It was still dark when Claire felt the first inklings of wakefulness returning to her - without yet having opened her eyes, she remembered that in addition to the fact that she simply did not sleep in, she was also waking up in a different time zone. Reaching up to rub her eyes, she gave a small yawn, and still lying on her side facing the window, she started to stretch her arm with a quiet groan, only to find that it encountered something solid far sooner than she had anticipated.

"Good, you're up. You're taking up more than your half of the bed."

Immediately, Claire's eyes opened the rest of the way and she sat upright, turning to face Lex who had been lying on the bed next to her, his arms bent with fingers laced behind his head - despite the fact that he was complaining about the space she was taking up, it didn't appear as though he was uncomfortable at all. Claire noted with mild annoyance that he didn't even look tired and had likely been able to sleep just fine with the space he did have.

And then, perhaps slightly out of order, she realized with a slight widening of her eyes that she was in fact sharing a bed with Lex Luthor.

"Morning, sunshine," he said with a slight smirk, shifting and leaning slightly closer to Claire. "Somebody had a good night's sleep."

Claire rolled her eyes gently and swung her legs around to get out of bed, giving Lex ample room now to spread out and take up the remainder of the space. As she got up to walk across the room towards her overnight bag to rifle through for a change of clothes, Lex allotted himself a moment to glance appreciatively over the way a dingy old Metropolis Polytech t-shirt and cotton shorts hung off of her frame. As nicely as she cleaned up, this was a sight her most definitely could get used to as well if given the opportunity.

"So what's the plan for today?" Claire asked tiredly.

"Breakfast. Downstairs in five hours," Lex said matter-of-factly. "It's five in the morning. You should still be asleep and nursing a doozie of a hangover after last night."

"Well, I'm pretty resilient," she replied shortly, picking up her bag and planting it on the foot of the bed so she could more easily reach in, pulling out the change of clothes she had packed and laying it out as well. "This okay? Because I didn't bring anything else, so an answer in anything but the affirmative doesn't do us any good."

Lex sat up and eyed the skirt and chiffon blouse she'd put down on top of the duvet and wrinkled his nose in distaste. "You think you'd be wearing that if we'd just done what the reporters all think we did last night?" Lex asked, cocking his head to one side with no pretense of lasciviousness or seduction - perhaps because, even if he wouldn't admit as much, he had just woken up from having comfortably fallen asleep as well on the bed next to her upon returning to the penthouse suite and was in a rare state of functioning without pretense or forethought. "You don't have anything else?"

"How about I just wear the same dress from last night, for optimum trashiness?" Claire retorted in exasperation, snatching the clothes off of the bed and making it clear that her mind was made up - she was going to wear what she was going to wear, and was not receptive to arguments. She rolled her eyes again, making her way to the bathroom and shutting the door behind her. Turning on the shower and stepping inside, she realized that this was one of this first periods of time, however small, where she'd actually had a moment's peace.

Claire was beginning to wonder how much longer she could take being this unsettled by Lex Luthor - he appeared to be enjoying himself more and more, able to control her more and more as time passed. Now, after the gathering at Wayne Manor, Claire wasn't entirely sure she could handle this sort of double-life anymore, knowing that she would inevitably continue to be pulled back and forth. She knew that perhaps she had started taking her responsibility for Lex Luthor's stability and well-being a little too personal - and perhaps Lex had not been completely off the mark in his assessment that Claire needed to be needed a little too much.

He was aware of it. He was doing this on purpose. Claire leaned against the cool tile of the shower walls and gave a heaving sigh as a sense of cognizance dawned on her - the more Lex Luthor played these games with her, the more he yanked on her chain and acted so erratically, the more unstable he appeared. The more unstable he appeared, the more that little voice in Claire's mind reminded her - he needs you. What would happen to him without you?

It was ridiculous. It was backwards. The more he did things that she hated, the more he convinced her that she needed to stay. All of this, on top of the fact that a man now known for branding anyone who crossed him had directed Claire to stay and finish this job had buried her in this predicament. She would always be trapped between Batman and Lex Luthor, until whatever their quarrel was had ended - Batman, who wanted the intelligence on Lex Luthor to bring him to what he considered justice, and Lex, who cared about nothing and no one more than himself and who would do anything to meet his own ends. The sooner she could accept that, the sooner all of this would become easier. Being angry at either of them was useless.

But then, if it was just a matter of acceptance and playing along - if everything was business and nothing more - why had she felt a fleeting sense of actual happiness last night? Why had she felt like she perhaps wanted to be exactly where she was?

Claire finally stepped out of the shower after a good while, but despite having expected to feel better after a few minutes of privacy, she only found herself feeling worse. She dried off her hair and slipped in the clothes that she already knew Lex didn't approve of, and stepped back out into the suite, which was now brightened by the sun, visible through the window as it slowly rose over Central City.

Meanwhile, Lex was standing over the foot of the bed, looking down at the clothes he had laid out. He already looked dressed, Claire noted, and he had an untied tie draped over his neck, a look of clear agitation on his fate as his hands fidgeted with the ends.

"What are you doing?" Claire couldn't help but ask, automatically walking over and crossing her arms, glancing over the clothes Lex had laid out as though it would give her a more clear answer. She glanced him over as well, tilting her head gently. "I don't think I've ever seen you wear a tie before, come to think of it."

"I don't wear them."

"Then where'd that one come from?"

"The concierge."

"And why do you have it?"

"Because you're overdressed and it'd look out of place if I didn't," Lex snapped shortly, clenching his eyes shut momentarily in self-restraint as he shook his head. "So obviously -"

"Hold on," Claire interrupted in mild confusion. "You... you don't wear ties," she repeated, piecing together his agitation, his reactions, his anxiety in the situation. And the conclusion hit her so quickly that she puffed out whatever air resided in her chest. Tying a tie was something that a father taught his son to do. It wasn't only that Lex Luthor didn't wear ties.

He didn't know how.

"Come here," Claire said, gesturing gently with her hand but not counting on Lex to do so. Instead, she walked over and, standing on her tiptoes in a flowing skirt and a light blouse looking almost like some kind of little ballerina in front of him, she began adjusting the tie around his neck.

The first sense of Lex's that seemed to awaken was the sense of smell - the scent of ginger and citrus from the hotel shampoo emanating from her still damp hair. His eyes caught sight of the way she bit her lower lip concentration while deftly tying the necktie.

And it was in this fleeting moment, looking down at the woman in front of him who was completely focused on the task at hand, that a thought crossed Lex's mind: she wasn't getting out of doing this for him. She was simply doing something for him - no transactions, no ultimatums, no expectations. The thoughts that had crossed his mind the previous night while he watched her sleep returned to his thoughts like a pervasive white noise that overtook whatever else was happening.

"What are you doing?" Lex asked, his voice taking on an unusual, child-like tone of confusion as he felt frozen in place, awkwardly trying to look down at Claire who was still focused on the task at hand.

"I've known how to tie an amazing Windsor knot since I was probably five. I used to do it for my dad all the time," she continued on, unaware of the fact that she was now rambling. "When I was tiny, my dad used to say I did it best because it was too hard for him to see it from his side - though I'm pretty sure he only said that to make me feel better about myself. Could you hold still?"

Lex usually might have humored Claire's anecdote with some kind of response, even a condescending one, if not for the fact that something about this interaction was to him, unlike any of their others. This wasn't her job, and this wasn't a show for the cameras. In all of its innocence and vulnerability - in all of its simplicity - this was Claire doing something for him without so much as a promise of personal gain, and despite being such a small act, this caused such great dissonance that he felt genuinely outside himself. This was something that seemed to overload Lex the more he tried to process it - she shook him terribly, but somehow did so in a way that he didn't feel fear. It wasn't the jarring anxiety that came with addressing a room of people who wanted to see him fail, but rather the apprehensive approach to one of the few who he had reason to believe did not.

On her part, Claire had perhaps gotten more from her moment of crisis and catharsis in the shower than she had let on. She had decided, at some point in those few minutes, that it was better to care, even if she didn't understand. It was her job to care, and she would let that conclusion take her where it needed to. She cared about him - in all of the dysfunction and ambiguity of their connection, she stayed because in a capacity she couldn't yet identify, she cared, and it was what it was.

Lex, on the other hand, reached a conclusion that was far more definitive. His hands, which for the past few moments had hung at his sides, now gently closed around Claire's wrists, pulling them away from their work on his necktie and lowering them so they were no longer in the way - and now, for the second time in their acquaintance, he closed the space between them and pressed his lips to hers.

This time, however, was not abrupt like the last time - it was not committed with the intent to startle or unsettle, which in and of itself was far outside of the behavior expected from Lex Luthor. This was not him cornering her against a car, or against the wall of an elevator like a predator cornering his prey. Instead, his movements were slow, perhaps even hesitant. He released his grip on Claire's wrists slowly, waiting to see if she would take the opportunity now to push him away. When she didn't recoil and instead reciprocated this time, he separated only enough to take a breath of air before kissing her again, his hands now resting on her cheeks and hers resting on his chest.

For a few moments, Lex was strangely contented to simply kiss her - to feel the warmth of her hands, the scent of her hair, the softness of her mouth on his. He considered himself somewhat of a prodigy of the senses - he was astute, he was sharp, and as such, his senses were often easily overwhelmed. But now, despite the fact that Claire's presence in this moment was a barrage on all of his senses, he felt a sense of ease. In an instant, however, he paused and felt his body tense as the realization of the immense vulnerability he was showing dawned upon him. He separated yet again, resting his forehead against hers with his hands still cupping her face.

"If you're going to walk away from me," he began, his expression a strange combination of desperation, questioning, and desire, "I'd suggest you do it now."

"Duly noted," Claire responded with a slight smirk. Now, fueled by the sudden shift in the energy, the change in the nature of their connection, however, Claire found her previous misgivings clouded over by the reasons behind why she had become so compliant - she had perhaps wanted this too. This time, it was Claire whose hands gently gripped at the front of Lex's shirt and tugged him closer, kissing him soundly. She found herself smiling when she realized that he was smiling against her lips, and when they again surfaced for air, Lex smirked and gently reached out, undoing the top button of Claire's chiffon blouse.

"When you got into the shower, we had five hours until breakfast," he said, gently tracing his finger over the smooth fabric and starting to undo the next button, feeling the gentle rise and fall of her chest. "Now, it's less."

"It's plenty," Claire replied with a shadow of a grin as well - and Lex had to admit, as gorgeous as he thought a little chaos looked on her, this expression suited her just as well. "Trust me."

And, Lex realized just before finally stopping the toying and starting to undo her blouse with both of his hands, kissing her again with all the energy he could muster, when she said to trust her... perhaps, the tiniest bit, he actually did. His hands fumbled slightly as he undid the rest of her blouse and with slightly shaking hands, gently peeled it back off of her shoulders, letting the shirt fall back onto the floor and running his hands over the now bare skin at the curve on either side of her neck. After Claire managed to reciprocate in kind, undoing the buttons of Lex's shirt and casting the garment aside, Lex shifted so that the backs of her knees bumped gently against the foot of the bed and gave way underneath her. He briefly roved his eyes over her body as she lay on the bed in front of him, and managed one last wolfish smirk before joining her in the bed.

She most definitely was his now.

A/N's

And the rest, as they say, is history! I decided to end this chapter this way to preserve the rating but but the original content may eventually see daylight as bonus material on my Tumblr. The next chapter will be the last in our little Central City adventure, and then it's back to Metropolis and back to reality. Thank you, as always, for your wonderful feedback. Until next update, cheers!

(edit: the scene is now available on my fanfic-specific tumblr, username la-vik-ffn. I had really intended to make it a separate story on this same site, but for rating purposes, it didn't pass muster for an M-rating. So, feel free to check it out - but if it's not your cup of tea, the story can carry on without it.)