A/N Limes towards the end. Read at your own risk!

Chapter 26

"Welcome home," Lex greeted Diana with the big smile that he reserved just for her when she returned to their shared penthouse that evening.

"Lex," Diana said happily as he stood from the sofa where he had been working on his laptop when she arrived.

She slung the large backpack that she was wearing to the floor and then her arms were around his neck and her insides were falling apart in the best gooey manner as Lex passionately kissed her for at least a full minute before letting her go.

Diana's eyes sparkled up into his.

"It feels so wonderful to be coming home to you at night," she said and Lex thought dazedly that his heart was never going to be the same again, because no matter how hard he tried to hold onto his inner sharklike persona throughout his days at work when Diana wasn't around, every time she made a comment like this one Lex felt another sharp fang fall from his bite.

Hell, he'd even caught himself humming at his desk that afternoon. In his sound-proofed office, thank goodness, but still. The embarrassment.

And Tess, his dear secretary, had been practically cooing over him that morning; telling him how rested he looked (she knew better than to say happy, but Lex knew damn well that's what she had meant) and Tess had been full of so many positive things to say about Diana to him after finally meeting her in person for the first time the day before.

"How did your planning meetings go today?" Lex asked Diana as he moved to pick up her backpack for her. Not that she couldn't pick it up, but he liked being a gentleman. Someone had to show Diana that the world had at least one man in it who understood the meaning of that word.

Besides, it added to the stark contrast between his and Bruce's personalities, and Lex would be lying if he said that highlighting the favorable differences between them didn't both please and motivate him to show off a little bit for Diana.

"We were worried at first," Diana said to Lex as he carried the backpack to her bedroom, "because J'onn sensed a lot of mistrust among the League Members about your motives for the mission."

"Mm," Lex murmured thoughtfully. "I can't say that I'm surprised, sadly."

"Well," Diana said with a little smile, "Shayera had the idea to invite Lois up to the Watchtower to defend you."

"No," Lex said in wonder. "She agreed?" he said in disbelief. Diana blushed a little bit, but Lex caught her eyes twinkling as she dipped her head.

"I, um, may have borrowed a page from your book and promised her an exclusive feature on the Watchtower for The Daily Planet," Diana giggled.

"You villainess," Lex purred in a highly sexy tone. "My, my, my, Diana," he said with amused approval as she laughed and looped her arms around his neck, "I do believe I'm having an influence on you."

"That's what Lois said," Diana answered him, still smiling. "But she took the bait anyway."

Lex laughed heartily.

"That's my girl," he said, bending down to nuzzle her nose which caused Diana to sigh with delight.

The intercom buzzed and Lex said, "That'll be dinner. I'll go grab it while you change?" and Diana nodded.

She had brought most of her clothes down from the Watchtower with her in the backpack that she carried Bruce's kevlar vests in for Lex to try on, only leaving a few things in her room on the station for occasions when she might need to sleep after a night shift before heading back to Metropolis, now that she was living with Lex.

He was dishing out their dinner, falafel sandwiches from a Greek restaurant, when Diana emerged in a scoop necked grey jersey knit nightgown, although Lex could tell that she had rather considerately for his abstinence-minded sensibilities put a pair of sleep shorts on underneath.

She had left her bra off, though, and Lex could not say that he minded one bit. Or that he planned to inform her that she was filling his mental spank bank up quite nicely with what she probably thought was a fairly modest look. Not that Diana would mind his lustful thoughts, Lex supposed.

He was the one who needed more time to feel secure in their relationship, after all, before having sex. A thought which continued to confound him with its absurdity given his voracious past, but, well, Lex supposed that a little patience never hurt anyone and no sense in chastising himself over feelings that he couldn't control.

"I brought three different kevlar vests for you to try," Diana told him. "From Bruce."

"Good," Lex said. "I'll model them for you later with the three-piece suit like Lois suggested and we'll see if any of the vests will do."

"One of them will have to," Diana frowned as she sat next to Lex at their dining table. "I can't bear the thought of you not being safe," she said.

"They assigned me to a team outside the compound during the assault," she said in a more troubled voice, meeting his eyes with the tears in hers that she had bravely hidden during the Founders' meeting.

Lex hummed in sympathy.

"They were afraid you'd be too focused on protecting me if you were inside?" he asked her knowingly and Diana nodded sadly.

"With good reason," she muttered. "But I still would rather be inside," she said as her lip trembled. "I'd rather be your bodyguard than lead a team at all for this mission," she said mournfully.

"I know, baby," Lex said, stretching his arm around her shoulders and kissing her forehead. "But I'll probably be safer with you outside," he said. Diana's jaw dropped and Lex chuckled.

"Not because you couldn't protect me," he said quickly. "But because I'd be so worried about protecting you that I'd neglect my own safety."

"Oh," Diana said softly, a little smile turning up the corners of her lips. "Really?" she asked him, looking surprisingly touched and pleased. "But I'm an Amazon. I'm stronger than most of the Rogues in the Legion of Doom," she said practically.

"I don't care," Lex said seriously. "I would lose my mind if I saw any of them come after you and I fear I would do something extremely ill-advised and foolish, illogical or not," he said with a wry smile.

"Well," Diana said slowly, "I suppose that makes me feel a little better, then," she said. "Do you have plans in place for your own protection, though? Once the assault starts? Batman said he thought you would," she said anxiously.

"Of course I do," Lex said reassuringly. "Hidden weapons, secret safe rooms that I can slip into, cleverly disguised shields, a helmet that only looks decorative... I'll go over everything with you in detail later tonight if you want," he said and Diana sighed.

"Yes," she said. "Just to make me feel a little better, if nothing else," she said.

"That was nice of Bruce to try to ease your mind," Lex said tentatively, knowing that Diana and Bruce's reconciliation had ended on a jagged note the day before when Batman had disclosed his new relationship with Shayera to her.

"It was," Diana said. "He surprised me, honestly. And Shayera asked me to lunch to try to work things out… and I guess we mostly did," Diana sighed. "I'm still a little hurt, but as we talked I saw you were right," she said, burying her face in Lex's shoulder as he chuckled softly and kissed the top of her head.

"Shayera wasn't lying about empathizing with me last week over Bruce," Diana groaned. "And they'd been spending a lot more time together since we've started dating, which I hadn't known," she said. "But in the moment, it was so unexpected…"

"You're allowed to be hurt over it," Lex said comfortingly. "But it's good you were able to get the air cleared and see it wasn't personal. And you said it was Shayera's idea to call Lois up?" Lex asked her, sounding really amused, now.

"I have to say, I like the way she thinks," he laughed. "That was a strong strategy play."

Diana giggled.

"She was a tactical military instructor back on Thanagar," she said and Lex snorted.

"Of course she was," he said. "And now you really must tell me every lovely thing that Lois Lane said about me," he grinned wickedly. "I would have loved to have heard that."

"Oh, Lois was miserable about it!" Diana laughed. "She actually was very political, though, in how she persuaded everyone. She said she believed you loved me, but it didn't matter if you were lying or not because Batman would have planned the attack as if you were deceiving all of us."

"So after Lois finished, anyone who dared to question the mission would have been publicly doubting Batman's abilities and you know nobody wanted to get caught doing that," Diana chuckled. "Especially with him sitting right there in the front row glowering at everybody."

Lex laughed.

"Lois, Lois, Lois," he said. "She is a treasure." Diana giggled.

"She really is," she said. "Oh!" she burst out. "She and Clark got engaged! Last night," Diana said with a little bounce in her seat. "After they left from having dinner with us," she grinned as she wiggled her eyebrows at him.

Lex smirked proudly.

"I feel like I should call The Daily Planet with a scoop," he said. "Lex Luthor's love life lights a fire under Lois Lane to take the next step in hers."

"She would kill you," Diana laughed, collapsing against his side. "But only because it's true."

Up on the Watchtower, the Green Lantern and Vixen had accompanied an eagerly curious Lois and a gently patient Clark on Lois's tour of the station for her Daily Planet article.

Clark did most of the heavy lifting on the tour, willingly explaining the station's features to Lois in the kind of excessive detail that spoke to his day job as a journalist. Lois seemed to appreciate that he offered as much information as he could without being asked and although she asked a lot of questions, John got the sense that it was far fewer questions than she would have been asking either him or J'onn had they been the ones guiding her visit.

Hell, he never would have guessed that her readers would find the cafeteria's rotating menus or soon-to-be-arriving new chef as interesting as the various types of monitors they used or the number of javelin shuttles or the layout of the conference rooms or their workout and training facilities.

"I'd rather have too much information than too little," Lois had explained when she had caught John's raised eyebrows at Clark's explanation of some of the minutiae of the hallway light's automatic dimming schedule that synced according to the United States' Eastern Time Zone's daylight and evening hours.

"Your readers will really be interested in all this?" Mari had asked her curiously. Lois smiled.

"I'll weave a narrative into it all, of course," she said. "But for your PR purposes, it's important to normalize the idea of a floating space station above the Earth that's staffed by meta-powered humans and aliens," she said.

"Little details such as the station's daily routines will make the Watchtower seem much more relatable to your average human who's somewhat nervous about what goes on up here," she said.

"So it's not really an investigative piece, then," Mari said thoughtfully and Lois actually broke into a full smile.

"Oh, no," she said lightly. "This is - dare I say it, Clark?" she laughed at him. "A fluff piece," she chuckled. "One which Lois Lane, Pulitzer Prize winner, would not deign to undertake except for the fact that I'm the first journalist to report from outer space," she said smugly.

"And, for the fact that it's on the Justice League, who are notoriously closed-mouthed about granting interviews and tours," she winked at John.

"Except for Superman!" Clark protested with a smile.

"Yes, except for you, dear," Lois said with a laugh, leaning over to peck his cheek briefly. "But no one knows that Superman's top two profilers are his girlfriend and himself."

"His fiancée, I think you mean," Clark said with a very satisfied twinkle in his eye. "And you weren't my girlfriend when Superman first started giving you interviews," he said.

"No," Lois chuckled slowly, "but I was still Superman's colleague," she laughed. "Which no one knew at the time. Including me."

"That's why I picked you to write the first piece on Superman," Clark said with a cute grin. "I had seen you in action firsthand and knew you'd be perfect."

"Is that the only reason why?" Vixen teased him and Clark actually looked a little bashful.

"I may have had a small crush," Clark mumbled.

"A small one?" Lois said playfully.

"An enormous one," Clark admitted, his eyes laughing.

"Which it still took Smallville here over a year and a half to act on," Lois giggled.

"You are a very intimidating woman," Clark said completely seriously and John chuckled.

"I'll say," he said. "You did a good job rallying the troops today," he said to her with admiration.

"Ugh," Lois said with disgust. "If only I hadn't had to say anything the slightest bit positive about Lex Luthor in order to get this tour," she grumbled.

"Not that I really think him being in love with Diana is positive," she frowned. "But the fact that he's not lying about it, apparently? And I had to say so? Ew," she said with feeling.

"I hear that," Mari sighed. "I heard you had dinner with him," she said conspiratorially.

"And got very drunk," Lois said dryly, to which John and Vixen both laughed out loud.

"That's fair," John said. "I got drunk off my ass last night, too," he said before frowning again.

"What?" Clark asked him.

"It's just, I can't remember how I got home last night, and it's been bugging me," John said slowly. "I know I haven't drunk like that in awhile, but I never used to blackout when I did," he said.

"You don't drive, though?" Clark asked him and John shook his head.

"No," he said gratefully. "I live in New York. I don't have a car."

"And you got home safe?" Lois asked. "Everything still in your wallet?"

"Yeah," John said. "And I woke up in bed, too. Fully clothed," he said, "shoes and all."

"Well, we are getting older," Mari said ruefully. "And you were drinking Jack."

"Yeah," John grunted. "I'm sure that's it. It just stings, to feel like an old man," he chuckled.

"Aw, you're only getting sexier with age, boo," Mari said flirtatiously. "I personally don't think men hit their peak form until at least their late thirties, if not their forties."

"Well," John said with pleasure. "Nowhere to go but up, then, I suppose," he said and Vixen winked.

"If only someone would say that about women as they age," Lois grumbled.

"Preach," Mari said, reaching out to give her a fist bump.

As Lois wrapped up her tour and she and Clark got ready to take a javelin back down to Earth, John looked at Vixen.

"I thought I'd stay up here tonight," he said. "Since we have an early day again tomorrow with briefings. You want to keep me company?" he asked her seductively, causing a wide smile to break out on Mari's face.

"I'd love to," she said, wrapping her hand around his neck before pulling him in for a kiss.

"I'll see you tomorrow, then," Clark said to the two of them with a smile as he and Lois got on board the shuttle.

Back in Vixen's room on the station, John had an unusually tender look in his eyes when Mari joined him in bed. Her eyebrows asked the question for her.

"I really appreciated what you did for me today, baby," John said to her, reaching his hand out to stroke her cheek. "Standing up for me like that to Bats and Shayera."

"You deserved it," she said to him sincerely. "You're a good man, John."

"Not always," he said honestly, reaching for her hand and bringing it up to his lips so that he could kiss her palm in an unexpectedly sweet display of affection that wasn't his normal style.

"I've been a real ass to the Princess lately, in all honesty. But I tried to mend that fence today," he said, moving on to start kissing Mari's fingertips one by one.

"That right there says you're a good man," Mari said, smiling. "That you were willing to admit your faults and patch things up."

"Mm," John murmured, pressing a gentle kiss to the inside of her wrist as Vixen let out a soft sigh. "And you're a good woman," he said, moving in to kiss her neck as her hand slipped up to cradle his head.

He kissed along her jawline before pulling her lips into a deep kiss, but it was slower and altogether sweeter than the types of kisses that Mari was accustomed to receiving from him. Not that she was complaining.

And when John refused to let Mari do any work that night as he took his time ravishing her, and when he took firm control of their pace and kept everything more languid and deliberate than usual, Mari was convinced that it wasn't just her imagination that his green eyes were glowing with more intensity than normal. And more affection.