I’ve been mostly offline this whole weekend I had five fencing team matches in one weekend my legs are about to fall off so I missed saying happy birthday to @aquaanimus on the day but here’s a present for you!
Radiant
“May I have this dance, Kara?”
She doesn’t expect the question and before her mind can fully catch up, she answers with a ‘yes’.
Brainy extends a hand towards her, with a precise bow of his head. When she takes it, she’s not expecting to be guided along smoothly. Kara is not at all an experienced dancer, yet she finds herself leaning into Brainy’s lead. They almost glide across the floor and Kara has to wonder whether Brainy is using his Legion Ring to help them along. A quick glance tells her that this isn’t so. Furthermore, they haven’t accidentally bumped into a single person yet (which she notices since she’s done so before).
“Didn’t expect you to be a good dancer,” she says, before adding, “no offence.”
“None taken. It’s not the extracurricular activity of my choice but I’ve had practice. My sponsor back in the 31st century is an affluent man and I had to accompany him to events similar to this on occasion.” Kara recognises the far-off expression that Brainy has, the one visible only when he is talking about home. “Though, this event is not sincere in its nature.” He lowers his voice. “I don’t believe our target consignee is the charitable type.”
Supergirl is currently on a mission to follow a lead on an apparent ‘Alien Auction house’. Kara Danvers has secured a way into the suspected operator’s fundraising event after interviewing the owner of the lavish mansion that she is in. Lavish in the sense that the owner’s mansion has space for its own ballroom. Also, in the sense that she’s got enough money to obtain security that is offline and thus not hackable, and needs an understanding of puzzles in Interlac to get through to the room where they think that she keeps the heirlooms at. Kara’s Interlac is rusty at best, but that didn’t stop her from trying. All that got her was a tripped alarm and extra security against Supergirl. This event means that she could get Brainy to help her inside with a lower likelihood of raising suspicions and being caught again.
“Especially not if she’s benefitting from selling stolen alien heirlooms.” Kara’s whisper has a sharpness that she did not intend to put into it. She can’t help it – she imagines how she would feel if someone stole any of her last remaining reminders of Krypton.
“Agreed.” If Brainy catches her tone, he doesn’t show it. “She certainly has an eye for those heirlooms, based on the ones we’ve recovered. Though none for architecture, it appears.” His gaze moves to the ceiling “Overly spurious.”
Kara thinks he’s right. There’s a distinct feeling that this is all fake. There’s no sense of history in this room like the owner wanted a ballroom but did not care about making it feel the least bit authentic. Some of the people here, too, are off. She believes they must be here for the auction.
“This whole place gives me a bad feeling.”
“Mm.”
It’s only now that Kara realises that Brainy hasn’t looked at her for a while now. She thought maybe he was looking for the purpose of not bumping into anyone, but he was still staring upwards. “Brainy, is there something up there?”
“Nothing in particular.”
“You sure?”
He glances at her momentarily, before his head whips back up. Okay, this is definitely on purpose.
“Come on, what’s up?” She tries to catch his eye again.
“I already said, there’s nothing above us in particular.”
She rolls her eyes. “I know you know what I meant when I asked that.”
He sighs. “I – yes, yes, I concede. Sorry, I was trying not to look at you so much.”
“Huh, why not?”
“You’re – how should I put this – I am slightly overwhelmed by your formal appearance tonight.”
Overwhelmed? She looks down at her dress. She doesn’t think it’s anything out of the world – just a muted-yellow floor-length dress. It’s a relatively cheap one too since she got it last minute for tonight. “I don’t think I overkilled it with the dress, everyone else is dressed up.” She let’s go of his hand to poke him in the chest. “You’re dressed up.”
“It’s not the dress itself,” he says quickly. “It’s more to do with you in the dress.”
Kara lowers her hand slightly. “Wait…’me’ in the dress?” Brainy is certainly not looking at her now. “As in…?” She thinks she knows what he means, but she also doesn’t want to look stupid if she’s completely wrong and –
“Yes, you look radiant,” he says, with a pronounced cough at the end. “It’s rude to stare, isn’t it? So I’m trying not to.”
“Ohhhhh,” is the absolutely brilliant response she comes up with.
Her guess is not completely off but she is expecting maybe a casual ‘you look nice’ or ‘good’ - ‘radiant’ – she ducks her head, feeling her cheeks begin to warm. When Brainy is truthful, he is very truthful, it seems.
“No, it’s fine, you can stare – no, wait – I mean, we’re having a conversation so you can look at me.” She just about manages to get that out.
The moment he gets permission, his head turns back towards her.
She almost says ‘not now’ because his smile makes it too obvious how he feels about being able to look at her again and her face gets even warmer. That, and she’s sure if she said it out loud, he would oblige and look back up at the ‘nothing in particular’ ceiling.
“The colour of the dress suits you very well,” he says, this time in a matter-of-fact way. “I wonder if I should have colour-coordinated.”
“No need! I’m getting used to seeing you in purple nearly all the time.”
“But I’m not sure if it is the appropriate colour for this event, though. It is more common in the 31st century, but everyone seems to be wearing black suits.”
“Seriously, it’s fine,” she assures him. “The dark purple looks good on you.”
“Really?”
“Of course, you look –”
Kara looks Brainy once over, eyes once again meeting with his.
“ – good.”
Oh.
Oh.
She is suddenly conscious that he does, in fact, look very good and that Brainy in a suit is a look that she is not at all opposed to.
“That’s a relief to hear, Kara.”
He takes her hand back in his, pulling her slightly closer and leaning down.
Her heartbeat suddenly skyrockets, and she finds herself closing her eyes as she feels his breath across her cheek and –
“Don’t look now but based on the simulations I ran on the target, she might now be taking some of her guests to the ‘other’ entertainment.”
“What?” Kara says this out loud, turning around before Brainy pulls her back.
“I thought you said you’re not supposed to look after that phrase.”
“You’re not,” she confirms. You’re not, but you’ve completely frazzled me, so I just did.
“Are we following her, then?”
“Yes, we are.”
He lets go of her.
“Lead the way since you’ve been here before.”
It’s back to business, but the smile is still in place and there’s a twinkle in his eyes that make her wonder whether he enjoyed catching her off guard.
Kara and Brainy, #11 "why is your pocket making that noise?"
“Why is yourpocket making that noise?”
“What?” is allKara can say, because she hasn’t thought about it. It’s just her phone ringing,that’s all, and she should pick it up- except she’s probably instead going toexplain phones to Brainy. “You don’t- oh, right.”
“Please clarify?”
“Imra asked what aphone is, too.” She says, pulling it out. “You want to take a look?”
Brainy nods, andwhen he takes it he looks like he’s engaging the phone in a staring contest-before he looks at her, and hands it back.
“What exactly wasthat?”
“Oh, I justperformed an internal scan.” He answers. “I now know how to make a “cellularphone” of my own, provided the right materials, as well as I am aware of eachfeature of the phone, and how it works. And the fact that James just called,and you should probably call him back.”
“Right.” Karasays. “Did you look at-“
“Memories ofseeing your Internet search history and any personal information has alreadybeen boxed away.” He answers. “I may as well have not seen them at all.”
“That’s verycomforting. And really cool. Although, in the future, we gotta talk about those boxes of yours.You can’t do that forever, you know.”
I got the urge to read this. Brainy substituting a high school class. :)
It wasn’t supposedto have been him.
Not at all- infact, originally Eliza was supposed to give a speech in some 10thgrade biology class, but something came up.
So, of course,Kara asked him to go in and speak on her behalf, and because he could neverback down from a challenge (and because he didn’t want to disappoint any of theDanvers women) he accepted.
And although he’dbeen given her notes to memorize, and had come up with some of his own that he’dmade sure wouldn’t affect the timeline, he still felt uncomfortable.
The school was soloud, and so full of people- of humans, specifically, though he was comfortedto see at least a few aliens in the room.
And they were allstaring at him. All wondering about him, watching his every move.
He couldn’t lie,he wished Eliza was here. Or Alex, or Lena- anyone more qualified for such atask.
@aquaanimus replied to your post: mmm some petty (non-spoilery) bitching below the...
I am bummed and pissed about it. But the positives I came up with: 1) he originally came to see her with work on his mind. 2) did she really mean its a date, or was this just to confuse him? 3) i want her to be my valentine seems like something he read off the valentines sites he was on. 4) she kind of blew him off at the end and went to sit with her room mate. Am I making excuses because I don’t want it to happen? Maybe. But the whole thing is stupid and I hate it.
You pretty much echoed my exact feelings (right down to “the whole thing is stupid and I hate it” alskdjfksdj YEAH, BIG MOOD).
The opening scene of him showing up like “JUST TO BE CLEAR THIS IS NOT A DATE” makes the whole “I want her to be my Valentine!” thing just feel completely abrupt and nonsensical imo, and I just. I just don’t understand why they would write it that way, I really really don’t.
And then the whole blowing him off at the end (just when it seemed like he was going to Express Some Feelings) makes me feel like they’re gonna do a plotline now where he’s the one pining after her, which just makes me wanna bang my head against a wall because seriously, HOW MANY MISCOMMUNICATIONS CAN TWO PEOPLE GO THROUGH before they realize that hmmmm, maybe a romantic relationship isn’t the best idea here??
I dunno. I have no clue what’s going on anymore, and I’ve given up trying to figure it out tbh. Like. Whateverrrrrrr. 🙃
@aquaanimus replied to your post: @aquaanimus replied to your post: ...
Have they made a decision though? The ending was so … almost chilly… that it makes me feel they are still stringing us along.
I really, genuinely, have no idea at this point WHO is being strung along. Someone obviously is, but I don’t know if it’s shippers or non-shippers. I was expecting this episode to FINALLY settle where the relationship is headed, but obviously that didn’t happen, and so the characters are STILL in stasis for no good reason and I’ve just been left incredibly frustrated.
So no, they haven’t made any kind of official, obvious decision yet on where this is going. But I have a Bad Feeling, so I’m already preemptively declaring that I’m going to just straight-up ignore it if it does happen lmao.
@aquaanimus replied to your photo: My 2018 Summary of Art! Last year, my only goals...
I didn’t know that you drew too! I love your writing and your analyzing talents. I am still fan girling hahaha. I hope you draw more Brainy!
Aw haha, thank you so much!! And yeah, I’m actually primarily an artist! I don’t typically write (or analyze) anything for fandom unless I really, really love a certain character or pairing (which I clearly do in this case).
I’ve drawn Brainy quite a few times, actually! You probably just haven’t seen most of them. Here’s the links to the posts:
my first drawing of Brainy, from my unfinished “draw every Supergirl character” project
the Thanksgiving art that someone also posted on Twitter (though I might repost it on there myself eventually, since the version that they posted wasn’t fully HQ)
the art I posted yesterday for his birthday, which you’ve already seen
I’ve drawn a lot of art to go along with my karadox fake-dating fic, too!
Chapter 1 doodle
Chapter 2 doodle
Brainy and Kara babysitting Ruby, from a fic snippet that I posted on here
Kara and Brainy wearing comfy clothes and hanging out in her loft, from a fic scene that hasn’t been written yet
this silly doodle of Kara and Brainy based on an ask that cyclone-rachel sent me
Brainy in his outfit from 4.08, back when the first set pics leaked (plus a colored version)
Brainy from the LOSH cartoon with Aya from GLTAS
a screencap redraw of LOSH cartoon Brainy
jfc, that’s more than I thought I would have?? lmao but yeah, here’s all of them!!
I’m also currently working on a (belated) karadox New Year’s drawing, so uhh, you might as well keep an eye out for that I guess?? 😅
aquaanimus replied to your photo “Is it just me ??”
I haven't found very many online
Hm, well I assume you’ve already found the ones on the comic Legion of Superheroes ff.net. Some of which are karadox but characters are not ‘labelled’ so you would have to dig through all of it yourself. (This being one of my faves)
Also I don’t know if you’ve already looked through https://12th-level-love.livejournal.com/ but there are loads of ficlets in the individual posts...although you would have to manually click through all of them to find them...
This also has 2 or 3 http://www.5earths.com/earth-1/lsh/.
(I could possibly do like a outside-of-tumblr/ao3 karadox masterlist with short summaries though, if it’s a chore to click through lol)
