Roxanne woke with her head pillowed on Megamind's shoulder. She blinked blearily in the bright sunlight filling the room, and stretched delightfully sore muscles. It had been too long since she'd last awoken with the afterglow of good, rough sex warming her body.

"Good morning, Beautiful," said a smooth, pleasant voice.

Roxanne smiled up into Megamind's handsome face. "Good morning," she sighed, sliding against him to kiss his mouth. She settled back beside him, nuzzling the side his neck and idly sliding one finger up and down his opposite ear. "Mmmmm, I should get up, but I'm much too comfortable."

"Then don't get up."

"But I really should."

"The Evil Overlord forbids it."

"You're not an Evil Overlord anymore."

"Well, then the Defender of Metrocity forbids it," he grinned down at her, turning to wrap both arms tightly around her. "Stay with me," he added seriously. "It's Saturday. As long as I'm not called to duty, there is no good reason why we can't spend the whole day here."

An electronic buzzing suddenly disturbed the quiet. It was quickly joined by a metallic rattling at the window. Roxanne bolted up in bed, giving a little yelp and pulling her coverlet over her chest as she realized six or seven brainbots were swarming outside the glass. Megamind's reaction was even more animated. He practically tumbled onto the floor, bringing the rumbled sheet with him and wrapping himself frantically in it. He stumbled to the window and, ignoring Roxanne's stuttering protests, threw it open to let the little flying robots in. They massed around him like worried children, bumping him with rounded glass domes and pawing him with long mechanical arms. Roxanne was sure that if they'd had tails, they would have been wagging.

Chuckling nervously, Megamind patted them. "Okay, okay, Daddy's alright. This is just Daddy's… ah… private time… So we really shouldn't be bothering Daddy. No we shouldn't." He shook a finger at them to emphasize his words, but that caused the sheet to slip a little, and he snatched it back up into place. "Look, Daddy's not leaving you behind. Daddy just needs to spend some alone time with Roxanne, okay? Daddy loves both you and Roxanne, but in very different ways…"

Roxanne nearly choked on her giggle. Of all the absurd things she had seen him do during her semi-professional Damsel-in-Distress career, none were quite as funny as Megamind giving the Daddy Has a Girlfriend speech to a hoard of cyborg drones. Her humor was stolen, however, when one of the brainbots left the happily swirling flock to hover in front of an empty section of wall. Moments later, the top minion— or rather Minion— appeared, his image projected by the brainbot's red camera eye. Roxanne blushed bright scarlet and tugged the blanket higher. She knew enough about Megamind's technological creations to realize that Minion could see them just as well as they could see him.

"Oh, sir! Thank goodness they found you! I've had the brainbots looking everywhere! Where have you been all night?!"

"Here."

"No phone call? No message? You just stay out to all hours—"

"Minion," Megamind interjected. "This really isn't the best—"

"Without a single thought of what you might be putting me through—"

"Minion—"

"...worried sick, and—"

"Minion!"

"WHAT? I mean…Ah... What, sir?"

Megamind took a deep breath and began gathering scattered clothes from the floor with one hand, the other still clutching the sheet tight. "You're right. I should have called. I didn't think about it—"

"Didn't… didn't think about it?" Minion blustered, wide-eyed. "Sir! How could you? After all we've been through! You… You know that my sole purpose is to take care of you, and… and…"

"Oh, Minion! Stop being dramatic! You know very well I didn't mean it that way! I…" Megamind threw up his free hand in exasperation, flinging his shirt above his head.

"How did you mean it, then?"

Another deep breath and Megamind collected himself. "I got a little caught up in the moment and… things…"

"Things? What things?! That's no excuse!"

"Things, Minion," Megamind said pointedly, motioning his head toward the bed. "And this seriously is not a good time."

Minion glanced where his master indicated. "Oh good morning, Miss—" he began cordially, "Ritchi..." He finished, voice growing faint as he finally took in the scene. His large aquatic eyes bulged as they flitted between Roxanne and his master.

"Oh, Sir! You didn't!"

Megamind rolled his eyes and snatched one of his boots from the floor. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I did."

"Sir!"

"And I plan to do it again!"

"But sir!"

"A lot!"

"SIR!"

"As often as possible!"

Minion mouthed wordlessly before shaking himself free of shock. "Well, I just hope you're being safe," he quipped in a tone that sounded entirely too parental.

Oh, dear… thought Roxanne.

Megamind had paused instantly, mouth open to offer a retort that never came.

"Oh, sir," Minion repeated, groaning in despair. "You didn't…"

"I… didn't think… " He gathered himself visibly. "Look, Minion, it's doubtful our DNA is even similar enough to be compatible!"

"You can't know that without tests!" Minion objected, then asked hopefully: "have you run any tests?"

"It's on my to-do list!" Megamind announced defensively.

Minion clapped a mechanical hand to his fishbowl. "This is a disaster..."

At least here Roxanne could help. "It's okay, Megamind, Minion. I'm… Uh…" she shrugged, fighting the burning heat in her face. "On the pill."

The entire room seemed to sigh with relief.

"Well, thank goodness one of you has some sense!" said Minion pointedly. "Sir, I am very disappointed in you."

Megamind spoke through gritted teeth. "Could we discuss this later?"

"No, we can NOT discuss this later," Minion replied in his best parental tones. "Sir, you have a reputation to uphold now, and—What are you doing?"

"I understand," Megamind sounded bored. "Reputation. Yes."

Minion's eyes narrowed, his tone sharp with suspicion. "You had better not be—"

Megamind had walked up behind the hovering brain bot, tucking the edges of the sheet tightly under one arm, and started fiddling with something on its back.

"What was that Minion?" he called loudly.

"Sir, leave that audio-visual receptor alone!"

"I can't hear you!"

"Stop that!"

"There seems to be a problem with the receptor!"

"Problem with—That's because you're messing with it!"

"Minion? Ollo? If you can hear me—"

"Of course I can hear you!"

"…I'll talk to you this afternoon when I get home!"

"Sir! Don't you dare turn off that—"

The image went blank.

Megamind heaved a great sigh and idly petted the brainbots. Then he walked to the far side of the room, where he had thrown his collection of clothing, and awkwardly held the sheet with one hand while fumbling with his leather pants. He extracted his wallet and turned back to the brainbots.

"Here," he said, holding out a twenty-dollar bill. "Daddy needs you to take this, go to the bait shop, and buy Uncle Minion something nice. Some nice mill worms or maybe some minnows. No, no, no," he admonished as one of them snapped at the money. "Not for chewing. Daddy will bring you a new wrench to play with when he comes home. Now go get Uncle Minion a treat."

The little robots circled him once by way of a goodbye, the lead one obediently taking the money in a dangling claw, and flew out the window. The last one ran into the windowsill, and Megamind sighed, scooped it up, turned back on its electronic eye, and patted it. It sped out the window, chattering irately at its receding fellows. Roxanne could almost imagine a running child shouting for his friends to wait up.

"Well," Megamind said, slumping to the bed. "That certainly woke me up. Maybe it would be simpler if you stayed over at the Lair next time." He grinned suddenly, his lightning-quick thoughts leaping to a new subject. "I'm starving! Where's that lasag-na?"

"For breakfast?"

"It's nearly eleven! Besides, it's better than cereal and wine."

Roxanne laughed. "I guess I can't argue with that." She sighed and got up, pretending not to watch Megamind as he dropped the sheet and began pulling on his clothes.

The salad Roxanne had made the night before had wilted, but the lasagna was wonderful once reheated. They sat on the small balcony outside the glass double doors, enjoying the pleasant, invigorating bite of the autumn air. Megamind ate voraciously, but then, Roxanne supposed, he had gotten quite a work out the night before.

That thought made her chuckle.

"And just what do you find so amusing, Miss Ritchi?" he teased in that heart-melting tenor of his.

She looked at him, adorably happy with his favorite food and his favorite girl. It took so little to please Megamind sometimes, and his exuberance, coupled with his persona as a dark superhero, seemed both oxymoronic and oddly fitting. It was… relaxing and somehow comforting to be around someone who was so content.

"Has anyone ever told you you're cute?" Roxanne asked, dishing out another helping of lasagna to him.

He grinned at her. "Yes, actually. An inmate in Metrocity Prison when I was a toddler. His name was Kip Kendall— or at least that's what people called him. I'm not sure if Kip was a nickname, honestly. He'd been convicted of murdering some thugs who got on his bad side, and he was very possibly the toughest, meanest brute on Cell Block A. But he was always nice to me when I was young. Around anyone else he was stern and dangerous… Around me, well, he was the closest thing to a father figure I had. He used to play pattie-cake with me, if you can believe that, and carry me around the Yard on his shoulders. No one dared to mock him for it either— not even the guards— and if anyone thought less of him for it, they were smart enough to keep it to themselves." His eyes grew distant as a sad memory ghosted behind them. "I'll never forget the day Uncle Marlow—the other inmate who took the most interest in my upbringing—took me aside and explained that Uncle Kip had gone. He had been given consecutive life sentences by a jury too forward-thinking to give a clearly unbalanced man the death penalty, but Cancer had other ideas. I'd known he was sick— they'd had to take him to the infirmary, and the last I visited him there he seemed so… so unlike himself— but when he went it still felt… wrong. Sudden. I remember thinking how unfair it was that he left without saying goodbye."

Roxanne reached across the table, laying her hand over his, willing him to open his soul and let the old pain dissipate like dark mist in the sunlight.

"I remember feeling that way when—" Roxanne's voice caught. She'd never actually told anyone else this before. Not even the expensive psychologist her grandparents had taken her to for years. With a deep breath, she continued. "I remember feeling that way when my mom died. I was sixteen, in my senior year of high school, and someone told me I had to go to the principle's office. I kept thinking and thinking, trying to figure out what I'd done wrong, and then I saw Principle Hartwell's face. I saw the school counselor and my granddad with him. And I knew. Somehow I just knew," she paused, wrapping her arms around herself and staring at the glass tabletop. "I started crying before they could even tell me, and I kept asking how. I remember someone saying something about icy roads, and dozing off at the wheel, and how it was no one's fault. I hated that person for saying that. I wanted it to be someone's fault, to be able to blame somebody. I wanted to blame the car company for not making her sedan stronger, or the hospital for making her work that stupid double shift, or my sperm donor for leaving us so that she had to work so many hours in the first place. But more than anything else," she dared to lift her eyes to his, "for a long time, I wanted to blame her for not saying goodbye."

Megamind stood up and moved beside her chair to wrap one arm around her shoulders. She leaned into his warmth, laying her hand on his.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I had already left Metrocity High School by then. If I had known... I would have been there."

Roxanne laughed a little through her sorrow. "Yeah, that would have gone well... The city's new supervillain showing up to offer a spikey shoulder to cry on." She sighed and squeezed his hand. "You know you couldn't have, no matter how much you might have wanted to."

"I would have. I loved you even then, and I would have done anything for you." He kissed the top of her head. "I'm so sorry you lost your mother that way."

"It's alright. I mean, it's not alright, not really, but… It was a long time ago. I still miss her, but I've kept going. I've built a life for myself, just like she would have wanted." Roxanne sighed, but the sound held more than sadness. "You know, it's kind of nice to finally talk about it."

Megamind bent to lay his cheek on top of her head. She could almost hear the gentle smile in his voice. "It's nice to finally have someone to talk about it with," he said.