Brainiac was unprepared for the strike and took it with surprise. His white eyes shuttered as he felt no pain, but instead a mild vibration through the sturdy metal plating. Lex could not have expected that to harm him.. But perhaps that was not the intention..
“I may deserve that…” Brainiac confessed flatly, glancing quickly down at the red, bruising knuckles on Lex’s hand….But he did wish Lex wouldn’t harm himself to make a point..
There was so much he wanted to say but the reality of the situation could be summed up in few words. The explanation was standard, no great event kept him away. No cosmic emergency that needed his tending… There was no world shattering thing that pulled him away and he was never damaged in the time he was away… Which perhaps made this all the more irresponsible and cruel. To leave for so long for no good reason…
“I was exactly where you last saw me.” He stated calmly, the familiar void in his voice that kept all emotion neatly below the surface, “The ruins of Krypton. Continuing my restoration project. I never left that sector and continued my work for all of that time.”
“What I did not anticipate, however-” He continued, “Was how differently time moved so far away from Earth. And how unaware of time I have become in my current state…”
He looked away, glancing out the window at the city. It looked nearly the same as it once did. There were a few new sky scrapers being built in the distance. Some of the old ones clearly had been repaired. Likely from some super-villain making a mess of the place. Life on Earth moved so fast for a being who would never age. And human lives were so short. Too short to lose two years..
“I became absorbed in my work..I had anticipated returning sooner but when I paused, i realized how much time here had truly passed… I suppose part of me assumed that you would attempt to contact me and that would ground me in reality while I worked… But you never did.”
And he asked himself why the entire trip back to Earth… It was clear now that he’d offended the man. Left him without explanation and returned expecting to be invited back into his life. But why didn’t Lex reach out sooner? Why let two years pass like this and not even try and discover why? The Lex he knew was more tenacious than that… But perhaps Brainiac was looking to displace his own blame.
“I returned to earth to find two years had passed…” He turned back to Lex and just looked at him. Looking at every line on his face, every curve of his features. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.. He’d lost two years with Lex that he would never be able to recover. And something in him agonized at the thought.
“No physical action, or material gift will return the time I have stolen… All I can offer is an apology…”
Lex shook his hand again, ignoring the stinging, moving it to end the paradox that was painful numbness. The pain was quickly fading, although it would be sore for a bit after this. (This was not the first time Lex had futilely punched someone or something.)
He didn’t miss Brainiac’s lingering look on his hand, though. Relief, his mind whispered traitorously. Forgiveness was surely incoming, it always was--he had forgiven so much to make this work in the first place, why throw it away now?--but that didn’t mean that he was going to make it easy. Or immediate.
Because the other emotions still churned, rushing in his mind. It was quite frustrating, difficult to center himself--he felt destabilized. But, he was justified in feeling such. It was still bothersome though, after having maintained control of himself and his thoughts for so long, to lose it so easily. Although, for Lex, this lack of control simply resulted in this cacophony of emotion, slowing and muddling his thoughts. It could be worse. But, it was still irritating.
At least Brainiac took the punch well (emotionally, not physically, obviously a simple punch would be nothing to him). That itself got at least half of these feelings under control. It had let Lex vent, and venting with words would have likely just made this situation...far worse than it had to be. Amusingly enough, punching was better than talking, just in this situation.
He...was not actually surprised at all by Brainiac’s justification. Or, lack of one, rather. Lex had had two years to think about all the possible reasons for the absence, not that he was constantly thinking about it, he did have his own life and goals, but--well. Two years and sixteen days was a long time to think.
One of the easiest ones to consider, really, was Brainiac getting lost in his work. He never did anything small, and Lex himself would get lost in his work and often ignore his body’s needs. But, his body eventually informed him of those needs and he couldn’t run from them forever. Of course, he could imagine himself without them, without those limitations, and it was so easy to imagine himself losing days, weeks. Years.
Still, the anger of being forgotten nagged at him, and he could burst, could snarl about how insignificant he must be, to have been forgotten like that. That he shouldn’t have to be the one to remind the other that he existed. That he spent every day of his life on a single planet, easy to find, often in the same few buildings--
But, the anger wasn’t worth it. Fighting and yelling wasn’t worth it, not when he was finally back. Not when Lex felt like they had done enough of that.
Raising a hand to rub at his forehead, Lex sighed, “Don’t...you don’t have to apologize. Obviously both of us did nothing about it, even though both of us could have.” He tapped idly at the wristwatch he wore on his left hand (the one he did not punch with--he did not wish to injure his dominant hand--not even to make a point).
“I...” Ugh, this was. Undesirable. Some prep time before this reappearance would have been appreciated. A text at least. “My pride was an obstacle,” he admitted, “If you weren’t thinking of me, I wasn’t going to crack first. Not that that is an accusation, because it isn’t intended to be such, but it is simply how I thought.”
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