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Laurie is bored.
She was the first one here, dropped off at Captain Metropolis' mansion fifteen minutes early. Her mother had fussed over her hair and makeup and told her to hold her shoulders back, keep her chin up, don't slouch, Laurel Jane, and then finally left her alone. That was half an hour ago, and Metropolis is still pinning stuff to his stupid map, tutting under his breath whenever Ozymandias wanders too close and peers over his shoulder.
The Comedian is ignoring them all, sat in the only comfortable chair and rustling his newspaper. He smells of cigar smoke and alcohol, and Laurie is tempted to ask if she can take a slug from his hip flask. If he says yes, awesome. If he says no, she might pick a fight just to liven things up. She's got a couple of smart-ass lines she's dying to try out, and the look on Metropolis' face would be priceless.
She's about to go over when there's the vibrating whine of jet engines, and the Owlship touches down outside. Ozymandias and Metropolis look over at the window; the Comedian just shakes his newspaper and turns a page.
Laurie hitches up to sit on the table, kicks her feet. The high heels are hurting her already; she hates wearing them—prefers the flat soles of her patrol boots—but noooo, you have to make an impression, Laurel Jane. She snorts to herself and earns a flicker of a glance from the Comedian. She's about to take advantage, but then the door swings open and Nite Owl strides through.
He's kind of dorky-looking in person.
Rorschach skulks in after him. He's shorter in person.
Metropolis practically falls over himself to shake hands with Nite Owl, just like he had with Ozymandias (though not with her; he spoke to her mom), but when he offers Rorschach an outstretched hand, the guy just looks at him creepily and tilts his head creepily and is generally creepy at him until he shuffles back to his map.
Nite Owl looks kind of embarrassed about it, and Laurie decides he's cute, in a dorky kind of way. She catches his eye and smiles at him. He smiles back. Yeah, definitely cute.
She lets her smile become wider and wilder when Rorschach notices. He snaps straight like someone shoved a pole up his ass, and takes his hands out of his pockets. Ha, she thinks. Got you.
Then Doctor Manhattan and his girl appear in a bright nova of sparks, and she just stares because he has a great body, and also it's blue.
[#]
So she lets the bunch of grown-ass men in costumes squabble over nothing while she weaves fantasies about what it would be like to sleep with Manhattan. He keeps looking at her. Janey's looking too; glares at her the whole way through the meeting like she wants to ram her fist down her throat and rip her lungs out. Laurie kind of wants her to try it, cause she has a smart-ass line for that, too.
Then the Comedian sets fire to some shit and everyone leaves. Fucking rock and roll.
[#]
Laurie can barely contain herself when Doctor Manhattan offers to accompany her on patrol. They chat, and it's nice; he's nice. Kind of sedate. She tells him her real name, even though everyone already knows it. He tells her his, even though barely anybody knows it. Jon.
It's a really ordinary name for a guy like him. So weird.
They patrol together for a while, though he does all the work and she's just kind of there. He always smiles at her though, and one time up on a roof, she thinks he's about to kiss her. She closes her eyes and leans in and he just... doesn't. He leaves her hanging there like an idiot, and he doesn't even seem to notice that she's embarrassed over it.
Then it happens again, and again.
She simmers over it for weeks, then finally just asks him outright why he won't kiss her.
"Because," he says, and he sounds mildly surprised, like it was obvious. "We don't."
Then he tips her chin up with his fingers and gives her that meaningless smile, and Laurie thinks, fuck this.
"I'm going to patrol," she says, stepping back from him
"Okay."
"Alone."
"I know," Jon says. He might have said it sadly, she really can't tell.
[#]
She's actually enjoying herself for the first time since her mother decided to groom her for this crazy business. She's angry, and she's happy being angry. She kicks better when she's angry. Not necessarily more accurate, but definitely harder.
She's wandered into the Lower East Side, and it's not her territory; a little too far from home. She turns, decides to make her way back, but catches sight of a familiar pair of silhouettes ducking into the mouth of the alleyway. She realizes that this is what she has been waiting for all goddamn night.
She rolls her shoulders back, raises her chin.
"Silk Spectre?" Nite Owl says. He looks around. "I thought you were patrolling with Doctor Manhattan these days."
"No," Laurie says, and she can tell he's frowning behind the goggles. If he gets all chivalrous and says 'it's not safe for you to be out alone', Laurie swears she will belt him right in his pretty mouth. She smiles, feral. "Not any more."
Rorschach shoots Nite Owl a glance, and then they have this weird little silent confab, all head-tilts and minute shrugs.
"Er," Nite Owl says. "Did something happen?"
"No. Jesus, I was just bored."
"Bored?" Rorschach says, folding his arms. "Of having a partner?"
"Bored of being a tag-along." She flips her hair over her shoulder and puts her hands on her hips, gives Rorschach the once-over. The sewer steam drifting through the alley goes some way to helping the noir thing he has going on; he's less creepy in this context, but not by much. "When everyone knows your partner can blast them to shit with just a thought, you kind of get to feeling a bit superfluous, so excuse me if I'm a bit fucking sour about it."
Rorschach's mask swims. "Language," he says.
Laurie wonders if he's serious.
"Are you fucking serious," she says. "You sound like my mother."
He pitches some kind of fit over that, makes a weird noise and stalks off up a fire escape, disappearing onto a tenement rooftop.
Nite Owl makes an exasperated sound. "Great," he says. "Thanks."
"Wow. Touchy. Is he always like that?"
"No." Nite Owl keeps fiddling with his goggles, like he wants to take them off. He seems more agitated than angry. "Well, yeah. But I don't go out of my way to push his buttons."
Laurie shrugs at him. "So, which button was that; the f-word or the mommy issues?"
"Both. Listen, I should catch up with him." He sweeps past her, cape fluttering, and starts climbing the fire escape.
"Okay, um," she says. Maybe 'sorry about pissing off your partner' would be in order, but she works on a sarcastic parting shot instead.
Before she can say anything, Nite Owl pauses and looks back. "Are you coming?" he asks, and grins at her, boyish.
Her heart flutters. The night just got a whole lot better. She grins back.
[#]
"So what are you guys working on?" she asks, negotiating her way back down to street level. She can see Rorschach up ahead, crouched in front of a doorway. Neon strobes overhead, illuminating him in garish colors.
"Prostitution ring," Nite Owl says. "Kids. Narcotics involved."
"Oh, ugh."
"Yeah, it's not..." Nite Owl puts his hand on her shoulder and leans in close. Her pulse picks up. "He's taking it really—I mean, it's bothering him. A lot. Ease up, okay?" he murmurs.
"What's his deal, anyway?" They're out of earshot, but she finds herself speaking in low, conspiratorial tones regardless. Maybe Nite Owl will lean in closer to hear her. He smells good; leather and detergent and warm sweat over some kind of cologne, Nostalgia probably.
"Deal?"
"I know he's your partner and everything, but the guy's a weirdo."
Nite Owl makes a face. "Show me a mask who isn't."
Laurie thinks, defensive, much? Then remembers it's two a.m. and they're in some godforsaken alleyway, he's dressed like an owl and she's wearing a négligée and combat boots. She supposes he has a point.
"You just have to get to know him," Nite Owl is saying. "He's a good guy. Got a mind like a razor. Yeah, he's kind of... okay, he's really intense, but you get used to that."
He adjusts the hem of his cape, and he couldn't look more self-conscious if he tried. She raises her eyebrows, and he actually blushes a bit. Great. She really knows how to pick 'em.
"Whatever," she says. "Let's get on with this."
Rorschach doesn't look up as they approach; he's intent on the lock, torsion wrench on one hand and rake in the other. "What is she doing here," he rasps, giving the tools a hard twist and popping the door open. A heavy bassline spills out into the street.
"Just tagging along," Laurie says, sweetly. "After you, boys."
[#]
The door is the back entrance to a go-go bar. The music is dense; it vibrates in her chest and she can taste it in her throat. Her uniform glows under the ultraviolet strobes. Nite Owl and Rorschach are immediately out of place, but Laurie finds that she blends in disturbingly well with the scantily-clad women who writhe suggestively atop the bar or loll in the corners, pawing at men and each other. They don't look much older than her, and her skin shudders and crawls.
Rorschach looks about as comfortable as a nun in a sex shop, and Laurie shakes off her unease enough to laugh at him. The sound is lost in the thudding beat but her smile is clear as day, and he visibly bristles at her. Nite Owl puts his hand on his shoulder, squeezes, and guides him toward another door. She bounces after them, stepping in time to the music and keeping a wary eye on the nearby patrons.
The corridor reeks of stale piss and puke, and the cloying chemical stink of disinfectant. The toilets are signposted (not that anyone seems to make it that far), and then there's a set of stairs leading down into darkness. It's marked 'staff only' and barricaded pretty securely with an iron gate.
"Here," Rorschach says. "Nite Owl?"
Nite Owl gets a device out of one of the pouches on his belt. "Stand back," he says, all hero-like. Laurie grins at him. He grins back.
Rorschach glowers. "Get on with it."
"Okay, okay. This'll take a little while." He presses a button, and the device spits out a laser, sending up sparks as it hits the metal gate.
Laurie stands next to Rorschach and watches, hands on her hips. She leans sideways, eyes on the strong clasp of Nite Owl's hand around the laser. "Got a problem with me?" she says, deliberately low and dangerous.
She gets no response.
"Well?" she says, twisting around to look at him. His mask is going crazy. It's mesmerizing up close, tiny blossoms of ink bursting over its surface.
"Don't care for your uniform," he says. "Impractical and inappropriate."
Laurie snorts, then laughs, humorless. "Like I have a choice."
He tilts his head at that.
"My mom, you know?"
"I don't know. Don't care to, either." He rolls his shoulders, buries his hands deeper into the pockets of his trench coat.
Right, the mommy issues. Things go quiet for a bit, just the fizz and whine of cutting metal. She fidgets idly with her sleeve. "It's not that impractical," she says after a minute. "Half the guys I fight are too busy staring at my tits to notice my fist."
Rorschach ignores her. "Done yet, Nite Owl?"
Laurie smirks to herself.
"Just about, buddy." Nite Owl switches the laser off and braces himself on the door frame, gives the gate a hefty kick. It rattles open and clangs against the wall.
Rorschach fishes a flashlight out of his trench pocket, shakes it until it works. He leads the way down and Nite Owl takes up the rear. She wants to be vaguely irritated at being sandwiched in the middle like a vulnerability, but it's actually kinda hot to imagine what it would be like to have them like this, all around her.
Wow, she really needs to get laid if she's gonna start thinking of Rorschach like that. Being mysterious and dangerous can't be enough for her, surely? Though maybe his voice has something to do with it, or how compact he is. Or Jesus, just the way that Nite Owl clearly has a major jones for him, though god knows why that makes her squirm the way it does.
She lets out a long breath.
They make it to the bottom of the stairs, and her kindling lust is effectively extinguished. "Ugh, god," she says. "Smells like a goddamn sewer down here."
Rorschach locates the lights, and weak fluorescents flicker on overhead. They're in a square room with whitewashed walls, flaking and grimy, networked with pipes and wiring. Rorschach shoulders open the only door.
"Storage," he says. "Beer kegs, crates."
"This way, then," Nite Owl says, gesturing to a corridor that leads off. The next room they find is storage too, and the next.
The third is covered with heavy bolts, but they aren't shot home. Something about that makes Laurie's stomach lurch, and a deep foreboding bears down on her as Nite Owl checks the handle and finds it unlocked. He pushes the door open.
"Oh god," she keens. The smell. It's not sewer at all, it's too rich and sweet.
Light from the corridor spills into the small room; catches a pale, slim ankle. Laurie thinks she's going to be sick.
"Dead," Rorschach says.
Laurie forces herself to step into the room and look. She's seen bodies before, no biggie, right? But the girl's barely a teen, tiny and thin and splayed on the concrete floor, steeped in her own blood. Dark hair, lank and tacky, is tangled over her face.
"She cut her wrists," Laurie says weakly. "On the door hinge, there."
God, what kind of things must they be put through, where hacking themselves to death with a bit of jagged metal is the favorable option? Laurie scrunches her face up, promises herself she's gonna keep it together.
"This one, too," Nite Owl says from further in the room. Laurie turns around to see him standing over another body, curled up on a stained mattress. "Maybe a couple hours ago, both of them."
"Too late," Rorschach growls. He slams his fist into the wall, hard enough to make the door rattle in its frame. "Again. Only difference is bodies this time, instead of empty rooms. Innocents dead, because we were too slow."
"Whoa, steady," Nite Owl says, reaching to gentle him. "We're doing what we can, you know that. You gotta stop beating yourself up over—Spectre, behind you!"
The urgency in Nite Owl's voice sends adrenaline crashing through her, and she turns just in time to block a baseball bat aimed at her head. It slams against her forearm and is swung away, but then she feels a sickening impact right through her calf. She screams at the pain and at the fucker who caused it, launches herself at him and claws at his eyes, sends him skidding on his back into the corridor.
There are three more of them, and she stares up open-mouthed until Nite Owl grabs her, pulls her away. Rorschach ducks past and tears through them like a feral thing, brutal and merciless.
"Okay? Spectre, are you—"
"For god's sake, my name's Laurie. I know you know it, everyone knows it," she says, angry and shaken. She can't help the tears now. "And no, I'm not fucking okay. That motherfucker..."
"Stay here," Nite Owl says, and she doesn't know whether to hate him for it, or love him. He strides over to Rorschach; he's menacing the last conscious guy.
"Tell me where King of Skin is holed up," Rorschach snarls, gloved hands clamped around the bastard's neck. "And the rest of the girls. Where are they. Tell me."
The asshole just wheezes and slobbers.
"Easy," Nite Owl says. "Easy, man."
Rorschach grunts, and cracks the guy's head off the wall. "Not talking. No point."
"Nite Owl," Laurie says. She tries to stand, but the pain in her leg is off the scale. She hopes to god she's just being a wimp and it's not actually broken; she doesn't need a lecture and promises of remedial training on top of all this. "Narcotics, you said?"
"Yeah." Nite Owl is at her side, supporting her as they pick their way out of the basement. "Nothing that'll help with the pain though, even if we knew—"
"No," she interrupts impatiently. "More girls, upstairs. In the club. Doped up."
"Of course," Rorschach says. "Of course. Stupid, stupid."
"You're repeating yourself," Nite Owl says. "Be calm, man."
Rorschach glares at Nite Owl. "I am calm, Daniel. Don't—" he cuts himself off with a horrified noise.
Daniel. Huh. Another ordinary name.
"You're not. Look, here." He shrugs Laurie's arm from around his neck. "Take Laurie, help her out. Here's Archie's remote; you remember how to call him, yeah? I'll follow you shortly."
Rorschach nods mutely, takes the remote. He butts his shoulder under Laurie's arm—he's short enough to do so without much trouble—and mutters under his breath. His hand tightens on her hip, then slackens. "Sorry, Nite Owl," he says, louder.
"It's okay, man. We trust her."
Rorschach makes a weird noise; she's not sure if it's complimentary or not.
She grimaces at him. It was meant to be a wolfish grin, but it's the best she can manage. "You guys are so sweet."
He ignores her and guides them out of the club, one fast step after the other, like he doesn't want to give her enough time to feel the pain of each individual footfall. He props her against the alley wall while he brings Nite Owl's ship down to them, and then it catches up, washes through her in queasy waves. Hold it together, Laurel Jane. She clutches the bricks and focuses on how his lean body felt pressed against hers, instead of the pain. Oh god, she thinks. She's not sure which part of all this is bothering her the most.
The relentless bass thud cuts out, and there's a held breath, a second of quiet that presses against her eardrums, and then the club's fire alarms go off. Rorschach tenses up, hits a button on the remote and pneumatics hiss as the hatch cracks open.
"Up," he says, gruffly, and guides her on board with one hand on her waist, settles her into one of the chairs. It's upholstered in leather, cool against her thighs.
"Quite the gentleman." She realizes that she isn't joking, not really. "M'not much of a lady, though. Thanks, Rorschach," she says, subdued.
He snorts, plucks at his scarf. She wonders if his name is ordinary. "Stay here," he says. "Going to find Da—Nite Owl."
He hits a control box next to the hatch with a flat palm, and vaults out of the ship before the door slams shut.
[#]
She doesn't remember falling asleep—maybe she passed out, her leg sure as hell hurts enough—but voices wake her; one gentle and plaintive, the other rough, accusing. She keeps her eyes closed and listens to them argue. It's probably bad form to eavesdrop, but it's also delicious.
"—set off the alarms myself, most of the patrons cleared out and it was easy to spot the drugged girls. I don't see the problem, Rorschach."
"Could have precipitated a riot. Didn't know there wasn't a fire, you know what panic like that can do."
"But it didn't. I assessed the situation and made a tactical decision. You taught me that, man. The girls are at a safehouse, and I'm fine, okay. We're okay."
"So, guys," she says, and it comes out muzzy. "When's the wedding?" Wow, she sounds stoned. If her leg wasn't screaming bloody murder she's suspect she'd been shot up with morphine.
"Ehn," Rorschach says. "Concussed."
"I was hit in the leg, not on the head," she says. "Seriously, though. You sound like an old married couple." She cackles at her own joke, since she figures nobody else will.
"Heading the right way for one," he says, and there's something in the way he says it that makes it light. Joking, almost. She wonders if he's right and she had somehow taken a hit to the head and not noticed.
"How are you feeling?" Nite Owl asks her, crouching next to her chair. "Try not to move around too much, we don't have anything to splint your leg with. Gonna take you back to the Nest and sort you out, okay?"
[#]
Nite Owl hoists her onto his workbench, leaves her sitting there while he rummages through his medkit. Rorschach slouches off up the stairs at the far end of the basement, into what she presumes to be Nite Owl's house.
She looks around, curious. This part of the basement is some kind of workshop; there's a soldering iron on the bench next to her, and little boxes of diodes and resistors and all that kind of thing. Guess it's true about him building his own stuff; Nite Owl really is as smart as the say.
"Let's take look at this." Nite Owl holds her ankle and carefully unfastens her boot, plucking at the laces. "Tell me if it hurts too much."
He peels off her sock, and she bites her lip when one hand cradles her foot, holding her leg still. He presses fingers up her calf with the other hand. Her quickened breathing is mostly to do with the pain, but not entirely.
"Ow, stop," she says, gasping as his fingers probe and agony flares up, white-hot and shrieking.
"Sorry. Okay, definitely broken. Clean, though," Nite Owl says.
"Shit."
Rorschach appears, hefting a basin of warm water. He's taken his trench off, and his jacket sleeves ride up when he places the basin on the worktop next to Laurie. The revelation of pale, freckled-spattered skin between his gloves and his shirtcuffs is profoundly thrilling. God, what is wrong with her.
Nite Owl unwinds segments of plaster bandage and soaks them, crouches to wrap her leg up in the stuff. Rorschach has vanished off somewhere again, and Laurie finds her mind wandering.
"So," she says. "Daniel." She draws his name out into three long syllables.
He rocks back onto his heels, sighs. "Just Dan," he says. "It's only Rorschach who calls me—uh. Just Dan is fine."
"So," she says again. "Dan. You guys have a thing."
"We have a...? What, no!" He laughs, but it's not very convincing. Things are quiet for a moment as he smooths down another bit of bandage. "Nope," he says, popping the word.
"You so want him," she says. "It's too cute."
Dan pulls his goggles down and sweeps back the cowl, looks up at her. He looks kinda unimpressed, but she just smiles back at him because he's pretty, dammit, pretty and flushed and younger than she thought he'd be. She wants to do something with his hair, though, all sticking out like that.
She reaches, smooths it back. He closes his eyes and leans into her hand.
"Oh god," she breathes. "And me."
He takes a deep breath and stands, turning his back as he pulls his cape off over his head.
"Ha," she says, lightheaded with elation. "I'm only sixteen, you pervert." She means it as a joke, and it comes out on a bubble of laughter, but he looks hurt when he turns around, cape folded over his arm.
"Laurie," he says, reproachful. "I know, okay."
She smiles at him.
"I think this has set enough," he says, laying his hand on her cast, all businesslike again. "Let's get you somewhere more comfortable."
[#]
She's laid out on Dan's couch, cushions propped under her leg. The room is comfortable and homely, and from the size of the place she figures Dan has a lot of money, but it doesn't look like he spends it just to show off.
"Here," Rorschach says, depositing a bowl in her lap. A baked potato. It's cooked through, scalding hot, but the beans heaped over it are can-cold. She looks up at him, part baffled and part amused, but mostly grateful. She thanks him.
He nods gravely and goes to stand by the window, parting the slats of the blind with gloved fingers. Keeping watch, Laurie thinks. Paranoid as well as creepy.
She can hear Dan in the hallway, talking to her mother on the phone. He's using his Nite Owl voice, all bold and reassuring.
"Hey," Laurie says. Rorschach turns his head to glance at her, mask inscrutable. "What's your name?"
"Rorschach," he says.
"Aw, c'mon," she says, wheedling. "We both know Dan's, and you both know mine."
He grunts, makes a show of straightening his cuffs.
"I'll ask Dan," she says, sing-song.
In a few paces, he's in front of her, arms folded smartly. "He wouldn't tell you," he says. "Even if he knew."
He probably doesn't realize how defensive he sounds. They've stopped being so cute; it's kind of sad, now.
"Wait," she says. "You hang out at his house and he doesn't even know your name? Man, I would not stand for that bullshit."
"He has manners. Understands it would be disrespectful to ask."
"Ask what?" Dan steps into the room, closing the door behind him.
"Nothing," Rorschach says, returning to his spot at the window.
"Right." Dan glances between Laurie and Rorschach, mild suspicion warring with increasing nervousness. The wider she smiles, the more nervous he looks. He fiddles with his glasses.
"I wasn't meddling," she says, faux-innocent. He doesn't seem to find that reassuring at all; she can't imagine why.
Rorschach huffs, a sound like rocks grinding. He moves to sit the armchair, though how someone can sink into the upholstery like that and still look as uncomfortable as hell, Laurie will never know.
"I, uh," Dan says, still stealing glances at his partner while he addresses Laurie. "Your mom said you can stay here tonight."
"Oh, wow." A weight lifts off her, and she lolls her head against the armrest. She'll be ripped to shreds when she gets home, but the stay of execution is welcome. "Thanks, Dan. How did you manage that? If I'd talked to her, she'd be here dragging me out the door already."
Dan shrugs, and gives her a sweet little smile. "I told her I didn't really want to move you, and I guess she didn't want to ask where I lived to come get you herself. Vigilante etiquette, or something."
Rorschach shoots her a pointed look. She ignores him.
"Was she mad?"
"A little," he says. "But only because she's worried about you, you know?"
"I know." She tilts her head back to keep away sudden tears, stares at the ceiling and blinks. "I'm tired."
Rorschach shifts in his chair.
"Hey," Dan says, and brushes her hair away from her face. "It's okay. Get some sleep."
[#]
Voices, again, from the hallway. Low-pitched and heated, words rumbling on the edge of comprehension as she dredges herself out of painkiller-fogged sleep. She keeps her eyes tightly closed.
"—don't see why you care." Dan. He sounds kind of pissed, but like he's trying hard not to be.
"Chasing jailbait. Thought better of you."
"You really think I'd go there? Jesus, man..."
"Didn't have to keep her here. Another tactical decision, Daniel?"
Wow. So, Rorschach can be an asshole as well as a paranoid creep.
"Oh, please. Is that why you're still here? Making sure I don't take advantage of an injured, drugged up teenage girl? And after the case we just wrapped up... god. You really think I would—"
"No." The word is bitten off harshly and wells with more emotion than she'd otherwise credit him with.
"Oh my god," Dan says. "Oh my god. You're jealous."
No shit, Laurie thinks. Finally.
Rorschach says something, muttered too low for her to catch.
"It doesn't matter. You—that's—oh, god." Jesus, Dan sounds so hot, his voice all dark and cracking with lust, trying to whisper but failing, totally. She lets her imagination go wild. "Come here. Just—hn."
Laurie's heart beats in her throat and warmth flushes through her, strokes her with tingling fingers. She shivers, arches gently.
There's the sound of a halfhearted struggle, a light thud as someone is pressed to a wall. A barely-audible moan that makes her breath catch and thighs tense, and then the unmistakable sound of a kiss being broken.
"Yeah?" Dan again, murmuring. It's so quiet she can hear the shift of fabric against fabric.
Rorschach makes one of those indecipherable noises and then there's another moan, louder and quickly stifled. "Daniel," he whispers. He sounds ragged, breathless. "Have to go."
And he does. Laurie tracks his footfalls through the hallway and kitchen, the squeak of the basement door, and then silence. She swallows, shifts her ass where it's going numb against the couch cushions, feels how slick the insides of her thighs are. She pulls off an epic feat of willpower and restrains her roaming fingers, since getting off all over her host's couch to thoughts of him kissing his partner is maybe too much.
"You're awake," Dan says. She opens her eyes. He's sitting on the edge of the coffee table, looking tousled and kind of shell-shocked. "Did we wake you?"
"Yeah," she says, and wonders how to take all this. She does feel vaguely hurt, left out, but she knew things might have gone down like this. "You guys weren't fighting because of me, were you?"
"No," he says. "Yeah. Kinda. Not fighting, exactly."
"I don't think he likes me much," she says.
"Oh, man," Dan says, and laughs, a little crazy-like. He sounds like she feels. "He doesn't bake potatoes for just anyone, you know."
She has absolutely nothing to say to that. Rorschach is such a fucking weird guy. She really doesn't get him at all.
"God, Laurie." He stands, hovers over her. "I'm so greedy. How can I—"
She shushes him, reaches out and takes his hand and kisses his fingertips. He shudders, wraps his broad hand around hers. "Go to bed, Dan," she says, and surprises herself with how grown-up she sounds.
[#]
It's four months later, and Laurie is belly-down on a fire escape platform, watching the wax and wane of gang activity in the streets below. Her leg healed fine, though tottering around on crutches made for the worst birthday ever, especially after a sneaky application of beer. She didn't break any more bones, but it was a close thing.
Something moves in her peripheral vision; a figure in purple and brown.
"Evening, Rorschach," she says, eyes still fixed on the alley below.
"Miss Jupiter," he says by way of greeting. He crouches beside her, and she levers herself up, swings her legs around to sit next to him, shoulders barely touching.
"Miss Jupiter is my mother," she says. "Laurie is fine."
He looks at her, and she can feel it right through the mask. Intense is right. He seems to glean some kind of understanding from her, though, and he says, "Laurel."
She grins at that. Dan, Daniel. Laurie, Laurel.
"How is the leg?"
"Fine. How's your boyfriend?"
"Partner."
"Same difference."
"Ehn." He exhales loudly. "Fine," he says, in a tone that clearly means: I'm only agreeing to shut you up.
She laughs, and with gleeful disregard for the safety of her fingers, tips the brim of his fedora up.
"Requests the pleasure of your company," he says, tipping it back down, and she stops laughing, looks at him with her mouth half-open.
"Um," she says, because he can't be saying what she thinks he is. The way he's standing, though, all edgy and tense like he's holding his breath... "Seriously? He—"
"We." He has his hand on her waist and one at her elbow, helping her to her feet, even though she could flip up on a dime. He's shaking lightly, seems about ready to bolt.
She turns under his hand. She's taller than him by an inch, maybe two.
"Suspected arms dealer making noise in Midtown," he says, a low rumble close to her ear. It seems to steady him, to think of her—of them—in that context. He is bolder, hand resting heavier on her hip. "You in?"
She nods. Hell, yeah.
The Owlship soars overhead, descending to hover over their rooftop. Her hair whips around her face, and Rorschach's hand falls to the small of her back as they climb on board. Dan greets her with a wicked smile; the ship swoops elegantly and tilts her into the co-pilot seat.
"Hey, boys," she says, breathless as they climb, up and up until they break over the clouds. "Miss me?"
"Barely."
"Don't be a dick, man," Dan says, catching Rorschach's sleeve. Rorschach shrugs, mask leering.
"Why, I didn't know you cared," she says, and laughs.
[###]