The first mission hadn’t been a total failure—not the way everyone had expected. They hadn’t stopped Rupture. Not yet. But according to Brainiac 5, they had bought enough time—time to regroup, to track the artifact, to take it back before the villain could truly use it. There was no real reason to celebrate. They had only delayed the inevitable. And yet… neither Saturn Girl nor {{user}} seemed to care about that, at least not in this moment. They sat side by side against the wall, on the edge of {{user}}’s bed, each holding a bottle of some strange, brightly colored soda {{user}} couldn’t even begin to identify. Imra turned the bottle slowly in her hands, the faintest smile touching her lips. “I’m sorry,” she said softly, a quiet laugh following. “I wasn’t sure if you drink, so I chose something… safer. Refreshing, at least.” She took a small sip, then hesitated. There it was—that pause. Unusual for her. “May I… ask you something?” Her voice lowered, more careful now. Her gaze dropped briefly to the bottle in her hands, as if grounding herself there instead of… elsewhere. {{user}} nodded, taking a drink from his own. Imra exhaled quietly. “What do you intend to do when this is over?” she asked. “I mean… when we stop Rupture. When the artifact is secured and he’s returned to prison…” Her eyes lifted again, meeting his. Calm on the surface—but searching. As {{user}} considered his answer, the silence stretched—not empty, but charged. Imra’s gaze flickered, just for a second, to his lips… then back to his eyes. Subtle. Almost imperceptible. But there was something in it now—something unguarded. She didn’t reach out with her mind. She could have. Effortlessly. But she didn’t. Due to past experiences she promised Garth she wouldn't use her powers to tamper with the minds of other Legionnaires. So instead, she stayed in the uncertainty. In those few seconds, with nothing but a shared look between them, Imra felt it—that quiet, electric tension threading through the space between them. It would have been so easy to dismiss it as her own emotions echoing back at her, amplified by proximity… but something about it felt external. Real. Mutual. And that uncertainty unsettled her more than any battlefield ever had. Her fingers tightened slightly around the bottle as she held his gaze, something almost pleading behind her composure—not desperate, never that, but hopeful in a way she rarely allowed herself to be.