December 17th— the first day of Saturnalia, an ancient Roman festival during which gifts were given and ordinary social norms were overturned.

"It's your birthday, isn't it?" Roxan—Miss Ritchi says, interrupting Megamind's painstakingly rehearsed monologue about the (carefully designed and extensively safety-tested) mechanized whirling vortex of blades with which he is attempting, unsuccessfully, to menace her.

He loses his place in his prepared speech, stuttering ignominiously to silence, his fingers clutching the edges of his cape (a stupid, nervous habit; he's tried so hard to rid himself of it—)

"—w-what?" he says, hating himself for the way his voice trembles on the word, hating himself for the way he can feel heat flooding his face.

(at least he hasn't started the broadcast yet; at least it's only Ro—Miss Ritchi here, witnessing him like this. although that's not really much comfort; he'd rather look like an idiot in front of the entire city than in front of her, but—)

"Today," Roxanne says, eyes on his face, "it's your birthday, isn't it?"

He stares at her. His first impulse is to deny it; he doesn't quite know why. It shouldn't matter, her knowing; it doesn't matter; of course it doesn't—but it makes him feel, somehow, very terribly exposed.

"Why do you know that?" he blurts out instead.

"I—" Roxanne hesitates for an almost imperceptible moment, "I got curious," she said. "I charted out the dates of all the times you've kidnapped me over the years—"

Megamind blinks. Why would she…?

"—and I noticed that you always kidnap me on December seventeenth," Roxanne continues, "and since most of your other annual kidnappings happen on holidays, I started wondering if maybe this was your birthday. It is?"

There is a silence.

"—yes."

The word falls between them, quiet and unequivocal, like the proverbial pin dropping into the silence.

Megamind winces, regretting saying it already, waiting for her to ask the next, obvious question: why do you kidnap me every year on your birthday; Megamind; is it because you have some sort of sick fascination with me, you disgusting alien freak—

"Do you, um," Roxanne clears her throat, "—do you and Minion—celebrate?"

Megamind stares at her, fingers moving nervously on the edge of his cape now. What is happening with this conversation? Why is this conversation happening at all? She can't possibly care about the answer; why is she asking the question—

"No," he says.

(Minion knows Megamind doesn't feel much like celebrating anything, pretty much the whole month of December. Megamind has always felt guilty about that: the screaming black despair that hits him every winter, without fail—it's not like it wasn't Minion's planet, too, and Minion copes all right; he gets a little melancholy around the actual date, but if it wasn't for Megamind and his inability to function like a rational being, Minion would be able to enjoy the general atmosphere of festivity and christmas and—everything. Instead of trying to make sure Megamind doesn't have another breakdown.)

"—no, we don't really celebrate," he says.

"—oh," Roxanne says, a tone in her voice that he can't place—disapproval? disappointment?

Megamind realizes that his fingers are playing with the edge of his cape and balls his hands into fists to force them still.

"Why?" he asks, half-defiantly, ready for some sort of attack or criticism from her, wondering what kind of insult she's going to spin around his birthday, around his not celebrating his birthday.

(a joke about how he's never managed to accomplish anything at his age? a comment about him not celebrating because he doesn't have anyone to invite to any party he might have? a—)

"I—" Roxanne glances away from him for a moment, looks back into his face, "well—I was. Wondering if you—wanted to. Celebrate. With—with me?"

Her eyes dart away from his; she gives a strange-sounding laugh.

"I mean—I'm here…on your birthday. You always—I'm always—with you. On your birthday. So I thought maybe that—was something—you might want to…I don't know."

She's looking at the floor now. Megamind realizes, distantly, that he has stopped breathing. He waits—for her to say something else, for her to look up, for her to laugh and say she was joking. She doesn't, though. She just stares at the floor—

He needs to see her face. He needs to see her expression, needs to see—

Megamind moves toward her, stops in front of her. She doesn't look up—he should put his hand under her chin, should force her to look up, should make her look at him.

He drops into a crouch in front of her instead, looks hard into her face. She meets his eyes, biting her lip, her cheeks a little flushed.

(why? why is she blushing? there has to be a reason, and it has to be an involuntary reaction; people can't blush deliberately, can they?)

(why would she ask him that? Why?)

He bites down on the inside of his cheek, thoughts clicking into place. Logically—logically, there are two possibilities: either she has figured out that he is desperately, hopelessly, pathetically in love with her, and this is a conversational trap, her playing with him until she's ready to reveal her knowledge and crush him…or she is really, honestly asking because she's—interested in celebrating his birthday with him?

(two possibilities, and neither makes sense; the latter is flatly impossible, but the former doesn't fit at all with Roxanne's character—she is certainly capable of cruelty, but when she wants to hurt, she strikes quick and sudden: a thrust to the heart, not a slow, drawn-out torment.)

Two possibilities—

Oh, to hell with it, Megamind decides, biting down harder on the inside of his cheek, tasting blood. If it's the first option, then he's lost already and there's no point in trying to salvage the situation. The worst has already occurred.

He feels almost cheerful about that, really—a dark, hurtful sort of cheer, but a cheer nevertheless, and—

And if it's the other possibility

(which it isn't)

(of course it isn't)

(it isn't)

He's not going to delude himself with false hope; he is not hoping; he will not allow it—his racing heartbeat and the twisting, fluttering feeling in the pit of his stomach are meaningless and not indicative of hope—

—but if it is the other possibility—

Well. He's not going to miss his one and only chance, however remote and impossible, of Roxanne voluntarily allowing him to be in her presence.

Yes, to hell with it. To hell with everything.

"Yes," Megamind says, looking up into Roxanne's face and not looking away, "yes, I would like that."

...to be continued.

notes: Written for Megamind Week on tumblr. (I go by setepenre-set there; you are all welcome to check it out. The tag for megamind week is 'megaminddays'.)

Megamind Week starts December 17th and ends December 23rd, with a bonus day on the 24th. Today's prompt is 'birthday'. I'm going to try to have a chapter of this story up every day for Megamind week.

I hope you all enjoyed the chapter!