"I have noticed that even those who assert that everything is predestined and that we can change nothing about it still look both ways before they cross the street."

~ Stephen Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes

Roxanne walked up to the door of the Metro Man museum and planted her thumb onto the call button near the door.

Metro Man's weeklong chance to explain was officially OVER and she was damned well moving on with her own plans.

First of all, this Dr. Mardling needed to know not to mess with Roxanne's career stability. Something was going on. Megamind had missed three appointments. Three. That was going to put her in serious hot water unless she could come up with a subject for tomorrow's main story somehow centered on one of the city's resident aliens since that was the only thing this city seemed to care all that much about. Not even a meddling disco-dancing purple zombie could keep Metro City interested for long and Minion had stopped accepting her calls, even if he politely sent texts to apologize for it. If this woman knew about the schedule it stood to reason she now knew things Roxanne didn't know as there had been no more warnings, and that was very much infuriating. Dr. Mardling now had two choices; spill what she knew and become an ally or consider herself warned.

Second, Wayne was going to tell her who this mysterious new green-eyed scientist he was dating was. She had managed to get a little more information out of him thus far, but it was nowhere near satisfactory. Especially since she was positive they weren't having sex yet. THAT meant this was serious and Wayne was in for the long haul on this one. He rarely started a romantic relationship unless sex had been the initial goal they had both been after. That was the only thing that seemed to communicate to him that they were even interested as he was pretty immune to normal human flirting. Everyone that he wanted outside of pure lust had been pursued by him and courted carefully, only Roxanne and one other girl included; and that girl had broken up with him shortly after she had snapped under the stress of working around his constantly fluctuating schedule just to have a conversation.

Wayne was incredibly obvious when he was deflecting and keeping things from her. The most she'd figured out thus far is that he had been familiar with this guy since at least middle school and thought Roxanne wouldn't approve of them dating. While that made her nervous on one hand, it WAS his decision, she wasn't his mom, and would only meddle so far. On the other hand… Wayne seemed to be improving in mood and was talking to her at their normal level again. His defense of Metro City had ramped back up to his previous level of intensity and the so-called supervillains had slunk back to their hiding places once they realized he was no longer waiting until actual danger was involved before pouncing on them like a cat after a laser dot. That just left Megamind, who seemed to have dropped off the face of the planet, which was worrying for a variety of reasons.

Third, and possibly most important, she was going to find Bernard; that guy that worked at the museum that could manage not-a-damsel snark. She'd weaseled his name out of Metro Man yesterday over tea and was interested because she needed some damned companionship and if he was remotely cute she was going to flirt her thirty-something ass off. The fact that her mother would likely hate the very I-am-not-a-damsel-fuck-off mannerisms that Roxanne was interested in seeing for herself then… all the better.

Roxanne received the answering buzz from the security guard letting her in after flashing her PRESS badge at the camera. Upon entering the lobby she saw a thin, brown-haired man facing away from her who was seemingly entranced by whatever was around the far corner. Her instincts told her that being loud was a very bad idea and there was a creeping familiarity to the atmosphere running down her spine. Roxanne Ritchie wasn't about to flee, though, so she walked up behind the man and cleared her throat gently to get his attention.

He whirled on her and shushed her urgently, pulling her away from the corner and toward the elevator with a hand over her mouth.

A flat monotone spoke quietly in her ear. "Whatever you do; don't scream."

She pulled the hand off her mouth and glanced back at the brown-haired man incredulously. "Why would I scream?"

"I don't know, I just wanted to say that line. I do want you to stay out of Metro Man's exhibit though."

"Okay, why?"

"Megamind is in there."

She opened her mouth to ask what he was doing, but the curator covered her mouth again to muffle the sound.

"Shh!" he hissed urgently, the only actual emoting he seemed capable of shared with cats and snakes. This HAD to be Bernard. "I don't want anyone to disturb-."

Which meant whatever Megamind was doing, Bernard was in on it. She was disappointed, but that was more than enough, and he wasn't taking her anywhere.

He grunted in pain when she bit his finger, stomped on his foot, then grabbed and ducked under the arm he had around her shoulders in quick succession. The instant she was behind him Roxanne pushed his twisted arm up against his back as high as she could and planted her foot into the back of one knee to force him to the floor. She wasn't armed, but there were lots of convenient heavy things nearby, so she grabbed the nearest reasonably sized thing she could and backed off.

Much as she may not like this Dr. Mardling, if the woman wasn't in on this then Roxanne needed to get her out of here too… but she wasn't even sure where her office was aside from 'upstairs', and there were lots more of those from here. It wasn't like Megamind to involve other people in their game and his behavior had been so weird lately that this was really starting to scare her.

Bernard tried to get up, but she'd kicked his leg hard and he clearly wasn't used to taking a beating. He stumbled halfway to standing and barely caught himself on the escalator's side. That was… strange. Megamind wasn't the type to bring ineffective minions to a potential hero party. Bernard wasn't taken captive, or captured other people, very often or he would have known to guard against basic self-defense. He looked back at her in clear surprise while clutching his bitten hand. It was actually hard not to be sympathetic even though this really wasn't the time.

"What is Megamind doing in there?" Roxanne demanded levelly, brandishing a brass statue of Metro Man like a club. "Stealing his old toys?"

"Metro Man gave him permission to be here," the man drawled at her as if she was the idiot while he slowly straightened his bruised leg.

"Wait, really? And why should I believe you?"

"I work here," he drawled, lifting his employee badge that clearly said ARCHIVIST on it along with his picture, but no name.

Roxanne scoffed and took a few steps toward him with the statue pointed at his face. His eyes widened a barely noticeable amount, but he backed up the same number of steps. Smart. "Badges are insanely easy to fake and lots of people work for Megamind. For all I know you are working here and covering for your boss."

Like him, she remained quiet so as not to alert the villain who was apparently right around the corner. Shit, she needed to get out of here. There were a LOT of Megamind's' old toys in this place and with all of them together… she considered screaming for Metro Man right then while there was still time. Being the singular victim/bait wasn't as much of an issue as the entire arsenal of this museum being launched against the city at large. Swallowing her pride for the sake of everyone else was a given.

"I do not work for Megamind," he hissed, clearly offended.

"Then why is most of this museum dedicated to him when it's supposed to be Metro Man's tribute? I am NOT stupid," she demanded, taking another step toward him. "You designed it, isn't that right? You're Bernard Trellis."

The man took a step toward her instead of backing off. He threw his arms up in exasperation but continued talking quietly, though at this point breaking Megamind's concentration without truly causing pandemonium was unlikely if they hadn't been noticed already. "Yes I am. In case you haven't noticed, Metro Man is pretty boring! There just wasn't enough information to work with in his section without just making stuff up. Megamind being a prolific inventor gave us lots of stuff to fill out the displays with that he'd made, but Metro Man just has a bunch of pictures and statues of himself and some small speculations on what his powers might be and how they could work. That's why Megamind is here with Metro Man's permission. The big guy wants to know more about himself and where he came from, and he logically went to the smartest person he knew to figure it out. Someone else that got here in the same way he did and already had another escape pod to compare notes with."

Roxanne let the statue down a foot or so, looking at Bernard warily. It sounded sketchy. Well, it really made perfect sense aside from the Metro Man trusting Megamind part. The only thing that made her think it might possibly be true was how easily she had shaken this guy off and how bad he seemed to be at controlling a captive. If he worked for Megamind the guy definitely would have either gassed her or not given her the chance to think before tying her up somewhere… or at the very least had a better explanation in place to keep her from being suspicious.

She was already here to meet up with Dr. Mardling. Any remotely intelligent minion would have known that and politely led her upstairs and away from their boss until the actual caper started. Unless this was a weird coincidence and Megamind didn't know she was there.

She slowly put the statue back and watched him for any reaction to her dropping her only weapon. "So what, exactly, is Megamind doing in there right now?"

"He's studying the escape pod, that little gold ship he arrived in," Bernard said. He set his glasses back in place and straightened his jacket, wincing slightly when he moved the arm she's wrenched back before. "Looking for clues about anything. Data in the pod's system, stuff he can reverse-engineer, residue from travelling through space to get here, and whatever else he can find. I think they made a deal or something."

"Then why aren't there any brain-bots hovering around to guard him?" she demanded hotly. "There's ALWAYS brain-bots hovering around to guard him."

Barnard pointed up silently and two of the things floated over the second floor's edge so they could look down at her, soft bowg bowg sounds floating down. "Where have you been?" she scolded. Normally they were trailing after her like puppies the second she got within their sensors' range. They merely hovered backwards and out of sight almost sheepishly.

"Are you done hitting me now?" Bernard drawled, staying out of her range.

Roxanne pinched the bridge of her nose and let the tension ease a little. Megamind was still just around the corner, but at least she believed she wasn't his target for the moment. "I'm sorry, Mr. Trellis. I mean that. I really did think you were about to kidnap me or something."

"You should have hit harder, then. I'm still walking."

*You snippy bastard.* She smiled apologetically. "I have an appointment with Dr. Mardling."

The man heaved a dramatic sigh as if he fully expected that specific person to be the cause of his misfortune. He gestured to the elevators. "Her office is listed on the sign by the elevator. Don't expect me to escort you, I'm supposed to be supervising the guest."

"Be careful around Megamind," Roxanne advised. "Please? You don't want to be too… interesting. Trust me."

"Just go," he said, then turned to walk back to his previous place to watch.

*Damn,* Roxanne thought darkly. It was just her luck that Megamind's presence, even if no caper was involved, had caused her to attack the guy she'd come here seeking to flirt with instead. Her mother would have a field day if she ever found out. *Hey, I might like this guy, so I'm going to kick the shit out of him!* Brilliant, Ritchie.

Still, Wayne had suggested they might get along and she did have, she thought, an extremely good reason for knocking him down. If she came back and apologized when there wasn't a supervillain in the building he might be willing to let it go. It was worth a shot. Still… she hadn't gotten a terribly good look at him yet. And he wasn't paying attention to her just now.

If this were any other situation or if there were witnesses, she wouldn't have done it. There was nothing else to lose, though, so once he was turned away from her and there were no brain-bots in sight she gave him what would have been a pretty insulting head-to-toe scrutiny before getting into the elevator.

He was pretty cute, too, despite the brown jacket that seemed to be slightly too big for his wiry frame. Damn it.

She'd have to hope that first impressions could be overcome.

Bernard watched Megamind fuss over the things he'd gathered from inside the golden pod. The curator had looked that thing over extensively and never found a place where it might have come apart; it looked completely smooth to him aside from the sides that split to let the thrusters free of the main body and he dared not touch that in case it still worked. Even where the seat cushioning met metal it seemed like the fabric was sewn to the metal somehow and Bernard had never been able to examine it further… because the fabric also seemed to be sewn together irreplaceably.

But within minutes Megamind had found a hidden area to simply pull the seat out of the inside and had disassembled it with insulting ease under the curator's curious gaze.

Those deft blue fingers - absurdly careful considering the irreplaceable nature of his subject – seemed to fly reverently over each component and mentally catalogue everything about it while three brain-bots hovered nearby to record it all. One solitary little iridescent orb was being treated with the utmost care by the alien. Bernard assumed that was the actual computer that ran it and had all the information stored within. Everything else was storage space, thruster fuel, what must have been the radiation shielding and faster-than-light engine, atmosphere tanks, formula for the feeding systems, and padding to keep the thing comfortable.

That orb was the size of a Tamagotchi and it was probably the entire computer – the computer meant to pilot vast interstellar distances and keep the passenger both alive and comfortable, and even entertained given the small screens on either side of the door's inside that started playing strange discordant music when Megamind opened the thing. These blue guys were advanced. Terrifyingly so. No wonder they hadn't bothered with humanity outside of a few individuals that might have stayed temporarily, if Dr. Mardling's theories on past heroes were correct.

*We weren't worth befriending or assimilating or even conquering. They analyzed us and our planet, then just left.*

And that still hurt even if Bernard understood why. They hadn't exactly been sophisticated the last time they'd been visited, at least as far as ancient Greece was concerned.

Bernard hoped Megamind hadn't noticed him slip away to distract Ritchie. He supposed the frequently kidnapped should know these things and he'd seen her get some good kicks in during televised capers, it just hadn't occurred to him that he'd be a target. Still, the reporter's reaction to knowing Megamind was here disturbed Bernard. Yes, the blue alien was very good at putting on a show, but the man was certain of one thing that nobody else seemed to have realized; Megamind was definitively not evil.

There were things that Megamind had done that were meant to keep the city functional and safer than the average metropolis that nobody else had noticed. Maybe it was because Bernard came from a different city entirely, one where they had wisely hired geniuses, sometimes reformed villains, to do these things; but Bernard caught glimpses and evidence of the irrefutable on an almost weekly basis.

Brain bots did bridge maintenance under invisibility, Megamind himself tweaked the traffic lights to make things safer and more efficient, fire alarms and carbon monoxide sensors seemed to mysteriously appear in places they hadn't been installed and where nobody could really afford them, security systems Megamind had gotten into tended to anonymously report real danger to the proper authorities before tragedy struck… the list went on. He swore he saw the forms of cloaked brain-bots assisting with a building fire once. The cloaking fields seemed to be warping under the sweltering heat, but he'd noticed their flickering forms, barely noticeable, in the broadcast. There had been zero fatalities that time… nobody seemed to know why because Metro Man had been in Australia helping with something else at the time.

Not to mention that Megamind's territory – and Bernard was now certain that's what his gang's turf was – was one of the safest places in the city to live. No illegal drugs sold to children. No underage girls and boys standing on corners. There was precisely one Supervillain-run gang-ridden turf on Earth where the kids could walk to kindergarten by themselves safely and it was in Metro City near the dock warehouses around absurdly old apartment buildings with tiny rooms and drafty windows that people paradoxically seemed to like living in.

He was also, depressingly, aware that not even Megamind was cognizant of what he'd been doing: a better job of protecting Metro City than their flying brick had. Sure, Metro Man took out the really big threats, meteors and the occasional visiting supervillain that proposed a very real threat, but Metro Man could only be in so many places at once. He could only catch so many people, and only if they screamed to alert him. Meanwhile Megamind had a literal army of often invisible robots that regularly caught toddlers that had pushed the screens out of their bedroom windows and assisted in search parties that never noticed they were there. If Metro Man was in town everyone assumed that he had done it and had to rush off to someone else before being spotted.

And that was the point.

Megamind was smart enough to assume as much would happen and wouldn't have worried about getting caught. So, he made one little automatic system and sent it to his brain-bots to improve the city's infrastructure years and years ago; if he was going to rule one day then he might as well make it worth conquering. Then a few months later he did it again for something else – maybe a lost kid was drawing media attention away from his capers, so he had his brain-bots help in secret but never removed the command. Then again for something else, covertly covering a rescue for Metro Man when he was away to prevent chaos in the city; just because it made their lives easier to minimize distractions from the game. Then again, and again, and again. Little jobs, little favors, all adding up without the blue alien even realizing just how much he was really accomplishing when it all coalesced.

If you didn't count the city-destroying meteor five years ago… Megamind had a bigger rescue count than Metro Man by far. People that hadn't starved or gotten caught in fires. Bridges that hadn't fallen. Medicines that had arrived in time. Parents that hadn't had to bury their kids after a truly unintended accident.

Even if it was just because he felt these under-evolved hairless storytelling apes he lived with needed help surviving from a superior mind… it didn't matter to Bernard. What Megamind was doing worked. It saved people.

The theatrical capers had a bonus as well; keeping the other, legitimately dangerous bad guys and supervillains from gaining too much ground. If Megamind was the focus, if he got that much personalized attention from the resident Hero, then he was clearly the head of the supervillain pantheon here. There were entire families of career criminals that couldn't spread their influence and get to the top simply because Megamind was in their way. Villains had hierarchies. Messing with it had consequences. On one famous occasion, Destruction Worker had gotten too close to Megamind's boundary and someone got hurt – someone that lived on Megamind's turf. Maybe someone that worked for him, Bernard wasn't sure.

Metro Man had been forced to rescue Destruction Worker from Megamind's wrath; the caper had been thwarted by the time the Hero had arrived and now he had to intervene in an all-out-two-villain WAR in which the invader was purely on defense and quickly losing. Even then the brain-bots and Minion had been keeping the mayhem inside a small area, away from bystanders.

Metro City had never forgotten how truly murderous Megamind had looked on the broadcast that day. They just failed to notice he was facing another villain and not them. It was the first and only time Bernard noticed Ritchie had sounded somewhat alarmed onscreen.

How did these people not notice? How did they miss it? Were they so distracted by the theatrics and with the Doom Syndicate and their charismatic laser-eyed flying juggernaut that they'd completely missed the fact that they had two superheroes?

Bernard thought they had.

And that was a shame… because this kind of hero was the kind he liked best.

Megamind wasn't looking for fame or glory or fanfare. He just did what came naturally. He may present himself as a villain, but basic territorial maintenance was likely instinctive to both males of his species. And while Metro Man reveled in the attention, Megamind barely noticed he was doing anything at all.

Megamind was, truly, fantastic.

Bernard really couldn't blame himself for being a little bit obsessed.

XXXXXXXX

NOTES

First of all, I updated the pairing info in tags. Some might have seen this coming… minus one character. I hope it doesn't cause too many waves at least. It is to my knowledge the ONLY fic on AO3 with this 4-way tag. Was planned from the beginning so… *shrug* Too bad for the rest that Megamind is literally the only one who knows what's going on and pulling everyone's strings. Ehhh… they'll catch up.

Second, here is a pre-emptive answer for the inevitable: Where are you getting these names?

Here are my personal rules for creating/adding names for canon characters that need them:

If simple searching and logic can't provide a reasonable answer then I hit up the voice actor's names and either rip them off wholesale or bastardize (anagram, similar sounds, similar route/meaning) them until I like it. If possible (which it is here) I will use any relevant inspiration that was used to make the characters to reflect any cultural influences that may apply to name creation by adopting naming conventions and patterns. This will come in later when creating the alien names.

Bernard has no canon last name, so I took his voice actor's last name (Stiller) and anagrammed it to Trellis. This is partly because the latter sounded better when said aloud with the first name, but mostly because I find the thought of that deadpan bastard being descended from gardeners absolutely hysterical. Thus: Bernard Trellis.

Much like Metro Man's civilian name being only noted in the scripts and/or credits (Wayne Scott), Megamind's first name was listed in an older script too. I think it's either Buddy or Bubsy and they never decided on which it was, but he has no referenced last name. Given how these things work with found/unnamed people in the U.S. it's pretty safe to assume his full human-given name is Buddy or Bubsy Doe. I realize that Bubsy is more likely to be correct and sounds magnificently mafia-ish, I just personally like Buddy better. Thus; Buddy Doe.

This comes with the bonus of Megamind getting irritated with Metro Man every single time he calls him Little Buddy, because that's-NOT-my-name-it's MEGAMIND-and-you-KNOW-IT!