A/N: Right? Right? I own nothing. Judge away.

For Hopeless Romantics

"Once he gets into one of his ideas, there's no stopping him," Minion explained, offering Roxanne a brownie. She took one but made no move to eat it, instead flipping the square over and over in her fingers as she cast about the empty lair passively.

"What do you mean?" she asked, the reporter in her asking the question mindlessly.

Minion waved the box at the lab, where a large amount of sparks and heavy rock music were issuing. "He says evil is the only thing he's good at, but really it's inventing that he lives for. He'll go for days and days on end with no food or sleep to finish his designs. He just works until he is too tired to keeps his eyes open; grabs a few hours of sleep on the couch and goes right back at it. I mostly stay out of his way, and fetch him things like supplies or food." Minion stopped to consider the almost full box of brownies. "Actually, if it wasn't for me forcing him to eat and take a break every one and a while, I doubt he'd even be alive at this point."

Roxanne chuckled half-heartedly and stared at her brownie. "And he never stops for anything?"

"Pretty much. He doesn't really eat the food I get him anyway, it actually gets thrown around most of the time instead." Minion sighed, much like a disappointed parent. "The only time I've seen him stop at all is for you, now that I think about it."

Roxanne snapped her head up, her comment about the sheer amount of junk food littering the lair dying on her tongue. "Me?"

"Yeah," Minion was peering down at her with amusement. "It was Bernard's phone. He would actually stop scheming to talk to you. That whole thing with Tighten, he was distracted pretty much through all of it."

"Really?" Roxanne felt strangely honored. She smiled secretly at her brownie, then held it accusingly in Minion's face, practically smashing it against the glass. "And all you get him is deserts and snack food?"

Minion had the grace to look uncomfortable as he shrugged. "The man lives off of sugar. I can't get him to eat anything else."

"No wonder he's so hyperactive all the time," Roxanne muttered to herself. When she mentally reviewed all of her dates with him as Bernard, she couldn't recall him actually eating anything that wasn't total crap; an ice cream cone in the park, a pretzel at the museum, not to mention unmeasurable amounts of coffee in the library. The only time she had gotten him into a real restaurant she had thrown her drink in his face and stormed out before the bread could even arrive. She squirmed at the memory of that night, but remained firm that he deserved it for lying... well, most of it, anyway.

"Well, that's going to have to change," she said determinedly, brushing past a grinning Minion into Megamind's lab.

The music was almost deafening. The electric guitar assaulted her ears, the lyrics to "Smoke on the Water," drowned out by the sounds of metal popping and hissing under a blowtorch. Megamind had his back to her, nodding his giant head unconsciously to the beat as he worked. Sometimes Roxanne wondered if he went out of the way to make his designs overly complicated so he would have the opportunity to make as big a mess as possible putting them together. Scrap metal and discarded bolts littered the floor around his stool; his feet tucked under to avoid getting any hot bits on the felt bat slippers.

"Megamind!" Roxanne yelled. He made no motion like he had heard her at all. Roxanne tried again, louder this time, without getting any closer, for fear that he might accidentally weld her instead. No reaction. She picked up a rather large washer as it rolled towards her.

"Yo Megs!" she shouted again, chucking the washer at his shoulder. He jolted, and as she expected, whipped around and held the still-lit blowtorch out in front of him. He had on a singed AC/DC t-shirt and his blue radiation sign pajama bottoms that were striped with grease stains. He ripped funny dark goggles off his face as he recognized her.

"Roxanne!" His green eyes lit up with unconstrained delight. "Oh, ah..." He sheepishly turned off his blowtorch and seemed to realize what a messy state he was in. "I didn't expect- That is, I'm not- Oh... um, hi." Roxanne giggled as he bounced over to her, stopping before they actually touched.

Roxanne stamped out her exasperation that he was still not taking the initiative to even hug her. Any other man at this stage in the relationship, early as it was, would have greeted her with a hug, or some sort of physical contact. It made her slightly sad that Megamind was so ostracized his whole life that he didn't even realize how much he was missing. "Hi." She waited awkwardly for him to reach out, but he just gazed at her with those unearthly green eyes, tapping his fingers nervously on his leg. She leaned in, trying to hint with her own eyes that it was okay to touch her, that she was not going to scream or throw drinks at him or anything of the sort if he did.

"Oh, the music..." he said, turning to search for the remote. 'For heaven's sake' Roxanne thought, pouncing on him for a hug. For a split second she felt his spine lock at the still unfamiliar gesture, but then he all but melted into the hug. It made her stomach twist that he was so tentative to human contact when he obviously desperately needed it; she was just going to have to train him out of that particular habit. He loosened his grip, obviously expecting the hug to be over, so she tightened her clutch on his back, pressing her mouth into the bare blue skin right above his t-shirt's neckline and the rest of her body into his. He shivered as he enveloped her in his long arms, his heart thudding wildly against her own. She let them stand there for a few long minutes, marveling at just how skinny he was as he let out short, hot breaths on the back of her neck.

Eventually, as his slight trembling subsided and his breathing became more even, Roxanne let go of his back. For once he didn't immediately react, instead he held on to her as if she was his anchor to reality. She slid her hands onto his shoulders and he disengaged like he was going to scald her. Before he could leap away she placed a small kiss on his jaw just below his left ear. He actually melted at that; she could tell his knees gave way slightly as he wobbled under her hands. To have that kind of effect on a person from just a small kiss was... intoxicating.

"Hi," she said again as they stepped apart. He was wearing that ridiculously happy smile of his, like he had just received a thousand Christmas and birthday presents all wrapped up in sunshine and rainbows. It was so contagious that she couldn't help but grin back at him as she held up her brownie square. "Minion says that you might be getting hungry."

He glanced over at his work table which was strewn with multiple half-assembled pieces of something. He looked genuinely surprised that any time had passed at all since he began making whatever it was he was making. "I don't think so," he said uncertainly. "It's only been a few hours since I started, and I had a muffin right before that..."

"It's been almost twenty seven hours, sir," came Minion's voice from somewhere out in the lair. Roxanne gaped at him.

"Twenty seven hours? Really Megamind? You're coming out with me right now to get some pizza or something. Honestly..."

"I really don't want anything right now," Megamind cast his work table a longing glance, but when he met eyes with her he was clearly torn. She took a bite out of her brownie and made an exaggerated show of enjoying it, wiggling the rest under his nose.

"Come on," she tugged on his arm, but he didn't move.

"Okay... but I just worked out the calibration for the electron magnetic transfer, so if I could just real quick..." He swayed towards his lab with his eyes pleading with her.

Roxanne sighed and rolled her eyes, stuffing the rest of the brownie in her mouth and grabbing the front of his shirt right on the lightning bolt with both hands. Megamind just looked utterly shocked as she closed her eyes and tugged his lips to hers. Before he could even think of reacting, she pulled away and grabbed his hands as he gasped at the suddenness of the whole kiss. She tugged on him again, feeling a blush creep into her cheeks at his expression. "C'mon, let's get Chinese or something, my treat."

"Kay," he said in a stunned voice, following her obediently out of his lab, a crumb of chocolate on his lip.

He put down his tools at the first shout of his name when she walked in the next morning. And although he still didn't initiate the hug, he didn't hesitate either. Roxanne let go, proud of herself for making progress in the hugging department. But it seemed that Megamind wasn't quite done, he leaned in to briefly press his lips to hers. Unlike all of their earlier kisses, Roxanne reacted instantly, kissing him back with more passion than either of them expected. His kisses were slow and soft, just like the first one when he was still Bernard, and she let herself float in them, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and neck when she sensed him trying to finish the kiss politely. His spidery hands rested lightly on her waist, and when she swiped her tongue on his bottom lip he parted them, surprised.

Suddenly, the kiss became so much more, like she had unlocked the door to all his loneliness and isolation, and the only cure was her. He let go of all his previous inhibitions, tangling her tightly in his arms as he kissed her with reckless abandon. She let herself get swept up in it; his gangly arms were somehow tied around her waist and back with one hand sliding into her short hair, his skinny little beard tickling her chin. She let out a small moan of pleasure, no one had ever kissed her like this before. He was kissing her with all his heart, like he was drowning and she was his air. They continued like that for some time, finally breaking apart for oxygen. He still held onto her, green eyes searching her face like he wasn't sure if he should apologize or say something else. "Roxanne-" he began, his voice choking on emotion. She didn't want to hear him stumble through an apology that she didn't want, so she closed the gap to kiss him again. It wasn't quite so desperate, but the kiss still had volumes of emotion in it. She let it meander back to the soft, safe kisses from before, once again letting herself drift and giving Megamind the control over the kiss. He let it fizzle out slowly with smaller and smaller kisses, disentangling himself from her. His last one ended with a smile, his lashes dark on his blue cheeks.

She pushed him and he sat heavily on her bed, shivering slightly. Despite his best efforts to keep his right hand clamped on his left arm, blue blood still oozed between his fingers and down his elbow to leave a small trail on her carpet. "I still don't understand why we don't just go back to the Lair instead." he complained, watching her search her medicine cabinet in a slightly panicked manner. "I've got plenty of stuff there, and I wouldn't be bleeding all over your apartment."

"Can it," Roxanne said shortly, tossing a box of gauze and a bottle of peroxide onto the poofy comforter. "The Lair is all the way across town, and it's filthy besides." She came to sit next to him on the bed, plopping a few towels next to her. He glanced up at her, some unreadable expression on his face. "Or we could still go to the hospital," Roxanne offered softly, brushing his temple. "It's not too late for that."

Megamind grunted, looking slightly alarmed and disturbed at the thought of a hospital. He peeled his fingers away from his wound, helping her rip the sleeve of his shirt out of the way. She grimaced at the sight of his flesh cut and burned, but he seemed unsurprised by the sight. "By the way," he said quietly, his eyes on her hands as she cleaned and dressed his arm. "Thank you."

Roxanne let out a frazzled breath as she watched his arm fizz with peroxide without him flinching. "It's nothing." She tried to meet eyes with him but he was still staring at his injured arm. "It would have really been nothing if you hadn't jumped at that guy like that."

"But you-"

"I can handle myself. I was out of range anyway. It was a nice gesture, though."

"Oh." They were silent as she wrapped up his arm, a rarity for him. "I meant, thank you, for... you know, everything."

She finished with a little knot. "What?" She hadn't meant to sound so disbelieving, but he just sounded so... sad.

Megamind let out a huge gusting sigh, scrubbing at his head with both hands. "I mean everything. For you. For you forgiving me, for believing in me, for taking me out to nice places, for not screaming whenever you-"

Roxanne cut him off by sealing her lips to his. He made muffled noises, like he was trying to continue his speech, but she wouldn't let him. She continued to kiss him until he surrendered into it, stopping only when he hissed as he tried to move his mangled arm. She leaned back and surveyed his face, a slightly paler shade of blue than normal and dark circles under his eyes. Megamind tried to play off his sudden weakness, leaning into her to try and continue kissing her. Despite her best efforts, a small laugh escaped her. "You're hurt. You should rest now."

He groaned and succeeded in kissing her again. "Rest later," he muttered around her mouth. He sucked in a breath through his teeth as he tried to move again.

Roxanne smiled, pressing her forehead into his and opening her eyes. "Rest now," she said determinedly, and with that she gathered her supplies and left the room to put them away. When she returned she found him flopped over on the end of her bed, his long legs dangling off and his face pressed into the comforter to prevent his arm from touching anything. She grinned, but as she was leaning over him to whisper in his ear he grabbed her with his good arm and tugged her next to him. She giggled and snuggled into a more comfortable position against his chest. "I was just going to say that usually people sleep at the top of the bed." His eyes, inches from her own opened. It still surprised her how green they were, and expressive.

"If I let you go, you might not come back." She could tell that exhaustion was playing a huge part in the emotion behind those words, but nonetheless he still had that kicked puppy face. She traced his angular face with her fingertips and placed a small kiss on his lips.

"That will never happen," she whispered as she curled herself into him, careful of his injured arm. She felt, rather than heard him sigh, and the gentle heavy breaths as he finally fell asleep.