Disclaimer: I am in no way ass enough to claim that I own anything even remotely connected to Watchmen, or that I really have any business writing these characters. To be honest, writing Watchmen fanfiction feels like dropping my pants and mooning Olympus. However, I am but one humble nobody of a fan, so hopefully Moore and DC and all other relevant Powers That Be won't bother to have me hunted down by legions of superhero assassins.

Note: As of 07/18/2008, this story has been edited to match the current final draft from my livejournal. Also I do not post the vast majority of what I write to this website, but welcome anyone interested in other random ficbits to wander on over to the link in my profile.

Asymmetry

It was the summer of 1975, and an owlship was lowering itself onto the rooftop of an abandoned building like some tremendous oblong pigeon from another world. The moon glowed ghostly through thin layers of clouds in the night, a pale bulb behind a dark silk lampshade, and lit little white answering lights in the great dark eyes of the looming craft. The ship shifted, down through smog and the equally thick mass of distant noise that rose eternally up from the city below like smoke from a fire…the honks and shouts of angry drivers, now and then interspersed with the high wailing cries of sirens or the harsh crack of gunfire, all wrapped in pure undiluted pandemonium by the incoherent tangled mess of a thousand radios playing a thousand loud songs of violence and despair.

But the air was a little less heavy tonight, the city a little less cruel, due in no small part to the actions of the very two men now leaving the belly of the wide-eyed beast.

The first to step onto the wide, flat roof was an almost inhuman shape, a smooth-edged shadow with two horned ears and the same dark unblinking eyes as the craft that had brought them there. He was also coughing, one hand over his face, the other hefting a large toolbox as he walked down out of the haze of smoke still drifting from the owlship's entryway.

"Oh hell and damnation, would you just look at this mess?" Nite Owl griped, more irritated than angry, more at himself than the persons directly responsible for the current situation.

"I am. It looks...remarkably like a mess." the second figure offered helpfully as he emerged from the same opening as the first. His attire was less unusual, if somewhat unsuited to the summer heat. The only concession to the weather was that the ever-present overcoat had been removed and folded over one arm; otherwise, not a button was out of place. If he was at all bothered by the ambient temperature, it could not be discerned from his expression, which was currently in the vague shape of a butterfly. Or perhaps it was the spreading shadow of two trees under a raincloud. Prolonged study of the vigilante Rorschach's face tended to cause headaches.

Nite Owl already had a headache. He'd slowed his pace, then stopped, half-turned to face his passenger, eyes narrowed with suspicion behind dark glassy lenses. "...did you just joke at me, Rorschach?"

"Certainly not," the calm voice admonished gently. "I never joke. Bad for my reputation."

Several seconds passed in silence, and then Nite Owl gave a tired sigh, rolling his eyes skyward, and resumed his walk to the rear of the ship. "Of course," he murmured wryly. "How thoughtless of me to forget."

"You're forgiven."

A pause.

"Oh, and try not to forget again. Forgiveness is bad for my reputation too."

And then Nite Owl did snort with laughter, though he managed to quickly hide it behind another coughing fit (this time thoroughly faked) and his grin behind one gloved hand. "You are so warped," he murmured, not unkindly, as he proceeded to remove a panel from the owlship's underside and disappear from sight.

Rorschach made a soft, vaguely amused noise. It was what passed for laughter, from him.

The city was howling far below, flickering with dirty neon lights like unwashed fireflies. From beneath the unearthly metal bird came the first scraping, clanging sounds of Nite Owl At Work. And, too, a long string of distracted, irritated muttering, because owls don't whistle.

"Goddamn it, one lucky bastard with a machine gun manages more damage than all the rest put together...one single corner--one! corner! --of one goddamn panel gets worn down a fraction of an inch and so of course this one guy randomly unloads half a clip into it, that's the kind of luck I have...never thought I'd live to actually regret making Archie bulletproof, but the ricochet damage in here is horrendous, can't believe we made it as far as we did…we're lucky nothing actually punched through into the cockpit, but it could have been--Jesus Christ--I've got half a mind to march right back there and...uh..."

"Arrest them again?"

"...yes. Every last one. And maybe a third time for good measure."

"Sounds like a plan." Rorschach said solemnly.

"You know, ten years of this and I still can't tell when you're not serious?"

"Told you. I'm always serious."

"Okay, how about 'mildly facetious'?"

"Never."

Nite Owl chuckled quietly, the sound slightly muffled and echoing inside the hull, but unmistakable nonetheless. "Alright, alright, I drop all charges, you win...and-" here he paused, and the widening grin was almost audible. "-the grand prize of the night is that everyone gets home by morning curfew after all. It's just a temporary fix, but I think I can get Archie up and running enough to make it to sunrise. Gimme another twenty minutes, thirty tops, just need to patch up the worst of it, replace a couple things."

"Ehh. Don't rush on my account. I was thinking of walking back anyway."

"Hey, don't do that," the first vigilante said, somewhere between concern and mild scolding. "Your usual dropoff point is still on the other end of town, and even you have to be a little winded after a forty-eight-man mafia arrest."

"Forty-nine. You forgot the gunner." Rorschach corrected absently.

"I certainly did not, seeing as how I'm cleaning up his mess right now. It was a forty-eight-man arrest because you went and put the gunner into a coma with a lit cigarette and someone's left shoe."

A shrug, though Nite Owl couldn't see it. "He was still shooting, would have made a bigger mess with any delay on our part. Couldn't really afford caution."

"I didn't say I disagreed. Best of a bad situation and all that. Hell, I'd be tempted to do it myself now if you hadn't, only the police probably wouldn't be as willing to write it off as accidental. But that still makes it forty-eight actual arrests, until the gunner wakes up."

"Ah."

Another brief silence, the creaking of a wrench and then the protestations of steel prodded with a blowtorch. "...how, exactly, did we just end up arguing about that?"

"You forgot the gunner."

"No I didn't, you--oh hell, Rorschach, I know what you're doing, and it's gonna stop."

"Pardon?"

"Getting me to argue with you about the gunner so I'll forget you planning to walk across town alone at four in the morning, after a full night of nonstop violence."

"I do that on a fairly regular basis, you know."

"Not on my watch, you don't."

Silence again, but comfortable. Somewhere inside the ship, the sounds of things being pried off, or put back into place. There was a series of tiny clinks as the first handful of many, many spent bullets was tossed out to scatter harmlessly across the rooftop.

"I...hey, look. Is something bothering you? You've kinda been having weird moments for a few nights now, and I know it's not the work. These guys are about as ordinary as organized crime gets-"

"Have you been watching the news this week?" Rorschach said suddenly, stiffly.

"The news? No, haven't had the-" and then there was a yelp and a crash. Rorschach, startled, turned his head sharply towards the owlship (he had been idly watching the city below), the aimless shifting shapes of his face shattering into a cluster of confused motes.

Caution. "...Daniel?"

"Ow. Ow ow ow dammit. Uh. Sorry, had a brief attack of stupid in here. 'm fine, just a loose wire. But no, haven't watched the news this week. Between normal patrols and the current batch of mafia busts and testing new stuff at home and fixing crap like this, I'm lucky to get in any of the little things in life, like sleep." He didn't sound like he didn't enjoy it. "So what'd I miss?"

"Kidnapping. The girl's name is Blaire Roche."

"As in the pharmaceuticals?"

"The kidnappers seem to think so. But there's no real connection--her father is a bus driver."

"Oh hell-"

"She's six years old."

Nite Owl said nothing. The mechanical sounds had stopped. Finally he managed a soft, horrified "Oh hell."

"Yes. I was hoping some leads would surface by now, some further contact from them to the parents, or anything to the police or the Roche company. Get this other work done in the meantime, then go after her. But..."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

"Jesus." Nite Owl murmured. He still hadn't resumed his work, and his voice was shaking. "That...yeah. Nobody else is on it yet?"

"Doesn't seem that way."

A slow, heavy release of breath. "You're going to start tonight, then?"

"I may have to. I've been thinking about it too much, don't want it to start interfering. Don't want to start making mistakes. Don't want to think about it-"

The stiff but otherwise calm voice had abruptly given way to an uncharacteristic ugly snarl, hard and cold as ice on steel. Nite Owl's brow furrowed, and he obeyed his gut when it told him to step down out of the ship. He emerged again into the moonlight, and saw Rorschach apparently making a great effort of will to loosen his sudden angry death-grip on the low, rusted railing that ran along the edge of the roof.

Neither of them said anything about it. Sometimes there were abysses best not gazed into.

"There's time." Nite Owl said gently. He hated moments like this, feeling awkward and uncertain. Ineffectual. It seemed that not even masks, high-tech toys, and an unusual night life could ward those moments off entirely. "It'll be almost two days before Archie's up for going after the last of these guys anyway, and with the odd surprise upgrade in their firepower I don't think we should try it without him. So..."

"Thank you."

The air began to feel normal again. "Hey, don't worry about it. Hell, I can probably spare a couple hours tomorrow...well, I guess I should say 'tonight' by now, but, uh."

"That won't be necessary. I don't expect more than legwork and questioning mewling cowards. Nothing like what we've been after this week. You should stay in and finish the repairs-"

"Seriously, it's no trouble-"

"-and sleep."

"Heh. Well, there is that," he admitted with a sheepish half-smile.

Rorschach lifted his folded overcoat from where it lay draped over the railing. "I should go now. Just enough time to get details from her parents and make a few stops on the way home."

"More stops tomorrow?"

"Many."

"Heh, alright. See you in a couple days, then. But..."

The face that was nothing like a face looked back at him.

"I know these kidnappers sound too inept to be a real danger to guys like us. But if this Roche business does get too big, you know where to find me."

Slowly shifting patterns, something that looked a little like a smile, if one squinted a bit. Wordlessly, Rorschach inclined his head in acknowledgement. Then footsteps on the fire escape.

Then he was gone.

Nite Owl went back to his work and thought no more about it.

...

Twenty-one hours later, an owlship was lowering itself onto the roof of an abandoned building, and the roof opened up to meet it as it had done a thousand times before. The ship came down as silently as a falling leaf, through clouds that had not been there mere moments previous. As swiftly and quietly as it had come, the floating form vanished into the mist, and when the mist finally vanished there was only a flat, empty roof. The Owl had returned to his nest.

The wide, glassy eyes took in the light of each flickering bulb lining the abandoned subway tunnel, took it in and held it for a moment, then let it go and moved on: a staring child catching moths in the moonlight. Behind the unblinking eyes, a man was muttering distractedly to himself, mentally beginning his next round of mechanical chores even as he piloted his ship home. The chorus of complaining noises from various parts of the craft had finally quieted, though he was pretty sure he'd heard an unwelcome sort of grinding sound somewhere when experimenting gently with sharper turns. There was still a vague haze of smoke lingering about Archimedes' insides, but he couldn't find the source. In all likelihood, it was just remnants from the night before, but it still stank. And then there was the matter of repairing a few of the trickier devices, fixing a few remaining dents and dings, another round of cleaning the glass...

As the ship landed, settling on its accustomed perch there in the cool basement, the man inside absently pushed back his hood, tugging the goggles from his eyes with one hand as he reached across the console with the other. Scooping up a battered old clipboard, he made a few hastily scribbled notes in one corner, scratching over several existing lines reminding him of problems that no longer existed, underlining other lines detailing issues that still needed tending to.

His eyes were still on the checklist as he stepped down from the hatch.

His eyes were still on the checklist when he realized that the air smelled much more strongly of smoke than it ought to, and not the relatively clean, inorganic sort that broken machines gave off, like what hung in faint wisps in the belly of his ship. It smelled like something rotting had burned, and the smoke rotted still.

His eyes were still on the checklist when he realized that someone else was in the basement with him. He desperately wished that he had left his goggles in place, because when he looked out of the corner of his eye (don't turn your head, don't give away that you know) he could see a dim outline of someone on the far end of his lair, where he hadn't bothered to leave a light on before he left on the test run. Or rather, it was not so much a proper outline as a space shaped like a human being that was darker than the rest, a paper doll cut out of the shadows. And without his goggles, he couldn't be sure if the figure was armed, taking aim even as he stood there frozen, not daring to react, not daring to not react-

Wait. Was it only wishful thinking, staring sideways at the darkness, or was that unmoving figure a little on the short side...and that hat...

All the air left his lungs in a soft rush of relief as things fell into place. "Rorschach? Jeez, you scared the crap out of me for a second there, what were you thinking?"

Caught between mild annoyance and relief, he didn't quite register that there was no reply, and that nothing moved. He walked, relaxed, towards the shadow, absently reaching out for the light switch as he neared its place on the wall. "So did you get any leads on the oh my God!"

The voice that answered was as hollow and soulless as a black winter's midnight. "Not God, Daniel."

The clipboard was on the floor, forgotten. Dan Dreiberg was recovering from the moment of shock, already moving again, halfway to a run, brow furrowed with concern. Rorschach was still standing there unfazed, hands in his pockets, his overcoat soaked with very large quantities of fresh blood, spread like a dark setting sun along his left side.

"What the hell…is that…are you-" He couldn't straighten out his head enough to ask. Ingrained habit, the training of years of very dangerous experience, was already kicking in, reminding him that the medical supplies were in a cabinet not far behind him if this was what it looked like and that he knew how to use them rather well but holy shit if all that was Rorschach's he would actually have to call the hospital and that was going to be all sorts of trouble and unpleasantness because he would probably never-

"Killed dog."

Dan came to a sudden halt, mere feet away, staring blankly. "Excuse me?"

"Killed dog tonight. Second one less messy. This...not mine." He seemed to be struggling a little, as though he couldn't quite remember what part of this situation might worry anyone.

"You...killed a dog."

"Two. With a meat cleaver."

Something wasn't right. Even more than it seemed on the surface (which was already pretty bad), something wasn't right. One did not do the things that Daniel Dreiberg--that Nite Owl--had done, for half so long as he had, without developing a certain intuition about situations and people…and right now, his was screaming. Something about the way Rorschach stood, about the way he spoke, especially the way he spoke: it was the sort of voice an inanimate object might have. Flat, dead. He'd heard the voice behind that shifting mask on a semi-regular basis for a full decade now, and it had never once sounded like that.

He was afraid, and did not know why.

"I...why did you kill dogs?" Dan murmured, dazed. "And what is that smell?"

"Fire. In Brooklyn."

"Yeah, I--I saw the fire department cleaning something up on my test run, it looked like it was pretty bad and--wait, were you there?"

"Started it."

A swift, sick, twisting sensation took hold of his stomach. That intuition again, and the sheer awfulness that hung in the air like poison, like that reek of burning...of burning...

Nite Owl finally recognized the smell.

He was deeply afraid, but his voice was only grim, and firm, and oh Rorschach what have you done..."Why?"

The silence was long and heavy and Dan could feel some unknown, invisible thing slipping away like sand into a pit. He didn't think he could hold onto it if he tried, but how could he try when he didn't even know what it was? Something important, something devastatingly important but he couldn't think, because the air in his home stank of death and blood and Rorschach (eccentric and violent sure but God never this) was telling him in that wrong voice that could never make not-jokes on a New York rooftop-

"Found her."

Dan swallowed. His throat was too dry. This wasn't happening. "Where is she, Rorschach?"

Something was lost for good, in the moment between question and answer. "Never be found." He might as well have been commenting on the weather.

Silence again, the worst yet. Dan couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't hide his horror, and still couldn't quite piece together what the hell was happening here. It was too big, too awful. He couldn't bring himself to ask for more details, either, because the very possibility of what this stranger might tell him was making him sick inside. That way lay madness. Never be found. Six years old, oh hell-

In his distracted state, it was several seconds before he realized that Rorschach had moved. Was moving. Was leaving.

"Thought someone should know. Tell the parents. Not going back there."

He struggled to think through the fog over his brain. "Where are you going?" he asked, desperation in his voice. Every passing second was spinning more wildly out of control than the last, and he wasn't sure he could see the way back anymore. Maybe it was no longer there at all.

"Evil...does not sleep. Neither will I."

"I--no. No." Dan finally made himself move forward, blocking the shorter man's path. Horror and confusion were finally giving way once more to concern, which was more familiar (and more stable) ground. The only thing that really registered in his mind was that he couldn't let his partner leave in this state. This was awful, but Rorschach was still Rorschach. He had to be. Somewhere. "Look, I don't really know what's going on, or what's happened, but...but that doesn't matter. You're in shock, you need help-"

"No help for clarity."

Rorschach started walking again, but Nite Owl did not stand aside. The adrenaline surging in his veins was the only thing keeping him, veteran of a decade's worth of vigilante nights, from shaking like a leaf. He thought he might hear that terrible gravestone voice in his dreams until the day he died. "I won't--I'm not letting you leave. Not like this."

Nothing moved except the shapes on that eternally shifting mask, which didn't look like anything now but little bits of gaping void oozing past one another in the too-cold air. "Don't fight me tonight, Daniel."

It might have been a warning. It might have been a plea. Nite Owl wished it was only the basement chill that made his hands tremble when he realized he really couldn't tell which.

He wished, desperately, that it was only exhaustion that kept him from moving, from reaching out, from stopping Rorschach when he went past him as casually as one might step around a tree.

He wished with all his heart that this night had never happened.

As the footsteps faded into the tunnel and were devoured by the night, he wished that he at least knew why it had.