OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS

AN UPDATE

HELL HAS FROZEN OVER AND THE DEVIL WEARS ICE SKATES TO WORK

Please excuse any continuity errors, I haven't worked on this in forever, but—fingers crossed for that to change! I have kind of a vague sort of plan that I'm going to start posting things to Archive of Our Own, but they're going to be edited things, and that's how I'm going to re-familiarize myself with all my little bits and pieces. That's my project for this coming tax season. Edit stuff and post it to AO3.

Anyway, a belated merry whatever and here's hoping 2018 doesn't suck completely! Love you. Be well.

Chapter 20

"You don't have to hold my hand through all these, you know," Lorena says a little while later. "I think I've got it. You should go outside, it's a nice day."

Megamind sits up and stretches to look over the back of the sofa so he can see out the glass porch door. The other adults look like they're deep in conversation about something—Irma gestures at Linda, who throws up her hands; Eric and Orson look at each other, Eric shakes his head and speaks, Orson seems to huff and sit back a little. Drew rolls his eyes and chips in with something that makes Irma look at him doubtfully. Roxanne laughs at that, or seems to.

She's good at putting on faces, but Megamind knows when her laughter is forced. He also knows when he's out of his depth.

"No," he says, watching with apprehension as Linda turns and calls something into the yard. "I think I'd better stay in here."

"You could go hang out with my brother and sister," she suggests.

He could. Children have taken to him in the past. But those were younger kids, not adolescents—is he likely to have much in common with the younger Allbrights that their parents will approve of?

He rumples his forehead, picks absently at the carpet, tries to figure out what he's supposed to do. What he wants to do is go upstairs and call Minion and not come back downstairs until everyone is gone. Which would lead to questions. Which would lead to talking about things he isn't sure he even has words for. Which is impossible, anyway, because he'd told Wayne to destroy Minion's phone.

Lorena's voice makes him look around. She's got her chin on one hand, her other hand tapping her pencil on the page of her textbook. "Aunt Linda said earlier, I should try to keep the kids occupied. But I've got homework. So, you do it."

"That sounds like she wants it to be your job," he points out, a little uncertainly. "Time management is an important skill to learn."

"And delegation is an important time management technique," she shoots back. "I'm busy, you aren't. I'm delegating."

He scrunches his face at her. "I don't know how."

She rolls her eyes. "You're a super-genius," she says flatly. "They're kids. Just play with them. Inside, outside, whatever. Plus," she adds, grinning, "it'll help you get in my aunt's good graces."

Megamind half-smiles in spite of himself. "I doubt that."

"I didn't say it was magic, I said it'd help. And it will. There's a rainy-day box in the office if you wanna do crafts." She sighs at him. "Come on. What did you like doing when you were their age?"

"I…liked to make things," he admits. "Mayhem, mostly, but…" He sits up a little straighter, stretches, looks around. Crafts are a possibility. "Maybe I'll just go see what this box has to offer," he says, getting up.

It only takes him about thirty seconds to find the craft supplies. They're in the office closet, shoved in the back in a large storage bin, and as soon as he hauls it out and gets the lid off, he knows he can absolutely have some fun with this. Hot glue guns, heavy construction paper, colored sand, glitter, glue, pieces of balsa wood…and then, halfway down, he hits some lengths of PVC pipe. That's all he needs to see for the ideas to really start going. Drew has a cat, Roxanne told him once. And the invisible car is well-stocked, too.

He has options.

He'll need to go into the backyard first, no matter what, to talk to Irma and Eric and try and get their…not their approval, but their green light, at least. How the hell is he going to swing that?

For a few moments, he tries to plan—to think of what parents might say, and how he would respond, but Mitch would have said "fuck yeah, go for it" and Megamind just knows that can't be right. That's not what's going to happen, here.

Concern. There's going to be concern. The words themselves don't matter. Megamind can address concerns.

He swallows, gathers his shreds of plan together in his mind, then squares his shoulders and heads for the porch door.

As luck would have it, Irma has twisted around and is shouting for Raj to keep back from the cliff edge just as Megamind pulls the door open. Judging by her tone, this isn't the first time she's had to ask. Good, he thinks, that will make this easier.

He clears his throat, glances awkwardly around at the other adults, whose conversations have all mysteriously ebbed at once. "Ah…ollo, hi, pardon me," he says. Then he looks at Drew. "Roxanne said you have a cat. Do you have cat litter here? At this house?"

Drew blinks, obviously taken aback. "Uh. Maybe? I might still have half a bag up in my closet."

Megamind nods once, steels himself, and looks at Linda. "May I, please, borrow your blender?"

"Are you going to break it?"

He glances sideways, thinks about that, then says, "No. Probably not. If I do, I'll—buy you another one." He carefully does not say build.

She stares him down for a second or so, then waves a hand at him, looking like she's too tired to argue much. "Oh, fine. I need a new blender anyway. Do your worst, I suppose."

"Oh, I won't even do close to my worst," Megamind tells her, appalled at the very idea. "That blender didn't do anything to me." Then he darts back inside again. The door thumps shut after him.

Into the silence that follows, Irma says tentatively, "He seems…nice?"

"Is he always that abrupt?" Eric asks, glancing at his niece.

"He's been under a lot of stress lately," Roxanne says. "It sounds like he's had an idea."

If 'tentatively alarmed' is a facial expression, Eric is wearing it. "Is that good?"

"I haven't seen him tinkering with anything since we got here." She offers him a wan sort of smile. "I think it's good, but I'm biased."

The door slides open again. Megamind is back, and he's grinning. To Linda he says, "I won't break anything except the blender, maybe," and to Eric, who's frowning at him, and Irma, who just looks worried, "I know what I'm doing. Nobody's going to get hurt. In fact," he adds, brightening, "I'll make this educational!"

Eric opens his mouth, but Megamind doesn't seem to notice. Lizard-quick, he skips sideways to the porch railing and raises his voice, calls to where the younger generation is playing near the rocks at the edge of the yard, "Hey! Raj and Nadine! I'm building rockets! You guys wanna help?"

Raj turns, interested. Megamind smiles like a knife and throws something overhand, which the boy catches, wrinkles his nose at, and passes to his little sister. It's a jar of green glitter. Now Nadine looks interested. The two adolescents look at each other, then at Megamind, and then Nadine says something and bolts for the house, followed by a yelp and her brother.

Megamind bounces a little, pleased with himself. Everybody likes rockets. And if they're fancy rockets, so much the better. He's not sure what the face Linda's making at him means, but Roxanne seems like she's hiding a smile and Orson looks amused, so it must be mostly okay.

"Real rockets?" Raj asks suspiciously as he follows Nadine up onto the porch. "Real rockets that fly?"

Megamind rolls his eyes. "Yes of course real rockets that fly, who do you think I am?" he scoffs.

Everyone else stares at the trio's retreating backs until they're out of sight in the office. "Rockets?" Irma says faintly.

Roxanne glances at her. "You can tell him if you're not comfortable with them building explosives," she says quickly. "He'd understand. That's why he told you he knew what he was doing; that was him giving you an in."

Irma glances at Linda, who's massaging her temples like she has a headache, then back to Roxanne. "How explosive do you mean?" she asks. "I would have assumed he meant…oh, baking soda and vinegar."

Roxanne purses her lips and does her best not to burst out laughing at the idea of Megamind calling a baking soda and vinegar reaction explosive. Exothermic, maybe; but explosive? Hardly. "If he's asking for kitty litter, I don't know what he's making. But he builds all his own explosives at home, and he's always done his own special effects. Don't worry, Raj and Nay are totally safe."

Linda looks up. "Annie, I'm not sure if…" she starts, but her twin suddenly shrugs.

"You know what?" Eric says. "Okay." He glances quickly at Irma to see if she'll disagree, but she only looks thoughtful. "It's better than them fooling around by the dropoff. Give me a damn heart attack every two minutes."

Irma nods slowly. "Maybe…maybe this will reinforce respect for fireworks," she offers. "That's healthy. It's like a science project."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

"So, what's in the jar?" Raj asks, nodding at the plastic container Megamind brings in from the car while he and Nadine are decorating paper that they'll glue to the PVC bodies of their rockets. "Looks like sugar."

Grinning, Megamind points at him. "Good guess, and we'll need some of that, too. But this is potassium nitrate; I keep it for the car."

"What's a nitrate?" Nadine asks.

"A polyatomic ion," Megamind tells her, "and don't eat it. I'll be right back. You two…um, get some more stuff to decorate with. Out of the bin."

He's back in a couple minutes, carrying a bag of powdered sugar, Linda's elderly blender, and the kitchen scale. He dumps all three items on the floor next to the pile of art supplies Raj and Nadine have assembled, then plonks himself down on the carpet across from the kids and starts wrestling the top off the blender.

"How come you have potassium whatever in a jar?" Raj asks, watching as Megamind places the blender on the scale so he can start measuring powder. "Mom works on cars. She's never talked about it."

Megamind glances up at him. "Because I'm a supervillain," he says shortly. "My car is special. Don't slouch. Proper posture is important if you want to be taken seriously." Potassium whatever, indeed. You'll blow yourself to an early grave with that attitude.

Nadine looks up from where she's drawing spirals on construction paper with glue. "You sit like my friend Jayashri," she observes, eyeing Megamind's cross-legged, straight-backed position. "She dances ballet."

Megamind pauses, then decides to take it as a compliment. "She must have very good posture, then," he says, and hits start on the blender, which turns out to be more powerful than Linda had let on; it reduces the nitrate to a fine white powder in only a few seconds. Megamind will be sorry if it breaks. "Raj, can you put enough sugar in to get the needle to here?" he asks, pointing at a spot on the scale's round indicator.

"Yep." Brown hands make quick work of the powdered sugar; blue hands hold the blender steady.

"Fantastic," Megamind says, and pours the whole mixture into an empty coffee can from the craft bin, then puts the lid on. "Okay, I need…I need you two to roll this between you guys on the floor," he instructs. He rises to his knees so he can rummage in the rainy day box for one of the painted wooden dowels he'd seen earlier.

"What about the blender?" Nadine asks. "Wouldn't that mix it, too?"

"The blender produces too much heat. Adding the sugar makes the potassium nitrate flammable. Where's…" Pipe cleaners, more paper, markers, pencils…aha. Wooden dowel. Perfect. He tests it on one of the PVC tubes, holding it up so the kids can see that the dowel fits into the pipe. "This will be our ramrod."

Cat litter goes in the blender next, which gets grossed-out noises from Nadine, but Megamind just says, "I need the clay. Both of you, hold these felt pieces over your noses—don't breathe this stuff." He rucks his scarf up over the lower half of his face as the blender slows and stops.

The clay dust is fine enough to blow out of the blender like fog when he works the lid off. Megamind is really grinning now, Raj notes as Nadine goes back to sprinkling red glitter on the paper she's going to glue to her tube. It's obvious even in spite of the scarf; his green eyes are sparkling like anything. "Is it really gonna catch on fire?" Raj asks through the felt.

"Oh yes," Megamind says happily, dumping clay into the first PVC tube, which he's holding upright on top of some newspapers he'd found, "yes, it'll be a nice explosive exothermic reaction." Once he's got some of the clay in, he puts the dowel in on top, then glances up at Raj. "We need to pack the clay into a plug. You want to be the hammer? I bet Lorena will let you borrow a textbook."

"Sure," Raj says, scrambling to his feet. And, sure enough, Lorena offers to sacrifice her calculus text to the higher cause of cool explosions, and Raj gives the dowel several enthusiastic whacks each time Megamind adds more clay powder.

Clattering noises begin to trickle through the doorway from the kitchen, along with good smells and the sound of muted conversation. People have come inside, people are cooking, and Megamind knows better than to offer to help with something he knows nothing about. Still, he thinks as they finish the first clay plug and begin to add the sugar-nitrate mix, Linda must be going mad, not being able to command her kitchen.

Another thing he should apologize for later.

The white powder blend that follows doesn't get hammered down; it just gets tamped, little by little, more white powder than there was clay. Then they make another clay plug. "These tubes are the engines," Megamind explains as he passes the first mostly-completed tube to Nadine so she can glue her paper to it. "If we had more time and equipment, we could make one big rocket and attach one engine to each side, but this is the only PVC I could find."

Nadine glances up at him. "This is good, too," she says, and puts down the rubber cement. "They're shaped like rockets, anyway. Can I hit it with the book?"

Megamind nods. "Raj, you should start making decorations for yours."

Raj shrugs. "It's cool how it is," he says, but Megamind wrinkles his nose.

"Presentation is important." That's all he says, because it really isn't his rocket, after all. Still, Raj seems agreeable enough; he nods and settles down with some green paper and a battered tin of mostly-used watercolors.

"Presentation and sitting up straight," Nadine murmurs, bringing the book down with a satisfying thump that's almost as loud as her brother's was. "What else makes people take you seriously?"

"Threats of violence," Raj says absently, and misses the dirty look Nadine sends him.

"Only if you're willing and able to follow through," Megamind says. "And I don't recommend it. That won't earn you any friends."

"They keep messing with her hair, though," Raj tells him, and Nadine turns on him before Megamind has much time to wonder about the non-sequitur.

"It's not a big deal! I told you!" Nadine exclaims, indignant. "You don't have to tell."

Her brother shrugs. "Then stop crying about it."

Megamind frowns. Ah. Schoolyard troubles. He's never had hair to mess with, but Nadine's black braid is very long. He can think of about seven ways it could be used in a childish prank (three of which are less 'childish' and more 'evil,' but fun for all ages). "Do they pull it?" he asks, picking one of the tamer options. Nadine glares at the rocket and hits it again with the textbook, harder this time.

"The boy who sits behind me used to tie the ends around my chair," she says. "So now I put it in a braid, but he pulls it. I told him and his friends to stop and they won't, and Mrs. Johns doesn't see so she can't really do anything." She shrugs. "It doesn't hurt. It's just annoying."

"Mom and Dad say it means he likes her," Raj says.

Megamind's lip curls before he can stop it. "And that makes it okay?"

"You picked on Roxanne," Raj points out. "Like, a lot. And you like her."

"That—wasn't okay, either," Megamind says flatly. Roxanne was a means to an end, a pawn; he didn't kidnap her solely to pick on her. He's not a bully. If he'd thought she would ever want anything to do with him outside of kidnappings, he'd have gone for it in a heartbeat. He shakes his head. "No. I don't care what it means, it's bullying. Nadine, can I show you something?"

She shrugs again and nods, puts down the textbook.

"Where does this kid grab your hair the most?" She holds up the end of her braid, and Megamind reaches for it. "Can I?"

"Okay."

"Turn around. So, I'm holding it here," he says, rising to his knees so they're more or less the same height. "Now I want you to bend forward at the waist, take a step, and turn. Bring your arm up, elbow bent. Higher, shoulder-level. Okay, see how I'm going to stumble forward when you pull away? If you do it right, I'll stumble right into your elbow while you're turning."

Nadine frowns. "I'm not allowed to hit people," she says, but Megamind just smiles at her, all teeth and no humor.

"If someone grabs your hair, aren't you going to pull away and turn around?" he asks. When she nods again, his grin widens and he takes on an exaggeratedly innocent expression, holding his hands up in a gesture he's never shown the police. "Oops. It was an accident! You were startled! You didn't mean to hit him. But don't apologize, because it's his own fault for pulling your hair."

She looks thoughtful. Megamind looks at her for a moment, then offers, "I can show you another, if you want. If somebody gets your hair higher up…? Okay, here. See, you can bring your arm up and around his arm, hook it up under his elbow and then get up on your tip-toes…ouch yes, ow, like that."

"What about when I'm sitting?" she asks, as Megamind sits again, crossing his legs and bending his arm a few times to work out the knot.

"Do you both get up at the same time?" At her nod, he says, "Scream, stumble, and hook your leg back to pull his foot out from under him when he stands up. It's a little more awkward, but it'll work if you can do it. Practice with a friend, if you can. Theatrics are important. You want him to be embarrassed."

"Maybe," she says, and watches him carefully tamp down the white powder in the second engine.

"If all else fails," he says after a while, "get some fishhooks and braid them in. You'll get in trouble," he adds when her eyebrows fly up, "but he'll never touch you again."

"Wow," Raj says, impressed. "Nice. You should do that, Nay."

"These would work for you, too," Megamind tells him, glancing up. "Not the fishhooks, but your hair's long enough for someone to get a hand in."

"How do you know all this?" Nadine wants to know as she settles back down and dumps some more white powder into the tube. "You're bald."

"Roxanne isn't," Megamind points out, "and one of her friends knows Judo. Those aren't Judo, they're basic self-defense, but I'll still bet it was Jo who taught her."

Raj, who was starting to cut his paper to size, starts laughing. "Wait, wait. My cousin pulled these on you?"

"It worked! I stopped trying to go for her hair," Megamind says, shrugging. Then he grins. "It backfired on her, because that's when I started sending Minion. He was better at surprising her, anyway." He focuses on holding the dowel so that Nadine can hit it with the book again—they're doing the final clay plug, now. "It wasn't personal when Minion did it. Kidnapping, I mean. She always liked Minion, she never…she never liked me. But Minion was different."

"She likes you now," Nadine points out, and Megamind smiles.

"Yes," he says. "She seems to."

"I think I'm just gonna tape this," Raj says, holding up his paper and reaching for the completed engine cylinder. "I don't want to wait for glue to dry."

"Why are you wearing silly pants?" Nadine asks, and Megamind blinks at her, confused for nearly two whole seconds before he remembers that he's wearing paisley trousers.

"Yeah, seriously," Raj mutters, tongue between his teeth as he tries to get the decorative paper as tight as he can around the rocket so he can tape it down, "those are kinda fugly."

And Megamind—who has lived his life on presentation, on good posture, on standing as tall as he can in good clothes that make him look big, on always, always thinking about how he's seen—laughs at himself. "Yeah," he agrees, plucking at the offending article, "they really are. But they're…they're fun. Here," he adds, reaching for the rockets. "I need to put the fuses in. No nose cones on these, there isn't time to attach anything securely before dinner. Or do you want to wait until after?" he asks.

Raj and Nadine look at each other. "Now," Nadine says, and Raj nods.

"Yeah. Definitely now."

Megamind grins and fishes two long spears of balsa wood and a big roll of tape out of the bin. "Then let's go."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

They wind up on the lawn with Orson and Irma. Orson follows them back outside because he likes things that fly and things that explode, and Irma joins because she's curious about the small blue man with the quick eyes who's making her sister-in-law so nervous.

"Just comin' out to watch," Orson says as they approach the trio near the cliff. "Need to check the smoker, anyway."

Megamind glances up and nods, flashes a smile and a wave, and then turns back to Raj and Nadine. They've taped their rockets to the balsa wood, and now they're pushing the wood into the turf between two of the boulders, about six feet back from the edge, aiming out to sea.

"Okay, I've got the matches," Megamind says. "What did I say is rule number one?"

"Light it and run," Nadine replies.

"Why do we run?" Megamind wants to know.

Raj aims a scowl at him, wind whipping his black hair around his face. "You never said there was gonna be a test," he says. "That's the rule, how come we have to say why it's there?"

Megamind can out-scowl just about anybody, and he isn't fazed by Raj's novice attempt. "If you don't know why it's there, how do you know you should follow it?" There's a pause. Nadine frowns down at the smallish rockets but doesn't say anything, and after a few seconds, Megamind huffs a sigh. "It's okay to just guess. Look, if I didn't know how to figure out which rules are important and which I can break, I would be dead. I would be dead…" he glances quickly to the side, "…seven times? No. Eight. I forgot about the electric mice. But this is important."

"Because it's an explosion," Raj finally says. "Explosions explode."

Megamind wiggles a hand in the air. "Ehh. Yes. Partly."

"Because what if you got it wrong?" Nadine hazards, and Megamind gives her a relieved-looking thumbs-up.

"Exactly!" he says. "I can't tell you how many times stuff's blown up in my face. Eyebrows take forever grow back! Can you imagine: me without eyebrows?" He covers them with his fingers and grimaces, making Nadine snort. "Drawing them on is the worst! So, yes," he continues as he pulls some matches out of the packet and hands them to Raj and Nadine, "you always run, especially when it's homemade, and especially especially if it involves explosions. And consider hiding behind something big."

"We could hide behind Uncle Orson," Raj suggests.

"He's bigger than all three of us," Nadine agrees.

"Kids, I ain't your meat-shield," Orson says, from his safe distance away, which has everyone laughing as they light the fuses.

And, true to Megamind's instructions, they do run away. But they also stop and turn around while they're still much closer to the rockets than Megamind looks comfortable with; Irma can clearly see his flinch as he backs up another few steps, arms out enough to herd his younger someday-cousins back with him—this gets everyone back, but it also places him between them and the homemade rockets. Raj and Nadine are absorbed in the anticipation and don't notice, but Irma does.

The rockets fire at about the same time, hissing up and out over the ocean, leaving trails of white smoke. All thoughts of caution forgotten, Megamind whoops just as enthusiastically as the two humans do, racing back towards the edge with them and staring after the two engines, shielding his eyes from the setting sun with his arm.

"They'll both go about twenty-eight hundred feet," he says happily. "I wish I'd brought some of my trackers with me, then we'd be able to see which one went farther."

"Mine won," Nadine says immediately, squinting into the sunset.

"No, mine did," Raj shoots back. "Yours got weighted down with all that glitter."

"You kids'll just have to have a rematch next year," Orson says easily, coming up behind them. "Where'd you learn to do that with found materials?"

Megamind shrugs. "Materials are expensive," he replies. It's true enough, though it's been a long time since he's needed to worry about money. "I make do with cheaper supplies if I can get away with it. I made my first arc welder out of a couple old microwave ovens."

Orson raises an eyebrow. "You really couldn't afford one?"

"No one would sell to me," Megamind huffs. "They didn't mind me buying parts and power tools, but apparently I 'couldn't be trusted' with a proper arc welder because I was 'too young.'" He sneers good-naturedly, making air quotes and rolling his eyes. "Ridiculous."

"How old were you?" Irma asks, curious.

"Fourteen!" Megamind exclaims, still sounding a little indignant at the memory. "I mean, honestly."

She stares at him. "You're upset because nobody would sell a fourteen-year-old kid a welding rig?"

"Just a little one!" Megamind says, holding up his thumb and forefinger close together. "Just a stick welder, nothing major. It wasn't like I was going to use it to make chassis for early brainbots or anything." He blinks, looking suddenly spooked. "As…as a random, non-specific example."

"You were fourteen! That's younger than Raj!"

"I had a good head on my shoulders," Megamind insists, and points at it. "Seriously, look at this thing, it's huge."

"Hey," Raj says. "Can you show me how to make a welder thingy out of a microwave?"

"No," Irma and Orson instantly chorus.

Megamind rolls his eyes. "I mean, I could, but I'm not sure why you'd want one. But," he continues when Raj looks disappointed, "I will send you and your sisters laser-guided mini-marshmallow blow guns." He looks at Irma. "That's okay, right? Marshmallows won't hurt anybody. Marshmallows are awesome."

"That…should be all right," Irma says slowly. "Why do you know how to make marshmallow guns?"

Megamind looks suddenly shifty. "Well, that's…that's not really what I originally…mine shoot something else," he hedges. "The compatibility with mini-marshmallows was a happy accident."

"What do yours shoot?" Nadine wants to know, but Megamind shakes his head.

"Ohhh no, no way, that's proprietary information and your uncle works for the government. C'mon, let's go back inside." Privately, though, he's thinking that next year he'll come prepared, and he'll get a few ideas approved by Irma and Eric ahead of time so he and Roxanne's cousins can really have some fun.

Because nothing says "Christmas" like hydrogen balloons.

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Christmas dinner is like nothing Megamind has ever experienced. They start with grace, for one thing. Roxanne's family doesn't seem particularly religious; nobody's mentioned going to church or mass or anything and they haven't said grace before, so he supposes that it might just be customary for this holiday—but it trips him up a bit because, man, it's been a while.

He's already thinking about the last blessing he'd been present for when Linda says, "I don't suppose Megamind would like to lead us in prayer," which is probably why he misses the rhetorical tone of voice until it's too late.

He blinks at her, blindsided, but his mouth has already taken off ahead of his brain. "Baba wethu, osezulwini maliphathwe—" He realizes belatedly that he's reciting Guduza's old standby the way Guduza had always recited it, but probably Roxanne is the only one who can tell that he's embarrassed. Well, so much for thinking of home! Hopefully everyone else has their eyes closed—That's a thing, right? he wonders vaguely, closing your eyes for grace?—or are looking down at their laps, the way he's doing. "…Ungasingenisi ekulingweni kodwa usisindise kokubi," he finishes, feeling a small flush of shame for not actually meaning the words the way Guduza always had. "A-amen."

He raises his head and is relieved to see the others doing the same, and he's surprised when he looks over at Linda and sees her looking taken aback. "You didn't actually have to do that," she says.

"I'm—I'm following your lead," he stammers. "So…too late!"

"What language was that?" Drew wants to know.

"Ah," Megamind says, wondering whether his ears are on actual fire, "Zulu. IsiZulu. M-my uncle Guduza, he…favored that one. Psalm twenty-three," he adds, answering the question before someone can ask. "Nothing fancy."

"And what was he in for?" Linda asks, and Megamind frowns at her. He's already been put on the spot once tonight, he has no idea what any of the social rituals he's missing might be, and of course Linda is free to question Megamind about his morals, his values, his choices, himself—but his uncles?

"I don't see why that's relevant," he says quietly, and he doesn't have to try to sound cold.

Linda opens her mouth, but it's Lorena who answers. "It probably isn't," she says, as Drew passes Megamind the mashed potatoes. "So…you were really raised in a prison?"

"Oh—yes." He nods, clears his throat, scoops potatoes onto his plate and passes the bowl to Roxanne. "For the criminally gifted. It was…it was a safe place. Maybe not the best for a child with more brains than I knew what to do with," he allows, "but things could have been a lot worse. What is that?" he asks, scrunching his nose at the next dish he's passed.

"Broccoli cheese casserole," is the response. "With cheese-its on top!"

Megamind frowns at it, dubious. "That sounds deeply unpleasant," he mutters.

"Try it," Roxanne tells him. "And then hurry up and pass it down; it's one of my favorites."

Megamind shrugs, then scoops a little onto his plate and holds the dish so Roxanne can serve herself a portion nearly four times what he'd taken—there's more than enough; it's a big casserole. The next bowl contains something yellowish and mushy-looking, but the conversation is moving quickly now and Drew is distracted, talking to Orson, and Roxanne is busy muttering something to Raj that's making him crack up. Megamind hesitates, momentarily lost.

Linda's voice cuts through the chatter. "You may want to pass on that one. It's baked corn."

Megamind blinks at her, wary, but figures that's as close to an apology as he's likely to get. Well, he'll take it. He nods and gives the dish to Roxanne.

"So, Megamind," Irma says from halfway down the table. "I'm just curious. What does a small boy learn in a prison for the criminally gifted?"

Megamind bites his lip and forces himself to actually think twice before he replies, forking turkey onto his plate to give himself a few seconds. "Lots of things," he finally says. "I learned that everybody has something to share, no matter what they look like, and I learned about loyalty. I learned how to fight and I learned to watch my back. I learned…" He hesitates, frowning, then says slowly, "I learned that my future doesn't always depend on my current situation. I learned about taking responsibility. I learned I'm capable of more than I think."

Then he laughs. "I also learned almost everything I know about plastic explosives."

Irma's lips twitch. "How much do you know about plastic explosives?"

"Lots," Megamind says cheerfully. It's still rocky, and he wouldn't call it easy, but he is at least starting to get the hang of this interacting-with-Roxanne's-family business. Keep things light. Keep things funny. They probably aren't out to get you.

That doesn't make it any less harrowing, but the food is good. Megamind does his best to shove most of his concerns to the back of his mind in favor of trying to enjoy this new experience as much as possible. He's pretty sure he's managed to endear himself to Roxanne's cousins, at the very least. He might have Irma's approval as well; she hasn't voiced any disapproval so far, that he's heard. Eric hasn't said much and Megamind isn't hopeful about him, since he's Linda's twin and that probably counts for a lot, but he hasn't been rude or antagonistic. Orson has been nothing but friendly. And Linda…

Linda seems to be coming and going. Sometimes she seems like she's being halfway nice to him, and then the next minute she'll turn around and say something underhanded. Megamind is rolling with that as best he can; he hasn't forgotten the look on her face when she'd told him he would never be part of this family. But he's over it.

Mostly. Mostly over it.

Okay, he's not over it at all. But he can pretend. He's good at pretending.

He sighs quietly and focuses on his food. The mashed potatoes are smooth and the turkey is good. He's had turkey before, of course, but never smoked. He's not a fan of the white pearl onions Irma and Eric brought with them, but the broccoli casserole isn't half bad—it's gooier than he usually likes things, but not bad.

Minion would know how to fix it, he thinks, and the knot in his stomach pulls tight.

Minion. That's who's missing, here. Megamind would call him, but with the phones bugged and probably now broken…he bites his lip, glares at his plate, and tells himself he's being ridiculous. He's never cared about Christmas before, and he certainly doesn't care about Christmas now. It's just a day like any other day; he doesn't need to talk to Minion today. He can wait for Minion to call him when they both get new phones.

Minion would know how to fix the gooey casserole, and the Lair would be quiet. Less bright. Even the candles on the table seem suddenly over-bright; he bends his head to shut them out of his line of sight.

This is fine. He's fine. It's just dinner. The turkey is good.

Everyone pauses in their conversations when the doorbell rings. Megamind glances around, momentarily startled out of his growing funk. He might be new to this, but he's pretty sure nobody rings doorbells at dinnertime on Christmas Day. Only Roxanne's younger cousins look confused; did Megamind miss something earlier? For a brief, fleeting second, he thinks, Santa Claus, but not seriously.

"Lor, can you get that? You're closest," Irma says, and Lorena nods and pushes her chair back. She's on the end of the long table; it's easier for her to get out of her chair than it would be for anyone else.

"Are we expecting more people?" Megamind asks Drew quietly, but Drew just shrugs and doesn't look up from his plate. Megamind turns and quirks a questioning eyebrow at Roxanne, who gazes back at him with wide-eyed innocence. Hesitant, he glances across the table at Linda, but her expression is almost identical to her daughter's, which is disconcerting, to say the least.

There's a shocked yelp from the foyer that quickly turns into the kind of greeting offered by someone desperate not to sound impolite but too startled for the attempt to really be successful. And then there's a high, uncertain tenor asking if this is the right house, Um, hello, is this the Ritchi residence? and Megamind twists in his seat and stares at the hallway, because no. No way. But his view of the entryway is obscured, and he can't tell for sure…

He glances suspiciously at Roxanne, finds her grinning so wide it almost splits her face in half. "Well," she says, putting her fork down. "I wonder who that could be."

Drew snorts into his glass of cider on Megamind's other side.

Several thoughts flash through Megamind's head at roughly the same time—How, and no way, and did she conspire, and how?

Then Lorena's voice trails back to them, still sounding totally stunned, "And you…are…?" From her shift in tone, it sounds like there are two people at the door, which answers the "how" and that means one of them can absolutely be Minion.

Megamind is out of his seat like a shot, heedless of his aching feet, going from sitting to running so quickly that his chair almost falls over backwards—

—and yes there's the gorilla exosuit and yes there's Minion wearing his I'm-friendly-I-promise face and looking terribly awkward, but as soon as he sees Megamind, he's wreathed in smiles. That's about all Megamind sees before he leaps out of his dead run to throw both arms around his dome. Minion catches him—of course Minion catches him and squeezes him up into a big furry hug.

Megamind's eyes are squinched very tightly closed because otherwise he's going to start crying and it won't be pretty. "Minion," he says, but the rest comes out in mostly fragments. "Minion, what are you—why are you, what are you doing here—what were you thinking coming all this way—God, I've missed you. What were you thinking—?"

"Merry Christmas, Sir," Minion chuckles as Megamind rants nonsense at him and rubs the side of his head against the glass, presses both hands flat against it, fingers splayed. "Surprise!"

"You made it!" Roxanne's voice exclaims from over Megamind's shoulder. "Wow, you guys made pretty good time."

"Hi, Miss Ritchi!" His wide smile is as toothy as ever, if somewhat nervous when Roxanne's unexpectedly numerous relations follow her out of the dining area. "I…I really do hope it's not too much of an imposition."

He's already reaching for her, though, and Megamind hooks one foot in Minion's side and extends a hand to her almost on reflex. "Oh, lord, no, you're not imposing, Minion!" She grabs their wrists and steps up on Minion's other side so she can hold onto him with one arm and Megamind with the other. "We missed you like crazy, we both wanted to see you." She squeezes his dome, presses a quick kiss to the glass and then laughs and buffs the mark off with the sleeve of her sweater when he wrinkles his face good-naturedly at her.

He sinks and locks into his center of gravity so that he can wrap his arms around both bipeds and hug them as hard as he dares. "Still," he mumbles, his little face mashed up against the glass, "we need to apologize to your mother for dropping in unannounced."

"I talked to my folks before dinner, Minion," Roxanne assures him. "You're not unannounced. It's fine, really."

"I have the best friends," Megamind announces into Minion's shoulder. The rest of the family might as well not even exist, as far as he's concerned. "I…you both—all of you, how many of you knew about this? I can't believe you did this. Oh!" A thought occurs. "Minion, Minion, put me down, I have to—put me down right now—"

He drops to the floor and immediately whirls and launches himself at the other surprise guest, a tall man standing awkwardly in the doorway with his feet on the ground. "You—flew—twenty-three hundred miles carrying a half-ton mechanical gorilla—you absolute lunatic—"

"Whoa, take it easy, little buddy!" Wayne has to crouch to catch him, but he's wearing a sheepish kind of grin anyway, blinking at the odd display of gratitude from the normally-prickly smaller alien. "It was no trouble." Maybe someday he'll stop being surprised at how very physical Megamind can be, but considering their extensive history with each other, that day is probably very far away.

Megamind wiggles to the floor after a few seconds, looking like he's too pleased to bother being at all self-conscious. "You can't hyper-accelerate water; you flew here in real time, didn't you?"

Wayne grins and shrugs, stays low so his friend won't get a crick in his neck from looking up at him. "We came down between the continental polar and tropical air masses. There wasn't much to fly against. It didn't take long."

"It took six hours," Minion chimes in. "The heater in my tank blew out over Utah so we had to drop to five thousand feet instead of thirty, or we'd have been here even sooner."

Megamind spins, suddenly wide-eyed. "Your heater's out? Are you okay?"

Minion gives him a thumbs-up. "I'll be fine now that I'm inside, Sir, never you worry," he says reassuringly, but Megamind's not having it.

"No. Unlock your knees and bring the suit down to maintenance level."

Minion looks mortified. "But Sir…!"

"I'm warm, Minion, you can sit with me at dinner while Megamind tinkers with your suit," Roxanne tells him.

"I can produce my own body heat," Minion grumbles, but he's already piloting the exosuit into a sort of all-fours crouch, knuckles to the ground.

And that's when Linda finally steps forward, leaning heavily on her cane.

"It's…good to meet you, Minion," she says, and she only sounds a little stiff. "I'm glad you could make it down for a little while. Welcome."

Minion gapes at her, then bares all his teeth in a surprised smile. "You must be Mrs. Ritchi! Thank you for having us, I…I apologize for the sudden change of plans."

Linda nods. "This is my husband, Orson; my brother and sister-in-law, Eric and Irma; and their children, Lorena, Raj, and Nadine. And my son, Drew."

"Pleased to meet all of you," Minion stammers, and is momentarily overwhelmed by a chorus of various similar greetings before Drew brushes easily past his mother and sticks out a hand.

"Oh, the pleasure's entirely mine," he says, grinning.

"Um. Hello," Minion says, taken aback but accepting the proffered handshake before he locks his suit down. "Yes, I'm, um, Minion, and this is Ben. He's a…a friend."

"Hey," says Wayne, beaming a snaggle-toothed smile and waving.

"C'mere, you," Roxanne says, pulling him into a hug. When she steps back, she swats Megamind's arm and hisses, "You gave him wonky teeth?"

Megamind's expressive face shows an odd blend of hurt and amusement as he prepares to detach the dome from the rest of the exosuit. "The toothpaste ad version is supposed to be dead, remember?" he whispers back.

Wayne steps forward to greet Linda and Orson, shaking their hands. Linda motions him to follow her back to the table, and it doesn't take any kind of super sense to see that she's limping in both hips, but she also adds that she'll have Orson bring in a couple more chairs from the garage. Orson grumbles a bit, but disappears down the hall.

"Thank you," Wayne says, with real gratitude, as Linda slowly sits back down. "Ma'am, I really am awfully sorry to barge in on you folks on Christmas. Thanks for being so good about this. My little buddy called this morning and he sounded all kinds of homesick and worked-up about…well, a lot of stuff, really, and I thought…"

"You thought flying his friend halfway across the United States would be the best way to fix some of the bullshit in his head," Linda says flatly. She does keep her voice down, though; people are starting to trickle back to the table. Roxanne is carrying Minion in both hands—he's a lot bigger than Linda had thought he'd be. "Well…you probably weren't wrong. And don't 'ma'am' me, Wayne," she adds in an undertone, "it's just Linda, you know that. It's good to see you on your feet." Then she leans back, quirks a grin at him that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Someone's feet, anyway."

Wayne chuckles and glances down at himself. "They might as well be mine," he replies. "Bennie's an amalgam of a bunch of different people with roughly this body type. Megs is good with his…Photoshop, I guess? I don't really understand it."

Linda snorts and shakes her head, passes him a bowl of green bean casserole and a plate. "Megs," she echoes. "He sent you a fruit basket, he said?"

Wayne laughs at that. "He didn't send it to me, he knows that'd be a waste—I hate fruit, always have." He shakes his head, grinning. "No, he had it delivered to the community kitchen where I volunteer. Thing was about the size of a Volkswagon. Seriously, we get kids there who could use it as a rowboat."

Orson, sitting back down after having returned with the extra chairs, cocks his head. "We're talking about the fruit basket?" he asks. "He said earlier, it went to a soup kitchen?"

Wayne shrugs. "It was a gag gift, of course, but it'll sure be appreciated."

"Huh." Orson and Linda exchange glances. "I figured he was joking about that part."

"He tends to downplay it when he does good stuff," Wayne admits. "He doesn't like being thanked. I keep telling him, it's good for publicity, but does he listen? No. He does not."

Megamind's voice comes sing-songing from the foyer where he's tinkering with Minion's suit. "I can heeear youuu!"

"Yeah, I'm destroying your reputation," Wayne says loudly over his shoulder. He rolls his eyes. "He's got good ears. I tend to forget that."

"Good god, I still have a reputation?" There's a clink, followed by an intense, rhythmic whooshing noise. "Hah. Destroy away, I've moved on."

Wayne cocks a half-smile at Linda. "He's also a terrible liar."

"No, I'm just generally terrible," Megamind yells back. "Did you guys bring any brainbots?"

"They're dehydrated in the storage compartment in my left thigh, Sir," Minion calls, and Roxanne rubs the side of his dome, which is upended in her lap. The membrane that usually covers the bottom of the dome has been cut away—there are always a few spares in one of the suit's many hidden compartments—so he'll be able to eat. The membrane will be replaced once the suit's heater is back up and running, but for now, Minion will sit with Roxanne dropping him pieces of turkey. He chafes a bit at his lack of autonomy, but it won't be for very long and it'll be better than shivering. At least Megamind had remembered to clip the portable speaker and microphone setup to the rim of the dome so he can interact with people outside the water.

Nadine leans to peer around Roxanne. "I thought you said you have your own body heat," she says, curious. "Why do you need a heater?"

Minion blinks at her, unused to being addressed so casually by anyone so young. He understands curiosity and he's used to being gawked at, but usually it's because of what he looks like rather than because someone is wondering about his ideal environmental conditions. He shakes himself, recovers as best he can. "I…um. You've been swimming?" he asks carefully. "Miss…?"

"Nadine," she says. "Yes, I love the pool."

"W-well, Miss Nadine, do you get cold sometimes when you've been in the pool for a while?" Minion honestly isn't sure. He assumes she would, but humans are strange in a multitude of ways and they're surprisingly well-adapted for submersion considering their arboreal heritage. But Nadine nods, to his relief. "It's the same for me," he says. "I get cold, too."

"Why…" she begins, but then she falters, glancing at someone further down the table. Minion can't make out what's being said over the rise-and-fall of background conversations, but he has the impression that somebody is telling her not to bother him.

He raises his eyebrows, trying to look as friendly and encouraging as possible. "It's okay, I don't mind answering questions," he says. This never happens, he never gets questions from people who aren't Megamind or Roxanne. Or, recently, Wayne. Mostly he gets ignored. "Go ahead. Really."

"Why does water make you cold?" she asks. "I mean…generally?"

That wasn't the sort of question he'd expected, and he fumbles for a moment, unsure at first about how in-depth he should go. On one hand, interaction! On the other hand, Nadine looks young, probably not even a teenager. Megamind would have been fine with the full explanation well before he was three, but Megamind is not a good basis for comparison. "Um," he says slowly, "it…it comes down to the basic idea that if something cold and something hot touch each other, the heat will go into the cold thing until both things are the same temperature. S-Sort of. Water needs a lot of heat before it gets hot, so your body can't produce heat fast enough. So the water makes you feel cold."

"Because the heat is leaving me faster than I can put it back," Nadine says. "Oh. That makes sense. And it's the same for you? But you're a—"

She glances up, distracted by something, and Wayne's slightly-raised voice cuts in for a moment. "Not a fish," he says. Minion can't see him, but he hears him, even over the background din. Gratitude, he tells himself, is an absurd thing to feel, just for someone pointing out what he is instead of leaving him to explain it all over again.

Nadine pauses, then studies him for a moment with her head on one side. For a moment, Minion thinks she'll push back, or ask, but then she carefully says, "—Aquatic?"

Minion gives her a wide smile and decides he likes her, and makes a mental note to thank Wayne, later. "The oceans and lakes on my planet were much warmer than those here, Miss Nadine," he says. "My planet was more geologically active; I would have been fine there. Volcanoes," he adds, when she looks quizzical. "We had warmer water."

The water in his dome rocks him a little, making him look up. Roxanne is grinning down at him and poking at a piece of floating turkey. "Minion, for heaven's sake, eat it before it gets waterlogged," she says. "Not that this isn't fascinating, but you do need to eat. White or dark meat?"

"Um," he says. "D-dark, I suppose. Please."

Roxanne passes him a couple pieces, but then she glances up across the table. "Hey, Mom, you still have that bag with the heart and liver and gizzard and stuff? Did you have plans for those?"

"Nothing specific," Linda replies, after only a slight hesitation. She sounds mostly surprised, but Minion can't see her face; all he has to go on is tone. "He's welcome to them, they're in the fridge." And then, to Minion's intense astonishment, she adds, "Give him the neck, too, if he wants it."

Roxanne looks back down. "How about it, Minion? They aren't cooked. The turkey neck has bones you can crunch on."

If Minion could have drooled, he probably would have embarrassed himself. But what he says is, "I'm…I'm all right, Miss Ritchi, really." Then, when she frowns at him, "You don't have to. I'm…I don't want to be gruesome."

Roxanne's frown turns into a smirk and she shakes her head at him. "Oh, stop. I'm gonna give you to Drew for a minute, okay?"

"O…okay?" Minion flares his fins, startled. "But…"

She pauses. "If you really don't want to, that's fine," she says. "But we'll have you hooked back into your filtration system in no time, and anybody who's bothered doesn't have to look."

Minion hesitates for another second or so. Maybe he'd feel differently if he were still in his suit, instead of trapped in his bowl, but being seen eating the kind of raw food he prefers…well, it usually doesn't help how he's perceived. Roxanne knows he isn't an animal; she's always known that. She's always been good about that. But the others? Lorena had known he was coming, and still backed away from him when she'd opened the door.

"Hey, 'gruesome' rhymes with 'awesome.'" Drew's voice makes him look around. Roxanne's tall brother shrugs, grinning. "Just saying."

Then again, the only person here whose opinion matters to him at all is Roxanne's. "It doesn't rhyme very well," he says, "but…thank you. Pre-cooked turkey sounds…nice."

Roxanne sends him a reassuring smile, and Drew just laughs and says, "Fair enough!" as he takes the heavy bowl of water and steadies it in his lap. He moves his beard over his shoulder so it won't drag in Minion's water. "I'm a drummer, not a poet. Green bean?"

"Oh—no. Thank you."

"Hi," says Raj, leaning forward to wave at Minion from Nadine's other side. "I'm Raj. How hard can you bite stuff? Are your spines poisonous? Do you like Black Sabbath?"

"Um," Minion says again, and thinks that, while this is pleasant enough, he's starting to see why Megamind had been so unsettled on the occasions that they'd talked on the phone.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Roxanne retrieves the turkey organs from the fridge, but before going back to the table, she swings over to where Megamind is working with a soldering iron and a roll of electrical tape in the entryway. The odd combination of clothes he was wearing earlier has been swapped out for something he doesn't mind getting grubby: a pair of jeans and a tee shirt with the collar cut out of it so he can get his head through. It's a good thing he'd changed; the oil-dark smudges staining his hands and arms haven't missed his shirt. His beard is mussed, and one eyebrow is fluffier than he usually likes to keep them. He looks happy as a clam.

She grins at him. "Paisley not working for you?"

He gives a quick shrug. "Just made me feel silly," he says. "It was worth a try." He steps back a little to survey his work, scrubbing his wrist against his forehead and then hooking his fingers on his shoulder as he drops his arm, leaving brand-new black streaks on his face and neck. Roxanne chuckles.

"My grease-monkey boyfriend," she says fondly, stepping close and scritching her fingers at the base of his spine.

He hums at her and wriggles his shoulders, pleased at the attention. "You're the monkey. I don't share a common ancestor with anything on Earth."

"Well, if we're being technical, I'm an ape," she returns. "Not a monkey."

"Semantics," he replies airly, but she just snorts and pokes him in the side. He only says that when she's right.

Then she yelps and has to perform an odd little dance to try and catch his hands—he's turned towards her and gone to put them on her waist, but the oil will ruin her sweater if he succeeds. Megamind yanks his hands back, disgusted, when she accidentally hits him with a ziplock baggie full of squishy turkey viscera.

"What in the name of the higgs boson are you doing with those?" he asks, and then answers his own question with, "Ah. Minion. Right."

"How's his suit coming?" She cranes her head around to look into the open cavity of Minion's chest, but this isn't something she's familiar with. "Did you figure out what was wrong?"

"It's an old suit; some of the insulating material in his heating system is cracking where it's connected." He gestures at some offending wires. "It was bound to happen eventually, but I imagine the temperatures at such a high altitude were what caused it to become a problem." He bends down, comes up twirling a roll of black tape around one long, blue finger and smiling. "Nothing some solder, wire strippers, and electrical tape can't fix! I'm nearly done."

Relieved, she smiles back. "Good. Just make sure you wash up before coming back to the table, okay?"

He wrinkles his nose. "Do I have to? I want to see Minion."

"I know, but the tablecloth came from Great-Grandmother Sigranes and my dad will kill you if you get grease stains on it. Sorry, hon." She darts forward and kisses his cheek before he can protest further. "There's some lighter fluid out by the smoker; you can use it to get the oil off. I love you."

"Roxanne," he calls her back as she starts to turn, "I…where is everyone going to sleep?" She looks back and cocks her head at him. "Eric and Irma live in Nevada, you said. They can't possibly drive all the way back tonight."

"No," she says slowly, looking quizzical, "Drew's going home. My aunt and uncle will stay in his room, the kids will have air mattresses and fight over the sofa. Wayne can sleep in the den. I thought Minion would stay in our room, unless he'd prefer something else." She smiles again. "Nobody's left out, don't worry."

She turns to leave a second time; a second time, Megamind calls her back. "Солнышко моё, when did you know Minion was coming?"

Now, she turns fully back around, smiling at her success in surprising him. "Wayne called me this morning," she says. "Said he'd talked to you and you were bugging out. Said he was worried. He'd talked to Minion, and Minion mentioned wishing he could be here, with us, and…" She shrugs. "He'd had an idea."

Megamind straightens, his own smile fading somewhat. What else did he tell you? he wants to ask, but Minion's suit is right there (if his phone is bugged, then who even knows about Minion's suit), and Roxanne will want to investigate, and…

She puts her head on one side. "What's that face?"

"Nothing," he says, and smiles again so that his mouth won't pull down at the corners and give him away. "This was…this was the best surprise ever. You're amazing."

She looks at him for a long moment, then grins. "Yeah, I am," she agrees. "Never thought I'd find such an amazing boyfriend, though. I totally lucked out."

Megamind's smile relaxes a bit. "I love you," he says. Words have probably never failed so completely to describe an emotion.

"I love you," she replies. "What does it mean? That thing you're always calling me. Sol…solen…"

He huffs an embarrassed laugh, looks down at his hands. Glances back up at her. Shakes his head, still half-laughing; he can't. Not right now.

"Come on," she presses, quirking the little twisty smile he loves so much. It makes the corners of her eyes crinkle. "Tell me."

"Later," he tells her, swallowing. "Later. I promise."

"I'll hold you to that!" She ducks her head forward and kisses him quickly on the mouth, then steps back. "Finish up with Minion's suit, get cleaned up, get him hooked in. And then come on back to the table, you're missing Christmas."