The smell of melting chocolate pulled Roxanne toward the kitchen a couple of days later.

"Hello, Minion," she smiled. "What are you making?"

He circled in his bowl to face her while his robotic suit continued to stir the double-boiler on the stove. "Chocolate Mousse Cake," he answered. "With chocolate ganache and spun sugar decorations."

"That sounds incredible! What's the occasion?"

"Oh, ah it's… Sir's birthday."

Roxanne nearly lost her footing. "It is?! He never even told me!"

"He doesn't like to make a big deal out of it. But I never let it pass without a cake! You know him; he can't say no to sweets."

She laughed. "That's the truth! It's a wonder he stays so thin!" She paused, her curiosity rising. It was easier to get Minion to reveal things than Megamind. "I've always wondered, is that because his kind has different dietary needs than humans?"

"We think so. He does seem to become— what's the word?— lethargic if he doesn't have enough sugar and grain."

"I thought as much."

"Berries and nuts seem to be important too," Minion offered. "Sometimes he eats peanut butter by the jar full. Then there's fish, oddly enough. When he gets a craving, he'll eat enough sushi for three people, or ask me to make salmon croquettes with hollandaise sauce and chives. He can make short work of a dozen in one sitting! Oh, and eggs. Some days he can't get enough hard-boiled eggs."

"I wondered about that the other morning. He must have had at least eight," she thought for a moment. "It's actually not surprising. I'm trying to remember, and I think everything you just named is included in lists of brain foods. Well, too much sugar is supposed to be bad for human brains," she added thoughtfully, "but they need some glucose to function. And, of course, he's not human. With all the energy he has, I guess maybe he digests it differently and turns it into fuel. Does it bother you to cook fish?"

"Not at all, actually. I eat smaller fish, you know. Sir says I must be a natural predator." He sounded almost proud.

"That makes sense. Can I help? With the cake, I mean?"

It said something about Minion's liking for her that he only paused a moment before saying: "S— Sure, Miss Ritchi. Ah, can you sift two cups of flour into the big mixing bowl? There's an extra apron hanging on the wall beside the refrigerator."

Minion's own apron was printed with flowers and bold letters reading: Kiss the Cook. The spare one was a little shabby, and looked as if it had been bought around Halloween: purple canvas material covered in little black bats. One corner was charred.

"Is this Megamind's?" she asked as she tied it around her waist.

"Yes, but, ah, he doesn't really use it anymore..."

"Meaning you banned him from the kitchen," she grinned. "Let me guess: he blew something up."

Minion fluttered his fins and grimaced. "He nearly blew up the whole kitchen! Left a hot skillet full of oil unattended when he got a sudden idea and dashed off to the workroom. And that was after the soufflé incident!"

"What soufflé incident?"

Minion gave her a conspiratorial grin. "As you guessed: he blew it up."

"How do you blow up a soufflé?!" she asked with an incredulous laugh.

"The trouble is that Sir tries too often to mix culinary arts with chemistry. His soufflés were always flat, so he developed a new edible compound and… Well, it definitely wasn't flat that time."

She chortled again. "That sounds like… such a Megamind thing to do!"

"It's funny now, but at the time… Ugh! The inside of the over was a disaster!"

"I can imagine. The flour's ready. What's next?"

"Do you mind stirring the chocolate while I whisk some other ingredients?"

"Sure!" She took the spoon and gently stirred the liquefying mixture. "I still can't believe he didn't tell me it was his birthday. I sort of assumed… given what happened… You know… To your planet… that he just didn't know when it was."

"Well," Minion answered, still focused on measuring sugar and softened butter into a bowl. "We know he was eight days old when we left, and as far as I can tell, it took two or three days to reach Earth. We arrived on Christmas Day, so I decided that December the sixteenth was approximately the right date."

She nodded. "I think I'll give him one of his Christmas presents early."

"That would be nice."

"Do we have any birthday candles?"

"No, he's banned them. Probably for the best. Evil geniuses and fire don't always mix well," the fish responded, cracking eggs into the mixture with surprising dexterity.

"It sounds like there's been more than one kitchen explosion."

"You have no idea." Minion turned in his bowl and gave her another sharp-toothed grin. "He once tried to make Bananas Foster a Flambé. Somehow— I still don't know how— he melted the pan. He claims he was using ordinary alcohol, but I have my doubts. We had to replace the stove after that one; though, to be fair, Sir did buy this wonderful BlueStar by way of an apology!"

"He told me once he had a talent for destruction, but geez. Just out of curiosity, how does the gas work?" she gestured at the stove.

Minion looked confused. "Well, the same as anybody else's."

"So was this recent?" Roxanne asked, carefully careless.

"I think it was—let's see—about four years ago, Miss Ritchi."

"Huh, so he was still a supervillain, then." She'd thought as much. "Having gas put in was a pretty big risk, wasn't it?"

"Oh, no. Actually, Sir has his own construction comp— oh, really Miss Ritchi!" he stopped short with a laugh. "Do you have to do that? You could just ask Sir now, you know."

"But this is more fun," she responded. Minion huffed hard enough to blow bubbles in his tank, but his look was one of amused irritation. "Besides," Roxanne continued. "I'd already mostly figured it out. Weldon Forge Construction, right? The company that always offered suspiciously low rates to repair buildings after Megamind and Metro Man's battles? And worked with a supposed charity to fix damages in lower-income communities at no cost?"

"Well," the fish grinned conspiratorially. "I guess there's no point in denying it now."

"None. And don't worry, my lips are sealed," Roxanne laughed. "I knew it! Who else could it be with a name like that? I mean, Weldon Forge, like 'weld and forge?' How stupid does he think people are?"

"To be fair, Miss Ritchi, you're the only one who ever figured it out."

"And that is completely depressing," she rolled her eyes. "I think the chocolate's done."

"Good! Grab the oven mitts and bring it over. Now, slowly pour it into this bowl while I keep whisking. A little slower. Thank you, Miss Ritchi."

"So how old is Megamind this year anyway?" Roxanne asked.

"Forty-one."

"Really? For some reason I thought he was younger. I mean, he was a senior in high school when I was a freshman, but I'd assumed he skipped a few grades. Then again, he and Metro Man are close to the same age, and Wayne certainly looks like he's in his forties. I probably should have realized."

Minion turned in his bowl to consider the reporter. "Surely that isn't a surprise, though? As you said, Sir and I were at Metro City High with you, so the age difference— I mean— well, I know it's impolite to talk about a lady's age, but..."

"Oh, I skipped the third grade. And the ninth. So I was actually only thirteen when I started high school, but people assumed I was older because I, ah, developed early." She blushed and shifted the subject back to her blue boyfriend. "I'm surprised Megamind never skipped any grades. He's more than brilliant enough."

"I guess you could say he did, but not officially. I doubt the school system would have let him. You know, he rarely bothered to show up for class. And when he did, he was never on time. Do you know he used to make me wake up an hour early just so we could walk to school and arrive ten or fifteen minutes late? He always claimed we'd 'missed the bus.'" Minion rolled his large eyes.

"Maybe he just didn't want to ride the bus with all those jerks. People were horrible to him; I can't blame him for wanting to avoid them as much as possible."

"You're probably right, Miss Ritchi. One year was more than enough to suffer through their company."

"One year?"

"Well, yes. That's what I meant about skipping grades unofficially. Sir was seventeen by the time a truant officer finally caught up with us and made us enroll." The fish sighed. "I'd been telling him for years that it was bound to happen sooner or later, and that he might as well just do it on his own, but, of course, he didn't listen. Anyway, they gave him a placement test, of course. They found that, according to the results, he was more than ready for the twelfth grade. Actually, he probably should have already received dual Bachelors Degrees in Engineering and Chemistry, and been well on his way to earning his Masters in both, though, of course, their test didn't go that high. But they couldn't just award him a diploma from a school he'd never even set foot in. So we had to attend high school for our senior year."

"What about you?"

"Oh, Sir cheated on my test to make sure my marks were sufficiently high to be placed with him."

"That sounds like Megamind. So why does he seem so much younger? Is that also something to do with his genetics?"

"We're not completely certain, but judging from the results of some tests he ran on himself, we think his species ages a little slower than Humans. He grew up at the same rate, but as he reached maturity it started to slow down."

"Oh, I guess maybe that also explains why he's got," the libido of a twenty-five-year-old, she almost said, but caught herself just in time and finished with: "so much youthful energy." She paused. "Wayne isn't Human, though."

"No, but the M'trahi seem to be closer to Humans in more ways than looks."

"The what?"

"Metro Man's kind. They were native to the planet of M'tro."

"Wait— M'tro? That sounds almost like Metro. All this time I thought he named himself after the city!"

"It was a play on words. He seemed to think it was clever. Of course, Sir isn't much better. His people were called the M'ghané, from the planet M'gha, and there's a word in our home language, "myendd," that means: "vengeance of." So Megamind can mean what it means in English, but it also sounds a lot like 'Vengeance of M'gha.'"

"Vengeance for what?"

Minion sighed. "Sir gave himself that name at age twenty, when he first became a supervillain. He'd gotten it into his head that somehow Metro Man's people were the reason more of his own didn't escape the black hole. After all, logically they must have known what was coming, and they were a space-faring race, so why not leave? He blamed the M'trahi. I don't know why, or even if there was any reason beyond wanting to hate Metro Man."

"And you don't think that was really what happened?"

"I'm not sure, Miss Ritchi. There was an AI with information about our home planet on the escape pod that brought us here. It was partially damaged, but I don't remember any of the retrievable parts saying anything about a war or anything like that. But then Sir did spend a lot more time with it. He used to listen to it relentlessly because his father had created it, so it had his father's voice. I suspect Sir's talent for building technology must have run in his family. So does his knack for bioengineering. I know because I remember that it was Sir's mother who genetically and biomedically modified me for speech and intelligence. My earliest memories are of her lab."

Poor Megamind. Roxanne's heart ached for the lonely little blue boy he had been: listening to his father's words on repeat, desperate for a reminder that he had once had a family, a home, a culture... That he had once been normal. She quickly changed the subject. Even for her inquiring mind, this felt too much like prying into the most vulnerable parts of her lover's secret soul.

"Did it hurt? Having all that done to you, I mean?"

"Not at all. Every care was taken to ensure I was never in pain. She was a kind, gentle lady, Sir's mother. Anyway, it seems that Sir inherited his gifts from both sides of the family."

"Wow," Roxanne scrapped the last of the chocolate into the bowl with a spoon. "Can I ask something else?"

"Sure, Miss Ritchi!"

"M'gha and M'tro sound kind of similar. Is there any relation between the two languages?"

He grinned. "It's no wonder Sir is so attracted to your mind! Yes, they're similar. According to the AI they once had completely separate languages, but after space travel brought the two cultures together, they developed a common tongue that was used to communicate. As inter-planetary commerce became more important to both economies, the Common Tongue slowly mixed with and replaced the two other languages."

"So it's a creole language like English, then."

Minion gave her a curious look.

"You know," she explained. "English started out as a pidgin between Germanic, Romantic, and Norman languages, then sort of developed from there."

"Oh. I'd never heard the term 'creole' used that way before, but yes, exactly."

"Huh. Does Megamind speak any of it? His native language, I mean?"

"A little. So do I. But only what we could learn from the AI."

"So the AI taught basic language skills?"

"Not really, but the M'ghahé were an extremely smart species. At eight days old Sir could already understand words and was starting to imitate phonic sounds."

"Like goo-goo-ga-ga noises?"

Minion coughed with laughter. "Uh, yes, like that. He learned to speak English from the inmates and M'ghana from the AI. Then he taught me."

"I can't imagine how he became so well-spoken learning to talk in a prison."

"He learned from books."

Something occurred to Roxanne. "Oh, my God… That's why he mispronounces words sometimes! He learned them without ever hearing them!"

"Miss Ritchi, please, please don't tell him you figured that out. It's a sore point for him that no one cared enough to educate him," Minion said.

"No one? But wait, you just said he avoided school!"

"That was only after he'd accepted that no one was really interested in his development."

"Not a single person ever tried when he was young?"

"Not in the traditional sense. Oh, the Uncles in prison taught him to fight and steal and navigate the criminal world, and Uncle Marlow, always a big reader himself, taught him about literature. But no one ever educated him in things like math and history. We attended elementary school for a short time, but... It didn't go well."

"I know. He told me. I'd always assumed he was put in a different program afterward."

Minion swished himself back and forth in his bowl; it was his version of shaking his head. "No. Not until high school. By that point, it was basically a waste of time. He was miles beyond what the curriculum had to offer. Everything he knows he taught himself." He paused and looked at her sheepishly. "You, ah, won't tell him I told you, will you?"

"I won't say a word. But seriously! That's impressive. It's absolutely amazing!"

"What's amazing?" Megamind's smooth voice startled them as he strode through the kitchen door.

Roxanne thought fast. "Minion's cake batter! It's amazing!"

"Hey!" Megamind turned on Minion. "You never let me lick the bowl!"

"Because you would eat the whole thing!"

"I would not!"

"Uh, the Angel Food cake when you were nineteen?"

"Honestly, Minion, are you still going on about that? It's been twenty years!" Before his henchfish could stop him, he stuck two long, blue fingers into the batter, and brought them to his mouth. Noticing Roxanne's eyes on him, he quirked an eyebrow, a lascivious grin spreading across his features. He began slowly, suggestively licking his fingers clean, tongue curling between the digits, eyes locked with hers the entire time.

God, he could be so erotic when he wanted to be.

Scrambling for her self-control before she did something to make Minion uncomfortable— the kitchen was his domain, after all— Roxanne blurted the first non-sexual thing that came to mind.

"Don't you mean twenty-two years?"

"Oh ho ho! So that's why you were both looking so guilty when I came in! Minion!"

If a fish could have sniffed in disdain, Minion would have done it. "Your girlfriend has a right to know what day it is!"

"I've told you countless times: I do not like celebrating my birthday."

"Oh, well, I guess you don't want this cake then."

"Minion! That— That is entirely unfair!"

"No birthday, no birthday cake, Sir."

The blue hero mouthed in soundless umbrage, and Roxanne smothered a laugh.

Moving up to Megamind she slipped her arms around his waist. "Darling, I love you, and I want to celebrate you, because for me, the very fact you exist is well worth celebrating. Please let me do that."

His cheeks and ears flushed a brighter pink. "Mmm," his voice was thoughtful, his brows lifted over half-lidded eyes. "Will this celebration extend to the bedroom?"

She gently nuzzled his throat and chin, his goatee scratching her skin, and felt him swallow hard.

"Definitely," she promised.

"In that case, happy birthday to me."