Nobody Does It Better

What He Said

Author's note-
I wanted to write a Winn story, 'cause there aren't that many (and it's my thing); and I wanted to write Action!Lena (in several chapters time), because it's so much fun.

For those of you who worry about such things: no, Lena's not going to fall in love with him; no, they are not going to make out. Worry not.

He was so screwed.

It had been six weeks since Winn had been assigned as DEO liaison to L-Corp, overseeing the decommissioning and dismantling of their newly built, Daxamite-invasion-causing transmatter portal. Everything, and J'onn J'onzz had been clear about this, everything, had to be collected and expunged. There could be no trace, no record, no evidence left behind that the thing had ever been built; and anyone involved in the project had to sign NDAs prohibiting them from discussing, replicating, or even re-purposing, any knowledge they might have gained from off-worlders. Most of the laws regarding astro-tech hadn't been written yet, but J'onn took a broad approach: if you weren't smart enough to figure it out for yourself, you weren't smart enough to use it wisely.

Lena Luthor had not reacted well to being told she wasn't smart enough to do... well, anything she damn well pleased, really. As death glares went, she could easily win a national title, maybe even qualify for the international competition; but she still needed a good few years practice before she'd able to beat the World Class glare Cat Grant employed everyday, so Winn shrugged it off.

Normally, operations like this would be handled by Alex, since she was actually a field agent, and could provide... incentive to those who weren't initially willing to co-operate. But J'onn had felt that, as Winn had already revealed himself to Lena as a DEO agent, as well as being, arguably, the world's leading authority on transmatter portals (he was, as far as anyone knew, the only human to have used one under practical conditions), that Winn would be best suited to the job.

"Don't screw up," Alex had said, by way of encouragement.

So, he'd gone to Lena's office and laid out what needed to be done, and why, and what the penalties would be if it wasn't, and after her initial disagreement to the process, she turned to pragmatism, and offered all the help that she could; so now they met in Lena's office, five or six times a week, to discuss what still needed doing, and making sure it got done.

Working with Lena was... relaxing, somehow. It was never relaxed - there was so much to do, and neither one of them particularly wanted to dither - but they worked fast, they worked well, and, unusually for Winn, they worked together. Normally, Winn was left to get on with things by himself until someone happened to need whatever it was they'd asked for.

But Winn and Lena worked side-by-side. They were almost always on the same page, which was rare in itself, as there weren't that many people even reading the same book as them. Winn had, at one point, realized they'd had a ten-minute conversation about the eleven-dimensional harmonics of 'theoretical' inter-universe travel, without either of them really having to think about it. He'd had to stop himself before revealing that the Multi-verse wasn't all that theoretical.

If only he'd done that this time...

The workload was huge, but Winn welcomed the distraction. It had been thirty-three days since Lyra had moved out. Winn had tried to explain to her, as calmly as he could, that no, she could not go get a cat from the rescue centre as a special dinner treat; and she had, not unexpectedly, thrown a plate at his head, missing by inches, and smashing against the wall. It hadn't been the first thing she'd thrown at him in a rage; but, for some reason, this time, he didn't feel like sticking around to find out if she'd try again.