Megamind tore around the machine, falling over himself to make sure everything was absolutely perfect. Roxanne stood off to one side, chewing her thumbnail nervously.
Finally Megamind came to a stop, slowly drifting back to stand next to her. "Well. That's it. She's as ready as I can make her."
Roxanne grabbed his arm, "I guess it's time then."
Slowly, hesitantly, Megamind reached out and put in one final sequence. The machine began to whir and hiss and the carefully formulated fluid began to drain out of the tube in the center, leaving the thing that had been floating in it laying on the cushioned bottom. Roxanne and Megamind watched fearfully as the last of the fluid drained away and the canister hissed open. For a moment, everything was silent. Then the blue skinned baby girl lying in the bottom of the canister let out a plaintive wail.
Roxanne dove forward and picked her daughter up, heedless of how messy she was getting as she ran her hands through wet brown hair.
Megamind reached out ever so gently and stroked the little girl's cheek. "She's so beautiful," he whispered, choking up a bit.
It had been a long, hard road to get here. They were too different genetically to have a child the normal way, and the only adoption agency willing to overlook Megamind's criminal past wouldn't adopt a child to them because superhero was the very definition of a high risk career. Roxanne dismissed the idea of getting IVF with a donor because she wanted her children to have at least some of Megamind in them if at all possible, and Megamind rejected cloning for the same reason. So the ambitious project to create their own child had been born. She'd probably have been created sooner if Megamind hadn't been bound and determined to make sure she would be able to have children with either a human or a member of her father's species should one suddenly appear so that she wouldn't have to deal with this. There'd also been a terrible scare about four months into the artificial pregnancy where they'd almost lost her. But now she was here, crying in her mother's arms, and she was absolutely perfect.
Megamind watched his wife hold their daughter, absolutely entranced. This was absolutely the most beautiful thing he had ever created, bar none. This perfect little girl in her mother's arms, this family he never thought he'd have the chance to build. He thought he might die of happiness.
The doctor Roxanne had asked to be there for the "birth" carefully took the baby and got her cleaned and weighed and all the other unimportant little things before handing her over to her father, freshly diapered and still yelling fit to burst.
Minion poked his head in, the orb with his little son inside in hand. "How'd it go sir? Did it… oh," He came forward, just as entranced by the baby girl as her parents, "Oh sir, she's beautiful." Three year old Pisces peered at her curiously.
"I know," Megamind sniffed, starting to cry. Roxanne reached out to stroke the little hand, and their daughter's tiny fingers wrapped around her mother's fingertip. Roxanne's breath caught.
The baby girl, now clean, dry, and with both her parents in her line of sight, slowly stopped crying and peered up at them, curiosity already evident in her candy green eyes. Clearly she was her mother's daughter.
"Do you have her name picked out?" The doctor asked, gesturing with a pen at the birth certificate.
Megamind and Roxanne locked eyes, and she nodded. He carefully passed their daughter to her mother and accepted the pen, quickly writing down the name they'd discussed. Then he returned to his little family as if drawn by magnets, laying a gentle kiss on his daughter's bulbous forehead.
"Welcome home, Marianne Regan Mind."