It's the box that gives Megamind the idea.

The night before Valentine's Day, he and Minion rob every single jewelry story, chocolate shop, and florist in town. This sort of petty crime is beneath Megamind, usually, but he's been feeling…off…since—since Halloween, at least?

Usually Megamind quite likes that particular human holiday—dark colors and candy and the celebration of, at least, the pretense of wickedness. Some of his best schemes have been on Halloween. He's particularly proud of the year he set up a low-level thought-alteration beam that left half of the population convinced that they were whatever creatures of the night they had chosen to dress themselves up as. That had been funny.

(And not at all derivative or based off of that one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Miss Ritchi! I have no idea what you are talking about at all! I've never even seen an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, even! I in no way cried tears of pain when the shiny, smart-mouthed heroine rejected the romantic overtures of the evil, eyeliner-and-leather-wearing bad guy who was desperately in love with her! I've never even heard of Buffy the Vampire Slayer! What is this Buffy the Vampire Slayer you speak of, Miss Ritchi?)

This year, he hadn't been feeling as creative as usual.

The week before Halloween, Psycho Delic released a hallucinogenic gas in the middle of the south end of Metrocity that left all of the residents of two blocks of government housing screaming in terror at giant invisible spiders, shadowy creatures ready to eat their faces, and nonexistent rivers of blood running through the streets.

Metro Man had been close to useless in the crisis, too busy trying to keep the denizens of Metrocity from harming themselves and each other to locate Psycho or come up with a way to get rid of the gas. Megamind had done that himself. The south side is his territory; threats to it by other villains are not to be tolerated.

(He rather suspects that Psycho's attack had been aimed at him; the bastard is always looking for a mix of chemicals that would get past Megamind's natural immunity to his smoke.)

Roxanne had been there. She'd come to report after the first gas strike, and then she'd gotten caught in the second wave of smoke.

Megamind had seen her, in the haze of hallucinogenic purple fog. He'd grabbed her elbow, spun her around, intending to pull her away from the crowd, from the panic and the danger.

He'd turned her around and she'd—

—she'd—

—she'd screamed, when she saw him.

She'd looked at him, looked into his face, and she'd screamed in terror and—

It had—it had hurt.

Megamind was always trying to get Roxanne to scream for him, but this—

She'd looked at him like he was a monster.

Metro Man had come flying in at that point, and Megamind had shoved Roxanne into his arms, hissing at him to get her out of here get her out of here right now and then Megamind gone to track down Psycho fucking Delic and demonstrate exactly why it was inadfuckingvisable for inferior fucking villains to cross the Master of All Motherfucking Villiany, Roxanne's screams echoing in his ears, and—

Well.

It had been a bit hard to get into the Halloween spirit after that.

He'd scrapped the plan he'd originally come up with (sonic helmet allowing him to control the vampire bat population of Metrocity) and gone with a standard giant-robot-with-lasers-and-spikes (Roxanne had seen that one enough that it definitely wouldn't—definitely wouldn't scare her) and tried to keep his interactions with Roxanne to a minimum.

But of course he hadn't really been able to help himself, hadn't been able to stop himself from attempting to find out if she was completely recovered from the smoke, hadn't been able to stop himself from complimenting her choice of Halloween costume (a fucking Starfleet miniskirt uniform how the hell was he supposed to—he wasn't made of stone)—

—hadn't, when she made a quip about every day being Halloween for him, been able to stop himself—

(Roxanne screaming in terror, looking at him like he was a monster)

—from flinching.

She'd said something about his clothes after that, but Megamind hadn't really been listening, had turned away to fiddle pointlessly with the knobs and buttons on the console, had ended up powering the robot down accidentally in his distraction, and Metro Man had, consequently, been able to arrive early, knock Megamind around a bit, and then drag him away to prison, hooray, the evil monster is gone, Miss Ritchi, you're safe now.

And things just didn't get any better after that.

Roxanne has a standing date with metro Man every Thanksgiving, which she never makes because Megamind always kidnaps her instead. But this year, when he climbed up to her balcony, when he slipped silently into her apartment, when he stood in her bedroom doorway, can of knock-out spray upraised—

—when he saw her standing at her mirror, wearing in a very flattering red dress, carefully applying her makeup, primping for a nice day with her boyfriend and his family, he thought she deserves to have something good without you ruining it with your fucking presence, just this one goddamn time, you fucking—

And he'd slipped back out of her apartment instead.

He did kidnap her on his birthday, and then he faked a malfunction of the doomsday device of the day and made her play Clue with him instead: his birthday gift to himself.

(all the time, in the back of his mind, the awareness of she hates you and you're such a joke and she'd be so disgusted if she knew)

And then it was Christmas. Fucking Christmas. The memories of his planet disappearing into nonexistence were bad enough, and then—all of the family! hope! love! What was this, some sort of sick game where the world threw everything Megamind would never have in his face over and over again?

He used the freeze-ray for Christmas.

"You look a little cold," Miss Ritchi said, tied to the top of the giant christmas tree in front of City Hall, "I think your lips are turning blue."

And he hadn't been able to think of a single reply that didn't involve pressing his lips against hers.

He didn't, of course. He didn't kiss her then, just as he never kissed her, any of the other thousand times he wanted to. He took a shaky breath and turned away instead.

After that, it was New Years, another year gone, an endless, repetitive round of failure and wanting things he cannot ever have.

And now it's the day before Valentine's Day.

Maybe he should break into all of the drug stores, grocery stores, and hallmark shops, and steal all the cards as well, really make a clean sweep of all things Valentine. Maybe he should cover the street in front of Roxanne's apartment with all of the flowers he's stolen. Yellow roses for friendship, red roses for passion, every single rose in the entire goddamn city for I-love-you-so-much-it-feels-like-dying-Roxanne.

He cringes, stuffing diamonds into a bag, imagining her reaction. Would she laugh? Would she turn away in revulsion? Would she tell him how abhorrent she found him, or would she let her silence speak for her?

There is a small safe, hidden underneath the display case. Megamind, glad of the distraction, drops to the floor and begins to twist the dial with meticulous care, searching for—ah, there it goes.

He opens the safe door. Inside is a tiny white box—the kind a ring comes in. He reaches for it, anticipation lifting his spirits momentarily. Anything this well-hidden has to be very special indeed! He wonders what will be inside—a ring carved out of a single gemstone? Ooh, maybe some sort of antique borgia ring; a hidden catch beneath the stone and a secret compartment for poison! Or maybe—

He opens the box with eager hands and—

It's empty.

And doesn't that just say it all, right there? Metaphor for his entire fucking existence.

An unwilling laugh breaks from Megamind, and then he's collapsing back onto the floor, shaking with laughter.

Because it's laugh or cry at this point, and when it comes down to it, Megamind will pick laughter over tears any day. Besides, it is sort of funny, isn't it? In a terrible kind of way? The hidden safe! The lone, mysterious box! The mounting expectancy! And then—!

It's an empty box! Hidden away for him like some absurd April fool's joke and—

That's when it all comes together. Roxanne. His stupid, unwelcome, ridiculous feelings. The ring box.

April fools.

April is coming up.

This could. This could work. It'll give him a chance to—it'll give him a chance to finally say all of the things he's been wanting to say for so long, finally give him the chance to tell Roxanne how he feels and—

And it'll be okay, because she'll think it's a joke. She'll laugh, maybe, or she'll shout, or roll her eyes, or even throw something at him, but it won't matter, because she won't know that he's serious.

He'll be able to get the desperate, insane hope that maybe she—he'll be able to get it out of his system. And then he'll be able to continue with their normal interactions without feeling that crazy urge to tell her say it just say it.

This has to be the best idea he's ever had.

At first he thinks he should just leave the box empty, just like it was when he found it, but that doesn't seem to be quite—enough? Somehow? So he takes a felt-tipped pen and writes APRIL FOOLS on the satin pillow on the inside of the box. There. That's funnier, right? A better, clearer reveal?

He looks at the empty box and frowns, tapping the pen sharply against his desktop in dissatisfaction.

He wishes—he wishes this was for real.

Of course he fucking wishes it was for real.

He wants to kneel down in front of Roxanne, wants to open the box and watch her face light up with joy, wants to hear her say yes, wants to pick her up and twirl her around, wants to slide the ring onto her finger—

—the ring. He can't picture any of the rest of it very clearly, can't picture her ever, ever saying yes, but he can see the ring quite clearly in his mind.

Simple, graceful lines. Roxanne never wears really showy jewelry. Three stones—lapis lazuli, the color of her eyes, flecked with marks of light like stars in the night sky. And—

He's sketching it out before he realizes it.

This is stupid, he tells himself as he finishes the drawing, as he sketches another design of a ring for himself. It isn't as if he's actually going to make them.

He definitely makes the rings.

So the question is, what is he going to do with these goddamn rings?

to be continued...

(based on a tumblr prompt by Ramendobe)