Nobody Does It Better

Aslan

Winn emerged through the portal, as his colleagues were entering the camaraderie phase that followed successful missions: there was joy, to be sure, but there was often a darker cloud above it; sadness at losing one of their own, or in this case, anger at having to go rescue an idiot and his friend at 3 o'clock in the morning. It wasn't the worst thing a DEO agent had ever done, but Winn still suspected he would need to introduce 'sorry I got kidnapped on an alien planet' Rice Krispies treats into everyone's immediate future.

Winn had seen the quiet post-mission celebrations before, but he'd never been part of them... until a now less-tidy-than-it-had-been pony tail of jet black hair whipped him in the face.

"Uh-okay," he said, not really sure where to put his hands as Lena hugged him, although he was pretty sure he should put his pistol down.

She released him, still somewhat startled, but otherwise brimming with glee. "We made it!" she exclaimed.

"We did! And it all went surprisingly okay! I mean, it didn't go entirely according to plan; but-" Winn holstered his newfound pistol, and turned around to find Alex, "-we escaped, we all came back alive, and we all get to not have our fingers broken. Yay us."

Alex silently made it clear that she was still on the fence about the whole fingers thing.

Winn pressed on, "Now, do we absolutely have to tell J'onn about this? I mean, we can just keep this between you, me, and... every single other person in the building, right?"

"Agent Schott!" J'onn J'onzz bellowed from the corner of the room, and every face turned his way.

"And he's already here," Winn said, dejected.

Alex - who was starting to lighten up now that the schadenfreude had kicked in - scoffed, "Someone set off a massive psychic energy generator about, say, half-an-hour before your little message played out. Woke him up."

"He's a telepath?" Lena interjected.

Alex's eyes widened slightly with fear, before answering Lena's question with an unstable "...No."

"Yeah, she does that," Winn said, returning Alex's schadenfreude for the first, and probably only, time of his DEO career, "it's fun."

J'onn continued, striding towards Winn with heavy, deliberate footfalls. "Do you mind explaining to me what the hell you were doing allowing an unauthorized civilian into this facility, and allowing her the use of top-secret alien technology?"

As J'onn finished his question, every eye that had turned to him turned back to Winn.

"Right! Yes!" Winn clapped his hands together, in a mixture of enthusiasm and prayer; and said, way too loudly, "First off: you'll be pleased to hear that our unscheduled security test was a resounding success."

"Security test?" asked J'onn, skeptically.

"Success?" asked Alex, even more so.

"Yes! Lena here-" Winn said, as though it wasn't obvious to everyone who she was, "-was kind enough to be our 'intruder' for the night, and we managed to uncover some key exploits."

"You know, I was happy to do it," Lena chimed in, in the tone of voice game show contestants use when they aren't going through to the final round, "Of course, I'm always happy to help the DEO in any way I can."