Megamind draws his de-gun as he slips silently down the roof stairs and down one of the ladders to the lower floor. Minion and the brainbots are in position for the scheduled attack, half-way across town, and Megamind hasn't even called Metro Man out yet, so there's no reason for anyone to be in the Lair. Probably it's just a brainbot, back home against orders, or maybe Minion sent one to check what's taking Megamind so long with the Cumulus Accumulator.

The new communicator watches should be working, but it's possible they're malfunctioning, in which case, Minion might have sent a bot—

Megamind springs out from behind the bulk of an old battlesuit, de-gun at the ready, and finds—

"What are you doing here?" he blurts out.

Metro Man whirls dramatically.

"You!" he says.

Megamind gives him an unimpressed look and keeps the de-gun trained on him (it won't actually do anything if he shoots Metro Man with it, but he finds it reassuring anyway).

"Yeah, me," he says sarcastically. "Wow. What a shock. I live here; what are you doing here?"

Metro Man looks shifty for a moment, and then his expression firms up into one of his looks of Heroic Determination.

"Stopping you!"

Megamind thinks fast.

(shit; the Cumulus Accumulator isn't even close to ready; this evil plot is going nowhere; he's going to get arrested with nothing to show for it, and it's going to be embarrassing—)

"…stopping me from doing what?" Megamind says.

Metro Man hesitates.

"…evil," he says, but for once, it lacks conviction.

(wait, is this lie actually working?)

"I thought we agreed," Megamind says with a glare, "that, in exchange for me giving you fair warning for my attacks, you wouldn't come into the Lair except during evil plots. What are you doing in my house? Wayne." he adds, viciously, and Metro Man flinches at the use of his name.

"Okay, okay, okay!" he says, throwing his hands up, "I was bored and I heard Roxy's voice coming from here, all right? So I'm early for the Evil Plot, I guess! You don't have to make a big deal out of it."

"There isn't any evil plot," Megamind says quickly.

(really, the Cumulus Accumulator plan is a bust, but hopefully he can get through this without getting sent to jail)

Metro Man blinks at him, then narrows his eyes suspiciously.

"What's Roxy doing here, then?" he asks.

(shit)

"She's not," Megamind says.

He holsters the de-gun, attempting nonchalance.

Metro Man's eyes narrow further.

"I heard her voice," he insists.

"I don't know what you think you heard," Megamind says. "But Miss Ritchi is not here."

Metro Man looks at him hard for a long moment.

Megamind stares back.

For a second, Megamind thinks that his poker stare will work well enough to get rid of Metro Man. But—

"I know what I heard," Metro Man says.

He shoves Megamind aside; Megamind stumbles a little, almost falling.

(damn; should he try to escape, or gamble on Metro Man forgetting the roof?)

"Don't panic, Roxy! I'm here to save you!"

Hellfire and damnation. Well; there's no way Roxanne hasn't heard the moron bellowing for her. Megamind resigns himself to another trip to prison. She'll shout back to Metro Man in a moment, and the gig will be up.

"Roxy! Roxy, can you hear me? Roxy, where are you?"

Megamind blinks, tips his head in confusion, then moves to follow after Metro Man.

Okay, that's weird; why isn't Roxanne answering? She has to have heard the hero calling for her.

(is she—she can't be hurt and unable to answer, can she? He left her less than two minutes ago and she was fine, surely she can't have gotten seriously injured in that short an amount of time—)

"What have you done to her?" Metro Man demands, turning on Megamind.

(I pushed her hair out of her face and made her laugh, Megamind thinks.)

"Nothing," he says. "I haven't done anything to her. Notice how she's not here."

Metro Man stops in the middle of the (clearly Miss-Ritchi-less) Lair, an expression of confusion on his face.

(yes, yes; good—)

"The roof!"

(damn it)

Megamind glances at the exit; it's reasonably close; he might be able to make it if he bolts suddenly—

Metro Man seizes his arm in a tight grip, then yanks him off his feet as they fly up the staircase to the roof. Megamind tries to twist away, to absolutely no avail.

God damn it; he came so close to getting away with—

"—Roxy?" Metro Man says.

Megamind looks around the roof, blinking in confusion.

There's the Cumulus Accumulator, and his tools, and there's Roxanne's chair. But Roxanne is nowhere to be seen.

"Where is she?" Metro Man says.

"—how am I supposed to know? I told you she's not here!"

He tries to pull his arm away again; this time it works. Megamind glares at Metro Man and straightens the high points of his collar.

"…oh," says Metro Man.

He looks at the Cumulus Accumulator, and again an expression of suspicion comes over his face.

"What's that?" he asks.

Megamind's lip curls.

"Broken," he says. "I brought it up here to fix it because it's a nice day and I wanted to enjoy the weather. Is that all right with you, hero?"

"…oh," says Metro Man again.

There's a long awkward silence. Megamind uses it to think furiously about where Roxanne might be.

(she must have escaped while he was gone, then slipped down the stairs and out of the Lair while he was talking to Metro Man. odd that she didn't wait for her boyfriend to rescue her, but…maybe she's annoyed with him? that comment she made about 'what boyfriend'; maybe they're fighting?)

"…I really thought I heard her voice," Metro Man says sheepishly.

"Uh-huh," Megamind says, "Yeah. You mentioned."

Another awkward silence ensues.

"So, uh," Metro Man says, "where's Minion and your little robots?"

"Minion took the brainbots out for some exercise," Megamind lies smoothly. "They get bored without anything to do."

Metro Man laughs in a would-be chummy way.

"Ha, ha; yeah—I've been really bored, lately, too, you know, and—"

"—and so you decided to harass me for entertainment," Megamind says, voice caustic. "Tell me, have you ever thought about getting a hobby?"

Metro Man opens his mouth, probably to protest, then closes it again, looking thoughtful.

"A hobby," he says, eyes suddenly far away. "I could—I could get a hobby. That could be—fun. Right? That could be fun! What kind of hobby?"

(I don't actually care? Megamind refrains from saying. Why would I care?)

"Take up golf," he suggests at random, "Start a stamp collection. Learn an instrument. Please go away."

"—an instrument," Metro Man says, eyes lighting up. "I did always want to learn to play the guitar—"

"Fantastic," Megamind says. "That's great. Start right away. Go. Go now."

"Yeah—yeah! Hey, thanks, buddy!" Metro Man says, grinning happily, "I owe you one!"

"…yes," Megamind agrees, "yes, you do. And also you owe me for breaking our agreed-upon rules and breaking into the Lair during a non-evil-plot time, so that's two more Get Out of Jail Free cards or equivalent favors that you owe me now, yeah, okay, ciao!"

Metro Man flies off at last and Megamind sags with relief.

The moron didn't notice the ropes Roxanne left behind with her chair. Or—

Megamind bends and picks up the bobby pin from the rooftop.

So that's where it landed.

He twirls the little piece of metal between his thumb and forefinger and sighs, rubbing his other hand over his face.

Well. Today is definitely a loss.

He shouldn't be so completely disappointed that Roxanne has disappeared; there's a silver lining to this: Metro Man owes him two favors now, and he didn't have to go to jail! But—

His mouth twists and he curls his fingers over the pin. Stupid. Just because she happened to let him touch her without screaming, his idiotic brain thought they were having a nice time together.

As though she could ever be having a nice time, with him around. Of course she took the first opportunity to escape.

He glares at the Cumulus Accumulator as though it's to blame for his ridiculous feelings. He's done trying to fix the damn thing, he decides. He'll take it apart for scraps; he doesn't need it. He's got plenty of smoke machines, and he can come up with a different way to produce homemade lightning.

Megamind moves down the stairs, then climbs down the ladder into the empty Lair, Roxanne's pin still in his hand. He sighs again, then jumps as the watch on his wrist crackles to life.

"Sir?" Minion's voice comes through loud and clear. (At least something he built works, Megamind thinks bitterly.) "Is everything going all right? The brainbots are getting a little antsy—"

"I'm afraid we're going to have to cancel the Evil Plot for today, Minion," Megamind says, "The Cumulus Accumulator is completely nonfunctional."

"—oh, no. I'm sorry, Sir," Minion says. "I can hold the brainbots a little longer if you want to try to fix it—"

"No, no," Megamind says, walking towards his bedroom, "no point. Miss Ritchi already escaped and then Metro Man showed up." He opens his bedroom door.

"You already fought Metro Man?" Minion says, sounding concerned.

"No," Megamind says, closing the bedroom door behind himself and pulling off his cape and shoulder guards. "No, I put him off. I pretended that there wasn't any evil plan for today. And since Miss Ritchi had already disappeared, he believed me."

"—Sir, Miss Ritchi—"

"—knows the location of the Lair now, yes," Megamind says. "Unfortunately."

"We're going to have to move, aren't we?"

Megamind grimaces.

"Possibly not," he says. "There's a chance I may be able to—strike a bargain with her. Certain no-kidnapping-allowed days in exchange for her silence about the location of Evil Lair, something like that…she is always complaining about the disturbances to her schedule, so that might be sufficient—I'll approach her about it tomorrow."

"The brainbots and I will head home, Sir," Minion says.

"No," Megamind says, remembering his lie, "I told Metro Man that you took them out for exercise; there's a chance he'll be checking up on that—take them to the old strip mine and let them play. And you—you relax too, Minion. You deserve a break."

"What are you going to do, Sir?"

Megamind puts Roxanne's hair pin down on the bedside table and rubs a hand over his face again.

"—I think I might take a nap," he says tiredly.

"Really, Sir?" Minion sounds far too excited about this. "That's good; I told you this morning, you haven't been sleeping enough—"

"—which is probably why the Cumulus Accumulator wound up a piece of useless junk," Megamind says. "Yes, yes, I know. I'll take a nap. You take care of the brainbots."

"You got it, Sir!"

Megamind breaks the connection, then turns the communicator off entirely. He unstraps it from his wrist and tosses it down on the bedside table, next to—

Roxanne's pin.

Damn it. Damn his stupid heart.

(a full sense memory of what it felt like, touching her hair, sweeps through him, making his entire body flush hot.)

He takes his de-gun from its holster and puts it on the bedside table, too, then sits on the edge of his bed and pulls off his boots, tosses them into the corner. Twisting his arms behind his back, he unzips his shirt, and peels it off.

He isn't wearing his protective undersuit today; he was running late this morning and forgot it. He almost forgot his boots, too, actually, and he nearly poked his own eye out, trying to apply his eyeliner in a hurry; that was what prompted Minion's comment about his sleep schedule.

Definitely a good thing he got rid of Metro Man without a fight today. And he really should sleep…

He tosses his shirt onto the floor and lies back on the mattress, fingers trailing idly up and down his own torso.

—Roxanne's face, tilted up to his, laughter in her eyes and that beautiful, fascinating curve to her mouth as she smiled—the texture of her skin beneath his fingertips and the silkiness of her hair as he brushed it aside—like he—like would have done if he'd been about to lean down to kiss her—

…maaaybe he doesn't need to sleep right away.

The motion of his fingertips brushing over his own abdomen slows. He bites his lip, torn between guilt and wanting.

He'll—he might sleep better anyway, if he—

"Hey, Megamind, sorry but—"

Megamind screams and launches himself out of the bed; trips over his own feet and lands hard in a sprawl on the floor at Roxanne's feet.

Roxanne, who is here. Roxanne who is in his bedroom. Roxanne who is standing with her hand still on the handle of the closet door, half in and half out of the closet still, looking down at him.

"—uh," she says.

Megamind makes an extremely undignified noise, a sort of strangled screech.

"WHAT?! YOU—WHAT?!" he manages.

Roxanne stares at him for a long moment, neither of them moving—and then she claps a hand over her mouth as she breaks into a peal of laughter.

"Oh—oh my god—" she says. "Oh my god; I'm so sorry—"

"—what!—what—are you—what are you doing in my bedroom?!"

"Well, I…got lost," Roxanne says, waving a hand, "after I got out of the ropes, and I heard you talking to Metro Man, so I hid."

She shrugs dismissively, as if hiding in a supervillain's bedroom closet is an entirely reasonable thing to do.

Megamind makes a small, choked noise and attempts locate his shirt.

(Roxanne! is in his bedroom! and he's half naked and he wants to die oh god oh god)

"Now you know how it feels when people break into your house and jump out at you, Megamind," Roxanne says, amusement in her voice.

Megamind, struggling to turn his shirt right-side out, looks up at her in outrage and then promptly forgets how to speak.

(Roxanne is in his bedroom and he's shirtless and and there's too much of his skin on display she's looking at him like that and smiling and how is he supposed to function?)

"—I have—never jumped out of your bedroom closet at you, Miss Ritchi!" he manages to say, after his mouth opens and closes a few times like he's a non-sentient fish. "That was—just—uncalled for!"

Roxanne laughs again, her eyes still on him, and ah, yes, this is it; this is how he dies.

"I see now why you're always trying to get me to scream," she says, smirking at him. "That was fun."

Megamind feels his face go hot so fast he ends up dizzy. Oh god; he's blushing all the way down his entire torso; he can feel it.

"Yes, yes," he mutters, still desperately attempting to sort out his shirt, "I screamed. That's what—we mere mortals tend to do when someone leaps out at us from our bedroom closet without warning; we can't all have nerves of steel like you!"

"My my, Megamind," Roxanne drawls in a voice like sex and honey. "Did you just call me a goddess?"

He looks up at her, eyes wide, breath caught in his throat. She's still smirking at him, but there's a wicked edge to it now that he's never seen before and—

"—'mere mortals'," she says, raising her eyebrows and shit, oh shit, he did say that, didn't he?

He makes a small, terrified sound in the back of his throat and scrabbles blindly for the sleeves of his shirt, unable to look away from Roxanne, from her looking down on him, and suddenly he's terribly conscious of the fact that he's on his knees in front of her.

"Maybe you should leave it," Roxanne says, her eyes fixed on his.

"Wh—what—?"

"The shirt," Roxanne says, still not breaking his gaze. "You seem to be struggling an awful lot with it; maybe you should leave it off."

Megamind's jaw drops.

Did—did she seriously just suggest—?

The shirt falls from his suddenly numb fingers.

Roxanne takes a sharp little breath when the fabric slithers to the floor, and for a moment they just stay like that, perfectly still, Megamind on his knees staring up at Roxanne; Roxanne looking down at him.

"Did you mean it, when you said that I was pretty, Megamind?" Roxanne asks softly.

Megamind's heart jumps in his chest like lightning.

"—beautiful," he says, voice shaking. "Didn't—say pretty. I—said beautiful."

Roxanne's lips curve slowly upwards, eyes going warm with something that looks like pleasure.

"And did you mean it?" she asks.

Megamind swallows. His skin feels like it's on fire and he couldn't look away from Roxanne now if he tried.

(he doesn't want to try. he never wants to look away from her. he never wants to see anything else.)

"Yes," he says. "Yes, I meant it."

Roxanne's expression goes gloriously triumphant; in the half-second it takes her to cross the distance between them, Megamind thinks disjointedly that he's never seen her look more like an evil queen.

The pin he put in her hair glints in the light and then her hands are on his face and she's leaning down and—

His first thought is that he's dreaming.

Well—actually—his second thought is that he's dreaming. His first thought, as Roxanne presses her lips to his, is a hot, chaotic surge of yes/please/more.

His third thought is that he can't possibly be dreaming because no matter how magnificent his brain is, it could never come up with anything even close to this.

He brings his hands up to Roxanne's shoulders and clings to her and tries desperately to respond, to give her what she wants, whatever she wants, if only she'll just keep kissing him a little longer.

Incredibly, she does, her mouth sweet and slick and hot over his. She pulls him to his feet, still kissing him, her hand beneath his chin as she parts his lips with her tongue and licks into his mouth and Megamind's knees are so weak that he can barely stand. Roxanne presses forward, pushing him, and he steps backwards in response. The backs of his knees hit the foot of the bed and Roxanne pushes him.

He tumbles backwards onto the bed, sprawled out in front of her, looking up at her in shock.

Her mouth is red and she licks her lips, eyes raking up his body and Megamind can't stop himself from whimpering.

She moves forward again, onto the bed, knees on the mattress between his legs and Megamind scrabbles back automatically because oh god oh god—

"Ah-ah-ah," she says, pushing him down on the bed, catching his wrists in her hands and pinning them to the mattress above his head. "Stay."

"Oh god," Megamind gasps, and this must be the response Roxanne was looking for, because her lips curl up into that predatory smirk again, the one that twists his insides up and makes his spine feel like it's turned to liquid.

Roxanne looks at him for a moment, hands holding his wrists in place, and he could break her grasp easily, but—oh god Roxanne telling him stay in that tone; he can't—

She lets go of his wrists and sits up, looking incredibly pleased with herself, and Megamind shivers and leaves his arms over his head, his hands where she pressed them to the bed.

"Good boy," she says, and Megamind gulps, feeling his skin flush even hotter than before.

Roxanne looks him up and down and he has to press his wrists hard to the mattress to keep himself from squirming on the bed, to keep himself from turning away from her gaze.

God—oh god—he's never been—looked at, before, like this; it's hard to bear, really, having Roxanne look at him when he's—this aroused.

He can feel his heartbeat throbbing between his legs; the sensitive skin of his throat and shoulders feels hot and achy with how much he wants Roxanne to touch him there. His ears are on fire, his heartbeat throbbing there as well, and his nipples are hard and straining, which feels horribly embarrassing.

Roxanne reaches down and rolls one between her fingers.

Megamind hears himself make an inhuman sound; his hips jerk up and his back arches.

Roxanne makes a noise of satisfaction and bends down to press her lips to his chest and Megamind makes another of those alien sounds; a whirring in the back of his throat.

She kisses her way down his chest, open-mouthed kisses that make him pant—god, the heat of her mouth; he feels like he's melting on her tongue. She kisses his hipbone, then slides the tip of her tongue along the edge of it and Megamind cries out, pushing his wrists hard into the mattress to stop himself from reaching for her because she told him to stay—

"—w-wait," he manages to gasp out.

Roxanne looks up at him, an inquiring expression on her face.

(god, what is he doing, stopping her; is he insane? he's wanted this, wanted her, for years. but—)

"—it's not that I'm not sincerely appreciative of—um—but I really think you need to take a moment to consider what you're doing right now, Miss Ritchi, because if you don't I suspect you're really going to regret it and I'd much prefer that you—"

Roxanne frowns.

"What are you talking about?" she asks.

Megamind squeezes his eyes shut momentarily for strength.

"I mean, I'm assuming based on the comment you made about—Metro Man—earlier, and the fact that you hid from him after escaping, that you're maybe a little annoyed with him at the moment, but—he is—your boyfriend, Miss Ritchi, and—"

Roxanne sits up, frown deepening.

"Wait, hold on—" she says. "You still think…?"

"—I—I just don't want you to hate me," Megamind says in a small voice, "m-more than you already do, I mean—"

"Hate you?" Roxanne says, sounding baffled. "Megamind, what—and—and didn't we—didn't we already have the whole—boyfriend conversation?"

"…boyfriend? conversation?" Megamind says.

"Yeah, when you said something about my 'boyfriend' and I said 'what boyfriend', because I…don't have…a boyfriend? Oh my god," she says, "Did—did you really not get that?"

(she's not dating…?)

"—okay, but the concern about you regretting this still stands if you're doing it to get back at him after a break up," Megamind spits out, the words like poison in his mouth, but he can't let her—he doesn't want to be something Roxanne is going to regret.

"Oh, no," Roxanne says, passing a hand over her face for a moment, "oh—Megamind, no. You are—entirely off base with the—Wayne and I didn't break up, okay? We were never dating in the first place."

Megamind stares at her.

"What," he says flatly.

"I—I thought— You didn't…? I thought you at least suspected," Roxanne says, gesturing a little wildly. "All of the sarcastic remarks about him being my 'boyfriend', and—"

"What."

"Oh god, no wonder I could never get you to make a move, no matter how hard I flirted!" Roxanne says.

Megamind feels like his eyes are going to fall out of his head, they're so wide.

"…how hard you flirted?" he croaks.

"Uh, yeah," Roxanne says, "did—did you not notice the flirting?!"

"—I mean, I always figured it was an assertion of dominance thing," Megamind says, stunned. "That's—usually what it is, when people pretend to flirt with me. That, or they're trying to get something from me…"

"Oh my god," Roxanne says. "Pretending to flirt? Megamind—I have never pretended to flirt with you." Her eyes go round with horror. "Oh, no—is—is that what you were doing? Pretending—the—assertion of dominance—"

"No!" Megamind blurts out. "No, I—no. I never—I never pretended, either," he says, heart beating hard against his ribs.

Roxanne looks at him, face still uncertain.

"I told you," he says, "I—I meant it."

Roxanne bites her lip and Megamind feels his face heat again. He glances away awkwardly.

"…I was really going for the whole smooth seduction thing, here, but I think I missed," Roxanne says.

Megamind looks at her once more; she's smiling crookedly, a blush on her cheekbones, too. It's unreasonably gorgeous.

"I'm not—um—not averse—" Megamind gulps, "—to—b-being seduced."

Roxanne's smile goes shy and surprised—oh—oh; she's too—she's too beautiful—

"I'm just—not really sure why you're doing this?" Megamind says, and then wants to bite his own tongue off.

(why is he asking questions; Roxanne is in his bedroom, in his bed, offering to seduce him and Megamind has to start asking questions like an idiot)

"Didn't we—? I told you," Roxanne says, frowning a little, "I've wanted to for a long time."

(and that doesn't make sense, but he needs to stop asking questions before she changes her—)

"Yes, but why?" Megamind asks, unable to stop his voice from rising in his complete and utter bafflement. "You don't like me!"

Roxanne stares at him, looking taken aback.

(and there it went; he's ruined it, she's—)

"I don't flirt with people I don't like, Megamind," she says slowly. "I—don't you get—?"

Megamind, still on his back looking up at her, shakes his head wildly in denial of what he is hearing.

"…okay," she says, "okay, um—let's just shelve the question of—seduction for a minute and—"

Megamind flinches.

"Could you just—come here? Please?" Roxanne says.

He sits up slowly, carefully, watching Roxanne warily. She bites her lip and reaches out to take both of his hands in hers. Megamind's hands jerk involuntarily at the unexpected contact and Roxanne laces their fingers together. She looks down at their joined hands and takes a breath, then looks up at him.

"I really like you, Megamind," she says, looking nervous but determined. "I have for a long time. You're—fun to be around and you're smart and you're so genuinely sweet and you're absolutely gorgeous and you're—staring at me and this is probably really weird and out of nowhere for you; I should have thought this out better, but god, I've wanted to kiss you for ages and you said you thought I was pretty and so I just—"

"—beautiful."

"—what?"

"I told you," Megamind says, scarcely aware of what he's saying, "I didn't say pretty. I said beautiful."

Roxanne's eyes go wide; she looks more than nervous, now; she actually looks almost afraid.

"—I really want to date you," she blurts out.

...to be continued.