Chapter Text
A lot had happened since Brainy had become organic. He’d been in and out of court as Phantom Girl got help from her mom to clear his name. Clark and the founding members did what they could to vouch for the Coluan. Superman X had returned home not long after he and Timber Wolf(with Clark’s help) convinced Querl to not leave.
While no one really expected him to contact them again, he did send a letter mentioning he somehow got adopted by a family after wondering what to do when he returned to his time. The letter helped Brainy take his mind off things as the poor Coluan was stressed and full of anxiety, Clark was managing to help too.
Eventually, thanks to the team, Brainy was acquitted of the charges Brainiac left for him to face. He was put on a form of probation to placate people still questioning him after the whole incident, but it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. Some of the founding members of the Legion were put in charge of keeping an eye on him since they were the ones that vouched for Querl, Clark was even allowed to be his “chaperone” when he visited.
Since the Legion trusted that what happened would not be repeated, their supervision over him was light, especially since he moved back into HQ so members just needed to be in the same room unless going to bed. It was a little annoying since Brainy wasn’t exactly a people person, but it was tolerable.
The blond Coluan had time on his hands while on probation, he wasn’t able to work in his old lab as he had cleaned it out and scrapped any unfinished projects when he had originally tried leaving.(Anything not scrapped was given to Shrinking Violet for her projects.) Clark would visit and take him on dates when he had time but sometimes Clark was busy with his own life in his time. The team had to be careful about his visits so Brainy was busy reading or helping with the comms.
Lately, going through logs regarding Clark's future had turned into an easy inducer for a bad mood. Though he would never think to admit it out loud, there was one person that Querl couldn't get out of his mind. Someone he knew he'd never meet, and yet the concept of them filled him with both fascination and jealousy. That person happened to be Lois Lane, someone that seemed to be very connected to Clark’s future. Querl hadn’t looked into them much but knew that Clark would eventually be with them.
While Querl knew Lois was a girl’s name, there were some hints that Lois was possibly not a woman. Some of the logs on Lois replaced her name with a similar male name. There had been accounts of people calling Lois by male pronouns. While there weren’t many, there was enough there to suggest to anyone that goes looking that Lois was not a woman and Lois possibly wasn’t the correct name. It was a little confusing as it felt like someone had tried to hide the truth about Lois’s identity so no one could get a full answer past what was needed to know, especially when it involved Superman.
Querl didn’t like that he was jealous of someone he barely knew nor had the heart to look very far into. In some ways, he had to guess it had to do with knowing that his time with Clark would eventually come to an end. He knew it’d happen after all, they're from different times. Clark had a life to return to in the past while Querl was struggling to recover his life in the future after almost throwing everything away. It probably didn’t help that Brainy wasn’t sure where to go after this, when his probation was over and he’d be allowed on missions again. Aside from that, Brainy was starting to wonder what to do with his life.
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“So Brainy, have you finished it?” Chuck, also known as Bouncing Boy, asked as he walked into the room. Querl had for a while been backing away from being called Brainy due to some unresolved feelings from when Brainiac possessed him, but despite that was starting to warm up to it depending on the person.
“Yeah, it should be ready for battle now.” Querl responded as he brought Chuck into the room, he had started getting back into working on projects especially if they helped with battles and missions. He had also been using Shrinking Violet’s lab on occasion when needed.
Given the now fully organic Coluan didn’t have his cybernetics anymore, he was defenseless aside from the hand-to-hand combat he’d been working more on recently. While he was able to defend himself to a point, he had been reliant on his cybernetics for pretty much as long as he could remember. It didn't help that he wasn’t allowed to assist on missions while on probation (which had ended around the time Querl decided to start making blue prints for this) so his fighting was rusty.
Chuck watched a bit in amazement as Querl got into an exo-skeleton he built. It was a frame with robotic gauntlets and boots that worked like his old limbs. There was a spot that kept his actual hands and feet safe when the mechanical gauntlets/boots stretched. There was a belt with a few pouches full of items that would prove useful. He got the inspiration from one of Clark’s future teammates.
“It could use some more work, but it should work in the field. I’ve done some simulations but might need to test it some more,” Querl says before making one of the arms stretch out past Chuck who was standing a few feet away before retracting it again. “Got some other things I’m working on to help me and I can have this under my clothes if needed.”
“Pretty amazing, and it’s compact too,” Chuck said as he walked around Brainy in his contraption. “Can’t wait for Clark to see this when he has time to visit.”
“Yeah…” Querl said, a bit in thought while looking a little upset. Clark’s work and his own as a superhero had been keeping him in the past. He'd have to send a message to the team cause, while he was trusted, it still wasn’t a good idea to allow Clark to use a time bubble. It was bad enough the team had one anyway.
“I know it’s hard but he’ll return,” Chuck said, trying to comfort the blond. Querl was still fighting insecurities and inner demons, it was slow especially due to recovering from the Brainiac incident. He still sometimes wondered if he should still be part of the team. The blond had been bitter in the past about being the descendant of the person that destroyed Clark’s birth planet, but Brainiac’s action had made things worse.
Along with questioning where he stood with that, he kept finding himself feeling like he’s been trying to compete with Lois. While he refused to go back to his(?) files let alone the rest of Clark’s future past, some of his Superman work still was eating Querl up because of his insecurities and inner demons and the fact that Clark would move on. Querl had come to care about him past his Superman identity even if he could be a bit of a fanboy at times, such as defending him when Garth aka Lightning Lad made a joke that went over Querl’s head. The point was that Clark meant everything to him and was the one keeping Querl together as he struggled to work things out.
“I hope you’re right,” Querl sighed as he removed himself from the exo-skeleton. He needed to find a healthier outlet to deal with things.
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“I can’t believe we’re making Brainy go undercover,” Garth groaned, he didn’t have much faith in the idea. Though he didn’t have much faith in the idea, and truthfully neither did Querl, some of the other legionnaires thought it’d be a good idea for the Coluan to go undercover for a certain mission. Querl had been working on a bracelet that would put up a holographic disguise to hide his physical appearance, but that wouldn’t help with his acting.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Sensor, otherwise called Jeka asked. She was one of the members that suggested he join her for whatever reason undercover. It made more sense that Jeka went due to her illusion powers, but it still felt odd.
He keeps confusing his undercover name with something that sounds similar,” Garth pointed out. ‘How hard is it to remember the name ‘Louis’?’ He waved his arms a little to emphasize the point. He wasn’t wrong, Querl had been using the name “Louis” for some things, but he would frequently mix it up with a similar-sounding name and wouldn’t notice most of the time. No one was sure why Querl was doing this, but he kind of had a feeling it had to do with a certain person he was trying to keep his mind off of.
“Why did you choose ‘Louis’ anyway?” Chuck asked, hoping he could help in some way. He cringed despite himself as Querl just looked away with a blank stare.
“I… I’m not sure… It keeps coming to mind for some reason. It might be due to some logs I’ve been trying to not look at but… It feels like it haunts me…”
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Querl breathed heavily as he closed the door to the ship, many of his legionnaires laid there too or rushed to start driving. They had earlier gotten a distress signal from somewhere close to where the last battle with Brainiac possessed Querl. While Querl didn’t want to remember, it was unavoidable since he was with the team closest to the distress signal. It turned out to be a trap, it turns out Brainy’s cybernetics that were removed formed into a new being calling itself Brainiac 6. It wanted to defeat Querl before continuing Brainiac 1’s original attempts to digitize the universe. Brainiac 6 knew Querl fought back and needed him out of the way just in case.
The team wasn’t prepared and were forced to retreat before things got worse. There was no telling what could happen if they didn’t prepare the next time they ran into Brainiac 6. The only thing they knew was that the Legion had to prepare and had to make sure Brainiac 6 couldn’t finish its mission to kill Querl so the organic Coluan wouldn’t get in the way somehow.
Querl curled up the moment he knew they were no longer near the fully robot Coluan. He didn’t know how to feel about any of this, he thought he was starting to work things out but Brainiac 6 made him feel like he was at rock bottom again. Brainiac 6 was made from him, he felt responsible for this happening, this never should have happened.
“B-Querl?” Chuck asked, stopping himself from using the nickname due to knowing it wouldn’t be a good idea. He was worried because of how Querl reacted when Brainiac 6 explained its origins during their encounter. It was easy to tell Querl wasn’t in a good mental space after that.
Querl was quiet even as Irma, alias Saturn Girl, walked over after she noticed Chuck starting to panic. She tried her best to gently sit Querl up but stopped as the green skinned blond curled up more. Some of the other members that hadn’t passed out or gone to their seats watched in worry as Querl refused to talk. It took an uncomfortable amount of time before he finally looked slightly up at Imra and Chuck.
“…I need you to do something for me…” He muttered as he slowly started to uncurl and just laid there.
“Ye-Yes?”
“If…If something happens to me… Tell Clark that I want him to move on… He deserves to be happy when I’m gone.” Querl said before going quiet again and curling up.
“Brainy, no,” Imra said softly as she held the defeated Coluan and Chuck stared in horror. “We’ll find a way through this… I don’t know how yet, but we can’t let Brainiac 6 win.”