Chapter Text
Dani isn’t sure what to make of Rorschach. He’s only been her partner for about six months now, but he’s still something of an enigma to her. On some grander level, she knows he’s a good person. He cares deeply about protecting the innocent, and will often throw himself into danger to that end. In fact, he's such a stickler for his ideals that sometimes it makes Dani feel sloppy in comparison. She could never muster that level of dedication to an idea; the world just isn’t that black and white, you know?
Outside of Rorschach’s love of truth, justice, and America– or whatever else it is he’s so obsessed with, he’s so cryptic that Dani can’t really get a read on him. When they first met, Dani had been creeped out by his eerie demeanor. She heard glimmers about Rorschach, terror of the underworld, but seeing the man in person was different. The real Rorschach was shockingly taciturn, only speaking when absolutely necessary. Even when he chose to open his mouth, he spoke in a hushed, apathetic voice, the words coming out slowly, purposefully.
His physicality was similarly deliberate. Rorschach moved with intent. He was fully aware of the space he was occupying and how he was holding himself. When they first met, he exuded a menacing air, like he was trying to find out if Dani was worth taking on as a partner. She couldn’t help feeling both threatened and slightly insulted by his prodding. Still, Dani couldn’t deny the value of the information he had on Big Figure, and begrudgingly accepted his suggestion that they work together. Besides, she had a size advantage over him. He was only five-foot-eight, while she stood at six-foot even. If she needed to, she could probably take him in a skirmish, right?
During their first fight with a group of Knot Tops, watching Rorschach headbutt a man’s nose into a fine mush, Dani realized that she probably couldn’t take on Rorschach in a straight brawl. Or, rather, that she wouldn’t leave the scrap unharmed and without brain damage. She was a good fighter, really! She had blown so much money into judo and taekwondo classes; she felt entitled to at least consider herself competent. She knew at least a dozen takedowns and could disarm a man in a single, clean stroke. It was kind of part of the job description as a vigilante. During that fight, though, she realized Rorschach had something you couldn’t teach. He flung himself into danger like it was nothing and doled out vicious brutality with cold precision. The man was horribly creative, too, using anything and everything in his vicinity to force much larger men to their knees. In short, something was deeply fucking wrong with him.
Needless to say, she was initially terrified of Rorschach’s savagery. Her clean cut fantasy of being a real life superhero was undercut the first time she watched her partner snatch a crook’s gun before pistol whipping the poor bastard with it, shattering his cheekbone. Some part of her wanted to feel superior to him because of it, but as they continued working together, she couldn’t help being fascinated by her partner’s capacity for violence. He didn’t seem to have much formal martial arts training outside of maybe boxing, but made up for it in spades with sheer instinct. Watching him fight was a thing of beauty once you got over how aggressive he was. Even in brutality, he carried himself with a strength and grace that sometimes amazed Dani. It also helped that the two of them actually fought incredibly well together. They matched each other’s pace effortlessly, and made up for each other’s weaknesses. Rorschach’s laconic nature had forced Dani to read his body language, even when it was perfectly controlled. It had annoyed her at first, but she really began to appreciate it when she realized how attuned she had become to her partner’s movements. They had moments where they fought in perfect sync, decimating whole groups of cronies while communicating in a language only the two of them were able to speak.
On paper, Rorschach was the perfect partner, but there was still something unsettling about him. He’s so hard-headed and sometimes so downright mean that Dani has a hard time getting along with him. On top of that, he’s so closed-minded that Dani sometimes wonders if he has a day job as a radio shock jock. During their rare downtime, he sometimes fishes the newest edition of the New Frontiersman from his trench coat, despite the fact that Dani made it extremely clear that it made her uncomfortable. Once, he pulled out an issue with the very subtle headline, “Homosexuals in the White House: Fags and Dykes Plot to Corrupt American Youth ,” and Dani silently thanked her lucky stars that she hadn’t run into Twilight Lady while patrolling with Rorschach. He probably would have blown a gasket if he knew about their less than wholesome arrangement.
On top of that, he absolutely deplores working any case that involves, well, working women. Despite being a man of few words, Rorschach grumbles under his breath to make his displeasure known whenever a prostitute is in his vicinity. Filthy. Disgusting. The first time he’d done this, Dani was so surprised he was openly complaining, that she said nothing. The second time he did this, Dani had started their first full-blown argument.
“Could you stop? You know we’re helping these women, right?”
“Hnnk, means to an end.”
Dani was completely taken aback by this response. Something about his dismissiveness reminded her of all the men in her engineering classes who assumed they knew more than her because she was a woman. She knew Rorschach could be mean and terse, but her heart sank to see him be patronizing. Dani ended up in a one-sided shouting match with him in the owl ship, which only made her feel worse because, of course he wouldn’t bring himself down to this. By the time Rorschach had made his exit, she was blinking back tears behind her goggles, feeling utterly humiliated. She was seriously weighing the pros and cons of ending their partnership when Rorschach came back the next night with Chinese takeaway as a silent apology. She couldn’t help smiling a bit as she bit into her chow mein; he remembered her favorite.
Those funny little contradictions were the main reason why Dani was struggling with forming a fully-fledged conclusion on her new partner. She couldn’t decide if the noble, quietly thoughtful Rorschach, or the sexist, brutish Rorschach was the real deal. Tonight, though, she’s leaning towards the latter.
They’re currently three hours into a stakeout that they were expecting to have been over an hour ago. The cargo they’re waiting to intercept is either late or Big Figure figured out their plan and they just wasted their night. Dani is really hoping it’s the former with how unbearable Rorschach is already being. He’s impatiently tapping his gloved fingers on the ledge of the rooftop they’re hiding on. The leather dulls the sound it makes, but not enough for it to not annoy her. “Nite Owl. Don’t think lead was credible. Should not trust whores at face value in the future.” A girl working at one of Big Figure’s clubs had informed Dani of this illicit transaction. She hopes he can feel her rolling her eyes under her mask as she quietly spits out, “Oh, please; not this again.” Before they can start bickering to pass the time, the sound of shoes on wet concrete becomes audible in the alleyway they’re monitoring.
The tall, thin man with dark hair and an uneven gait looks absolutely petrified as he enters the alley, looking over his shoulder every few seconds. Even from their vantage point, it’s obvious how twitchy and restless he is. This must be their guy. They both shut up and watch him, hearts thumping in anticipation. It takes about fifteen more minutes for another man to arrive, this one with a broad chest and what looks to be a gym bag slung over his shoulder. When he makes a move to hand his cargo to the nervous wretch, they descend. Dani takes care of Stretch while Rorschach pins down Tiny. It’s almost too easy with how quickly it all goes down; couldn’t have taken them more than ten minutes. It looks like they’re finally going to have tangible evidence of Big Figure’s involvement in the narcotics trade when the alleyway is flooded with what must be a dozen more guys. They’ve been gypped.
The positive of fighting in an enclosed area is that the small range forces the mob into a finite space. Only two or three of them have access to Rorschach and Nite Owl at a time, so they’re surprisingly handling it pretty well. One guy nearly catches Rorschach off guard while he’s pummeling some poor sod, but Dani quickly catches his arm and throws him against the brick wall hard enough that he drops like a sack of flour.
Dani takes down two more guys before she realizes how dire their situation is. They can’t keep going forever, and if they don’t make their escape soon, the mob will whittle them down until they can’t keep fighting. Her mind races as she tries to think of a solution while using a leg sweep to send a man to the pavement. She remembers she has her grappling gun on her; they can use it to get back up to the roof. “Rorschach!” His only response is the sound of him grunting while holding yet another thug in a chokehold. The man is wheezing and beating his fist against Rorschach’s forearm in vain. Dani turns back to the man currently rushing her with a baseball bat. She dodges the first blow and strikes him in the solar plexus, sending him down to his hands and knees. She tries again, “Rorschach!” When Dani turns over to him this time, he catches her gaze. Before she can tell him her plan, he rushes at her, pushing her back in a hurry. She fumbles back momentarily and catches herself, confused at his actions. It’s only when she looks back at her partner that her blood goes cold. He had pushed her away from an attacker she somehow missed in the flurry. Rorschach has a bloody knife in his hand, and Dani realizes that the blood is his. He wrestled the weapon out of his attacker’s hand, but not before taking a serious blow. His body is wobbling and before everything can go to absolute shit, Dani throws a smoke bomb. In the confusion, she’s able to grab Rorschach by the waist and aim the grappling gun to the roof of the building. As they zip up, she clenches her shaking arm around him tighter.
Dani’s mind is running a million miles a minute as she drags Rorschach’s unconscious body into the owl ship. She can’t believe her momentary inattentiveness might get her partner– no, she can’t go there. If she thinks about that, she’ll lose her single-minded focus and start panicking. Dani snaps herself back to reality and assesses the situation: Rorschach’s been stabbed. She needs to stop the bleeding and see how deep the wound is to know how to help; if she can help. Dani lays him out on the floor and grabs the first aid kit. God, he’s so bloody, she can’t even tell where he got stabbed exactly. She deliberates cutting straight through his suit, but he’d kill her for ruining his costume. Ultimately, she’s able to unbutton his trench coat and suit jacket. The material of his white shirt is already so ruined, she cuts through it, only to find another layer. Whatever this extra layer is, the thin fabric has been completely dyed red, so she doesn’t stop to deliberate. She slips one of the blades under the taut fabric and begins to cut.
As she does so, she realizes that it isn’t a wifebeater. No, the fabric is too taut, and it only seems to wrap around Rorschach’s chest. As she snips at the ruined article pressing tightly on her partner’s wounded flesh, the tension of it gives. Rorschach’s chest seems to expand, and as Dani moves the offending fabric out of the way, her breath stops.
Rorschach has tits. Rorschach has tits that he– she ? Bandages down. Dani wants to deliberate on that, but the more pressing matter is the wound that crosses from Rorschach’s sternum to directly under the left breast. It looks nasty, but Dani sighs in relief as she realizes it’s a shallow slash. She gets to work disinfecting the area. Dani tries to be gentle as she rubs hydrogen peroxide on the wound, and the sickly red surrounding it returns to its original pinkish white. Rorschach’s pale chest is covered in freckles. Stop it, Dani. You need to focus. She prepares a needle with shaking hands, reminding herself of the steps she needs to take right now. She still needs to stitch the laceration shut, then apply some antibiotic ointment and gauze. As she pierces the needle into her partner’s soft flesh, she loses herself in the work, even if only for those few minutes. The repetitive motions, pierce, knot, cut, pierce, knot, cut, have her in a trance. She doesn’t want to think about how much blood Rorschach has lost, how she would go about leaving him at a hospital if necessary.
As she moves toward the end of the slash, Dani can’t ignore the breast in her way. She could separate herself from the intimacy of touching her partner when she was rubbing an antiseptic-soaked cloth into a wound, but now she has to actually stitch the sensitive flesh shut. Her fingers are still trembling as she presses her left thumb into the flesh of Rorschach’s breast, just enough to give her leeway to continue stitching. The tissue is soft, and Dani feels the heart underneath it beating. Somehow that’s what shocks her into a pause. Rorschach is a person, flesh and bone. He’s vulnerable under her right now. She shakes her head to bring herself back into the moment and once again, punctures the pink skin with her needle. When Dani finally finishes, she drops onto the floor next to her partner and lets out a sigh of relief.
She turns over to Rorschach and finally lets herself process what just happened. Most urgently, her partner is going to be okay. The wound wasn’t fatal. She was able to get them out of that alley on time. Her gaze glides down from the shifting black and white of her partner’s mask. Rorschach's lower abdomen and breasts are covered in blood. Dani couldn’t clean her partner fully; she had mostly focused on the perimeter directly surrounding the injury. She wants to observe this situation as practically as she can, since thinking about it too much will probably make her cry. She thinks she might cry anyway.
She’s known her partner long enough to know he has issues with women. He’s completely revolted by anything related to nudity or sex. The female figure uneased the man in a way Dani just didn’t understand. Once, he remarked that he disliked Dani’s costume because of how revealing it was. She’d been hurt and offended by the comment, but this cast it in a completely new light. Rorschach being female is just too awful and makes too much sense in a terrible way. Tears begin to well in her eyes as she considers the horrible implications of why Rorschach can’t help but complain at the sight of grinding bodies and the smell of sex. She feels like she’s going to start weeping when Rorschach suddenly stirs.
He groans as he awakens, and Dani notices the feminine lilt of it. No wonder his speech was so controlled. She helps her partner sit up when she realizes that’s what he’s attempting to do. Her throat feels dry when she croaks out, “Hey, buddy. You scared me out there.” She wants to sound lighthearted, but can’t stop her voice from quaking. He doesn’t respond, but she can see him silently processing what happened in the past hour. The blots on his mask expand and contract as he runs through the story in his head. After about a minute, he finally looks down at his wound, and his body completely stiffens. The pattern on his mask shifts all at once, then freezes in place. He brings up an arm to cover his chest, and suddenly Dani feels like the biggest bitch in the world for not at least draping a blanket over her partner’s body.
Dani is about to offer Rorschach something to cover himself with when he suddenly stands up, legs wobbling. She wraps an arm around his waist, fearful that he’ll collapse. “Woah! That’s not a good idea; you need some rest.” It catches her completely off-guard when her partner shoves her away and tries to rush towards Archie’s exit. Holy shit, he’s trying to escape. Here? Now? He doesn’t get very far before Dani catches up, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He’s shaking. “Let me go, Danielle.” The terse words that come out are thinner than she’s ever heard them. “That’s not happening, you lost a lot of blood. Let’s sit back down.” This only renews Rorschach’s struggle, and he tries again to push her away to no avail. After everything she’s just gone through, she’s not in the mood for this. “What? Are you gonna run out into the street with your tits out and a gaping hole in your chest?!” Rorschach shrinks at that, embarrassed, and Dani calms down. “Let’s get back to the brownstone so you can recover, okay?” He stays quiet, too humiliated to fight back, and she pilots Archie home.