Aaaand we're done! Not sure when I'll start posting the sequel. Hopefully soon, but it's not as finished as this one was, so.

Thank you everyone who came with me on the birds journey! Anyone who wants to borrow the concept of a birds soulmate AU, please go right ahead, it's a lot of fun.


CHAPTER 11

Megamind comes back to himself alone in a bed that is not his own, waking with a sharp shock of alarmed oh-god-what-where, but a second later he smells where he is and his memories slot into place and he eases back out of his tension.

Hmm. Possibly the smell of Roxanne's bed is why he had no dreams? Despite the tonic immobility mishap? It's a good sign, if so.

Doubly good because Roxanne did not hurt him, she let him rest. She held his hands and declared them a team and so far has done nothing to contradict herself.

Megamind does already trust her far more than he ought to. This has always been his problem, always: he trusts easily, loves easily, and is consistently scorned for it. He has spoken with other villains on the subject, and he is apparently the odd one out in this—they trust no one but themselves, in a way Megamind isn't sure how to do. Megamind knows better than to actually act on his trust at this point, at least when it comes to his profession, but Roxanne…with Roxanne, it's different.

All he can do is trust her, act on it, and let himself be afraid, and then maybe someday he won't be afraid anymore. Hopefully, Minion will help him explain. Roxanne did say she would catch him; she said he would know he's safe with her someday. He still feels a warm little glow when he thinks of that, even if it does scare him.

He dresses in yesterday's undersuit and his leathers, but forgoes his gloves, boots, and shoulder array in the hopes that this will possibly facilitate more hugs. His spikes generate a selectively permeable force field and he's loath to abandon them, but…if he's going to have a physical relationship with someone (with! Roxanne! no less!), perhaps a less painful form of protection wouldn't go amiss. He'll think of something. Megamind thinks of all kinds of things when he's giddy with excitement, the way he is now, after his nap, the first really good sleep he's had in months.

Oh, and Roxanne will need armor as well, he thinks, if their relationship (relationship! he has slept and woken twice; this is no dream! he has a relationship with his soulmate!) is to become public. More ideas to think of! He can't wait. He looks at himself in the mirror and slicks his eyebrows down, and he realizes that he has his teeth sunk against his lower lip in a goof-happy grin without any idea when that started.

He can't seem to help it, or school his expression into anything less eager, trembling heart or no.

He thought—he thought everything was ruined. Would be ruined, always. Who he is, what he is, yet again coming around to screw him over. And, this time, coming around to screw over someone he cares about as well. What little his life was already worth to him had taken a significant nosedive, but—

—but this is real. He's here in Roxanne's bedroom, with the smell of her sheets on his skin. And not only that, but—

He lifts his chin and brushes his fingertips over one of the fading bruises on his throat, a thrill running through him. It's a shame he heals so quickly, but possibly Roxanne will be willing to give him another of these, soon. Possibly.

He comes out of Roxanne's bedroom to find her on her laptop, leaning back against the armrest of her couch, with one leg curled under her. She's wearing a tattered red hoodie with white lettering on the front, and sweatpants, and socks. Her hair is damp and fluffy, much less sleek than it usually looks; it's naturally quite thick and she must not have dried or styled it after her shower. The little eyeliner remaining is smudged, and she is, without question, the most beautiful woman he has ever seen in his life. He has never seen her so disheveled; the fact that she's letting him see her this way, that she's comfortable with him seeing—so soon after he spurned her and scorned her and they fought and she forgave him—

He is nervous, of course, but he has also not felt so fluttery-light in years. He feels as though he is going to burst with happiness.

Megamind moves near-silently in his bare feet, but Roxanne catches his movement and looks over at him. She smiles to see him there, and his heart leaps in his chest, drumming triple-beats against the back of his ribcage.

"Hey," Roxanne says, sitting up and swinging her feet down and waving him over. Megamind catches his breath. "Hey, come sit. I'm chatting with Minion, he reached out on Skype. I didn't know you guys had Skype."

"Hello, Sir!" says Minion's bright little voice, tinny through two sets of speakers as Megamind approaches. "I'm so happy you two worked things out!"

Megamind settles carefully onto the couch next to Roxanne, feeling oddly shy. This is his soulmate. His brilliant, beautiful soulmate, who slept nude and vulnerable on his chest last night and who now appears completely relaxed with him in the room. Happy, even, to have him there.

Sure enough, Roxanne places her laptop on her coffee table and adjusts it a bit, then scoots close to him and puts her feet up on the table beside the little screen. "Okay?" she asks, looking at him, and when he nods, wordless, she smiles again and lounges back and against his side, relaxing.

Megamind feels as though his soul has somehow left his body to turn cartwheels around Roxanne's apartment. He nudges his nose into her fluffy hair, and dares to take her hand.

When finally he gathers himself enough to look at Minion, the little ichthyoid's eyes are soft.

"I'm so happy," Minion says again, smiling a little bit tremulously, probably because he honestly is happy—but also, he is a piece of Megamind's soul, or Megamind is a piece of his, which may explain why he is able to articulate the things that leave Megamind tongue-tied.

I'm so happy.

"So am I," says Megamind, aloud. "You—were right. You were right, Minion."

"I usually am," Minion agrees, a cheerfully wicked glint in his eye. "I keep wondering when you'll learn."

"I am a slow learner, you know this."

Roxanne laughs. "You two," she says fondly. "I've missed seeing you both together."

Pog croaks and flutters up onto Roxanne's lap, and Odile puts her head up and bugles impatiently until Megamind stands and carries her over to sit with the rest of the flock.

"So," Roxanne says, when Odile is finally settled with her neck stretched over Megamind's lap and her head on Roxanne's leg so Roxanne can scratch her head. "So. I had a thought, a few weeks ago. Minion, I sort of mentioned it to you already, but…so, you guys are saltwater, right?"

Megamind cocks his head. "We're…yes. Effectively, yes. We can go either way, but it takes time to switch from salt to fresh, if that's…?"

"No, no, you don't have to change," she assures him. "I asked because I have a friend in Key West—sort of a retired aunt, really, and she keeps saying I should visit. It's the middle of March, now, and the best time to do the Keys is before May, before summer gets going and the crowds get big." She takes a deep breath. "I have four weeks of vacation this year. So if you guys can blackmail and bribe your ways to full pardons within a month...we could go at the end of April. Take a few weeks, see the tropics. Rent a condo or something, maybe rent a boat for a few days—I'll chart the course, figure out the dive sites, everything. What do you think?"

Megamind looks at Minion, who looks terribly excited at this prospect. Megamind can't blame him—the tropics sound amazing. A change of scenery, a breath of fresh air? The chance to see the ocean for the first time in his life? With his brothersoul and his soulmate? After five months of absolute abject misery?

"Please, yes," he blurts, almost without meaning to. "Yes, that sounds fantastic. Splendid. Minion?"

"Yes! Very definitely yes!"

Roxanne beams at them. "Yay," she says. "I'll get us somewhere close to the water, okay?"

"On the water?" Megamind asks, too excited at this prospect to hide it. "Right on the water? Money is no object. You plan it, I'll fund it. I don't care. Okay?"

Roxanne laughs, nodding. "Okay, sure, yeah! I'll get us a house, then, if you're sure about no budget. Would…you be okay with maybe inviting my two old ladies along?" She looks from him to Minion and back again; she sounds uncertain about this part. "They live in the Keys but they aren't actually on the beach; they might like a vacation. And I miss them."

"I'm okay with it if Minion is," Megamind says, after a moment of hesitation. If Roxanne trusts them, then…he can handle it. He'll figure out how to handle it. Besides, how much trouble can two elderly women be?

"Can I think about it? Please?" Minion grimaces. "I'm…not really a people person."

"Absolutely," Roxanne tells him. "Definitely. It's okay if you don't want to."

He wrinkles his face. "I don't," he says, "but…I'm sure it will be fine. Maybe…maybe they could come just for some of the time?"

"Sure," Roxanne says. "Yeah, I like that idea. But you think about it, okay? No need to decide right now. I'll find us a few good options—standalone houses, secluded, neighbors a good solid distance away. On the water. We'll discuss it then, okay?"

"Do those places exist?" Megamind asks. He can't quite believe this; all of the pictures he's seen of tropical beaches have shown shorelines choked with hotels and boardwalks and people.

But Roxanne nods. "If you can afford it, yes," she says dryly. "It'll almost definitely run us over a thousand a night, but—"

Megamind snorts, and Minion says, "Not a problem. We're supervillains, Ma'am! We have more money than we know what to do with, and that's after sinking a healthy chunk into various—"

"I think that's all Miss Ritchi needs to know about our finances," Megamind says, entirely on reflex. Then he catches himself, and grimaces. His soulmates are both laughing at him.

"Hear him! Oh, no, my future wife is going to find out I donate to charities, oh, the horror."

"I get no respect," Megamind mumbles, feeling his ears heat—but Roxanne, still laughing, turns in his arms to kiss him, and he cannot help the glow that kindles in his chest at that.

"So," she says, turning back to grin at the computer screen. "I will plan us a nice vacation, and you two will get yourselves whatever you need to in order to be safe and not get arrested."

"Sounds like a plan!" Minion exclaims.

"Good." She takes a deep breath, then carefully places her hand on Megamind's leg, above his knee. "Now, should we discuss, um…living arrangements? I don't know how quickly you two are hoping to take this relationship."

Megamind looks at Minion, but the little fish shakes his head.

So he picks up Roxanne's hand and squeezes it—hesitates—and laces their fingers together. "I have been," he says, telling his fearful heart to shut up and let him talk, "trying to hold myself at bay for five months. Keeping away from you. I'm—tired. I am so very tired of that."

She squeezes his hand, folds her other over the back of it to press his palm reassuringly between both of hers. "So am I," she says. "But…?"

He swallows. "But, but at the same time…this feels. Big. I'm conflicted."

He feels her go just a little bit too still, at that. "Conflicted," she says.

"Not about you! Not—I am so happy," he says quickly, "to know that I was—wrong. About everything. I want—I want you with me." He brings her fingers to his lips and hopes, prays she doesn't take offense to this. "And I—I know it is expected that soulmates merge lives shortly after finding each other. But." He gulps. "But at the same time, I am—still—I don't. I don't know. We are moving quickly. As quickly as I care to move, I think. …Why did that make you relax?"

Roxanne twists in his arms to press an unexpected kiss to the corner of his mouth. "I like my home," she says, smiling at him with relief in her eyes when she pulls away. "I don't want to leave it just yet. I'd be okay either way, which is why I wanted to know what you want. But. I would rather go a little slower than most people do."

All of Megamind's breath exits his body in a rush. "Ohhh, that's so good to hear," he says. "I just, I am okay with—I am so very okay with the—um, the sex, and the—this, what we're doing now, the nice touching—I love this." He feels his ears heat; saying he likes something typically gets him laughed at. Feels embarrassing to say. "But, living together, I don't think I can—do that. Not yet."

"No nosy reporters in Evil Lair?" Roxanne teases. "That's okay. I don't care what's 'expected,' you know that. We can go as slow as you like. I'm just excited to have you."

Minion speaks up. "Sir? Why is Metro Man contacting me about a press conference next week?"

"Ah! That," Megamind says, hauling himself back to the present and out of the I'm-so-lucky fugue that was about to overtake him, "is a whole other conversation. Which we should probably have in person. You should come over. And, and we can…"

"We can talk," Roxanne says, kissing his hand, smiling at Minion. "We can all talk."


The press conference is an absolute mess. Roxanne goes home angry, Megamind and Minion go home tired and jittery-nervous, and Wayne goes to his soundproofed underground fortress as a giant bundle of shuddering nerves.

(Granted, this is partly because Megamind caught him afterwards and pressed a folded piece of paper into his hand and said in a rush, "I hacked into the records of the Halls of Nested Souls. You were right. Most of the people responsible have passed away at this point, but—and I don't, I don't know how much you want me to tell you, but there's an address on that paper. And a phone number. Digging deeper seemed like a mistake, but I can…um. Do you…want? Names? This is, it's just very…"

Wayne blinked down at the paper. "Do I know any of the people responsible?"

Megamind nodded.

Wayne swallowed. "Was it my parents?"

Megamind hesitated. Slowly shook his head.

Wayne looked at him for a long moment, then sighed and dropped his huge shoulders. And then, very carefully, he reached out and rested one massive hand on Megamind's shoulder.

"Thank you for lying to me, little buddy," he said, with complete sincerity. "You're a good friend.")

All in all, it goes about as well as can be expected when most of the expected questions are of the "are you drugged or have you just lost your mind" variety.

Minion has projects to work on and insists he needs some alone time when they get back to Evil Lair, so Megamind decides to take Roxanne at her word that he is always welcome and go see her. Hopefully she doesn't want to be alone now, too.

She's shouting into the phone when he arrives. Megamind doesn't know if that means he should leave or not, so he hovers nervously outside the balcony door for a long moment, trying to decide. He should...wait? He should wait. Until she's finished. Okay, he can do that. But a minute later Roxanne looks up and sees him standing there, so he sends her a grimacing smile and a small wave without really meaning to.

And Roxanne waves back, then does a sort of circular motion that Megamind isn't sure how to interpret. Come in? She might be beckoning?

He opens the door and slips inside, where Roxanne is still snarling into the phone, didn't tell you because you were always going to react this way, and, can't you just be happy for me, jesus christ, and, why would I bring either of them to visit in person when being near you is like sandpapering my eyeballs, you can meet them over the phone or not at all, and, maybe we will move to the beach! Maybe we will! What's your point!

Finally eventually she makes a sound of ugly scorn in her throat and snaps, "Hanging up now, bye."

And then she turns to Megamind and wraps her arms around him, holds him tightly against her chest, and says, "Need to use you as a pillow."

"Oh—okay?"

She presses her open mouth to his shoulder and screams, long and angry, both fists clenched against his back, and then she tucks her face against his neck and makes a small, unhappy noise.

Uncertain, worried, Megamind pats her. He thinks of his uncles, thinks of his own tangled-up feelings, thinks of how to help. He shifts his weight from side to side, swaying gently, wondering if this is a correct thing. Hopefully correct or value-neutral, hopefully not incorrect.

Roxanne lets him do it, sways with him, and just hugs herself onto him barnacle-tight without saying anything for a long few minutes. Finally her fists relax against his back and she heaves a heavy sigh against his throat.

"Thanks," she says. "Thank you, I needed that. I'm sorry you had to hear it."

"That is quite all right, Miss Ritchi," he says, relieved that rocking her appears to have been okay. "I wasn't expecting your parents to like me. I don't mind."

She scoffs again, shakes her head as she straightens and steps back. "It's not about you. You're just the cherry on top of their sundae of bewilderment; they don't know why I do any of what I do. I think their vision when I was growing up was that I'd…I don't know," she waves a hand at nothing, "buy a house down the street from them and always be coming over for dinner with my spouse and two kids and a dog, or something."

Megamind swallows. "I cannot sire children," he says quietly. "If that was something you wanted."

"It's not. If I have kids, they'll be adopted." She pinches the bridge of her nose. "Another thing my parents don't understand. I love them, we just…don't understand each other at all. Sorry. It was just…more of the same bullshit we just covered at the press conference."

Megamind smiles thinly and tugs her to sit down with him on her new sofa, but she shakes her head and pulls away so she can pace. That's okay.

"And man, Wayne was right on the money with that one," she says, bitter. "I'm brainwashed, drugged, or crazy. Pick two, I guess, because apparently he's my soulmate, literally the most common excuse for stuff like this, is suddenly not enough of an explanation! I swear to—and you!" She rounds on him, throws her hands in the air, and Megamind jumps. "How are you just sitting there? How are you not completely pissed? They said you had Odile on drugs, for pete's sake! Why does everyone think you've got your bird on drugs?"

Megamind shrugs. "That's an old one," he says. "I'm used to it. Frankly it was a breath of fresh air just to have someone else up there with me. Roxanne," he says, getting to his feet and coming to stand in front of her. He takes her hands in his, gives her fingers a gentle squeeze. "Roxanne, they'll come around. I can't believe how hard you went off on that guy from Channel 9—I don't think I caught what he said."

Roxanne grinds her teeth. "He implied that you murdered your first soulbird and genetically engineered another one to be compatible with Pog."

Oh. That's a new one. Megamind doesn't like that one.

"We should make bingo cards," he says, to cover this.

She blinks at him, then snorts. "Yeah. Sorry, I just…" She steps forward and drops her forehead to his shoulder. "I can't believe how much crap they threw at you. At us."

Megamind pats her. "Oh, well," he says, "they'll just have to get used to us. In the meantime…we still do have each other. Yes?"

Roxanne lifts her head and looks at him, blue-skinned and wide-eyed and earnest and right in front of her, finally. "Yeah," she says, pulling him into a proper hug, feeling herself go a bit soft for him as he returns the embrace, pulling her in and holding her. "Yeah, we have each other."