Roxanne's palm connects with a sharp crack; Megamind's head snaps to the side with the force of the blow, but before Roxanne can feel more than a fleeting sense of satisfaction (she finally managed to work her arms free during a kidnapping, finally managed to—almost—escape), a burst of pain flares across the inside of her wrist. Jesus, she didn't slap him that hard, did she? She didn't want to hurt him, not really, just shock him enough to give her a chance to get away.

But—no—the pain is—more of a burning sensation, heat licking over her skin, and she's made a pained noise and pulled her wrist to her chest before it registers with her that Megamind has made the same sound, and is cradling his own wrist to his chest. Why—

She looks down at her hand—is she bleeding; did she scratch herself on his spikes or something, and sees—

"What." she says flatly. "How is—Megamind, what did you do?"

There's a mark on her wrist; not a scratch or a burn, but something that looks almost like a tattoo: fluid black lines of what appears to be a script of some kind. Roxanne can't read it, but she does recognize the first mark in the series.

It's the M-and-two-lightning-bolts insignia that Megamind uses to mark things as his.

Megamind stares at her, eyes too wide, white showing all around the green of his irises, cradling his own wrist protectively.

"That's not possible," he whispers. "It's not—it's not supposed to be—"

"What the hell is this doing on my wrist?!" Roxanne demands.

She tries wiping the mark away with her other hand (Megamind makes a soft, pained noise at that), and then scrubbing it vigorously on her skirt. This has absolutely no effect; the mark stays where it is.

"Ugh! What is this thing? Get it off of me!"

"Oh, god," Megamind says, sounding as though he's about to be sick. "Oh, god, no. Please, no."

Roxanne looks up at him at that, about to demand to know what's wrong with him, and is hit full in the face by a cloud of knock-out spray.

She wakes up in her apartment, lying on her couch. Someone has stuck a throw-pillow underneath her head.

The mark is still on her wrist.

The mark stays on her wrist. It stays when she scrubs at it with soap and water, when she attacks it with makeup remover, when she pours peroxide over it.

Nothing she does even manages to smudge the firm, flowing black lines and finally Roxanne, frustrated and exhausted, goes to bed.

The mark is still there in the morning. She stares at it for a full minute and a half and then, for lack of a better option, puts on a long-sleeved shirt and goes to work.

She will make Megamind explain this to her when he kidnaps her next, make him take it off of her, make him fix it.

Roxanne wears a lot of long-sleeved shirts over the next two months.

As the days—and then the weeks—begin to go by, and Megamind still doesn't show up, Roxanne goes from merely annoyed, to downright furious, to increasingly alarmed.

He's never gone this long without kidnapping her. She's never gone this long without seeing him. She actually—she misses him, misses his ridiculous theatrics and his stupid evil laugh and the way his eyes light up when he talks about something exciting. She's always said, ever since the beginning, that she just wanted her normal life back, but now—it's like there's a hole in the fabric of Roxanne's reality, an emptiness that—it feels like loss, like—

Roxanne still wants her normal life back, but normal now means spikes and lasers and blue supervillains with smiles as bright as magnesium fire and she wants him back, wants him back right now, wants him—

She doesn't know where he is; Wayne doesn't know where he is (she asks).

Nobody knows where he is.

It's midnight and Roxanne should be sleeping. Instead, she's standing in front of the glass doors that lead out to her balcony, looking out into the dark, at the streetlights and the stars, rubbing her thumb absently over the mark on her wrist.

It's been—hurting, lately, a sort of ache that started in her skin and has since spread into her bones, settling there like cold, like resignation, like the certainty that, somewhere, something awful is happening.

She rubs her thumb back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and then presses her hand to her chest, as though she's trying to put pressure on a wound.

She goes looking for Megamind the next day.

(She thinks she might be feverish; it's summer, the sun is shining, and Roxanne is in long-sleeves, and yet she feels cold, so cold.)

She has no very clear idea of where she should be looking for the Lair, but it's by the water; she knows that much. Roxanne heads for the waterfront and begins wandering. The mark on her wrist aches like frostbite; she covers it with her other hand, clutching at it, shivering.

This way, she thinks, mind all blurred around the edges, and takes a turn down an alleyway seemingly at random. This way. She takes another turn. Here.

She finds herself at a brick wall but somehow the fact that this should pose an obstacle to her doesn't manage to sink into her brain.

Roxanne walks into the wall before it occurs to her that she should stop, and then there isn't any reason to stop, because she's somehow walked through the wall and ended up, as if by magic, exactly where she wants to be.

Here, she thinks, he's here.

She stumbles onwards through the darkened Lair.

She almost cries with relief when she sees him. He's sitting in his chair, looking at a giant screen on which numbers are rapidly scrolling, one hand resting on the keyboard.

Roxanne catches herself against the doorframe, knees going a bit weak, and Megamind looks up and sees her.

"Oh," he says, in a flat voice. "It's you again."

The tone of his voice—Megamind has never spoken to her like that. It's not—

"I'm afraid I still don't have it," he says, already looking at the screen again. "Like I told you last time, though, I'm getting close."

And even Roxanne, disoriented as she is, knows that something here is very wrong.

Still don't have it? she thinks muzzily. Still don't have what? Last time? What last time? When did we talk about this? The last time she remembers talking to Megamind at all is that kidnapping he cut short after the weird mark on Roxanne's wrist appeared.

Roxanne crosses the room to stand beside his chair, leaning against it, one arm on the back.

"What's with the screen?" she asks.

(Megamind will explain this to her; Megamind always explains things to her when she asks; show even the slightest interest in his evil plan and he starts monologuing.)

She looks down at him.

The sweater he has on, an orange-gray thing with ragged sleeves and half its buttons missing, is possibly the ugliest thing Roxanne has ever observed.

He's wearing ordinary clothes; she's never seen him in ordinary clothes before. He's not wearing his cape or his spikes or his high collar, although he is wearing his gloves, fingers of one hand tapping at the keyboard now, the other hand lying like a dead thing on the arm of his chair.

God, he looks—he looks terrible: bruise-like shadows underneath his eyes and in the hollows under his cheekbones, and the way he's holding himself, as if simply existing hurts him almost more than he can bear.

He looks like Roxanne feels.

She's getting dizzy, standing like this, and she wants—

She climbs into his lap, turning herself sideways, her legs over the arm of the chair, one arm around his neck, the other hand on his chest.

"Oh," Megamind says softly, "touching? That's—that's new."

He puts his arms around her easily, though, one curling around her waist, the fingers of his other hand sliding into her hair as though they've done this a thousand times before.

It feels—she feels—

Roxanne feels safe, the terrible cold feeling in her bones finally easing just a little bit beneath the pressure of his hands. She almost gasps in relief with it, and yet—

And yet it is not contentment; she wants to—she wants him closer, closer even than this. She leans against him, pressing her face into his neck, skin to skin and shudders at the sensation and it is still not enough.

The hand in her hair moves to hold the back of her neck and why, why is he wearing gloves?

Megamind is speaking; for several moments she's too caught up in the sound of his voice to understand what he's saying, but then—

"—chemical composition, just has to finish sequencing, and then I'll be able to get rid of it for you," he murmurs, hand in her hair again. "It'll be gone; It'll be gone soon, you don't need to worry—"

Roxanne is just about to ask him what he's talking about when she hears Minion say, in a shocked voice—

"Miss Ritchi?"

Megamind's hand stills in her hair.

"You can see her, too?" he asks, sounding confused. "I thought I was—I thought it was another—she's actually here?"

"Of course I'm here," Roxanne says, hooking her fingers in the collar of his hideous shirt.

Megamind lets go of her like she's made of fire and Roxanne's vision goes gray and starts to tilt.

That, she thinks, her last thought as the dark rises up and blots everything out, that is probably not good.

She wakes up in Megamind's arms again, to the sound of him and Minion arguing.

"—horrible, Sir, how can you even contemplate—it's—that's blasphemy; you can't just break a soulbond—"

"—it's a physiological reaction, Minion! There is a physiological cause and a physiological cure and—"

"—isn't a disease! This is dangerous. You could die and—"

"—humans aren't even meant to bond like this! It's—look at her, it's hurting—"

"—that's because you're being—"

"—she'll be fine when I—"

"—she'll be—? What about you?"

"—said she didn't want—"

Roxanne makes a distressed sound, anger and terror and misery pouring into her body in a way that feels oddly—foreign. As though the emotions aren't coming from her, but from somewhere outside of her.

She hears Megamind's swift intake of breath, feels a sudden spike of that strange, outside-of-herself fear.

"What's happening?" Roxanne asks weakly, sitting up to look around but staying as close to Megamind as she can.

They're in a bedroom, she realizes, on a bed. Are they—is this Megamind's bedroom?

"Nothing," Megamind says, "nothing's happening. Go back to sleep. I'm fixing it."

Roxanne looks into his face.

"Fixing what?" she asks.

He swallows, eyes flickering closed and then opening again.

"The—the mark on your wrist," he says. "It was. The result of—an unfortunate accident."

Roxanne hears Minion make a sound of protest.

"An unfortunate accident," Megamind repeats firmly. "It—the physical contact, when you slapped me, our skin—it allowed for a contamination, an infection, that's why—"

"That is not—" Minion says.

"That is why," Megamind continues loudly, "you've been feeling—ill—lately, because you are ill, but I've found the cure for it, so you don't need to be worried—"

"That is an inaccurate representation of the facts, Sir, and you know it!" Minion cries.

"It's not inaccurate! Humans aren't supposed to have this! What the hell else do you call that but a contamination?"

"I feel cold," Roxanne whispers. "I feel cold again."

Megamind wraps his arms around her and pulls her close and Roxanne moans. He feels—so warm.

"I can fix this," Megamind says. "I'm going to fix this."

Roxanne nuzzles his throat and feels a shock of pleasure run down her spine like lightning.

Oh, she thinks and does it again.

Again that ripple of pleasure and Megamind gasps this time, the way a man coming out of deep water gasps for breath.

Roxanne's tongue goes out to taste his skin, licking up the length of his throat and Megamind moans and suddenly Roxanne's fingers are on the buttons of his shirt, undoing them and shoving the material aside.

"Uh," she hears Minion say, "I'm just gonna—yeah, I'm gonna go now."

And part of Roxanne, a distant part, is appalled that she just started undressing Megamind in front of Minion and part of her is appalled that she's pretty sure she would have continued to do so if Minion hadn't taken it upon himself to leave, but most of her is focused on undoing the damn buttons.

"This is—" Megamind says weakly, "—this is really not what I meant by fixing—this is the opposite of—I have the cure now, the syringe, I can—" he kisses Roxanne, then tears his mouth away from hers. "I can take it now, I can—"

"Or," Roxanne says, unbuckling the clasps of his gloves, "or you could not do that and kiss me again."

She yanks off his gloves and sees—

—on his wrist—

—that's her name.

That's her name, Roxanne Ritchi, black letters written there in her handwriting, and she thinks of the M-and-lightning-bolts symbol on her own wrist, before the alien lettering—his name?

Is it his name, on her wrist?

And she thinks she almost—she almost understands what is happening to her, what is happening between them, what this is—

"Roxanne—" Megamind says, and kisses her again and Roxanne's mind is wiped clean of all thought.

She drags her fingers down his throat and he shudders in pleasure and she feels an echoing jolt of sensation go through her own body and this—this is where the unfamiliar emotions are coming from, isn't it, a strange feedback loop between the two of them.

He pushes her down onto the bed and Roxanne can feel him, his thoughts and feelings humming in the back of her mind, but it's not until later, when they're pressed together, skin to skin, nothing between them, that she feels the connection break wide open and—

—then—

—he's everywhere, above and around and inside of her, their thoughts running together like water, desire and pleasure and love, so much love that Roxanne's mind cannot contain it.

I love you, she thinks as she cries out, as Megamind cries out with her, the whole world bursting into fire and light.

I love you.

She wakes up alone.

She is alone in the bed, and when she reaches for Megamind's presence, for that low hum of his thoughts in the back of her mind—

It's not there. He's not there.

She sits up in bed, looking down at her wrist, and—

The mark is gone.

Megamind's name is gone.

Her wrist is empty.

"No," she whispers. "No no no."

She hears someone make a pained noise from the floor beside the bed and looks down swiftly.

Megamind is slumped bonelessly up against the wall, back in his clothes again.

There's an empty syringe on the floor beside him.

"Oh," he says in a flat voice. "I survived."

Roxanne finds that she is shaking.

"Oh, well," he says, sitting up an wincing. "I suppose Minion will be pleased about that, anyway."

"Megamind," Roxanne says, voice trembling, "what have you done?"

"I fixed it," Megamind tells her, his voice devoid of any inflection whatsoever. "Bond's gone. Check your wrist."

Roxanne looks again at the bare skin of her wrist.

"Mine, too," says Megamind.

He holds up his own hand, tugging up the sleeve of his shirt to show her.

It's blank. Roxanne's name has disappeared.

Oh god. Oh god.

"But," Roxanne whispers, "but we just—how could you when we just—"

Megamind turns his face away from her, mouth in a flat line.

"Yes," he says. "I—apologize. For—that. I should never have—I wasn't thinking clearly—the. The bond, the impetus of the—" He makes a quick slashing gesture. "But of course that's no excuse. Confusion is no—I shouldn't have. I am very sorry, Miss Ritchi."

Roxanne makes an involuntary sound of horror and covers her mouth with both hands.

But I thought you loved me, she wants to say, and presses her palms harder to her lips to hold in the words.

The feedback loop. She'd thought—she'd thought that the love was coming from both of them, but—oh god—it had just been her.

Had his desire even been—the impetus of the bond—wasn't thinking clearly—no, oh no, please no.

He didn't love her. He didn't even want her. She was never going to—she was never going to feel his thoughts again; she was going to be alone forever, inside her own mind, alone—

"Please," Megamind says, standing, a look of distress on his face. "Oh, god, please don't cry."

Roxanne buries her face in her hands, trying to muffle the sobs.

"I'm sorry," he says, "I'm so sorry, so very—I won't ever touch you again, so you don't need to worry about the bond coming—don't need to worry about—I won't ever—I'll stay away from you, I swear; you won't ever have to see me again, Roxanne—"

"Is that," Roxanne manages to say, "supposed to make me feel better?"

"Of course it isn't—enough," he says, "it isn't good enough. I don't. I don't know what you want me to do. I'll do—whatever you want, whatever will make you feel—"

"You don't—have to do anything," Roxanne says, curling up into a ball, fingers tightening in her own hair, trying to hold in her sobbing. "You don't—god, Megamind, you don't owe me anything like—just don't—please just don't act like you expect me to be happy that you—don't want me—" she grits her teeth to keep from wailing. "—when I just—when you know—"

"—wait," Megamind says, "that I don't—? I don't under—I don't understand. What are you—"

"You know how I feel about you!" Roxanne cries, slamming her hands down on the mattress and fixing him with a glare through the tears blurring her eyes. "You felt it! Stop pretending like you didn't! I get that you don't want me and that's—" she drags her hand over her face "—fine! But don't pretend—"

"That wasn't you—" Megamind says, eyes wide. "That wasn't you feeling that. That was all—you don't—you told me you wanted the bond gone!"

"When the hell did I say that?" Roxanne demands, furious and still crying. "Was it during one of your hallucinations?"

"Those are beside the point!" Megamind says. "They happen when I don't sleep at all for more than a week and—you did say it! You said it the day the mark appeared! You said, 'ugh, what is this thing' and you said 'get it off of me' and you tried to wipe it away and—"

"I didn't know what it was!" Roxanne shouts. "You didn't tell me what it was! How the hell was I supposed to—"

"You don't even like me!" Megamind shouts back.

Roxanne's mind goes white with fury. She swings her legs over the side of the bed and stands, not bothering to cover herself with the sheet, not bothering with anything but moving towards Megamind.

A look of alarm flashes over his face; he backs up a handful of steps, but then his back hits the wall. There's nowhere for him to go and Roxanne is right in front of him, blocking him.

"Don't like you?" she repeats, voice low and dangerous. "You fucking idiot."

"You don't," Megamind tells her. "You can't possibly."

"Let me show you," she says, and kisses him.

Fire licks across her wrist and Roxanne licks into Megamind's mouth, feeling the bond flare to life inside of her head. She reaches for the connection and pours as much love as she can through it, directly into his mind.

Megamind makes a noise beneath her mouth and she feels the slow-dawning wonder in his thoughts, feels the moment that he starts to believe her, feels the joy that bursts inside of him, and then a pulse of love singing all along their connection. And it's not an echo of her own feelings—it's from him—he feels it; he feels it, too, and Roxanne lets him push her gently backwards towards the bed again.

Later, she wakes up to find Megamind leaning on one elbow next to her, tracing the lines of his name on her wrist. Roxanne takes his hand and presses a kiss to her own name on his wrist.

Megamind smiles like magnesium fire flaring to life and leans in to kiss her.