laniew1 | FIC: Not All Superheroes Wear Capes - Buffy / Lex

TITLE: Not All Superheroes Wear Capes – Buffy/Lex
AUTHOR: Melanie
RATING: NC-17 (This part R for language)
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing at all, least of all those contained within.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Not All Superheroes Wear Capes – Part 6

Buffy was sleeping again, face peaceful, body relaxed and Lex ran a finger down the side of her face and smiled.

He didn’t think he’d ever smiled as much as he’d smiled that day.

Clark had been sent home, promising to return the next day with some of Martha’s homemade chicken soup.

“If anything can get her up and feeling better it’ll be mom’s chicken noodle soup Lex,” Clark said in the earnest, honest way that he had.

“I like chicken noodle soup,” Buffy said wistfully. “I’m crap at making it though, unless it’s in a Campbell’s can.”

A snicker from Dawn, a glance over at Mr. Giles showed him and Willow both visibly biting their tongues.

“Hey that was totally not my fault. Nowhere on the can did it say that it couldn’t be microwaved,” Buffy muttered petulantly.

Lex grinned and Clark barely managed to make it out the door before he started laughing.

Buffy’s sister and her friend Willow had decided to share a guestroom when they’d seen how big the actual room and the bed inside it was.

“We’ll need a phone just to talk to each other, Willow did you bring your cellphone?” Dawn asked with a small measure of snark that reminded Lex of Buffy years ago.

Willow smirked and held up a cellphone that looked like the model before the latest model.

“Never leave home without it.”

Mr. Giles had been firmly ensconced in the library.

“You have your own library?” Mr. Giles looked like he wanted to be impressed, but was desperately trying not to because he didn’t like him.

Lex wondered if it would have been easier or harder to win over Buffy’s actual father if the surrogate was being this tough.

“God don’t show him the library,” Buffy muttered even though she herself had never been in it. “We’ll never see him again.”

Lex had not considered that a bad thing necessarily so after tucking Buffy back into his bed where it had taken her a record 2 minutes and 56 seconds to fall back asleep he’d shown Mr. Giles the library and had asked him not to drool on anything as he’d left and shut the door behind him.

He’d returned to his room after making sure that the alarm system was set and was now memorizing Buffy’s face.

There were a few more lines and she’d definitely lost weight. But she looked surprising the same. He’d missed her.

“You’re staring at me,” Buffy murmured.

“Sorry,” Lex couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t sound apologetic, from the small smile creeping across Buffy’s lips she’d noticed as well.

“You used to do that before,” her eyes were still closed but she reached out one hand to touch his face. Her touch gentle as the pad of her thumb moved over his lips.

“You were beautiful to me.”

Buffy blushed slightly and Lex smiled moving closer. Hand moving down to rest on her hip as her eyes opened.

“You still blush when I tell you that you’re beautiful.”

“Because I’m not.”

“To me you are the most beautiful of things. You are perfect.”

“I am so not perfect in anyway,” Buffy rolled onto her back, Lex’s hand coming to rest on her stomach as she moved.

Resting exactly where there should be a wound; gaping and bleeding and slowly taking her from him. Instead it was closed, not even a mark remaining to attest to the fact that she’d been attacked and dying.

She looked over at him and he knew she saw questions in his eyes. The way that hers shut down, became hooded, concealing herself from him. It was the same look that he’d see in Clark’s eyes when he’d ask question that Clark didn’t want to answer.

And he hated it. He’d hated it when Buffy used to do it all those years ago and he hated it to this day. It made him feel like he wasn’t trusted, like he was being lied to.

But he’d pushed with Clark and they were only really starting to rebuild a friendship. He didn’t want to have to go through that with Buffy. If she needed time to feel safe enough to tell him the truth then he’d give her the time she needed.

As long as she didn’t leave.

“Buffy…”

She was nervous, scared. He didn’t want her to be scared of him.

“There are things I need to tell you about me,” she said it softly, quietly.

“You don’t need to tell me anything, not until you’re ready.”

“I’m ready,” she took a deep breath, breathing out slowly. “I just,” her brow wrinkled as she though. “I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone without someone to explain the parts that I don’t understand myself.”

“You can tell me anything,” Lex smiled reassuringly. She didn’t need to know that he’d already figured it out, that her rapidly healing wounds had already told him everything that he needed to know.

“I’m the Slayer.”

Lex frowned, looked over at her expectant look and frowned harder.

“What’s a Slayer?”

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