trans_9 | And When the Sky Was Opened [open]

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And When the Sky Was Opened [open]

First, he had to hit Engineering to talk to this Billy fellow--and cross his fingers and hope for the best. This wasn't Metrocity, he hadn't saved the day here and worked for the peoples' trust, and while he'd read that Constitution about people not being punished for past crimes that didn't necessarily mean there wouldn't be attitudes of distrust and the like.

There was, of course, the option of lying about his former villainhood, but good guys weren't supposed to do that, right? And with Roxanne not remembering that he'd reformed, all he'd need was for her to mention he was a villain, and then he'd have to explain the whole thing, and then it would get all messy.

It was better people knew ahead of time. It was better that got their judging...thing out of the way ahead of time, especially if he was trying to work under them.

So off to Engineering he went. Now that he was fairly certain he didn't have anyone to intimidate, he wasn't wearing his cape or the collar, hoping to look as normal as possible.

Of course, on the way there, and afterward, he nosed around into many a place on the ship to look around, often blurting out "Incredible!" "Magnificent!" "Do you see that? That is the coolest thing I've ever seen!" and other such exclamations at the wonders he saw. The ship was a beaut, a techno-organic masterpiece!

[ooc: You can catch him poking around just about anywhere on the ship, although his jaunt to Engineering comes first chronologically. Just specify where he ran into your guy.]</font

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"I think they will find you more than qualified." Her words are honest, sincere. "You're brilliant, you'd be an asset, no doubt. I don't think you'll have a problem, regardless of your past." As time passed, she was beginning to see more and more that he really was...different.

She shifts on her feet.

"You've changed - I can see that. If they contact me, I'll be honest, but not purposefully derogatory." She wouldn't screw this up for him.

"Accidentally derogatory is perfectly okay!"

She smiles wryly at him.

"Not derogatory at all. How about that?"

There was a wry smile back.

"That works too."

The smile turns a little softer and she pauses.

"Hey - Do you want to go...get coffee, or something? With me? Now? Unless you're busy." Suddenly flustered, she closes her mouth.

For a moment, he just stared in slackjawed awe.

Then... "Yes!" Okay, dial it down, Megamind. "Yes, I would love to--I would love to go get coffee with you. The Lounge or the Sensoriums? I've found out that they can really approximate anything you want, food-wise, and the scenery is fantastic when you can imagine it into whatever you want it to be--but that really isn't the same as the real thing."

He's rambling a little, and it makes her smile. She had been meaning to do this but had just...not been ready for that yet.

"Either, I guess. The Sensoriums are fine." She gestures, indicating for him to lead the way.

"How about that little cafe on Kirby Street that we went to a few times?"

It was kinda their spot. Or at least if they had a spot, it would've been it.

"That sounds...really nice. Let's do that." She supposed it counted as well as anything -- if they were to have one, that certainly would have been it. Roxanne has a certain mongering for coffee sometimes, and 'Bernard' had to have noticed.

To the Sensoriums they went, and as they walked in, Metro City sprang up around them, and there was Kirby Street, with that little cafe and that shop next door that made the soft pretzels that were pretty much to die for, something the locals pretty much kept a secret from any tourists.

It was odd taking a seat here while looking like himself. The last six months had been busy, with a few villains cropping up and a city to help rebuild. While he'd been able to go about the town with Roxanne as himself for the first time in his life, they hadn't had a chance to come back for a cup of coffee since before the fight with Hal.

"I suppose this is the part, now that the shock has past, where I get grilled with the nosy reporter questions, and we have to try to work through the tremendous awkwardness, isn't it."

It's a little unnerving to see Metro City spring up around her, to see little nooks and crannies that she's all too familiar with replicated in the blink of an eye. It's almost like a tease, to know that it's so easily duplicated when in reality the world itself, her world, her home -- is gone.

She sits across from him, studying him and palms to the table top and fingers splayed flat. It's strange to be seated here like this, in a place that feels so public. Weeks ago, she wouldn't have been caught dead doing something such as this -- he was the villain that had murdered the City's hero, after all.

But it's different now, isn't it? Things are different, and all the rules have changed.

"Not so much nosy reporter questions..." She trails off. "You told me before, on our first day here -- some of the craziest...most nonsensical things I've ever heard, period. I think we need to back up, and just...start some of this over. Start more towards the beginning." She brushes her hair out of her face -- a nervous habit. She leans back, and folds her arms.

"Why were you impersonating Bernard in the first place? At the museum -- that was you."

Great. He knew this was coming. Not reporter questions, oh no, personal ones. But he'd been down this road with Roxanne before, even if this version of her was from before it happened.

Sipping the espresso that appeared on the table, giving himself some time to think, he swallowed and eventually admitted, "I was there to pay my respects."

Honest truth.

"And to blow up the place, of course, but I was starting to regret what--at the time--I thought I'd done. You don't fight someone for years without having your own life influenced somewhat by them, and at the very least, I respected Metro Man for defeating someone who was so clearly his intellectual superior so many times."

He tapped his fingers on the table.

"Of course, then you had to show up, and I couldn't explain why I was there, could I? Admit to having regrets for anything I'd done? So I dehydrated Bernard and took his place to clear you out before the building blew up."

A pause, and then he admitted, embarrassed, "Also, I didn't want you to see me in my evil jim-jams. I hadn't gotten dressed."

You have to admit it, Roxanne, going out to blow up a building in his pajamas was something Megamind would do.

"Pay your respects."

She pressed her cool fingertips to her forehead, trying to soothe the headache that was rapidly approaching.

"So all the way down the elevator -- that was you, not Bernard." Roxanne exhales slowly, trying to process what it is he's telling her.

"And you -- at the lair. That was you too, wasn't it." When she'd seen Megamind and Bernard 'fight'. When she'd hugged him outside, called him partner. Her brow knits and her eyes narrow, but she retains her calm. Also, it's a little hard to be irritated with someone who just confessed they'd dehydrated someone partially because they didn't want you to see them in their pajamas.

Edited 2011-01-18 03:08 (UTC)

More tapping of his fingers.

"Yes. The fake fight with myself, by the way? Very difficult to pull off. I'm still amazed you even bought it."

"So am I," she responded grimly, annoyed at herself even now. She ground her teeth, then looked back up at him, tugging her cup to her.

"Why keep up the facade? Why trick me? Why lie to me? Why not cut it off, when you should have?" She leans back in her chair and looks away, brushing her hair away from her eyes.

"Well, you finding the lair happened, so I put on the disguise then just to throw you off and get you out of there..."

Tap tap tappity tap went his fingers.

His voice was quiet. "And then you hugged me. And said I was your partner."

Her partner in taking down Megamind, oh lord, he realized how idiotic it all was now, but for the end result it brought, he didn't regret it. The only thing he regretted was how Roxanne had been hurt along the way.

Roxanne reaches out to place her hand on top of his, stop the tapping. She doesn't recoil.

"So...you just let it go on." She murmured, more to herself than to him. She finally pulls her hand back, and wraps her fingers around her cup.

"What part of it was true? Was any of it true?" The past few...weeks? Months? She'd been dating someone that she thought she knew, and then in one night, with one kiss - it had all been turning right back upside down.

For the contact--for the fact that she was even willing to make that contact, he was grateful, and he looked it.

"It depends on what it was. The details about my family? Complete lies, most of it. That's why I tried to always steer the subject away so that rather than lying, I just never said anything at all. I didn't actually enjoy lying to you."

A pause. "I am an only child, though." As far as he knows.

"I did grow up in relative solitude." In prison.

"As for all the rest, the things that were--how I felt about certain things, or what opinions I had, or how I saw the world...that was all the truth. Certain stories I told you, they were the truth, though details were changed so I didn't give everything away. Like that bit about being in Bulgaria--rather than my friend Rodney, that was really Minion, and well--"

He bit back a laugh. "The rest of it pretty much happened the same, only the real reason we were there was to do business with a weapons dealer, but actually that makes the story even funnier, because I had to leave out the part where..."

Wait, no, bad timing.

"...Actually, that's another story for another time, but my point, Roxanne, is the person that you got to know is real. And the side that was hidden from you, well you already knew about that part, the villainy. You know both sides of me now, so I suppose...I suppose the difficult part is seeing how they tie together."

Edited 2011-01-18 04:08 (UTC)

By the time he's finished speaking, Roxanne's brow is raised nearly to her hairline. She's itching to ask about that weapons dealer story, pick out the details and knit together the full story--

But, she manages to contain herself and stay on the subject at hand, which was currently her love life, or lack thereof.

"Mmm, that's putting it mildly, yes." Roxanne could easily admit that. She folds her arms and leans back in her chair, giving him a tentative, hesitant smile.

"Maybe we should start over. I miss..." She hesitates, then decides to lay it all out on the table. They weren't going to get anywhere with anymore lies or cover-ups, so she might as well just put herself out there.

Again.

"I miss what we had, when I thought...I thought you were Bernard. I loved our time spent together, I loved being around you -- I always wanted to send you a message or call, to just...see how you were doing and even now?" She waves her hand. "I sometimes almost do it here, with these...little things."

Roxanne stares at her cup and shifts, uncomfortable.

"I miss you."

"And I miss you."

He admitted, "We worked all this out when I was from. Everything was worked out for the better. Going from that to this has been...difficult. I've gotten so used to your company now, that--"

She wanted to pry, he knew it, he knew her, she wanted the full story, she wanted to see how it all fit together, and he also knew that maybe that was something that should be...volunteered.

"Would it help if--if I explained?" he asked slowly. "My choices, I mean. My mistakes. Not excuse them, just...if I explained why? Why I did all the things I did? So you could see how 'Bernard'--" His long fingers did quote-marks in the air. "--and the Megamind that used to dangle you over sharks with lasers on their heads could be one and the same?"

Megamind wasn't sure if it would make any sense, but he could try. Maybe she would think his reasons were poor reasons and dislike him even more, but maybe it would make things easier.

Edited 2011-01-18 04:33 (UTC)

She looks relieved at his statement, at his willingness to volunteer his own information instead of Roxanne having to dig it out of him. She found herself not wanting to put the spotlight on him, not wanting to pry or ask a thousand questions just to get a single response.

She wanted him to want to tell her himself -- just like he'd just offered. Roxanne nods, rolling her shoulders in her seat, twisting away the ache.

"Yes. I would like that. Please."

Megamind sat back in his chair letting out a wooft.

"Okay, but this is going to be long, just to warn you. We're talking lots of expository dialogue, monologuing about my tragic past angst wrong. It goes all the way back to...infancy. And while I certainly gave the true crime genre something to write about, all of those books about me and my motivations are wrong. Laughably so."

Roxanne rested her chin on her hand, and fixed her eyes on him.

"Alright. You have my undivided attention, Megamind. I'm listening." Maybe for the first time ever truly listening to him.

"You know about the alien thing, obviously. What I don't exactly go around broadcasting to everyone is the fact that I do remember being sent away from my world. It was getting destroyed by a black hole and my parents--"

Bit of a sore spot here, because he did still often think of them.

"They sent me away in a ship, to Earth. It's one of the very first things I even remember, and it's a very strange memory for me, at that, because--"

Honesty, right? Honesty for her.

"Well, it's a terrible memory, if you think about--panic, chaos, a world being destroyed. But I remember they were--they truly wanted me to have a chance. For all I've led a rather solitary existence, that's always been a reassuring thought. My parents cared enough for me to build a ship and send me away in the hopes I'd have a better life--that I'd still have a life."

He tapped his fingers on the table again.

"Other than that single memory, though, I don't know anything at all about my species, let alone what they were even called. I don't even know my given name was, because I was only eight days old when I was sent away and I don't recall them referring to me by name."

He gestured with his hands. "So, there I am, my planet is blowing up, my parents are sending me away, and then all the rest of my life was on Earth. Traumatic, admittedly, but I dealt with the reality of being the last of my kind and being an orphan when I was very young."

Context for you, Roxanne.

That was a lot to take in for Roxanne - a baby, only eight days old, remembering something like that? She couldn't even imagine retaining a memory such as that, a memory full of such sadness and loss and panic. She's quiet while he speaks, absorbing every word that he tells her, every fact about him that she can.

He didn't know his given name - a child, an orphan, nameless...

This was definitely a lot to take in. Why hadn't she ever bothered to learn all of this before? Maybe because he wouldn't have told her, maybe because she was too busy writing up her next report on Metro Man's greatest feat.

Either way, it feels as if there's a hole in her core, and her face is a little pale as she indicates for him to please continue.

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