04/21/08

Chapter 7

"Bouncing Boy, the next time you feel the need to use a highly dangerous, untested maneuver; don't," said Brainy.

"Hey, I got us away from the Legion of Super villains fire, didn't I?" asked Bouncing Boy in his defense.

"Yes, but in the process the Legion of Super villains got away from us and we left a good part of the cruiser behind. Well worth the risk to our lives," said Brainy. "Why don't you go practice in the simulator so we may continue living the next time you decide to do something stupid."

"Hey, who's leader? You or-" began Bouncing Boy but stopped at the glare Brainy was giving him. "I think I'll go to the simulator now." He turned into his ball shape and quickly bounced out of the room, nearly knocking into Superman at the hanger's doorway. "Don't go in there! He's still cranky as all hell!"

"You try being happy about the prospect of having to fix the cruiser, practically from scratch," Brainy yelled after him as the Legion's leader frantically bounced away.

Ignoring the warning, Superman slowly walked into the hanger.

"How's it going?"

Rubbing his eyes, Brainy sighed.

"I know I wanted to upgrade the cruiser but this is ridiculous. We barely had a haul for you to drag back to earth after that stunt."

Superman glanced up at the cruiser, its wings and engines gone with the remaining haul severely battered. A good portion of the damage had been from the Legion of Super villain's ship but Bouncing Boy hadn't helped mattered with trying out the maneuver he had still been in the process of thinking up.

"Wouldn't it be easier to get a new cruiser? There's hardly anything left of this one anymore."

"It would, but that's not an option. The Legion is government funded and we scarcely get enough for basic supplies most of the time. Plus it takes months for the paper work to go through for requests for new equipment. As annoying as fixing the old cruiser is, its less of a headache then going through all that and risk not having any transportation the next time we need to go out into space," said Brainy.

"Then where will you get the materials?" asked Superman.

"I can probably get a good portion of what I need from the containment dome I used during the alignment. Scrap a few of my old inventions if I need to and if I need anything else I can check a few of the local scrap yards," said Brainy.

"Sounds like it's going to be difficult," said Superman, thinking of what he could do to make it easier.

"Not nearly as difficult as making the cruiser battle worthy when I first joined the Legion," said Brainy.

Superman's ears perked up. It wasn't often Brainy talked about his early days in the Legion.

"The cruiser had been half its size now, could barely crawl after the people we would try to peruse, had no fire power to speak of and back then I had nothing old to scrap and had to rely on whatever junk I found laying around," said Brainy.

"How did you ever get anything done?" asked Superman.

"Well with the basic supplies we usually get parts as well and I had help back then," said Brainy, looking up at the cruiser and began scanning it with his arm.

Had help, thought Superman, another piece in the puzzle. While thinking over what he knew he thought of something else and smiled.

"You have help now. I'll be right back."

Before Brainy could question what Superman meant Superman left the hanger and headquarters all together. He wasn't sure what to think of it and started the work on the cruiser's bridge.

A few hours later the hanger's door that lead outside opened.

Superman poked his head inside, grinning like a kid who got to open Christmas presents early.

"Hey Brainy, do you think these will help?"

Not able to tell what Superman was talking about from where he was, Brainy left what he was working on and joined Superman outside. His eyes widened at the sight of the severed wings of the Legion Cruiser.

"How-"

"I went back in space and retrieved them," said Superman, grinning. "They weren't that far from where they came off either. I hope this-"

Superman was cut off when Brainy covered his lips in a kiss.

Brainy smiled at Superman's blush.

"This will help a lot, thank you."

Even with the retrieval of the cruiser's wings the repairs for the cruiser would take several days, especially since Brainy had to do nearly all the work himself. Bouncing Boy tried to help but he only knew enough to do repairs, not build it from the ground up.

Soon enough the cruiser became a full time project with Brainy only leaving the hanger to get tools or parts from his labs. By the third day of this, Superman began to consider physically dragging Brainy from the lab for some food and rest.

"Don't tie your cape in a knot Superman," said Lightning Lad when Superman voiced his concern to the others at lunch when Brainy failed to show up again. "Three days is like a small sprint compared to the marathons he used to have when he stuck himself in the lab on some project or another."

"Yeah, this one time Brainy locked himself away for nearly a month. Actually I think it was because of the cruiser that time too, back when it was a piece of junk," said Phantom Girl. "And Cosmic Boy told us to leave him alone because," she made a serious face and deepened her voice, "Brainiac Five is just doing what's best for the Legion."

Lightning Lad made a face.

"He was always working on something and it was always something that just couldn't wait. I think Cosmic Boy assigned him so much stuff on purpose to keep Brainy away from the missions. Didn't think it would keep him away from having a life."

"Cosmic Boy was just doing what he thought best," said Saturn Girl.

"Yeah, and Cosmic Boy was always right," grumbled Lightning Lad.

"At least the marathons stopped when Lyle-" began Triplicate Girl but cut herself off as if she had said a dirty word.

"You guys have mentioned Lyle before," said Superman. "Who is he?"

Triplicate Girl looked around desperately before 'accidentally' knocking over her drink and said, "Oh, look at that. Need a towel." She ran off.

"Triplicate Girl, it's alright. We need to tell him about Lyle sooner or later anyway," Bouncing Boy called after her.

"I still need a towel," grumbled Triplicate Girl.

"Bouncing Boy, perhaps now isn't the best time," said Saturn Girl.

"You keep saying that but is there really a good time? Besides, Timber Wolf doesn't know anything about Lyle either since we've been avoiding talking about him but we can't keep avoiding him if we're going to do anything for the anniversary," said Bouncing Boy, clearly annoyed with the whole thing.

"What anniversary?" asked Timber Wolf. "This guy dead or what?"

Returning to the table, Triplicate Girl began to clean up her spilt drink.

"We're assuming so."

"How can you not know?" asked Superman.

The Legionnaires that knew the answer all exchanged looked.

"Perhaps we should start at the beginning," said Saturn Girl softly.

"Lyle Norg was a scientist specializing in xenochemistry," began Bouncing Boy. "Before we knew him, he was working with his father in the Science Police. Somehow Mr. Norg got samples of alien DNA for Lyle to experiment with to create an invisibility serum. By the time Lyle had successfully created a serum, he discovered that his father promised to hand over Lyle's research to the Science Police all along so Lyle injected the only existing serum into himself and lied about it before contacting Brainy for help. Brainy convinced Cosmic Boy to let Lyle to join the Legion. With the serum a permanent part of his blood stream, Lyle could become invisible and joined the Legion as Invisible Kid."

"At first we thought Lyle would distrust us because of his background with the Science Police," said Lighting Lad.

"But boy he was so excited to be here," exclaimed Phantom Girl, grinning in memory. "He ran around the place trying to help in whatever he could. He was friendly, funny and really smart like Brainy, but different, you know? He couldn't do everything Brainy could but he looked at things in a way that Brainy couldn't. More creatively."

"We all thought they would hit it off because they were both genius's but we were wrong about that too," said Triplicate Girl. "They fought about everything and competed over their inventions."

"It was actually Lyle that made the original design for the flight rings but flighty was all they could do," said Saturn Girl. "Brainy took it and improved it to the flight rings we have today, the capability to breath in space, made flying easier to control and so on."

"Saturn Girl was the one who got sick of their fighting all the time and threatened to lock them in a closet together," said Phantom Girl, teasingly. "Cosmic Boy was even willing to go along with it to make it stop."

"Either way, they eventually became friends. It was even Lyle who gave Brainy his nickname," said Bouncing Boy.

"It drove the little guy nuts," laughed Lightning Lad. "Kept yelling at us to stop calling him such a demeaning nickname but, as you can see, the name stuck."

"They became very close. During a mission when we thought Lyle had been killed by Validus, Brainy was close to panic. When Lyle reappeared Brainy," began Triplicate Girl but had to pause to force back tears as a smile graced her lips. "Brainy actually hugged Lyle and back then Brainy didn't allow anyone to touch him at all."

As Superman tried to absorb all this, he noticed that Saturn Girl looked like she wanted to add something but couldn't bring herself to do it. He was relieved when Lighting Lad put his hand over Saturn Girl's in a comforting fashion, but he still worried about what it was she couldn't say.

"It was barely a week later that Lyle had to leave to do some experiments on a star that only shines once every hundred years or so that gives healing properties to the planet below it. He was only supposed to be gone a month," said Bouncing Boy softly.

"Lyle kept in contact with the Legion about his progress, talking to Brainy nearly everyday over the view screen," said Saturn Girl. She wiped a few tears away from her eyes with the hand Lightning Lad wasn't holding. "At the end of the month he said he was going to be a little longer then he thought and, and we never heard from him again."

"When we couldn't get back in contact with him and when none of the neighboring planets had seen him we went looking but couldn't find him," said Lightning Lad.

"Brainy cut himself off from the rest of us even more then ever before," said Triplicate Girl. "Didn't go on missions, didn't leave his lab unless absolutely necessary and didn't allow anyone in."

"Cosmic Boy left and Lightning Lad became leader," said Bouncing Boy. "He kinda, ah, tricked Brainy into leaving the lab and found a way to lock him out of it until he would talk to somebody about it."

Superman didn't think he ever felt more grateful to Lightning Lad then he did in that moment. He tried to give Lighting Lad a smile but the former leader looked away.

"I worked with Brainy about it for a long time," said Saturn Girl softly. "I guess you could say he became the person you met just a month before we went to the past to get you, Superman. In shortly after you come back from your next trip to the past it will be the anniversary of Lyle's leaving. A month after that, his disappearance."

"If it's so close how come the little guy doesn't seem depressed or anything?" asked Timber Wolf.

"Brainy has never been good at keeping track of time when it didn't suit his purpose or when he's busy," said Phantom Girl. "You know that time he was working on the cruiser for a month I mentioned? When he came out he thought he had only been in there for a day."

"So what you're saying is that Brainy might not even realize the anniversary is coming?" asked Superman.

"I doubt Brainy made an effort to remember such a painful part of his life," commented Saturn Girl with a nod.

"He probably doesn't even realize that he's been in the hanger for three days," said Phantom Girl.

After lunch and the rehashing the past had been over Superman made a sandwich, grabbed a bottled water and went to the hanger. He stared at the cruiser a moment, amazed that it was back in its general shape, even if it was still battered looking.

"Brainy?"

From wherever Brainy was, he extended his neck over the top of the cruiser to look at who he was speaking to.

"Yes?"

Superman held up the plate and water for Brainy to see.

"I brought you some lunch."

"Thank you, but I'm in the middle of-" began Brainy.

"You've been in here for three days," interrupted Superman.

Brainy paused, checking his internal clock that he usually ignored to have a better sense of time as his completely organic teammates saw it.

"Oh, be down in a second."

Watching as Brainy's head went back to wherever the rest of his body was, Superman wondered if he should ask about Lyle or wait until the anniversary was closer to bring his boyfriend's old friend up. He sighed, not really wanting to do anything that would make Brainy sad.

Walking over from the other side of the hanger, Brainy was cleaning his hands on some sort of towel.

"I'm assuming you've already eaten."

"Yeah, with the others. When you didn't come," started Superman but he hesitated. He walked over to the workbench and place the food on it. "I decided to bring the food to you."

Following him, Brainy sat down when Superman suggested to the seat. He began eating the sandwich, but paused about halfway through.

"Is something wrong?"

"Huh?" asked Superman, taken back.

"Is something wrong?" repeated Brainy, now giving Superman his full attention. "You seem nervous about something and you've been, well, staring at me."

Blushing, Superman had to resist the urge to hide behind his cape.

"I, I'm just worried I suppose."

"About me?" asked Brainy.

Superman stared.

"You were staring at me, I'm assuming it deals with me," said Brainy.

"Well," began Superman. He sighed. "Yes."

Brainy crossed his arms and waited.

"I, well, you," began Superman, mentally kicking himself for trying to talk without thinking. Yet, even when he tried, he couldn't think. How was he supposed to say this?

Well Brainy when you didn't show up for lunch your most trusted friends told me some very personal things about you and your friend Lyle. This might sound completely stupid but how close were you two? I only ask because of how everyone was worried about telling me, your boyfriend, about him and you two sounded like you were very close. By the way, do you know the anniversary of his death is coming up?

Realizing that was, not only badly phrased but, made him look jealous of Brainy's first real, dead, friend, Superman covered his face with his hand, to get away from Brainy looking at him if only for a moment.

Brainy reached up and touched Superman's arm, waiting for Superman to look at him before speaking.

"Clark, you can talk to me about anything that's worrying you."

Even about your past? Superman wanted to ask but couldn't bring himself to do it.

"You," began Superman but he sighed and smiled softly. "You shouldn't stay in here for days on end. It's not good for you and I worry about you." Seeing Brainy giving him an unsure look, he added, "That's all."

"I didn't mean to stay in here for so long but if it will make you feel better I can set up a timer or something so I don't loose track of time," said Brainy.

Superman smiled but thought of how much he really hated the cruelty of time.