Restoration
Interlude I: Markus
by Nan00k

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of updates. School is winding down and I have a few personal projects on my plate. In any matter, inspiration struck me the other day: some of you pointed out that you were interested in learning the background of the kids and why they're interested in crime fighting. They do have back stories and I was going to slowly introduce the stories, but not in a detailed way. In order to hopefully spark my muse back and also give you guys a glimpse into the new Crimebusters group, I'm going to be writing five interludes, from each kid's perspective, about their pasts and their goals. If you're not interested in learning about them, that's okay, just wait until I get the next chapter up. Thanks for your patience!

Here's Markus, even though he already had a little bit of limelight in the last chapter. Oh, well! Enjoy!

Warnings: First person narrative, original character, some foul language and descriptions of violence
Disclaimers: Watchmen is © DC Comics/Alan Moore. I only own Markus and the other OCs that appear in this story.

There's just so many ways you can tell a guy you hate them. I mean, some people, you just can't talk plainly to. I tried, we all did. But this guy just wasn't for listening. I gave him five years but that was enough. It was easy to say you're gonna walk away from a person forever, but they stick to your mind. There ain't no leaving that behind. Not your own dad.

I was born five years before the Event. I remember it though. Before and after. Everything was messed up. Dad was off some place, looking for trouble or loot to grab while mom tried to keep us alive at home. Tom and me kept going to school, though Tom dropped out in high school. I kept going, cause Dad never finished school. I wasn't going to be like him.

In my freshman year, he got brought in by the police. They convicted him for the murder of a guy he worked with down in construction. I remember the night of the murder; he came in all muddy and drunk. He took a swing at mom and me, but Tom hit him back and he just went to his room all night. The cops took him the next day. It was like a weight lifted from our apartment. I could breathe.

But the worst news came in when they got him for a rape case two years earlier. Mom was devastated and I was just pissed. I didn't know how angry I was, but I knew if I got my hands on him, I'd try my best to beat the shit out of him.

Tom knew I got angry about dad and handled it better than mom ever did. When I was eleven, he took me to the place he and his friends boxed. Tom set me up and I got hooked on it. It was like flying on some drug, only this was better. That old lot became a refuge for me. The reconstruction, dad and everything bad about that city couldn't reach me there. I got good, for what I didn't know. It was good to be good, though.

Mom could never peg me for fighting like Tom did and she never believed I did it. My grandma was white on my mom's side. She was a nice old lady, from what I can remember of her. I looked more like my dad, but my mom always told me I had that white class grandma did. I liked my books better than baseball and never got swept up in the same messes Tom did. I wanted to go farther than the city, she told me.

But I didn't. I love that city, for all its faults. It had its drug dealers and its rapists and its garbage, but it had some good too. I loved that good. If there was some way to draw that good out, I'd find it.

I thought I'd find that good in books. They were alright. They kept me in when I wasn't boxing and at school. They were my first gift after the Event. Mom had trouble getting us food every week, but she always managed to get me to the library. She got me a box of old books when I went into high school; they were the best present ever. That kept me sane in an insane world.

But as much as I loved those books, they weren't the good I was hoping for. Words was words. They didn't do much. Books wouldn't clean up the streets or keep my family safe. They was just words.

Nah, I didn't find that good in books. I found it in four people.

I met Audrey on the corner of Broad and Market. She was just this Asian chick in a black hoodie at the bus stop. I thought she was cute, maybe not my type, but cute, so I remembered her face. I went home. Later than that night, I went to get some groceries for my mom. I was walking by this one side street where all the druggies went—and I saw Audrey again.

This time, her hood was up and she wasn't the quiet, small Asian girl. She was some kind of animal, still small, still attractive, but deadly. All I saw was her tiny hands whip out and strike out at two full grown males, who had either been hassling her, but more likely had been dealing. For a moment, I thought to intercede on Audrey's behalf, thinking she was just some chick, but after a second of staring, I just stood there. There was no need for helping her out. Five seconds later, those guys were on the ground, out. Audrey just kinda stood there, staring at them. I couldn't see her eyes.

She looked up and saw me standing there. For a second there, it didn't matter if I was getting better than Tom was at fighting. This squinty eyed chickenhead was nowhere near my size or definitely not up near my strength, but damn, if I wasn't ready to fight for my life. I could barely see her eyes in the dim nighttime lighting, but I could feel her from where I stood. She was just as ready to fight. I didn't want to risk the chance there was more to her than just appearance alone could tell me.

So, I left. Quickly. Didn't think twice about it. She didn't follow me and I made it home without a scratch.

But the next night, something was bugging me. I found excuses to go out. I came up with fake errands to run so I could walk the streets at night. I'd stay out, looking around for I don't know what.

I looked for a hood-covered girl. I looked for more bodies. I couldn't figure out why. It was kind of messed up.

When I was looking for the strange girl, I instead found an angry young man, around my own age. He was wild, but not the kind of restrained wild I found in Audrey. It was this untamed, unleashed angry that made me feel almost sorry for the people he encountered. He was sort of like Audrey, out looking for trouble. But it was always in his own little world in the beginning, his own neighborhood. Any one who dared to make a loud noise there were considered a fair target.

I found out his name was Cesar the first time I met him, because he punched me in the face, cause he thought I had been someone else he knew. I punched him right back and then asked him his name. If someone was going to fight me, I wanted to know who I was gonna hit back. Cesar just looked at me and then laughed. A lot. He told me his name, and then swung at me again.

We became quick friends after that. He told me about how he picked fights with people he thought were "dirty." He told me about how his family and friends had suffered under drug dealers for a long time, but he was fighting back. Only at night though, to conceal his identity. I was fascinated.

Tamila sort of ran into all of us at once. Cesar and me were going to the drugstore to pick up something, I don't know what, when all we see is some guy in a bandana come running out of an empty lot a block ahead of us and then a black chick come storming out right behind him. From a distance, it was almost comical to see this otherwise dignified woman swing up and bash the guy in the face with a baseball bat. I almost felt bad for the guy, until I saw another woman come running up out of breath and thank the crazy baseball bat chick. The bandana dude had stolen her purse and the crazy chick—Tamila as she muttered to us later—had jumped to defend her.

After we had stopped to listen to the story and wait for the paramedics for the bleeding criminal, Cesar just laughed. Tamila then hit him with the bat instead. I think it must have been love at first sight, 'cause they've haven't stopped fighting since then.

Tamila also attracted another face that afternoon. I looked up as she and Cesar bitched it out for the first time and I saw Audrey again staring at us from the small crowd of people that had encircled the circus. She stared back at me and didn't say a word.

I invited them all to go hang at the park with me. For the life of me, I don't know why I did. I don't know why they agreed. But we went together, the four of us, and we never questioned it since.

We never mentioned crime fighting at all in the beginning. We just…talked. Audrey would go on self-righteous rants about the depravity of the streets; Cesar probably didn't follow her big words too much, but we all ended up nodding, agreeing with her rage. Tamila would share stories about the drug dealers she's chased away from her cousin's grade school parking lot. Cesar would jump in and tell of his own adventures—he would literally fight those men who sold drugs and weapons in the very alleys they sold their junk in. At first, we all laughed at his ridiculousness. But after some time, we'd listen with growing seriousness. Audrey would look at Cesar with a contemplating expression and then nod.

Jimmy joined us after awhile. How he and Audrey met, I never really understood. But he tagged along one day, looking like a nervous rabbit. Cesar and Tamila bullied him, but I think we were all surprised by his seriousness when we brought up our usual tales of street violence. He couldn't share much, but his eagerness to agree…his understanding of everything…it just worked. He was one of us in spirit.

After a long time, we all moved past simple gatherings at the park. I met Audrey's parents at a Fourth of July barbeque. My mother insisted on inviting the group over for Thanksgiving. When Jimmy's father had jokingly asked us all to join their family for Passover, Cesar was the first to agree with the serious respect one would never expect from him. When the anniversary of Tamila's father's death came up, we all stayed over for her and watched his favorite films together. I think what surprised me the most was when I heard about the time Cesar and Jimmy willingly went to a baseball game together—and had so many new inside jokes to share from it.

Laughing together. Crying together. Fighting together. I don't know how families are made without a mother or father, or in a place so filled with hate and danger, but in the middle of New York City, the five of us managed to do it.

We would complain to each other about stupid things too, things normal kids would talk about. For a while with Audrey, it was all about Jimmy—how he'd hound her with affection she wouldn't—couldn't—return. Jokingly I told Audrey that I had thought she was cute too, and she got flustered and angry, but I just laughed. She had nothing to worry about, I told her. Her confusion evaporated quickly when I explained that girls weren't my thing. I had expected the incredulous looks and harsh prejudice my other peers had given me when the truth came out, but Audrey just kind of stared at me and nodded once. And that was it.

I think it was then that it all became clear to me. To be accepted, to be just…allowed to exist…that was something I was craving. I was always finding ways to single myself out from the crowd—cause I wasn't white enough, cause I wasn't black enough, cause I wasn't straight enough—but after meeting that one kid, and in turn, the other three, I had found my niche. I was always big enough. I was always friendly enough. I was a big brother, someone stronger, someone wiser. People looked up to me for once, and I, I had the chance to wrap my arms around something solid and cherish it.

And of course, because of those four people, I found the Masks.

Cesar had started it first, we realized, by his running around at night, but Audrey was the one who first actually brought the topic up while we enjoyed a lazy Saturday at her empty apartment, the cleanest one I've ever been in. Her question wasn't even really subtle. I don't even know what I first thought, looking back at it.

"What do you know about Crimebusters?" she asked, her voice clear, firm—but strangely hopeful.

I didn't know anything more about them than the rest of our group did; they were urban legends as well as real parts of history. Adrian Veidt had been Ozymandias, but that was pretty much all I knew.

But that wasn't good enough for Audrey. I don't know why any of us really agreed to it, but within days, it was all any of us talked about. Jimmy and Audrey, always the bookworms and literary geniuses, found tons of newspapers and reports about the old heroes. We weren't interested in them, really; they were old news. Dead. Gone. They were nothing to us now.

But we fell in love with their ideology.

Fighting for the weak instead of for power. Saving lives instead of taking them. Using these gifts we obtained for ourselves—my boxing, Tamila's strength, Cesar's skill with guns—we could actually do something good.

It was impossible, one of us would always say out of habit as our excitement and eagerness reached a fever pitch. But those words fell on deaf ears every time. Our hearts soared higher and faster than they ever had before.

We had a purpose here.

I…had a purpose.

More than my father, more than the men who lived and died like him. I was no rocket scientist, no doctor, no politician—all I had were fists. My fists. And my heart. For the first time, those two things were enough. Enough to make a difference—to save a life.

After years and years of dwelling in the same darkness the rest of the city was eclipsed in—I found a way to save our city's soul.

Not everyone can be saved, Audrey would say over and over again, her seriousness addictive. We won't save the world.

One life would be enough, I realized, stepping out onto the streets with that new purpose in mind. We had a long way to prepare for, between training, costumes and research, but I couldn't help but descend early onto the pavements the lined this hell.

When I heard the first cry for help, I didn't falter. I didn't feel fear. I felt something different, something my father—something that any man like him—would never feel.

I was a hero.

We were the dawn on a dying city. People could forget the sins of our past. They could even turn a blind eye to the present. But they would not ignore us. We were the lions set loose from our cages, ready to bring down anyone who threatened the lives of those who needed our help.

And then we met Rorschach.

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Notes: I don't know who's next. Who do you want to read about?