"Good evening."

Normally, neither Claire nor Lex were to sort to be easily snuck up on, but in moments such as these where things were boiling over, both apparently made exceptions to the rule. They turned to find a man - the man from the staircase who had to have been Mister Desaad - standing by them and eyeing them intently.

"You must be Mister Desaad," Claire spoke up, attempting to recover her composure. "This place is lovely -"

"Thank you, Miss Branigan. I'm glad you're enjoying my humble establishment," Desaad said with a barely perceptible smile. "But you and Mister Luthor can spare the niceties. Might I request that the pair of you return downstairs to make room for other couples?"

"I'm sorry?"

They'd failed. Claire felt as though things were swirling into a blur, whirring like winds around her. Desaad knew exactly who they were. They had failed. Desaad was here in front of them, the answers were so close - but he was asking them to leave.

"Come, now," Desaad said with an ominous laugh and an irk of his eyebrows. "You and Mister Luthor are certainly no strangers to special treatment. Club Desaad is about bringing luxury and pleasure to the people," he said, gesturing at the lounger around him. "This place isn't for you."

He cocked his head to one side and made eye contact briefly with Claire, making it obvious that he knew exactly who she was in particular - that he knew her history, that her presence in his club was no mere coincidence. Her connection to Darkseid ruled out the possibility of coincidence from the very start - she just could no longer remember why, no matter how hard she tried. When Claire did not immediately back down, he locked eyes with one of his bouncers who slowly started walking towards them.

"Now," Desaad said, raising an eyebrow. "Be a good girl and go back downstairs. You too, Mister Luthor."

"Fine," Claire sneered, her eyes narrowed. She glanced back at the gold-lined door one more time before storming off back towards the staircase without Lex, descending the stairs and going back into the throng of people in the main body of the club.

"Claire."

Once she had reached the bottom of the stairs, Claire heard Lex following her but did not turn around. She kept walking rapidly, deeper into the crowd of dancing patrons, stopping only when she was caught by the crook of her arm. Still refusing to turn around, she again tried to walk away.

"Claire -"

Lex's grip on Claire's arm tightened, pulling her closer to him in the throng of people dancing around them so that he could see every angry line on her face. "We need to get back up there," Claire practically snarled, looking up at the door at the back of the VIP lounge before looking back at Lex. "There has to be another way. We had him right there."

Lex found himself somewhat disturbed by the expression on Claire's face because it was one of pain, and for that matter, a pain with which he was horribly familiar. She was someone who had been hurt and was desperate to make sense of what had happened to her. She was someone whose control over her life had been taken away, who wanted more than anything to take that control back.

It then dawned on Lex also that Claire regarded the encounter with Darkseid, which had given her powers and made her one of them, was an event she regarded as something that happened to her. She was still his Claire. She didn't care about the power and the strength she now possessed. She didn't want it. She didn't want to be a threat to him, and in Lex's mind, this settled everything. She still felt small, in spite of everything she was.

"He knows we're here, he knows who we are," Lex said, holding her arm firmly so that she could not pull away from him. "We aren't getting anywhere near him tonight. We aren't going to get what we need, Claire. Use your head -"

"Coming here was your idea, Lex. You brought me here," she hissed. "If you're not going to help me, I'll get it done myself."

Using the slightest bit of her newfound strength, Claire managed to pull her arm out of Lex's grasp and take a few steps into the crowd. Lex felt himself tense at the thought of losing her in here - of being left alone in the crowd that was loud and enormous and threatened to swallow him alive. Partly manipulative, partly in panic, Lex's arm quickly shot out again and just barely grabbed a hold of Claire's hand before she could disappear into the crowd completely, pulling her back towards him and closing in, bringing his lips down to hers.

"You," Lex said, just barely pulling away enough to be able to speak and be heard, "aren't going anywhere."

Claire's gaze briefly met his, and his eyes swept over her face and her chest which was slightly heaving with breath and reddened from the heat in the crowded room. He remembered the little thing he used to tell himself many months ago, that a little chaos looked good on Claire Branigan, and reaffirmed to himself that was in fact still true, which in and of itself was satisfying.

Claire, however, felt a barrage of very different things in the moment - the most prominent of which was anger. Moments ago, Desaad had been right there in front of her, and yet the answers to what he was doing or what she could do to stop it had never been so far away. And now, here was Lex Luthor kissing her as though things were the way they were before, acting as though she was still anything to him when she had been striving so hard to convince herself there could not be. He, too, was right there, but in Claire's mind very much still off limits. The fact that so many of the things that Claire wanted so badly were so unattainable ate away at her inside - and what felt even worse in this moment was that Lex did not seem to realize none of this was a game to her in the slightest.

Feeling the beginnings of hot tears building behind her eyes, Claire tore herself away from Lex and pushed her way through the crowd to the front of the building, getting clear out the front door and into a side alley before she stopped to catch her breath. She took in a few deep gulps of the cold evening air before leaning against the brick wall of the building and shutting her eyes.

This was a mess. She was a mess.

She sucked in a shuddering breath, pressing the heels of her hands against her eye sockets and growling, almost feeling anger towards the fact that she couldn't keep herself from crying.

It hadn't dawned on her until now how much it mattered to her that they got answers from Desaad. Before she realized what was happening, an all-out sob wracked her chest and she drooped, crouching and leaning back against the wall.

During the time she had been possessed by Darkseid, she remembered bits and pieces, but not enough to give any definitive answers. She knew that she had been here to Club Desaad, but could not pull anything more from her memory despite her hardest efforts. It was as though all of it had happened for nothing.

With her head buried in her hands as it was, she couldn't see anyone coming, but she could hear footsteps drawing nearer to her and stopping in front of her - she knew it was Lex. Not looking up and keeping her face buried, she shook her head.

"Go ahead. Laugh."

But no sound of Lex's telltale laughter came. Instead, Claire felt something drop onto her shoulders - the familiar feel and scent triggered her to look up when she realized that Lex had dropped his coat onto her shoulders. When she finally looked up at his face, she was surprised to find that the expression he bore was not one of amusement or condescension. He looked puzzled - concerned, even.

"You knew this wasn't going to work, didn't you?" Claire asked, her voice flat. She couldn't bring herself to feel angry about it, but a part of her knew that Lex had never expected to get any answers from Desaad tonight. He had merely engineered a situation as a means of getting close to her. And Claire realized that a part of her had suspected this from the start, yet had never said anything in protest. She had simply come.

In spite of herself, Claire let out a small, bitter laugh. She shook her head and got back to her feet while clutching Lex's jacket around herself unconsciously. "I was so stupid," Claire laughed sadly. "I just wanted answers. After what happened, I just wanted to know why all of this was happening - what the point of all of this is."

None of this made sense. Ever since the first encounter with Darkseid and the Mother Box, all of this had ceased to make sense. It had taken over her life, and Claire was resigned to that fact - she just wanted to know what for.

"You never would've found the answer you were looking for anyway," Lex said, taking a few steps closer to her so that they were only a few inches apart. "Because there's only one right answer. We're -"

"- ants," Claire finished in unison with Lex, her voice distant and tired. "We're just ants, walking through life, trying not to get stepped on..."

"But you and I," Lex added, raising and wagging his index finger for emphasis, "we were never just ants when we were together, were we, Claire?"

Claire opened her mouth to say that this was ridiculous, only to find that the words crumbled to dust on her tongue. She couldn't say it because she wouldn't have meant it. When she had been with Lex, it had been the first time that she felt as though her actions mattered - that she was a person mattered - and it was a feeling that she had never been able to get back. She missed that feeling.

She missed him, and he saw the resistance leave her eyes. He took a few stalking steps forward and put his hands in his pockets, tilting his head to one side. Now, he stood practically toe-to-toe with Claire, who had her back against the wall.

"If you're going to walk away from me," Lex began with a smirk. "I'd suggest you do it now."

Claire remembered the last time Lex had spoken those words, the first time they had been together in Central City. She remembered the doubt and the conflict in his face when he'd said it then, a far cry from the look on his face tonight. Tonight, Lex Luthor was sure of her answer, so sure that he could taunt her with it.

She could be angry with him for being right later.

Perhaps with a little force than she'd meant, she reached out and tugged Lex forward by the collar, her lips crashing desperately against his and finding that he met her with equal fervor.

Lex would not have said it in so many words - not now, anyway - but it was intoxicating to think that someone was truly his, even moreso when that someone was Claire Branigan. Justified or not, he had built a pedestal in his mind upon which to keep his image of Claire, and she would remain on that pedestal whether she wanted to or not.

He had nearly forgotten the way that Claire seemed to silence the constant buzz of activity that usually crowded his mind, the sometimes nonsensical flights of ideas that left him sometimes completely detached from the ground he stood on. Because that silence and that clarity had returned, he had full presence of mind when he felt Claire slide something smooth and flat into his hand - the hotel room key he'd handed her earlier in the evening. He pulled back from their embrace and raised an eyebrow.

"Your move," Claire replied, shrugging her shoulders.

Lex grinned wolfishly, sparing not even a second before grasping Claire's hand and starting with her off towards the hotel across the street. If Claire Branigan was in fact giving him a move, then by no means was he about to waste it.

Lex Luthor always made a point of leaving the door wide open for Claire Branigan in either direction - he considered it a constant test of her loyalty that he continued to give her opportunities to walk away from him. She did not walk away as they made their way across the street, or up the elevator, or through the doors of the penthouse suite. Lex shut the door behind them and watched her closely. She did not walk away as he took the few stalking steps needed to close the space between them, or when his hands trailed up her arms and pushed her dress down her shoulders like a snake shedding its skin.

His expression was odd and unreadable as he watched her for her next move. He reached out and traced a hand over her face as she reached up to unbutton his shirt, her fingertips trailing over the skin of his chest.

Yes, he finally concluded as they fell undressed into bed together in a tangle of lips and limbs, Claire Branigan had - as she always did - passed his test.


Claire had to admit, she had expected to feel a little worse when she woke up a couple of hours later, realizing that she was still in bed with Lex Luthor, that he still had his arm draped possessively over her as he slept. She had started to slowly slide away from him when from the enormous bay window of the penthouse suite, a bright flash of light erupted from the top story of the building across the street - from the heavily tinted windows of Club Desaad.

Claire quickly got to her feet, picking up Lex's shirt from the foot of the bed and pulling it on to cover herself up before rushing to the window for a better look while Lex sat up in bed as well. She stood at the window, staring and waiting to see if it would happen again, only to be met with the sight of the dark, tinted windows.

"Whatever that was," Claire said, looking across the way to the tinted glass around the top story of Club Desaad. "It had to have been pretty bright if we saw it from here, through glass that dark. Something's going on over there."

"Correct me if I'm wrong but the fact that something's going on isn't exactly new information," Lex said with a chuckle, shaking his head. "No matter. It looks like we'll be playing the long game with Mister Desaad."

"We?"

Claire turned around with an expression of childlike confusion - not resistance, or refusal, or frustration. Just confusion. She walked back to the bed, sitting on the side with her legs hanging off, her gaze glued to the floor as she struggled to find what to say next.

"This - this was -"

"Spare me," Lex said in an amused tone, and Claire looked up to find him smirking at her. "You're going to say this was a mistake and it shouldn't have happened. You'll walk away. You'll try to stay away for a while, and then it'll happen again. You've grown a little predictable, you can save your energy."

"We can't - we can't be anything," Claire insisted, shaking her head. Lex, however, replied only with a nasal, patronizing laugh, leaning back and lacing his fingers behind his head.

"Claire," he said with a cluck of his tongue. "Look at us. We're everything we ever were. We're more than we ever were."

"Because we had slept together again one time?" Claire shook her head incredulously, getting to her feet again and looking at Lex with her arms crossed in order to keep his shirt closed over herself. "We are not what we were, Lex. This," Claire said, gesturing between the pair of them in their states undress, "isn't what made us what we were. Whether you admit it or not, you don't trust me anymore. If everything was the same, I would know what you were doing when I wasn't with you. I wouldn't need to spend every day wondering about you. I wouldn't have had to find out about Desaad from you over lunch. That's not what we were. I'm just another metahuman that you don't trust, Lex, admit it -"

But suddenly, Lex was on his feet, looming over Claire with his hands braced on her shoulders, pulling her closer to him. "You are not," he said with a strange kind of fury in his eyes, "one of them."

"You don't really believe that."

Lex released Claire and took a step back, regarding her calculatingly for a moment before releasing her and smirking, cocking his head to one side. The sudden shift in his demeanor, Claire knew, meant something was afoot. "Get dressed," Lex said,"and I'll show you something that'll prove otherwise."


A/N

I am now accepting guesses for what it is that Lex is going to show Claire! I really enjoyed writing this chapter, and I hope it's the long-awaited reunion many of you have been asking for.

I wanted to take a moment to address my frequent guest reviewer since the last chapter. Like I've said before, I am happy to get constructive criticism. I'm trying to grow as a writer, and ultimately, I write this story because I get joy out of it. But please keep in mind that it's really not necessary to be mean about the readers and the fandom as a whole just because you don't enjoy my story. I am open to your criticism, even if it sometimes feels like it is more personal towards me, but there is no need to be mean.

Anyway! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and I'm hoping the next one won't bee too far behind. My goal is to post every week, though it might sometimes be every other week. Until next time, cheers!