Never

Warden Samuels was enjoying a rare off day... Enjoying might've been the wrong word, but he was mostly relaxed in his living room and trying not to think about work, so close enough by his standards.

His quiet pondering over a nature documentary he'd seen earlier on TV was interrupted by a knock on his door. He wasn't expecting anyone, so was appropriately wary as he approached the entrance, taser hidden behind his back.

A taser he almost dropped when he opened the door to find familiar green eyes peering nervously at him. Sam leaned against the doorframe, studying the kid he'd raised, the kid he'd failed, the kid he hadn't seen in four months.

M'ren had suddenly quit villainy, using his advanced tech to bribe his way into a pardon, then gone completely off the radar. Now he was standing in front of Sam in a orange t-shirt and black jeans, frowning at the ground, looking smaller and softer than he had since he was a child.

"Hello, Warden." M'ren muttered quietly after it became apparent Sam wasn't going to say anything, not meeting his gaze for more than a second at a time. "I, um... I hope you are well?"

"I'm fine." Sam huffed, his voice toneless and guarded. M'ren leaned back, feet shuffling as if ready to bolt. Sam felt something old and familiar pull at his heart, and added "What about you?"

"What about me what?" M'ren asked, face twisted in real confusion.

An exasperated fondness he'd once been used to filled Sam; he loved the kid, but how could anyone be so smart yet so dense? "Are you well?"

"Depends on who you ask." M'ren answered much too automatically, eyes flicking nervously around as he started backing away down the path. "This was a bad idea. Stupid, I don't know what I was thinking. Enjoy the rest of your day, Warden, I'm sorry for bothering you."

"M'ren." Sam reached an arm out to lay a hand on the other's shoulder, thin without the spikes, making the kid freeze mid-turn.

"You remember." M'ren whispered with something like disbelief, eyes shining wide as he slowly turned back around to face Sam. "I thought... You didn't forget?"

"What, your name?" Sam blinked, all resolve to appear cool and collected disappearing in his incredulousness. "Of course I remember your name! I'm not that old."

"Humans forget a lot of stuff." M'ren shrugged. "You've called me Megamind for years, so..."

"So you thought I forgot your name?" Sam couldn't help but chuckle. "For God's sake, of course I didn't forget, kid. There is a limit to human stupidity, you know."

"Not in my experience." M'ren rolled his eyes, smiling softly. "Though I suppose I should've given you more credit, you've always been highly intelligent for a human."

"Thanks, I think." Sam smiled back. After all these years of being on opposite sides, all these years of fighting and tension, it was surprisingly easy to fall back to old behaviors. "Listen, you want to come in or stand around on the doorstep? Either way, you aren't leaving until you explain what you're doing here."

"I can leave if I want to." M'ren frowned petulantly, already moving past him into the house.

"No, you can't." Sam replied simply, closing the door behind them before he followed M'ren to the living room. He dropped the taser into a drawer on his way.

"Fair enough." M'ren agreed, hopping to crouch on the coffee table instead of sitting in a chair, tail wrapped around a table leg for balance.

Huh. Sam had almost forgotten that the kid did stuff like that. Not pointing it out in fear M'ren would view it as a request to act 'normally', Sam slid back into his favorite chair, facing his alien ward.

Ex-ward. A term that sent a faint tremor of heartbreak through Sam, for reasons he'd rather ignore. "So, you going to explain what you're doing here? Where you've been? Anything?"

M'ren's throat bobbed for a second, nervousness and tension evident in every line of his body. It was weird seeing him in civvies, the shirt's short sleeves showing every lean muscle in his thin arms.

"Minyon says hi." M'ren eventually said in lieu of answering. "He was busy, or he would've come aswell."

"Busy setting up the next evil plot?" Sam tried to tease, but too much real annoyance bled into his tone.

"No!" M'ren shook his head quickly, looking upset. "No more evil plots, we're done with that, we... Want actual lives. Did you know, Warden, this is the first time since I was a baby that I've been neither inmate nor fugitive?"

Sam didn't know what to say to that. What could anyone say to that? 'Prison was better than a government lab'? Yeah, no.

"I built something." M'ren held up his wrist, showing off a complicated-looking watch. "It's a long story, but it let me see what it was like to have an actual life, a civilian life. I want that, but I want that as myself, not as some fake version of me. And I don't want some stupid idea of normal, either; I want my lab, and the Brainbots, and everything else that isn't really civilian but isn't strictly villain-oos either. I want to be a version of me that can walk outside in public during the day without taking my De-Gun with me."

Sam was surprised to realize how much he'd missed M'ren's rambling. "That's why you got the pardon."

"Yes, exactly." M'ren nodded, grinning, hands gesturing fluidly as he continued explaining. "I'm pretty sure I can keep it so long as I keep supplying tech and don't do anything too big, but technically my existence is outside the law so I can't entirely keep things entirely aboveboard no matter what I do and wouldyouliketocometodinneronSunday? I think I can probably keep some of my more dubious experiments going, legal or not, without too much trouble. Do you think I should get a driver's license? I'm not entirely sure whether I'll need one for the hoverbike or not."

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Sam asked, eyes wide.

"Do you think I should get a driver's license?" M'ren repeated innocently. "It's not like anything I drive is officially registered anyways, so..."

"Before that." Sam frowned.

"My existence is outside the law?" M'ren rolled his eyes. "Surely you already know that, Warden. I mean, I don't think anyone can actually decide whether I'm classified as the prison pet or not. Or was classified, before the pardon, and woah that's going to be hard to get used to–"

"M'ren." Sam said warningly, in a tone he hadn't used since the man in front of him was a teenager. Luckily, it seemed like it was still affective.

"Alright, fine." M'ren whined, throwing his hands into the air. "Do you want to come to dinner on Sunday? Minyon wants to host a dinner party, and there's not a lot of people coming, of course; he thought you might want to join us for some reason. Just say no already so I can get back and break the news to him."

"I'd love to come." Sam answered, surprising himself.

"I knew– wait, what?" M'ren breathed in sharply, eyes going to almost-slits as he studied the Warden. The guarded hopefulness on his face was almost painful. "You, really? You want to come, even after... everything?"

"Do you want me to come?" Sam asked uncertainly, receiving a slow nod in return. "Really? Even after all this time? Even after everything?"

"Yes, of course I do." M'ren's face twisted into a familiar look of confusion. "I, um. I missed you. I still miss you, which doesn't make sense because we're in the same room right now, and I know you aren't going to forgive me after everything I've broken but I just... I want you in my life again? If you want to be, that is, I'll understand if you don't."

Something deep within Sam seemed to shatter, and he let out a sound that was half-chuckle and half-sob. "Kid..."

"No, don't cry, what did I do wrong?!" M'ren panicked, look of horror on his face as he rushed over to awkwardly pat the Warden's back. "Uh, there there. It'll be– yipe!"

Sam interrupted him by pulling him into a hug. "Of course I want to be in your life, kiddo. Do you know how much I've missed you? All these years since you became Megamind, you've been avoiding me and fighting with me; I thought you hated me."

"Me hate you?" M'ren repeated, unconsciously relaxing into the hug. "I thought you hated me!"

"Never." Sam insisted, tightening his arms around the other like he had once done regularly, like he had wanted to do again for years. He felt the once-familiar movement of M'ren's arms and tail wrapping around him as he returned the embrace, heard the once-familiar alien cooing rumbling out of M'ren's chest, and finally felt like maybe things would be alright again.