Chapter Text
Lex had been experimenting with some kind of new robotics again. What they were intended to do, Clark had no idea. Lex would probably say some bullshit about a medical advancement of some kind, but they each had eight arms and various knives attached to said arms, and regardless of what they were supposed to do, what they were doing was going on a rampage in the lab they had been housed in with the clear intent of escaping and murdering everyone in their path.
So, typical night, basically.
For once Lex hadn’t laced any of the weapons with Kryptonite, so Clark could take his time to make sure every robot was in pieces on the floor, with as minimal amount of damage to the lab as he could manage, because he was not in the mood for another interview where Lex bemoaned the property damage Superman had caused, neglecting to mention why Superman had been there in the first place.
Somewhere in the distance he could hear Kon fighting someone; but that someone sounded like they were stupid enough to bring guns to a Super fight, so Clark tuned it out and went back to focusing on the millionth robot trying to saw his face off.
Clearly it had been too long since the Planet had published an exposé on Lex’s latest activities if he had no problem being this sloppy. Clark was more than happy to change that, idly wondering if it would count as stealing if he happened to drop a few of the limbs in front of the Planet’s offices when he was done. No, there were probably better stories if he looked a little harder. A massive failure of a project like this usually meant Lex had at least three far more sinister ones that were better tended to and hidden.
Maybe he would just chuck a few of the robots through Lex’s penthouse windows. It wouldn’t fix anything, but the idea of ruining Lex’s beauty sleep made him feel a little better. Even though he knew he would never actually do it.
-
The robots, once piled up for easy cleanup for whatever poor janitor crew Lex employed for such things, reached the ceiling twice over. At least the scraps wouldn’t go to waste. Lex was a lot of things, but he was never one to turn down a good headline and he’d really leaned into LexCorp’s green image of late.
It had taken a little longer than he would have liked to take them all apart, but he could probably still do another sweep or two of city –
“You need to come home. Now.”
Lois never called for him while he was on patrol. Not until things had gone so wrong she was literally inches away from death. Who had gotten to her this time? And in their apartment? She hadn’t told him about whatever story she was working on – had they followed her home?
All of Clark’s carefully laid plans about trying to minimize damage immediately went out the window. Well, the roof. What was left of it.
It was a short flight home. Clark knew he’d be able to make it in time, no matter what it was. As long as he was earthside, he always made it in time.
And still as he approached their building, his heart was in his mouth, and he had to go faster because what if –
The windows were already open, ready for him.
“Lois,” he said as soon as he was inside. But the scene inside wasn’t what he was prepared for, not at all.
Lois was on the floor, and there was blood everywhere, but it wasn’t hers. She was kneeling over someone else, looking panicked in a way Clark never saw her, like she didn’t even know where to begin solving the problem.
“Superman,” she said, in that way she had where no matter what was happening she could force herself to sound calm. “It’s Superboy.”
As soon as she said it, Clark could make out what was left of the “S” on Kon’s shirt, but there were holes in it on both his shoulders, and in the knees of his pants, and a distant part of his mind supplied “bullet holes” but there was no way a normal gun could do this. And the “S” on Kon’s shirt wasn’t on his shirt after all, but was blood seeping out of his chest because someone had cut out the design on his shirt. No. They had carved the design into his chest.
Clark swayed, and thought the bile rising in his throat was because of the scene, but he tried to get closer because he had to help Kon and the nausea got worse and his limbs started to feel weak.
A normal gun couldn’t have hurt Kon.
“Kryptonite,” Clark croaked. “He has Kryptonite bullets in him.”
“Superman,” Lois said, her voice even. “You have to get him help. Or Kon is going to die.”
Clark fumbled, but he managed to pull out his JL communicator, and thank god it was Jon on call tonight, because he couldn’t have dealt with Diana’s quiet pity, or Wally panicking, or worst of all, Bruce.
“It’s going to be okay, Superman,” Jon said. “Hawkgirl will be there soon.”
It wasn’t okay though. Kon was lying there, bleeding to death on his carpet, and Clark couldn’t even go over and hold him, and what was the point of the distance between the two of them if it still hurt this much.
“Clark,” Lois said, like she knew exactly what he was thinking. “Calm down.”
He couldn’t stand to look at the scene in front of him, but he couldn’t look away, and the more he looked the more he noticed what Lois had been doing as she leant over Kon. There were makeshift tourniquets near every bullet entry point, and she was pushing down onto his chest, applying pressure as best she could, given the scale of the wound.
He wanted to tell her he loved her. That he was sorry he couldn’t do better.
But all Clark could focus on was the blood still dripping down on the floor. And that he knew no one had been around to do the same for Jason.
-
The rush to get Kon up to the station for treatment, once Hawkgirl and a couple other heroes Clark couldn’t even remember the names of arrived, was a blur of of promising Lois updates as soon as he could, trying to time his trip through the zeta tube perfectly so he wouldn’t be too far behind but wasn’t too close to the Kryptonite because the last thing he needed was to end up in the medbay himself, and watching Kon disappear down a hall for surgery and wondering if that was the last time he’d see him alive.
He’d watched the doors close a hundred times before on colleagues after they were rushed to surgery after a mission gone wrong but it had never felt like this, no matter how much everyone kept assuring him that Kon was a tough kid and he was going to make it.
People had assured him things would be fine in the past – of course you should go with Dick, they need you up there, we’ll be fine here, stop worrying so much – and they had been wrong.
-
Kon wasn’t the only person lying on a bed in their ICU. The sight of Robin, hooked up to various machines, and a huge bandage on his neck like maybe not so long ago he hadn’t been able to breathe on his own; it was the worst kind of gut punch.
“What happened?” Clark asked the nurse charged with the care of the JL ICU that day. Her lips pursed for a moment, before she replied, “I’m not at liberty to say.”
Clark should have stayed by Kon’s side, but he could feel his eyes heating up, just around the corners, and there was no way to calm down in that room.
He should have gone and found one of the free meditation rooms, but at that moment even the thought of meditation only reminded him of one person and if he was going to lose it it might as well be at them.
He found a free training room instead, and instead of punching straight through a dummy he pulled out his com again and punched in a code that three years ago he thought he’d never use again.
“What’s happening?” Batman answered, almost immediately.
Of course – of course Bruce thought something apocalyptic must be happening. What other possible reason could Clark have for contacting him these days?
“Why” and even Clark was surprised by the ice in his tone, “is Robin injured?”
Half a second went by and Clark could almost see that little frown line in Bruce’s forehead working overtime as he reassessed the situation.
“That’s none of your concern.” And the line went dead.
Clark threw the communicator through the nearest dummy’s head.
-
Kon stabilized almost immediately, and the nurse never said it but Clark can tell she thought he was lucky compared to Robin. Clark just saw two boys that no one protected. Kon’s advanced healing capabilities might be helping him now, but he could have just as easily bled out on Clark’s floor.
Clark hovered for the next two days. There was nothing he could do for Kon, but at the same time he couldn’t leave, and nothing dire happened in Metropolis to drag him away.
Batman, meanwhile, never made an appearance.
On the third day, Kon finally opened his eyes and croaked out, “Clark?”
“I’m here,” he said. “I’m here, Kon.”
He dithered about whether he should take Kon’s hand, whether he should get the nurse, or give Kon an ice chip.
“Red Hood,” Kon said, eyes not focused on anything in particular. A moment later, he slipped back away, eyes closed once more.
Clark had never heard of Red Hood before.
By the end of the week, Clark resolved, he was going to know everything about him.
-
“Are you sure you should be back already?” Lois asked, finding Clark at home at his desk, stacks of print outs around him.
“Kon’s stable,” Clark said, barely looking up from his computer. Lois sighed, but didn’t push.
There was a time when Clark knew what was happening in Gotham almost as well as Metropolis. Maybe better. But in the past six months this Red Hood had managed to disrupt the drug trade, kill the lieutenants of most major gangs, and get into some pretty significant tangles with Black Masks’s operations and Clark had completely missed it.
Hell, he’d missed that Robin had been attacked at Titan Tower. Just a minimal amount of digging into JL records had told him some of what Batman would not. But there was no security footage, no evidence as to who had done it or how.
It couldn’t be a coincidence. Clark knew he was looking at a puzzle that he just didn’t have the pieces yet to complete.
Bruce had run him out of Gotham, and he’d let him. And now Kon and Robin were lying in hospital beds because of this crime lord, and Clark had no idea why.
-
Lois stood in the doorway to their bedroom while he packed. He almost wished he hadn’t thrown away everything Bruce had given him. His wardrobe wasn’t exactly designed to blend into Gotham’s underbelly. A little too much plaid, more than one ex-lover had told him.
“You’re really going to Gotham?” Lois asked, like Clark was forgetting something.
“What, are you worried Bruce and I will be on worse terms if he catches me?” Clark asked in response, aiming for levity but too bitter still, still , to pull it off.
“Isn’t Kon going back to Smallville today?” Lois finally said, her tone carefully neutral.
“He’ll be in good hands,” Clark said, suddenly very concerned with which pair of shoes to bring.
“Clark–” Lois sighed. “Never mind. Good luck on your trip.”
-
Batman might be the world's greatest detective, but Clark was a damn good reporter and being a sympathetic ear to people talking about their favorite crime boss would get you farther than Bruce would ever admit. Whatever the newspaper said, whatever Bruce was hiding, the sex workers and the street kids were more than happy to set the record straight about the Red Hood. The way he’d put a stop to using kids to run drugs. The way he made sure no one was slapping around a woman just because they’d had a bad night.
The picture they painted certainly put a different spin on a man trying to take control of the gangs in Gotham. And the more of them Clark talked to, the better picture he got of how and where Red Hood spent his time. He could almost plot out what he imagined to be Red Hood’s usual patrol routes; if it had been for an actual story he would have spent a few more days just to make sure he was right. Since it wasn’t, though, there was no harm in x-raying the buildings. And sure enough, Red Hood had several safe houses, each with what seemed to be more weapons than the last.
There was no sign of the man in any of them, but Clark could be patient.
-
The universe didn’t seem to get the memo. Clark was fully ready to spend a few weeks in Gotham, several puff pieces already timed to be sent to Perry often enough that he would only complain a little about Clark’s absence at the office, but Superman had to be elsewhere.
A minor alien invasion (and he did mean minor, each alien was a foot tall at best) landed on his plate when everyone else insisted they were too busy to round up the little squirts and put them back on their ship.
And of course, that was when the warehouse exploded in Gotham.
He ignored the sinking feeling in his stomach – because he wasn’t actually in space this time, and this was Gotham so it was going to be fine – and finished up scolding the little invaders before sending them back on their merry way.
By the time he made it back to Gotham, the remains of the warehouse were only lightly smoldering, and there were no bodies inside. Clark almost laughed, a hysterical feeling bubbling up in his chest. There was no one inside the ruins. It was Gotham. Everyone was fine.
Except here he was, in Gotham , fully in costume hovering over the remains of somewhere a bat or bird was almost guaranteed to show up at in a matter of minutes, and he was out of time.
Clark gave up on the covert reporter act and flew straight towards the closest of Red Hood’s safe houses, praying, pleading with the universe to just let this one thing go right. He can’t fail Kon. Not again.
-
The Red Hood was indeed in his safe house. The Red Hood was in his safe house stitching up his own neck?
Clark knew subtlety wasn’t his strong suit as a superhero, but he still felt some regret that he didn't have a better plan than bursting through the window to catch Red Hood unaware, while he was occupied.
Red Hood did startle, a little, when Clark landed, but not in a way that would be noticeable to most people. He just stared at Clark, no particular expression on his face, needle held perfectly still in his right hand, just millimeters away from his neck.
And Red Hood was – he was – he was Jason. The next thing he knew Clark already had his arms wrapped around him. Jason just went limp.
“Here to finish the job?” Jason asked, his voice so rough because – because his neck – someone had –
And Clark couldn’t say anything except his name, over and over. But then there was something warm dripping onto him and Jason was still bleeding – and Clark was no doctor, but he had picked up more than a few tricks from all those years with Bruce. He sat Jason down onto the bed and took over what Jason had been trying to do to himself and Jason was disturbingly docile and they were in Gotham and Jason was the Red Hood and Jason was alive and –
And they had to get out of here. And Jason didn’t look like he was going to fight Clark on anything.
Clark made an executive decision, once he’d bandaged Jason’s neck to his satisfaction. There was only one place to go. Home.