Surgery tomorrow, hooray! Mister hand man, man me a hand. Thank you for all your kind words and good wishes!

CHAPTER 7
Let Your Troubles Roll By - Carbon Leaf

Megamind gets out of the car and immediately stops dead in his tracks.

"Oh," he says, wide-eyed, turning a slow circle in the stone-dust parking lot. "Oh. It smells different? It smells different, here."

"On Earth, we call that 'fresh air,'" Roxanne tells him. Megamind rolls his eyes and flaps a hand at her, still breathing deeply.

"Yes, yes, fresh air, I am aware. I've just—I have never smelled that, before? It's weird."

Roxanne shakes her head. "Okay, Mister Sniffy, help me bungee cord this wagon," she says. She has the cooler pinned between their folding chairs along the sides, but they'll have to bungee the chairs down to keep everything in place. "If I hold this side—"

"Yes, here," Megamind says, darting forward and taking the bungee cord away. "Of course, let me." He grips the elastic cord by the hooks, stretches them out and away from each other, and then he swings them down over the chairs and hooks them on the edges of the wagon with very little apparent effort.

Roxanne blinks at him, startled, as he performs the move again with a second bungee. She's never seen anyone do that without anchoring one side first and then stretching the other hook up and over the item to be bungeed. "Thanks," she says, as he straightens and dusts off his hands.

"Don't thank me," he says, tucking his beverage tote in behind the cooler. The three brainbots hover down close to the wagon, studying it, bowging quietly amongst themselves. It's a little red Radio Flyer, the wagon Roxanne grew up with.

She leads him across the deserted parking lot to a trail head, Megamind turning every which way to look around with big eyes as they walk. "What is the hissing?" he asks, about halfway across the parking lot. Roxanne looks over at him, confused. "The hissing," he repeats. "That sound. Whsssh whsssh whsssh."

"Oh! Insects in the grass." There's a wide-open field with tall grasses and flowers beyond the parking lot. "Grasshoppers, probably."

"Huh," he says, and stops at the trailhead, looking at the field. "Can I see them? In the grass?"

Roxanne pauses. "They'll probably hop away," she says. "But…here, follow me. And, um, take off your gloves."

She's a little surprised to find herself doing this, but why not? It's been a while since she went on a bug hunt, but you never get too old. She leaves the wagon by the trailhead and wades into the long grass of the field, Megamind following behind.

"They sound like they're everywhere," he says, still looking around himself as she stops walking. "But none of them are close?"

"They stop singing when they hear us coming," Roxanne tells him, holding very still and focusing on her target. "But—" She dives. Cups her hands down over the greenish brown insect, then scoops it up. "Aha!" she exclaims, turning to Megamind with her hands held closed. The grasshopper's little feet scratch at her palms and fingers. "Hold out your hands. It's probably going to poop on you, fair warning. They do that."

Carefully, she transfers the insect into Megamind's cupped hands, and then wipes her palms on her shorts. She's worried at first that the little thing will hop away before Megamind can get a good look, but it only crawls onto the side of his thumb and perches there. That's right, she remembers; it's crickets that are hop-happy. Grasshoppers tend to be surprisingly docile, considering their place in the food chain.

He stares at it. "It tickles," he says, laughing a little. "It—I love it! Look at its legs! Look at its little face! It's cute!"

Roxanne waits so he can inspect it, and so she can try to memorize the delighted expression on his face. It isn't one she sees him wear often, and never with this degree of wonder behind it.

He looks up at her, eyes sparkling. "Can I eat this?"

"Um—probably? Some people do eat them. But I think they cook them first."

He grins and crouches to shoo the insect off his hand. A bunch of cornflowers, almost the exact shade of his skin in sunlight, tap gently against the side of his head in the low breeze. "Another time, maybe," he says. Then he pauses. When he straightens, his smile is fading.

Roxanne nudges his arm with her elbow, and he freezes. "Hey," she says. "Don't you get all sad on me." She grins. "We're going to do this again, okay?"

He studies her for a second. "We are?"

She nods. "Sure, of course." She raises her eyebrows a little, daring him to contradict her. "Why not?"

Slowly, his lips tug into something like a tentative, uncertain smile. "Yeah," he says, still sort of staring at her. "Okay. I'd—I'd like that."

The path to the lake is wide and well-trodden, good for a little wagon and not really a hiking trail. And it isn't far—the dry field by the parking lot probably fades into a marsh, farther back. As they come out of the forest and onto a green, grassy lawn, Megamind pauses and looks around.

He's standing at the back of a sort of small peninsula out into the water. There's a pavilion with some picnic tables, and a small brick building that appears to be bathrooms and changing rooms. Trees rising behind him with shrubs and forest-edge bracken at their bases, tall reeds and rushes and lily pads in the water on either side of him. And in front of him, a small, yellow-sand beach with the full lake glittering beyond it.

Oh, hell yes.

Megamind might live on Lake Michigan, but he doesn't often make time to swim in it. He rarely even looks at it; looking at the lake while in saltwater mode tends to make him feel strange and panicky and conflicted, an unpleasant blend of no-yes-no. He generally keeps his swimming to the saltwater reef pool in Evil Lair's bottom-most sub-level. But he made sure to adjust his body's osmoregulatory processes to freshwater, rather than saltwater, earlier this week, in anticipation of this trip. It's not a pleasant process, but based on the way everything in his all-over everywhere has just sat up and tingled at him, it's going to be worth it.

Roxanne is all the way to the beach before Megamind catches up with her.

"How deep is the lake?" he asks eagerly, wriggling out of his shirt, eyes sparkling. Roxanne pauses in setting up their chairs.

"I'm not sure," she says slowly, as Megamind shrugs out of his shirt and starts on his boots and his jeans, hands fumbling, eyes on the lake. Roxanne has never seen him like this, has never even imagined him like this. "It's going to be pretty cold, though, if you get too far away from shore."

"Oh I don't care about cold," he scoffs, scrambling out of his boots and shoving his pants down his legs. He leaves his watch in place. "I—I just—I haven't gone swimming outside of the reef pool in ages and I need—I need to—"

"Reef pool?"

"Yes, it—oh. Yes. I'll, um, I'll explain later." He scrunches his toes in the sand and stares hungrily at the water. He's all but vibrating with energy. "Um. Can. Will you be okay if I—but I can help, if you—I just, sorry, I—"

"Go," Roxanne says immediately. "Yes, go, I'm fine. I'm—"

He's gone. He sprang into a run as soon as she said 'go' the first time and hit the water at a sprint, took three huge steps, and dove forward and down and vanished.

"—going to wait for Rose and Salim," Roxanne finishes, laughing a little and shaking her head at the ripples where he disappeared.

So, this was a perfect idea. Bringing him here was absolutely the correct move. Still sort of laughing, Roxanne gathers up his clothes from where he dropped them and shakes the sand out of them before draping them over the back of a chair. She hesitates about his gloves; they're awfully light weight, and while she doesn't want them to blow away, she also doesn't want to leave them crumpled in the pocket of Megamind's jeans. Finally she just tucks them into her purse.

"Hey!"

Roxanne turns and waves at Salim, coming out of the woods carrying a cooler and towing a rectangular, wheeled bag Roxanne recognizes as the canopy her family often brings along on these kinds of outings. It's not safe for rain, but it is great for keeping the sun off. "Hey, you!" she calls as he approaches. "Need help getting the shade set up? Where's Rose?"

"Changing Derya back at the car," Salim says. "They'll be along shortly. Yeah, let me get the chairs free first—"

He has them bungee-corded to the shade awning. It's an easy enough contraption to set up, with two people working on it, and they're finished in only a minute or so.

"So, where's Megamind?" Salim asks, looking up and down the little beach. Grinning, Roxanne gestures at the lake. "Oh! Swimming already. Well, good for him."

He comes to stand next to Roxanne and look out at the water with her. "Subhanallah," he says, smiling and inhaling the smell of plants and fresh water, "it's a nice lake."

"It is, it is."

Silence.

"Is he, um." Salim clears his throat. "Is he planning on…ah, breathing? He's been down an awful long time."

Roxanne shakes her head. "I'm really not sure," she says. "He said once, he spent most of the time on his home world in the water, so I'm thinking he's probably at least partly aquatic—oh!"

A hump of water has emerged some ways out into the lake and is running along the surface parallel to shore at a surprising clip, the water behind it buckling intermittently as Megamind kicks like a dolphin. Surface tension, Roxanne thinks. Huh.

"He's fast," Salim says, sounding impressed.

The hump disappears, dissipates, and all is quiet—

—and then Megamind breaches, flings himself straight up out of the water with his arms at his sides and his feet together, turning a complete backflip and another half-turn to crash back down headfirst, bringing his arms up and over his head halfway through to ease his dive.

"So, like I said," Roxanne says, after a startled pause. "Aquatic." Salim makes an impressed sort of noise in response.

"Oh, is he swimming already?" Rose says, coming down the lawn with Derya in a baby carrier on her back and a half-inflated floaty chair in her hands. "That water looks really nice, I have to say."

Out on the lake, Megamind breaches again, spinning this time rather than flipping, and he falls feet-first. Derya squeals and kicks her feet and makes grab hands. "Yeah?" her father says as he lifts her out of the carrier and bounces her a little. "Yeah? You want to swim?"

Derya babbles something, a sort of humming "Bbbbbmmmbumbrbm" raspberry sound, and Roxanne laughs, startled.

"What? What was that?" she asks.

Rose, finishing another long exhale into the floaty and then panting a little to get her breath back, laughs too. "We're not sure," she says. "But it's adorable. She's been doing it for…oh, about a month, now?"

"Something like that," Salim agrees.

Roxanne holds out her hands. "Here, let me take her," she says, and Salim passes her over. "I'll get her in her suit and sunscreen while you get your chairs and stuff set up. Hello! Hi! Okay, come on with Auntie Roxie, we're going to go swimming! Get you in your swimsuit first…"

Derya wriggles unhappily about the sunscreen, but there's probably no way around that. Roxanne talks her through it as she wrinkles her little face, explaining what she's doing before and as she does it, hoping that makes things a little less of an unpleasant shock. She has no idea if it helps, but Derya only fusses; she doesn't cry.

She's an easy baby, all things considered. Rose and Salim are lucky.

"Okay," Roxanne says, tucking Derya's floppy green hat onto her head and picking her niece back up again, carrying her towards the water. "Yes, time for swimming! Almost time for swimming! Rose, catch." She does not actually throw the baby, but she has to get out of her own clothes eventually and down to the swimsuit she's wearing underneath.

"Oh, cute!" Rose says, as Roxanne folds her own clothes over the chair on top of Megamind's. "I don't think I've seen that suit before." Rose is already in the water, holding Derya as they slowly move out to Salim with the floaty: two blue and green rings connected by mesh netting, with a mesh and nylon awning and a seat for Derya to dangle her legs down through and sit up in. It also boasts a smiling, cheerful frog with little toys hanging from its hook-shaped legs for the baby to play with.

Roxanne laughs. "No, it's…ah, it's new?" It's a green bikini with blue stripes. The cut is slightly less modest than Roxanne usually goes for, but still covers enough area for her to be comfortable. The legs are cut a bit higher up the hip than most Roxanne has seen in a while, but it's the cut she prefers when she can find it. It makes her legs look a little longer. The suit was a lucky find; swimsuit shopping is a special kind of hell.

"Looks nice," Rose tells her as Roxanne splashes into the lake and sidestrokes out to them.

"Yeah, I wasn't expecting to match Derya's floaty chair," Roxanne laughs. "Hello! Are you all wet! You're in the water!"

They're hanging out at a depth of around four or five feet, which is well in Roxanne's comfort zone. She relaxes with her family, chatting and enjoying the cool water, laughing as Derya cheers and babbles and pats the watery mesh of the floaty with her chubby baby hands.

And then. Something. Brushes past Roxanne's leg. Just for a moment, just—but she felt something, not quite touching her, but—

"Whoa, looks you felt a disturbance in the Force," Salim says, grinning at her. "What's up? Fish bite your toe?"

"No," Roxanne says slowly, peering at the water. "No, but I thought I felt—something—there it was again, did you feel that?"

Rose cocks her head at her. "No, what was—" She cuts herself off as Roxanne suddenly shrieks and jumps like she's been electrocuted.

But she's swearing in the next second, and laughing. "You!" she cries, holding her arms out of the water and laughing and trying to scowl down through the sun-glare on the water as Megamind's grinning, water-foggy face looms into view at around hip-height. "You ass! Get up here!"

"Sounds like you found your villain," Rose says, lips twitching.

"He found me," Roxanne grumbles, as Megamind disappears again. "He grabbed my ankles."

A couple seconds later, Megamind surfaces a few feet away, blowing his nostrils open and shaking his head, blinking his eyes. And already laughing.

"Ha!" he cries, pointing at her with one hand and throwing the other into the air in triumph. "Ha ha! I made you scream! Finally!"

"That doesn't count!" Roxanne exclaims, swatting water at him so he laughs harder. "That doesn't count! You horrible creepy thing, that doesn't count! You grabbed my ankles in dark water! That's like every human's secret scary button!"

"I am eee-villll, Miss Ritchiiii," he sings at her, showing all his teeth in his sparkling Cheshire cat smile. "You really have only yourself to blame if you're surprised. Aaa! Aaa! No spitting!" She's just taken a mouthful of lake water and spat it at him.

"Eeevil," she sings back, and Megamind snorts and rolls his eyes at her.

"Fine, then we're even," he says, standing up in the water and approaching. Rose waves at him, smiling, and Salim does a sort of salute hello motion because he's laughing and can't talk. Derya squeals and wriggles in her chair.

Megamind, still smiling, makes the exact same squeal right back at her, and then a few extremely high-pitched squeaks and a trill that make Derya give another happy shriek.

Roxanne cocks her head at him. "You're really good at mimicking sounds," she says. "You did that earlier, too, with my voice."

Megamind shrugs. "Sounds are easy," he says. "Voices are a little more difficult, but I've heard yours often enough that it isn't an issue. I would have a hard time coming up with anything new, anything you haven't actually said at some point—but since I can't exactly forget anything, that's also not much of an issue."

"You can't forget anything?" Rose says, curious, and Megamind shakes his head.

"The best I can explain it is that I have basically zero short-term memory," he says, glancing out at the lake. "Everything goes straight into long-term storage. Sometimes it might take me a few seconds to remember something, but it's always there."

"The thing you said earlier," Roxanne says. "Was that—"

"Why do you keep kidnapping me," Megamind says, in a surprising approximation of Roxanne's voice. "You have three million people in this city to choose from! And I have things I want to do, today! I don't exist for your convenience!"

"Holy smokes," says Salim, staring at him. "That's incredible."

He smiles uncertainly, and his gaze flicks out at the lake again for a second before he refocuses. "It's a decent talent to have, and it has come in handy for me, a few times. No, I'm not going to tell you when," he adds, looking at Roxanne, who pouts at him. "But I…don't generally use it, very much. It, ah—it tends to freak people out."

"I think it's nifty," Salim offers, "personally." Megamind sends him another distracted-looking smile.

"Megamind," says Roxanne. "Do you need to keep swimming?"

He sort of freezes. "I—I don't—um—"

"Go swim," she says, trying desperately not to laugh. "It's okay."

He ducks under the water and vanishes.

Rose cocks her head at her sister. "So, what's his story?"

Roxanne hesitates. "Which part of his story?" she asks, but Rose just shrugs.

"I mean, he seems personable enough," she says. "And he really was adorable with Derya that time on the air. Why on earth did he pick villainy?"

Roxanne frowns, wondering how to phrase this. Finally she says, slowly, "I don't think he realizes he can do anything else."

Rose blinks and recoils. Salim stares at her. "Well that's sad," he says, sounding startled. Roxanne can only shrug.

"Is that why we're here?" Rose asks. "Why you wanted to bring him? Show him…I don't know, show him he's more than big laser cannons?"

Roxanne hesitates. She…wow, that's actually a great reason. "Partly?" she says, embarrassed that it wasn't and thinking, well, it is now. "Mostly I just…" She pauses, takes a deep breath. "I just wanted to give him something nice. He…he said once…"

She trails off.

"No," she decides, frowning. "No, it's…personal. I think."

Rose and Salim glance at each other.

"You sound worried," Rose prompts gently.

Roxanne occasionally chafes at her younger sister's emotional prying, but sometimes it comes in handy. "Minion told me, a while back, hydrogen cyanide supplements certain of Megamind's amino acids. Oh, speaking of which—do not drink the stuff in the steel bottles he brought with him." She swallows. "But…tell me what that sounds like to you? Tell me I'm stupid for worrying about that."

Rose blinks. "It sounds like he was suicidal," she says quietly. "At some point."

Roxanne nods. Yeah. So, she isn't crazy.

"He seems okay to me," Salim offers. "Now, at least."

"I'm not sure," Roxanne admits. She looks out at the lake, calm and shimmering. "I think he lives very much in the moment. Which is great, when the moment is good, but…he's a supervillain. Most of his moments are socially isolated and some flavor of destructive."

Rose studies her sister's face for a moment . "You're in love with him," she says, quiet.

Roxanne bites her lip and glances at her. Takes a deep breath. "Maybe. I'm definitely getting there."

Rose's face is all sympathy as she reaches out and squeezes Roxanne's arm. "Oh, Annie. I'm so sorry. That's…going to be hard."

"I don't need it to be easy," Roxanne says, fiddling with Derya's little blue pufferfish toy. "I just want him to know he can have nice things. That's all. Give him options."

"If anyone can teach him, it's you," Salim tells her. "I know you. You're a mule."

Roxanne laughs in spite of herself. "I am, kinda, huh?" She shakes her head, shakes herself a little. "I'm not all that worried about him right now," she says, trying to reassure them—and herself, somewhat. "I don't think he's unhappy, exactly. He really does seem to enjoy villainy overall. And the whole inventing-engineering aspect is a great fit for his mind! I've just gotten to know him better in recent months, and I…care about him a little more than I was expecting to, that's all."

Rose smiles a little. "Well," she says, in a bracing sort of voice. "If there's anything we can do to help, you let us know, okay? Derya seems absolutely spoony about him; I'd kinda like to keep him around for a while."

Roxanne snorts. "Yeah, me too," she says. "Him and Minion. I'm sorry you guys couldn't meet Minion, apparently he doesn't leave Evil Lair much except for schemes and plots. And groceries, probably." Salim laughs. "Did I tell you he got Hal fired for me?"

"What!" Rose exclaims, lighting up. "No, you did not tell us that! Hal got fired? What?"

Roxanne laughs. "Yeah, I'll have to send you the video," she says. "He wore some kind of disguise and just went off at Hal at this photoshoot, it was incredible. He—"

"Heads up," Salim says suddenly, nodding at some bubbles bursting on the surface a couple feet away from Roxanne, and sure enough, Megamind stands up a second later. His shoulders and chest are bare, now; that's different; a glance down shows Roxanne that his undersuit is rolled down to his waist and fastened there somehow.

"Roxanne! Look!" He holds out his hands, wrapped carefully around something, and he carefully shifts them so he can keep them cupped full of water.

"What is…oh, a tadpole!"

"With legs!" he exclaims. He's right, the green-speckled bullfrog tadpole curled in his blue hands has a pair of reasonably-developed hind legs.

"Oooh, let me see," Rose says, coming closer. Megamind holds his find out for inspection, giving Roxanne the chance to sneak a closer look at…gills? Are those gills, between his ribs? Huh.

"I saw one in a book when I was a kid but I've never seen a real one," he says, beaming. "There are a lot of them in the reeds over there."

Roxanne pats him on the shoulder and does not stare at his gills or his shining expanse of wet blue skin or the lean muscles of his back. "That's a big one," she says. "Nice catch! You should show Derya."

The baby is playing with the frog on her floaty in front of her, and Salim moves in to take her hand and help her gently pat the tadpole without hurting it. She looks uncertain about this, at first, but after a couple of small pats she tries to close her fingers on its tail. "No, gentle," Salim says, moving her hand back. "Gentle, Derya. See the tadpole? This is a tadpole."

The tadpole twitches, wiggles, attempts to nose away between Megamind's long fingers. Derya squeals at it as Salim helps her pat it one more time.

Megamind grins down at her, then folds his hands around the tadpole again. "I'll go put it back," he says. He taps his forehead against Derya's as he crouches, and then he vanishes under the water again. Derya shrieks and kicks her body a few times, staring around at the water.

Rose grins at her sister. "You're in love with a fish."

"A fish person! A fish man!" Roxanne protests, laughing a little, feeling her face heat.

"Yeah, okay, Guillermo del Toro."

"Oh, thbppbpt," Roxanne says, "you're awful," rolling her eyes and blushing, and then she steers the conversation into safer waters.

When Megamind comes back a third time, he discovers that Derya likes to play here-again-there-again games. The two of them have a lovely time for a few minutes as Megamind pokes his head out of the water, makes a comical face at her, and then ducks down again to reappear somewhere different a few seconds later. Derya giggles and cheers and stares around, jumps and laughs when Megamind pops his head up.

Megamind is absolutely as delighted as the baby is about this, and after a while he feels calm enough to stand and chat with Roxanne's family. This is the first time he's met Salim, but they hit it off pretty well. Salim is startlingly easy to talk to, and Megamind finds himself answering about how his gills and the hollow water intakes above his collarbones work, explaining that no, his species didn't evolve them, they were built and gifted from the deepwater people who breathe without gills—agreeing to explain later, maybe, if the opportunity arises.

But eventually Rose and Salim decide to head back towards the beach. It is early summer, still, and while the lake isn't cold, it's not warm, either. And Derya is very small, and it's important not to let her get too chilly.

Megamind hesitates, and Roxanne—who he's pretty sure is being far kinder to him than she should be—smiles at him and asks if he wants to keep swimming.

"You can go in," he says. "I'm—ha, lesson learned, I need to do this more often for myself. I thought the reef pool was enough, but apparently not!"

She cocks her head at him. "You mentioned a reef pool earlier," she says. "What is that?" and so Megamind takes a deep breath and pushes his trepidation down and also explains about his and Minion's salt and freshwater cycles, their semi-voluntary control over their osmoregulatory processes, and he explains that salt is generally more comfortable and also a lot warmer, which he does like. "Cold water doesn't bother me, exactly," he says. "But warm water is nicer. It feels…less lonely? I suppose? So I mostly stay in saltwater processes, even outside of my natural salt cycles." He frowns. "Which…may not be good for me, come to think of it."

Roxanne is staring at him. "So you have a coral reef in your basement," she says, sounding absolutely stunned about this. "Megamind, that's incredible. How do you not spend all your time trying to maintain it?"

"Brainbots!" He smiles. "A fleet of my amphibious bots handle reef and tank maintenance. It's funny, seeing which of them make that choice. Most of them are on the cold fusion reactor maintenance teams."

She shakes her head. "Can I see, sometime?"

"I would—" love to show you, he almost says, but—

Oh, but what. Seriously, it's nice to talk about these things. It's nice to stand here in the water and talk to Roxanne about what little of his life exists outside of villainy.

"I would love to show you," he says, with a sparkling smile. "I'll have to get you some scuba gear, first; it's quite deep. But yes, of course you can see."

"I can't wait," she says, and she really does look like she means it.

So he hesitates, then asks, "Do you…want to swim with me? Now? It's not pretty, the way the reef would be, but—um, there are some bushes on the other side of the lake with these berries that I think are blueberries, and—do you want to see?"

And, to his utter shock and astonishment, Roxanne nods and smiles and reaches for him, saying, "Sure! Yeah, that sounds like fun! Where—" She blushes. Megamind cocks his head at her. "Where do you want me?"

Which is how Megamind winds up sitting on a rock across the lake a few minutes later, eating wild blueberries. Roxanne steps carefully back out of the crackling bracken and onto the sun-warm stone with him, and she sits down beside him with a pleased-sounding sigh. Offers him a few more berries from the small handful she's just gathered. Her hair is still wet from their trip across the lake and it's swept back from her forehead, now, slicked down instead of fluffing out like it usually does. This does make her head look slightly smaller, but it also shows off her unusually high forehead, which—ha. Aha ha. That isn't making Megamind blush at all, ahaha, shut up. He is also seeing way more of her skin than he's used to, and he is delighted to discover she is freckled everywhere, not just her face and shoulders; that, also, is definitely not making his stomach feel pleasantly twisty.

Really, what is even going on with him, today? First the lake, now this? Stop it, body. Hush.

He re-focuses on the external. This is nice, sitting here with Roxanne, sunning himself. He doesn't frequently get the opportunity to just sit and look around at anything pretty. The blueberries are smaller than any he's ever seen, but somehow they're also sweeter, and he's a fan of that.

"We need to bring Derya back here when she starts on foods she can chew," he hears himself say, and—he blinks, then—and his heart and stomach both clench, because—

That will have to be a year from now. For the blueberries, a year from now, because she won't be on complex solids while the berries are still in season. And really, there's no guarantee Megamind will even still be breathing, a year from now. He has no illusions about his lifespan. He is already living on borrowed time, already an outlier by all the statistics of his career, and he knows it.

But, "Oh, definitely," Roxanne agrees, oblivious to Megamind's consternation. "Yeah, we really do. Actually, you know, if we come back next summer in the morning, we could make blueberry pancakes. You haven't lived until you've had wild blueberry pancakes with my stepdad's recipe."

Megamind takes a deep breath and calms himself. There's no sense being maudlin about it. Everybody dies someday. He's okay.

"Can't wait," he says. It probably won't happen, but…it's nice enough to think about, even if he can't really see it happening.

He's okay.

Beside him, Roxanne sighs again, and he glances at her, worried—but she's smiling. It was a contentment sigh, he realizes. She's happy. "This is really nice," she says, echoing his earlier thoughts, and she leans sideways against his arm for a moment before looking at him and aiming that relaxed, contented smile at him. "I'm glad you came."

"Me too," he says. And then he grins and says, "Think fast!" and tosses a blueberry up in the air and sort of in her direction, and Roxanne ducks, trying to catch it in her mouth. It bounces off her cheek, and she gives a bright laugh, and Megamind feels warm all the way through to the soul of him.

Roxanne slogs up onto the beach with Megamind laughing breathlessly behind her. "Good lord," she says, turning around to walk backwards grinning at him, "you really are fast! Wow!"

Megamind gulps and nods, still half-laughing, and then he staggers and drops to his knees, twists, and flops onto his back in the sand and lies there with his head thrown back and his smooth chest heaving as he gasps for breath.

"Annie, what have you done to that poor man?" Rose asks from where she's sitting under the canopy. Derya is on her play mat in the shade.

"She told me to go as fast as I could go," Megamind calls back, grinning and panting, before Roxanne can answer. "So I did, because I am an idiot." He sits up and gratefully accepts the beach towel Roxanne tosses him. "Oof. I think I'm done swimming, for now." He sits for a few moments, getting his wind back, and then he remembers something.

"Oh!" he exclaims. "And here, I brought…"

He gets to his feet and whistles for his brainbots, which come zipping down out of the trees from where they were exploring, and he holds out his hands so they can drop their cubes into his palms.

Roxanne snorts and comes up behind him. "Hold still," she says, "you're all covered with sand," and Megamind stills for her instead of jumping away like a frightened rabbit as she brushes her towel quickly over the back of his head, his shoulders, his back, the backs of his legs.

(how long has it been since he last allowed someone to approach from behind him)

(he wears the memory of that bullet in a pair of pale scars on his back and his chest)

He turns, cocks an eyebrow at her, grinning in spite of the way his skittish heart is leaping and slamming inside him. "Better?"

She grins and swats his chest with the towel, then heads for her chair with a root beer in her hand. Megamind watches her go, then carefully rolls his undersuit back up and over his arms, careful not to disturb his watch.

"What did you bring?" Rose asks, blinking at the little cubes as Megamind comes and carefully lowers himself down to sit cross-legged on the grass by Derya's play mat. He reaches for Roxanne's drink and she seems to know exactly what he wants; she leans forward and offers it to him base-first, holding it for him while he swipes his long fingers through the condensation rolling down its sides.

"For Derya," he says simply, dripping water onto the little cubes. One flickers into a cardboard box and the other becomes a small stack of books. He picks up the box first. "She seemed to like these when she was—um. Kidnapped? Briefly?" He winces, but neither Rose nor Salim yell at him; he must not have messed up too badly, reminding them about that. "And so I—I thought she should have them."

He opens the box and swirls his fingertips in the air above it so the spheres inside rise and twirl into the air. Rose makes an interested sound and Salim says, "Oh, wow," so Megamind grins and shows off just a little, pulling them spinning after his hands, up his arms and around behind his back before finally bringing them to whirl in tight spirals between his palms so he can bring them all to Derya. It makes his arm and shoulder twinge a little, but it's worth it for the way she crows and swipes at them, lunging to catch one.

"Oh good job!" Megamind exclaims, immediately. "Well done! You caught it, that's fantastic, good job!"

"Bbrrbrbbbrb," says Derya, gumming it. Megamind laughs.

"And these," he says, picking up the little stack of books and passing two of them to Rose and two to Salim.

"Quantum Physics for Babies," says Rose. "Quantum Entanglement for Babies?"

"And General Relativity for Babies, and Rocket Science for Babies," Salim says. Chuckling, he looks at Megamind. "You may be setting your sights a little high, with these."

"Oh, I don't know," Megamind says. He appears to be doing some kind of sleight-of-hand thing with Derya's set of nesting cups. "They're pretty easy to grasp. Simplified, yes, but—the explanations are solid."

Roxanne, who has claimed Quantum Physics, says, "Okay…'This is a ball. This ball has energy.' Huh." A minute later, she groans. Megamind looks up, concerned. "Is that—oh, is that how electrons change orbitals! That's—god! Was that so hard? Mr. Krieder? Was that so hard to explain?"

Rose is laughing and thumbing through her other book. "Ah, yes, and that's how photons propagate as particles," she says. "We seem to be covering that in Quantum Entanglement. Is there an order we should read these?"

Megamind shrugs. "Unclear. I think they're written to stand alone, but one might offer insight into another." He smiles. "I just thought…well, you're never too young to start! I was learning the basics of these things around her age, after all."

Roxanne grins down at him as Salim laughs at something in Rocket Science. "Megamind, you're a supergenius from another world."

"What difference does that make?" He shakes his huge head. "I still learn the way human children do. I have an easier time drawing conclusions, making connections, but—with the right explanations, anyone can do what I do."

Present tense, Roxanne thinks. I still learn the way human children do. And oh, now that she's looking, she can see—

Megamind, eyes wide, wondering at the grasshopper on his thumb, studying the tadpole in his hands, asking about the berries he found. Megamind, announcing his plans for the city with enthusiasm and quickly explaining the leaps and bounds of logic behind his machines. Megamind, beaming with delighted excitement as Roxanne laid out her theories about the invisible car, years ago.

Derya, eyes wide, reaching for the floating balls so she can touch them, taste them, learn about them. Derya, banging two cups together to see if she can make them fit.

Like recognizes like, she thinks, fondness swelling in her.

"Anyway," he says, getting to his feet, "I—fffff, ow." He pauses, presses a hand to his hip. Roxanne starts to rise, wearing an expression of concern, but Megamind waves his other hand at her. "No, no. You sit, I'm okay."

"Are you?" she asks, as he settles gingerly down in his camp chair. He nods.

"Oh, yes. Don't worry about me. Sometimes when I stand up too quickly, my hip—well." He sends her a rueful smile and stretches his leg out, hopes she can't see him hiding his wince. "Another old wound. But I'm okay."

Derya goes down in her little carry-cot after dinner, and she falls asleep pretty quickly despite the new environment. Rose and Salim have also brought a zippered bag made of fine mosquito netting, to put the cot in so the biting insects can't get to their daughter.

Roxanne sits back in her chair beside the fire they've built on the beach, smiling to herself. She really could not have asked for a better day. Hot but not muggy, sunny and breezy enough to keep biting insects at bay until well into evening. Dinner was delicious. The salad didn't wilt in the cooler. Rose built the fire as the day began to cool into evening, and Roxanne moved Megamind's chair so it faced the lake, and he didn't even question it. He drank his nectar-poison concoction and Rose and Salim politely didn't mention it.

And now he's laughing and fumbling with his hands as Salim, also laughing, attempts to teach him chords on the guitar he brought, and Rose and Roxanne are roasting marshmallows and chatting quietly about nothing in particular, and everything is perfect.

"Okay, okay—so if I—whoops, nope, that wasn't it—heh—oh!"

"Yeah! Yeah, there it was, now just scooch your ring and pinkie finger—nope, you lost it."

The crickets are singing, and some katydids in the trees. Frogs in the reeds and rushes on either side of the little beach. Roxanne glances sideways, checking…yes. She's pretty sure most of the fireflies are out, at this point. Michigan isn't known for having lots of fireflies, but they've got a fair few.

Good.

Finally Megamind heaves a huge, fake sigh and hands Salim his guitar. "No," he says, grinning, "you should handle the music, I think. But thank you! That was interesting."

Here's her opportunity. She stands up and comes around the fire to stand in front of Megamind. "Hey," she says, reaching down with both hands. He startles and blinks down at them, then up at her. "Stand up for a sec? And, um, close your eyes?"

He still looks very taken aback, but after a second, he shuts his eyes and allows Roxanne to take his black-gloved hands and tug him to his feet.

"Okay, keep them closed…"

"Where are we going?"

"Not far," Roxanne says. "Just away from the fire for a sec. Stand here…" She leads him to the edge of the water, so he can hear it lapping at the sand, and then she turns him to face the forest with her hands on his thin shoulders. For a moment, she stands, marveling at the twinkling light show, herself. This really is the perfect evening for this.

Finally she swallows and steps back. "Okay," she says again. "Open your eyes."

A moment later, Megamind sucks in a breath. Roxanne bites her lip, hoping this was a good idea, praying this wasn't completely misguided and she hasn't blown everything and offended him by trying to show him this.

Megamind presses the fingertips of both hands to his lips and doesn't say anything, but under the light of the almost-full moon, Roxanne can see how huge his eyes are.

After a few seconds, she quietly clears her throat. "There's…no real beach, so no wrack line," she says, quiet. "And, and it's not particularly windy. But we do have fireflies, here, and I thought…I thought maybe you might like to see them."

Megamind snaps a hand down and gropes blindly for her arm, then seizes her hand in a grip like steel. Squeezes.

Relieved, Roxanne squeezes back. "You do like them, then," she says, and Megamind nods hard.

Roxanne looks at him for a moment, at this man from another planet trapped here and forced to raise himself on an alien world, far from anything his family and forefathers would ever have recognized—but there are some things, small things, like the fireflies and coral reefs, that might be similar.

Megamind's grip has not relaxed at all. "You okay?" Roxanne asks.

"I don't know," he whispers, taking his other hand from his mouth and shoving it against his chest, instead. He swallows hard, an audible gulp, and she realizes how shallow his breathing is. "I'm—I don't—Miss Ritchi, I—I mean Roxanne, um—"

She swallows. "Sometimes," she says carefully, "friends cry on each other. Just to throw that out there. As, as a random, non-specific fun fact. Apropos of nothing."

Megamind makes a sound like a wounded thing and turns toward her, pulls her close and pushes his face down against her shoulder as Roxanne wraps her arms around his back. He's shaking.

"Okay," she says, and tips her head to rest her cheek on his temple. He smells like leather and almonds—it's a strange combination, but not a bad one. "It's okay."

"Sor-sorry," he gasps, his breath cool against her throat, his hands pressed to her back. "It's—it's just—they're—" He cuts himself off, then gulps and hauls his head up, turns it to look at the glimmering forest again. Roxanne moves with him a little so they can both look sideways without straining. "They're beautiful. They're so—they are so beautiful; they look like—thank you. For bringing me here, thank you. For—for tonight. For today. Thank you."

And Roxanne thinks, Well…crap.

Yeah, so, Rose was not wrong, earlier. Roxanne already sort of knew it, of course, but…

She wasn't lying when she said she was assuming she and Megamind were friends. But here, now, with her arms around him at this lake, listening to his choked voice say thank you for tonight—apparently she feels quite a bit more for Megamind than just friendship.

"Of course," she says. "You're so welcome, Megamind. And we can come back anytime."

"—Anytime," he echoes, wistful. "Can we?"

"Of course," she tells him again. "The fireflies are seasonal, they're summer insects, but yeah, we can come back here whenever you like." She leans her head gently against his and feels his arms go tight around the small of her back. She wasn't planning on offering this, offering whenever you like, but she's just figured out what she wants the rest of her life to look like, and apparently there's a lot of blue in it. "So, you don't have to feel melancholy about this. Okay? We're going to do this again, sometime. Maybe just us, maybe with Rose and Salim again, maybe with Minion. Okay?"

After a long, long moment, Megamind swallows. "I'd like that," he murmurs.

"And Derya will be walking, next summer," Roxanne says. "Maybe you can start to teach her to swim."

Megamind's breathing changes, but all he says is, "I want—" and then he cuts himself off.

"You can," Roxanne tells him, when he doesn't say anything else. "I think that would be fun, don't you?"

He nods.

Megamind cries himself to sleep that night. He doesn't even know why; his whole mind is a tangle of confusion. Mourning the childhood he didn't get to have? Mourning the future he won't get to see?

He wants—

He wants. Megamind hasn't wanted anything beyond his publicly-stated goals in ages. Wanting implies a future in which something might be attained, and that—that isn't something he ever thought he would—

—he can't see that future, where Derya is walking and Megamind is teaching her to swim and Roxanne is smiling at him in the water; he can't see it and he wants to. He wants to see it so badly it feels like something in his chest is physically ripping in half, and he can't.

He used to have a future, he's pretty sure. For a while. There was a period of time in his twenties when he imagined he might make it to thirty.

And then the thing with his eye happened, and his broken hip. His arm. Megamind has shied away from thinking about the future, since then. He knows what his future is. He knows he doesn't have one. He can't possibly make it to forty, and he's okay, he's okay with that. Really.

But, god, does he want to. When did that happen?