They've parked across from a Spanish restaurant in midtown. "Lucky space," Roxanne says as she gets out and stretches. "I really was expecting we'd have to park in the garage a block over and walk. You sure you're good?"

"Lucky," Megamind echoes. "Yes."

It's cold. February in Michigan is not the kindest month, and the snow earlier that week hasn't melted but turned to icy slush. Roxanne steps up to Megamind's side and carefully takes his arm. He startles again when she touches him; he had been staring through the front window of the packed restaurant like someone about to face a firing squad.

"So this is the place," he blurts. And he starts to move forward, but Roxanne tugs on him a little.

"Not that way," she says. "Follow me."

He balks. "Where?"

"Are you kidding? You hate people." She grins at him. "So we aren't going in through the front. Come on."

She loops her arm more securely through his and steers him toward an adjacent side street, little more than an alley, wobbling slightly on the heels of her boots as she steps to avoid puddles and slush.

"See, some restaurants do a thing," she explains as they walk, "with tasting menus and private seating. It's generally not advertised, but if you know the owner or the chef, sometimes they'll mention doing something like this on occasion. Diego doesn't typically offer it on Valentine's Day anymore—he had some bad experiences with it a while back, and this is one of the busiest nights of the year for them anyway. But he owed me a favor. Also his sous chef has been complaining that the menu has stagnated, so this gives them the opportunity to test some new possibilities with us this evening."

Megamind squints up at her as he follows her up a set of steps. "I am…not sure I follow. Is this not the kitchen entrance?"

"This is for deliveries. Kitchen is further down. Brace yourself, it might be loud."

She pulls the door open. Megamind catches it and holds it so she can enter first—whether this is due to manners or a desire to keep some kind of buffer between himself and the unknown, Roxanne can't say. She does still feel bad for dragging him out on a night she knows he typically dreads for weeks leading up to it, but…well, it is for a good cause, so…

The crash and clatter of a kitchen at work smacks her in the ears, and she ducks away into the alcove Diego showed her when she was planning all this. "Over here," she says loudly, and Megamind follows her with big eyes. "This is us."

The table is small, tucked into a tiny nook lined with wire shelving and a riot of items Minion would probably know what to do with but Megamind is entirely mystified by. The setup might be described by some as "intimate," but Megamind has only a passing familiarity with the word; he would reach for "cramped." Not in a bad way, though. He has always felt safest in tight spaces if he's in a new place.

The noise of the kitchen is nearby and quite loud, a cacophony of raised voices and clattering. The table is positioned in such a way that Megamind and Roxanne will have a decent view of the activity there, access to the constant back-and-forth rushing of waitstaff and multi-voiced shouting of the kitchen, but thankfully there is enough space and enough of a partition that the sound level is not too oppressive.

This is…

Wow, this is fantastic, actually. One of the things Megamind loathes the most about these dates is the part where he has to force himself to keep his attention on the person in front of him. He doesn't care about them, doesn't care about their life, doesn't care what they're saying. Forcing himself to feign interest in things he doesn't care about with nothing else interesting to look at is excruciating. It always has been.

He wouldn't have that problem with Roxanne, probably, simply because he does actually care about her and is interested in the things she says, but he absolutely won't have a problem with all this sound and movement right here. So many conversations for him to follow and think about! So many people to watch! So many ways to split his focus! Megamind has never worn glasses, but probably this would be what putting on glasses would be like, he thinks. This sudden clarity. He can almost feel his brain relax as his awareness broadens to let the world flow in.

When he looks at Roxanne, he finds her smiling at him with what looks like amused satisfaction: head tilted down, tight smile but eyes twinkling means hidden laughter...and in combination with the uptweak of her eyebrows when he looks at her, this means he just did something she was expecting and she's pleased about it.

"What?"

"This was a good idea," she says. "Having the kitchen here. I thought…never mind. This is okay, though?"

"This is perfect," he says, with complete honesty. "What did you think?"

She shakes her head, still smiling. "Nothing. I just," she takes a deep breath, "I was trying to think of where I could bring you that wouldn't be horribly boring for you! You're always all over the place, and dinner generally means sitting still for upwards of an hour, maybe more. If the weather was warmer, I probably would have opted for something outside, but in February…" She shrugs. "A view of the kitchen on the busiest night of the year is the best I could do."

"The view of the kitchen is also perfect," Megamind says when he finally manages to yank himself back from reeling at the fact that Roxanne not only correctly guessed one of his major complaints about restaurants, but specifically planned this date to avoid it. "But. I doubt I would be bored regardless. You're rarely boring."

He hears the words as they leave his mouth and nearly flinches. You're rarely boring? Talk about damning with faint praise. Yikes.

But, to his surprise, Roxanne blinks and looks oddly flattered at this. "Aw," she says. "Thanks, that's...something I've wondered about. I'm glad. Hopefully I'll be able to show you a good time, then. Lord knows it's about time you had a proper date."

She's—

Ah.

Okay. Okay, no, this does make sense. Hell if Megamind knows why she's doing it, but if she's showing him what a date looks like, then of course she wouldn't react the way she ordinarily would. Usually, a comment like you're rarely boring would be taken as a lead into some sharp-edged banter.

But now the question is: did she mean that?

She's—wondered. About—?

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter! This is a charity thing, it's not like it has to mean anything in particular.

It's just that he really wishes it could mean something. Anything. She said in the car, she is doing this because she wants to, and Megamind is feeling a lot better with having walked around a bit and things nearby to focus on, but he still cannot relax. Cannot let himself. Roxanne knew the man who bought Wayne's date. She bought Megamind with Wayne's cash. Wayne had not been shocked at all. This is definitely some kind of setup—Roxanne and Metro Man can insist otherwise until they're blue in the face, pardon the expression, but Megamind is not stupid. He's game to pretend, but this is absolutely some kind of setup. There must be some other reason for Roxanne to do this than just because she wants to—why would she ever want to? And so he has that to contend with, plus Roxanne saying nice things and thinking of a good place to bring him that he would not hate, and he can't—

He can't—

"You okay?"

He jumps a little and looks away from the kitchen and back at his date, who is peering at him.

"Listen," she says, after a moment, "I did mean it, earlier. If you need to go home…I'm not going to be upset if you need to call it a night and leave."

Megamind steels himself and shakes his head, drags his face into one of his teasing smiles. "No," he says. "I will be fine. I am…surprised. That you would think of that particular complaint. I…appreciate the consideration."

"Okay, but something is—oh! Um."

They both lean back as glasses of water appear in front of them, along with some other liquid—Megamind's appears to be carbonated—and a covered basket of something, probably bread if Megamind's previous dates are anything to go by.

These are followed almost immediately by small plates of something white and rubbery-looking, chopped into small pieces, pan-seared, and tossed in what smells like garlic and lemon.

"Sepia a la plancha," says the person who brought the food. "Salud!" And they disappear back into the noise.

"No menu," Megamind says, slowly forcing himself to lower his shoulders. Roxanne shakes her head.

"Nope, no menu. They're basically just going to bring us lots of little plates and we can either eat what's on them or not, if we don't like whatever it is. This looks like squid, I think?"

"…Cuttlefish," Megamind says, after a moment, chewing thoughtfully. "It's good."

"I always feel a little conflicted about eating stuff like this," Roxanne says, studying her plate. Megamind cocks his head. "It's…I mean, octopus, squid, cuttlefish…they're so smart. It feels…I don't know. Like it might be not good. To eat them. They seem like…they might be people? Whose intelligences are…not…like mine." She grimaces at Megamind.

He blinks at her, then snorts and continues eating. Thankfully, Roxanne looks amused at this reaction.

"Minion and I had an octopus, for a while," he tells her, between bites. "I can confirm, some cephalopods are very definitely sapient. But they are also delicious, and this one is already dead. So."

Roxanne glances down at her plate.

"If you don't want it, give it to me," he says, and bares all of his white white teeth. "I'll see it doesn't go to waste."

She sighs, and hesitates, and then pushes her plate over to him. Score!

"Thanks. I don't mind if other people eat them," she sighs. "I just…can't get my head around it, I guess."

"Your loss," he shrugs. "Do you eat pork?"

"That's different. A pig would eat me, too, given the opportunity."

"True, but a pig does not have the opportunity."

Roxanne shrugs, sends him another uncomfortable-looking grimace. "I don't know how it makes sense in my head. And maybe someday I'll hit a point where I can't bring myself to eat pork, either—I've definitely thought about it! But I'm not there yet."

Megamind studies her for a moment, then shrugs again and switches his empty plate for her full one. He has certain dietary needs and restrictions, and absolutely no guarantee that he'll be able to eat anything else tonight. "Well," he says, "I suppose I should feel relieved to know that you would not kill and eat me just to find out what I taste like."

For some reason, this makes Roxanne turn a very interesting shade of pink under her freckles and up her ears. "Ah! Ha! Yeah. I suspect I'd have my work cut out for me if I tried. I don't think you'd—um. Go…down. Without a fight."

He squints at her. "...I'm missing something."

She waves at him, blushing all the way up her forehead. "Don't worry about it. Eat your cuttlefish."

Well, that was odd. But. Probably not anything bad. And this brief shred of conversation was okay, too; it had felt surprisingly normal, considering how every time he stops to think about what's happening, he gets caught between his burning heart and the confused fear still gnawing on the frayed edges of his attention.

But, "Technically I am finished eating my cuttlefish," he tells her, haughty in spite of everything. She rolls her eyes. "I will, however, eat your cuttlefish."

"Smart-ass."

"You know it."

"...Are you sure you're okay?"

He looks up.

Roxanne grimaces a little and fidgets with her fork. "Sorry. I'm sorry, I don't mean to push, it's just…you still seem like you're gonna break in half if I look at you wrong." She sends him a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "I was kind of hoping you would relax at least a little, by now."

He…ah. He had thought he was hiding his nerves reasonably well at this point. Apparently not.

He could pretend. He could. Probably.

But…

Fuck it. If the date goes south because he pushes for information, then oh no, he gets to go home early and nurse a broken heart. Won't be the first time he does that after interacting with Roxanne. And if the date continues, he gets to continue having dinner with Roxanne, and then go home and nurse a broken heart. It's heartbreak either way. The only difference is whether he gets to have fun first—but he cannot really even do that, right now. He's been bobbing up and down like a cork since Roxanne first appeared on that damned screen and now she's flat-out asking and it simply is not fucking worth it.

So, "There is more to this that you are not telling me," he says, "and without knowing what it is…this is, of course, your prayrogaitive," he adds, with a thin little smile, "you certainly paid enough to keep your secrets. But, no, I am not going to relax."

Roxanne blinks at him, and then—to his surprise—she sort of slumps. "…Yeah," she admits.

Megamind's heart trips on a beat.

"Yeah, there is. Um. I had actually planned to talk to you about it after dinner—you aren't going to want to hear this, I don't want to completely ruin your evening—but maybe, I think maybe I should just—tell you now. Get it over with."

Oh.

Okay, then.

There's always something else. Always. Everything in his life has always been about what he does, what he is. Never, not once, not ever, about who he is. And Megamind had known, of course, already. Had said it himself, just now, aloud. But. Hearing Roxanne acknowledge it, hearing her drop the pretense of wanting to be here without even trying to keep up the ruse…stings. More than it should.

"If that's the hangup," Roxanne says, oblivious, "then…yeah."

Megamind lifts his chin and curls his hands into loose fists on the tablecloth in front of himself without really thinking about it. "Tell me what."

And Roxanne nods, she does nod, and then she takes a deep breath and sighs it out.

"I arranged an interview with Larissa about a month ago."

Megamind recoils. That was absolutely not any of the things he had been expecting to hear.

"Up-and-coming photographer with a wide range of subjects in her portfolio, old school 'friend'…it wasn't hard to get on her schedule," Roxanne says with an apologetic half-smile. Then she pauses. "And—oh. Um. Should I keep going?"

Megamind follows her gaze, finds that he's clenched his hands hard. And what he wants to do, what he very nearly does, is uncurl them and flatten them and dismiss this reaction, wave it away somehow. Tell her he's fine. Laugh it off. Pretend.

What he does is smile a very tight, unfriendly smile, and jerk his head at her, and not relax at all. If Roxanne is done pretending then so is he.

"…Right." His date bites her lip for a moment. Shakes her head. "Anyway…while she was out of the room, getting coffee…I took these."

She pulls a pair of flash drives out of an inner pocket of her purse and places them on the table. Megamind tracks her hands with his gaze as a spear of ice courses down the length of his spine.

…What. What is…what is happening? Is this happening? What is this gambit? Blackmail. More blackmail? No, same as before. But Roxanne…stole…did she see? She must have seen.

Oh god. Okay. Think. Where to go from here.

(It would be a lot easier to think if his heart was not screaming in his chest.)

(He had wanted so badly to believe she was different.)

"I also took her camera's memory card. Swapped it out for a blank one." Roxanne adds this to the pile, as well. "Aaand this, from the side pocket of her camera bag." A flat metal box, rectangular, only a couple inches deep. Maybe four by nine inches, and no obvious way to get it open. A strip of masking tape—masking tape! not even a proper label! insult to injury—with Feb 14 2009 scribbled on it in sharpie marker is stuck to the top.

(Highly experimental, government-issue; the devil only knows where Larissa picked up an early-model biostasis chamber. Megamind does not have good memories of that box; even through his rising panic, his left wrist twinges painfully at the sight of it. Frankly he's amazed Larissa still had it in her bag. She didn't sell it? Why on earth would she keep it?)

(He should have stolen it back, should have handled this months ago, should have acted. Should should should. So many things he should have done, and didn't, couldn't bear to, and now—)

(And now—)

—and now Roxanne pushes everything across the table to Megamind.

And withdraws.

And everything in Megamind's enormous brain grinds to a screeching halt.

He stares down at the storage media on the tablecloth, his mouth dry, his ears ringing. His heart is silent and he can't seem to remember how to breathe.

(Wait.)

Roxanne is giving these to him? She's just…giving them? To him?

(What?)

"I have no idea what that is, or what's on those drives," Roxanne says, and Megamind snaps his gaze to hers. "I opened one, and there's a folder in the root directory labeled 021409, so I'm sure it's yours. But that's as far as I went. It's none of my business." She sips at her drink while Megamind sits dumbfounded and drymouthed, and then continues, "Anyway. Judging by how upset she was when she called me later that week to see if I had seen the light blue flash drive on her desk while I was there, and how angry she was when I turned up in the lists tonight…I would bet actual money she has no other copies."

Megamind's lungs aren't working, that's. odd.

He forces his hands to open and slowly picks up one of the flash drives.

It's real.

"See, the thing is," Roxanne says, after a couple more seconds, "Larissa isn't what I would call smart, but she thinks she is, and she likes messing with people. The weird thing is, it doesn't seem to matter if they know she's messing with them or not. She…I don't know. Some people are kind of fucked up, but I really do think most people do try to be good. They just, they don't realize. Doesn't make it okay when they hurt someone, it's just…most people don't go around hurting people just for kicks, you know?"

Megamind can't move.

"But, Larissa…she…as far as I can tell, she has what I'll call a dolphin's sense of interest," Roxanne hedges. "How much do you know about bottlenose dolphins?"

"I know they are extremely amoral," Megamind hears himself say, through numb lips.

Roxanne snorts. "Yeah. Okay, that's pretty much what everyone says. But my thinking is…morality is relative, right? They're amoral by most human standards, but by dolphin standards…they're just dolphins." She shrugs. "So what are dolphin standards? They're highly intelligent, social predators with no hands to build tools or toys with, or make art out of. They have very little to entertain themselves with. So it makes sense to me that a dolphin would prioritize its own entertainment over basically anything else. And if you look at it that way, if the primary question in a dolphin's mind is am I having fun, then the way they are makes sense, right? They care about their own entertainment. And for a dolphin, that's fine." She pauses, sips her drink again. "But," she says as she puts it back down, cocking an eyebrow at Megamind, "you put that mindset in a human…"

Megamind blinks.

Ah.

"Put that mindset in a human, and…I don't know what that is," Roxanne says, her expression dark. "I don't know what you'd call that, other than someone who never grew out of being an extremely dangerous bully. Whatever it is, I don't like it. But my point is…having a you-colored flash drive full of blackmail sitting right in front of me? With me none the wiser? That is very much Larissa's style."

And then suddenly she sends him a mean little grin. "Unfortunately for her, I've got her goddamned number. I know she keeps her important backups taped to the bottom of the top drawer of her desk, and I know how to pick locks, and I cleared out every office supply store in Metro the week before we talked so I would hopefully be able to replace as many drives as possible with blank ones."

Megamind finally finds his voice. "Why?"

"Because that's how people think. Replace what you can, and usually they'll just think they misplaced the—"

"Why do this," he interrupts, so lost and confused he can barely stand it. "Why? Why do…any of this, any of…I don't…why give me these?" He splays his hand over the pile. "You could do anything to me with this, anything, you—"

"I didn't steal that shit just so I could be the one to use it! What do you take me for?"

Megamind stares at her. After a moment, the disgusted (horrified? is it horror? he has such a hard time telling the difference between the two) look on her face softens and falls into something that looks upsettingly similar to disappointment.

"Megamind, I…you know I wouldn't…" She exhales. "I just…okay. God. Tell you what, give me your hand?" She slides her own across the table towards him, palm up. After a moment, she wiggles her fingers a little.

Moving slowly, feeling as though he's in some kind of dream, Megamind slips his hand into hers and allows her to wrap her fingers around his palm. Allows his own fingers to curl over her soft knuckles.

"I care about you." She squeezes, and Megamind feels his lips part as his breath leaves him. "And…and I don't…I don't think you know that? I thought you did, before, but…"

Megamind shakes his head, mute.

"Well, I do! I mean, holy hell, the whole reason I'm out here tonight with you is that I care what happens to you!" His hand spasms in hers, he can't help it, but all she does is hold on tighter. "And no, I don't know what happened between you two last year, but I don't need to know. I don't have to be a supergenius to tell when someone is panicking. That bitch hurt you; that's all I fucking need."

All he can do is continue to stare at her, try to memorize her face, the thin line of her mouth and the set of her jaw and the fierce tug of her eyebrows. Her grip on his hand is extremely firm. Warm. Megamind should pull away, should have already pulled away, but he can't, god, he just can't.

"Listen to me: I already hated her," Roxanne says. "She hurt my friend years ago, and now she pulled some bullshit on you, and I—will—end—her. If you want me to."

Megamind clears his throat, forces words. "I'll…be fine." He shakes his head. "I'll. I will be fine. She thought—she had—her reasons, but—"

"Reasons—"

"—if, if something unexpected happens," he finishes, speaking over her, "look the other way."

"If something…of course. Yes. Of course." Miracle of miracles, she doesn't press him for details.

"I—" Breathless, he swallows love you. "—ah. I. don't know what to say!" The laugh he manages does not sound like him. "'Thank you' hardly seems…adequate, but…"

Roxanne gives him a pleading smile and another little squeeze. "Just let me give you a good night. We have all the way until midnight! The night is young. I told you before, I want you to have a good time. For once. I meant that! Please? Try to relax? Enjoy yourself?"

Why, he doesn't say.

Marry me, he doesn't say.

I love you I love you I love you my gravitational anchor my sunlight my own heart, yours, he doesn't say.

"All right," he says, and his treacherous heart leaps and flips when that makes Roxanne's expression light up.

"Yeah? You'll let me take you on a date?"

"You've already got me on a date," he points out, and she crinkles her face into a little half-laugh. Megamind breathes.

"I mean, I do, but seriously, I'm not going to raise hell about it if you just want to call it a night and go home." She shrugs, looking oddly apologetic. "I don't know, I just…you hate this. And I hate that you're forced to do this, and so I'm…on one hand, super excited, but on the other hand, I really don't want to be part of the problem, so—"

He grips her fingers and she blinks. "You are not part of the problem," he says quickly. Holy smokes, it's like the world has come up off his shoulders. He can talk again. The fog of crawling dread has lifted; he can think again. "God, no. Roxanne. No. This is—you are—the best thing! Very best thing that could have happened to me tonight! And you just, this—giving me this—" He withdraws and runs both hands over the pile of storage media, shakes his head. "You have no idea the peace of mind this gives me. Even if you are plotting against me!" he adds with a breathless laugh. "I…was not expecting this."

"I truly am not plotting against you," she tells him.

Shaking his head, he draws his gun from an inner pocket of his suit coat and dehydrates the whole little pile almost without thinking about it. The action catches up with him as he pulls the trigger and his mind spins a little whispery question mark, but—Roxanne knows his sidearm, she's seen it before; he doesn't have to worry about what she'll think. This is fine. Surely this is fine. He plucks up the little blue cube and tucks it away, along with his gun, and then he sends Roxanne as much of a smile as he can muster with as shocked as he still feels. She's watching him with an expression he doesn't know how to read, but it's not an unhappy one.

"Not many people would have done this for me," Megamind tells her, heart thumping hard as a year's worth of aching tension begins to ebb slowly away.

"Not many people know you like I do," she returns, voice warm. "And even I don't know as much as I'd like. But I'm glad to know what I do, and…I really would like to know you better."

He hesitates. "Off the record," he says, questioning, and his world gets lighter still when Roxanne gives an emphatic nod.

"Yes," she says. "Off the record. Everything. This is just for me."

"…All right, then," he replies. Once more into the breach, yes? He can do this again. The Valentine's Date. With Roxanne? Sure, okay. Why not.

Yes, even.

Maybe she really does just…want to be here. With him. Honestly, he is prepared to believe just about anything right now; the dizzy feeling that swept over him when she won the bidding is back. And the weight on his chest is gone. For several horrible, horrible seconds, he had been forced to confront the very real possibility that Roxanne doesn't care about him any more than any other human in this city or on this world—and really, she has no reason to. The idea that she might care for him or Minion is patently absurd. But…

"I've got your back."

And this has always been Megamind's problem, this tendency to believe what he is told. But now he has the knowledge that Roxanne stole quite a lot of blackmail so she could give power back to him. So she could give it back. No conditions, no demands, she didn't even look at it. And she stole it. Made a plan and pulled it off. For him?

Once more into the breach. A date with Roxanne. She will be worth it, she is worth it already; he can let himself have this. For tonight, he can have this.

Just for tonight.