Here we meet the kid! Glad to see some people are reading/enjoying the fic, unusual as it is.

From finding the child Megamind and Roxanne wanted to adopt - which had only seemed like the hard part - things were depressingly slow. The House had to wait twice as long as Minion to meet the boy, because at the start all they did was go out to visit him in the home, answering questions, filling out forms, and then taking him for afternoons in the city. There was sparingly little said, so the House felt rather like the ignorant party until the day he finally came to visit it.

The invisible car pulled up in the drive and Megamind got out, followed by Minion from the passenger's seat, and then from the back climbed Roxanne and a small boy with dark hair. The return of their master, as well as a stranger, excited several of their favourite brainbots, who swarmed over and the child almost jumped straight back in the car.

"No!" Megamind said sternly to the robots, donking several on their domes. "Be nice."

"You don't need to be afraid of them," Roxanne said soothingly to the boy. "They only bite Megamind."

"That's not true!" he squawked, but the House knew otherwise. The brainbots never so much as scratched Roxanne once she'd been accepted as part of the pack, and even behaved themselves around Minion; it was only their 'daddy' that they liked to chew on. "Go away," he urged the brainbots, shooing them off to the tune of disappointed bow-wowing.

Eventually they coaxed the boy into the House, but he said very little, and seemed ill at ease and uncomfortable, which the House felt bad about because it was doing its very best to be welcoming and friendly. The most enthusiastic he ever became was when Megamind took him up to his study, awing the child with his ceiling-hung illustrations and plans. On Megamind's suggestion, Dex, as they called him, did some drawings of his own, and looked secretly thrilled as Megamind strung them up along with the rest of his work.

The House had raised many children within its walls in its time, but Dexter was not like the others. He was quiet, too quiet for a young boy, who ought to be running around and crashing into things. His drawings were far beyond anything that other children his age, detailed and technical to a degree unusual eight-year old - at least, not by the House's judgement. He spoke very little, and although Roxanne and Minion were friendly and sweet to him, he interacted warily. It wasn't the way the House had expected things to be. Only Megamind seemed able to get any real connection out of him, and those were only fleeting moments.

He only stayed for a few hours that time, but came back the next week, and the next, staying for longer periods. It was a few months after the first visit, and he sat cross-legged on the floor of Megamind's study, poring over a piece of paper almost as big as he was, while Megamind worked on a highly detailed blueprint for a new machine he was going to build.

"Dexter," Megamind started without looking up from his work, and paused for an acknowledgement that didn't come. "Do you like it here?"

"... Uhuh," the boy murmured, still concentrating on his drawing.

"Would you like to stay here?" he asked next.

"For how long?" the boy asked.

"Forever," Megamind answered with a quiet, unassuming, and that was enough to made him stop drawing.

"With you?" the child questioned, as if it might not be part of the deal.

"Yes, with me and Roxanne and Minion," he specified. Dexter said nothing, and started to draw again. "You don't have to answer now," Megamind offered, "but... if you wanted to, we would say yes. Just so you know."

"Hm," the boy murmured. "Okay," he said, only acknowledging the statement rather than answering it, and then he was quiet again. Minion came up with tea and juice a little later, and also took to the floor for the drawing workshop. Soon Roxanne joined them, wondering where everyone had gone; lacking any skill at drawing, she folded pieces of paper into birds, hats and flowers, which Dexter seemed to find rather entertaining.

"Can we hang them all up?" he asked when they were finished.

"Sure," Roxanne answered, catching a ball of string as Minion tossed it to her. "Say," she added on, with a performed air of calm, her best television face. "Why don't we put them in your room?" The boy looked at her with surprise and a little suspicion.

"Could I?" he queried.

"Well it's your room," she insisted.

"It is?"

"Of course," she told him. "It sure isn't anyone else's." Dex didn't react to much, as closed off and shielded as he was, but for that moment he looked genuinely happy. That was probably when he started to believe he might have a place in the House - when all four of them went to his room and hung up the first mobiles. After that, it was only a month or so until he came for good, arriving with a small bag of things and a fearful expression, as if he couldn't trust in what was happening to him. It was an expression the House alone caught on Megamind at times; disbelief and suspicion that things could go well, like they were waiting for the catch or the punchline.

The House had thought that from there everything would go well, but the first few weeks were hard, very hard. Dexter stayed in his room most of the time, and would stress and become upset if anyone came in without his permission, which he rarely gave. He still came down for meals, but seemed scared to speak, and the harder anyone tried to get a reaction out of him the more closed off he became. They all became exasperated and frustrated with the situation; it wasn't meant to be like this, so hard and unnatural. The House sympathised - with a young child or baby, reliance and love came as part of the package. Purely by merit of being born the child would trust them, but Dexter was a little too old and sceptical beyond his years. He didn't open up to them automatically, didn't consider them family.

Megamind found Roxanne once almost at breaking point once, staring into space aimlessly, barely reacting even as he sat beside her and spoke to her, asking usual things about her day; putting the gloss over the ugly surface, though all it did was shine up the imperfections.

"This isn't how I imagined it would be," he managed to coax from her. "It's not..." she cut off with an upset gasp, and Megamind just smoothed a hand across her shoulders.

"I know," he murmured, "I know." He was the least despondent of them all, probably because of the three of them he was still the one Dex communicated with most; they would still draw together in his study, and the mobiles and drawings hung from walls and ceilings steadily increased. Megamind was the only one who'd been 'allowed' into his room in quite a while.

Things came to a head not long after that; Dexter had been at school and Minion had gone into his room on routine cleaning, not realising that when he came back it would take the boy all of thirty seconds to realise someone had been in there and start to shriek. Roxanne was out at the time - she had the best talent for calming him down when he was hysterical - so it was only Megamind and Minion there to deal with him. Rational instruction did not seem to work, and Megamind was about to reach the end of his tether.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Minion insisted over and over, and then Megamind finally spoke up; enough was enough.

"No, Minion," he interjected. "You don't need to apologise. It's everyone's house." Dexter looked up at Megamind with ultimate betrayal, eyes red and teary, and tucked his knees up to his chest.

"No, really, its okay, I shouldn't have-" Minion started.

"No," Megamind insisted. "He can't scream to get his way, that isn't how rules are made." Dexter's face sunk down against his legs, hidden from view. "Dexter," he said firmly. "Do you understand?" There was no reaction. "Minion is sorry," he said, "but you shouldn't scream at him." Still nothing. "Dexter," he snapped, and reached out to try and pry him open like a shellfish. The moment he touched the boy, he screamed again, and started in on floods of tears even worse than before.

"I'll... I'll get some tissues," Minion blurted uncomfortably, dashing off as Megamind steadied himself and reached for the boy again, holding him by the shoulder.

"What's wrong?" he asked helplessly; this breakdown was too much, there was something off about the whole secenario - he'd never been like this before he moved in. Something had changed, but none of them knew what.

"Suh- suh," the boy gasped hysterically, and Megamind took to rubbing his back.

"Calm, be calm," he hushed. "What is it? You can tell me."

"Suh... huh," the child gasped, a little quieter than before. "Your... you're-" He sobbed a little more, and Megamind watched on as if his heart could break.

"Dexter, please," he said quietly, and the boy managed to peer out through his tears to see the expression he was being fixed with; the intense, soul-stripping stare. If there anything that could get through to the boy, it would be that look. It reduced Roxanne to nothing, even Minion couldn't stand it for long.

"Yourgonsendmeback," he burst at last, the fear and hurt renewing in more crying. Megamind sat back, stunned momentarily.

"Send you... back?" he echoed. "You mean, to the foster home?" Dexter had curled up again, sobbing and rocking. "No," Megamind said, "no, no, no."

"They don't... don't like m- I'm not, I can't," the boy sobbed.

"Dexter, stop, listen to me," he pleaded, prying the child's arms away from his legs. "You think it's going to be that easy to get away from us?" It wasn't the sort of thing he expected to hear - not a scripted platitude, and Dex chanced a peek up at him, more confused than anything. "You're never going back," he said resolutely. "Never. You're stuck with us forever."

"But I-"

"But nothing," he insisted. "This is your home too - all of our's home. Not just for a little while, for good." It made sense now; to Megamind and the House - they'd seen Dexter's file, talked about it when he wasn't there.

The reason it'd taken them so long to find him in the first place was because he'd been placed with a family which hadn't worked out, and that hadn't the first. He'd been through several unsuccessful attempts at fostering - he didn't mesh with other kids, and no amount of help or caring had ever been able to make him happy, especially not in a place where there were other children to contend with.

That was probably why things changed when he moved in; up until then it'd been building up to something good, but once he'd passed that point and actually been placed, it was only waiting for things to go wrong again - waiting to go back and start the process over. He was smart and sceptical beyond his years, and still a frightened, fragile child who didn't want to be abandoned.

"I know what it's like to feel like you don't belong, Dex," Megamind started anew, holding out a hand in front of him. "Look at me, I'm actually an alien. I've always been different, and I know people send you away for that - but no one's going to send you away for not fitting in here. You belong here, I promise."

"B-but you're angry at me," the boy offered in a small, shaking voice.

"At times we might be, but you'll still always belong here," he insisted. "You're part of the family."

"J-just saying that," the child murmured weakly. "Everyone says it."

"I mean it," Megamind rounded back. "What can we do to prove it to you?"

"I don't know," the boy sniffed, and then let out a shuddering sigh, trying to catch his breath again; he'd exhausted himself. Megamind patted him on the shoulder again.

"Can I tell you something, Dex?" he asked simply, and the boy glanced at him curiously. "When I was your age," Megamind started. "I didn't get on with people either. Other children didn't like me, my teachers didn't like me. Minion was my only friend."

"... Really?" the child questioned, disbelieving and naive; he was young enough that he only knew Megamind the hero, never the villain.

"Yes. I lived in a place that was like a foster home but worse," he continued. "They let me out sometimes, but I always got sent back sooner or later."

"Where?" he inquired, unable to think of a place worse than where he'd come from. Megamind thought there was no sense disguising it.

"Prison," he answered. "I lived in prison."

He gasped a little, old enough to know that criminals went to prison. "What did you do?" Dex asked with shock.

"At first, nothing," he replied. "I was sent there by accident when I was just a baby, but I soon did things that made them keep me there. I thought there was nowhere else I belonged, but," he started with great importance, "I was wrong. Roxanne showed me that a long time ago, and we found a place together. And no one here is ever thrown out or sent back. Do you understand?" Dexter hesitated at first, but then nodded, rubbing his eyes. He was silent for a while, but the urge to speak rose up in him like springwater.

"Can... I ask you something?" he phrased with shallow, timid words, and Megamind nodded. "Why didn't anyone like you?" he asked meekly, and Megamind settled back, crossing his legs on the floor.

"I don't know," he confessed. "I was different, maybe. Do you ever feel like that?" The boy nodded, keeping his legs tucked close to him. "Well," he added, "even if you are different, I like you. So do Roxanne and Minion."

"You mean it?"

"Yes, we mean it. You can ask them yourself. We want you to be happy, Dex, so if something upsets you, you have to tell us. Crying won't help."

"O-okay," he murmured in acquisition, rubbing his nose messily. It was becoming quite a state.

"Uh... where's Minion with those tissues?" Megamind remarked awkwardly, and craned around only to see Minion already standing by the door, box between his paws. After cleaning up and blowing his nose, Dexter seemed calmer, as if the storm had weakened a little - or he may just have been too tired to protest further too, as he'd worn himself out with so much distress.

"Would you like to do some drawing?" Megamind offered, and he shrugged. Megamind put a hand to his chin thoughtfully. "Hm, well, I have a deal for you," he remarked dramatically, which got the boy's attention from the show if nothing else. "If you draw a machine, I will build it," he declared. Dexter looked at him as if he was mad. Which wasn't really that unreasonable a conclusion to make at times.

"Build it?" he echoed, as if he thought Megamind had just got the wrong words.

"Yes, I'll build it," he insisted. "Whatever it is. As wild as you can imagine." The boy's brow furrowed. "Do you think I can't?" Megamind challenged. "If you can draw something that I can't build, you win."

"And what happens if I win?" Dex enquired, clearly interested by the challenge, and ever-enthused as children were with the idea of winning something.

"Hmm, what do you think, Minion?" he asked.

"Well... how about a dare?" he offered. "If you lose, sir, then you have to... save the city wearing a chicken suit, or something." Dexter laughed suddenly, and then looked shocked when they both glanced at him, as if they'd managed to trick the reaction out of him.

"That sounds... reasonable," Megamind agreed a little begrudgingly, and then held out a hand each to Minion and one to Dexter. "Shall we shake on it?"

They all shook hands, and then Dexter set to work. His first creation was a breakfast-making machine, like ones he'd seen on television, so it was only natural that by the time that Roxanne arrived home the kitchen was full of chutes, tubes and pieces of string: Megamind was hard at work preparing a creation that could make a cooked breakfast for four in the most inefficient and spectacular way possible.

Her reaction probably would have been much worse had Dexter not come up to her the moment she walked in, explaining the situation in such an animated rush that she couldn't get a word in edgeways. The pride with which he pointed out the ferris wheel that carried eggs, the spiral tube for syphoning orange juice, and how they were all his ideas, showed more enthusiasm than they'd ever seen from him before.

So naturally, the first thing she asked Megamind when they were alone, was how the hell had he done it. He explained the situation her as best he could, and then the next thing she did was hug him.

"I told you," she murmured in his ear, arms locked tightly around his neck. "I told you you'd make a good father." He quickly reciprocated, arms circling her waist.

"Well, I'd be nothing without you," he replied, and after that the House didn't worry so much about whether things would work out.