Chapter Text
Megamind knocks on her balcony door at four o'clock exactly, three sharp taps, and Roxanne has to catch her breath. This isn't weird. Isn't weird at all that she's invited the local supervillain over to her home to socialize.
He holds his hands up when she pushes the curtain back, wiggles his fingers in demonstration as she opens the door. "No spikes," he says.
"No spikes," she agrees, taken aback and feeling…something, she isn't sure what, because his hands are—bare, not just spikeless but entirely gloveless, and that's not—oh, and— "You probably could have left the ones on your mantle," she says, and Megamind gives her a quick little grin.
"I thought if you don't want spikes, you probably have a reason. Can I come in?" He bounces on the balls of his feet and glances over his shoulder. "I don't—mind, but I am—feeling kind of exposed, here?"
"Yes, of course, please," and she quickly steps aside to let him past. "No Minion?"
"He decided to sit this one out," he says, "just in case something should go wrong."
Roxanne nods, staring at him. No spikes, none at all; is he completely unprotected except for his leathers? Just because she asked him to? "Smart," she says, "that's very…very smart."
"Ollo," he returns, eyebrows rumpling with humor. "Supergenius over here, the head's big for a reason. Are you going to tell me what this is about?"
"Right!" She shakes her head, shakes herself back into gear. "Right, yes, there's—um, I have some people I'd like you to meet! So if—"
The little smile drops right off Megamind's face. "People," he says flatly, dropping a hand to the gun on his leg and taking a reflexive step back. "What people."
Crap. Crap, she should have thought of how that would sound. "It's okay, Megamind, it's just—"
"Where did you meet them?" he demands. His voice is edged with alarm and he's backing away, fumbling for the door with his free hand. "What did they say to you?"
She shakes her head wildly, waves at him. "No no no it isn't like that, I promise; please, just listen. Please."
He pauses, one hand on the door and the other on his gun, breathing shallowly and wide-eyed...but he's waiting. "Talk quickly."
"I know what you are," she says in a rush, but her voice is quiet and her eyes are urgent, searching his, "I haven't forgotten, Megamind, and I would never, never ask you to go anywhere without full protection unless I…it's just my sister; she's in the bathroom or you would have seen her from the balcony, but I have known her all her life and she will not hurt you, I swear."
Megamind slowly, slowly straightens up out of his defensive half-crouch and takes his hand off his gun. "Your sister."
"And my niece."
"Your…" His eyes go very wide. "Oh," he says, and his other hand falls away from the door and drops to his side. "Oh."
She shakes her head again. "I am so sorry, I didn't even think to warn you about people. I—I just, I wanted it to be a surprise. I should have warned you, I'm so sorry."
He's staring at her. "You…want me to meet…"
She chuckles and jerks her head at the rest of her apartment. "Come on."
The baby carrier is out of sight on the other side of the sofa, but a few more steps and he would have seen it. Roxanne crouches beside it, hands busy with buckles. "Hallo," she sings, "there you are! Look who's awake! Hi, yes, you get to visit with Auntie Roxie!"
"Roxanne, thanks so much for doing this," someone says, and Megamind spins, "I really…oh. Hi!"
"Up we go," Roxanne says, behind him. "Rose, Megamind; Megamind, Rose."
"Man, when you said he'd be here at four, you weren't kidding!" Rose is a full head and a half taller than Roxanne—different jaw, different nose, and she's willowy where Roxanne is curvy—but they have the same smile and she's obviously Roxanne's sister. "I didn't expect a supervillain to be…punctual."
"He has good timing," Roxanne says, "when he wants to."
He should say, No, Miss Ritchi, I have wicked timing! Always! and follow it up with an evil laugh. That's what he should say. Instead…
"It is a pleasure to meet you," Megamind says, offering what he hopes is a friendly nod and a smile. It's not one of his best; he hasn't practiced friendly in a while.
"You, too," Rose says, smiling, and sticks out her hand.
Megamind looks at it.
"You shake it." Rose laughs a little. "Annie, lord, is he always like this?"
"No, usually he's a big snarky pain in the butt," Roxanne says happily. "Kunik! Nose kiss! …Oh, what a big smile! Megamind, relax, she's not going to bite you."
He flushes. "I know that," he says, and reaches forward and shakes Rose's hand.
"There," she says, grinning down at him (Everyone is taller than me, everyone, even Roxanne's sister, it's not fair), "that wasn't so bad, right? Aw, I'm just teasing."
Roxanne steps into his field of view, moving to stand next to her sister. They have the same eyes, too, but Roxanne's are a lighter blue. And in her arms—
Megamind's eyes go the widest and he knows, he just knows the grin on his face is absolutely goofy-huge, but he can't stop himself. "Oh," he breathes.
The baby stares at him, giant topaz eyes in a little brown face—he's expecting her to cry; small children usually cry when they see him. But instead, she says, "Ah!" and gives him a great big gummy smile, and kicks her little bootied feet, and Megamind is going to die.
"You want to hold her?" Rose asks.
Megamind looks up, shocked, delighted, totally not bothering to even try to hide it. He is so far out of his depth, and he so does not care. "Hold—yes? Can I?"
"If she wants you to," Roxanne says, and moves closer; Megamind is already reaching for the warm, cooing little creature, who—incredibly—seems to be putting her hand towards him, as well. "Oh, that's a yes," Roxanne says, and steps close to arrange Derya on her back in Megamind's arms. The baby settles without complaint and continues to boggle at him.
"She's so small," he whispers.
"This is Derya," Rose says. "She's a lot bigger than she was, but yes, she is on the small side for her age."
"Derya," he repeats, his eyes and voice going very soft, and adjusts his grip a little, bouncing her unconsciously as she stares at him. "Ollo, Derya."
He hasn't taken his eyes off her since he looked at her, and Roxanne is honestly wondering if he's about to cry. If he doesn't blink soon, he probably will, just out of necessity. After a moment, Rose clears her throat and says, "Well, I can't stay, Salim is waiting with the car. Annie, you know her routine already and the notebook is on the kitchen island. Megamind…"
"Hmm?" He finally glances up, his face all shining joy; Roxanne has never seen him look like this.
Rose laughs, picking up her coat from the back of the sofa and shrugging into it. "Between you and my sister, I think she's in good hands," she says. She picks up her purse, rifles through it, nods to herself. "Okay. Bye-bye Derya! Bye-bye! We'll be back! Annie, see you around twelve, okay?"
The door closes after her while Megamind is still trying to formulate a response to—to this woman who has just—told him he could hold her child—said she was in good hands—good hands—his hands—
His breath catches in his throat and he has to look quickly back down at Derya so Roxanne won't see how bright his eyes are. God, what is he, some kind of kid? He's not going to cry at a baby, come on, babies aren't something to cry about. "Derya," he says softly, and touches her tiny nose. She swipes at his finger, grips it on the second try, and he chuckles and strokes her little fist with his blue thumb. "Derya. We're never going to stop laughing at Miss Ritchi, are we…? No, we're not; Annie is a stupid nickname, she deserves better…"
Roxanne bursts out laughing. "You aren't going to give her back, are you?"
"Nope," Megamind replies, grinning down at Derya, "it's too late, Miss Ritchi, she's mine now. Can you take the shoulder array?" he adds, tugging his finger free so he can fumble with the clasp at the base of his throat. "I can't get it off with one hand."
"Sure," Roxanne says, startled. "Um. Hold on, let me…I just lift it off?"
"Up and back," he says, and she's…okay, she's behind him, now, he can't see what she's doing. But that's okay, it's okay; it's just Roxanne. "Yes. Just like that." He steps forward as soon as he's free and turns around quickly; Derya gurgles and shoves her knuckles in her mouth.
Roxanne smiles at him as she turns away to arrange his shoulder array on the back of one of her chairs—she isn't sure how to disassemble it. "So, Metrocity's would-be Evil Overlord likes children," she says.
"Babies," he says, smiling a little at her pronunciation. "Not children. Children are horrible little beasts and I detest them."
Her smile slips. "I'm guessing you didn't like school."
"No." He sits down on the sofa, cross-legged. "School didn't like me, either. But Derya likes me, don't you, Derya?" The baby wriggles again, cooing and chewing on her fist, all big eyes and gums, and then she swipes at his face again. "What?" he says, grinning down at her, leaning his head forward a little. "What?"
She slaps her hand on his beard, and he bursts into startled laughter.
"Oh, that's right," Roxanne says, taken aback at the new way he's laughing, "yeah, textures. She's really big into textures right now. She can hold her head up—she probably wants to, now that she's more awake. If you—yeah, that works."
"I know absolutely nothing about child development," Megamind tells her, holding the baby around her chest with both hands and letting her sort of vaguely bend and unbend her knees while 'standing' on his legs. "I left home at eight days old. I was still fairly underformed at that point."
"Eight days," Roxanne says. "Wow, that's…young."
"It was fine." Megamind scoffs a laugh. "Eight days old and still living with my parents? Clearly it was time to move on."
She hesitates, wondering if she should pursue that or not, wondering whether he's serious. But Megamind appears to be blowing it off, so…she'll follow his lead. She cocks her head at him and goes with the other question tugging at her. "What was it like? Before that? Do you have any pictures, or…"
"Oh, I remember everything," he says breezily. "I spent most of it in the water when I was awake. Not all of my time, but a significant portion. My parents—I didn't spend much time with them, unfortunately; they were consumed with building my spacepod and checking their calculations."
"That's a shame," Roxanne says, thinking, calculations?
Megamind glances over at her. "I did have some contact with them," he says. "There was an instrument my mother played. It echoed. And one time, they…at night, I remember there were these…bioluminescent organisms blooming across the waves. They would wash onto the pseudo-beach and linger on the wrack lines."
"Oh," Roxanne says, startled and sort of dismayed, "they died there?"
Megamind shakes his head. "No, no. It was part of their life cycle, I think; they flew. Floated? My parents took me out for a closer look one night, to see the—I think, I think they were called," and here he pipes a high few notes like a bird, a whistling trill that makes Derya give a delighted little shriek in response. Megamind smiles down at her. "They dried themselves on the wrack lines as the tide went out, and then their fluff carried them up off the pseudo-beach with the wind. It was…pretty. Lots of little points of light in the air."
Roxanne is smiling, imagining this, and Megamind looks almost wistful—another expression she's never seen on him.
Then his smile starts to fade, and she can't take that, so she says, "Want to learn how to heat up a bottle?"
And Megamind's head snaps up, as she had known it would, and he says, "What? You. I get to feed her?" He lifts Derya in against his shoulder, steadying her there with a long hand on her back. "Is she hungry?"
"It's four-fifteen," Roxanne says, "and babies do routines. And sure, if you want to, you can feed her." He looks absolutely thunderstruck about this, so she sends him a wicked grin and adds, "If you aren't careful, I might even teach you how to change a diaper."
This has the opposite effect of what she was expecting. She had thought he would scoff and pull a face, but he doesn't. He stares. He looks totally blank for like five whole seconds and then he says, "I would. Be happy to learn. How to do that."
Roxanne grins. "Wonderful."
It is not inaccurate to say Megamind is absolutely smitten with the baby. He doesn't seem to want to put her down. He follows Roxanne's guiding instructions and holds her while she eats, he puts a towel with tiny rabbits on it over his shoulder and holds her against his chest and pats her warm little back with his hand until she burps, he bounces her and watches her scoot around on the floor for a while when she starts getting fussy. He does learn to change a diaper, and he smiles down at her and talks nonsense the whole time while she stares up at him.
The really funny thing is Derya seems fairly smitten with him, as well. He sets her on her play mat for a bit while he leaves briefly to use the bathroom and Derya fusses until he's out of sight—and as soon as he comes back, she pushes herself up on both arms. She's a social little thing and has been that way pretty much from day one, so the fact that she's okay with Megamind is not surprising, but Roxanne hasn't seen her ask 'up' from someone new so quickly before. This is better than she could have hoped.
Minion swings by shortly before bedtime, after Megamind talks to him for a while over his watch. Derya is sleepy and sort of cranky and uncertain at first, but she does still seem wildly entertained by Minion's giant cuddly gorilla body and big toothy grin. Roxanne gets a wonderful candid picture of Minion holding the baby up in both hands, both of them smiling at each other just as big as they can. Megamind suddenly jumps and says, "Your lights, Minion, can you do your lights like you used to—"
"Oh!" Minion exclaims. "Oh, let me see if I remember…"
He stills for a moment, and then Roxanne gasps and Derya crows and kicks her whole body as dazzling ripples of blue and green and gold shimmer over his sides.
"Minion, my goodness, you're beautiful!" Roxanne exclaims. "Derya, gentle, be gentle," as the baby slaps her hands on his dome. "Not that you aren't always striking, but—wow, chromatophores! That's unexpected!"
Minion grins down at her, looking slightly startled. "Yes, I don't have any reason to use them, much," he says. "And they aren't really lights, they don't work the way my lateral line system emits light; they're just reflective. But, um—if you ever get the chance to see Sir and me in the water, um—he, there's a thing we do, it's—cultural? sort of? psychophysical, really—anyway, he does actually luminesce."
It takes Roxanne a moment to parse that, but then she turns to Megamind, mouth open in shock. "You glow?"
"Somewhat," he says, blinking, a little bit stiff. "Yes. I have…patterns, subcutaneous lymphatic vessels that…yes. They light up when Minion and I reconfirm our intercranial link."
"He's very pretty," Minion says, and Megamind glares at him, but Roxanne just looks amazed.
"I'll bet he is," she says. "Good lord."
Minion blinks down at her for a moment, then carefully hands Derya back. "Well," he says. "Well, I'll…ah…let you put this little one to bed. Sir, will you be coming back to the lair…soon? or…?"
Megamind hesitates. "I can," he says. "I…should? Probably?"
"Oh, stay," Roxanne says, adjusting the clip of Derya's nook on her onesie and giving her niece another nose-kiss. "Once I put her down, it'll just be me, here. Being bored. It's fun to actually get to talk to you without some plot hanging over our heads."
Megamind looks uncertain.
"I thought I'd put Derya down and then heat up some dinner," Roxanne tells him. "Nothing fancy, but you are welcome to stay. Rescue me from working from home at nine o'clock at night."
"Why don't I," Minion says, when Megamind hesitates, "run back to the Lair and get dinner? And bring it here."
Roxanne blinks. "Oh, you don't have to do that—"
"It's no trouble," Minion says. "I'll be making it anyway. And Sir has some…specific dietary requirements? That he really shouldn't leave until late at night."
"Minion," Megamind says, a touch of warning in his voice.
"Well, all right," Roxanne says. "But only if you don't mind."
"I don't mind at all," he assures her, smiling and backing towards the door. Roxanne frowns a little. "I'll be back before you know it."
After the hoverbike putters away into the sky, Roxanne goes and sets Derya up in her bedroom. She connects the wireless baby monitor, then puts Derya down in her travel cot, which is a kind of long, stiff bag with a padded base and a hood up over one end, shaped vaguely like a dinosaur head.
"Oh!" says Megamind, hovering curiously in the door of Roxanne's room. "It has spikes!"
Roxanne blinks, then snorts. It does, sort of: a dorsal ridge of cloth triangles run down the back of the hood. "I love this thing," she says. "It's so cute. Okay! Nighty night! Sleepytime!"
Derya fusses, whines. Fusses louder and starts to cry when Roxanne straightens out of her field of vision.
"Oh, lord," Roxanne murmurs. "Sweetie, it's sleepytime," she says.
Derya cries louder.
"Okay," Roxanne says, picking her up and settling her against her shoulder. "Okay, okay. Shh."
Megamind clears his throat. "Can I…?"
"Sure, see if you can get her down," Roxanne says. Derya seems fine with being handed off to the blue alien hovering in Roxanne's doorway; she just doesn't want to be in her cot. "Bedtime can be a little fraught. She likes walked around and bounced gently. Humming is okay. She usually falls asleep pretty quickly when she's being held—we don't want her to get too used to it, but she hasn't been to my place to sleep before."
Megamind hums sympathetically. "Being alone is scary when you're small," he says. "You have adults around you all day, and then they go away and leave you alone at night and expect you to fall asleep. It's jarring, isn't it? I remember."
Roxanne watches him pace back and forth across her carpet for a while, then sighs. "You okay in here?" she asks, pitching her voice low. "I'm going to go get some cooking stuff set out for Minion, okay?"
Megamind nods and continues to pace, Derya slumped against his shoulder.
Minion slips in so quietly that Roxanne jumps when he asks, behind her, "Where's Sir?"
"Oh—! Minion, good lord." She presses a hand to her chest. "You're so quiet! He's trying to get Derya to sleep."
"Ah," Minion says, his expression clearing. "Yes. Bedtime. Sir refused to have a bedtime, when we were small. He fell asleep fairly regularly when we were infants, but once he could walk and hold a pencil, that was the end of bedtime."
"I bet that went over well," Roxanne says, lips twitching. Minion shrugs.
"Mitch and Guduza didn't really have a problem with it, as long as we stayed quiet and let them sleep. Which is good. Our cycles are different from yours; our home planet's days were shorter."
Roxanne blinks. She would never have thought of that being an issue, but it makes sense—what are the odds of Megamind's atmospheric requirements being met and his day-night cycles lining up? "Huh," she says. She glances down at the baby monitor, then smiles a little; Megamind is still pacing slowly up and down next to Roxanne's bed where the carry cot is. "And…you mentioned something about his diet?"
Minion nods and begins unpacking the large tote bag he brought in with him from the balcony. "Yes. Sir and I can both eat almost anything—although I require far more raw protein than he does—but he has an extremely fast metabolism. From what we've been able to glean, he processes sugars much more efficiently than humans—transfers them from his blood to his muscles extraordinarily quickly. But he generally needs to consume mostly glucose, with some fructose thrown in. He's a little less adept at processing fructose, but with enough glucose padding it, he's fine. It's good for him to have a balance."
Roxanne blinks, trying to sort through all this. Minion hasn't always been this chatty, but he has opened up to her somewhat over the years. It's nice. She always likes talking with Minion. "He…wait, he eats straight sugar?"
Minion chuckles. "No. He mostly eats veggies and fish, some poultry. But fruits and nectar are a significant part of his diet. We had an interesting couple of years while the prison doctor worked that out—human children aren't supposed to have nearly as much sugar as Sir needs, but he kept breaking out of our cell and sneaking into Mess and eating it right out of the bag. Even Sir wasn't sure why, back then; all he knew was that he craved it pretty much constantly." He pauses, holding what appears to be a large, unlabeled jar of honey. "Except for a two-month period when he was eleven, during which all he wanted was lima beans. And almonds. That was a strange time." He places the jar carefully on Roxanne's kitchen island.
"Honey?" she asks. Minion nods.
"I prefer it to table sugar; it seems to work better overall. May I use a pot? Ah, thank you."
"You must go through an awful lot of honey in a year," Roxanne says, trying to get her head around this.
"It's not so bad," Minion says. "The highest roof in Evil Lair has beehives."
Roxanne's eyebrows disappear under her bangs. "Beehives?"
Minion nods again, sending an amused smile down at her. "Yes, beehives. Ten of them. Evil Lair was a wonderful find, for us—it's so big, and it has so many levels! The roof is—well, roofs, really. Multiple levels. So, the highest level is bees, second-highest is a green rooftop. Mostly alfalfa. For the bees." He hesitates. "Sir wouldn't like that I'm telling you this."
"Oh, come on," Roxanne says, passing him the honey when he turns. She leans against her counter and smiles up at him. "You know I'm not going to tell anyone, Minion. Looks like about a two-to-one ratio?" she adds, glancing down at the pot. "Is it just honey and water?"
Minion is quiet for a moment, but finally he smiles back and—aw, he pats her on the shoulder with a big metal hand; Roxanne was never expecting him to go that far. "And lemon, and bitter cassava," he says, nodding at where these are sitting on the counter. "I'll be done with this pretty soon; I'm also going to make enchiladas."
Roxanne blinks, some of her pleased surprise fading somewhat. "Wait, back up. Bitter cassava?" She frowns, remembering a book she read about food staples in various cultures. "But isn't that…"
"Toxic? To humans, yes," he says. "Extremely, if it's not prepared correctly. But for Sir, it supplements…oh, I don't know what to call them. Many of his amino acid equivalents are the same as yours, or they're similar. But some are totally different. And bitter cassava is toxic to humans because it contains glucosides that metabolize into hydrogen cyanide, which disrupts your mitochondria. Sir has something similar to mitochondria, but their composition is almost entirely different."
She stares at him, now completely thrown. "That's…Minion, how on earth did you figure that one out?"
Minion doesn't look at her. He's pouring honey into the water in the pot. It's not boiling, not even close, but convection is starting to occur. "Sir figured that out on his own," he says, and Roxanne bites her lip. "But it makes sense. Lima beans and almonds are both comparatively high in cyanic compounds; we think that's why he was craving them as a child. He hit a minor growth spurt shortly afterwards. Could you keep stirring this while I get the lemon ready? Thanks."
Behind them, Roxanne's bedroom door clicks quietly closed. "Okay," Megamind says, approaching. "She's down."
"Awesome," Roxanne says, turning and smiling over her shoulder at him. She sets the mystery of Megamind's diet aside, for now. "I hope you didn't have to wear a hole in the carpet."
Megamind shakes his head. "Oh, no," he says, waving a hand. "Not even close. You were right, she was out pretty quickly. But I thought I better keep at it for a few minutes to make sure she stayed asleep."
Roxanne's lips twitch. "You just didn't want to let go of her," she teases. Megamind flushes all the way up to the tips of his ears.
"No!" he protests. "No, that was fine! I just. Thought she should be fully asleep first."
Roxanne grins at him as Minion comes back with the lemon and cassava liquid in a small bowl. "And…?"
He huffs. "Fine. And I didn't want to let go of her." Roxanne laughs, and he scowls at her. "Well, I like her! So sue me! She's small and cute! What's your point!"
"Nothing, nothing!" She's still laughing, though, and Megamind finally just sits down in one of the kitchen chairs and glares at her. "I'm just…really glad you enjoyed getting to meet her. I wasn't sure if you would have any interest in babies."
"They are small and cute," he mumbles.
"And like recognizes like, I get it," Roxanne says, still teasing. Megamind blinks, then squawks at her, indignant. "Minion, here's a glass for that."
"Thank you, Miss Ritchi," Minion says, pouring about half of the viscous liquid into the cup she hands him. "Here, Sir."
Grumbling under his breath, Megamind sips at his nectar. Then he blinks down at it. "Ooh, cassava," he says, sounding startled. "Thanks, Minion. You found another supplier?"
Minion nods. "It took me some time to convince them, but they eventually agreed to the dead drops."
Roxanne leans on her elbow, grinning at Megamind. "I guess I can't try that, huh."
Megamind blinks at her. "No, it is very much poison."
"Ah, well," she sighs, still smiling. He smiles uncertainly back at her as Minion sets about unpacking the ingredients for the human-safe portion of their dinner. "Can't have everything. Minion, can I help with the enchiladas?"
"Did you tell her?" Minion asks, as he waits by the door for Megamind to finish stowing his jetpack in the trunk of the invisible car after they get home. "About her cameraman? What you found?"
Megamind sighs. "There…wasn't an opportunity."
Minion frowns. "Sir, if something happens—"
"It probably won't, Minion."
"But if—"
"It probably won't," he says again, firmly. "She's worked with the man for…how many years? Five? Six? And in all that time, he has done nothing."
"Send her an email," Minion suggests. "An anonymous one."
Megamind rolls his eyes and stands back to hold the door open for his friend. "Oh, because anonymous emails saying watch out for your coworker; he's found some not-good internet communities are such reliable sources of information." Minion opens his mouth, but Megamind just shakes his head. "I'll talk to her," he says. "I'll tell her at the next kidnapping. Okay? It's only a few days from now, and she doesn't typically see him over the weekend."
Minion sighs. "Okay, Sir. As long as she finds out soon."
Megamind nods. "Yes. Agreed. Soon."