This is definitely not Roxanne's kind of party.

It's all glittering jewels and glittering smiles and tiny little pastry things filled with unidentifiable gray paste that taste like nothing. The fact that it's in the art museum is just makes it worse. She wants to look at the art, not nod and smile and nod and smile and watch Wayne nod and smile.

Charity, Roxanne reminds herself. This is for charity.

She's been writing copy in her head for most of the party, but her inner monologue is getting increasingly caustic about all of these people who find it necessary to ask her oh, so when are you and Metro Man going to get married, when are you going to stop working, when are you—

And Wayne keeps doing this utterly irritating thing where, when they're talking to a group of people in a circle, he'll stand in front of her, blocking her from view, and Roxanne might not be interested in any of these conversations, but she is getting really. fucking. tired. of him excluding her like this.

He isn't doing it on purpose; he never does it on purpose, but he won't stop doing it, and god, Roxanne is sick of this shit, sick of this pretense at dating, sick of people ignoring her, sick of feeling underdressed and bored and annoyed.

So the next time Wayne does his stepping-in-front of her thing, Roxanne slips away from the knot of people, slips away from the party, down one of the darkened hallways of the museum.

The museum is empty tonight, empty and shadowed everywhere that isn't the room with the party, and Roxanne's high heels echo as she walks.

She ends up in a room of Japanese artwork, shunga prints and porcelain sculpture and bronze statues. Roxanne wanders through the low-lit display and then stops, her attention caught by one specific print:

A nude woman lying on her back, head bent backwards, the large head-shaped body of an octopus between her spread legs, its tentacles wrapped around her as it appears to be performing oral sex on her.

Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, the small plaque next to the print reads.

The white space of the print is filled with script; Roxanne wonders what it says.

"The title of that is wrong, you know."

Roxanne jumps and turns. In one of the shadowed corners of the room, something that Roxanne thought was a statue coalesces into Megamind, stepping half into the light.

"Oh?" Roxanne says.

(she should scream, she should, but thank god; if Megamind kidnaps her she won't have to go back to that utterly horrible party)

"Yes," Megamind says, shadows underneath his high, sharp cheekbones, at his temples.

(half a thought—something about the shape of his head reminds her of—)

He waves a hand at the picture of the octopus and the woman.

"She wasn't a fisherman's wife," Megamind says, "She was a pearl-diver herself and she was married to a prince."

Roxanne blinks at him.

"How—do you know?" she asks.

"Context clues from the dialogue," Megamind says, watching her from his place across the room, voice clear in spite of the way he's not speaking very loudly. "It's based off of the legend of Princess Tamatori. Are you going to call for help now?"

(It feels—strange, talking to him like this, here in the half-dark and the quiet, not dreamlike, exactly, but—removed, somehow, from their ordinary reality)

"Not yet," Roxanne says, perfectly calm.

Wait—what does he mean, context clues from the dialogue? Is he—

"Can you read that?" Roxanne asks curiously.

Megamind gives her an incredulous look that says, quite clearly of course I can read it.

"What does it say?" she asks, and it's only when Megamind's eyebrows go up in a shocked expression that it occurs to Roxanne that asking him to translate the text of something that is, essentially, early nineteenth-century pornography is really a very strange thing to do.

For a long moment, he's silent, and then—

"I've been watching you for so long," Megamind says quietly, "hiding and watching and waiting for the right time to abduct you. And finally—finally I have you."

Roxanne freezes, eyes wide and locked with Megamind's, unable to look away. What is—

"Your pussy tastes so good," he says and holy fuck, that is not something Roxanne ever thought she would get to hear Megamind's voice say, what the hell—

(the translation; he's doing the translation? the comment about abduction was the translation, too?)

"I'm going to lick you and suck you until you come," Megamind continues, voice low, still looking at her, "and then I'm going to wrap myself around you and bring you to the palace of the sea god. Oh—oh, you're so delicious."

(Roxanne is pretty sure she's ceased to breathe. She can't—she can't stop looking at Megamind's mouth—)

"Hateful creature," Megamind says, voice breathier now, "your mouth, right there—no, no, no— yes! yes! Yes! Put your tentacles inside of me—move them—yes! There! Ohh—oh, so good—I'm so close—ah—" He gives a little gasp and then drops his voice into that low murmur again. "—tell me, do you like this?"

(Roxanne isn't sure if that's a real question or if this is still the translation, but—)

"You do, don't you?" Megamind continues. "God, you're so wet for me."

(Roxanne presses her knees together beneath her dress)

"I can feel it," Megamind says in that breathless voice, "oh, I'm so close—oh! Oh, god!"

He actually moans, and the sound goes through Roxanne's body in a wave of heat, of—

"I'm going to make you come for me just like that," Megamind says, dark and filled with promise, "over and over and over again—"

He pauses, and Roxanne feels as though she's on the edge of—something, and then—

"—and that's the end of the text," Megamind says, looking away from her.

Roxanne gapes at him, feeling as though she's—missed the last step of a staircase, brought up short, desperate to regain her balance, to regain some semblance of rationality and control.

"—the—the line—about the palace of the sea god," she says, hearing her voice as if from a distance, a roaring sound like the ocean in her ears, like listening to a seashell and hearing her own heartbeat reverberating, "—is that some sort of—euphemism?"

"No," Megamind says, looking back at her again, "that's the context clue I mentioned. The sea god stole a pearl and then she stole it back. All of the sea creatures chased her and tried to stop her." He tilts his head. "Of course, none of—" he waves a hand at the print, "that happens in the original story. They don't catch her, but she dies when she gets to land."

"Oh," Roxanne says, "so—somebody—didn't like the ending of the story."

Megamind makes a vague noise of agreement.

"And they decided to make a better ending…" she trails off.

"Rape instead of death, you mean?" Megamind's lips twist bitterly. "I'm not certain I'd call that better."

Roxanne frowns, taken aback.

"That—didn't sound—like a rape scene to me," she says. "I mean, she's—clearly—enjoying herself…"

"'Hateful creature'," Megamind says flatly.

"She tells him to fuck her!" Roxanne says.

"She says no, first," Megamind says. "Several times. You know, I've really never understood the appeal of—that—"

He gestures at the print.

"What, tentacles?" Roxanne asks.

Megamind makes a sound that might be a choked laugh.

"No," he says, "well. Yes, I suppose, but—rape fantasies—humans are—always with the rape fantasies! Even in books, you'll be reading along quite innocently and suddenly the so-called 'hero' is ripping the heroine's bodice off and not taking no for an answer, and is this meant to be sexy? Because it is really, really not. It is upsetting and I do not like it."

Roxanne stares at him, the words what kind of books are you reading, Megamind, on the tip of her tongue, but—the fact that Megamind evidently reads romance novels is not even the most interesting part of that rant.

"I mean," she says slowly, "it's a whole—loss of control thing? The idea of being forced to do something you secretly want, so you don't have to feel guilty about it because it isn't your fault…"

(this is. a really strange conversation. to be having with Megamind.)

He frowns at her, as if he's trying to understand.

"So is the fantasy only meant to be pleasurable for the person being forced?" he asks, as if this is a real question. "I can see the appeal in not having to feel guilty about wanting something."

"No, it's—" this is definitely a strange conversation to be having with Megamind, "—it's supposed to be—some people—are turned on by the idea of having that sort of power over another person? It doesn't—you can play out the dynamic and still have it be consensual, you just have to talk to your partner about it first…I feel like I'm explaining this badly."

Megamind shrugs, a sharp, quick motion, looks away from her.

"I just don't understand," he says, "why anyone would ever want to be called a hateful creature and be told no, no, no. Probably it's just a personal—" he cuts himself off, shakes his head sharply. "This discussion is—singularly pointless."

"But—"

"You should scream for help now," Megamind says, eyes and voice flat.

Later, after the party has been ruined in a way that Roxanne really shouldn't have found as satisfying as she did, all of the trays of empty-tasting pastries overturned, all of the stuffy, glittering people sent screaming into the street, Roxanne reclines in her bathtub and tries to relax.

(the shape of Megamind's mouth as he said I'm going to lick you and suck you until you come, when he'd said tell me, do you like this)

God, had Roxanne ever liked it. It was a damn good thing he'd been on the other side of the room, or she probably would have done something very, very stupid.

Fuck, she's getting turned on now, just thinking about it, the way his voice had sounded when he'd said your pussy tastes so good. It had been so—unexpectedly filthy, and weirdly hot, the way she had wavered in and out of being able to tell if he was still doing the translation, or if he was actually saying these things to her: the line about abduction and him asking if she liked this, the comment about her being wet for him, the promise that he was going to make her come over and over again.

The way he'd been looking at her the whole time, so either he had the translation memorized or he was translating the text on the fly, based on just a glance at the words.

Roxanne, running her fingertips up and down her own thigh without realizing it, stops, wondering—exactly how accurate a translation had that been?

Pretty damn accurate, she concludes, a few days later at the library, having chased down three different actual translations of the text of Dream of the Fisherman's Wife.

Which—that unfortunately means that he hadn't slipped something into the dialogue that was really directed at her, as she'd—secretly been hoping.

But.

Although the content of the translations is close to the same, the three scholarly versions of the dialogue are—really quite ridiculous, nowhere near Megamind's fluidly sensual rendition.

He's right about the title, too, and about the Princess Tamatori thing; she does die in the original, cutting her chest open so she can hide the stolen pearl inside herself as she swims, the blood in the water hiding her from her pursuers, allowing her to escape.

Roxanne can understand the artist of the print wanting a different ending, an ending that doesn't leave someone bleeding to death.

Roxanne dreams about it, dreams about that night in the museum's display room, dreams it the way it didn't happen, dreams of standing in front of the print, looking at the picture.

(the image seeming to move, the tentacles of the octopus curling around the woman's body as she arches her spine and cries out in ecstasy)

Roxanne dreams that Megamind is standing close behind her, whispering in her ear I'm going to make you come just like that, over and over and over again.

Megamind doesn't act any differently, the next time he kidnaps her. There are no significant glances, no allusions to the fact that, the last time they saw each other, he stood in the shadows and dirty-talked to her until she was trembling.

(did he not notice her reaction, there in the museum, does he not notice now, the way she can't stop herself from staring at his mouth, the way all her responses are just a half-second too slow?)

Roxanne doesn't mention it, either. She will put this aside, this memory of the thrill that had run through her when he'd said I've been watching you for so long, when he'd said do you like this and she'd thought, for a moment, that he was honestly asking.

She will put this aside, in the mental box labeled Things Not to Think About (Megamind), along with the way his eyes light up when he's had a dangerous idea, and the supple way he moves, and the absent way he'll stroke his fingers affectionately over the clear dome of a brainbot when it nuzzles beneath his palm.

She will put it aside and she will not think about it.

She still dreams about it, though, contents of the box spilling over into her sleeping mind:

Roxanne is

looking at the print, Megamind's voice in her ear, his hands on her shoulders

tell me, do you like this

Roxanne is

lying on her back in the sand, at the very edge of the water, spine arching as as tentacles curl around her, inside of her

tell me

waves lapping at her body, Megamind's voice

do you like this

no, Roxanne's voice says, lying without her permission

Megamind sits up, taking his head from between her legs, and Roxanne wants to cry out at the sudden loss of sensation.

You should scream for help now, he says.

Roxanne, chained to a rock on the beach of the lake, watches as Megamind fights Metro Man.

(Megamind had made a glancing reference to Andromeda as he was securing her to the rock beside the water; Roxanne had pointed out that, if he was going for that particular effect, she should probably be naked, and then she had nearly to bitten her own tongue off in shock and consternation. This isn't a dream, Roxanne, you can't say things like that out loud.)

Metro Man's punch sends Megamind flying backwards; he falls in the sand at the edge of the lake.

And Roxanne stops breathing for a moment, eyes on Megamind, who is lying in the sand, not getting up, not getting up—

He gets up.

There's blood on his mouth; (he wipes it away with the back of his hand), and he has one arm wrapped around his ribs, as though he's holding himself together like that, but he gets up.

Roxanne dreams she is swimming underwater, swimming as fast as she can because there's something terrible behind her, chasing her and—

—she's swimming underwater, swimming after Megamind, chasing him, trying to catch him, and then there's

blood

blood in the water

billowing out around Megamind's body in a crimson cloud, hiding him from view

(blood in the water and)

blood on the sand, pulsing out of the deep gash in Megamind's chest in a rhythm like the waves that lap at their bodies

(Megamind lying in the sand, not getting up, not getting up)

Megamind gasps for breath and reaches into the wound in his chest, pulling out a pearl the size of her fist and pressing it into Roxanne's hands as though this is what she must want

She drops the pearl on the sand, not even caring when it rolls into the ocean, and then she kisses him

(his lips taste like salt: blood and seawater and tears)

"Hey, Roxy, come and take a look at this," Hal says, calling her over to the group of people that have gathered around a desk in the office.

Roxanne goes, ready to feign polite interest in whatever idiotic thing Hal has decided to show her this time, but—

It's a magazine, a cheap magazine, The Metro City Tattler, the city's only tabloid. Hal is holding it open, pages creased back and there's—

A photograph.

Of Megamind.

A much younger Megamind, less muscular, less angular, no facial hair, looking all of sixteen years old. It's a candid photograph; Roxanne can tell; Megamind never allows himself to look that unguarded when he knows there's a camera around. He's in the act of turning, eyes on something over his right shoulder, one hand at his throat, the other—

He's wearing a prison uniform, unzipped and pushed down to bare his chest, pushed down around his hips, lower than his hips, and he has one hand between his legs, touching himself, and there are—

Roxanne freezes, and Hal says something about octopus and alien and freak, and the people gathered around the desk laugh and Roxanne bites her tongue and tastes blood.

Megamind says nothing about it, the next time he kidnaps her, but there is a terrible fragility to the tilt of his chin, the curve of his neck, the way he holds his head up.

Someone in the crowd catcalls, makes a loud comment about tentacles, and a laugh ripples through the sea of people and Roxanne is furious, suddenly, blindingly furious, and it is a damn good thing she isn't the one standing at the control panel of the giant robot.

How dare you, she wants to scream, seeing the tense, unbowed line of Megamind's neck, how dare you all.

Roxanne dreams:

Megamind up ahead of her in the water, blood in the water surrounding him

(no)

Roxanne chained to a rock, watching as Megamind falls and does not get up.

(no)

"I have names," she tells Megamind.

"Names?" he asks.

(There are shadows underneath his eyes, not cast there by the light, shadows underneath his eyes and a bruise on his cheekbone and he looks so very tired)

"Of every single person involved in the publication of that article and photograph," Roxanne says, "they're in a notebook, in my purse; you can have them; they're for you—"

"—what are you expecting me to do with them?" Megamind asks, voice flat and blank, and Roxanne hates that tone, hates it.

"Whatever you want," she says, spitting the words out like sharp things that cut into her tongue.

(vengeance, she wants to say, make them bleed)

"Why?" Megamind asks, frowning at her, "why would you care?"

And Roxanne cannot find the words to answer.

Megamind's revenge is—quieter than Roxanne would have expected, but by the end of the month, every person whose name was on her list has been arrested on unrelated charges: fraud, tax evasion, embezzlement.

The evidence in each case is impeccable.

The tabloid goes completely out of business.

Megamind's head slams back into the pavement as he hits the ground. Metro Man turns his laser vision on the latest machine, slicing through metal, parts and pieces melting and flying apart. One large piece hits Megamind in the chest just as he's sitting up, knocking him back to the ground.

Wayne doesn't even notice, too busy smiling for the cameras.

Megamind makes a small, almost inaudible, noise of pain, and then pushes the piece of metal off his chest and drags himself to his feet, leaving a smear of blood on the pavement where his head was bleeding.

Roxanne, handcuffed in her chair, has never been closer to screaming.

Roxanne dreams

Megamind lying on the pavement, bleeding, and this time he doesn't get up

(no)

Megamind in the water, disappearing in a cloud of blood

(no)

Megamind lying on his back at the water's edge, bleeding out onto the sand

(no)

(give me a better ending)

Megamind lying on his back at the water's edge, his spine arching, head bent back, the taste of the ocean in Roxanne's mouth, no blood, just blue skin and blue tentacles and Megamind crying out in pleasure beneath her and

(you know, I've never really understood the appeal of that)

(what, tentacles?)

(no. yes.)

Tell me, do you like this? Megamind asks, lying between her legs, tentacles twisting and pressing against her, waves lapping at both their bodies

(But there is ocean water and blood in Roxanne's mouth, and she cannot speak.)

Roxanne is

chained to a rock, naked, Megamind's hands over the manacles on her wrists.

I can see the appeal in not having to feel guilty about wanting something. Megamind tells her.

He kisses her, then pulls away.

You should scream for help now, he says, stepping back into the water.

This party is very definitely not Roxanne's kind of party, which is rather ironic, really, since she helped to plan it.

(Wayne's mother had asked what they should do to make up for the charity party Megamind crashed last month, and Roxanne said let's have it at the art museum again, and Wayne's mother had agreed.)

(clearly, she doesn't know Megamind as well as Roxanne does.)

Nobody notices when Roxanne slips away from the party and down a darkened hall.

She goes the the room where the Dream of the Fisherman's Wife is hung, first, waits there, but he doesn't come.

(was she wrong?)

Oh, but—perhaps—

He's standing in front of a painting of Andromeda, chained to the rock, her bound hands above her head, her body arched back away from the sea monster emerging from the waves at her feet.

Roxanne's heels echo as she walks towards him.

He turns at the sound, too quick, too sharp, reaching for his gun, and then he stops, halting mid-motion, as Roxanne continues to walk towards him.

"—what are you doing?" he asks, drawing back warily into the shadows.

He's standing stiffly, one arm around his own body, cracked ribs, she guesses, from the last time she saw him fall and fall and drag himself to his feet. There's a bruise on his face again, a half-healed cut on his mouth where his lip has been split.

"A little early to be back on your feet like this, isn't it?" Roxanne asks, a terrible tenderness for him threatening to break her heart.

"I'll manage," Megamind snaps, as though he thinks she's mocking him.

"You're going to get yourself killed one of these days," Roxanne says, heart twisting.

For a moment he's silent, and then—

"Probably, yes," he says, turning his face away, looking at the painting again.

(there are shadows underneath his eyes, shadows under his cheekbones, at his temples)

"—what?" Roxanne says.

Megamind looks at the painting.

"Statistically speaking, that is the most likely outcome," he says unconcernedly, "I've done the math. And I know how this goes."

"How what goes?" Roxanne says (how can he—how can he look so calm about this).

He turns to her, waves a hand at the painting of the girl cringing away from the monster, and then winces, shoulders drawing inwards in pain.

"This," he says. "This—story. I'm the bad guy. The hero saves the day; the hero gets the girl; they fly off into the sunset. The villain dies. The end."

Roxanne—cannot look away from him.

(blood in the water, blood in her mouth, choking her)

(the villain dies)

(the end)

"No," she says. "No."

"No?" Megamind asks, head tilting. "No, what?"

"No," Roxanne says. "That is—that is a terrible story, Megamind; I—don't want—to have to watch you bleed to death. I refuse, do you hear me?"

"That's the way the story goes," Megamind says, frowning.

(And Roxanne remembers I can see the appeal in not having to feel guilty for wanting something and the bitterness in Megamind's voice when he said the hero gets the girl, remembers the way he'd looked at her as he said finally I have you.)

Sees, really sees, the way he's looking at her now.

She steps forward, reaching for him, and Megamind startles back.

"What—what are you—"

"Shh," Roxanne says, fingers curling around his wrist, fingertips of her other hand pressed lightly to his lips. "Let me tell you a better story."

She leans their foreheads together and Megamind goes absolutely still.

"Once, there was a man who wasn't actually bad," she whispers.

"—a monster, you mean," Megamind says, lips moving beneath her fingers.

"No," Roxanne says. "A man who thought he was a monster. But he wasn't. And he tried for so long to be bad, but he just couldn't."

She moves her hand from his lips but doesn't move away, rests her hand on his chest instead, fingertips at the hollow of his throat. She feels him swallow.

"And there was a girl, wasn't there," she says, into he space between their mouths, voice quiet, "that he felt guilty for wanting. Do I have that part of the story right, Megamind?"

"Yes," he whispers, as though he hates himself for saying it, "yes, that's right."

Roxanne curls her fingers around the clasp of his cape, feeling the way the edge of it presses into her skin.

(blood in the water, blood on the sand)

(give me a better story, give me an ending that doesn't leave you bleeding—)

"You don't have to feel guilty, Megamind," Roxanne says, her voice small and shaking in the empty room.

He takes a sharp breath; she can hear it in the quiet that surrounds them, feel it, standing this close to him.

"Tell me," she says, "do you want to know how the story ends?"

She doesn't wait for an answer, but leans forward that last inch and kisses him.

(he doesn't taste of blood, he doesn't taste of blood at all)

"What—about the hero?" Megamind says as she pulls away, but his hand is in her hair and his breathing is ragged.

"I already told you about him," Roxanne says, pressing her forehead to his again, "Don't you remember—the man who thought he was a monster. That's how this story goes, you see. Once, there was a man who wasn't actually bad. And he—fell in love, yes?"

"Yes," Megamind breathes.

"Yes," Roxanne says, with a shuddery sigh of relief, "he fell in love with the girl who—fell in love with him as well."

"—oh," Megamind says, the sound a little bit like tears.

"And then," Roxanne says, "and then—they live—"

"Yes," Megamind says, and kisses her.

(Andromeda unlocks her chains herself and steps down into the water, Princess Tamatori arches her back in the sand and bends her head back and she says yes and nobody ends up bleeding to death in the sand, in the pavement, in the water, because this isn't that kind of a story)

Roxanne wraps her arms around Megamind, who pulls her even closer as he kisses her.

And then—

—they live.

(there, my love. there is your better ending.)

notes: artworks referenced are Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, by Katsushika Hokusai and Andromeda, by Paul Gustave Dore.