Roxanne is sitting on her couch and flipping through her collection of takeout menus, trying to decide what to order for dinner, when the doorbell rings.

She makes a face at the sound—you'd think the kids selling school fundraiser stuff could at least give it a break on Valentine's Day—and doesn't get up from the sofa. Maybe she's coldhearted, but she's bought enough overpriced, badly made candy for a lifetime, and there's really something just—prohibitively pathetic about the thought of buying more for herself today of all days.

The bell rings again.

Roxanne's eyebrows go up in mild surprise.

The echo of the doorbell's ending chime is followed by an urgent sounding knock.

Roxanne sighs, tosses the menus on the coffee table, and gets up. There's just a chance that it's someone wanting something more important than to sell her a box of cheap-tasting chocolate covered cherries.

Maybe it's—oh, no; perhaps it's one of the Blumenthals, here to ask her to come over for 'a nice chat and some tea, dear' again; they're always doing that after one of her kidnappings. The two old ladies mean well, but their investment in Roxanne's nonexistent love life is really quite embarrassing, and today of all days, she really does not want to face it; she'd actually prefer a kid selling cheap chocolates—

The doorbell rings a third time as she's walking to the door.

"Okay, okay!" Roxanne says, hurrying the last few steps in spite of herself.

She unlatches the door, opens it, and—

—stares.

Megamind is standing in front of her apartment door, which is extremely weird for a wide variety of reasons, ranging from the fact that he's never done multiple kidnappings on a single day to the question of why he would ring her doorbell for a kidnapping to the way that he's just standing there and not, you know, kidnapping her—

Not to mention the way he's dressed, which is—

"Miss Ritchi," Megamind says.

Roxanne attempts to say—actually, she's not really sure what she's attempting to say, but whatever it is, it comes out as—

"—hhaa—?"

—which is very much extremely not what she's attempting to say and also sounds kind of like a dying sheep and—

Megamind's wearing normal clothes; a white button-up shirt and dark slacks and a light pink tie; an actual tie, and it's pink; how is this happening; the top button of the shirt is undone, the hollow of his throat showing, the blue of his skin a vivid contrast to the white and the pink and—

"Did you mean it?" Megamind blurts.

Roxanne drags her eyes away from the hollow of his throat and looks at his face.

"The implication—" he says, "—earlier—when you asked if I would have thrown you out for the candle—"

Roxanne blinks, hard, the words making about as much sense as the image of Megamind standing outside her door in a pink tie. She shakes her head slightly, trying to clear it.

"What?" she says.

Megamind's expression does something rapid and rather awful, the strange, desperate hope in his face vanishing in an instant with a bitter twist of his mouth and a shuttering of his eyes. Roxanne's heart plummets sickeningly at the sudden transformation, even though she has no idea why—

"Megamind," Roxanne says, desperate to make him stop looking like that, "Megamind; I have no idea what you're talking about—"

This appears to have been exactly the worst possible thing to say; Megamind's expression goes several degrees more terrible, something like disgust or contempt flashing in his face, followed by despair, and then he gives a queer, bitter little laugh and turns away as if to go.

"—never mind—shouldn't have even—of course—"

"—wait!" Roxanne lets go of the doorframe to catch at his arm, her voice rising on a note of distressed incomprehension, "—stop! Would you just—I don't know what—"

"Of course you don't!" Megamind says, voice rising, too. "Of course you don't; never mind; it doesn't matter—"

"Roxanne, dear," a quavery old voice says, "is everything all right?"

Megamind and Roxanne both freeze.

"—it's fine, Mrs. Blumenthal!" Roxanne says, in a loud, bright voice. "Everything is—"

The door across the hall opens and a gray head pokes out. Roxanne closes her eyes, internally groaning.

"Oh! You have company!" Vera Blumenthal gasps, clearly delighted, as she catches sight of Megamind. "Emily! Emily, come quick! Come see who's come to visit little Roxanne!"

At the sound of Mrs. Blumenthal's upraised voice, several more doors along the hallway open, the occupants of the apartments peering out.

"Oooh!"

"Well would you look at—"

"Oh!"

"Oh my god, Bob; come look!"

"You see, Emily?" Vera Blumenthal says happily to the other old lady who leans out the door beside her. "There, now, Roxanne, dear—"

"Nnnn!" Roxanne says, and lets go of Megamind to gesture frantically at Mrs. Blumenthal behind Megamind's back. "Nnnn!"

Vera Blumenthal ignores her completely.

"—didn't I tell you it'd turn out all right?" Vera Blumenthal continues, ignoring Roxanne's wild shushing motions. "'He'll come to his senses eventually' I said 'don't you fret so'. And you see how right I was? You see how right I was, Emily? I always know!"

"Yes, Vena," Emily Blumenthal says, looking at her wife with an indulgent eye and patting her hand. "You always know."

"And doesn't he clean up nice!" Anita Kowalski says, from farther down the hall, leaning out her own door.

"Tie's a bit weird," Bob Kowalski offers.

His wife swats him with the dish towel she's holding.

"They're all wearing ties like that these days, Bob," she says, "you're just old! Don't you pay any attention to him, Roxanne, he's just as pleased for you as any of us."

Megamind turns his head and looks at Roxanne with round eyes.

Roxanne makes a choking sound, her face going crimson.

Oh god. Oh god why is this happening to her.

"—poor dear, she was just pining, but I told her the last time she came over for tea, I said—"

"No!" Roxanne says, recovering her voice at last, "No no no! No! There was no pining! No pining! No fretting! I told you before, I am not—I have no idea what you're talking about! And—and Megamind just came here to ask me—"

She stops and gestures quickly at Megamind, to continue the sentence—

"—out?" Megamind says faintly.

"Out!" Roxanne repeats, nodding madly, and then, as the word actually registers. "Wa—out!? What?!"

"I—would you?" he asks. "Like—to go out with me?"

Their watching crowd makes an appreciative, approving sound, but Roxanne isn't really paying attention to them anymore, is staring at Megamind, who is staring back at her. She reaches out a hand to steady herself on the doorframe.

"On a date?" she says, voice faint.

"A—yes."

"An actual—non-alligator-and-deathtrap type date?"

Megamind gives a choked little laugh, and Roxanne feels the edges of her own lips starting to twitch in the beginnings of an answering smile.

"Yes," he says, "yes, the—the non-alligator-and-deathtrap type of date. Would you like to, Roxanne?"

Roxanne's smile is no longer able to be contained.

"Yes," she says. "Yes, I would."

Megamind's smile spreads over his face, too, and—

The apartment hallway bursts into applause. Roxanne and Megamind both jump in surprise, turning to look at their audience.

"You see; it's just like I said!" Vera Blumenthal says, beaming. "Didn't I say he'd ask you eventually, dear?"

Roxanne's face goes hot again; when she looks over at Megamind, he's blushing, too, his cheekbones and the edges of his ears pink, almost the color of the tie he's wearing. As their eyes meet, both of their mouths twitch in mingled embarrassment and amusement.

"Right!" Roxanne says, grabbing his wrist. "Well! Anyway! Megamind and I are just going to go talk now in private, yes okay thanks goodbye!"

"—just like I said! I said everything will—"

Roxanne drags the now laughing Megamind into her apartment and closes the door firmly behind them.

...the end.

Happy Valentine's Day!