He eventually emerged looking none the worse for wear, dressed in black pants that seemed to heighten his skinniness, a belt with his logo for a buckle, and a black collared button-up shirt. He kept flipping the collar up - Roxanne had to fold it back down twice.

Drawing up in front of the school, Megamind bit his lip and shifted his knees nervously. "You know what, you two go on, I'll go patrol or something, Minion, why don't you take this one, kids like you…"

"Oh no you don't," Roxanne said firmly, and grabbed his hand. "Brave heroes like you go out and face their fears. And Megamind doesn't run from a fight. Come on, mister…" She hauled him out of the invisible car. He stood fidgeting on the sidewalk, his face apprehensive. She melted a little in concern. "Look. They'll like you. Promise."

He pursed his lips and gave her a doubtful look. "You said that earlier. I'm afraid the evidence is against you."

"You haven't seen all the proof, so how can you make it a law?" she said logically, appealing to his scientific side.

He scrunched his nose. "Well, it's more a working theory."

"Work your theory right through that door then," she retorted, pointing to the hall. "They're all waiting for you."

He gulped.

Minion had emerged from the driver's door after turning the car visible. He locked it with a beepbeep! and threw the keys into his bowl. "This has worked before, Ms Ritchi," he said slyly.

Megamind looked as though he were about to say something acidic, but thought better of it. "Pestilential piscine," he muttered.

"You'd miss me, Sir," Minion said cheerily. "Come on, let's go brighten their day!"

Roxanne put a reassuring hand on Megamind's shoulder as they followed the robot-suited fish down the path towards the school's hall. "You'll be fine. You've got lots in common, remember?"

"I know, I know…" he sighed. "Well…" he straightened his skinny shoulders. "Here goes."

The hall was packed. That was Roxanne's first impression. Kids of all ages, of all colours, lined the stands and sat cross-legged on the parquet flooring. Teachers ringed the edges, their faces stressed and drawn.

Her second impression was noise.

The minute Minion led the way into the hall, every throat in the place let out an almighty cheer. Megamind balked so hard he practically backed into her, and she had to gently push him forwards to join the waving Minion. The minute he did so, the volume doubled.

"Heh," he said in bemused amazement, and shot an incredulous look back to her. She shooed him on with both hands, grinning and mouthing 'told you!'

Shouldering his boom-box, Minion pressed play. "Bat Out Of Hell' by Meatloaf began.

He made his way behind the cheerily whooping Minion up towards the stage, whilst Roxanne leaned against the back wall and folded her arms in satisfaction.

Once more she was privy to witness another of his rapid-fire changes in emotion. His befuddlement was quickly turning to delight. He tried a little dance move, and a veritable chorus of screams met it. The resulting grin almost split his face, and he got a little more into it as Minion lumbered up the stairs onto the stage, grabbed the microphone and checked to see if it was on.

"Sir!"

"Ahhhahahaheeeee… what?" Megamind stopped mid-spin, and Minion jerked his 'head'.

"Oh, right," Megamind gave the hooting crowd an embarrassed look. "Yes, quite right, yes, talking. Ahem."

"It's on," Minion tossed him the microphone, and stopped the music. Thankfully, nothing else began. Both the blue alien and the reporter subtly relaxed.

"Ollo there!" Megamind tried, and was almost knocked backwards by the ensuing wall of sound. "Wow. You make a lot of noise. Really, a lot. That is a serious weapon you have there… no, no, not inventing time, Minion, I know, I know!" he hissed back at his friend who was clearing his throat. A titter ran through the hall.

"Well, um…" he faltered. He hadn't prepared anything to say. He'd been far too agitated about the whole shool thing. But apparently Roxanne had been right.

Roxanne. She was standing at the back of the hall, a small smile on her lovely face.

"You know," he began, "I really had no idea what I was going to talk about with you. Really. I was actually…" he met her eyes again. She nodded.

He steeled himself. "I was afraid of coming here today," he confessed.

A shocked gasp, then a murmur ran through the hall. "Why?" someone called.

"Well, I didn't like shool… er, shkool… ah, I can't say it. Shool. You know what I mean. Well, I don't like them. My shool-life was fairly miserable." He fiddled with the microphone cord, wondering how to proceed.

Minion saw his dilemma, grabbed the hand that was holding the microphone and brought it up to his dome. "And mine! Whoa, boy, can I tell you some stories. Do not ask me about football. But sir had it the worst."

"Right, thank you, Minion," Megamind pulled his hand back with a jerk, and began to glare at his friend, before sighing and putting a hand on the glass bowl. "It wasn't a great time for either of us, was it?"

Minion just looked at his boss with sympathetic eyes. Megamind sighed again, and turned to his audience, though his hand stayed against Minion's bowl.

"Now, you might imagine that a person of my gifts, intelligence, and stunningly handsome good looks might have it easy in shool," he said, preening slightly. "But no. Ohohoho, no. After all, I was also blue, bald…"

"Big-headed," Minion put in helpfully.

"Had an annoying fish-friend," Megamind said testily.

"Skinny," Minion added cheerfully.

"A very annoying fish-friend," Megamind grated, tapping his fingers against the glass.

"Astronomically bright," Minion said hurriedly.

"That's better," he sniffed, unruffling his metaphorical feathers, and clearing his throat.

"Made inventions that tended to melt desks," Minion stage-whispered, and Megamind's eyebrows shot up. Roxanne's clear laughter soared through the hall.

"You're doing great, sir!" Minion said in an aside.

"You can stop helping now, Minion," Megamind said between very gritted teeth.

"Oh, right, right…" Minion took a few paces off and tried to look innocent.

"Hm," Megamind folded one arm across his chest, eyeing the fish suspiciously, before turning back to the children. "Well, the point is, I was different. Very different. As far as I know, Minion and I are the last of our kinds, and so there's not likely to be any more like us. I'm not likely to run into one in some freak co-eeencidence on holiday," he said dryly. Many of the teachers snorted at that.

"And a lot of people don't like different," he continued, starting to feel very exposed. He moved his free hand under his mic-arm, crossing his body more completely. "The students, the teacher… but there was something else, too. I was brought up in… a not so nice place."

"I know, I know this, it was prison!" yelled a boy's voice, and Megamind craned to see who it could be.

"Who… Roxanne, did you print that?" he asked, and she shrugged exaggeratedly, shaking her head. "Not too many people know that… could you stand up, please?"

There was a brief scuffle, and then a boy of about ten with coffee skin, curly hair and burly shoulders stood awkwardly. Megamind tipped his head. "Now, you look a bit familiar…"

"It was my granpa," the boy blurted. "He was in prison with you. He had stories about you."

"Oh!" Megamind clicked his fingers and turned to Minion. "Uncle 45101!"

"Of course, sir!" Minion beamed down at the boy, who gave a shy but real smile back. "And how is he?"

"He's getting on, Mr… Minion," the boy said, clearly uncomfortable.

"I should really visit," Megamind fretted. "What's your name?"

"Elliott, Mr ah, Megamind," he answered, his fingers twitching. "Can I sit down now?"

"Polite, isn't he?" Minion noted.

"That'd be Uncle '101, always liked the formal forms of address," Megamind nodded thoughtfully. "Of course, sit down. Um. Yes! You are correct, Elliot '101! I did grow up in a prison!" He raised a declamatory finger to emphasise the statement.

A hand shot up in the second tier of the stands.

"Why… why is she doing that?" Megamind whispered. Unfortunately he whispered directly into the microphone, and the hissed question bounced off the walls.

"She wants to ask a question, I believe," Minion whispered back.

"Ohhhh," he said slowly, nodding. "Um, yes? Question?"

"Why did you grow up there?" the girl with elaborate, anime styled and coloured hair and massive boots asked.

"Oh. Uh, good question!" he scratched his chin. "Well, at first it was because we landed there. Then I think it's because if they'd let go of us, the scientists would have wanted to cut bits off us and put them in petri dishes. At least, that's what I gather. No one's ever really told me."

"Whoa, harsh," said an older boy down the front. Megamind nodded with violent agreement, though his fingers spread in resigned acceptance.

"I know, right? So I get to deal with being blue and bald and thank you Minion, that will be all and weirdly smart and all of that, plus living in a prison, plus the nebulous and utterly charming prospect of vivisection someday. So like I said? Different. Far, far too different.

"For some people, the thing they took issue with wasn't my skin or generous cranial capacity or lack of hair… it was that I came from that place every day, wore that uniform, had no money. That was a whole lot of fun," he added sourly, and a knowing laugh rose from the kids. They knew that tune, all right.

"All these things made me feel horrible, made me an outcast all the time," he said seriously. "At least I wasn't totally alone. I had Minion, and sometimes my uncles. But there were two things about shool which were the absolute worst. One was the bullying."

He paused for the gasp and whispers that ran through the hall.

"The other was, well, I guess you could call it negative expectation," he sighed, and sat down on the stage steps.

"What do you mean?" asked a small girl sitting near him. He smiled a bit ruefully.

"People always told me I was bad," he told her directly. She looked awed, like he was telling her a big, big secret. "I wasn't really, I was a little boy, trying to do little boy things. But because they didn't like the way I looked, or where I came from, or the way I tried to fit in…"

"Melted desks," Minion said sagely.

"Yeah," Megamind sighed. "Melted desks. I tried to fit in the only way I knew how: using my brain. My experiments… didn't always go to plan."

He looked around at all the hushed children, all their craning faces. "They told me I was bad, over and over again. And after a while, I believed them. It was easy to be bad. I was good at it. So I just gave in and became what they expected of me."

"Whoa," breathed the boy named Elliott.

"You became a supervillain at schoo-uh, shool?" gawked the older boy near the front.

"Not right away," Megamind said reluctantly. "I was just a kid. But I made the decision then. I think I was eight or so." He squinted at Minion, who gave him a look. "Okay, all right, so I was eight years, three months, four days and fifteen hours old. And thirty six minutes."

Children's voices echoed through the hall in amazed susurration.

"Eight!"

"Do you think he can remember down to the seconds?"

"Awesome…"

"Eight years old, no way."

"So. Cool."

"No! No it wasn't, it was extremely not cool! It was the absolute opposite of cool! It was the scorching atom-smashing surface of the sun! Listen – I believed them. I believed them when they told me what I was, what I could be. I shouldn't have," he said, his face very hard. "But I did. And for twenty six years, I set about trying to prove them right."

"Some genius you are," remarked an older girl sarcastically, and Megamind raised a cutting eyebrow at her. She subsided immediately, and he regretted it.

"No, you're right," he admitted. "That was dumb."

The resulting titter around the hall felt like a release of tension.

"At the time, though, I thought it was destiny, fate. I was going to be the very best at something – and it might as well be at being bad. My apparent 'gift'. Idiotic, inane conclusion with only half the data required and no control elements," he spat, and then winced. "Sorry. It was only two hours ago that I talked about this for the first time in almost thirty years," he said apologetically. "I hope you'll forgive me if it's a bit, er… close to the surface."

He stood suddenly, and the children nearest to him jerked back at the abruptness, not used to his dramatic movements. "Anyway, my point here is… I do like your boots," he pointed to the anime-haired girl, who giggled and hid her face against her friend's back. "Where did you get them? Do they come with spikes?"

"Sir," Minion muttered.

"Yes, I suppose we could add the spikes ourselves," he mused. The children were laughing again. Megamind beamed. This was easy!

"The point, sir?" Minion prompted.

"Oh, right, the point," he pulled himself together. "Is this: No matter what you look like, or where you live, or what people say about you, or what you're good at, or where you came from – no matter how far away – don't believe others when they tell you you're this or that or the other. Especially if they tell you you're bad. They're wrong. People are just… people, no matter what. You can do good things, you can get it right, and you can win.

"Besides," he sniffed, "Bad gets melon-kolly. It's lonely, and cold, and damp, and it's hell for rust, and you do not want to know about the rats. Believe me."

"Well done, Sir!" Minion said proudly as the clapping began. Megamind met Roxanne's eyes, and he gave her that small special smile again. She smiled back warmly, clapping loudly and strongly, her face full of affection and pride.

"So, we're done, yes?" he mouthed to her. She shook her head.

"We're not?" he said aloud in dismay, and clapped a hand over his mouth. She doubled over laughing.

"There's usually a question and answer thing after these talks," Minion hissed into his ear.

"Usually a… how do you know that?" he turned to glare at Minion.

"Movies, sir. And open seminars at the university in the Oceanographical Research department this month," Minion replied in an undertone. "You might want to turn your glare down a few notches, some of these kids are pretty young."

And it was such a good glare. Oh well. He turned back to the kids with a sinking feeling. "And they can ask me anything? Who agreed to this?"

"Ah, you did, sir," Minion said, grinning.

"Oh, what fun," Megamind pinched the bridge of his nose, before raising his head to be greeted with a sea of raised hands. "And I can't call time-out?"

"No, sir," Minion chirped. Megamind groaned.

"Okay, I am going to choose… ten questions! Only ten! Because I am very, very new at this… social interaction with immature personages in a friendly environment… thing!" He pasted on a bright smile. "Okay, you!"

"D'you know which planet you're from?" gasped the preteen who stood hurriedly, and sat back down as though being too long in Megamind's direct sight would somehow melt him.

"I never heard its name," Megamind said slowly. "I don't know what it was called. It was royal blue when we took off. It was in the Triangulum Galaxy, sector NGC 604 point gamma, in the Glaupunkt Quandrant."

"You have to understand, I was maybe three months old, and sir was only eight days old when we were packed into our pod," Minion added.

"You can remember what it looked like?" gaped a heavy-set teacher.

"Sir remembers everything," Minion said simply. Megamind gave an uncomfortable half-shrug.

"Not quite everything, Minion," he said awkwardly. "There are those five unaccounted-for minutes after my birth."

The heavy-set teacher rocked back against the stand-rail, staring at Megamind as though he were the answer to every educator's prayer.

"Should I count that one? He didn't have his hand up," Megamind looked quizzically between Minion and to Roxanne. Minion held up his hands in cluelessness, but Roxanne shook her head.

"Ah, right, no, no, not counting that one then," he nodded to her. She gave him a thumbs-up.

"Can I pick the next one, sir?" Minion bounced between his gorilla feet, and Megamind waved permission. "Okay… you!"

This little girl had been straining so hard, she resembled a badly-tethered balloon. "Why-do-you-call-him-sir-and-why-is-your-name-Minion-and-were-you-always-called-Megamind?" she babbled in one breath, before taking another huge gulp of air. "Minion-you-are-so-cute-my-friends-and-I-like-love-you-can-I-get-your-autograph?"

There was a pause in which the silence was very, very loud.

Then Megamind started laughing. A full, from the belly sound of happiness that not many in the city had heard. It startled some of the assembled, perhaps thinking his standard laugh was a villainous one. This was as natural as bubbling spring water. His head tipped back and his shoulders shook, and the sound was so infectious the crowd began to chuckle along with him. "Young lady," he chortled, "That was priceless… that was four questions in two breaths! A stellar career as a racing commentator awaits!"

"You understood all that, sir?" Minion's brown eyes were wide with incomprehension.

"Mmm," he wiped at his eyes, "aheh, well, Minion, why are you called Minion, and why call me sir? Take the floor, your turn now!" He pushed his friend into the centre, and handed over the mic. Then he theatrically took over the spot where Minion had stood, and exaggeratedly linked his fingers and flexed his hands outwards in readiness. The children laughed. Megamind winked. This was so easy… why had he been so afraid?

"Uhhh," Minion eyed the practically-levitating little girl with trepidation. "Well, sir's parents picked me out when I was hatched to be the life-long companion to their unborn son… they implanted the voice-activator and taught me the essentials about their race. We gained the ability to travel and talk, and a lot of status in return. This was apparently pretty common on our world, though I don't remember that… a lot of sir's people had minions, well, 'minion' is how it translates, but it could also be 'helper' or 'useful friend' - once or twice it's been 'selfless and devoted fish whom nobody ever appreciates'…"

"Stick to the point, Minion," Megamind threw his hands up.

"Right, right… anyway, there was a thing, like a title… There is absolutely no human translation for it as far as I know. I was taught to always call my new friend by that name. 'Sir' is the closest human one… in English, I guess. I haven't checked the other languages."

"She wants your autograph," Megamind stage-whispered, enjoying his turn as the heckler.

"She whaaaaa?" Minion did a double-take between his friend and the hyperventilating child. His toothy lower jaw dropped slightly. "Um, after? Maybe after the talk?"

She let go of her breath so gustily, she slid off her seat. Minion winced.

"She had another question," Roxanne called sweetly, her hand demurely up.

"Roxanne?" Megamind squinted, tilted his head, then his eyes opened wide. "Oh no. Not for public use, Roxanne. That only counted as two."

She subsided, her eyes twinkling at him. He folded his arms, and tried to look stern and forbidding. It had the same effect on her that it always did. She rolled her eyes.

"Um, that one?" Minion pointed to an older boy, hair in cornrows. He slouched to his feet.

"So like, how'd they bully you an' that? You're Megamind! Couldn't you just…" he aimed an imaginary gun, "zap 'em outta your way?"

Minion reached blindly for his boss's hand, shoved the microphone into it and scurried back to the relative safety of the heckling corner.

"Thanks, 'helper'," Megamind said wryly, and Minion gave him that sweet little face that always made him forgive the fish's sillier pranks.

There was another THUD from the direction of the hyperactive Minion fan.

Megamind bit his lip. "Well, I hadn't really come to that epip-hanny yet," he said ruefully. "I created the Mark I Dehydration Gun when I was seven years, four months, six days and nine hours old… but I was still trying very hard to be good, for people to like me. It was the day I made that decision, the one I told you about? Yes, the very dumb one, well done… it was that day that I was expelled. So I didn't get the chance to well, 'zap' them, as you say. As to how they bullied me, well, I'm not sure if you noticed, but I'm not the largest person in the room. And I'm blue."

The kids chuckled. Megamind held his hands out in theatrical resignation.

"Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!" the little girl he had spoken to earlier near the front suddenly cried, her hand shooting up. "Oh please! Oh, oh, here, oh, oh, pick me, oh!"

"I think she might explode if we don't pick her," Minion said solemnly.

"She may turn violent," Megamind agreed with equal solemnity. "Yes?"

"Can you pleeeeeease dehydrate something?" she begged with wide-open eyes.

"I thought that one might turn up," said Minion humorously. "Sir!" He held up his boom-box.

"Ah, nice work, Minion! Ready? Now, pull!" he rolled dramatically as Minion launched the thing into the air. A burst of blue ice later, and the shiny cube tinkled to the stage. The children burst into cheers.

"We need water," Megamind said through the corner of his mouth.

"Leave it to me, sir," Minion said grandiosely, opened his bowl's sliding lid, and tipped his 'head' slightly. A flash, and the boombox sat upside-down on the stage, none the worse for its trip.

"Ta dah!" Megamind flung out his hands proudly.

"I hope the water didn't damage it," muttered Minion.

"Oh pipe down, Minion, I'll build you a new one," he said tolerantly.

"Where did you learn to dance?" called a well-put-together teacher who had practically leapt in front of three small kids to get the nod. Megamind couldn't help but notice that the leap was particularly graceful.

"Erm. Television." He coughed. "Between jailbreaks. Well, jail is boring, I had to do something to pass the time! They played an awful lot of musicals as well, hoping to stimulate my better nature. And I find that slightly embarrassing to admit, soooooo, moving on. Quickly. Next!"

"How many questions are left, sir?" Minion asked with a very badly concealed and extremely toothy smirk.

"Four," Megamind answered promptly. "You pick the next one."

"How are you different from humans?" asked the perfectly coiffed girl who stood next.

"I'm a fish," Minion pointed out.

"Not you," she rolled her eyes, before cooing, "Megamind." And she batted her mascara'd eyelashes at him winningly.

Megamind felt the need to back away slowly. His eyes flew to Roxanne in desperation, only to see that she was silently heaving with hysterical laughter, her hand over her mouth and tears escaping her screwed-up eyes. Fat lot of help she was.

Fine.

He took a deep breath, and then another.

"I have a carbon-based system just as a human does, though my bones are considerably more dense and my skin thicker. My bones are also smaller, and are a very pale green-blue, not off-white. The blue pigmentation of my skin is from the radiation my planet was subject to from orbiting a White Dwarf for approximately two billion years until it collapsed and formed the black hole that sucked it up. My blood has roughly twice the equivalent of your white cell count, as I was born with natural immunity to my planet's diseases, and developed yet more antibodies once I landed here. My heart has six chambers, not four, to compensate for the increased flow of blood to the cranium, which is roughly three times the size and infinitely more magnificent than that of your common or garden homo sapiens. I have only one bone in each forearm, not a radius and ulna. Six pairs of ribs are floating, as opposed to the three pairs you have, young lady. This allows me a certain amount of trunk flexibility, as does the fact that I have nine more spinal vertebrae than you, all rather smaller than those seen in humans, naturally. My finger bones are elongated, as are my thigh bones, and all joints, are, in your parlance, hyperextensive. My teeth replace themselves as required, unlike a human's singular childhood and adult sets. My nose and ears are not cartil-ahge as a doctor would understand it, but a softer, slightly gelatinous form of my bone tissue. My fat-to-muscle ratio is practically non-existent. I have six interlocking abdominal muscles compared to the human eight, and can stretch up to thirty percent further in all dorsal and pectoral muscles, including but not limited to the deltoid, bicep, pectoralis major, rhomboid…"

"He'll go on all day like this if you let him," Minion interrupted conversationally, and the well-preened girl sat back down with an unsatisfied thump.

"You fantastic fish, you," Megamind muttered fervently.

"You're welcome," Minion grinned back at him. "You pick."

"Um, you?" he nodded to a stocky fellow with glasses. The boy grinned with barely-contained delight as he stood.

"Do you think that faster-than-light speed will be achievable?" he asked with an air of utmost anticipation. Both the speakers could see the lad's fingers crossed.

"I know it can," Megamind answered eagerly. Finally, a sensible question. "I got here over a distance of roughly three million light years in just over three weeks linear time."

"Ohhhh," the boy sighed rapturously. "Awesome."

"I don't know where they took my pod after I landed in the prison, but I've always meant to reverse-engineer the mechanics of it, see how it works," Megamind expounded enthusiastically. "Of course, moving faster-than-light also means travelling back in time, so my planet is currently sitting out there perfectly undamaged and I'll never get to it without a universe-ripping paradox. Which is really annoying, to be perfectly frank. To achieve faster-than-light without time dilation is unachievable as far as I can tell. I have several theories. One – Einstein was correct and we will have to give up absolute relativity, causing time dilations and entering a state we could call 'special' or 'partial' relativity in which the speed of light could in fact be non-standard, especially with the use of a Casimir vacuum producing the Scharnhost effect. Personally, I prefer this theory, although I'm skeptical of the claims of Nimtz and Stahlhofen to have distorted relativity in lab conditions, I mean honestly, if I couldn't do it with my vastly superior intellect, what makes them think they what? I'm talking quantum, can't it… oh."

Minion stopped tugging on Megamind's sleeve and crossed his robotic gorilla arms.

"Short answer; yes," Megamind said resentfully. What a delightful boy. "Long answer would apparently be too long, so the spoilsport here had better pick another question."

Minion nudged him, and he nudged back, before Minion put on a more sensible demeanour. "Okay then. You there, in the striped shirt?"

"So you really remember everything?" the girl asked breathlessly, standing clumsily.

"That five minute lapse ruins a perfect record," he said self-mockingly. "But yes, excepting when I'm asleep."

"Can you remember your parents?"

There was another silence. Megamind's face had closed down again.

"Damn it," Roxanne said under her breath. "Keep it together, Syx…"

"I…" Megamind faltered. "I do."

He cleared his throat again. It was dry. All those watchful eyes were somehow accusatory.

"I remember them… quite well. I look a lot like my father. His chin, his brow, but… but I have my mother's eyes. She… she had very soft hands, and a very sad smile. M-my dad… his eyes were brown. He had a full goatee and a deep laugh. I didn't hear him laugh very often though, not in those scant eight days… the black hole, understand. Their… their every thought was towards saving me. I wish I'd heard my mother laugh. But she only ever cried."

The silence was deafening. Oppressive.

Then the girl who'd asked the question straightened herself up and said sincerely, "I'm sorry for your loss."

Megamind blinked, snapping out of infant, bittersweet memories.

"I'm sorry for your loss," echoed the preteen boy, followed by the little girl near the front. Soon the whole hall was murmuring condolences to him on the passing of his parents and planet.

"Wow, sir," Minion said in a hushed voice. Megamind swallowed hard.

"Thank you," he said in a suspiciously scratchy voice. "Thank you for that."

"I think this is the last question, everyone," Minion said loudly to cover his friend's discomfiture. The children shifted in disappointment, a few 'aaawww!'s rising from the stands, though the mood was still a bit sombre.

Megamind threw his pointed chin up, and dared anyone to say anything about his recent lapse in presentation. "Um. You? The lanky gentleman with the excellent taste in band t-shirts?"

"Are you dating Roxanne Ritchi?" asked the tall young man who stood next with breathless anticipation.

"Ooooh," Megamind jerked backwards. "Well…"

The whole hall leaned forward.

Megamind looked helplessly over to Roxanne. If he said yes, he made her a target… and yet he wanted to sing it from the mountains, write it in brainbots in the sky…

"Yes," shouted Roxanne. "Yes, he is!"

His face broke into a silly grin. Of course he wouldn't be the one to make that decision; she could decide for herself and always had. He grinned harder as he watched her struggling through the hordes of seated, cheering children towards him, and he leaned over, offering his hand to help her up the steps onto the stage.

"Stop grinning like that," she told him, though she was smiling back.

"Like what? Like this?" he grabbed her and span her around. "That was… well, it was moderately awful, but it's over! Aha, sweet victory! Now let's go eat things and possibly partake of a caffeinated beverage."

Roxanne glanced over to the hooting kids, and then back at him. "Well done, you," she said softly.

He smiled the special smile. "Thanks to you."

She kissed him then, and the roof nearly came off.

"You did brilliantly," Roxanne congratulated him as they pulled back into the Lair. "I told you, didn't I? They loved you, and you were able to give them a talk that actually might help."

"It... wasn't the terrifyingly nightmarishly hideous ordeal of torture I thought it might be," he conceded.

"That's the best you're going to get," Minion called from the front of the car.

"I am going to send an anonymous letter to that fan of yours telling her where you shop and the holograms you use," Megamind groused.

"Whatever you say, sir. Pretzels for lunch?"

"Pretzels, yes, yes, pretzels, Minion! Excellent! To the pretzels!" Megamind rubbed his hands gleefully, before catching Roxanne's eye again. "What?" he said defensively. "I like pretzels."

She just shook her head in amusement and kissed him on the cheek. He folded her hand in his.

"Thank you," he whispered.

She gave him a pleased but puzzled look. "What for? You did all the work in there."

"Second chances," he said cryptically.

~fin~

AN: The name 'Syx' was dreamed up by the incredibly handsome authorial genius Silver Shepherd, in the fic, 'Times Syx.'

Many thanks go to the lady with the ideas, psychic_saphie!