This is not the first time Megamind has had to delay kicking off his big evil plot, and it probably won't be the last. Roxanne shifts in her restraints and rolls her shoulders as best she can with her hands tied behind her. The machine to which she's tied doesn't move—it seems to have gone to sleep. She can't be sure, because she can't really see its visual inputs, but it hasn't moved in some time. It was bouncing around the lair's staging arena like an enormous puppy earlier after they got inside.

Thank goodness it stopped. Roxanne is not typically one to get motionsick, but there's only so much her body can take before her equilibrium starts going 'hey, what the fuck,' and the journey back to Evil Lair after Megamind decided he needed access to more screens and tools was a rough one, even blindfolded.

Now she tips her head from side to side with a sigh. "I don't suppose you'd like to share what you're doing?" she says.

"Hrmgn," he replies, without looking up from his tinkering. He's twirling a tiny screwdriver expertly between his long fingers, peering at the circuit he's repairing.

Figures.

He's been all over the place since they got back. Roxanne hasn't been able to see the whole time, but it wasn't too hard to get the brainbots' attention after she realized they had reached Evil Lair—she knows a lot of their signal whistles, and while blindfold is a little complex, she knows come here and enough basic directions to get one of them in close enough to lean over and hook the fabric on.

(She also knows remove the bag, but it's a sound she's pretty sure she can't replicate. She did try it once anyway, a little over a year ago, but…the results were somewhat mixed. According to Megamind—tears in his eyes and gasping with mirth—she had achieved an actual word. But the word was "Hat!" and she had somehow verbed the poor noun into an extremely authoritative command.

Megamind had, to her surprise, staggered over and pulled the bag off her head—but this turned out to be so that he could flop back into his chair and wave it at her, positively weeping with laughter and wheezing so hard he folded nearly in half every time he repeated the sound.

"It's actually quite impressive," he had finally managed to choke out, in the high and very wobbly voice of someone who has just barely found something approximating composure and is definitely about to lose it. "You got the general idea! All of the elements were there! It was just—you just—" and he whistled again and burst right back into hysterics.

So Roxanne is still practicing that one. It was fun to make him laugh for real, though. She doesn't get to startle him like that very often and he has a nice laugh, when he isn't posturing for the camera or blustering about his 'ee-vil.' It really is a shame he rather notoriously doesn't date.)

She ventures, "Anything I can do to help?"

His eyebrows twitch. After a moment, he says, "I need something to listen to. Not music. Talk to me? Something recent or frustrating."

…That's a new one.

"Sure," she says, surprised. "Um…how about recent and frustrating?"

"Mm." He turns and types something one-handed, the little tangle of wires and circuit boards in his other hand not moving an inch. Oof, he really must be having trouble; usually he remembers to move his whole body. It's been a while since Roxanne has seen him lock a hand or foot motionless in the air while he reaches to do something else.

But, okay then.

"So, I have a friend at work," she says. "Eileen. She started dating this guy a few months ago, and…oh, my god, he's bad news."

It's funny, she thinks, how she can tell Megamind is listening even though he seems wholly focused on what he's doing. It's the way he tilts his head a little harder than he needs to, the twitch of his shoulder. He doesn't say anything, but he's interested. Or at least he's not disinterested.

"I don't want to get into too much detail, it's a story for another time," she says, "but I've been there. Okay? I dated a guy who pulled most of the same bullshit as this dude, I moved in with him, I wasted four good years on that asshole. I know what a controlling, abusive dickbag looks like in the early stages. And Eileen…doesn't. She is convinced this guy is the one and she does not want to listen to me. And I get it," she adds, "I do. People need to realize their own truths in their own time. Sometimes it takes a while. But it's so hard to watch, you know? She keeps saying she's too smart to fall for someone abusive—and yeah, I thought that, too! It can happen to anyone! And I want to be there for her, I really do, but when she's venting to me about this thing or that thing, or she's saying how she just doesn't feel like he listens because she told him she was working late but then he calls and calls and calls when she isn't home when she 'said she was going to be,' I have to really work to think of something to say that isn't just 'yeah, he sucks, leave him.'"

Megamind hums. Whistles something, and catches the jeweler's goggles a brainbot drops for him without looking.

"All I can do is keep being there," Roxanne says, watching him put the little lenses down over his eyes and bend over his work. "I know that. But it's exhausting. I don't know how Jo did it, back when it was me."

Jo is another friend at work. Older lady, Filipina, ex-military. Not the US military. Roxanne has mentioned her to Megamind in conversation before; he doesn't bother looking up or asking who she is.

He just says, "Does she have a history? Like yours?"

"No," Roxanne admits. "Maybe that's how. It wasn't as personally irritating."

For a minute or so, she just watches him—long fingers moving and picking at wires, tapping his tiny soldering gun against the plastic. Finally he sits up and pushes the goggles up and off his forehead, and he kicks back over to the core of his machine and rises, slots the thing back in and connects the pieces.

Finally, as he's tightening down the maintenance panel and plugging in the diagnostic cables, Roxanne sighs again and says, "I don't know. I'll figure it out, I just…"

"Hm? Figure what?"

"How not to get so annoyed when she talks about him, I guess?" She shrugs. "Like I said, I do want to be there for her. And I don't want to push her so hard she stops listening to me completely. It's just hard to hide it right now, but I'll figure it out. I always do, there's always a key to how to look at things that…helps."

"Mm."

Finally he pushes the goggles fully up and off his forehead, tosses them away to a waiting brainbot, and throws himself back down into his chair to go spinning away to a nearby control tower. As he flies past, wheels squeaking, he says, "There may not be one this time. For you."

Roxanne blinks, frowns. "What?"

"A key. To get past this. There may not be one. …One second…there." The console flickers to life and Megamind's usual programming starts coiling on all six corners, and his keyboards slide down and his hands start moving.

(She asked him once, mostly out of curiosity, if he would ever consider doing the whole Star Trek 2009 lens flare-y, transparent flat screen controls, or Tony Stark's VR hologram displays. Megamind had gone off. Those are horrendous ideas, he had said, sharp and angry. You need buttons, you need manual controls, buttons and switches and dials. If the power fails, what are you going to do? HOPE your input controls are included in your options when it comes back on? That is not enough! That is an absolutely nonsense thing to do! Fancypants bullshit displays will leave you dead in the water!

That was his exact phrasing, 'fancypants bullshit displays.' Apparently someone had written an op-ed piece after Abrams took on Star Trek, saying if Megamind were actually worth anything, his labs would look more like that. "It's! Fiction!" he had snarled. "It is fiction for a reason! It is a TERRIBLE idea and anyone who tries to go to space in something that looks like that deserves whatever they get."

"So that's a yes, then," she had said, grinning at him. "You have considered it. You just also knew immediately that it would be stupid."

"YoU hAvE cOnSiDeReD iT," he mimicked, "yes, stupid is putting it mildly, but does anyone care about functionality anymore? Apparently not!"

"No, you're right," she said. "Form over function is a bad decision, and too many people spend their time only thinking of reasons why things would work, instead of reasons why they wouldn't. Or shouldn't."

"Yes! Thank you!")

Instead of fancypants bullshit displays, Megamind uses a series of stacked keyboards customized to his specifications for maximum efficiency. With his coordination and long hands, he can type nearly as quickly as he can think, which is saying a lot.

But sometimes he still needs distractions, and Roxanne knows he can think and speak perfectly well while typing, most days. So she asks, "What makes you say that? I always think of something."

"Historically. Yes. This time may be too personal. Bad combination. You're a solver," he says. "I think you may have forgotten. Your career requires you to stand outside of events, apart from them, requires you to observe and analyze and refrain from direct participation…and you are good at it, but you are still instinctively solutions-oriented. This isn't a criticism, I love you as you are, but it is frustrating for you to see a clear solution, especially by experience, and know it will be rejected out of hand if you present it. And in something like this, where the result of that rejection is direct harm? I don't know if there is a way for you to move past that."

He shoves the keyboards up and away, and looks at her. "You're like me," he says. "We go for solutions. But it's easy for me to turn away when the problem is people. People don't care about me; I can decide not to care, in turn. You…can't. So. I do understand the difficulty, your frustration. And…I am sorry that happened to you."

He turns away and starts decoupling the diagnostic cables.

He—

Roxanne has lost track of what her face is doing and she barely hears him; her ears are ringing and her blood has just sort of—headrush—

Her voice is—too hopeful, entirely too wistful. This was not something she ever thought she would hear. Not from Megamind, of all people.

"Did you just say you love me?"

Megamind stops moving.

For nearly four whole seconds, he doesn't move even to breathe.

When he speaks, his voice is absolutely flat. "I don't suppose I could beg you to forget that."

And on a better day, Roxanne might have heard the warning. Might have realized something was wrong, might have seen the danger. If she had her wits about her, she would almost certainly have said something different—but then, if she had her wits about her, she likely wouldn't have said anything in the first place.

"Probably not," she says, still feeling rather dazed. "But—but look, Megamind—"

His shoulders come up and he untwists the last three cables with sharp, angry-looking movements, casting them aside so hard she flinches and goes quiet. When he snaps his head around to glare at her, his teeth are bared and his eyes are flat and angry. "Don't," he hisses. "Just don't."

"But—"

"This is what I get," he snaps, wheeling around and stalking back to his control panel, "for caring, for thinking too hard about what to say and not hard enough about what I was saying. Fuck you, fuck me, fuck this, fuck no. We're live in three, game face, now," and he slaps his hand flat down on the START button and fills his lungs for an evil laugh that sounds like screaming.


The ensuing fight is a disaster. One of the worst Roxanne has ever seen, let alone been part of. Megamind obviously had not planned to have it on his home turf and she's pretty sure his Destroyosaurus took out half of Evil Lair just booting up and linking its various pieces together, which is a problem, because everyone is going to see the smoking wreck and he isn't going to be able to stay there again. He'll have to pull up roots and find somewhere else. What if he leaves Metro?

But these are the things she thinks afterwards. Most of what she's thinking while brainbots intercept flying debris and keep her mostly unharmed as half of Megamind's life crashes down around her is, holy shit oh my god oh no oh no oh no.

But she stays loose. She tries to relax and stay limber; she knows going stiff and trying to handle her own way out is far riskier than just trusting Megamind to have her covered. And she can't quite stay calm—this wasn't the plan, and if this wasn't the plan, then where are the failsafes—but she does trust him. She closes her eyes and breathes, and the shrapnel whistles past without ever hitting her, and the worst she walks away with in the end is bruises from jerking against the restraints when the semi-autonomous head component of the Destroyosaurus she was tied to went down a little too hard. And fingernail-marks in the palms of her hands.

Megamind fares worse than that. He's unconscious when Metro Man scoops him up and away from the shitshow, and half of his face is bloody and one of his arms is at a bad angle.

That evening, pacing around her apartment with adrenaline still trembling in her lungs, Roxanne tries to muster up some anger. It's how she used to deal with the stress and the panic, before she learned Megamind well enough to like him. Anger is easier than fear and she's very, very good at the conversion.

Finally, though, she has to just give up and admit she was scared. Is still scared. She was not expecting him to go off the rails like that, and it all felt like way more than was necessary if what he really wanted was for her to forget it. That was panic, she's pretty sure. She's seen Megamind angry before and that's not what he's like when he's angry. She's seen him startled and casting about for the way forward, has seen him jump the wrong way and overcorrect. But she's never seen him stop thinking and run, and she's pretty sure that's what this was. He barely even said a word to Metro Man, who had to zip around to almost as many places at once as the brainbots just to make sure nobody got hurt too badly. He had just finished setting Roxanne down out of the way when Megamind's jet pack burst and he fell out of the sky, and the look on his face, the way he launched off the ground hard enough to send her stumbling with the shockwave—Roxanne hasn't seen Metro Man that scared in a while, either.

"What was all that," he said to her on the flight home, all his soft cream-colored edges singed black. "Seriously, what happened back there?"

All she could do was shake her head. "I wish I knew," she said, too quietly.

Pacing at home as the sun sinks down and the sky turns gray, hugging her arms over her chest so her heart won't burst through her ribcage, she thinks, what happens now? What happens next? What is she going to say to him the next time she sees him?

Is she going to see him again? Is he okay? If he is, will he let her?

Some anger does swell up in her eventually, but it's legitimate, it isn't sublimated fear. How dare he just cut her off like that, how dare he refuse to let her even say anything. Not that she knew what she was going to say, of course; she STILL doesn't know. But it wasn't like she was going to…what, mock him for it? Scorn him? She wasn't going to be mean about it! And he should have known that. He should have! He knows her! She wouldn't! He knows she wouldn't be mean about this.

…Doesn't he?


She makes her way out to where she remembers being yesterday, but the big power plant she was so sure was demolished is…back to normal. Like nothing ever happened at all. Same dark, broken windows, same grubby, graffitied facade. No smoke, no rubble. She stands outside, staring, her heart in her mouth.

It was here. This was the place, she's sure it was.

Where's Minion?

Her stomach has been full of ugly twisties all day. She didn't see Minion at all yesterday, and she wants to think that Megamind would not endanger Minion even at the height of panic, but…

"Minion," she says, "if you can hear me, I really need to talk to you."

Silence. Just some seagulls squeaking and chattering over the docks.

She swallows, then raises her voice. "Minion?" she calls, staring up at the huge building. "Minion?"

Her voice echoes down the street.

After a long minute, she wets her dry lips and tries to call here for the brainbots, but she's too shaky, she's breathing too hard.

Finally she whispers, "Oh, screw this," and digs in her purse for her orange whistle. A fox 40 whistle is not something to use frivolously, but if there's no one around, there's no one around and it won't matter.

She sniffs hard and sucks in a breath, and then she shoves all of it out into the little piece of plastic with as much force as she can, shrieks her air down the street—

—and waits, standing, holding the whistle in her mouth and her other arm over her chest, with tears rising in her eyes.

She blows again, hard, and then yells, "Minion!" and follows this up with another piercing whistle.

"Oh, my goodness, what!" he exclaims, poking his head and shoulders straight through the brick wall a little way down from her with a ripple of light. "Miss Ritchi! What!"

She drops the whistle and sprints to him before she can think—jumps—crashes into his chest with her arms around his dome when he stoops to catch her, and Minion stumbles back and pulls her through the bricks with a crackle of electricity over her skin that she barely notices.

"You're okay," she gasps, clinging hard, not really crying but definitely with tears in her voice, "are you? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he says, sounding at once shocked and insistent, "I'm fine, of course I'm fine! Are you okay?"

Gulping, breath catching in her lungs, she nods. "I'm okay, I'm okay—is he—also okay? Too?"

"He will be," Minion says, and very carefully sets her on her feet and steps back, taking her by the arms and holding onto her when she sways. "What is going on? You look terrible!"

She nods, nods. "Yes, yes, fine, I'm fine, I just—did he tell you what happened?"

"He's still in the infirmary. Concussion, dislocated shoulder. I'm hoping you can tell me what happened, as long as you're here—the footage is a mess, I don't—what on earth set him off like that?"

Roxanne lets her breath out and shakes her head, trying to hold onto her thoughts. "He, um. He told me he loves me?"

Minion clicks in his throat, eyes going wide, then demands, "What did you say to him? Tell me you did not laugh."

"No! God, no! I just—I think he didn't mean to, it just sort of slipped out—"

"Oh that's worse," he groans.

"—and I said, I said did you just say you love me, and—I don't—I don't think I was laughing? But, but maybe I—I do laugh when I'm nervous, but I don't think I laughed, I don't—I wasn't nervous, I was just surprised." She swallows. "But it's, it's the only thing I can think of to make him—panic that hard. So—maybe?"

Minion is already shaking his head. "If he didn't even intend to say it, then it honestly doesn't matter if you laughed or not," he says, looking and sounding very tired. "He probably would rather have died either way."

She recoils. "Was he trying to—"

"No, no, nothing like that," he waves at her. "I think you're probably right, I think he was just panicking and went too hard. He never wanted you to know."

"But I don't understand why not," she exclaims, heart twisting and stomach flopping uncomfortably. "I—I don't—wouldn't I be happy to know? Why wouldn't I—"

Minion blinks and his fins snap sideways and up in a gesture she knows means shock. "You're happy?"

She stares at him, dumbfounded, and then bursts out, "Yes! Oh, my god! The most brilliant man on the planet just said he loves me! Even if I wasn't interested, why would I not at least be flattered! I mean, jesus, Minion!"

"Okay, okay, just—but—nobody else ever—reacted well to that, before," he protests. "He mostly just gave up on the whole thing."

Roxanne drags her hands down her face. It's something she's seen Megamind do but she's usually wearing too much makeup to try it herself. Huh, it actually is sort of cathartic. "Nobody else like who," she says, dropping her hands. "I'd like to have a few words with them."

"Good luck, it's been years since school." He sighs. "Look, why don't…why don't we go up to the kitchen and I'll make dinner. We can talk. We should talk. And then I'll take you home. Okay?"

Tired, she nods. "Yeah," she says. "Yeah, that sounds…good. That sounds good. Thanks."


Evil Lair's facade is just that, she finds out that evening. A facade. Holographic, to be specific; some kind of hard light technology. "We'll rebuild," Minion told her, sitting with her at the table in the lair's surprisingly cozy kitchen. She was touched that he let her behind the scenes like that—she's only ever seen the massive formal dining room before. "The brainbots are already assembling the materials. No harm done, and the pipes in that section of the building needed looking at anyway. Sir can handle lead in his water, but I can't. Maybe we'll be able to get a new filter in, in addition to the new plumbing. Just in case."

"Yes please," Roxanne replied, squinting at her water glass. "I can't handle lead, it's very bad for me."

"I know, which is why that's from my freshwater filter, downstairs. But yes," he agreed, "yes, if you'll be spending any amount of time here, we'll need to update some things."

He also told her that if Megamind gets home earlier than planned, then Minion will do his best to fill him in on what Roxanne has said. "But," he warned, "he isn't likely to believe me, he's likely to just get mad. Sir can be rather stubborn about the way he sees things."

"Well, then we'll just have to keep an eye on the timing, won't we," Roxanne said, firm. "And it's a good thing I'm stubborn, too. But thanks, Minion. You're seriously the best."

"I am, aren't I," he replied, grinning. "More mango chow?"

"Yes please, and please give me the recipe for this, I did not know spicy mango was anything I needed in my life!"

As she's getting ready for bed that night, feeling much steadier on her feet and in her mind, she thinks—Megamind was right, honestly. They are both problem-solvers. Roxanne has never been one to just shrug and move on from uncertainty, she needs to pursue answers. It's a hunger, even when what she's pursuing isn't something as gut-wrenchingly frightening as is my friend okay or is he trapped under debris; is the guy who just said he loved me and then freaked out so hard he destroyed part of a building and most of the waterfront for the next half-mile dead or was he just unconscious.

And she has the answer to Eileen's problem, but Eileen isn't interested. Fine, Roxanne will either deal with it or she won't. She'll figure that out later.

For now, she also has the answer to Megamind's problem, and she isn't sure what it means that she's so certain he'll actually listen to her.

She crawls under her covers and closes her eyes, apprehensive and excited and stressed.


The prison checkpoints are nothing new. The Metro City Prison for the Criminally Gifted isn't a place Roxanne visits with any actual frequency, but she has been here more than once, getting soundbites from incarcerated villains and other inmates, and a couple of times even from Megamind.

So, there's precedent for her being here. And there's nothing in her purse or on her person that would raise any eyebrows. The only irregularity is that usually when she comes in, there's plexiglass and a phone between her and the person she's come to see. She was able to swing an in-person meeting this time, she's not sure how. Minion, probably.

She pauses outside the door and sends a quiet smile to the guard who's escorted her. "Thanks," she says, and then, "Give us ten minutes alone?" as she touches his arm.

He looks down. The 100 is clearly visible on the folded greenish paper she's holding between two fingers.

"No problem," he says, patting her hand and returning her smile. "Sure. Anything you need in the next few minutes…don't. I'm going for coffee, I'll be back in ten." The paper is gone when Roxanne drops her hand and hitches her bag onto her shoulder, and he unlocks the door and lets her in.

Megamind is sitting at the table already, chains on his hands threaded through a ring in the metal surface and a bored expression on his face. It's only been three days, but the cut on his forehead is just a livid pink line, not even a scab anymore. His arm is in a sling despite the cuffs, but there's no bandages she can see. Roxanne will never not be jealous of how quickly he bounces back.

Still, he glances up, sees her, and does a double-take. His eyes go wide and he shoves his chair away so hard the chain pulls tight with a loud clank, and Roxanne grimace-hisses and waves at him. "Hey! Jeez, don't hurt yourself, that shoulder is still iffy!"

He curls his lip and looks away, chest rising and falling, but he slumps and stops yanking.

For a moment, she just looks at him. There's the echo of a bruise fading under his eye, and his fists are clenched so hard his knuckles are white. Ridiculous creature.

But Minion filled her in on some of what she might expect to run into, dating him, if dating happens. Megamind is consistent, but in ways that can seem erratic to most humans. He's terribly insecure despite how he crows about himself, his mood can swing dangerously high and dangerously low at times. Sometimes it's hard for him to remember he isn't alone, even with Minion.

None of that is anything Roxanne hasn't seen in some of the people she's loved before, none of that is new. Roxanne isn't concerned. She's steady enough in herself, in her life. She knows what bad news looks like, and it doesn't look anything like Megamind. If she does notice troubling patterns…well, he doesn't always take criticism well, but that's always been when she's tied up and heckling him. In a relationship, things might be different. She'll have to see.

Finally she sighs and goes over and sits across from him. He doesn't look at her. He just sits and stares at the table with his lips in a thin line and the corners of his mouth turned down.

"I don't understand," she finally says, "what happened back there."

"What's not to understand," he replies, flat. "I misspoke. Made a decision. It went…poorly. My decisions frequently do."

She waits for a few seconds, then asks, "Did you mean it?"

His head snaps up and he glares at her, and it isn't one of his usual evil-for-show glares, either. For a second his expression is ugly, eyes flashing and lip curling.

"It's a simple question," she says evenly. "Don't give me that."

"I should think," he spits, "my actions rather spoke for themselves."

Slowly, she nods. And she stands up.

She goes around the table to him, and then she half-leans, half-sits on the edge of it, facing him, well within reach and definitely well outside of the rules. She takes the hand—the fist—closest to her, his uninjured one, and slips her fingers behind his when it flinches open.

There are wounds on it when she turns it over. The heel of his thumb has a couple of round little red and angry-looking sores, burn marks. Cigarettes, probably.

Megamind flushes and jerks his hand back.

"You crashed pretty hard on this one, huh?" Roxanne sighs. "I'm so sorry. Thanks for listening to me."

"Don't fucking patronize me."

Roxanne shakes her head. "May I? Please?"

He's beyond stiff as she takes his hand again, and he turns his face away and hisses angrily between his teeth, but he does let her.

Roxanne covers her lips with her fingertips briefly, then brushes the pads of her fingers over the sores. They're healed enough to touch with care, they aren't open or weeping, but Megamind freezes at the gesture. He stays frozen when she runs her touch over the greenish mark under his eye, and he just sort of twitches when finally she places his hand on her knee and then covers it with her own.

"Listen carefully," she says. "We don't have a lot of time. In eight minutes, I'm going to walk back out that door. In about fifteen minutes, as they're walking you back to your cell, there's going to be an explosion. A big one. I suggest you make full use of the opportunity. Hit the ground running; Minion and I will be waiting with the car."

Megamind is staring up at her now; he had whipped his head back around to stare at her and lost most of his defensive posture at explosion. "You—Minion and—"

"Understand?"

Wordless, lips parted, he shakes his head.

She studies his face for a moment, and then she slowly reaches past him to put her hand on the back of his head and guide him forward. His breath catches and his hand on her knee goes tight as she presses her lips to the healing cut high on his forehead.

Then she tilts her head forward and leaves her nose against his skin as she says, low, "Please never do that again. You could have died. That thing blew up on your back and I thought I was going to be sick."

The look on his face makes her throat tight when she sits up. "Next time, maybe hold off on hitting the big red button until I can ask if you want to get coffee with me," she says, raising her eyebrows at him. "Okay?"

Megamind's expression has gone slack with something like baffled or horrified shock. He lifts his hand towards her, turning his chest to play out as much chain as he can get. It's not a lot. But it's enough for Roxanne to bend down and let him touch her cheek with his cold fingers, her lips with his thumb.

It's awkward and she can't really look up at him from this angle, but his fingers hold her jaw as he sways forward and bumps his nose and mouth into her hair, and he gasps hard when she kisses the sores on the heel of his palm.

As she sits up, she catches his hand again, careful of his burns.

"Why," he says, voice creaking as he reels back in his chair. "Why? I don't…I'm just…" He swallows. "No. This is a trick," he says, uneven. "Yes? This is a joke, you're joking."

Dumbfounded, Roxanne stares at him. "Do you really think I would do that to you?"

He blinks. His gaze flicks around the room before settling on their hands together. "…No," he says. "No, you…no. But. What? Me? Coffee?"

She nods.

"I'm back to why?" He shakes his head, shrugs almost violently. "You could—you could have anyone, anyone you wanted, you know that," he says. "You—and you like being single, I—"

"I do know that," she admits. Megamind is perhaps the one person she can say something like this to without feeling like he's about to sneer at her for being full of herself. It still seems sort of unbelievable sometimes, but…well, there is the fanmail to consider, and the accolades, and her own cameraman and her face on a billboard coming into town. Roxanne might not always feel like much of a catch, but she knows she is one. "And yeah, I…have enjoyed the single life." She offers him a little shrug of her own, a little smile. "But I think I might enjoy you more. You're definitely worth risking it to find out, anyway."

The way his face twists tells her exactly what he thinks of that. But all he says is, "Anyone, Roxanne."

"I know." She nods. "But if I can have anyone I want, and anyone includes you—which I frankly did not think was possible, but here we are—if it includes you, then…I want you. I'm choosing you."

He gapes at her for a moment. And then he says, "Ah. I see. You've lost your mind."

She rolls her eyes.

"It had a good run, your mind did, but you've clearly lost it. I am a supervillain. I am not human."

"Bold of you to assume someone who's lost their mind can't make any informed decisions," she says. "Bold and sort of offensive."

He pauses. "…Okay, fair. That is fair."

"But I am sane, as it happens." She sighs. "Megamind…you are a career supervillain, yes, but you're principled and you stick to a moral standard I tend to agree with. You're smart, you're fun to talk to, and wildly attractive on top of it," her ears heat, "and…I like you. A lot, honestly. The alien thing is not remotely an obstacle for me." She shakes her head again. "If you told me you loved me and then died before I ever got the chance to love you back…I think that would be just about the worst thing I can think of."

"I can think of worse," he says, looking sort of like he's just been hit in the face with a pan, and Roxanne snorts; she can't help it. And it makes him blink and come back into focus just a little, makes him twitch a bit of a smile in spite of his big frightened eyes. "You—really think I'm pretty?"

"Incredibly handsome, yes, very pretty," she says. She's blushing and embarrassed and delighted that she seems to be winning, but she still puts a pin in this for later—he reached for pretty first, sweet thing; she'll remember that. "Of course. Don't laugh."

"I would never," he says. "I would…okay. Okay. Um. Thirty-eight and two, um. Okay. But I'm—going to hurt you," he says, expression pinching as he squeezes her hand, "if we—if—I break everything, everything, I'm—"

"Maybe." She squeezes back. "But you won't want to. I won't want to hurt you either. That's—but that's the thing about love, you know? You might get hurt. But we'll hurt each other less as we learn each other better. And love also means healing together. So the question is simply," she says, "if the chance to build something beautiful together is worth the risk of getting hurt. And," she ducks her head a little so he blinks and looks at her, meets her gaze just long enough for her to grip his hand hard and say, "you are worth it, Megamind."

His brows shoot straight up his forehead, and then slam down and together in the next instant as his expression sort of—breaks—

"But I'm not," he whispers. "Roxanne, I'm—"

"You wouldn't be worth it to you," she says, sharp for just a moment. "I'm the one who decides what you're worth to me. Got it?"

He nods.

"Good. Coffee?"

"God, yes," he gasps out, "if you want to—coffee, lunch, dinner, anything—everything—yes. One and ten. What—but, but what if—that other man you dated, the one who hurt you—what if I'm—"

"I'll tell you. Long before we reach that point. I'll tell you if something feels off, and we'll work on it. And you do the same thing. Trust me?"

He nods again. "I'll try," he says. "I'll—I'll try."

"Good," she says again. "That's all anybody can do."

Megamind stares up at her for a long moment, his heart in his eyes—

—and then he scowls.

"You're very annoying," he declares, in a voice of complaint. "Coming here like this and asking me out while I'm chained to a table and can't do anything."

Roxanne grins and cocks an eyebrow. "You fled so hard you knocked yourself unconscious and dislocated your shoulder. Forgive me for taking precautions."

"Oh, very well, you're forgiven."

She laughs. "Wow, I really had to twist your arm on that one, huh? Oh—there's your smile, finally! Was there something you wanted to do?"

He opens his mouth, then closes it and sinks his teeth into his lip, looking sort of nervously hopeful, color rising over his ears and high cheekbones.

"Oh," she says, and then it's her turn to cradle the edge of his jaw and tip his face up as she leans down, "was it this?"

Megamind arches up into the kiss with a small sound that puffs over her cheek, fumbling to grab her knee again and hold on. When Roxanne eases back up, he's very pink and his eyes are sparkling.

"Yes," he says, "it was that. Fifteen. Again? And—for evil's sake, how much did you pay the guy outside to get him to leave us alone for this long? My guards aren't usually so…accommodating."

"Oh, you know," Roxanne says, standing up and shrugging her purse back up onto her shoulder, "enough. Two hundred."

"Two hundrmgmmm—!"

She cuts him off with another kiss, this one from standing so he has to tip his head all the way back. The sound he makes when she settles her fingers on his long throat and runs her thumb up the edge of his jaw is best described as a groan, and Roxanne smiles against his mouth and kisses him again—and—

Megamind wrenches himself away with a gasp and says, "Minus five you need to leave."

"Minus—what?"

"It's seven seconds past when you said you needed to go," he says, breath huffing with amusement as he flutters his hand at her and flicks his fingers from his sling in a shoo motion, "you should have left ten seconds ago. Please leave, I can't stop counting until you go, all I have up in here is numbers and kissing and basically screaming fireworks and it's very distracting and I! need to plan! More kisses outside with no time limit—minus seventeen—get out," he's bright-eyed and laughing, and she's struggling not to laugh as well as she backs for the door. "Don't be goosey-loosey with the timing when you've had to calculate a blast radius, first rule of villainy!"

"I thought the first rule was to never let anyone get close?"

"You—! You are exceptional! I am making an exception! GO!"

"Okay, okay. I'll see you outside, sweetheart."

"Aaaaaaaargh," he says, and their guard opens the door and Roxanne ducks away into the hall while Megamind is still laughing.

"Get everything you needed?" says the guard, grinning wide. His nametag says 'Dave.' "Oh hey, you, uh, you got a little…" He brushes his thumb across the side of his lower lip. "Shmutz."

"Oh, shoot, my lipstick," Roxanne says. She hurriedly pulls her sleeve over her hand and runs her fingernail along the edge of her lips. "Better?"

"It'll do. Something tells me I should take my break outside," he adds. "When you see him again, you tell him Uncle Davy says congrats, yeah?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't," he agrees dryly. "Don't you go breaking my boy's heart, understand? Been a while since I opened that door and he was laughing like that."

Roxanne takes a deep breath and nods. "I'll do my best."

"Good. I'll have young Fred take him back to his cell; he's green."

Jeez, Minion wasn't kidding when he said Megamind wouldn't have any trouble getting free. "Thanks."


When Megamind scampers up and dives into the passenger seat of the invisible car a few minutes later, he's breathless and laughing. "That was too easy!" he exclaims, as Minion whips them around and away. "I think it must have been that kid's first day, I almost feel badly about knocking him out."

"Your uncle Davy did say he was new," Roxanne says. "He also said to tell you congratulations."

Megamind snorts. "He would! Which means I need to harass him about his retirement—he was supposed to be out of there six months ago. Are you really in the car? I can't believe you're really in the car. Finding out I harbor affections towards you has been my literal worst nightmare for years and now you're here? In the car? Helping break me out of prison?"

"Come back here with me and find out," Roxanne says, and Megamind looks at Minion.

"What are you looking at me for?"

"Thank you Minion," Megamind says, and scrambles over the seat into the back, awkward and one-handed and wide-eyed, none of his usual grace.

"I don't suppose you'd wear a seat belt," she says, and he pauses.

"That depends."

"On?"

"On whether I can sit in the middle, next to you?"

Her first instinct is to say oh for goodness sake, it's your car, sit where you like, but Megamind is perching on the edge of the seat and his shoulders are very square under his orange uniform.

So she smiles. "I was sort of hoping you'd do that anyway," she says, and—

Megamind's smile blazes across his face and he turns right around and buckles his seat belt.

"Hi," Roxanne says as he settles in next to her.

"Hiiii," he sings back. "Hi Hellollo hola! I am glad you got out of there on time."

"It helps to have a partner with a built-in stopwatch," she says, grinning. "You look kind of scared, are you okay?"

"I am okay! Yes! And I think I am also terrified," he declares, but he's still smiling. "But it's fine. I've decided you are worth it to me, as well. Anyone who can turn the word 'hat' into a military command is worth being scared for. Could I…do you want…?" He lifts his arm a little.

Roxanne grins and takes his wrist and draws his arm around her shoulders, and he breathes. Shifts, settles. It's funny; when they're standing, his shoulders are lower than hers, but seated, he's taller. Benefits to being shaped a little differently, she thinks, curling into his side for a better fit.

"And it's…really okay if I'm a villain," he says. He doesn't pitch it as a question, but she hears it for what it is. "I…you are…rather irretrievably good-aligned, I have noticed."

"Yes, well," she replies, "good can look like a lot of things. And if you love me as I am, well…" She shrugs. "I don't see any reason why I shouldn't do the same."

He's quiet. When she looks up at his face, she finds him gazing at her with soft eyes and a smile that's—it's wondering, and sort of pained.

"That you would even make the attempt means more to me than you know," he says. "Thank you, Miss Ritchi."

"Roxanne," she tells him, heart squeezing, and he blinks.

"Roxanne," he echoes. Holy smokes, she had not known her name alone could sound like I love you, but Megamind lives by his voice. If anyone was going to make it happen, it would be him. "Of course. Thank you, Roxanne."

Not really something to thank me for, she thinks, sort of the bare minimum of really loving someone, but…he'll get there. Someday, eventually, she hopes. For now, she'll lay her head on his shoulder, and smile at his lips in her hair.

…Oh. A thought occurs.

"If we're dating then you have to wash the bag," she announces, and Megamind groans loudly.

"Ugh, fine," he says, as Roxanne laughs. "Miss Picky. Why do I like you?"

"Beats me," she cheerfully replies. "Definitely not your finest choice."

He pauses, then squeezes her a little. "Perhaps? I disagree. I have no regrets."

Roxanne grins and closes her eyes. "Neither do I," she sighs, smiling and cuddling into his side. "Neither do I."