Chapter Text
Jason had… several regrets.
He regretted trusting Sheila. (He didn’t regret trying to save her.) He regretted confronting Bruce about the Joker. (He didn’t regret trying to kill the clown himself.) He regretted not keeping in touch with Damian and Talia. (He didn’t regret leaving.) He regretted leaving the All Caste behind. (He didn’t regret going home.)
Jason had some regrets, and he didn’t like the situation he was in now, but unfortunately, he didn’t regret anything he’d done to get here. Nothing recent, anyway.
See, maybe he could blame his little stand-off with Bruce, or maybe he could direct the blame to his past self for the duffel bag stunt, but it was all too likely that this was just… bad luck.
It was bad luck that the smugglers he’d been following had crossed the bay. It was bad luck that Metropolis had a mandatory holiday that was celebrated nowhere else — probably a day dedicated to how much better they were than Gotham, Jason thought sardonically — and bad luck that Superman had ventured out of the city for once. It was bad luck that Superman caught sight of Jason so soon into smashing through the smugglers, so Jason couldn’t pull out his kryptonite without exposing him to actual danger, and he got thrown off a ledge twenty feet up for his trouble.
He rolled into the impact, of course, because he’d learned how to survive the fast way down a mountain, and before that how to fall when he couldn’t fly, and before that how to shield himself from the inescapable. Because he’d been rolling with the punches since his first bloody nose, and he could smell his own blood in the backdrop of nearly every childhood memory.
It was still bad fucking luck, though, because Superman didn’t throw him so much as ram him, and that shit definitely bruised a rib or nine.
It was even worse luck that the smugglers were, as Jason suspected, working with alien tech, and they unveiled a fucking massive chunk of kryptonite that totally voided Jason’s self-sacrificing consideration from earlier. Superman was writhing on the floor by the time Jason reached his strategic exit point (chosen in case he got thrown from a twenty-foot ledge, of course, because he wasn’t a fucking amateur), and while he’d probably be fine… well, if Jason left him there, he would feel bad.
It would be like leaving a stray cat in the rain. It’ll survive, and it’s probably survived worse, but how could he just leave such a pathetic, almost-innocent creature to suffer like that?
Anyway, Jason ditched his exit, ignored the ache in his chest from where Superman had body-slammed him, and threw himself into the fray.
No one had noticed him before that (because again, he wasn’t a fucking amateur), not even with his co-starring role in Superman’s dramatic entrance. That gave him an extra edge, and it also gave him a great vantage point to see the three guys closest to Superman go from smug and power-drunk to startled and pathetic.
The fact that he disarmed them with throwing knives probably took a minute to register. His choice of weapon undoubtedly would have given them a superiority complex if they’d had time to think about it — people who used alien tech to fuck up overpowered aliens collected superiority complexes like Batman collected dead soldiers — but Jason didn’t give them time to think about it. He’d already taken down two men on the outskirts of the group and melted into the shadows by the time they even noticed their fancy lasers had shorted out.
It was kind of sad. At least the idiots in Gotham knew to expect company; Superman having backup must’ve been a foreign concept.
Not that Jason was actually backup, but, well… whatever. Fucking Metropolis.
The fight was… not really much of a fight. It was actually kind of fun, and Jason would’ve enjoyed it more if he hadn’t been in a rush. Kryptonite exposure at the level in this warehouse was akin to chemical torture for a kryptonian, though the exact severity was anyone’s guess. Still, Jason didn’t use his guns.
Sure, he could, but kryptonite didn’t actually remove anyone’s powers; it just weakened the person who had them. It would start at discomfort, but eventually, their lungs would feel frozen, and their eyes would be burning, and the nerves in their muscles would flood with a mimicry of lactic acid, and their control over their heightened senses would slip away.
Jason wasn’t about to subject a guy with uncontrolled super-hearing to the sound of gunfire in the same fucking building. He wasn’t that much of an asshole.
(Bruce would set off a flash grenade or a canary cry device without even blinking. Dick would risk his neck to remove Superman from the premises immediately, Timothy would try to reengage the lead covering that had hidden the kryptonite before, and Damian would as easily walk away without helping as Talia would slaughter every person in the building, should she be so inclined.)
(Jason would be willing to kill them, too, but this wasn’t Gotham. He didn’t know this place or its criminal element, its blood and its dirt, and he didn’t make decisions like that blindly. He didn’t know if they deserved it, and he knew it wasn’t necessary.)
The fight, if it could be called a fight, took less than ten minutes. That might seem like a hint of good luck, but Jason sure as hell hadn’t been relying on prayers to get through it. It was a test of skill, same as any room full of low-rank ninjas in his assassin days or catwalk full of goons in his Robin days or two-minute blackout at a convenience store in his street rat days.
Jason had no desire to get within arm’s reach of Superman — his ribs still fucking hurt, thanks — so that left reengaging the lead shielding. It had some sort of biometric lock, but the wiring was simple enough for him to bypass that, and the real trick would be staying hidden after Superman recovered. He could make it back to the docks, blend in with the crowd, change his breathing enough to escape recognition, stash his lead-lined shit in the vents of a ship, and take the long way around back to Gotham with trains and taxis. Then he’d intercept the ship once it arrived, and if his stuff wasn’t there… well, he could replace it.
He wasn’t sure how much time he’d have, but hacking this thing would take another three minutes at least, and Jason wasn’t gonna leave a good man to suffer just to improve his chances of escape. It was only a thirty second sprint to the docks, close to a minute if he shed his armor on the way, and a bundle of lead would blend in with a thick enough crowd.
Fucking x-ray vision. Fucking alien tech. Fucking Metropolis.
Jason connected the last wire.
Jason felt a pinch in his neck.
And Jason heard the telling swish of a speedster passing by one split-fucking-second too late.