Business Ethics.

"No."

"Oh, come on, Kent. Think of the headlines. No one's gotten an exclusive with him for years, and we have it right here in our mitts. You want me to just pass it up?"

"It's called ethics, Lois. You might remember them from the deep, dark past. You know we only got that interview to seduce him, and since we succeeded it wouldn't be right to write that article."

"Why not?"

"Because it's a conflict of interest to write about someone we're sleeping with!"

She actually paused to consider this. For about two seconds. "Well, it's never stopped us before…"

"It hasn't stopped you before, Lois, and that was one time, and only because I didn't catch you first and you know it." It was Clark's turn to pause consideringly. "Actually, that guy kinda had it coming, didn't he?"

"His only redeeming value was the size of his-" She stopped and looked prettily over Clark's shoulder at someone behind him. "Hey, Lex."

"Oh, do continue," Lex said, his voice an amused rumble. Clark felt it all the way to his bones. "I want to hear the rest of this story."

"Investment portfolio," she finished, way too smugly. Clark thought briefly of immolating her with a single well-placed heat vision beam, then realized how much sex and snark he'd be missing out on, and decided against it.

"I have a feeling that that's not exactly what you meant," Lex said, his voice dark with something between amusement and anger. "You bring men home together often?"

"Every now and then," Lois said candidly, blithely unaware of the minefield she was stepping into. Clark tried to send her a warning with his eyes- danger, Will Robinson!- but she was, as usual, oblivious.

"And I'm just the next in the long line of conquests, is that it?" Lex demanded, anger winning out. "A fun side benefit to your article while you're at it?" Lex shook his head in disgust and left the room. Lois and Clark both stared after him, Lois shocked and Clark resigned. She just… didn't know Lex. At all. Not like he did.

It would take some careful handling to fix this. But first…

"I told you that we shouldn't write that article."

After she and Clark had argued a little bit more and she'd had her head set on straight by the most scathing lecture she'd ever heard come out of Clark's lips, she sent him out to patrol or save kittens or something and went looking for Lex.

She found him, not surprisingly, in his office, staring at the computer screen. He looked tired, tired and unhappy, and she winced as she realized that she was the one who'd caused it.

"Hey," she said softly, and winced again as he whipped around, startled. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you or anything."

His face closed down when he saw who was standing there. "I was… lost in thought," he said, and turned back to his computer, blatantly dismissing her. "Was there something you wanted?"

"Yeah, to apologize," she said. Lex didn't know her, and so he didn't know how hard that was for her to say, but she was making a hell of a concession, here. If Clark hadn't explained things to her in very great detail, she wouldn't have bothered- would have just assumed he was sulking and left him to it.

"I didn't know that you apologized to anyone," Lex said, still not looking at her.

"I didn't know that Clark had talked about me," she said carefully. "In fact, I didn't know that you were talking to Clark at all."

He did turn around at that, very slowly. "I wasn't," he said. "Last night was the first time I'd seen him in years. I heard about you from other businessmen around Metropolis. You're known as quite the bulldog."

Lois didn't even notice the slurs to her character, so focused on a new discovery that she didn't even remember that she'd come in here to apologize.

"You know, when Clark first told me about you, it was only to say that LexCorp had gone global, so you no longer had any time for him. I always knew he was in love with you, but we never talked about it."

She watched with interest as his hands slowly clenched into fists, the knuckles going white with strain. Clearly this was a sensitive subject with him. Good.

"When you moved back, he got all depressed again. So I checked up on you. You know what I found?" Lex said nothing. "You'd gone global two years before. There was no business reason for you to be suddenly missing from Metropolis. You're lucky that Clark doesn't have the skills that I do, or you would've been screwed."

Lex's face was still closed tight, but she read the signs of strain easy enough. "I have this theory, you know. About why you left like that. You wanna hear it?"

"I'd be thrilled," he said, his voice drier than the Sahara.

"I think that you're in love with him," she said calmly. He didn't react, not visibly, but she could feel his tiny internal flinch nonetheless. "You're in love with him, always have been, and you were so torn up by being just his friend that you finally just up and left. Except guess what: he felt the same way. Oops. Bet it burns knowing that you could have had him all this time, doesn't it?"

"More than you know," Lex said, all pretense of calm now gone. "Are you happy now, having made me completely miserable, or is there more?"

She ducked her head, actually fucking blushing. Jesus, this was all Clark's fault. "I really did come in here to apologize," she said. "What I was trying to say is that we're not playing. Not with you. Or did you not hear me? Clark's in love with you. Would you be content with just one night with him?" Lex didn't say anything. "I didn't think so. He wants to be with you, and he wants to be with me. So here we are."

Lex sighed and slumped in his chair. "I don't even know you," he pointed out. "It's fucking insane."

Lois shrugged. "So what? It's Clark. If you can deal with him being Superman, you can deal with me."

"You-"

"Of course I know about Superman," Lois said, her voice almost gentle. "We're partners. Or did you mean the fact that you knew? Yeah, it wasn't hard to guess that Clark told you. We keep coming back to this love thing- he loves you, he tells you the truth. That's just Clark."

"When did he tell you?" Lex wanted to know. She gave him a little half-smile.

"He didn't," she said. "Didn't have to. I saw Superman and I just knew. He's not hard to recognize, if you spend enough time watching Clark."

"No one else has ever figured it out like that," Lex said. "You must have spent a lot of time watching him."

"More than I realized," she said. "I figured it out later that night, when I got drunk and kissed him. Funny how much love looks like something everyday until you're looking back at it."

"I know the feeling," he whispered. She smiled at him, and for the very first time, he smiled back.

"Hey, you two," Clark said a couple hours later as he wandered into through the living room. "How's it going?" He already had jeans on and was buttoning up a shirt over the S on his chest. Through the doorway, Lois could see the red cape thrown carelessly over the arm of the couch and the boots parked next to the balcony door. All the comforts of home, only this was Lex's apartment.

Lois was okay with that.

"Good," Lex answered for the both of them, distracted by the chess board on the kitchen table in front of him. "I'm teaching Lois how to play chess."

Clark groaned as he threw himself down into the empty chair. "Jesus, Lex. She'll be unmanageable now."

"I resent that," Lois said, studying the move that Lex had just made. The hell? What was the bastard thinking?

"I thought that if I taught her properly, the two of us together might be able to beat you," Lex said. She was too busy staring at the board to look at him, but she could hear the smile in his voice. Wait, what?

"Clark knows how to play chess?" she demanded, glaring up at them. "Since when? And how's he so good at it?"

"He learned the same way you are- I taught him."

"And I'm good because I have a memory for patterns," Clark said. "Besides, I'm not that good. Lex exaggerates."

"Lex is not exaggerating," Lex argued. He turned to Lois. "He remembers every single move he's ever seen. And I showed him all of my best stuff before I caught on, too."

"Kent, you bad boy!" she said. "Running a con on Lex." She grinned at him. "I'm so proud of you. I always told you that innocent smile would take you far."

"No, I can't teach you," he said, anticipating her next words. "Don't even bother. You couldn't pull it off even if you did know the trick of it."

"How come you can do it and I can't?" she demanded.

"Um, because I'm an alien?" He tried a cheesy grin on for size, which just made her and Lex bust a gut laughing.

Lois made her move, only to stare, aghast, as Lex checkmated her. "Bastard!" she said, but Lex just grinned at her.

"Clark," she said, not letting her gaze break away from Lex's, "Are you sure we can't publish that article?"