Cold Fusion: Hallows' Eve, Ch. 11
Chapter 11
Roxanne grimaces. The other reason she had wanted him to go first was so that if she tried to chicken out, he wouldn't let her. "I promised, didn't I?"
"We had a deal."
"We didn't shake on it?" she tries, but it's half-hearted at best; she knows it's a weak argument. And when Megamind's expression goes flat, she shakes her head. "Okay, okay, I know. I didn't really expect you to cave."
"You don't want me to cave." He scowls and folds his arms over his chest. "If you really wanted me to cave, you would have made me let you off the hook when I was still a mushy blob of guilt. Please stop trying to play with my emotions. I don't appreciate it."
Roxanne nods tiredly. "Okay. You're right, I'm not being fair." She pulls away, scoots back, and Megamind reluctantly lets her go, twisting and taking his boots off so that he can bring his legs up onto the couch without having to worry about the leather - which is tough, admittedly, but he doesn't want to have to worry about it.
He gets the second boot off, it thumps on the floor, and then suddenly there's a weight in his lap and Megamind looks down in surprise at Roxanne's ear.
"Uhh?" he says, and mentally slaps himself. Are you serious? he thinks. 'Uhh.' That's the best you can do? Get it together, Megamind!
Roxanne puts a hand on Megamind's leg, and he sits very still. She's quiet for a long minute, just thinking and brushing her thumb absently back and forth over the leather.
"I'm sorry," she says at last, and okay, that was the last thing he had expected to hear. He had been expecting some sort of tirade like the one she had given him back in August, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. He isn't sure if he feels like daring to hope, but he can't help it. Maybe it's going to be okay. Maybe the drama is over now? "You were right, you know. I should have told you. I wanted to."
"Yes," he stammers, "yes, you said that."
There aren't very many days that Megamind wishes he hadn't taken his caffeine, but this is one of them. Roxanne had been more articulate earlier, when she had been freaking out, but now that she's calm she's also closed off, and Megamind really wishes he could tell what she's feeling. Carefully, he lays his hand down on her hair. She goes rigid, and Megamind pauses before steeling himself and pressing his fingers flat against her scalp. If he can't read her emotions, maybe he can read her body language.
Okay. What needs to happen, here? He wants to make her understand, but he thinks she might already. Roxanne is very good at understanding him. But he's still learning to understand her.
It's still so fragile, this thing they have going between them. It's been growing stronger over the past few months, but right now it is very fragile indeed, and Megamind is all too aware of how close he might be to never having Roxanne's head in his lap again. He leans back and tries to relax, combing his fingers through her hair.
Then he frowns, and does it again. Roxanne doesn't really respond, but…
She gets head-shy when she's vulnerable or scared, but here she's lying with her head in his lap. And Roxanne is not an overtly physically demonstrative person, not that Megamind has seen, anyway. Hand-holding aside, she doesn't cuddle very much outside the bedroom when there isn't a reason to.
He's pretty sure she doesn't want to have her head in his lap right now. He's pretty sure she'd rather be somewhere - anywhere - else. He's pretty sure she's making a statement.
But he isn't certain.
"You don't have to do this, you know," he says softly, relenting a little. "If you want to run, run. I won't stop you."
Roxanne rolls her eyes. "I'm not going to run. Don't be ridiculous."
"But being ridiculous is what I do," Megamind replies, and Roxanne half-smiles.
"And you do it so well."
"My whole career has been based around my being ridiculous; I'm certainly not going to stop now," he reminds her, and then adds, "Besides. I know you want to. You don’t want to do this; I can tell."
Roxanne sniffs. He's right, of course, but that doesn't mean she's going to move. She's actually very comfortable where she is. "Well, of course I don't want to," she mutters. "That's the point. But I have to. Sometimes, you have to do things you don't want to."
"Why?"
The seconds tick by. The brainbots thaum quietly in the background, and under everything, the steady rise-and-fall hum of the reactors carries on its endless repetitive harmony. Roxanne focuses on it. She doesn't know much about music, she can't identify the intervals. She wishes she could. It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift-
"Roxanne?"
-The baffled king composing hallelujah. "Because that's what love is," she tells him, closing her eyes. "It's-it's doing things you don't want to do sometimes because there are more important things than what you want. That's what love is. And I love you."
Megamind sifts his fingers through her hair again, and the sensation sends little tingles down Roxanne's spine. She's relaxing a little bit, but as soon as she realizes that's what she's doing, she tenses up again. Damn.
It strikes her, suddenly, how strange a picture they must be: her, lying on the couch with her head in his lap, his hand on her head. It's a pity Megamind refuses to look into time machines; she almost wishes she could take a photograph of the two of them like this and send it back somehow to five years ago and see how she reacts. Reacted? Will have reacted? How do you talk about the past in the future tense, anyway? Will would have reacted?
And can we please stay on track, here?
"Listen, I…it's very simple, it really is," Roxanne murmurs. "I have problems accepting help from people. I don't like doing it. I've been getting rescued all my life and I'm sick of feeling like I have no control over what happens to me."
"Accepting help, or asking for it?" Megamind wants to know. Roxanne can hear him frowning. "Because I've seen you accept help. I don't think I've ever seen you ask for help, though. Apart from, you know. Titan."
Roxanne sighs. Her hand tightens on his leg. "I didn't like doing that. But it wasn't just for me, you know, it was the city and everything else, too."
"And you knew that telling me you needed me was the best way to get me moving."
"Oh, god, don't say that," she groans. "It makes me sound so manipulative."
"Roxanne, be honest," Megamind says, and something in his voice catches her attention. Some pensive, doubtful undertone. "Please. For once, please don't worry about hurting me, and tell me - do you have a problem with talking to me?" He pauses, then clarifies, "You know, about…sensitive things. Like this, like we are now."
Oh, fuck. Roxanne grits her teeth and shuts her eyes. No, she wants to say, I don't have a problem at all, but then she would be lying-but she can't very well say Yes, either, because then she'll be admitting something she really doesn't want to admit. Something she's been refusing to admit for a very, very long time.
"That's a yes, then." Megamind lets out a quiet puff of a sigh, and Roxanne remembers where she is and that he probably can feel when she clenches her jaw.
"It's nothing personal, I swear," Roxanne says, because really, what else can she say? How do I even explain this? Megamind starts to say something, she can tell from the way he takes a breath and she cuts him off. "No, just, give me a minute. Hang on. Let me think."
Frustrated, Megamind drops what he had been going to say. He knows she's trying, but it doesn't feel like she is. Talk, will you just talk to me? he wants to say, but of course she's just told him there's a problem with that. And how, how is he not supposed to take that personally?
Finally Roxanne swallows. "I'm a proud woman." Megamind starts to scoff, but Roxanne cuts him off sharply. "No, I mean it. I am. Very proud."
Megamind frowns. If she's serious… "Okay, well, that's…understandable? You should be, I mean, you've done a lot of great things, and-"
"No," she snaps. She sits up and faces him, scowling as she pushes her hair out of her face. "No, I haven't, and that's not what I mean. I mean I worry a lot about what people think of me."
Well, now he's more baffled than ever. "What?" he says, drawing back a little. "No you don't. You keep saying you don't. I can think of fif…no, sixteen separate occasions where you have said, specifically, that you don't care what people think." He stares at her. Inconsistencies he can understand; few humans have his capacity for memory and Megamind has learned to tolerate that, but direct contradictions? It doesn't make sense. Especially because Roxanne is one of the few humans who actually can keep pace with him some of the time. That kind of slip isn't like her. "I can give you quotes, if you want. Dates. And, and context?"
Roxanne massages her eyes with her thumb and forefinger, then pinches the bridge of her nose. "Relationship 101, Megs. People don't like it when you use your super-brain to win arguments."
"But I'm right," he insists, "I know I am. And even if I didn't remember everything, it still wouldn't make sense! If you cared what your mother thought, you wouldn't be with me."
Roxanne mutters something under her breath, then holds up a hand. "Okay, okay, look, just…shut up."
"No," Megamind exclaims. He elbows the high back of the sofa in frustration; he knows it's childish but he can't help it. "I won't shut up! I'm confused! You've told me time and again that you don't care what people think about you, but now here you are saying you worry, what, I just don't-"
"I meant people who aren't YOU!" Roxanne snarls, and Megamind shuts up and shrinks back into the couch, wide-eyed. Roxanne's blue eyes have taken on the grey cast they tend to get when she's angry, and she's glaring and red-faced and yelling, actually yelling. "I don't care what they think! Why would I care what they think? They're. not. you!" She slams her hands down flat on her thighs, and Megamind jumps. Roxanne doesn't appear to notice; she's off again, gesturing wildly. "If I want to be with you, and you want to be with me, well fuck, Megamind, let them think whatever the hell they wanna think because you're smart and funny and nice and just generally amazing, and I'm not stupid, I know how fucking rare guys like you are, and I'm not going to give that up just because the public thinks you're a freak!"
Megamind rallies. He's never backed down when he's known he's right, and he's not going to start now, even if he is a little bit scared. "But you just said you worried about what people think of you!"
"Because it was easier than saying I worry about what YOU think of me!" And then Roxanne freezes. The red in her face drains out and leaves her pale, and then she groans and wilts, sort of; just flops bonelessly backward and throws an arm over her eyes. "Oh, great," she mutters. "Open mouth, insert foot."
Megamind sits where he is, stunned. "You…" he says, then shakes his head. "You care what I think?"
Roxanne makes a sweeping there-you-go motion with one hand, rubbing her eyes with the other.
"But why?"
Roxanne lifts her head and sends him what has to be one of the most insultingly scornful stares he's ever received. It's one he used to get a lot back in school: the what-the-hell-are-you-smoking face. He hates that face.
"Seriously?"
Megamind stares at her and gives a little shrug.
"You care about what I think of you, don't you?" she asks him, and if he hadn't known better, he'd have said she was sneering.
"Of course I do!" he exclaims, indignant. "I love you! And don't-don't you take that tone with me," he warns, because he's really fighting the urge to just get up and leave. He strongly suspects that both of them on the defensive will not be pretty. "You're mocking me."
"I am not," she starts, then abruptly cuts off when Megamind clenches his whole upper body in violent rejection of her denial.
"You are," he tells her flatly. Standing up to Roxanne makes him feel lightheaded and sick, especially because she's already angry, but he really does not deserve the snide tone and derisive posture and he remembers what she had said about wanting someone to fight with her. "You are, whether you realize it or not. You're being cruel. Stop it. I am not attacking you, I am not the bad guy here. Stop acting like I am."
Roxanne's nostrils flare, and for one terrible moment Megamind is sure she's going to fight him, but then she blinks and backs down, looks away. "Sorry," she mutters. She doesn't sound sorry, but it's a step.
Megamind blinks too and nods jerkily. "It's-fine. I just. I don't understand. You, you've always said…I mean…" He stammers his way into silence.
"Like I said," Roxanne says, without looking at him. "I'm very proud. Of course I worry about what you think. But you really think I wanted you to know that?"
Everything she's said during the past two minutes comes crashing back through Megamind's head, but two statements really stand out. I've been getting rescued all my life. I worry about what you think of me. And she's so defensive, like she's trying to pull his attention away from something. He doubts she's doing it consciously, but…
"Roxanne, do you think-do you think I think you're weak?" His voice is higher than it usually is, but he's passed so far beyond comprehension that pretty much everything is a question now. "Is that what you think? That, that I'll think you can't take care of yourself if you ask me for help or admit that bad things have happened to you or tell me you're worried? Is that why-" His eyes go wide. Roxanne is staring at him, pale. "It is! That's why you cry on Wayne and not me! It's not because you don't care about what he thinks, it's because you care more about what I think!"
And then, of course, he realizes what he's just said, and slumps. "Picsába," he groans. "Már megint elbasztam."
Roxanne opens her mouth to respond, then pauses. "That was…"
"Hungarian." He scrubs his hands over his face. "Roxanne, I'm such an idiot. I messed it up again."
She sits up quickly enough to startle him. "No. Stop right there. Uh, h…hülye?" Then, when Megamind's mouth falls open, she jumps a little and shakes her head. "No no, that's not right. Um." She thinks for a moment and then looks up, her face lighting with short-lived excitement. "Oh! Kuss!"
Megamind blinks again. "Are you…trying to tell me to shut up? Because s is pronounced sh, remember. Pronouncing that with a sibilant means 'kiss,' in German, and I really don't think…"
"Koosh," Roxanne says. "Kuss, hülye." Megamind's lips twitch, but Roxanne plows ahead. "You shut up. No. You didn't mess anything up, okay? None of this was your fault. This is all on me."
"But I kept misinterpreting-"
"I wanted you to misinterpret. I still sort of do. Keep…keep bringing me down, okay?" She slouches forward, scrubbing both hands through her hair. "If I get up on my high horse again? I'm not very good at staying grounded when I'm like this." Megamind just watches her, desperately tries to read the flickers of thoughts chasing each other across her face. "I just…I'm going to take things the wrong way," she tells him, and he hears the warning note in her voice and makes a note of it. "I'm going to twist your words around and try to hurt you with them. So you know. I'm sorry. That's how I get when I'm angry and-and scared, I-"
She looks around, anywhere and everywhere but at him, blinking rapidly, and licks her lips. She opens her mouth to continue, but nothing comes out. Megamind reaches forward and takes her hand, threading their fingers together, and after a moment, Roxanne's fingers tighten around his. "Keep doing that." She swallows. "Keep reminding me who I'm talking to, okay? You're not-you're not anything like what I'm used to.
"I'm not an especially nice person, you know, when I'm upset. I say things - I don't like feeling this exposed. It's like you're going through and systematically tearing down all of my walls." She gulps again, fighting to keep her voice even. "They exist for a reason, you know; I'm not…" She presses her lips together and tips her head back, stares helplessly up at the ceiling. "You're not the only one with insecurities. And you're certainly not the only one who worries about screwing up. Why do you think I get all weird and nervous whenever the PHED comes up in conversation?"
Megamind tries not to gape at her. Roxanne gets nervous? Roxanne doesn't know what she's doing? The mind boggles. "I-I keep telling you, you don't have to worry about that-"
"Yes, just like you don't need to worry about Chadwick-fucking-Whitehill." Roxanne drops her head again and tugs her hand away so she can cross her arms over her chest, then turns to stare pensively out into the Lair. "But we're shaped by our experiences. For better or for worse, really. The PHED taught you…what, to be wary, to cover all your bases? And I imagine they're responsible for a lot of the whole 'I'm an alien, nobody will ever love me' thing you've got eating at you."
Megamind manages to close his mouth with an effort. He clears his throat, hoping she'll let this go and not do that thing where she tries to convince him. "Maybe. A bit. Yes."
To his relief, Roxanne just nods. "Well…Peter taught me not to trust myself. Michael taught me not to trust him. Chad taught me not to trust him or myself. And it's not fair to think you'll be like them, that's not fair at all considering all you've done for me, but things have been going so wrong lately and I keep remembering what they were like and forgetting that you're you and…
"Fuck it," she says abruptly, and Megamind blinks. Roxanne doesn't swear very often, and very rarely in that particular tone of voice. She sits up straight, presses two fingers to her forehead and scrunches up her face in frustration. "Fuck. Fuck it. Argh. No. I've had enough. We're hashing this out now and I'm going to be articulate and I'm going to be…not a total moron. I'm going to be calm. This is you I'm talking to," she snaps, opening her eyes and pointing at him. "You aren't Peter, you aren't Chad, you aren't Mike or Billy or Paul. You're Megamind. You are sweet and funny and cute and I love you and I really, really don't deserve you, but here we are, and we're hashing this out now. Okay."
She takes a deep breath and looks at him for a long moment. Megamind stares back.
Then Roxanne's lips twitch with reluctant amusement. "Now if I could just figure out how to start, we could actually get this show on the road."
Megamind snorts. "Things you think but don't say?" he suggests. "Um…may I make a conjecture?"
Roxanne half-smiles and digs her toes into the couch cushions, which is a good sign. "Go ahead. Conject away."
"You don't trust your own judgment. True or false?"
That takes the smile right off her face. She doesn't answer, and she stops moving her feet.
"I mean, come on." Megamind's statement had come out of the blue, as he had expected it to. He had been trying to catch her off her guard, and it had worked. "Hal. Titan. Chad. Bernard. Probably your father, too, to some extent. You haven't really had a good run of trusting people, have you? But you keep trying to see the good in people. Titan hit that nail on the head, I know that. I think you want to trust people, which is surprising, given your track record. I think you're a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for."
Roxanne bites her lip. "You're wrong," she says. "I'm not strong at all. But I'm supposed to be. And that's a really good place to start, thank you." She can hear her voice getting unsteady, and as soon as she realizes that, the words won't come anymore. Crap, she thinks again, and looks around, searching desperately for something to focus on.
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