NAME: Watchmen: Multiverse
AUTHOR: numb3r_5ev3n aka Sandbat aka The Artist Formerly Known as Edward Cullen
RATING: R
SYNOPSIS: Watchmen/Moorcock's Multiverse crossover. Laurie/Silk Spectre II discovers her father's true identity three years too early. Chaos ensues. AU, obviously.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This story was inspired by a Comedian/Rorschach rapefic that was originally posted to plus4chan's /pco/ board this past August by another contributor. It eventually melded with an idea I'd been kicking around in my brain; what would happen if the fences were knocked down between Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's "Watchmenverse" and the "Multiverse" of Michael Moorcock's fiction? This is the result.

ETA: This tale is now dedicated to Promethea in thanks for the fact that the movie was in fact released and not killed by the Faux Corporation. Thank goddess!

*************

December 10th, 1AM, 1982. Laurie Juspeczyk - otherwise known as the second Silk Spectre - had opted to walk home that night rather than call a cab, still amped from the concert she'd just attended. Jon was back at the Rockefeller Base; still engrossed in his work, no doubt.

Yeah, being on the streets this time of night was dangerous, but so was she - and her crimefighting days really weren't that far behind her. The years - what was it, five years now, since the Keene Act had been passed? - seemed like mere weeks, as if she could count the number of days since she'd made her last legitimate patrol of the city as a costumed superhero.

Sure, her mom had pushed her into it, and Laurie still resented her for that. Still, there were days she could admit to herself that she did kind of miss it, and a part of her still wondered what would have happened if the Keene Act had never made it through Congress...

Her train of thought was abruptly derailed by a moan from a nearby alleyway, one that was almost too low to be heard. Laurie glanced over in the direction of its origin.

Bet someone was mugged, she thought to herself. They probably need help.

There was a man slumped in the alleyway. For a moment she stood there, disgusted, as her eyes took in what seemed to be yet another homeless wino passed out on the streets of New York. But her gut told her that something here was really wrong.

"Hey...are you okay?" she asked, taking a step towards the figure, who twitched awake, and then moaned again.

She tensed as the alley-side door to the nearest building opened, going instinctively into a fighting stance as a large, well-muscled figure stepped out into the darkness.

"Well, look who it is," said a voice she remembered all too well behind the leather mask that concealed his features. "Laurel Jane? Thought you'd retired. How's your mom?" The Comedian asked.

Laurie opened her mouth to retort, but her jaw worked soundlessly for a moment - there were no words to express how deeply, how utterly she loathed, hated and despised the man who stood in front of her; his arms crossed, his head cocked at a jaunty, inquisitive angle as if they were old friends who'd run into each other at the supermarket or something. Besides, only her mother got away with calling her Laurel Jane these days. And for him to mention her mother...

Her last encounter with the Comedian was still a source of sore, angry embarrassment. She'd made such a fool of herself at the party that night, ranting at the Comedian, throwing her scotch in his face. But now, now she wished she'd gone further, wished she'd just pulled back with her fist and let him have it. Sure, he was still in fighting trim, still presumably doing covert jobs for the US government and could probably defeat her easily - but there were some crimes that demanded nothing less than swift, brutal retribution, with the hope that fate or God the Universe or Whoever would be on the side of the just.

The man at her feet moaned again. There was something familiar about his clothes, and he smelled...but his presence gave Laurie the opening she needed for the indignant words that had stuck in her throat. And it was the condition of his clothes, the smell of blood and an odor she also recognized in the darkness that clued her in as to what had really happened here, as a sudden sense of shocked horror surged upward into her chest to join the rage that had simmered there for so long.

"Wow. Didn't know that you were an equal-opportunity rapist," she snarked, bending down to examine the fallen man. He winced and flinched away when she attempted to touch him, to help him up. He brought his arms up over his face, which she hadn't gotten a good look at yet, anyway. Her wrath multiplied itself a thousandfold as she caught sight of everything that had been done to him.

She glanced back up in time to see the Comedian roll his eyes behind his mask, as he bit off an exasperated curse. The he reached up and pulled it off, revealing his hateful, scarred face.

"Don't you ever let up?" The Comedian drawled. "Do you know how many queers this one's beaten up in his time? Should have figured he'd be a closet case himself. His kind usually are."

"Like that makes it okay!" Laurie snarled. "I bet you think mom was asking for it, too!"

"Yeah, while we're on that subject - I meant to tell you about that, before we were interrupted the last time," The Comedian said. "Did your mother ever tell you about your father? Your real father, I mean?" he asked. "You've probably worked out by now that Larry wasn't your real dad."

"What, did you rape him, too?" Laurie shot back angrily.

"No. It's me," the Comedian soberly answered. "I'm your father."

Laurie laughed back in his face, as she tried to ignore horrible, cold feeling that welled up from the pit of her stomach.

("Can't a guy talk to his, you know, his old friend's daughter?")

"That's not possible! Come on - what is this, The Empire Strikes Back? You honestly think I'm going to buy that?"

("Can't a guy talk to his, you know, his-")

"I ought to fucking beat you down where you stand, you sick, lying bastard," Laurie stood and said, her voice calm and even despite the berserk fury that was now threatening to explode outward from the center of her very being to visit itself upon the man who seemed to tower over both herself and his recent victim. "You monster. You think what Hooded Justice did to you was bad? I'll do even worse," she promised. "Besides, I know that Hooded Justice was my real dad."

"Hooded Justice was as queer as a three dollar bill. Shit, he and Nelly were going at it the whole time. It would take an act of God or a turkey baster to of made either one of them a father. Look. Just call your Mom," The Comedian said coldly. "Make her tell you the truth. For her sake, I'm just going to let you walk away from this. If you were anyone else..."

(For her sake...)

("Can't a guy talk to his-")

The fury within Laurie finally crystallized, then broke. Before the Comedian could react, before he could even register what was about to happen, she lunged, leaped forward, and smashed her fist across the bridge of the Comedian's nose. She had the satisfaction of hearing something snap. She braced herself, preparing to dodge is inevitable return blow; but to her surprise, he pulled back, bringing his hands up to his bloodied nose.

"Well I'll be damned. You might've gotten your mom's looks, but you sure as hell got my right hook." Then he laughed; but there was something there, something in his eyes, that reminded her of the look on his face after her mother had driven her away from Captain Metropolis's failed meeting in 1966, in a rage; the expression that he'd worn at the party, right before she'd tossed her eighth scotch in his face.

("What kind of man are you, you have to take some woman and force her into having sex against her will-")

("Only once...")

"You must've been waiting to do that for a long time. Be glad it landed...it's gonna be the last time that ever happens," he told her. "You only get one freebie." Then calmly, casually, he turned his back on her and stepped back through the door, closing it behind him.

"YOU GET BACK HERE, YOU BASTARD! I'M GOING TO CRUSH YOUR LYING SKULL!" Laurie roared, throwing a punch that connected solidly with the door in front of her.

("Talk to his....to his...you know, his daughter?")

"Telling you the truth. It was in his voice," said a voice behind her, seeming to bubble up like bloody froth from the man she was attempting to help, who'd drifted back to consciousness thanks to her earlier attempt to lift him. There was something terribly familiar about that monotone rasp, one that had always sent chills down her spine. She turned, just in time to see him tug something down over his head, over his face...

A mask.

Rorschach.

It was Rorschach.

Her jaw dropped open as he got shakily to his feet - then dropped to one knee as he tried to pull himself up again.

"Oh god," she said.

"Not God that sent you here tonight," the faceless man answered her, making another attempt to get to his feet. It was Rorschach...Rorschach, whom she'd always disliked, whose methods she detested...

It doesn't matter. Some things shouldn't happen to anyone.

"You need to go to the hospital," Laurie told him, reaching to help him up again. He jerked away from her with a shudder that seemed born of pure revulsion.

"No, no, no, no...don't touch..." he hissed, lurching a few feet down the away from her before finally making it to his feet. "No pain. Will manage without help."

"Are you crazy? You need medical attention! You need to fucking report this!" Laurie protested.

"Report? To whom? The police? I'm not exactly their favorite person." Clinging to the brick wall on the opposite side of the alleyway for support, Rorschach turned to regard her. "No. Won't say anything. Shameful. Sick. Implications very bad..."

Oh god, he's blaming himself. It's mom all over again.

"To hell with that! The whole country needs to know what he is, what he does, what he's been doing for years..."

"Been serving his country for years. And he's your father."

"He was lying, he has to have been lying. It's all just a joke to him..."

"Wasn't lying. Your mother knows," Rorschach told her.

"Well so what? So what if it is the truth! Whatever happened to never compromising, no matter what? I sure as hell wouldn't stay quiet if he...if he..."

Rorschach turned away as she trailed off. For a moment, it seemed as though he was lost in thought. Then he slumped back against the wall.

"Oh god," she said again, and tentatively reached out. His whole body went rigid as she got a shoulder under his left armpit, supporting him, as if he couldn't abide her touch.

"Come on, you can barely walk, we have to get out of here..."

"Daniel," Rorschach said, as his knees buckled. "Will go see Dreiberg. Not hospital. Nowhere else."

"Whatever," she said, making her way out of the alley as best she could with the wounded Rorschach in tow.

*************

"Laurie? It's been awhile...is something wrong?" Daniel Dreiberg asked, answering the door after her second round of knocking. From what she could see of him, it appeared he'd woken from a deep sleep. His glasses and hair were askew, and his bathrobe was tied loosely around his pajama-clad form. He opened the door wider to let her in, and gasped in horror when he saw Rorschach, still half-supported by Laurie.

"Crap...get him in here, quick! What the hell happened?" he exclaimed.

"Don't-" Rorschach began, as Laurie blurted over him -

"The Comedian raped him is what happened. He's really messed up, he's probably bleeding internally, and he refuses to go to a hospital."

"Raped?"

"No..." Rorschach groaned.

"Yes! And threw him out into the alley when he was done!"

Laurie had never witnessed such a sudden, shocking transformation in her entire life - the pudgy, mild-mannered, sleepy ex-masked hero once known as the second Nite Owl suddenly wore an expression of such cold, murderous fury that Laurie would have backed up a step, if Rorschach hadn't been in the way.

"Help me get him down the stairs. I have a fully-stocked medical bay set up in the basement. I haven't used it for years, but everything should still be in working order."

They made their way down the stairs as best they could, supporting Rorschach between them. Any other time, Laurie would have been awe-stricken by the complexity of the Nite Owl's lair, and the variety and brilliance of the equipment he'd devised in his campaign against crime. Now, she simply helped Dan walk Rorschach across his underground sanctum and lay Rorschach down on a cot.

"I had some EMT training while I was at Harvard. You wouldn't believe how many times it saved our lives. We had to patch each other up quite a bit, back in those days," Daniel explained to Laurie.

"I remember," Rorschach rasped, as Daniel took his vital signs.

"You're going to be okay, buddy. Everything's going to be okay," Daniel said, sounding as though he was trying to reassure himself as much as Rorschach. Laurie assisted him as best she could. "I was with the Comedian, during the riots in '77. I saw him do things...I knew he was capable of some pretty awful things, but this..."

"This goes beyond the pale," Laurie grimly finished for him.

"You have no idea," Daniel confirmed, his gaze meeting hers over Rorschach's prone body. His eyes were as hard as steel.

Before long they had him stabilized, and on painkillers. They let the wounded vigilante rest. Daniel had pulled his mask up just over the bridge of his nose to ease his breathing, revealing the lower half of the face that Laurie had almost caught a glimpse of earlier in the alley.

"Laurie, I want to thank you for helping him, for bringing him here tonight. I know you two have never exactly been friends..."

"It's okay," Laurie said. It was true, she'd never liked Rorschach...but seeing the way he and Dan related, the obvious bond of friendship between them, made her more glad she'd done it than anything else. Maybe Rorschach was a paranoid psychopath, but he was still a human being.

The Comedian, on the other hand...

"Listen, can I use your phone? I really need to call my mom. I'll do it collect..."

"Of course. We'll be down here."

*************

"Laurie, it's late. What possessed you to call at this hour?" The voice of Sally Jupiter reached her daughter's ears over the distance of an entire continent. She and Laurie had their differences, of course, but Laurie wondered if the distance between them emotionally was about to grow as wide.

"I saw the Comedian today. He told me he was my father," Laurie said. On the other end of the line, there was dead silence.

"Well? Is it true? Mother..."

More silence, and then -

"Oh Laurel honey, you just have to understand how it is. I never meant for you to find out like this. He came over one day, and well, I just couldn't stay mad at him. He -"

Laurie numbly hung up the phone as her reality utterly, finally collapsed around her. She was unable and unwilling to hear any more.

"Is everything okay?" Dan asked, when she made her way back down the stairs.

Telling the truth Rorschach's voice echoed in her mind. Your mother knows.

"No, it isn't." Laurie answered him quietly, her voice a dull monotone. "The Comedian is my father."