Cold Fusion: Hallows' Eve, Ch. 6
I own nobody but Nibs. Also, can I just say that I really, really wish English had an acceptable, widely-used gender-neutral pronoun that isn't "it" and isn't plural? Writing about Nibs is hard, I keep sitting here going "I wonder if 'it' is clear enough or I should reword the sentence."
You are all amazing and I love you. I love that you seem to be enjoying this as much as I am. *hugs you*
Chapter 6
Megamind is exhausted and grinning like a madman when he and Minion finally get back to the Lair later that night. He is tired to his core, but he thinks he might just be glowing.
Who knew that being good would feel good, too? He'd had no idea. He's glad he knows now; he may have to try the whole 'good' thing again, sometime. Roxanne keeps claiming that the Metro City rebuild project had been good, but in his opinion that didn't really count because it had been in payment of a debt. It hadn't been altruistic the way going after Max had been.
There is no feeling, Megamind decides, as can compare to that which you get when a relieved mother comes rushing out to meet you before you're even all the way out of your car. Especially if you've just rescued her son from who knows what. Especially if the boy is clinging to you for comfort, and he's dressed like you because he admires you. Especially then.
The whole encounter had left him feeling all quiet and shy and warm inside. The rescue itself had been harrowing. There had been a lot of things that could have gone wrong, and they hadn't, but they could have, and Megamind had thought of all of them, and it had been frightening. As soon as he put Max on his back the weight of responsibility on his shoulders tripled, and when they had nearly been shot, all he could think was, This was a really, really dumb idea.
But now…now that it's over, he thinks he would do it again, if only so that he could feel like this again afterward.
Cecile had kissed him and hugged him and cried on him and would not hear of him or Minion leaving before they'd had a coffee, and Bradley had swung by the house while Megamind and Minion had still been trying to escape from Cecile to tell him that everyone was fine. The fight had gone entirely according to plan, he said, and he'd clapped Megamind on the back and beamed and called him 'Freak' again. And said that any time Megamind wanted to help out with police business, it was okay by him.
Megamind hadn't been able to stop smiling all the way home. He'll have to go down to the police station tomorrow to retrieve his gun, but he doesn't mind. It might even be fun, considering he's also planning ways to acquire information from Max's kidnappers.
The car sits grumbling in the garage for a few seconds before Minion turns it off and glances over at Megamind, who is still staring straight ahead. He looks the happiest Minion has seen him in a while.
"I take it you had fun tonight, Sir?"
Megamind nods mutely, still grinning. Then he blinks a few times and jerks his head from side to side. "I mean, it was…I didn't like doing it, I mean, it was dangerous and there were way too many unknown variables, but…Minion," he says, and slowly turns to look back at his friend out of wide, shining eyes, "people like me!" And he sinks a row of white-white teeth into his lower lip in an attempt to keep his smile from leaping off his face and dancing a polka across the floor of the car.
Minion can't help but smile back. When Megamind had gone to hand Max over to Cecile, Max had turned to wrap his arms around his mother's neck but forgotten to let go of Megamind's waist with his legs, so Cecil had just put one arm around Max and the other around Megamind and pulled them both in for a white-knuckled hug. Hugs being what they are, and Minion being who he is, he hadn't been able to resist hugging the little trio of people, and he had felt Megamind purring involuntarily the way he does only when he is both totally relaxed and very, very happy - which is to say very, very rarely.
It had been nice. But there's something else happening in Megamind's head; there's something more to this equation than just satisfaction about a job well done or pleasure at finally getting some appreciation.
"Minion…" Megamind says again, and opens his mouth and pauses. He takes a deep breath, and then in a small voice, he says, "…I like me." Out comes the joyous crescent-moon smile again, but above it, his eyes are very big and confused and almost, almost a little bit fearful. "At least I think I do."
Minion can only gape at him for a moment before he thinks of how to respond, then relaxes into a grin. "Took you long enough, Sir," he says, and Megamind bursts into embarrassed laughter. Minion waves at the door, smiling. "You go ahead inside while I put the car away, Roxanne's working in the main room."
"Oh, she stayed?" Megamind asks, surprised. He had half-expected her to head home after Minion left. What would be the point of staying in the Lair if no one else was around?
Minion nods. "I'll go throw together something to eat, she told me you two hadn't had time for dinner yet."
Ordinarily, Megamind would shout something triumphant and bound out of the car. And he reaches for the door handle, closes his fingers around it - but then he turns back and stares intently at Minion, an odd little half-smile playing around the corners of his mouth.
The silence stretches between them. Minion glances around, unsure of what's going on.
"You," Megamind says after a few moments, and lifts an eyebrow and smiles, "are my very best friend. And…thanks."
Minion blinks.
"Everything's changing. I don't know how we got here, I really don't. But I'm so happy that the circumstances conspired the way they did. I'm happy, Minion. I'm happy!"
He never has been, before, and Minion knows it. Rather, he has been happy, just never for very long and rarely about something he thought was really worth it. But this is the first indication Minion has had that Megamind ever realized that, himself. The carefree image he's worked so hard to maintain is not something he used to take off very often, even in front of Minion and even, Minion suspects, in front of himself. But he's doing it more and more frequently these days, and Minion is in total support of that.
Megamind pauses, frowns a little. "…I think something might be wrong with me."
"Sir?"
He shakes his head. "I'm just in a very weird mood tonight."
There's a pause, and then he jumps a little. "Right! Inside, yes. See you in a few minutes, Minion!"
He hops out of the car and skips to the door and into the back of the Lair.
Even from this distance, he can hear the high-pitched whine of machinery, of metal-on-metal, that picks up a few seconds after he steps into the Lair. He waits for the brainbots to take his coat, scarf, and gloves, and then he follows the sound down a hallway and around a corner and into the main room.
It's after eleven o'clock, so Roxanne hasn't turned on any lights; she's moved Megamind's drawing board out of the way because the hanging glow-globe is the only alternative light source and positioned a large, C-shaped table so that the shadows cast by the globe won't interfere with her line of sight. It's the little things like that that make him smile. She takes shadows into account without even thinking about it.
She's facing more or less away from him; he can see the curve of her cheek and the goggles she's wearing, but he knows he's in her peripheral vision and she hasn't noticed him yet. Tiny shining bits of metal and various and sundry tools are scattered over the table's surface - sparks are flying from something he can't make out, but he can see the black gloves she's wearing and the spiderweb of silver wires over their surface, the tiny grips at the end of each finger. Whatever she's working on is delicate business.
The sparks and the noise cut off abruptly, and she lays a blowtorch and a tiny portable band saw aside. She hunches over her work, flipping something down over one eye. Megamind blinks; he doesn't remember having any goggles with things that flip down. Then he dismisses it and leans against the doorframe, his arms folded over his chest.
He stands for a moment and watches her work, enjoying the sight of Roxanne in protective goggles and precision-gloves. She is always beautiful, as far as Megamind is concerned, but when she's wearing work gear she is just unbelievably sexy. She's part of his world, she looks like she's part of his world, and that is something he would never in a million years have dared to hope for. But here she is, and she is drop-dead gorgeous.
He thinks he might be feeling a little bit sappy at the moment, but he also thinks that's maybe not so bad.
Finally, she sits up and arches her back to crack her spine, unsnaps and pulls off the gloves and pushes the goggles up onto her forehead. She rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands, blinking blearily down at whatever she's been working on.
Megamind saunters into the light and grins. "I thought you'd be in bed by now."
She shoves her chair out of the way and shoots to her feet, her blue eyes wide. One hand is white-knuckled on the work table, the other is pressed against her chest, and she's so pale that for a moment, Megamind wonders if she's having some kind of heart problem.
"Roxanne…?"
"You're okay," she says flatly.
He glances to either side and smiles a little, confused. "Well, of course I am."
She shudders a little and sweeps her bangs out of her eyes, forces herself to stand straighter and drop her shoulders. "Of course you are. I - I'm sorry, I just." She laughs. "I'm glad you're home."
Megamind's smile turns hesitant. "Are you okay?" Roxanne looks at him, and he can see her thinking. She doesn't want to say it, whatever it is; he can tell. "Roxanne?" he says again. He walks over to her, his steps short and his heart fluttering nervously. She's still just looking at him. "What's wrong?" He reaches out because it's against his better judgment and his better judgment when it comes to relationship nervousness tends to be wrong, and holds her by the upper arms, turning her to face him.
"Minion told me what happened last time you had to use the A-12s," she says, staring at his chest rather than his face. Then she steps forward, into the circle of his arms, pulling the goggles off her head and putting them on the table so that she can push her nose into Megamind's shoulder, and whispers, "I've been worried sick."
Well that actually makes him feel a lot better. He probably shouldn't be grinning like an idiot, though, in case she looks at him anytime soon. He concentrates, and forces an appropriately somber expression onto his face. "Roxanne," he says. He says her name a lot, he realizes, and wonders if that's a bad thing or a good thing. "You didn't have to worry. I know what I'm doing."
"I know that, genius." Her voice is sharper than he'd expected, but he doesn't let her go and she doesn't step away. "Of course you knew what you were doing. You always know. You're you. But you aren't - you aren't Wayne, you're not, you're not invulnerable. I never had to worry about Wayne."
"You don't have to worry about me, either," he begins, telling himself that no, she does not mean that sometimes she wishes he were Wayne, that is just stupid, shut up.
"Yes I do," she snaps, cutting him off. "I do have to worry about you. Lord knows you won't worry about yourself. What if something happened to you? I don't want to lose you."
"Worrying won't help that," he points out, and wonders, bewildered, if this is going to turn into an argument. He really doesn't want it to turn into an argument. He hates arguing with Roxanne. And he's tired.
"I don't care!" She pushes him away a little, glares at him.
He starts to say something, then stops and decides to let it go. It's pointless, really. "I don't know what you want me to say," he admits, looking away. "I'm…sorry I made you worry."
Her glare turns into a gape, and her hands drop limply to her sides as the tension bleeds out of her. "I…" She shakes her head. "I just don't want you to get hurt."
Huh. Apparently that had been the right thing to say, after all. He wishes he knew whether it was the 'I don't know' that had done it or the 'I'm sorry,' for future reference. "Look, I wasn't even involved in any of the shooting," he tells her. "I went in, got Max, and then got the hell out of Dodge."
Roxanne sighs. "I guess that's something. I shouldn't have snapped at you, I'm sorry, you probably didn't need that."
He half-smiles, shakes his head. "It's fine. Don't worry about it."
She glances away, drums her fingers on the table, purses her lips, and then looks back up at him with a mischievous grin dancing around the corners of her mouth. "Let me make it up to you?"
"I just told you, don't-"
She hooks a finger in his collar and yanks him forward, turning her head so that she can kiss him. Their teeth clack together painfully, and they both yelp and jerk reflexively away. "Ow," Roxanne mumbles, rubbing her lip.
"Sorry," Megamind says, then flinches when she pokes him in the forehead.
"It was my fault, doofus."
Megamind chuckles. "Oh, I'm a doofus, huh?" he begins, raising an eyebrow playfully and rolling his eyes. Then he notices something and stops, frowning. "…I don't think I recognize this table."
She shrugs, looking suddenly embarrassed. "Yeah, it's…probably not very good, I mean, it's stable and all but I've never made one before and I wish I'd thought to include brakes on the wheels."
He turns and stares at her in total shock, and she takes in his stunned expression and swallows. She fumbles, stammers, tries to explain. "I, I tried pushing three tables together but it was just too awkward, and I kept losing things in the cracks and having to go after them and it just wasn't working…"
"You made a work table?" he asks, his voice high with surprise. The odd shape means she had to have cut it out of scrap metal before assembling the parts. He puts his hands flat on the table on either side of him, pushes down a few times, testing its stability. It rolls a little, but doesn't rock or bump.
"The brainbots helped -"
"And these?" Megamind interrupts. He picks up the goggles. They're standard work goggles, he has several pairs, but the right-hand side bears several small metal arms inexpertly welded to the side of the frame. Each arm is attached to a wire-rimmed lens so that the whole set looks like a really bizarre, heavy-duty pair of jeweler's eyeglasses.
Roxanne stammers some more. "Well, I…my eyes aren't like yours, I'm no good with tiny details, but I couldn't wear reading glasses over those things, so I…I modified them."
Megamind is aware that his mouth is hanging open but doesn't bother doing anything about it. "Modified. You built - you built things?" he says, totally dumbfounded as it finally sinks in. "You built things in my Lair?"
It's a compliment - the very highest she could possibly have given him, and he's so surprised and pleased and tickled that he's having a hard time expressing himself. Roxanne has…she's built things using his equipment, his parts, without help from him or Minion. She's comfortable enough with him to impose on him for things, and comfortable enough in his Lair to use what's in it on her own.
He knows that the grin he feels rising is going to be completely stupid, and he has to turn around so that Roxanne won't see his face.
She's not just hanging around at the Lair because that's where he usually is - she could easily have gone home tonight; he wouldn't have been offended at all. But she came back to the Lair instead, and stayed there even after Minion had gone. She stayed at the Lair because she wanted to stay there.
She's still talking. "I'm…I'm sorry, you weren't around and I guess I just didn't think…I didn't think you'd mind, and I…"
"Shut up," he says.
"Wh-what?"
He looks around at her, eyes shining. "Shut up," he says again, and lets out a few breaths of wheezy laughter just before he leaps into the air and spins. Roxanne jumps back. "Look at this look at this!" Megamind cries, running his hands over the table. "This is insane! It's brilliant! Everything's right within reach and is this surface concave?"
He grabs a roll of wire, pulls a piece straight, and lays it across the side of the table nearest him. There's a very small downward curve, only a couple millimeters deep in the middle, but still, he wouldn't have thought of doing that. "Oh my heavens it is. Nothing's going to roll off! Oh and look look look you only used three main legs and a bunch of supports so it's gonna be stable on any surface. I mean, yeah, there's no way to lock the wheels yet but we can easily fix that. Roxanne, you are a genius!"
She's staring at him, starting to smile. "So you're not…upset?"
"Upset?" He shakes his head wildly, beaming at her. "Why would I be - no, darling - no, no, I am not upset. And the goggles!" He seizes them, holds them in front of his eyes so he doesn't have to readjust the band, then ducks around Roxanne so that he can peer at the switchboard of the brainbot she had been working on. "I can see everything! I can see all the - wait, what did - how did you -" His ecstatic tone drops to one of astonished confusion. "This is Nibs, how the hey did you do this?"
Holding the goggles in place with one hand, he takes a tiny screwdriver and nudges a few wires to the side, inspecting the connections. The workmanship is close to perfect, and his eyes go wide as he realizes what Roxanne is trying to do to the elderly brainbot.
He puts the goggles down on the table and straightens. "You've. You've given Nibs decision-making capabilities." And extended its capacity for cognitive reasoning way beyond any of the others'. The brainbots all have three switchboards stacked one above the other under the floors of their domes - Roxanne has added a fourth level.
"I've been working on this for almost a month," she admits. "I just finished, all I need to do now is get Minion to look at it and make sure it's okay, then reassemble him and see if it works. It took me a while to grasp the fundamentals of how the brainbots' hardware mirrors their software, but Minion's been explaining things and double-checking my work. I wanted to surprise you."
Megamind turns to face her. His green eyes are shining, but his voice is serious. "Roxanne, I don't think you understand exactly how complex this is. You're not only increasing Nibs' capacity for artificial intelligence, you're expanding it as well. You were probably going off of one of the newer brainbots' switchboards as a base, yes?"
"Wren's, yes."
"But this isn't Wren's - this is totally in keeping with Nibs' directives," he says slowly.
"Of course," she replies. She smiles. "Wren is a security brainbot. You built Nibs to be one of your helpers. Of course the two wouldn't have the same design."
Megamind doesn't bother explaining further. He doesn't tell her that after this, Nibs' upgrades will have to apply to Nibs alone. The way she's rewired the brainbot's circuitry and added a fourth switchboard is not the way he normally does hardware upgrades - this is all Roxanne. And it'll work. And all Megamind can do is stare at the woman in front of him and think of how smart she is and how badly he wants her.
"I'm not sure I can re-program him, though," she says, but he holds up a hand.
"You won't have to. What you've done here is extended its original hardware, looped a few paths, and switched one or two of the blocks. After it comes back online, Nibs is going to upgrade itself."
"Is that a good thing?"
"It's incredible," Megamind tells her. He steps forward and puts a hand behind her head, pulls her in, kisses her helplessly. She tastes like fire and smoke. "You are just," kiss, "the most incredible," kiss, "thing that's ever happened to me," kiss. He buries his nose in her hair. "I can't believe you actually did all this," he murmurs. "You're brilliant."
Roxanne, for her part, is still very confused. Megamind hardly ever initiates physical relations between the two of them, although he's getting better about it. And she had been worried for a while that he was mad at her for using his tools without asking, but then he'd exploded into one of his enthusiastic micro-rants and he'd been looking at her like she was something truly amazing instead of just some human woman who happens to be good with little things. She might not be able to read people the way he can, but she can tell that he is genuinely and completely happy about what she's done. She isn't sure why he's so pleased, but she figures it doesn't matter too much.
It's the way he touches her, the careless placement of one hand on her hip and the other on her shoulder with one thumb resting against the base of her throat, that make her glow a tiny bit inside. Initially, every move Megamind had made was calculated, tentative, hesitant. That was how Roxanne had known just how much she meant to him, because he had been so shy about touching her at all in the beginning.
Given his background, she couldn't really blame him. Now, though, it's different. Now, when they're together, Megamind is almost always touching her in some way or other - holding her hand or her arm, curling beside her on the sofa or in bed, trailing a hand across her shoulders as he passes by. She rarely reciprocates - it's not in her nature to be touchy-feely, and before she got into this Thing with Megamind, physical displays of affection had actually made her sort of uncomfortable - but she's starting to do it more often. Every time she leans over his shoulder to see what he's working on and rests a hand on his back he gets this adorable little grin that won't go away, and she likes making him look like that.
She puts her hands on his narrow waist and smiles. "You're pretty incredible too, you know."
"Well, I know that, but you, you just…" He shakes his head.
"Food, you two!" Minion sounds like he's calling from halfway down the hall, and Roxanne snorts. Minion has recently started announcing his presence before entering rooms.
Roxanne raises her eyebrows. "Food?" she asks him.
"Food," he agrees. "I am starving."
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'Food' is leftover cold chicken from the refrigerator, cheese, crackers, and bread. There's balsamic vinegar and olive oil with the bread, which Roxanne and Minion are both fond of but Megamind detests.
"It's greasy," he complains when Roxanne offers to share.
"Oily, sir," Minion corrects him.
"It's gross," Megamind says flatly. "And you're a fish. Bread I can understand, but...why do you like it with oil?"
It does seem more trouble than it's worth; Minion has to swim to the top of his bowl and drop the bread into his mouth so that it doesn't get wet. "It tastes good," he insists, wiping his metal fingers on a napkin. "And the texture is different. Plain dry bread feels weird. It needs something to dampen it a little."
Megamind scoffs and returns to his chicken.
"So, I'm confused," Roxanne says after a pause. "Why didn't you get involved in any of the shooting?"
"My job was to go in, retrieve Max, and get him home safely," Megamind tells her. "The police officers with me came in after me and took the 'nappers by surprise while Lancaster and his boys distracted them with a frontal assault."
Roxanne blinks. He had mentioned Lancaster earlier, when he had been talking to Minion, but she hadn't been sure if… "That wouldn't be the Duke of Lancaster, would it?"
"That's the one. May I have the cheese, please? Thanks."
"You're friends with the Duke of Lancaster." She stares at the man across from her, floored for the second time that day. First shipwrecked treasure and Enron, and now he has mob connections? Mob connections that are apparently so strong that he can phone a friend and get the boss of one of Metro City's major crime syndicates to personally come down and provide backup in a random rescue attempt?
"Well, I wouldn't call him a friend. But I've known him for years, and I do trust him, to an extent." He glances up, blinks at her stunned expression, then laughs. "Oh, no, I get it. No, it's not like that - the guys who kidnapped Max also shot one of Lancaster's men earlier tonight."
Roxanne forces herself to just nod and go along with it, because she really shouldn't be surprised. "Okay," she says slowly, "so why didn't you go back and help after you made sure Max was safe?"
His expression sours. "He brought Sundown with him."
Minion chokes. "Sir!"
Megamind shakes his head. "I know. That's why I didn't put up much resistance when you said we should leave. The last thing I want is Sundown knowing exactly where to find someone."
Roxanne frowns. "Wait, who's Sundown?"
"The closest thing to a vigilante you're likely to ever actually meet," he replies. "Trouble is he's also a psychopath."
She makes a dubious face.
"No, seriously," Megamind says, interpreting her doubtful expression correctly. "The man is a psychopath. Luckily, he tends not to bother with little things like this, but…" He shakes his head again and sighs. "He's a good man to have on your side in a fight. But he's just plain dangerous. Honestly, I don't know what Lancaster sees in him."
"So he works with Lancaster?"
"He's the Duke's right-hand man," Minion tells her. "He has been for years. We thought he was killed a couple years ago, but I guess he's just been hiding." He frowns as he looks at Megamind. "From now on, I'm not going to believe anyone is dead until I see a body."
Megamind half-smiles. "That would seem safest. Anyway, I'll just swing by the police station tomorrow. I lent Jones my gun."
"Did you find out what they wanted with Max?"
Megamind shakes his head. "No, I didn't. Which is another reason why I want to go see the kidnappers. Vee haf vays of making them talk." He frowns down at his plate. "All right, so, tomorrow. Plan. Sleep now, wake up, watch you put Nibs back together," he says to Roxanne, "then go pay some criminals a visit. Should be fun."
Minion blinks at him. "You're actually going to sleep, Sir?"
Megamind rolls his eyes. "Minion, after the day I've had, I'm going to sleep like a rock."
Roxanne laughs, but later, when they're alone, Megamind takes his time making sure that she will sleep deeply as well. Tangled around one another, both of them remain oblivious to the sirens wailing across town in the dead of night.
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They rise early the next morning and go straight to work - Roxanne is excited to see if her upgrades work the way she wants them to, and Megamind is just excited in general. He usually is.
Putting Nibs back together takes nearly two hours. They have to make sure the switchboards and wiring are clean, then assemble those in line with the brainbot's power cell. Roxanne, it turns out, had made a complete upgrade with help from Minion, even going so far as to find a clear dome for the bot to replace its old opaque one. It has to be hermetically sealed into place with the help of a machine that Megamind has affectionately named 'Hoover.'
It's seven o'clock when Nibs' eyestalk finally flickers to life, and eight o'clock by the time its consciousness is fully uploaded into the new chassis. It blinks a few times and hums. Roxanne puts down her book.
"Megamind!" she calls over her shoulder. "Megamind, he's back up!" She turns excitedly back to Nibs. "Nibs? Hey, little guy, you still with me?"
Thaum, says Nibs, lifting off the table and hovering. It blinks again. Blinking is new.
"I made you some new hardware," Roxanne tells it. She feels almost nervous, although she supposes that's sort of ridiculous. "I, um. I hope you don't mind. Do you feel all right?"
Nibs looks at her. She smiles hopefully. Nibs wishes it could smile back.
Something feels different. It curves its eyestalk down - that's new, too, it hadn't been able to do that before - and sees a pair of five-clawed arms. Slowly, it flexes its new hands, marking which movements control which fingers. Still more slowly, it lifts one hand and splays its fingers, dipping the middle one towards itself before flicking its wrist away. Then it turns its other hand up, touches the front of its dome with the first hand before bringing the back of that hand down into the palm of the upturned one. Thaum.
Roxanne blinks. "Um…"
Megamind walks into the room with a plate of doughnuts just in time to see Nibs do it again. "Holy moly," he says, stopping dead in his tracks and staring. "What is with people and signing these days? Sorry, Nibs, I'm a little rusty. What was that, again?"
Nibs looks at him. FEEL GOOD, it blinks, and Megamind nearly drops his plate of doughnuts. DIFFERENT. GOOD. THINK IS GOOD. THINK CAN FEEL IS WEIRD AND GOOD. I HAVE OPINIONS!
Megamind stares harder. It's a wonder his eyes don't fall out of his head. "When did you learn Morse code?"
COULDN'T BLINK BEFORE. WAS ANNOYING AS HELL YOU KNOW.
Megamind fumbles for his chair, never taking his eyes off the floating brainbot. "It's talking. And it's using intensifiers."
YES THAT IS WEIRD TOO. IS THIS THE INTERNET? HELLO, INTERNET! Thauuuuuummmm.
Megamind sits for a minute with his hand over his mouth and his eyes wide.
"What's he saying?" Roxanne asks eventually, and he jumps.
"Oh, it…it says it feels good. Different, but good. And that the ability to think is weird. And it apparently has opinions, and it likes having the ability to blink. It also just said hello to the internet."
"Oh," she says, a trifle uncertainly. "Do you think adding the wireless card was a bad idea, then?"
Megamind shakes his head just as Nibs starts blinking again, just two letters over and over.
"What's it saying now?"
"Um," says Megamind, starting to smile. "'Lol.' A lot."
LOLOLOLOLOLOL thauuuum.
"I think it likes the wireless card," Roxanne murmurs.
I LOVE THE WIRELESS CARD. THANK YOU FOR THE WIRELESS CARD.
Megamind grins. "I think so too. It -"
He cuts off abruptly as Minion appears in the doorway, the newspaper clutched in both hands as if he's forgotten he's holding it. "Has either of you seen today's front page?" His voice is low and tight, and he isn't smiling. He almost looks pale, if a fish can be pale. Roxanne, who had been laughing, doesn't hear Minion at first.
Megamind does, though, and at the look on Minion's face he tears the newspaper out of his hands, rips it almost in half. He takes one look and then goes white. Nibs swoops over to float behind him, blinking curiously at the newspaper.
Megamind is pretty sure that he's never had a good mood crash and burn so spectacularly before, ever.
Minion swallows. "You need to go see Wayne."
And that's when Roxanne goes to full alert. Minion has just called Metro Man by his given name, and he never does that. As far as the little fish is concerned, Wayne is merely "the superhero," "Metro Man," or, sometimes, when he's in an exceptionally good mood, "Scott." And Megamind is nodding, pale-faced and shaky.
Minion's gold gaze flicks briefly to Roxanne. "Both of you," he stresses. "Both of you need to go see Wayne. Right now. Go."
Roxanne gently extricates the newspaper from Megamind's numb fingers. Halfway down the page is a small headline about a bomb scare in South Korea, but the block letters at the top of the page read: Fire rages out of control at Scott mansion: Lady Scott in critical condition. "Oh," she breathes. "Oh, god, no." Then, "What about you? Aren't you coming?"
Minion only presses his lips together and shakes his head.
"Lord Scott is dead," Megamind says tonelessly, and Roxanne stares at him.
"What?"
Thaaaaaaum?
"Third line."
Roxanne scans the article frantically. "Oh god," she says again. It's all she can think of to say.
Megamind's brain is slowly beginning to turn again, and he looks up at Minion. "Would he even want us to come?" he asks, as if he's afraid to hear the answer. Minion looks at him as if he's sprouted a second head.
"Sir, try to imagine for a moment, and if you can't do that, try to remember." Minion's voice is unexpectedly terse, and his arms are folded across his chest. It's a defensive stance, scornful almost, and Roxanne says nothing, barely moves, barely breathes. This is a side of Minion she has never seen, had not even guessed existed - it is sharp, and wound tight as the strings of a violin. Tighter. "If you had just lost your parents, would you want to see anyone?"
"I would want to be as close to you as possible," Megamind says softly, and Minion nods, his expression ruthless. Nibs puts a claw on Megamind's shoulder.
"I know. I remember. You had me, Sir, and I had you. And we didn't want anybody else." Megamind nods. Minion does not like what he's about to say next. "But he doesn't have that." He swallows again, struggles for a minute, and Roxanne can see the exact instant that the violin strings snap with a twang. "His father is dead, his mother may be dying. You are all he has. Go. Now." And then his face sort of crumples and he turns it quickly away. Nibs floats up to him and pats Minion's dome a few times, its metal hand clinking sharply against the glass before it turns and flies quickly away.
Roxanne is deeply, deeply confused - Wayne's pain should not be affecting Minion, of all people, at least not like this - but she isn't about to say anything. She can ask questions later.
Megamind nods woodenly and turns towards the garage where the invisible car is kept. But then he pauses, and turns back around, and does something that Roxanne had not expected and has never seen before: he steps towards Minion and stretches both arms out and up, straining towards the dome, looking very much like a child asking to be held. And Minion complies, picking his master up as if he weighs nothing at all, and Megamind wraps his arms around the dome and pushes his forehead against it. Whatever bond exists between them has never been clearer, and for a moment, Roxanne is on the outside looking in on something very private and painful, something she does not understand and cannot hope to.
Then Minion stretches a hand towards her, and Megamind does the same, and she steps forward and is pulled into the tightest hug she's ever been part of, one arm wrapped around Megamind and the other around Minion's dome, with one each of their arms likewise around her. Roxanne's mind is spinning. What is going on?
Then Minion sets them gently back down on the ground. "We'll be back soon," Megamind says firmly.
Minion nods. "I'll be in the pool when you get back."
Megamind pauses. "…All our tanks are at 3000 PSI?" he asks, and Minion smiles a little.
"Of course, Sir. Always."
Megamind half-smiles. "You're the best." He glances at Roxanne. "Have you ever used a respirator?"
Taken aback, for a moment she can only gape at him. "You mean, like with scuba?" She shakes her head. "No, I haven't. Why…?"
He nods once, decisive. "It isn't hard. We'll teach you."
"Sir," Minion says, and Megamind jumps.
"Right, yes, going now. You'll be all right?"
"I'll be fine, Sir."
Megamind blinks, nods again, then wheels around and heads for the garage at a dead run. Roxanne turns to run after him, but Minion's hand on her shoulder stops her. "He's bringing the car around," the fish tells her, and she doesn't ask how he knows.
"I should…I should go outside and wait for him," Roxanne says numbly.
Thau-aum, says Nibs as it reappears, and Roxanne jumps. The brainbot is holding her coat out for her, ready to help her on with it. Megamind's jacket and pumpkin scarf are tossed over Nibs' dome.
Roxanne shrugs into the coat, and Nibs settles it on her shoulders and puts a grey silk scarf she hasn't seen before over her head, tying it deftly under her chin and then buttoning her coat up over the ends faster than blinking. The advantage to having a brainbot do these things for her is that she can walk quickly towards the entrance to the Lair as Nibs is working.
When Roxanne opens the door and doesn't see the car, she turns towards Minion with a question in her eyes. He sighs.
"We don't…I don't like Metro Man and I never have, but he's like us. We share a birthday. We share a star system. His life has been tangled up with ours from day eight." He hesitates, swallows. Roxanne hears the car starting, the rumble of a garage door rising. "We've all lost our parents, and that's still… painful, sometimes, for Sir and me, because we remember. And we - Sir, especially - wouldn't wish it on anyone else."
There's more, Roxanne knows, but that's when the invisible car screeches to a halt beside them and Megamind leans across the front seat, throws the passenger door open. Roxanne looks up at Minion as Nibs hands her Megamind's coat and scarf.
"Go," Minion says again, and Roxanne goes.
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