#if there are any spelling errors blame it on the sinus infection ✌🏻

[owl-with-a-pen]

It had been Lena’s oversight that had led to this, she was certain.

With such little time to prepare and build a suitable firearm that could both withstand and disperse Jarhanpurium, she’d unintentionally left Brainy with the more complex of two tasks. It had made sense at the time to have him devise the blueprint for the weapon, especially as he had on-hand experience with the element that she herself was lacking. It was only when she was finished reviewing Lex’s reverse-engineered code that she realised her mistake.

Alike as they were when it came to their work, Brainy had slipped into a similar meditative focus as Lena’s, his eyes flickering easily across the screen, fingers a steady whir on the keyboard. He appeared as immersed in his planning as Lena had come to expect from him, except for one major caveat.

Brainy was shaking.

Although his focus was still on his allotted task, Lena couldn’t ignore the shadows that had deepened beneath his dark eyes, nor could she overlook the sudden sallowness of his features. He’d disguised himself well with the use of his inducer, but such an illusion could only go so deep – Lena knew that better than most.

She also knew that despite Brainy’s insistence that he was healing at an expected rate, said rate had never once been specified. Brainy had endured a near-lethal dose of radiation inside Leviathan’s ship. If it wasn’t for his Coluan physiology, he would have already been dead ten times over. Even now, it was the only thing keeping him on his feet. That – of course – and the Martian nanites Alex had injected him with.

The urge to question his ability to continue was on the tip of Lena’s tongue when a shudder fiercer than any before it struck Brainy’s spine. He jerked his hands from the keyboard with a startled half-stumble as he wound his arms around himself, ducking his head with a grimace.

Lena abandoned the code immediately. She took a cautious step forward. “Brainy—?”

“I’m fi—” Brainy began, only to clench his jaw shut when his teeth threatened to chatter instead. His dark hair clung limply to the side of his face, glistening with moisture.

“That would’ve been a lie and you know it,” Lena said plainly. She held out her hand, raising a brow. “Come on. You need to take a break.”

Predictably, Brainy refused her. “I c-c-can’t.”

“Yes, you can. And you will.” Lena was starting to see a familiarity in Brainy’s stubbornness that certainly rivalled her own. Fortunately, she had a pretty good idea who would win in this scenario. Without giving Brainy the chance to move away again, she took his arm, hooking their elbows together. “Now, let’s get you somewhere you can sit down, shall we?”

By now, Brainy was in such a poor state that even standing appeared too taxing for him. He didn’t try to argue with her any longer. Instead, with gritted teeth he used one hand to clutch feebly at the edge of the workbench, the other to anchor himself to Lena like his last lifeline.

He barely made it one step forward before his legs buckled.

Lena hissed out in shock as she was unceremoniously pulled down along with him. She barely had enough time to cushion Brainy’s fall, manoeuvring herself so that she could cushion his head when it threatened to knock against the cabinet.

All too suddenly, Lena found herself sat with her back against that same cabinet, Brainy cradled against her side. Her eyes were wide with alarm as she reviewed the quickly regressing state of him. He was burning up against her arm, intermittent shudders strong enough to shake her bones.

This hadn’t been a part of the plan. She’d certainly suspected that Brainy needed more time to rest than he’d told anyone, but she would have never envisioned that the nanites would have enforced it quite this viciously.

Lena tried to keep from trembling herself. She could learn the inner-workings of any disease if given the time and independence to study it, but offering the bedside manner required to care for the person said disease had affected? That was where her expertise regrettably ended.

But this wasn’t about her. It had been a lesson she’d learned far too late into this whole venture – something she wished wholeheartedly she could take back, so that she might have made better decisions, cultivated stronger friendships.

Despite what Brainy had seen in that code, what she had admitted from creating it in the first place, he had still wished to apologise for what he had done, as though that in any way could compare to her own sins. Not an hour ago, they had stood with a cabinet as their divider, treating each other with the same wary temperament of a feral cat. Now here they were together, sat on the floor, Brainy only half lucid in her arms.

This wouldn’t do at all. “Brainy,” Lena said softly, brushing the hair away from his ear. “Hey, listen to me, okay? We need to get you up. Do you think you can do that?”

It was a big ask, she knew that, but Brainy’s condition would only worsen if he was left to lie on a cold tile floor. This lab wasn’t exactly accommodating for a sickly patient, but at the very least there was a gurney not too far from their position that she could use as a temporary sleeping arrangement for Brainy’s needs.

Brainy’s eyes were bloodshot when he opened them sluggishly to meet hers, nodding slowly. Lena smiled her relief, grateful that he was still responsive enough for this to work. She squeezed his arm reassuringly.

“On three? One, two—”

With her arm secured around his back and Brainy’s hanging somewhere at her waist, they were able to work together to hoist themselves up. Brainy dug his hands around the cabinet the moment he was back on two feet, groaning out with a disturbing machine-quality crackle.

Lena could see a bloom of green pigmentation surface across Brainy’s cheeks. The roots of his hair were taking on a distinctly lighter tone as well.  Lena knew Brainy had an element of psychic control over his inducer that other species did not. It ran in tandem with his techno-organic physiology, but that only made it all the more alarming to see it beginning to fail now.

“Are you okay to keep going?” Lena asked, eyeing the gurney carefully. Even if Brainy was at risk of collapsing again, the route to the make-shift bedding was a straight enough shot that she was confident she could get him there in one piece.

Brainy swallowed hard, a few short breaths passing between his teeth. “As I’ll ever be,” he muttered.

Lena took that as her cue.

Together, they were able to stagger and stumble their way to the gurney where Brainy promptly collapsed onto his side, eyes squeezing shut.

He shuddered again even harder, pressing his face into the pillow with a gasp. “Everything-everything’s spinning,” he croaked. His lips trembled suddenly, and Lena realised with a horrible twist that he was fighting the urge to cry.

She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. It was only made worse when Brainy’s next question sounded out in a near whine: “Where’s Nia?”

Lena’s heart plummeted to her feet. This could not have been further from her area of expertise if she’d tried. But Brainy needed her to say something; delirious or not, it was only right.

She decided to stick with the truth.

“She’s with Alex,” Lena reminded him gently. “She’ll be back soon, I’m sure.”

“I didn’t—never wanted to h-hurt her—” Tears caught in his lashes as his chest convulsed with a new twist of pain. He clawed weakly at the gurney. “Lena…”

Lena felt truly sorry for Brainy’s situation, even more-so knowing that there was nothing she could do to ease his discomfort. The pained spasms were either a symptom of Leviathan’s radiation or the natural healing process Brainy was currently undergoing. At this point, it wasn’t clear what would have been more agonising.

When Brainy’s hand reached out to her, she took it without hesitation. She somewhat regretted that impulse when she remembered Brainy’s strength enhancements, although his grip was nowhere close to as tight as she’d anticipated. Most of his processes had likely been diverted elsewhere in an effort to heal.

Lena tightened her hold around him instead, squeezing in a way that she hoped he’d feel comforted by. The last thing she wanted was for him to feel like he was going through this alone. Especially after everything he’d put himself through already.

“It’ll pass,” Lena said, trying to keep her voice steady. “You stay here and rest. I’ll keep working on the weapon.”

Brainy’s eyes flicked open at that. He held her gaze for an impressive beat before trying to force himself up with energy he didn’t have. “I s-should be helping.”

Lena knew that feeling a little too well. Her actions, although far more deplorable than Brainy’s had ever been, had left her in a much fitter state when all had been said and done. It almost didn’t seem fair, especially when even after every sacrifice that had put Brainy in this position, he was still refusing to sit idle.

But this wasn’t a choice he was allowed to make.

Lena took his shoulder, holding him to the gurney with surprisingly little effort. “No, Brainy,” she said swiftly. “What you need to do is let those nanites do their job.” Her eyes creased fondly. “You’ll be much more useful at full capacity now, won’t you?”

Brainy didn’t respond to her in words she understood. A slurred Coluan phrase slipped past his teeth, a sound like nothing the human body was capable of producing. Still, Lena had good reason to believe it was not a pleasant phrase.

It was the last thing he was able to say, however. Shortly after, his lids fell heavy and with a final muted shudder, he slipped back into some form of unconscious state.

Lena smirked. “That’s what I thought.”

She waited for Brainy’s hold to lax around her hand before she reluctantly pulled herself away. She made a private note to keep him in her periphery at all times while she worked. If anything changed in his state, she would be the first to know.

She only hoped he’d feel better when he woke.

-------------

Nia was able to reach the lab in record time thanks to the pre-set co-ordinates on Lena’s portal watch. It wasn’t exactly her preferred method of travel – or even in her top five – but without a confident flyer on standby, it was easily the quickest way to get from A to B.

Alex had already headed back to the Tower to prepare, which left Nia with drop-off duty for their acquired bottle of Jarhanpurium.

The bottle had a sickly glow to it that still managed to starkly juxtapose the toxic element she was used to seeing from Kryptonite. It felt kind of warm in her hand, volatile, like one wrong move and kaboom.

It was all in her head, probably just her nerves talking. They were on such a tight schedule to get this all right, it hardly felt real that they’d only started putting the plan into action a few hours ago.

She’d used to rely on Brainy’s timekeeping skills for stuff like that. Now?

Now… she wasn’t even close to the right headspace to think about that.

As Nia hurried through the artificial jungle that was Lena’s lab, she realised just how alien this place looked. Even the Legion ship had a more human touch than this.

Nia didn’t let it deter her, especially when she saw Lena stood behind a workbench, avid expression watching a holographic screen as she typed something into the keypad below her.

It was only when Nia caught the faint but distinct glow of three projectors in her periphery that she froze where she stood.

In the gurney tucked away in one corner of the lab, Brainy lay still. His chest was rising and falling in a staggered, uneven pattern, the ends of his pale hair blanketed across the curve of his nose, grazing past his lips with every exhale.

Nia’s hand tightened around the bottle, an itch in her brain urging her to change course.

With a sharp breath, she let the urge slide past. Instead, she kept to her original path, nodding at Lena when she finally raised her head from her work.

“Excellent,” Lena said, taking the bottle from Nia’s hand with a smile of approval. “Thank you. Now we have everything we need to stop my brother.”

Nia smiled back. It was kind of weird, trusting Lena like this after everything that had happened, but if Kara was willing to give her another chance, she had to believe that it was worth it.

It still felt unnerving, especially as Lena had yet to mention the elephant sleeping peacefully in the room.

Nia cleared her throat. “How is he?” she asked casually.

Lena’s eyes shone with something that looked almost… sad? She folded her hands in front of her.  “I’ll be honest, the nanites have started presenting some… alarming symptoms.” She looked over at the gurney for the first time, twisting her lips. “I thought it best that he tried to sleep it off.”

Nia closed her eyes. “Right.”

“I know you’re worried about him.”

Nia nearly wanted to smile. She shook her head. “He could’ve died,” she said. “I- If I hadn’t been there in time, he would’ve and I- I can’t believe he did this without us… without…”

“Telling you?”

Nia nodded wordlessly. She wiped at her eyes when she felt a tell-tale sting, sucking in a breath. “I thought he was getting better, and it was easier to… to feel angry with him when he wasn’t lying there in that ship, y’know?” She laughed bleakly. “But, he’s hurting, he’s been hurting this whole time and he didn’t want me to see it.”

“He fought hard to get this far,” Lena agreed. She winced. “I – um -  got it into his head that doing everything to help now would be the first step forward. That was before he nearly collapsed on me, of course.”

Nia tried to hide her shudder. “He doesn’t need to prove himself,” she said thickly, brushing the hair from her eyes.

Lena smiled sadly. “Not to us.”

Nia pursed her lips. Of course Brainy would make it his new mission to do everything to prove his own worth. He’d struggled with that long before everything had gone to hell and now, he didn’t even have his inhibitors…

She did shiver then. All this time, Brainy had been acting without them. She couldn’t imagine how that must have felt. To experience every emotion so raw and unfiltered and yet he’d still managed to hide it from them all. No wonder he hadn’t been sleeping.

At least he was sleeping now.

“Thank you for this,” Lena said suddenly, relieving Nia from her thoughts. She raised the bottle in her hand. “I’ll set up the finishing touches for the weapon now. Give me about twenty minutes and it’ll be field-ready.”

“Great.” Nia didn’t move. She couldn’t bring herself to. Instead, she stood there with her arms crossed firmly over her chest.

Was it weird to linger like this? What was the alternative? She desperately wanted to keep her focus on the fight to come, and yet every time Brainy so much as shifted on that gurney, she felt herself instinctively flinch with the intent to turn towards him.

Lena made a clear show of appearing ignorant to her internal struggle, which Nia was grateful for.

When Brainy let out a particularly strained breath, his arm curving around his chest to clutch at his centre, Nia knew she couldn’t play dumb any longer. To her credit, Lena didn’t even offer a passing glance as she admitted defeat, heading back over to the gurney.

Nia couldn’t quit staring at the way Brainy looked now without his inducer. It felt like years since they’d defeated Brainy’s evil doppelganger together, since he’d combined his essence with that of his other two alternate selves in the life cores he now wore on his chest. That same light seemed to manifest as a sombre glow while he slept.

Curiously, she reached forward, touching the tips of her fingers to Brainy’s clammy forehead. She held her breath when Brainy’s lashes fluttered but ultimately remained closed.

She still wasn’t used to seeing him as himself. After all those months of forced separation, she’d even started wondering if removing his inhibitors had meant anything at all. Now, she could see those changes so plainly that it was impossible to discredit them.

God, she ached for a timeline where things could have gone differently, where Brainy had confided in her when all of this had started, where they’d been able to work this all out together instead of Brainy holding himself accountable for every move played in an infinitely complicated game of 5D chess, all in the name of her protection, to keep her safe. As though she’d needed it, like they hadn’t been partners – equals – this whole time. Maybe, if he’d realised that sooner, if he’d had someone there with him in Leviathan’s ship, it wouldn’t have bottled down to a lethal radiation trap with no conceivable escape.

One look on his face back there had told her everything she’d needed. Brainy’s declaration of love that still rang in her ears had meant nothing to her while he’d been so convinced of his own fate. He hadn’t expected anyone to come to his rescue, not after everything he’d done to divide himself from his loved ones. From her.

Was it ego that had brought him here, or selflessness? Maybe, somehow, it had been a twisted dose of both.

She wanted to hold him, she wanted to yell at him. Most importantly, though, she wanted to talk to him. She’d been intentionally standoffish with him when he’d given her his ring, but her cold front had been melting long before it even had the chance to freeze solid.

Because, when all was said and done, she’d missed him. She'd missed him so much. And now, even with her fingers tracing the invisible scars of his inhibitors, she still felt like she had to jump a chasm to reach him.

Suddenly, Brainy’s breathing shifted. He sighed out a soft, congested hum, his lashes fluttering open to look at her. His eyes were heavy lidded and bloodshot, but there was no denying that he recognised who was watching over him.

“Nia?” he croaked.

She wasn’t even sure he knew he remembered where he was, but every part of him relaxed in the knowledge of her presence. He reached for her hand; the fever and pain made his movements sluggish and uncoordinated, but she let him find her, latching to her wrist.

There was so much Nia wanted to say to him, so much she was sure he wanted to tell her in return. But, she knew in her heart that this wasn’t the time for it. She could feel the angry pulse of his fever through his hand and could almost imagine the nanites that were working ceaselessly inside his body to make him well. He still needed time. And, honestly? So did she.

Silently, Nia let the hand still hovering over Brainy’s forehead begin to wander. Her fingers started at the roots of his golden hair before travelling down through to the curls that had tightened at the nape of his neck where he’d begun to sweat trough his fever, scrunching them between her knuckles.

Brainy made a soft sound of contentment, pressing his head into her hand in wordless appreciation.

“It’s alright, Brainy,” Nia said, watching his eyes flicker as he registered her voice. “Rest, okay? You need it.”

And he really did. In all honesty, Nia had no idea when Brainy had last slept – none of them did. He’d become so reclusive in keeping these secrets, she’d hardly seen him outside of emergencies. And even then, he’d kept his distance. All she knew was that every new time she’d seen him over the last few months, the shadows beneath his eyes had always looked that bit darker.

She massaged his neck softly with the hand she still had locked in his hair, watching as Brainy’s eyes slipped closed again. It wasn’t long before his posture relaxed totally and his mouth fell slack. A mechanical purr echoed from somewhere in his chest as the last dregs of his consciousness faded.

Nia couldn’t help but smile at that. It was another thing she’d missed. Although rare in itself, Nia had always loved catching Brainy in those quiet unanimated moments of peaceful slumber. There were nights she could have laid there and watched him for hours – though such a thing hardly ever lasted that long.

She wondered how long he’d sleep for, now.

Then, with a shiver like ice in her veins, she remembered the plan. As though waking up from a dream herself, Nia realised exactly where she was stood. With Lena sharing the same space, likely minutes away from finishing the very gun she’d soon be handed. In the wake of that reality, Nia wondered instead how much sleep Brainy would even be allowed before he was inevitably pulled back into all of this.

She stroked her hand over his face one last time, relishing in the warmth of his skin, in this little uncomplicated moment they could share before everything exploded back into the casual chaos that surrounded their lives.

“Sleep tight,” Nia said, pecking him quickly on the cheek. Brainy didn’t respond this time, which was probably for the best. “I’ll see you soon.”

Until then, Nia had a job to do. She tugged her hand from Brainy’s hair, paying extra care to keep her borrowed Legion ring from snagging at any loose strands. She’d make sure to put his peace offering to good use in the fight to come.

When they saw each other again, she only hoped he’d have the rest he needed to heal.

Then, they would talk for real.