Things—change, after that.
It's not—it's not that either of them stop trying so hard to win, but it's—
The traps she sets for him are less deadly, meant not to kill or injure, but to—to demonstrate her victory over him. Paint bombs and glitter, trapping him in cages and leaving him for other people to find. Things like that.
Megamind stops using the debilitate and dehydrate settings of the de-gun on her after he catches her. Even when he captures her with dehydration, he always rehydrates her before taking her to prison. When he takes her in, it's handcuffs only, which makes it easier for her to escape, but also makes the game much more—much more up-close and exciting.
She gets an apartment. A real, actual apartment, with windows and a door with lots of locks, and a bed, a real bed, and real sunlight for her plants.
(she brings the sunlamp along, too, though, for—winter, and for cloudy days. not—not for any other reason.)
Roxanne still goes to the library sometimes, but only in the daytime, in disguise. She—for some reason she is afraid to let herself go there at night when it's closed. She tells herself that she's being pragmatic, avoiding the possibility of running into Megamind when they'll be alone there.
She can't quite shake the nagging feeling that her avoidance is due to fear, rather than pragmatism.
Which is—ridiculous; she's not afraid of Megamind. she's—she has a healthy respect for him as an opponent, but she's not—
(Megamind standing beside the bookshelves looking at that poster of the lighthouse, Roxanne hiding in the shadows, and what if she stepped out, what if he turned and saw her, what if—)
((I want that))
No no no; you can't want that; you can't want things like that, can't want
(him)
you can't want him you can't
you know what happens when you want things, Roxanne.
(it's not Megamind she's afraid of)
He's actually there, at the library, one day, when she's there; she sees him and her heart gives a panicked, painful leap, but she keeps a tight hold on her powers, and he doesn't turn and see her. There are people between them. Not many, but—enough that Roxanne can suppress her need to run, can feel as if she's camouflaged enough, just another citizen of—Metrocity, browsing for books at the library.
Megamind selects a few books and checks them out; Roxanne trails him through the library, then follows him as he leaves.
She knows where he lives, of course, or—where he supposedly lives; Roxanne has noticed that he doesn't actually spend a great deal of time at 'his apartment'. She's suspected for a while that he has a secret hideout of some kind.
Not realizing he's being trailed, he leads her to it, now, going down into the old industrial district, and then disappearing through a holographic wall into one of the abandoned warehouses. Roxanne waits on a nearby rooftop, chewing her lip, for fifteen minutes, then climbs down and goes to the wall.
Rather to her surprise, she's able to walk through it, too—huh; interesting oversight; she would have thought Megamind would have known to code the technology to only let the people he wanted into his home.
Inside is—
It's a little like what she imagines their attic must have looked like, when he lived there; plans and equations scribbled on the walls and written on scraps of paper that hang from the ceiling on string, arranged like some kind of mobiles, like artwork. Half-constructed machines and chalkboards and scientific equipment.
Roxanne has a bit of a start when she feels something nudge her elbow. She looks down and—
"Bowg."
"Shh," Roxanne says to the brainbot who—she's pretty sure this is the one Megamind calls— "Shh, Spikeless. Roxanne's playing a game with Daddy, and she needs you to be a good bot and keep quiet."
"Bowg." The mechanical bark this time is just a whisper.
Roxanne laughs softly and strokes her hand over the dome of the brainbot.
She's careful to keep hidden as she explores, but it's a very large warehouse and she never actually sees Megamind there. The brainbot follows her around, but, obediently, is very quiet for her.
The wallpaper in the kitchen of Megamind's secret hideout is the same as the wallpaper in the kitchen of the library apartment.
Roxanne stands in the kitchen for a few minutes, heart twisting inexplicably, then—
"Spikeless, can you bring me a pen and paper?" she says quietly. "And tape."
Roxanne pulls her apartment key out of her purse—she has another at home; she'll just have to break in when she gets back to her apartment this time—and then also pulls out a lipstick, Temptress red.
She hesitates only a moment before scribbling the address down on the paper. She tapes the key to the page. Then she paints her lips with the lipstick and presses her lips to the paper, leaving a scarlet lip print.
Roxanne folds up the paper.
"I want you to wait three hours," Roxanne says, "and then I want you to give this to Daddy, Spikeless. Don't tell him how you got it. Can you do that for Roxanne?"
"Bowg."
"There's a sweet little cyborg," Roxanne says, stroking Spikeless again.
It's not a stupid thing to do. It's not.
What if—what if she gets shot again; what if that!
Who's going to water her plants if Megamind doesn't know where she lives? No one! So clearly it's not a stupid thing to do! An action motivated completely by logic!
(liar liar liar)
He doesn't say anything about it, the next battle, but he does have Spikeless with him, for no apparent reason. The brainbot is, of course, wildly excited to see her.
Roxanne, laughing, blows a kiss to the little bot as she escapes.
Life goes on in the usual way.
And things—
Things are—
Things are not awful.
And she gets used to it. She gets used to things being not awful.
So used to it that it actually takes her by surprise when, after having invited her down to the club he runs to 'discuss their mutual interests', the superpowered villain Psycho Delic uses his smoke powers on her.
The pink smoke clouds the room, curling from Psycho Delic, curling around Roxanne in tendrils of—
(—desire—oh god—oh god, she wants—wants—wants—)
"That's it," Psycho says, slow grin in the pink smoke, "you know you want it. I can give you what you want, beautiful."
(beautiful beautiful you're so beautiful)
(the people in the hall of the school the people all around her she can't get away from them someone using her against the bathroom stall and someone grabbing her wrist and not letting go and no no NO NO)
"No!"
Her power explodes out from her with the scream, all of her power, all at once; Psycho convulses, choking and jerking, little rivulets of blood slipping from the corners of his eyes.
"Kill yourself kill yourself get away from me stay away from me—" Roxanne says, voice high and words rapid with terror.
Psycho Delic jerks to his feet like a puppet, bleeding from his eyes, turns stiffly, and goes to the window.
He breaks the glass.
And then he cuts his throat.
Roxanne runs, out through the club, powers out of control, pulsing out of her like
(blood from an artery oh god oh)
She can't stop the torrential flow of her powers, all her control gone, desire and panic too tangled up in her mind, her terror and the pink smoke, and all of Psycho's people get hit by her pheromones, all of their eyes going glazed, all of them coming closer, reaching out for her, trying to touch her and—
(can't get away from them can't)
"Get away from me!" Roxanne screams, throwing all of her power behind the command. "Get away from me; stay away from me!"
She runs.
Roxanne runs, not to her apartment (too many windows not safe not safe) but to the library, to her little attic.
She's sobbing as she scrabbles at her clothes, tearing them off, even the horror and panic she feels not enough to drown out the hot insistent need that claws at her insides.
There's nothing left up here, no pillows, no nest of blankets; Roxanne drops to her knees, cups her own breasts with ungentle hands, fingers digging into her flesh. She twists her nipples viciously, the pain a cruel kind of pleasure.
She shoves her hand between her legs, fingers rough against her clit. Her hips jerk, thrusting her against her fingers harder, and she makes a wordless sobbing sound.
Roxanne braces her free hand against the wall, her palm against one of Megamind's equations, numbers in his handwriting visible between her fingers.
She comes with a scream.
Her powers are depleted after Psycho's club; it's not even Megamind who captures her, but Metro Man.
Everyone is really very full of righteous moral outrage at the horribly violent killing of Psycho Delic; Roxanne sits dully in her cell while they express their horror and condemnation at her. She can't find it in herself to care. Not until—
"Why did you do it?"
Roxanne, staring listlessly down at the backs of her hands, looks up at Megamind's voice. He's standing on the other side of the bars, with Minion and Metro Man on either side of him. He looks—there's a kind of flatness to his expression that she's never seen before, and the sight of it hurts her more than any of the terrible things anyone else has said.
She doesn't answer, just looks back down.
"This is a waste of time," Metro Man says, sounding disgusted. "You saw it, buddy, there's no reason that could—"
Roxanne lashes out, sharp and fast, with her power.
"Stop talking."
Metro Man's words cut off abruptly, and she hears Minion make a sound of alarm, hears Megamind's breath hiss between his teeth.
"Let him go," Megamind says, sounding furious.
Roxanne does.
She looks up at Megamind again, then rises slowly to her feet, the move as sensually threatening as she can make it. Megamind glares at her.
"Sir, I really think—" Minion says, "—I—Sir, maybe we should go—"
Megamind ignores him, takes a step closer to the bars, and Roxanne walks forward, hips swaying and chin up, an alluring smile curling her lips. She comes right up to the bars.
"Sweetheart," she says, voice sweet and cruel at the same time. His breath hisses through his teeth again. "Why do you care why I did it?"
She shifts her weight provocatively onto one hip, reaches out and curls one hand slowly around a bar, draws her fingertips up another, looks up at him through her lashes.
"You saw it, didn't you?" she says. "Do you really think any reason I could give would justify that?"
She lets her pheromone power curl out from her—doesn't do anything with it, doesn't use it on his sidekicks, just lets him feel it, makes him feel it.
(see what I am?)
"Stop it," Megamind says in a low voice, eyes on her face.
"Stop what?" Roxanne raises an eyebrow. "Stop being evil? Megamind, sweetheart, I've tried." She smiles at him. "I've afraid it's just in my nature."
"You're avoiding the question," Megamind says softly.
Roxanne snarls.
"Do you think you can make me be sorry?" She leans forward, baring her teeth, gripping the bars tightly. "I'm not sorry. That piece of shit is never going to do that to another girl again, and I'm not fucking sorry."
Megamind's eyes widen, and Roxanne has a sick moment of realizing what she's said, realizing what she's told him. She covers her panic with a sweetly cruel smile.
"He tried to use that pink smoke on me," she says, voice lilting. "You know the one I'm talking about, don't you, sweetheart? The aphrodisiac one. The one that makes you so desperate to fuck that you'll screw anything in sight. He tried to use it on me."
Megamind takes a sharp breath.
"How is that any different from what you do?" Metro Man says.
Roxanne hisses, striking out with her power like a lash.
"Stop breathing."
Minion makes a sound of alarm and Metro Man claws at his throat, mouth opening and closing soundlessly, his eyes, fixed on Roxanne in an expression of adoration, bulging in his face.
"Roxanne, stop," Megamind says, reaching out and putting his hand over hers.
A jolt of shock like lightning goes through Roxanne at the touch.
She releases Metro Man, and he gasps for breath, leaning on Minion.
"That," she snarls at Metro Man, "that is the difference. I might kill people but I never make them fuck me, first."
"I'm so sorry," Megamind says.
Roxanne looks at him again.
"Sorry?" she says, frowning in confusion. "Sorry for what?"
Megamind closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them again to look at her. And his expression is—
"I'll get the charge changed to manslaughter," he says. "You can plead self-defense."
Roxanne stares at him, then bursts into wild laughter. She pulls her hand from beneath his and lets go of the bars, steps back from them, shaking her head, still laughing uncontrollably.
A look of frustration crosses Megamind's face, and then Minion is pulling at his arm.
"Sir—Sir—it's time to go, I think—"
"Yeah," Metro Man says, "I'm pretty sure the maniacal laughter is our exit cue, buddy; can we please leave before she tries to kill me again?"
Roxanne collapses, laughing, onto her cot. Megamind's look of frustration deepens, then he growls and lets go of the bars, lets Minion and Metro Man pull him away down the hall.
He does get the charge changed to manslaughter, which is—really quite sweet, especially since Roxanne is pretty sure they both know she's never going to stay in prison long enough to stand trial.
Still.
Very sweet.
Which is—
(fuck)
(FUCK FUCK FUCK)
...to be continued.
Day 22 of my Birthday Fic Month. Thank you all for reading and reviewing!