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Isthmus	By : AwfulLawful Category: +M through R > Megamind Views: 3514 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Megamind or make any profit from this story, it was done purely out of love for the characters.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
Nemi: PLEEEEASE don't be mad that I deleted your last review! Your research skills are awesome and I don't want to spoil the surprise for everyone else just in case they didn't read it yet. Kudos on being the Master/Mistress of open-minded research! I much appreciate the reviews and love that I got you so interested. I totally still have your review saved as text and you get points for figuring it out before the reveal, and would have politely asked to remove the review first if you had a login so I could have sent a private message. Since you are so good at this I'd like it if you made an account, so we could collaborate on future stories and theories! I have NOTES to share, and I'd like to hear some of yours.
SilverSpiderArt: Thanks so much for being the beta for this chapter!

Superfluous Plans
"I will constantly have several useful, but superfluous plans in motion, with much less security than my actual plans. If they succeed I shall turn a profit, if not then the hero has just wasted valuable time stopping them." ~TV Tropes Additional Evil Overlord Vows #17

Dr. Mardling had been buzzing with excitement since Metro Man had called on her last night.
Her Grandfather would have given anything for the chance she had now, and she was only sad that he hadn't lived the fifteen extra years he would have needed to experience it. Being fifty herself she was glad that she had lived long enough to see this moment, and that she'd been born in the right time, in the right place, to have the opportunity to begin with.
Two aliens, from the same solar system who wanted more information about themselves were essentially up for show-and-tell! And one of them was a supervillain that had actually agreed to behave for it and contribute out of mutual curiosity! This was far more than a golden opportunity, because gold was a very common substance, all things considered. It was an astatine opportunity and she was damn well going to cancel every single important-to-vital thing in her datebook until the chance degraded into mere bismuth or radon… and she should really get her mind off the damn periodic table of elements and back to the task at hand.
She arrived at her new base of operations three hours early, practically hissing with energy. The outside of the Metro Man Museum was essentially complete in all its shining glory, though the inside was still being finished and the globe had yet to be gold leafed due to the cold. Her office was complete, though, and she had already begun accepting a certain patient there because it was his damned building (and if you don't think being the resident Superhero's personal physician didn't come with a massive tax break… you didn't know the obsessive/compulsiveness of Metro City).
Halfway there from the car she stopped mid-stride and grumbled at the figure sitting on the somewhat sheltered and salted portion of the steps leading up the new museum. He was puffing out steam as he muttered to himself over the edge of his scarf, fiddling with his phone and pointedly not looking up at her. She grumbled, stomped a few layers of snow off her boots, and carried on.
Dr. Mardling had been working with Bernard for three years. Their odd friendship… rivalry… frivalry thing had begun when the city had started searching for experts to help fill up the museum they planned to honor their hero. They had chosen two people to spearhead the operation; Bernard for the expert on Villain Psychology, his ability to Archive like a manic monk from the dark ages, and previous experience as a Curator, from which he had been fired for verbally abusing guests that failed to understand what 'Do Not Touch the Exhibits' meant. Dr. Mardling had been chosen as the Exobiologist, Co-curator, Super-Power Theorist, and because she was the only living person that had examined Metro Man directly. Technically she was in charge of the whole operation, being the Metro Man expert at the Metro Man Museum and all… but Bernard never accepted his position as her Co-Curator and Assistant and had done a marvelous job on his end of the whole thing to the point where she grudgingly accepted that his obsession with the criminal mind was a marvel in and of itself.
Being that they had quite opposing fields and viewpoints on many things, a rivalry between the fifty-year-old woman and the mid-thirties man had sprung up immediately. They had an unspoken, long-standing agreement that whoever arrived last was late no matter what time it was and was buying the coffee. Over time that had devolved into making the coffee instead, due to the rising cost of the damned coffee shops near the impending tourist trap they currently worked in. Despite his usual sour expression, the fact that he was even here this early told her a lot. He was just as excited about this opportunity as she was.
And he had even brought coffee despite winning the race.
Smiling and shaking her head wryly, Dr. Mardling walked up to him and kicked his foot gently. "Come on. We need to set up for a hell of a morning." After keying in her code she held open the door and nodded toward it while the man… continued to sit on the steps and fiddle with his phone, texting to whom she hadn't a clue. He ignored her. She stomped her foot. "Bern, the first three letters of assistant spell 'ass', so please get off yours."
"There's two in assassin," he drawled back at her.
"Yeah, there's also an 'in'. Can you handle that or do I need to get my gloves?"
He snorted once, but rose from his place on the stairs and followed her in, not looking up once. "You don't scare me, woman," he informed her blithely after finishing his text.
As soon as he turned around to walk past her into the building, she took a blue vinyl glove out of her pocket, stretched it out, and snapped him on the back of the neck. His offended howl echoed in the Villain Wing's entrance hall.
"Why do I work with you?" he wondered aloud.
"Because nobody else will put up with you," she snapped, shaking her finger. "And pissing you off is the only time I ever hear emotion in your voice."
Dr. Mardling had mostly created the Hero Wing. It had been Dr. Mardling that put together the model of a section of Metro Man's DNA, wrote essays documenting her theories on how his powers functioned and which ones he had, and had gone so far as to be sure his statues and depictions were as anatomically accurate as possible. She had played a heavy hand in editing and writing his documentaries and theorizing that his people had visited Earth before, spawning the legends of Hercules, Achilles, Perseus, Karna, Atalanta, and even Beowulf.
Admittedly, though, she was so concerned with accuracy and fact that her pursuit of it had left her with little erm… stuff to fill the Hero Wing with. As a result of this there was enough room in it for a Library and Gift shop, a model of the Minotaur's Labyrinth, and a Hall of Heroes of which Metro Man was only a current member of.
Bernard had created Villain Wing.
And he was good at the stuff aspect. That was significantly assisted by the fact that Megamind was quite a prolific inventor, and Metro Man had a tendency to keep things he found interesting for a while. The Villain Wing was packed with this stuff; statues of Megamind and Metro Man fighting, massive numbers of newspaper clips from capers and stories and pictures of them, HUGE robots on the second floor, smaller but far more numerous robots on the top floor, a lot of weaponry that had been taken from the villain on display, a cinema of equal glory as the one where Metro Man's documentaries were shown that ran documentaries of Megamind, and hilariously enough only one floor dedicated to the rest of the villains of the city. The Doom Syndicate didn't even get the whole floor to themselves; they shared it with mass murderers and prolific burglars and extortionists of the very ordinary kind, whereas the rest of the entire Villain Wing was chock full of Megamind.
Even the Hero Wing had caught some of the spillover. To add insult to injury he had even commissioned an aquarium for the gift shop that featured piranhas as a tribute to Minion.
The man definitely put the ass in assistant.
But he still had a point.
It was annoying, but disturbingly true that the public was always more fascinated by villains than heroes. Sure they celebrated the heroes, but the people they couldn't stop discussing online at the end of the day were the ones that were dark and dangerous and interesting. The building wasn't even open yet and she'd figured it out already; Metro City had accidentally made a Megamind Museum… and then put an enormous statue of Metro Man in the middle and prayed the hero wouldn't notice.
Bernard handed her coffee and snorted. Their offices were in the appropriate wings, of course, and Bernard's was actually much smaller given that he'd needed more room for his extensive collection of spiked and blue lightning embossed memorabilia.
She shook her head and smiled indulgently at him. "Get anything you need and meet me in twenty. I'll set up for the exams. Metro Man will be bringing Megamind at seven at the front."
With that they separated and went to do their own things, but both of them were high on adrenalin despite outward appearances on Bernard's part. They had some willing aliens to inspect and interview.

It was now seven thirty.
The invisible car parked right next to a parking meter near the back, then Megamind stepped out and fiddled with it until it was stuck in 'paid'. He then deactivated the invisibility so that nobody would inadvertently try to park there while the space was already occupied, because an unoccupied paid parking meter in Metrocity shone like a beacon in Death Valley at midnight. It wasn't a big worry since the building was still being put together on the inside, today was a holiday so nobody was going to be here aside from the woman he had an appointment with, and it was at least a solid season until the scheduled opening ceremony. Nothing was impossible, however, and Megamind was already on Minion's bad side for agreeing to come here in the first place; damaging the car would have made him even sulkier since the fish drove it more often than Megamind himself did.
The fish had a terrible fear of either of them being torn open for study and Megamind didn't blame him in the slightest. As a sort of protest to the event Minion had refused to come, telling Megamind that if he got put in several different jars and wound up satisfying someone else's curiosity and not just his own it would serve him right. Of course Megamind pretended not to notice the Brain-bot hovering nearby, because Minion was of course going to look after him anyway, bless him.
Megamind's current state of dress was for the sake of convenience. To get into his marvelously showy villain clothes he usually had to have help. Either Minion or the Brain-bots assisted for many reasons – clasps and zippers in odd places since it was impossible for him to pull anything with a closed neck over his head, the difficulties involved in what materials he preferred to wear having very little give in terms of stretching, etcetera. Obviously he would have to disrobe at some point for a thorough medical exam and coming alone meant he had to undress and redress himself. In order to just get through the experience with as little stress as possible he had worn a simple black button-up and jeans; things he could get on and off himself with little trouble. They would just have to put up with his leather jacket and boots, though, and the heating system in both that was keeping him relatively comfortable.
Metro Man had resolved to come and get him for the appointment and despite Megamind's insistence that he could drive himself, damn it, the brute had insisted on pressing the matter because he had promised to make sure Megamind's fear of being dissected was unfounded. The blue man agreed just to make him leave, then proceeded to call in a favor and drive anyway while Metro Man was distracted thwarting an imaginary bomb hunt. The bomb itself wasn't imaginary, but the threat was considering Megamind had requested it be full of blue and black confetti and lollipops with the word 'SUCKER' written on the wrappers.
He couldn't wait to see the look on the idiot's face when he finally got here.
Undeterred by the security system, Megamind simply broke in and made his way to the lobby of the villain wing, which he was instantly impressed by. Whoever had put it together did a pretty good job of it, especially since he didn't see any evidence that another villain even existed besides himself. Perhaps eventually the Doom Syndicate and the other riff-raff would realize the power of showmanship and he looked forward to the challenge of showing them up, but in the meantime it was nice to know he was doing his job well.
"Who're you?" an eerily blank voice echoed from behind him. Megamind took the lollipop he'd opened upon entering the building out of his mouth and turned to behold a bespectacled brown-haired man he could only assume worked here.
"Someone with better things to do than work on this fine wintry holiday," Megamind quipped. "Go home and I'll refrain from doing horrible things to you."
"I'm the Archivist here and-"
"Oh, you are? Did you help with this wing?" Megamind asked pleasantly, gesturing around him with the candy before putting it back in his mouth.
"Yes, and-"
"Well done!" Megamind patted the man's shoulder hard enough to make him stumble. "I can only hope you didn't forget the older versions of Minion's suit. It'd be good to have them all in one place for easy retrieval later. Of course you'll probably consider it stealing but I DID make them, and all."
The glib archivist was thoroughly unimpressed. He straightened up, pushed his glasses further up his nose, and pointed to the door. "The museum is closed today to everyone, including workers and loonies trying to show off enough to get jobs. I don't have time for Megamind auditions and you're not even in costume."
Megamind was so surprised he gaped until the candy fell out and hit the floor. "A… auditions!?"
"We've already been stood up by two clients today, so if you would please leave," he continued. Incensed, Megamind took out his DE-GUN and turned the dial. The archivist, apparently suicidal, kept going. "And you even have a cheap replica of the dehydration gun. How-"
Megamind pulled the trigger and considered, quite strongly, stepping on the blue cube on the floor. At the density it now possessed it was highly unlikely he would break it, but it would make him feel better. Of all the nerve! No, he wasn't in top form today, but how could he be expected to maintain perfect form at all times? Even the best in the business had sick days, for pity's sake! He picked up the cube and glared at it, wishing those that were dehydrated could have been aware of their surroundings so he could yell at the man for being stupid.
Which was, of course, the moment Metro Man arrived; in costume, sporting confetti in his hair, and seething. Metro Man snatched the gun and tried to hold it up out of Megamind's reach, but since Megamind didn't let go he wound up holding the gun in the air while the blue man dangled off of it and grinned smugly at him at eye-level. Since Megamind hadn't been there to do anything evil at the time the bomb wasn't considered a victory so much as a successful prank, so Metro Man couldn't retaliate for it without consequences. He noticeably said nothing about it whatsoever.
"You promised no weapons!" he said darkly.
"I promised no LETHAL weapons," Megamind corrected, continuing to hold on with one hand while using his left to politely pick some of the bits of paper out of his enemies' hair. "All I did was dehydrate the man, don't make such a fuss. Though I'll agree to let you have the DE-GUN for the rest of the appointment if you revive him in the toilet."
"No!" Metro Man snapped, and shook the gun until Megamind rolled his eyes and let go of it.
"You're no fun," Megamind sighed. He reluctantly handed the cube over, turned, and proceeded to the stairs. "Let's get this over with."

After reviving Bernard, who gave Megamind offended looks but thankfully did nothing to retaliate, Megamind took control of the initial interview pretty quickly. This was helpful because as it turns out he actually knew what the hell he was talking about and it was clear after the first few minutes even Metro Man was riveted by what he was saying. Both Dr. Mardling and Bernard were recording everything from several different angles and had already promised the villain they weren't to share anything from this entire process with absolutely anyone without his permission, on pain of pain.
Megamind had spent the first hour discussing the three inhabited planets in the solar system they had come from in excellent detail considering how much of them Megamind had actually seen. Both humans got the impression that Megamind wasn't sharing everything he knew but ignored it for the moment in favor of gathering all the evidence they possibly could. He had even drawn them a model of how he thought the solar system might have looked before the eventual, terrible, Black Hole thing had thrown the whole place inward on itself. He had offered to make them an orrery on one condition that he had yet to divulge, and since Metro Man hadn't argued the point they had let it go for the moment.
From there the discussion had turned to their obvious physical differences, which were already very well-known.
Then the similarities had come up, at which point the entire atmosphere had changed in a way ¾ of those present could never have anticipated.
"We are similar in many ways," Megamind admitted.
Metro Man sighed. "Just coming from the same solar system probably doesn't count for much though."
Dr. Mardling laughed. "In a universe this big? It certainly does. We already know your planets communicated."
"Well, Metro Man doesn't have your brain power, THAT'S for sure," the Bernard drawled, speaking to the alien he was most interested in.
Startled, Megamind put his cup down. "Yes he does."
"What?" Metro Man asked, just as surprised as the two humans currently looking between them curiously. "No I don't. You call me an idiot constantly."
"Because you are an idiot," the blue man argued. "But we do have similar brains. They know this." Megamind began to gesture to Bernard and Dr. Mardling, only to pause at their perplexed looks. "You… don't know this?" he trailed off uncertainly. The silence around him positively chafed until he groaned and threw up his hands in exasperation. "Really?" Megamind asked, affronted. "No one here has figured that out? It's so obvious! Unless he can teleport or manipulate time there's no other way he'd be able to zip from place-to-place without super-speed!"
"Of course he has super-speed," Bernard drawled flatly. "What does that have to do with brain power?"
"I will explain if you don't interrupt me," he demanded flatly.
They all quickly agreed and the blue man paused to get a second cup of coffee.
"Think of a brain in terms of a computer," he began. "My computer is very similar in make and model to the one Metro Man possesses, but each computer has a different purpose depending on the needs of the body its controlling. This makes me vastly more intelligent than Metro Man because I have no other need for all that processing power; it's all for analysis and thought and memory and nothing else. Meanwhile, Metro Man, your brain has a different function entirely."
"Which is?" the her prompted while Megamind put a few more cubes of sugar in his coffee and stirred it.
"If you'll forgive my guess," the blue man said in the most irritating 'I-Know-I'm-Right' tone he could manage,", when you use that super-speed ability it doesn't feel like you are moving any faster, does it? To you it's as if the world around you is slowing down."
"Hey!" Metro Man gaped. "Yeah."
Megamind nodded once. "There are only two ways for that effect to work. One is that you are actually manipulating your place in the flow of time, and I'm quite pleased to inform you that is very much NOT one of your powers. The other is that you are simply thinking at the same velocity you are moving at. If you didn't have that sort of processing power in your brain OR the ability to manipulate time, and only super-speed on a physical level… well, imagine having a normal perception of time at the speeds you can achieve, Metro Man." Megamind was pleased when the man winced.
"Oh," Metro Man said warily.
"Right," the blue man nodded approvingly. "You wouldn't even know what had hit you by the time you blundered into it; walls, vehicles, buildings, mountains… you wouldn't be able to think fast enough to see what was happening right in front of you, react to them, or control your powers during those moments. Where super-speed is concerned, believe me; your brain has to run very fast in order for the rest of the world to sit still."
"So in terms of function the biggest difference is that your processor is pretty much stuck at maximum without the ability to move that fast physically, and Metro Man's is connected to the speed his body is currently using," the Doctor mused. "Theoretically Metro Man could think as fast as you do, but only while his super-speed is active, and from his perspective he would be spending weeks at a time surrounded by a snapshot of the world around him to get a couple of seconds worth of your results."
"Precisely," Megamind agreed. "Our brains are quite similar in actual processing power; but you can either be super-smart OR super-fast, but never both. One brain wouldn't be able to handle that much work. So for reference, Metro Man?" the villain teased. "I can think about as fast as you can move."
Dr. Mardling beamed at him. "Can I use that in my theories?"
Megamind shrugged. "I'm surprised you didn't know it already. Why not?"
Bernard grunted. "Then why is your head so much bigger than his if you have essentially the same nuts and bolts in there? Isn't your brain bigger?"
"Not by much, no," Megamind admitted. "My head is bigger because of the empty pockets in it – resonating chambers that improve my ability to hear over very long distances." He paused and shrugged. "But only certain sounds. They have to trigger the resonance, after all."
Bernard raised a brow. "Megamind, do you perceive the world in a similar way to the slowing down Metro Man sees during super-speed?"
"No, I just get bored very easily," the blue man huffed. "Which just made shool torture."
"What do you mean?" Metro Man asked.
Megamind laughed humorlessly. "Have you ever accidentally tried talking to those silent statues around you while your speed was still in effect?"
Metro Man nodded. "Yeah. They can't answer because their entire world is moving at a different level."
"Congratulations; you know what it feels like to be me," Megamind dead-panned.
"Can you explain that in more detail?" Dr. Mardling asked.
Megamind continued talking to Metro Man as if he had been the one to ask him that question. "Do you remember that ludicrous woman that taught in the little red shool house? Every morning we would all sit there and be forced to count to one hundred; a no doubt useful exercise for you and the denizens of this world, but for me? Imagine that in terms of your super-speed." Megamind drawled. "I was dully reciting in the millions in my head while everyone around me hadn't gotten to the 'n' in one yet. And I can't shut that off. It's like talking to statues all the time," he complained.
Metro Man looked pale. "That's… WOW." He collapsed back into his chair looking thoroughly weirded out.
As much as Megamind hated admitting it he did not envy Metro Man the creeping horror he clearly had at the thought of being stuck in super-speed mode. Perhaps that had been a bit too mean? He had to acknowledge that the brute seemed to implicitly understand how that felt, so perhaps he'd give the guy a break on this one. Megamind sighed and admitted, "Alright, I can shut it off upon occasion. But it never lasts for long and it's certainly not easy to achieve."
"Really?" Metro Man asked, clearly relieved.
Dr. Mardling looked up from her paper in interest. "How do you manage it?"
"No, I'm not about to tell you how to turn off my brain, thank you," he chided, embarrassed enough that he'd even admitted it was possible without revealing the exact circumstances. "Enough about me for the moment, tell me something about you, Metro Man. We are here to share information, after all."
The man rubbed his neck and seemed to stall. "I don't have anything interesting like the stuff you can remember about our worlds."
"I disagree," Megamind countered, giving the woman across from them a questioning look. "He's still growing, isn't he? I noticed yesterday that his hands are larger than I remember them just weeks ago."
"Metro Man is still growing," Dr. Mardling confirmed. "It's been happening in stages for a long time – spurts like humans have with pauses in between. This last pause lasted for about ten years before he started showing signs of another spurt. I'm guessing he's either at the end of adolescence and this is his last big growth spurt, or his species just keeps growing indeterminately unless environmental factors prevent it. Since his hair is turning white from age or stress I'm guessing the latter is the more likely."
"White hair is a sign of advanced age for human beings, but even different members of the same basic primate family have hair that turns white for different reasons," Megamind interrupted crossly. "Male Gorillas are called silverbacks for a reason – the silver is just a color that appears to indicate when they're fully mature, not as a result of getting old. If even creatures within your own genus that are between 95 and 98 percent similar in terms of DNA have such a drastically different reason for that color change, then you can't possibly rule it out for Metro Man either."
"What evidence do you have for this?" she asked with interest.
"I remember," Megamind said flatly. "My first days of life when we were still on our respective home worlds. I'm not sure if they were immigrants or not, or even why they were there, but I have seen a total of nine individuals of Metro Man's species. Most were very young – infants and toddlers. As I assume Metro Man is in the advanced stages of adolescence and not quite an adult yet, that means I have only seen a grand total of one of his people fully mature." Metro man pointed to his enemies' head and indicated the mere streaks. "That adult's hair was fully white. All of it, including the hair on his body. He did not look ancient in the slightest."
Though the conversation carried on well past noon after that, Metro Man and Megamind seemed to have reached a silent agreement not to mention the speaker, the growling, or that it somehow effected them both. That was something they'd work out for themselves.
Then came the time for the actual physical exams, for which Bernard took his leave to transcript the interview. Megamind carried on a pleasant and pointless conversation with the good doctor while she prepared the tools of her trade and waited until the last possible irritating moment to spring his trap.
As she began to wrap his arm and try to locate an appropriate vein he snatched his arm away.
"No," Megamind stated flatly.
Metro Man frowned at him disapprovingly. Of course he assumed this was a possibility but it frustrated him to no end that Megamind was pulling it. Of course Megamind was going to give her the samples simply because he had agreed to come here, but he knew a setup when he saw it and just had to wait and see what the villain was up to.
"I thought you wanted to gather as much information as possible," she complained. "It's only four vials."
"I agreed to go through this ridiculous EX-am-INATE-ion on the grounds that that Metro Man has to go through all of the same humiliations I do. If you aren't collecting his blood then you can't have mine. Not in the deal."
"Megamind, please be reasonable," she said, but put everything down. "It's not that I don't want to get blood samples from Metro Man; I can't. I don't even know how that would be possible."
That was when, for the first time in days, Megamind grinned a smug, villainous, anticipatory grin. "I do."
"Really!?" the doctor squeaked excitedly.
Metro Man groaned and palmed his face. "Aw, butter brittle."
"And just so he is honor-bound to allow it, I shall generously go first," Megamind said courteously displaying his arm again.
"Before you actually tell us how it's going to work on me, right?" Metro Man drawled.
"Of course."
"This is for setting foot in your lair, isn't it?"
"Nonsense! That was a trifling thing, for which I shall get revAHnge at a later date. THIS is for something else entirely," Megamind ignored the doctor completely while she got the vials before he decided to argue again.
Metro Man grumbled, but relented. He couldn't resist correcting "Revenge," though.
It took him only two hours to assemble the thing, after he had returned to the car out back to bring in the tools and components he had brought with him. Megamind had, of course, planned for this and begun putting together his latest invention the second after calling in the festive prank. All he needed to do now was connect the more intricate bits… which was going to be complicated considering the forces involved in actually injuring Metro Man.
There was only one thing Megamind was positive could do that, so he had gone for broke and run with it.
Metro Man was adamant that Megamind not leave the office without supervision until the promised complete procedure was done, and Megamind agreed if only because the brute deserved to be humiliated too. Bernard followed Megamind out to the car and wound up carrying most of the weight back, griping the whole time about how he had archiving to do. While they waited for Megamind to finish building the tool that would allow the first sample of Metro Man's blood ever, Dr. Mardling and Metro Man retreated to the actual examination room to get the rest of it done. It took longer than Megamind anticipated and he wondered what they could possibly be doing, then he imagined her trying to make his leg pop up by hitting his knees with those little hammers when a wrecking ball wouldn't have done it and laughed to himself.
Bernard had taken to transcribing the interviews at Dr. Mardling's desk in the sitting room where Megamind was working, and raised a brow at him. "What's so funny?"
"That I am actually going to make my enemy bleed today," Megamind quipped. "What are they doing back there?"
"Dr. Mardling went to her office a little while ago," Bernard drawled. "The exam is probably complete, aside from fluid samples."
Dr. Mardling walked in writing things on her clipboard and muttering things to herself to help remember it until it was down on paper, and Megamind scoffed while he fastened another spike on the device he had finished a while ago. Now he was just decorating it. "It cannot be taking this long for him to pee in a cup," he said humorlessly.
Dr. Mardling blinked and looked up. "Oh, no, we already got that. He's providing a semen sample. It's the only way I can get adequate examples of his DNA to help compare with yours. On the plus side a few vials of blood will help immensely with my research! Thanks so much for-" she paused and watched with a little concern while Megamind banged his head down on the table repeatedly. "Oh… He didn't tell you that part, did he?" she laughed. "Well, you did promise you'd both do all the same tests, and you went first on the blood sample. Turnabout is fair play."
"How many vials of blood did you say you need from him?" Megamind asked her malevolently.
"I'll answer that question only after you tell me if I can borrow that thing," she said, motioning toward the gun. "I don't want to have this opportunity only once. What if I need more later and you're not in such a helpful mood?"
"Madam, you may have this one to keep," Megamind seethed. "I'll make my own."
"Great!" she chirped. "But you can make it six vials, if it'll make you feel better."
"Gladly," he agreed.
Metro Man had turned Megamind's own ploy around and condemned him to provide a sample of his sexual fluids, damn him! Sure, he wasn't precisely going to be forced to, but they were Megamind's rules and he was going to follow them or Metro Man would have won, and that was not going to happen. Still, immediate comeuppance was justly deserved.
Dr. Mardling watched, brown eyes sparkling with fascination while he worked with deft blue fingers on hastily adjusting the rather burly-looking thing he had assembled. Megamind saw no reason to dissuade her from doing this if only because no human could possibly fully understand what he was doing (not to discredit them, of course – they were clever things for the mental capacity they possessed, Miss Ritchi especially) and she couldn't possibly have duplicated his work. Once Metro Man came back from his own task he merely looked on with suspicion and stayed near the good doctor as if preparing to shield her from a blast, or just to keep her from leaning in far enough to get her hair caught in the soldering.
Megamind ignored them both, too giddy over this chance to care, and he was accustomed to Minion's interested hovering anyway so he had experience not singing anyone nearby. God, but the fur on Minion's robotic body smelled awful when it burned.
Dr. Mardling wanted a blood sample from Metro Man, and she would get one. Megamind might not be able to sneak out a sample of his own without getting caught, but he could always steal a small portion of what she had been given later, as his own tests would take far less of the stuff to perform, and could always obtain the results of the doctor's own tests because he had been promised them. If he gave her a somewhat larger sample than she had asked for on the basis of 'better safe than sorry' then all the better; even Metro Man wouldn't begrudge her a little extra, especially if it kept him from needing to do this again in the future.
And the brute didn't need to know Megamind had promised to give Dr. Mardling this invention, at least not until his next yearly checkup. Megamind was going to have to keep track of that, so he could see the reaction Metro Man had when she pulled it out.
At last he had it done and mentally preened as he held it up for their inspection. It had taken a lot of work to get the simple concept to function, and there were a few reasons for it.
First; Metro Man healed incredibly quickly. While this was good for him, it was also bad for science because making him bleed was exceptionally difficult. As far as Megamind knew there were only two ways to injure the hero. First, to have him fight another of his own kind, which clearly wasn't an option. Second, to chuck him in a black hole; this had clearly, blatantly worked on the rest of the population of Metro Man's home world. The trick in this situation wasn't to destroy Metro Man, but to injure him only a tiny bit, so the black hole was out of the question… unless it was exceptionally small.
It really had to do with simple reasoning. If Metro Man healed at a rate that made any injury he might sustain close so quickly that his blood didn't even have time to escape the wound, then the logical thing to do was create a wound that couldn't close. The wound would have to be continually created (and maintained) at a speed that either equaled or exceeded the healing speed of the flesh around it.
Basically: hurt him faster than he can heal, and he will bleed.
Actually pulling that off, however, was the finicky part, because the second problem with obtaining a blood sample from the brute was that he would have to sit still and allow it to happen in the first place; a possibility that had never before been presented. And now Metro Man had actually promised to do so. There was no way in hell Megamind was passing THAT up.
Speed combined with power on a small scale was the problem here.
He'd heard once that it was estimated with currently achievable magnetic field strengths it would take a ring accelerator 1000 light years in diameter to keep particles on track and produce a small black hole by slamming them together within the distance of a Planck length. Megamind appreciated that estimation because it was astoundingly accurate for human calculations, though still several light years off the mark. That estimation was based off of current human technology, though.
Megamind had achieved the same thing within a twelve-inch diameter at the very base of the gun.
"…is that a miniature Particle accelerator?" Dr. Mardling asked incredulously.
"Okay, so how does this thing work?" Metro Man demanded.
"Not telling," Megamind said. "You wouldn't let me use it, and anyway I don't think you'd actually understand the intricacies of-"
"It makes a really, really tiny black hole," Bernard drawled.
"…yes, actually. It does," Megamind allowed, casting the man a mildly impressed look.
While Metro Man spluttered indignantly at them, Dr. Mardling lifted a brow. "Won't that suck up the blood?"
"Do you really want me to explain it?" Megamind asked.
"No, not really – as long as it works and causes no harm to my patient," she admitted. "Are you OK with this Metro Man?"
There was a moment when the two glared at each other, then Metro Man grinned. Megamind frowned. Of course the man had decided this was less humiliating than what Megamind would have to do to fulfill his end of their bargain and would allow it.
He didn't know that last gamble had prompted Megamind to adjust it in a way that would cause more pain than was strictly necessary, but he wasn't about to share that knowledge. Ever.
While Dr. Mardling pointlessly prepared Metro Man's arm by sanitizing the point of the draw, Megamind smirked and hefted the new 'weapon' in both hands. "I wish Miss Ritchi were here to watch you squirm."
"She'd probably love that, actually." Metro Man shrugged. "Roxanne can be a little difficult."
"Miss Ritchi is many things, but not difficult. You just need to get to know her," Megamind argued.
Bernard snorted. "Warms up a little?"
Megamind laughed. "No, but you get a better sense of when to dodge."
Metro Man couldn't help chortling a bit at that. Dr. Mardling took out her pen after feeling along Metro Man's arm for exactly the right spot and marked it with a little pinprick of ink. "Okay, that's where you should aim."
With clear satisfaction, Megamind did so.
For someone with practically zero experience with pain, Metro Man did surprisingly well sitting still despite having the blood draw require he essentially experience the moment of a needle sticking him continually over several minutes. Eventually, though, six vials were filled with the hero's blood and the only evidence a wound had been formed at all was a spot that looked like a particularly angry mosquito bite for about thirty seconds once the gun was withdrawn.
Dr. Mardling was so giddy over the vials that she missed the decidedly mad glares Megamind was smugly basking in from the hero, though he stopped and looked away when the woman welcomed Megamind back to the examination room for his turn.

*Oh, God I can smell him,* Megamind thought frantically as he entered the room.
If there had been any other examination room in the entire building Megamind would have demanded they move. As it was he just hoped he could concentrate through the sensory evidence that Metro Man had released an awful lot of pheromones in this room not long ago and that they made Megamind a bit dizzy and uncertain if he wanted to stay here because it actually smelled somewhat interesting or just bolt and never come back to that spot again. The terror that growl had instilled in him echoed in his mind for a moment and he had to close his eyes and will himself to stay where he was.
"You look nervous," Dr. Mardling said kindly. "Is something bothering you?"
Megamind sighed theatrically and took the gown she gave him, walking behind the screen to put it on. "Did Metro Man tell you why he insisted on inviting me here?" He grinned a bit as he practically felt the woman's confusion in the room. Of course he didn't.
"I thought you were the one that made the offer, but then he never directly said that," she mused.
"Oh, I can tell you. It's because he was misusing his powers and noticed our insides were quite similar," Megamind informed her. "And after having it proved quite conclusively to me that x-ray vision knows no personal boundaries, I'm somewhat reluctant to give you a semen sample when one of the people in this office can see and hear though walls."
She laughed and went about preparing the tools she needed. "And I suppose you're going to claim he didn't think you were hurt at the time and was just checking to make sure you'd be ok?"
"Well argued, I must say," he agreed. "And yes he did, but it's an interesting story. One which I'd prefer to relay before you before we get to anything past this gown." A moment later he emerged and took his place on the examination table.
"Alright, I'm listening," she agreed.
He relayed what he was willing to while she checked his blood pressure, reflexes, eyes and ears, and other such things most didn't need to undress for. This he was perfectly accustomed to; prisons had physicians and his had even called in a pediatrician from time to time when he was much younger. It was when he got to the bit he knew was important, the incident that led to discovering his body's hidden tunnel, that she sat back and listened raptly. That disturbed him for reasons he couldn't name. He had expected questions, explanations and theories, and even immediate requests to poke at him. Instead;
"How does that make you feel?"
"That's not the reaction I was expecting," he admitted, regarding her with equal care. "Aren't you a scientist? An alien expert?"
"I'm also a doctor who respects my patients and their feelings, and I know what it's like to not know things about my own body," the woman said gently. She took off her reading glasses and set them down on the table beside her, and crossed her hands in her lap. "Why don't you tell me what you've discovered and what your experiences are, and then I'll tell you a story when you're done."
And that was just so unexpectedly polite and helpful that Megamind couldn't refuse her. Yes he was going to let her examine him, but it was quite a relief to know he wasn't just an alien specimen to her.

Wayne tried not to listen. He really, truly did. He focused on the traffic outside, on the city so he could catch cries for help, looked in on his parents, and even tried watching the movie in the theater about half a mile away. All of those things he could see and hear clearly.
Nothing, however, could drown out the conversation that Dr. Mardling was having with Megamind back there. He was too interested and anxious over the whole thing and it was like being five again and being lectured to resist looking through the Christmas presents. He just couldn't do it.
The most surprising part of the whole thing was that Megamind was listening. His heart was beating too fast for Wayne's liking, but he wasn't threatening or arguing or even interrupting; not even when she switched to the part of the explanation meant specifically for every other patient that had suffered sexual confusion in their lives.
She started to convince him as best she could that none of this was in any way his fault, that there was nothing wrong with him, that he had every right to be angry and hurt and resentful that he hadn't known any of this - though in his case it was in no way his parents' or the world's fault either- but he shouldn't let those feelings define him in any way. His gender, unknown or even undiscovered as it might be, was only one part of who Megamind was as a person, not all of it. Discovering more about it wouldn't change who he had been or was going to be after they knew more about his physiology and feelings about it, and discovering more about how his body worked would only add to his character, not remove anything from it.
He was still Megamind.
And as the nervous trembles started to subside and the blue being's heart rate began to even out, it occurred to Wayne with gut-wrenching force that all of those things hadn't even occurred to him as problems. Wayne had pushed for this, thinking that Vanessa would be able to help Megs calm down and get him to stop fretting over being an alien, just generally different than everyone else on this planet, when the whole time that hadn't been the problem AT ALL. Megamind knew he was an alien and had come to terms with that a long, long time ago. Not once had Wayne considered being told something like this might throw his fellow alien into a full-blown identity crisis because he had, in an entirely literal way, been raised thinking he was a gender he quite simply may not be.
Then, to his astonishment, she told Megamind a story. Every sense he had verified it was the truth; her heartbeat was even and unhurried and there was no sign or scent of stress.

"I was raised in a very… traditional family, shall we say?" she started. "The most I ever learned from my parents regarding my own body was saying that I was a girl and I'd figure it out when I got married. I was never given even the most basic of advice or preparation, because they seemed to believe that knowing what my body was for and could do would set off a chain reaction of rebellion. The family policy was basically that sex… did not exist until you said, 'I do.' So… when I got my first period at eleven I literally thought I was dying. There were no classes in school for sexual education where I grew up and nobody had ever told me what a period was, so I assumed I was hurt because that's what blood obviously means. I let it go on for two days of terror, panic, and pain, before finally going to the school nurse begging to be sent to the hospital because I thought my insides were melting. The poor school nurse, a very nice young man who couldn't believe I hadn't been told about periods, had to sit me down and explain it. And then my parents yelled at him for explaining it and tried to get him fired."
Megamind gaped. "You can't be serious!"
"My point is," she said firmly, "If nobody is either willing or available to tell you about this stuff how are you supposed to know!? Even on your own planet, with your own species, you own actual parents; a lack of basic information can turn your whole world upside-down when your body does something you're not aware it can do, or even should do. I can't even imagine how it would be to be an alien. Depending on your gender it's especially dangerous, regardless of what genders your actual species has, because of how they might function. Just from a female human perspective; imagine that periods were normal to you, but not your adoptive parents, and they took you to the hospital to do surgery and try to stop it. They're trying to help you, trying to make the bleeding stop because they assume that organ is hemorrhaging, when your body is just doing what it's supposed to do and their well-meant help is just making everything infinitely worse because nothing was wrong in the first place, and trapping the blood will just make it sit there and rot and kill you. And the whole time you're just as panicked as they are because you don't know what's happening either because nobody was able to warn you."
"Or they remove the hemorrhaging organ to save your life and stop the bleeding, only to later discover they've taken your ability to reproduce away," Megamind mused. With new respect he looked up and gave her a relieved smile. "So you tell me humiliating stories about yourself to make me less anxious and remind me that things could be infinitely worse. You, Madam, are a good doctor."
"Thank you, Megamind." Dr. Mardling stood and put her glasses back on and motioned to the door. "I can't deny I'd very much like to continue the exam, but if you aren't comfortable with that you are welcome to leave."
Megamind laughed. "Much as I appreciate the offer, I am curious and I am not a doctor. I told you what was going on because I would like your input."
Dr. Mardling looked somewhat proud, then started toward the door. "Then I'll be right back, I didn't expect I'd need a speculum so I have to go get one."
"What's that?" he asked.
She told him.
He didn't think that embarrassment could get any worse, but was proven wrong not long afterward when he had to change position on the table to help her get a better angle for the examination, because his tunnel pointed toward the back of his body and not the front.

Sometime later, while Dr. Mardling was running the tests on the samples she had gotten thus far and Megamind was still in the exam room by himself, Metro Man strained to stay quiet and still in his chair. He'd stopped watching and listening some time ago, just before he would have been able to see more of Megamind than was strictly decent. He was NOT going to spy on this again. Metro Man had only listened long enough to reassure himself that Megamind was actually going through with his end of the deal this time by telling Dr. Mardling he was staying. Unfortunately, he could not control his sense of smell as well as he could shut off his x-ray and was suffering karmic backlash from his earlier spying in a particularly cruel way.
Metro Man had completely forgotten about the scent until it started wafting down the hallway. He was stuck here on the promise he'd made not to leave Megamind alone and wouldn't be able to get far enough away to make a difference without leaving the entire block. It might have been a simple matter of their species interacting for so long, as Megamind himself had suggested, that caused them to react to each other this way.
"I'm going to screw this up somehow," he thought aloud while cold creeped up his spine and he resisted the urge to growl. He knew he could hold it back; it just wasn't going to be easy.
"Probably," Bernard agreed flatly, always willing to take the most pessimistic view of every subject even if he had no idea what it was.
Metro Man glared wearily. "I wasn't talking to you."
"Nobody ever does," the man drawled, and just continued typing.
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