She wasn't lonely. She was fine, same as always. Busy as hell, in fact. She just really missed both Bruce and Clark, and that made her realize that she'd gotten very used to spending time with at least one of them. And, more recently, both. But that wasn't a problem. It wasn't even really loneliness. It was just her missing her routine and the people who populated it, which was normal, and fine.

It had been a day, though, which was a little worrying.

The loneliness felt like a rock in her shoe or a bug bite in a really embarrassing place. She didn't want to address it, didn't really have time to address it, yet at eight AM London time on her fourth day overseas, she found herself texting Bruce: meeting with sources. Recs in central ldn?

The response came almost immediately: Surely you have your own list

maybe im curious about yours

I don't spend much time in London proper. Bruce Wayne loves tawdry steakhouses and pubs that have long since become Tory haunts. I doubt your sources would be interested in either.

you've spent time there on your own surely

Nothing. Well, it was two fifteen Gotham time, late even for the Caped Crusader. She resigned herself to another day of Starbucks and went to meet Yara, an account manager's assistant's assistant, to discuss discrepancies in Lena Luthor's husband's nephew's savings account.

That evening, during the ten-minute wait for the Planet's security guys to sweep her hotel room, she thumbed through her texts again. Pictures and notes from Clark, which made her ache with loneliness even as she liked and replied, notes from Jimmy's day in Liverpool, confirmations from two sources she'd meet up with tomorrow...and a text from Bruce, linking to a Google document that turned out to be a comprehensive list of coffee shops and dive bars not just in London but also in multiple cities and townships across the UK. Christ, it was thorough, with notes from N, O, R, S, and H, a veritable treasure trove of spooks' favored haunts. Lois was torn between taking the recommendations and investigating every single one on the grounds that a Gotham bat's interest was all but proof of criminality.

But she had four people to meet with today, so she took the recommendations and put investigation on the back burner.

She reconvened with Jimmy on day five of her trip, taking an early lunch at a Pret all the way up in St Albans. "How'd Liverpool treat you?"

"Oh, it was fine," Jimmy said, "but Hot Rod Danny didn't have any cars and he denied being in debt to Cosa Nostra, so you know."

"He's been bought by a bigger fish."

"Maybe." Jimmy took a huge bite of his tuna and cucumber sandwich. "Awr a moonargh ohehn."

"Try that again."

A big, gulpy swallow. "Or a meaner one."

"Luthor?"

"Could be. No one would tell me. Not even a, you know, lurk outside this building at this time and you might find out kind of tip." Jimmy sipped his seltzer. "You've got enough evidence without this side quest, right?"

"It's not a side quest. I need all the evidence I can get, you know that." The allegations she planned to publish were, in some ways, small-scale. Petty corruption, normal municipal-fraud stuff. Of course, the reason Lois was chasing down this lead herself was because she believed, and was rapidly gathering evidence to substantiate, that the municipal fraud was just the opening volley from a much broader conspiracy. Jimmy had basically helped to foreclose some leads, a service a lot of people would regard as useless, but which Lois had long since come to appreciate. "Let me buy you another sandwich."

"Oh, thanks, but I'm not Dagwood, I think this is all for me." Jimmy took his last bite of tuna. "Anyway, how are things for you?"

"A lot of interviews, a lot of evidence. You know how it goes."

"I do, I do." He crumpled his napkin. "So...I guess you probably know part of my job is electronic surveillance."

"Yep."

"A LexCrop subsidiary is. Uh. There's no nice way to put this." Jimmy squinted at the table. "They're stalking you. And, unfortunately, they are stalking you via physical access to your room."

Already? Jesus. "Let me guess, I've got a new reservation."

"And Perry told me to help you back."

So she moved, and Jimmy and her source agreed to an eight o'clock the next morning, and then she called Bruce.

He answered with video, which she honestly hadn't been expecting. Great view, though: early afternoon sun over Gotham, warm light streaming into Bruce Wayne's glass-walled office. Even less privacy than the penthouse, of course, but you really couldn't expect anything else from WE's dilettante CEO. "Mr. Wayne, hey."

"Lois Lane." A tilt of his head. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"If you've got a second, I'd rather speak with Bruce."

It wasn't, actually, any kind of subterfuge they'd rehearsed. She watched a muscle tick in his jaw and wondered if this was the moment he told her to fuck off, reminded her that Clark, not Lois, was the one who had the right to make demands of him.

But it was Bruce who said, "What do you need?"

Off-kilter, made dumber by surprise, she blurted, "Maybe I just missed you."

"Ha. Funny." And wasn't that a kick in the head, the way he didn't miss a beat. "But seriously, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, exactly." Kind of the opposite -- not that she thought he'd appreciate her explaining that Lex Luthor stalking her was the most promising possible development. "But I'm headed out into the country tomorrow. Long drive, lots of alone time. And yes, I'm taking precautions. But I was hoping Clark could keep an ear out."

Not even a twitch this time. He just waited.

"...and no, I'm not asking him because he'd freak out."

"It mystifies me that you don't want him there with you."

She decided they could have the whole you're-a-hypocrite-mister-Gotham-is-my-city fight later. "He has a different job. A different beat. And if he's with me, if he's the reason I'm safe here, you know it'll tear him up to leave."

"And he will leave." A beleaguered sigh. "Yes, I understand."

"You'll ask him?"

"Of course I'll ask him," Bruce all but snapped. Lois watched, almost amused, as horror flickered over his expression. "I mean --"

"No, no, it's all good. Thanks, Bruce." She gave in to her reporter's instincts and pettiness, hanging up before Bruce could try to get the last word in. The text an hour later, He'll be listening., she just replied to with a thumbs up. No need to pretend asking Bruce to be a go-between was anything more than it was.

A couple days after that, the day after Lois had talked to Clark, Bruce called at seven in the evening London time. Another video call, bizarrely: Bruce Wayne's suit and Bruce's expression, afternoon sunshine making him look unfairly gorgeous, the penthouse's stupid view clearly visible over his shoulder. Lois was in yet another shoebox hotel room, eating frankly substandard takeout and going through an invoice line-by-line. She told herself it would be ridiculous to feel jealous. "Playing hooky, huh?"

"Is it hooky if they practically kick you out?"

"Very funny. I've seen your office, the work you do is real."

"The work I do in Bruce Wayne's name, though? Eh." But he didn't seem too angsty about it today; a lazy shrug, a smile that looked more or less genuine.

If he had seemed unhappy, Lois thought she probably could have kept ignoring it. If he'd needed a favor, or was still mad at her for taking this trip, or was worried about Clark, then Lois the reporter or Lois the friend-and-fellow-Clark-dater could've handled things, arguing back or solving problems. So she actually did kind of blame Bruce for what happened next, which was that her whole chest clenched and she thought, as unavoidable as if she'd screamed it in her own ear, I love him.

She did the only sensible thing you could do after that, jamming the feeling in a box and refusing to think it again, or look at it, or consider it at all. The cognitive load of all of that meant she missed whatever Bruce said, completely tuned out until he said, "Lois? Are you okay? Did I call too late?"

"You know it's only seven," she said, forcing her brain back into gear. "Sorry, I had a busy day, I just spaced a little. What did you need?"

It was probably just her phone's color correction making his eyes look soft and impossibly blue as he frowned at the camera. "I just wanted to check in. Story's going well?"

She couldn't keep herself from sounding a little smug when she said, "I can't discuss that on an unsecured line."

"That good, huh?"

She shrugged, biting back a smile.

"Well." Another frown, another pause that felt more meaningful than it possibly could be. She wanted to -- nope, absolutely not, she wasn't thinking about that right now. "I should probably let you go, then. It just occurred to me to check in, when I had a bit of spare time."

"Sure. Thanks."

"Thank you, too." He wiggled his fingers at the phone, an awkward half-wave, and ended the call.

The takeout was still aggressively subpar, the paperwork still mind-numbingly boring, but that was fine. Any port in a storm. Literally anything to focus on if it wasn't whatever the hell that had just been.

A couple weeks into her trip, she'd gotten the necessary on-the-record information and the documentation to support it. She'd moved hotels three times and had her purse stolen twice, and it had only slowed her down a little, not even cost her a day's work.

(Dumbasses. She only kept sensitive information on her phone, and that was in an internal coat pocket.)

Piecing all that work together, it was what she'd convinced Perry to suspect: PAC money split between laundering for Luthor's aspirations to national office and laundering for overseas antiquities purchases. Lois couldn't prove Luthor intended to use the antiquities to consolidate control, political and otherwise, but she could write a hell of an article that let the reader conclude that, given Luthor's own history and what evidence she did have. It was a good week of work; she had one last meeting and then she'd be done.

It was knowing that this would all end soon that had her on edge, in fact. The space between filing a draft and the piece being published wasn't particularly relaxing: she'd have revisions, fact-checking, and figuring out her next story. But it involved a lot more downtime than right now. Time to think, time to doubt herself. Time to doubt this whole thing with Bruce and Clark, too.

After seventeen days in London, she got her last puzzle piece: an archive with scanned documents from six different Luthor-owned shell corps that clearly showed the money flowing out of All for Metropolis and into LexCorp accounts. She ended up at an Islington pub with a bunch of local journos, getting rip-roaringly drunk to celebrate her investigation wrapping, one of their Tory colleagues' public humiliation, and something involving Liverpool soccer that Lois was both too American and too tipsy to fully understand.

"Have another!" June Weaver, a London Watchword photographer, said, shoving a beer -- porter? Lois had no idea - into her hand. Lois toasted the crowd and tuned back in to the debate over...relegation? Non-relegation? Again, she had no idea. Were they still talking about the Tory? Also no clue.

It was a good night, but an intense one. She ducked out to get some air close to midnight, closing her eyes and trying, failing, but trying to ignore the pathetic sucking pit in her chest, her loneliness curling around and inside of her like one of Poison Ivy's fucking vines.

At this rate she'd be writing a personal essay about her pining soon. Fucking hell.

"I'm done, Clark," she whispered into the air. "I'm coming home tomorrow. I miss you."

But that wasn't very honest, was it? She was drunk enough to admit that part to herself. It wasn't honest because it wasn't Clark she missed. Or, it wasn't only Clark.

"I miss both of you."

Still, not quite.

She closed her eyes against the cloudy night. "I love you."

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She didn't really need to check to know who it was, but she pulled it out anyway, seeing Clark's face. She couldn't hold back her smile: of course he wanted to talk. He'd probably open by asking for some clarification on that last point, like he was interviewing her. Or maybe he'd talk around it and around it, telling her about Bruce and the farm and his Ma and everything else that had happened, until he'd painted her a beautiful picture that only needed her clarification to be complete.

She hit 'Decline'. "We'll talk tomorrow," she said, and went back into the chaos of the pub.

So, yes, at Heathrow she was so hungover she almost gave up on the walk to Departures. Technically, she could've just called Clark, but he'd definitely make fun of her hangover and Bruce would be judgemental, even if he wasn't there at the time. And knowing Perry, he'd somehow figure out she hadn't even taken her flight. No, better to walk, head pounding, all the way to her gate.

She landed in Metropolis with a text from Diana. Nothing antiquities-related, thank God, just a coffee invite. They arranged to meet the day after tomorrow and then it was just Lois, her suitcase, and the taxi home.

Well. The taxi back to the penthouse.

She hadn't thought about what to expect at 3PM on a Thursday. It was halfway through Bruce's two-day stretch with Clark, and with her wrist almost healed, she could have just gone back to her apartment. Should have, maybe, except she didn't even really realize what day it was until she was stepping out of the elevator to see Bruce and Clark sitting across from each other at the kitchen island, full wine glasses in front of them, probably gazing into each others' eyes right before the elevator door opened. Now, though, they were both staring at her. Shit.

"Sorry," she said. "It's nine London time, I'm wiped, I didn't think -- obviously I'll go back to my place." Where she hadn't really been in weeks. But that was fine. As long as she didn't open any of her leftovers, she'd just have a little dust to contend with. She adjusted her grip on her suitcase, pushed her purse up on her shoulder, and turned to leave.

"Lois."

She'd expected Clark. This was Clark's thing: no, don't go, there's room for one more, et cetera. It was why they were here, doing this, at all. She expected Clark so much that when she turned back to look at them, she said, "Clark --", and only stopped when she realized Clark hadn't spoken at all.

It was Bruce who said, for the second time, "Lois. We were waiting for you, actually. Clark said you preferred to make your own way home from the airport."

Right. Well. Technically true, but. "It's Thursday."

"So my executive assistant tells me." Dry as a bone, in classic Bruce fashion, but then he looked down at the island again. At the wine, specifically, uncorked and sitting between him and Clark, three full glasses waiting for them.

Three glasses. Not two.

"Oh."

"Uh-huh," Clark said. "I told Bruce we should just text you. Here." He was by her side in a flash, taking her purse and hanging it up, grabbing her suitcase before she could protest that the splint barely even did anything anymore. "Hi."

She felt it in her stomach when she looked up at him, that horrible twisting edge-of-a-cliff terror that meant she was experiencing being in love a little more acutely than usual. "Hey."

"Welcome home," Clark said, and kissed her. Just a little peck on the lips, but he was there, solid and sweet, and he smelled like Bruce's pear-scented shampoo. Lois felt warm all over as she kissed back.

Clark didn't let her unpack, all but dragging her back out to the kitchen. For a moment she felt like an undergrad again, wondering if Bruce would try to kiss her too, or if he'd swing the opposite direction and make one of his wry little comments that meant he didn't want her around at all. That worry didn't survive eye contact with him, though. He offered her a smile and pushed one of the glasses toward her. "I heard you had a productive trip."

She took a welcome gulp. "No you didn't. Perry's not leaking to Bruce Wayne."

"Oh, no, not Perry. But Weaver tells me you hold your Guinness impressively, and I quote, 'for a little American'."

"Little. She's shorter than me! And don't even try to tell me you know, I've already figured out why you might have a London photographer's cell."

"Oh boy," Clark said. He was sitting across from the two of them, cheeks bright red, lips wet from the massive gulp of wine he'd just taken. His shirt was unbuttoned a little, Lois realized belatedly, and crumpled in that way she knew -- she'd now seen -- meant Bruce had grabbed him, hauled him close, and kissed the hell out of him. Maybe done a bit more, too, but she wasn't Gotham's best detective, so she couldn't have said if Bruce's mouth was swollen or if his voice was a little scratchier than usual.

...and she'd trailed off to stare at Clark. Oops. "Anyway, it was a good trip, and I did get what I was looking for. I'll be filing a draft tomorrow."

"Congratulations," Bruce said.

Something about the unreadable expression on his face made her want to do something stupid. Break the ice, rattle the bars of his cage, whatever. She settled for toasting him and tossing him a wink. "Don't tell your broker anything about LexCorp stock."

"You think I have LexCorp in my portfolio?"

"We do," Clark said, laughing at the appalled look on Bruce's face. "In the pension plan, Bruce! Not on purpose!"

"Though, actually, if Lex is determined to keep dirty dealing, maybe the Planet should divest," Lois said. Or tried to say. She got halfway through 'divest', and then Bruce stole her move: he kissed her.

Not slow, not gentle, not a happy hello or an affectionate peck. Open-mouthed and dirty, so hard and abrupt she might have fallen off the stool if he wasn't holding on to her hip.

"Shit, Bruce," Clark said, and Lois almost pulled away -- almost apologized -- but Bruce only moaned, low in the back of his throat, slumping against the counter and pulling Lois in until she was half in his lap.

Fuck it. Her wrist still hurt, damn it, and she was jetlagged, and her hangover had only just faded. She wasn't going to do the work here. She braced her foot on the island's footrest and hauled herself the rest of the way onto him.

The stools weren't that big, but Bruce was broad enough to make an easy, secure seat. She swallowed his gasp with another kiss, using her newfound height advantage to tilt his head back, running her good hand through his hair and then grabbing it for a nice, solid yank.

He gasped into her mouth, of course he did, and she took advantage of it. Fucked him with her tongue a little, rocked against his dick when she felt him getting harder. She glanced over at Clark in time to see him lick his lips and swallow, eyes fixed on them. He had his fingers pressed against the countertop in that particular way he had when he was trying not to damage anything.

She caught his gaze as she broke the kiss, yanking Bruce's hair again and watching as his eyes fluttered shut, his hands flexing uselessly on her hips. "Look at him," she told Clark. "Pretty, huh?"

"Pretty," Bruce found the breath to mutter. She rocked back against his dick, unable to repress her smile as the movement made him moan.

"Pretty," Clark echoed. "Yeah. He is, you really are." This last directed at Bruce, who swallowed and opened his eyes, staring up at Lois.

Big pupils, lost expression. God, she wanted to fuck him up. This was so stupid. She definitely shouldn't.

But.

"Come to bed," she said, hopping off Bruce's lap. And of course they both followed.

They'd been at Sip'd Cafe for an hour before Diana put Lois's background report down, her expression very grave. "You've assembled a compelling case, if most of this makes it into the article."

"Enough will." Had, actually; Lois had sent her first draft out this morning. It had been almost easy at that point: tons of evidence, a compelling narrative.

"I'm no stranger to the corruption humanity is capable when there's pride at stake or money to be made, of course." Diana shook her head. "But this is one small, petty thing. Not your story, obviously, but --"

"Municipal politics. I know." There were dozens of cities Metropolis's size all over the world. Lois focused on her corner of the world because that was her job, but plenty of other evil assholes were doing similarly evil asshole things, and at least some of them might get away with it. "You're not usually the one who's feeling down about this kind of stuff. What happened?"

Diana grimaced. "What didn't? A disagreement with my sisters over the Lantern Corps, mainly. But I've found myself at odds with my sisters often, of late."

"They're opposed to your, ah, interplanetary work?"

Diana raised a shoulder. "They claim not to oppose anything. Politics, you know. But I think they look at my work, and they look at the sheer scope and scale of suffering, and they wonder if it's enough. If any of it, us, are enough."

"Amazons?"

"Heroes."

"Well." Lois sipped her latte. Too much lavender, ugh. "I guess that's why there's the rest of us."

"Precisely. Now, tell me where you plan to interview, after this comes out and everyone wants to know how you chased the story down. Pod shows?"

"Podcasts, and maybe. I've been talking with a guy who does longform interviews, actually."

They kept shooting the shit for almost an hour after that, the conversation eventually meandering to less serious things: Diana's new hybrid citrus tree, Lois's cousin trying to talk her into doing roller derby. Two days later, she was still thinking about Diana's knowing, "You do have the elbows for it. And the energy," when the Planet's phones lit up, a cacophony of alerts through landlines, cells, and cable.

An emergency, of course, but not one Superman could help with, nor one Wonder Woman could fix. A more ordinary emergency: the mayor had been arrested on charges of corruption, and the Daily Star had broken the news.

"Why the fuck weren't we tipped about this!" Perry roared.

"Because it wasn't an active investigation," Lois said.

"Luthor," Clark murmured, and then they were off.

Interviews first: cops, who lied, and the DA's office, which lied slightly less on average, but was definitely lying right now. A quick break to coordinate with Jimmy, then she was chasing down a fired paralegal who'd apparently decided haunting the bar at Manny's Steakhouse was the best way to spend her unemployment.

It was an exhausting day with no solid answers at the end of it. She didn't see Clark the whole afternoon or evening, and only stopped by the penthouse because she realized she'd left her entire dopp kit there. It was nine PM; the lights were on, Clark working on his laptop in the not-actually-a-room living room, his feet propped up on the coffee table.

Bruce was nowhere to be seen, but presumably that was a temporary thing. "I just need my dopp kit, then I'll be out of your hair."

Clark blinked up at her. He wasn't tired, Lois knew, at least not the way she was; he couldn't be. But a different kind of fatigue shadowed his expression all the same. "My hair?"

"It's Monday."

"Bruce is in Gotham. He'll be back late. He told me -- I mean, we spent the weekend together."

They had, and Lois was honestly doing her best not to think about that. They'd been in Gotham on Saturday, eating Alfred's cooking and spending lots of time working on their own projects in the Manor's comically enormous living room. Lois had discussed high-frequency trading with Tim and criminology with Steph. Clark had spent a bunch of time throwing knives at Dick on the roof. It had been a good weekend, and whether at the penthouse or at the Manor, they'd retreated at the end of each day to fuck each other, to kiss, to sleep.

The whole time, Lois had felt like she was standing on some kind of precipice. And now, with the shadow of a cover-up hanging over Metropolis, a cover-up she hadn't even sniffed the existence of before it happened, she felt...well, she felt kind of insane.

"Lois?"

Shit. She blinked at Clark's frown. "Sorry. I'm scattered. The DA's office -- not important. Yes, we spent the weekend. I figured you'd want some alone time with him."

"Not really. I mean, yes, alone time, our overtime's going to be crazy covering this mess. But I guess, well, I just thought -- never mind, it's not important." He offered her a smile. "Too many people hung up on me today. I saw your dopp kit in the bathroom." He disappeared and reappeared inches away from her. "Here you go."

She had to shift to take it with her good hand; it was heavy, evidence of just how many toiletries she'd semi-permanently moved to the penthouse. She felt like she was blowing an interview. Not good. "Thanks."

"No problem."

For a moment they just stood there, all but toe to toe, staring at each other. Something was going on in Clark's mind right now, something complicated and more hidden than he usually managed with her. She wanted to pick at it, and she wanted to leave. Clark had never been a stranger to her. Hell, he'd never even been hard to read before. The idea that the weekend, that kissing Bruce, that fucking them both, could do that to him -- to them --

Yeah, she needed some space. "I'll see you tomorrow."

For a second she was sure he was going to reach out and pull her close. Worse, she would have let him in that second, before she remembered why she needed the distance. But Clark only swallowed, leaning in for an almost-impersonal peck on the lips before saying, "Text me when you get home?"

"Of course."

She did, in fact, text him. And she texted Bruce. And on Tuesday and Wednesday she got tapas with Clark and worked with him into the night, chasing down the threads of this story: donations, machinations, evidence both planted and real. It wasn't Lex's work, but it wasn't a normal criminal case, either. They'd get to the bottom of it eventually. Clark didn't tell her where Bruce was those nights, and she didn't ask. She responded, "Ha.", to a picture of Damian reading the proof of her article that she'd given Bruce, but she didn't ask him how he was doing, and he didn't tell her that he missed Clark.

It was fine. A return to normal, in fact, which was good. She texted Bruce a few times, once in response to his question about her favorite coffee (espresso, thank you, Clark was the one who liked gas station swill and honeysuckle lavender lattes; she was never letting Diana talk her into being adventurous again), and once to confirm receipt of some information on the frame-up. She didn't particularly need or want to see Bruce outside those brief conversations, and when Thursday came she was happy to clear out, returning to her own apartment for some desperately needed dusting and laundry.

She sustained that delusion until 6:30 on the dot, when she and Bruce and Clark would normally be pouring wine and settling in for their evening's work: patrolling, data analysis, reaching out to EMEA contacts, whatever needed doing. It had been easier when it was the three of them, turning a noticeable lack of work/life balance into something companionable, almost homey. Now she was alone and Bruce and Clark were enjoying each other, together in their own private little bubble for the next two days.

You agreed to this, Lois reminded herself. It didn't help. She was jealous and annoyed and lonely. She missed Clark, and worse: she missed Bruce, who she hadn't had any time with at all for the last several days.

God, she missed Bruce so much.

The text was a relief: a cryptic message from a paralegal at the DA's, recently hired and, if Lois was any judge, very likely a mob asset who regretted their choices. She arranged to meet them at Micah's After Hours, a seedy bar on the edge of Metropolis's theater district. One cab ride later and she was getting reams of printouts related to the charges.

After the informant -- Christopher, a forgettable name for a forgettable guy -- left, Lois ordered herself a shot to celebrate the big stack of documents in her bag. Then a pint of beer just because she could. No one was waiting for her at home, after all.

"Big night, eh?"

Lois didn't let herself tense up. She glanced at the woman who'd slid onto the stool next to her, crooking a smile when she saw that she was tall and strong-looking, her hair clipped short, her ears sporting a couple small rings each. "You could say that. I was just meeting someone here for a little intel."

"PI?"

"Reporter."

"Could've fooled me. Most journos I've seen are on the nerdy side."

And, okay, Lois was wearing jeans, but: "Does assuming people are private investigators usually work for you? I guess it's flattering in the abstract, but I'll be honest with you, I've met too many PIs to consider it a compliment."

She meant to be, well, off-putting. Unavailable enough that this undeniably gorgeous woman would move on. But the woman threw her head back, laughing so loudly and unashamedly that Lois found she couldn't look away.

"I'm Kaylee," the woman said, "and you're exactly as tough a nut as everyone says you are, Lois Lane."

"Ah."

"Uh-huh."

"I don't suppose you'd want to rewind the last five minutes? I'm not usually quite this mean to random strangers."

"Why would I do that, it was hot." Kaylee nodded at her drink. "Get your next one?"

That was when she realized what was happening here, or thought about it consciously, at least. She was about to politely decline when she noticed the ID card sticking out of Kaylee's vest: LexCorp.

Honeypot? Random coincidence? It didn't really matter. Lois had never met a lead she'd walk away from. "You know what? Yeah. Get my next one."

Midnight found them outside together, Lois leaning against the brick wall as Kaylee leaned in for a drunken kiss. She worked in robotics, Lois had heard, and she was at a dive bar on a weeknight because 'something happened' that she didn't want to talk about.

Something the DA would have been interested in, Lois suspected. She'd paced herself carefully, tossing away drinks when Kaylee went to the bathroom, having plenty of water in between the beers. As a result, she was almost sober, wide-eyed and alert when Kaylee leaned in to kiss her. One kiss, Lois figured, and she could extricate herself and go home with Kaylee's number. Then the real work would start.

Only, she never got her kiss. She saw the shadow of a cape first, registered its color second -- or rather, its lack of color. Half a breath later, Batman stood beside them, close enough that Kaylee yelped and jumped away from them both, her flailing limbs jostling Lois's bag.

Not a pickpocketing attempt: the documents were still there. But Lois lost just enough time double checking that she only caught the tail end of Batman's speech: "...and thank your lucky stars that no one alerted Luthor to your loose lips."

"Homophobic," Lois muttered. Batman didn't react. It was Kaylee who straightened her jacket and said, "Right, well, Lois...see you around," then turned and jogged -- not quite running away, but not really dignified either -- towards the nearest Brown Line stop.

Batman whirled on Lois. Lois crossed her arms. "What are you doing in Metropolis?"

"You know what I'm doing in Metropolis, Lois. I think the better question is what you think you're doing, cheating on Clark like this."

"Cheating -- oh my god, Batman, be serious. That's a potential lead. I promise you, Clark and I have discussed what's we're okay with when it comes to work."

"I'm sure you have, since work is by far the most important thing to you."

And that was -- ridiculous, was what it was, and rude as fuck, and also Batman wasn't even using his signature growl. He just sounded like an asshole Lois would slap at a gala. He sounded like Bruce Wayne. "Big words from a man dressed up like a bat running around a city that isn't even his. Did you at least wait for Clark to fall asleep, or did you leave as soon as you both got off?"

A heavy thud of Batman's boots as he took one step closer, then another. If Lois so much as twitched a leg, they'd be touching. The crumbling brick of the bar's back alley was cold against her shoulders. "I'm surprised you're even bothering to ask. It seems to me that you've made your position very clear: nothing we do together is really your business, is it?"

It occurred to her, extremely belatedly, that Bruce was making a fool of himself and risking his identity more than she'd ever seen him do before, all because he was pissed at her. And her heart was racing about it. Classic. "I don't know, Batman, kind of seems like if it wasn't my business you wouldn't fucking be here. But I know you've been obsessed with Clark since you met him. I'm just surprised you're out here instead of with him, trying to make sure he doesn't leave you for someone who's less of a fucking asshole!"

She thought maybe he'd leave after that not-particularly-impressive sally. She absolutely did not expect Batman to erase the last inch between them, swaying forward to kiss her.

It should have been hard, mean. The kind of kiss you gave someone you didn't like, the kind of kiss Lois assumed Matches fucking Malone handed out like candy. Instead it was just as heart-twistingly awful as all their other kisses had been: soft, desperate, urgent. Pretty much the same way Bruce had kissed her that night she'd come back from London, leaning up into her with his hands resting so carefully on her hips.

It hurt, damn it. She broke the kiss with a gasp, reaching up to wipe her mouth like -- like what? Like she was cheating on Clark? Like she'd cheated on Bruce those two days she'd just taken alone with Clark? Like she was lying even now, insisting she wasn't lonely, that she was happy to leave them to each other? She had old takeaway rice in her fridge with mold in colors she didn't realize were possible. No, she wasn't happy.

She couldn't see any of Bruce's face except for his mouth. She tapped his helmet, and somehow he understood, disengaging the lenses so that she could see his eyes.

It didn't really help. He looked as panicked as she felt.

"Is this cheating?" she blurted out.

Bruce flinched like she'd shot him. "I don't -- we aren't -- look. Lois, I don't know what this is, and I haven't for awhile."

And, well, okay, another thing they had in common, not that Lois had been planning to admit that now or ever, ideally. "What did Clark say?"

Bruce's mouth pulled at the corners. Oh wow. "You didn't talk to Clark?"

"You didn't talk to Clark."

"Well, no, I hate talking about this kind of thing."

Bruce leaned his forehead against hers. Whatever composite his helmet was made of was startlingly warm against her skin. "We can't be seen leaving together. I'll get myself home, to the penthouse."

Ah. "Clark, can you come pick me up in three minutes? I'm outside Micah's."

As she said three minutes, Batman stepped away, grapple gun at the ready. By the time Clark lowered himself onto the pavement, he was long gone.

"How much of that did you hear?"

"Oh, most of it." Clark held out a hand. "I think I sort of can't pretend I didn't hear any of it this time. I mean. I can't ignore it."

"Apparently that makes three of us."

"All righty then." Strong, warm arms around her, accompanied by a blink-and-you'd-miss-it kiss to the top of her head. Even flying normal speed, it wasn't exactly a long trip: a couple minutes, maybe, and then Clark was gently setting her down on the balcony.

Bruce sat waiting for them, hair a little mussed, wearing a tank top and sweats. It was as casual as Lois had ever seen him outside of pure nakedness; it made something twist in her chest. "Hey."

He nodded at her, completely expressionless. Ouch. Well, at least she knew where they stood.

"I think we all need to talk," Clark said from behind her.

"No need," Bruce said. "I know where we stand."

"My thoughts exactly," Lois said. "Things are fine, we just got a little annoyed with each other. Normal conflict resolution stuff. Right?"

Bruce's eyes flickered to the (authentic; horrible) Pollock on the wall. "Right."

"That's not true," Clark said. He moved to stand between them, his brow furrowed, his hands curled like weird little claws. Stopping himself from reaching out, Lois guessed, though she wasn't sure to whom. "Come on, Bruce, Lois, don't -- I know you guys don't think that's true."

"Do you now," Bruce murmured. He didn't look away from the painting.

Lois cleared her throat. "He's more perceptive than you give him credit for. You should listen to him."

"You should listen to me too!" Clark said. "Cripes, Lois, I'm at my wit's end with both of you. Why can't you just admit you want to spend time together? Is it really so awful? Or are you just sexually attracted to each other and you'd rather not -- if it's not real, if none of it's real, then just tell me, okay? And each other, ideally. But it seems real. It, it feels real, too."

He was bright red by the end of his mini-speech, breathing as hard as Bruce would've been after thirteen flights of stairs, voice cracking like he had a lump in his throat. Lois had once thought Clark was just a really good mimic, but she knew better now; Clark had been raised human, had watched his mother and father cry and laugh and probably even argue. These were real reactions she was seeing, because they'd both really upset Clark.

Shame washed over her. Judging by the look on Bruce's face, she wasn't the only one. "Shit, Clark, I'm sorry."

"It's okay." He screwed his eyes shut, taking several deep breaths before opening them again. "Really, Lois, it's -- it's fine, or it will be. I just. I thought? Or, I'd hoped? That things were starting to change. And it's really okay if they're not. They don't need to be. It's not what we agreed, I know that."

It was Bruce who answered, his voice low and almost-furious: "Don't recite what you think you should be saying. We screwed up. We hurt you."

"Well." Clark opened his eyes now, but only to grimace at the ceiling. "Yes. But, um, not because you kissed each other, just to be clear."

And that was just -- fuck.

She'd denied what she was feeling, repressed it, looked at it head-on only for as long as it took to admonish herself for having feelings at all. She'd tried to forget about Bruce, tried to remember all the reasons she didn't want him, tried not to think about that last time they were all together, Bruce open and needy under her while Clark kissed her, eyes wide open, putting his whole heart into it. She'd told herself it didn't have to mean anything, but right now she felt like she had a fish hook in her belly, one unthinking yank away from ripping her apart. Of course it meant something. It always had.

Clark must have seen something in her expression. He kissed her, very carefully, leaning in just a little. Barely more than a peck. "If you guys need to talk privately, you can, of course. I'll go somewhere else, I won't listen in."

"We know that, Clark, don't be ridiculous," Bruce said.

Speaking of ridiculous: the warmth in Lois's stomach, entirely unexpected, at hearing 'we'. "Yeah, Smallville, you know my biggest issue with you is you're a little too careful about when you use your superhearing."

"Like you don't have the most stringent ethics in the newsroom. No, Bruce, don't make that face, she does!"

"You know what she was doing when Batman interrupted."

"I know she was kissing a possible source when you got jealous, yeah," Clark said. "But first of all, the rules most journalists bend would probably make you blush, and second of all, Lois uses deception to speak truth to power in a way very few journalists worldwide are willing to, and yes, Bruce, I'm quoting you, because it was bullshit that you said that to me and then said 'don't tell Lois'! This whole thing is ridiculous."

At least he was cute like this, arms folded and scowling. Lois couldn't resist glancing over at Bruce -- and then her eyes were caught on his red face, his fidgeting. "Wow. Really?"

"Which part?"

She rewound: ah. "I meant the compliment, but if you were jealous then I'd love to hear about it."

"I'm not a particularly graceful covetant." His lip curled. "How could I be? I was raised with everything I could possibly want."

Lois glanced back at Clark, who was still staring into space, swapping between the wall and the floor, but now with a frown that looked less like anger and more like puzzled resignation. She thought about the very obvious detail Bruce had omitted: that an orphan could hardly be described as having everything he could possibly want. That Bruce was really, really obvious when he was trying to deny what he was feeling; that Lois easily recognized it because she had the exact same tendencies.

Right.

"Well, me neither. You saw what I'm like with a story. I get obsessive. I get selfish. And hey, that's what the job takes, and Clark knows it. But I also get stubborn, when it's something I want, circumstances I can't control. Or." Fuck, Lane, spit it out. "Someone I want. That's what you saw tonight."

Bruce narrowed his eyes at her. "You're saying what Clark wants to hear."

"Nope."

"You're saying what you think will resolve things most easily, without needing to devote more of your free days to...this."

To us, he meant. To me. Lois shrugged. "I mean, I am kind of tired of juggling schedules like this, yeah."

"Lois," Clark said reprovingly.

"Clark. He knows what I mean." How could he not? She'd already been so obvious, in so many different ways.

Only -- wow, he really didn't, Lois realized, taking a step towards the couch in spite of herself. Stiff shoulders, bright red blush high on his cheeks, jaw set. Bruce didn't look like she'd just told him she wanted to turn their little triad arrangement into more of a throuple. He looked like she was winding up to kick him in the gut, rhetorically or maybe even literally. "Jesus, Bruce."

"I told you," Clark muttered. Which, okay, he had, in a dozen different ways. She hadn't realized just how true it was, though.

Staring Bruce down now, she knew that even if she'd taken Clark's every word to heart, she still probably would have ended up here: Bruce looking up at her with barely-disguised nerves, his clenched-together hands showing white knuckles and blue veins, his throat working as he swallowed down what she assumed were dozens of questions, or excuses, or accusations. Shit.

She'd come here with no intention of revealing herself, was the thing. She knew Clark would've been happy if she'd decided to suddenly become really emotionally forthcoming, and Bruce would use the intel the same way he used any information: as he saw fit. But she sure as shit wasn't planning on opening a vein in front of them both just because Clark would appreciate it. She didn't have that much self-preservation when it came to either of them, but she had some, at least.

Or, well, she'd thought she did, until she was faced with Bruce's vulnerability and Clark's pain, at which point she just sort of crumbled.

"I was obsessed, you know. I basically compiled a dossier on you. Not on you. On Bruce Wayne. I wanted -- to understand, I guess, because Clark is the most perfect person I've ever met -- close your mouth, Clark, I'm talking and it's true -- and he loved Bruce Wayne, so I figured there must be something else there. I didn't expect the something else to be Batman."

"People rarely do," Bruce said.

"Right. But then it was. And then you were around, all the time, being your full self instead of a ghoulish facsimile."

"Mean," Clark said.

"Accurate," Bruce said.

It was kind of hard to believe, right now, with sinus pressure giving her a headache because she refused to cry about this, and Clark and Bruce both being annoying as hell, that she wanted this. That she was trying to fight for it. But she did and she was, so she said, "Ask me what happened next."

Bruce's smirk disappeared like he'd never worn it. He looked up at Lois with wide eyes, betraying the weird, on-edge nervousness that she could already tell she was going to be obsessed with. She wanted to reach inside him and pull.

But right now he wasn't responding. "Bruce. Ask me what happened next."

"What happened next," he said, almost too low for her to hear.

"I understood Clark a little more." Weasel-worded, the editor that lived in her head howled. God damn it, she'd make such a happy coward. "Ugh. I mean I fell in love too, okay? Hook, line, and sinker."

Bruce tilted his head, looking like he was on slightly more solid ground. Ominous. "You think I baited you into falling in love?"

"Bruce," Clark said, but he was drowned out by Lois saying, "For fuck's sake no you asshole, I just did it anyway," and then kissing him.

It wasn't a particularly good kiss. Bruce's hands were too tense on her hips, his lips so stiff it felt like trying to make out with a Rodin. He was gulping big breaths of air in between kisses, and when she pulled back enough to meet his gaze again, she understood why: he was trying get it together, too.

Big fingers combed through Bruce's hair, gently tilting his head up. Lois followed the movement: Clark, standing beside them, eyes shining. "You really...? Both of you?"

"You have to have known. I was humiliatingly obvious."

"I wasn't," Lois said.

"You never are." Clark sounded equally affectionate and exasperated, which in turn made her feel squirmy, ridiculous: seen, and understood, and somehow still loved. Awful. Humiliating. She wanted to make him say it again.

"I've had an easier time unraveling aliens' motives," Bruce said. "You play it close to the chest, Lois."

It was very stupid, she told herself severely, to feel shivery and turned on just because of how Bruce said her name: hot, fond, irritated. But then Bruce said, "Lois. Hey. I fell too," and she gave up on self-control.

It was so satisfying to do this again with no hesitation, no second-guessing: to lean in and bite Bruce's lip, to swallow his gasp. She collapsed onto the couch and they both held her, Bruce from between her thighs and Clark plastered against her back. Chapped lips dragged kisses down her neck as Bruce whispered, "The only time I want any of us to sleep elsewhere is when we're at the Manor. All of us. For God's sake, I invited you to my son's birthday party."

"I just really --" She brushed her lips against his jaw, then did it again when she felt his cock jump against her hip. "-- thought you were trying to smooth over the awkwardness. I thought you hated sharing him."

"Is now a good time to admit I hated sharing both of you," Clark mumbled against her neck.

Another horrible-wonderful thing: the way she and Bruce both snorted the same laugh at the same time, shaking in mirth as Clark buried his blush in Bruce's neck, then wedged himself between them so he could kiss them both, one after the other, with impossibly sweet, transparent need.

She caught Bruce's gaze. "We've been too hard on him. Stressed him out."

"Mmm, indeed. Clark, let me guess, the edict of open communication doesn't apply to you because falling in love with two people whose lack of affection for one another pains you to think about is a walk in the park? No reason for us to worry about your heart in all this?"

"Okay, hey," Clark said, but Bruce cut him off with a vicious kiss, shoving him down to the floor.

And then, well. What was Lois going to do, not follow? The penthouse had heated floors and unbelievably plush, thirty thousand dollar area rugs. She took advantage of the element of surprise to get Bruce flat on the floor.

Correction: almost flat. When Clark pinned him with a hand to the shoulder, his cock twitched and he arched his back. "You look nice like this," Lois said, pinching his thigh just because it was there and she could. She could. He wanted her here.

"Very nice," Clark agreed. He tugged Bruce's shirt off and leaned down to kiss his way across Bruce's pecs, tonguing at his nipples. Lois pressed a hand against his still-covered cock, too gentle to be satisfying, and watched as Bruce lost the war with himself.

"Please," he finally said, naked desperation etched into every line of his body. He moved just a tiny bit, a little hitch of the hips that she got to watch transform into a beautiful full-body shudder.

She squeezed his cock again, a little harder this time, and decided there was nothing wrong with re-using an effective rhetorical trick. "Ask me what I wanted to do the last time we were all together."

"Lois --"

It was Clark who fit his hand around Bruce's jaw, applying just enough pressure to tilt his head. Lois could barely breathe as Clark said, "Bruce. Ask her."

Blue eyes fixed on her. "What did you want?"

"I wanted you bent over for Clark." A tremor ran through him. "And I wanted to be the one keeping your mouth busy."

Bruce groaned, thrashing a little as he rocked his hips up into her grip. "If you want all that, you need to -- fuck -- go a little slower on all this. I won't last."

Part of her wanted to just floor it, take them all over the edge like this. But there'd be plenty of time for that later; right now, she really did want to take Bruce apart. "Clark?"

"On it." He scooped his arm under Bruce and sped them both to the bedroom. Lois followed a little more slowly, mostly because she knew that if she waited for a minute or so, she'd walk in on Clark pressing Bruce into the bed, kissing down his spine in that sweetly dirty manner he was so skilled at.

Making Bruce moan, it turned out, his hands clenched around their duvet as he arched his back, begging for more.

"Wow," Lois said from the doorway.

Clark paused long enough to turn and look at her. His mouth was shiny, fuck, fuck, she was absolutely going to be taking advantage of his refractory period tonight. "Come here."

No need to argue with that. Lois fumbled her way out of her clothes as she went, so that when she slid under Bruce, she was completely naked and beyond ready to be touched. "Hey, Bruce."

"Lois."

"Fancy meeting you here."

"I don't think it's that surprising, myself."

"Oh my God, seriously?" Clark muttered from his spot face-down in Bruce's ass.

Bruce caught Lois's laugh with a kiss, bearing her down into the mattress with his hips, his cock pressed between them. She was already brutally turned on, but when he started playing with her nipples and biting at her lips, her mind emptied itself of anything except the need to be touched. To be fucked.

And Bruce, of course, could read her arousal as easily as an enemy's feint. "Like this," he said, urging her up the bed until she was lounging on three people's worth of pillows, her head propped against the headboard. He had the room to kiss her tits, to drag his teeth over her collarbone, and then to slide down, down, until he was pressing his tongue against her clit.

He didn't go slowly and he wasn't gentle. He sucked her clit and slid two fingers into her right away, a stretch just on the good side of uncomfortable, flattening his tongue against her and using his other hand to urge her to move, to fuck herself against him, on him. Even Bruce couldn't hold himself up with just his core for too long, but that was fine; he braced himself on the bed again and she used his shoulders for leverage, tangling her fingers in his hair and fucking his face.

She had no idea how he was even breathing like this. All she knew was the feeling of those fingers curling in her so deliciously, over and over, the way he rubbed against her g-spot and smiled when she couldn't repress a noise. He worked her closer and closer to the edge, and then grunted as she fell over it, his fingers and mouth exquisitely still until she started to come down.

Then, movement. Just a little. The aftershocks of a thrust. She opened her eyes to see Clark staring at her, at them, working himself into Bruce with tiny rocking movements.

"God, you're fucking gorgeous," she said. She meant Clark, but she also meant Bruce, his messy dark hair all she saw when she looked down. She combed her fingers through it again, pulling him up and shimmying down until she could see his wet mouth, his dazed eyes.

"Gorgeous," she said again, kissing him open-mouthed and dirty.

"Lois." Just a mumble, really, like he was already too gone to articulate any actual thoughts. Her mouth went dry.

"Yeah?"

"I need..." He swallowed around a moan as Clark snapped his hips. "Oh God."

It wasn't new, to look at Clark and know just what he was thinking. But this part was new, a little: looking over Bruce's shoulder, up at Clark, and knowing they were both thinking of Bruce, hard and needy, his whole body begging to be taken apart.

"Do you want to fuck me?" she asked, nipping Bruce's lower lip.

Red, red, red, on his cheeks and down his shoulders. It was a perennial delight, knowing just how shy Bruce could get like this. He didn't even respond verbally; he only nodded and then closed his eyes, moaning as Clark increased his pace.

And, well, no need to belabor the point. She slid down on the bed a little more, grabbed him and pressed him inside her. He gasped something garbled and kissed her, fucking into her -- no. Moving his body with Clark's thrusts, letting Clark fuck him and her.

God, that really did it for her. And she could probably make things even better. She broke the kiss to whisper, "Do you want him to come inside you? Is that why you're waiting? You want to feel him fall apart before you let go?"

Bruce cracked an eye open. "He can hear you, you know."

Just for that, she contracted her pelvic floor for all she was worth, not bothering to hide her smugness when he choked off an almost certainly humiliating noise.

"Yes," Bruce said. He pressed his forehead to hers. "Clark..."

"On it," said their overgrown Boy Scout, applying himself immediately to the task at hand.

It didn't take long. Clark was quiet when he came, usually, but he had some tells: increased speed, screwed-shut eyes, not-quite-bruising grip. Lois fit her hand over his on Bruce's hip, stroked his fingers, then dug her nails into the soft, sensitive skin between his knuckles. "Ohhhh," Clark said, a shivery, happy sort of noise -- and then he was coming, buried deep inside Bruce, his thighs trembling where Lois had her calf pressed to him.

She expected Clark to move away, maybe even to use his speed to rearrange them. She very much didn't expect him to pull out and then put his hands back on Bruce's hips. To move Bruce against, into, Lois.

To fuck Lois, with Bruce's body.

"Oh fuck," Bruce said, and then it was game over for both of them, Bruce coming inside her and Lois following pretty much the moment he pressed his thumb against her clit.

It was Clark who took care of them afterwards, fluffing the pillows and arranging the blankets before placing himself in between them. Lois snuggled close with her eyes shut, only realizing she and Bruce had the same idea when her attempt to put her hand on Clark's chest encountered a large, scarred barrier.

She was woman enough to admit that she was the one who almost made it weird by pulling away. Bruce moved faster, though, rolling his wrist and capturing her hand in a strikingly gentle grip. Well, fine, she could take a hint.

Despite everything, she didn't fall asleep easily. She wasn't sure it was possible for her to have enough sex or relationship drama to move the needle on her habitual insomnia. But she did, eventually, fall asleep, her hand linked with Bruce's and pressed against Clark's skin, listening to the even rhythms of their breathing.

Another ding on her perceptiveness: she'd really thought it would be harder to adjust to this new thing, all the togetherness they hadn't bothered to talk through. She figured there would be a ton of awkward moments and some stress and maybe a fight or two before they either gave up or set some ground rules.

She was dead wrong. They woke up the next morning and settled into what Lois realized had become their usual routine: coffee at the breakfast bar, then a walk to the train for Lois and Clark and a train back to Gotham for Bruce. The only real difference was that when Lois and Clark were ready to go, Bruce kissed Clark goodbye and then turned to Lois, raising his eyebrows like he thought she needed a chance to reject him.

"Trust me, if I don't want to be kissed, you'll know," she told him. She had a split second to commit his surprised blush to memory before she pulled him in by the tie, landing one on him and then sort of just -- fleeing.

And, okay, they talked about that a little: "He was acting weird, right?" Lois said as they climbed the stairs to the platform.

"Well, you're kind of intimidating," Clark said. But then she smacked his shoulder, and he laughed and changed the subject, and Lois let it happen because there really wasn't much else to talk about.

But there was no big threeway conversation or fight; there was no real tension or anxiety between them when they reconvened at the Manor for wine and a movie. They were just how they had been, except a little more, all the pieces Lois had tried so hard to deny she'd been missing.

She didn't realize she was making herself crazy over how bad things weren't until Bruce appeared at her elbow one night, back early from patrol but late enough that Lois should have already been asleep. "You're up late. New story?"

"Uh, no," she said. And, okay, it was really weird to even think about admitting what was going on when the person lurking next to her on the penthouse balcony was Batman. "Sorry, I have a mental block, can you maybe take the mask off?"

"Plenty of cameras, even this far up." But he disengaged the lenses, at least. She did her best to anchor herself in his concerned gaze.

The cape was not exactly easy to ignore, though.

"I'm kind of freaking out about this," she finally admitted, waving her hand between the two of them, as if there was even a faint possibility he wouldn't know what this meant unless she spelled it out.

"Ah."

"And I don't want to talk about it."

"Well, no."

"Clark would say we should, if he were here."

Bruce smiled faintly. "He's probably saying it to himself right now."

"Oh, I'm sure."

"If it helps, I'm terrified."

She hadn't expected the way his voice dropped and his gloved hands flexed on the balcony's railing. He was being honest, vulnerable. Pulling his heart out for her to see. She did her best to crush her first and second instincts, which were something like Hey, put that back and Well I wish you wouldn't. "Yeah. I guess it does."

"Liar."

"I mean, I really don't want to talk about it."

"What if we go inside and don't-talk about it?"

And -- maybe she shouldn't. Maybe, despite Clark being able to hear them, despite Clark's boundless love of them both and ridiculously full heart, he'd be disappointed they'd taken some time to fuck each other without him.

Yeah, no, even in her head that sounded ridiculous. "Come on."

She could only get about half the uniform off: cowl, cape, gauntlets, belt. He disengaged some of his own layers, but he kept getting distracted by her, fumbling with her blouse and leaving wet, desperate kisses all down her neck. She had to put her foot down, finally, shoving him against the wall of the living room and saying, "Bruce. Get naked now."

And oh, it felt good to watch his eyes widen, the way he rushed to obey. When he was naked he slumped back against the wall, watching her, his hands slack at his sides, and she just...wanted.

She stepped forward, boxing him in. His skin under her hand was warm and a little too dry; a side effect of his ridiculous lifestyle, she assumed. But she liked the other side effects: the corded muscles of his thighs, the way his pecs twitched when she leaned in and ghosted her lips over his jaw.

"What do you want?"

He let out a ragged breath. "Fuck, Lois, I don't know. What will you give me?"

What a question. "More than you probably think."

His hands curled around her arms, an unbreakable grip that made her shiver. "I want to fuck you. Not in the bedroom. Right here."

Bruce might be a founding member of the Justice League, but Lois wasn't sure she wanted to test the limits of gravity like that. Fortunately, she wasn't under any illusions about who was in charge right now. She grabbed him by the wrist in just hard enough of a grip to be mean, tugging him over to the couch and then arranging him how she wanted. Each movement was so satisfying: the tug, the shove, the kick to get his knees a little farther apart. He let her do it all, wide eyes fixed on her face, fingers digging into her hips.

"Like this," she said, and guided him inside of her.

The stretch, almost painful this time and yet exactly what she wanted. The way he gasped against her collarbone, and then, as she clutched at the unforgiving upholstery of his -- their -- stupidly expensive couch, the way he kissed her, not hard or demanding at all but softly, sweetly, asking her for more.

She took a moment to adjust, to feel herself all around him. Then she said, "All right, Bruce. Okay," and began to move.

It was so good like this. She curled a hand in his hair and kissed his jaw, sweat between them making everything a little slippery, a little intense. She'd need to touch herself at some point, or make Bruce do it, but right now she was just...feeling. Playing, like Bruce was an instrument, noting when he shivered or bit back a moan. He liked when she pressed her nails into his nipples, sharper than she'd ever want anyone to do to her. He turned into putty when she squeezed herself around him. And when she tugged his hair sharply and gave him a biting kiss, saying, "Come on, Bruce, I know you don't have a lot of leverage but you're Batman, right? Fuck me," he moaned so unbelievably loudly, hiding his blush against her shoulder even as he obeyed.

He was holding onto her like her body was a rescue buoy, and so she was the one who reached down and pressed her finger against her clit, not even really needing to move, their combined momentum creating the friction she wanted. She kissed him once more, forcing his head back and back until he was splayed beneath her, vulnerable, a supplicant. And then, with Bruce sheathed inside her, her teeth digging into his shoulder, she came.

"Lois," Bruce whispered. "Lois, fuck, Lois," a few undignified grunts, a moan, rocking his hips desperately.

She smiled and shifted a little, encouraging his arm to wrap around her back. "Come on, Bruce. Take what you want."

What he wanted was to fuck her so hard she'd have bruises in the morning, kissing her neck and playing with her tits. What he wanted was to stare up at her, watching her with suddenly-sharp eyes as he shifted his angle, played with her clit, until -- fuck, there it was. She couldn't repress the noise that came out of her, a weird undignified whistle-moan, but it didn't matter; as soon as he found the right angle he was fucking into her desperately, over and over, clearly trying to drive her over the edge again.

Normally she'd have told him to stop trying. Nine times out of ten she needed a little more recovery time and something smaller, more targeted, to come from this. But only nine times out of ten.

Humiliatingly, all it took in the end was this: Bruce's thumb, calloused and rough on her clit. Bruce's voice in her ear. "Lois," he whispered, dragging his tongue over his earlobe. He fucked up into her, vicious little thrusts, and she just --

Let go.

Somewhere between the whiteout and the almost-painful pleasure, she heard him say her name again, ragged and desperate this time, and she felt him coming, too, his fingers clamping down on her hips, his cock twitching inside her. She couldn't care about that very much, though, compared to how she felt, pleasure shaking her down to her toes, her cunt rippling around him, the pleasant, accommodating firmness she needed when she was this far gone.

They'd barely caught their breath, leaning against each other, Lois still sitting with her legs splayed around Bruce's hips, when Bruce kissed her temple and whispered, "Clark."

Lois barely had to blink before Clark was in front of them, breathing hard and looking absolutely wrecked. He choked out, "Lois, Bruce, you -- I -- please."

And then he was on his knees, on the living room floor, staring up at them like they'd caught him in a bear trap. Fuck, he looked good like that. Lois licked her lips, glancing down at Bruce to see him focused, at least as turned on as Lois herself.

"Get on the bed," Lois told Clark. He disappeared from view; she heard the sheets rustling. She climbed off Bruce's lap and held out her hand.

"Come on, no need to make our guy wait too long."