Chapter Text
"Hey. Before we start. I need to ask you something."
Roxanne is tied to a chair, as usual, but her chair is perched on top of the Metro City Downtown Public Library, so at least there’s a view today. Technically an even better view than she would ordinarily be afforded—her chair is in fact bolted to the top of the barrel of…some kind of gun, she isn’t sure yet what it does. It is quite a large barrel, though.
Behind and below her, on the rooftop, Megamind makes a scoffing sound. "You, asking questions? Won’t that be a change."
"Less ‘question,’ more ‘favor,’ this time."
Megamind hums. "No time for negotiations. And! I don’t do favors! You know this."
It’s a good thing she’s so much higher than he is and he can’t see her face, because it’s hard not to grin at the way his first instinct was ‘no time’ and then he remembered to decline entirely. "Yeah, yeah. But you do owe me, I’ve been playing along for you for how many years now? That’s—"
"Oh, playing along?" He scoffs again. "Is that what you’ve been doing, playing along? Really?"
She puts an edge in her otherwise still pleasant tone. "Do you want me to stop?"
"No," he says immediately, and Roxanne stifles a snort. "No, that’s—but look, you don’t ask me for things," he says, "I don’t do things for you, I—"
"I need you to come to a wedding with me."
He stops talking.
Grinning, the wind in her hair, Roxanne waits. Megamind is speechless for multiple seconds, actually, which almost never happens. She's learned to enjoy these moments.
Finally he says, "Excuse me? You need me to…wait, what?"
"A wedding," Roxanne says again. "I need a plus one."
"And Metro Man would be…?"
"Like dropping a live grenade into this particular crowd. Also, it's out of town; he won't want to travel." She sighs and finally leans forward in her chair and attempts to look down and back at him, without much success. She can see his legs, though; she suspects he's staring up at her. "Look, one of my exes from college asked me to attend, okay? And I mean, we're friends, we're on great terms; I’d honestly love to go, but…I’m a professional pawn. I am a well-known professional pawn. And there are going to be a lot of villains in attendance, many of whom are…known to be uncautious with their props? I would really feel a lot safer with you there. Or Minion. I’m not picky. No offense, Minion," she raises her voice a little. "I just think he'd probably be better-recognized."
"Oh, no worries," his cheerful voice calls from somewhere near the back of the roof. "I'm flattered to be an option! And you're right, he definitely would be."
Megamind is quiet for a moment.
"All right, we can discuss. Later," he adds, voice flat. Roxanne nods; she’s just relieved that he’s even entertaining the idea. "Who are these people? Why are you going to a—a wedding full of villains?"
"Malcolm Fitzcarraldo and Sheila Gether. Or—"
"You dated the Monarch?" Minion blurts from behind them, and Roxanne bursts out laughing.
"Malcolm? God, no," she says, "I dated Sheila. She wasn’t into villainy back then, neither of us were, of course, but…eh." She shrugs. "We’ve all changed. Anyway," she continues, "yes, we can discuss later. And thank you."
"Don’t thank me," Megamind warns, "I have agreed to nothing yet."
"Okay, well, let’s discuss soon? I need to rsvp."
"Whatever."
It’s amazing how much less stressed she feels with Megamind potentially on board. Roxanne is rescued from the illiteracy beam—of all things—for which she had mocked Megamind as hard as she could while the cameras were rolling (he had been particularly annoyed about "Do you get these from some kind of plot generator algorithm? You can’t possibly be coming up with this sort of thing on your own, you’re better than this"), and then her heroic friend drops her off on her balcony to finish her workday at home.
The 'working from home' is necessary because Megamind’s primary escape contingency today was to create a flash rainstorm and escape through the sheets of driving water. It worked a treat; Metro Man had to clear a couple of small but dangerous flood zones and by the time Roxanne was freed, she both looked and felt like a drowned rat. So. Megamind got his revenge for her mockery, which is fine, that’s to be expected. She’ll just remind him next time: they’re already even. He’ll whine about it, he always does, but. The point is, she asked about the wedding, and Megamind did not dismiss her out of hand. That’s a promising sign.
Even more promising is the fact that when she finishes changing into nice dry pajamas and leaves her bedroom and comes back downstairs, still towel-drying her hair, she finds Megamind—sopping wet and scowling, still in full costume except for his boots—sprawled out on her sofa and clutching a bag of peas to his enormous forehead.
"Oh for goodness sake," Roxanne sighs, scrunching the ends of her hair in the damp towel. "You couldn’t at least dry off first?"
He flips her the bird without even looking over.
"Yeah, yeah." She rolls her eyes. "C’mon, up. Let’s at least get your mantle and stuff off, that cape is dripping all over the place."
"Need the collar under my neck."
"You can use one of my throw pillows. Up."
"Ugh, fine," he scoffs, but he sits up and unclasps his shoulder array and shrugs the whole thing off onto her coffee table. Roxanne hands him her towel—it’s still mostly dry, it isn't that damp—and tosses one of her pillows more or less into the space where his shoulders were. Megamind pulls the towel around himself, heaves an enormous and very dramatic sigh, and flops right back down with a groan to start picking at the buckles of his gloves with the peas flopped over his head.
Roxanne snorts and curls up at the other end of her sofa, grinning a little at Megamind’s bony feet on the cushion by her leg—his left sock has a hole in the toe; it’s weirdly endearing. "Thanks for taking off your boots this time."
"Mm. Yes, well. I already have a headache, I don’t need shouting to make it worse." He drops his wet gloves on the floor and repositions the peas with a sigh.
"Let me see?"
He lifts the bag and she peers over at him, then hisses in sympathy. "Oof, ouch. Yeah, that’s quite a goose egg you’ve got there."
"It’s going to bruise," he complains, crunching the peas back down and gesturing broadly in defeat with his other hand. "It’s going to bruise and I’m going to have to be seen while bruised and I hate that."
"Oh, stop, you’ll put makeup over it if it gets too purple."
"…It’s going to bruise and I’ll have to put makeup on—"
"Weh weh weh, you never complain half as much when you’re actually hurt."
He blows a raspberry at her, but doesn’t deny it.
Roxanne cocks her head. "Why haven’t you made some kind of…I don’t know, fast-healing lotion or something? I’m sure you could figure out some kind of medical something that would—" She stops; he's just bared his teeth and hissed at her.
"I do not do medical crap," he says flatly. "And I heal quickly enough as it is, I do not in fact need the help. When is this wedding? If it’s this weekend, the deal is off, I have plans."
"Oh? Should I clear my schedule as well?"
He makes a grumbly noise in his throat and pulls his sharp knees up, throws one leg over the other. "Different plans. You aren’t involved."
He isn’t lying. There’s a particular tone to his voice when he lies that he probably isn’t aware of.
Roxanne squints at him for a moment.
Then she says, "You’re taking advantage of the update to Metro’s 911 emergency alert system on Thursday night, aren’t you. You’re going to install something."
Megamind lifts his head and tips his knees against the back of her sofa so he can glare past his legs at her. "How do you do that?"
"Is anyone going to die?"
He wrinkles his face. "Please. This is me."
"Okay, yeah. Fair. Sorry."
"I should hope so." He drops back again.
After a moment, he asks, "So. Wedding is when?"
"Six weeks from now. October 5th."
"October…in what, Nevada?"
She hums assent.
Megamind makes a sound of disgust. "Is it outdoors? Indoors? Is there air conditioning?" He pauses. "I’m not going to have to go into that horrible cocoon, am I?"
Roxanne can’t help but snort. "Not sure. I think Malcolm would rather die than invite rival villains into the cocoon, but he might surprise me. I don’t believe it’s outside, but the reception space might have an outdoor area for guest overflow."
He’s quiet for a while, scrunching his toes absently against the material of Roxanne’s sofa cushions.
At last he decides, "All right. I can handle outdoor space. And I suppose I can figure out some sort of…cooling system to wear, just in case. How much will I be expected to socialize?"
That wasn’t a question she was expecting. "Um. I don’t know," she slowly says. "Weddings are social events, but it's hard to say. Probably…more than you want to, but less than you’re worried about?"
"What a diplomatic turn of phrase."
"Okay, then we’ll go with ‘more than you want to’ and leave off the bit that was meant to be reassuring."
"Ah."
He’s quiet for a moment.
"Right," he says.
It's as close to an apology as she's ever likely to get; Roxanne rolls her eyes. "It’s fine. I know this is very much not your thing. So, you’re okay to come, then? If you really, truly don’t want to come and you think you’ll be miserable the whole time, I do have someone else I can ask."
"Oh, really." He sounds very dry. "And you have not asked this person because…?"
"I don’t…entirely trust him not to try to involve me in some kind of…scheme?" She grimaces. "It isn’t usually his style to involve a hostage, but he made it into some kind of local syndicate recently, and I worry that he might have something to prove. Plus we used to date, so…"
Megamind pauses, then lifts himself onto an elbow and squints at her. "You used to date another villain?"
"He wasn’t a villain when we were together!" she protests, coloring. "He was just…Billy! He liked physics and engineering and he was…weirdly enthusiastic about soup, I don’t know. He was sweet."
Now Megamind sits up fully and leans his elbow on the back of her sofa, grinning with all his teeth. "Physics and engineering," he says. "Doctor Girlfriend is also a genius with a degree in engineering. Do you have a type, Miss Ritchi?"
"No!" She laughs. "Like I said, neither of them were villains at the time. Neither of them were anywhere near villainy at the time! We just…all started out in the same major, that’s all. Do you want something to eat? I’m getting something to eat." She stands, stretches. Then she snaps her fingers. "Oh and I need to text Carl, hang on. Food?"
She pulls her phone out of her pocket and heads for the kitchen. Behind her, Megamind says, "I could eat. Food. Yes. Thank you?"
Not working til later, sthg came up. Will have THE STORY for friday AM tho. "Mm-hm," she says. "Yeah, no problem. I have…let’s see…"
"You could make peas," Megamind says, from her sofa. "I have partially defrosted them for you, how helpful of me, you’re welcome."
She leans back and glares at him from behind the door of her fridge. "I’m sorry, are those my peas?!"
"Oh, yes, because I'm DEFINITELY going to stop and steal my OWN PEAS on my way here."
Roxanne gapes at him.
He holds up a hand and sarcastically blocks out a header in the air with his fingers. "Supervillain Robs Grocery, Steals Peas. Now there's a sad headline for you. Yes, they're your peas, temporarily my peas. 'Peas' and thank you. Seriously, did you expect me to bring my own?"
She blinks, then snorts. "I did not think about the peas’ potential provenance. Okay. Well, I’m not feeling like peas tonight, but…egg sandwiches? Scrambled egg and cheese sandwiches?"
"Ooo!" He perks up. "I would eat an egg sandwich. I would eat two egg sandwiches."
Roxanne laughs. "Sure, I can make an additional one. I’m taking a bite out of it, though."
"An odd stipoolation, but your terms are acceptable."
Roxanne’s phone buzzes and she glances down at the text she’s received.
Villain on your sofa again? He took quite a hit earlier.
He is bruised and VERY unhappy about it, yes, she replies.
LOL, says her boss.
She’s very fortunate that Carl is as relaxed as he is about her work schedule. Her prior boss at KMCP was not nearly as forgiving of Megamind’s frequent interruptions, despite Roxanne pointing out—repeatedly—that she was still getting her work done ahead of all of her deadlines. Roxanne had worried that his replacement might be the same type of stick-in-the-mud, "do your work and don’t bother me" pain in the butt, but Carl had told his new team that he would support them in whatever way he could, and as far as Roxanne has been able to tell, he meant it.
"The last thing I made with peas was called shrimp wiggle," she says over her shoulder as she gets the skillet out. "It was exceptionally weird, you should come look at this picture I took."
"Shrimp wiggle?" There’s a rustle and a groan, and then Megamind trots silently into her kitchen to blink down at the picture Roxanne pulls up on her phone for him.
He takes her phone briefly in his fingers, blinks at it again, and then recoils. "Ugh," he says, handsome face contorting with disgust, "it looks like cat sick."
Roxanne bubbles into laughter. That’s Megamind for you. Oh, he can be subtle and sly when he wants to be, but Roxanne is pretty sure his natural state is shovel-to-the-face blunt. "You’re not wrong," she admits, grinning down at the lackluster photograph, "god, it—it really does, doesn’t it? Yeah, it didn’t taste bad, but the texture did leave a lot to be desired."
"Why was it on toast?"
"Serving suggestion." She shakes her head and slides her phone back into her pocket. "I assume it was intended to offer some crunch, but honestly, I would have gone for cucumber or onion or something. The toast just got kinda soggy, it wasn’t great."
He hums. "At least put the vegetable in between. Protect the toast."
"That would have also worked." She scoots the skillet around to melt the butter, then starts cracking eggs into the pan to scramble. "Cheese on yours?"
"Hm? Oh, the sandwiches. No cheese for me."
He turns and leans against her cupboards a few feet away, shoulders rounded, pushing the slowly-dripping bag of thawing peas against his forehead again. He still has Roxanne’s towel around his shoulders.
She smiles down at the pan a little. It’s funny. Megamind doesn’t do this very often, turn up in her home like this, but it’s always bound to be a good night when he does come over. For someone as intense as he can be at times, he’s surprisingly relaxing to be around. He doesn’t seem to expect much from Roxanne; she can entertain or mostly ignore him and he acts fine either way. One of the last times he showed up, she was in the middle of a project for work and she had told him—snapped at him, really—to sit down and shut up for the next two hours, and he had said, "Suits me fine," plopped himself down on her couch, and proceeded to say nothing for two hours exactly. He spent the time working on some kind of tablet via a sort of triple-planed keyboard Roxanne had never seen before, and when the two hours were up, he simply said, "How’s your work coming?"
"Fine. Hungry. Shut up again, please."
"I’ll have the brainbots pick up Chinese?"
"Mm. ‘Kay."
And he had proceeded to shut up for the remainder of the evening, until Roxanne finally slapped her laptop closed, stabbed her chopsticks down into the remains of her chicken mei fun, and flopped back in her chair with a loud groan.
"That bad?"
"Hate everything," she grumbled, grinding the heels of her hands into her eyes. "Fucking…Hal, fucking…urrrhg. MarioKart? And then in an hour I’m going to bed and you have to leave."
"I will play MarioKart for an hour and then leave."
"Awesome, fabulous, thank god."
Now she says, as Megamind turns to pull the third pair of toast slices out of the toaster, "Why do you come over here?"
"You said, ‘soon,’" he says, not looking at her. "Did you not want to settle our plans today?"
"No, I did, just…" She shakes her head. "Not asking about today, really. In general."
Bluer than ever and wildly out of place against the red and gold of her kitchen, awkwardly spreading mayonnaise on the toast slices, Megamind is quiet. The slow scraping of his knife seems very loud, suddenly.
"Sorry," Roxanne finally says. "I’m only curious. You don’t have to answer."
"I never do."
"It’s just," she says, "we are going on a trip together now. So." She takes a deep breath, sighs it out. "I’m not going to laugh, or anything. Oh, thanks."
He’s just slid the plate of toast over to her. He watches her put cheese on her own slices, then arrange clumps of yellowy egg on top of the cheese to start it melting a little.
She’s just finished grinding salt and pepper onto his eggs when he says, "Sometimes I need to be out of the lair. It feels. Cramped. I don’t know."
Surprised, Roxanne glances sidelong at him as she puts the salt and pepper away. The corners of his mouth are turned down and his arms are crossed over his chest. "I always thought Evil Lair must be pretty big," she says. "Are the rooms very small?"
He shakes his huge head but doesn’t explain, he just says, "Can I have triangles?" and gestures at the sandwiches with the knife he had been using to spread the mayo.
"Huh? Oh! Yeah, sure." She hadn’t been going to cut the sandwiches at all, but it’s not a lot of effort to cut his diagonally. Megamind likes triangle sandwiches, who knew? She takes the knife, cuts his sandwiches. Cuts her own horizontally, because why not? It’s been ages since she’s bothered, but she remembers liking cut sandwiches when she was a kid.
Megamind accepts his plate and heads back towards the sofa in silence (her dining table is almost exclusively for show; he knows this). But as Roxanne takes her place at the other end, he pauses and then holds out his plate.
"You forgot your bite."
"Oh," she says again, half-laughing, "that’s okay. I was mostly joking—"
"But your bite," he insists, jiggling the plate, "we had a deal," and so Roxanne picks up one of the halves and chomps off a corner of a triangle before putting it back.
"There, happy?"
"YeshVeryMushThangkYou," he replies, around a mouthful of egg and toast, and Roxanne snorts.
As he finishes his first sandwich, he slowly says, "Evil Lair has lots of space. It is 'pretty big,' you…aren't mistaken. But." He shrugs, pokes at a stray piece of egg that fell out of his sandwich onto his plate. "I can feel the walls, sometimes. Being here…breathes easier."
He starts in on his second sandwich without looking at her.
"…Well," Roxanne says, after a moment, "you’re a pretty unobtrusive houseguest, so I guess you’re welcome pretty much whenever."
"Unobtrusive," he echoes, green eyes snapping up to look at her. "I imagined I was wildly obnoxious."
"What, just by sitting here? Pfff. Sure, super obnoxious." She rolls her eyes. "Nah. I was worried at first that you might be, but…nah. You leave when I tell you to, you’re quiet when I need you to be. You’re fine. And," she adds, sending him a grin, "you are seriously terrible at MarioKart."
"Hey!"
"Well it’s true! Good lord, you’re awful. Do you not have any games at home? Never had anything as a kid?"
"I did not grow up with games," he grouses, "it was a prison and no, I do not in fact have a console at home."
"Aw," says Roxanne, genuinely startled. "That’s sad. Well, at least now I know what I’m getting you for Christmas."
"I do not celebrate Christmas."
"Yeah, but I do, and you’re getting a refurbished DS and some Pokémon to start you off with, you’re welcome."
His eyes narrow. "What the fuck is a Pokémon."
"Oh my god. Please tell me you’re joking."
He glares at her.
"Okay, wow, now you’re getting even more Pokémon, AND MarioKart for DS, you’re double-welcome."
He glares for a moment longer, then scoffs loudly and rolls his eyes. "Fine. But it's your own grave you're digging," he warns, and takes another bite of sandwich. Speaks through his mouthful of egg and bread as he warns, "If I start beating you at MarioKart because I'm suddenly able to practice, it'll be your fault."
"I look forward to the day you beat anyone at anything," she says dryly.
Megamind sticks his tongue out at her and continues eating.
A week later, Roxanne gets a text from an unknown number.
What is the dress code
She blinks down at it for a moment, distracted from her expense report and thinking, dress code? What dress code? It's too specific to be spam or phishing, but she's honestly drawing a total blank.
Sorry, who is this? she asks.
A moment later her phone buzzes again and she looks down to find—
Ah. An emoji of an alien. Megamind, right, the wedding, right. She huffs a laugh and shakes her head.
Semi-formal, she tells him. A nice suit and a tie is a safe bet, no tuxedo necessary.
Thumbs-up emoji.
An hour later, Minion says what colors are you wearing
Roxanne’s lips twitch. I haven't picked out a dress yet, she replies. Go with whatever you'll be most comfortable in & i'll match to you.
A while after that, Megamind asks, Plans after work?
That gives her pause. Megamind does not typically ask if Roxanne has plans, he just nabs her from wherever she happens to be and expects her to make her peace with that.
I’ll have to check, she replies. It’s her go-to phrase when someone asks what her plans are and she isn’t sure what they want her for. Dare I ask why?
Minion is coming over tonight with "a few supplies"
Roxanne snorts. I'll clear off my big table for him?
That would be wise.
She bites her lip and types out, are you also coming over? …and then stops, and stares down at the message. Does she want Megamind over tonight?
…Yes, actually, she decides. That could be fun.
She sends the text.
A while later, he replies, Yes. We can make shrimp wiggle :P
Make YOU wiggle, shrimpy, she answers.
I wish
She's blinking at that, uncertain how to take it, when another text arrives.
Being a shrimp would be to my advantage in a fight
Fascinated, grinning at her desk, she says, Oh?
Yes because every time I clench my ass I would rocket thirty feet straight backwards
Roxanne dissolves into startled giggles and puts her elbows on her desk to continue texting, fully distracted for the time being.
RR: You do that anyway, I’ve seen your escape hatches
MM: Hey!!! My hatches are HIGHLY SOPHISTICATED pieces of technology!!!
RR: Really don’t know if I’d apply "sophisticated" to something that goes THOOMBP and fires you out the ass end of a homemade gundam like a little blue cork
MM: >:(
RR: I might call it "sofartsticated"
MM: >:O
RR: because it’s basically a fart joke already
MM: You are a cruel and heartless lady and I don’t like you.
RR: yeah I’m really not sure why you thought texting me would be easier than just showing up unannounced?
MM: You know, honestly, neither am I.
RR: and yet you aren’t stopping.
MM: I am a masochist, this is known
RR: Awww really? we should tango at the wedding and I’ll see if I can catch your nose in my left castanet :P
MM: LOL. I shall envy the rose that you hold in your teeth
RR: …With the thorns underneath? xD
MM: Sticking into your gums ;)
RR: lol ew
MM: You started it
RR: And unfortunately I have to finish it too, work calls. See you tonight
MM: Boooooo. Yes, see you :)