Fic: Cold Fusion, Chapter 6
Title: Cold Fusion, Chapter 6
Author: Dal Niente
Rating: T
Word Count: 4,498
Author's Note: The science mentioned in this chapter is a combination of real possibilities and pseudoscience. Cold fusion is a controversial subject in certain circles, and from what I've read, muon fusion is possible but difficult and extremely inefficient because of the rarity of the necessary particles. Any names and laws are totally made-up. Now with fanTAStic art by the wonderful massivelyminute!
Chapter 6
Megamind knows it is 5:27 AM on Tuesday without having to open his eyes. He knows that he still hurts a little despite the fact that his ribs have knit and his muscles are no longer torn. He knows he is not in Evil Lair, and he knows he is not in Metro Jail. Wherever he is has almost-silent central air conditioning - recently repaired, judging by the lack of irregularity in the faint hum - and smells of shampoo and cut grass.
Regarding where he is, that is the sum total of what he knows at this point in time. It isn’t much to go on.
He inhales experimentally, wiggles his toes.
Whatever he is lying on is soft, and he spends nearly six whole seconds trying to figure out what it is. He establishes fairly quickly that it is a bed and that he is lying on the left-hand side, but if the mattress is a box spring it is probably covered in several layers of feathers. Possibly that memory-foam stuff. Possibly both.
He frowns, prods at the mattress with the fingers of his left hand because his right feels inexplicably heavy, moving as little as possible and keeping his eyes closed.
Scratch that. Definitely both.
Okay, what is he wearing? It is not his suit, that’s for sure, although without moving around more he won’t be able to tell what it is.
Last to come to his attention - and that annoys him, because really, it should have been first - is that, holy god, there is someone in the bed with him. That is almost enough to send him scrambling for higher ground, but he stays where he is with an effort and rolls his head to the right. And opens his eyes.
Dark, he thinks, and then, Oh, yes, very astute, “dark.” Well done, super-genius. It’s 5:27AM and you’re indoors; of course it’s going to be dark.
Sarcasm aside, he is in a soft bed in a dark place with central air, and it doesn’t quite smell like a hotel room. It smells lived-in. It actually smells familiar, and his nostrils flare briefly as he tries to place it before he finally decides he’s had enough. He rolls his head to the other side, noting that there is something scratchy on the back of his neck and it feels weird, and waves his hand around until it hits something. Ah-ha, he thinks. Desk lamp.
He pulls the cord, making sure to muffle the ch-click as best he can. He blinks as his eyes adjust to the sudden light (energy saving bulb, 12-watt, and he doesn’t have to think about how he knows it), then squints at what looks like a large knife on the side table. Yes, it’s definitely a knife. He shrugs inwardly, then pulls the scratchy thing out from under his neck.
It looks like a stuffed…dog? Is it a dog? If it is, it’s a very old, very well-loved one. One-eyed and ragged, the way it sticks its tongue out at him strikes him as being very cheeky.
This is weird.
And then he tips his head back over and looks to his right again, and that is when the weird factor skyrockets, goes through the roof, because that is Roxanne lying next to him, close against his side without actually touching, all curvy and soft and sleepy and warm, and the reason his right hand won’t move is that she’s got hold of it.
He snaps his head back to its original position, unaware that his grip on the stuffed thing is white-knuckled and he is clutching it to his aching chest.
This is exactly how I want to start the next chapter of my life, he thinks. With a panic attack and eleven million questions.
He doesn’t mind the ‘waking up next to Roxanne’ bit. That is actually rather pleasant once the initial shock wears off a little, and he thinks he wouldn’t mind maybe getting used to it before he remembers that there is no chance of that happening at all, ever.
Well.
A very small chance. He is in her bed. Presumably she is the one who put him there.
5:29 AM. What is the last thing he remembers? Ah, yes, the detox chamber, dictating that ridiculous letter to Nibs because he thought he remembered she was fond of Nibs, and thinking how very awkward he sounds - not like himself at all, so disorganized and almost rambling, and she’s going to hate me for this so he added that part about how to call off the brainbots.
Did he apologize? He can’t remember, and that unsettles him. He is accustomed to being able to remember quite literally everything. He remembers he had meant to. Well, even if he did, he probably ought to again. Several times.
And then it is 5:30 and everything is shrieking and loud and he bolts upright with a scream.
“Ow,” Roxanne yelps, “ow, stoppit,” and Megamind realizes he is crushing her hand. Another mortified noise escapes him and he almost flings her hand away, and then he freezes because now he’s hurt her physically and he is just sleep-muddled and disoriented enough to think that hurting Roxanne even by accident will bring on the end of the world. Roxanne flips over and bats frantically at her alarm clock, and for a few more seconds, all is just absolute chaos.
Finally she simply rips the damned thing out of the wall and flings it across the room. It lands in a pile of extra blankets and pillows with a muffled thump, and finally, finally the room is silent.
Megamind is still frozen, but he is sitting up and his thin chest is heaving and his eyes are open - okay, they’re like saucers and he’s staring straight ahead, but still, he’s awake. His right hand is outflung and Mars is dangling from his left, and the tendons in his neck stand out like whipchord.
A flutter of motion, and suddenly Mars is in his right hand and extended towards Roxanne, who is lying propped up on one elbow. Other than that, he hasn’t moved. Slowly, Roxanne takes Mars, and as soon as Megamind feels a tug his fingers snap open and he jerks his hand away as if he is afraid he will burn her.
A long, long minute passes.
“…Megamind?”
He shudders like a machine cranking to life, then squeezes his eyes shut and rubs one hand over the side of his face, forces himself to relax a little.
“Ow,” he says hoarsely, and Roxanne immediately sits up.
“What? What hurts?”
“Everything,” he mutters. Is that his voice? That is not his voice. He clears his throat. “No, I’m okay. Just…surprised. I think.” There, that sounds better. “What was that?”
A hysterical little laugh bubbles out of her. “My alarm clock.”
He slumps, rubs both hands over his face. “Okay, first thing,” he mumbles, “I am building you a new alarm clock. One that doesn’t sound like a panic siren.”
“Oh, really? And who says you’re allowed to build me anything?” She had meant it to sound joking, but she’s tired and it falls short of the mark. Megamind stiffens for a moment, then nods.
“You’re right. Of course. I’m sorry. It isn’t worth much but I am sorry.”
“Yes, you said that.” She gazes at him for a moment. “Aside from everything hurting, how’s your structural integrity?”
He looks at her then, surprise written all over his features. “That’s kind of a clinical way to ask someone how he’s feeling, isn’t it?”
Her mouth quirks into an amused half-smile. “Maybe. I was just remembering Nibs’ data search for your medical background. Cross-reference structural integrity with blunt force trauma, or something like that.”
Megamind frowns, and realizes he is clutching the blankets in both white-knuckled fists. He releases them with a concentrated effort, smoothing them down with shaking hands that are very blue against the stark white of the sheet. “You tried to access my medical files?”
“This was before I got your note telling me not to worry.” Roxanne frowns right back, looking almost irritated. “Did you really, honestly think I wouldn’t worry if you disappeared for a week and a half?”
He shrugs. The movement pulls at his chest, but it doesn’t really hurt and he ignores it. “There didn’t seem to be any reason for you to.”
“News flash, genius,” she says, and those words might have sounded sarcastic coming from someone else, but from her it sounds almost like she’s trying to banter. “Friends worry about each other when they disappear. Especially after one of them has just been stepped on and punched by a guy with super-strength. You were worried about sending me a note?” She shakes her head. “I would have been angry if you hadn’t sent it.”
He frowns. “I thought it would seem pre-sump-toos of me.”
Roxanne’s lips twitch, but she says nothing about his pronunciation. “If I disappeared suddenly, would you worry?”
Megamind recoils. “Of course.”
She raises her eyebrows and gives her head a little shake, as if to say, well then.
“But you-” He cuts himself off before he can go any further. “Never mind.”
Roxanne doesn’t press him. For a moment, they sit in silence.
Then she is moving. She is moving towards him, and now she’s lying back down and pulling on the sleeve of his shirt and he is lying down too before he can think about it, and what is this?
“Seriously, now, how are your ribs? Are they still broken?”
“No, they just hurt a little. They probably won’t even do that, tomorrow.” He is amazed by how very calm he sounds. Like his old self, like nothing ever happened, but he can’t come up with a smart remark to save his life.
“Good,” says Roxanne, and presses herself along his side. Her face is against his neck.
“Um.”
“Is this okay?” she asks, and a little thrill runs through him when her breath ghosts over his neck and shoulder. Yes, this is okay. This is better than okay. He’s just woken up and he’s wildly confused but yes, this is better than okay.
“It’s fine.”
“Because I can move, if it bothers you. I didn’t exactly ask -”
“No!” He tries to cut off the rest of what he wants to say, and fails. “No, you’re fine. This is…unexpected, but no, it’s not unwelcome. Quite the opposite, in fact.” Why can’t he stop talking? He’s going to embarrass himself in a minute, and he clamps his mouth shut.
A few seconds tick by.
“Okay, you’re new to this, can I try something?”
Hesitantly, Megamind nods, and Roxanne lifts his arm up and squirms under it. And lies back down, right up against him, with her head on his shoulder, and his arm holding her against his side. “Is this okay?” she says again. “I don’t know about your collarbone…”
“I don’t have collarbones,” is the first thing out of his mouth, and he nearly kicks himself. Where had that come from?
Roxanne pauses. “Are you serious?”
“…No. I’m not,” Megamind admits, and now she’s laughing.
She is lying down with him, cuddling with him, and she is fully aware of who he is, and she is laughing. Never in a million years had he ever thought this would happen. He is afraid to move, almost, for fear she decides to get up and do whatever her alarm clock had been set for - work, probably - but after a minute or so he is beginning to cramp up and so he says, “Um. This is. But. Can I?”
Her only answer is to lift herself up a bit, so he shifts around for a half-second and bends a little into a more comfortable position. “Okay,” he says, hoping-yes, and she fits herself more securely against him and burrows back down into his shoulder.
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
After a minute of thrilled silence, Roxanne says, “Minion sleeps like a rock, doesn’t he?”
Megamind chuckles. “He does, that. I keep him on his toes so much that he tends to sleep extra deeply when he manages to catch a few hours. I keep telling him, he doesn’t have to stay up with me, I can take care of myself, but he never listens.” As he is speaking, one of his hands comes up to tentatively touch her hair. It happens quite by accident, and when he realizes what he’s doing he nearly shies away, but Roxanne hums and drapes an arm over his middle.
At some point, Megamind’s other arm, the one that was along Roxanne’s back, has ended up wrapped around her waist. He isn’t sure when that happened but she doesn’t seem upset by it, and Megamind decides right then and there that whatever is going to happen to him today can just go find someone else to happen to, because he is never moving again. Because this, right here, this is perfect.
The minutes tick by. He doesn’t have to count them. Roxanne’s head is heavy on his shoulder, and he bends his head a little and closes his eyes but wills himself to stay awake. He has to memorize how this feels, how she feels against him, because he cannot allow himself to hope this will happen a second time. He doesn’t dare.
He may have rescued her once, but he knows perfectly well she doesn’t owe him anything. Especially not for that. They might as well chalk it up towards an apology for kidnapping her all those times. And he had to get rid of Titan anyway. And her saying she looked back does not necessarily mean that all is forgiven, either - there is still the ‘who says you’re allowed to build me anything’ to consider, in addition to the ‘did you really think that I would ever be with you.’ The answer to that is still no, he didn’t, and no, he doesn’t.
But she’s making not hoping awfully difficult, wrapped around him like she is.
There is a tightness in his throat and chest that has nothing to do with his injuries, and he steels himself with an effort. He has to put an end to this, no matter how badly he wants to stay.
“Roxanne, what was your alarm clock set for?”
There’s a long pause, and then Roxanne heaves a sigh and sits up. “I have to go to work.”
“At 5:30 in the morning?”
She nods. “There’s a professor at Metro University who figures he’s worked out how to fix the problems with chemically-assisted nuclear reactions. Said he could meet with me at 6:30.”
Megamind outright stares at her. As sorry as he is that he is no longer holding her, he is almost equally relieved that here, at least, is something he knows about, something solid for him to hold onto in the midst of all the strangeness. “Chemically-assisted…cold fusion?” He sounds baffled. “Why would he bother?”
Roxanne stares back. “You’ve heard of this?”
“Of course I’ve ‘heard of it,’” Megamind replies scathingly, sitting up now as well. “But there’s no point in trying to figure it out, not unless you’re going to go all the way.” His lip curls, and Roxanne gets the distinct feeling that this is a bit of a sore spot for him. “Has this…professor sent you any kind of paper on the subject? A publication or a report?”
Another nod. “I read it through twice last night to get some ideas for the interview.”
Megamind raises his eyebrows. "And...?"
Roxanne shrugs. “Clear as mud. Something about three miracles?”
Megamind is really scowling now. “I want to read it.”
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
When Roxanne gets out of her shower, Megamind is nowhere to be seen. The grey pajamas are folded neatly at the foot of Roxanne’s bed, which has been made up. Shrugging, she puts on the clothes she had laid out last night, carefully chosen to play up today’s subject - a brown A-line skirt over a white button-up blouse, modestly sleeveless. Understated makeup, unobtrusive jewelry, closed-toed pumps. Not all reporters work along the same lines as Roxanne, but she tries to dress to match the stories she covers.
Megamind isn’t in the living room, either, and she wonders briefly if he just took the paper and left, but Minion is still fast asleep in the corner. Megamind wouldn’t leave without Minion.
She finds him sitting on her kitchen counter next to a bowl of dry Fruit Loops, with a badly-blackened piece of toast in one hand and the scientific journal in the other, horrified amusement etched all over his blue face. He is wearing his usual gear, but his feet are bare.
He sends a cursory glance her way when she walks in, then turns back to the journal. “You look like a schoolteacher.”
“Good,” she replies, “that’s what I was going for.”
Megamind blinks up again, momentarily puzzled before comprehension spreads over his features. “What…ah. Presentation. I approve,” and back he goes. The toast disappears behind the paper, and she hears crunching.
“Surely you aren’t actually eating that,” she says.
“Carbohydrates,” he says, holding up the toast, and then he nods at the Fruit Loops. “Sugar.”
She takes the eggs out of her refrigerator and a pan out of the cupboard. “Protein,” she tells him firmly. “If I make it, will you eat it?”
Megamind glances at her, green eyes bright with humor and something he’d rather not name, but she has turned towards the stove and doesn’t see. Perhaps that’s just as well. “If you make it,” he says as he goes back to the journal, “I will eat it.”
A few seconds later, he bursts out laughing. “Have you read this?”
Roxanne frowns, cracking eggs into the pan. “It sounded pretty dry to me.”
“Look,” says Megamind as he puts down the journal. “Ask him how he compensates for Draviadya’s Corollary to Phaeton’s Law. Just you ask him that. Because he’s using Uberwald’s Coefficient to support his hypothesis, and he makes no mention of Draviadya anywhere in here!” Megamind is waving the toast around like a conductor with a baton. “He also says he hopes to build a reactor in the near future to start producing energy for the university - all well and good, I say, but ask him this: How does he expect to contain the inevitable coronal mass ejection resulting from a kinetic energy overload of the circulating currents?”
Roxanne can only stare. Megamind’s face is lit up with laughter, and she is certain he’s speaking English, but she has no idea what he has just said. “I can’t ask him that.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know what it means.”
Megamind curls one leg under him and turns his body towards her so he doesn’t have to crane his head around. “Here’s the thing. I very much doubt he got this news coverage through any valid scientific merit. This Anderson fellow is a comparatively young guy, only in his mid-thirties, with no doctorate and no major recognition in the scientific community as of yet.” He takes another bite of the sad-looking toast and munches enthusiastically before continuing, shedding crumbs everywhere. “He probably got your coverage by throwing around terms like ‘viable alternative source of fuel’ and ‘green energy’ and ‘low budget.’ Probably called your station directly, am I right? Of course I’m right.”
Roxanne raises and lowers one shoulder. Her boss had said, ‘call this guy,’ so she’d called the guy and set up a time for an interview.
Megamind takes the shrug as an indication that he’s correct. “Okay, listen to me. What he wants to do is not build a cold-fusion reactor. He abandoned that fairly early in the report - I don’t know why, it’s certainly an admirable pursuit and once you hammer out the kinks you can’t do much better than cold fusion - but based on his discussion, he wants to recreate the conditions found on the surface of Earth’s sun. The problem with that goal is that those specific conditions are supported by the conditions inside the sun.”
The eggs are beginning to congeal in the pan. Roxanne has never bothered to learn the art of frying, and she scootches them absently around with a plastic spatula. She has ruined enough Teflon frying pans to know not to use metal. “So it won’t work.”
But Megamind shakes his head. “No, that’s the problem, it could work. Assuming he has a source of magnetic energy strong enough to serve as a containment field, as he proposes - and I would dearly love to see him try to contain this with magnets - it could work beautifully for a period of about three years, at which point the circulating currents would overload and his reactor would fail with a magnificent bang.” He blows out his cheeks and throws his hands in the air. The toast breaks in half and goes flying.
“Poof!” he cries. “No more Eastern Seaboard.”
Roxanne glances sideways at him, trying not to laugh. “Do I detect the voice of experience behind that statement?”
Megamind’s eyes go huge. “Absolutely not.” He hops down from the counter to search for the other half of his toast. “I’m not foolish enough to go tinkering around with what’s inside stars. I use a combination of cold and muon-catalyzed fusion.”
“Muon…catalyzed?” Roxanne has heard cold fusion mentioned in b-movies, but she is very sure she’s never heard of a muon in her life.
Megamind grimaces, bright green eyes flicker-flicking over the hardwood floor. “Don’t…don’t mention that to the press? I use it to power the lab and I don’t want a bunch of nuclear physicists banging on my door day and night demanding to know how I’ve managed to collect enough muons to make the process feasible. Excuse me.” Roxanne skips to the side as Megamind drops to his hands and knees with hardly any warning. He locates the toast under the stove, and gives it up as a lost cause. No way is he going to eat that.
Roxanne shakes her head and scrapes the eggs onto two plates, then hands one of them to Megamind when he stands back up again. “You’re the expert.”
“That’s right, I am the expert.” He sounds and looks very gleefully self-satisfied, and Roxanne can’t help but return the half-manic grin he sends her. “I just don’t want anybody else thinking they are. Do you have any ketchup?”
She gives it to him and watches as he squirts an unholy amount onto his plate and mixes it around with the back of his fork. Roxanne does not eat ketchup with her eggs and has always been very slightly judgmental of those who do, but Megamind is just so enthusiastic about it that it doesn’t even matter. It’s grossly adorable, in a way.
I am standing in my kitchen, eating breakfast with a blue formerly-criminal mastermind and chatting about particle physics at six o’clock in the morning. I am in a universe where that is actually happening.
After a while, she clears her throat. “So, what was it you wanted me to ask him?”
Megamind waves the question aside and continues to inhale his breakfast. “It’s okay, you won’t remember it. Too many big words.”
Roxanne raises an eyebrow. Part of being a good reporter is having an outstanding memory, and Roxanne is no exception. Add that to the list of things to thank Ms. Krishnan for, she thinks ruefully. “Are you calling me stupid?”
Megamind chokes, then gulps reflexively, swallowing a mouthful of eggs before he’s really chewed them. “Ow. No. I’m just saying that these are very precise questions and they have to be worded correctly…” He trails off. Roxanne is staring straight at him, eyes narrowed, challenging him.
He is well-acquainted with Roxanne’s take-no-prisoners face. He sighs. “How does he compensate for Draviadya’s Corollary to Phaeton’s Law, and how does he expect to contain the inevitable coronal mass ejection resulting from a kinetic energy overload of the circulating currents mentioned on page 17?” He watches her lips move as she attempts to memorize this. “You can even tell him I’m the one who wants to know, if you aren’t comfortable asking.”
“We’ll see,” Roxanne replies. “All right, I’m going to go brush my teeth and then I’m off. If you need anything, help yourself. Will you be here when I come back?”
Megamind shakes his head. “Possibly, but I doubt it. I need to get back to the lair and see how things are progressing with the cleanup and rebuild.” A thought occurs suddenly; she can see it hit him. “And when someone asks - and someone will - tell them I’m only allowing the brainbots to repair damage I caused, directly and indirectly. Because those damages occurred due to a sudden and unexpected outside force, the brainbots’ assistance should not affect normal production levels and not have any lasting effects on the economy.”
She had known he would think of that. “Got it.” She heads towards the hallway, but his voice calls her back.
“Roxanne?”
She turns, then blinks. Something in Megamind’s face has changed slightly. For a moment, he looks almost awkward. Almost shy, if Megamind could be shy. Roxanne has to take a moment to place it before she realizes that it’s an expression she is accustomed to seeing on Bernard’s face.
The eyes are the same, though.
He ducks his head. “Thank you for letting me stay here.”
She smiles. “If you do end up leaving today, Minion has a key. You’re welcome to come back anytime if you need a break.”
Then she leaves, quickly, wondering what on Earth had possessed her to issue a standing invitation to Megamind. Not that it matters. She isn’t about to retract it.
Her words catch him by surprise, too - he sits frozen on her counter for a few seconds, staring after her. So she does want him in her life, to some degree. He knows her well enough by now to know sincerity when he hears it.
He can feel the goofy grin spreading over his face, but makes no attempt to stop it. He finishes his breakfast, scrubs his plate to within an inch of its life, and then goes to wake up Minion.
Chapter 5
Chapter 7
Author: Dal Niente
Rating: T
Word Count: 4,498
Author's Note: The science mentioned in this chapter is a combination of real possibilities and pseudoscience. Cold fusion is a controversial subject in certain circles, and from what I've read, muon fusion is possible but difficult and extremely inefficient because of the rarity of the necessary particles. Any names and laws are totally made-up. Now with fanTAStic art by the wonderful massivelyminute!
Chapter 6
Megamind knows it is 5:27 AM on Tuesday without having to open his eyes. He knows that he still hurts a little despite the fact that his ribs have knit and his muscles are no longer torn. He knows he is not in Evil Lair, and he knows he is not in Metro Jail. Wherever he is has almost-silent central air conditioning - recently repaired, judging by the lack of irregularity in the faint hum - and smells of shampoo and cut grass.
Regarding where he is, that is the sum total of what he knows at this point in time. It isn’t much to go on.
He inhales experimentally, wiggles his toes.
Whatever he is lying on is soft, and he spends nearly six whole seconds trying to figure out what it is. He establishes fairly quickly that it is a bed and that he is lying on the left-hand side, but if the mattress is a box spring it is probably covered in several layers of feathers. Possibly that memory-foam stuff. Possibly both.
He frowns, prods at the mattress with the fingers of his left hand because his right feels inexplicably heavy, moving as little as possible and keeping his eyes closed.
Scratch that. Definitely both.
Okay, what is he wearing? It is not his suit, that’s for sure, although without moving around more he won’t be able to tell what it is.
Last to come to his attention - and that annoys him, because really, it should have been first - is that, holy god, there is someone in the bed with him. That is almost enough to send him scrambling for higher ground, but he stays where he is with an effort and rolls his head to the right. And opens his eyes.
Dark, he thinks, and then, Oh, yes, very astute, “dark.” Well done, super-genius. It’s 5:27AM and you’re indoors; of course it’s going to be dark.
Sarcasm aside, he is in a soft bed in a dark place with central air, and it doesn’t quite smell like a hotel room. It smells lived-in. It actually smells familiar, and his nostrils flare briefly as he tries to place it before he finally decides he’s had enough. He rolls his head to the other side, noting that there is something scratchy on the back of his neck and it feels weird, and waves his hand around until it hits something. Ah-ha, he thinks. Desk lamp.
He pulls the cord, making sure to muffle the ch-click as best he can. He blinks as his eyes adjust to the sudden light (energy saving bulb, 12-watt, and he doesn’t have to think about how he knows it), then squints at what looks like a large knife on the side table. Yes, it’s definitely a knife. He shrugs inwardly, then pulls the scratchy thing out from under his neck.
It looks like a stuffed…dog? Is it a dog? If it is, it’s a very old, very well-loved one. One-eyed and ragged, the way it sticks its tongue out at him strikes him as being very cheeky.
This is weird.
And then he tips his head back over and looks to his right again, and that is when the weird factor skyrockets, goes through the roof, because that is Roxanne lying next to him, close against his side without actually touching, all curvy and soft and sleepy and warm, and the reason his right hand won’t move is that she’s got hold of it.
He snaps his head back to its original position, unaware that his grip on the stuffed thing is white-knuckled and he is clutching it to his aching chest.
This is exactly how I want to start the next chapter of my life, he thinks. With a panic attack and eleven million questions.
He doesn’t mind the ‘waking up next to Roxanne’ bit. That is actually rather pleasant once the initial shock wears off a little, and he thinks he wouldn’t mind maybe getting used to it before he remembers that there is no chance of that happening at all, ever.
Well.
A very small chance. He is in her bed. Presumably she is the one who put him there.
5:29 AM. What is the last thing he remembers? Ah, yes, the detox chamber, dictating that ridiculous letter to Nibs because he thought he remembered she was fond of Nibs, and thinking how very awkward he sounds - not like himself at all, so disorganized and almost rambling, and she’s going to hate me for this so he added that part about how to call off the brainbots.
Did he apologize? He can’t remember, and that unsettles him. He is accustomed to being able to remember quite literally everything. He remembers he had meant to. Well, even if he did, he probably ought to again. Several times.
And then it is 5:30 and everything is shrieking and loud and he bolts upright with a scream.
“Ow,” Roxanne yelps, “ow, stoppit,” and Megamind realizes he is crushing her hand. Another mortified noise escapes him and he almost flings her hand away, and then he freezes because now he’s hurt her physically and he is just sleep-muddled and disoriented enough to think that hurting Roxanne even by accident will bring on the end of the world. Roxanne flips over and bats frantically at her alarm clock, and for a few more seconds, all is just absolute chaos.
Finally she simply rips the damned thing out of the wall and flings it across the room. It lands in a pile of extra blankets and pillows with a muffled thump, and finally, finally the room is silent.
Megamind is still frozen, but he is sitting up and his thin chest is heaving and his eyes are open - okay, they’re like saucers and he’s staring straight ahead, but still, he’s awake. His right hand is outflung and Mars is dangling from his left, and the tendons in his neck stand out like whipchord.
A flutter of motion, and suddenly Mars is in his right hand and extended towards Roxanne, who is lying propped up on one elbow. Other than that, he hasn’t moved. Slowly, Roxanne takes Mars, and as soon as Megamind feels a tug his fingers snap open and he jerks his hand away as if he is afraid he will burn her.
A long, long minute passes.
“…Megamind?”
He shudders like a machine cranking to life, then squeezes his eyes shut and rubs one hand over the side of his face, forces himself to relax a little.
“Ow,” he says hoarsely, and Roxanne immediately sits up.
“What? What hurts?”
“Everything,” he mutters. Is that his voice? That is not his voice. He clears his throat. “No, I’m okay. Just…surprised. I think.” There, that sounds better. “What was that?”
A hysterical little laugh bubbles out of her. “My alarm clock.”
He slumps, rubs both hands over his face. “Okay, first thing,” he mumbles, “I am building you a new alarm clock. One that doesn’t sound like a panic siren.”
“Oh, really? And who says you’re allowed to build me anything?” She had meant it to sound joking, but she’s tired and it falls short of the mark. Megamind stiffens for a moment, then nods.
“You’re right. Of course. I’m sorry. It isn’t worth much but I am sorry.”
“Yes, you said that.” She gazes at him for a moment. “Aside from everything hurting, how’s your structural integrity?”
He looks at her then, surprise written all over his features. “That’s kind of a clinical way to ask someone how he’s feeling, isn’t it?”
Her mouth quirks into an amused half-smile. “Maybe. I was just remembering Nibs’ data search for your medical background. Cross-reference structural integrity with blunt force trauma, or something like that.”
Megamind frowns, and realizes he is clutching the blankets in both white-knuckled fists. He releases them with a concentrated effort, smoothing them down with shaking hands that are very blue against the stark white of the sheet. “You tried to access my medical files?”
“This was before I got your note telling me not to worry.” Roxanne frowns right back, looking almost irritated. “Did you really, honestly think I wouldn’t worry if you disappeared for a week and a half?”
He shrugs. The movement pulls at his chest, but it doesn’t really hurt and he ignores it. “There didn’t seem to be any reason for you to.”
“News flash, genius,” she says, and those words might have sounded sarcastic coming from someone else, but from her it sounds almost like she’s trying to banter. “Friends worry about each other when they disappear. Especially after one of them has just been stepped on and punched by a guy with super-strength. You were worried about sending me a note?” She shakes her head. “I would have been angry if you hadn’t sent it.”
He frowns. “I thought it would seem pre-sump-toos of me.”
Roxanne’s lips twitch, but she says nothing about his pronunciation. “If I disappeared suddenly, would you worry?”
Megamind recoils. “Of course.”
She raises her eyebrows and gives her head a little shake, as if to say, well then.
“But you-” He cuts himself off before he can go any further. “Never mind.”
Roxanne doesn’t press him. For a moment, they sit in silence.
Then she is moving. She is moving towards him, and now she’s lying back down and pulling on the sleeve of his shirt and he is lying down too before he can think about it, and what is this?
“Seriously, now, how are your ribs? Are they still broken?”
“No, they just hurt a little. They probably won’t even do that, tomorrow.” He is amazed by how very calm he sounds. Like his old self, like nothing ever happened, but he can’t come up with a smart remark to save his life.
“Good,” says Roxanne, and presses herself along his side. Her face is against his neck.
“Um.”
“Is this okay?” she asks, and a little thrill runs through him when her breath ghosts over his neck and shoulder. Yes, this is okay. This is better than okay. He’s just woken up and he’s wildly confused but yes, this is better than okay.
“It’s fine.”
“Because I can move, if it bothers you. I didn’t exactly ask -”
“No!” He tries to cut off the rest of what he wants to say, and fails. “No, you’re fine. This is…unexpected, but no, it’s not unwelcome. Quite the opposite, in fact.” Why can’t he stop talking? He’s going to embarrass himself in a minute, and he clamps his mouth shut.
A few seconds tick by.
“Okay, you’re new to this, can I try something?”
Hesitantly, Megamind nods, and Roxanne lifts his arm up and squirms under it. And lies back down, right up against him, with her head on his shoulder, and his arm holding her against his side. “Is this okay?” she says again. “I don’t know about your collarbone…”
“I don’t have collarbones,” is the first thing out of his mouth, and he nearly kicks himself. Where had that come from?
Roxanne pauses. “Are you serious?”
“…No. I’m not,” Megamind admits, and now she’s laughing.
She is lying down with him, cuddling with him, and she is fully aware of who he is, and she is laughing. Never in a million years had he ever thought this would happen. He is afraid to move, almost, for fear she decides to get up and do whatever her alarm clock had been set for - work, probably - but after a minute or so he is beginning to cramp up and so he says, “Um. This is. But. Can I?”
Her only answer is to lift herself up a bit, so he shifts around for a half-second and bends a little into a more comfortable position. “Okay,” he says, hoping-yes, and she fits herself more securely against him and burrows back down into his shoulder.
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
After a minute of thrilled silence, Roxanne says, “Minion sleeps like a rock, doesn’t he?”
Megamind chuckles. “He does, that. I keep him on his toes so much that he tends to sleep extra deeply when he manages to catch a few hours. I keep telling him, he doesn’t have to stay up with me, I can take care of myself, but he never listens.” As he is speaking, one of his hands comes up to tentatively touch her hair. It happens quite by accident, and when he realizes what he’s doing he nearly shies away, but Roxanne hums and drapes an arm over his middle.
At some point, Megamind’s other arm, the one that was along Roxanne’s back, has ended up wrapped around her waist. He isn’t sure when that happened but she doesn’t seem upset by it, and Megamind decides right then and there that whatever is going to happen to him today can just go find someone else to happen to, because he is never moving again. Because this, right here, this is perfect.
The minutes tick by. He doesn’t have to count them. Roxanne’s head is heavy on his shoulder, and he bends his head a little and closes his eyes but wills himself to stay awake. He has to memorize how this feels, how she feels against him, because he cannot allow himself to hope this will happen a second time. He doesn’t dare.
He may have rescued her once, but he knows perfectly well she doesn’t owe him anything. Especially not for that. They might as well chalk it up towards an apology for kidnapping her all those times. And he had to get rid of Titan anyway. And her saying she looked back does not necessarily mean that all is forgiven, either - there is still the ‘who says you’re allowed to build me anything’ to consider, in addition to the ‘did you really think that I would ever be with you.’ The answer to that is still no, he didn’t, and no, he doesn’t.
But she’s making not hoping awfully difficult, wrapped around him like she is.
There is a tightness in his throat and chest that has nothing to do with his injuries, and he steels himself with an effort. He has to put an end to this, no matter how badly he wants to stay.
“Roxanne, what was your alarm clock set for?”
There’s a long pause, and then Roxanne heaves a sigh and sits up. “I have to go to work.”
“At 5:30 in the morning?”
She nods. “There’s a professor at Metro University who figures he’s worked out how to fix the problems with chemically-assisted nuclear reactions. Said he could meet with me at 6:30.”
Megamind outright stares at her. As sorry as he is that he is no longer holding her, he is almost equally relieved that here, at least, is something he knows about, something solid for him to hold onto in the midst of all the strangeness. “Chemically-assisted…cold fusion?” He sounds baffled. “Why would he bother?”
Roxanne stares back. “You’ve heard of this?”
“Of course I’ve ‘heard of it,’” Megamind replies scathingly, sitting up now as well. “But there’s no point in trying to figure it out, not unless you’re going to go all the way.” His lip curls, and Roxanne gets the distinct feeling that this is a bit of a sore spot for him. “Has this…professor sent you any kind of paper on the subject? A publication or a report?”
Another nod. “I read it through twice last night to get some ideas for the interview.”
Megamind raises his eyebrows. "And...?"
Roxanne shrugs. “Clear as mud. Something about three miracles?”
Megamind is really scowling now. “I want to read it.”
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
When Roxanne gets out of her shower, Megamind is nowhere to be seen. The grey pajamas are folded neatly at the foot of Roxanne’s bed, which has been made up. Shrugging, she puts on the clothes she had laid out last night, carefully chosen to play up today’s subject - a brown A-line skirt over a white button-up blouse, modestly sleeveless. Understated makeup, unobtrusive jewelry, closed-toed pumps. Not all reporters work along the same lines as Roxanne, but she tries to dress to match the stories she covers.
Megamind isn’t in the living room, either, and she wonders briefly if he just took the paper and left, but Minion is still fast asleep in the corner. Megamind wouldn’t leave without Minion.
She finds him sitting on her kitchen counter next to a bowl of dry Fruit Loops, with a badly-blackened piece of toast in one hand and the scientific journal in the other, horrified amusement etched all over his blue face. He is wearing his usual gear, but his feet are bare.
He sends a cursory glance her way when she walks in, then turns back to the journal. “You look like a schoolteacher.”
“Good,” she replies, “that’s what I was going for.”
Megamind blinks up again, momentarily puzzled before comprehension spreads over his features. “What…ah. Presentation. I approve,” and back he goes. The toast disappears behind the paper, and she hears crunching.
“Surely you aren’t actually eating that,” she says.
“Carbohydrates,” he says, holding up the toast, and then he nods at the Fruit Loops. “Sugar.”
She takes the eggs out of her refrigerator and a pan out of the cupboard. “Protein,” she tells him firmly. “If I make it, will you eat it?”
Megamind glances at her, green eyes bright with humor and something he’d rather not name, but she has turned towards the stove and doesn’t see. Perhaps that’s just as well. “If you make it,” he says as he goes back to the journal, “I will eat it.”
A few seconds later, he bursts out laughing. “Have you read this?”
Roxanne frowns, cracking eggs into the pan. “It sounded pretty dry to me.”
“Look,” says Megamind as he puts down the journal. “Ask him how he compensates for Draviadya’s Corollary to Phaeton’s Law. Just you ask him that. Because he’s using Uberwald’s Coefficient to support his hypothesis, and he makes no mention of Draviadya anywhere in here!” Megamind is waving the toast around like a conductor with a baton. “He also says he hopes to build a reactor in the near future to start producing energy for the university - all well and good, I say, but ask him this: How does he expect to contain the inevitable coronal mass ejection resulting from a kinetic energy overload of the circulating currents?”
Roxanne can only stare. Megamind’s face is lit up with laughter, and she is certain he’s speaking English, but she has no idea what he has just said. “I can’t ask him that.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know what it means.”
Megamind curls one leg under him and turns his body towards her so he doesn’t have to crane his head around. “Here’s the thing. I very much doubt he got this news coverage through any valid scientific merit. This Anderson fellow is a comparatively young guy, only in his mid-thirties, with no doctorate and no major recognition in the scientific community as of yet.” He takes another bite of the sad-looking toast and munches enthusiastically before continuing, shedding crumbs everywhere. “He probably got your coverage by throwing around terms like ‘viable alternative source of fuel’ and ‘green energy’ and ‘low budget.’ Probably called your station directly, am I right? Of course I’m right.”
Roxanne raises and lowers one shoulder. Her boss had said, ‘call this guy,’ so she’d called the guy and set up a time for an interview.
Megamind takes the shrug as an indication that he’s correct. “Okay, listen to me. What he wants to do is not build a cold-fusion reactor. He abandoned that fairly early in the report - I don’t know why, it’s certainly an admirable pursuit and once you hammer out the kinks you can’t do much better than cold fusion - but based on his discussion, he wants to recreate the conditions found on the surface of Earth’s sun. The problem with that goal is that those specific conditions are supported by the conditions inside the sun.”
The eggs are beginning to congeal in the pan. Roxanne has never bothered to learn the art of frying, and she scootches them absently around with a plastic spatula. She has ruined enough Teflon frying pans to know not to use metal. “So it won’t work.”
But Megamind shakes his head. “No, that’s the problem, it could work. Assuming he has a source of magnetic energy strong enough to serve as a containment field, as he proposes - and I would dearly love to see him try to contain this with magnets - it could work beautifully for a period of about three years, at which point the circulating currents would overload and his reactor would fail with a magnificent bang.” He blows out his cheeks and throws his hands in the air. The toast breaks in half and goes flying.
“Poof!” he cries. “No more Eastern Seaboard.”
Roxanne glances sideways at him, trying not to laugh. “Do I detect the voice of experience behind that statement?”
Megamind’s eyes go huge. “Absolutely not.” He hops down from the counter to search for the other half of his toast. “I’m not foolish enough to go tinkering around with what’s inside stars. I use a combination of cold and muon-catalyzed fusion.”
“Muon…catalyzed?” Roxanne has heard cold fusion mentioned in b-movies, but she is very sure she’s never heard of a muon in her life.
Megamind grimaces, bright green eyes flicker-flicking over the hardwood floor. “Don’t…don’t mention that to the press? I use it to power the lab and I don’t want a bunch of nuclear physicists banging on my door day and night demanding to know how I’ve managed to collect enough muons to make the process feasible. Excuse me.” Roxanne skips to the side as Megamind drops to his hands and knees with hardly any warning. He locates the toast under the stove, and gives it up as a lost cause. No way is he going to eat that.
Roxanne shakes her head and scrapes the eggs onto two plates, then hands one of them to Megamind when he stands back up again. “You’re the expert.”
“That’s right, I am the expert.” He sounds and looks very gleefully self-satisfied, and Roxanne can’t help but return the half-manic grin he sends her. “I just don’t want anybody else thinking they are. Do you have any ketchup?”
She gives it to him and watches as he squirts an unholy amount onto his plate and mixes it around with the back of his fork. Roxanne does not eat ketchup with her eggs and has always been very slightly judgmental of those who do, but Megamind is just so enthusiastic about it that it doesn’t even matter. It’s grossly adorable, in a way.
I am standing in my kitchen, eating breakfast with a blue formerly-criminal mastermind and chatting about particle physics at six o’clock in the morning. I am in a universe where that is actually happening.
After a while, she clears her throat. “So, what was it you wanted me to ask him?”
Megamind waves the question aside and continues to inhale his breakfast. “It’s okay, you won’t remember it. Too many big words.”
Roxanne raises an eyebrow. Part of being a good reporter is having an outstanding memory, and Roxanne is no exception. Add that to the list of things to thank Ms. Krishnan for, she thinks ruefully. “Are you calling me stupid?”
Megamind chokes, then gulps reflexively, swallowing a mouthful of eggs before he’s really chewed them. “Ow. No. I’m just saying that these are very precise questions and they have to be worded correctly…” He trails off. Roxanne is staring straight at him, eyes narrowed, challenging him.
He is well-acquainted with Roxanne’s take-no-prisoners face. He sighs. “How does he compensate for Draviadya’s Corollary to Phaeton’s Law, and how does he expect to contain the inevitable coronal mass ejection resulting from a kinetic energy overload of the circulating currents mentioned on page 17?” He watches her lips move as she attempts to memorize this. “You can even tell him I’m the one who wants to know, if you aren’t comfortable asking.”
“We’ll see,” Roxanne replies. “All right, I’m going to go brush my teeth and then I’m off. If you need anything, help yourself. Will you be here when I come back?”
Megamind shakes his head. “Possibly, but I doubt it. I need to get back to the lair and see how things are progressing with the cleanup and rebuild.” A thought occurs suddenly; she can see it hit him. “And when someone asks - and someone will - tell them I’m only allowing the brainbots to repair damage I caused, directly and indirectly. Because those damages occurred due to a sudden and unexpected outside force, the brainbots’ assistance should not affect normal production levels and not have any lasting effects on the economy.”
She had known he would think of that. “Got it.” She heads towards the hallway, but his voice calls her back.
“Roxanne?”
She turns, then blinks. Something in Megamind’s face has changed slightly. For a moment, he looks almost awkward. Almost shy, if Megamind could be shy. Roxanne has to take a moment to place it before she realizes that it’s an expression she is accustomed to seeing on Bernard’s face.
The eyes are the same, though.
He ducks his head. “Thank you for letting me stay here.”
She smiles. “If you do end up leaving today, Minion has a key. You’re welcome to come back anytime if you need a break.”
Then she leaves, quickly, wondering what on Earth had possessed her to issue a standing invitation to Megamind. Not that it matters. She isn’t about to retract it.
Her words catch him by surprise, too - he sits frozen on her counter for a few seconds, staring after her. So she does want him in her life, to some degree. He knows her well enough by now to know sincerity when he hears it.
He can feel the goofy grin spreading over his face, but makes no attempt to stop it. He finishes his breakfast, scrubs his plate to within an inch of its life, and then goes to wake up Minion.
Chapter 5
Chapter 7