Fic: Cold Fusion, Chapter 4
Title: Cold Fusion, Chapter 4
Author: Dal Niente
Rating: T
Word Count: 1,932
Author's Note: The amazing invderlava drew fanart for this chapter! You can see it here. It's awesome.
Chapter 4
The drive home takes longer than it usually does. Usually any construction workers have gone home by the time Roxanne comes back from the news station so there isn’t any traffic, but the brainbots show no signs of stopping, and the streets are slow.
All the traffic signals are back. The sidewalks have been cleared of broken glass and debris. Store fronts are being repainted.
We don’t even have to pay for any of this, Roxanne realizes. All the damage that can be fixed is being fixed. People have insurance. We’re going to be okay.
But the bots can’t be allowed to keep doing everything, or they’ll put us out of jobs and the economy will collapse.
“We’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it,” she murmurs, waves hello to Carlos, and goes up the stairs to the apartment she’s called home since she moved to Metro City twelve years ago. “There’s no way Megamind doesn’t understand basic economics. Minion?” she calls, pushing the door open and blinking. “Hey, Minion?”
“In here, Miss Ritchi.”
Roxanne follows Minion’s voice into the kitchen, looking around. “Minion, what did you do to my apartment?”
He looks nervous. “Are you mad?”
“Mad?” she echoes. She probably should be, since she didn’t tell him he could mess with her things, but she has to admit that the apartment looks great. “Are you kidding? This is the cleanest my place has been in ages. What did you do with all the old papers and stuff?” And what smells so good?
“Sorted them by subject and date and put them in file boxes in your closet. You really aren’t upset?”
Roxanne smiles. “I’m really not upset, Minion. I promise. Thanks for cleaning up. You didn’t have to.”
And darned if the gorilla body doesn’t shuffle its feet awkwardly. That has got to be the cutest, strangest thing Roxanne has ever seen, and she has seen some pretty strange stuff in her time. “Well, you know. It’s the least I could do for you, what with you sticking your neck out for us. Do you have any dietary restrictions or food allergies?”
She’s laughing now. “No, I don’t. Don’t tell me you cooked.”
“You have to eat,” Minion protests. “And you know I cook all the time at Evil Lair. He won’t, he doesn’t have time, and he doesn’t really get hungry, and he can’t live off of doughnuts and packaged food even though I’m sure he would if I’d let him. Anyway, dinner tonight is gluten- and nut-free just in case. Also vegan. In case you’re vegan.”
Roxanne nearly dies. “Minion!”
“What?” he exclaims. “It wasn’t any trouble! It was easy! I like cooking!”
“But you’re a carnivore,” she points out. “What are you going to eat?”
“I’m a scavenger.” His tone is conversational as he ladles cold yellow stew and spaghetti squash into bowls. “I will eat anything. I just prefer protein when I’m stressed.”
“All right,” Roxanne says. “Still. You really didn’t have to do this.”
Minion flaps a hand at her. “Oh, go sit down, silly human. I know I didn’t have to.”
“We could have ordered out. Chinese or something.”
The indignant scowl Minion sends her is positively parental. “Have you any idea how many anti-nutrients there are in takeout? Of any kind? And it’s so unimaginative.”
He sits on the floor again, and Roxanne eyes him curiously. “There’s room at the peninsula, you know.”
“It’s not like it makes a difference to me.” Minion glances up at her briefly before digging into his dinner. Roxanne’s silverware looks incongruously small in his huge hands, but he holds his fork with all the poise of an aristocrat. “I receive tactile input from this body’s sensors, but whether I sit on the floor or in a chair doesn’t make any difference since I don’t get stiff or cramped. Besides, I’ll break your chairs.”
Roxanne looks at him for a minute, looks at her bowl, then pushes away her chair and sits cross-legged on the floor next to Minion. He looks embarrassed.
“Miss Ritchi, you don’t have to -”
“Quiet, you. Solidarity. Besides, I like switching things around every now and again.” She chews, swallows, raises an eyebrow. “This is good. What’s in it?”
“Oh, you know.” Minion waves a hand vaguely. “Good things. Garlic, tomatoes, beans, spinach, corn. Arugula. Sunflower seed butter. Sweet potatoes. A bunch of other stuff.”
Roxanne frowns. “I had sunflower seed butter and arugula?”
“No, I went out earlier and got them. There’s a great little vegan shop down on sixth. Holowatch, remember?”
It will be useless to argue with him, she can tell, so she merely thanks him again and changes the subject. “Minion, you said last night that you and Megamind fell through Earth’s atmosphere and bounced. That got me thinking, you guys are pretty tough, but is there any way we could contact your home world and ask them for input on how to care for him? Did he ever build anything like that? A super-telephone or something?”
Minion swallows hard and stops eating, looks at her for a long moment.
I said something wrong, she thinks. The little fish has gone very still. But she doesn’t know how fix it without knowing what she said.
A small eternity passes. Finally Minion says, “Metro Man never told you?”
Roxanne shakes her head. Minion sighs and drops more squash into the top of his dome. “Our home world fell into a black hole. His parents sent us here when the sun collapsed. This was the closest planet with intelligent life that was atmospherically compatible with our biological processes. There were fifteen other candidates.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” There isn’t much else she can think of to say to that. For a while, she and Minion eat their food in silence.
Out of the blue, Minion gives a little laugh. “Sixteen candidates, and they send him to the one planet Metro Man’s parents send him to. What are the odds?”
“Assuming Metro Man’s parents were considering the same sixteen planets? Less than half of a percent.” Then, when she notices Minion blinking at her, she smiles slyly. “What? Did you think I can’t do math?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Not every human can do that without a calculator.”
She snorts. “They can, they just don’t know how. Mom got me a great tutor when I was little and having trouble with my homework. Ms. Krishnan taught me a lot of good shortcuts with math problems and she made me practice until I could do it in my sleep. It’s not so special if you know how to do it, but I caught hell for it in school.”
Minion looks at her in surprise again. “Really?”
She nods, shrugs a little bit. “It got better once I got older and learned not to act like such a know-it-all goody-goody. If there’s one thing little kids can’t stand, it’s someone who’s smarter than them and shows off.”
“Or someone who’s smarter than them and blue,” Minion mutters.
“That would…oh!” That’s what Bernard was talking about.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she says hastily, “nothing, just something Bernard said. Megamind said.” She lets out a groan of frustration. “That is really starting to get on my nerves.”
Minion frowns down at her nervously. “What is?”
Roxanne is scowling. “I can’t get it through my head that it was Megamind saying those things. I mean, I know it was him the whole time, but I remember it as Bernard and I can’t get the two to synchronize.” She lets out a long breath, trying to stay relaxed as everything comes crashing down to earth. There is so much to worry about, so much that she can’t do anything about but sit and wait for it to change. “And I told Jo about Bernard, and today I had to explain about Megamind, and who knows what my mother will say when I tell her the guy I was dating turned out to be a supervillain in disguise.”
“Do you have to tell her?”
“I already told her about Bernard. If I tell her we broke it off, she’ll want to know why. And then if she runs into the real Bernard at the museum, if that ever gets rebuilt, she’s going to want to talk to him. And what am I going to tell her about Megamind?”
“Nothing,” Minion suggests, but Roxanne shakes her head.
“You saw how quickly everyone assumed Metro Man and I were an item. It’ll take a little longer with Megamind, but they’ll catch on eventually.”
“Assumed,” Minion echoes. “What exactly do you mean, assumed?”
“Like I told Ber-agh, Megamind. Metro Man and I never dated. It was just easier for both of us if everyone thought we were a couple, so when the tabloids started publishing things about us, we never bothered to correct them. People mostly left us alone after that.” She makes an exasperated tchhh in the back of her throat and lets her spoon clatter against her bowl. “Now Mom’ll wait the requisite six months to a year and then start trying to set me up with eligible doctors and lawyers.”
Minion thinks about this. “Okay, so just tell her the truth.”
“I can’t do that,” says Roxanne, appalled. “She hates Megamind, she always has. Forget dating him, the fact that I’m even on good terms with him will send her through the roof.” She pauses, swallows. “Speaking of Megamind. How is he?”
“The same,” Minion tells her with a little sigh. “No changes that I could see.”
For a few minutes, they eat in silence. Roxanne’s apartment is large, and her kitchen is spacious enough to allow them both to sit comfortably in the middle of the hardwood floor.
“Minion, I was thinking earlier,” Roxanne says, and stops. She really, really doesn’t want to say it, but she has to prepare for the worst. Ignoring the worst that can happen leaves you unprepared when it comes crashing down around you.
“Yes?”
She forces the words out. “What if he’s hurt inside? You saw the bruises. Those are nasty. I’m no expert, but I’m willing to bet he’s got a bunch of cracked ribs, probably some broken. What if he’s bleeding internally? What if he has a concussion? What if his brain swells?” She ought to be more delicate with her phrasing, she knows - Minion is pale - but Roxanne is worried and scared and she tends not to think when she’s worried and scared. “Minion, what if he dies?”
Minion looks at his hands, big and heavy and useless in his lap. He knows. He’s thought the same thing, over and over today. “If he dies,” he says slowly, “your world will keep turning. You’ll move on.”
“Eventually, maybe, but I don’t want to move on. I liked being with-with Megamind. And what about you? What will you do?”
“Please don’t ask me that.” His face scrunches up. “Please, Miss Ritchi. I don’t want to think about that. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
A small hand pokes into his field of vision, wraps itself over a big metal finger, and he looks around to find Roxanne smiling up at him. Her eyes are bright, and her lips are thin. “Okay, Minion. Okay. We’ll just - stick together, you and me.” She rests her forehead against a furry arm, staring down at the floor so that the tears will run down her nose and Minion won’t see. “We’ll take care of each other, right? Until he wakes up. We’ll manage.”
Minion curls his fingers closed around her hand. “Until he wakes up.”
Chapter 3
Chapter 5
Author: Dal Niente
Rating: T
Word Count: 1,932
Author's Note: The amazing invderlava drew fanart for this chapter! You can see it here. It's awesome.
Chapter 4
The drive home takes longer than it usually does. Usually any construction workers have gone home by the time Roxanne comes back from the news station so there isn’t any traffic, but the brainbots show no signs of stopping, and the streets are slow.
All the traffic signals are back. The sidewalks have been cleared of broken glass and debris. Store fronts are being repainted.
We don’t even have to pay for any of this, Roxanne realizes. All the damage that can be fixed is being fixed. People have insurance. We’re going to be okay.
But the bots can’t be allowed to keep doing everything, or they’ll put us out of jobs and the economy will collapse.
“We’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it,” she murmurs, waves hello to Carlos, and goes up the stairs to the apartment she’s called home since she moved to Metro City twelve years ago. “There’s no way Megamind doesn’t understand basic economics. Minion?” she calls, pushing the door open and blinking. “Hey, Minion?”
“In here, Miss Ritchi.”
Roxanne follows Minion’s voice into the kitchen, looking around. “Minion, what did you do to my apartment?”
He looks nervous. “Are you mad?”
“Mad?” she echoes. She probably should be, since she didn’t tell him he could mess with her things, but she has to admit that the apartment looks great. “Are you kidding? This is the cleanest my place has been in ages. What did you do with all the old papers and stuff?” And what smells so good?
“Sorted them by subject and date and put them in file boxes in your closet. You really aren’t upset?”
Roxanne smiles. “I’m really not upset, Minion. I promise. Thanks for cleaning up. You didn’t have to.”
And darned if the gorilla body doesn’t shuffle its feet awkwardly. That has got to be the cutest, strangest thing Roxanne has ever seen, and she has seen some pretty strange stuff in her time. “Well, you know. It’s the least I could do for you, what with you sticking your neck out for us. Do you have any dietary restrictions or food allergies?”
She’s laughing now. “No, I don’t. Don’t tell me you cooked.”
“You have to eat,” Minion protests. “And you know I cook all the time at Evil Lair. He won’t, he doesn’t have time, and he doesn’t really get hungry, and he can’t live off of doughnuts and packaged food even though I’m sure he would if I’d let him. Anyway, dinner tonight is gluten- and nut-free just in case. Also vegan. In case you’re vegan.”
Roxanne nearly dies. “Minion!”
“What?” he exclaims. “It wasn’t any trouble! It was easy! I like cooking!”
“But you’re a carnivore,” she points out. “What are you going to eat?”
“I’m a scavenger.” His tone is conversational as he ladles cold yellow stew and spaghetti squash into bowls. “I will eat anything. I just prefer protein when I’m stressed.”
“All right,” Roxanne says. “Still. You really didn’t have to do this.”
Minion flaps a hand at her. “Oh, go sit down, silly human. I know I didn’t have to.”
“We could have ordered out. Chinese or something.”
The indignant scowl Minion sends her is positively parental. “Have you any idea how many anti-nutrients there are in takeout? Of any kind? And it’s so unimaginative.”
He sits on the floor again, and Roxanne eyes him curiously. “There’s room at the peninsula, you know.”
“It’s not like it makes a difference to me.” Minion glances up at her briefly before digging into his dinner. Roxanne’s silverware looks incongruously small in his huge hands, but he holds his fork with all the poise of an aristocrat. “I receive tactile input from this body’s sensors, but whether I sit on the floor or in a chair doesn’t make any difference since I don’t get stiff or cramped. Besides, I’ll break your chairs.”
Roxanne looks at him for a minute, looks at her bowl, then pushes away her chair and sits cross-legged on the floor next to Minion. He looks embarrassed.
“Miss Ritchi, you don’t have to -”
“Quiet, you. Solidarity. Besides, I like switching things around every now and again.” She chews, swallows, raises an eyebrow. “This is good. What’s in it?”
“Oh, you know.” Minion waves a hand vaguely. “Good things. Garlic, tomatoes, beans, spinach, corn. Arugula. Sunflower seed butter. Sweet potatoes. A bunch of other stuff.”
Roxanne frowns. “I had sunflower seed butter and arugula?”
“No, I went out earlier and got them. There’s a great little vegan shop down on sixth. Holowatch, remember?”
It will be useless to argue with him, she can tell, so she merely thanks him again and changes the subject. “Minion, you said last night that you and Megamind fell through Earth’s atmosphere and bounced. That got me thinking, you guys are pretty tough, but is there any way we could contact your home world and ask them for input on how to care for him? Did he ever build anything like that? A super-telephone or something?”
Minion swallows hard and stops eating, looks at her for a long moment.
I said something wrong, she thinks. The little fish has gone very still. But she doesn’t know how fix it without knowing what she said.
A small eternity passes. Finally Minion says, “Metro Man never told you?”
Roxanne shakes her head. Minion sighs and drops more squash into the top of his dome. “Our home world fell into a black hole. His parents sent us here when the sun collapsed. This was the closest planet with intelligent life that was atmospherically compatible with our biological processes. There were fifteen other candidates.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” There isn’t much else she can think of to say to that. For a while, she and Minion eat their food in silence.
Out of the blue, Minion gives a little laugh. “Sixteen candidates, and they send him to the one planet Metro Man’s parents send him to. What are the odds?”
“Assuming Metro Man’s parents were considering the same sixteen planets? Less than half of a percent.” Then, when she notices Minion blinking at her, she smiles slyly. “What? Did you think I can’t do math?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Not every human can do that without a calculator.”
She snorts. “They can, they just don’t know how. Mom got me a great tutor when I was little and having trouble with my homework. Ms. Krishnan taught me a lot of good shortcuts with math problems and she made me practice until I could do it in my sleep. It’s not so special if you know how to do it, but I caught hell for it in school.”
Minion looks at her in surprise again. “Really?”
She nods, shrugs a little bit. “It got better once I got older and learned not to act like such a know-it-all goody-goody. If there’s one thing little kids can’t stand, it’s someone who’s smarter than them and shows off.”
“Or someone who’s smarter than them and blue,” Minion mutters.
“That would…oh!” That’s what Bernard was talking about.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she says hastily, “nothing, just something Bernard said. Megamind said.” She lets out a groan of frustration. “That is really starting to get on my nerves.”
Minion frowns down at her nervously. “What is?”
Roxanne is scowling. “I can’t get it through my head that it was Megamind saying those things. I mean, I know it was him the whole time, but I remember it as Bernard and I can’t get the two to synchronize.” She lets out a long breath, trying to stay relaxed as everything comes crashing down to earth. There is so much to worry about, so much that she can’t do anything about but sit and wait for it to change. “And I told Jo about Bernard, and today I had to explain about Megamind, and who knows what my mother will say when I tell her the guy I was dating turned out to be a supervillain in disguise.”
“Do you have to tell her?”
“I already told her about Bernard. If I tell her we broke it off, she’ll want to know why. And then if she runs into the real Bernard at the museum, if that ever gets rebuilt, she’s going to want to talk to him. And what am I going to tell her about Megamind?”
“Nothing,” Minion suggests, but Roxanne shakes her head.
“You saw how quickly everyone assumed Metro Man and I were an item. It’ll take a little longer with Megamind, but they’ll catch on eventually.”
“Assumed,” Minion echoes. “What exactly do you mean, assumed?”
“Like I told Ber-agh, Megamind. Metro Man and I never dated. It was just easier for both of us if everyone thought we were a couple, so when the tabloids started publishing things about us, we never bothered to correct them. People mostly left us alone after that.” She makes an exasperated tchhh in the back of her throat and lets her spoon clatter against her bowl. “Now Mom’ll wait the requisite six months to a year and then start trying to set me up with eligible doctors and lawyers.”
Minion thinks about this. “Okay, so just tell her the truth.”
“I can’t do that,” says Roxanne, appalled. “She hates Megamind, she always has. Forget dating him, the fact that I’m even on good terms with him will send her through the roof.” She pauses, swallows. “Speaking of Megamind. How is he?”
“The same,” Minion tells her with a little sigh. “No changes that I could see.”
For a few minutes, they eat in silence. Roxanne’s apartment is large, and her kitchen is spacious enough to allow them both to sit comfortably in the middle of the hardwood floor.
“Minion, I was thinking earlier,” Roxanne says, and stops. She really, really doesn’t want to say it, but she has to prepare for the worst. Ignoring the worst that can happen leaves you unprepared when it comes crashing down around you.
“Yes?”
She forces the words out. “What if he’s hurt inside? You saw the bruises. Those are nasty. I’m no expert, but I’m willing to bet he’s got a bunch of cracked ribs, probably some broken. What if he’s bleeding internally? What if he has a concussion? What if his brain swells?” She ought to be more delicate with her phrasing, she knows - Minion is pale - but Roxanne is worried and scared and she tends not to think when she’s worried and scared. “Minion, what if he dies?”
Minion looks at his hands, big and heavy and useless in his lap. He knows. He’s thought the same thing, over and over today. “If he dies,” he says slowly, “your world will keep turning. You’ll move on.”
“Eventually, maybe, but I don’t want to move on. I liked being with-with Megamind. And what about you? What will you do?”
“Please don’t ask me that.” His face scrunches up. “Please, Miss Ritchi. I don’t want to think about that. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
A small hand pokes into his field of vision, wraps itself over a big metal finger, and he looks around to find Roxanne smiling up at him. Her eyes are bright, and her lips are thin. “Okay, Minion. Okay. We’ll just - stick together, you and me.” She rests her forehead against a furry arm, staring down at the floor so that the tears will run down her nose and Minion won’t see. “We’ll take care of each other, right? Until he wakes up. We’ll manage.”
Minion curls his fingers closed around her hand. “Until he wakes up.”
Chapter 3
Chapter 5