I originally wrote this intending it to be a fill for a prompt over at the megamindkink meme, but seeing as I've never actually written "kink" before... I discovered I still can't. XD I tend to be a rabid canon purist, so if I can't rationalize something within the context of canon and believable characterizations, I can't write it. So instead of pre-movie sex, the most I could get these two to do was reluctant pre-movie naked cuddles.

And bickering. Lots and lots of bickering. If anything, this fic is bicker porn.

Also, being a lakeshore Michigan native made me feel well-equipped to write this one.

Lake Effect

"You are listening to NOAA Weather Radio. The National Weather Service in Metro City has issued a Blizzard Warning for the following counties in the listening area: Benzie, Lake, Manistee, Mason, Newaygo, and Oceana, until seven o'clock AM Eastern Standard Time. Strong northerly winds and lake-effect snow will continue into the morning hours, with fifteen to eighteen inches expected with heavier amounts in persistent snow bands. Overnight temperatures will approach ten degrees Fahrenheit, with wind chills of negative ten degrees Fahrenheit."

Roxanne huddled under her comforter and shivered as the monotone mechanical voice emanating from her battery-operated radio continued to repeat the same gloomy forecast. The building creaked and rattled as it was buffeted by another heavy wind gust, with the crackling sound of snow hitting the windows. It was just her luck that one of those previous gusts had selected an important-looking power line to knock a tree onto and had thus plunged much of the city into darkness. That had been hours ago, and with the weather the way it was, she doubted there would be any crews out to resolve the issue anytime soon.

Metro Man might be able to save the city from evil, but even he was no match for winter's wrath. Well, maybe he at least knew how to fix downed power lines. She could only hope.

A knock at her door caused her to stir and groan. It was probably another neighbor wondering if she had power. People, the whole building is on the same circuit; if one of us is out, we're all out.

Roxanne shuffled to the door, dragging her comforter with her over her shoulders as her pink fuzzy slippers lightly scuffed against the hardwood floor. She had half a mind to just hang a sign on her door that no, she didn't have power either, though with no lighting in the hallway she doubted anyone would be able to read it.

When she opened the door, a blue face smirked back at her and declared, "There's no use trying anything, Miss Ritchi, resistance is-" She closed the door in his face with a groan.

The knock came again. Roxanne pounded her forehead against the door and grumbled, "Megamind, what are you doing here? We're in the middle of the worst blizzard in a decade, this is hardly the time for one of your 'evil plans'."

"Au contrai-re, Miss Ritchi," came the voice from the other side of the door. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays the hands of evil."

"Mm-hmm, and a city-wide power outage?" she wondered. "Unless your plan is to just throw snowballs at Metro Man, this all seems a bit pointless."

Megamind let out what sounded like an offended gasp. "Oh really? Do you honestly think the city's most notorious criminal genius would be without a backup generator? Such an obvious oversight is beyond me."

Roxanne paused at this declaration a moment an mulled it over in her head. Hesitantly, yet warily, she wondered through the door, "... So you're saying, wherever it is you're taking me, you have power."

"That would be the gist of it, yes."

"And heat," she clarified further.

"Well, it's hardly a balmy eighty degrees, but the lair is sufficiently-"

The cold hinges creaked as Roxanne slowly swung the door open to face him, glaring flatly from the confines of her puffy cocoon. "You convinced me." She shed the comforter and wrapped her robe more tightly around herself as she quickly shuffled past Megamind into the hallway and towards the stairway.

The supervillainous supposed abductor looked back and forth between her retreating back and the pile of blanket left in her doorway before raising an arm and trotting after her, insisting, "Hey, hey, I'm kidnapping you, not offering to share my anemities. You will do as I say, or suffer horrible, unthinkable consequences."

"Worse than freezing to death?" Roxanne wondered as she descended the staircase.

"... Yes. Far worse. So unthinkable, that even I can't think of it. And with a mind like mine, that is extremely unthinkable."

When they reached the apartment lobby, Roxanne hesitated and instinctively wrapped her arms more tightly around herself as the scenery beyond the glass double doors was nothing but a sideways curtain of white. Even if his car hadn't had its invisibility engaged, she wouldn't have been able to see it, anyway.

Megamind used her hesitation to reaffirm his control of the situation and placed a hand on the door handle, threatening, "You cannot escape now, Miss Ritchi. Follow me... to your doo-OOOOOOOOm!" Upon pushing on the handle, the wind caught the door and forced it to violently swing 180 degrees open, dragging the leather-clad alien with it. Roxanne shielded her face as snow and wind swirled in through the opening. What she assumed were Megamind's tracks were still partially visible leading up to the door, and she followed them with her eyes back towards the curb where, now that she looked more closely, she could see snow beginning to drift up against nothing.

Leaving her captor planted against the door, she hastily followed the tracks back through the snow and felt around in the air for a handle. Her hand met with success, and after a few strained attempts, she managed to force the car open with an icy crack. She jumped inside and quickly slammed the door, huddling next to a vent to bask in its residual heat.

Megamind grudgingly entered the car a few moments later, grumpily pouting at the woman curled up in his passenger footwell. For this to be a proper kidnapping, she really should be bound and blindfolded so as not to escape or learn the location of his lair, but the current white-out conditions were sufficient to take care of both points for him. He just hoped that he could find his way back. It had been a miracle he'd made it all the way out here in the first place.

It took a few attempts to get the engine to turn over, and even then it was sluggish to respond. Megamind hit the gas in an attempt to rocket from the scene as he usually did, but only managed to spin the tires on the snow-caked road. Roxanne warmed her hands by the now-functioning heat vent and quipped, "Do I need to get out and push?"

Megamind rolled his eyes at her and retorted, "If you are so eager to get out of the car, I can arrange for you to travel on the roof rack." She wasn't sure he was serious about that, but as she was content with her current heated position, she decided not to press her luck.

Megamind threw the car into reverse and managed to get it to move about three inches before it was overtaken by the slick road surface again. A few more rocks back and forth later, the invisible car had finally managed to break free of its parking spot with a crunching thump. Roxanne held onto the seat in fear that he would resort to his usual manic driving habits, but even Megamind appeared to be mindful enough of the road conditions to take it slow, traversing the snow-covered streets at a leisurely, crackling pace.

Roxanne rested her cheek on the leather seat in front of her and looked up at her kidnapper lazily, the warm cubbyhole, rocking of the car, and rhythmic sound of the windshield wipers threatening to put her to sleep. The streets were dark, but the snow was reflecting and dispersing all ambient light into a sort of pervasive ethereal glow. She traced a finger absently along the seat before wondering, "So is there something special about this plan that you needed to come get me yourself? Usually you have Minion perform this kind of legwork."

"Don't be silly, if he stepped outside in this temper-ature, his bowl would crack," Megamind said a bit more seriously than she was accustomed to, his attention uncharacteristically fixated on the road in front of him. Roxanne pillowed her arms on the seat and rested her head on them, continuing to look at him. She had, briefly, and quite by accident, he'd insisted, caught displays like this from him before, but the sheer honesty of them had helped to reassure her that he meant her no harm. It's why she could so willingly jump into a wanted supervillain's car in the first place. She knew that, despite the posturing, this was all some sort of elaborate role-play, and she had simply become an unwitting member.

She smiled up at him unconsciously. Role-play in the chastest sense of the term, though. He'd teased her constantly, sure, and she'd even caught him in a Freudian slip or two, but he had never once, even unwittingly, tried to make a move on her. She knew for certain that he meant her no harm, but as for how he felt about her... that was frustratingly hard to read. And she wasn't sure how she'd feel about the answer either way.

Megamind glance down at her and raised a confused eyebrow at her grin. "Miss Ritchi, do you find something amusing?"

Roxanne raised her head and blinked. "Oh, no, I just-"

Suddenly, the median of a cross street that had been lying in wait camouflaged under a blanket of snow reared up and attacked the underside of the car, sending both occupants jolting upwards in their seats. The car came to a shuddering stop, straddling the divider with the undercarriage embedded a foot deep in snow.

Both Roxanne and Megamind were stiffly tense, the only sound or movement being the wind blowing ribbons of snow over the windshield. Finally, Megamind's shoulders relaxed and he monotoned, "That was your fault."

Roxanne fell back in her seat, trying to find her voice before stuttering out, "Muh... My fault? You were the one driving, you should have been watching the road!"

"I was quite intently watching the road, Miss Ritchi, and if it had not been for you and your... distracting distractions...!"

"Oh, so now looking at you is too distracting for you to do anything effectively? It's no wonder you always fail, then, with the crowds you like to draw."

Megamind pointed a warning finger. "I'll have you know that those are two fundamentally different-" The remainder of his rant was cut off by a loud scraping sound as a pair of snowplows belatedly made their appearance and threw a giant pile of snow, ice, and salt over the disabled car, burying it in a loud "fump".

The two went silent as the interior of the car was plunged into darkness. Megamind's eyes darted around his surroundings before he blandly accused, "That was your fault as well."

"Urgh!" Roxanne threw up her arms, but realized that continuing to argue at this point was fruitless. "Well, don't just sit there, then, restart the car and let's get out of here!"

Megamind turned the key, but the engine only clicked in response. He made a few more attempts, the sound becoming fainter and more pathetic each time, before finally nothing. "The battery is frozen," he announced.

"I don't suppose you have a backup generator in your car, too?" Roxanne sarcastically wondered.

"No, Miss Ritchi, I do not," came the exasperated reply. He reached for the door handle and pushed his shoulder against the door, but it wouldn't budge. Beginning to panic slightly, Roxanne tried the same with her door with similar results. No good, the doors were either frozen shut or too obstructed by the encasing snow.

Roxanne felt around in the dark fruitlessly, not sure what she was hoping to come upon to help the situation. Her fingertips brushed against Megamind's gun holster, and she exclaimed, "Oh, use your dehydration gun! Snow is just water, so you should be able to get rid of it, right?"

"Theoretically, yes," he replied. "However, there is the small matter that the snow is outside the car, while we are currently trapped inside the car, therefore the only thing I am currently able to hit is the car itself, and I do not believe it would be a pleasant experience for us to be inside an object while it is compressed into a one-inch cube."

Okay, scratch that idea. Roxanne fidgeted with the tie on her robe and wondered, "So... do you have any other ideas? Can the back seat access the trunk? Is there anything in there we could use? What about Minion, can't you call for help?"

"Miss Ritchi!" he interrupted her sternly. "In the time it has taken you to talk your mouth off, I have already weighed all those options in my head and have found them all to be fruitless. The only thing we can do is... wait for someone to find us..." He dejectedly crossed his arms and slumped against the stuck door.

Roxanne looked around the interior cabin in panic. "But... we're buried in snow! We're invisible! No one is going to find us!"

"Well, when you look at it that way, it does seem a bit dire, doesn't it?"

Roxanne gazed at his shadowy form helplessly, then returned to vainly pressing against the passenger door. She pounded at the window and shouted a few times, but she had no expectation that anyone would hear her. Even Metro Man would probably balk at having to go out on a day like today.

This caused Roxanne to pause, and she turned her head back to her captor, wondering, "So, is the reason you wanted to enact an evil scheme today because you knew Metro Man wouldn't be able to stand the weather?"

"I'm afraid that's confidential information. You won't be getting me to divulge my secrets that easily, even under such trying circumstances." She guessed that meant she was right. If she had been wrong, he would have callously mocked her lack of deductive skills.

She sighed heavily and ran her fingers through her hair in frustration. No Metro Man, no way to contact anyone, no way out of the car. Great. Why couldn't she have been content to stay in her dark and freezing apartment instead of stupidly assuming that any idea involving Megamind would have actually worked? Years of deathtraps and explosions, yet in the end they were just going to freeze to death in the middle of an abandoned street.

"I don't suppose you have a stash of extra blankets in the trunk?"

"If by 'extra blankets' you mean 'rocket launchers and rope', then yes, I do, actually."

"You're not helping," she stated flatly.

"On the contrary, I'm simply not wasting my energy." Megamind had receded to the back seat and had burrowed into the corner, arms wrapped tightly around himself and head bowed. "If you wish to survive until morning, Miss Ritchi, I suggest you do the same."

Roxanne sighed, resigning herself to the confines of her robe, watching her breath fog the window and slowly fade. On the bright side, at least they were sheltered from the wind. And the surrounding snow would ironically help to insulate them a bit. Even then, though, it was the middle of the night, the middle of a blizzard, there was no one on the streets, and even if none of that had been the case, they were still invisible, in the median, and covered in a snowbank, so it was highly unlikely anyone would randomly stumble upon them. Tomorrow had better be 80 degrees and quickly thaw them out, or they were screwed.

"Miss Ritchi..." came a croak from the rear of the car some time later. Roxanne snapped out of her daze and turned to see Megamind curled in a ball in the back seat with his cape wrapped around him, head retracted into his high collar, body visibly shivering. "Even though these are extenuating circumstances, you are still my captive and obligated to serve my interests if you value your life." He pointed a shaky finger out from beneath his cape and demanded, "Therefore I order you to..." He looked to the side as if embarrassed to ask, but softly finished, "... surrender your body heat to me."

There was silence between the two of them for a while. Megamind never repeated his demand, and Roxanne wondered if she could just pretend she didn't hear him. Thanks to her flannel pajamas, slippers, and robe, she wasn't suffering too horribly yet, though her nose and ears were starting to lose their feeling. Megamind, on the other hand, had shown up wearing his normal spandex suit and leather accessories. She couldn't imagine something that thin could insulate him very well, and wondered what had possessed him to brave this weather wearing only that in the first place.

Then there was his giant head, which had nothing covering it at all. She suspected the high collar was trapping at least some heat radiated off the back of his neck, but the large exposed surface area of the remainder of his head probably acted like some kind of biological heat sink. Useful when overstressing his brain while performing complex tasks and calculations, certainly, but a deadly handicap in these circumstances.

Roxanne hesitantly slid back to the back seat and held a hand to his forehead to check his temperature. Still warm, yet clammy, but she had no real knowledge of his normal temperature or skin texture, so didn't know how out of the ordinary it was. Megamind hadn't seemed to initially registered she was there, even after she touched him, so his startled jump at her presence was significantly delayed.

"Are you..." she began, but wasn't sure how to word the question without showing an uncharacteristic amount of concern. "I mean, you're always blue, so it's hard to tell if you're..."

"Unless my mental capacity is already more far gone than I realize, I believe my request was for body heat, not a cursory diagnosis. I am fully aware of my condition, Miss Ritchi, else I would not have resorted to such a drastic request. It's not like I want to be in such close quarters with you."

Roxanne was taken aback, crossing her arms and gaping her mouth slightly. "Well... I wasn't planning on granting your request, anyway! With your... your leather and your spikes, I'd just end up impaling myself without doing either of us any good." She shifted to the opposite corner of the seat and made a show of keeping her robe to herself while continuing to rant, "At least I thought to wear a robe. And slippers. And flannel. It's not myfault you decided to go running around in the snow in a leotard! You know, you can just... just freeze to death for all I care."

"Working on it..." he mumbled from the confines of his cape.

Roxanne let out a foggy breath and glanced his direction without a response. Okay, it's not like she actually wanted him to die, and surely he knew that. This whole situation was just... why did she have to get involved? She beat her head against the back of the seat and bemoaned, "God, why is it the one time I actually need Metro Man, he's not around?" Megamind had no response to that.

The two sat in silence for another extended period of time, the only sounds being the muffled scrape of another passing plow, or one of them shifting position or sniffing their chilled noses. At one more prolonged sound of shuffling from Megamind's direction, Roxanne turned her head to examine him, and could see from his outline that he had shed his spiked shoulder guards and gloves.

There was something benignly inviting about the action. Something that maybe she could have rationalized to herself in a hypothermia-induced delirium. Either way, as soon as she saw he'd removed his armor, Roxanne found herself across the rear seat, pressed into her kidnapper's side, her abdomen eagerly accepting the small heat it could access through their clothes.

Megamind, on the other hand, had gone tense at the unexpected warmth pressed against his side. He wasn't even sure what had prompted him to remove his gloves and shoulder guards, as they had been layers that were still holding in a little heat. He looked down at the woman burrowed against his arm and questioned her actions with an eloquent, "Um...?"

"It's what you wanted, right?" she grumbled.

"Well... yes, but I'm not exactly accustomed to... getting what I want," he admitted.

"If you get what you want, then I get what I want," she said. "My body heat for yours. Even trade."

"I'm... afraid that wasn't the deal," he said unconvincingly.

Roxanne fumbled for his cape and draped it over both of them. "Then it's up to you to figure out how to make the heat transfer one way. In the meantime, I'm taking my fair share."

Megamind let out a shuddering chuckle, fogging up the side window. "Even if I'm going to freeze to death, at least I can give Metro Man one last parting shot. When the spring thaw comes and they finally unearth our bodies, he'll find the frozen remains of his beloved with her arms willingly wrapped about the body of his most hated rival. I'm sure he'd be devastated."

"Well, if you're certain we're going to die either way..." Roxanne huffed, lifting herself away from him.

"No, no, wait...!" he pleaded, a little more desperately than he had been intending. "I..." He sighed and wrapped his arms around himself, digging his frozen fingers into his armpits. "I don't want to die here. This is hardly a befitting end for a notorious supervillain. But as it stands, you're my only external source of heat, and if either of us want to have a chance, we're going to need to utilize it as efficiently as possible." He bumped his head against the window and let out a long, shuddering breath. "I know... you're smart enough to know what that would entail. And I also know you'd likely rather die than attempt it."

Roxanne let that click while attempting to massage some feeling back into her fingertips. She had a pretty good idea of what he was getting at, though. "So you're saying that our options are to lay together with as large a surface area as possible of direct skin-to-skin contact and layer our clothing on top of us... or to slowly freeze to death."

Some heat managed to return to Megamind's face as he rasped, "That's... the gist of it, I think..."

Dying, or cuddling naked with Megamind. It was a hard choice, honestly. It's not that she thought Megamind would try anything if he got the chance to be naked with her. She knew he wouldn't. And that was the problem. It was one thing to be a sex object, but it was worse to just be an object. She was just a tool to get to Metro Man, and in this case, just a tool to help him stay alive. Was that really worth fighting for life and objectifying herself over?

Roxanne fidgeted with the folds in her robe, before softly asking, "Megamind, I want you to be completely honest with me. ... Why do you keep kidnapping me?"

Megamind raised an eyebrow. "Miss Ritchi, you really need to ask? It's because you're Metro Man's beloved and I know I can get him to do anything so long as you are under my power."

She scooted further away from him, pulling her robe more tightly around herself. "... And if I told you Metro Man and I weren't together? Would you stop kidnapping me then?"

A pause. Megamind finally turned to her with a questioning eyebrow and wondered, "Did you two break up?"

"Would you stop kidnapping me?" Roxanne pressed harder. "Tell me the truth."

"Why would you break up?" he continued, not listening to her. "I mean, he's Metro Man, the most amazing man on the planet! Who wouldn't want him? And you're so beautiful and witty, who in their right mind would give you up?" To address her question, he pointed at her, though lacked the mobility to bend his fingers completely, and declared, "But if that's the case, don't think you'll get off so easily. He may be my physical rival, but you are my intellectual foil. Whether you're together or not, don't think that will save you from having to challenge my wit."

Intellectual... foil? It was true she bickered with him constantly. It seemed that's all they did. But she never realized he saw it as yet another challenge. They never came to physical blows like he and Metro Man did, but she supposed it was true that they waged their own weekly battles in a way.

That revelation had more than a few implications, Roxanne thought as she bit her lip and fiddled with the collar of her robe. She softly mumbled in Megamind's direction, "... Take off your clothes," almost hoping he didn't hear her. Her eyes glanced up to judge his reaction, and she could see a surprised gleam from his eyes as his body tensed. He'd been so accusatory that she would back down, and now he was getting cold feet? ... Well, figuratively, she figured he already had them literally.

Megamind strained an arm around behind his back and brushed his hand along the zipper there. After a few attempts, he admitted, "I... I can't. My fingers have gone too numb." Roxanne sighed and reached to where his fingers were groping, brushing over them and discovering that they were indeed as cold as the leather seats. She picked at the zipper as well, but found that she, too, lacked enough sensation in her fingertips to sense her grip. Finally in frustration, she planted both hands at his shoulders and gripped the zipper between her teeth, breathing warmly on his neck and back as she successfully pulled it down. Megamind let out a shiver, though he wasn't sure if it was due to his skin's sudden exposure or... other factors.

Roxanne pulled away his shirt, and it shrank down to the size of a toddler's clothing. She looked at it flatly and gave it a stretch, saying, "You know, you're really not being helpful at all."

"You are mistaken, Miss Ritchi, as nothing you have to offer for covering can match this," he said as he weakly lobbed his cape in her direction. "One thousand thread count dual-ply pure satan." He breathed on his frostbitten fingers and prodded, "Now, if you don't mind, I would really rather not sit here exposed for any longer than I have to."

"Ah, right..." Roxanne said absently, shrugging out of her robe and adding it to the pile of usable covers. She fiddled with the top button on her pajamas, but was running into the same dexterity issue she was having with the zipper. And this wasn't something quite so easily solved with teeth.

Megamind apparently didn't think so, as he became impatient and gripped her pajama's lapels in awkward fists and jerked them apart, popping the top two buttons. Roxanne gasped in shock as he pulled the remainder of the pajama top off over her head and added it to the pile. Roxanne immediately crossed her arms across her chest and demanded, "Can't I at least maintain a little decency?"

"It's nearly pitch black in here, whatever you're trying to hide I can't see, anyway," he replied. He returned his hands to her shoulders and pushed her on her back onto the cold car seat. She resisted initially, but as soon as he pressed his bare chest to hers, the inflow of warmth caused them both to immediately cease struggling with the issue. Roxanne groped around for the pile of clothing and draped her pajama top over his back, followed by her robe, then finally his cape.

They curled in on each other, twining their legs and pulling their limbs in towards their cores, attempting to protect as much of their bodies as possible with their limited coverings. Megamind forced his forearms under Roxanne's back, his fingertips feeling like pinpricks of ice on her shoulderblades. Roxanne had wedged her hands between their bodies, slowly flexing her fingers to return their circulation.

Megamind's breath was still coming in pants against her neck, his body periodically wracked with bouts of trembling. He'd obviously already lost way more heat than she had, and with his thin frame, he really had no place to store any reserves. For once, Roxanne was grateful for her ample thighs.

She slid her hands up to his face and began massaging her palms over his ears. He let out a nasal squeak at the action and wondered into her neck, "What are you doing...?"

"Your head still doesn't have any direct access to heat right now," she reasoned. "Can you still think clearly?"

"Of course," he replied automatically, his lips moving against her skin in a way she wasn't sure she was comfortable with.

"What's thirty-seven times twenty-eight?" she quizzed.

She felt his brows furrow against her cheek as if he was in deep concentration. If anything, hopefully this would increase the blood flow to his head to aid in warming him back up, but under normal circumstances he should have been able to blurt that answer out without so much as a blink. Finally he let out a sigh and responded, "One thousand and... something..." Now that wasn't a good sign. Not only did he not know, he didn't seem to care that he didn't know.

"Well, I want you to keep working on that until you come up with the answer, okay?" she requested, continuing to rub her palms in circles over his temples.

He didn't say anything for a long time. His shivering gradually died down and his breathing eventually became more relaxed, all the while Roxanne continued to rub his head. She still didn't have enough feeling in her fingers to know if this meant that he was sufficiently warm now, or if his body had depleted its stock of calories to such an extent that he no longer had the energy for basic heat conservation. Tentatively, she pinched his ear and wondered, "Hey... you still alive?"

"No..."

She let out a little sigh of relief and unconsciously slid one hand from his head to his back and continued a lethargic stroke. "Okay, well, if you die, let me know."

Another length of silence passed before Megamind spoke up this time. "... Why are you doing this?"

Roxanne swallowed, her hands stopping, to which he fidgeted. "Well..." she began, trying to come up with an explanation. "You're my only heat source, so I have to keep you warm if I want to stay warm." That answer felt excessively harsh. And hypocritical. It was the most platonic response she could come up with it, but didn't feel like it carried an ounce of truth. Getting a similar response from him earlier had felt like a punch in the gut, and she wondered if he'd been in the same mindset.

"Ah..." was his only reaction. Another awkward silence, as Megamind's grip on her had loosened and he now simply lay slack on her chest.

Intellectual foil... Roxanne's mind wandered back to what he'd said before, and whether it was true or not, she found that she did feel about the same. The kidnappings were annoying, yes, but they were at least a source of excitement and mental stimulation. She was always eager for the chance to knock him down a few levels, not because she hated him, but because she enjoyed the challenge.

And that's why this situation was getting increasingly aggravating. They were both already pretty much at rock bottom, so their usual bantering was of no use. With no room left to fall, they were just hitting each other with shovels at the bottoms of their respective holes. But any attempt at lifting each other up might in turn be taken to mean more than it actually did.

Why were they worrying about that now, though? They were already cuddling together topless and neither had any illusion that it was because the other was attracted to them.

Roxanne absently traced a finger over the vertebrae in the back of his neck and finally admitted, "Just... don't die, okay? I wouldn't like that."

Megamind's arms tightened underneath her and he took in a refreshed breath of air. He settled down on top of her more comfortably, his face pressed against the side of her neck as he whispered, "I don't want you to die, either..." Roxanne responded by wrapping her arms firmly around his back and pulling him more securely to her chest, an affirming whimper escaping her nose as she tilted her head to place a light kiss on his forehead.

The two said nothing more after that, each contentedly comfortable enough to no longer feel the need. Whether the cold eventually overtook them or they miraculously survived until the spring thaw, either way they were ready. Unconsciousness finally overtook them just as the sun began to show through the dissipating clouds.

"Sir!"

An unintelligible groan.

"Sir!" the voice came, more excited this time. Megamind finally roused and blearily blinked his eyes open, greeted by the face of a fish with several red and blue orbs hovering behind him.

"Oh, thank goodness, Sir!" Minion cheered, dragging his master out of the warm bath and pulling him into a gorilla hug.

Megamind hung there limply for a moment before wondering, "Minion... where am I?"

"Oh, back at the lair, Sir," the fish explained, setting him down. "You... you didn't come back last night and I was so worried, so I sent the brain-bots out to go look for you. But their circuitry kept freezing, so I couldn't muster an effective search until the storm died down. One of them finally found the buried car on infrared this morning, so I sent an entire team of them to dig it out and bring it back here."

"Ah..." he responded, looking absently to the warm water bath. His eyes widened slightly as he hesitantly wondered, "... and Roxanne?"

"Sent to the hospital with moderate hypothermia, Sir," Minion responded. "She's on fluids and a warming regimen as we speak and is expected to recover." He tapped his metallic fingers together anxiously and continued, "However, your case was quite a bit more severe. I told you, you're not equipped to handle this kind of weather! It's a miracle you survived for as long as you did without any permanent damage!" He clenched his fists with a sudden gasp before he worried, "Unless... you have brain damage! Sir, how many fingers am I holding up?" he prodded, holding up three fingers.

Megamind held the edge of the tub and looked at him groggily. "One thousand and thirty six."

Minion wailed. "Oh no, it's true!" He held his hands to his tank and ran out of the room sobbing.

Megamind, on the other hand, turned back to the water and absently ran his hand through it. "No, I'm certain now. The answer was one thousand and thirty six."