Disclaimer: "Megamind" is owned by Dreamworks. I am not profiting from this fanfiction.

Note: I had a huge mental debate about this chapter. Like the one before, it didn't seem to go very far. But I never intended for this fic to be solely about Syphon and the battle against her; I also wanted it to further Megamind and Roxanne's relationship. So while this chapter doesn't make much progress towards the eventual battle for Metro City, I believe it does make progress for our favorite couple.

Syphon

Part VII

After a full day had passed without a return performance of Syphon, Roxanne began to relax. The woman was regrouping - which should be a bad thing, she reminded herself, but she couldn't make herself be afraid. She had total faith in Megamind's ability to thwart the villainess, so there was little reason to fear her return. Still, things were tense, both in the city and in the Lair.

She was sleeping here now, since Megamind doubted she would be totally safe in her apartment. Syphon's threats to her life had shaken him that much. Usually there was no way to get past his self-important flamboyant nature and overconfidence; Roxanne now knew for certain that if he had a weakness, it was her. An ironic thought, considering that for years everyone assumed she was Metro Man's weakness. Even Megamind had believed in it. Now she was, in truth, Megamind's weakness.

The fates had a good laugh over this turnaround, no doubt.

There was no spare bedroom in the Lair, so she'd slept on the oversized black couch, complete with a mountain of black pillows and three fluffy black comforters in the total black shadow of night. So she'd made a mental note to force him to install more windows, lower (the current windows were all roof-level and wide but not tall), if he intended to remain living here. There was something to be said for being able to go straight from stargazing to sleep by taking only two steps.

Windows first, she promised herself. Color later. That'd probably be a lot harder to get him accustomed to.

Luckily it hadn't been devoid of all light; several brainbots had decided to circle around her. The majority of them were growing attached to her, to the point where she often had one or more hanging around her shoulders or thighs, "barking" in their unique way for attention. But they were kinder at nighttime, polite, even; they'd laid down in various spots around her and "slept".

It had been a struggle to even secure the couch for herself, in actuality. Megamind had been at war with himself over the issue. It was almost amusing, if it hadn't been so shocking to be privy to. He'd paced back and forth, tossing comments at her every so often, taking up the rest of the "debate" by telling himself he should give up his bed for her (a small part of her was surprised he had one; in the past, he'd never stayed out of prison long enough to sleep for a full night outside) and then telling himself that it would be too awkward and she shouldn't see the things he'd done to his bedroom anyway.

That last part made her itch with curiosity in a literal sense.

So, after an eternity that'd lasted all of three minutes of his self-debating, he'd decided on the couch. Despite it being his decision and her suggestion to begin with, he had still looked disappointed in himself. Then he and Minion and eight brainbots had set off on a treasure hunt of sorts, returning with the aforementioned mountain of pillows and three comforters (why did he even have so many?), offering them to her.

At first she'd thought he wanted her to choose a pillow and blanket, but instead all of the items had been piled around the couch for her to arrange to her liking. Then, to add embarrassment to the issue, he'd stood there and awaited for her to do just that.

There'd been another eternity-of-three-minutes-long debate between the two of them about the whats and whys about how she didn't need all the items she'd been brought. In the end she couldn't talk him down from his little victory, so she'd accepted the inevitable and began arranging. It was a good thing the couch was so huge, or she'd never have been able to make it all fit.

In the end, one comforter was laid down, a second bunched up as a kind of fluffy down around the edges, and the third she'd actually slept underneath. The pillows all framed her on all sides, several of them half underneath her when she slept. It was so completely over the top. . .

But she hadn't been that comfortable going to sleep in years. Okay, so maybe being over the top wasn't such a bad thing after all. Thinking of her bed back in her apartment was beginning to make her ache all over.

The following morning had gone swimmingly, waking to find Minion was cooking breakfast. Peeking around him discovered he was in the midst of making more pancake batter, the first batch already cooked and awaiting Megamind and herself to devour. Not seeing the aforementioned alien at the table, she'd asked Minion about his late morning.

That's when she learned that Megamind was the heaviest sleeper on the planet. Possibly literally. She wanted to test the theory by going to try and wake him up, but Minion warned her off - something about Megamind being overly secretive about his bedroom - and besides which, she was hungry.

Not to mention she frowned at how Minion was preparing the second batch. Following the recipe with just a hint of lemon? Okay, but not great. She stopped him, pushed him aside, and took over. When he protested, she winked, telling him how this was her way of repaying Megamind's generosity with the bed situation the previous night. Judging by the sly look Minion got, he understood her unspoken words.

"And besides," she'd added, "I know you're a better cook than the average human, but how often do you taste-test?"

That had brought him up short. Brilliant though Minion was, he was still a fish in a mechanical suit filled with water. Taste-testing would only end up as a mistake to never be repeated.

Since the what-if tension concerning Syphon was still prevalent, she didn't get too fancy with the pancakes. A little cinnamon, apples chopped into little cubes - it actually went very well with the hint of lemon already in the mix. Or, well, she liked it. For all she knew Megamind's tastes differed from hers completely; they hadn't ever had a real meal together, so it was hard for her to anticipate what he'd like.

And if he didn't like her pancakes, there was always the first batch still cooling by the wayside.

By the time she was sliding the first finished pancakes onto a plate, there was an uproar from somewhere within the Lair. And judging by the clashing noises and the voices penetrating the silence, she guessed Minion had woken up Megamind - and that he wasn't happy with it. She thought she made out the words "you let her do what?"

More crashing, stumbling noises sounded, coming ever closer, until she perceived the sound of skin sliding on tile. Or, more accurately, polished steel. Freezing cold polished steel.

"Roxanne, stop!" Megamind's voice reached her. She glanced at him as he went on, "You don't have to do this! Minion is a perfectly acceptable cook - he's been preparing meals since I gave him hands!"

The shocked look on his face, somewhere between what are you doing and why am I letting you made her start to laugh.

"Okay, I'm starting to understand this," she said with slow nods, focusing on her task again. "You literally don't want to make me do anything around here. If you could automate everything, you would. I get it." She tossed him a smirk. "But you're about to be treated to grade-A home cooking, so sit down and just enjoy."

At once, the shock melted into confusion, and he finally seemed to take in that she was standing over a griddle and holding a spatula. At the same time, she began to notice his - pajamas? She turned away to hide her snicker. Black pajamas, of course; that was predictable. But she hadn't been expecting to see it adorned with little biohazard and radioactive symbols. Most of all, she hadn't been expecting to see it had a collar. Only a few inches high - minimal, compared to his others - but still.

And this was the man she loved. In all his egotistical, self-righteous, quirky, super-genius glory.

"Take a seat, I said," she ordered without looking.

He obeyed. And, as it turned out, Megamind loved her cooking, as he proved after the first bite by saying to Minion, "You watch all those cooking shows and she's still better than you!"

Minion had winced, but knew the alien well enough to hear the meaning behind the words. He wasn't trying to belittle Minion; he was praising Roxanne's superior ability.

Trying to steer the conversation back to safer waters, Roxanne had replied, "Yeah, well, I've had a lifetime of practice. I started cooking for my family when I was nine; by the time I was twelve, I was making dinner two nights a week."

It had been out of necessity, that. Both her parents worked hard; her mother as a nurse, her father as a security guard. Her sense of righteousness and compassion had come from them, and had been sharpened when they started working double shifts, leaving their nine-year-old to start taking care of the house.

Roxanne, after reminiscing a bit, had finished with, "You never forget things like how to cook. In fact. . .I'd say I've gotten even better."

"Oho, do I sense arrogance?" Megamind had teased.

With a roll of her eyes, she'd sat down to eat her own pancakes.

After breakfast they'd gone straight back to work. Prototypes were undergoing testing today. Fun! It seemed to be Megamind's favorite part of inventing: trying out the invention to see how well it worked. He had a signature prideful grin at every success, or an opposite signature pout at every failure. She enjoyed watching him as he went through the motions of this process, noting how expressive he was.

Of course he'd always been expressive before, but never more so than right then. Right before a test would begin, his eyes would light up like a kid in a toy store. Then, as the testing began, it would switch to total excited focus. She discovered she couldn't get his attention during that stage. Sometimes he would narrow his eyes in concentration, and something told her he was figuring things out, like adjustments and the like. The last stage of this expressive process was the ending: the pout or grin.

After a full day of twenty-seven prototypes, she'd only seen him get a confused look at the end of a test twice. And since she had nothing else to do during the tests, she'd had plenty of time to analyze him.

Oh how embarrassed he'd looked when he found out she'd been watching him. She yearned to tease him, but when he turned his back to busy himself with making notes, she let it go. He was purple and pink enough for one day, she supposed.

Besides, intuition told her he'd find a way to get back at her for making him so flustered, and she'd rather the embarrassment be limited.

In the end, he scrapped fourteen of the prototypes, made notes over three possible successes, and sent the rest back to blueprint. All of the metals and wires were disassembled from the failures, allowing them to be reused. This was the first time she'd seen the brainbots do anything other than float around, send and receive recordings, put on laser shows, or otherwise be watchdogs, so it was an interesting process. She found they could control the intensity of the laser each one had in its "eye", allowing for things from simple shows to complex cutting.

It was a little like watching piranhas, seeing the way they stripped apart mechanical objects and took away the pieces. In seconds a prototype for the shield generator that was twice her size was reduced to its base components and carted away in several dozen pieces.

"Wicked," she'd commented, partially stunned.

Even without looking, she had the feeling like Megamind just puffed up again in his usual manner. She could almost feel his ego swell.

God, isn't that just what the world needed?

The night had been as uneventful as the previous one, with the three of them pouring over blueprints - and now, notes. Most of Megamind's notes that had anything to do with adjustments to volts or degrees were entirely in his own head; he almost never wrote them down unless he was directing Minion to do something. And she found, as she watched him, that most of the notes were written down for two reasons: first, to allow Minion or the brainbots - or her - to get a chance to absorb the information, and second, because it helped him think to see the notes side by side.

She now understood why he hung things from the ceiling on strings. He had a habit of walking around them, eying them as they turned with the weak air currents, viewing them with critical eyes. The placement of them wasn't random, it was strategic. New ideas would come to him by watching the swaying and reading the mixed-up texts.

More and more she was beginning to see that he was far more of a genius than she'd ever known - more so than she'd ever cared to see. It made her ashamed of herself, knowing she'd overlooked the true impact of his intellect for the years she'd "known" him. And it made her wonder just how many people were being overlooked in much the same way.

Just in watching him, he made her eyes open a little wider. As if her perception of the world had broadened, she already began to notice things she hadn't before, starting with the objects in easy sight, and trailing back to her own apartment, her home growing up, even her school life.

She'd come out of the epiphany realizing that he'd noticed the way she'd blanked out. He was repeatedly poking her in the arm, talking to her in low tones as if she might attack without warning.

Another eternity-in-three-minutes debate had been required to explain to him that she wasn't going to fall into a coma - no, she wasn't hurt or anything like that; yes, it was odd, but then - and why would he suggest she'd fallen and hit her head when there hadn't been a fall? At length, she finally got him to accept that she'd just had an epiphany, nothing more.

Of course, then she'd had to go on to explain what she meant by epiphany - he misinterpreted it to mean she'd caught some kind of illness - and the circumstances behind it. And not only did he seem shocked that she'd been watching him so closely (again), but dumbfounded that she'd managed to understand everything he did, down to the placements of the notes. Then he'd been a mix of prideful and embarrassed that he'd managed to inadvertently change her outlook.

They'd both ended up blushing, shuffling their feet like schoolchildren.

That night, after dinner, they chatted for a little while by her makeshift bed. The subject ranged from the inevitable "how are you going to beat Syphon" to more random thoughts like "so why don't you ever wear blue, if you love it so much" and "what do you mean, you don't have any DVDs." In the end, when he wished her to sleep well and started to leave, she'd called him back.

"Ahem," she started with. When he glanced back, she folded her arms. "Well?" she prompted.

Confusion swamped his features. "What?" he wondered. "What did I do?"

"You forgot something," she hinted. Technically, he'd forgotten something twice, if you included last night.

He rolled his eyes. "I never forget anything, my dear."

The endearment made her heart beat a little harder. Still, she waved him closer. "Actually, you did. Twice now."

His expression changed to intrigue. What could he have possibly forgotten - not once, but twice? He started nearer, though she could see he was being wary about it, not knowing what to expect. When he reached her, eyes still cautious, she beckoned him closer with a twist of her fingers and a tilt of her chin. He seemed to get it then, a smile blooming to life on his face.

Exactly, she thought. He leaned in, bracing a hand against the back of the couch as he went. She reached up to accept him, running her fingers up his slender neck as their lips met. He made a sound of approval. Her eyes slid closed.

She was struck with indecision then. A part of her knew, without a doubt, that if she tugged on him, he'd collapse atop her. That same part knew it wouldn't end anything if she did; quite the opposite, she had the distinct feeling it would only escalate things. The question now was whether she should or not.

Deep down, she ached for passion. The rumors of being Metro Man's girlfriend had slammed her love life to a screeching halt for a decade, making her unable to get any kind of romantics from anyone in the city. Now that she had someone, a part of her was desperate to act on every little whim. She was repressed damn it.

The thing that held her back, however, was the knowledge that Megamind would be even more repressed. Though it almost hurt in a literal way, she pulled away after a few seconds, determined to follow his lead.

"That's what we call a good night kiss," she hinted.

He looked a little dazed, but replied swiftly, "So I'm supposed to give you one every night?" His smile remained in place. In fact, he looked very pleased with this idea.

She batted her eyelashes. "If you want to."

His smile turned lopsided. "And. . .and what about other times? When is a kiss acceptable?"

Her brows lifted. "There's no set of rules about it. If you want to kiss me, kiss me."

He kissed her. "Like that?" he checked as he drew back.

"You catch on quick," she approved with a smirk.

"Any time?"

"Well, provided you still follow the rules of personal space," she hinted. "For instance, if I happen to be taking a shower. . .it's probably not a good idea to choose then to come in and kiss me."

His entire face flamed at her words. She bit her lip in response. Way to go. This is Roxanne Ritchi from channel eight news, having just embarrassed my boyfriend beyond all rational means.

"Sorry, I wasn't thinking," she tried, sheepish.

"I'm okay," he said, though he looked anything but. He straightened, no longer focused on her. His eyes were blank - lost in thought.

Her curiosity rose up. What was he thinking about with such captivation? She longed to get inside his high-powered head, to know what he was thinking. She figured he was the same way with her, always wanting in her head. The difference was that she would probably be swept away and drowned in his mentality if such a thing as telepathy were to occur.

Which should have daunted her desire to delve inside his mind, but it didn't. Typical.

"You sure?" she checked. "I'm not sure what I could do to fix this -" idiotic, stupid, moronic "- blunder, but I'm willing to try."

"I just. . .need to go to bed now. Sleep well," he repeated himself, giving her cheek a last lingering brush with his fingers. His cape brushed over her feet as he turned to walk away.

As soon as he was out of sight, she groaned and fell back, at once swamped by the pillows and blankets. It was like laying in soft marshmallows, practically sinking into them.

A part of her was too embarrassed by what just happened to think of what she could possibly do to fix it. . .but another part was crying inside out of frustration. Stupid! All this repressed passion pulling on her strings and pushing her buttons, and she just let opportunity pass her by. He may have gotten embarrassed too, but there'd been a chance just now, a solid chance, to explore what extent their passions could reach.

Not very far, she'd guess. Megamind was still hyper nervous about everything that involved general boyfriend-girlfriend activities, let alone mutual desire. She knew she was making unconscious signals and knew he was picking up on them, to some degree, but she also knew he'd hold back forever if he had to, if only to be certain he was interpreting things the right way. He was far too scared of losing her to jeopardize their relationship, especially by making a mistake like forcing passion on her when she didn't want it.

So, going to sleep was a solution he'd devised for himself.

She wondered if worked both ways, deciding to give it a shot. She settled into the makeshift bed properly, closing her eyes against the soft glow of the brainbots around her.