers. "How long did it take you to collect all these?"
She frowns at him. "I've been saving the newspapers for years. Only got around to organizing them a few months ago, though. Are you okay?"
"But you haven't shown this to her. You didn't show it to her at Thanksgiving." He still won't look at her. "Why not? What's stopping you?"
"Because, as you noted, this is possibly the only thing she'll listen to," she says, her eyes on his face, and even without being able to see her scrutinizing him, it takes every ounce of his self-control not to break down and confess everything right then and there. Confronted with a tangible, alphabetical list of his greatest failures. "And I'm not sure I want her to see it just yet." She holds out her hand again. "Give it to me. I'll put it away."
Megamind's lips thin and he looks down at the page again. Velasquez, Antonio. "I'd like to look through this, if you don't mind." His voice doesn't shake, not even a little.
Slowly, she drops her hand. "I suppose that's all right."
"Thank you." He sits without moving for a few seconds, until he realizes she isn't planning on leaving. Then he just shrugs inwardly and starts reading.
She's still watching his face. The lines around his mouth, around his eyes. The way they deepen, making him look older than he is as he leans over the page. The way he hasn't remembered to put on his glasses.
"I hate the obits," he says after a little while. "They never tell you anything important. Antonio's sister is with the MCPD, did you know that?"
"No, I didn't."
"They call her Mace. She's one of the best cops they've got." He rubs a finger gently over the name. "He played soccer all through shool. Goalie. Got to go to college on an athletic scholarship. Had the widest smile I've ever seen; but he'd fight you to the ground if you looked at him wrong, that's how he lost those two teeth. When his father died he moved back home to take care of his mother."
Linda cocks her head. "You know what he majored in?"
"Political science." He lets out a soft laugh. "But never forgot he was a veterano for Spider. Loyal man."
She starts. "He was with Spider? But didn't you just say his sister is in the police?"
His lips tug into a reluctant smile. "You can imagine the Sunday dinners."
"Why would he go back to that, if he got out?"
Pavel hesitates, then looks at her. "Because he was a teacher," he says quietly. "Because there were so many who couldn't get out and needed to learn what he could give them. He'd always tell the wannabes to walk across—I mean, get through school and graduate—but he knew same as anyone it might not happen, so he taught them what they needed to survive, instead."
"He sounds like a good man."
His face closes again and his eyes shutter and go dark. "Yes," he agrees. "He was."
"Does it bother you?" she asks, and when he looks at her, clarifies, "That you're friends with his killer."
He winces. "I…yes. But it was an accident. None of these deaths were intentional. No one was meant to get hurt." He closes the black album carefully, almost reverently. "And for what it's worth, he remembers all of them," he adds softly. "He can list them all, sort them any way you like. I've seen him do it. Last name, first name, date of birth, date of death, time of death, location of death, date and time of memorial service and funeral, occupation, number of children, marriages, divorces, pets' names, hobbies, mothers' maiden names…"
"You're kidding."
"His brain is huge," he exclaims, visibly agitated now, "he doesn't forget anything."
She peers at him. "Do you think he wishes he could?"
Pavel hesitates again for a long moment before slowly shaking his head. His hands on the album are trembling.
Linda draws back in surprise. "What? Why not?"
He wets his lips. "Because the things that hurt the most to remember," he says quietly, "are usually the things most deserving of remember-ance." He presses his hands flat on the cover before she can respond and asks, "May I keep this? I think—he'd want to see it. Memory is one thing, but this…this is real."
She raises her eyebrows, but nods. "All right. Just don't show it to Roxie, okay?"
"Are you kidding?" he says, with an odd little half-smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "She needs to see this! She needs to know about this." And then, without warning, the vim goes out of him and he slumps forward over the black book, resting his forehead on the cover and closing his eyes. "This is important. These were people, once. These are people he killed, unintentionally or not, and she needs to know that."
Linda stares at him. He stays like that, hunched over, almost pushing the front of his head against the leather cover, and she actually has to fight the urge to pat him on the back, reach out in some way. She settles instead for saying, "You know, you are not at all what I expected."
He heaves a long sigh and sits up and grins at her, really grins this time as he puts matter of the album behind him. "Be honest," he says, a playful twinkle in his eye, "did you expect me to be blue?"
She laughs. "Ohhh…" Glances at him. "Not initially."
"Are you disappointed I'm not?" he asks, his grin turning sly.
She opens her mouth, then pauses. Closes her mouth and stops to think for a minute.
His whole face blows wide with shock. "You're hesitating?"
"There were questions I was looking forward to asking him in person," she admits. "We've never met, after all, and despite what I said before, I'd like to meet him! No, really," she insists, when he draws back, looking suspicious, "I would. All I have to go on is what Annie's told me, and she's not exactly an unbiased source of information. Honestly, the way she defends him—I can only think of three things that would make her sound like this. Like I told you before, he's brainwashed her, she's head over heels for him, or she's finally developed a maternal instinct."
Pavel snorts so hard it's almost a sneeze. "I think we can rule out the third one."
"I know. But are the other two any better?" She gives him a frank look. "She has you, which—again—leaves brainwashing."
"Stockholm Syndrome," he offers, but she rolls her eyes.
"I think we both know this goes way beyond that. The problem is, there's no precedent for this relationship! Regular kidnappings during which the kidnappee is in no danger at all? Frequent kidnapping cards, redeemable every twenty punches? A dehydration gun that doesn't ever actually hurt anybody?"
"To be fair," he interjects, fidgeting, "it does have de-ath ray and de-story settings."
"Yes, but does he use them? No! Ugh, gimme a break!" she cries, then follows that with something that would have made him swallow his gum if he'd been chewing any. "This guy's delusional! What's worse is that he seems to really believe he is evil so he's got to be severely misguided, and on top of that he's got an ego the size of Las Vegas and a superiority complex a mile wide running down the middle! Probably built up over the years to mask the deep-seated inferiority complex he acquired during his early years. And sure, that's better than being truly evil, but Annie isn't the only one who's been kidnapped by blue aliens. I know what evil looks like, and it looks an awful lot like Megamind.
"And this is the guy she insists on defending!" she continues, finally looking over at Pavel to find him frozen, his mouth hanging open. "I don't understand! He isn't safe!"
"I," he says unevenly, then finally manages to close his mouth and swallow. "I'm not sure what to tell you. I'm not sure what you'll believe," he clarifies when her eyebrows go up.
"Well, how about you tell me the truth and I'll draw my own conclusions?" she says.
Fair enough, although he has to wonder what on earth the 'kidnapped by blue aliens' comment was about. "He has…friends, now. That alone has made a huge difference in the way he thinks, and combined with the several good things he's been doing…" He trails off weakly. This would be so much easier if he could just say 'the good things I've been doing,' but that's not possible. "He knows he isn't evil. Really, I can promise you that. It's part of why he was so angry and resentful for so long—he knew he wasn't evil, but he couldn't make anybody else believe that no matter how hard he tried, so finally he decided to just give up and go with it." He looks at her, finally meets her eyes with a resigned shrug. "If the only thing he was good at was being bad, then he was bound and determined to be the best at bad. It would have been so much easier for him to cope mentally if he actually was evil, so he pretended to be. Even to himself, although that didn't really work. Does that make sense?" he asks, a touch of desperation creeping into his voice. "Am I…am I making any sense?"
Linda says nothing, just motions for him to continue.
"The difference is, now he's actually starting to believe that life doesn't have to be that way. Before, it was the only way he could see, but now…there's potential for more. A lot more! Roxanne," he says, and the way Linda's gaze narrows and sharpens as soon as he says her name is interesting, "has always seen that potential. She knew it was there long before he did. Even before I did, and I've known him for a long time."
There's a long pause that follows this. Megamind is aware that he's starting to rant, but so far Linda has only looked thoughtfully interested in what he's been saying. Maybe she isn't quite as unreasonable as Roxanne thought? But she hadn't sounded reasonable on the phone, that time back in November. Has something changed between then and now? There's no way for him to be sure. All he knows is what Roxanne told him and what little he'd managed to draw from her tone of voice during their very brief exchange.
He decides to try an experiment, maybe encourage her a little. Because as much as she hates him, she isn't totally incorrect about him. So he takes a deep breath and says, "You might find this difficult to believe, but I think you have a lot of very valid points."
Unfortunately, she doesn't rise to it. She just tilts her head at him. "Oh?" she says. "Which ones?"
He hesitates for a second, then says, "Well, not the ones from Blue is the Colour of Evil. The bias is too thick and its 'facts' are really only about thirty-seven percent accurate. But he is dangerous," he confirms for her benefit before she can protest. "He isn't going to hurt Roxanne—he'd never do that intentionally—but he has the capacity to hurt her. Accidents happened frequently and she was hurt a few times while he was kidnapping her, and in the old days he often acted with willful and reckless disregard for her safety. He has killed people. He doesn't see laws as applying to him. He is a criminal, by human standards. He grew up in a prison and is on first-name terms with key players in Metro City's less-than-legal circles. And for all the progress he's made over the past year, he still has emotional issues to deal with." He shrugs. "I know all of this. So does she. And—"
"And that's the part I have a problem with," Linda tells him, an air of finality clinging to her words. "So does she."
He wets his lips and nods. That's understandable, but he can't just let it go. "For some reason, she's been able to move past it."
"What is that reason?" she demands. "That's what I want to know. What possible reason could she have for moving past all of that? Even if he isn't evil, what possible reason could she have for getting involved in all that? She shouldn't have to deal with all his crap!"
They've been leaning towards each other for much of this exchange, still hunched over the small pile of photo albums, but now he stops and sits back, his expression suddenly wary. "H-hold on…exactly how involved do you think she is?"
The frank stare Linda sends him makes his blood run cold. "Please. I have eyes," she says in a very low voice. Then a hard smile grips her features. "And so do you, and may I add that yours are very green. No, don't—say anything." This when he goes white and his mouth opens to stammer something, he doesn't know what. "Not yet. I have my suspicions but I don't want them confirmed or denied at this point." She pauses, breathing deeply. "There are humans with eyes like yours. I don't know who you are. Maybe you really are W. Pavel Chudakov, I don't know. Let's leave it at that for now."
He stares at her. There's not a whole lot else he can do.
She stands slowly and says, "I need to go have a talk with Roxanne. Thank you, you've given me some things to think about." Then she disappears, closing the door most of the way behind her.
Only after she's gone does he begin to shake. He can't breathe; the blood is roaring in his ears and it's probably a good thing he's sitting down because his head is just spinning.
She knows. Oh god. She knows. She knows, and he just spent upwards of half an hour shut in a room with a woman who may or may not want to kill him and he hadn't even known.
Some small piece of his mind manages to wonder what on earth his lungs think they're trying to accomplish, sucking down air like this. He's definitely able to breathe even if he doesn't feel like he is, and the world probably isn't actually about to end. Why is he hyperventilating?
But most of what's in his head right now is a variation on oh god, and the tiny rational part of his brain that's still functioning is starting to get worried so he pulls out his phone and stabs randomly at his short list of contacts. They're only people he would call friends, and there are only five of them.
The phone rings twice, and then a female voice answers. "H'lo?"
He shudders. "Jo—can't—"
"Wait…Megamind? Is that you?" She sounds surprised and not a little bit concerned. "Jesus, are you okay? You sound awful."
"I don't. I don't." He shakes his head wildly and pulls his knees to his chest. What is going on? He feels like he's about to die. "She's gonna kill me and I can't breathe," he finally gasps, and that's all the little woman needs to jump to a pretty good conclusion. She knows most of the situation already; Roxanne told her about the trip months ago, and the rest she can take from context clues.
"Okay, honey, you're going to be okay. Nobody is going to kill anybody, you hear me? I think you might be having a panic attack, does that sound about right?"
Well, that certainly makes sense enough. At least now he knows why his body is suddenly freaking out without him. Somehow it isn't much of a comfort, but he forces words out regardless. "Y-yeah. Conversation. About me. Sh-she doesn't know I'm me yet but—but she suspects, she knows, she doesn't want to know for sure and I'm in a little room with some books and pictures and stuff and I didn't know she knew, I didn't, I didn't know—"
"Okay. Baby. I want you to get to a place where you're safe."
He shudders out a laugh. "No such th-thing."
"All right, it's okay," she says calmly, "but you need to get out of the house. Look around, is there a window in the room?"
He nods. It's right by the chair.
"Honey?"
Oh. Right, she can't see him. "Yes."
"I want you to go out the window and hide. Outside. Find a small, dark place and get yourself into it, or climb a tree, or something. Do whatever makes you feel safe, but let me know where you are when you get there, okay?"
He thinks of the porch, the space under it, and twists in his chair, rising to his knees as he works to get the window open. Pavel's shoulders are too broad to get through the window, so he has to turn off the disguise generator long enough to squeeze outside but then he's scrambling along low to the ground and pushing his way through a weak corner of the lattice into the cool darkness under the porch by the house. He can hear Jo speaking to someone in the distance, telling someone to text something in just a moment.
"Okay, honey. Where are you?"
"Under the porch," he says. His breathing has slowed, but not by much. The cool air is helping a lot, though. "Sorry." He means he's sorry for dumping this on her, sorry for showing this much weakness when he's already asked for her help a few times before, but 'sorry' is about all he's going to get out right about now.
"…Under the porch," she says to whoever is with her. "Yeah, thanks." She returns her attention to him. "Don't be sorry, baby, I'm glad you called. Okay, do you want to tell me what happened? Or do you just want me to talk to you, try to give you a focus?"
He starts to try and explain, but the words won't come. After a few seconds of struggling, he finally just hisses in exasperation.
Jo knows him well enough by now to figure out what that means. "Okay, it's okay. Also, Roxie should be showing up in a minute or two, I had a friend let her know where you are." She doesn't wait for him to respond. That's good, because he'd have tried to explain that Roxanne is inside talking to her mother right now and can't possibly make an excuse to go visit her boyfriend who is having a panic attack under the porch, and he really doesn't think he can string all those words together right now without sounding like a total lunatic.
"Hey, you know what language has weird conjugations compared to English? Mine. You know anything about the Philippines? You want to?"
He breathes. "Yes. Tell me."
So she rambles at him for a minute or so about how to conjugate verbs in the middle of the word instead of the beginning or end, and he focuses with all his strength on repeating the unfamiliar syllables until loud footsteps thump on the porch above him and he cringes back into the dark.
There's a tump-bump step and then silence for a split second when someone jumps, and then Drew lands in a crouch in the grass by the house.
"Hey," he says, bending down and looking around in the shadows. "Annie's in there talking to Mom, I think they're gonna go for a walk in a couple minutes. You okay? Stupid question, you're not okay," he answers his own question. "You wanna come out?"
He shakes his head, tells Jo, "Drew's here."
"Oh. Oh great. Well, better than nothing, I guess." She doesn't sound particularly enthused. "You want me to stay on the line, or let you go?"
"No, I can, I can go," he says, trying to sound okay and failing. "Thank you. Thanks."
"Anytime, baby. You're going to be just fine, understand? Nobody is going to kill anybody."
"Okay. Bye." He ends the call. That was terse, he knows, but he can't really feel bad about it right now.
Drew hovers by the lattice, peering into the gloom. A pair of green circles shine out at him, reflecting the light like a cat's eyes, but that's the only indication that there's anybody under there. Jeez, Megamind is wedged really far under the deck.
"So you're not coming out?" he asks, just once more, just to clarify.
"Mm-mm."
He steels himself, then starts wiggling his way through the splintered lattice. His shoulders are wide but he didn't dance his way through grad school for nothing; he's very bendy.
"…What. What are you doing?"
"If you're not coming out," he grunts, kicking until he's clear of the wooden shards, "then I'm coming in."
Megamind watches him, trying to focus on breathing and failing spectacularly. This is bizzare; he's never experienced such a lack of control over his physical responses before. "Does. Does Roxanne know?"
"No. I deleted the text. You can tell her yourself if you want to." He runs into a shred of web and lets out a squawk, clawing at his face.
"Here," Megamind tries, and crawls forward a little ways and reaches out. He can see better in the dark, and there are only one or two clinging strands. Unfortunately, his hands are shaking rather badly and he ends up poking the other man in the eye with his thumb.
"Oh gee, thanks, now I'm covered in spiders and my eye hurts," he groans, glaring at Megamind with his good eye as he rubs the other one. "Good god, it's in my beard. And wow, man, you are just a bundle of fun and good times, aren't you? No, shut up, it's fine. What happened?"
"I…we were looking at baby pictures, and then this album…" He's still holding onto it; how had he managed to do that? "I…we ended up talking about me. Megamind, I mean. Sh-she knows—suspects," he corrects himself. "She doesn't know for sure but she thinks I'm Megamind, I think, and…"
"And you didn't even know you were in danger?"
He nods. "And now I just feel awful," he bursts out. "I mean I know I'm more than a match for her and I know Roxanne's not going to leave me and I know I'm probably going to get too hurt here even if someone tries to…but I feel like if I make one wrong move, I'm going to die. My whole life has been a series of wrong moves." He gulps, rakes in a shuddering breath. "And that knife business didn't help…"
Drew rears back as best he can while crammed under a porch and ends up cracking his head on a cross-beam. "Ow! Whoa, whoa. What knife business?"
"The…you know. Yesterday, with the chopping and the washing?"
Drew thinks for a moment, and then it's his turn to blink a few times. "Wait, you mean when I went to wash the knife?" Megamind nods frantically and resumes failing to breathe. "I took that away because she was finished with it and needed someone to de-rail her train of thought."
He stares, momentarily distracted. "Then…you don't think she's going to stab me?"
"What?" His eyes nearly fall out of his head. "No! She's not going to stab you! Cripes, Megs, you out of your mind?" he demands, aghast. "Nobody is going to stab you. There will be no stabbing. Or hitting with blunt objects. Or anything."
"But she hates me!" As though that explains everything.
"That doesn't mean she's going to try to kill you!" the older man cries. "Normal people don't just pull knives on each other!"
He can't quite let go of the idea that plagues him. "But Roxanne did," he says, referring to a long-ago conversation with Jo.
Drew lets out a long breath and rubs at his beard. "Roxanne is used to different standards, like you and Metro Man—and me, if it comes to that. I'm about as amoral as they come. But my mom? She's always stuck to the law, and the law very clearly states: no stabbing your potential future son-in-law." He looks at Megamind, suddenly very worried. "Have you been scared this whole time, thinking somebody's going to try to kill you?" At the alien's mute nod, he lets his head fall back against the side of the house. "Oh my god. Okay, first thing we're going to do? Breathe. In for four, two, three, four—and out, two, three, four. Again! Two, three, four; and out, two, three, four." They do this a few times, until Drew counts six and Megamind manages to keep up.
Once that's done and he's breathing slowly on his own, Drew says, "Now listen. Just listen, and try to keep breathing. Roxanne and I are special cases—we do what we think we have to pretty much regardless of whether it's legal or not, although legal definitely helps. Mom isn't like that." He shakes his head. "She hates you, yes, but she isn't going to try to kill you. Trust me. I live here, in San Francisco, remember. I'm a better resource than Annie when it comes to my mom. Oh, and don't worry about Dad, either," he adds. "He's fine with aliens, criminals, you name it. Dad understands what Mom won't: my sister is a grown-up lady. An adult. And she can make her own decisions."
"But," Megamind whispers. "He. PHED."
Drew pauses. "What's a fed?"
"The Paranormal, Holistic, and Extraterrestrial Division."
"Say that five times fast." He frowns. "You mentioned it before. What is that, exactly?"
Megamind bites his lip. "I…I was six, and they…they came, they took me, they took me away from Minion and they kept me." He hugs himself, tucking his chin between his knees. "For two years. And they watched me. Sometimes they…they didn't mean to hurt me but they didn't understand my biology, and…and your uncle."
"Uncle Eric?"
"No. Rodland."
Drew shakes his head, uncomprehending. "I don't know him very well, he's always traveling. What about him?"
"He." Megamind swallows hard, inhales slowly, exhales slowly. He is calming down, although he doesn't feel very much better. "He took Minion."