Author's Note: Okay, so, I kind of sort of maybe felt a little bit bad for making so many of my reviewers so sad with this fic. The prompt got me thinking about what would happen if nobody in the Megamind verse ever really chose their own paths, and just kept going on the road that 'destiny' had stuck them on. As a standalone I think the first chapter of this fic does a good job of rolling with that idea. However, I also like happy endings, too. In my mind the movie is the happy ending. Alternatively, there's this, for everyone who requested/suggested something a bit less depressing.

Behold! My glorious cop-out!

Roxanne's fingers are going numb. Her face is hot from crying, though, and as she comes out of the wave of tears, she starts to notice the dissonant sensations. The ground is hard against her knees. She swallows, fishing through her purse for some Kleenex to mop up her streaked mascara and wet cheeks with. She can't find any. Stupid. Who comes to cemetery and forgets to bring tissues? It's not like she couldn't have foreseen being a bit sad, here, though the depth of that sadness surprises her.

A shadow falls over her shoulder. Roxanne swallows, and glances up. She's exhausted too much emotion to bother feeling embarrassed as she realizes that the silver-haired man hadn't actually left. He must have walked away and turned back, because he's staring down at her now, a hard line running between his brows. One of his hands is extended, a plain white handkerchief proffered towards her by the tips of his fingers.

"Thank you," Roxanne manages, accepting it, and scrubbing carefully at her cheeks.

The man nods.

Carefully, she pulls herself back up to her feet, and when she's done, goes to hand it back to him. He hesitates for a moment. Then he takes it, their fingers brushing briefly.

"He's not worth crying over," he says to her.

Roxanne blanches. Her hands clench unconsciously into fists, and she looks away, her eyes flitting over the letters on the grave marker again. "Obviously, I beg to differ," she replies. With a curt nod, she goes to stride past him.

His hand on her arm stops her. She glares, and he lets go straight away, raising his hands in unconsciously placating gesture. "I meant no offense," he tells her. "I'm just… surprised, I suppose. He never did anything good with his life. Never helped anyone, even though he could have, never thought of people other than himself. That's not the kind of man you mourn for. Villains don't get funerals when they're gone. They just get boxes, if they're lucky, with their names carved on the front."

Something about his tone makes her pause. He's not quite looking at her, although every now and then his gaze flits to her face. His back ramrod straight, one hand tucked into the pocket of his pants, and his green eyes seem lost and a little distant as they stare at the grass.

"Who cares?" she wonders. He stiffens. Freezes, like he's standing on the edge of something, bracing himself for a fall. "You call him a villain like it's that simple. I don't know if it is or if it isn't, but I believe that every person has some good in them. He had good in him."

The man snorts. "I never saw it."

Roxanne shrugs, her eyes hard. "Then you never knew him," she decides. That seems like it would be a good note to exit on. Dramatic, tense. He would have approved, she thinks, as she pulls her chin up, straightens her purse strap, and starts walking. She gets a fair way before the man calls out to her again.

"Wait!" he asks, extending one hand towards her.

For some reason, she waits.

"If I were to want to talk to you…"

Her muscles freeze up, her eyes widening a little bit. She dares a glance over her shoulder. The coincidence strikes her all at once, uncanny and surreal, and for a few moments she's back in the old invisible car, brandishing a shoe in one hand and gripping a door handle in the other. The silver-haired man is staring at her. Steady, but with just a hint of nervousness around his eyes.

"…without kidnapping you…"

Her feet are moving of their own accord, taking her back towards him.

"Why would I want to talk to you?" she asks automatically, her voice breathless. She thought that she was all cried out, but there are more tears, now, burning as they fall. It can't be. But somehow, she knows it is.

The man shifts, lifting up his wrist, raising one hand to the face of his watch. "I honestly don't know," he admits. Then he twists a small dial, and his image shifts, blurs, distorts, until she finds herself standing in front of a haggard blue figure. He's dressed in simple black slacks and a jacket, gloves over both of his hands, the scar across his skull faded and dark, the lines of his face etched deeply into the sharp curves and shadows. There's a small, flat piece of metal pressed against one of his temples, attached to the skin. He looks shorter than she remembers. He must have stopped putting lifts in his shoes.

Roxanne takes one step. Then another. Then she grabs him, not bothering to over-think it, and he's stiff as a board as she flings her arms around his shoulders and clutches the back of his coat. Warm metal grazes her cheek and ear. You're alive, she thinks, because her voice doesn't seem to be working. Alive, alive, alive!

A small eternity passes. Just as she realizes that she's not being embraced back, just as she's starting to wonder if she overdid it – not that she cares at this point – a pair of arms close around her. Gingerly, almost skittishly at first. Then with more confidence, the warmth sinking in from them, his face resting alongside her neck. Something damp starts to sink into her shoulder. Questions of how and why skitter across her mind, but they almost seem meaningless, small and unimportant in that moment. There's shock layered over relief to drown them out.

They can talk later. They can talk later, and the very fact of that is so glorious, she decides, that there's no reason to bother talking now.