Author's Note: WARNING this is going to be depressing and I already lowkey hate myself for writing it butttt you know the song "If the World Was Ending"? Yeah so I feel like it just works soooo well for Brainia rn, especially with what's going on with them, and I just had to write a drabble.

Summary: The world is ending and Brainy spends the night at Nia's place.

Spoilers: Nah this is kind of AU-y (thankfully)

The world is ending.

Nia stares out the window as another star blinks out. It is strange to think that after everything they've done, all the battles they've fought, this is it.

And Nia is alone.

In some ways, her world had already ended. A year ago, she and Brainy had made the decision to split up and go their separate ways. Now, she doesn't know where he is or what has become of him. She hasn't heard his voice in eleven and a half months, and she hasn't contacted him in ten. In a way... she has never really gotten over him, but Nia still isn't sure why she's thinking of him now.

There's a knock at her front door and Nia moves away from her window. She didn't expect visitors tonight, not when everyone is taking care of everything they've ever wanted to do and just waiting for it all to end.

She opens the door, and there he is.

"Brainy," Nia says softly.

"Nia Nal," he replies.

They look at each other for a moment. It's been long enough to feel like forever and short enough that barely any time has passed. He looks the same and Nia can suddenly remember all the hundreds of other times he came to her door exactly like in this moment.

"May I come in?" Brainy asks, his voice low. Behind him, a few more stars blink out.

She stands back and lets him inside.

They sit down together in front of the window. Nia knows that they decided they didn't belong; that they were two pieces in different parts of the puzzle. She manages to forget that, though, as her head slots into the hollow of Brainy's shoulder and his arms find their way familiarly around her waist. It's easy to forget that they don't fit when they really, actually do.

They don't talk. They spent enough time talking over the months and years they were together, and afterward, trying to figure things out. Trying to salvage and reorient and straighten until they realized there was nothing left of them to fix. They've said enough words to fill a lifetime, and now all that's left is the warmth between the two of them.

Another star blinks out.

"Why are you here?" Nia asks quietly, needing to know that, at least, before everything is over. Before it's not a star that dies but them, the Earth.

"The world is ending," Brainy replies after a long moment.

"I know."

He nods, like that answers everything, but it doesn't, not really. Nia wonders when he got to be so simple, simple enough to give her answers like that. She doesn't remember him being simple. She remembers him being layered and complex and confusing and complicated.

"Why are you here, Brainy?" Nia repeats.

Another star fizzles in the blackness of the sky and Nia feels her heart fizzle along with it.

"I couldn't think of anywhere else in the world that I needed to be more than here," Brainy says. "With you."

"The world is ending," Nia reminds him, though she's not sure exactly why.

Now it's his turn to say I know, and he does, so softly she can feel the words in her hair more than she can hear them.

The ground begins to tremble and Nia pulls herself closer to Brainy's side. She hears the shattering of glass and ceramic as her dishes fall from her cabinets. In front of them, a picture frame tumbles off the window sill and Brainy reaches for it, one arm leaving her waist for a moment.

It's of them, the one picture that Nia has never been able to bare hiding behind another. The one that has sat on her windowsill as a constant reminder of why nothing quite feels quite right anymore. There's a crack across the glass, but it's along the bottom, not splitting the two of them in half.

Maybe that's a sign. Nia isn't sure it matters.

Brainy puts the frame down and replaces his arm around her waist as the world shakes some more. The Earth is crumpling beneath them, and Nia waits for the moment when it all just vanishes.

She and Brainy don't speak anymore. They don't say that they love each other. They don't promise to find each other in whatever world comes next. They barely breathe as the next star blinks out.

But this time, it's not a star.

It's them.

Author's Note:...

I'm just gonna... leave this here...

What did I just write? :'(