"Minion!" The cry echoed throughout the lair, setting the brainbots into fits. "Minion!" The cry edged into panic.

"Sir?" Came a responding cry, from the opposite side of the lair.

"Minion!" There was a cry of pain, and a crash, before a gangly blue body came flying down the stairs, followed by a small avalanche of boxes. Almost instantly, the brainbots went to work, trying to right their fallen master.

"Are you all right, sir?"

"Curse this center of balance!" He hissed. He shooed away the brainbots, snapping that he could get up by himself, thankyouverymuch, oh no, don't cry, Daddy's sorry...

"Sir?" A note of concern.

"Minion!" He took off at a run, his long limbs flailing. He took a sharp turn, but slid on the polished floor, straight into another pile of boxes and sending the brainbots into another frenzy.

"Minion! Finally. Where have you been?" His voice was high, panicked.

"Right here, sir." The gorilla-robot-fish replied calmly, as he continued his work.

"Why are you here? I don't need you here, I need you to help me!" His voice took on an almost whiny quality. "To think that the day would come when my Minion would not be where I needed him simply rocks even my staggering intellect -"

"Sir."

"-and that you would be so blaa-se about the entire matter, on such an aupi-ci-ous day for your master-"

"Sir."

"Is an insult to the entire institute of minions! You should be asha-"

"Sir!"

"What IS it Minion? I had a good monologue going." He sighed, exasperated.

"Here's your tie, sir. Freshly ironed." The fish replied, holding up the plain black tie he'd been busily ironing while his master had ranted.

"Minion! You fantastic fish you, you had it all along!" He gasped, "You always know just what I need!"

"Of course, sir." The fish replied, rolling his eyes, but smiling his toothy grin nonetheless. He quickly wrapped the article around his master's neck, tying it with practiced and easy motions, despite his size.

"And the coat?" He couldn't seem to stay still, shifting his weight nervously from one foot to the other.

"Right here, sir." Minion said, holding up the crisp black coat – free of spikes, leather, and gadgetry, as per requested.

"And..." His large green eyes swept across the room suspiciously, his voice dropping to a whisper, "The item?"

"Right where you left it, sir." He motioned to the case across the room, surrounded by lasers and various graphic warnings as to what awaited anyone who so much as breathed on its contents.

"Excellent!" He pulled on the coat, and tried to wipe his sweaty hands off on his pants, before placing his palm on the reader. The container hissed, steam escaping, and the lasers flickered and died. Reaching in, he gently took a hold of the small bauble, carefully placing it in his breast pocket.

The doorbell – installed years ago, when his secret evil lair had stopped being quite so "secret" and "evil" - rang. With a screech, he dove behind a pile of scrap, cautiously peeking over at the monitor, where one Roxanne Ritchi stood displayed.

"It'll be fine, sir." Minion sighed, picking his master up and brushing him off, "She's been saying she's wanted this for years now."

"She's been implying it, Minion." He wrung his hands, "And what if I've misconstrued what she wants?"

"We could hit her with the forget-me-stick if you're wrong."

"Minion!"

"It was a joke, sir."

The doorbell rang again, the image of Roxanne now with her hand on her hip and a bemused smile on her face.

"You'd better get going, sir." Minion prompted.

"Yes, yes, you're right. I just... just need to calm down." He took a few deep breaths, and wiped his hands on his pants again.

"You'll be fine. Just remember to ask nicely." Minion said soothingly.

"Right. All right. Here I go, Minion." He puffed out his chest, taking long, purposeful strides towards the entrance.

"Hello, Roxanne." He gave a watery grin as her eyebrow went higher.

"Hello, Megamind." She said, her smirk breaking into a smile, as she held out her hand, expectantly.

He blinked, reminded of that day long ago, during the battle with Tighten, when she had deactivated his watch with that same look on her face.

"Er... yes?" He tried his best to blink owlishly at her.

"I think you'd better just ask now, Megamind. Otherwise you might just pop a vein from the stress."

He frowned. This was not the way it was supposed to go – he had researched this strange human ritual she seemed so enamored with doing thoroughly on the internet. There was supposed to be dinner, and candles, and either during or after dessert he would ask and everyone in the restaurant would applaud and why did the internet always lie to him...

"That's not how it's done!" He exclaimed.

"But we've never been one for following the rules, have we? Mr. Ex-Super-Villain."

He pondered with retorting that he always followed the rules of the game when he was a Super Villain, but decided against it – he was getting better at holding his tongue these days, he was very pleased with himself about that – as today probably wasn't the best day to annoy Roxanne.

Well, fine then. If he wasn't allowed to do the entire event right, he was at least going to do the asking right.

Bending down, he carefully arranged himself on the concrete floor of his lair – one knee, he reminded himself – and pulled out the item he'd retrieved from the case. Opening the velvet box, he revealed the tiny diamond ring inside. He took a deep breath.

"Roxanne Ritchi, would you... do me the honor... of marrying me?" He looked up at her anxiously.

She smiled, ecstatic despite the fact she'd known this was coming. "Of course, Megamind."