Fic: Cold Fusion: True North, Chapter 11
Title: Cold Fusion: True North, Chapter 11
Author: Dal_Niente
Rating: M for this chapter
Word Count: 6,718
Author's Note: This is a long chapter, almost twice as long as usual (is that a good or a bad thing? Thoughts?). Also (and on a not-entirely-unrelated note), please note that the fic’s rating has changed to M, and it isn’t due to character death or extreme profanity. If that’s…not your cup of tea, I guess just…read the first half? Or skip this chapter?
When I wrote Cold Fusion, I actually wrote Chapter 6 first. This chapter was what happened first for True North. I hope it turned out okay!
Chapter 11
Eleven thirty at night, and the lair is dark and cold. Megamind has completed the new database for the Technology and Change Management Department, and he is finally going to bed. Maybe he’ll even be able to sleep, for once. He hopes so; if he doesn’t sleep soon, he’s afraid he might simply pass out. At least tomorrow is Sunday and his schedule is clear. If he does pass out - and the bone-deep exhaustion that drags at him is a pretty good indicator that he will - he won’t have to apologize to anyone.
He closes the door to his room with a soft click and leans his head back against it for a moment before lifting his hand to the catch of his cape and shrugging it off. He crosses to the wardrobe to hang it up, and he’s about to shut the wardrobe doors when a noise from behind catches his ear - a soughing rustle, the sound of silk on silk, of someone trying not to move.
He freezes, one hand creeping for his de-gun.
And he almost reaches it. The tips of his fingers touch it, and then it’s torn out of his grasp and thrown to the side with a clatter, and there’s a hand gripping his neck from behind and he snaps to attention as if he’s been electrified.
“No-!”
“I’d say I’m sorry for startling you,” Roxanne’s voice says softly behind him, “but honestly, I’m not. I had a hell of a time getting in here. Your ventilation ducts are too narrow to crawl through.”
He pulls his wrist to his lips. “Minion,” he begins, but Roxanne’s hand tightens painfully.
“Minion’s not coming.”
His blood runs cold. “What have you done to him?”
“What makes you think I would do anything to Minion?” Roxanne asks. She sounds genuinely baffled.
Everyone else who’s hated him has tried to hurt the things he loves. And Roxanne has more cause to hate him than anyone else, and she’s ambushed him in his room and grabbed him by the neck so she definitely wants to make him pay. Still, he hears the confusion in her voice and believes it. Experience has taught him that if she had hurt Minion, she’d be gloating about it, and anyway she hadn't seemed openly vindictive earlier.
But there was a crowd, earlier, and before that, Akos had been there. Some small, rational part of his mind recognizes that this is paranoid, and he forces himself not to panic.
“What are you doing here?” He has to fight to keep his voice steady. Roxanne’s grip is tight, and there’s fire shooting down his spine and up through the back of his skull. “Why did you come here?”
“I told you. Leave it until we’ve had time to think. I’ve had time to think. So tell me, why did you try to drive me away?”
He’s glad she cannot see his face when he winces. “Let me go.”
“Not happening.”
“No, seriously.” His voice sounds urgent and strained to his own ears. “Please. It hurts, you’re haaagghnnnn!” and he cuts off with a cry of pain when her grip tightens further.
Then her hand is gone and Megamind stumbles forward and whirls, cornered against the wardrobe. Roxanne stares at him, and he stares right back. He actually looks afraid of her.
He is afraid of her. His next words confirm it.
“You’re unarmed,” he says shakily, eyes flick-flicking up and down, looking for some fold or crease in her clothing that would give away a concealed weapon. “Why aren’t you armed?”
Roxanne takes a small step back. This is not going according to plan at all. She had planned to get the jump on him and demand answers, but she hadn’t expected that he’d be scared of her, and she certainly hadn’t wanted to hurt him - she truly hadn’t meant to squeeze, but he’d caught her off-guard and she’d tensed. His short scream, so surprised that it had to be real, had nearly given her a heart attack.
Standing here, staring at him, she thinks that perhaps this was not the best approach.
She’ll have to change tactics. “Megamind.” She keeps her voice low, tries to calm down. “What exactly did you think I came here to do?”
His green eyes are enormous, and he’s almost shrinking back into the wardrobe. “Payback?”
“Payba-” Roxanne gapes at him. “I want an explanation! Answers, that’s all! And I knew you wouldn’t give them to me straight! You think I'm here to make you hurt?”
“You grabbed me by the neck!” he cries, wild-eyed. “What was I supposed to think? And why wouldn’t I give you answers? What reason could I possibly have to keep things from you now?”
Roxanne holds up both hands, shakes her head. “Okay, time out. You have to tell me, what is the deal with the neck thing? Both times I’ve touched it, you’ve freaked out.”
“Roxanne, look at me,” he snarls, and good lord, he’s shaking. “My head is huge and my neck is thin. Do the math.”
Her mouth falls open. “That’s your weakness?”
He inhales sharply and clenches his elbows to his sides, defiant and glaring and scared. “Maybe.”
Roxanne stares at him for a moment before nodding slowly. “Noted,” she says. “Now tell me why you tried so hard to drive me away.”
Megamind looks at her and the way she's standing, then sighs and relaxes some. He’s still nervous, but she isn’t making any aggressive moves and she sounds calmer, now. And he doesn’t smell any hatred coming from her, which is interesting and unexpected, but he’s pretty sure that’s accurate because he only took one dose of caffeine today and that's almost worn off. Mostly Roxanne just smells very, very angry, but maybe she really had just come here to talk.
And why shouldn’t he tell her what she wants to know? He's already lost everything. He owes her this much, at least.
“You already know that I thought you and Wayne were a couple. That’s part of the reason why I always went after you.” He takes a deep breath, maintains eye contact. “I would never have hurt you - I think you realized that fairly early on -” Roxanne nods, “- but as soon as word that you and I were ever together gets out, it’ll start all over again. And any other supervillain, any competent supervillain, wouldn’t hesitate to hurt you, even kill you, to get to me. Roxanne, I know you can handle yourself, really I do, but still, it’s a valid point of concern.”
Roxanne glares. Megamind’s expression is pained, but he’s talking normally and he seems to have calmed down somewhat. “On top of the whole ‘safety’ issue, there’s the fact that you have to hide us from your family and from the public. As long as you’re with me, you’ll have to sneak around if you want to have any normality at all.
“Now, I’m fine with having to sneak around,” he continues when Roxanne starts to speak. “I’ve done little else my whole life. I’m used to it. But you shouldn’t have to hide anything. You deserve to be with someone your parents will approve of, someone whose existence doesn’t constantly put you in danger, who has a steady job and a good paycheck, who can take you on…on trips around the world and…” he fumbles for a minute, waves a hand incoherently, “cruises and things, I don’t know. Someone who can give you children someday, help you raise a family.”
His lip curls, and Roxanne blinks again. She’s never known him to look or sound so very bitter. “And come on, it was only a matter of time before you realized all that for yourself. Look at me, Roxanne. I’m a fucking alien.”
There’s more, of course, but that’s where he stops. He can’t continue. He can’t.
Roxanne shakes her head. This really takes the cake. “So you, what, made some 3-D movie to lie to me? To make me leave? So that I wouldn’t have the chance to get bored or tired of you and leave you on my own?”
He stiffens. Somehow, hearing her say it is just that much worse. “That’s correct. Yes.”
Roxanne slaps him. Hard. He makes no sound, does not step back, does not lift a hand to his face - only turns his gaze back to her, looking injured but resolute, and waits for the other shoe to drop.
“That,” Roxanne says, and aims a finger at his chest, “is bullshit. And you know it. You do know it, don’t you.” It isn’t a question. “This plan? This plan to make me leave you? Is so far beyond reason that it probably qualifies as insane. You knew I wouldn’t go on my own, you had to have known, otherwise you’d never have made that stupid movie or projection or whatever it was.” Her voice is shaking with suppressed fury but she will not yell, she will not. “Deliberate self-sabotage? Is that what this is? Far be it from me to psychoanalyze, but are you trying to make me angry? Do you, you, do you think you deserve to be hated?”
That one sounds like a real question, and Megamind risks a reply. “That’s…possible.” Roxanne raises an eyebrow. “I hadn’t considered it. But yes, given my psychological profile and recent behavior, the way I think and the way I’m responding to the sudden changes in public opinion…” His eyes move back and forth a few times before he refocuses on her face. “I would say it is definitely possible. Likely, even.”
Roxanne nods slowly, her lips pressed together in a thin line. Megamind tenses. This is it, this is where she leaves -
“And that's why I’m still here.”
- What?
He’s pretty sure that his heart just skipped a beat. The world froze on its axis. Time stopped.
Roxanne still looks furious, and she still smells furious, and her voice is still cold, but she’s standing firm and she’s still talking. “That’s part of it, anyway. You may very well be crazy, but you are still, somehow, self-aware and objective enough to say all of that. And I know why you’re the way you are, I understand that, and that’s the second part of why I’m still here - you have some pretty serious psychological issues, but I know why and I know you’re working on it and I also know that it would be pretty shallow of me to leave just because you can be unstable.” She pauses, then adds, “For that matter, it would also be pretty shallow of me to leave you because you’re a ‘fucking alien,’ as you so bluntly put it. The third part…”
She steps forwards and lifts a hand towards him, and Megamind takes a couple stumbling steps back and nearly falls into the open wardrobe. Roxanne pauses, waits for him to meet her gaze, then closes the distance between them, placing her hand lightly behind his head and pulling him down.
His hands clench by his sides, initially, and he tries not to move or encourage her. She’ll leave him eventually, won’t she? Everyone leaves him eventually.
But she’s being so gentle, and she’s so soft, and if he pushes her away now he will break in half. That’s all there is to it. He cannot help this, cannot keep his hands from lifting to her waist, cannot keep his lips from parting, cannot keep his tongue from meeting hers. He needs her like he needs to breathe. And, very quietly, somewhere far in the back of his mind, a little voice whispers, maybe this one is different. Maybe, just maybe, this one will stay.
“The third part is that I love you, you stupid man, and I’m stubborn.” Roxanne rests her hands on his shoulders, turning and guiding him backwards until he hits the bed and falls with a startled intake of breath. She pulls away and slips one arm behind his knees, half-lifting him the rest of the way onto the bed. He stays where she puts him, frozen, while her fingers undo the buckles on his gloves and work them off. She straddles his feet to reach the ones on his boots, and soon those are gone as well.
What’s she-
Then she slides back up his body and kisses him again, and he is clinging to her like a drowning man clings to a bit of rock.
“Now listen to me very carefully,” Roxanne says in a low voice when she breaks away. She is lying almost on top of him, her arms resting on either side of his with her hands wrapped around his shoulders. He’s splayed his fingers over her upper back, and he knows he must be staring but he can't help it, he can't. “You cannot reason through this. I know it’s tempting to try, but all the facts you can think of are against you because they aren’t facts, they’re all based on your perceptions of yourself and what you think I want. And you don’t see yourself clearly, and you obviously don’t know what I want.”
“Then what do you want?” He’s almost begging. He has to know. He hates not knowing, hates it with a passion, and Roxanne is right - this is one thing he cannot figure out, because he knows he thought through everything, his plan should have worked, but here she is. Incredibly, impossibly, and against all reason, here she is, still. And he is so glad.
She gazes down at him, her heart in her throat, and runs her fingers over the sharp lines of his face - his eyes, his nose, his lips, the angles of his cheekbones. She rubs her thumb over the point of his chin, smooths his goatee. The corners of her mouth turn up in a sad smile.
“You,” she says, very very quietly, and presses her lips to his forehead.
Her breath is ragged, and hot against his brow, and he realizes that she is actually crying.
“Rox-Roxanne,” he protests, cups her face in his hands and moves her so that he can see her. She isn’t crying hard; there is only a thin trail down either cheek. But her eyes are over-bright, and swimming, and as he watches, unable to speak, two more tears follow the first.
She looks at him and blinks a few times, scowls down at him. “I just don’t know how to show you that,” she tells him, and draws a shuddery breath that that goes straight to his heart. “I don’t know how to make you understand that I want - my God, Megamind. I love you so much.”
“But I-”
“You were trying to protect yourself,” Roxanne says, and whether she knows she’s let her guard down or not, this is the first time Megamind can tell that he has actually hurt her and not just made her mad. Her anger is beginning to fade, and the hurt has probably been lurking behind the whole time - but anger, to Megamind, is sharp and burning enough to mask just about anything. “No one can fault you for that, least of all me. But you’re an idiot, and don’t mistake me, I’m still madder than hell that you tried to drive me away without even trying to talk to me about it. That’s just - that’s just unbelievably stupid. And insulting. And I know,” she continues, glaring at him, “that you were desperate and knew that I’d try to dissuade you. That’s not the point. The point is that you evidently feel like you can’t trust me enough to talk to me about whatever it is that’s bothering you. I know the stereotype, I know guys tend not to talk about their feelings, and I’m fine with that, but if you can’t talk to me, something’s wrong.”
He smiles shakily. “Well, when you put it like that.”
Roxanne shakes her head back and forth, still scowling. “I shouldn’t expect you to know this sort of stuff already. The only person who hasn’t failed you so far is Minion. It’s only natural that you’d think I’ll eventually leave you, too. And, honestly?” she pulls back a little bit and looks at him. “There’s no guarantee that I won’t. I’m not going to promise you that we’ll be together forever. I’ll do a lot of things, but I won’t do that.”
She waits for a moment, watches him think through that. Finally Megamind blinks, stone-faced. “I understand.”
But he’s reached the wrong conclusion, Roxanne can tell. She isn’t sure how she knows, but she does, and her hands turn to claws on his shoulders and he flinches. “No you don’t, you very stupid creature,” she hisses, teeth clenched, “you don’t understand. You’ve got me between a rock and a hard place, Megamind, you really do.” She swallows. “If I say I’ll never leave you, you’ll be hurt twice as worse if this whole business goes south, because then I’ll have lied to you. But if I tell you that I won’t promise anything, you’ll hear it as inevitability, and it isn’t. I want this to work.”
Megamind quickly brings a hand around to cover her mouth. “My turn,” he says, making it a question. Roxanne glares at him for a moment, then nods.
He takes a deep breath and drops his hand. “I know that it isn’t inevitable,” he tells her, speaking very quickly. He really isn’t good at this. He’s getting better about talking to people, but handling personal conflicts? He locks up.
He knows that neither one is a done deal. He knows that she might not stay with him, and he knows that she might. He knows both of those things because they are factually true. And he also knows that what Roxanne had told him back in the park is true - it’s up to him.
“I know it’s not inevitable,” he says again. “It’s like what you said. I can either accept that you do want to be with me for the time being, or I can continue to insist that there’s no possible way and eventually you’ll take the hint and leave. I know that, Roxanne. I promise I do.”
Roxanne stares at him. “Then what is your problem?”
Lock-up or no, he has to try. “See things my way,” he begs. “If I treat this the way I treat every new situation - if I try to make predictions based off of prior experience - then that you’ll leave is inevitable because everyone does.” He breaks off for a moment to breathe, then continues, “O-okay, Minion came back, and that was my fault, but-”
“Wait. Wait.” Roxanne holds up a hand. “Minion left? When was this?”
Megamind shakes his head. “Never mind. It was my fault. The point is that I’m having trouble remembering that you might actually stay with me because most of my psyche keeps yelling at me to just make you leave and get it over with. But believe me,” and he laughs shortly, “I am well aware that it isn’t rational.” He heaves a sigh. “It’s easier when you’re here with me, laughing at me and telling me I’m stupid. When you’re gone, it’s hard for me to tell whether my ‘facts’ are based on my knowledge of you or if they’re just me being fatalistic again. I think it’ll be easier when we don’t have to hide anymore. Until then, there will still be part of my mind that keeps saying, ‘what if she prefers this.’
“And as unfair as it is that you should have to make some public declaration that you really do want me - and I know it’s unfair - I think that will be the easiest way. I’m sure there are other ways, but that’s the only one I can think of, and that means we’ll have to put up with me being an idiot for a few more months because I think we should wait at least until Christmas to go public.”
“Christmas?” Roxanne sounds incredulous.
“There’s a lot that happens around Christmas,” Megamind says quickly. He’s been thinking about this for a while, and he knows what Roxanne is going to say. “We’ll be big news initially, but it’ll be forgotten much more quickly than if you said something tomorrow. The scandal will be less. People are not going to take kindly to you dating me no matter how much time passes and no matter what I do - no matter what either of us does.”
Roxanne glares at him for a moment, then rolls off of him. For a second, Megamind is afraid that was the last straw and she’s had enough, but she just lies on her back beside him and stares up at the ceiling. Megamind keeps still and listens to her breathe - she is taking long, calming breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth. He wants to grab her hand, but he doesn't. He doesn't dare.
“Okay,” Roxanne says quietly, after a minute that feels like an hour. “Okay. Yes. That makes sense.”
She turns her head to look at him. She isn’t smiling, but she isn’t glaring anymore, either. She just looks determined. “But I’m not putting up with you pulling stuff like this until Christmas. I tell you now, Megamind, and you’d better listen up, because this is important.” She pauses, then says, very slowly and clearly, “If you ever pull something this brainless again, that’s it. I’m gone.”
And after a long moment, Megamind nods. “I understand.”
Roxanne heaves a massive sigh, and the last of her anger dissipates. “Okay. So.” She swallows. “How do we fix it?”
He groans and pushes the heels of his hands against his eyes. This is the second time he’s done that since Roxanne has known him, and she thinks she might know what’s coming next.
“I have no idea.”
Roxanne nods to herself. Figured as much. But she does have an idea - and it’s one she’s been considering privately for quite some time. “I might.”
He glances at her. “Really,” he says. He sounds dubious. “What’s that?”
Roxanne rolls over and leans in, tilts Megamind’s chin away and presses her lips to the skin just under the sharp corner of his jaw.
His mind goes very nearly blank. “What-are you-”
She pulls up, locks eyes with him. He looks bewildered, but not resistant. “Remember how last time I said that physical contact might be one of the few things that gets through to you?”
Megamind nods.
“Well,” Roxanne says slowly, and oh lord, she cannot believe she’s about to say this. “Let’s get physical. I want you. I’ve wanted you for ages. I don’t expect you to believe that, but it’s true. And quite frankly, I would like to prove it to you.”
Megamind’s mouth falls open and he blinks a few times, looking rather like he’s just been hit over the head with a mallet. For a moment, Roxanne thinks he’s going to refuse. Tell her no, it’s too soon, we’ll find a different way. Honestly, she wouldn’t blame him if he did.
And then he shuts his mouth with a snap and half-rolls onto his side, facing away from her, and puts a hand back over his shoulder to tap a finger against the almost-invisible seam going down the length of his spine. “There’s a zipper, here,” he says tightly, and Roxanne laughs and kisses the back of his neck, eliciting a startled gasp.
“Noted,” she whispers for the second time that night, and pulls the tab down.
He turns back to her, lifts a shaking hand to her waist and twists the other in the covers as she peels the suit down over his arms, baring his chest.
She runs her hands over him, follows his musculature with her eyes and fingers. He is similar to a human male - the general shape of him is the same, but he is long and thin where a human with his strength might have bulked up. His expanse of blue skin is completely unmarred but for two scars - a pale line in the hollow below his right collarbone and another just under the pectoral muscle on the same side, each easily four or five inches long. Her exploring fingers linger there, briefly, and she wonders how he got them before she realizes that she’s been sitting and studying him for nearly a full minute.
Megamind, for his part, is perfectly willing to simply lie still and let her look at him - he isn’t sure how far she wants to go, but he’ll go the whole way if she will. He’s just worried about what she’ll think if she sees him. He knows how sex goes, and he knows he and Roxanne aren’t totally compatible downstairs, and he isn’t sure if that’s a deal-breaker or not. Is she having second thoughts? She’s just sitting there, scanning him, like she’s reading a book.
Then she blinks, and leans forward and settles herself against him, tucks herself close against his side, and kisses him. Hard. He lets out a startled noise when she brushes her lips up the line of his jaw to his ear, and hisses when she runs her tongue along the outer rim. When she bites his ear, he yelps, then makes a funny gasping whine and tips his head to the side a little.
Oh he’s vocal, Roxanne thinks, and Megamind feels her mouth curve into a smile against his skin. Vocal is good. She presses soft, open-mouthed kisses down his throat and then bites along his collarbones, making him jerk and hiss.
His hand on her back is clenching and unclenching in her shirt, dragging on her arms a little, and eventually she just shrugs out of the shirt entirely. She isn’t using it. Megamind’s hand comes up to touch the clasp of her bra.
Okay, that’s interesting, she thinks as he flutters his fingers over the clasp for a moment before simply unhooking and removing it. He did that one-handed. Hell, I can’t do that one-handed.
And a quieter, filthier part of her mind whispers, I bet he’s good with his hands.
She hums a little as he pulls her bra off, and leans against him, skin-on-skin. He trails his right hand up the curve of her back, scratching, and his left returns to cup her breast, squeeze lightly, palm at her nipple.
He tips his head further to the side and swallows hard when she comes back to his neck, and Roxanne licks her way up to his ear again, exhales hot against the damp line, and his hand on her breast clenches and he actually moans. She does, too.
He must have noticed, because he’s experimenting in earnest now, and Roxanne needs to change something so she pulls back, rises to her knees and unties the drawstring at her waist. Megamind watches, one hand still resting on her hip, and hooks his thumb in her waistband.
“Go on, then,” she says after a long moment during which neither of them moves.
He looks up at her. “You’re sure about this.”
Her eyes narrow. “Megamind. Think who you’re talking to.”
His lips curve into a small smile. “Fair point,” he murmurs, and pulls her pants down.
Roxanne wiggles out of both pants and underwear, and is moving to lie back down when a long-fingered blue hand in the middle of her chest stops her. “Wait.”
Startled, she sits back on her heels and looks back at him. “What-”
“Just…” His green gaze trails slowly down her body, and she feels abruptly, unaccountably shy but lets him look. After a moment, he comes back up to her face, eyes shining, exhaling sharp quick breaths like laughter as he smiles. “You. You’re just, you know. Beautiful.” He dissolves into inarticulate gestures, blinking and smiling and totally disbelieving - then, smile growing wider, he gives her another swift once-over and manages something resembling a grin.
“Hey, about that catsuit,” he says unevenly. Roxanne snorts.
“Oh, shut up,” she murmurs, and leans down to kiss him, feels him chuckling breathlessly into her mouth.
He stops when she wraps both hands in the top of his suit and peels it the rest of the way off. He lies very still, wide-eyed and white-knuckled and trembling as her gaze travels down the length of his body.
She gets to his hips and stops, blinks, then looks back up at his face, and is unsurprised to discover that he looks utterly terrified.
“My, my species,” he says, and almost cringes, “my species doesn’t do penetrative sex, it’s…it’s more of a…contact? Thing?”
There is a bony ridge between his legs, nothing more that she can see - but the flat triangle of skin just above that bears an intricate dappled pattern of curving lines, dark-dark blue and silvery and damp-looking. Roxanne takes his meaning almost immediately.
He looks tentatively up at her, finds her studying him with a delighted expression on her face. He hadn’t expected that. She looks back at him, grinning, then lies back down at his side. “God you’re gorgeous,” she mutters into his ear, and he lets out a few more breaths of nervous laughter.
“Clearly,” he gasps, and her hand is crawling south, “clearly we are both HAAa-hagghnnn…” and trails off into a gasping moan, turning to bury his face in the curve of her neck as she presses her palm flat against his sex and twists.
Roxanne isn’t really sure what she had expected to find down there, but she sure isn’t disappointed. Megamind in the throes of pleasure is the sexiest thing she’s ever seen, long and thin and writhing for her, hissing and moaning under her hands.
This is the first time anyone has touched him like this and it’s overwhelming - an unknown amount of time later, he manages to open his eyes to see how Roxanne is doing. She is watching his face with a kind of intensely solemn curiosity, but when he catches her eye, she grins and lifts her hand away. He makes a little protesting whimper of disbelief, and when she blinks and cocks her head, he realizes that she’s not just messing around at random; she’s actually studying how he reacts.
That simple realization does unbelievable things to Megamind's ability to think, and his eyes go wide and he grabs her by the hair and drags her down, twists his head to catch her lips. It’s an odd angle, but that’s the point.
Or maybe it isn’t. There really isn’t a point anymore. All he knows is that Roxanne has been having fun playing with him for the past few minutes, bringing him close and easing him down, and he has been content to let her - but this is a game of give and take, and if they’re going to do this, he’s going to make sure they do it right.
He rolls, pushing her back against the sheets and sliding a leg between hers, and Roxanne, startled, lets him. Megamind has been hesitant and unsure up until now, but his demeanor has changed completely. In the space of about five seconds, Roxanne has gone from gazing down at his tortured face to staring up at him as he looms over her with burning eyes. One arm is behind her neck, almost cradling her head, but his hand is twisted to curl around her shoulder. Roxanne has just enough time to register that this move has the added benefit of pinning her down before Megamind is kissing her again, deeply, tongue sweeping into her mouth.
His fingers trace lines of fire over her skin as he bends his head to her breast, and then he’s sucking, and she feels teeth and whines, and cracks one eye open long enough to see him glance up at her and lift an eyebrow. The corner of his mouth lifts into that old familiar smirk just as one hand creeps lower and slides up the inside of her thigh, and she gulps a little and lets her knees fall apart, and yes.
Yes, he is very good with his hands - those long fingers of his are agile and incredibly strong, and before she really knows what’s going on he’s got two of them inside her and he’s scissoring. His thumb runs across her, pressing and rubbing here and there until he finds the right spot and she jerks and gasps into his mouth. He changes the rhythm a few times, makes a couple adjustments, and she can almost sense him taking notes about how she responds.
She isn't really sure she's capable of forming words, by this point -- a coherent sentence is entirely out of the question -- but she does her best to let him know how he's doing.
And he’s a biter. She hadn’t expected that, hadn’t expected that at all, but she’s more than okay with biting and she isn’t about to complain. He’s very careful not to do it too hard, and when his mouth moves to her neck and the curve of her shoulder she can feel the change, knows that he’s being careful not to mark her. Not where anyone will see. It's weirdly adorable, how carefully rough he's being with her.
He’s bringing her up, she can feel herself getting close-and he stops. She does not mean to whimper, does not mean to say, “Oh, please,” it just kind of happens.
Megamind turns his face to her ear, licks, nips, and then he presses a quick kiss to her temple and pulls his arm out from behind her head, lifts himself up and slips his narrow hips down between her legs, presses against her.
And hesitates. "O-okay?" he asks, suddenly frantic-what if this is too much, what if he's gone too far?
Roxanne stares up at him, then locks her ankles around his waist and grinds herself up against him as hard as she can, hard enough to make his eyes roll back in his head. "Yes," she hisses, and rakes her nails down his chest as she shuts her eyes. She holds him by the waist, guides him, sets the rhythm and shows him how to move.
Roxanne's eyes snap open again as Megamind takes his cue and begins to move on his own, still keeping to the rhythm she had set. What the…? she thinks, and then thought pretty much stops after that. Roxanne's knuckles go white where she's holding him and he moans.
Because she feels him, pulsing not in but against her. He is hot against her, hot like fire but without the pain, like tiny tongues of electricity crackling up and over and through her - she cannot quantify it, cannot describe it, but she feels him singing up through her, his heartbeat and his breathing and the sharp taste-smell roiling off him. It feels like getting tipsy, a little bit, but instead of starting off as a pleasant tingling warmth behind her eyes, this rises up from below and shudders through her bloodstream, throbs to the beat of her heart and his in tandem. And it feels good. It feels really good.
He dips his head a little, mouth open, and grinds down against her just as she bucks up to meet him, and something about the combination makes his eyes slam closed as he cries out, convulsing and curling up around her. And then there is an explosion of heat and a wave of blue flame that leaves Roxanne trembling and panting in its wake, Megamind’s name on her lips.
He falls on top of her, panting, then rolls off to one side and onto his back. Suddenly cold,
Roxanne moves over to lie against him, and he wraps an arm around her. They are both sweating and breathless and weak-limbed.
Megamind has no idea what to say - luckily, Roxanne recovers her powers of speech a little before he does. “So,” she says, and she sounds dizzy, “you believe me now?”
He moves his head to stare at her for a moment before he laughs, coughs a little, laughs harder, nodding hard because he cannot say Fuck, yes.
“Good,” Roxanne says flatly, but her eyes are shining and she feels perfectly content. Happy, even. She’s quiet for a while, and Megamind snuggles in as close to her as he can.
“By the way,” Roxanne says eventually, “I don’t suppose you know what’s in the stuff that you…um. Of. Of your…stuff.”
He blinks and pulls back a little, astonished. Is she…? “You mean, have I analyzed the chemical and biological components of my semen?” When she blinks up at him expectantly, he stares down at her in complete disgust. “No, I haven’t, and why are you even asking that?” He sounds revolted and incredulous. He is revolted and incredulous. He fully expects to have to send a team of brainbots up to peel his eyebrows off the ceiling. “That is not the sort of thing that I look at and think, hm, I wonder what’s in that.”
Roxanne snorts. “Okay, okay, you have a point. And can we get under the covers, now?” She’s started to shiver. “I am freezing.”
He lifts his head and frowns. “Is that normal?” he wants to know. Roxanne shrugs, or maybe the shivers have grown more violent - they have grown more violent; he’s sure of it, and he scrambles under the sheet and comforter, dragging her with him and settling her against him, back to front, wondering if she might be allergic to him and thinking that that would be awful. She chuckles a little.
“I’ll be okay, really.”
“Bull,” he says sharply, startling her. “You’re colder than I am.”
“Not for long.” She presses backwards into his chest, and he holds her there with both arms.
“I’m probably not the best person to use for body heat.” He hasn’t let go of her, though. He’s not sure if he can. “My core body temperature is a few degrees lower than that of a human.”
“I know.” Roxanne turns her head to the side, glancing back at him, and he looks at her in surprise. “You think I haven’t noticed that you’re always cold? Besides, you keep the lair cool, even in the winter, and you were always quicker getting me here in summer. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out you don’t like warm weather.” She lets out a small sigh.
His mouth curves into a smile. Part of his mind is still hung up on the idea that this is further proof that the two of them are incompatible. But the fact that he is pressed full-length against Roxanne’s naked body is louder, and the memory of what they have just done together is stronger, and he hums a little and buries his nose in her damp hair and yawns. “What else have you figured out?”
Roxanne thinks for a while. “Well, you’ve had these blankets since I first started staying over here, and they’re really thick, and you wear shoes and gloves inside almost all the time, even when you don’t have to. I’m guessing the lair is a little too cold, even for you.”
“I like being warmed,” Megamind says. “Too cold is better than too hot, but warm is okay. And I hate waking up cold. You’re sure you’re all right?” he adds. She’s stopped shivering and he thinks that her skin is almost as warm as it usually is, but it can’t hurt to check.
“I’m fine. Tired.”
“Me too.” He kisses the top of her head, tucks himself more securely against her. They don’t fit perfectly together - he is all sharp bony angles and Roxanne is all soft curves, and her legs are longer - but they manage. They would probably fit better if he was in front, but he’s pretty sure that the size of his head would make that difficult. “Go to sleep.”
“Mmkay,” Roxanne says, and yawns, and after she establishes that no, there is no possible way to get any closer to Megamind than she already is right now, she does exactly that.
Chapter 10
Top of Page
Chapter 12
Return to Master List
Author: Dal_Niente
Rating: M for this chapter
Word Count: 6,718
Author's Note: This is a long chapter, almost twice as long as usual (is that a good or a bad thing? Thoughts?). Also (and on a not-entirely-unrelated note), please note that the fic’s rating has changed to M, and it isn’t due to character death or extreme profanity. If that’s…not your cup of tea, I guess just…read the first half? Or skip this chapter?
When I wrote Cold Fusion, I actually wrote Chapter 6 first. This chapter was what happened first for True North. I hope it turned out okay!
Chapter 11
Eleven thirty at night, and the lair is dark and cold. Megamind has completed the new database for the Technology and Change Management Department, and he is finally going to bed. Maybe he’ll even be able to sleep, for once. He hopes so; if he doesn’t sleep soon, he’s afraid he might simply pass out. At least tomorrow is Sunday and his schedule is clear. If he does pass out - and the bone-deep exhaustion that drags at him is a pretty good indicator that he will - he won’t have to apologize to anyone.
He closes the door to his room with a soft click and leans his head back against it for a moment before lifting his hand to the catch of his cape and shrugging it off. He crosses to the wardrobe to hang it up, and he’s about to shut the wardrobe doors when a noise from behind catches his ear - a soughing rustle, the sound of silk on silk, of someone trying not to move.
He freezes, one hand creeping for his de-gun.
And he almost reaches it. The tips of his fingers touch it, and then it’s torn out of his grasp and thrown to the side with a clatter, and there’s a hand gripping his neck from behind and he snaps to attention as if he’s been electrified.
“No-!”
“I’d say I’m sorry for startling you,” Roxanne’s voice says softly behind him, “but honestly, I’m not. I had a hell of a time getting in here. Your ventilation ducts are too narrow to crawl through.”
He pulls his wrist to his lips. “Minion,” he begins, but Roxanne’s hand tightens painfully.
“Minion’s not coming.”
His blood runs cold. “What have you done to him?”
“What makes you think I would do anything to Minion?” Roxanne asks. She sounds genuinely baffled.
Everyone else who’s hated him has tried to hurt the things he loves. And Roxanne has more cause to hate him than anyone else, and she’s ambushed him in his room and grabbed him by the neck so she definitely wants to make him pay. Still, he hears the confusion in her voice and believes it. Experience has taught him that if she had hurt Minion, she’d be gloating about it, and anyway she hadn't seemed openly vindictive earlier.
But there was a crowd, earlier, and before that, Akos had been there. Some small, rational part of his mind recognizes that this is paranoid, and he forces himself not to panic.
“What are you doing here?” He has to fight to keep his voice steady. Roxanne’s grip is tight, and there’s fire shooting down his spine and up through the back of his skull. “Why did you come here?”
“I told you. Leave it until we’ve had time to think. I’ve had time to think. So tell me, why did you try to drive me away?”
He’s glad she cannot see his face when he winces. “Let me go.”
“Not happening.”
“No, seriously.” His voice sounds urgent and strained to his own ears. “Please. It hurts, you’re haaagghnnnn!” and he cuts off with a cry of pain when her grip tightens further.
Then her hand is gone and Megamind stumbles forward and whirls, cornered against the wardrobe. Roxanne stares at him, and he stares right back. He actually looks afraid of her.
He is afraid of her. His next words confirm it.
“You’re unarmed,” he says shakily, eyes flick-flicking up and down, looking for some fold or crease in her clothing that would give away a concealed weapon. “Why aren’t you armed?”
Roxanne takes a small step back. This is not going according to plan at all. She had planned to get the jump on him and demand answers, but she hadn’t expected that he’d be scared of her, and she certainly hadn’t wanted to hurt him - she truly hadn’t meant to squeeze, but he’d caught her off-guard and she’d tensed. His short scream, so surprised that it had to be real, had nearly given her a heart attack.
Standing here, staring at him, she thinks that perhaps this was not the best approach.
She’ll have to change tactics. “Megamind.” She keeps her voice low, tries to calm down. “What exactly did you think I came here to do?”
His green eyes are enormous, and he’s almost shrinking back into the wardrobe. “Payback?”
“Payba-” Roxanne gapes at him. “I want an explanation! Answers, that’s all! And I knew you wouldn’t give them to me straight! You think I'm here to make you hurt?”
“You grabbed me by the neck!” he cries, wild-eyed. “What was I supposed to think? And why wouldn’t I give you answers? What reason could I possibly have to keep things from you now?”
Roxanne holds up both hands, shakes her head. “Okay, time out. You have to tell me, what is the deal with the neck thing? Both times I’ve touched it, you’ve freaked out.”
“Roxanne, look at me,” he snarls, and good lord, he’s shaking. “My head is huge and my neck is thin. Do the math.”
Her mouth falls open. “That’s your weakness?”
He inhales sharply and clenches his elbows to his sides, defiant and glaring and scared. “Maybe.”
Roxanne stares at him for a moment before nodding slowly. “Noted,” she says. “Now tell me why you tried so hard to drive me away.”
Megamind looks at her and the way she's standing, then sighs and relaxes some. He’s still nervous, but she isn’t making any aggressive moves and she sounds calmer, now. And he doesn’t smell any hatred coming from her, which is interesting and unexpected, but he’s pretty sure that’s accurate because he only took one dose of caffeine today and that's almost worn off. Mostly Roxanne just smells very, very angry, but maybe she really had just come here to talk.
And why shouldn’t he tell her what she wants to know? He's already lost everything. He owes her this much, at least.
“You already know that I thought you and Wayne were a couple. That’s part of the reason why I always went after you.” He takes a deep breath, maintains eye contact. “I would never have hurt you - I think you realized that fairly early on -” Roxanne nods, “- but as soon as word that you and I were ever together gets out, it’ll start all over again. And any other supervillain, any competent supervillain, wouldn’t hesitate to hurt you, even kill you, to get to me. Roxanne, I know you can handle yourself, really I do, but still, it’s a valid point of concern.”
Roxanne glares. Megamind’s expression is pained, but he’s talking normally and he seems to have calmed down somewhat. “On top of the whole ‘safety’ issue, there’s the fact that you have to hide us from your family and from the public. As long as you’re with me, you’ll have to sneak around if you want to have any normality at all.
“Now, I’m fine with having to sneak around,” he continues when Roxanne starts to speak. “I’ve done little else my whole life. I’m used to it. But you shouldn’t have to hide anything. You deserve to be with someone your parents will approve of, someone whose existence doesn’t constantly put you in danger, who has a steady job and a good paycheck, who can take you on…on trips around the world and…” he fumbles for a minute, waves a hand incoherently, “cruises and things, I don’t know. Someone who can give you children someday, help you raise a family.”
His lip curls, and Roxanne blinks again. She’s never known him to look or sound so very bitter. “And come on, it was only a matter of time before you realized all that for yourself. Look at me, Roxanne. I’m a fucking alien.”
There’s more, of course, but that’s where he stops. He can’t continue. He can’t.
Roxanne shakes her head. This really takes the cake. “So you, what, made some 3-D movie to lie to me? To make me leave? So that I wouldn’t have the chance to get bored or tired of you and leave you on my own?”
He stiffens. Somehow, hearing her say it is just that much worse. “That’s correct. Yes.”
Roxanne slaps him. Hard. He makes no sound, does not step back, does not lift a hand to his face - only turns his gaze back to her, looking injured but resolute, and waits for the other shoe to drop.
“That,” Roxanne says, and aims a finger at his chest, “is bullshit. And you know it. You do know it, don’t you.” It isn’t a question. “This plan? This plan to make me leave you? Is so far beyond reason that it probably qualifies as insane. You knew I wouldn’t go on my own, you had to have known, otherwise you’d never have made that stupid movie or projection or whatever it was.” Her voice is shaking with suppressed fury but she will not yell, she will not. “Deliberate self-sabotage? Is that what this is? Far be it from me to psychoanalyze, but are you trying to make me angry? Do you, you, do you think you deserve to be hated?”
That one sounds like a real question, and Megamind risks a reply. “That’s…possible.” Roxanne raises an eyebrow. “I hadn’t considered it. But yes, given my psychological profile and recent behavior, the way I think and the way I’m responding to the sudden changes in public opinion…” His eyes move back and forth a few times before he refocuses on her face. “I would say it is definitely possible. Likely, even.”
Roxanne nods slowly, her lips pressed together in a thin line. Megamind tenses. This is it, this is where she leaves -
“And that's why I’m still here.”
- What?
He’s pretty sure that his heart just skipped a beat. The world froze on its axis. Time stopped.
Roxanne still looks furious, and she still smells furious, and her voice is still cold, but she’s standing firm and she’s still talking. “That’s part of it, anyway. You may very well be crazy, but you are still, somehow, self-aware and objective enough to say all of that. And I know why you’re the way you are, I understand that, and that’s the second part of why I’m still here - you have some pretty serious psychological issues, but I know why and I know you’re working on it and I also know that it would be pretty shallow of me to leave just because you can be unstable.” She pauses, then adds, “For that matter, it would also be pretty shallow of me to leave you because you’re a ‘fucking alien,’ as you so bluntly put it. The third part…”
She steps forwards and lifts a hand towards him, and Megamind takes a couple stumbling steps back and nearly falls into the open wardrobe. Roxanne pauses, waits for him to meet her gaze, then closes the distance between them, placing her hand lightly behind his head and pulling him down.
His hands clench by his sides, initially, and he tries not to move or encourage her. She’ll leave him eventually, won’t she? Everyone leaves him eventually.
But she’s being so gentle, and she’s so soft, and if he pushes her away now he will break in half. That’s all there is to it. He cannot help this, cannot keep his hands from lifting to her waist, cannot keep his lips from parting, cannot keep his tongue from meeting hers. He needs her like he needs to breathe. And, very quietly, somewhere far in the back of his mind, a little voice whispers, maybe this one is different. Maybe, just maybe, this one will stay.
“The third part is that I love you, you stupid man, and I’m stubborn.” Roxanne rests her hands on his shoulders, turning and guiding him backwards until he hits the bed and falls with a startled intake of breath. She pulls away and slips one arm behind his knees, half-lifting him the rest of the way onto the bed. He stays where she puts him, frozen, while her fingers undo the buckles on his gloves and work them off. She straddles his feet to reach the ones on his boots, and soon those are gone as well.
What’s she-
Then she slides back up his body and kisses him again, and he is clinging to her like a drowning man clings to a bit of rock.
“Now listen to me very carefully,” Roxanne says in a low voice when she breaks away. She is lying almost on top of him, her arms resting on either side of his with her hands wrapped around his shoulders. He’s splayed his fingers over her upper back, and he knows he must be staring but he can't help it, he can't. “You cannot reason through this. I know it’s tempting to try, but all the facts you can think of are against you because they aren’t facts, they’re all based on your perceptions of yourself and what you think I want. And you don’t see yourself clearly, and you obviously don’t know what I want.”
“Then what do you want?” He’s almost begging. He has to know. He hates not knowing, hates it with a passion, and Roxanne is right - this is one thing he cannot figure out, because he knows he thought through everything, his plan should have worked, but here she is. Incredibly, impossibly, and against all reason, here she is, still. And he is so glad.
She gazes down at him, her heart in her throat, and runs her fingers over the sharp lines of his face - his eyes, his nose, his lips, the angles of his cheekbones. She rubs her thumb over the point of his chin, smooths his goatee. The corners of her mouth turn up in a sad smile.
“You,” she says, very very quietly, and presses her lips to his forehead.
Her breath is ragged, and hot against his brow, and he realizes that she is actually crying.
“Rox-Roxanne,” he protests, cups her face in his hands and moves her so that he can see her. She isn’t crying hard; there is only a thin trail down either cheek. But her eyes are over-bright, and swimming, and as he watches, unable to speak, two more tears follow the first.
She looks at him and blinks a few times, scowls down at him. “I just don’t know how to show you that,” she tells him, and draws a shuddery breath that that goes straight to his heart. “I don’t know how to make you understand that I want - my God, Megamind. I love you so much.”
“But I-”
“You were trying to protect yourself,” Roxanne says, and whether she knows she’s let her guard down or not, this is the first time Megamind can tell that he has actually hurt her and not just made her mad. Her anger is beginning to fade, and the hurt has probably been lurking behind the whole time - but anger, to Megamind, is sharp and burning enough to mask just about anything. “No one can fault you for that, least of all me. But you’re an idiot, and don’t mistake me, I’m still madder than hell that you tried to drive me away without even trying to talk to me about it. That’s just - that’s just unbelievably stupid. And insulting. And I know,” she continues, glaring at him, “that you were desperate and knew that I’d try to dissuade you. That’s not the point. The point is that you evidently feel like you can’t trust me enough to talk to me about whatever it is that’s bothering you. I know the stereotype, I know guys tend not to talk about their feelings, and I’m fine with that, but if you can’t talk to me, something’s wrong.”
He smiles shakily. “Well, when you put it like that.”
Roxanne shakes her head back and forth, still scowling. “I shouldn’t expect you to know this sort of stuff already. The only person who hasn’t failed you so far is Minion. It’s only natural that you’d think I’ll eventually leave you, too. And, honestly?” she pulls back a little bit and looks at him. “There’s no guarantee that I won’t. I’m not going to promise you that we’ll be together forever. I’ll do a lot of things, but I won’t do that.”
She waits for a moment, watches him think through that. Finally Megamind blinks, stone-faced. “I understand.”
But he’s reached the wrong conclusion, Roxanne can tell. She isn’t sure how she knows, but she does, and her hands turn to claws on his shoulders and he flinches. “No you don’t, you very stupid creature,” she hisses, teeth clenched, “you don’t understand. You’ve got me between a rock and a hard place, Megamind, you really do.” She swallows. “If I say I’ll never leave you, you’ll be hurt twice as worse if this whole business goes south, because then I’ll have lied to you. But if I tell you that I won’t promise anything, you’ll hear it as inevitability, and it isn’t. I want this to work.”
Megamind quickly brings a hand around to cover her mouth. “My turn,” he says, making it a question. Roxanne glares at him for a moment, then nods.
He takes a deep breath and drops his hand. “I know that it isn’t inevitable,” he tells her, speaking very quickly. He really isn’t good at this. He’s getting better about talking to people, but handling personal conflicts? He locks up.
He knows that neither one is a done deal. He knows that she might not stay with him, and he knows that she might. He knows both of those things because they are factually true. And he also knows that what Roxanne had told him back in the park is true - it’s up to him.
“I know it’s not inevitable,” he says again. “It’s like what you said. I can either accept that you do want to be with me for the time being, or I can continue to insist that there’s no possible way and eventually you’ll take the hint and leave. I know that, Roxanne. I promise I do.”
Roxanne stares at him. “Then what is your problem?”
Lock-up or no, he has to try. “See things my way,” he begs. “If I treat this the way I treat every new situation - if I try to make predictions based off of prior experience - then that you’ll leave is inevitable because everyone does.” He breaks off for a moment to breathe, then continues, “O-okay, Minion came back, and that was my fault, but-”
“Wait. Wait.” Roxanne holds up a hand. “Minion left? When was this?”
Megamind shakes his head. “Never mind. It was my fault. The point is that I’m having trouble remembering that you might actually stay with me because most of my psyche keeps yelling at me to just make you leave and get it over with. But believe me,” and he laughs shortly, “I am well aware that it isn’t rational.” He heaves a sigh. “It’s easier when you’re here with me, laughing at me and telling me I’m stupid. When you’re gone, it’s hard for me to tell whether my ‘facts’ are based on my knowledge of you or if they’re just me being fatalistic again. I think it’ll be easier when we don’t have to hide anymore. Until then, there will still be part of my mind that keeps saying, ‘what if she prefers this.’
“And as unfair as it is that you should have to make some public declaration that you really do want me - and I know it’s unfair - I think that will be the easiest way. I’m sure there are other ways, but that’s the only one I can think of, and that means we’ll have to put up with me being an idiot for a few more months because I think we should wait at least until Christmas to go public.”
“Christmas?” Roxanne sounds incredulous.
“There’s a lot that happens around Christmas,” Megamind says quickly. He’s been thinking about this for a while, and he knows what Roxanne is going to say. “We’ll be big news initially, but it’ll be forgotten much more quickly than if you said something tomorrow. The scandal will be less. People are not going to take kindly to you dating me no matter how much time passes and no matter what I do - no matter what either of us does.”
Roxanne glares at him for a moment, then rolls off of him. For a second, Megamind is afraid that was the last straw and she’s had enough, but she just lies on her back beside him and stares up at the ceiling. Megamind keeps still and listens to her breathe - she is taking long, calming breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth. He wants to grab her hand, but he doesn't. He doesn't dare.
“Okay,” Roxanne says quietly, after a minute that feels like an hour. “Okay. Yes. That makes sense.”
She turns her head to look at him. She isn’t smiling, but she isn’t glaring anymore, either. She just looks determined. “But I’m not putting up with you pulling stuff like this until Christmas. I tell you now, Megamind, and you’d better listen up, because this is important.” She pauses, then says, very slowly and clearly, “If you ever pull something this brainless again, that’s it. I’m gone.”
And after a long moment, Megamind nods. “I understand.”
Roxanne heaves a massive sigh, and the last of her anger dissipates. “Okay. So.” She swallows. “How do we fix it?”
He groans and pushes the heels of his hands against his eyes. This is the second time he’s done that since Roxanne has known him, and she thinks she might know what’s coming next.
“I have no idea.”
Roxanne nods to herself. Figured as much. But she does have an idea - and it’s one she’s been considering privately for quite some time. “I might.”
He glances at her. “Really,” he says. He sounds dubious. “What’s that?”
Roxanne rolls over and leans in, tilts Megamind’s chin away and presses her lips to the skin just under the sharp corner of his jaw.
His mind goes very nearly blank. “What-are you-”
She pulls up, locks eyes with him. He looks bewildered, but not resistant. “Remember how last time I said that physical contact might be one of the few things that gets through to you?”
Megamind nods.
“Well,” Roxanne says slowly, and oh lord, she cannot believe she’s about to say this. “Let’s get physical. I want you. I’ve wanted you for ages. I don’t expect you to believe that, but it’s true. And quite frankly, I would like to prove it to you.”
Megamind’s mouth falls open and he blinks a few times, looking rather like he’s just been hit over the head with a mallet. For a moment, Roxanne thinks he’s going to refuse. Tell her no, it’s too soon, we’ll find a different way. Honestly, she wouldn’t blame him if he did.
And then he shuts his mouth with a snap and half-rolls onto his side, facing away from her, and puts a hand back over his shoulder to tap a finger against the almost-invisible seam going down the length of his spine. “There’s a zipper, here,” he says tightly, and Roxanne laughs and kisses the back of his neck, eliciting a startled gasp.
“Noted,” she whispers for the second time that night, and pulls the tab down.
He turns back to her, lifts a shaking hand to her waist and twists the other in the covers as she peels the suit down over his arms, baring his chest.
She runs her hands over him, follows his musculature with her eyes and fingers. He is similar to a human male - the general shape of him is the same, but he is long and thin where a human with his strength might have bulked up. His expanse of blue skin is completely unmarred but for two scars - a pale line in the hollow below his right collarbone and another just under the pectoral muscle on the same side, each easily four or five inches long. Her exploring fingers linger there, briefly, and she wonders how he got them before she realizes that she’s been sitting and studying him for nearly a full minute.
Megamind, for his part, is perfectly willing to simply lie still and let her look at him - he isn’t sure how far she wants to go, but he’ll go the whole way if she will. He’s just worried about what she’ll think if she sees him. He knows how sex goes, and he knows he and Roxanne aren’t totally compatible downstairs, and he isn’t sure if that’s a deal-breaker or not. Is she having second thoughts? She’s just sitting there, scanning him, like she’s reading a book.
Then she blinks, and leans forward and settles herself against him, tucks herself close against his side, and kisses him. Hard. He lets out a startled noise when she brushes her lips up the line of his jaw to his ear, and hisses when she runs her tongue along the outer rim. When she bites his ear, he yelps, then makes a funny gasping whine and tips his head to the side a little.
Oh he’s vocal, Roxanne thinks, and Megamind feels her mouth curve into a smile against his skin. Vocal is good. She presses soft, open-mouthed kisses down his throat and then bites along his collarbones, making him jerk and hiss.
His hand on her back is clenching and unclenching in her shirt, dragging on her arms a little, and eventually she just shrugs out of the shirt entirely. She isn’t using it. Megamind’s hand comes up to touch the clasp of her bra.
Okay, that’s interesting, she thinks as he flutters his fingers over the clasp for a moment before simply unhooking and removing it. He did that one-handed. Hell, I can’t do that one-handed.
And a quieter, filthier part of her mind whispers, I bet he’s good with his hands.
She hums a little as he pulls her bra off, and leans against him, skin-on-skin. He trails his right hand up the curve of her back, scratching, and his left returns to cup her breast, squeeze lightly, palm at her nipple.
He tips his head further to the side and swallows hard when she comes back to his neck, and Roxanne licks her way up to his ear again, exhales hot against the damp line, and his hand on her breast clenches and he actually moans. She does, too.
He must have noticed, because he’s experimenting in earnest now, and Roxanne needs to change something so she pulls back, rises to her knees and unties the drawstring at her waist. Megamind watches, one hand still resting on her hip, and hooks his thumb in her waistband.
“Go on, then,” she says after a long moment during which neither of them moves.
He looks up at her. “You’re sure about this.”
Her eyes narrow. “Megamind. Think who you’re talking to.”
His lips curve into a small smile. “Fair point,” he murmurs, and pulls her pants down.
Roxanne wiggles out of both pants and underwear, and is moving to lie back down when a long-fingered blue hand in the middle of her chest stops her. “Wait.”
Startled, she sits back on her heels and looks back at him. “What-”
“Just…” His green gaze trails slowly down her body, and she feels abruptly, unaccountably shy but lets him look. After a moment, he comes back up to her face, eyes shining, exhaling sharp quick breaths like laughter as he smiles. “You. You’re just, you know. Beautiful.” He dissolves into inarticulate gestures, blinking and smiling and totally disbelieving - then, smile growing wider, he gives her another swift once-over and manages something resembling a grin.
“Hey, about that catsuit,” he says unevenly. Roxanne snorts.
“Oh, shut up,” she murmurs, and leans down to kiss him, feels him chuckling breathlessly into her mouth.
He stops when she wraps both hands in the top of his suit and peels it the rest of the way off. He lies very still, wide-eyed and white-knuckled and trembling as her gaze travels down the length of his body.
She gets to his hips and stops, blinks, then looks back up at his face, and is unsurprised to discover that he looks utterly terrified.
“My, my species,” he says, and almost cringes, “my species doesn’t do penetrative sex, it’s…it’s more of a…contact? Thing?”
There is a bony ridge between his legs, nothing more that she can see - but the flat triangle of skin just above that bears an intricate dappled pattern of curving lines, dark-dark blue and silvery and damp-looking. Roxanne takes his meaning almost immediately.
He looks tentatively up at her, finds her studying him with a delighted expression on her face. He hadn’t expected that. She looks back at him, grinning, then lies back down at his side. “God you’re gorgeous,” she mutters into his ear, and he lets out a few more breaths of nervous laughter.
“Clearly,” he gasps, and her hand is crawling south, “clearly we are both HAAa-hagghnnn…” and trails off into a gasping moan, turning to bury his face in the curve of her neck as she presses her palm flat against his sex and twists.
Roxanne isn’t really sure what she had expected to find down there, but she sure isn’t disappointed. Megamind in the throes of pleasure is the sexiest thing she’s ever seen, long and thin and writhing for her, hissing and moaning under her hands.
This is the first time anyone has touched him like this and it’s overwhelming - an unknown amount of time later, he manages to open his eyes to see how Roxanne is doing. She is watching his face with a kind of intensely solemn curiosity, but when he catches her eye, she grins and lifts her hand away. He makes a little protesting whimper of disbelief, and when she blinks and cocks her head, he realizes that she’s not just messing around at random; she’s actually studying how he reacts.
That simple realization does unbelievable things to Megamind's ability to think, and his eyes go wide and he grabs her by the hair and drags her down, twists his head to catch her lips. It’s an odd angle, but that’s the point.
Or maybe it isn’t. There really isn’t a point anymore. All he knows is that Roxanne has been having fun playing with him for the past few minutes, bringing him close and easing him down, and he has been content to let her - but this is a game of give and take, and if they’re going to do this, he’s going to make sure they do it right.
He rolls, pushing her back against the sheets and sliding a leg between hers, and Roxanne, startled, lets him. Megamind has been hesitant and unsure up until now, but his demeanor has changed completely. In the space of about five seconds, Roxanne has gone from gazing down at his tortured face to staring up at him as he looms over her with burning eyes. One arm is behind her neck, almost cradling her head, but his hand is twisted to curl around her shoulder. Roxanne has just enough time to register that this move has the added benefit of pinning her down before Megamind is kissing her again, deeply, tongue sweeping into her mouth.
His fingers trace lines of fire over her skin as he bends his head to her breast, and then he’s sucking, and she feels teeth and whines, and cracks one eye open long enough to see him glance up at her and lift an eyebrow. The corner of his mouth lifts into that old familiar smirk just as one hand creeps lower and slides up the inside of her thigh, and she gulps a little and lets her knees fall apart, and yes.
Yes, he is very good with his hands - those long fingers of his are agile and incredibly strong, and before she really knows what’s going on he’s got two of them inside her and he’s scissoring. His thumb runs across her, pressing and rubbing here and there until he finds the right spot and she jerks and gasps into his mouth. He changes the rhythm a few times, makes a couple adjustments, and she can almost sense him taking notes about how she responds.
She isn't really sure she's capable of forming words, by this point -- a coherent sentence is entirely out of the question -- but she does her best to let him know how he's doing.
And he’s a biter. She hadn’t expected that, hadn’t expected that at all, but she’s more than okay with biting and she isn’t about to complain. He’s very careful not to do it too hard, and when his mouth moves to her neck and the curve of her shoulder she can feel the change, knows that he’s being careful not to mark her. Not where anyone will see. It's weirdly adorable, how carefully rough he's being with her.
He’s bringing her up, she can feel herself getting close-and he stops. She does not mean to whimper, does not mean to say, “Oh, please,” it just kind of happens.
Megamind turns his face to her ear, licks, nips, and then he presses a quick kiss to her temple and pulls his arm out from behind her head, lifts himself up and slips his narrow hips down between her legs, presses against her.
And hesitates. "O-okay?" he asks, suddenly frantic-what if this is too much, what if he's gone too far?
Roxanne stares up at him, then locks her ankles around his waist and grinds herself up against him as hard as she can, hard enough to make his eyes roll back in his head. "Yes," she hisses, and rakes her nails down his chest as she shuts her eyes. She holds him by the waist, guides him, sets the rhythm and shows him how to move.
Roxanne's eyes snap open again as Megamind takes his cue and begins to move on his own, still keeping to the rhythm she had set. What the…? she thinks, and then thought pretty much stops after that. Roxanne's knuckles go white where she's holding him and he moans.
Because she feels him, pulsing not in but against her. He is hot against her, hot like fire but without the pain, like tiny tongues of electricity crackling up and over and through her - she cannot quantify it, cannot describe it, but she feels him singing up through her, his heartbeat and his breathing and the sharp taste-smell roiling off him. It feels like getting tipsy, a little bit, but instead of starting off as a pleasant tingling warmth behind her eyes, this rises up from below and shudders through her bloodstream, throbs to the beat of her heart and his in tandem. And it feels good. It feels really good.
He dips his head a little, mouth open, and grinds down against her just as she bucks up to meet him, and something about the combination makes his eyes slam closed as he cries out, convulsing and curling up around her. And then there is an explosion of heat and a wave of blue flame that leaves Roxanne trembling and panting in its wake, Megamind’s name on her lips.
He falls on top of her, panting, then rolls off to one side and onto his back. Suddenly cold,
Roxanne moves over to lie against him, and he wraps an arm around her. They are both sweating and breathless and weak-limbed.
Megamind has no idea what to say - luckily, Roxanne recovers her powers of speech a little before he does. “So,” she says, and she sounds dizzy, “you believe me now?”
He moves his head to stare at her for a moment before he laughs, coughs a little, laughs harder, nodding hard because he cannot say Fuck, yes.
“Good,” Roxanne says flatly, but her eyes are shining and she feels perfectly content. Happy, even. She’s quiet for a while, and Megamind snuggles in as close to her as he can.
“By the way,” Roxanne says eventually, “I don’t suppose you know what’s in the stuff that you…um. Of. Of your…stuff.”
He blinks and pulls back a little, astonished. Is she…? “You mean, have I analyzed the chemical and biological components of my semen?” When she blinks up at him expectantly, he stares down at her in complete disgust. “No, I haven’t, and why are you even asking that?” He sounds revolted and incredulous. He is revolted and incredulous. He fully expects to have to send a team of brainbots up to peel his eyebrows off the ceiling. “That is not the sort of thing that I look at and think, hm, I wonder what’s in that.”
Roxanne snorts. “Okay, okay, you have a point. And can we get under the covers, now?” She’s started to shiver. “I am freezing.”
He lifts his head and frowns. “Is that normal?” he wants to know. Roxanne shrugs, or maybe the shivers have grown more violent - they have grown more violent; he’s sure of it, and he scrambles under the sheet and comforter, dragging her with him and settling her against him, back to front, wondering if she might be allergic to him and thinking that that would be awful. She chuckles a little.
“I’ll be okay, really.”
“Bull,” he says sharply, startling her. “You’re colder than I am.”
“Not for long.” She presses backwards into his chest, and he holds her there with both arms.
“I’m probably not the best person to use for body heat.” He hasn’t let go of her, though. He’s not sure if he can. “My core body temperature is a few degrees lower than that of a human.”
“I know.” Roxanne turns her head to the side, glancing back at him, and he looks at her in surprise. “You think I haven’t noticed that you’re always cold? Besides, you keep the lair cool, even in the winter, and you were always quicker getting me here in summer. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out you don’t like warm weather.” She lets out a small sigh.
His mouth curves into a smile. Part of his mind is still hung up on the idea that this is further proof that the two of them are incompatible. But the fact that he is pressed full-length against Roxanne’s naked body is louder, and the memory of what they have just done together is stronger, and he hums a little and buries his nose in her damp hair and yawns. “What else have you figured out?”
Roxanne thinks for a while. “Well, you’ve had these blankets since I first started staying over here, and they’re really thick, and you wear shoes and gloves inside almost all the time, even when you don’t have to. I’m guessing the lair is a little too cold, even for you.”
“I like being warmed,” Megamind says. “Too cold is better than too hot, but warm is okay. And I hate waking up cold. You’re sure you’re all right?” he adds. She’s stopped shivering and he thinks that her skin is almost as warm as it usually is, but it can’t hurt to check.
“I’m fine. Tired.”
“Me too.” He kisses the top of her head, tucks himself more securely against her. They don’t fit perfectly together - he is all sharp bony angles and Roxanne is all soft curves, and her legs are longer - but they manage. They would probably fit better if he was in front, but he’s pretty sure that the size of his head would make that difficult. “Go to sleep.”
“Mmkay,” Roxanne says, and yawns, and after she establishes that no, there is no possible way to get any closer to Megamind than she already is right now, she does exactly that.
Chapter 10
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