I see post-zero hour brainylyle as a very much "Lyle fell first, Querl fell harder" ship. Like it's easy to read Lyle as having a very minor crush on Querl from the beginning in a "I want to know what's wrong with you /affectionate" way that slowly deepens as they become friends but Lyle is well adjusted enough that he keeps it mostly to himself because he doesn't think Querl will ever reciprocate and he doesn't want to make his friend uncomfortable. But I fully think the moment Querl figures out he has a crush on Lyle is after Sharn Nux stabs him in issue 14 of the legion. Just bleeding out on the ground and he just suddenly has that "oh lyle's great I love him" thought and then it overwhelms his brain forever. Just full biromantic disaster mode from that point on.
I actually hadn't ever thought of him nearly dying at the hands of Sharn Nux being the last event that pushes him towards finally admitting to himself there is more than friendship there but now I can definitely see it happening!
I'd have to re-read a little bit but I believe after this point is when they did get.... very close. So you might be on to something.
My own personal canon was the whole Rift incident and events of Legion Lost pushed Querl to realize his feelings but maybe he needed a bigger shove...
Back on my 2011 bullshit of being obsessed with two obscure comic book characters. It's interesting that being obscure characters is basically what let brainiac 5 and invisible kid be queer decades before their Batfamily and Superfamily cousins could come out.
Lyle convinced him to make a little nap nest in the lab. And then convinced him to take naps with him.
A couple stories up, Lyle staggers like he's been punched, a hand coming up to catch himself against the metallic pillar he’s working at, his knees wobbling. From the ground floor, Rokk sees him absently raise his other hand to eventually rest his fingertips gently at his hairline.
“You okay up there?” The silence in response is long, but as his concern starts to build the quiet is broken by Lyle blowing a dismissive hiss of breath through his teeth.
“I thought you had a new years resolution to avoid being the ‘mom friend,’ Cos.” Lyle teases, turning on his heel and making his lean against the pillar look more casual; practiced poised instead of hunched. He oozes cool on command in a way that is almost comedic and has Rokk actively resisting rolling his eyes. The Earthling has been punching in a precise algorithm for the past hour, line by line with the dedication of a surgeon, and the slight sour edge to his tone betrays some actual frustration. And as Rokk observes him, at least as well as he can from the harsh angle and distance between them, his movements are smooth and purposeful once again. Clearly feeling the other’s stare, Lyle waves a dismissive hand in the direction of the Legion Founder before refocusing on his task once again. “I’ll be fine.” He insists over the beeping keypad. “Especially once this sprocking update is finally implemented and working.”
The platform Lyle stands on is only a few feet wide and equal parts long, arched around the large main pillar that hosts the guiding mechanics of the room. There were easier computing hubs to code at throughout the room, but for some reason one of the smartest and most acrophobic members of their team insisted he had to be at the highest one for this specific adjustment.
“I’m sure it’ll go exactly as planned” Rokk calls, flexing his fingers where he’s gently holding parts of the maintenance hub and technical core, one of many throughout Legion World, in temporary magnetic stasis while Lyle works.
“Tell that to Brainy. You should have heard about how much grief he was giving me about it.” He can practically hear Lyle frowning as his input pattern continues, and can’t help but smile to himself—the exact expression is too easy to imagine. “But I’d rather we lock it into place now and not wish we’d done it later.”
What, Brainy didn’t think the project was worthwhile? Imra’s question echoes, unobtrusively, through both of their heads as she observes the room’s multiple status levels from the main control panel located near the room’s entrance.
“Not for the time I put into it,” Lyle mutters, distracted. “Can’t tell you how often he’d come into the lab and complain that I was still digging through the same data. He only finally gave me some space after we go back from the T1045 comet mission. But at this point even I’m sick of it.”
Rokk frowns. “You told me you were going to pass on the T1045 mission.” They’d argued about it, actually. Right in one of the main hallways. Many Legionnaires had stopped to watch the show. The new recruits were still talking about it. “You know, since you volunteered for the Durla one right before it.”
“...I was.”
“But?”
“But.” Lyle makes the word sound like a full sentence, clearly trying to end the conversation. After a long, expectant silence his acquiescing scoff echoes around the metallic room and he clears his throat before he continues. “But, part of the instruments being used were based on my research from a few years ago. If something went wrong I wanted to be available. It’s really not a big deal, Cos, I was mostly observing.”
“It’s a big deal, Lyle, if you’re over hours and over working.”
The steady beeping of the lines of code stalls, and when it doesn’t resume he glances up and is greeted with Lyle’s bemused face peeking over the edge of the upper deck platform. “’Over hours’, Rokk?” Lyle wipes the back of his hand across his brow a couple times, grinning cheekily. “What, are you going to report me to the Legion Union?” The grin transforms into a wicked smirk. “You gunna ground me?”
Rokk works his jaw, then looks away. He’s not embarrassed, he’s not blushing, but there’s something about Lyle’s attitude that has always put him somewhere between ease and edge. “I’m just saying you have a bad habit of overdoing it.”
Lyle hums loud enough to make sure Rokk can hear it, accepting the observation easily. The rhythmic beeping of his inputting begins again. “Don’t we all?”
That, Rokk can’t deny.
From there, they fall into a content silence. The minutes stretch, punctuated by Lyle’s work and the slight creak of the metal machines weighing against Rokk’s abilities. Even Imra’s presence in their shared cerebral space becomes a gentle hum, quiet and comfortable. He lets out a long breath, pressing out the air from deep at the bottom of his lungs, and feels every muscle in his shoulders loosen, settling against the minute strain.
“Lyle!” Imra’s cry is a knife, so harsh he can’t even tell if she screamed telekinetically or not. Rokk looks up in time to see the Earthling lilt at a harsh angle away from the maintenance board. Lyle’s hand reaches out in an attempt to stop the inevitable, but his grasping fingers are slow and disconnected, only wrapping around air. His staggering, weaving feet take him back, back away from safety and... and... eventually, horrifically, Lyle stumbles right off the edge of the platform.
It’s really not that high. Even with Lyle’s fear of heights Rokk has seen him conquer leaps far taller without the use of his flight ring. The stealth focused Legionnaire was rather cat-like that way; twisting before he hit the ground and landing with far more grace than any one person should possess.
But something in Rokk’s gut tells him no graceful save will come. No last minute twist and breathtaking recovery. And he’s right. Lyle falls. And falls. And falls.
So Rokk crosses the room in seconds flat, using his Legion ring to propel his strides, extending his arms and managing to catch the other Legionnaire just before he hits the ground. The momentum makes him stumble, but the Braalian quickly rights himself, hauling the Lyle's deadweight up at the knees and shoulders. The machines around them, no longer held stagnant, buzz to life in speedy rotation. In his arms, Lyle disappears and reappears in a jittering wave, like a bioluminescent tide is crashing over him again and again. Rokk feels the fluxing ability vibrate against every place where their bodies press.
"Lyle? Lyle!" There’s no response. Lyle’s head remains listed back, still but tense. Expression pinched. His skin has taken on an ashy hue, grey at the edges except across the high line of his cheekbones where he’s flushed an alarming red. Sweat is matting his bangs to his forehead. His breath comes in short, desperate pants that end in a horrific wheeze. But before Rokk can really, truly assess how his friend looks, he disappears again in invisible, patchy waves. Even his ability looks stitched together at the seams, bare-thread and worn. Like a injured animal desperately flailing in one last feeble attempt to defend itself. Panic sets in before Rokk can even recognize it, sour in his cheeks and jaw. He only has to look up at Imra and catch her gaze before she's off, flying out the door to get help.
Sinking to his knees, he tries to lay out the prone Earthling. Freeing one hand, Rokk tugs off Lyle's headband so he can press the full expanse of his palm against his friend’s forehead. It sears. The iconic piece of fabric falls to the floor, sopping with sweat.
"Come on, come on..." He moves his hand from Lyle's forehead to his unnaturally warm cheek, patting it. Lyle's eyelids flutter. "That's it, wake up Kid." Brown eyes open halfway, pupils blown wide in the artificial light. They list over in Rokk’s direction then roll back as Lyle goes limp once again. “No, no, no don’t—“
There's movement at the doorway and Rokk turns as best he can with the burden in his arms, hoping it's Imra already returned with the medical team, a healer, anyone.
Instead, Brainiac 5 walks in, eyebrows locked in a cynical arch poised for debate. He’s lazily brandishing a hovering holopanel with one hand like a baton. “Norg if you’re quite through with this diversion I need you to assist with my—“
But then. But then his gaze, sweeping across the room with abject boredom drags down to Rokk's arms. To who is in Rokk's arms. To who is in Rokk's arms sprawled out and silent and unmoving and disappearing unsteadily like a sparking, dying electronic. And the Coluan stops. He stares long, hard and unrelenting and it's like the whole room takes a collective short, panicked breath: once, twice, thrice.
Brainy's free hand tenses and flexes sharply. The lock of Brainy's teeth as his jaw snaps shut is audible, defining, even from so far away. Then he's crossing the room in sharp, long strides.
Rokk swallows. "He passed out." Brainy comes to crouch across from him, a green hand going to Lyle's neck. But as he watches those green fingers gently press against Lyle’s pulse, the other boy again disappears — only this time he stays invisible for a few seconds. Rokk tries to not think about what might have happened if his powers started malfunctioning mid-fall.
And then they both watch as the invisibility starts to crawl up Brainy’s arm, freezing only as it reaches his upper arm like a computer virus hitting a firewall. They stare at the phenomenon, silent. Shocked.
“What should we—“
“Don’t move.” The holopanel Brainy had been carrying multiplies, taking on the purple hue of the Coluan’s personal programming, and each shift to hover over their prone friend. He uses his free, visible hand starts typing into the one closest to him rapidly. That bright green gaze darts, but never strays far from where they know Lyle lays.
Slowly, finally, Brainy’s arm fades back into view and it’s only when it’s fully revealed once more that Lyle appears again. During his disappearance his nose has begun bleeding in thick, dark clots that run down his chin and collect at the collar of his uniform. Brainy clicks his tongue, frown lines deepening in his brow. But he continues to press against Lyle’s pulse, fluttering like a hovering hummingbird -- Rokk can feel the soft yet frantic magnetic pulses of it against his skin. Can feel the unnatural heat radiating off of him in oppressive waves.
The Braalian remembers waking up in a cold hospital in the wake of the outpost wreckage. He remembers looking, desperately, seeking the shape of Garth and Imra at his bedside and finding only Lyle. Lyle sitting and looking so very small in the vast space of the room around them. Lyle with a busted lip, a bruised face and hollow eyes. Lyle who didn't say a word yet so perfectly, tragically, explained everything he needed to know. Lyle who met his grasping, gripping hand with such equal sorrow that their fingers bruised and shook together.
Rokk adjusts his hold on the other Legionnaire. Tighter. “He was inputting the data on Level 3, then he just... fell.″
Brainy eyes him, then looks up, assessing the small platform above them. The maintenance pad blinks innocently.
"I'm going to kill him." Brainy states, cold, intentional. Together they watch the temperature reading on his nearby med screen climb and climb and climb. None of them are from Earth, but by now they both know the readings start bad and only get worse: 102, 102.5, 103, onwards. A small, tinny alarm starts buzzing from the assessment tech; Warning, Danger, Emergency. The Coluan’s mouth becomes a thin, tight line. "We need to get him to the medbay immediately."
"Are we really okay to move him?”
“I’d prefer to wait for a transporter, but it appears that the longer you hold him the more he’s injuring himself so no, we will not wait.” Brainy gestures down Lyle’s prone form between them, and together they watch him flicker out of view once again. They watch the invisibility make it’s way up, up, now to the curve of the Coluan’s shoulder. Then their gaze mutually shifts to Rokk’s own arms: each of point where Lyle’s body presses against him fades from view in a staggering, jittering, patchy crawl. He tastes ozone on his tongue. It is only then that Brainy removes his fingers from Lyle’s pulse, gesturing the once again visible arm between them pointedly. “For some reason that I cannot gather it seems that during this abnormality his body is trying to make anyone touching him invisible as well. And since that’s not how his powers are supposed to work, even in a healthy state, his body can’t physically handle it.”
Lyle coming back into view gives Rokk an excuse to turn his gaze down. He can feel Brainy’s calculating eyes on him but he refuses to look, although that action in and of itself might have sealed his guilt. After all, he was the one that Lyle pitched the idea of training his abilities to. It was at the beginning of that long, empty, yawning year that followed after the Outpost disaster. When they’d both been desperate for any form of achievable evolution they could find against the massive mountain of their mutual grief. He’d supported Lyle. Encouraged him. And now here he is, holding Lyle’s head up so yet another nosebleed can run it’s course under Brainy’s gaze that feels more accusatory by the minute.
"Cos?"
Relief is like a rope being snipped. He sags slightly, and Brainy’s hand snaps up to clutch at his shoulder and keep him upright. "Yeah— Yeah, Kid, it's me. You with us?"
Lyle doesn’t open his eyes but turns towards Rokk’s voice, a distant frown twitching across his features like each muscle had to reconnect with his brain. Under long lashes, the dark circles are now apparent against the harsh pallor of his face. Grife, how long have those been there? How had he not seen them the minute that his friend had walked in the door to start this upgrade?
"Cos, I was...” Lyle swallows a few times, then tries again: “I must’ve… Did you see what line of code I was on?"
"Lyle Norg," Brainy snaps, leaning into the space between them and digging his fingers into where he holds onto Rokk. "Shut up or so help me--"
"Oh," the corner of Lyle's mouth lists up instantly, features relaxing. "Hi Brainy."
Rokk has a front row seat to watching Brainy go through several stages of grief; his jaw works, grinding his teeth, clearly debating if he should just throttle their prone friend to save himself the stress.
"Don't 'hi' me, Norg." The Coluan finally lets go of him to take Lyle’s bloody chin in his hand, directing it back towards himself, teeth bared in what should be a sneer if it were any other situation. If it were anyone other than Lyle. “You’ve deliberately harmed yourself.”
Lyle peeks his eyes open, the brown hazy and distant behind long lashes but he still clearly tries to get his gaze to focus on Brainy’s features hovering inches into his space. Rokk watches his pupils contract and expand several times to no avail. After a long, contemplative pause, he swallows then croaks miserably: “Had a deadline.”
Brainy abandons his data fully to grasp Lyle’s face between his palms, using his thumbs to smear some of the blood away. “Your own, it appears! You fell over 20 feet!” When the other boy only hums in response, Brainy visibly bristles, leaning in again with fury. “If Cosmic Boy hadn’t saved your nass your head could be smashed across the floor. You would have died the most anticlimactic death and for what! To prove a point?”
Lyle closes his eyes against the scolding, whining in the back of his throat. But then he sighs with a sad rattle at the end of it. “…Hands feel nice.”
Brainy immediately snatches the appendages away as if scalded, shocked. A soft, disappointed sound calls out from Lyle’s parted lips, and Rokk responds almost instinctively in the Coluan’s place, cupping Lyle’s cheek in his hand and feeling the searing feverish heat against his own skin through his uniform. He uses that hand to gently draw Lyle’s head back in to tuck against his chest, adjusting him into an easier hold before he slowly, carefully, stands.
When he looks back at Brainy, the Coluan is staring at his hands, at where the other Legionnaire's blood now stains his fingers in various patches.
“Shall we?” Rokk grunts, and Brainy flinches as if out of a dream. Then stiffly, he nods, standing and briskly setting the pace out the door towards the medical wing.
"Let’s be quick about it. Our Earthling is very fragile by nature." Brainy states over his shoulder, tone all business as he marches ahead of them. His dirty hands are clenched into fists. They tremble ever so slightly between the gentle swing of his hurried stride. Rokk thinks about them all charging into battle as a unit: The Legion of Superheroes. All their variety of might and powers combined against the threats of the universe. And how this one kid from Earth whose only ability is disappearing is somehow always right alongside them. Charging head on. Rokk thinks about the battlefield and about Brainiac 5, casting his forcefield wide, covering Lyle as best he can.
"Don't remind me." Lyle mutters, sourly. His eyes open, briefly, before he groans and hides his face against Rokk’s collarbone. "Oh no. Are you princess carrying me down the main hallway right now? Grife, I'm never living this down."
"You have more important retributions from this than your ego to worry about.” Brainy doesn’t look back at them, shoulders stiff. “I am locking you out of the lab for a month. A month, Norg. I'm cybercoding it down to your DNA so you can't even come 10 feet from the door."
Lyle smiles against Rokk's collar. Rokk can feel it, just like he feels the other slip into unconsciousness again, his sweaty scalding brow resting where Rokk's uniform ends on his neck.
Drabble idea: Lyle actually remembers his birthday this year
Lyle didn't wake up so much as he simply... opened his eyes at 2:47am. The shadows fell soft around him, the yawning, open expanse of space dozing outside his window.
He blinked slowly, brown eyes assessing the moonlight casting it's glow across his room. His thoughts come to him as if wrapped in cotton and hand delivered preciously. In his sleep he'd kicked off half of his sheets, a leg thrown out and atop the pile. Something about this exact position he's in, at this very moment, felt like the most ingenious thing he'd ever created. He hummed to himself, half aware and gently in the back of his throat, observing the sound fold into the night around him.
It'd taken a long, long time after he left Black Hole to not snap to full alert the moment he woke up. To not react like it was life or death if he lingered in oblivious comfort for even a second too long. That said, the habit was never too far out of his reach -- poor Condo could attest to that, having been on the receiving end of one too many instinctual defensive maneuvers.
So this, right now, was precious. Something he experienced once in a blue moon and it was unique to Legion World alone (a fact that remained unexamined yet left a tender, fond bruise on his heart). No instant rush of adrenaline, no obligation calling his awareness or to-do list racing behind his eyelids, no calculation at the top of his mind or fear in his limbs. He tried to hold this quiet, empty feeling gently between his palms and savor it as long as he could, like a long drink of cool water after a hot day. His consciousness wavered precariously on a tightrope, walking the line between asleep and awake in a balancing act he would soon lose. But for now he had both.
"Happy birthday to me." He said to his room and the stars.
In a few short hours, he'll step out of his room, undoubtably running into the early risers of the Legion and those adjusted to the typical sleep cycles from their home planets. The rain of well wishes and gifts and positivity will begin until it builds into an all embracing downpour. The "surprise" party that Luornu had been planning for months will happen at 4:30pm in the massive terra garden and he will use every ounce of his impeccable acting abilities to make it seem like he never saw it coming. He knew Rokk had a gift selected since last summer. Meanwhile Tinya and Reep had organized a group present from the entire espionage squad. He admittedly had no clue what Brainy was planning, if anything at all (maybe that small giddiness of the unknown is his own gift to himself).
But for now it was 2:47am, the moon's shadows stretched and space moved ever onward outside his window. Lyle closed his eyes once more, basked in the warmth of his pocket of Legion World, and felt so very, very loved.
Hey all~!
To get back into my Lyle muse more, I’m opening my askbox for mini drabble prompts over the weekend. Feel free to be really vague or specific!
Well, turns out I’m far too busy with life to finish redesigning EVERY legionnaire, so I’m finally posting a WIP of everyone I’ve gotten to so far. I started working on this about a year ago (perhaps more), but it’s come to a halt a long time now. None of them are posed because these were meant to just be the initial sketches lmao
yousharknotpass
origamiaround
2087
dailybridgerton
vaporwave
izzy806
blakekathryn
