#querl dox

[brainiac5swife]

who do you think fem-Brainy's wife was?

Look as much as I wanna say Kara and let gay Karadox live She said her wife lives on in the big brain indicating that she was Coluan. I also want to say Kaja Dox because she’s a lesbian icon but she was also born before Virl so it’s kinda impossible. She’s probably just some random Coluan who Brainy just happened to fall in love with.

[brainiac5swife]

if I had to headcanon anything as to why Indigo is so different from Brainy, I'd say that Indigo is more inorganic because she was literally built to serve on Krypton as a supercomputer, like a lot of Coluans at the time probably, whereas Brainy is from a time where Coluans are half-technological and half-organic, so he's literally more human than her. still cannot come up with an explanation for why she's Brainiac 8 and he's Brainiac 5, though.

Okay so I looked it up and I honestly am so confused as to who the duck Indigo is. I looked at “The Dox Family” tree and it says Indigo is a possible alt timeline of Virl Dox aka Big man Brainiac the first ??? Which makes no sense is she’s supposed to be 8 ??? Yet when I looked up her biography it claims she’s from a distant future era ?? It’s almost like DC has no idea who she is at all and is hoping we don’t notice since she’s such a minor character within the comics. In the Teen titans comics (when she was first introduced in the DC comics ) it claims that her Grandfather is Brainiac 6 ( and he actually designed her kinda like a computer to kill superhero’s such as Donna Troy). This would definitely indicate she’s AFTER Brainiac 5 which again makes no sense especially since she’s still continuing with the original Brainiacs plan which was to take Kryptons knowledge (as that’s what she was put in Fort Rozz for ). It’s also revealed the reason Donna is a main target because because “a living Donna would negate Coluan domination over the ‘organics’ after the ‘Infinite Crisis’ events.” Wither this has something to do with her being a full Ai rather then Techno-organic like Brainy Idk. That being said I don’t think we can ever really figure out who the hell indigo is supposed to be until a day where DC might try and salvage the mess that is her origin

Personally I’ve had this Dox family Au in my head for years where Indigo is actually A close relative of Brainys who went psycho trying to become smart enough to be deemed a Brainiac and got the name Brainiac 8 after someone like 4 said something to her about how she wasn’t smart enough to be a Brainiac and wouldn’t be for another 3 generations at least ( Hense the 8) . It’s also why she went back in time , she would read story’s about the supers after what knowledge is left and decided as an act to prove herself as a Brainiac she would steal Kryptons knowledge. She obviously failed and got trapped in the past. At least that’s what I’ve always imagined.

[nancywheelxr]

Alex notices.

How can she not?

She notices as soon as he rejoins her and Kara and Lena, when he tells them how he left J’onn and Nia behind without a second thought. She notices how he talks, how he moves and carries himself. Yes, Brainy is different, and she wants to ask why- wants to know who did this to him.

But at the same time, there’s a lot going on, and she has to focus. Whatever’s going on with Brainy, however serious it is, can wait, right? And besides, it might be those boxes that he talked about, with him closing off his feelings so he can focus. Alex relates to that; she’s doing it herself.

After everything, they’ll open their boxes together, and Brainy will be himself. They’re gonna be okay.

Except it isn’t that easy. Except afterwards, Brainy and J’onn and Nia come back from their mission, looking drained, and neither J’onn nor Nia is speaking to Brainy.

“We contributed our energy, and stopped the weapon.” Is all any of them is willing to explain. Nobody says anything about his attitude adjustment, and by the time everyone’s gathered for game night (by the time Alex finally gets to kiss Kelly, even though that doesn’t feel nearly as good as it should) Brainy’s sitting alone.

Alex sits next to him, just because, and even lets him win when they play a one-on-one card game once the night starts to wind down. But he’s still acting the same, and after a whole day of seeing him like this- even in a casual setting- Alex can’t take it anymore.

So afterwards, when the wine bottles have been emptied and Nia falls asleep in one of J’onn’s armchairs, Alex ends up practically dragging Brainy home. Not that she has to, but she wants to- she needs to get him by himself, to explain himself and what exactly happened the day before.

“Okay, what’s going on with you?” she says, sitting him down finally. He looks her in the eyes, sitting stiffly on her couch.

“Nothing abnormal, Director Danvers. I am functioning more than adequately. In fact, you may say that I have never performed more efficiently than this.”

“I’m not talking about your performance, Brainy.” Alex says, holding up a hand. “I mean, how are you feeling? You haven’t seemed like yourself today.”

Brainy sniffs.

“Feeling?” he asks. “Irrelevant. That has nothing to do with-“

“Look, you left your friends behind.” Alex answers. “You let J’onn and Nia be captured, and you didn’t do anything to stop it?”

“For the sake of the mission, yes.”

“But…” Alex tries to say something, but she can’t find the words. Of course, for the sake of the mission. If he had let himself get captured too, he wouldn’t have been able to tell her and Kara and Lena where the captured aliens were being held, and then everything would’ve gone south. He’d thought about this logically.

Too logically, if that was even possible for him.

“It didn’t just stop with the mission.” She continues. “Whatever you did, whatever you said, our friends aren’t too happy about it. Don’t you care about that? Don’t you want to apologize?”

“I see no need to apologize.” He answers. “Especially not when they would not consider me their friend.”

“Brainy…” Alex starts. “You’re still their friend- no matter what you actually did.”

“And you believe I care what they think of me.” He says. “It was inevitable- I would have shown them my true self eventually. No matter when it happened, the result was the same.”

“Result of what?” Alex asks- demands, really. “What do you mean by your true self? What’s inevitable? Just tell me!”

Brainy looks away from her, holding his hands in the triangle that Alex had come to consider cute over the time she’d worked with him. She’s missed it- but that doesn’t mean she’s happy to see it now.

He doesn’t say anything.

“Brainy, please!” Alex says, insistent. “Tell me what’s wrong! I want to help you, you aren’t yourself… just say something! Anything, please!”

She doesn’t realize she’s crying until she looks down, and sees a teardrop fall onto her pants. But once she does, she can’t stop, holding Brainy’s shoulders.

“Kara acted just like this once, kind of.” She says. “She was cold, and alien- and it almost killed her. And before that, when she was on Red Kryptonite, she was so angry, and I almost lost her then too. I know we haven’t known each other for that long, but… you’ve become like family to me also, and I don’t want to lose you the same way.”

Alex is crying even more after that, and she’s holding Brainy even though he isn’t holding her in return.

“Come back.” She keeps saying. “Let me help you.”

She stares at him, knowing she looks like a mess, hoping that he gets the message.

And at first, she doubts it, as his face is as emotionless as it has been… but he gasps, eyes widening, looking down at his hands before staring at her.

“Alex.” He says, and it’s the best sound in the world to her right now.

“Brainy.” She answers. “Is it really you?”

“If you mean myself before I was rebooted, yes.” He says. “I am aware of what I said- but… I do not claim those words as truth. I apologize for the pain I caused you, and everyone. But especially yours.”

Alex sighs happily, and this time their hug is much more mutual.

She doesn’t know what he means by rebooted, and right now, she doesn’t need an explanation. Right now, she just wants to hug him, and she’s satisfied.

“The boxes… they’re gone.” He says, after a few moments of silence. “I have no need for them anymore.”

Alex pulls away from him, and smiles. If she isn’t mistaken, he’s crying too, and that’s okay- they might as well get all their tears out right now, when they’re back together and as themselves finally.

“Neither do I.” she says, and they hug again.

[nancywheelxr]

Brainy getting yelled at in the DEO (probably by Haley), and him wanting to argue but ending up just taking it

Querl stays there, sitting stunned in his chair long after everyone else went back to their tasks. 

Colonel Haley’s words ring in his ears, rattling around his brain, echoing painfully loud back at him. She hadn’t minced her words and she had not held back when yelling at him in the middle of the DEO, all the other agents barely even pretending not to be paying attention to the situation unfolding.

In his opinion, the way he sees it, Querl had not been in the wrong. But when it comes to alien politics and all the ways it seeps into their own policies and work, it’s too tricky for him. Colonel Haley isn’t with the Children of Liberty but she isn’t with Supergirl either. She stands into this grey– very dark grey– area in this subject and Querl stumbled on the wrong side of the dividing line.

The way she sees it, he had overstepped. 

If only she were more open-minded, willing to have a rational, polite conversation on the topic without the heavy bias of the US government bearing down her shoulders, then perhaps Querl would have tried to argue his point of view.

As it is, he had simply fallen silent and waited it out.

He had pretended the words weren’t stinging him, that his skin was thicker. Sticks and stones, as Alex would say.

Now, Querl fences the moment around in his brain, carefully boxing it away like Lena had thought him to do, and finally shifts away in his chair. His fingers are stiff from holding the iPad so tightly, for so long. His leg is asleep. 

He opens the computer file, and goes back to work.

[nancywheelxr]

He was warned.

Winn is very sick, Querl recalled Imra saying. He needs help.

He told me he was going crazy, Mon-El said. I didn’t listen.

Querl hears the I’m sorry in both of their remarks, and they weigh heavy on his heart as he stands before Winn now.

This is all my fault, he thinks. I sent him away. I believed he was capable of taking down Brainiac. I wanted him to have the opportunity to save the universe, and be a hero…

I didn’t calculate the odds of Brainiac taking him over.

“Winn.” He says carefully, facing him with no weapons. He’s vulnerable, he knows, but if he can get through to the real Winn, if the person who might have been his friend can break through the effects of this virus… it’ll be worth it. “Winslow. Please, listen to me.”

Winn laughs. It’s an ugly sound, cruel and cutting, and Querl can’t stand it.

“As if you would ever listen to him.” He says. “Do you know, Querl, what he thought about you?”

“Yes.” Querl answers, head bowed. “And I- I was w- I wasn’t right. He surprised me. He surpassed my expectations.”

“You were wrong.” The creature who isn’t Winn states. “And even then, that wasn’t enough for him- you realize, when you told him he was a 1.42 level intellect, that he was still not satisfied?”

“I do now.” Querl says. “But I wanted to make up for that.”

“Oh, and what a good job you did of that.” Not-Winn says. “Sending him to me. Giving me exactly what I needed…”

“You do not get to talk about him like that.” Querl tells him, looking him in the eyes. “Winslow is better than this- he isn’t your weapon. He wouldn’t be your toy, or your experiment. He’s not yours.”

“No more is he yours.” Not-Winn says. “He never liked you. He was always jealous of you, believing you stole his thunder, so to speak. Can you deny that?”

“No.” Querl answers. You’re lying, he thinks. Brainiac lies, he lies, he lies. “But I wanted to be better. I was making an attempt.”

“A poor attempt. He hardly believed it, especially not when you sent him forward in time and never said goodbye to him, only trying to flatter him in your attempts to get him to do what you wanted.”

Querl sighs. He knows he should argue. He wants to. When he showed Winn his design, he hadn’t been trying to flatter, he was trying to boost Winn’s confidence. To help him realize the potential he always had, and move on from his past in a way that he always dreamed of. This was Winn’s natural progression, and Querl only wanted to make sure he knew that.

He eventually did- but even that had been destroyed. Just his luck.

“He killed our ancestor, you know.” Not-Winn continues. “Brainiac 8 was shut down at his hand. He referred to her as a “Glorified Windows Vista”, right before she died. How do you know he wasn’t thinking the same of you?”

“Because I didn’t hold that against him.” Querl says. “I do not blame him for what he did to Indigo. I don’t blame him for what he might’ve thought about me. But I also hope that our relationship improved, in his eyes, as we continued to work together- and I hope he realizes that I’m still thankful for his help, and sorry for all of what I said to him.”

“Are you really?”

Querl nods, and steps closer to him.

“Listen to me, Winn.” Querl continues. “I know you are in your mind-prison. I know he has locked you away, and I don’t know what challenges he has for you in there… but I know you are stronger than him. And you have taken down two Brainiacs already- I believe you are more than ready to defeat a third.”

He knows he probably shouldn’t touch Winn, he doesn’t know what will happen when he does- but he does anyway, reaching out a hand to Winn’s face, soon holding it in both hands. He kisses his forehead as he intended to before he left for the thirty-first century, what feels like years ago.

“I apologize.” Querl whispers, resting his forehead against Winn’s after kissing it, arms around him. Tears suddenly run down his face, blurring his vision, but he doesn’t care. “I’m so sorry, Winn. Please, please… come back to me. I want to be your friend.”

He almost holds his breath as he holds Winn in his embrace, feeling like time has frozen around them. Then he hears Winn take a shuddering breath, gasping for air as he pulls away from him.

His eyes are bright again, and he’s staring at Brainy, like he’s been shocked.

“Brainy?”

“Winn.” Querl says, and Winn hugs him, almost spinning him around in a complete circle, overjoyed to be back in the real world once more.

Querl isn’t sure he heard everything said, while Brainiac took over his mind, but he’s more than happy to repeat every word of it.

[nancywheelxr]

the first time Brainy kills someone, in the AU where he's corrupted

They break like glass under his hands.

Human bones are a fragile thing in the same way human beings as a whole are fragile things– weak and pale and lacking any importance. Easy to crack, easy to shatter. 

On the floor, the DEO agent– Robinson? Hanson? Johnson?– looks like a broken doll, the pool of blood steadily growing from underneath him, and Querl tilts his head, watching for a second the skin turning pale, warmth and any trace of life seeping away with the red. 

Fascinating. Querl had never seen a human die from this close, never witnessed the moment realization dawned on their eyes. So many emotions in that fraction of a second– truly fascinating.

Distantly, Querl acknowledges he would not have thought so a few weeks ago. In fact, he would probably have felt something towards this. Grief, perhaps? Guilt, most likely. He snorts derisively. A few weeks ago, he had been weak, tainted by all those humans and their strange, infectious emotions.

He can see it now, how none of that matters. How freeing. His goals are now clear on his mind, and so is the path he must take. Anything else is inconsequential.

Which is why it had been so easy when Agent Whatever His Name Is said you’re not getting away, asshole, only under my dead body, to reach and bash his head against the wall. His skull had cracked against the cement, making a dull, wet sound.

It was messy, messier than he would have liked it– his hand is stained red and so are his clothes. Inconvenient for a covert mission, much less an escape plan.

Still, it did the trick, didn’t it? 

Querl steps over the dead body, carefully not touching the blood, he doesn’t want to leave bloody footprints, after all, then pauses. He takes the gun fallen a few inches away from the human’s hand, changes the settings. Lethal force is more effective than flimsy, utopic idealism.

After that, walking out the DEO containment wing is as easy as breaking glass.

[nancywheelxr]

#Karadox 136

It’s movie night and Kara is totally cool with this.

She is most definitely not losing her mind because Brainy is sitting beside her on the couch, pressed together from shoulder to thigh. Nope. She’s definitely not, she totally knows what’s going on in the screen.

Kara has never been more invested in a movie, like, ever, she could probably recite all the lines the protagonist said in the last half an hour, Brainy’s cologne is so not distracting her from watching. That would be a ridiculous and completely unfounded accusation.

Look, she’s even reaching for the popcorn like any moviegoer and– 

Her hand hits something that is not popcorn in the bowl. Kara slowly looks up, dreading what she’s sure is the result of her bad luck or some very heavy karma, and finds that the hand she had bumped into belongs to Brainy. Because of course it does. 

He blinks at her, before slowly beaming an excited smile. “This has not happened to me before,” he explains, almost giddy, then softens, “and I’m glad my popcorn moment was with you.”

Again, Kara absolutely does not melt, but she does smile back, helpless to stop the wave of affection that must be bleeding through her eyes. “I’m glad to be a part of this too.”

And if the way he keeps smiling all throughout the movie means the world to Kara, well. It’s not as if it’s anybody’s business anyway.

[nancywheelxr]

Brainy learning from the DEO spreadsheet thing that people think he sleeps under his desk

“Why would they think that?” 

Brainy sounds genuinely so bewildered that the look Kara trades with Alex is all fondness and barely any amusement. “Well,” she begins apologetically, “you are always here before everyone else.”

“And you’re always the last one to leave,” Alex adds, shrugging.

“it still makes no sense,” he insists, gesturing the admittedly uncomfortable chair and the limited space of his desk. “There is no way anyone could sleep here and wake up well-rested.”

“Yeah, I think it was more of a dig on your,” Alex fumbles, looking for a word that wouldn’t hurt his feelings. Kara, in particular, thinks she might pay a visit to whoever is moderating this group chat. “Work ethic,” she finally settles.

“My work ethic?”

It’s no secret that everyone is more or less curious about Brainy, what with his image inducer and his, well, occasionally odd behavior. It’s also no secret that most agents think he’s a show-off. “Yeah,” Kara shakes her head, “they think you’re a little too dedicated, you know?”

Alex snorts.

“Too dedicated?” Brainy makes a face, scrunching up his nose in the way that means he’s deeply perplexed by this and is on the verge of giving up on understanding it entirely. “I thought this would be a useful quality, not a flaw.”

“And trust me, it is,” Alex pats his shoulder, her own way of trying to be comforting, “I couldn’t be more grateful, they’re just saying stupid ideas because they’re curious about you. And a little jealous.”

“How strange,” he says quietly, frowning at the spreadsheet before closing the tab and turning off his computer. “Very well, then. I’m signing off now, before you Director Danvers. This way they cannot say I was the last one working tonight.”

Kara snickers, picking up her own things to go. “I think it’s a wonderful idea. We’ll see you at the bar later, okay, Alex?”

Her sister huffs, making a show of rolling her eyes, and shoos them out the Command Center. “Fine. Go, go and quit pestering me, you two.”

Brainy laughs too, and Kara links their arms together, tugging him away from the DEO and back towards the streets.