You get this one before Monday! Because I desperately need to stop editing it, ahahaha. Also, you never know about gender and babies, but pregnancy-baby-family scenes are cute and I think as long as you're prepared for the possibility that you might be wrong, you're good. It's kind of a joke in my family, because when the doctors told my mother I was going to be a girl, she was like, "what? there's no way. no." And wouldn't you know it, years later, we discovered she was right! XD

Also, the spikes-force-field thing is something I believe Setepenre-Set came up with for their fics? That's the first place I remember reading it, at least. Set, if you're out there, I hope you don't mind if I borrow it! It makes so much sense, considering Megamind's job and the spike-helmet we see tinymind build himself at the beginning of the movie.

(you're going to be getting a LOT of Avi Kaplan in this one, just a heads up.)

CHAPTER 2
I'll Get By - Avi Kaplan

"So, is Salim going to propose?" says one of her coworkers, and it's the third time Roxanne has heard that in as many days since the news has gone out to the world at large.

Megamind's reaction was honestly the best, and Minion's—they both seemed so genuinely happy on her behalf, and excited for Rose and Salim, and they hadn't made any disparaging comments or expressed any doubts and they were totally nonjudgmental about the whole thing.

Roxanne has never expected to have to bite her tongue to keep from asking, why can't you be more like Megamind? at all, let alone so frequently.

"My dear Miss Ritchi," Megamind purrs, and yanks the bag off her head, "we—"

"It's a girl!" she says, as soon as she's free. "It's a girl, they found out two days ago!"

"A girl!" he cries, "Ha!" and punches the air with both fists, which triggers the emergency release on his shoulder array—cape, mantle, and collar all go flying backwards with a pop. Megamind doesn't even appear to notice; he's beaming all over his face. "Ha ha! You see? I was right! Never bet against a pizzykick!"

"It's psychic, and you aren't one," Roxanne tells him, but she's laughing, and he doesn't seem to mind being corrected. He just scoffs and waves a hand at her as he backs up a couple steps to retrieve his array from the floor. "But yes, you were right."

"And…they can be sure about this?" Minion asks, somewhat cautiously. It's an odd contrast to his friend's wild enthusiasm. "What happens if—oh, I don't know how humans—if the child realizes otherwise?"

Roxanne shrugs. "Sometimes that does happen," she agrees. "And no, they can't be sure. But if anyone is preparing for that possibility, it's Rose and Salim. Rose already mentioned they were looking for something more or less gender-neutral in terms of naming, and they aren't doing any of that gender-reveal party stuff." She grins. "I just get to know because I'm the auntie."

"What names are they discussing?" Minion asks. It's a shame Roxanne has to disappoint him.

"They won't tell me," she says. "They won't tell anyone; they don't want criticisms on the potentials."

Minion tilts sideways in his dome. "Is it…customary to comment on someone else's preference of names?"

Roxanne snorts. "I don't know about customary," she says, thinking it might as well be, based on discussions she's overheard around the water cooler at work, "but it sure happens a lot."

Megamind pauses in his tightening of his mantle's spikes to consider this for a moment. Minion frowns, and then Megamind wrinkles his nose. "That seems rude."

"Thank you!" Roxanne exclaims. "I was starting to think it was just me!"

"It might still be just you," he says, tugging the array back into place over his shoulders and dusting off his cape. "I am a social misfit, you remember. I don't count."

"You're a genius and a supervillain," she returns. "I think you can be depended upon to know what's rude and what isn't."

"Perhaps," he says, but he sounds doubtful.

"You count," Roxanne says flatly. "Also, your collar is crooked. No, the other way."

Megamind grumbles something under his breath and thumbs the clasp, then reaches back and removes the whole high collar from the back of his mantle. Roxanne blinks. She hadn't realized he could do that.

"This thing, I tell you," he mutters, tugging at it. "No end of trouble. Doesn't help that Muscles thinks he can carry me by it—keeps bending it all out of shape, but do I complain?"

"Ceaselessly, Sir," Minion says over his shoulder as he turns away to attend to something that just started beeping.

"Why do you wear it?" Roxanne asks, curious. "If it's such a pain?"

Megamind shrugs. "Protects against whiplash. Means I don't have to touch him any more than he has to touch me. Keeps stuff away from my neck. Looks badass." He slides it back into place behind his head and wiggles it down; there's a soft click as it locks in. "Take your pick."

She tilts her head. "How do you not choke every time he hauls you off to prison by your collar?"

He blinks at her, amused. "So many questions!"

"Only two," she points out. She doesn't ordinarily ask them so close together, though; it's not surprising that he'd call her on it. "Sorry, were we not having conversation time? I thought we were."

Megamind shakes his head and doesn't reply. His exasperated expression is ruined somewhat by the smile that keeps creeping in around his eyes, but he turns around anyway and stalks back over to the car-sized machine by the wall.

"There's a harness," Minion tells her in an undertone, as Megamind flounces off to finish bringing this week's doomsday device into position. "Between his leathers and his undersuit."

"Ah," Roxanne says.

"We had some bad years before we perfected the locking mechanism," he admits. "One time—"

"Minion," Megamind says loudly. "Stop fraternizing with the pawn and go finish setting up the cameras."

Minion jumps, looking guilty. "Right, Sir." To Roxanne, he says, "Congratulations again on your niece," before scurrying away.

Megamind's next plot is an elaborate thing with a lot of knives involved. A lot of knives, but no kidnapping. Roxanne is hopeful about the week after that, but the days crawl by with no word from the city's resident reigning villain, and Friday finds Roxanne in a cranky mood, sitting in her chair at her desk, staring up at the ceiling with her head on the back of her chair.

So, this is what life is without a supervillain in it. Get up, go to work. Go home. Wash dishes. Laundry. Eat. Sleep.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

She sighs and sits up, clicks through her emails in search of something to do.

Her job has its exciting moments. It does. She loves going out on assignments, talking to new people about what they're doing in their lives or their jobs. She loves thinking on camera, knocking the inevitable curveball response out of the park with an insightful followup question. And a few times, she's found projects that involved deep dives into corporate wrongdoing or government corruption—those were particularly fun, and Roxanne is itching to get her hands on another one. She has to work on them after hours, on her own time, because there's no money in accountability reporting, but…that's okay. She doesn't mind. It's worth it to be able to really sink her teeth into something.

It's been ages since she's been able to really get into a project. All her recent reports have been one-offs: local businesses, startups, charities. They're nice, and it is sort of satisfying to be able to tackle multiple reports in a week; it just…isn't the same kind of satisfying as really digging at a problem.

"Should've gone into private detective work," she mumbles.

So. It's Friday. It's been two weeks since Megamind has offered her any kind of respite from the mundane, and Roxanne is cranky.

And then Hal shows up.

"Hey, Roxaroo!" he exclaims, popping up behind her and making her jump. "Friday night! TGIF, am I right? You free, or are you going out with the girls?"

Oh. Wonderful.

Roxanne already knows where this is going, and she does not have the energy for it. "I have plans," she says, tone light. She really should just lie to him and tell him she's got a hot date, but she doesn't want to have to deal with how pissy he always gets about that. And she doesn't want to have to lie. "Got plans for a quiet night in. I want to finish that book I was telling you about."

"Oh, oh—right! Right, the Civil War one."

Roxanne blinks, momentarily thrown. But oh, right…nope, he wasn't listening. The "Civil War one" was two books ago. And it was the French Revolution.

"Well, that's cool, that's…" His face says 'boring.' "That's cool! But hey, you have time for a drink, first. Maybe two drinks! Maybe swing by my place, play some co-op! Or, or talk books," he amends quickly, when Roxanne's expression stays flat. He laughs nervously. "Books are fine too, totally cool, totally cool."

She takes a deep breath and starts gathering up her things. Her purse, her work laptop. She'd shut down properly first, usually, but today she just wants out of this interaction. "Not tonight, Hal." She stands and steps forward, starts to brush past him.

He jumps back and steps in front of her. "Hey, or—we can talk about us! All the good times we've had lately!" He sends her a smile that he clearly intends to be winning. "We've had a good week, got a lot done, huh? Drinks on me, Roxie, I'm buying."

Which, honestly, as far as attempts at asking someone out go, is not the worst attempt Roxanne has fielded. Not by half.

But the last ten—twenty—thirty—attempts were all by Hal. All of them. Despite Roxanne's repeated attempts to shoot him down nicely, despite her insistence that no, thank you, not tonight, not tonight, not tonight—the man cannot take a hint. Roxanne has been getting increasingly firm about it, telling him she's just not that into him, pointing out their wildly differing interests in literally everything, at one point just flat out saying, "No, Hal," and walking away, at which point he followed her and kept talking, and just—

"It's not happening, Hal," she snaps, finally leaving the edge in her voice. "Stop. We are coworkers. That is all. There is no 'us.' There will never be an 'us.' You need to set your sights on someone else, or I'm going to HR."

Hal is momentarily speechless, and then he scowls. "Well—well fine," he snaps, flushing angrily. "Fine. You could've just said you weren't feeling it, jeez. I was just being nice, I just wanted to see if you felt like hanging out, but—fine."

Roxanne sighs. "Hal…"

"No, it's fine. It's cool." He steps back, holding his hands up by his shoulders, palms out. "I guess you just don't like hanging out with people. Whatever."

Okay, so, fuck him, then. She hikes her purse onto her shoulder and breezes past him to the elevator.

Whatever, indeed. She'll see how he is on Monday after he's had some time to cool down. Hopefully those friends he chats with in his games will be able to talk some sense into him and he won't be too weird about it; she has to work with him, after all.

She probably should have gone to HR about Hal ages ago, but…nothing he does ever seems HR-worthy. He's just persistent and kind of weird. Roxanne has dealt with persistent and weird before. It's fine, probably. Hal is annoying and he gets pissy about being left out of Roxanne's social life, but…he's harmless. It's not worth making waves about this. Roxanne just wants to go home, put her feet up, and finish her book.

And not think about Megamind's silence.

She's not worried, exactly. She knows better than to worry about Megamind. He's gone quiet like this before, a few times; it usually means he's building up to a whopper of a plan. Something really big and showy.

But still. Roxanne wasn't present at the last one, but Megamind is a pro at broadcasting his schemes and she saw the whole thing, start to finish. Including the part where Metro Man picked him up by the throat and threw him fifty feet onto concrete. It took him a few seconds to get back up, after that one.

But he did get back up. The plot wrapped up quickly after that—a few seconds' delay is usually all Metro Man needs to get a good start dismantling Megamind's doomsday device du jour—but Megamind did get back up, with fire in his eyes above his Cheshire cat grin. And he was stumbling, yes, but only a little, and he was still cackling with evil laughter and vowing 'revahnge' as Metro Man hauled him off to prison. Roxanne has only seen him bleed a couple of times, in all the years he's been kidnapping her. The man cannot be beaten.

God. Roxanne doesn't like being kidnapped, doesn't like not being able to plan her days without wondering if a wrench is going to be thrown into her plans, but Megamind does break up the monotony like nothing else. And he's fun to talk to, during the plans when she wakes up before it's time to go live; fun to banter with and tease and try to catch off-guard when she wakes up partway through.

Hopefully this coming week. Maybe even this weekend.

"Okay, no, even I know that's rude," Megamind says flatly, when Roxanne tells him on Wednesday about the astonishing number of people who are insisting to Rose and Salim that they breastfeed.

"Strangers, even!" she says. "They don't even know them! And they keep touching the bump, it's like there's some weird universal compulsion, or something." She shakes her head. "I never even noticed, before, but now I see it happening all the time. Every time I see a pregnant person, somebody wants to touch. I don't get it. Just ask."

Megamind looks completely horrified. "What?" he says, recoiling. "On…on the…"

"On the bump, yes."

"Without asking?"

"That's correct."

He wrinkles his whole face and then changes the subject back to his Evil Plot, but two days later, there's a package on Roxanne's sofa when she comes home. It turns out to contain several shirts in bright, cheerful colors, cut to allow room for pregnancy, with the words "LOOK, DON'T TOUCH" screen-printed across the midriff in blocky, no-nonsense print. They're wonderful.

(At first, she's worried the shirts won't fit—if they're for Rose, they definitely won't. But Minion has done his homework: the shirt is several sizes too small for Rose, but perfectly the right size for Salim. And they fit him exactly the way they should; Minion must have altered them or made them from scratch, because they don't accentuate or cling the way most maternity clothes do. They fit like proper shirts should fit. "These are perfect," Salim says when he puts one on. "Where did you find them?" and heaven help her, Roxanne tells him the truth. She has no idea what else to do.)

(She has never said anything to Minion on the subject, and she isn't planning to; Roxanne is all too used to talking like her sister is the one who's pregnant. It's safest for everyone involved. But Minion deserves some credit.)

(He never actually says anything about it, and neither does Megamind—if the latter knows, he's following Roxanne's lead.)

"Thanks for the shirts," she tells Minion, the next time she sees him. "They were really appreciated. Really appreciated."

He sends her a wide, toothy smile. "I'm so glad!" he exclaims. "Sir wanted to put 'can't touch this' on some of them, but I thought that would be too…jokesy."

(Why are these the friends she's starting to feel safest around, why?)

At the baby shower, in addition to the nice crib Roxanne bought for the new addition to her sister's family, she quietly brings along a small, green-and-yellow pastel quilt, courtesy of Minion, and from Megamind, a night-light star projector that somehow manages to exactly match the night sky sans light pollution regardless of room size or shape. A few nights later, Rose sends her a poorly-lit video of Salim turning in circles under the Milky Way in the baby's pitch-dark room, staring up at the glittering sky and alternating between laughing and repeating "What. What." in a delighted sort of voice.

Megamind smiles when Roxanne shows him the video, crinkling the corners of his eyes.

As the baby draws close to term, Roxanne mentions she's willing to spend a couple nights on the sofa each week to get up with her so Rose and Salim can sleep. They take her up on this offer immediately.

And Roxanne is happy to do it, truly she is, but even two nights a week takes more out of her than she was expecting. Two months after Derya is born, Megamind demands to know what the hell is going on.

"You have been way more snappish and combative than usual the past few weeks," he tells her. "I don't know if I need to apologize for something or stage an intervention for something else, but I would really appreciate an explanation, here."

"I'm tired," Roxanne snaps. "I am tired and I feel guilty for being tired because it's only two nights a week and they aren't even consecutive nights! It's nothing to what Rose and Salim are doing!"

He blinks at her, his irritated expression clearing somewhat. "You're—oh." He leans back a little. "You're staying up with the baby?"

Roxanne sighs, wishing she could rub her eyes. "Not so much staying up as getting up with her when she cries. Which is less now than when I first started staying over, but…"

"Ah." His brow furrows and he thinks for a moment. "And what nights are you doing this?"

"Mondays and Thursdays."

"Hmm." Megamind studies her contemplatively for another few seconds, then says, "So, if I do kidnappings on either Sundays or Wednesdays for a while, maybe space them more bi-weekly instead of shooting for weekly, that would be better?"

Roxanne stares at him, totally blindsided. "You—you would do that?" she stammers. "For me?"

He blinks once, and then his expression twists and he recoils his whole body. "What? No! I would do it for me." He rolls his eyes. "You aren't supposed to enjoy this, Miss Ritchi. But I am, and I can't enjoy it with you like…this," he finishes, wrinkling his nose and gesturing vaguely at all of her.

"Oh, I see," says Roxanne, who knows better than to believe a word he says. She arranges her face into a disgruntled expression for him.

She's touched, though, she really is. Even moreso when he kicks his wheelie chair away from her and announces through his watch, "Scheme's off for today, Minion! Postponing until Sunday. Radio up to the big guy, will you?"

And when he pulls what appears to be a folding cot and a lumpy pillow out of a narrow cupboard—he lifts the cot by the end one-handed and gives it a single sharp shake to extend it—Roxanne thinks, Megamind, god, I could kiss you.

Megamind plops both cot and pillow down by a darkened workstation, then trots over to Roxanne and rearranges her so her wrists are bound loosely in front of her. "I will not tolerate any escape attempts, Miss Ritchi," he says, looking her in the eye from a severe six inches away, "do we understand each other?"

She nods, wordless. Is he—is he seriously going to—

He picks her up and carries her to the cot, deposits her there like a sack of easily-bruised potatoes. It's…surprisingly comfortable. Most camp cots Roxanne has encountered are little more than a piece of nylon stretched across a metal frame, but this one has a heavily-quilted pad suspended like a very shallow hammock between its six legs. Amazed, she scoots around a little, then stretches out on her back. Ordinarily she would curl up on her side, given Evil Lair's chill and the relatively exposed position of the cot, but the curvature of the cot seems like it would make that difficult. She's definitely tired enough to have no issues dropping off, chill or no chill.

Then there's a little click and she jumps and looks around. Megamind has just detached his cape from the rest of his shoulder array.

"Sleep," he says flatly, draping the sleek semicircle of material over her with one hand. His other hand is pressed against his hip. "Your office won't be expecting you back for another hour or two; just tell them my machine malfunctioned beyond what could be repaired in a day."

Can't thank him, he doesn't like it when I thank him, says Roxanne's fuzzy, drowsy brain, so what she mumbles is, "G'night I love you."

Megamind snorts and bursts into startled laughter as he walks away, shaking his head. "Goodnight," he returns over his shoulder, still laughing. "I love you, too."

In addition to getting up with her niece—which, thankfully, she's able to stop doing after about three months or so—Roxanne is occasionally asked to babysit. Usually this involves going to her sister's place, but eventually circumstances conspire to make it more convenient for Derya to spend an evening at Roxanne's apartment in midtown.

When this happens, Roxanne has a question for Derya's parents. Rosemary and Salim look at each other for a moment, and then Salim shrugs and Rose says, "Sure. I don't see why not."

"Friday the 27th," Roxanne tells Megamind, the next time she opens her eyes at the Lair. "Be at my apartment at four PM. Minion should come, too."

"Why?" Megamind asks, suspicious.

"It's a surprise," Roxanne replies, winking. "Oh, and no spiky gloves."

He's quiet for a surprisingly long time, fingers steepled in front of his lips, watching her. Finally, he repeats, "No spiky gloves?"

"No," Roxanne says firmly, "no spiky gloves."

Minion looks nervous. "Miss Ritchi, I don't know if that's—"

But Megamind leans back in his chair like he's made a decision and cuts him off. "No, I'm sure it's fine. That's…that's okay. I can. Do. No spikes."

Roxanne cocks her head. "Is there a problem with no spikes?"

"No problem at all," Megamind says smoothly, rising to his feet. "They generate a force field that deflects projectiles going fast enough to penetrate my skin. But I hardly think you're inviting me over to shoot me."

She blinks. "No. God, no, that's…no," she says, feeling a bit sick at the thought, "that's not what I'm inviting you over to do. The ones on your collar, are they…?"

"Also part of the armor," he says, stretching and then wincing and rubbing at his shoulder. "Saved my life more than once."

"Huh," she says, for lack of anything better to say. She's sort of taken aback at the reminder that this is armor. His leathers, the collar, the spikes: these are pieces of actual armor, and he needs them. Of course he would need protection, in his line of work, especially against a hero with super-strength, but…that's a shame. A shame that it's necessary for him. "That's good. I'm glad they worked."

Megamind studies her with an odd expression on his face for a second, then shakes his head. He starts to turn, starts to address Minion—

—But then he turns back, looking like he's just remembered something.

"Oh," he says, his tone abrupt. "I meant to ask. What is your cameraman's problem?"

Roxanne blinks. "What? What problem?"

Megamind cocks his head at her, frowning. "The lighting has been off in close to eighty percent of your televised pieces for the past two months. That's not accidental. What's his problem?"

She scowls. The lighting. Of course. Of course that's what Hal is doing. "His problem is I don't want to date him. He's been trying to get me to go out with him for years and I finally told him to leave me alone in no uncertain terms." She rolls her eyes. "So now, apparently, he's refusing to do his job, thinking that's somehow going to punish me."

She isn't surprised, really. Hal has not asked her out again, though he's made several passive-aggressive references to why he isn't doing so—"Friday night, oh, but you've probably got a book to finish, huh?"—and he is doing his stupid-life-not-going-my-way routine a lot more, recently. He definitely seems more irritable than usual, and Roxanne is under no illusions as to why.

Megamind frowns. "Is there anything you can do about it?" he asks, and Roxanne shrugs.

"Honestly? Probably not. He'll get over it eventually. At least he isn't constantly up my ass anymore."

Megamind blinks, then wrinkles his nose. "That is a collooquialism I'm not familiar with."

Roxanne snorts. "Figuratively speaking," she says, and he shoots her a grin.

"Yes, I thought it probably was. He's been like this for a long time?" At Roxanne's nod, he tilts his head. "How is he still employed?"

She sighs. "He's decently good at what he does and he knows sound setup as well as film work. And it's not like I've been complaining about it—it's never seemed worth it, you know?" She shakes her head. "It's fine. Hal's kind of a turd, but he's all bark and no bite."

Megamind doesn't look convinced, but he doesn't argue. His questions having been answered, he spins on his heels and marches away. "Minion!" he barks. "Ready the treebuchettes!" He says this like it rhymes with "three machetes," and Roxanne laughs.