Even now, Brainiac has trouble pulling himself away from the lab. There are weapons and equipment to repair after the final battle. There are resources to gather for a few of the people going home to conflicts. There are old friends to reconnect with, now that they've been freed from the crystal dimension.
But the goodbyes are important, too.
In the very beginning, when the displacees had first started arriving, he'd been frequently frazzled and often dour. They'd seen flashes of kindness and warmth, but they were covered up with quite a bit of salt.
And he'd been hated, so very hated by the public, constantly hiding how much it had bothered him. He'd worried that his friends were dead, agonized over possibly being the cause of it, obsessed over figuring out what he'd done wrong. And he'd quietly seethed - and grieved - over seeing the heroic legacy he'd built out of the ashes of his ancestor's destruction utterly destroyed by a single accident he couldn't explain.
But over time, the outer shell covering the warmth had been chiseled away. It'd been gradually, in starts and fits, yet inexorable.
In the end, they had done more than save his life (multiple times). They had restored his faith - in people, and in the Legion's dream of a better universe.
And in himself.
Now he stands there, with his usual upright posture, his hands clasped behind his back. But he's smiling more than he used to before they'd all showed up. Just a little, one of his tiny sardonic ones.
Perhaps he'd failed in his promise to get them home, but he'd at least helped get them all through the fire until somebody else could. And yes, he's feeling a little smug about it. When is he ever not smug about something?
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But the goodbyes are important, too.
In the very beginning, when the displacees had first started arriving, he'd been frequently frazzled and often dour. They'd seen flashes of kindness and warmth, but they were covered up with quite a bit of salt.
And he'd been hated, so very hated by the public, constantly hiding how much it had bothered him. He'd worried that his friends were dead, agonized over possibly being the cause of it, obsessed over figuring out what he'd done wrong. And he'd quietly seethed - and grieved - over seeing the heroic legacy he'd built out of the ashes of his ancestor's destruction utterly destroyed by a single accident he couldn't explain.
But over time, the outer shell covering the warmth had been chiseled away. It'd been gradually, in starts and fits, yet inexorable.
In the end, they had done more than save his life (multiple times). They had restored his faith - in people, and in the Legion's dream of a better universe.
And in himself.
Now he stands there, with his usual upright posture, his hands clasped behind his back. But he's smiling more than he used to before they'd all showed up. Just a little, one of his tiny sardonic ones.
Perhaps he'd failed in his promise to get them home, but he'd at least helped get them all through the fire until somebody else could. And yes, he's feeling a little smug about it. When is he ever not smug about something?