Symphony, Fourth Movement: Sense and Sensibility and Somewhere, part B
Now for part B....
As he ambled off, whistling cheerfully, Megamind shooed off the brainbots that had been providing extra light as he set aside his tools. Roxanne looked at the stuff spread across the table, and smiled. "You know, this kind of thing could be an absolute godsend for amputees and people with certain birth defects," she pointed out, with pride.
"It could be," he allowed, "but it's nowhere near that stage of the game. Doing this with Minion is easy because his 'body' is robotic and the neural implants that allow him to transmit his thoughts directly into the AI controllers of the suit are already in place - but I didn't put them there, my parents did. I still haven't mapped out all the details of how that fusion was achieved, and I'm not taking Minion apart to have a closer look! Even if I could be sure of doing it without hurting him, I'd be afraid that I wouldn't be able to put things back together properly because I don't have the right tools."
"Aren't there non-invasive ways to do that?"
"Yes, but the equipment that currently exists isn't good enough to do a proper job of it. I've been working on improving some different kinds of scanners, when I have the time. There hasn't been a lot of that to spare, unfortunately."
Roxanne slipped an arm around his waist as he stood up, both as a more proper greeting and because she had missed being close to him. He smiled and kissed her cheek, which was as far as things would go, for now. Megamind tended to have a fairly strong natural immunity to a lot of human diseases, but when he did catch one, he could get distressingly sick. Neither of them wanted to take the risk of him picking up this current bug, so certain sensible precautions were taken. Until today, Roxanne hadn't felt up to much more than sleeping and occasionally half-sleeping through a movie or TV show, anyway. His remark brought a small pinch of a frown to her brows. "Has it been a tough week? I thought things have been pretty quiet on the hero front, since Monday."
"On the streets, yes, but there's always the repairs and upgrades and things waiting to be done. Not to mention some new projects the city wants me to look into, and some other stuff the governor's asked about. It's like you with your job. There're always the stories you want to do but can't ever seem to get around to because of the work you have to do.” He let loose an immense sigh. “It was so much easier, being a villain. I could do what I wanted to, when I wanted to, and I didn’t have to worry about letting anybody down or ruining my reputation.”
She chuckled. “That’s because you didn’t have a reputation that could be ruined, sweetie. Everybody was counting you to lose, anyway.” When he huffed, lower lip sticking out in a disgruntled pout, she took a chance and kissed it quickly. “We loved you, anyway,” she admitted. “What would’ve been the fun in having a superhero without a supervillain willing to keep taking him on, even when he always lost? The only way you could’ve ruined your reputation is if you’d stopped coming back for more.”
He could tell she meant it as an odd sort of compliment, but he continued to pout for a few moments, regardless. “Well,” he finally conceded, “I suppose I did show that I had more staying power than Wayne, in the end.”
“Exactly. And if you ask me, I’d say you’re outshining him when it comes to being a hero, too.” She could see the pride begin to light up his green eyes, along with a bit of puzzlement. She explained. “Metro Man was big on rescues and thwarting criminals and doing feats of strength and speed and superpowers, but that was the whole show, with him. You do the rescuing and the thwarting, too, but you also do detective work Wayne just never bothered to do, not unless he could manage it with superpowers alone, and your public service work goes a lot farther than his ever did. Design and build new recycling facilities to handle all the city’s waste products and revert them into useable materials instead of putting it all in landfills? Wayne couldn’t’ve done that, all he ever did was chuck the stuff into the sun once in a while, and then only if people asked. Come up with materials that will eventually protect all the police and firefighters, not just himself? Not a chance he’d ever do it, he just couldn’t. Have brainbots patrolling the city, keeping an eye out for trouble, picking up litter, just generally being helpful? Hell, when you got them to start doing that while you were still the Evil Overlord, the city was safer than it had ever been while Metro Man was on patrol. He couldn’t be everywhere, and not even in as many places as your brainbots are. And all those things are just the tip of the iceberg. You’ve done a lot more for this city and the whole region since you became the hero than Wayne did in all the years he was Metro Man. That makes you the better hero in my book - and in a lot of other people’s, too. I know you, you’ll find the time to make this neural interface thing work, sooner or later. It’s just the way you are.”
Now, there was an odd smile on the blue face, a charming combination of pride, vanity, and even a little abashed humility. “Well, yes, of course I will!” he agreed, as if thinking anything else was just plain silly. “It’s what I do best, after all, never give up! Even Mr. Super Snot can’t say that, because he did!”
Roxanne grinned. “He certainly did, and at just the wrong time. But that’s in the past, water under the bridge. Has anything else been happening that I should know about?”
Megamind shook his head as he steered her toward the door and out of the room, headed for the kitchen, his arm around her shoulders while hers was still comfortably wrapped around his slim waist. “Nothing significant. Your boss wants to know when you’ll be back to work, he’s been trying to call and sending notes with Pinky when she goes to your office to pick up your mail. We should really set up a post office box for you, so your private stuff doesn’t have to get keep getting forwarded to the station.”
She snickered. “That may become a moot point if you don’t outfit my car with a stealth mode, like the Invisible Car. I’ve been having to shake people off my tail for months to keep the paparazzi and other less well-intentioned snoops from following me, especially since it got around the station that you and I had moved in together.”
He snorted. “Yes, well, that’s one of the other things we’ve been working on while you were sick. That and trying to miniaturize the necessary components enough to fit in as a setting on the holowatch. The car should be done by the end of next week, but I’m afraid the watch thing’s going to take a little longer.”
“You’ll work it out, hon, I have faith in you.” She felt the slight bloom of heat under her lips as she kissed his cheek in encouragement. He was always a bit embarrassed by such open demonstrations of confidence in him and his abilities after so many, many years of failure, even as he reveled in them. “So, has Pinky been playing secretary with my mail, sorting out the junk from all the rest of it?”
“Diligently. There isn’t much of ‘the rest of it,’ mostly notes from your boss, from the look of things.”
Her eyes twinkled as she sent him a sly, sidelong glance. “What, you haven’t been reading it for me?”
“Never,” was the indignantly offered reply. “I had enough to worry about on your behalf, with you being sick. I didn’t need to add worries about whether or not I should go dehydrate your boss and a few of your so-called fans.”
“That’s probably for the best,” she admitted.
“Just don’t be surprised when you find all the envelopes opened. Pinky got the idea that she could sort things better if she knew what’s in them, but she’s not much of a reader.”
The image of the little bot trying to find some kind order in letters she could barely read made Roxanne laugh, and she was still laughing when they reached the kitchen. Her mail had been spread out on one side of the table, several piles that didn’t seem exceptionally large, until she noticed the trash can full of junk mail alongside one of the chairs. It was amazing just how much of the stuff could pile up in a single week.
While she ate the lunch Minion had provided for her, easily digestible things with more solid protein and vitamins and carbohydrates than she’d been able to ingest during the worst parts of her illness, Roxanne idly sorted through some of the collected mail. The things from her boss, she noted, had been stacked according to the date received, so she decided to tackle them first. Most were just queries as to when she was coming back and generally dismissible news of what was going on at the station. One, however, was more interesting.
“Oh, I’d heard rumors that someone at KMCP was going to be buttonholed for this, this year,” she said as she read the note and an attached letter. “But I didn’t think it would be me!”
“Buttonholed?” Megamind repeated after swallowing a mouthful of his sandwich, trying to wrap his brain around the bizarre concept of buttonholing. “Does someone want to cover you with buttonholes, or do they plan to try to turn you into one?” From his expression, if she said the latter, he was going to demand to know who had concocted this nefarious plan so he could go after them and use one of the less benign settings of the de-gun on him or her.
Roxanne laughed and patted his shoulder. “Neither, sweetie, so you can just unruffle your feathers. To buttonhole someone means to corner them and ask them for a favor. Happens all the time, especially in things like politics and the media.”
“That doesn’t sound much better,” was the alien’s opinion, still offered with a glower. “Who wants to ask you to do them a favor?”
"The annual Metro County Children's Benefit. Every March, they put on some kind of dinner and show to raise money for different groups that provide funding for underprivileged kids, usually a celebrity competition with the prize money given to the winners' selected charity. Last year, they did 'Metro Idol' and had a singing competition. I think you were in the middle of helping with the renovation of the subway system then, so they stayed off your back. Wayne was really ticked off about it, 'cause he'd been wanting them to do that for years, and when they finally did, he couldn't compete because he was still officially 'dead.' This year, they're going with 'Metro City's Got Talent.'" She snorted. "Betcha anything Wayne offered a big donation to talk the committee into it, just so he can get up on stage and have his act televised to the whole city."
The alien nodded. "Oh, yes, we know about that. Are they asking you to compete on behalf of the station?"
The brunette shook her head. "No, they want me to host it. They usually try to tap one of the local news reporters or interviewers for the job - I guess they figure we know how to handle ourselves in front of the cameras and interact with people. Last year, they got Mark Wilson from Channel 11 to do it, and it was someone from Channel 3 the year before that. I guess it was our turn in the rotation."
"Well, I think they made an excellent choice, Ms Ritchi," Minion said from the kitchen's central prep island, where he was testing the dexterity of his new hand when it came to feeding himself, tossing and catching lobster bites through the open top of his dome, like popcorn. "You've always had a wonderful presence on camera - it certainly had the boss captivated for years!"
"Minion!" said boss scolded with a devastating glare that his guardian easily ignored.
Roxanne allowed herself only the smallest chuckle, since he had already gone purple from the neck up. "It's okay, Megamind, he's not telling me anything I didn't already know. I do know how to recognize professional admirers when I see them, and even when I was pissed off at you for kidnapping me and turning my life upside down, I thought it was kind of sweet and flattering. How do you two know about the benefit? Have they been running commercials for it already? They usually don't start that up until about a month beforehand, so people won't have time to get sick and tired of hearing about it."
Megamind shook his head as his color returned to normal. He took a sip from his cup of coffee to clear his throat before tendering an answer. "I don't know if they are, I haven't had much time to watch TV lately - and it's never as interesting when you're not on it. No, they sent us invitations months ago, asking if we'd be willing to participate this year, since we are local celebrities."
Roxanne was admittedly a bit surprised, since it showed just how much some parts of the region were finally accepting the two aliens as the good guys. "Did you say yes?"
Minion looked at his ward before answering; the blue hero shrugged. "We told them we'd think about it," the latter said. "I mean, it's hard to make definite commitments for something sort of frivolous when you have to be on call for emergencies at any time of the day or night. Unlike my predesceasor, neither Minion nor I have ridiculously extreme super-speed."
The reporter didn't bother to correct his mild mispronunciation, as it was rather amusingly apropos. "That is true," she agreed. "And the benefit isn't until the twentieth of next month, so it can be tough to even try to make projections. They asked both of you, huh?"
"Is that cool, or what?" Minion confirmed most enthusiastically.
Megamind was remarkably calm about it, though he did come off as a bit smug. "We are a team, Minion, don't forget that."
The ichthyoid rolled his golden-brown eyes, since he knew quite well that his master forgot that very fact often enough. "Well, sir, I am just the sidekick. Without you, there wouldn't even be a team."
Roxanne was amused at their byplay. "Have you guys come up with anything to do, just in case you're available and can make it, or were you just planning to play the busy heroes card and avoid the whole thing?"
The ex-villain made the most peculiar noise Roxanne had ever heard. "I want to," he admitted candidly. "Wayne has some idea about engaging in a battle of the bands - which would be rather grossly unfair, since he has a band these days, and we don't."
"Oh, so you're saying you couldn't manage to get something together using the brainbots?" the brunette challenged impishly.
"Of course I could!" was the reliably cocky answer. "But he wants this to be on his terms, as usual. Every time we fought, he's always had the upper hand right from the start because he had the advantage with all his superpowers and invulnerability. Every single time, I had to try to find a way to even the playing field before I could even start thinking about having a real advantage. What do you think all those kidnappings were about?"
Roxanne's smile was lopsided. "Well, I'll admit, that's what it looked like for the first year or three, but after that, I got the distinct impression that it was getting to be more about being a weird sort of date. More and more, you sure didn't seem like you were in any big hurry to get Metro Man to come save me."
Megamind coughed; Minion sniggered. "She's got you there, sir."
"Oh, shut up," his ward grumbled, unable to really deny the accusation. "Perhaps I did start to enjoy your company more than a villain should have," he confessed to Roxanne, "but you have to remember that I and the rest of Metrocity were under the distinct impression that you and Mr. Goody Two Shoes were An Item. He never said anything to the contrary, so in the end, it was still partly about gaining some kind of realistic advantage over him."
Roxanne blinked, startled. "Wait, are you saying that Wayne never tried to tell you that he wasn't my boyfriend?"
"Of course he didn't. If he had, would you have needed to tell me otherwise when you thought I was 'Bernard?'"
Somehow, even though they had been together for over a year and a half, the implications of that particular matter had never occurred to the reporter. She frowned. "That muscle-brained creep! Do you mean to say that if he'd just told you flat out that he and I weren't dating, weren't anything more than friends, you would've left me alone?"
Megamind considered this while he finished his sandwich. "That's a possibility," he finally said. "I can't say for sure whether or not I would've believed him, since that's the sort of white lie even he would tell to protect someone, but if he had been able to make me buy it, it would have changed my perceptions. Of course, he would've needed to tell me fairly early on. I'm afraid that Minion's right, I did start to enjoy your company rather quickly. After that, I would've looked for other excuses to...er...well, you know."
"Yeah, I do. But it still ticks me off to think that Wayne never bothered to tell you we weren't a couple. I would've thought he'd do that just to try to get you off my back! The nerve of him, going around letting you think that we were dating or whatever he wanted to call it, I don't care if he thought he was protecting my honor or insuring my job security! He should have said something, right from the start - especially to you! That lame-brained, numb-skulled, over-muscled self-centered excuse for a hero! First he lets you keep right on thinking something about me that just wasn't true, and then he goes and walks out on us, and leaves the whole city and me to you and your hare-brained ideas! When I think how that whole mess could've been prevented if he'd deflated his male ego a little and just admitted that there was one woman in the world who wasn't all swooning over him, I could wring his bloody neck! Man, if I'd known he was doing that just so everyone would think he actually had a girl in his life, I would've headed for the nearest army base, borrowed their biggest rocket launcher, hauled it over to his stupid little playhouse on the beach, and shoved the thing right up his superheroic backside and launched him right into- what???!!!"
The ex-villain watched her increasingly incensed reaction with startled interest, head cocked as if studying some unfathomably peculiar display of animal ritual. As she went on and on and got herself worked up more and more, a smile slowly spread across Megamind’s face, followed by a chuckle which quickly built to full-blown laughter. It got the better of him for such a long time, Roxanne finally turned to Minion, at a loss.
The piscine sidekick had no better idea of what had set off his boss. "Uh... sir, is something wrong?" he asked uncertainly. "Are you having a seizure?"
The still laughing hero shook his head, unable to say more quite yet. Both his companions were starting to get worried by the time this strange bout of humor began to abate, and he wiped away the tears of laughter with the back of one hand. "No," he gasped out at last. "It's not a seizure - it's not really even all that funny, it's just-! Ridiculous, that's what it is! I thought I'm supposed to be the over-emotional one around here, not you, Roxanne! I don't think I've ever heard you blow your top like that - and when you're still getting over the flu! I'm glad this didn't come up when you were completely healthy! You might've grabbed the nearest missle launcher and taken out the entire north shore just to get Wayne's hideout!"
The absurdity of the situation got to Minion first, though he tried his best to hide his own laughter at the image of the usually sensible Ms Ritchi using heavy weapons to attempt getting even with the retired Metro Man. It took Roxanne a fair bit longer to get out of her outraged state of mind to begin to see how much she'd been acting... well, like Megamind in one of his more over the top moments, toned down, of course, by her currently marginal state of health. When she was able to think over all she'd just said, she couldn't quite keep the wry smile off her face.
She finally wadded up her napkin and threw it at her still-chortling blue beau. "Oh, all right, you, stop it already, it's not that funny!" she chided, flushing an attractive deep pink at her own atypical behavior. "I guess I did go a little overboard, but really, the whole thing with everyone from here to Timbuktu thinking I was Metro Man's girlfriend was a huge pain in the butt! And not just because of you and all those kidnappings! Having that reputation following me around was as good as hanging a DO NOT TOUCH sign around my neck to everything male - except you! If Wayne had really had my best interests at heart, he should've tried a little harder to convince people it wasn't true!"
Megamind had stopped laughing, but now he was eyeing his girlfriend with a mischievous, almost evil smirk. "So, you wanted him to go and find himself another reporter to date, to convince other men that you weren't - ah - taken?"
"That would've been nice, yes."
Now, he put on his sad puppy face. "And you would've been happy if I'd just gone away?"
She knew he was giving her that look on purpose, and it didn't matter, it got to her anyway. "Well, not in hindsight, no. I'm glad we got together. But I could've done with a few less kidnappings."
The mischievous smile was back. "Hmm, I can see your point - though it might not have made much of a difference, in the end."
"Then I was right!" Minion crowed in triumph. "Ha! You can deny it all you want, sir, but I just knew you were smitten even before that first kidnapping! And you kept telling me I was just a fish and didn't understand these things!"
Megamind suddenly seemed to fold in on himself like an imploding balloon, his entire head turning a shade of purple that Roxanne was fairly certain was bordering on ultraviolet. "What is this, Embarrass a Superhero to Death Day?"
Roxanne had the presence of mind not to laugh, and Minion had the decency to be chagrined. "I'm sorry, sir, I didn't mean to get carried away like that. But I've been trying to get you to admit that for years!"
The mortified hero pulled himself together enough to give the fish a withering look that would've literally melted anyone else. "Yes, well, just remember, if something just happens to 'come up' the night of that benefit, you get to go on for the both of us, all by yourself!"
That reminder wrung a huge gulp of dismay from the ichthyoid. Roxanne, however, was surprised. "Does that mean the two of you accepted the invitation? That you're going to give Wayne his battle of the bands?"
Megamind's complexion was slowly returning to normal as his lungs reinflated properly. He waggled one hand. "Yes and no. Yes, we accepted the invitation to participate, so long as nothing comes up to prevent it, but no, Wayne isn't getting the battle he wants. Some other time, maybe, when we have time to prepare a proper presentation."
"Does this have anything to do with Minion learning to play the keyboard?"
"After only a few months' practice? It's not strictly a music competition, after all."
"That's true." She scanned the letter from the benefit's board. "I was thinking of passing on this, but now, I've just got to do it, just to make sure I get a front row seat to see what you two have been cooking up." She paused. "I hope that's not what you're planning to do, cook up a bomb on the stage or something."
The blue alien had definitely regained his composure, as his response was an extravagantly indignant roll of his eyes. "Please, that would be totally unacceptable for a hero! We have something in mind, yes, but just for that, you're going to have to wait like everyone else and see it at the benefit. If circumstances permit."
Roxanne tried to give him her best persuasive "temptress" look, but he remained adamant. She figured it probably had something to do with her still recovering from the flu, and not quite being on top of her game. Give it a day or two, she felt sure, and she'd get it out of him. He was too much of a show-off to keep his plans quiet for that long.
On to part C…
.
As he ambled off, whistling cheerfully, Megamind shooed off the brainbots that had been providing extra light as he set aside his tools. Roxanne looked at the stuff spread across the table, and smiled. "You know, this kind of thing could be an absolute godsend for amputees and people with certain birth defects," she pointed out, with pride.
"It could be," he allowed, "but it's nowhere near that stage of the game. Doing this with Minion is easy because his 'body' is robotic and the neural implants that allow him to transmit his thoughts directly into the AI controllers of the suit are already in place - but I didn't put them there, my parents did. I still haven't mapped out all the details of how that fusion was achieved, and I'm not taking Minion apart to have a closer look! Even if I could be sure of doing it without hurting him, I'd be afraid that I wouldn't be able to put things back together properly because I don't have the right tools."
"Aren't there non-invasive ways to do that?"
"Yes, but the equipment that currently exists isn't good enough to do a proper job of it. I've been working on improving some different kinds of scanners, when I have the time. There hasn't been a lot of that to spare, unfortunately."
Roxanne slipped an arm around his waist as he stood up, both as a more proper greeting and because she had missed being close to him. He smiled and kissed her cheek, which was as far as things would go, for now. Megamind tended to have a fairly strong natural immunity to a lot of human diseases, but when he did catch one, he could get distressingly sick. Neither of them wanted to take the risk of him picking up this current bug, so certain sensible precautions were taken. Until today, Roxanne hadn't felt up to much more than sleeping and occasionally half-sleeping through a movie or TV show, anyway. His remark brought a small pinch of a frown to her brows. "Has it been a tough week? I thought things have been pretty quiet on the hero front, since Monday."
"On the streets, yes, but there's always the repairs and upgrades and things waiting to be done. Not to mention some new projects the city wants me to look into, and some other stuff the governor's asked about. It's like you with your job. There're always the stories you want to do but can't ever seem to get around to because of the work you have to do.” He let loose an immense sigh. “It was so much easier, being a villain. I could do what I wanted to, when I wanted to, and I didn’t have to worry about letting anybody down or ruining my reputation.”
She chuckled. “That’s because you didn’t have a reputation that could be ruined, sweetie. Everybody was counting you to lose, anyway.” When he huffed, lower lip sticking out in a disgruntled pout, she took a chance and kissed it quickly. “We loved you, anyway,” she admitted. “What would’ve been the fun in having a superhero without a supervillain willing to keep taking him on, even when he always lost? The only way you could’ve ruined your reputation is if you’d stopped coming back for more.”
He could tell she meant it as an odd sort of compliment, but he continued to pout for a few moments, regardless. “Well,” he finally conceded, “I suppose I did show that I had more staying power than Wayne, in the end.”
“Exactly. And if you ask me, I’d say you’re outshining him when it comes to being a hero, too.” She could see the pride begin to light up his green eyes, along with a bit of puzzlement. She explained. “Metro Man was big on rescues and thwarting criminals and doing feats of strength and speed and superpowers, but that was the whole show, with him. You do the rescuing and the thwarting, too, but you also do detective work Wayne just never bothered to do, not unless he could manage it with superpowers alone, and your public service work goes a lot farther than his ever did. Design and build new recycling facilities to handle all the city’s waste products and revert them into useable materials instead of putting it all in landfills? Wayne couldn’t’ve done that, all he ever did was chuck the stuff into the sun once in a while, and then only if people asked. Come up with materials that will eventually protect all the police and firefighters, not just himself? Not a chance he’d ever do it, he just couldn’t. Have brainbots patrolling the city, keeping an eye out for trouble, picking up litter, just generally being helpful? Hell, when you got them to start doing that while you were still the Evil Overlord, the city was safer than it had ever been while Metro Man was on patrol. He couldn’t be everywhere, and not even in as many places as your brainbots are. And all those things are just the tip of the iceberg. You’ve done a lot more for this city and the whole region since you became the hero than Wayne did in all the years he was Metro Man. That makes you the better hero in my book - and in a lot of other people’s, too. I know you, you’ll find the time to make this neural interface thing work, sooner or later. It’s just the way you are.”
Now, there was an odd smile on the blue face, a charming combination of pride, vanity, and even a little abashed humility. “Well, yes, of course I will!” he agreed, as if thinking anything else was just plain silly. “It’s what I do best, after all, never give up! Even Mr. Super Snot can’t say that, because he did!”
Roxanne grinned. “He certainly did, and at just the wrong time. But that’s in the past, water under the bridge. Has anything else been happening that I should know about?”
Megamind shook his head as he steered her toward the door and out of the room, headed for the kitchen, his arm around her shoulders while hers was still comfortably wrapped around his slim waist. “Nothing significant. Your boss wants to know when you’ll be back to work, he’s been trying to call and sending notes with Pinky when she goes to your office to pick up your mail. We should really set up a post office box for you, so your private stuff doesn’t have to get keep getting forwarded to the station.”
She snickered. “That may become a moot point if you don’t outfit my car with a stealth mode, like the Invisible Car. I’ve been having to shake people off my tail for months to keep the paparazzi and other less well-intentioned snoops from following me, especially since it got around the station that you and I had moved in together.”
He snorted. “Yes, well, that’s one of the other things we’ve been working on while you were sick. That and trying to miniaturize the necessary components enough to fit in as a setting on the holowatch. The car should be done by the end of next week, but I’m afraid the watch thing’s going to take a little longer.”
“You’ll work it out, hon, I have faith in you.” She felt the slight bloom of heat under her lips as she kissed his cheek in encouragement. He was always a bit embarrassed by such open demonstrations of confidence in him and his abilities after so many, many years of failure, even as he reveled in them. “So, has Pinky been playing secretary with my mail, sorting out the junk from all the rest of it?”
“Diligently. There isn’t much of ‘the rest of it,’ mostly notes from your boss, from the look of things.”
Her eyes twinkled as she sent him a sly, sidelong glance. “What, you haven’t been reading it for me?”
“Never,” was the indignantly offered reply. “I had enough to worry about on your behalf, with you being sick. I didn’t need to add worries about whether or not I should go dehydrate your boss and a few of your so-called fans.”
“That’s probably for the best,” she admitted.
“Just don’t be surprised when you find all the envelopes opened. Pinky got the idea that she could sort things better if she knew what’s in them, but she’s not much of a reader.”
The image of the little bot trying to find some kind order in letters she could barely read made Roxanne laugh, and she was still laughing when they reached the kitchen. Her mail had been spread out on one side of the table, several piles that didn’t seem exceptionally large, until she noticed the trash can full of junk mail alongside one of the chairs. It was amazing just how much of the stuff could pile up in a single week.
While she ate the lunch Minion had provided for her, easily digestible things with more solid protein and vitamins and carbohydrates than she’d been able to ingest during the worst parts of her illness, Roxanne idly sorted through some of the collected mail. The things from her boss, she noted, had been stacked according to the date received, so she decided to tackle them first. Most were just queries as to when she was coming back and generally dismissible news of what was going on at the station. One, however, was more interesting.
“Oh, I’d heard rumors that someone at KMCP was going to be buttonholed for this, this year,” she said as she read the note and an attached letter. “But I didn’t think it would be me!”
“Buttonholed?” Megamind repeated after swallowing a mouthful of his sandwich, trying to wrap his brain around the bizarre concept of buttonholing. “Does someone want to cover you with buttonholes, or do they plan to try to turn you into one?” From his expression, if she said the latter, he was going to demand to know who had concocted this nefarious plan so he could go after them and use one of the less benign settings of the de-gun on him or her.
Roxanne laughed and patted his shoulder. “Neither, sweetie, so you can just unruffle your feathers. To buttonhole someone means to corner them and ask them for a favor. Happens all the time, especially in things like politics and the media.”
“That doesn’t sound much better,” was the alien’s opinion, still offered with a glower. “Who wants to ask you to do them a favor?”
"The annual Metro County Children's Benefit. Every March, they put on some kind of dinner and show to raise money for different groups that provide funding for underprivileged kids, usually a celebrity competition with the prize money given to the winners' selected charity. Last year, they did 'Metro Idol' and had a singing competition. I think you were in the middle of helping with the renovation of the subway system then, so they stayed off your back. Wayne was really ticked off about it, 'cause he'd been wanting them to do that for years, and when they finally did, he couldn't compete because he was still officially 'dead.' This year, they're going with 'Metro City's Got Talent.'" She snorted. "Betcha anything Wayne offered a big donation to talk the committee into it, just so he can get up on stage and have his act televised to the whole city."
The alien nodded. "Oh, yes, we know about that. Are they asking you to compete on behalf of the station?"
The brunette shook her head. "No, they want me to host it. They usually try to tap one of the local news reporters or interviewers for the job - I guess they figure we know how to handle ourselves in front of the cameras and interact with people. Last year, they got Mark Wilson from Channel 11 to do it, and it was someone from Channel 3 the year before that. I guess it was our turn in the rotation."
"Well, I think they made an excellent choice, Ms Ritchi," Minion said from the kitchen's central prep island, where he was testing the dexterity of his new hand when it came to feeding himself, tossing and catching lobster bites through the open top of his dome, like popcorn. "You've always had a wonderful presence on camera - it certainly had the boss captivated for years!"
"Minion!" said boss scolded with a devastating glare that his guardian easily ignored.
Roxanne allowed herself only the smallest chuckle, since he had already gone purple from the neck up. "It's okay, Megamind, he's not telling me anything I didn't already know. I do know how to recognize professional admirers when I see them, and even when I was pissed off at you for kidnapping me and turning my life upside down, I thought it was kind of sweet and flattering. How do you two know about the benefit? Have they been running commercials for it already? They usually don't start that up until about a month beforehand, so people won't have time to get sick and tired of hearing about it."
Megamind shook his head as his color returned to normal. He took a sip from his cup of coffee to clear his throat before tendering an answer. "I don't know if they are, I haven't had much time to watch TV lately - and it's never as interesting when you're not on it. No, they sent us invitations months ago, asking if we'd be willing to participate this year, since we are local celebrities."
Roxanne was admittedly a bit surprised, since it showed just how much some parts of the region were finally accepting the two aliens as the good guys. "Did you say yes?"
Minion looked at his ward before answering; the blue hero shrugged. "We told them we'd think about it," the latter said. "I mean, it's hard to make definite commitments for something sort of frivolous when you have to be on call for emergencies at any time of the day or night. Unlike my predesceasor, neither Minion nor I have ridiculously extreme super-speed."
The reporter didn't bother to correct his mild mispronunciation, as it was rather amusingly apropos. "That is true," she agreed. "And the benefit isn't until the twentieth of next month, so it can be tough to even try to make projections. They asked both of you, huh?"
"Is that cool, or what?" Minion confirmed most enthusiastically.
Megamind was remarkably calm about it, though he did come off as a bit smug. "We are a team, Minion, don't forget that."
The ichthyoid rolled his golden-brown eyes, since he knew quite well that his master forgot that very fact often enough. "Well, sir, I am just the sidekick. Without you, there wouldn't even be a team."
Roxanne was amused at their byplay. "Have you guys come up with anything to do, just in case you're available and can make it, or were you just planning to play the busy heroes card and avoid the whole thing?"
The ex-villain made the most peculiar noise Roxanne had ever heard. "I want to," he admitted candidly. "Wayne has some idea about engaging in a battle of the bands - which would be rather grossly unfair, since he has a band these days, and we don't."
"Oh, so you're saying you couldn't manage to get something together using the brainbots?" the brunette challenged impishly.
"Of course I could!" was the reliably cocky answer. "But he wants this to be on his terms, as usual. Every time we fought, he's always had the upper hand right from the start because he had the advantage with all his superpowers and invulnerability. Every single time, I had to try to find a way to even the playing field before I could even start thinking about having a real advantage. What do you think all those kidnappings were about?"
Roxanne's smile was lopsided. "Well, I'll admit, that's what it looked like for the first year or three, but after that, I got the distinct impression that it was getting to be more about being a weird sort of date. More and more, you sure didn't seem like you were in any big hurry to get Metro Man to come save me."
Megamind coughed; Minion sniggered. "She's got you there, sir."
"Oh, shut up," his ward grumbled, unable to really deny the accusation. "Perhaps I did start to enjoy your company more than a villain should have," he confessed to Roxanne, "but you have to remember that I and the rest of Metrocity were under the distinct impression that you and Mr. Goody Two Shoes were An Item. He never said anything to the contrary, so in the end, it was still partly about gaining some kind of realistic advantage over him."
Roxanne blinked, startled. "Wait, are you saying that Wayne never tried to tell you that he wasn't my boyfriend?"
"Of course he didn't. If he had, would you have needed to tell me otherwise when you thought I was 'Bernard?'"
Somehow, even though they had been together for over a year and a half, the implications of that particular matter had never occurred to the reporter. She frowned. "That muscle-brained creep! Do you mean to say that if he'd just told you flat out that he and I weren't dating, weren't anything more than friends, you would've left me alone?"
Megamind considered this while he finished his sandwich. "That's a possibility," he finally said. "I can't say for sure whether or not I would've believed him, since that's the sort of white lie even he would tell to protect someone, but if he had been able to make me buy it, it would have changed my perceptions. Of course, he would've needed to tell me fairly early on. I'm afraid that Minion's right, I did start to enjoy your company rather quickly. After that, I would've looked for other excuses to...er...well, you know."
"Yeah, I do. But it still ticks me off to think that Wayne never bothered to tell you we weren't a couple. I would've thought he'd do that just to try to get you off my back! The nerve of him, going around letting you think that we were dating or whatever he wanted to call it, I don't care if he thought he was protecting my honor or insuring my job security! He should have said something, right from the start - especially to you! That lame-brained, numb-skulled, over-muscled self-centered excuse for a hero! First he lets you keep right on thinking something about me that just wasn't true, and then he goes and walks out on us, and leaves the whole city and me to you and your hare-brained ideas! When I think how that whole mess could've been prevented if he'd deflated his male ego a little and just admitted that there was one woman in the world who wasn't all swooning over him, I could wring his bloody neck! Man, if I'd known he was doing that just so everyone would think he actually had a girl in his life, I would've headed for the nearest army base, borrowed their biggest rocket launcher, hauled it over to his stupid little playhouse on the beach, and shoved the thing right up his superheroic backside and launched him right into- what???!!!"
The ex-villain watched her increasingly incensed reaction with startled interest, head cocked as if studying some unfathomably peculiar display of animal ritual. As she went on and on and got herself worked up more and more, a smile slowly spread across Megamind’s face, followed by a chuckle which quickly built to full-blown laughter. It got the better of him for such a long time, Roxanne finally turned to Minion, at a loss.
The piscine sidekick had no better idea of what had set off his boss. "Uh... sir, is something wrong?" he asked uncertainly. "Are you having a seizure?"
The still laughing hero shook his head, unable to say more quite yet. Both his companions were starting to get worried by the time this strange bout of humor began to abate, and he wiped away the tears of laughter with the back of one hand. "No," he gasped out at last. "It's not a seizure - it's not really even all that funny, it's just-! Ridiculous, that's what it is! I thought I'm supposed to be the over-emotional one around here, not you, Roxanne! I don't think I've ever heard you blow your top like that - and when you're still getting over the flu! I'm glad this didn't come up when you were completely healthy! You might've grabbed the nearest missle launcher and taken out the entire north shore just to get Wayne's hideout!"
The absurdity of the situation got to Minion first, though he tried his best to hide his own laughter at the image of the usually sensible Ms Ritchi using heavy weapons to attempt getting even with the retired Metro Man. It took Roxanne a fair bit longer to get out of her outraged state of mind to begin to see how much she'd been acting... well, like Megamind in one of his more over the top moments, toned down, of course, by her currently marginal state of health. When she was able to think over all she'd just said, she couldn't quite keep the wry smile off her face.
She finally wadded up her napkin and threw it at her still-chortling blue beau. "Oh, all right, you, stop it already, it's not that funny!" she chided, flushing an attractive deep pink at her own atypical behavior. "I guess I did go a little overboard, but really, the whole thing with everyone from here to Timbuktu thinking I was Metro Man's girlfriend was a huge pain in the butt! And not just because of you and all those kidnappings! Having that reputation following me around was as good as hanging a DO NOT TOUCH sign around my neck to everything male - except you! If Wayne had really had my best interests at heart, he should've tried a little harder to convince people it wasn't true!"
Megamind had stopped laughing, but now he was eyeing his girlfriend with a mischievous, almost evil smirk. "So, you wanted him to go and find himself another reporter to date, to convince other men that you weren't - ah - taken?"
"That would've been nice, yes."
Now, he put on his sad puppy face. "And you would've been happy if I'd just gone away?"
She knew he was giving her that look on purpose, and it didn't matter, it got to her anyway. "Well, not in hindsight, no. I'm glad we got together. But I could've done with a few less kidnappings."
The mischievous smile was back. "Hmm, I can see your point - though it might not have made much of a difference, in the end."
"Then I was right!" Minion crowed in triumph. "Ha! You can deny it all you want, sir, but I just knew you were smitten even before that first kidnapping! And you kept telling me I was just a fish and didn't understand these things!"
Megamind suddenly seemed to fold in on himself like an imploding balloon, his entire head turning a shade of purple that Roxanne was fairly certain was bordering on ultraviolet. "What is this, Embarrass a Superhero to Death Day?"
Roxanne had the presence of mind not to laugh, and Minion had the decency to be chagrined. "I'm sorry, sir, I didn't mean to get carried away like that. But I've been trying to get you to admit that for years!"
The mortified hero pulled himself together enough to give the fish a withering look that would've literally melted anyone else. "Yes, well, just remember, if something just happens to 'come up' the night of that benefit, you get to go on for the both of us, all by yourself!"
That reminder wrung a huge gulp of dismay from the ichthyoid. Roxanne, however, was surprised. "Does that mean the two of you accepted the invitation? That you're going to give Wayne his battle of the bands?"
Megamind's complexion was slowly returning to normal as his lungs reinflated properly. He waggled one hand. "Yes and no. Yes, we accepted the invitation to participate, so long as nothing comes up to prevent it, but no, Wayne isn't getting the battle he wants. Some other time, maybe, when we have time to prepare a proper presentation."
"Does this have anything to do with Minion learning to play the keyboard?"
"After only a few months' practice? It's not strictly a music competition, after all."
"That's true." She scanned the letter from the benefit's board. "I was thinking of passing on this, but now, I've just got to do it, just to make sure I get a front row seat to see what you two have been cooking up." She paused. "I hope that's not what you're planning to do, cook up a bomb on the stage or something."
The blue alien had definitely regained his composure, as his response was an extravagantly indignant roll of his eyes. "Please, that would be totally unacceptable for a hero! We have something in mind, yes, but just for that, you're going to have to wait like everyone else and see it at the benefit. If circumstances permit."
Roxanne tried to give him her best persuasive "temptress" look, but he remained adamant. She figured it probably had something to do with her still recovering from the flu, and not quite being on top of her game. Give it a day or two, she felt sure, and she'd get it out of him. He was too much of a show-off to keep his plans quiet for that long.
On to part C…
.