Well folks, here we are. The big finale, what everything has been driving towards. I hope that you all enjoy it, though I will warn you that it is LONG and those of you who are criers might want to have some tissues handy because this shit is about to get intense. Also there is an epilogue and that will go up sometime soon (probably Friday).
Title : Fathers and Sons, Chapter 14
Author : Dani Kin
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG-13
Summary : Being a parent is never easy and family relationships never run smooth. The warden has an appointment with a mysterious wild-haired stranger in the aftermath of Titan's defeat.
Special thanks go to :
dal_niente for helping me process this chapter while dangling off a cliff in the Appalachians, and
sharelle for discussing it over some delightful wine above and beyond her usual beta superheroing.
Past chapters can be found
here.
~~~~~~~~~M~~~~~~~~~~
“Mr. Woodridge, your two o’clock is here.”
Goddamn it. He had totally forgotten about this meeting with someone from the Office of Budget Management. Some accountant he had never heard of called yesterday and managed to convince his new receptionist Janice that it was vital they meet as soon as possible. Which either meant that this Bernard Jones guy was trying to make a name for himself or that the OBM was going to come down on him like a ton of bricks over last year’s overhead.
The warden sighed gruffly. “Send him in.”
The office door opened and a man entered wearing a blue turtleneck and a tan blazer. No briefcase or even a notepad. That was odd.
And the man seemed to be studying his office in great detail.
“Mr. Jones. Take a seat,” the warden nodded as he shuffled the papers on his desk. The man looked at the chair and then at him, before sitting down awkwardly with his knees pressed together.
“What can I do for the OBM today?” the warden said casually as he watched the man. This guy’s hair looked like he had just stuck his finger in a light socket.
“There are several concerns to address at this meeting,” the man responded, eyes still darting around the office as though he was looking for something. “We were wondering about some of the numbers from the budget last year. And we’re taking extra care since this is the most famous prison in the city.”
The warden cocked his head. “Most famous?”
“Well, you did house Megamind here on and off for three decades,” the man responded with an odd little grin.
The warden raised an eyebrow. This conversation was going to a place that instantly made him suspicious.
“True,” the warden replied, still guarded.
“And now he’s out there trying to become a hero. Must be a strange sight for you to see,” the man pressed with a casual tone that was clearly forced.
It was strange and the warden had plenty of thoughts on that subject. But he wasn’t going to share them with a suspicious stranger.
“And what does that have to do with auditing?” the warden drawled.
“Oh, nothing,” the man replied with a familiar chuckle that the warden couldn’t place. “I just wondered since he spent so much time in here…. All his life from what they say.”
“Just one of many prisoners to walk through these gates,” the warden replied with a strained veneer of professionalism. Then he pretended to shuffle papers on his desk. There was something very odd going on here.
“Do you work in Scott Cudhey’s division? I heard he might retire this year. Man has a terrible short game,” he said with a smile, calmly floating a balloon.
The man seemed thrown by the question for a moment before nodding. “Yes, rumor is that he may,” Jones responded generically.
The warden’s eyes narrowed. Gotcha, he thought.
“That’s funny since Scott Cudhey died three years ago.”
The man’s eyes widened behind his large round glasses as he was caught out. The warden leaned back in his chair.
“Now I don’t know what your business is here. But you sure as hell don’t work for the OBM,” he said harshly. The man shook his head.
“I don’t know who you are and I frankly don’t care. But I will tell you the same thing that I have told every reporter, private investigator, and any other nosey busybody who has come traipsing into this facility over the last fifteen years.” His voice was quiet but sharp and he leaned in, holding the man spellbound.
“I am not your way to Megamind.” The warden spoke slowly with icy firmness, a voice honed from years of practice to make the listener’s blood run cold. “There is no way to Megamind that goes through me or through my prison. Now get the fuck out of my office.”
The man looked like a deer in the headlights and stayed in his seat. The warden held his gaze for beat then his annoyance grew as the man stayed frozen in place.
“Get out or I will drop kick you out,” he growled. The man stood up abruptly, but didn’t move towards the door. He seemed to be shaking as he raised his left arm across his chest and brought his right hand to his wristwatch, and twisted the face. There was a flash of light and then the warden was the one with wide eyes.
Because Megamind was standing there, looking at him nervously.
A moment passed and neither one spoke. Then the boy opened his mouth to speak.
“I….. um…… hi?”
The warden released the breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“Hello”.
The two men simply stared at each other for a tense moment. The warden noted that the boy was wearing his usual supervillian suit, though sans the spiked collar and cape.
“People came to you… to get to me?” Megamind asked, the words clearly foreign on his tongue.
“Yes,” the warden answered curtly.
“And you protected me from them?” His brow furrowed as he still tried to grasp the concept.
Another pause. “Yes.”
“Even… when I was a villain?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Such a simple question, but the warden didn’t even know where he would begin even if he wanted to. Instead he just said, “It’s complicated.”
The boy frowned and the warden knew why. Megamind hated not knowing, and hated it more when things were deliberately kept from him. But tough, he was just going to have to learn to live with it. Another pause stretched out between the two men before the warden’s curiosity and aggravation got the better of him.
“Why are you here, Megamind? Getting nostalgic for the life of villainy? You do seem to love tricking your way into my office.”
The thin blue alien frowned guiltily but the warden was too aggravated to be interested in his feelings.
“No. I don’t plan to go back to villainy. Or come back here.”
“Then what then?” The warden narrowed his eyes at him. He knew it didn’t make sense, but he was simultaneously angry that Megamind never wanted to come back and angry that he was here in the first place. This conversation couldn’t be over soon enough as far as he was concerned.
“Roxanne…. she um, wanted to get me a lawyer,” Megamind explained. "She was worried about the possibility that someone would send me back to jail. So I met with this man, a uh Franklin Jacobs? And he told me that he had worked on my legal behest before. When I was a child. That…. I have all this paperwork. A social security number. Citizenship. And adoption papers?”
Megamind searched the warden’s eyes as he said the last one. Then he coughed awkwardly.
“He gave me a file of notes to look over and said that we might need to request offi-shool copies of everything. But he said you had all the originals. If you still have them.”
The warden sat back in his chair. So the boy wanted something. That was why he came.
“I do. I have them,” the warden confirmed, still tense. “Do you want them?”
“Yes,” Megamind replied simply and they held each other’s gaze. “Jacobs said it was time consuming and expensive,” he added after a beat.
The warden wasn’t sure how to respond to that without losing his calm or divulging more than he wanted the boy to know. He merely shrugged in the affirmative.
“So why did you do it?” Megamind pressed.
The warden sighed as he got up from behind the desk and took out his keys. What did it matter, telling him now? The sooner he gave him what he came for, the sooner he would go.
“I was trying to maximize your options. I wanted you to be able to go to college. You can’t get financial aid without documentation. Or do basic things like get a job or a driver’s license. Vote if you wanted to. I wanted you to be able to get a passport and travel if you liked. So yes, it was expensive, and it took almost four years in and out of court,” he said tersely.
“But I never went to court.” Megamind looked skeptically at the warden, as though he still didn’t understand.
“You didn’t. I went. We were trying - I was trying - to keep a low profile,” the warden explained as he made his way around the desk.
“Oh,” Megamind said, and the warden couldn’t help but recognize the flicker of hurt that briefly flashed across the boy’s face though it lasted less than a second. He debated whether to acknowledge it or to let it pass.
“I was trying to be careful. I didn’t want anyone to come and take you away before things were legally in order. It wasn’t because I was ashamed of you,” the warden added quietly.
Megamind seemed surprised by that admission and chewed the inside of his lip. “Who did you think would take me?” he asked.
“S.W.O.R.D…. the feds. Or someone who might want to stick you in a lab and study you all day long.” The warden waved his hand dismissively. He didn’t want to open this subject up to any more discussion than he had to.
Megamind curled back his lip defensively. “What are you talking about? No one like that ever came after me.”
The warden crossed his arms, matching defensiveness with defensiveness. “No. I cut a deal with them. As long as I kept you under control they agreed to back off. And when I couldn’t do it, Wayne made it clear that they weren’t welcome in Metro City.”
Megamind reared back and blinked, momentarily stunned and as he tried to process that piece of information. The warden took a small comfort in having rendered him speechless.
It gave him a chance to take the small silver key in his hand and he knelt to reach the bottom drawer of the file cabinet. Megamind took a step closer, peering over the warden’s shoulder to get a better look. The warden pulled out the old cardboard file box and took a breath as he opened it. He needed to stay focused and not let old feelings distract him from the task at hand.
Keep it professional, he told himself. Don’t engage him. Just give him what he came for.
The warden opened the box and silently removed the neatly folded blanket and the picture that used to sit on his desk, along with dozens of other snapshots rubber banded together in white envelopes labeled with events and ages. He removed the notebooks of doodles and the erector set pieces and a pair of tiny socks with spaceships on them. Finally at the bottom of the box was a plain brown envelope.
He pulled it out of the box and held it for a moment. In all the years he had never let its precious contents out of reach. It had been the one thing he always knew was real and the one thing that he always swore he would never lose.
He handed it wordlessly to the blue alien, without even looking up.
Megamind gingerly took the envelope, still staring intensely at the items on the floor. The warden bristled at the boy’s gaze. They had been Megamind’s things once but now they were his, and they were not here for the boy to gawk at.
“You have what you came for now, so don’t let me keep you,” the warden said, letting his bitterness seep through. He began to silently repack what was left.
“Why did you keep those things?” a small voice asked from over his shoulder.
The warden stopped packing, the photograph from the first day of school clenched in his hands.
Because they were yours. Because they were all I had… all I could have of you.
The warden couldn’t bring himself to answer the question. He resumed packing, purposely not looking up at the boy. He just needed Megamind to take the envelope and go.
The warden never expected Megamind to kneel on the floor beside him. Or for him to reach out for one of the last things left on the floor - the little green blanket.
“I always loved this blanket. Sometimes I wish I had taken it with me,” he said wistfully.
The warden nearly ripped the blanket out of his hands. It was his dammit. The boy couldn’t have it. He didn't have much left and the warden wasn't about to let him take that too. He smoothed it and folded it and set it carefully in the box.
Megamind tried again. “It was a good blanket,” he whispered sadly and the warden could feel the boy looking at him.
The warden tried to breathe. He couldn’t keep his emotions at bay with Megamind so close to him, especially without the orange jumpsuit or the handcuffs that had served as a reminder to treat him like just another prisoner. But the boy wasn’t a prisoner anymore; he was the city’s new hero. And now Megamind was walking about his office like it was no big deal to lie his way in and reminisce.
So he needed to breathe - or else he was going to have another panic attack.
“Please,” the warden finally muttered. “Please don’t.” He wasn’t even sure what the hell he was asking him not to do. But the boy was up to something and the warden couldn’t work up the energy for whatever the hell it was. He just needed to pack up this box.
“Do you hate me?” Megamind blurted out.
The warden wasn’t prepared for that at all and he snapped his head in his direction. The boy’s expressive green eyes were sad and heavy.
“I don’t blame you if you do. I deserve it.”
Then without giving the warden a chance to answer, Megamind abruptly stood up. “Forget it. I can go. I won’t bother you anymore.”
“I don’t....” the warden started, then stopped with a weary sigh as he slid the box back into its home in the bottom drawer. “I just can’t keep doing this.”
The warden stood and set his keys on his desk. Then clasped his hands in front of himself, at a complete loss for what to do next. He couldn’t imagine physically throwing the boy out, but Megamind had what he came for. So the warden didn’t know why the kid was still here, making him feel so goddamn uncomfortable.
Megamind squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. He walked towards the door then paused with his hand on the knob, turning back one last time.
“I want you to know, I’m not going to squander my gifts for my own selfish gain anymore. I’m going to use them to help people. I’m going to be the best hero I can.”
He paused for a beat before he began to turn the knob.
“And I’ll try to make you proud of me. Maybe, someday, if you can.”
The boy turned towards the door, and the words flew out of the warden’s mouth before he could even think about what he was saying.
“I’m already proud of you.”
Megamind froze.
The warden closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them again to finish what he had unexpectedly started. “Look, you could have hid here. But you didn’t. You went out there and handled that guy like a pro. Even though he was a total nutcase.”
Megamind turned silently to face the warden, his hand still on the door as he watched the older man speak.
“I saw the whole thing on TV. God, I thought he was gonna kill you, but you put up a hell of a fight. You… You did good, kiddo. I was very proud.”
There was long pause and then Megamind removed his hand from the door knob. He took a few tentative steps back in the warden’s direction.
“I don’t even know how to talk to you. But I wanted to…. to say…. I’m sorry.” Megamind’s voice was soft and shaky and he looked down at the chair. “Roxanne said….. she said that I should tell you. So you would know. How sorry I am.” The boy took a big breath and puffed his cheeks like a chipmunk before exhaling.
“You were a good daddy.”
The warden felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room.
The warden didn’t consciously decide to move closer to him, but it was as though his feet took him there by instinct. Now he was standing close enough that he could reach out and touch him if he wanted to. The warden towered over Megamind’s short, thin frame.
He had been through this with the boy before - been told everything he ever hoped for before, only to see it all cruelly ripped away. It didn’t matter what his instincts were telling him, he was not going to make the same mistakes again.
“You cannot just walk in here, say you’re sorry, and expect everything to be okay,” the warden said, his voice thick with resentment.
“I know, I know,” Megamind repeated, nodding his head. “Because you hate me now.” The boy stated it as though it were a fact so simple that even a child understand.
“You know, don’t pull that crap with me,” the warden snapped at him. The boy quickly looked down at the floor in shame. “I don’t hate you, I just…. don’t trust you right now. Fucking hell, Megamind, it’s not just the years of…. of everything. You murdered Wayne Scott in cold blood.”
The boy didn’t look guilty when he heard that. He just winced as he looked up at the warden.
“Ummm…. Wayne isn’t dead,” Megamind said, fidgeting lightly.
“Excuse me?” The warden blinked at him.
“Wayne. He isn’t dead. He wanted to retire. So he, um…” the boy rubbed the back of his neck nervously, “faked his own death”.
The warden stood slack-jawed and he felt a flush of relief. However it quickly followed by outrage.
“Wait. So the whole thing was a set up?”
“Yeah. Only I didn’t know it at the time. I didn’t find out until later. Until Roxanne and I begged him to do something about Titan, which he didn’t. So now everyone still thinks I killed him.” Megamind shrugged nervously. “People can think whatever they want about me, but I don’t want them thinking that Roxanne is dating her boyfriend’s murderer.”
The warden raised an eyebrow at that. Dating? Did he just say dating?
Then he watched Megamind bite his bottom lip and furrow his brow. His confusion and insecurity were abundantly clear. The warden studied the man in front of him for a long moment before replying slowly.
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” he said. “Roxanne Ritchie is a smart woman. And now you have all that.” The warden gestured towards the envelope in Megamind’s hands. “So maybe things will be easier. With your case.”
Megamind looked down at it and then back up to the warden with an expression the warden couldn’t read. Then the boy gently opened the small metal clasp, letting the contents slide into his hands.
The warden exhaled anxiously as the feeling of being overexposed returned.
“So, uh, it should all be there,” he said. “Birth certificate, adoption, and citizenship’s on top. Social security card, too. The ones at the bottom are all for the trust, my will, pension, and financials. I don’t know if you need those for your legal case, but… you can hold on to them anyway, I guess.” The warden knew he was rambling, though he didn’t know why.
Megamind traced a finger over the seal embossed on the top page.
“How can I have a birth certificate if I wasn’t born on this planet?” he asked with a deep, thoughtful frown.
The warden shrugged.
“You’ll have to ask Jacobs about that. I just know that a redacted birth certificate was part of the adoption procedure.”
He watched Megamind slowly flip through the pages in his hand, then come back to one in the middle. It wasn’t embossed or covered in decorative flourishes, but the warden knew exactly what it was. He could see the heading Final Decree of Adoption from where he stood.
And while he had not memorized the contents entirely he distinctly remembered a relevant portion amid the legal gibberish :
“The court finds that adoption is in the best interest of the minor being adopted. It is therefore ordered that the Petition for Adoption is granted and the minor child Blue Woodridge is declared an adopted person under the legal care of the petitioner. This court grants full legal custody to his father James Woodridge.”
Megamind stared at the document for a long moment, and the look he gave the warden when he raised his head was one of fury.
“How could you adopt me and never tell me?” Megamind hissed, his sudden anger catching the warden completely off guard. “How could I have all this stuff-” He waved the contents of the envelope. “-and you never said a word?”
The warden was surprised for a moment but then sneered defensively, darkly relieved to finally get the stab in the back he had known would eventually come.
“What did it matter?” he countered angrily. “If you knew about any of it, you would have just bragged about it in some evil monologue. But Metro Man just kept bringing you back here. You never seemed to notice that you haven’t seen the inside of a courtroom since your first juvenile arrest, and that record was expunged when you turned 18. So unless the Metro City DA wants to actually charge you with something, you have a clean criminal record.”
Megamind’s eyes nearly bugged out of his skull at the last statement. The warden watched the boy’s face twitch as his mind worked to digest that bit of information, until he came to the one part he couldn’t work out.
“What about the life sentences?” he demanded.
“I made it all up. I thought it might… scare you straight or something. I don’t know.” The warden waved his hand dismissively. The truth was that it had gotten almost comically out of hand and he hadn’t known how to stop it.
Megamind gritted his teeth. “So why even bother with all this, then?“ He waved the papers again. “If I don’t matter?”
The warden wasn’t sure how to answer that.
“It started the day you got expelled and-” he began, but Megamind cut him off mid-sentence.
“I was EIGHT and you didn’t tell me?” he interrupted. “I wasn’t stupid. I would have understood that - if you wanted to adopt me.” The boy was cycling through facial expressions too quickly for the warden to read them, though most of them looked like something between raging and crying.
The warden rolled his eyes in defensive exasperation. “What the hell was I supposed to say, Megamind?”
“You could have told me something - anything! You could have said you were going to adopt me! You could have said that you thought about it, or even that you wanted me!” the boy snapped back.
The warden froze, stunned speechless for a moment by that statement.
“You didn’t think I wanted you?” he finally managed to ask.
Megamind gave a shifty glance around the room as he crossed his arms in front of himself uncomfortably. “I don’t know. Maybe,” he spat out.
“What the hell did you think I was doing for the last thirty-two years? Do you think that I changed every diaper or read your bedtime stories every night because I didn’t want you? That I would keep you from S.W.O.R.D. and reporters and try like hell to get you to give up all this supervillian bullshit because I just didn’t care?”
The warden could feel his face heating up as his anger grew, until he was raising his finger to point it in the boy’s face as he lectured him.
“ You have no idea the things I did for you! Because to you it was nothing more than some goddamn game.”
“I don’t have any idea because you never tell me anything!” Megamind retorted. “What am I supposed to do, Warden? I’m not a mind reader! I don’t understand this pile of papers, or why you have a box with my baby socks at the bottom of your drawer! I don’t understand any of it!”
The boy’s face contorted as though he might burst into petulant tears at any moment. And something about that made years of frustration within the warden snap like a coiled spring.
“You know what? No. Don’t. Just don’t,” he hissed.
“For the last 15 years I haven’t even known where you LIVED! You don’t own a goddamn phone! I can’t pick up and call you because I’m worried, or to say I was thinking of you, or even to…” And his voice cracked just a little. “…just say happy birthday!”
The warden was gritting his teeth and clenching his fists. The words just flew out of him as he spoke more honestly than he ever had in his life. And he couldn’t stop.
“Do you know what that’s like?” he went on. “To know that the person you love most in the entire world is out there and you can’t reach them? To know that the child you raised - your child - is doing something that terrifies you, and to worry about him every day because you can’t do a damn thing about it? What it was like to just sit and wait, hoping that Scott dropped you off in one piece?
“All I had left to hold on to was a baby blanket and a fucking box of papers. So don’t you dare lecture me about how ‘you don’t understand’. I have never understood and I’ve had to live with that every day. Every single day, since you turned your back and walked out of here.”
The warden took a few angry breaths and squeezed his eyes shut then turned to face the wall behind his desk. He couldn’t let the boy see him like this. He needed to try to rein in his emotions and collect himself. Or hope that the boy would just leave now that his back was turned.
Then the warden felt a hand on his arm. He opened his eyes in surprise.
The boy was resting one of his gloved hands on his upper arm, and looking up at him with that inscrutable expression. The warden just stared dumbly. He couldn’t remember the last time the boy had reached out for him.
“I’m sorry?” A pleading voice came out of Megamind’s mouth. “Does that help? I said I was sorry.” And then the boy began petting his arm gently.
The warden couldn’t deny that his first impulse was to give in, but that was simply impossible. Instead he tried to remember boundaries, tried to stay as still as he could. He wasn’t prepared for this. He needed to keep the boy at a distance. Distance was better. Distance had helped hold himself together for the last few years.
But it was hard. So hard, so goddamn hard. Something in him would not stop screaming to accept the boy’s clumsy attempts at comfort. As though Megamind was still a little boy and the years of mistakes were merely an injury the warden could kiss and make better.
It had been so long, but sometimes he still thought about what Leroy had said to him all those years ago about having regrets. The warden knew it was true because he had spent over a decade living it. Sometimes he felt like there was nothing between them but what was unsaid. Nothing but regrets.
Responding to this simple touch would mean letting him in and facing those regrets. It would mean trusting that he was telling the truth about everything from Wayne Scott to I’m sorry. And the warden didn’t know if he could do that.
He wanted so badly to just tell Megamind he was forgiven and all was okay now, but the warden couldn’t lie to him like that. The truth was that Megamind wasn’t a child anymore, and too much had happened between them to be fixed with just one simple gesture of comfort.
The painful years stretched between the two. The warden knew he would always love him, but wasn’t entirely sure that he ever could forgive him.
Yet he couldn’t bring himself to stop the boy from petting his arm.
“Goddammit, kiddo. It’s not that simple.” He hated how old and tired he sounded. Why was Megamind pushing this? He couldn’t really expect to waltz in here with one ‘I’m sorry’ and expect all to be forgiven. He wasn’t that stupid. The warden sighed and rubbed his face angrily, removing some of the moisture that was threatening the corners of his eyes.
The boy let go and deflated back. The warden was still looking at the wall when Megamind began to speak.
“For a long time I thought you were trying to make me into something I wasn’t. To be what you wanted. And I was so angry at you. For not understanding my destiny, for constantly trying to change me and…. for sending me to shool in the first place. But when I was here before I fought Titan - when I apologized - I thought I was talking to you.”
The warden slowly turned to face him and saw he wasn’t the only one barely holding it together. The boy looked wrecked.
“It was Minion, which was fine because I owed him an apology too. But…. I thought I was talking to you. And so I thought… just for minute…. I thought that you might be able to forgive me,” Megamind said shakily, and then he started to take in small gasping breaths.
Which was just about all the warden could take.
His hands came up slowly, as though they were moving entirely of their own accord. They gripped Megamind’s shoulders and the boy froze for a second, as though he was terrified to move lest he ruin it all.
But then Megamind’s arms lunged out for the warden’s middle. He was still holding the manila envelope and the warden felt it jab into his back as the boy grasped him with the familiar strength of a barnacle.
The warden tried to take a breath. He was fairly certain he couldn’t handle this, that he couldn’t handle the flush of memories that threatened to come as soon he had the boy in his arms.
Until Megamind’s shoulders began to quake. Then the warden heard little sobs, the boy gasping irregularly as he tried and failed to hold them in. He was crying? Wait, why was he crying?
The warden tried to remind himself that this could still be an elaborate trick, but listening to that voice didn’t make him feel strong anymore. It made him feel petty and cynical. And the warden had so nearly lost him, had so nearly redefined the word terrified while watching him fight that Titan character. There was a palpable relief at having him close and so the warden allowed himself that amid the confusion and the awkwardness.
And frankly, despite everything between them, the warden still couldn’t stand to see him to cry.
“Hey kiddo, don’t cry. It’s just… don’t okay?” the warden said as he haltingly tried to pat Megamind on the back, giving his best attempt at reassurance, though he was so many years out of practice. “It’s okay. Shhh.” Then the warden tentatively pressed the boy’s large blue head against his left shoulder, right where he had slept as a baby.
At that point Megamind well and truly lost it.
He started crying with a force that left him jerking and spasming with every loud sob and gasped breath, as though he was being shocked by an unknown force. The warden could feel the wetness of the boy’s tears soaking through his shirt. He sighed lightly, and slumped his head against Megamind’s in a final attempt to still him.
There was nothing to do but continue to whisper variations of “Shhhh, shhh, kiddo, don’t cry, shh,” as his grown son shuddered and sobbed in his arms. When there seemed to be a pause in his gasping sobs, the warden pulled the boy back.
“Megamind, what is wrong?” he asked, surprised by the rich tone of concern in his voice. He didn’t know he could do that anymore.
Megamind shook his head and bit his lip so hard that the warden wondered if he might bite clean through it. “I-I can’t,” he gasped. “It’s never going to be g-good enough”.
“Can’t what?” the warden asked. When an answer was not forthcoming the warden tried again. “What can’t you do?”
“I know I can’t... just-just say I’m sorry and have it be okay. And I can’t d-dump all my problems on you,” he choked out as he continued to cry and shake his head frantically. “N-not after everything… I’ve…. I can’t-I can’t.”
The warden didn’t know what to say to that. Then again, he never knew what to say. He had spent his time of late carefully honing his ability to detach emotionally from the boy, but that skill set was no use when he was sobbing in the warden’s arms.
He watched Megamind shaking so hard it seemed like he could barely breathe. God, he looked like a complete mess. The warden needed to get this crying under control before Megamind became completely hysterical. He moved to squarely grip his shoulders.
“Okay, okay. Megamind. Stop. Take a breath. Can you breathe for me?”
Megamind let out another sob then nodded. He pulled his head back and took a tiny breath, then another and another, each slightly longer and deeper than the one before as the warden repeated “breathe, breathe for me, there you go” in a deep calm voice.
“That’s a good boy,” he finally said as the boy calmed enough to start rubbing his face to clean up the tears.
Then he gestured for Megamind to sit down in one of the hard plastic chairs facing his desk. The warden pulled the other chair over so they were facing each other, knees almost touching. He took the envelope from the boy and set it on the floor next to his chair. The warden didn’t know what to do next but he figured that giving Megamind another quiet minute to compose himself couldn’t hurt.
“I’ve never been anything but a burden to you,” Megamind said abruptly. “Since the first day I landed.”
That warden wasn’t really sure if the boy was talking to him or himself, but that statement definitely warranted a reply.
“That is not true,” he said firmly. “It’s just… not.” He frowned, unsure where something like that had come from. The boy continued to stare at him with red puffy eyes, like he was longing to say something else but all he was willing to give was silence.
The warden waited and the seconds of silence ticked by until he began to feel a familiar flick of frustration. The one that usually resulted in him saying something smug or rude or blatantly antagonistic because the boy was shutting him out once again. Hero or villain, it didn’t matter and nothing would ever change.
He took a deep breath and tried to think of what he had talked about with Lynne in therapy:
Calm. Clear. Consistent.
He tried one final time.
“Megamind, I am asking you to talk to me. If you can’t tell me, or don’t want to, then… it is what it always is. But I’m asking because I want to know if there is something I can do.”
“Why?” Megamind asked wearily, but still with certain guarded suspicion.
The warden rubbed at his temple. Attitude aside, he didn’t even know where to begin to answer that. Logically he knew he shouldn’t be trying to get involved, but logic be damned.
“Because…you’re my kid,” he finally drawled lamely, feeling like a bit of a moron for saying something so obvious aloud. “I just want to know what’s going on. For once.”
Megamind furrowed his brow as he stared at the warden thoughtfully, then rolled his shoulders back and gave a familiar I-am-pretending-not-to-care shrug. “I’m the black sheep,” he said. “A screw up.”
“No, you’re not,” the warden disagreed with a pointed stare. If the boy wanted to bust out his old mannerisms, then he could play that game, too. “I’ve been watching you these last few weeks. You’re doing so much good out there, so don’t give me that.” The warden crossed his arms and glared at him.
“Please. I’ve never been good,” Megamind said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“Hey.” The warden abruptly grabbed Megamind’s knee, causing his eyes to widen to almost comical proportions. “That’s crap. That was crap when they were feeding it to you back then, and that’s crap now. You were a good baby and such a good kid. That black sheep bullshit’s something they put on you. It was never about who you really are.”
“But they were right,” Megamind said with a sad shrug, letting the mask drop a little. “Even as a villain I failed every single time. And it didn’t bother me!” he rushed to clarify haughtily. “I simply focused on how successful my next brilliant scheme would be. But now…. heroes don’t think like that,” Megamind explained, easing into a deep frown.
The warden watched his body language as he spoke, noting the way Megamind drew in his shoulders and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyebrows. This was more honesty than he had seen from the boy in years - maybe ever.
“Heroes have to get it right, Warden. That’s why the bad guys always lose . But winning every time is mathematically impossible! I don’t have super strength or laser vision. And if I can’t win every time then I’m just failing all over again.”
The warden listened carefully and resisted the urge to sigh when the boy seemed finished.
“Megamind, things aren’t always that black and white. And if you put that kind of pressure on yourself, you’ll crack up,” the warden said simply. He was beginning to understand how Wayne Scott might have thought it would a good idea to fake his own death.
“But I need to know. I can’t be a hero if I always fail,” Megamind responded stubbornly.
This time the warden did sigh. “You didn’t fail to stop that Titan asshole. You didn’t fail to save Roxanne,” he said, and leaned forward with his hands in his lap. “Hell, Megamind, you probably saved the whole damn city.”
“But if I mess this up then everyone will be even more disappointed and hate me more,” the boy said forcefully. “Then how can I ever make things right? I need to show you, show Roxanne, and Minion and the entire city. I need to show you I can fix it.” He made a determined fist and hit his other palm with it.
The warden finally made the connection. “You’re trying to make amends?” he asked quietly, pressing his fingertips to his temple.
As though being a hero could fix everything the boy had broken. As though it could fix the years of hurt and anger. As though it could fill the little hole that the warden learned to live with inside himself where his child should be. As though it could wipe away all the sleepless nights and harsh words.
Now the boy responsible for all that pain was sitting here looking miserably guilty as he nodded.
“I thought I knew, Warden,” Megamind tried desperately to explain, the ragged edge returning to his breath as he gestured with frantic energy. “I knew that I was supposed to be evil. I knew it since I was eight years old and I planned my whole life around it. And I had fun.”
The warden tried to take still, even breaths and maintain some kind of composure as he listened.
“How can I know something so completely - know it and believe it - and be so wrong? And what if I’m wrong about being a hero too? I can’t do that Warden; I can’t do that to everyone. So I can’t fail. Not ever.” Megamind slumped his shoulders dramatically and flopped down into the chair.
And in that moment the warden didn’t see a villain or a hero or even the person who was simultaneously the source of the most pain and the most joy he had experienced in this lifetime.
He saw his little Blue frowning up at him from his lap, and trying to puzzle out the difficult meaning of the word “daddy”.
It made the warden smile, just a little. And with that the warden realized something.
He wanted to try.
The boy was trying, albeit in strange and convoluted ways. The warden wasn’t sure how, but he needed to try to meet him somewhere on that.
So when he spoke again, his words were careful and slow.
“Megamind. You’ve got me; you’ve got Roxanne. Hell Minion came here to bust you out even though you two had some kind of fight, so I know he’s still got your back. We care about you, and you know what? We will tell you if you’re doing something wrong.”
“But none of that matters if I let everyone down-”
“I can’t speak for them,” the warden said, cutting Megamind off before he could get on another stubborn rant. “But If you are trying, really trying your best, then you’re not gonna let me down. People make mistakes; you’re allowed to make mistakes. You’ll make them and then you’ll take some time to cry or sulk or worry and then you’ll get right back up and keep going. You will. I’ve known that since you were a baby.
“As for the rest… You’re not going to earn my forgiveness by being a perfect hero. That’s…. it’s just going to take time,” the warden said gently.
“It’s all so hard,” Megamind confessed, letting the last bits of his mask fall to reveal the terror underneath the semantics and theatrics. “Everyone is looking at me - watching me like I know what I’m doing. And I don’t.” He slowly reached out for the warden’s hands.
“I know. I know, kiddo.” The warden squeezed the boys blue fingers in his own. “But the fact that you worry so much proves that you care and that you’re taking this seriously.”
Megamind nodded, then warden felt the slight twitch of the boy’s fingers, reminding him that they were still wrapped around his own. That was, in and of itself, fairly marvelous and completely unexpected.
Which meant this was the best time he would ever have to try to say what he should have years ago. If he could just work up the courage.
“Everyone makes mistakes,” the warden reiterated, and then he took a moment and a deep breath. Megamind noticed the long pause and cocked his head as he watched the warden curiously.
“There were mistakes. I made mistakes. I should have protected you. From Wayne Scott, from that teacher… Hell, from anyone,” the warden said with a harsh tone that managed to surprise even himself. “God, Blue, I should have been there. And I wasn’t. And I’m sorry.”
Megamind reared back, blinking rapidly in flustered surprise. “Warden, you couldn’t-“
“No,” the warden cut him off forcefully. “I dropped the ball. I knew that school was hard for you, and instead of asking the questions and getting involved I let them eat you alive. I got all that paperwork to try to protect you legally, but it wasn’t enough. I should have just told you from the beginning ….”
The warden could feel the familiar squeeze of anxiety, the sense of being exposed, and the urge to just stop there. But not talking hadn’t made anything easier over the years, so he forced himself to keep going even though it made him feel a little nauseous.
“You have an envelope full of papers trying to show you something I should have just said. I should have made damn sure you knew how wrong they were. You weren’t evil; there was nothing wrong with you. I should have made sure you knew how goddamn much I loved you just the way you were. I should have fixed it before the damage was done.”
The boy’s eyes were wide as he stared at the warden. His breathing was shallow and uneven. His elastic face betrayed a rapid flash of thoughts and emotions as he processed the warden’s words.
The warden waited impatiently during the pause, willing his boy to say something - anything - in response to his confession of regrets from so long ago.
“You blame yourself,” Megamind finally said quietly, and shook his head. “No, no. It wasn’t your fault I became a villain.”
The warden could feel the intense burn of Megamind’s gaze and he looked just past the boy to fixate on the large fake plant in the corner of his office. “I should have known. I should have made it my business to know,” he said reiterated.
“Warden, I didn’t tell you. And you tried so hard to convince me that I wasn’t meant to be a villain. It’s not your fault that I was too stubborn to listen,” Megamind argued with a furrowed brow.
The warden shrugged dismissively. “You trusted me. I let you down.”
“Hey, hey. You couldn’t protect me from the entire world.” Now it was Megamind’s turn to squeeze the warden’s large hands reassuringly. “You can’t think of it like that. It doesn’t make any sense. I don’t want you to do that. Please.”
The boy’s face was furrowed with concern for him, and he looked more and more like the kind child of the warden’s memories. However the warden didn’t want to let himself get sucked into the past. He needed to think about the future. Especially now that all this was out in the open.
Nothing was going to be solved today, but maybe in time. Maybe if they kept trying. Maybe if they talked like this more often.
The warden closed his eyes and took a breath. This was all very intense and he was starting to feel overwhelmed. He ran his hands through his hair and exhaled slowly as he opened his eyes.
“Megamind, this is your home. This prison and this office especially,” the warden said abruptly. “So you don’t need an appointment or a disguise, okay?”
The boy seemed relieved as he nodded gravely. “Thank you for telling me. That is per-tin-ant information.”
The warden let out a little chuckle at his familiar mispronunciation. There was so much about him - about all this - that was familiar. And so much that was brand new.
There was another pause as they just looked at each other awkwardly, then the warden changed the subject to one that had truly piqued his curiosity earlier.
“So it’s more than just a professional relationship between you and Roxanne Ritchie, eh?” he asked with a smirk.
And Megamind’s entire face lit up in a giddy smile.
“Roxanne,” Megamind looked at him with an expression the warden could only describe as lovesick joy. “She’s wonderful, Warden. She…. likes me.” He said it softly, like it was some kind of miracle. “She is willing to give me a chance, even though I don’t deserve it. Because for some incomprehensible reason, she cares about me. Even with everything I’ve done.”
The warden gave a little smile of his own and a chuckling exhale. “I get that.”
Megamind looked guilty for a second, but he eased when he noticed the smile on the warden’s face. Then he began to fidget in his seat and bite his bottom lip, clearly wrestling with something. The warden gave him a pointed stare.
“What? This only works if you talk to me,” the warden reminded him. “So out with it.”
“Ummm, do you think you could help me with something?” Megamind asked shyly.
“What?” the warden asked, leaning back so his legs wouldn’t fall asleep in the uncomfortable chair.
“Roxanne. She… Sometimes I just don’t know how to do things. And she usually doesn’t get mad, but I just wish I had someone to ask about these things. Minion tries, but he’s just terrible at it. So I need someone to tell me what to do sometimes. I know it’s a lot to ask but I don’t want to mess it all up. She’s too important.” He squirmed in his seat as his wide eyes searched the warden’s face hopefully.
Well doesn’t that beat all, the warden thought. The boy wanted to ask him for dating advice? He was secretly elated, but the warden tried not to let it show. Instead he stood up and reached for the keys on his desk.
“You know what? Let’s go.” He nodded to the boy.
“Go where?” Megamind asked quickly, once again guarded.
“Doesn’t matter. It’s not every day I get the chance to give some fatherly advice to my son.” He beamed at the boy and Megamind burst into a funny, almost shy, smile in response.
The warden took a moment to straighten his tie and made sure his suit coat was neatly buttoned and uncrumpled. Then looked over at Megamind. The boy was clearing the last bits of moisture from his eyes with the edge of his sleeve, before he carefully smoothed down any wrinkles on the front of his own outfit.
The warden felt the oddest surge of pride as he watched their mirrored movements. Huh, he thought, presentation.
They moved to leave, then Megamind raced back into the room and quickly grabbed the envelope off the floor. The warden held the door and they exited the office together. On the way out the warden stopped off at his receptionist’s desk. She cocked her head a bit in confusion when she saw Megamind by his side.
“Janice? Clear my schedule for the rest of the day,” the warden instructed with a smile. “I’m leaving early.”