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Brainy looked down at his phone. “What have I done?” Brainy looked at the messages he sent Nia. He looked at their conversation from last night. Plans to meet at Kara’s for this week’s game night. Brainy then scrolled down to a text he sent this morning. “Would you like to go on a date?”
Brainy looked at it in horror. “Why did I send this?,” he thought to himself. The reasons then flooded his brain. Images of Nia came to him. The conversations they had. The fun he always had with her. He was in love and he couldn’t hold in his feelings anymore. Brainy saw the delivered message below his, indicating Nia hadn’t read it yet.
That was the worst part. What will happen when she sees it? They had been friends, and Brainy even considered her his best friend and he didn’t want to make it weird. Even though he had already considered these factors before asking, he didn’t care. He decided he loved Nia and nothing would change his mind.
The consequences then came back. What if she said no? He had just ruined his friendship with an amazing woman because he couldn’t control his emotions. Would she be able to be around him after this? Thoughts like this passed thru his mind. In an attempt to dilute the nerves he was feeling, Brainy decided to take a walk out of his apartment.
The sun was shining as Brainy walked thru town. He didn’t have a destination in mind, he just wanted a way to distract himself from his phone. Even though the city was beautiful this time of day, Brainy couldn’t stop thinking about the message.
As he walked, he thought of ways to ‘fix’ what he did. “I could text her saying it was all a joke? Why don’t I just hack Nia’s phone and delete the message? Why don’t I ask J’honn to erase her memory so she never remembers seeing it?” While these all seemed viable options that would work, Brainy tossed the thoughts aside. He decided he needed to do this. His every thought was about Nia and even though this could end in a disaster, it could also end in love. Brainy wanted to be more to Nia, to be the only one for her. He knew there was risk involved and while most were worst case scenarios, the chances of most of them were low risk.
As he was walking, Brainy could feel the weight of his phone growing heavier and heavier with each step he took. He searched desperately for something that would make him think about something else. Anything else besides Nia. With each stride he tried to block her out of his mind, but the harder he tried, the more Nia came into his thoughts.
His mood was shifting rapidly, from anxiety to sadness to acceptance and repeat. Brainy found himself tired by all the thinking, and with the walk obviously not working, decided to go back to his apartment.
Brainy opened the door, and as he walked into the room, his gazed looked over a a picture on his side table, one that made the emotions he was feeling more intense. A picture of just him and Nia. It was Nia’s first official day as Dreamer and she had wanted to commemorate the moment. Nia looked so beautiful that day. Even then Nia had complete control over him, and Brainy loved it and her. He wanted to be with her. He wanted to be by her side and do everything in his power to make her happy.
Brainy started to imagine everything else they had been through together. All the battles, all the game nights, and all the times Brainy and her were together and they were both happy. That’s all he really wanted. He wanted Nia to be happy and while he wanted to be the one to make her happy, he understood if she didn’t feel the same way, and if being around him after this made her uncomfortable, he would happily stand aside and go back to the future if necessary to make her happy again.
A buzz woodshed across the room from Brainy’s phone. Anxiety immediately swept through him as he panicked and turned around to see the blue light from his phone turn on. He hesitated at first, it wanting to know what Nia had said to him. While scared, he just wanted to know, at least then he would know how she felt and she knew how he felt. As Brainy crept over to the phone a second buzz occurred. This time Brainy kept to his phone, just wanting it to be over so he could move on. As Brainy looked at his phone, a sigh of relief and annoyance pasted itself on his face. On his phone were text messages from Kara about game night. The first one about what game they were playing and the second smack talking him about how she is going to beat him with a tongue out emoji.
Brainy answered her quickly with some smack talk about how he is a 12th level intellect and she was going down and immediately turned his phone off and over, the anxiety creeping back up his spine. Even though this was a false alarm, Nia must have seen the message by now and was trying to avoid him. This thought in mind, Brainy decided to just throw in the towel. He thought he could find love in his best friend, but who was he kidding. It was obvious Nia only liked him as a friend, and after this, he didn’t know if she would still want to be around him.
Brainy was about to just go sulk in his room when he heard his phone go off. Not a text this time, and as Brainy went over to look he could see the heart emoji next to the name Nia Nal with the picture of just the two of them. Brainy looked over the phone, debating whether to pick it up. The scenarios he has conjured up suddenly went away. He didn’t have any idea what was happening. With a shaking hand Brainy reached down for the phone. Images flashed in his mind about the beautiful goddess he fell in love with and with a swift motion answered the phone.
Brainy felt himself breathing harder as he held the phone to his ear. What felt like an eternity was only a few seconds as he tried to speak. “Hello”. Brainy felt him self studded as the words came out. He just hoped Nia didn’t notice. Brainy didn’t even wait for a response. Maybe if he apologized, Nia wouldn’t be mad. “Nia I’m,” he was then cut off. “YES,” was all that came over the phone. “Of course I want to go out with you, I’ve been waiting and trying to find a way to ask you out forever, but couldn’t find the way because I was too scared.” Upon hearing these words, Brainy suddenly felt a lot better and less nervous. “Really, because I’ve been a wreck trying to ask you out.” Inside his mind, Brainy was jumping for joy as he heard Nia speak again. “There’s a Star Trek movie marathon at the drive in tonight. How does that sound for a first date?” Brainy immediately fell more in love with her. “That sounds perfect Nia, I’ll pick you up tonight.” As Brainy said this he heard someone squeezing in the background and Brainy suspected it was a Kara who he figured texted him earlier to see if he was by his phone to help Nia out and give her support. “Then I’ll see you tonight. Bye Brainy.” With Kara’s squeals out, Brainy was left in silence, but this time it was a good silence and it filled Brainy with peace.
The peace didn’t last long though as Brainy realized what he had just done. He had asked the most perfect woman out and she said yes. More thoughts and possibilities raced through his mind about what could happen. Feeling the anxiety surface again, Brainy decided he had enough. He went through the hard part and decided if anything else went wrong he would just deal with it when it came.
Brainy then went to get ready, the thoughts of Nia calming his mind as he though of the many adventures they would have together.