The acerbic sting of exceptionally aged liquor was something that Bruce Wayne had no shame in turning to for solace - and now as he sat in study, he perhaps valued the relief more than usual. It had been a fair few days since he'd caught word of the fact that Claire Branigan had resigned from the nursing agency and practically fallen off the edge of the Earth, which for all intents and purposes likely meant she had become either Lex Luthor's ally or his next victim. More than likely, both.

Diana Prince had long been withdrawn from mankind and had made the decision long ago because she'd started to conclude that people had stopped caring. The Bruce Wayne she saw in front of her, however, did not have the appearance of a man who did not care what was happening. He was clearly distraught, even if he would not be able to admit as much.

"Bruce," she said, seated in an armchair across the table from him - they had taken to meeting on a regular basis to discuss their plans moving forward, though these meetings always involved caution and distance. "What's done is done."

"We were supposed to have eyes on Luthor at all times - that's why we arranged for him to be out of prison, so we could watch him out in the open," he said with brooding bitterness to his voice before taking another swig from his drink. "Now we have nothing, and we've practically thrown Claire like a carcass to the wolves."

"People will only stand to be used for so long,' Diana admitted with a sigh, shaking her head, and Bruce looked up in surprise at the fact that the woman didn't rub in his face that she had told him so long before. From the very beginning, Diana had misgivings about the way they had decided to manipulate Claire. Diana had every right to shove the miscalculation in Bruce's face. There was a time, he noted bitterly, that he would not have allowed this to happen - but in recent years, the mistakes seemed to become more frequent... and more dire.

Lex Luthor did not value people - and Bruce knew now that the girl he had thrown into Luthor's midst was perhaps looking for someone to save. It was in her nature, and Bruce had had pushed it too far.

Diana, however, saw this turmoil in him and frowned. "Don't take this burden upon yourself, Bruce," she began smoothly. "We made the wrong move. It was our mistake -"

"My mistake," Bruce corrected, his eyes drifting shut briefly. "It was my mistake."

"Our mistake," Diana insisted, closing the laptop in front of her and crossing her legs before gently leaning forward towards Bruce to ensure her point came across. "We're a team now, Bruce. I don't know why that is so difficult for you accept."

"I work alone."

"Not anymore," Diana retorted sharply, her strong features pulling slightly into a frown. "You brought us together. You asked for me and the others to stand with you - you don't have a choice anymore. This is your duty, Bruce. This is what you owe Superman, isn't it?"

The words seemed to hit Bruce hard - to be frank, he no longer wanted to have a team. He no longer wanted to feel responsible for anyone counting on him. He had come in strange way to prefer the new role he had taken. He was a punisher, not a hero. He ensured that those who had already done wrong received what was coming to them, and that was why he was fixated so wholly on the idea that Lex Luthor needed to face justice for what he had done. He did not want to be counted on to save anyone. He did not want to be counted on to protect anyone. Being a hero was a job reserved for men like Superman - like Clark Kent - and it was a job at which, Bruce was very sure, most were doomed to fail.

Bruce was too wary to face another failure in being a protector or a hero. He had failed Jason, and Jason had paid with his life. One failure was enough.

Yet now, he could not deny that Diana was correct. The duty had now been thrust upon him and he could no longer reject it because the consequences of doing so was potentially more destruction and pain than he could ever avenge once it was wrought. There was nothing to do except to move forward in this new role that had been laid as a burden on his shoulders.

"We need to get a hold of Doctor Stone," he said in resignation before taken an even longer drink from his glass so that now it was nearly empty - and Diana had to admit she felt some level of pity on Bruce Wayne, as though he were some sort of sad, caged creature. While his age was merely a speck compared to her many years, there was a weariness to him that gave the air of an age far greater than what he possessed. "Barry's lead is the best that we have. If the Netherlands is the last place that they've made contact with Silas Stone -"

"- then I will go with you," Diana said simply, and at this Bruce looked up to see a placid expression on the woman's face, which quickly transformed into a Mona Lisa-esque, almost smug smirk. "To make sure the job is done right."

One could not survive centuries of witnessing sadness without developing some level of a sense of humor, and her ability to somehow inject humor, however dry, into their plight was something valuable and much needed.

"Your confidence in me is astounding, Miss Prince," Bruce quipped in response. Amused by the change in tone, Diana allowed her smirk to widen as she cocked her head to one side.

"I make a point of never sending a boy to do a woman's job."

Lex Luthor had initially been pleased that Claire had decided not to leave - he'd considered it a win, especially when she had been mere yards from the door, and he had managed to play his ace at precisely the right time.

In the days that followed, however, she had become like a ghost in his home - she did not leave, but she was rarely sighted outside of the door of the guest suite. She confined herself like some sort of prisoner in the room, coming out only occasionally to eat.

Admittedly, there had been a few instances that Lex had lurked in the kitchen for a while to wait for her to emerge, knowing that at some point she would have to, and in one of their few interactions, he had presented her with his new proposal for the future of their partnership.

If she agreed to work for LexCorp, now that she was for all intents and purposes a free agent, he would make her the Project Lead for any endeavor of her choosing - he trusted her enough, after all, to make a sound decision that would not run his company into the ground. It would give her an opportunity to get all of that philanthropy out of her system, Lex explained, because he felt more than anything, that was what she needed. Claire, however, had been wholly unimpressed and shrugged off the offer with a noncommittal, "I'll think about it."

And a couple of days later, when Lex had ventured in the morning into the kitchen after a fitful night of very little sleep, he found scribbled on a note on the refrigerator, back tonight.

By that time, Claire was on her way to Tranquil Oaks Cemetery in midtown Metropolis, to a particular headstone with the name Elias Branigan carved into the stone. Claire needed very much to get away from everything she had surrounded by in recent months. For once, Claire Branigan wanted very much to feel protected - and this was something she had not sought out for a very long time. She had not genuinely wanted to feel vulnerable and protected since the last time she had seen her father, because he had been the last person she had trusted to protect her. That was why she was here.

"I know. You're very, very disappointed in me," Claire said with a sad laugh, sitting cross-legged on the grass in front of her father's flat headstone - she'd had to pay fr it herself, years back, and couldn't afford much more. "I didn't think this would be me at this point in my life either. I know. I'm the girl who's staying with a guy who's all kinds of wrong because I have daddy issues. Because I still..."

Claire found that even though she had started talking as somewhat of a joke, poking fun at the absurdity behind her train of thought, her chest was tightening and her eyes were welling up with a familiar but unwelcome pressure and wetness.

"...I still hate that this is what happened to you. That I can't talk to you. That I'm talking to a piece of stone in the ground and pretending that anybody can hear it but me," she rambled, shaking her head. "And he needs me. He needs me like you needed Mom and I just want things to be different," she admitted, reaching out and placing her hand over her father's name. There was something strangely comforting about the fact that the smooth stone was not cold, but rather warmed by the sun.

It was good, she decided. And it had been a while since she had unconditionally and wholly thought that something was good. It gave Claire the smallest amount of hope that something could still be made out of the mess of a life that lay in pieces around her.

"Lex needs a little bit of saving. He needs a lot of saving," Claire said, shifting and drawing her knees up to her chest. "But you know, he's... one of the most intelligent people I've ever met. He could do amazing things. He wants to do amazing things - in addition to very much less amazing things," she admitted. "But if I could help him, then it's like I did something amazing too. It's like I'm finally the ant that didn' get stepped on," she added with a weak laugh, though she found that in doing so, a few errant tears managed to escape her eyes and drift down her cheeks until she managed to wipe them away. "This is my chance to make a difference, isn't it? Just like you tried to do?"

The difference Claire was trying to make was still unclear - it was unclear if she wanted to save the world, or save one person in particular. It was unclear if she wanted to validate herself by succeeding where her father had failed, or where her mother had.

Claire's thinking out loud was interrupted, however, by the sound of a small yelp a small distance away, and when Claire turned to look for the source of the sound, she noticed a woman crouched in front of a tombstone with a figure of a cherub carved into the stone. The woman was crouching to pick up the flowers she had dropped, and out of reflex, Claire stood up and hurried over to help the woman, who she quickly realized looked very familiar.

"The wind's been a little crazy lately," Claire said with a friendly smile, helping the woman gather up the mums and sunflowers she had brought to the headstone. "I think the weather's been all over the place for this time of year."

"Yeah. Perfect kite-flying weather," the woman said vaguely, with a stuffiness to her voice that indicated that she had been crying a great deal in the very recent past. "Lucas would have loved it."

Claire found herself take a pause to glance at the headstone and note that it in fact belonged to a young boy. Lucas Bledsoe.

Reading the name made Claire freeze briefly in recognition as she realized how she recognized this woman - Lucas Bledsoe had been a patient at the Wayne Memorial Clinic, and Claire had seen him a good while back. A heart condition. A boy with a big smile, and clothes from the thrift store. The details seemed to slowly seep back, and the woman - Mrs. Bledsoe - seemed to see the recognition settling into Claire's face.

"His poor little heart just got too full for this great big world. That's what he told me at the very end," Mrs. Bledsoe said with a tearful smile. "He fought as hard as he could but I think even he knew that he was losing the fight."

"I'm so sorry," Claire said, turning and helping Mrs. Bledsoe put the flowers into the holders to adorn her young son's headstone. "I had no idea. I hadn't heard from you in a while... I can't believe..."

"It's not your fault," Mrs. Bledsoe interrupted, giving Claire's forearm a reassuring squeeze. "It's nobody's fault. We all tried our best for him. But his father lost his job, and I hardly make enough to make ends meet. We couldn't even afford his medicines - we didn't find out until the end that he'd been putting them back in the bottle and not taking them so he wouldn't ever run out."

And at this, Claire felt a new emotion surge inside of her - anger. The little boy hadn't died out of lack of people caring for him. He hadn't died because of having no one. He'd died because of money. He'd died because no matter how hard his parents had tried, the odds were stacked against them.

She realized in a heartbeat that the moments wherein she felt as strongly about something as she did right now were precious few. Why was this fair? Why was this allowed to happen?

Claire managed to conceal her outrage long enough to spend some time with Mrs. Bledsoe, helping her trim the grass around Lucas's headstone, to arrange the flowers, to talk about her son and how happy he had been in spite of his ailments. She talked a little about herself, and about how she was coming to see her father - Mrs. Bledsoe said that she would come and bring Mister Branigan flowers as well when she came by to visit Lucas. It appeared that for a moment, Claire had found some level of peace.

However, once Claire had gone back to the car and started back towards Luthor Mansion - towards what she now had to accept was her home - she found that she finally had an answer to Lex Luthor's question. If he was serious about his offer, and if there was no way she could get her old life back, then by all means, the best remaining option was to make the most of the power being offered to her.

Lex was seated in his father's study in silence when Claire came across him, taking purposeful strides until she was standing right in front of the armchair where he sat. A brief expression of surprise registered on his face, seeing Claire practically marching in to see him - perhaps he was even surprised that he was seeing her at all - but he quickly recovered and awaited what she had to say.

"I know what I want to do," Claire said simply, which earned an irk of Lex's eyebrow, and in turn, Claire rolled her eyes in exasperation. "You said I could take on any project I wanted with LexCorp if I agreed to stay, and I know what I want to do," she clarified. "I want the pharmaceutical division of LexCorp to take on making sure that no one in Metropolis dies because they can't afford medicines."

"A noble endeavor."

"If you want me to work for LexCorp then this is what I want to do," Claire insisted, and Lex smirked a little bit at the fact that she had clearly been practicing this speech and wanted to get the rest of it out of her system, despite the lack of resistance on his part. "You said I could choose what I wanted."

"Excellent listening comprehension - that is precisely what I said, Miss Branigan," he said, getting to his feet and planting his hands on his hips. "When can you start?"

"If you're not willing to - wait, what?" Claire asked, blinking in disbelief at Lex's response, pulling back slightly. "You know you're not going to profit from this, right?" Claire asked, raising an eyebrow. "You know that this is-"

"I know that this is a major philanthropic enterprise that as CEO of LexCorp, I am now entrusting to a qualified and competent division lead," he said with a shrug, taking a few steps closer to Claire. Her expression went slightly blank, as though she wondered how in the world it could be so easy - and Lex knew it would have precisely this effect on her. From time to time, he could be a man of his word, and in order to maintain this last alliance, it had to be one of those few times.

"Besides," he added. "I know you're not a vengeful person. You wouldn't intentionally run my business into the ground - and even if you would, clever as you are, you lack the business savvy to know how," he finished quickly and matter-of-factly.

He had to give her something that mattered to her. He had to give her just enough power to get her addicted to it, in order to make her stay. And somewhere farther below the surface, Lex was perhaps doing this because he knew it was something that Claire sorely needed. He didn't want the Claire he knew, who lent vitality to his plans, who somehow brought him peace in a way that no one had before, to wither away for lack of finding purpose.

He had succeeded in tearing her down, and now he was determined to succeed in rebuilding her into the partner and companion he needed. He drew himself up to full height and crossed his arms over his chest.

"I did tell you that you wouldn't regret choosing my side," he said, raising his eyebrows gently. "So if I were you, I'd retract your sentiments on trusting me."

"I won't be retracting anything I said."

"Nor will I," Lex replied with a smirk and a brief, mildly suggestive jolt of his eyebrows which brought a visible flush to Claire's cheeks. Particularly in Central City, there were things said that Lex certainly did not want retracted. There was something elusive, perhaps even mythical to Lex about having any figure in his life who was loyal, who was unconditional, and somewhere in his mind, there was a frenzied desperation not to lose the Claire that he had unearthed in Central City. She was his little bird, and he very much wanted to keep her - even if it meant clipping her wings and putting her in a cage.

He gently leaned closer so that his faces was dangerously close to hers for the first time in days - for the first time since all of these inconvenient truths began bubbling to the surface. "You and I can carpool to work. It'll be quaint. I look forward to it."

And as Lex Luthor walked out, leaving Claire dumbfounded very much like he had the first time he had kissed her in the elevator of her apartment building, she realized that she had in fact made a decision. There had been no catharsis, no eureka, no hallelujah chorus. It had been quiet, almost insidious, but somewhere along the way in these past days, she had truly and irreversibly chosen a side.

A/N

I think this is the ultimate case of, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. This was more of a quiet, transition chapter, and the next chapter will see a little more movement in the direction of the plot. Just had to give the characters a chance to settle down a little bit and set the stage.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your feedback! It still genuinely floors me to get so much encouragement from you guys. I'm going to try and get the next update out before I leave for my vacation on Thursday - there are a few tweaks that I'm making to how scenes are split up, so it's chugging along slowly.

I also got another message about Superman's absence, and trust me, I know Clark's absence is felt. You'll be happy in future chapters, I promise.

Anyway, next chapter, something earth-shaking. I'm now taking guesses as to what you guys predict this earth-shaking event to be, so fire them away! Until then, cheers!