Note: Idea based off of the tumblr post "rescue and adoption" which is a twist on the standard changeling child fairy tale: the human mother wants her human baby *and* the fey one it was replaced with.
Warnings: Minor character death. Angsty/dark – but has a happy ending.
chapter one: iron and lightning
your peace is not my peace
where you redeem
I summon guilt
your hell is not my hell
the life you shunis mine to live
your sins are not my sins
in me you find no heir
your lies are not my lies
such grace I do renounce
where he forgiveth I will unheal
- Ihsahn, Unhealer
He storms into the fairy mound, a one-man war, armed to the teeth in cold iron and the fairies and fey creatures part before him like water breaking around a stone.
He has a small infant strapped to his chest, where normally his grenade bandolier hung. But this is more important.
Those that try to stand against him fall to his blade until at last he stands in the center of the mound. Around the edges of his vision, smaller fey flee and scatter, leaving their ruler to face him alone.
There is a little bundle of cloth on the dais, on the bottommost step below the shimmering creature.
The fairy ruler extends multi-layered gossamer wings in what the Warden, being who and what he is, recognizes as invitation; acceptance of his presence.
His lifts his sword. The blade drips with rainbow ichor, point extended towards the ruler. His arm does not shake. It could have; he is very afraid, and very angry.
"I want my son back."
The being blinks at him, eyelids shuttering and clicking.
"We returned your son to you." They had hoped, perhaps foolishly, that doing so would prevent bloodshed.
The Warden touches his free hand to the baby on his chest, smearing the cloth with the glimmer of fairy blood. "This is the child my wife bore before she died, yes. But thatis the baby I've been raising and you will give him back to me."
His words rebound from the walls of the room, echoing and reverberating in the strange air.
And the ruler...hesitates.
This has never happened before. There is a quiet murmur from the creatures crowding the hall behind the human. Confusion. Uncertainly. Has the human not, then, come to wreak vengeance upon them for having taken his child in the first place?
The ruler regards him curiously, blinking chitinous eyelids over black orbs. "You want them...both?"
"Yes," the Warden says through his teeth.
The fey being looks down at the blue face peering up at them from the swaddled blankets at their feet. Could it really be so simple, to give the human this broken little thing and have done?
"We can give him back to you, but he won't survive."
"What do you mean he won't survive? What have you doneto him?!"
The Warden's fury is like a fire suddenly blazing, and the fey finds it both disquieting and admirable.
They lean down, long body uncoiling, and touch the nail at the end of one finger to the point between the baby's eyes. Blue skin puckers as the baby frowns up at them.
"There is...a broken place, inside."
"Well, can't you do something to fix it?"
A frown. The human does not understand. "There is no...fixing it," the fey says carefully. This is how it was born. This is what it is. It was why they had...gotten rid of it, in the first place.
There is an imperfection. A flaw.
The human heaves a sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose between the fingers of one hand. "Never mind," he says. "Give him to me, I'll do it myself."
He is the Warden – existence as much as job, here in this world where fey magic runs parallel to physics. He is a kind of sorcerer. People and creatures who break the laws of the world are sent to him, because he has dominion over cold iron and so even fey things are bound by his word.
His prison is outside the city, on a hill overlooking the lake. It is not a building – the things he keeps locked away are not the kind to be daunted by concrete walls or high fences. There is a great deal of black, cold iron. There are circles of standing stones and grooves of rowan trees. Lush green grass and fragrant wildflowers grow along the hillside.
In their cages, the bad things sleep. This is a place of peace. It is as much the power of his magic that keeps it so as it is the work of the iron.
It was very daring indeed, to have taken his son in place of their 'imperfect' one.
Bereft of the illusory fey magics, this baby is as blue as the sky and has eyes as green as bog fire. They seem to glow in the dark.
He doesn't cry anymore. Not aloud, anyway. Tears still leak from those luminous eyes but only silently, and it breaks his father's heart. The Warden cradles him close, pacing in the soft dark of the bedroom while the son of his blood sleeps soundly in the other crib and moonlight slants silver across the floor from the open window.
"Oh, baby Blue, you're all right." Warm tears soak his shoulder, where Blue has buried his face and the small body is almost vibrating with tension. The Warden stokes his hand up and down the small curve of his son's back, over the large dome of his head. "You're all right, my little love." Kisses the soft skin stretched over his skull.
The baby shivers, so he kisses him again. Resumes pacing. "You're safe now," he whispers. "I won't let them take you ever again."
He's never been good at singing but he tries, low and gruff. Wayne doesn't like his singing, but the son of his blood spent more time in the fey courts than little Blue ever did and perhaps an old human's clumsy attempts at lullaby are ugly to a child who has been serenaded by the spirits of winds and waters.
But Blue only ever knew dangerin such sounds and so when the Warden hums a little song to this son, the baby begins to relax against him and at long last falls asleep.
He has fixed broken things before, but never one so young.
His blue son has webbing between toes and fingers, a second eyelid that blinks down over lambent green orbs. So it only seems right, when he sets about fixing the hole inside the boy, that he makes him a heart in the shape of a fish.
Like all things made by humankind, it has a life and a will of its own. He had thought to give his son something shining and golden, but the fish looks more like a goblin toad or a fanged mudskipper than any of the bright, graceful things he had imagined.
It smiles at him, from the workbench, a strangely joyful toothy grin. Holding the slimy, scaly thing in his hands, he can feel the pulse of thunder deep inside.
When he brings it to Blue and settles the glass sphere in his boy's crib, his baby holds it between two chubby little hands and presses his face right up against the glass, eyes round with wonder and mouth wide open. He smears a little trail of drool across the surface but neither he nor the fish inside, equally entranced, even notice.
The knot of fear around the Warden's own heart eases and he lets out a breath he's been holding since the fey had pronounced he won't surviveand there is a broken place.
Blue is babbling nonsense and the fish swirls around in circles until the water bubbles and froths. The Warden leans in and uses one corner of Blue's blanket to clean the slobber off of the glass, and from Blue's chin.
Blue grins at him, all shining eyes and lavender cheeks, grabbing at his hand and trying to point to the fish. He kisses the soft skin of Blue's head, and then for good measure, kisses the top of the fish's bowl. Olive-green eyes widen in that ugly little face, spiky fins fluttering, and he can almost hearit thinking, Oh. Oh, me too?
Blue coos and strokes the glass, green eyes soft and reassuring. The Warden tucks them in together under the soft blanket. You're not supposed to leave stuff in a crib with an infant, let alone a glass ball with a goblin-fish inside. But he doesn't think any of the regular rules about parenting apply here.
Most fathers don't storm fairy mounds for changeling children. Or forge them hearts of blood and scale and starlight.
There are, of course, problems with Wayne.
Time inside a fairy mound does not flow the way it does in the human world and the baby of his blood is already beginning to toddle around and eat proper food and babble in something that sounds more like the melodious songs of the fey than any human tongue.
The Warden worries that there might be other changes, things more subtle than teeth and age and a need for constant music. He has several healers in to see his boy but they pronounce him healthy and caution the Warden to watch and wait. Which, being the only thing he can do anyway, is entirely unhelpful to hear.
Some days he thinks maybe this is what it is, to be a father, you are a flood of worry in the shape of a human being.
There is one healer that Wayne really takes to, an old grandmotherly type who squats on creaking knees to gather up the grinning child when he rushes to her.
"Give him music," she tells the Warden. "Give him music like you would give him air and water and light."
He is already doing this; Wayne will start screaming after dark if there is no music. But he is impressed that she has more to offer than wait and watch. And so before she leaves, he asks her to look at his other son.
Blue receives her the way he receives everything in life – with wide eyes and a slightly open mouth, a mixed look of astonishment and worry that alwayshas his father leaning in to kiss away the furrow between his brows.
"Oh," she says softly, folding her arms on the side of the crib and staring down at the baby. "Well, look at you." She holds one hand down, fingers gnarled and wrinkled, and with an expression of utter solemnity Blue pulls one into his mouth to drool on.
For a long time they stay like that, and the only sounds are Blue sucking on her finger and the faint drift of music from down the hall. At last she sighs, and says, "You've fixed his heart. That was well done. But he's not going to have an easy go of it, you know."
He knows.
"His head will grow quite large. You'll want to give him something for the pain as you would if he were teething."
"Thank you," he says, seeing her out. She shakes her head.
"I haven't given you anything you didn't know, Warden."
"Thank you for them," he says and this time she returns his smile and pats his cheek.
"You're already doing the one thing they really need." When he tilts her a questioning look, she smiles again. "Just love them. The rest will work itself out, or not, in time."
Their favorite game is pirates.
There is a little pond not too far from their house, and a stream runs down the hill and curves around the tall, dark iron cages, far enough away that the boys can follow the clear flow of water through the trees to its end without getting too close to any of the slumbering things their father keeps prisoner.
Their father often thinks about building them a boat, for the game, but the boys seem to do just fine with the swords and the treasure chest – a styrofoam cooler that usually holds nothing more fantastic than sandwiches and cookies.
They don't really need a boat, anyway – in their imaginations, the pond is the pirate ship. Minion can come out of his bowl there, and while Wayne doesn't swim nearly as well as Blue, he could have asked for no better teacher than his little brother, and holds his own well enough.
"You sure you were a changeling? You swim like a frog, maybe the fey hatched a tadpole on accident."
Blue, perched on a rock at the edge of the pond, with his spindly elbows and knees in the air, looks very frog-like indeed. He responds with his best croaking ribbit and leaps onto his brother's head, dunking them both with a splash.
Sometimes their father joins the pirate game by sneaking away with their treasure and leaving a map in its place. If they are too slow on the trail, they find only crumbs and the Warden napping peacefully in the sunshine. But working well together and puzzling out the clues leads to such prizes as ice cream bars or chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil.
The Warden instructs them in their disparate magics, spending a great deal of time and effort at it. Blue in particular possesses talents which no one, fey changeling or human mage, should have but rather than make a fuss over his worry and ignorance, the Warden studies all he can and tries his best to give both boys a sense of normality and acceptance.
They should have that, from their father. Gods know they won't get it from the world.
Alongside magic, he teaches his sons everything he knows about the fey.
"You chose your own name," he tells Blue. "They'll have had one for you just as I have one for you, but as you grow and begin to know the shape of yourself, you'll chose your own."
"Mama picked my name," Wayne says, with all the pride of a child who knows he has something truly unique and does not understand death or loss.
The Warden pulls him close and kisses his warm cheek. "That's right. Maybe you can give Blue some ideas, huh?"
School is, of course, horrible.
It is hard to sit so still in the uncomfortable plastic chair, hard to contain himself within that deep well of quiet. Blue will never know what its like to drown, aquatic fey-thing that he is, but he drowns every day in that room, in the over-bright fluorescents and the air so stagnant and muscles achingfrom the tension required to obey the laws of Shool, the long list of Do Notwhich seems to apply only to him.
He doesn't needto be there. His big blue head contains a big brain, and he's long since mastered all the rudimentary knowledge offered in the little shool. But his father says there is more to learn than calculus and chemistry and...
And it's very lonely, at home, without his brother. So he takes his own books, and does his coursework separate. The teacher doesn't grade it – his father looks everything over, and they talk about it over dinner.
Recess is easier than the classroom in some respects, because at least he can breatheoutside. But so can the other kids, and mostly they use their voices to shout at him. Wayne helps. Everyone lovesWayne. Also, he hits very hard, and will punch without hesitating if someone reallystarts in on his strange fey freak of a brother.
They have standing permission from their father to leaveanytime they want. If the teacher doesn't like it, he'd said, she can come deal with me. And there is no one in the world scarier than the Warden when he's angry. They haven't, yet, confessed to their father that the bullying is as bad as it is – they've only told him Blue gets teased, sometimes. Blue doesn't want to tell him because then he'll take them both out of shool and there's nowhere else close enough they can go and Wayne lovesshool.
Today is one of the bad days.
Both boys bear bruises and scrapes – one from being attacked, and the other from having leapt in to defend his brother. They flee the playground, climbing the big oak to get over the fence, and seek to ease their hurts at the pond near their home.
"One of these days, you're gonna finally let me teach you how to punch," Wayne threatens him once they reach the safety of cool water and shade trees.
"I don't want to hurt anyone. I just...want them to like me." Tears well up and Blue's voice wavers. He bites his lip and looks away.
Wayne makes a face like he'sabout to cry, then leans over and gives his brother a fast, hard hug. For a moment they stay like that, old enough to feel self-conscious but clinging tightly anyway.
"They're too dumb to like you," Wayne says, sitting down in the soft grass at the edge of the pond and unlacing his shoes while Blue releases Minion into the water. "Think about what Dad always says – they're afraid because they don't understand. And they don't understand 'cause they're stupid."
Staring down at the face of his fish, under his own distorted reflection, Blue says quietly, "It's never going to change. I'm never going to change. I'm supposed to name myself but the only thing they'll ever see me as is a freak."
A beat of silence, stretched thin.
"Okay," Wayne says at last. "So...you're fey. You're blue. You have a giant head. People will always see that." He slides both legs into the water. "But...you can own it. Make it your strength so they can't ever use it against you."
Minion does a few rapid circles, glowing brightly in the shadow-dappled waters of the pool, sending small waves splashing and then grinning up at Blue from the center of the ripples. Blue can feel the warm pulse of his agreement over the bond.
"Okay," he says at last, catching his lip between his teeth and glancing at his brother. "Promise you won't...laugh."
Wayne arches one brow over a smile. Blue hates that look, it is Wayne's most insincere look, but then Wayne says, "My mom named me 'wagon-maker'. I am the last person who will laugh at you, Blue."
A sharp release of breath. He clenches his hands together in his lap. "What do you think of...Megamind."
All his fear vanishes in the sudden, bright flash of his brother's grin. "Megamind," Wayne says, slowly, and claps one hand on his shoulder. "I think it really fits you."
Minion looks up at him, a wide toothy smile on his face. See? Told you he would like it!
They swim until the warm afternoon sun shades towards evening shadows.
The route home winds through the forest, and as always they are very careful to go around the cages. But Wayne stops in the middle of the path, standing still as a stone in the shadows under the trees. "Do you hear that?"
"What?"
Head tilted, eyes distant. "That...song."
Wayne hears music in everything.
Megamind stills himself, listening, but all he hears is the wind in the trees like rushing waves on the lakeshore, and the distant echo of birds.
"Maybe it's fairy music," he says at last, unease tracing fingers down his spine.
Wayne's gaze snaps to his brother's face and he quickly closes the distance between them, leaning down a bit to throw one arm over skinny shoulders.
"They won't come after you. They're too scared of Dad."
Holding Minion tight in the curve of one arm, Megamind wraps his other one around Wayne's waist and does his best to match his brother's long strides towards home.
Wayne's eyes dart around, glaring into every shadow under the trees around them, as if daring the fey to show themselves. "I bet he goes through the roof when we tell him about your name," he says, and Megamind can tell he's trying to cheer him up and distract him. "Maybe he'll even bake us a cake! Hey, does this mean you get two birthdays now?"
And the thought that flits through his mind, swift and scarcely articulated, (it was never me they wanted) goes unspoken.
The Warden is excited about his son choosing a name, but Megamind speaks up before any sort of celebration can begin and tells his father about the music Wayne heard in the woods. Instead of cake and ice cream the three of them spend hours in the Warden's workroom, both boys sitting on a large, flat sheet of solid iron while their father draws circles and runes around them in salt.
Wayne shoots him a look of long-suffering and at the time, Megamind feels nothing but a flood of guilt.
Years later, he stills feels a flood of guilt – but with an entirely different context and emphasis.
Because the worst happens despite all their father's efforts – and it is, of course, Megamind's fault.
It is several weeks before the Warden lets a night pass without the ritual of iron and salt, before he pronounces them to be of sound mind and clean of any outside influence. Wayne is always very irritable when they have to endure such measures and relations between the brothers have been a bit strained.
On this night, their last night, the Warden finally makes the long-awaited cake. Blue, of course, with golden swirls along the edges. Their father has learned to bake as a matter of survival – there is no better way to bribe young boys, he has found, and the cake celebrating his youngest son's name may be more than a bit late, but is all the sweeter for it.
Because it is Megamind's night, they have cake for dinner and more cake for desert and then watch Star Trek re-runs until bedtime.
"You were right about the cake," Megamind says, laying flat on his back with both hand splayed out around his distended belly.
Across the room, Wayne snorts. There is a squeak of bedsprings as he adjusts. Down the hall, from the living room, a Guns N Roses album plays on repeat. Tomorrow night is Wayne's turn to pick again, which means Elvis, or maybe John Denver.
"If I wake up before you, I'm eating the rest of it for breakfast."
Megamind gasps. "It's my cake!"
"Not if I get there first it isn't."
"I'm faster than you."
"Uh huh." Wayne doesn't sound impressed. "I'm stronger. And taller. I could hold you still and use your head for a plate."
"Not if I yell for Dad to come make you share."
"I'll just have to eat really fast, I guess."
"Then I'll make a machine that'll get it out of your poop."
There is a pause
"Dude," his brother says, sounding equal parts awed and disgusted, "that is super gross."
"Yeah. I wouldn't actually do that." There is another pause, and then Megamind grins as an idea strikes him. "But – can you imagine dad's face if I did?"
They smother their giggles in pillows, and drift off to sleep with to the tune of Sweet Child O' Mine.
Sometime in the dark hours after midnight, the world ends.
Their world, anyway.
It is Minion that wakes him, Minion's voice raised and shouting and that of itself would have been enough, Minion is shy even around Wayne and their Dad, Minion doesn't speak aloud where anyone but Megamind can hear him –
Minion shouts, now, little voice broken with fear and Megamind's eyes snap wide open.
The house is shaking. There is a crack, above him, in the bedroom ceiling and darkness is pouring in and it has a face. Paralyzed with fear he can only stare up at it, stricken, mouth wide in horror – and it is obliterated by a sudden beam of white light.
Their father, in the doorway, lowers hands still glowing with the spell. "Workroom," he snaps at them, and unsheathes his sword. Meets both their eyes. "Now."
They do not make it to the workroom.
Megamind tries, catches Wayne's shoulder in the hand not clutching Minion and tries to pull his brother down the hall because Wayne – of course, Wayne wants to go with their father. For a moment the boys stop there, staring at each other while the house shakes itself apart around them – and then Megamind lets go of him and bolts down the hall alone, bare feet skidding across the shaking floorboards, Minion's glass clutched to his chest with both arms.
Megamind makes it to the workroom where all his father's carefully labeled and organized jars have fallen and smashed. The sharp smell of chemicals and ozone scent of magic fill the air. The iron is cold, a frozen sheet of ice under his feet. Around him the house groans, shaking itself apart, and somewhere outside there is a shriek like a banshee and a deeper louder booming that vibrates his bones.
Wayne is not in the hall. Something flutters in the back of Megamind's throat, like maybe his heart is trapped up there, and his stomach feels as cold and heavy as the iron under his feet because what if Wayne doesn't come out at all –
And then everything explodes.
Megamind is standing on tiptoes, craning his neck to stare down the hall, and then he is slammed flat on his back by a wall of air, feeling all the breath rush out of him. His ears are ringing and the roof is – the roof is gone, there's no dusty boards of workroom ceiling above him there's stars in a black sky and cold air and he is still holding Minion, can still feel Minion, a thrilling note of panic in the bottom of his mind.
There are monsters, in the dark all around them.
Things made of fire and things white like death and one big thing, like a bug, like big dark centipede with a small human face and a hundred thousand legs down the segmented length of its bulk, way in the back behind everything else.
Megamind sits up, gathers his legs underneath himself, preparing to leap for Wayne and drag him to safety – but Wayne doesn't seem to see him at all, Wayne's face is twisted in terror and he is screaming, high and piercing –
"Dad! Daddy, no!"
Megamind's head snaps around, following his brother's gaze.
Too late.
A spray of blood. The Warden falls.
One outstretched hand, palm upwards, lands on the black metal by Megamind's feet. Megamind reaches out with trembling fingers but just before his skin makes contact one of the fiery things dances up, grinning horribly at him, and when it touches his father's body there is a flash of flame, and then nothing but ash.
The world seems very silent, somehow. His legs give out and he hits the iron, hard, on his knees. Still – he's still got Minion, and...and...
A shadow falls over him. The big thing, the one with the small white face and all the legs and long – was that a neck? Part of the body, lengthened and stretched? It seems to be the only creature left. All the smaller things have gone away.
Careful not to cross the iron, it bends over him.
And bows.
"Thank you."
"Wh-what?" Wayne stammers, reaches out a shaking hand and pulls on one of its legs until it turns to him.
"Oh," it says, sounding mildly surprised. The voice is melodious, smooth. "For setting us free. It is polite to give thanks for such a gift, yes? It is wonderful to be free, but such a shame that it cost the Warden's life."
The creature withdraws from Megamind, coiling in on itself and skittering backwards on a thousand legs. It lowers its face to Wayne's, meeting his eyes.
"I tried to warn you. Did you not hear my song? I thought if I warned you the Warden would have mercy on me. It is a pity such a good man paid such a dire price for love."
"What are you saying, what..."
Their eyes meet and Megamind feels as though he has swallowed a stone because Wayne's gaze is horrified but –
"Oh, don't you know?" Again, that tone of mild surprise. "It is because of himyour father's magic failed. He took a fey creature into his house, into his heart – and it killed him for it."
My...fault...
The rest of the world seems very far away.
"No! No, you're wrong, he's – he's my little brother, he wouldn't..."
"Oh. Oh, little one. He is fey.Why do you think they put him here, mmm?"
"He – he can't have known, he's – my brother -" Wayne's voice breaks on the world. It is the sound of his heart shattering.
"Oh my child," it says, stroking the tip of one leg over Wayne's back. "Have you never wondered why you weren't enough? You know better than anyone, the way fey magics work. Your father's love was his undoing. How long were you gone from him, mmm? When your mother lay cold in the ground and your father had only the babe she'd borne, only his son to love – but it wasn't, was it. Wasn't his son, it was this. Thing."
Freak. Monster.
There is a dark stain on the ground, at the edge of the iron. A smear and nothing more. Not even his sword.
My fault. The world blurs behind a veil of tears.
"But he thought it was you," the thing is saying to Wayne, "yes he did. Loved it like it was you. And didn't it eat him all up?"
Lowering its head to Wayne's ear again. "What do changeling children eat, mmm? The thing which they are born without, which they seek to devour from their mortal parents."
"His heart," Wayne whispers, horrified, stricken.
"Following that love to its source, yes. And so all that wonderful magic in your father...failed." It shifts its head to Wayne's other side, eyes gleaming in the dark, fixed on Megamind. "Pity no one stopped him sooner."
There is a long, awful silence.
"We must leave," the thing says to Wayne, softly, regretfully, "we must be away long before sunrise. This thing? Will not go far. It may have been raised as a human boy but it is a changeling. Such creatures are bound to the land they come from. Come with me, now. Come. I will show you secrets of magic, and then we will find him again and you will have justice for your father."
It scuttles backwards a bit, and for a moment Wayne is left standing by himself, staring at him with murder and betrayal in his eyes. And then with no influence at all, acting of his own accord, he spits onto the ground and wipes his arm across his eyes. Steps back, and grabs the end of the outstretched leg.
They vanish in a swirl of fire and darkness and Megamind is left alone.
Alone, with his father's blood and ashes and the ruin of his home.
My fault, my fault...
Alone, like a black, bottomless pit inside of him lined with razor wire and broken glass.
It hurt, oh, it hurt like nothing should ever be able to hurt. He doesn't even have a heart, not really, there shouldn't be anything to break in there, like glass shards beating in his chest and he claws at himself, wildly, screaming and sobbing, tears pouring down his face and breath coming in shallow gulping gasps.
Nails dig furrows in his arms, across his head, and that pain he can handle, bright and hot and scraping, but Minion will not let him, Minion is in his mind like a wall of stone so he fights Minion, instead, hurls himself in his mind across the gulf like a bolt of lightning and pours all his anger and his pain out at that unyielding presence.
Minion holds, holds, grim gritted teeth and the anger is hot, so hot, like fire in his chest where the sharp-edged agony is and the fire is so much easier to handle than that great dark loss;it is a consumption, instead, a thing which roars up inside of him, a bonfire from his bones. He lets go and falls willingly into it, hurling all the rage at the little face with its teeth set into its lip, its eyes narrow and hard, its body flashing with the low crimson tones that match everything he feels. Megamind fights because the hurt is too much and because Minion is the only one there he screams at Minion –
It isn't until he's standing over the iron with Minion's glass bowl held high over his head, and Minion's eyes staring straight down into his own, unflinching unyielding Go on, do it if you need to if you won't stop –
- that Megamind realizes just how far into mindless animal fury and grief he has hurled himself, and the shock is like plunging into ice water.
His legs give out and he falls with Minion's glass clutched to his chest, curled around it and screaming, prone on the ground with the iron cold underneath him and no one is coming to hold him. No one ever will again.
There is only Minion, floating in the little bowl, glowing green-and-blue, soft colors, crooning a wordless, endless lullaby. He cries until he can't breathe.
Eventually, the sun rises.
The dark world around them pales to gray. Birds begin to sing. Minion at last falls silent.
"We can't stay here," he says, very softly.
Megamind strokes his palm over the glass. "No," he croaks, voice hoarse and broken. After a moment he sits up stiff and grimacing, and then without thinking about it, turns to look at the dark stain on the ground.
I can't even bury you, he thinks, and the world blurs and in his mind is his father's face, solemn smile and soft eyes and he cries again, silently, fresh tears tracking through the grime on his face. He clutches his chest, nails biting into his skin but the ache is so much deeper and he will never reach it.
"Minion," he gasps. "Minion, it hurts."
"Hold me," Minion says, trembling all over and feeling like he might be sick from the depth of grief they are both drowning in. Useless he is, utterly useless. He swallows hard, trying to send all the love he has back over their bond. "I can't do anything, but you can hold me."
Megamind lifts his little body out of the sphere and cradles him gently, high against his chest. It does help. Touching another living thing pushes back a little against the loneliness. Minion's scales are smooth and slick under his fingers, and he can feel Minion's heart pulsing against his palm.
"We can't –" Megamind's voice catches, throat tightening and closing while his eyes blur again and he takes a moment, lowering his forehead to touch Minion's body until the fist of pain clenched in his chest eases. "We can't even bury him," he whispers at last.
Minion is quiet for a long time, while the world rises toward morning around them. At last he stirs, sliding in Megamind's hands until he can look up into his eyes.
"We burn it," Minion says, firmly. He's been crying too, leaking oily tears that have left his eyes bloodshot. "We can do fire. We'll burn it all. And then..."
"We go away," Megamind finishes the thought. They both turn and look at the city down the hill. "We hide."
One of Minion's tendrils clenches around his fingers and he looks back. "We do have to hide," he says. "But...we'll make our own place. Somewhere...dark, and-and quiet. And safe. We build our own home."
They leave nothing behind but ash and smoke-blackened metal.
Like evil and loathsome things should, they find a hole and crawl into it. And for years they live that way, hiding in the dark.
They build a Lair, walls of iron shot through with lightning and starlight, imbued with all the magic Megamind's fey blood can conjure. Wayne will never find the Lair. The cold certainty of this is one of the few pillars of safety in his life. Wayne will never find it, and as long as he stays within the walls Wayne will never find him.
But Wayne does not limit his war to his brother. The city is caught between them.
Wayne does not target it specifically to destroy – he doesn't want the hatred of the people, merely their obedience and lack of interference. Also, how else is he to draw his brother out of hiding? He threatens and bribes, breaks and builds, and the city follows him mostly out of sheer terror.
He gathers others – a woman who can call fire from thin air, a man who can destroy any object he touches. A witch who controls the weather, and a half-fey half-goblin man whose smoke induces nightmares and madness.
In turn, Megamind builds machines of metal and lightning, impervious to magic, though not to the power of his brother's fists.
The city's people waver between wild terror of the mad human mage and cold fear of the changeling sorcerer and his dark creations. They send for mages from other cities, seeking aid – but no one can stand against Wayne, whose powers seem to be infinite. The only one who ever walks away from a battle with him is Megamind, who for all his fey strangeness at least does not actively seek to do harm to innocents.
He is, as a matter of course (and of Wayne's influence) blamed for any number of things gone wrong: missing child? The changeling eats them, you know. Crops failed? Best leave out a bowl of blood for the fey sorcerer. Bad weather? We've angered the evil one, better pray, better find good iron for over your door, better check the locks and never go out after dark; he is fey, after all, evil evil evil.
Between fighting and healing and hiding, he and Minion work on the Plan to stop Wayne for good.
It is not a real Plan. They do not, truly, believe that they will ever succeed. Wayne cannot be stopped and Megamind is not entirely sure he would even be right to stop him – his father's blood is on his hands, after all. Wayne's cause is just, however loathsome the means with which he goes about it.
They circle the same ideas, again and again, make trials which always fail. It will, they know, only be a matter of time.
Years pass.
And then something happens which changes the game entirely.
Wayne falls in love.
Roxanne Ritchi wakes up in the dark.
She wakes up disoriented and dizzy and feeling strangely numb in her own body, the way she feels if she's had too much to drink and hasn't passed out yet. Like the painful entire-skin tingling after belly flopping into a swimming pool.
It takes a couple of deep, dragging breaths, but she realizes she's tied up. In a chair. The darkness is a blindfold. Her arms are twisted uncomfortably around behind her body, though her legs are left unbound. Okay. So. Probably not back with Wayne?
Which leaves...several possibilities, actually, none of them good.
There is a little light seeping in from the bottom of the blindfold, where the fabric is lose over the bridge of her nose. She could probably get it off, by rubbing her face against her shoulder.
But this is not the first time in her life Roxanne has woken up this way and she has learned that caution is the better part of survival. So she takes another deep, slow breath, trying to mimic the breathing patterns of sleep, and tunes in to what her other senses can tell her.
The air smells of metal, very sharp. Oil, and grease. Her own sweat. Listening keenly, keeping her breathing steady, she hears only a vast, echoing silence.
The chair she is tied to is backed with iron, rendering any other senses she may have brought to bear useless.
So she's in a big, cold room that smells like machines. That...certainly narrows down the options.
Well, then. Always best not to let things start on someone else's terms.
"Megamind," she says, quietly. It is nothing like how she feels but Roxanne learned long ago not to let feelings get in her way.
And then she waits. Calmly– on the surface, anyway, which is all most people ever see.
Most people are not changeling sorcerers.
She has no idea what his senses might be like – can he hear heartbeats? Does he know what she is? Roxanne lets out a slow breath. If it is Megamind who took her from Wayne there is a good chance that he does know.
Which means she's never getting out of this alive.
There is a stir, in the air, somewhere behind her. Chills race down her spine and she fights hard to swallow the physical reaction.
"Well. That is impressive."
His voice is a purr. Low, a murmur. Almost seductive. She can't control the jolt of fear this time – he's standing much closer than she'd expected.
"You know my name," he says in a voice as smooth as silk. This time she tracks him by his footsteps as he moves slowly around her. "Who are you?"
Either he knows everything, and she's a dead woman, or...
She'd be stupid not to be afraid. But fear has never controlled her, never owned her. She is made of steel stronger than his magic iron. "Roxanne Ritchi."
There is a sudden tug at the back of her head and the blindfold falls away.
The room is vast and she sits in a beam of light, surrounded by shadow. At the edge of the darkness before her is blue-skinned man with glowing green eyes, dressed in black leather and steel spikes. Fey.
Roxanne takes a sharp breath, and Megamind smiles.
"Welcome to my Lair, Miss Ritchi."
Megamind doesn't know what he'd expected her to be like. Wayne loves her, after all. But he certainly hasn't expected this. Roxanne Ritchi is all sharp bristling edges and scarcely contained fire. He almost feels like if he stands too close he'll strike sparks off of her.
He doesn't scare her. That is...intriguing. He watches her draw in a breath and for a moment she looks as though she's going to scream – and then her eyes narrow and her jaw tenses.
"Why did you take me?" she demands.
Megamind regards her with dark, narrowed eyes. "Because my brother loves you."
There is a long silence.
She says, softly, "Wayne is your brother?"
He says nothing. There is nothing to say.
And then into the silence, the woman says, "Untie me."
"What? No." They'd been having a moment. Why did she have to destroy that with petty demands?
"Untie me," she says again. And when he gives her a look, mouth slanted and brow furrowed, she sighs and rolls her shoulders against the ropes binding her to the iron chair.
"There's something I want to show you."
"You'll run," he says, because of course she will, he shouldn't even be entertaining this by answering her –
"No," she answers patiently, "I won't." She kicks off her shoes. "There. Barefoot. Wouldn't get far, huh? Now would you please untie me."
"What are you hiding? What trick are you..."
Something about her eyes, some softness around the edges of those blue eyes is drawing him in despite himself.
"Please," she says again, very softly.
What is this softness. What is she trying to pull? There is something very unsettling about her lack of fear. That must be corrected immediately. He is fey he is wrong body mind and spirit, he is a monster, he is disgusting and she should fear him she should hate him –
Baring his teeth, Megamind yanks one glove off and reaches for her, sharply, meaning to scare her, meaning to make a point. To put them back on familiar ground. Long, inhuman fingers, nails painted black, brush across her cheek.
Roxanne does flinch, but so does he and it's not from the touching; at, least not directly.
He'd thought of them as striking sparks off of each other. He'd not realized it would be literal.
Brightness flares from her skin. She yelps in surprise and Megamind jerks away from her so quickly he almost trips.
Flecks of fire drift through the air, trailing for a moment between his fingertips and her cheek.
"I didn't know you were a mage," he says roughly.
She's watching the red-gold sparks floating in the air like fireflies.
"I'm not." Her voice is very full, deep, in the utter quiet of his Lair. The lights from the machines behind him reflect in her eyes.
"But," he says, lip curling.
Roxanne's mouth twists sideways. "I'm an amplifier."
Megamind's eyes flare wide with shock. Holy fuck. No wonder Wayne –
He takes a breath and moves around behind her, before he can change his mind, and swiftly unties her hands. She's watching him with a cool, amused kind of stare that makes him feel hot and uncomfortable in his own skin.
Once her hands are free, she leans forward a little, maintaining eye contact and, and slips the right sleeve of her blouse down. On the pale, freckled skin of her shoulder, is a mark tattooed in black ink. A right-facing triangle with lines on every side. The mark of an amplifier.
"He's never found you," she says. Megamind's eyes flick back up to her face. There is a current of feeling in her voice, something almost desperate.
"No," he says, suspiciously. "He can't."
Roxanne takes an unsteady breath, pushing her shirt back in place. "Let me stay. Let me stay here, please. Don't put me back."
Megamind takes a sharp step backward, staring at her in something that feels a bit like wide-eyed panic. "You want – to stay here? In the Lair?" He gulps a breath. "With – me?" His voice squeaks on the word and he clears his throat. "Good gods, why?"
She shoots him a look. "Do you know what life is like out there right now for an amplifier?"
Megamind spreads both arms wide. "Is it worse than this?"
Roxanne doesn't hesitate, doesn't flinch at all from the bitterness in his tone. "Yes."
This is not at all how he had thought their interaction might go. She's an amplifier. Gods help him. "You'd – stay. Here. Willingly?"
Roxanne arches a brow. "Is it really so hard to believe? He..." She hesitates. Wets her lips, and continues more softly. "Your brother scares me."
Megamind looks down at himself, clad in black leather and lightning and steel spikes. Blue skin. Glowing green eyes. Misshapen head. And looks at her again.
"And I don't?" He is shocked but – it is almost insulting.
Except.
Eyes as blue and warm as a summer sky soften and the full lips curve in a smile and his heart stutters a little in his chest.
Oh, he thinks. Oh, no.
Keeping her is the logical thing - she's a weapon. If she stays here, it will be a significant blow against Wayne's power. Amplifier. Gods. Now he knows why Wayne has been so much more dangerous lately.
"Fine," he bites off. "Stay, then." A hand, flat against the flare of delight in her eyes. "But I warn you, Roxanne Ritchi, if you betray me I'll make you wish you'd never been born.
The light in her eyes dies all at once. He spins and leaves, cape swirling behind him.
The door shuts after him, but not nearly quick enough and the words she'd whispered feel like blows, struck against his bones. Words he knows are not meant only for today, for the circumstance of her capture.
I already do.
Megamind stops, leaning against the wall, breath hissing in and out through teeth bared in a snarl of pain. One hand clenched over his chest, over the throbbing ache where there should be only emptiness.