So, the absolutely hilarious thing is that I wrote this chapter ages ago and somehow managed to break the same two fingers Megamind dislocates. Content warning for blood in this one, but that's probably not a surprise.
CHAPTER 10
Boy Like Me - Barns Courtney
Tuesday night, and Rose and Salim are sitting up in bed, having a quiet night in while summer rain taps and patters on the roof of their home. Earlier that evening someone sounded like they were setting off fireworks a few blocks away, but whoever it was seems to have finally turned in for the night. Odd to set off fireworks in the rain, but who are Rose and Salim to judge? Derya slept through it, anyway, so they aren't going to do much more than roll their eyes about it.
A while after the explosions die away, there's a knock at the door downstairs. Three sharp taps. Rose looks up from her laptop with a frown. Salim shrugs.
"It's late," he says, and goes back to his book. "It's past ten o'clock. Don't answer it."
Thirty seconds later, another three taps. Rose sighs and stands, cracks her back. "It's probably a neighbor," she says, pulling her bathrobe off the back of the bedroom door and shrugging into it. "Maybe something's wrong. I'll go see what they want."
It isn't a neighbor.
"I am having," Megamind says, swaying on his feet with his eyes unfocused, "the worst night. May I please see Derya."
Rose blinks at him, shocked. "She's—sleeping, but—"
"I won't wake her up."
Speechless, Rose waves him inside, staring at him. He's filthy. His cape is in tatters and his high collar is torn, one of his gloves is completely missing, and the right side of his face is a mask of rainwater and mud and blood trickling down from a cut on his forehead. His lower lip is swollen and bleeding. He's limping badly.
"Oh, my god," Rose says, and heads for the kitchen in the back of the house. Megamind is already disappearing up the stairs despite his limp, working at the buckle on his remaining glove to get it off.
There's a knock at the door as she comes back out with the paper towels. She answers, thinking it's probably Minion.
It isn't Minion.
"Hi, Rose," says Metro Man, looking very tired in the red and blue lights of the police cars rolling in behind him. "We have reason to believe you're harboring a fugitive; you mind turning him over?"
Rose stares up at him for a second, speechless. Then she glances down.
He has blood on his gloves.
"I'm just doing my job," Metro Man says quietly, when Rose stands motionless and says nothing, her lips a thin line and her eyes on his gloves.
She looks back up at his face. The expression she's wearing is one Wayne is well-acquainted with; he's seen it on Roxanne a few times. It doesn't bode well.
"Come back with a warrant," Rose hisses, knowing he won't, and she closes the door in Metro Man's face. The only reason she doesn't slam it is because her daughter is asleep. "How dare you," she adds, knowing he'll hear her just fine. "You son of a bitch, how dare you. Don't you dare come back. I am calling my sister."
"Understood," says Wayne's muffled voice on the other side of the door. "Thanks, Rose. Keep him overnight if you can; I'll tell them it was a false trail but there's going to be cops watching your house probably 'til around two or so."
"Fuck you," Rose snaps, and stalks away up the stairs before she can hear anything else, the roll of paper towels tucked under her elbow. "Salim, call Annie!" she says as she hurries past their room. "Tell her to get her butt over here pronto; Megamind's hurt."
"Oh no," says Salim, startled, and goes for his phone.
Megamind is standing over Derya's crib, staring down at her, when Rose pokes her head in. "Hey," she says, her voice quiet. In the corner of the room by the ceiling, Deimos and Phobos hum softly and turn towards her, their glow flickering a little bit brighter.
"Metro Man is here," Megamind says dully, turning towards the door.
"Don't worry about it. I told him to get fucked." She steps into the room and reaches up to gently stroke the twins' metallic bellies, their arms retracted and coiled up like springs there. "Shhh, it's okay," she tells them. "It's okay. Go back to sleep, babies."
They mutter at her and their flickering subsides, goes soft and muted as they fall dormant again.
Megamind blinks a few times as she comes back across to him and cautiously rests her hand on his shoulder. "Ah," he says, his eyebrows tugging slightly. It's barely a frown. His eyes are glassy, flat.
Rose jerks her head at him. "Come on in the bathroom, let's get you cleaned up."
She helps him strip down to his undersuit, giving him a wad of paper towels to press against the cut on his head. His muddy, bloody leathers and his boots splat into the bathtub.
"Got mud on your carpet," he says. "Sorry."
"It's just carpet," Rose replies, running a washcloth under the tap. "It's not important."
"Blood on your floor. I shouldn't have bothered you. Should have just gone to prison."
"You aren't bothering me," says Rose, guiding him to sit on the lid of the closed toilet. "I'm glad you came. I'm glad you know you can come here."
He blinks slowly. "But," he says. "You're…am I not…reading you correctly? You're angry."
"Not with you." She starts to reach for him, and he flinches. "With whoever did this to you. Are you…hmm." She hesitates, considers him for a moment. "That undersuit thing of yours, that's similar to the one you wore swimming, right? It dries quickly?"
Megamind nods.
"Okay," Rose says. "Then I'll tell you what, actually, let's just—Salim? Honey? Can you bring a garbage bag so we can put his stuff on it?"
Megamind frowns a little. "My gear is in the tub," he says. "It's fine."
Rose has abandoned the washcloth in favor of rummaging under the sink. "Yes, but if I can find the shower hose, we're going to put you in the tub to rinse you off, and I don't think that will be good for your boots. I don't even know what to do about the rest of your gear. But I don't want it—aha!—I don't want it on my bathroom floor, either. Here we go." She settles back on her heels, brandishing a sort of tube attachment with a nozzle like a showerhead on the end.
Salim comes in with two white garbage bags and spreads them out on the floor, then starts moving the pieces of Megamind's discarded armor out of the bathtub and onto the plastic.
"Excellent," says Rose, already on her feet and reaching up to unscrew their regular showerhead. "Thanks, babe; I just don't want all the mud and stuff just sitting on the floor."
The next thing Megamind knows, he's climbing into the tub and gingerly lowering himself to sit there while Salim washes his hands and Rose works on getting the water to an acceptable temperature.
He isn't. Entirely sure what's happening, at this point. His head is spinning and it hurts where he's pressing paper towels to it—clean paper towels, now; Salim took the bloody ones away and handed him a fresh folded wad of them. His hand hurts and his hip is beginning to throb. But there's warm water rinsing over his head and neck, now, and down his back and his arms, and—and Rose—Roxanne's sister—Megamind's friend is very carefully washing the mud and blood off his skin without actually touching him. Even though—but Rose is Roxanne's sister, and Roxanne must have told her she doesn't care about him anymore, so—what's happening? What's—
He wants Roxanne. He wants Roxanne so badly it hurts. But—
The thought that he loves her has been knocking around the edges of his brain since the morning after their fight, when he woke up from a power nap with his stomach still full of ugly twisty feelings that wouldn't go away. He couldn't even bring himself to look at his phone. He let it sit and let the battery die and every time he looked at it he wanted to throw up.
He wanted to see her and he couldn't, wouldn't let himself, had no business wanting that. She doesn't want him in her life if he's going to do what he's doing, so—
But he wanted.
And at some point while he was working, he thought, oh, what about—oh, god, what about Derya. He wanted—Derya is one of the very few people who has ever met Megamind and smiled immediately, taken one single look at Megamind and decided yes, this is a thing I like, and Megamind just—loves her. Would pull down the moon for her if she wanted it.
But Derya is Rose's daughter, and Rose is Roxanne's sister, and so of course Rose must know he and Roxanne fought and so Megamind could only assume he burned that bridge as well. Right? That's how this goes? Megamind has never lost a friend before, but he's pretty sure that's how this goes.
But Rose let him into her home, and Rose made Metro Man go away, and Rose is helping him get clean, even though Rose is Roxanne's sister and Megamind has no idea where to even go with that. The only thing Megamind knows for sure is that he still, at the end of it all, wants Roxanne. Because he is in love with her.
Which is a thing he really would have preferred to figure out sooner.
Fuck.
"Who did do this to you?" Rose asks, after a minute or so. Megamind is mostly just sitting still and staring straight ahead. "Metro Man, I assume?"
"I did this to myself," he says, his voice dull. "My career is…I know the risks."
"One of these days, you're not going to get back up," she warns, but Megamind curls his lip a little.
"Then this planet will finally be rid of me," he says, in a voice dripping with exhausted sarcasm. "Oh no."
Rosemary presses her lips together and doesn't reply to that. She just keeps rinsing the mud off his face while he presses more paper towels against the wound on his scalp.
"How is Derya," Megamind says. "How is she doing."
"Oh, she's doing fine," Rose says lightly. "She's starting to stand, now. She pulls herself up on things and looks around. No walking yet, but that's not surprising. It's still a bit early for that."
"Did she get sick from Roxanne's fever."
"Nope," says Rose. "She was just fine. Salim said you gave her a bath; that probably helped a lot with keeping her healthy."
Something settles on the side of the tub and Megamind glances over. A flat, translucent box of some kind, with many small shapes inside it.
"I brought the first-aid kit," says Salim. "Megamind, is anything broken? Any more cuts, or is it just your head?"
Megamind holds up the hand that isn't holding the paper towels and twitching. His ring and pinkie fingers are twisted sideways. Salim blinks, then goes a little bit pale.
"Oh, jeez," Rose says. "Wow. I didn't even—well, those are definitely dislocated. Um—"
"May I have that washcloth, please," Megamind says. Salim passes it to him, then edges closer and sits on the side of the tub, reaches for him. Megamind startles, jerks himself back with a shallow gasp.
"Whoa, easy," Salim says, pausing. "It's just your head. Got a feeling you're going to need both hands for whatever you're about to do."
"Ah," says Megamind, and allows Salim to take over the pressure. "Yes."
"I can set them for you if you want to wait," Rose says quietly.
Megamind ignores her, awkwardly folding the washcloth into a thick strip that he can put in his mouth and bite down on. Then he grabs his ring finger, grits his teeth against the washcloth, and twists the joint back into place with a low pop, hissing between his teeth against the pain.
He pants through his nose for a moment. Swallows. Then he bares his teeth and takes hold of his pinkie, and this time his hiss has a sort of sharp clicking sound underneath, like a fishing reel turning over.
"You done?" says Salim, in a tight voice, after a moment. His eyes are squeezed closed and his mouth is a thin line.
"Yes," Megamind says, taking the washcloth out of his mouth and draping it on the side of the tub. And then, as an afterthought, "Sorry."
"Megamind," Rose says quietly. She's been moving the water slowly over his back and arms for a while, now, without moving on. "I need to ask…is there any way you would consider taking off the undersuit?" She knows this is a lot, but the mud and grime wasn't restricted to Megamind's leathers. Quite a bit of it seems to have made it through that outer layer. "I'm trying to get it clean, but there's just…there's only so much I can do."
Megamind shudders. Lowers his head. Salim stands and hurries away.
"I am a caregiver and a nurse in a retirement community," Rose says, holding her voice low and steady. "I help people with limited mobility get clean all the time."
He swallows. Murmurs, "I would like to be clean."
"I need a firm yes or no before I start trying to help you with that."
There's a long pause, during which Rose keeps the warm spray moving softly back and forth over Megamind's shoulders.
"Yes," Megamind finally says. His voice is nearly inaudible, but he does say yes, and he does also sort of nod.
"I brought pants," Salim says, coming back. He drapes a folded pair of gray lounge pants over the edge of the sink. "And I'll be right outside if you need me." He closes the door behind himself.
(Thanks, Megamind wants to say, but the word gets lost on the way to his mouth.)
"We're going to do this from the top down," Rose says. She shifts a little beside the tub, grateful all over again for the kneeling cushion Salim's mother bought for Derya's bathtime. It's very squishy and well-padded. "We'll get it down to your waist and clean you off, then see how you feel and go from there. Okay?"
He nods.
She nods back, and then she sets the shower hose down briefly so she can carefully help him pull the undersuit down over his shoulders and arms. They run into a snag with his watch—this undersuit has long sleeves, and Megamind seems very set on keeping his watch firmly in place—but Rose works his sleeve carefully over its face until finally his arms are free and they can get the undersuit down as far as it will go with Megamind sitting in the tub. It's slow going; Megamind's left hand is injured and his right hand is twitching and seems to be having trouble gripping.
Rose talks to him the whole time, a steady stream of words. When they started, she was walking him through what she was doing and what she was about to do, but then Megamind interrupted her with, "Derya. Tell me." So Rose launched into regaling him with the saga of attempted bedtime routines, Derya's seven-month backslide, what the process is now.
"She likes humming, still," she says. "We can't stay with her now after we put her down, but if we go somewhere new, walking and humming is still our best bet. Good lord, how do you have so few scars?"
"Ha," Megamind says, but that's all.
Rose keeps talking. She tells him about her mother's visit a month ago, how Dorothy is so ecstatic to have a grandchild that she traveled out from Montana despite how stressful it is for her to stay in places that aren't her home. She had to go home a couple days earlier than expected, but it was still a lovely visit. She tells him about Salim's parents, who have adjusted to the news and love doting on their new granddaughter whenever they come up from Chicago. She slips her arm around Megamind's back to help him briefly lift his hips so they can peel his undersuit down and off of his legs. She keeps talking about anything and everything she can think of as she finishes rinsing him off.
(Megamind is not…entirely present, for any of this. Water is usually grounding, but there is absolutely no settling into his skin with what's going on and the pain he's in. Responding is difficult. Colors are too bright and sounds are far too sharp; Rose's particular voice is a blessing.)
(Still, he is Megamind, which means even when he's cut loose and drifting he can't not notice his surroundings, and—he notices that Rose's voice does not falter, and—he notices that she does not stare, and—he notices that her hands stay gentle, and—he is, on some level where he can still feel, grateful for these things.)
"Okay," Rose finally says, shutting off the water and bundling an oversized fluffy green towel around Megamind's thin shoulders. "Here, let's get you into those pants and then we'll see if we can't get that cut on your head to stay closed with some steri-strips, huh? And then maybe some gauze? Do you have any sensitivities to medical adhesive?"
"What?" Megamind says. Then, "Oh. Yes, that's. Fine."
Rose helps him get to his feet and into the loose drawstring pants Salim brought—the bottoms of them are cut off; Salim must have taken a pair of scissors to them so Megamind wouldn't trip—and then she helps him to sit down on the closed toilet again so she can wash her hands and close the cut on his head and tape a folded pad of gauze down over it.
"You may want to get actual stitches," she tries, but the look Megamind sends her tells her exactly what he thinks of that idea. "Okay," she says. "Well, let's get you on your feet. Ready? And, up we go—"
Megamind's body has finally realized that it isn't running on adrenaline anymore, and he's beginning to lose his usual mid-battle flexibility. He lets out a high, pained whine as his hip protests. He would usually bite his lip against it, but his lip hurts.
Knocking from downstairs. Pounding on the kitchen door.
"Oh, that's Annie, probably," Rose says, distracted. "Sounds like she went around back. Um…oh, lord, I'm too tall for this." She nudges the door open with her toe and calls her husband back from where he was about to go downstairs. "Salim? Hey, I'm not sure he can walk unassisted right now; can you get him to the sofa in the office? I'll go grab Annie."
Roxanne is—what? But—oh, maybe they don't know, yet. This will be awkward.
What is she even doing here? She came? Here? What does that—
Doesn't matter. Push it down.
"Yeah, no problem," Salim says, and he comes in and turns so he's facing the same direction as Megamind. "Here," he says, "put your arm over my shoulder…yeah, good, and then we walk…"
He guides Megamind carefully out to the futon sofa in the tiny second-floor office and settles him there as Rose goes downstairs to let her sister inside. "Here," Salim says, easing Megamind down. "Here, sit. Let me go get you something dry…"
He hurries away as Megamind shifts around and tries to get himself situated in a way that doesn't aggravate his hip.
"Megamind?" Roxanne says. He startles and blinks up at her, and then his heart twists and he turns his face away. "Oh, lord," she says, dropping onto the couch beside him. "Megamind, what happened?"
"Anything I can do?" Salim asks, reappearing with some kind of garment in his hands.
"Do you have simple syrup?" Roxanne asks. "Or honey in warm water? It's a two to one ratio. He's basically a hummingbird."
"I'll make some," Salim says, and hands Megamind the sweater he's holding, disappears.
"I don't understand what's happening," Megamind whispers, blinking down at the sweater. It's a weird shade of green, cable-knit, and extraordinarily soft and lumpy.
"Put it on," Rose says, turning it around in his lap for him. "Arms up. Good, now you stay there and put your feet up while I get an ice pack. Is it your hip or your knee?"
"Hip," he mumbles, watching with flat eyes as she pushes one of the little ottomans scattered around the room closer to the sofa. Roxanne lifts his legs, rests his feet on its padded top. "My right."
Roxanne straightens and peers at him, trying to hide her mounting worry. Megamind is just…sitting. Just sitting with his shoulders rounded, his features totally expressionless. It's so different from the way she usually sees him—he's usually in constant motion, with his heart on his sleeve. This flat emptiness is almost more disturbing than seeing him hurt.
And he isn't looking at her. And he hasn't responded to any of her texts since they argued, not even yesterday's 'I miss you. I'm sorry.'
When her sister comes back with the ice pack, Roxanne nods at his hand and tries to keep her tone light. "Rose, do you have a splint or something for his hand?" The last two knuckles look badly bruised and swollen.
"Oh, right," Rose says. "No, not one that will fit him. But I think I still have some thermoplastic from last Halloween lying around somewhere, so maybe we can figure something out with that?"
Which is how, half an hour later, Megamind is sitting with his feet up and an ice pack on his hip and gauze taped to his head, and his hand wrapped in cotton and a stretchy bandage and a plastic splint that actually sort of fits him, sipping warm sugar water through a bright pink curly straw. Roxanne is still sitting beside him, aching to put her arm around him but unsure of how that will be received. Megamind hasn't pulled away from her, yet; that's a good sign. She hopes.
"Seriously," Rose says, packing away the rest of the roll of medical tape and the few remaining thermoplastic beads, "what happened? You look like you got hit by a bus."
"What always happens," he says. "I had a plan. It failed."
"Usually your plans don't end with you getting hurt this badly," Roxanne says, but he doesn't reply. "Do they?"
Megamind stares down at his splinted hand and his sugar water. Roxanne glances up at Rose, who has retreated to stand in the doorway next to where her husband is sitting on one of the other ottomans. Rose bites her lip, rests her hand on Salim's shoulder, and he reaches up to hold onto her.
"Megamind," Roxanne says, and swallows. "You don't normally get this hurt. This isn't normal, this is—you were reckless, this time, but—this isn't the norm."
"That's an impression I like to cultivate," he says quietly.
"What?" She puts a hand on his arm. Megamind doesn't look at her, and his flat expression doesn't change. "Megamind. Seriously, talk to me. Please, I—I know you're still upset, I know you don't want to talk to me—"
"I always want to talk to you."
She pauses, trying to figure out what that means. He hasn't moved; he doesn't look like he knows he said anything. Finally she goes with, "Then—we're still friends, right? We're still friends? Are you saying this isn't unusual?"
Megamind blinks once. "Friends," he murmurs, and finally glances at her face for a moment, turns toward her a little. Then he pauses. For a second, Roxanne thinks he's going to go quiet again, but then he says, "I wear a hard-light projection under my clothes." When Roxanne just stares at him, he slowly does something to his watch. It clicks and releases a soft whirring sound and a flash of blue light.
Roxanne presses a hand to her mouth, unable to keep from making a sharp, shocked noise. Across the room, Rose murmurs, "Oh, my god," and Salim inhales and sits up, moves his hands to his knees.
Megamind looks about a decade older. He has deep shadows under his eyes and his cheekbones; his sharp face is sharper, leaner. His blue skin is laced with scars, mostly old and pale but one or two still pink. There's a panel of metal affixed to the skin over his left temple, fitted to the curve of his head over the scar on that side of his face. It's—and it's a maintenance panel, it has to be, because his left eye is—
Horrified, Roxanne carefully reaches up and cradles his face in her hands, turns him so she can see his face a little better. Megamind lets her. "Megamind," she whispers, rubbing her thumb across the burned-smooth ridge where his eyebrow should be. "Sweetheart. When did you lose your eye?"
He blinks again. The lower lid of his left eye droops a little, doesn't quite match his uninjured one. "That was the Pineapple of Doom. You remember how quickly Metro Man got you home, that time." His expression finally shifts as he tries for something like a grin, but it's tired. Crooked, too; the side of his mouth is twisted by the tail of the scar that extends over the side of his head and face. "On the plus side, the biomechanical eye is pretty cool. Even if it doesn't…entirely look like an eye. I'm…working on that."
Roxanne shakes her head, speechless, and finally reaches around his shoulders to pull herself close to his side. Megamind jerks, stiffens, sort of flinches—but he doesn't push her off or lean away. He curves to fit against her, actually; he leans into her a little. Just a little, but it's still such a relief; if he shoved her off, Roxanne probably would have burst into tears.
This goes. Way beyond what she thought he was dealing with, when she was telling him—begging him—to think about retiring.
"I'm okay," he says, and Roxanne puts her other hand on the middle of his chest. He doesn't flinch, this time. "This really is not bad. The hip is…not new. I have a shard of bone in the joint that acts up sometimes. Honestly, it's just the cut and my lip. And my hand. I heal quickly." He leans back and sends her another smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "I'm okay. I'll be back to normal in a few days."
Roxanne can only shake her head again.
"You don't look okay," Salim says. "You look like you've been beaten to Hell and back."
Megamind shrugs. "Over the years," he says. "Not all at once."
"That doesn't make it better, man," Salim tells him.
"Supervillains don't have long lives," Megamind replies, with a sort of gentle shrug. "That's no secret. I'm already an outlier in that statistic, especially against an opponent like Metro Man—but he pulls his punches, I'm pretty sure."
"Does he know about this?" Roxanne asks, looking into his face.
Megamind is quiet.
"Megamind," Roxanne says, curling her arm around his thin shoulders, pressing herself against his side, against his arm. "Does Wayne know you get hurt like this?"
"No," he finally admits. "But I think he might suspect. He's been careful, these past couple years. And I've…had a couple near misses. Recently." He sighs. "My reflexes aren't what they used to be."
Helpless, Roxanne looks at her sister and brother-in-law. Rosemary has her hand pressed to the base of her throat. Salim looks grim.
"What are you doing?" Megamind's voice is dull, and he's still terribly stiff in her arms.
Roxanne swallows hard. "Holding you," she says, proud that she's able to keep her voice from shaking. "Megamind, I'm so sorry. And I'm—I'm sorry I yelled at you. I had no idea things were this bad." Across the room, Rosemary turns and disappears down the hallway.
If Megamind is this determined—or this stubborn—this hopeless—
After a moment, Megamind takes another sip of sugar water, then places his glass carefully on the side table. "I'm okay, Miss Ritchi," he says. Then he frowns a little. "…Roxanne. Truly. I am. I'm…just…having an off day, I suppose. An off…month? Year? But I'm okay. Really." He fiddles with the hem of Salim's sweater with his uninjured hand, and Roxanne glances down—and catches her breath, because, oh. That's. Also a prosthetic. It's well-shaped, the mechanisms encased in a kind of translucent pale-blue silicone sheath. The device must be his own work; it moves exactly like a hand should as he rubs his fingertips along the knit—but his fingers keep jumping every couple of seconds. Something in it must be damaged.
"I'm okay," he says again.
Roxanne glances up at Rose as she comes back with Derya blinking sleepily in her arms. Rose's jaw is set, her lips squeezed together, but she comes over to the sofa and clears her throat so Megamind looks up. He recoils slightly, almost flinching, when Derya's little eyebrows pull together as she looks at him.
"Yes, it's Uncle Megamind," says Rose, her tone over-bright as she bounces her daughter before bending down and shifting her to start to pass her over. "Do you want to visit? Want to go see Uncle Megamind?"
Derya still looks sleepy and sort of confused, but she does stretch a hand out as Rose brings her down. Megamind is already reaching for her, and his long hands close around her and—Rose doesn't let go immediately; she lowers Derya all the way to Megamind's chest so he can't drop her if his hand spasms—but he brings her in almost on autopilot anyway, settles her easily against him. She leans back and blinks at his face for a moment—and then she sort of sinks her head down on his shoulder, her nook moving slightly as she sucks on it.
Megamind slowly curls his uninjured fingers over her back. He blinks a couple times, inhales shakily, and then his flat expression finally scrunches. His face pinches. He gulps.
He isn't crying, exactly. But his breathing is shivery and his mouth is trembling and his expression is abjectly miserable, sort of frantically tired. He turns his head to the side and nudges his nose very gently against Derya's thin, curly hair.
"Mmmbuummbummuummb," Derya mumbles around her nook. It's similar to the noise Roxanne heard her make at the lake, before, but for some reason it makes Megamind's eyes blink wide—and then his fragile expression just shatters and he breaks down entirely.
But. He makes a similar noise deep in his chest, a soft muttering rumble, in spite of the tears on his cheeks and the way he's gasping.
Salim and Rose look at each other, startled.
"So that's what that is," says Salim, quietly.
Derya makes another soft little noise as she drops back off to sleep on Megamind's shoulder, and he grits his teeth against his tears and keeps humming in his subvoice—
—and Roxanne, who can't stand to just sit here and watch him cry like this, lifts the arm she has around his shoulders to press her hand to the side of his head and nudge him to lean on her a little more. "Shh," she whispers. Megamind turns his face towards her and his crooning hum ebbs—he's startled—and then he goes sort of boneless and allows Roxanne to guide his huge head to rest against her temple. "Shh. Hey. You're okay. You'll be okay; we're going to help you be okay. Shhh."
Megamind heaves in a shuddering breath and nods, gulping, breath hitching as he resumes singing in his chest as he cries.
"I'm so tired," he gasps out, and Roxanne nods against him. She presses her hand to the curve of his cranium, her other hand to the side of his face, and Megamind leans into her palm as she carefully brushes his tears away with her thumb.
That night, an exhausted Megamind sleeps on the futon in Rose and Salim's office, and Roxanne crashes on the couch downstairs. Around three in the morning, her phone buzzes and lights up, and Roxanne—who isn't usually a light sleeper, but she's distressed and distracted and not sleeping particularly deeply—picks up and slurs a sleepy, "H'lo?"
"Miss Ritchi? It's me. I'm outside. Can you let me in?"
She sits up. "Minion?"
"I tracked his watch, can I come in?"
"Yeah, hang on."
She gets up and shuffles over to the door in the darkness, quietly rolls the deadbolt back and pulls the door open. Minion ducks inside from where he was looming in the doorway with a small duffel bag.
"I didn't want to wake anyone up breaking in," he says softly, as Roxanne closes and locks the door behind him. "So I tried calling you, first. Sorry."
"Don't worry about it," she says, patting his furry arm and yawning. "He's upstairs, the second door on the left. Minion—um. How, how much of him is mechanical? At this point?"
Minion looks down at her for a moment. "More than he likes to admit," he finally says. "And more than I like to think about. He turned off the underlay?" Roxanne nods, and Minion sighs. "Well," he says, "I'll…call that a good sign, I suppose. If he's showing someone."
"He can't keep doing this," Roxanne says. "He's going to die. Minion, he's—basically killing himself like this."
Minion's little face wrinkles slightly, illuminated by his own bioluminescence in the dark living room. "I know," he replies. "But what can I do? He won't stop. I've tried."
"Maybe I could try, too? If I help—"
"It isn't your problem, Miss Ritchi," he says. "It's kind of you to worry, but it really is not your problem."
Roxanne stares up at him, then swallows hard against the stone in her throat. "You aren't the only one who loves him, Minion," she whispers, reaching to take his hand. "He wasn't born to die young. Neither were you."
Minion doesn't reply. He smiles thinly down at her, and gives her hand a little squeeze. And then he disappears upstairs.
Lying on her sister's sofa, Roxanne stares up at the ceiling in the dark.
I can't lose him, she thinks, as a lump crawls into her throat. Megamind has become such a part of her life, over the years—this past year, especially. She wasn't expecting to blurt out that she was going to be an aunt, and even after she did that, she wasn't expecting him to take an interest in the baby the way he did. But, god, the way he lights up with Derya is incredible, and the way he smiled and laughed when they went to the lake at Judson Pines was so telling.
There's so much more in him than just villainy. Roxanne knows there is.
She bites her lip.
I love him.
She rolls onto her side, remembering him tipped back in his chair with Derya asleep on his chest. Remembering him sprawled out on the rooftop, playing with Derya as she sucked on something Megamind brought with him who knows how many quadrillion miles from another planet. Remembering him saying, "You work too much. I worry." Remembering him studying a grasshopper—his first-ever grasshopper—with bright, interested eyes as it sat on his hand. Remembers how excited he was to show her a tadpole.
"This really is not your problem," Minion said, and Roxanne thinks—of Minion bringing her soup, making her a dish she hasn't had since she was a girl, getting her horrible coworker fired for her—Roxanne thinks, oh my god, enough of this.
She rolls onto her feet and stands up, then heads for the stairs.
