A huge thank-you to my brilliant beta, HaydenXCharm. Any remaining errors are my own!
Here it is, the last chapter! I'm posting it all at once because I didn't want to leave anyone hanging, but I've spent months writing and editing and working with HaydenXCharm, and it's been a big ride for me. Thanks so much for reading if you've made it this far, and I hope you've enjoyed it.
No More Heroes Any More
Life was good. It goes to show, sometimes all that you need is a change of perspective. A bit of time to let old wounds heal. Megamind had added the "reset" button and the pellet of Metro Man's power infusion to the vault of bad ideas. It was where they kept all of the things that Roxanne had said "Nope" to during the day that she dubbed the 'Sane Persons Audit of the Evil Lair.'
The problem with the manslaughter charges still lingered. It probably always would. He had pulled back from governance. Roxanne had lent him a marvellous book, The Banality of Evil, which proved for once and for all, that you didn't need a super villain to have a city run by evil. If you just left the bureaucracy to itself, evil would rise through the ranks and bob on the top like an oil slick in a pristine water system. Also, evil was pretty boring, when you got down to the specifics.
In fact, a lot of Megamind's most evil devices were very useful in their new role. As long as the local law enforcement officers were too timid to approach him, as long as no super heroes like Metro Man rose to challenge him, he could more or less live in peace. It wasn't anything he'd ever experienced.
Lying in the deserted park, within a perimeter of brain bots, a checkered picnic blanket beneath him, he let his mind drift. He was writing a book, of all things, in his down time. He had a lot of that. Sure, Minion went out with him for the occasional robotic death-match in the countryside, but he'd spend just as much time alone as with Minion, finding the silent parts of the city, feeling concrete scarred from past battles. Rough beneath his skin. Twisted metal, and boarded-up windows. People had finally begun to fix things. Pick up the pieces.
Roxanne said she thought that Metro Man's death was the best thing that had ever happened to Metro City. People were banding together, really connecting with their communities. Finding out just how vulnerable they were, on the coastline. How precious life truly was. No one was waiting for or counting on rescue anymore.
Megamind sincerely doubted it, but he couldn't deny that Metro City was changing. He'd even caught glimpses, though only that, of teenagers wearing black leather, studded wrist-guards. All his life, he'd written Metro City off as a haven of pop-loving, country-singing, mainstream, cardboard cut-outs. But there was a lot beneath that surface. There were more people in Metro City than the ones who'd shown up in City Hall Square on Metro Man Day.
The sun was nice on his skin. The breeze was nice in the leaves above him. He was thinking, of getting into some organised crime. Paperwork. Something respectable. He'd buy a bigger newer factory. Move on from simple squatting. No wait! A house! An actual house. In the suburbs. Better yet, an apartment block. Ten floors of mechanical mayhem, and a penthouse suite with a view.
He heard her coming, but he closed his eyes and let himself drift. Listened to her shoes as she crossed the grass, felt the blanket tug beneath him as she flopped down beside him.
"Sorry I'm late, I had to ditch Hal. Can you believe he thought I needed protecting?"
She laughed, and he opened his eyes to see her leaning on one elbow, looking down at him.
"He must have missed my memo. I've got only one rule for Metro City, and that's this. No more heroes. They're outdated. Cliché. Predictable."
She snorted, and lay her head down on his shoulder. He brought his arm up around her side, holding her close. "You don't say," she shifted closer. "So, are we placing a ban on all overused tropes?"
He smiled and ran his fingers through her hair. "Oh, I don't know. I think I could stand to allow a few happy endings, here and there."