Whoa, hey, what's this? Dal Niente is still alive? Who knew? Hey, it hasn't been a whole year since I last updated. Just...almost a year.

Anyway, here's a new chapter, I hope you like it, I love you guys so much, my beta karenbjones is the best beta, I'm so sorry this has been so long in coming! Here's hoping the next one is much, much faster...fingers crossed!

Chapter 19

Morning finds Megamind and Roxanne both aching and sweaty, having remained tangled up in each other's arms instead of rolling away as they usually do after falling asleep. Roxanne ows as she starts to stretch, and Megamind makes a similarly pained whining sound and gingerly prods at his left cheekbone, which is purplish and slightly swollen.

Roxanne sits up stiffly and blinks down at him. "Hey," she says hoarsely. She still has a bit of a headache and her own eyes are still puffy and stinging from all the crying last night. "How're you feeling?" She's only partially referring to his physical well-being.

"Feel like ten kinds of fried shit," Megamind rasps, shoving himself up onto his elbows, and Roxanne snorts. He must be feeling at least a little better if he's swearing first thing in the morning. "He must've clocked me in the face and I didn't even notice."

"Let me see."

"Ow, hey, don't—don't touch it. Seeing doesn't require touching," he protests, shielding his face and flapping a hand at her as he leans away from her fingers. "Go away! Miss Ritchi!"

She falls back, grinning now. "Sounds like you're feeling more cheerful."

He yawns like a cat, blinks at her a bit, and cautiously resumes his position within touching range. "I think so."

"Good, 'cause it's Christmas, and if you were in a bad mood it would suck," she says playfully.

"For me, maybe. I'm not sure how that would affect you."

"It'd suck for me too because then I'd have to…" she tilts her head to one side, considering. "Tickle you, probably." She pokes him, curling her finger to stroke it feather light against his side. She laughs as his leg twitches. "Which shouldn't be a problem, but you kick."

Undeterred, she keeps tickling and there's a laughing scuffle that ends with Roxanne on her back, pinned half-under Megamind's lithe body. He beams lopsidedly down at her. "My dear," he says warmly, "no matter what happens, as long as you still want to tickle me, I'll be happy."

She's smiling, breathless. "Even when my eyes are all puffy and my hair is sticking out all weird?"

"Even when you're ninety-two and your boobs are down around your knees," he vows. "I hope you'll want to tickle me until I'm so old I've forgotten where to go from there."

"Do you think you'll ever get old enough that you actually start forgetting things?"

"I have no idea." He laughs. "Can you imagine me going senile?"

"Can you imagine me with my boobs down to my knees?"

He chuckles. "That's a trick question, isn't it?" He nibbles her earlobe, then draws a line of quick little kisses down her neck before resting his chin on her chest and blinking lazily up at her. "I love you. I love you a lot." He sighs. "I think I always will."

"Well, good," she says, pleased, rubbing her hand over the curve of his skull so he hums. "I love you too, and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon." Her hand brushes against his injured cheek and he flinches a little. She frowns, a little worry line forming on her forehead. "How soon do you think that bruise is going to go down?"

He shrugs a thin shoulder. "Not long. It's not that bad."

She leans in, a wicked smile curling her lip as she purrs, "Maybe I should kiss it bet—"

Someone knocks on the door and they both jump, but then Drew's voice muffled voice says, "It's me. You two decent?"

"No," Roxanne calls. There's a pause, during which Megamind tilts his head at her, confused. "Never," she prompts loudly, and Megamind's expression clears.

The answering snort is clearly audible through the door. "Are you clothed?"

"Maybe," Megamind says, admitting nothing.

"Okay, wise guys, I'm coming in," Drew announces, opening the door with one hand over his eyes and nudging two small, brightly-wrapped packages across the floor with his foot.

"Oh, stop it, we're both fully clothed." Roxanne rolls her eyes and sits up straight, making Megamind slide down her front and land in her lap with a happy-sounding grumbly noise.

Drew uncovers his eyes and looks at them properly. No nudity, that's a relief. Roxanne isn't wearing any pajama bottoms and her oversized T-shirt is hitched up around her waist, but nothing truly indecent is showing. Megamind, draped across her lap, is completely covered from neck to wrist to ankle in what looks like the same spandex he was wearing last night. His long, thin feet are still bandaged, and there's a visible bruise high on his left cheek.

They're both flushed and grinning. One of these days, Drew's going to remind Roxanne that she owes him twenty bucks—it was a silly bet, he'd never really thought this would happen, but now that it has, he's never letting her live it down.

Oblivious to her brother's thought process, Roxanne asks, "What's that? Presents already?"

Drew looks down at the wrapped gifts on the floor. Not wanting to bend over, he hooks the ribbon for one over his toe so he can pick it up with his foot without bending over. Transferring it to his hand, he passes it to Megamind, looking unaccountably awkward. "Yeah, these are from me to you guys, and… anyway, here." The other gift, a small cube, he unceremoniously kicks across the carpet to slide to a stop against the bedskirt. Roxanne gives her brother a dirty look and bends to retrieve her present.

Then she turns it over in her hands, trying to imagine what he might have given her. Knowing Drew, there's really no telling, so she has to make a guess based on what time it is and where they are. She gives her brother a suspicious, sideways look. "Are these presents not a good idea to open in front of Mom?"

At that, Drew frowns. "I think Mom would be okay, but it's still not really…done."

"Ah." That answers that. She nods knowingly, much to Megamind's bafflement.

"Why?" he asks. "What is it?"

"Open yours and find out," Drew tells him, biting his lip to keep from laughing.

Megamind's gift, which initially presented itself as a small, slightly lumpy rectangle patterned with dancing Santa Clauses, turns out to be…he turns it over in his hands, puzzled. "A remote control?" A very small remote control he can easily hide in the palm of his hand. It looks a lot like the key fob for his invisible car, but the buttons are different. There's a single power button and a slider reading "high" on one end and "low" on the other. He pushes the 'on' button.

The cube in Roxanne's hands starts humming. "Just as I thought. You're an ass," she says flatly, but she can't hide her amused grin.

Drew chuckles and starts ticking benefits off on his fingers. "It's phthalate-free, fairly quiet, and waterproof. Also, be warned, there's no cord or handle, so don't put it in your butt or you'll have to make one very awkward emergency room visit," he adds.

Megamind's mouth falls open as his list of improbable but innocent explanations are ruthlessly eliminated. Roxanne is the one who says, "What's the range?"

"Fifty yards," is the eyebrow-raising reply. "I haven't personally tested one, but I hear good things." He hesitates, then slowly continues, "Maybe don't use it while driving, too."

Roxanne shakes her head as she pulls the Christmas-themed paper from the box and lifts the lid. The smooth, plastic egg she finds inside is bumping around inside as if it's trapped and wants to escape. She pulls it out and turns it over in her palm. The vibration is pretty strong. Appropriately, given the circumstances, it's light blue. "I retract my earlier statement. You're better than the best brother."

Megamind closes his mouth and squints at Drew. "You're giving me a remote control with the specific capacity to ruffle an on-air reporter from a healthy distance," he says, and Drew finally laughs.

"That's why I picked this one," he says. "That, and I trust my selection of toys. Hers," he squints dubiously at Roxanne, "I'm not sure of. And I don't want to know."

Megamind's eyebrows crawl slowly up his forehead and he looks over at Roxanne. "He picked up on the nuances of our relationship fast."

"It's not particularly nuanced," Roxanne points out. "And if you use this on me while they're filming, I will personally make sure that audio recording of you singing Dancing Queen in the shower makes the morning news."

Megamind makes a great show of appearing to consider this. "But if they're not filming—"

"No."

"I think if she has it in while she's on-air, she might want you to ruffle her," Drew observes. Roxanne starts to object, but Drew throws up his arms, "Hey, I'm not judging. Your kinks are entirely your own business and I don't want to know about them. But that little toy might make some of those fluff pieces you have to cover more interesting.

"Be careful, though," he adds. "A friend of mine wore one to a restaurant and their partner sat on the fob by accident—it's not fun when a slow build suddenly hits top speed in public." He shrugs, ignoring Roxanne's wince. Too much imagination, that woman. "But you're both responsible adults; I'm sure you'll figure it out."

Then he sits down on the bed. He knows it's somewhat of a cliché gift, coming from him, but the opportunity had been too good to pass up and he'd been hoping it would be a good start to the day. He's not sure how the next bit of news is going to be received. "Okay, guys, serious talk for a second. And lemme just start by saying I am super sorry for springing this on you at the last minute. I only found out, like, an hour ago."

The other two glance at each other. "What's happening?" Roxanne asks. "Is Gramma okay?"

"Yeah, she's still coming. But so are Eric and Irma and the kids. More people than we bargained for."

Roxanne blinks, surprised. "But they were here for Thanksgiving. I thought…"

Drew shrugs. "Yeah, me too. Go figure."

For Megamind's benefit, Roxanne explains, "My uncle's family usually comes every other year. When they do Thanksgiving with us, they do Christmas with Irma's parents up in Oregon. It's been a while since they were able to visit us for both." She peers curiously at Drew.

He misinterprets her expression and sighs. "Okay, look. Here's how it goes," he tells Megamind, resting his elbows on his knees. "Our grandmother—Dad's mom—doesn't really like Mom. Really critical of how she raised me and Annie, blah blah blah, the whole nine yards. She calmed down a little after Mom gave her a granddaughter, but Mom always gets really on-edge when Gramma's here. On the plus side, Gramma'll probably love you, if for no other reason than it'll tick off Mom. Be prepared for awkward old people questions, though."

"Awkward like what?"

"Oh, I dunno. Like when are you getting married, how many kids do you want, whether the babies will be blue. Things like that."

Megamind and Roxanne exchange glances before Roxanne says, "We're not the same species. We can't have kids."

"Not without extensive genetic manipulation, anyway," Megamind clarifies.

"Which we'd rather not do," Roxanne finishes. Since neither of them particularly wants kids, they haven't discussed it in depth, but the subject has come up.

Drew snorts. "Oh, I can't wait to see this. You know that she's still got all those little baby things set aside for you, right?"

Roxanne squints at him in disbelief. "All those crocheted booties and hand-made little nighties? She still has those?"

"Yup," Drew agrees, pleased that, for once, Roxanne gets to be the supreme disappointment rather than him. "She even has Dad's christening gown."

"Great," Megamind mumbles. "Just what we need."

"On the plus side," Roxanne takes over where Drew stopped, "Uncle Eric and Mom are really close—twins—and Mom loves Irma. She was one of Eric's friends before he got divorced, and after a few years they just…clicked. So Mom and Dad and Eric and Irma have all known each other forever, and I'm hoping they'll bring the mood up somewhat."

Drew nods. "Yeah, Gramma tends shut up more around other people. And she loves our cousins."

Megamind is frowning, trying to process all this. He's only just beginning to grasp the Ritchi family's dynamic, and adding two new factors into the mix is making his head spin. "Um…you said Eric is Linda's twin? But there are children?"

"Irma's kids," Roxanne clarifies. "Lorena, Raj, and Nadine. Nadine's only eleven."

"There's an age gap," Drew chimes in. He doesn't elaborate, but Megamind decides that he means Irma is younger than Eric. It seems reasonable.

So, a somewhat antagonistic grandmother, an uncle, an aunt, and three much younger step-cousins. This is going to be interesting. He bites his lip, frowning harder. "Okay. When are they coming? What are their interests?" He's thinking about gifts. There isn't a whole lot of time to get things together, but he should be able to think of something. If anyone can, it's him.

"Lorena is really into math. I think she's taking AP physics next year?" Roxanne asks, glancing at Drew, who shakes his head.

"This year," he says.

Roxanne nods, then continues, "You can probably bond with Raj about music. And Nadine likes unicorns."

Megamind pulls up short. Applied mathematics and music won't be too much of a problem, but unicorns? His initial ideas go out the window.

Roxanne's voice pulls his attention to her. "What are you thinking?"

"Brainstorming presents," he mutters. Most of his processing power is devoted to developing a backup plan and he's not one to waste time on visual input for something so purely cranial, so he doesn't bother looking around at her.

"Oh! Don't worry about that," Roxanne assures him. "Nobody'll expect us to have anything major for them with this kind of notice. Just a card would be fine. I'll give them money, or something."

Privately, Megamind is unconvinced, but he nods anyway. The thing is, he could come up with ideas for the first two, but the mythical creatures have him stumped. Oh, well. Roxanne's solution sounds socially acceptable.

"How're your feet?" Drew asks him.

Megamind makes a face. "Better. I'll be fine as long as I don't have to go hiking or something. I'll be mostly recovered tomorrow."

"Man, I wish I healed that quick."

"Yes, speaking of healing, how are you feeling?" Megamind peers at him. "After Dead Bowie, I mean?"

Drew shrugs. "A little tired. I'm not going to try that again, though, that guy is serious trouble."

"He is an accomplished supervillain. I can't believe you did that."

"I'm not known for my forethought," Drew agrees. Then he puts his hands on his knees and shoves himself to his feet. "Okay, losers, I'm gonna go down and eat myself sick on Christmas cookies for breakfast. Hurry up and get ready. We're waiting on you guys before we start doing presents."

He makes it out the door, then turns around and leans back in, hanging on the doorframe. "And Megs, take a shower, for Pete's sake. You're all caked up with dust."

Megamind rolls his eyes at him, then plucks the vibrating egg out of Roxanne's hand and regards it as Drew disappears again. "Want to try this out today?" he asks, giving her an evil grin.

"No!" She reaches to snatch it back, but he holds it up and away as best he can—their similar heights make it more of a wrestling match than a game of keep-away. Eventually, Roxanne gains possession and stuffs the egg into the drawer with the rest of their toys. Laughing, Megamind tosses her the remote, and she puts it away as well.

She goes into the bathroom with him in case he needs help with his feet. Megamind strips out of his spandex and perches on the edge of the tub as he undoes the bandages so he can see how his cuts are doing; some of the glass went in pretty deep and he doesn't heal quickly enough that he can leave them open to water and air just yet. He rebandages them using butterfly closures to keep the deepest cuts shut, then rubber-bands newspaper bags that he calls for Roxanne to bring him around his ankles to keep his wounds dry in the shower.

Roxanne takes some convincing, but eventually she accepts that if Megamind does slip and fall, she'll hear him and she doesn't need to stick around while he bathes.

When he emerges from the bathroom she's already gone downstairs; he hurriedly dresses in casual civilian clothes and wraps a thin scarf around his neck, then pauses to check the pieces of his uniform that someone had brought up.

His cape, chalky with dust and unexpectedly bleached in one corner, has been draped over the rocking chair by the window. It's torn in three places. Two of the spikes from his mantle are broken and the mantle itself is dented. His high collar is mostly unharmed—a little bent, but otherwise fine.

Megamind nods slowly. All in all, definitely not awful. Minion's patched up worse. Megamind's honestly more worried about how well the brick dust will wash out of the sheets he slept in last night, but he figures if that's the most of his worries, he'll call it a pretty solid success.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Downstairs, the tree is already lit up and everything smells like breakfast sausage and bagels. Megamind ignores the former, which isn't the kind Minion uses and smells a little too much like corn for his taste, and heads for the cream cheese instead.

"How's…Linda feeling?" he asks as he smears it on his bagel. He's still not sure whether to call her Linda or Mrs. Ritchi—but he also doesn't know how to ask. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing he could say oh by the way, what do I call you about. "I...I think she might have done too much yesterday."

Orson shrugs and shoves the patties around in the pan. "Dunno. We'll see if she's up to doing dinner or if it's gonna be me in the kitchen this year. Turkey's been in the smoker since about six thirty so it should be ready about that time. Big bird." Megamind blinks, unsure of how they went straight from just cooking to turkey specifically, but he doesn't get the chance to ask because the next thing Orson says is, "Heard you had some excitement, yourself, yesterday."

Megamind tenses, but Roxanne is the one who answers. "My face is kind of well-known, Dad. I'm not surprised another villain went after me." Stepping fully into the room, she brushes a hand along Megamind's shoulder as she comes to stand behind him. Megamind jumps a little, then calms.

"I'm just surprised that one did," her father says, raising his eyebrows at them. "Always seemed like a lot of bark and no bite. I wanna know how he found where we live."

Megamind blinks down at his food. "That's a good question," he says.

That's a really good question, he thinks.

Roxanne shrugs. "He probably guessed I'd be staying with family. It's a logical assumption."

Megamind reaches up to grasp her hand where it rests against his shoulder, gives it a brief squeeze. She's right, of course, but…there's something else. Vitre was acting on impulse; his plan had been blown to smithereens and he hadn't had enough time to come up with anything better. Megamind frowns, trying to think. There must have been a visit to the house as plan B all along. If he and Roxanne hadn't detoured to the park, Vitre might have caught them by surprise at the house, which would have been all kinds of bad. They'd been lucky yesterday on more counts than he'd realized.

"So what happened?" Orson asks. "I saw the news this morning, so I got a pretty good idea about the warehouse and all. But why's the door all busted up and there's blood in my floor?"

"We went to the park to decompress after we left the warehouse," Roxanne tells him, then drops into the chair next to Megamind's. "Megamind got a call from the Evil League of Evil and he went haring off with the jetpack to take care of it."

Orson looks at Megamind. "Door was already broken in when I got here," Megamind says woodenly. "I wasn't wearing shoes. Went inside, got cut up. Vitre made some crack about having Drew cornered in the living room—" he stops.

Drew. That's what's bothering him about all this.

Too bad I've got her brother cornered in here, Vitre had said. He'd specifically mentioned Roxanne's brother, and it was a lie, something Vitre had said specifically to rattle him.

Megamind's eyes glaze over as his brain kicks into a higher gear. "I went in. We fought. He got my outer leathers but the spandex shell kept it off my skin." He sounds bored enough; his brain, by contrast, is humming. "I threw him across the room. Tripped when he tried to blast me through a trail of blood, he got me on my back. Linda hit him with a statue and ended it."

Orson watches him carefully. "What're you thinking?"

He shouldn't have known Roxanne even has a brother. Not off the cuff like that, not without planning and researching. This isn't a family-pictures-on-the-mantle house. "I'm thinking he fought pretty well, for a beginner," Megamind says, appearing to wake up a little. "And I wish I knew more about how he managed to heal himself." He shouldn't have known he could use Drew as an effective pawn against me. "Anyway, then I dehydrated him so he wouldn't give us any more…surprises." He sniffs, then returns to his bagel with a nonchalant shrug. "No big deal."

"Do we still have a dehydrated villain somewhere in this house?" Orson's scraggly eyebrows crawl upward. "Or did the police come by to pick him up?"

"No cops. Bad Horse sent Dead Bowie over to collect him." Megamind flaps a hand at him. "It's all taken care of, don't worry."

"Dead Bowie was here?" Orson actually looks alarmed. "Why?"

Megamind shrugs. "They told me it was a territorial thing. Vitre wasn't licensed to be running that kind of operation on Bad Horse's turf, so the League is probably going to make an example of him."

"What'll they do?"

That gets another shrug, bigger this time. "I didn't ask. I don't really care. It probably depends on if this is his first transgression. Or…actually…I wonder if he was being evaluated for membership? Maybe this whole thing was just Vitre's audition." He frowns a little, thinking out loud. "He could have decided snatching Roxanne would be a good demo. But I'm surprised he tried something that ambitious. Unless he had a backer…" He trails off again. A bigger villain feeding Vitre tips on the off chance he'd succeed in taking Megamind out?

Why else would Bad Horse even be involved? he wonders. He knows I'm not interested in joining the League; we had that conversation years ago. But he also knows I'm no threat to him, so he wouldn't tip Vitre off—and Bad Horse wouldn't have tipped me off about Vitre coming to the house if he wanted me out of the picture. No. This isn't his game.

Besides, he sent Dead Bowie. Dead Bowie doesn't deal with amateurs. Does Bad Horse know what's going on? Which side is he on?

He had Bowie call me directly. My phone number is twenty-one flavors of unlisted.

Megamind isn't sure what all this adds up to, but it sure as hell does not add up to a freak attack by a no-name, small-town wannabe. Someone is hiding something from him. Someone, somewhere, is pulling something big, and they don't want him to know about it.

Ordinarily he wouldn't care too much, but whatever this is affects him. It must, or they wouldn't mind if he knew. If it didn't affect him, he wouldn't care, and Megamind has always been loud and clear about his lack of interest in other villains as long as they stay off his turf. There is such a thing as jurisdiction, after all.

Roxanne's voice makes him jump and look around at her. "Hm?" he says, eyebrows up and innocent. "What?"

"I said, are you okay?" She's peering at him, concerned. "For a minute there you looked like you were gonna be sick."

Megamind blinks at her. "I need to make a phone call," he says distantly. "Drew, can I…wait, no." Whatever this is, if it involves Drew's little side project, someone might be listening to his phone, too. Megamind looks at Orson. "I need to borrow your phone."

Orson gives him a steady look, then says, "Son, you are smoking some quality stuff if you think I haven't got ears in my phone."

"Ah," Megamind says. "Right. On second thought, I'll be right back." He turns and goes upstairs without another word, still looking like he's been hit in the face with a brick.

Roxanne stares after him, worry beginning to claw at her stomach, then glances up at her father. "He thinks his phone is bugged?"

"Why else would he want to use my phone?" Orson says. "It's probably not a big thing. He can use it if he wants, nobody on my side'll care what he says."

Roxanne is quiet for a moment, thinking about this. "And…he thinks Drew's phone is bugged, too?"

There's a dull whump from upstairs, followed by the faint odor of burning plastic.

Orson just shrugs. "Seems that way."

Megamind reappears at the foot of the stairs with his laptop under one arm. "I need to set up a secure voice-over-IP connection. I dropped my phone in the toilet by accident." With that said, he shoves some of the breakfast debris out of the way and opens the laptop on the kitchen table.

"That sounded like the de-gun," Roxanne says. "That sounded like the destroy setting."

"It was an especially angry toilet," he answers off-handedly, with a fierce grin, while his fingers tap rapidly over the keys. Roxanne looks over his shoulder, but whatever Megamind's doing just looks like random numbers and letters to her.

"What are you doing?"

"Writing an encryption algorithm. Then I'll hack into Nextel for a cell number to use and we'll be in business."

Roxanne puts her hands on her hips and faces Megamind, who is—as far as she's concerned—acting unnecessarily cagey about whatever this is about. "What's going on?"

"Nothing. I just have to make a call. Go…have breakfast or something. Don't worry," he adds, pausing and giving her a small smile. "This is what I do."

"You're taking up the breakfast table," she observes. Between his laptop, the serving dishes, and the stack of newspaper, there isn't any space left.

"Fine. I'll be outside." He picks up the computer in one arm, still typing with the other hand, and limps out to the porch. He shunts the sliding door open with his hip, closes it the same way.

Outside, he sits cross-legged in the porch swing and hunches over his screen. In a few minutes, he has a dial tone. He can't call Minion about this; Minion is in the Lair, and until he knows what's going on…

Whatever this is, it's big. He's known for months that something is brewing in Metro City, but if it's followed him all the way to the west coast, it means he's up to his neck in trouble. He's not sure how deep it goes, but his gut is telling him to treat it like an emergency. And if it's a real emergency, then…

What was it Bernard said? Do you have any idea what kind of people I've had to go to, just to get enough money to live on? No, Megamind doesn't have any idea, and he really should. He should have heard. He makes it his business to know when people enter the underground circles in Metro.

But he hasn't heard anything about this. Whoever it is, they have Bernard, and Megamind doesn't know who else they have, and he doesn't know who they are or how deep this particular rabbit hole goes. Sundown probably knows—but Sundown is Carrollian, and rabbit holes are what Carrollians do, and it's not like Megamind would call Sundown on the phone even if he could.

Hands shaking, he dials. "Pick up, pick up…"

"Bennie Sterling. Who's this?"

"Yeah, hi, merry Christmas," Megamind greets, hurrying through the formalities. "Listen, have you heard of anything going on underground in Metro? Something I wouldn't know about? Has anyone else said anything to you?"

"Whoa, slow down." He can hear Wayne's frown. "You okay?"

Megamind's hands are trembling. He frowns at them; usually he has more control. This issue has him more upset than he'd expected. "I think someone wants me dead."

"More so than usual?" It's a fair question. There's always someone who wants Megamind dead. It's the price of being a supervillain—ex-supervillian…whatever. Megamind is used to it, and this is different.

"Yes. A credible threat this time."

There's a shocked pause, and then Wayne says, "Okay. No, I haven't heard anything, and you know I used to hear a lot, so if stuff is happening it's gotta be pretty recent. What makes you say that?"

The thoughts come too fast to put to words, and Megamind just sits with his mouth open for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. Nineteen people dead in a locked prison. I still don't know who started the fire. Sundown wants me to keep my nose out. Bad Horse is involved but I don't know how far, or why, or in what capacity. Your father's main competitor approached me at a holiday party two days ago and offered me a job. Roxanne's brother is making some kind of drug that looks like it might be targeted at me. They knew Roxanne and I are dating before we went public—they came after her in the alley on her way back to the Lair, they knew she'd be coming that way. I am almost definitely being watched.

And the brainbots have access to my backup files, he remembers suddenly. I still don't remember giving that to them.

There's only one thing he can think of to explain the latter half of those uneasy oddities. "The Lair," he says. "I think the Lair's been hacked. Don't go over there, I don't think they know about you, but don't go to the Lair, I'm serious."

"Okay, okay, I won't."

Megamind sets his computer on the seat beside him and slumps back against the swing. He hugs his bent legs to his chest and puts his head on his knees. He's tired. He's scared. His feet are killing him. And on some level, he's not even sure if this is a legitimate threat or if he's just jumping at nothing. After all, he'd thought Linda wanted to kill him, and Drew had been horrified, so maybe this isn't real. Maybe he's only seeing threats because he wants to see them?

How can he even tell, anymore? He swallows and does his best to explain things to Wayne, even though 'explain' only amounts to 'listing a bunch of possibly unrelated concerns.'

"You believe me, right?" he croaks, suddenly dry-mouthed and fully aware of how odd it is to be asking his ex-nemesis for confirmation that he isn't riding the Crazy Train. "I'm not just…seeing things. I'm not."

"Little buddy, I believe you're the smartest guy on the planet," Wayne tells him. "I believe if you say 'something's up,' I should invest in a good umbrella. And let's face it, that's a lot of stuff for it to all be nothing."

That makes him feel a little better. Not much, but Wayne trusts him. "Did they ever get any leads on the fire?" he asks, focusing on the one problem that he might be able to do something about. The other issues are still too abstract, too nebulous, for anything to come of them, but the fire is solid. He knows the fire is real. "Anything?"

Wayne hesitates, then gusts a sigh into the phone. "Yeah, 'bout a week ago. Fred wanted to call you, Minion said, but Minion wouldn't let them bother you on vacation. I agreed."

Megamind sits bolt upright, accidentally setting the swing careening out from under him and making a hasty grab for his computer before it meets its untimely end on the porch floor. While he's bent over, the swing clocks him on his bruised cheek. "Ow! No, tell me, tell me. What'd they find?"

"Fingerprints on a can of kerosene and a box of matches. And a pack of Camels. Somebody hid 'em in a tree about a mile from the estate."

"Whose were they?" Megamind scrubs a hand down his face, trying desperately not to hope… "Please tell me they got at least a partial match."

"You remember that guy who worked at the museum? Fluffy hair, glasses?"

Megamind freezes and his heart jumps into his throat. Bernard.

Then, just as quickly, all thoughts turn to whirling confusion and abrupt, absurd relief. Finally, a puzzle he might actually be able to solve. "Bernard?" he says. "You're kidding. Who would hire that guy to start a fire?"

Wayne sounds taken aback. "You think somebody hired him?"

"For one thing, how did he get into the grounds? Everyone knows about the dogs and the guards, and…I mean, the man is a museum curator," Megamind scoffs. "Hardly a master assassin. He must have had instructions." And I know just where to find him, he thinks. Excellent. "Thanks. Thanks, Wayne. This might actually help."

"I hope it does. You lemme know if you need—if you have any trouble." There's a pause.

Megamind swallows hard. "How are you holding up, these days?"

"Mom's out of the hospital and Minion's been keeping me company," Wayne says.

"That's great," Megamind says, "but I asked how you were."

Wayne sighs. "I'm okay, I guess. Better than I was, for sure. It's good to be able to get outside again, this disguise thing is awesome and I…I owe you cake or something, I dunno. How about you?"

"Worried. Otherwise fine," Megamind tells him. It's far from true, but he hates to add to Wayne's emotional load more than he already has. "If you see Minion, borrow his cell phone and accidentally destroy it. Then tell him to get a new one and to give you the number. Next time we talk you can pass it along." Then, with no segue at all, he changes the subject. "You haven't been to the kitchen today, have you?"

"No, why?"

"No reason," Megamind says quickly, biting his lip to suppress a very unvillainous giggle. "I'm gonna head back inside. Tell your mother…" He trails off, thinking of Linda, wondering for the first time what Lady Scott might think about him. "Tell her I'm sorry."

"I'll tell her you said 'hi.'"

"Whatever you want." Megamind shakes his head. "Merry Christmas, you overgrown jerk."

Wayne chuckles. "You too, nerd. Take care of yourself."

Half-smiling, he hangs up, then leans back and lifts his feet from the ground, allowing the bench to swing freely under him as he sits with his eyes closed. Okay. He can do this. Now that he has somewhere to go with it, he can do this. It's amazing how much more manageable everything seems now, even though he knows this small lead might turn out to be nothing. It could be something.

He flexes his toes slowly, feeling the healing cuts pull at each other. He thinks for a moment, then dials another number. As it's ringing, the door squeaks open a little bit behind him.

The phone goes straight to voicemail, which isn't surprising, considering the holiday. "Yeah, Fred, hey. This is Blue. A little bird told me you got a lead on the fire—just gimme three days to talk to Bernard, I'm about eighty-five…eh, call it eighty-eight percent sure he's not your guy." He hesitates. "A-also, do me a favor? Lemme know if anything feels weird to you in the next little while. I have a bad feeling."

He hangs up for the second time in as many minutes and makes an urgh noise under his breath, lifting a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. The door squeaks again, opening further. He thinks it's Roxanne, until Linda says, "Everything okay?"

"No," he says, then laughs a little, shoulders shaking. This is ridiculous. "No. But it will be. I just gotta get a new phone." He pauses, corrects himself, "Two new phones. Roxanne lost hers yesterday."

She frowns down at him. He can feel her frowning, he doesn't even need to look up. "What's going on?" she asks.

He shrugs hugely and rests his elbows on his knees. "Oh, I think somebody probably wants me dead," he says, staring out at the distant horizon. The ocean is greyer than the lake at home. "You know. Same old, same old. Except I don't know much about it, this time."

The corners of Linda's mouth turn down and she bobs her head from side to side, considering. "You usually know when people are trying to kill you?"

"It's my city," he scoffs. "Of course I know. You think they hand out the title supervillian to just anyone?"

"I don't really know much about it. My specialty was marriage counseling, not criminal psychology."

"Yes, well. I know you don't respect it, but I am actually very good at my job."

"I thought your job was terrorizing my daughter and failing to kill Metro Man."

"That was more of a…a hobby?" he says, searching for the right word. "A personal project? It kept me sane," he shrugs. "My job is mostly keeping the underworld in line. I have lots of informants and the brainbots pick up an unbelievable amount of information." The brainbots, he thinks suddenly. If the central brainbot server were compromised, all the brainbots would be vulnerable. Then, if they were ordered to withhold information from me…maybe that's how I've been kept out of the loop.

But how would someone hack my server? The brainbots and I are the only ones who can access it. Even Minion doesn't touch it because the code is over his head.

"Terrorizing my daughter was a hobby?"

"More or less," he answers absently, only a small corner of his brain now devoted to the conversation. It's not enough for him to notice the appalled expression on Linda's face. The rest of his considerable mind is trying to figure out exactly how a compromised Host would affect his operation when he gets back, and how to deal with it.

"Why her?" she asks, for what feels like the millionth time. "Out of everyone in Metro City, why did you keep kidnapping her?"

He blinks, coming back to events at hand with an effort. Had he said something wrong? He doesn't look at her and he doesn't smile, but the set of his mouth softens a little. "It was like having a friend."

She pulls back, eyebrows lifting in surprise, but Megamind doesn't notice. After a moment, he huffs a little and leans his head back against the glass. "You're a therapist, right?"

"I was a marriage counselor," Linda says carefully. "Different thing."

He wiggles his fingers at her. "You know psychology. Do you think I'm overreacting to all this?"

That sets her back a step. First of all, she isn't sure what 'this' is. Secondly, she's pretty sure he 'knows psychology' too, at least to some degree. She'd be surprised if he didn't. Also, he knows she doesn't like him, in a big way, so why is he asking her? "I'm not sure what you mean."

"Something's going on in Metro City. Whoever's behind it wants me to keep my nose out, and they're operating through channels they know I don't have access to." He pauses, then continues reluctantly, "And…the conclusion I've drawn is that somebody wants to kill me."

"Doesn't sound like much of a conclusion."

He groans and pulls his knees together again so that he can rest his forehead on his arms. "Urgh. I know. I just…that's the only thing I can…"

"You're scared."

His head shoots up, green eyes blazing. "I'm not scared!"

"You are scared," she snaps. "In two days, you're heading back to a city that had barely accepted you when you left, and now they know about your hugely problematic relationship with your former bait. You know everyone is accustomed to seeing you hold Roxanne against her will—as far as they know, that's just what you do. They'll assume the worst, and you know it. And they're too used to seeing you as the villain; it'll be easy for them to go back to the way things were. And they don't fear you like they used to.

"They're going attack you—maybe not physically, but it doesn't have to be physical. You have enough skeletons in your closet, I'm sure. People who know things. People you've hurt, who didn't say anything before this. Yes?"

She waits for a second. Megamind inclines his head a little. It's not really a nod, but it's enough. She's hit the nail on the head with that one.

"So, it's safe for them to talk, now, with the public outcry against you plus your new inability to retaliate. And what they say will be true, and you won't be able to defend yourself. You're playing media dodgeball with your hands tied behind your back, and it'll only get worse before it gets better."

Megamind interrupts quietly. "Can you not elaborate on the 'inability to defend myself' part. Please."

Linda looks at the way his mouth is twisting and decides to wait. The wind picks up a little, making her shiver, but she doesn't move to go inside. The alien on her porch sits like a stone.

After a minute, he shakes his head. "And that's it, isn't it?" he says softly. "You're right. You're absolutely right, I've…done things, hurt people, threatened people, even before all the leather and spikes. I can always fight, I always have a plan." He stares at the deck, eyes roving from side to side, and his hands clench on his knees. Jail couldn't hold him. Metro Man wouldn't hurt him. Nothing touched him and he'd made sure it stayed that way, as much as he could, in as many ways as he dared. But…

"I'm going to tell you two things that I hope you'll remember," Linda says abruptly, "and then we're going inside and we're going to have Christmas. Understand?"

"Yes ma'am," he mumbles.

"This too shall pass, and you just have to outlast it," she says, her voice firm. "True for most things. Whatever it is—self-doubt, fear, public hatred, arguments with friends—it'll pass in time. All you have to do is outlast it."

His lips quirk to the side. "I've heard that before. What if I don't outlast it?"

"Then you'll be dead, and you won't have to worry about it anymore."

Megamind stares at her for a moment, visibly perplexed, and then he frowns, looking slightly suspicious. "That's useful advice. You don't give me useful advice."

She shrugs and uses her cane and the arm of her chair to push herself to her feet. "Yes, well. I think I probably owe you an apology. Shouldn't have said half of what I said to you last night."

Megamind, who is also in the process of getting up, stumbles and nearly falls over. He recovers well, standing up straight with a face wiped carefully blank. "You don't have to apologize for being honest," he says. Because really, everything she'd said had been true.

"Not for honesty. For…a certain lack of tact. For that, I apologize."

He studies her. It's unnerving, really, how calculating he can be sometimes, because he's usually all over the place. "Thank you," he says eventually, "I appreciate it," and he opens his mouth to say more but then snaps it shut again. Better to quit while he's ahead. Instead, he merely holds the door open before following her inside.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

It's his first Christmas with a family outside the jail, and it's supremely weird. For one thing, Megamind has never really understood the point of stockings. Apparently they're a throwback of some kind. Okay, whatever.

But the tree, the lights, the candles. What the hell. Seriously, nobody has to light candles all around the house first thing in the morning, but when Megamind asks, Roxanne just shrugs and says, "It's a tradition. Like turkey."

"Yes, about that," he says, following her over to the mantelpiece, "doesn't it seem odd that turkey is traditional for two major holidays only a month apart, and no other time of year?"

She shrugs. "After all the turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas, I don't want turkey any other time of year."

Thanksgiving, yes. Roxanne and Wayne had tried to explain a little bit about family traditions at Thanksgiving, the previous two of which Megamind had spent incarcerated without Minion. This one had been spent at the Lair with Minion, so…infinite improvement there!

Wayne had been there, too, which was…something. It was good.

Anyway, it's true enough that Megamind and Minion have their own small traditions, but they're not conscious. Not almost-rules the way some seem to be, when Megamind looks around and realizes he's the only one not wearing pajamas. Nobody else says anything about it, but after a moment or two Megamind pops to his feet and says, "I'm—going to go get the presents from upstairs."

He takes the stairs two at a time and hurriedly gets back into his PJs, feeling tremendously silly. It's probable that no one noticed or cared, but still. When in Rome, right?

He comes back downstairs carrying several boxes and a long, narrow tube. Drew grins at him. "Now we're all here," Drew says.

"I'll start," Megamind finishes brightly, extracting the cylinder from his small armload. Then he hesitates. "Unless there's something else we have to do first?" he asks. "Like the pajama thing?"

This comment is met with blank stares. They hadn't even noticed. Megamind plucks at his own shirt. "You…none of you got dressed," he says. "I thought…"

The four humans look around at one another. Orson is the first to start laughing. "Holy hell, kid, relax," he chuckles. "It's whatever you're comfortable in."

The enormous bathrobe he's wearing certainly looks comfortable. Very…plush? Is that the word? Minion would know, Megamind thinks, and makes a mental note to call Minion after this and at least wish him a merry Christmas, bugged phones or no. "Okay then," he stammers. "Well…"

"But we do photos first," Orson says, getting to his feet and retrieving the camera from the sideboard.

Roxanne pats the sofa next to her. "Sit," she tells Megamind kindly. "You're fine."

Megamind flops down and shoves his armload under the tree, then has to tolerate being squished between Roxanne and the arm of the couch during the family photo. This turns out to involve smiling at a slowly blinking red light until his smile feels like a grimace while thinking that brainbots would have been so much faster, and then having to do it again—not because anyone blinked, but for the simple reason that two pictures are better than one, apparently. And even before they do any of that, Megamind has to help Orson shove Linda's armchair over next to the couch because Drew is weak and useless and Roxanne is laughing too hard at the fact that Linda is still in the chair to be of much help to anyone. And then they take the two pictures, and then of course Megamind has to push the armchair back to where it was before, bracing his shoulder against the back of the chair and ignoring his feet, which aren't bothered as long as he keeps his footing and doesn't slide on the carpet. Megamind matches Orson push for push—which Megamind is proud of because Roxanne's father is shaped roughly like a gorilla in spite of his age and beer belly—but is still puffing a little as he flops back down onto the couch and says, "Okay, what next? Presents next? How is this done?"

Drew, who's sitting on the floor by the tree because distribution is his job and has been for the past twentysome years, tilts his head. "You've never exchanged gifts?"

"Not around a tree," Megamind says, nettled. "And Minion and I don't really celebrate this time of year." He pauses, then offers, "I do always give Wayne something, though."

Roxanne rolls her eyes. "By 'give,' do you mean 'send booby traps wrapped in festive paper'?"

"I am told that it's the thought that counts," Megamind replies primly.

"Oh, yes, and what thought is that, exactly?" Roxanne wants to know. "The grenade you sent back in '08 almost got me, too!"

"That I'm thinking of him over the holidays, of course, and how was I supposed to know you'd be with him when he opened it?" He grins at her and nudges her with his sharp elbow. "Did I tell you what I got him this year?"

"Something that's not designed to kill him, I hope."

"But it's a tradition!" he protests, all wide-eyed innocence. "He never gives me anything. Besides, it's not like he's dumb enough to actually eat it."

She groans and pinches the bridge of her nose. "You sent him a fruit basket."

"I couldn't help myself!" Megamind exclaims, spreading his hands. "It was perfect! And don't pretend you think it's not funny," he adds slyly, when Roxanne's lips twitch in spite of her otherwise severe expression. She looks away and mumbles something about bad influences. Megamind sniffs, satisfied. "Thought so."

Orson sends a puzzled glance at his wife, then his son. "Why is he sending presents to a dead man?"

"Because he's an ignoramus who keeps forgetting to keep his mouth shut, I think," Drew says from the rug, tossing a glittery package absently from hand to hand and shedding sparkles all over the floor.

Megamind mock-glares at him. "He said he was surprised Roxanne didn't tell you guys at Thanksgiving. He said it was okay for her family to know."

"He isn't dead, then," Orson says, but doesn't pry further. "Well, that's good. There are a lot of people who'll be glad to hear there's an Epsilon Pyxidisian still kicking."

"I'm sure they will, when he's ready to tell them," Megamind says flatly. "They won't find out before then, thank you."

Orson shrugs. That's fine by him, but still surprising. "You'd rather people think you're a murderer?"

"People already think I'm a murderer." Megamind's tone is light enough, but there's no trace of his usual joking humor in his eyes. "Wayne's not ready to re-enter the public eye. He has a lot to deal with and it'll be bad if Metrocity finds out the truth from someone else. They need to hear it from him."

"Fair enough," Orson says. He thinks Megamind's concern for his former nemesis's well-being is interesting. There's obviously more to this story than what Roxanne had shared with the family at Thanksgiving.

"How's his mom doing?" Roxanne asks quietly, leaning into Megamind's side until he obligingly drapes an arm across her back. "I meant to ask earlier."

"Fine, last I heard. Minion's been keeping both of them company."

"All right," Linda interrupts. "Explain. What's funny about a fruit basket?"

"It's…sort of an inside joke," Roxanne hedges, then glances at Megamind, hoping for direction.

Megamind flaps a hand. "It's nothing, he just has problems with certain types of fruit," he says, downplaying the true severity of this fact. The fact that fruit and other types of pollen can send the 'invulnerable' Metro Man into anaphylactic shock is not something he particularly wants anybody else to know. "But you should have seen it," he brags, moving the conversation along, "it's the size of a boat and absolutely covered in bows and candy canes and things. With a big card on the front."

"Where'd you deliver it?" Roxanne asks, sitting up in sudden alarm. "Not to his place?"

It's Megamind's turn to roll his eyes. "Please, Roxanne, I do have common sense. No, I sent it to that soup kitchen he's always volunteering at."

She smiles and eases back against him again. "Aww. You're a good man, Megamind."

"I am not. I'm an evil monster, and don't you forget it."

"A skinny, blue monster. Like the one on Sesame Street," she agrees, snuggling happily against his side and chuckling as she remembers Megamind's nonplussed response to Sesame Street at the hotel in Nevada. Was that really only a week ago? "I'm gonna start calling you Grover."

"You will not," he answers severely, not sure if he should be insulted or flattered. Who is Grover? "Look, if nobody else is going to start…" He briefly disentangles himself from Roxanne and leans down, picks up the tube he'd carried in earlier, and lobs it over at Orson. This is more to get the attention off him than for any other reason, but he figures it counts. "Catch."

The big man grabs it in one hand and doesn't even spill his coffee. "You didn't have to—"

"Oh, just open it," Megamind says impatiently, ignoring Drew's protests at having his job interfered with. "Open it. I hate waiting and I've been waiting for ages and if I have to wait any longer I think I might explode."

Orson chuckles and sets down his mug. "Yeah, okay. Gimme a minute." Against all reason, he's one of those people who insist on taking off the paper one piece of tape at a time.

"Rip and tear, Dad," Roxanne says, rolling her eyes.

"Get used to it, baby girl, you know you're never gonna win," her father responds, and finally the paper falls away, revealing an unmarked cardboard tube. Mystified but grinning, Orson tugs several sheets of blue paper out of one end and unrolls them. He cocks an eyebrow. "Huh."

Megamind is grinning, leaning forward to try and see Orson's expression over the tops of the pages. "You may need to borrow my photorotator if you actually want to build one." He bounces a little in his seat. "I have all the supplies. I can send them to you. Plus a couple of brainbots, since you'll need another two pairs of hands anyway and they're really good for the detail work."

Orson lowers the sheets to his lap, wearing a matching grin but looking bewildered. "You say this thing is s'posed to be able to fly?"

Roxanne cranes her head around to see what he's referring to, then casts her eyes skyward and mumbles something sotto voce.

"It's safe to about seven thousand feet, yeah. Wide turns, though," Megamind adds. "Steers like a cow."

Orson looks back down at the blueprints for the hoverbike, utterly nonplussed. "Well, thanks, son. This is…really something."

Megamind nods. He's not sure what to say at this juncture, and mostly just feels awkward. That's not the first time Orson has called him 'son,' either, and it's throwing him for a loop even if that is just how Orson talks.

Roxanne nudges her brother with her toe. "Hey," she hisses. "Keep it moving."

"Oh yeah, right. Uh…this one's for you," he says, tossing her a squishy package. "From Mom." Then he hands Megamind a small box tied shut with a tangle of knotted string. "And this one's from me."

"You didn't have to," Megamind tells him, sending him a despairing look, because that's what people say, isn't it?

Drew shrugs. "Says you."

Megamind manages to undo the knots Drew had tied after only a few tries and his face lights up as soon as the lid comes off the box. "Oh! It's! I've never actually seen one!"

Roxanne, who has put her new sweater on over her pajamas—the sweater is hideous, but judging by Linda's cackling laughter, Megamind suspects that's the point—peers over his shoulder. "It's a rock."

"It's not a rock," Megamind tells her, picking it up carefully and turning it over in his hands. "It's lightning sand. It's sand that got struck by lightning and melted together and it's hollow because the sand that was struck by the core of the lightning bolt was vaporized." He looks up at Drew with shining eyes. "This is cool. And I'm pretty sure this beats the present I got you."

Drew makes a tremendous scoffing noise. "It's not a contest."

Megamind grins, sets the lightning sand on the coffee table in front of him, and pulls a paper-wrapped bubble envelope out from under the tree. "Yeah, yeah. Here, have a party."

Drew sticks the silver bow on his forehead, then pulls off the wrapping. "Ooooh," he says, opening the box. "Oh, now this is…I'm not sure what this is." He lifts a semi-transparent sheet out and holds it up. "MRI?" he mumbles, baffled. "But the proportions…"

"Megamind," Roxanne says quietly, "are those your…?"

"Yeah," Megamind confirms. "I know you're a neurochemist, so scans probably aren't your thing, but—drfff," he splutters, spitting out hair. "Mfgl?"

"Shut up," Drew says, squeezing him hard around the shoulders. "They're amazing. You really shouldn't have."

"What, I should've just kept them in a file cabinet somewhere?" Megamind says. "No way. I figured you'd appreciate them." Then he scowls. "And if you're going to hug me you have to either trim your beard or wait for me to put on a scarf. It's itchy."

"Hah, you wish." Drew turns quickly back to the tree. "Um…"

Roxanne leans down and picks up a box, gives it to Orson. "Here, Dad. This one's from me."

Linda, leaning over while Orson peels the tape away bit by bit, leans back and laughs when she sees what's inside. "An apron," she observes. "Nice."

"Canvas," Orson says. "With hot peppers all over. Excellent."

"Maybe this year you won't get turkey juice all over your tie," Linda tells him. Then she blinks and stammers a little, because Megamind is offering her a big flat box similar to Drew's. "What on Earth?"

He sits back on the sofa and tucks his hands under his legs, rocks a little bit while she takes off the wrapping. "Roxanne told me you like crossword puzzles."

Linda glances up at him. "How do you know I don't already have this one?" she asks, then pauses when she looks down at the box. It's unmarked – no logo, no label. She lifts off the lid and finds herself staring down at what can only be a very, very large folded sheet of paper, covered in tiny black and white squares.

Megamind's shy grin widens. "Here, you'll need this."

The black book of clues he passes over to her is also unmarked. Linda thumbs through it, then lowers it and stares at him. "You're right," she says slowly. "I don't have this one."

"I'm not surprised. It's new."

Roxanne takes the book from her mother and touches the cover, glances at a few of the clues. "You made this yourself, didn't you?" she says.

Megamind scuffs his feet on the floor. He's trying very hard not to look proud. "Well. I mean. There was no other way to be sure, right?"

Linda looks back down at the massive crossword puzzle in her lap. "How long did this take you?"

"I didn't draw it by hand, or anything!" he assures her quickly, but she shakes her head.

"I meant coming up with the words and clues," she says. "It can't have been easy."

He shrugs. "Not too long," he demurs. "About a week. It's a fairly simple fractal design, and the clues were a fun challenge."

She sits back in her chair and sends him a long, slow stare. "You did all of this in a week."

Megamind nods, fidgeting.

Linda raises her eyebrows and nods back. "Well, this was very…nice of you," she tells him. "I look forward to giving it a shot. And Roxanne told me," she adds, reaching under her chair and pulling out a large, squashy package, "that you wear a lot of scarves. Of course, that was when I thought you were an academic. I'm not sure this is actually appropriate for you, but it was already wrapped before you two got here, so it's not like I could send it back."

Megamind looks totally taken aback for a second, but then he beams at her and pulls apart the wrapping. Colored stripes pour into his lap, and he lets out a high-pitched squeak of delight before he can stop himself. "Oh—oh my—" he exclaims, green eyes dancing. "It's a Tom Baker scarf!"

Linda smiles a little. "I got one for Drew last Christmas, and he had about the same reaction as yours. I asked him if he thought you'd like one."

Megamind snorts and rolls his eyes at Drew. "Why am I not surprised?" he asks, and Drew gives him two thumbs-up. He laughs. "Thank you, this is glorious." Then he looks at Roxanne.

"I seem to have forgotten someone," he says.

"You don't forget things," she returns.

"No, I don't." he agrees, and a little cardboard box appears in his fingers with a flourish through slight-of-hand.

Roxanne smiles and scrunches her nose up at him as she takes the box—he's such a show-off—then opens it and blinks at the pendant inside. "Oh wow," she whispers, and pulls the necklace out of its fastenings. It's a simple blown-glass sphere about as wide as a quarter, filled with some sort of whitish, smoky liquid. Roxanne is pretty sure she's seen this before, though on a larger scale. She glances up at Megamind, who's wearing a sharp, expectant grin. "Does this light up?"

"Does it what?" Orson says.

Roxanne looks over. "If it's what I think it is, then he uses bigger ones to light the Lair when things are powered down," she explains.

Megamind nods. "It should work the same way. Shake it and let's find out."

Roxanne wraps her hands around it and shakes it vigorously a few times. When she opens her fingers she almost has to shield her eyes. The sphere is shining like a tiny star in her hand, a bright magnesium-white.

"Ha!" Megamind cheers, and punches the air. "Yes! It still works!"

Roxanne squints at it, her features lit by the pendant's brilliance. "It's beautiful. It's entirely self-contained?"

"You bet your butt it is," Megamind exclaims. The white light makes him look pale and strange, but his green eyes are impossibly brilliant. "Evil gods below, I am so glad that works. It did the first few times, but I wasn't sure if the reactivity would diminish over time."

Roxanne takes something else out of the box: a grey-blue translucent globe with a tiny hinge and clasp. She snaps it closed around the shining pendant and the light dims to a soft blue glow. If she hadn't known about the covering, she would have thought it was all one piece.

Roxanne puts it in her lap and looks at him. "This is how you burned your fingers the other week, isn't it?"

Pinkish color blooms from Megamind's cheekbones to the tips of his ears. "Of course not!"

"Yes it is." She slips the chain over her neck and kisses him lightly on the cheek before settling comfortably against him. "Thank you."

He gives her a small smile. "You're worth it." Then he blinks and his brow furrows slightly. "But you probably shouldn't look directly at it for too long if you take the shade off. You could damage your vision."

Drew scoots around the tree, pulls a big flattish box out from where it was leaning half-hidden against the wall. "Uh...last one, I think...to Megamind, from...it says Wayne?" He looks up, finds Megamind looking terribly startled.

Linda silently mouths, "Wayne?" at Orson, who shrugs, looking equally surprised. Linda can hardly believe that the ex-hero would be sending the villain anything for Christmas. Megamind just admitted to sending boobytrap gifts every year for who knows how long; is it safe to open?

Roxanne laughs. "I had the worst time hiding that from him on the way up," she tells her family. "Minion helped—he packed the car before Megamind could see what was on the bottom of the stack—but I was really worried when we had that trouble with the engine gumming up. The hydrogen section is accessed from the trunk."

Megamind stares at her. "That's why you fixed it without my help?"

"Well, that and I knew how," she demurs. "It wasn't hard."

"It's heavy, whatever it is," Drew says, shoving it unceremoniously into Megamind's lap.

It turns out to be a rectangular case big enough to hold several rifles, but absent of firearms. Instead, it's full of a strange assortment of items Megamind will probably find useful at some point if he continues along his present course of protecting his city rather than terrorizing it. He lists them aloud as he takes stock, excited now that the surprise had passed. "Smoke bombs, a telescoping baton, rubber bullets, zip ties, combat knife, first aid kit...a taser...ooh, a wrist rocket slingshot..." He picks something up, briefly confused, and then his expression clears. "Sleepy darts," he reads off the label before putting them back in the foam. "Nice. What's...?" The next item turns out to be a V-neck tee shirt with something printed in big block letters on the front. Megamind starts to unfold it, but then he has to put it down very quickly while he gets his lower lip under control.

A hand appears in his field of vision and he jumps, but it's just Roxanne trying to turn move the shirt so she can see. "What's it say?" she asks, mystified. "...'World's Okayest Brother.'" She looks at Megamind, who's now glaring into the middle distance as though it has personally wronged him. "Oh."

Angry face or no, Megamind's wobbly voice betrays him. "I wasn't expecting him to take me seriously," he mumbles, referring to a months-ago rant he'd spat at the ex-hero.

"He takes you very seriously," Roxanne says. Megamind shakes his head. "I think you just weren't expecting him to agree."

"Nobody takes me seriously," he says, fully aware that he sounds like a pouty child. "And you shut up."

Orson clears his throat, offers up an awkward grin when they look over at him. "I have one more," he says, looking at Megamind. "But I'm...not real sure if now's the time."

Megamind shakes himself and nods, focuses. "If it will distract me from this indignity of a textile, I might as well," he says, even as he registers on some level that Orson's face is not particularly Christmas-y right now, and that's odd.

"Then you probably ought to wait," Orson says weakly, but he leans forward anyway, half-rising from his seat to pass a box about the size of Megamind's hand over to the alien. It isn't wrapped.

"I hate waiting," Megamind announces, but then the lid comes off and his mind goes totally blank.

At his side, Roxanne stiffens almost imperceptibly. She can all but hear the gears in Megamind's head as they grind to a shuddering halt—it's something about the way the color is draining from his face, maybe. Or maybe it's how still he is. Either way, alarm bells are going off all over the place.

"Rod picked that up a while back," Orson says quietly. "Out near Lambda Pyx. Spectral testing confirmed its origin." Megamind doesn't look like he's heard any of this. He's gone iron-quiet, unblinking, unmoving, just staring at the jagged piece of charred stone on white cotton.

His nostrils flare once, which is how Roxanne knows he's trying very hard not to scream or cry—given the circumstances, she suspects it's the latter. "What is that?" she says, although she thinks she probably knows. There's only one thing she can think of that would bring this reaction from an already-worked-up Megamind, and Pyx sounds like Pyxidis, and she's bright enough to put two and two together and get four.

"I'm just sorry he didn't pick up any other samples," Orson says, to fill the following silence.

"But what is it?" Drew asks, craning his neck to see. It's not much to look at—a lump of greenish, pitted stone a couple inches long.

Megamind's jaw clenches and he curls his long fingers around the rock, squeezes until his knuckles are white. "Mine," he says softly. "This is mine." Then he glances up at Orson. The movement is enough to dump the tears that had been welling in his eyes, but he's still not actually crying. "You said Lambda Pyx?" He swallows and his focus narrows, sharpens, turns hungry. "Then it was a short-wave wormhole?" Maybe there are other survivors. Maybe, somehow, not everything was destroyed. The odds are...several trillion to one, but maybe.

Orson nods and sits a little straighter, rubs his thumb and forefinger down the sides of his drooping mustache, a habit he uses when he's uncomfortable. This is not easy news to deliver. "Type B," he admits, and the tentatively hopeful light that was creeping into Megamind's eyes goes dark. Ah. No, then. "I'm sorry. A lot of debris in that area. Anyway, he said to tell you that was yours."

Megamind nods and looks down again. Roxanne scoots closer to him, slips an arm around his back. "Home?" she asks.

He slowly turns his hand over and opens his fingers. "Minion says there were oceans," he says, sounding dull.

Oh, love. She tries to pull him closer, but it's like hugging a steel rod; he's too tense and too out of it to realize that he's supposed to lean into comfort.

"He says there was a dropoff a little way out," Megamind continues in the same weird tone. "Reef, then just…boom. Like a wall, straight down, and nothing but open ocean. That's all he remembers, he says."

Roxanne swallows, squeezes his shoulder, brushes her free hand down his throat, his arm, the side of his face. She's only seen him go flat like this a couple times before. "And…what do you remember?" she hazards, unsure if he wants to talk, but Megamind's eyes go too wide and his lips turn white at the corners and she says quickly, "No, it's okay, never mind. You're here now. It's Christmas and you're here with me in San Francisco, Megamind, you're okay."

He shakes his head hard. That's something, Roxanne thinks, it's movement at least. "No," he says. "It's. The sky."

"You remember the sky?" Orson asks.

"It was on fire."

The humans look at each other in the silence that follows, trying to figure out what to say.

Linda recovers first. "Sounds memorable."

Roxanne stares at her mother, speechless, but Megamind actually snorts and seems to relax somewhat. "Yeah," he says softly, "yeah, it's the kind of thing that sticks with you. Even at eight days old, you know that can't be good." He turns his head and leans past Roxanne to look out the far window, towards the sea. "Blue skies are much better. Thanks," he adds, looking slowly at Orson. "Thank you for this. From Minion, too. He'll be really glad to have this. We don't have very much from…well, thank you."

The big man cracks half a grin. "Like I said, I maybe should've waited. Sorta killed the mood."

Roxanne sits up. "Wait! Wait, I can help," she says. "One more! There should be one for Mom somewhere. Drew, maybe in the back?"

"Uhhhmmm…" He twists around, rummaging under the tree skirt. Which, Megamind notices vaguely, is quilted. "Oh, yeah! Here, it got squished behind the couch somehow."

Predictably enough, it's a sweater. It's a horrible sweater with neon green and magenta chevrons and orange bobbles sewn into the bottom hem. "I got the idea from your Halloween scarf," Roxanne tells Megamind.

"Thanks?" he says, uncertain. "Glad I could help?"

That's about when he realizes she's almost in his lap and he's still sitting like a bump on log. How long has that been going on? He curls against her, pulls his leg up and twists his body so he can put his chin on her shoulder and breathe into the back of the couch, hooks one hand over her opposite shoulder with his arm across her chest. His other hand, still fisted around the stone, gets trapped somewhere between his torso, Roxanne's side, and the couch. That's fine, it can stay there while he focuses on breathing.

Linda looks up at Roxanne, despairing. To her credit, she doesn't mention the way her daughter's pet alien appears to be affixing himself to Roxanne's side. "Annie, where did you get this?"

"I have a friend at work who knits. I told him about our contest." She absently strokes Megamind's back as he snuggles into her.

"Cheating," Linda chastises, valiantly ignoring their public display of affection. "They have to be found sweaters."

"Yes, but look at it. It was too good to pass up."

Megamind grumbles something muffled into the couch. Another tradition, obviously. He'll get the hang of this eventually. "I dunno," he says without turning around. "I think the one Linda found is worse. Yours is bright and the colors are obscene. But this is just plain ugly." He plucks absently at the baggy, shapeless sleeve under his hand, then twists his fingers in it and subsides. Ugly though it undoubtedly is, the yarn is soft and warm and he thinks he could be content to sit here cuddled against her and her weird sweater for hours if he had the option.

"Traitor," she says fondly, reaching up to rub the back of his head.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

The rest of the day is a blur. Eric and Irma show up in the late afternoon, shortly after Orson gets a call from his mother, who is in the hospital with a kidney stone and "no, I don't want you to visit, it's just a kidney stone, I'll be fine. Tell the kids I'll miss them."

So that's one bullet dodged, Megamind supposes.

The kids are all great. He's initially a little nervous, remembering how not-great kids were when he was a kid, but Nadine just puts her head on one side and says, "Aren't you the bad guy that kidnaps Roxannne all the time?"

"I…I stopped doing that a while ago," Megamind says. He's mostly recovered from his earlier emotional upset, although he still feels a little bizarre.

"Oh." Nadine considers this, then asks, "Does that mean she doesn't have any new funny kidnapping stories to tell?"

Megamind blinks, taken aback. "Funny—what?"

"Like about the poisonous guppies." Raj volunteers without lifting his nose from the book he's reading. "I liked that one."

"Or the giant robot unicorn!" Nadine exclaims, and follows up with a wistful smile, "That one's my favorite."

Megamind gapes at her. "I didn't—that wasn't a unicorn—"

Roxanne cuts him off by wrapping her arm around his waist and giving him a squeeze. "It was so a unicorn, love."

"It was an Equestrinator!" Megamind huffs.

She snorts out a derisive laugh, "Yeah, whatever." Then she turns to her cousins. "I don't have any new kidnapping stories, but I do have some awesome rescue stories."

"I hate those. How hard is it to rescue someone when you're invulnerable and can fly?" asks Raj, turning the page on his book.

"I like 'em. I wish I could fly." Nadine sighs, still half-smiling. This one's a dreamer.

"Not Metro Man rescue stories. Megamind ones."

At the same time Megamind objects, "I don't do rescues!" Raj also says, "The bad guy doesn't rescue people." The boys are in agreement.

"Nuh-uh, he rescued Roxanne from Titan. I heard Mom talking about it," Nadine insists.

"Yes, he did," Roxanne agrees while Megamind mutters something that sounds like, ruin my reputation. She steps on his foot, smiling at her younger cousins. "Do you want to hear the story?"

"Yeah!"

She waves them towards the backyard. "Well, we'll have to go somewhere we won't have any rude interruptions from people who are still convinced they're not heroes. C'mon."

"Shut it," Megamind says, grinning.

"Make me," she returns over her shoulder. She's not sure if Megamind needs alone time or not right now; sometimes that happens when he gets overwhelmed. She figures if he wants to follow her, he can use his reputation as an excuse; if he doesn't want to go outside, he'll just stay on the couch.

"I don't have to put up with this," he sniffs with as much hauteur as he can muster—if 'hauteur' can be accurately applied to anyone wearing a scarf miles too long for him, paisley lounge pants (because Roxanne thinks they're funny and Megamind is going along with it in the hopes that they'll improve his mood and make him look nonthreatening), and a world's okayest tee-shirt—and reaches for his laptop.

It's Lorena who really worries him. She goes and speaks quietly to her aunt for a few minutes before coming over to where Megamind is sitting on the couch, wishing he had something to do besides answer email. "Hi," she says.

Megamind looks up at her. Her black hair is pulled back in a thick braid, and her expression is impressively inscrutable for someone her age. "Ollo," he replies, then kicks himself inwardly, it's hello, not ollo, how many times do I have to remind myself? "Um. I'm Megamind."

"Yes, I know, you already said," she tells him. "You know what sucks way hard?"

"I can think of a lot of things." He rubs his nose and blinks owlishly at her, trying to focus on the interaction instead of the fourth-quarter evaluations from the Metro Police Academy, which is using a new training program he designed. "Vacuum cleaners. Black holes."

"Black holes don't suck, they just have an exceptionally strong gravitational pull," Lorena tells him, dropping a backpack on the couch by his leg and then bending to pull a heavy book out of it. "And it's more like 'teachers who assign homework during winter break.' I asked Drew, but he said you'd be a better bet." A three-ring binder follows the textbook onto the sofa.

Megamind blinks and closes his laptop, curious in spite of himself. Homework? Problems? He knows about those. He can help with those. "What subject?"

"Physics," she says flatly. "I also have history, but that's not hard, physics is where I'm hitting a wall with all this stuff about inertial frames. I get the stationary ones, but rotating inertial frames—do you know about this?"

"Do I ever," Megamind replies, eyes brightening. "Lemme take a look."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Since his concerns about presents haven't been totally assuaged, he winds up drawing pictures on pieces of computer paper and slipping them into the Christmas cards for the kids that Roxanne wants him to sign. All this while he tries to explain, as best as he can, some of the finer points of using vectors as a form of dead reckoning and how it's all actually useful.

Roxanne doesn't know about that part. What she does know is that when she comes back into the living room to see how everything's going inside—the other adults are playing dominoes out on the porch with their jackets on, enjoying the weather that's finally cleared up, while Raj and Nadine play in the yard—Megamind is sitting cross-legged on the rug with a textbook in front of him, nodding approval or encouragement, and Roxanne's oldest cousin is lying next to him with her homework spread all over the floor, muttering something about the law of conservation of angular momentum.

"That looks fun," Roxanne says. "Physics homework?"

"Forty in-depth questions is entirely too many for a winter vacation," Megamind complains. "She also has an essay for AP history, twenty calculus problems, and a research project for AP Spanish due the Monday after she gets back. How do they expect her to finish all that?"

"We managed," Roxanne says, but Megamind only scowls.

"We didn't have this much homework, at least not at the school I went to. This is ridiculous. No, it's a cross-product, remember?" he adds for Lorena's benefit. She makes a disgruntled noise and erases part of a calculation. "At least she's got a good foundation," Megamind continues, scowling harder and plucking at the carpeting. "I can't imagine what this would be like for someone who's not good at math."

"They just don't take physics," Lorena says absently. "They go for bio or something."

"Ridiculous," Megamind repeats to the room at large. "Well, you'll graduate soon."

"Then I gotta go to college."

"Come to college in Metro City and live with me and Roxanne, then, and we'll help you with your work," Megamind says flatly. "And email me your Spanish report, I'll proofread it for you."

"Thanks."

"I'll be back," he says, because Roxanne looks like she wants to talk to him and Lorena sounds like she's only half-listening anyway, so he stands up and follows Roxanne out of the room. He only winces a little bit when the healing cuts on his feet twinge in protest.

Halfway up the stairs, Roxanne stops and turns around. "I just wanted to see how you were holding up," she says quietly, when he blinks at her for stopping before reaching the top. "Feels like I've been ignoring you all afternoon."

"I'm okay. Lorena is cool." He pauses, then adds, "Raj is quiet, is he okay?"

"He's just shy." Roxanne peers at him, then reaches out and rubs his arms. "You're really all right?"

Megamind nods and leans in towards her, barely brushing his forehead against her bangs. "You go hang out with your family," he tells her reassuringly. "I'm good inside."

"Okay," she says. Then she puts her hands on his face, pulls him in for a kiss. "I love you."

Big green eyes blink at her in the shadows of the stairs, surprised. "I love you," Megamind echoes. On a whim, he pushes her up against the wall and gives her a kiss thorough enough to leave them both slightly breathless when it ends.

Sometimes he still feels like this is all a dream, like the other shoe is going to drop and it will all be gone. He'll probably always feel that way to some degree, he realizes abruptly, but he always eventually looks around and realizes where he is and what he's doing. Sometimes it's waking up in a shared bed, sometimes it's repairing or designing something to keep the city safe in some small way. Sometimes it's sitting down on the floor and checking an almost-stranger's homework.

What it boils down to is that he's...he's okay. He can do this. He can fix whatever's wrong—being scared won't help—he just has to keep fighting, that's all. And fighting is what he does, it's what he's good at. Tomorrow he might be a weepy mess, but today he's in love with the most beautiful woman alive and she loves him back, and that will probably be true tomorrow too.

Linda walks past the hall on her way back from the bathroom, glances in at her daughter making out with the alien against the wall, mutters something under her breath, and continues on her way back outside. Oblivious, Megamind nuzzles his nose into Roxanne's neck and she giggles and pushes him away before heading back out as well.

Christmas, he thinks, watching her go. What a strange time of year. It has no value outside what we ascribe it, but…

…I could get used to this whole 'family togetherness' thing.

And he's finally secure enough in himself that when he sits back down and Lorena says, "Oooo, she liiiikes youuuu," he's able to snort and say, "Well, I like her, too. And I think I'm going to marry her."

"Cool."

"Cool?"

"Yeah, cool."

And if that doesn't warm his little black heart, he's not sure what will.