#also this gave me a reason to write in an explanation for why brainy might grow his hair back out.. because i know i'm not the only one who

[owl-with-a-pen]

You talked about Nia playing with/braiding Brainy's hair when they're snuggled up together, and I can't help but imagine Brainy getting called to do superhero stuff and he still has a bunch of little braids in his hair. This works best with longer haired Brainy tbh.

Okay so this gave me an adorable idea...😉

If there was one thing Lena had learned from working at the Tower, it was that time was never in her favour.

Gone were the days of spending months accumulating data and perfecting her experiments in a pristine and secluded Luthor Corp laboratory. Now, if an alien threatened the city with new and advanced powers unmatchable to that of even Supergirl, the team expected her to have something put together as of yesterday.

She’d certainly worked through her fair share of strenuous, time-sensitive projects in the past, but since joining team Super Friends, the occurrences had gone from every so often to… more often than not.

She was at least grateful that Brainy had been there to make her feel more at home in the Tower’s lab. Although Brainy’s workspace was more on the side of organised chaos than she had ever had to deal with in her own space, she was quickly making use of the tools she had at her disposal.

Her fingertips were beginning to smell like singed flesh for all the shocks she’d sustained trying to get the circuitry on her latest invention to line up. Ideally, she needed another pair of hands, but Brainy had yet to arrive.

Not that she could blame him. He and Nia had both had plans for that evening, and she suspected none of them involved an impromptu showdown with an uncompromising alien adversary.

So, she buckled down, focusing on the panels she could reach behind the cluster of wires that still needed an awful lot of attention before her device would be useful to anyone.

She was so immersed, in fact, that she hardly noticed Brainy arrive. It was only when she caught the flash of movement in her periphery that she realised he was there at all.

“Apologies,” Brainy grumbled, accompanied by the tell-tale jangle of a zipper as he shed his jacket. “It took me longer than anticipated to fly over here.” He clapped his hands together. “Where are we at?”

Lena grimaced, biting her tongue. “The wiring still needs a lot of work. Could you-?”

Before Lena could even finish, Brainy had snatched up the pliers that had been sat across the workbench. She smirked. If there was one thing she was truly thankful for, it was how easy it had been to fall back into pace with Brainy’s workflow. For all the time they had spent on opposing sides, it was something of a relief to know that they still worked just as fluidly together.

She glanced up from her work, ready to pass her thanks along to Brainy.

Only for the words to die on her tongue.

Instead, Lena snorted, catching herself just before she laughed outright.

As oblivious as Brainy could be at times, it appeared that today was not one of those days. He stared at Lena uncertainly, raising a brow. “Is something… is something wrong?”

“No,” Lena said, a little quicker than intended. She cleared her throat, busying herself with the task at hand. “No. No. Not at all.” She smirked, running her tongue over her lip. “Just, um, you were with Nia just now, weren’t you?”

“I was,” Brainy said, bristling in agitation. “Alex’s alert disrupted movie night.”

“Ah,” Lena said, swallowing her smile. “That makes sense.”

Brainy was still eyeing her suspiciously as he continued, “Yes, well, I am sure you can appreciate that we would very much like to stop this threat before the night is out. I promised Nia my undivided attention, and I fully intend to keep that promise wherever poss—” He stopped abruptly, narrowing his eyes. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Hm?” As hard as Lena tried, she couldn’t keep the blood from rushing to her cheeks. From a young age, Lillian had raised her to hold a neutral expression against all and any external factors. However, nothing had quite prepared her for this.

Simply because… well, she’d never seen Brainy’s hair in plaits before.

His blond hair had curled and ruffled along the left side of his jaw as though someone had been combing their fingers through it. A few loose plaits were still nestled between those strands. Each one varied in length and width, with the majority already having begun to unravel or fray at the edges, no doubt from the flight over.

When Brainy continued to stare at her, Lena only shrugged. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said, making a point of looking away. “Did you do something new with your hair?”

“My--?” Immediately, Brainy tensed, reaching for his head. The moment his hands brushed against the still visible plaits, he closed his eyes, sinking his fingers deep into the roots of his hair. “Sprock. I thought I’d gotten them all.”

Lena’s face lit up. “How many were there?”

Brainy, however, was more focused on unravelling a particularly stubborn braid. He toyed with it awkwardly, tugging at his scalp. “Apologies,” he winced when it finally unravelled, “this isn’t--- we shouldn’t be distracting ourselves with such trivial matters right now.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Lena said pleasantly. “I think we’re both more than capable of multi-tasking, don’t you?”

Brainy huffed, rolling his eyes.

“So…” Lena continued, unperturbed. “Can I ask--?”

“It’s nothing,” Brainy said quickly, working his hands over the next plait, eyes narrowed in concentration. “Nia likes to braid my hair on occasion, as I with her. It’s… quite calming, we have found, and serves as an excellent de-stressor.”

Lena raised her brows at that. “Nia must’ve been happy when you started growing your hair out again.”

Brainy paused, his gaze darting elsewhere. There was something almost secretive about the nervous smile that crossed his face. “She… she was.”

Lena eyed him meaningfully. “Brainy?” she prodded. “Did you grow it out for her?”

A blush crept along Brainy’s face as he unknotted the last plait, leaving gentle curls in his near-shoulder length hair. It had been growing out steadily over the last few months, although Lena had thought nothing strange of it. After all, it was the look she’d first met him with, not to mention a look he’d seemed to favour for quite some time.

Now she thought about it, though, she had noticed that Nia spent an awful lot of time fiddling with Brainy’s hair at the tail end of Kara’s renowned game nights.

Brainy shrugged guardedly, tucking his hair as smartly as he could manage behind his ears. “It works in both our favours,” he admitted, glancing back towards her. “Although, I suppose that her happiness was a substantial factor towards my decision.”

Lena grinned. That was certainly a yes, then. “How romantic.”

When Brainy remained silent, toying awkwardly with his ring, Lena rolled her eyes. “Alright, let’s get back to work.” She winked up at him. “God forbid we let anything come between your movie night with Nia.”

Brainy relaxed immediately, nodding his agreement before joining Lena on her side of the table, pliers in tow.

After everything that they had been through, Lena could understand the importance of the time that Brainy and Nia had put aside for each other.

She fully intended to give that time back to them tonight.

[notallthosewho-wanderarelost]

Some Thoughts on Supergirl 3x10 (Spoilers)

I guess I’m just gonna do this for every episode now? Why not :)

I love Brainy!! I still think he looks really weird and he deserves better, but writing and acting is on point, and he’s amazing. As he should be.

I love that they referenced Streaky the Supercat. That whole scene with Kara and Streaky was great. This show always excels at emotional moments like that.

Also liked the reference to Winath and Ayla Ranzz/Lightning Lass! I’d love for them to work in more easter eggs of other Legionnaires like that. (And I hope this means we get to see Lightning Lad later, since that’s his home planet and his sister!)

The Legion’s explanations for why they’re here continue to become more and more fishy. Your DNA is not a good place to hide and retrieve information from, and even if they had done that, I don’t think it would stopped them from fighting. They could just leave a sample of their DNA on the ship. They’re here on purpose, for a reason, but they also know that they can’t interfere too much.

The Legion being Bon Jovi fans was great, and Brainy flying the ship into the fight with Reign blasting Living on a Prayer was hilarious. I love that Mon-El’s efforts to brush up on pop culture last season are now plot relevant, since that was one of my favorite parts of his character.

The Legion outfits are growing on me, especially Imra’s. The design is really nice, and it looks great.  I’m not fussed at all about Mon-El’s suit, since I think it’s temporary and I’d imagine he’ll be getting the suit Winn was working on. So that’ll probably be based on the red suit + blue cape look he has in comics. Brainy’s purple suit I feel would’ve looked weird with the blue skin so I get why they didn’t do that, and anyway his weird skin/hair is the bigger thing here, not his suit. I still wish Imra had the red/pink and white color scheme, but they did kind of try to do that with the dark pink/purple side panels on her suit. And I guess it makes sense for the Legion’s outfits to be black, since this version of the Legion comes from a more post-apocalyptic future.

A theory: It looks like by helping fight Reign the Legion is changing the timeline, so what if by the end of the season they fix things so that their future ISN’T post-apocalyptic, and is happy the way it’s supposed to be? And that’s when they get their colorful suits? (And can I just say that I would LOVE a Legion of Superheroes spinoff show? It’d be so much fun! They could do transdimensional time travel crossovers with Legends of Tomorrow.)

This got long so the rest is under the cut.

I really liked the scene where Imra convinced Mon-El that the Legion should help. That’s the Saturn Girl I know and love. :)

It’s interesting that they gave Imra telekinesis! There’s precedent for that in the Legion of Superheroes cartoon, so it’s not out of nowhere. I really hope she’s still firstly a telepath though. I kind of think this may come up next episode, with Psi being part of the mission to Fort Rozz. If she tries to double cross them Imra would be the natural person to go up against her, since they’re both telepaths. (And speaking of cartoon precedent, apparently Brainy is blue in JLU, so that’s a thing… Still doesn’t explain the hair though.)

I wish this show could find a balance between too much Mon-El and too little. He did get too much focus last season, but he’s had 0 character development since he’s been back, and he hasn’t actually done anything noteworthy either. Everything about him has been focused on Kara’s angst about him being married. And yeah, of course it’s her show and she should very rightly be at the center of it, but if they’re gonna push Karamel as a relationship-(and I still do think that it’s endgame based on how they’ve been writing it even this season- then Mon-El needs screentime and things to do and development as well. (Even if Karamel is over Mon-El still needs more things to do while he’s here, after the emphasis he had last season. This is same problem I have with the lack of James post-s1.) I guess it’s very likely that they’re holding off on it because they need to get the reveal of the Legion’s true mission and stuff out of the way in order to do it, in which case this is a moot point for now and we’ll just have to wait. I miss dorky happy Mon-El though. And I want to see him actually leading the Legion instead of just talking about it.

I feel like they might have Kara try to date Brainy for a bit now, and I’m totally okay with that. :) The more Brainy the better! Though I feel bad for Brainy in that case, because it sounds like he really likes her, and I don’t think Kara will feel as strongly about him as he does about her.

All of the Danvers sisters moments continue to give me life. Kara and Alex’s relationship is so so good and should always be portrayed as the most important on the show, because it’s the most important to Kara. I’m so glad they fixed this problem from last season.

Kara accepting that she is Kara Danvers and not just Supergirl and then making peace with the Mon-El situation was really good. I loved how they used her glasses for that. I hope they keep going with the humanity theme though, it’s been amazing so far this season and ties into Reign’s story really well too.

I’m liking Lena/James so far and I’m interested to see how this goes. I do hope they bring up how suspicious he was of her last season though, this last episode kind of glossed over that and I think it’d be an interesting thing to discuss.

Reign continues to be an amazing and cool villain. And they did an A+ job on her costume design.