Chapter Text
Clark loves Lois’ couch. It’s in a different league to his, comfort-wise, and that’s not counting the massive window it sits up against. It’s like a personal rejuvenation chamber. She thinks he’s crazy for enjoying the sun in his eyes when he’s trying to sleep, but it’s like that couch was made for him.
Clark is up most of the night responding to distress calls anyway. That's about par for the course; the difference today is that he eventually gets to come back and curl up in his sun patch on the couch. He usually doesn’t get that luxury. With the few winks he catches as the sun rises, he feels like a new man.
In hindsight, that was probably some divine force trying to prepare him for the coming shitstorm. Clark speeds back from a burning building, coming in through the bathroom window and stepping out into the living room in case Lois is up, and finds her packing. Lois , who is notoriously feral for at least an hour after waking up, more if she’s denied coffee. He was only gone for ten minutes, max, and that Lois is conscious, dressed, and packing.
“What’s going—“
In answer, she throws his phone at him. Clark fumbles with the thing, getting more and more worried. There’s one missed text.
Jay👹(NOT JASON)
The Nebuchadnezzar, 8:30pm
“He’s not answering his phone. Get your bag, we’re gonna look for him. Where does he live?”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Hell! Clark unlocks his phone and checks, but that’s the only message Jay’s left him. He was so stupid for leaving his phone out, but he didn’t expect Lois to be up for hours! She must have slept poorly. This is a disaster. He quickly types out a response.
Don’t be home. Lois and I are coming over
“I’m getting my car. If you’re not downstairs in six minutes, you will regret it,” Lois promises him, obviously out of patience. She’s serious. And she has every right to be. As far as she knows, Clark’s nephew is just an intern with too much information in over his head, and he’s about to cowboy up to this meeting with his real ID and a dream. And now she knows where it’s going down, there will be no keeping her from showing.
The slam of the door snaps Clark from his spiral. He doesn’t have time to freak out. When she says six minutes, she means six minutes. He scrolls madly for Jason’s contact and hits call.
It rings twice. Three times. Then it picks up.
“Jason—“
“ What’s happened?”
“Lois saw your last text come up on my phone, and she’s trying to find you.”
“ She-? Wait… you LEFT your PHONE on the COUNTER?!”
“Only for a second! And it’s Lois! I don’t normally hide things from her!”
“ YOU’RE SUPERMAN!!”
“Shut— I know that!”
“For fuck’s sake, Clark… okay. Whatever. Roy and I were gonna watch the Nightmare Before Christmas anyway, so I’ll just fuck off and do that until the meeting.”
“What about Lois? She’s gonna show up.”
“Hey man, she’s your civilian. I don’t really care if she finds out who I am. Do whatever you think you should. Either way, I’m going to that meeting. I get in on this as Red Hood, I can take it down from the inside. Do not let her get in the way.”
“I… yeah. Okay.”
“You sure?”
Jason always was too empathetic for his own good. Clark wonders if he can read minds sometimes. Or maybe hearts.
“This is gonna get messy,” he sighs.
“Maybe.” There’s silence for a moment that Clark can’t afford. He needs it, though. And again, like he can read Clark as easy as a book through the phone, Jason gives him a direction to start from. “Why don’t you send her to a safe house?”
“I don’t have any of those.”
“Of course not. Alright, I’ve only got one in Metropolis, and it’s dead empty, but you can send her there. 224 Sycamore, on eighth. Number 407.”
“Okay… okay.”
“I have no faith in your acting abilities here, impressive as they are, so tell her you’ll look in the usual places while she scopes the pad. Should give you some distance.”
“The usual places?”
“Yeah, volunteer shelters, the garage on Hidge and Gellert, bookstores.”
“Right. Shit, I gotta go.”
“Language.”
Clark hangs up on him for that and makes liberal use of his super speed to make his six-minute deadline.
-~o~-
By five o’clock, Lois is getting antsy. Clark has managed to keep her at a distance like Jay suggested, which is probably the only reason he’s managed to keep the ruse up. For someone who’s just, as Jason put it, fucked off and watched a movie with Roy, he sure is a ghost. Lois has been completely blindsided by his disappearing act, having been sure she’d catch him at home practising his lines or something. She won’t be kept off the scent for much longer. Jason’s competence is suspicious in and of itself.
“Clark… are you sure he’s not more involved than you think?”
“What do you… you think he’s—? No! Lois, no!”
“I’m just saying. Think like a reporter for a second. It doesn’t look good.”
“Lois, Jay is my family. He is a good kid, a good man. I’d know if he was mixed up in this stuff, anyway, what kind of reporter do you take me for? What kind of uncle—“
“ Okay , okay! Whatever’s going on, something stinks. And if your boy isn’t already in the middle of it, he’s about to be. We cannot let him go into this alone.”
“I know. I don’t know where else to look, though. We’re running out of time.”
“Keep looking. If worst comes to worst… we’ll just have to cut him off at the meeting.”
“What? Go in ourselves? You were just made!”
“We can’t go in. We’d have to catch him before he took the plunge, or- extract him, somehow. This is gonna end in tears, I just know it. Let’s minimise the collateral.”
“Really filling me with confidence here, Lo.”
“I don’t know! Your nephew’s the one who decided to go AWOL and play cowboy!”
Clark sighs. This is such a mess. And he hates lying to Lois.
“Help me check the bookstores. I still haven’t hit the South quarter.”
Believe it or not, they don’t find him. At least Jason says the movie was fun. Clark’s seen it, it is pretty good. A way better time than stressing over this mess, for sure.
Eventually, they have to call it. Jason’s picked a good spot for the meet, so it’s not hard to find a vantage point with enough cover. There’s not so much security, since the bosses don’t expect anyone to know of this meeting. But Lois isn’t satisfied.
“We are across the street. We only have eyes, we’re deaf. We’re sending Taverna in like that?”
Clark doesn’t have an answer for her, but Jason does. At that moment, Clark’s phone rings.
“Testing, testing. How’s my favourite dynamic duo? Not too burnt out from chasing your tails all day, I hope.”
Lois snatches the phone up so fast Clark doesn’t even have a chance to stop her. “Jay, fall. Back. Do not go into this alone. Perry hasn’t cleared it, you have no backup—“
“Oh, c’mon, it went fine last time, didn’t it?”
“Last— I was made!! It was a shit show!!”
“Oh, no, I meant for me. Just a sec, Lane, it looks like the gang’s all here. We’ll have to catch up later. Hey, don’t be too hard on Clark, huh? Best blame me.”
“What? Taverna—“
A click sounds, signalling the end of the discussion. The line doesn’t disconnect, though. Rustling noises and movement filter through, and Clark hurries to hand Lois her binoculars as the show begins.
While they’ve been distracted, the last of the titans have arrived. The Nunyas aren’t present, and everyone’s left their yes-men at the door. The Cicada looks nervous. The atmosphere is tense as a coiled snake, the room silent. The restaurant is devoid of customers save for the large table, but every place is set— for ambience, Clark guesses— in navy tablecloths. The ceilings are arched, decorated with chandeliers dripping genuine diamonds. It’s dim, the lights lining the bar and walls all cold and low. The oil-black tiles reflect them like a still pool of unknown depth. The whole place reminds him of a richly furnished cave, stalactites and all. They certainly got the classy part down.
The only words exchanged at the table are between henchmen and bosses. No one looks comfortable, though some try. Clark takes the time to memorise every face.
Even with an open line, Clark can only tell when Jason enters the building due to his Kryptonian advantages. No one else– not Lois, and not the gathered parties– knows he’s there. Not until he wants them to. Jason stays less than a shadow for a while as the air settles, ears pricked for information. Clark picks up quiet Russian and Japanese over the phone. It peters out eventually.
Jason’s massive shadow falls over the polished floor, suffocating the reflective light and making the whole room a shade darker. The chandeliers shudder slightly each time his boots come down, bringing him closer. At once there is a hush. Shoulders stiffen. Breaths stop.
The Red Hood steps out from the shadows, towering over the table.
“Saved me a seat?” he rumbles, mockingly flattered.
Lois gasps. Clark nearly jumps. He’d all but forgotten she was listening too. The connection no doubt goes straight to Jason’s mask, so it’s not a surprise to hear his nephew’s unfiltered growl through the phone. Well, not to Clark. He shoots a glance at Lois. Her brows are lost in her hairline, her jaw dropped open, sheer shock in every line of her face. Her eyes are blown wide as dinner plates, trained disbelievingly on the Daily Planet’s brand-new intern holding the attention of every major crime boss in Metropolis. On the Red Hood, going to work.
“Mr. Hood. Thank you for joining us,” a bang-average man to Jason’s left says silkily. By Lois’ description, Clark would peg him as Henry Braiks.
“At the meeting I called? Yeah, no problem,” Jason snorts, full Gotham accent on display. The bounciness of Jay Taverna is gone. His voice has reverted back to the ocean-deep, gravel-rough intonation Clark recognises as Jason’s. It always reminded Clark of those unexplored caves deep beneath the surface of the earth: sharp, jagged walls half-submerged in ink-black waters, with chasms and crevices that could lead anywhere, house anything, fissured chaotically through the rock. The kind of pits that never see the light of day.
“Let’s keep this short and sweet, gents. As you can see, I’m lookin’ to expand here in Metropolis. This deal you’ve got with the organisation Mr. Braiks represents,” Jason gestures at the man in question, “would make for a pretty slash. Besides the obvious ups, I think this ‘new-city, new-Red-Hood’ thing will go a lot slicker if we all have an understanding. Some of you know this, but, ah, I can be a little difficult. So here’s the get, boys: I try playin’ nice, you keep savin’ me seats.”
Even peppered with Gotham slang that’s no doubt as good as Greek to most of the men present, the ultimatum hits home. It’s not an empty threat. Red Hood might be a new player in Metropolis, but there’s no doubting how much of an impact he’ll make on the scene just by being in it. He’s a many-times-proven wild card, and on any other day, him appearing in Metropolis would be enough reason for the streets to prepare for war. His offer to ‘play nice’ is no small incentive. Being the first and only collection to be able to claim an alliance with the Red Hood… that’s a tempting offer.
The Russian leans forward in his seat cautiously. He’s a tubby man, but he has undeniable presence. His bushy eyebrows come down in an impressively unreadable frown.
“Should we take this to mean you are leaving Gotham behind?”
“What did I say, Novikov? I said new city, new Red-Hood.”
“So, what, you just gonna play along, now?” The Cicada sneers disbelievingly. “You’re, you're just gonna work wit’ us?”
Jason’s head turns slowly to land his gaze heavily, crushingly, on the man. The Cicada’s sneer falters.
“If I gotta repeat myself one more time, I will shoot you and walk out of here,” Jason promises steadily.
Silence reigns for a moment. No one so much as blinks. Then Jason sighs exasperatedly and shifts in his chair to face the table seriously.
“I have been, in the past, something of a loose cannon. I’m sure you understand; somethin’ happens, you kill many, many people about it. But I’m past that now. I only kill people I think need killin’. And I’m less inclined to throw my entire criminal empire in the shitter just to snap a few specific necks, you know? Gotham gets me backed angry, see, it sorta puts me out of my right mind. So I came to this lovely city of yours, and I’ve decided I like it. I could make a fresh start here. More organised, more purposeful. I could even, if I met anybody nice enough, make some friends.” He spreads his arms amiably. “And here we are.”
He sits agreeably while the table absorbs this. The Cicada eyes him in disbelief.
“I believe I speak for everyone when I say we will need some time to consider your generous offer,” the Yakuza representative states diplomatically. “We will get in contact with you when we have our answer.”
“No you won’t,” Jason corrects, leaving no room in his tone for doubt. Then he throws a folded slip of paper, just as he did last time, into the centre of the table. “See you soon, chucks.”
And the Red Hood withdraws.
The silence is deafening as Jason disappears and the phone beeps out that the call has ended. Clark lies still as death in the vain hope that if he doesn’t remind Lois of his existence, she’ll forget about him. They watch in that intolerable stew of tension as the meeting disperses, bosses going their separate ways, picking up their deputies and making off into the night.
Lois doesn’t say a word as she stands and stalks off. Clark closes his eyes and prays.