Roxanne lies low for almost a month after escaping, tells herself that it's because she wants to make sure the furor over Psycho Delic dies down before risking any chance of getting arrested again.
She watches the news a lot. Megamind gives an interview detailing some of Psycho's more unsavory crimes, hinting heavily that the city is safer without him in it.
"This is ridiculous," Roxanne tells her favorite houseplant, the large and luxurious succulent who she has recently named Cyril. "There is no reason to avoid him."
(Roxanne's hand pressed to his equation on the wall, Megamind's hand over hers on the bars)
"Fucking hell," she says, to the houseplant.
She goes to the library again and researches supervillains once more, but just as she suspected, none of the books have any solutions to offer to the problem of
help I've fallen in love with my nemesis and I can't get up.
There is a lot of very racy fiction in that vein, though, which is very extremely entirely unhelpful thanks.
In exasperation with herself, she launches a fairly pointless but spectacularly showy supervillain plot centered around threatening to destroy a very large statue commemorating a bit of local history—an unpleasant man who, by all accounts, behaved very badly towards his wife and children, but who also donated a great deal of money to public works in Metrocity, so everyone pretends he was a swell guy.
Megamind is actually just slightly too slow to stop her from detonating the bombs.
She almost suspects him of having let her destroy the statue on purpose—as he handcuffs her, he glances over at the rubble with a rather satisfied gleam in his eye and a smile hovering around the edges of his mouth.
Roxanne escapes from prison.
And everything—everything goes back to normal.
"See, Cyril?" Roxanne says, "I told you there was nothing to worry about."
Roxanne continues to watch the news frequently; it's interesting to her even when she's not featured.
"And not only because he's on so often," she tells Cyril.
(Cyril seems to give her a deeply unconvinced look.)
"So, Metro Man, Megamind," the interviewer says enthusiastically, "It's so good of you to come to the opening of Metro City's new public elementary school! I'm sure you both have fond memories from your own school days!"
"Uh—yeah," Metro Man says, looking a little uncomfortable, "I uh—I definitely had a lot of fun—"
"No," Megamind says.
The interviewer blinks, professional smile wavering.
"I—no?" she says.
"No," Megamind says flatly. "I do not have any fond memories of shool."
The interviewer seems to be at a loss for a response.
"But—but didn't you two go to school together?" the woman manages finally.
"Uh—" Metro Man looks rather uncomfortable. "That's—uh—"
"Briefly," Megamind says.
The interviewer glances between the two of them helplessly, clearly wishing she might get the signal to go to commercial immediately.
"I was…kind of a jerk," Metro Man says, now looking really deeply uncomfortable.
Megamind shoots him a dryly amused sidelong look, then sighs, clearly relenting.
"It wasn't as if you were the only one, Wayne," he says, much more gently that Roxanne thinks Metro Man deserves. "And you were a child."
"Buddy—"
"Right!" the interviewer says, brightly, recognizing a cue. "That's why it's always important to tell a your teacher if you're being bullied at school, kids!"
Megamind gives a snort of laughter and Metro Man winces.
"Unless of course the teacher is the one bullying you," Megamind says, mouth twisting.
"…Okay! Back to you in the studio, Dan!" the interviewer says, with the air of a woman who has just realized that it's time for a career change.
Roxanne, watching the interview as she cares for her plants, grips the watering can very tightly.
There is really something, Roxanne thinks, a month later, very satisfying about journalism.
If she hadn't had to become a supervillain, perhaps she could have become a reporter. That would have been—
(she pushes the impossible thought away)
The plan hadn't been very difficult to put into motion, just a bit time consuming—finding Megamind and Metro Man's school records, tracking down all the people who had been enrolled in that first school with them.
Charming them all, with a subtle twist of pheromones, into describing, on camera, exactly how they'd treated Megamind and how very extremely sorry they are now.
She'd tracked down the teacher last of all, and done the same thing to her. That woman hadn't been sorry, and Roxanne hadn't wanted to push too hard with the pheromones to force her say it anyway. It was important that no one know of the Temptress' involvement; she'd been very careful not to show herself on camera, or to film anyone while they were visibly affected by her powers.
But she hadn't really needed an apology from Miss Simmons, in any case.
Roxanne had cut the footage together, put it on a tape, and then sent the tape to her favorite of the television reporters she regularly watched—a young blonde woman who was always assigned fluff pieces, and who was clearly frustrated with it.
They won't, Roxanne thinks with satisfaction, be assigning her fluff pieces anymore.
The young blonde journalist does all Roxanne hopes for and more with the tape—the recording airs on her channel first, and then on every channel.
Miss Simmons is fired from her administrative position at a private school, and is publicly ostracized.
(Her house is egged multiple times, she's constantly prank called, her car is keyed—Roxanne isn't the only one with an affection for Metrocity's blue Defender.)
Eventually the woman is forced to move out of the city, although, Roxanne knows, she's going to have a very hard time escaping from the bad publicity. The video is on the internet, now; they even show it on some national networks.
Megamind appears to be rather baffled and overwhelmed by the attention and support. So—eternally surprised at it.
(Does he not realize how loved he is?)
"Thank you," Megamind says, the next time he arrests her.
"For what, sweetheart?" Roxanne says, raising her eyebrows at him, heart suddenly pounding.
(he doesn't know; he can't know; he can't find out—)
"I—" Megamind stops, and shakes his head, glances away, smiling slightly.
Roxanne takes the opportunity to slip her handcuffs and escape.
Things…continue.
Things continue much as normal right up until the battle that Megamind gets shot.
She's robbing the bank when it happens, all of the tellers and guards under her control, Megamind there to stop her as usual.
It's her fault; it's all her fault. She's so wrapped up in the banter with Megamind that she stops paying attention to how much pheromone power she's emitting. And she's—well.
She's noticed lately that her powers are sometimes spiking involuntarily.
When she's around him.
Which is—anyway; it happens this time; Megamind says something particularly clever, biting his lip and smiling that sharp, maddening smile of his, and Roxanne's pheromones spike accidentally.
And one of the guards is so overcome with artificial adoration for her that he takes it upon himself to shoot Megamind.
Megamind makes a soft noise, blood blooming blacker on his black suit, and then he falls and—
—and Roxanne has her hands pressed against his chest, trying to stop the bleeding, and his blood is all over her hands and there's too much of it and she's—
She pulls his gun from its holster and dehydrates him.
The Temptress bursts through the doors of Metro City hospital in an explosion of pheromones that instantly has everyone within the entire radius of the hospital under her control.
"Fix him," Roxanne says to the surgeon. She rehydrates Megamind on the operating table. "Fix him right now."
She holds the entire hospital in thrall for six and a half hours; by the time the surgeon tells her that Megamind is stable and expected to recover, she's in agony from the power expenditure, shaking, her body twitching in tiny, involuntary jerks.
It takes her powers a long time to come back after that. Roxanne has to sneak into the hospital without them, at odd times, only daring to stay for an hour at most each time.
He doesn't wake up, any of the times she sneaks in to sit at his bedside.
She takes one of Cyril's leaves, puts it in a separate pot, waters it.
She leaves it at Megamind's bedside one night while he's sleeping.
sorry you almost died because of me; have a houseplant
jesus, she's a mess.
It takes him entirely too long to recover, but eventually he does recover.
"I'm not—made of glass—you know," Megamind says, blocking a kick from her during their third battle after he's back. "You can stop—pulling your punches."
"I have—no idea what you mean—sweetheart," Roxanne says, and swings an elbow at him (just slightly slower than she usually would).
Megamind grabs her elbow, twists her around, and traps her against the wall.
"No?" he says, sharp smile inches from her own lips. "You sure about that, Temptress?"
Roxanne takes a sharp breath, pheromones spiking involuntarily, and Megamind's gaze falls to her mouth and there is an
utterly terrifying instant
in which she thinks he wants to kiss her, is about to kiss her, is—
Roxanne panics and headbutts him.
"Fuck," Megamind hisses in pain, stumbling back, but he's laughing, even as he says it, and that's pretty much the end of Roxanne pulling her punches.
"I'm imagining things," Roxanne tells Cyril. "They don't work on him."
Cyril, as always, is silent.
The art museum hosts a collection of native american artifacts, the legal ownership of which is in dispute—the private collector agreeing to its display there but not its return to the tribe.
Megamind must have been tipped off (or else he just knows her too well) because he arrives before she's finished robbing the museum.
"Megamind," Roxanne says, moving around a display case warily, keeping it between the two of them. "We have to stop meeting like this. People will talk."
He's wearing one of his smaller mechanical battlesuits, one that fits him like armor and makes him able to fly.
It makes him slower, too, though.
He turns the jet boots on, kicks up into the air, and Roxanne moves, sudden and without hesitation, drawing her gun and shooting the sole of one boot. He gives a noise of surprised alarm and wobbles in the air, held up precariously by his single undamaged boot, arms too busy windmilling for balance to draw his gun.
Roxanne shoots the other boot.
He falls out of the air, landing with a clang of metal on the museum's tile floor.
It isn't a long drop, and he rolls to his feet quickly—though not as quickly as usual.
"So slow," Roxanne says, malicious and gleeful. "Too slow."
He goes to draw his gun, but the joints of the suit aren't quite quick and supple enough to let him complete the motion before Roxanne shoots the joint of the suit's elbow. The joint freezes up and Roxanne laughs.
"Much, much too slow!"
Megamind makes a noise of frustration and hits a button on the suit that makes it fall away from his body in pieces. He reaches across his body and draws his gun with his left hand just before the leg piece clangs to the floor.
"My, my; aren't we eager to undress," Roxanne says.
"Only for you," Megamind says, grinning at her, and Roxanne very nearly runs into the pillar she's trying to dodge behind because holy fuck he's never flirted back so blatantly before.
She fires three shots quickly, but Megamind has taken refuge behind another pillar. Roxanne pulls back into the cover of her pillar just in time as Megamind fires at her. She runs to a nearby display case, trying to get behind him and gain the upper hand, but Megamind appears to have had the same idea, because he goes for the display case, too, a split second expression of surprise on his face when they almost run into each other.
Roxanne kicks out, but he blocks it, along with one of her next two punches, and then he tries to grab her. She goes with the motion, throwing him so off-balance that she's able to spin past his body and out of his arms, almost as if they're dancing.
She turns, raising the gun swiftly, aiming it at him, but Megamind turns and raises his own gun at the same time.
There's a pause of several tense moments in which both of them continue to aim at each other at nearly point blank range.
If one of them fires, the other one will still have time to pull the trigger before the stun or dehydration happens.
Neither of them fires, neither of them lowers their gun. They circle each other slowly, countering each other's movements, neither of them able to gain the advantage of a slightly better shot.
"Just out of curiosity, Temptress," Megamind says, "what are you planning on doing with those artifacts?"
"Giving them back to their owners," she says, too caught off guard to be anything but truthful.
He stops circling. Roxanne stops circling also, again caught off guard.
Megamind, with an abrupt motion, stops aiming at her, twirls his gun around his finger and catches it by the barrel, then tosses it at her.
Roxanne reaches up and catches it reflexively.
"Oh no," he says. "I appear to have been disarmed. How very unfortunate." He raises an eyebrow at her. "Doubtless I'm about to be captured and—regrettably—rendered completely powerless to stop you."
Roxanne laughs, shock and delight and—
He's so—he's so very good. And she—
(loves him god she loves him she loves him so much, and how can it be possible that something as evil and unclean as her could love someone so blindingly good)
She holsters her gun, and Megamind grins at her, sharp-edged and shining. He reaches for the handcuffs on his belt, tosses them at her, too.
Roxanne handcuffs him to a convenient statue, his hands behind his back,.
(the position makes the tendons in his long, slender neck stand out in a fascinating way.)
"I'm keeping the gun this time, sweetheart," Roxanne says softly, standing close to him, her hand on his chest.
"That's all right," he murmurs. "I figured you would. I finally realized how to replicate the power source."
Surprise makes her control slip, and her powers give a quick little pulse.
Megamind glances down at her mouth, then up into her eyes, his pupils wide and dark and—
She doesn't kiss him, then.
(but it is a very near fucking thing.)
"—can we not?"
Roxanne, about to dive for the freeze ray, stops—less at Megamind's words and more at the tone. He sounds—
Tired and dull, and there are dark circles under his eyes, beneath the eyeliner.
"…time out?" Roxanne says uncertainly, making the shape with her hands that she remembers from games of tag as a kid.
That seems so long ago, seems like it happened to another person. Not the person here on the rooftop with Megamind.
He closes his eyes for a moment, lets out a breath, his shoulders curving inwards.
"Thank you," he says, sounding honestly grateful, and so very tired.
"You look terrible," Roxanne blurts out. "Are you sick?"
(she wouldn't have done the evil plot on a cold snowy rooftop if she'd known he was ill, probably wouldn't have done an evil plot at all, to be completely honest, even if it is Christmas, even if the peace on earth goodwill towards man sentiment of the season does get under her skin and make her feel particularly bitter and evil and destructive.)
Megamind chokes on a laugh.
"No," he says, "I'm—fuck."
He covers his face with his hand and turns away from her, his legs folding up suddenly as he crumples.
Roxanne stands frozen in place, staring at his back, as his shoulders do that silent convulsive jerking thing that happens when you're trying not to cry.
She should—she should go, she should definitely go, she should—
She goes to him and sits down next to him on the rooftop. He takes a sharp breath—surprise, she thinks, but she doesn't look over at him, fixes her eyes out on the skyline, on the shapes of buildings and roofs dimly visible through the thickly falling snow.
They stay like that for several minutes, neither of them saying anything.
"This is the day my planet was destroyed," Megamind says, quietly, breaking the silence. "This is the anniversary."
Roxanne's breath hisses through her teeth; she looks over at him. He's looking out at the skyline now.
"There was a black hole," he says, "and the whole planet was pulled into it. Everyone but me and Minion. I was an infant, but I remember it perfectly. I remember everything."
There is a long silence in which Roxanne does not know what to say.
"I think my family's dead," she says abruptly. "I think they killed them. The people that had me. I think they killed them."
Megamind turns to her, anger and grief twisted together in his expression.
"This universe really sucks, doesn't it?" he says, with so much force behind the words that it strikes Roxanne as funny for some awful reason.
She makes a choked sound, laughter edged with tears, and then both of them are laughing, the kind of laughter that comes of trying not to cry.
"Oh, it does!" Roxanne says. "It really, really does!"
"Error: universe. Reboot from start," Megamind says, giggling, tears in his eyes. "Have you tried turning it off and then turning it back on again?"
"Don't—don't give me ideas!" Roxanne says, gasping with laughter.
"Don't t-tempt me to let you!" Megamind says, laughing.
They laugh for a few more moments before trailing off once more into silence. Megamind doesn't turn away, though, keeps looking at her, an odd expression on his face.
"Can't we just—can't we just stay like this?" he asks. "Can't we just stop?"
"No," Roxanne says, all of her leftover joy vanishing. "I can't. I told you; I can't."
"Why not?" Megamind says, sounding frustrated.
"You know why not," Roxanne says, chest tightening. "I told you—you've seen—the things I've done, the things I can do, the—"
"It was self defense," Megamind says.
"I wasn't talking about that time, Megamind," Roxanne says, hands clenching into fists.
"Neither was I," Megamind says softly.
Roxanne stares at him. Is he—does he actually know what she's talking about? Does he know what she did, not just to Psycho Delic, but to all the people from the lab, all of the blood, the guard she shot, the people she made kill themselves, bodies falling onto the grass like puppets with cut strings—
They're sitting very close, Roxanne realizes. Realizes, too that her pheromone powers have begun to curl out from her without her noticing.
Too close, much too close, this is—
"Roxanne," Megamind says, voice quiet, expression soft and filled with—no please, no—
Roxanne jerks herself to her feet, feeling as if a terrible yawning darkness has opened up inside her chest.
"That," she hisses. "That is fucking why."
"Roxanne—"
She flees.
"No no no no no no no," Roxanne says, curled into a ball on her kitchen floor, "no, no, please, god, no—"
Maybe—maybe she's—maybe it wasn't the pheromones, she thinks desperately. Maybe it was just—circumstances; he was feeling unhappy and vulnerable, and Roxanne was there, managing to be at least a little nice to him, and it was just—circumstances, not her. He would have wanted to kiss anyone who was there with him, then, being nice to him.
It's—it's perfectly natural that he would feel that way, isn't it; people get sad, they want held; that's a thing, isn't it?
It wasn't her. It can't have been her.
(please, please, no)
...to be continued.
Day 24 of my Birthday Fic Month! Thank you for continuing to read and send reviews; I really appreciate them!
Megamind's "Error: universe; reboot from start," line is a discworld reference.
Thank you to Mollyscribbles on tumblr for inspiring the part where the Temptress finds out about Megamind's school experiences and gets revenge on his behalf.